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Fresh from the release of his latest film, Pyar ke Side Effects, when Rahul Bose landed in Calcutta for an overnight stay, it was not in his actor persona. He was invited by four organisations that had joined hands to observe the fortnight to stop violence against women and girls. He was among the three-member panel of speakers invited to talk about how men can play a pro-active role in the resistance to violence against women. Though we are familiar with this actor’s involvement with socially significant issues like the tsunami and the post-Mumbai blasts last July, it is his concern for the stereotyped roles society dictates and which we should all fight against that came across this time. "I have begun an NGO called The Foundation dedicated to doing away with all kinds of discrimination. Our first project is called the Adaman Nicobar Scholarships Initiative. Under this initiative, we will select up to six boys and girls from the Andamans and admit them to Rishi Valley School in Bangalore from Class VII to Class XII. The selection is based purely on academic and extra-curricular proficiency. Our aim is to bridge the divide that exists between the people of Andaman and Nicobar and people like us in the rest of India." Rahul lamented the conspicuous absence of males in the audience at Gorky Sadan when the subject of the panel discussion was on the pro-active roles of men in fighting violence against women. "The fact that India is so crazy about cricket is an indicator of patriarchy because cricket is a patriarchal game. All social and political movements, even movements within the home are largely designed, controlled and manipulated by men. I have experienced this even through an apparently gender-free upbringing," explains. "I was brought up in a home where there was a sort of role-reversal within the home. My mother smoked and drank while my father, an ordinary, hard-working man, tended to household work most of the time. My mother came from a half-Punjabi-half-Maharashtrian background while my father comes from a Bengali background. I recall my mother kicking me out of the house if I did not go out to play. The home was free of all religious conditioning as well. Yet, as we grew up, I could feel the gender-stereotyping make its presence felt. For instance, if there was a party in the house, my sister would be asked to help mother in the kitchen while I would be needed to help father set the table. My sister had to come home by 11 at night while my time limit was set for 2 am. Her boyfriends had to go through an interrogation while my girlfriends were never questioned once. This taught me that never mind what we say or do, gender stereotyping is ingrained into our mindsets and it is really difficult for us to shed it," he elucidates in detail. Rahul goes on to add that accumulation of power is the greatest game plan of life. All positions of power according to him, be it success, hard work, career, ambition or money – rest with the man. "An individual’s greatest happiness lies in the incremental creation of love one can give to one’s family. The woman does this constant nurturing and replenishment of love in the family. No family can function without her. Yet, when it comes to setting priorities, she remains either the last on the agenda, or completely out of it," he sums up. If you are thinking that Rahul Bose is probably out of jobs in the film industry, you have another think coming. He is as busy as can be and is so busy that he had to let go of a couple of prime assignments he would have loved to be a part of. For example, after working with him for Kaalpurush, Buddhadeb Dasgupta asked him to do an important role in his new film, Two Boys and a Girl. But he was scheduled for a rugby tournament at Sri Lanka and the dates clashed. For starters, he will be playing the role of Feluda, (the famous detective created by Satyajit Ray in his detective series) in two radio plays for BBC to be done in January 2007. He has completed all the 65 translated stories from the Feluda repertoire created for literature by Ray.
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