“TO PEE OR NOT TO PEE, that is the question.” Hamlet would have found this a more pressing concern if he was a woman living in 21st century India. This is what Paromita Vohra’s incisive look at the national state of public lavatories in Q2P brings home. The film charts a map through the toilets of Mumbai and Delhi, from the citadels of the elite to backwater slums, harnessing perspectives across class, caste and gender. How the urban Indian woman navigates public space through the simple act of processing metabolic waste — this is the question the film asks and attempts to answer. It looks at three aspects: control of women by society and state; sexualisation of the female body and the corrosive effect of caste and class.
Scavengers As Models: Exploitation Chic or Empowering?
I FOUND this news story about Indian “sanitation workers” (scavengers, if we avoid the euphemism) modelling in New York pretty bizarre. I do hope you’ll read the article before proceeding to comment, but in a nutshell: 36 Indian sanitation workers were invited to a conference as part of the UN’s International Year of Sanitation. In New York, they took part in a fashion show called Mission Sanitation, walking the ramp beside professional models.
Scavenging is deeply dehumanizing work, and an end to the profession would be truly welcome. But why modelling (not professionally, I must add, but as a novelty event)? [Read More]
