we didn't start the fire

[swatkat]

I watched a horrible play yesterday. Do you realise how hard it is to giggle without actually making any noise? I want two and half hours of my life BACK.

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If you follow metafandom, you have probably already seen this, but if you don't, read deepad's post now: I Didn't Dream of Dragons. I found myself nodding along and simultaneously feel very grateful about my cultural background and think of my own bilingual angst, about which I will probably post something soon (when I have time to sit down and write).

Comments

[sajia.livejournal.com]

I haven't read more than a couple of the Shonku stories. I don't really think there's anything incestuous in Feluda's relationship with Topshe, although I do think Feluda must be either gay or - more likely - asexual. I've always had a huge crush on Topshe, although on the whole I like the fact that Ray didn't make him a mindless skirt-chaser a la Archie.
The sexlessness of Bengali children's literature is worth a post on its own; it has its upsides and its downsides. One of its upsides is that until recently, middle class Bengali children didn't enter the whirlpool of sexual competition and rivalry until they left high school. I speak as someone who did enter that vortex when I was a teenager, in the nineties, and was nearly destroyed by body-image disorder and self-loathing.

[swatkat24.livejournal.com]

I found Topshe rather boring, in fact. My favourite Feluda character will always be Lalmohanbabu, followed by Maganlal Meghraj (as played by Utpal Dutt).

The sexlessness of Bengali children's literature is worth a post on its own; it has its upsides and its downsides.

Oh, oh, oh! Another topic very close to my heart! I see the downsides more often, I'm afraid. Bengali children's literature is curiously sexless and *girl-less*, because women are sexual subjects, and *only* sexual subjects, and little girls are worthy of being the topic only of 'social message' fiction (like, you know, stories about marriage and sati and dowry and so on) - because those are the only stories that can be told about women, because women are awesome heroines (and let me digress to express my complete and undying love for the many fabulous women in our texts) who can suffer and cry and die (so that their men can reflect and react). Because the sexless world of the boy hero and the asexual image of the macho Feluda are a part of a world where the man is self-sufficient and awesome, and women are present as annoying little sisters and distant parental figures and never, ever *people*, with individual subjectivities (which is why Byomkesh Bakshi is awesome). Because it is a part of the fantasy of the brahmachari/vagabond (baundule is a better word) hero, while the woman is defined in terms of home and nurturing and Mother Earth. And I will shut up now, because I'm rambling incoherently at this point.

[sajia.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on Bengali heroines, although I will always cherish the Uttam/Suchitra movies. I've always ranted about Devdas (and isn't Majnun in a way his Arab Muslim precursor) as the model of the self-indulgent narcissistic Bengali hero archetype.

That your irises were mirrors
reflecting me at twice my size
but I am not Medusa that I can blind your eyes.
That your lips were an angel's
singing of me to the sky
but I am not Helen
that I can make you lie.
That your spirit was a djinn's
granting my desire
but I have no lamp
that I can contain your fire.
I hold a picture of Suchitra Sen
when will I fit into that frame, when?