Protected: 4D Assignment 4: Transmutation (Movie Trailer)

4D Assignment 3: Re-telling Myths – Transmutation

The Mahabharat, which is considered the greatest epic of India, is the story of a great war that is said to have took place on earth about 5000 years ago. Till date, it is known to be the longest epic in the world, with over 100,000 verses. The Mahabharat consists of many characters playing a part to the flow of the story, and mostly people tend to overlook some very interesting characters. Indeed, to look in the viewpoint of those characters may shed a different light on the story. I have chosen the story of Shikandi from the Mahabharat, to retell as a modern version inspired by it for Assignment 3.

Before we go on to the synopsis of my “film’s” story, I will briefly go over the story of Shikandi, so as we get an idea of the premise. Shikandini was a female child born to the King Drupada. Some modern accounts suggest that she(he) was born as an impotent male child. Either ways, she was more on the feminine side physically. However, she was raised in a masculine manner in terms of dressing and behaviour, and was trained from the beginning of childhood in all kinds of military arts, so that she will be the general of the Kingdom’s army as well. The aim of her father, the King, was to train her up and fight against his rival kingdom, due to historical enmity. As such, he had to bring her up in the disguise of a male child and even got her married to the princess of the state Dasharna, after reaching marriageable age. The princess who married Shikandini discovers that she had been wedded to a female and complains to her father. Angered by this, the King of Dasharna sends his men to check on this. However, just before they reached, Shikandini managed to run off to a forest and there she meets a forest spirit living near a tree by a lake. The spirit listens to her story and takes pity, and gives his masculinity to her and takes her femininity in exchange temporarily. However, due to a curse the exchange becomes permanent, much to the delight of Shikandini who now became Shikandi. Thereafter the story goes on with “his” involvement in the great battle.

TRANSMUTATION

Synopsis:

Jesse Shelton is the only heir of professional footballer Travis Shelton and the scene opens with him looking at himself in the mirror dressed up as a lady. The story rewinds 20 years back, where a gynaecologist is telling Travis about the ultrasound scan revealing that his wife is pregnant with an intersex child, having an ambiguous genitalia. A disappointed Travis decides to give away the child, after it is born. However, after the persuasion of his weeping wife he reluctantly keeps the child and declines to be interviewed by the press, concerning this matter.

Many rumours gave rise over the following months, as there was no information of the child that was born to Travis. The child was brought up secretively. Attempts to get another child were not successful either. The relation between Travis and his wife Katy gets strained due to their differences in showing affection to their child. Travis is unable to accept the fact that he has an intersex child, as he was hoping to have a son.

On Jesse’s first birthday, Katy dresses her in a little gown and this leads to an intense argument on between Travis and Katy. At this point, Travis suggests a genital reconstructive surgery to be performed on the one-year old Jesse, to which Katy refuses strongly. She insisted that they had no rights to perform such alterations on Jesse. After a period of reflection, they both agree to bring up Jesse as a male child. Following this, Travis announces proudly about the birth of his one-year-old son at a press conference. He skips many questions that were thrown at him at the late announcement and simply claims to have done that for the protection of his newborn.

Jesse goes to elementary school and as she was growing up, she felt that his tendencies were towards being a female. She liked making friends with girls and was interested in feminine paraphernalia. Discovering this, Travis strictly warned Jesse as a teenager, that she was a male and his focus was to become a professional footballer just like his father. Jesse questions her father as she cries, to know why she was forced to be someone she is not and screams in anguish, questioning why she is different from the rest.

Travis tries to console Jesse, just as Katy interrupts and proclaim that this is the selfish motive of her husband. It is revealed that Travis’s opportunities in his career has been constantly been competed by a co-footballer Anthony. There is an unspoken rivalry between the two of them for a long time. Travis, had at that point decided, that his own son will beat the opportunities that may go to the son of Anthony, who was slightly elder than Jesse and was being trained to be a footballer starting at the age of 10.

Jesse decides to live up to her father’s dream. The 14-year-old Jesse went through a series of medical procedures, which involved taking hormonal pills and jabs, binding her chest and so on. This was in preparation to a genital reconstruction surgery, which can only be performed when Jesse becomes a major. Jesse was artificially injected with Testosterones and they caused facial hair and other body hair to grow rapidly. These were done at such early age, so that there would seem natural when she is tested. She was going through a phase of confusion, as she was unable to see herself fully as a man. She had the urge to dress up as a girl when she was on her own. Nevertheless, she had quit schooling and trained full time to be a professional footballer and the world saw her as a male.

The scene comes back to the present day and Jesse is getting ready for the operation in Venezuela that will make her a man to the fullest extent that medical science can. Jesse needs to be examined before she can officially play for the international football team and there is about half a year for that. In the meantime, Anthony’s son Kendrick who trains along with Jesse somehow notices in the bathroom, that Jesse’s genitals are not normal. He manages to secretly snap a blur image of Jesse bathing in the cubicle. Things take a serious turn when Kendrick decides to report this to the Sports Council. Before the Sports Council approached Jesse, she came to know about this as she overhead Kendrick speaking of this with his father on the phone. She managed to get the operation done and returned as a full-fledged male. A simple physical check-up of Jesse proved that she was indeed male and there was no evidence of any kind of drugs being abused by “him”. Jesse is relieved the movie ends with him preparing for his debut in the team, to play “like a man”, to make his father proud.

4D Assignment 2

4D assignment 2 🙂

4D Assignment 1: Me, Object and Representation of Self, My world

Task 1, 2 and 3 for Assignment 1.

My crystals on a mandala

The first image you are seeing here is of a few of my crystals. They are actually semi-precious gemstones that are believed to possess metaphysical properties. I am a reiki practitioner and I do crystal healing and meditation as well. They are meant to connect your subtle body-the soul with another realm. They are quite popular among the Chinese and in the recent years popular worldwide as well. In this photograph, you can see that the crystals are laid over a mandala. Mandalas are literally geometric diagrams of other dimensions beyond the world we perceive. They are a sort of map of other realms, which we cannot attain physically. The lighting in this image is a little contrasting. The idea is to provide a slightly dark, mythical feeling. These are not familiar subject matters to the general people. Sort of a secret. The lighting also makes the crystal give out a nice effulgence, illuminating the mandala partially. This picture represents my nature. Not only others, but sometimes even I cannot understand my inner thoughts and feelings fully. I get intuitions, I try to understand my dreams and I try to explore the other world, the other dimension. The darkness in this picture gives also a sense of uncertainty. You cannot understand it fully. Whether it is an imagination or reality is something we cannot tell for sure. The second image is of myself with black and white lines painted over my eye area, using NYX jumbo pencils. This image clearly indicates my interest in the use of makeup, especially so for its artistic sense. The works of Shirin Neshat inspire this particular image. I really like her work. It is contemporary presentation of an exotic place, which is beautiful in its own rich culture, yet troubled and turbulent due to its social structure and other political issues. The black and white lines refer to the way I look at things. The solid blocks of white and black indicate uniformity. I appreciate order and discipline. I believe in upholding of values. Furthermore, I prefer to believe and accept approved and tested methods. I do not wish to see anything that is concocted and speculated. My perception needs to be laid down in black and white. I accept religious authorities like Christ and Buddha as my inspiration. That was how I moulded my views since the time of my early teens. However, as seen in the previous picture, I do have an inner calling to search beyond that which has been told or seen. So there is a contradiction in me, which even i do not fully understand, which is why I chose to leave the image in colour despite the inspiration coming from Shirin Neshat. The last image is part of the wide collection of books I have. They are all English books on the subjects of spirituality. They mean the world to me. Just by reading each one of these, i get my inspiration and mould my perceptions. However, just like these books are in layers, I do not change my mind-set or ideas, but I layer them over each other cementing them over my existing self and reality, to a solid definition just like sedimentary rocks. The books come are arranged neatly, yet some are left loose. Once again, this depicts my nature of trying to be at least 80% orderly and 20% free. Well, we need to be a little free to create after all. However, complete freeness means no control and not being fixed up.

Myself with the expression of accepting concrete ideas.

My spiritual books

My World My world(1) My world (2) My World (3)

My Object

The ‘Bhagavad Gita’

Deep focus to contemplate on the reading.

The first drop of Nectar

Art is immortal. Its value may change, its appreciation may fade and so on. However, as long as there is a creator, there will be creation. As such, art never dies.