The hegemonic nature of Eurocentric aesthetics is responsible for the bizarre paradox that images of slim good looking females in bikinis have come to be considered more 'sexy' than pictures of me reaching deep into my jaddi to scratch my low slung bollocks not just by White people but also, now, by people of Color- that too even by middle-aged, heterosexual, bahishkrit samaj, Indians like myself.
How can we explain such a truly diabolical outcome?
As Ranajit Guha said 'within every thinking Indian there occurs a silent struggle between Gandhi and Marx.'
But Ranajit is now considered a hottie and constitutes the one-man Reeperbahn of Vienna, where- kidnapped by Nazi human traffickers- he blamelessly resides.
In a sense, then, Ranajit has been appropriated by that exploitative Eurocentric Aesthetic which also constitutes as its alterity those not considered hot, like myself, who thus are promoted from subaltern status to full membership of the bahishkrit samaj (externed or ostracized community)
How did this come about?
My contention is that both Gandhi and Marx became totally Eurocentric, the former when he lived up the road from me in Baron's Court, the latter when he was buried in the very cemetery where I lost my virginity to a hirsute Maltese sixth former from the infamous Parliament Hill School for Gargogyles. Well, actually, I didn't lose my virginity to her- she merely muttered mutinously against Dom Mintoff while I damply held her hand- but, as I was subsequently assured, she certainly would have deflowered me had I fed her the packet of pork scratchings and half can of Tizer that made a transaction of that sort de rigeur amongst Trotskyite young women of that generation and milieu.
Clearly what is needed is a new episteme of lok-avidya- indigenous urm...knowledge?- that can restore me to 'ultra-hottie' status while relegating that dumpy little Aishwariya Rai Bacchan to her proper place as like maybe a Micro-biologist or Econometrician or something.
The above picture of me, wearing janeo and jaddi, appears quite different to people who have surrendered to a Eurocentric aesthetic.
Indeed, the rot has set in so far that my recent movie- Anal Cherries III- was rejected by the Indian Film Censors on the grounds that it was pornographic despite the fact that if contained nothing but me in my veshti & angavastram declaiming Tagore in a hilarious Bengali accent.
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