22 March 2009

Prologue - Women and the 21st Century Corporate India

Ive quite often found that whenever i lose perspective, jotting things down helps a lot. Im not even sure whether i would actually end up publishing this blog. But i write nevertheless. In my forthcoming photo story, i intend to document the lives of young/middleaged/old , rich/middle class/ poor women who thrives in the corporate world in the city of Bangalore. The solitude, the successes, the fears, the strengths... i hope to tell an unbiased story of life in a world to which i too belong. The idea for this story dawned on me more than a month ago (Jan 26th, to be exact) when the Sri Rama Sene popped its perverse head into the city of Mangalore. There was something queer about the whole case. The mob (27-30 hooligans) being able to pay Rs. 25,000/per person to get a bail... the inert bouncers at the pub....the media acting like vultures... There was something personal about this case. I just hate it when the media just NEVER gets around to FOLLOWING UP stories. Yes, stories did follow. But those were not 'follow ups' of the same case. These were reports about similar atrocities that were happening in Bangalore, the city i live in. And then i realised what was so discomforting about the first pub attack that happened in Mangalore against those young girls. It could have been me. Crucify me for saying this, but there is some remote sense of disconnect that we often feel when we read reports of wars waged in foreign lands or calamities that had happened in other worlds far from ours. Yet, when some thug decides to abuse a non-suspecting girl in the neighbourhood for wearing a pair of jeans, something stirs inside you. You tell yourself, it is time to act. With Muthalik, i shall never agree. For Advani, i shall never vote. But it is essential to do something more than that. It is necessary to first understand the subject of these heated debates. It is important to document these lives in the cities. It is important to understand what it means to be a woman and to be living in the 21st Century... in India. It is important to begin... ---------------------------------------------------------------- Episode I : Kruti Kothari Episode II : The Castelino Sisters

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