Most religious and mythological works are, most people agree,
metaphoric in nature and are subject to different interpretations.
When we are little, we are often given a fairly simple literal
interpretation. When we grow up, sometimes we carry the literal
interpretation into our adult lives; sometimes we give it our own
interpretation; sometimes we fall back on seers such as
chinmayaananda, who either give us their interpretations or tell us to
find our own, perhaps nudging us a bit in the process. Sometimes one
colcludes that most such stuff, interpretable in so many different
ways by different people, is useless; one might as well arrive at
one's own substitute for what is being sought in those works.
The original posting by prabhaakar gaaru, entitled, "Explosive
feminist views in ...", in my mind described ONE such interpretation
by the writer of the work (not prabhaakar gaaru), and prabhaakar gaaru
added his own commentary. In the posted excerpts, to me anyway, taara
did not come out as anything other than a person one could empathize with.
Now, I concede that (as many people seem to be doing lately) I am not
an expert on any of the prabandhaalu, or even taaraaSaSaankam in
particular. So it is reasonable to work within the context of the
posting. One could interpret his posting (we are back to subjective
interpretations again) as referring to a theme in the feminist vein -
and I use this term without a definition yet! - (specifically equal
freedom of choice, not adultery) and explosive in some way. I don't
consider myself a feminist, but I see my values consistent and in some
ways, as going beyond any as yet attempted definition of feminism in
this thread. With that introduction to myself, I, for one, did not
think in the context of the posting the two words "explosive" and
"feminism" meant anything this explosive! I see no reason to believe
that prabhaakar gaaru or anybody else is out to hurt the cause of
feminism (undefined) in any sense. I have not met prabhaakar gaaru
and I don't really know him. May be others do!
All said and done, I am not sure the cause of feminism is really hurt
in the process. It is not appropriate nor fair to attempt to draw
conclusions on somebody's intent with what may be circumstantial
evidence.
Well-meaning people have to decide for themselves what the best way of
helping the feminist cause is. The available choices are: castigate
the ignorant (use all one's creative energies in this process); ignore
the ignorant; educate the ignorant (takes only sincerity, not
necessarily creativity); OTHER (includes, but not limited to judging
others in one's own self-righteous way, as I some times do, but often
try to avoid). I wish I had read more of the feminist literature. I
would have attempted a definition here and possibly this article would
have been shorter.
Satire is one thing, distraction is another! This thread would be
much more productive if the same energy is spent on defining feminism,
rather than falling into the trap of using metaphors. The only
attempts at a definition I saw are from seetaaraamayya gaaru, but
mostly in terms of what it is not, which is quite useful in itself.
If this is too hard to do, let people formulate their own definition;
if you subscribe to the cause of feminism, you may want to help them
in the process, as some people certainly do!
Oh, another thing: I think at times poetry fails! Its strength is
its weakness! Once again, it is subject to more different
interpretations than is prose. I guess even on telusaa one can
occasionally use prose to convey ideas. Oh, I wish I could put all
this into a concise poem - chandObaddham or not; may be I will, but
will I be understood?
--- vENu daSigi
PS: I am posting this to both telusaa and SCIT, since I felt parts of
its contents have relevance to both fora. You decide where follow ups
should go.