Cheerleders and Indian Culture

I missed it! I missed the cheerleaders.. And if politicians get their way, I'd have missed it forever. At least during another IPL.. What a sad thing! This is the biggest thing that has ever happened to Indian sproting history and I don't see why we are so worried about it! Man, this is 21st century.

I was about to write something on this when I came across this article by Tavleen Singh. She almost stole the words out of my mouth. So I better not get redundant!

And I don't get this talk about Indian Civilization. What we are talking about is 18th century victorian morality. The time when women were trained to become the best housemaids. The time when they were prevented from talking freely in public. Read Jane Austen, if you want more info.

India, as we see it now, never existed before British captured all the small states and put it together. If we are talking about vedic times, we need to rethink. Because as far as i know women were treated with more respect then than now.

The average Indian man right now expects women to dress conservatively, even at home. And he goes out and ogles at other women. Thats the reason why women cant still wear swimwear in any of our beaches, except maybe goa. That too is questionable. Why???.. why this hypocrisy??..

And what about the movies we have ? I better not get into it.. It irks me to no end that we still have very few good movies being made. All we have is skin show in the name of art !

And think about all the art forms we have. Dont they have a sexual undertone, albeit mild ? Ashtapadi, for eg. And they were never meant to be vulgar. I am not saying that cheerleading is in the same league. But just pointing out that its nothing new to our culture..

The first thing we gotta do is figure out what our culture exactly is. And there are much more pressing issues that have to be taken care of. Why dont the lawmakers spend their energy elsewhere. Like building infrastructure, maybe.

PS : I like the comment by Tavleen Singh about sarees. So very true!