Alter Ego
We often hear the phrase: “All men are the same”. This phrase is mostly used by an exasperated woman but the fact is that NOT all men are the same. JUST ENOUGH men are considered to be the “same” in order for society to generalize the view it has on “masculinity”. Society has painted an image into everyone’s minds- an image of what a man should actually be. The inner man in some men, hence, is unable to come out simply because society ridicules such a person.
This was the basis of alter ego: Literature is a platform where everything can be expressed freely. Different characters represent masculinity differently. Keeping this in mind, the participants had to choose two literary characters who represented contrasting images of masculinity.
For Arigna (from DPS Noida), this was a privilege since he felt honored talking about two iconic characters on stage for a period of five minutes. He also admitted being petrified since it was his first time doing such a thing on stage- but he had nothing to fear since his display ended with a resounding round of applause.
Our esteemed judges Ms. Sanyukta and Ms. Ira Pande were very impressed with our participants. “We are enjoying this event”, they said. “The opposition of two characters is allowing the participants (and audience) to move towards a clearer understanding of masculinity”.
This event was unique since the participants could choose and compare characters from completely different time frames. There was a comparison between Tony Stark and Hamlet. Many such comparisons took place and this kept the event interesting-since the audience didn’t know what which feature would be compared next.
Keeping all of this in a mind, the Alter Ego event was carried out effectively and left the audience with many things to think about.
Resonance 2015 