23 September 2010
Two smiles
This is not an amazing photograph. But I like it because it captures something quite rare - an unadulterated smile on the streets of south Delhi. These two were beaming. I can only imagine what news they had just heard that would lift their spirits so. Maybe they had just got engaged. Maybe they'd just found out they were having triplets. Maybe they were just ecstatically in love. But in a city where dour expressions are the norm on the street, where weary travellers battle congestion and horns and dust and the rest, these two positively shone. I like to think the protected sign was there for them, to keep them safe and to keep their happiness alive.
The spot
There is a corner near my house with a nice tree. For a while, every time I drove past this man would be sitting there. It was, for a short while, his spot. He looked content as he observed the world go by. And then I assume he found a new spot - I haven't seen him in a while. Everyone needs a spot.
Endangered species
Delhi's blueline buses are being phased out. This image hints at the essence of the bluelines - loud, aggressive, a bit unhinged. Like wild animals, bluelines prowl the streets bearing the scars of battles fought and won. They'll be missed. The new buses have the collective soul of a canary, but I suspect commuters would take a canary over a wild beast anyday.
19 September 2010
White = slutty
There is a strange disconnect in Delhi between 'acceptable' dressing and advertising such as this. No Indian woman would be seen dead in this outfit. Most Indian women get around in pretty modest clothing, very glamorous but modest. To do otherwise would challenge the prevailing social norms. This picture walks a tightrope of acceptability - the legs are light-skinned enough to pass for a western woman, but with just enough skin tone that they might, tantalising, belong to an Indian. In this case they're selling a product to women, subliminally linking light-skin to sexiness.
This approach is more overt in advertising for a male audience. When advertisers want their product to be sexy, they use light-skinned female models. In one advertisement, a young Indian man using 'Axe' deodorant is chased down the street by a pack of fifty crazed and fleshy blond women. In some bollywood films white western women are used for the 'stupid sexy tart' roles, fawning over Indian men (who eventually choose good Desi girls, marry, and live happily ever after). Advertisers and film-makers seem to be pushing the boundaries of acceptable sex-in-advertising, while maintaining the pretense that Indian women are pure and chaste - and good for marriage (or the selling of laundry detergent). Indian women in advertising can be beautiful, and playful, but never raunchy.
Sadly, I think this creates a slightly weird environment for light-skinned women who live in or visit India. I've seen my friends photographed by young punks on their cell phones and stared at wherever they go - I know what the punks are thinking. And I know women who have been openly (and clumsily) propositioned by taxi drivers and the such. There seems to be an assumption that they're white so they're up for it! I blame the advertisers who tell Indian men - 'we all know you'll marry a good Desi girl, but until then buy 'product X' and be irresistible to slutty western women." Some might call it racist - imagine the reverse scenario.
I think this approach will change. The Indian middle class is embracing all sorts of change so it's just a matter of time before hotpants are everywhere and the sexiness of Indian women is no longer something to be hidden. Hopefully too the typecasting that accompanies skin colour within India can gently fade away, and with it skin-lightening ointments and other sinister concoctions. Let's all embrace the Benetton world.
18 September 2010
sans chichi
A lady
13 September 2010
The Commonwealth Games is a truck
You may have heard that the Commonwealth Games is coming to town. Delhi is turning itself upside down with renovations and recriminations.
I hope it goes well for Delhi. Such a huge amount of effort has been expended, skittishly, but expended nonetheless. It would be a great tragedy if the monsoon wedding predictions - akin to she'll-be-right-on-the-night - didn't eventuate.
This truck spoke to me. Not literally, but with the driver missing, one windscreen missing, and hemmed in by rubbble, it was still undeniably a truck. And the Games probably will lack a few windscreens, and perhaps never had a driver, but once we negotiate the rubble they'll still be the Games and we'll just have to love them like they are. I hope the athletes take heed and embrace the Games in all their glorious chaos.
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