Aishik Barua is a 2nd-year MBA student concentrating on media marketing. He is particularly in love with TV shows (from The Sopranos to The Flash), books (from The Little Prince to the Harry Clifton series) and a myriad number of modern era conspiracy theories. When he is not screwing his eyes at some website’s Google Analytics page, he could be found doodling with his sketch pencils, cooking a new dish or simply engaging in general goofiness.
You can view and comment on Aishik’s posts individually via the links below:
A life is made of critical appreciation (6 Apr. 2015)
Adventures in academic-land (22 Mar. 2015)
About being a well-meaning, presumptuous neighbor (6 Mar. 2015)
A life is made of critical appreciation (6 April 2015)
The curious thing about the arts is how they flow across geographical limitations like no other stream of study or career. Art has an organic capability to mold itself in the vision of its audience no matter what its origins were. The story of a French boy who finds an extremely spherical balloon that has a mind of its own (Albert Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon) can create vivid emotions for a college student living in a busy metropolis in India. The painting of a couple embraced in a passionate kiss amidst stark hues of yellow and green, created by an Austrian painter (Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss) could mean very different things for an American artist and a Turkish student. A Sufi song could be interpreted as a prayer to God or an ode to eternal love.
Just like any form of art, good television content flows across borders as well. When I started watching The Good Wife while still in India, I was mesmerized. The last time I was that mesmerized was when I discovered gratuitous nudity and sex on the US version of Queer as Folk. What made The Good Wife good, besides the brilliant cast and their on-point acting skills, were the stories it spoke of—the flawlessness in every episode’s script, every season’s arc and in the series’ overall progression. But I also realized that good television was not just about what the show creators put on our screens. It was also about our critical appreciation of them.
As a teenager, Friends used to be my favorite show. I loved each and every thing about it. I can still repeat most of the dialogues without the slightest hesitation. But as I have grown, something changed. I still love the show and its many situations, but it’s not my favorite anymore. Throughout the series, one joke was constant: being ‘gay’ in any way was laughable and mock-worthy. Chandler had a bad childhood because of his parents and yet, somehow, it is always easier for him to forgive his cisgender straight mother than his father who came out as a transgender woman while he was still a kid, even though he is embarrassed more than once about his mother’s “promiscuous and unruly” persona. Ross has always been less than thrilled about Carol leaving him for a woman and has never hidden his discontent with her “lesbian status”; even after giving her away at her wedding, Ross consistently treats Carol’s wife, Susan, as something less than human.
And yet, Friends is also a champion of myriad social issues of the time. The show broadcast one of television’s very first lesbian weddings that transpired from a long-standing and successful relationship. It wittily showcased the awkwardness of the heteronormative concept of “coming out” when they turned the tables and made Phoebe’s presumed gay, green card husband come out as straight. Phoebe went against all sorts of societal pressures and decided to turn the stigma of surrogate motherhood of the 90s on its head by carrying her brother’s triplets in her womb. Rachel showed the world that it is not easy being a single mother, but it is definitely not impossible; she raised her daughter as a single woman and went on to have a successful career in the fashion industry. Chandler’s father showed the world that there is absolutely nothing wrong or embarrassing in being a transgender woman. You have just got to know how to own it with the right sequins and a hat to match. To tease out this tension is to appreciate, but appreciate critically—to enjoy, but to think.
After accepting her GLAAD Vanguard Award at the GLAAD Media Awards this year, Kerry Washington said, “There is so much power in storytelling, and there is enormous power in inclusive storytelling, in inclusive representation.” Compound that with the skill of critical appreciation and a whole new world of perspectives comes alive. For me, graduate school and the different individuals I met on my journey here made all the difference. I mean, for God’s sake, I don’t watch Queer As Folk for the sex anymore.
Image from tv.com
Adventures in academic-land (22 March 2015)
No one likes to come off as stupid (or not smart enough) at a gathering, big or small.
Right now, you might be disagreeing with my statement and telling yourself or whoever is sitting beside you, “That’s not true! I don’t mind being ignorant because not everyone knows everything. At least, I get rid of my ignorance by being a good listener!” I used to tell myself that too. But if I was being really honest, I knew that whenever I heard a huge academic term like “heteronormative” or “historicize” and didn’t know what it meant in the given context, for a split second I would feel quite stupid. Now imagine the feeling when you start dating someone from the field of academia!
That feeling of stupidity increased exponentially whenever I was around my partner’s friends. They would talk about microagressions, cultural zeitgeist, postmodernism, cryptic eroticism, antiquity, etc., and I would nod along with a smile on my face, all the while trying to wrap my head around the concepts they were talking about. Yeah, I have been through many a Joey Tribbiani moment.
You know where it gets worse, though? When you work on a university magazine with intelligent and witty undergraduates who seem to be fluent in the same rhetoric. They could start a conversation on social issues that intersect across myriad identities with a panache that would put many members of the Congress to shame. It was not just awareness of the times they were living in; it was the eloquent way they could sum up their thoughts using the words that the situation warranted. It is as inspiring as it is intimidating.
And this is where I feel cheated with my undergraduate education. I had decided I wanted to be a journalist when I was in high school. I followed the straight and narrow path during my undergraduate degree to achieve that goal. And no one stopped me to help me realize that there were other things I could learn on the way. For my professional parents, law, medicine and engineering were the careers for winners. To get them to allow me to pursue journalism was hard enough: imagine telling them I wanted to take up gender studies as even a minor. Queer theory was OUT OF THE QUESTION!
Thankfully, though, having met a group of sharp-as-a-whip undergrads and dating a very intelligent academic opened up opportunities for me at graduate school. As a business student, I could not use my credits for classes at the Hall of Languages. After all, if I want to run a successful business in the future, I have to learn about analyzing financial statements and conducting effective market research. So, even with the limitations I faced, I realized I could sign out books about marginalized sexualities and genders from the library, talk to my personal academic about the hypersexualized representation of black men, and chat with my other academic friends about the chauvinistic depictions of women in the media. In hindsight, I realize that to understand myriad identities and their history will probably make me better at my craft.
To engage in these conversations and immerse myself in issues that interest me makes me happier—if not less stupid. I have a long way to go, though, before I can actually be even as smart as the undergrads I spoke about.
To move out of our comfort zone and learn something beyond our immediate curriculum is an important ingredient for our personal and professional growth. It helps broaden horizons and creates perspectives that we hadn’t encountered before. It creates a nuanced thinking process. And graduate school presents the perfect opportunity for all that. Thankfully.
About being a well-meaning, presumptuous neighbor (6 March 2015)
She asked me, “Is it true? Do your people wear loin cloths on a daily basis? Also, what about snakes? Do they slither around everywhere, like on the streets and stuff?” Having heard that, you’d expect me to be apoplectic with rage and indignation. You’d expect me to rant about India being a developing nation with world-class infrastructure, educational institutions, physiological amenities, and several other what-nots. You’d at least expect me to tell the rude lady to get her facts straight. But I did none of those. Why? Because she had just fed me a substantially large portion of her scrumptious dinner spread. But also, because she was not being mean or sarcastic. She was genuinely ignorant, and needed clarification about these absurd things she has gathered knowledge of through her American news channels (read: FOX).
Yet, she was a homemaker from a nondescript town in rural America. Right in the thick of things at one of the nation’s largest universities, a colleague complimented me on my perfect English pronunciations and diction. Of course a compliment is a good thing—not when it comes with the hint of unmasked surprise though. It was almost unbelievable to him that my spoken English was so vastly different from The Simpsons’ Apu Nahasapeemapetilon. I get it though. I mean how can an ethnic man who speaks perfect English be considered “exotic”? There needs to be at least the slightest hint of an accent.
Pictured: A fictional character
Things get more bizarre about halfway across the world or around 8,500 miles away from here. When I was packing my bags to travel the said 8,500 miles from India to the US, a very well-meaning relative of mine quipped, “Please make sure you shower every day. It’s cold up there, so the people don’t shower every day, and they start to stink. Please don’t fall into that mold.” Imagine how surprised she would be if she visited me here and realized that the only ones who don’t shower every day are my new neighbor, my big fat cat and her husband.
However, if you thought my well-meaning relative had bizarre notions, wait till you hear what my other well-meaning relatives’ notions were. Apparently, white girls wear short dresses and lure the good Indian boys, so at no cost was I to fall into their “trap.” I am to go back and marry a good Indian girl who wears a sari and shows off her midriff because, God knows, a woman’s bare legs are more tempting and scandalous than her bare midriff.
The fact is though, if you and I sat down to analyze the psyche of my well-meaning relatives as well as that good American lady and that good white lad, we will realize that they are all inherently nice people who are ignorant of the ways of people who exist miles away from them. They were brought up on cultural stereotypes, compounded with their own embellished imaginings of what the far-east or the far-west might be like. We could shame them or reprimand them for their statements, but we know that that’d be futile. As the small community of students who have the privilege of soaking in the culture of two very different worlds, it is our duty to educate them.
We could politely tell the good ole lady that what she was asking me was mildly racist. We could tell my colleague that even though sometimes art imitates reality often it is a mere exaggeration. And we could tell my well-meaning relatives that their regressive opinions about the west could well be the reason of the growing rape culture in their own nation. It is important to use our knowledge as the ‘glocal’ citizens of this generation to engage in these discussions. It is important to help them realize the need and reality of having bridged the gap between ‘us’ and ‘them.’ It is important to initiate them into cultural and racial sensitivity that us as graduate students have had the privilege of learning and understanding. It is important to help them help us make this world a better place. After all, isn’t that what all of us as a global community eagerly want?
Images from Wikipedia and http://www.missmalini.com/
Aishik Barua is a 2nd-year MBA student concentrating on media marketing. He is particularly in love with TV shows (from The Sopranos to The Flash), books (from The Little Prince to the Harry Clifton series) and a myriad number of modern era conspiracy theories. When he is not screwing his eyes at some website’s Google Analytics page, he could be found doodling with his sketch pencils, cooking a new dish or simply engaging in general goofiness.