This is from Tamilnadu's leading vernacular Newspaper Dinamalar. I have done a faithful translation of the article. See if you can spot all the prejudices in the article. Tamil article with pictures here
"Dont think this girl is having a soft drink. What she is drinking is foreign liquor. A glass is not enough for her, so she drinks straight from the bottle. See their actions once they are drunk.
A fashion design related party was held at The Park day before yesterday. Men and women had come dressed in clothes designed by fashion designers. The regular ramp models were missing in this party. The couples took their drinks, had something to bite and started rubbing against and kissing their male and female partners. In our culture where married couples feel shy to hold hands together in public, getting drunk, kissing in public places and dancing together is increasing day by day. The Police Commissioner Mr. Natraj had promised that obscene fashion shows will not be allowed in Chennai. But such obscenities are happening on daily basis in the five star hotels. Is the police department hesitating to take action against upper class citizens?"
This from the paper in which the lead columnist regularly writes about meeting his friends in pubs and bars (though stressing that he doesn't drink). No wonder the rest of the country calls Chennai as conservative, they should call it hypocritical too.
Why am I in a rant mode these days? Should probably have a drink and puke at these people.
Update: Sudhish Kamath's take on this in The Hindu here
22 comments:
Talk @ double standards!!Why this eagerness to put a tight leash on women?The only good/bad, that feminism & other 'isms' has bought @ is that they have put on the added responsibility on women to work & bring in the moolah.
Now they need to work, give birth to& bring up kids, b a good daugter in law, do housework....
The minute they step off the 'path of righteousness' 100's of men& women too r ready to gossip& put her down.
Absolute waste, women becoming financially independent, 'coz she still has to cater to the wishes of the menfolk in her house & society.
lol!
did you happen to catch the <action here? - classic!
Hi
Came here searching for Chennai blogs.
I agree with your rant very much,and I have ranted a few times myself on this. However, how does a Dinamalar article reflect on Chennai.It is just a yellow rag which uses gossip and titillation to sell (like Kumudam) giving a lipservice to Tamil culture. Saamna (Shivsena mag) takes a similar stance and no one calls Mumbai conservative.
Lakshmi (assuming that's your name) Dinamalar is not my regular newspaper. I read it while waiting at the reception at a hospital. It is the second largest Tamil Newspaper in Tamilnadu (after Dina Thanthi). I say conservative Chennai because of the supportive comments I heard from the cross section of people sitting in the reception - things like Chennai's culture is spoilt and stuff like that.
Hi Chenthil
I agree about the suppotive comments of general public part. However, from the post, it looked like you had based the title only on Dinamalar article and I have had probably too much to endure on the "Conservative Chennai" comments.
Cheers
slakhs
Chenthil,
Am not surprised. Our print media has gone from bad to worse. One end you have pornographic papers(Read as times) and other side you have communists bandwagon(read as hindu). And these middle class(read as dinamalar) shift from one end to other end. If this paper is talking about conservative culture, what do they have to say about their vaaramalar and the pictures that appear in their cine section?
And the language that is being used by the karuppu poonai or the lens mama? Atrocious. They dont have any rights to talk about culture or whatever!
What a disgrace, are we moving towards a Taleban rule in Chennai? Along with the hypocritical bloody newspapers, I do hope someone will question the hotel about letting photographs be taken of the partygoers and publicised in a sleazy way like this. Ridiculous. I can't read the Dinamalar article due to font problems, and I am grateful for that.
I'm glad I'm out and wish to stay that way.
Here is the headline in today's Tamil Murasu evening newspaper. they have the pictures blown up in the front page -
http://www.tamilmurasu.in/2005/sep/28/default.html
Kaps, Dinamalar too had a blown up photo on the front page. It had the picture of a girl drinking beer straight from the bottle with the caption - a glass is not enough for her, she drinks from the bottle straight.
Disgusting to say the least.
this is pathetic. I second ammani when she says - am glad I am out and wish to stay that way - and the sensational headlines are the worst - they make it seem so trashy...
I sent a mail to all these newspapers about a certain orgy that's been happening for a long time in a temple called Khajuraho.
Told them that some of the female Gods are dressed very sexy and look boxum in most of our temples.
That there is an Indian concept called the Kamasutra..
That they should immediately publish the pics of Khajuraho, our temples, and excerpts from the KS and demand that the cops take mmediate action since our culture is being screwed for 1000s of years now.
Not one dude has replied to that mail...:-)
Chennai I feel has always been a male dominated society. The Commisar just proved the point. I feel Vijay Kumar ( Ex Commissioner) was the best thing that has happened to Chennai police. Every other Commissioner has been most inept. With regard to the Print media, what they look for is a "Splash" for headlines and improvement in circulation. Only the end matters, not the means. It is a classic example of hypocritical chennai. I never liked the city anyway !
I linked to this article through my blog. Slakhs is right but whoever excuses Mumbai?! Chennai-ites dont need to use Mumbai as a yardstick to develop its "image".
Geeta says
I really wonder why and how boys go scot free from all these. Do they have some kind of birth right? It shows mostly the male chauvanism to brand women as good or bad and i also feel very agitated when i think "why should it always be women's responsibility to carry forward so called good family values, moral high values or good conduct behaviour". Men can drink, men can dance, men can do all sorts of unacceptable things, openly, But why not women? I'm not telling these actions are good things or bad things, but why this double standards? Why a different set of rules for men and totally a different set of rules for women. This really puzzels and aches me.
These media are no less than any other uncultured norms in society. I strongly feel they are just trying to sell their product at the cost of others privacy and euphemistic pornography content. Pure desire for attention/business and nothing more! Shame on you media! Get educated first!
I agree with your rant very much,and I have ranted a few times myself on this. However, how does a Dinamalar article reflect on Chennai.
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