Aryaman Kakkar's Archive

1) An account of a week in your life with an awareness of the different types of media you use, reflecting on yourself as a media consumer. See the media you chose in relation to both form and content. Firstly, to dispel some preconceived notions. I am not taking “media” to be defined as its social definition i.e. “all forms of electronic media”. Rather I am taking “media” back to its linguistic root: “media” being the plural of “medium”, a method through which one may express themselves. This working definition of media expands the ambit of what can be considered media in my daily life. This is necessary because these various forms of media have been used in multiple ways to achieve my goals.  To list all the kinds of media I have interacted with in the last one week, it would be: Social Media: as a means of communication; as a marketplace for both conglomerates and small businesses; as a means for advertisement. (Figs 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, and 12).  The World Wide Web: ...

The figure of  the “brown sahib” has always been a subject of intrigue for me. How they, as the present-day English speaking elite, occupy the position of the interpreter class that Thomas Macaulay describes in his “Minute on Education”. “We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, --a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect.” Macaulay here sets up the stage for Bhabha in “Of Mimicry and Man” and his theory on the ambivalence of colonial mimicry and how it has the power to subvert and undermine the hegemonic superstructures of the coloniser. With the creation of an interpreter class of people who are “Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect”, comes the revelation of how easily the coloniser and their ideal can be mimicked and thus expose its hollow nature. The policy of making the colonised the ...

Throughout this course, we have examined the medium of the film and how the stories relayed through film attempt to perform their work upon the audience that consumes them. We have not yet, however, discussed at length the presence of various media in the films we have consumed thus far, and how they work with people shown in the films, and how they drive the narrative forward. In this essay, I shall be examining the usage and placement of multiple genres of media, how they interact with people, and how they contribute to the narrative overall.  Firstly, to dispel some preconceived notions. I am not taking “media” to be defined as its social definition i.e. “all forms of electronic media”. Rather I am taking “media” back to its linguistic root: “media” being the plural of “medium”, a method through which one may express themselves. This working definition of media expands the ambit of what can be considered media in these films. This is necessary because these various forms of medi...

  The three films we have studied this semester have been touted as feminist films. Chak De! India, Dangal, and Saand ki Aankh feature women who rise to the top of their respective sporting fields through perseverance and hardwork. It shows women combating patriarchal super-structures and the establishment at every step of the way, being empowered through their sport. The fact that these films depict empowered women as the lead roles somehow wins them the title of being a ‘feminist’ film, and yet one of these three films does not make the cut.  What I wish to focus on in these three films are displays of female and feminine solidarity. In my previous essay on Aligarh, I mentioned how the lack of scenes of queer solidarity drowned the alleged queer narrative of the movie, and how it was Prof. Siras’ empathy and queerness that saved the film. I will be building on these arguments of empathy and representation to demonstrate how it is empathetic community-building and shows of s...

Healing is slow. It doesn’t start with kneeling or obedience. It starts with a sound. The grunt of giving in and playing cards with them, suffering the puns and smirking at the inside jokes. Soft-spoken instead of speaking with anger. Sharing in the music at twilight on the highway and not pulling your earphones, muting the world from beginning to end.  Healing is not all-accepting. Sometimes, it means knowing that the scars will itch, and the heart will ache over the disagreements, when they can’t see how they hurt you. It means walking away when respect is due but not freely given: you will always feel the lightness of your years then. The difference remains the same.  The only thing you can do is pull them aside from the battling crowds, sit down, and explain. No cacophony. No interruptions. A conversation in essence, rather than by name.  Talking back is still ‘disrespectful’, make no mistake. It is still ‘rude’. It is still ‘wrong’. A friend once told me about the co...