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i don't have anyone to talk about this aaaahhhhh

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Anurag Basu and his world of non-consensual kissing

I recently watched the film Metro In Dino. As an ardent fan of Life in a Metro’s music and Konkona Sen, I went in with high expectations, only to be disappointed, repulsed, and made to feel extremely uncomfortable.

The filmmaker brings similar tropes from his first Metro instalment - cheating spouses, breaking off a wedding at the last moment, and kissing someone when they’re asleep. And we’re not talking about a goodnight, sweet dreams kind of a cute kiss on the cheek. This often occurs between potential romantic interests, typically initiated by the male protagonist when the female protagonist is asleep.

In Metro In Dino, a 15-year-old girl, confused about her sexuality, is advised by her aunt (played by Sara Ali Khan) to kiss and “test” herself to see if she’s into boys or girls. She says, in her very cinematic Bollywood cringe style, “If you feel butterflies when you kiss a girl, you’re into girls. If it happens when you kiss a boy, then you’re into boys.” aka you cannot be bisexual or even asexual because the litmus test for your sexuality here is smooching.

Unfortunately, expecting Bollywood to write a progressive queer storyline was my mistake, sorry galti se mistake ho gaya. So, the high schooler does the same. First, she awkwardly kisses a boy she likes (and yeah, a simple ‘Can I kiss you?’ would’ve gone a long way here), and then she tries to kiss her girl-crush when she is asleep.

Is consent still a foreign topic for older filmmakers? In most visual media, the portrayal of consent in physical intimacy is very minimal. Consent, here, is always “assumed” whether the person is awake or not.

Jagga Jasoos also repeats this “Aw! She’s sleeping, let’s kiss her on the lips” scene towards the end of the song “Ullu ka patha” in the movie. Ullu ka patha hi hoga jisko consent k bare mein pata nhi hoga.

The protagonist, Jagga (Ranbir Kapoor), tries to kiss Shruthi (Katrina Kaif), when she’s asleep. He leans towards her berth, in a moving train, while both of them are in their respective upper berths. She wakes up in time making him recede to his berth. Jagga claims he needed to moisturise his lips as he rubs his fingers on her lips and smudges it on his. Ew!

I love the movie Jagga Jasoos. It’s one of my absolute favourites, but this scene made me extremely uncomfortable.

After I watched Metro In Dino, and wondered why use the same cheating spouses storyline when you could’ve used couple therapy or role-play(without cheating). Is cheating the only way to bring back the lost spark in a marriage? Can we at least try to get a bit creative and progressive here?

I can never be comfortable with the romanticised comedic depiction of partners cheating. Either break up or talk to each other, maybe try an open relationship/ open marriage, or seek therapy? At least this will save them both from getting hurt. But these concepts might be “too progressive“ for Indian cinema, after all, the sanctimonious marriage and monogamy are the “pillars“ of a happy relationship(even though your partner is secretly cheating on you).

I had to re-watch Life in a Metro after two and a half hours of facepalm moments. To my convenience, it was available on YouTube.

I immediately realise I do not remember much from the first time I watched it, ages ago. Just when I was raising my eyebrows at Konkona's "Be gay, be whoever you want, but don't hurt others" monologue, voila! I meet another “Kiss her while she’s asleep” scene.

Rahul (Sharman Joshi) kisses Neha (Kangana Ranaut) while she’s asleep (and she’s just back from being hospitalised for drinking phenol in the bathroom).

The most interesting thing about these non-consensual kissing scenes is that the girl who is kissed without her consent just stares at the guy. No dialogues, no particular anger, or any dramatic expression. Just stares stoically, doesn’t even flinch.

So, I thought, would I like it if someone kissed me when I was asleep?

Ew! No! It also wouldn’t matter if they were my partner or not. It is wrong.

My reaction would probably emulate one of Basu’s heroines- too shocked to come to my senses and realise what the hell just happened (which is what my wishful thinking wants me to believe is happening in those scenes), and then probably confront his behaviour and bonus points if I take him to the police!

At least that is what my heroine would do.

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It's appalling and infuriating how it's my responsibility to heal from trauma caused by other people

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joker stairs dance you like

joker stairs dance i like

we're not the same

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Absolute favourite show ❤️

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Movie: Dear Zindagi

Scene: Kaira (Alia Bhatt) confesses to Sid (Angad Bedi)

Kaira finds comfort in street food soon after leaving the restaurant where she broke up with Sid. In this scene, we see a shot of a big wok of noodles - one of the most common Indian street foods. In the next shot, we see Kaira gobbling up something entirely different from what was seen in the previous shot.

To be precise, Fettuccine pasta and assuming by the looks of it a Fettuccine Alfredo (maybe).

That’s it. That’s the post.

(I don't know why looking at Kaira stuff her face with pasta just after confessing to her boyfriend that she cheated felt like one of the best scenes in this movie)

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to love

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"Synonymous" is such a bougie word.

All I can think of when I hear it is an old lady in an expensive fur coat and a hat and lace gloves with her Chanel or Louis Vuitton handbags.

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Note to self

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The Matilda Effect in Mr. Peabody & Sherman

I recently watched the movie Mr. Peabody and Sherman for the first time. I love movies that kick off at lightning speed and maintain a swift pace. You blink and you miss something. "What the hell happened?” - My reaction when I was watching the movie 'The Ambulance' and bent down to pick up a pen. With Mr. Peabody and Sherman something that made me go "wait a second… what was that?" was not because I was picking up something I dropped but because I payed too much attention.

In a scene where Penny, Sherman and Mr. Peabody need to launch their time machine to get back home, they take the help of Leonardo Da Vinci. After succeeding in making Monalisa smile, Mr. Peabody and Da Vinci are seen building a machine to help generate enough centrifugal force to send the time travellers back home. After Sherman tries to help them and cause more mishaps, Da Vinci sends him off to explore with Penny. Penny and Sherman end up in Da Vinci's workshop where they find his Flying Machine Prototype. As Sherman explains it's working, Penny tricks him into telling her how to fly it. "You just pull that lever" exclaims Sherman and she does. She charges forward in the flying machine with Sherman, excited and completely enjoying the ride. Penny asks Sherman to take control of the lever. Sherman, flabbergasted and scared to death refuses to do so. Penny let goes the lever to force Sherman into taking control and flying the plane. Sherman while still scared to death grabs onto the lever after hearing Penny say "You can do it! I know you can!".

Little Sherman flies Da Vinci’s Flying machine over 1508's Florence, Italy, whooshing and swooping over the ponds and swiftly passing through lanes between the buildings and thoroughly enjoying it until Mr. Peabody yells out "Sherman, you don't know how to fly”. Sherman and Penny along with the Flying machine crash into a tree leaving Da Vinci's machine in smithereens.

Da Vinci runs towards Sherman, excited and dancing and says "Sherman you are the first flying man" while penny stands in the back, smiling. It took time for me to gather myself and rewind back a few seconds as I thought I must’ve misheard Mr. Da Vinci. Alas! I did not.

Penny pulls the lever of Leonardo da Vinci’s Flying Machine charging her and Sherman into air

Meanwhile Da Vinci:

Penny was the one who flew Da Vinci’s Flying Machine first. Sherman gets the credit. Does Sherman correct Da Vinci? No. “Mr. Da Vinci it was actually Penny who flew the machine first, she was the one who encouraged me to fly it even though I was sure I would not be able to”. As much as I wanted to hear these words (and I waited till the end of the movie, hoping) I didn’t. This one tiny little scene reminded me of The Matilda Effect.

According to Wiki, “The Matilda effect is a bias against acknowledging the achievements of women scientists whose work is attributed to their male colleagues”.

In other words - Throughout history there have been instances of men stealing women’s work and credit shamelessly. This phenomenon of not acknowledging women’s achievements, erasing it and putting a man’s name to it is called The Matilda Effect.

Now, Penny was not a scientist nor was Sherman. To be very honest, I don’t even like Penny in the movie. She’s mean, she bullies Sherman, and the whole Penny-Sherman dynamic follows this cliche “If they tease you, they like you/ falls for the bully” trope. So even though I wasn’t a big fan of her this one scene made me feel bad for her. But mostly I felt bad for all those women- scientists, artists, programmers and not just women in STEM but women everywhere whose names were erased, written over and replaced.

Did the writers do this on purpose? Was this scene a subtle nod to the Matilda effect? I did not find anything on the internet regarding this. Intentional or not, this scene subtly highlights how in history and even today women’s accomplishments are often erased or minimized.

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It's my 1 year anniversary on Tumblr 🥳

An year since I decided to yap on the internet.

Here's to more whining and more feminist rants!

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Women shouldn't have to give up being feminine to be taken seriously.

I hope whoever is writing the "badass woman who wears leather jackets, has short hair, rides an R.E, smokes, talks in a lower register and somehow is always pissed" understood this.

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Tell them they did good

Tell your kids you’re proud of them. Tell them they did good, or else they’ll end up becoming the most miserably low self-esteemed individuals on the planet and then most of them will spend more than half of their salaries on therapy. Hell, some of them may not even have jobs in the first place cuz they think they aren't good enough.

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Day 06 Navigation + Day 15 Dashes

I'm navigating my head

I feel like when navigating through life we go through so much- feelings of despair, self-doubt. And sometimes it's inevitable. So this piece draws attention to that - in a life resembling a maze.

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Combining Day05 Heights and Day 011 Indigo

I believe that in our journey towards reaching our goals we often outgrow some people and make new friends. Sometimes it can be hard to find your tribe especially as an adult. Sometimes everything feels like a rat race. I'm going through this similar feeling now, but I have a glimmer of hope that I'll find my kinda people.

So I used two prompts for this piece- Heights(reaching heights in life) and Indigo[ as a color and to depict the cold (from the song Midwest Indigo)]. It's about following the herd, finding your way. Doing what everyone thinks is right, burning out, losing friends and losing hope and finding new.

Here goes...

Everyone said I should aim to reach heights

To run this race, to face my fights

I pulled up my socks and followed the herd

did what they said, worked till my vision blurred

I was at the finish line as soon as I heard the whistle blow

I was gasping for air when I saw the colors red, yellow, indigo...

But no one told me it's cold in the altitudes

When you reach the apex, you won't have your buddies with you

I was struggling to find my tribe, shaking hands seemed completely new

Years later I saw the glow, I finally found them and my soul

They said they're like me, you know

They said I can be a bandito!

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Why do we have such fewer "Halloween Core" movies? When I say Halloween movies I don't mean every other scary movie out there. No! I'm talking about a movie that shows Halloween being celebrated. Streets and houses with spooky decorations. Kids running for trick-or-treats. Some friend gang trying to bust into a haunted house on the night of Halloween. Show me this!

Show me a movie where the frames have a bunch of jack-o-lanterns every 5 seconds.

Show me people dressed up as anything and everything - Batman, Pac-Man, werewolf, anything.

Anything but some cheap slasher thriller that has 90% of the movie shot in the dark.

I'm not saying we don't have Halloween core movies at all, but not as many as they should be.

There needs to be more!

I mean look at Christmas movies.

Any random movie cannot be termed as a Christmas movie. Christmas movies are where Christmas is celebrated. There's drama, there's a feel-good vibe, there's romance, there's snow and pretty lights and Santa's and Christmas trees and families and kids- that's the whole vibe of a Christmas movie. And we have so many of them(too many to be honest).

A simple romcom cannot be termed as a Christmas movie. The same way a simple horror movie cannot be a Halloween movie. No. Give me Halloween core. More of it. Please!!