Left hand Customs and Discrimination

I am a little upset that in other cultures people (even left handers) are being taught to ignore the left hand and swtich to the right hand.  Customs are saying that the left hand is considered to being unclean and the right hand is considered to be clean.   Discrimination should NEVER be an option but this one has no possible argument.  The People who discriminate against other people with different skin color and religion do so because it's something different from what they are used to. But in this case EVERYONE has 2 hands so how does this discrimination makes sense? How can we pass of discrimination as a custom  " Every country has rules and customs you have to respect them or don't visit the countries"  Rules and customs don't come out of thin air they are started by people and they can also be stopped.  How can we call ourselves smart and claim to have human intelligence if we just blindly follow people's rules without thinking if they make sense or not? People think intelligence is limited to just mastering mathematical formulas. I am a left hander and being told that other left handers are not allowed to eat with their left hand is like telling muslims not to practice islam, or jewish people to not practice judaism.  Everyone is asking me " But Mukunda why are you so passionate about the left hand?   The real question is how is the left hand different from the right hand that causes the left hand to be looked down upon.  Left hand and Right Hand each have 5 fingers they can both lift things and bounce balls like ( basketballs, tennis balls)  I hope one day temple will allow people to extend their left hand if they want.  Again the left hand is not being rude to the customs  who forbid people from eating with it. The customs are being rude to left handed people by forcing them to switch to the right hand. This video really disturbed me no end

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebtEM9OBn_c&feature=share https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=523485996253577625#editor/target=post;postID=3272947147215064630

The sadness of the left hand

Poem about the sadness of the left hand

the left hand

flesh abound

the left hand

no love to be found

left hand important tool

left hand oppressed by such fools

the left hand ,said to have black magic

the left hand, it's life is so tragic

the left hand, denied food

while the right hand laughs, eats and is so rude

the left hand treated like dirt

while no one realizes it is  crying from hurt

  the left hand while no physical damage to be seen

nonetheless is treated so very mean

the left hand deserves better

hence the birth of this very letter

 

The left hand

Everybody needs friends someone  to help them, someone that is LITERALLY always there when needed.I want to talk about a friend who has fulfilled all these requirements but has been discriminated against possibly my whole life and considered bad in my place of worship as a Hindu in the temple. That friend is called my left hand. Yes, I know this story you readers will find laughable. But I want to talk about a sad truth, and that being left handed is considered being a sin in some parts of the world. The left hand was good friend of mine and still is. It writes my tests for me, It feeds me whenever I'm hungry , It wipes tears of joy and sadness, It even now started manuvering my mouse for me now that I know how to make the computer mouse friends with it.  But the problem is that same friend of mine " the left hand" is considered a sin in India and not permitted to do anything except wipe butts and is considered to be unclean. Why is my friend accused of being unclean? because of "CUSTOMS" Unclean is not usage of the left hand, unclean is the dirt that rots in people's mind who claim to be humans and yet they blindly follow tradition. Unclean is the rotten filth that those people pass from one person to the next telling the people that my friend (left hand) is a symbol of shame.  Unclean is the refusal to admit that change is a remedy for previous errors Why else of course would people be asked to give take and eat things with right hand even in November 10,2013.  Problem is nobody but me ever stands up for it.  For who would because everyone's friends with the right hand which is looked to represent greatness tradition,  everything that my friend the left hand has shown but not to be acknowledged. My friend is like a shadow in India only to be used when its  partner ( the right hand) needs help carrying things or to just stay by the side like it's dead or invisible. For what does visibility matter when existence is not even being acknowledged. This is like a world where people tell you who you should talk to and who you should avoid. India is the world, right hand is the friend people want you to be around, left hand is the friend who people are told to avoid. 

Seethamma Vakitlo Sirimalle Chettu

Seethamma Vakitlo Sirimalle Chettu

Director: Srikanth Addala

  Seethamma Vakitlo stars Mahesh Babu, Venkatesh, Prakash Raj, Anjali, Samantha




Seethamma Vakitlo talks about the bro-mance between two brothers.   It was not your average typical Telugu Movie as Mahesh Babu ( Chinnodu) and Venkatesh (Pedhodhu) do not do any fighting except threatening to throw a punch or  kicking plant pots; instead, it was about how the parents of the two want to fix Pedhodu's marriage with Anjali (Seetha) . While Seetha is all for the marriage Pedhodu feels indifferent towards her and treats her like a servant; even Chinnodu treats her poorly. The brothers were rowdy and did not have jobs because they did not want to change their attitudes towards work and towards life which takes its toll  on the women because they were doing all the work. Every word coming out of the womens's mouth was that they have this chore to do that chore to do or they were comforting the men .   Seetha leaves her house and her parents to serve her fiance's family until she and Venkatesh are of marriage-able age. The movie establishes virtue in traditional roles of women .Even  Samantha and her friends were treated to a lecture about the importance of braided hair and flowers in the hair.
        There was no actual plot in this movie , just some problems within an Indian family and of usual dilemnas concerning marriage.  But this is not really the problem that should be addressed  of Telugu cinema or in any other Indian cinema.  The problem is with attitudes towards women in the cinema. Women in Telugu cinema have no intellectual role.  They do not make any important decisions they are constantly pushed into domestic roles which only include taking care of husband and children.  What annoys me further is that in a typical Telugu movie  while the actors know Telugu  the actresses are not from Andhra but are North Indians with a pretty face and body.  I would not mind if the  North Indian woman who can speak Telugu fluently but the pattern holds for any movie you watch. It is a pity that
  1)  Tollywood does not think that actual Telugu speaking women are pretty and do not have them act.
  2)  Telugu superstars think only their sons have a right to this legacy and discourage their daughters from acting, as stated by Lakshmi Manchu.  http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-01-05/news-interviews/30592741_1_mani-ratnam-film-film-industry-three-films
The acting was very colorful in the movie and the characters were hilarious.  Although there should have been some series of events which change the character's personality slowly instead we have one personality altering event 

The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

Biff Loman -- "Death Of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller

            Biff  is the brother of Happy and the older son of Willy and Linda Loman. Biff and Happy had always looked up Willy and Biff had been especially close to his father.    Biff is so devoted to following his father’s dreams he never bothers to think for himself and find out what he wants to do with his life.  In fact, as the play reveals flashbacks of Biff’s youth, it is hard to figure out where Willy ends and where Biff begins.  They seem to be two halves of the whole.  Later in Biff’s life, something goes terribly wrong in his relationship with his father.  The play through a series of flashbacks traces the decline of this relationship. 

                        At the beginning of the play, when Biff is 34 years old, he and his mother would have quarrels about his father with Biff getting annoyed with his father and yelling at him and his mother defending his father saying that Willy would think about nothing but the happiness and interests of both him and Happy.  There is a certain tension between the older man and Biff. Willy is unhappy that Biff has not settled down even at 34. Biff admits to being mixed up. He tells his brother, “I tell ya, Hap, I don’t know what the future is.  I don’t know-- what I’m supposed to want”.  (Act I)  He confesses that he liked working on a farm and in the great open spaces, but then he thinks to himself “And whenever spring comes to where I am, I suddenly get the feeling, my God, I’m not getting anywhere!  What the hell am I doing, playing around with horses, twenty-eight dollars a week!...everytime I come back here I know that all I’ve done is to waste my time.” (Act I) 

            Initially, it seems as though Biff does not care for an aging man who seems to be unappreciated at work and is suffering emotional and physical trauma.  The climax of the play occurs in the scene when Biff finds out about his father’s infidelity.  Willy had affairs in his travels unbeknownst to his wife because he was lonely and he thought nobody appreciated the “work” that he did for his company.  At that point, Biff cannot rely on his father’s judgment or perception of life.  Even though Biff and Happy looked up to their father, Willy never was able to instill the right kind of morals and decencies that children should be able to understand and told them that the ends justify the means Despite the fights with Biff and his father, Biff never tells his mother the affairs his father has at work. Biff, like Willy, has been known to resort to theft such as stealing footballs from coaches or steal lumber from the construction yard at the instigation of his father.  But when he realizes that Willy betrayed his wife, he loses his confidence.  He becomes a thief and he does jail time.  “I stole myself out of every good job since high school”, he informs his father (Act II).  At the end of the play, Biff comes to terms with himself.  “I’m a dime a dozen, and so are you!” (Act II) he tells his father.  There are no great dreams to chase, and he realizes he doesn’t even have to be liked.  “Will you take that phony dream and burn it before something happens?” he pleads with his father.  In a way, he does get through to Willy and perhaps Willy unburdens himself of the guilt of betrayal by crashing his car so Biff could have the insurance money. 

Thoughts on William Golding's "Lord of the Flies"

                Jack Merridew represents anarchy, which leads to regression in society.  Jack doesn’t believe in the fire, the conch or providing shelter for the rest of the tribe.  Life on the island with Jack is more chaotic than peaceful because Jack doesn’t put the greater good before himself.  For example, he turns the majority of his tribe into savage hunting lunatics. He also represents narrow mindedness and ignorance based on how he regresses to a frenzied state, causing the rest of the tribe to mistake Simon for the beast.  He also represents egoism; he is worried about himself and what will bring him happiness, and gets angry when people, that is Piggy, Simon, Ralph and the littluns try to get in Jack’s way. He also represents a cold cruel type of person, for  he fuels people’s insecurities, thus bringing out the evil in most of the tribe members.             

                   Ralph represents both utilitarianism and democracy. He works to promote the common good in society. This is how he seems to come up with good ideas, one of them being the conch.  The blowing of the conch heralds a public meeting.  Once the meeting is called, only the person holding the conch has a right to speak.  The conch is passed on to others so that everyone gets a chance to speak.  Another one of his ideas was to start a fire which was to alert a ship or a plane to come rescue Ralph and his tribe. Ralph, unlike Jack, listens to other people’s advice like Piggy’s, as to how to handle the members of his tribe.  Ralph also represents true leadership and he takes an active role in the protection of the tribe. The rescue of Ralph signifies hope for society.  His weeping for innocence at the end of the novel is a reminder to us that evil exists in all men and that man needs to admit his faults and try to improve himself.