{"id":8122,"date":"2009-02-03T08:55:47","date_gmt":"2009-02-03T16:55:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=8122"},"modified":"2009-02-03T16:47:58","modified_gmt":"2009-02-04T00:47:58","slug":"dot-indian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=8122","title":{"rendered":"Dot Indian"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When asked to explain the symbolism of the bindi (the colored dot worn on the forehead of Indian women), V.S. Naipaul said: &quot;The dot means: my head is empty.&quot; (Pg. 387)<\/p>\n<p>I got into a discussion last night of young female artists on the prowl for a man to take care of them.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Isn&#8217;t it the same for male artists (freelance writers in particular, my group)?&quot; I was asked.<\/p>\n<p>Well, no. I know very few men, if any, who are looking for a woman to financially provide for them. Most men would feel emasculated by that. A woman doesn&#8217;t feel defeminized when she seeks out a man to provide for her.<\/p>\n<p>A man&#8217;s manliness is largely determined by his work. A woman&#8217;s femininity is not determined by her work.<\/p>\n<p>In the late 1970s, Naipaul became obsessed with Islamic fundamentalism. He said it was a growing threat to the world, that the Iranian Islamic radicals did not want a revolution so much as an opportunity to kill their opponents and start a theocratic state.<\/p>\n<p>He was right.<\/p>\n<p>Naipaul wrote the book, &quot;Among the Believers.&quot; &quot;His thesis&#8230;was [that Islam was] innately imperialist, requiring its followers to diminish their native culture.&quot;<\/p>\n<p><A HREF=\"http:\/\/my.opera.com\/quentinscrisp\/blog\/index.dml\/tag\/V.%20S.%20Naipaul\">Quentin writes<\/a>: &quot;I can&#8217;t find the quote online, but if I can trust my memory, it was from a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/books\/2004\/mar\/20\/india.fiction\">V.S. Naipaul<\/a> interview. The author was asked how he thought the situation in the Middle East would end, and he said that it would end with &quot;victory for one side and defeat for the other&quot;. The interviewer thought this sounded a bit harsh, to which Naipaul replied that he was not condoning the situation, that was simply what he saw.&quot;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When asked to explain the symbolism of the bindi (the colored dot worn on the forehead of Indian women), V.S. Naipaul said: &quot;The dot means: my head is empty.&quot; (Pg. 387) I got into a discussion last night of young &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=8122\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[15997,15996,837,15998,32217],"class_list":["post-8122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literature","tag-bindi","tag-colored-dot","tag-forehead","tag-indian-women","tag-v-s-naipaul"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t<!-- All in One SEO 4.9.10 - aioseo.com -->\n\t<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When asked to explain the symbolism of the bindi (the colored dot worn on the forehead of Indian women), V.S. 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