Month: February 2018

Considering this is a wrap, I would first like to state the obvious, “Good things come to an end.” I feel this saying holds true in this case but with a slight modification – “Good things come to an end but leave behind great learnings.”

This quarter was a wild ride of learning, analyzing, reading, and understanding new writing patterns. This class has been one of the classes I always learned from. There would always be something to take back with me after every single class. Initially, I was very conscious about my writing. But after being in this class, I got more confident with my writing and presentation skills. The class was fun, motivating, and pushed me out of my comfort zone. Compared to last quarter, this quarter was a little more challenging considering the fact that we had to write a research paper towards the end. This exercise of researching, analyzing and presenting facts and your point of view, I feel, has equipped me to be efficient while writing research papers in the future.

Coming back to the main theme of the class, ‘Heroes and Quests,’ I feel is a really vast topic to discuss. The first thing that crossed my mind on seeing the theme was – stereotypical heroes. The class, however, had so much more to offer. This quarter, in particular, was really fun as I have stronger opinions on topics such as anti-heroes, feminism, a hero’s journey and medieval scriptures. I have learned to voice out my thoughts and have a stronger viewpoint on heroes.

And finally, towards the end of this quarter, I can confidently say that I am prepared for bigger and better writing prospects and that I am confident that by using all the writing and presentation techniques I will surely be able to do a great job. I have learned to appreciate my thoughts, my voice, and my writing. I know for a fact that there will always be people who are better with words and with the pen, but I surely am nothing less now.

Mongoose is a popular species whose name is believed to have been derived from the Marathi word mungūs or from the Telugu name mungisa. These are small carnivorous animals that are found in southern Asia, Africa, and southern Europe, as well as Fiji, Caribbean, and the Hawaiian Islands. During one of our discussions, we elaborated on symbolism and mongooses having a spiritual significance in Dominican culture. How are these creatures viewed in other countries?

On first hearing the word mongoose, we associate ourselves with Rudyard Kipling’s famous story Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. One can get a clear picture of a mongoose’s character from the story. In India, a mongoose is considered a very loyal and faithful animal. One of the most famous folktales from India- The Brahmin and the Mongoose- is one of the worlds most travelled tales that speaks about how a Brahmin hastily kills a mongoose when he finds the mongoose laden with blood near his child. But as a matter of fact, the mongoose had killed a snake that was trying to attack the child and had saved the family from the snake’s threat. This story is taught to every Indian kid so as to induce the value of thinking before acting.

In ancient Mesopotamia, mongooses were considered sacred and as protectors of their deity Ningilin from serpents. Mongooses have also appeared in the ancient Babylonian art with a snake charmer, though their significance in the Babylonian age is not known. Various cultures symbolize mongoose for speed, agility, adaptability, courage, fearlessness, honest, genuine, and faithfulness. Chinese cultures believe that the spirit of a mongoose can be summoned when one has to confront a stronger rival or one needs to calm down the impulsiveness and impatience within.

The mongoose as a spirit animal can have various connotations.
• Resistance: mongooses are very well known for being resistant to snake venom. With mongoose as a spirit animal, people can probably become resistant to evil and bad conditions in life.
• Courage: mongooses are fearless animals. They are courageous and fight snakes valorously and manage to tactically kill them. This could mean that having a mongoose as a spirit animal can give one the courage to confront strong enemies in life.
• Self-opinionated: honesty and genuineness are two very strong qualities of the mongoose. The one who adopts mongoose as their spirit animal might probably be someone who isn’t afraid to voice out their opinion and defend the argument with strong and valid reasoning.
• Optimism: last but not the least, mongoose are also symbolized as animals that have high optimism. An animal so tiny being optimistic and fighting a venomous snake calls in for extreme optimism.

Considering all these points, is mongoose your spirit animal?

Devil is the name given to a supernatural entity, who in most religions is the central embodiment of evil. Various cultures have a different meaning of a devil and a different way of perceiving the satan. In the Indian culture, the word “rakshas” means evil and demonic, in Zoroastrianism, there is a concept of one supreme God and the evil is believed to be a negative cosmic force. Christianity views Satan as an angel cast from heaven by God, for being prideful and deceitful.

God, on the other hand, is portrayed to be peaceful and an embodiment of pure and good thoughts. God has several characteristics in every culture like that of being the sole creator, being omnipresent, omnipotence, and simple.

In our discussion about John Milton’s Paradise Lost, we brush through the fact that Milton portrays Satan as a sensible force and God to be the unreasonable power. Though the twist seems interesting and the poem chooses to catch a different path, I believe that every good thing has a reason and so does the evil. Speaking from the Indian context, every single Indian mythology and epic speaks about God taking a form of a regular human and preaching good and killing bad omens.

The point that I am trying to make here is that no matter how we name God and Satan, or even choose to interchange the names for Satan to be good and God to be evil, there will always be one truth, there will always be one person who will have to ward off the bad and there will always be one and only one righteous path in this world to every single problem.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna, the incarnated form of Lord Vishnu, came to this world for a reason. When evils and wrongdoings increased, God (or let’s say a positive force), came down to Earth for stopping these wrongdoings. In the Gita Upadesh (the teachings given by Lord Krishna), this positive force says, “For the protection of the good, for the destruction of the evil-doers, for the setting up of the law of righteousness, I come into being age after age.” From this, we realise that it is not God or Satan that justify things. It is the ultimate fact that there will always be a triumph of good over evil and there will always be just one truth for everything in this world and irrespective of how people wish to portray it, it will always remain the universal statement.

With the advent of the internet, thoughts, words, and perceptions can be altered to any extent. News spread like wildfire and the prominent leaders, actors, and social workers are in a place where they can use their increased popularity and fan following to reach out to millions.

The question is, has the proximity to actors changed the perception of people towards feminism? In my opinion, yes. A lot of actors, especially, have come forward and spoken about them being feminist. Emma Watson’s campaign known as the HeForShe has a brilliant message for men to support the women in their lives. By targeting the male population, her campaign has been able to influence innumerable men and women to turn into feminists.

Her campaign has positively affected so many men’s lives personally that they openly came out to the world as feminists. This spurred a new wave of male feminists who came forward to become feminists because their role models turned into one. Though we don’t consciously realize it, we are influenced massively by social media more than anything else. Famous actors like Tom Hiddleston, Logan Lerman, Douglas Booth, and Matthew Lewis openly announced that they supported Emma Watson in the HeforShe campaign and that they were proud feminists.

If one speech in the UN and one post on Twitter can have such a massive outrage of people turning into feminists and truly believing in the concept, imagine the number of people that could make a change if more and more people start spreading the word. In today’s internet age, the world has become a small place and people can easily influence the lives of others. The saying, “with great power comes great responsibility,” is a classic example in this case. It is essential that more women such as Emma Watson who have the power and position and certain influence over people’s thinking should come out and speak for women, equality, and feminism.

Generic sitcoms have always been male-driven. From superhero series to stereotyped sitcoms, most of them have their main theme centred around a man. If that is not the case, then the male character is usually the main protagonist of the story. A very recent article by ‘The Wrap’ stated that men hate TV shows aimed at woman. It points out to a very important data that provides evidence that female-centred TV shows received a lower rating from men and a comparatively higher rating from women. Female characters are, unfortunately, still sidelined, stereotyped, and sexualized in popular entertainment content.

‘Jane the Virgin, on the other hand, is one of the recent sitcoms that has a lot of emphasis on feminism and is very female oriented. It is amongst some of the few female-centred bilingual sitcoms that vividly captures various phases, circumstances, and types of lives that women see. The diverse thoughts and perceptions throughout the series make it a very subtle yet powerful show.

The very first episode of the series sets a strong benchmark for the rest of the series. It depicts the perceptions in a woman-dominated Spanish family where the mother of the protagonist is very free and open to sex and other relations whereas Jane and her grandmother are very conservative and spiritually inclined when it comes to being a virgin. The story has various characters and plot twists due to which the female dominance comes out very clearly.

The show depicts various qualities of women in different scenarios and compares and contrasts the qualities by creating a lot of plot twists and showing various perspectives on the same problems. It also subtly and, at times, confrontationally puts forth delicate issues such as feminism, sex, virginity, lesbianism, and sexism in a way that is not only impressive but is also relatable to the viewers. The diverse woman characters, the multi-generation thought changes, the challenges of motherhood, and the problems that women face is very well conveyed through this show. The generation gap between Jane, her mother, and her grandmother helps us clearly understand the differences in cultural understanding, religious beliefs, and thoughts within one single family. All these aspects, I feel, makes it a powerful show. With more such shows coming into the entertainment business, I surely think there will be a wave of change where equality prevails in every aspect.