ATSV Fun Fact!! - Mumbattan Cultural Details
Gayatri & Inspector Singh follow the Sikh Religion
Have you ever heard of Punjabi Sikhs?
If you don't know - Sikhism is a religion that originates in northern India, specifically Punjab.
The turban Gayatri's father wears - along with his last name 'Singh' implies that her father is most likely a Punjabi Sikh.
I notice this the first time watching ATSV and was like 'wow that's so cool :)'
It only hit me today that 'Oh wait I don't think a lot of people know about this very-specific, rarely-mentioned religion maybe i should say something,'
And because I LOVE yelling about world culture, LET'S GO!!!
[a SHORT essay where I explain the basics of Sikhism, a religion built on equality and justice. And details in The Singhs design, and exactly why Sikh Representation matters]
So What's Sikhism about?
Often mistaken for Muslims - Sikhs are actually a non-Abrahamic religion, with 20 million followers worldwide.
But even with so many visible practicing members, most people know very very little about this beautiful religion!
Sikhs believe in equality and unity - and defending the oppressed. Their book of faith, The Guru Granth Sahib Ji, is called 'Guru' for a reason - Sikhs see the book as not just a code of conduct, but as a living, breathing teacher for every practicioner;
From Wikipedia on Guru Granth Sahib:
Sikhs since then [1708] have accepted the Guru Granth Sahib, the sacred scripture, as their eternal-living guru, as the embodiment of the ten Sikh Gurus, the highest religious and spiritual guide for Sikhs. It plays a central role in guiding the Sikh's way of life.
The Guru Granth Sahib is the spiritual leader of Sikhism, and it's treated as such.
That's why in Gurdwaras - their place of worship - it's treated as such, being clothed and held in ornate structure, constantly fanned throughout it's readings (the fan you can see in the left picture).
They believe that by following the Guru Granth Sahib Ji, they can cultivate compassion, peace, and harmony in their communities, while diminishing 'Mara' - concepts like hatred or violence.
Sikhs believe that every Sikh should revere themselves as champions of unity. And because of this many Sikhs have the same last name -
Kaur for women (Meaning Princess) and Singh for men (Meaning Lion).
Having the same last name also does away with the Indian caste system, making it another point of equality.
In ATSV Gayatri last name is Singh. However from my understanding, her name would most likely be Gayatri Kaur in reality.
I think they kept her last name as Singh as a deliberate choice to keep her initials as GS, like Gwen Stacy.
So is Gayatri Sikh?
Maybe - most likely.
But we can't be sure. Mainly because of her hair.
Gayatri has a short bob haircut, and while that might not seem like it matters, it does!
In Sikhism there are the '5K's - different aspects Sikhs wear to show their faith.
Notice the first one?
'Kesh' is the practice of leaving ones hair completely uncut. That's why you may see a lot of Sikh men with long, long beards!
And hence, the large turbans.
It's done as respect for God's creation - leaving it unaltered.
[Fun Fact! - Rastafarians, a Jamaican religion, also don't cut their hair for this reason. Think Bob Marley. Rastas call God - Jah]
So, Gayatri having short hair means she doesn't keep Kesh.
However, Sikh is a super accepting and open religion, and it's main focus is on acceptance of difference, not conformity - so she could entirely follow the faith without doing all of any of the 5Ks.
Also, if you're curious about the steel sword K - Kirpan, yes that's a thing!
Sikhs of all genders are encouraged to carry a small ceremonial blade with them.
Instead it's a symbol of the commitment to fighting for what's right - and defending those who cannot defend themselves.
A Kirpan can ONLY be used to defend the life of yourself or others, which is incredibly rare.
Why is this all so rad, cool, and important?
If you haven't noticed by now, Sikhism is a religion driven by justice. Not just in theory, but in really life as well.
That's why you may see many Sikh police officers and politicians, even here in the West. Most of them wearing the emblem on their turbans.
In fact, Canada has SO MANY Sikh politicians, that in 2019 they elected 18 of them.
For centuries Sikhs have been dedicated to justice, and developing systems of support, whether that be political involvement or feeding those in need.
The biggest Gurdwara (a place of Sikh worship) The Golden Temple feeds over 100,000 people A DAY.
For FREE.
It's a practice called Langar. A communal meal anyone can enjoy. And of course, Langar food is vegetarian.
Making Inspector Singh a Sikh - and showing him saving people and being warm to his daughter on screen is great representation for a community so often overlooked! Despite the fact they are over 20 million practicing Sikhs.
It's a great detail for Indian and Punjabi representation in specific. It accurate shows their beliefs and commitment towards helping others, no matter the cost.
And from what we can tell, this choice came later in development. We know this because ALL of his concept art shows him with a turban, not keeping Kesh.
It seems like someone later on down the line said 'Wait if his name is Singh I think he's Sikh and if he's Sikh then we're gonna have to redesign him and make that obvious oops'.
That, dear audience, is why you always have an Anthropologist in the writing room. Or some amateur anthropologist like me :)
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I hope you enjoyed reading this, I really enjoyed writing it!! Sikhism is one of my favorite religions and if you have never heard anything from the Guru Granth Sahib I HIGHLY recommend it, it's very optimistic and compassionate. Sikhnet(.)com is also a great resource!
I have no idea if this will pique anyone's interest, but I hardly ever see Sikhs reflected in media and I know many many people may confuse them with Muslim, especially since many women Sikhs keep kesh and cover their hair as well.
But if you ever wanted to know the difference, here it is! If you read this far, thank you SO MUCH. And if you're a Sikh and reading this, I LOVE YOU SO MUCH.
As usual, here's a photo of Hobie for your travels.
BYE.
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I think the key component to my personal reading of post-Delphi Pharma is that he's trying to be a horrible person on purpose. Not "on purpose" in the way that people have free will to exercise their own choices, but in that Pharma's "mad doctor" persona is a performance he puts on to deliberately embrace how much everyone else hates him. Basically, if people already think you're a "bad Autobot" and a horrible doctor who just kills his patients for fun, why try to prove otherwise to people who have already made up their minds about you? Just fully embrace the fact that people see you as an asshole. Don't try to change their minds. Don't plead for their forgiveness or understanding. Just stop caring. If you're going to be remembered as a monster, you might as well be a memorable monster, and eke as much pleasure and hedonism as you can out of it before karma catches up to you and you inevitably crash and burn.
I mean, I guess you could just go the route of "Oh, Pharma was always a fucked up creepy guy and Delphi was just him taking the mask off," but I really don't like that interpretation because, for one, it feels really wrong to take a character like Pharma becoming evil under duress and going, "Oh well clearly he did the things he did because he was evil all along," as if somehow Pharma breaking under blackmail/torture/threat of horrible death was a sign of him having poor moral character. As opposed to, you know, suffering under the very real threat of horrible death for himself and everyone he cares about while being manipulated by a guy who specializes in psychological torture.
The second reason is that it just doesn't make sense to write Pharma as having been evil all along. I mean...
Occam's Razor says that the best argument is the one with the simplest explanation. Doesn't it make way more sense to take Pharma's appearances in flashbacks, his friendship with Ratchet, his stunning medical accomplishments, and the few we see of him speaking kindly/sympathetically (or in the least charitable interpretation, at least professionally) towards his patients and conclude "This guy was just a normal person, if exceptionally talented." Taking all of these flashback appearances at face value and assuming Pharma was being genuine/honest is a way simpler and more logical explanation than trying to argue that Pharma for the past 4 million years was just faking being a good doctor/person. I mean, it's possible within the realm of headcanon, but the fact is Pharma's appearances in the story are so brief that there simply wasn't room in the story for there to be some sort of secret conspiracy/hidden manipulation behind why Pharma acted the way he did in the past.
I just can't help but look at things like Pharma's friendship with Ratchet (himself a good person and usually a fine judge of character) and the fact that even post-Delphi, pretty much every single mention of Pharma comes with some mention of "He was a good doctor for most of his life" or "He was making major headways in research [before he started killing patients]" which implies that even the Autobots themselves see Pharma's villainy as a recent turn in his life compared to how for "most of his life" he "used to be" a good doctor.
And although Pharma doesn't know this, we as the readers (and even other characters like Rung) know about Aequitas technology and the fact that it actually works, so... if Pharma really was an unrepentant murderer, why couldn't he get through the forcefield too? The Aequitas forcefield doesn't require that a person be completely morally pure and free of wrongdoing or else how could Tyrest get through, just that they feel a sense of inner peace and lack feelings of guilt. Pharma has murdered and tortured people by this point, and put on quite a campy and theatrical show of how much he sees it as a fun game, so why then can he not get through?
It circles back to my headcanon at the start of this post that the "mad doctor" persona is just that-- a persona. Delphi/post-Delphi Pharma's laughing madman personality is just so far removed from every flashback we saw of him and everything we can infer based on how other people see/saw him before that, to me, the mad doctor act is (at least in large part, if not fully) a persona that Pharma puts on to put his villainy in the forefront.
To avoid an overly simplistic/ableist take, I don't think Tarn tortured Pharma into turning crazy. To me, it's more like the constant pressure of death by horrific torture, the feeling of martyrdom as Pharma kept secret that he was the only one standing between Delphi and annihilation, the physical isolation of Messatine as well as the emotional separation from Ratchet, being forced to violate his medical oaths (pretty much the only thing Pharma's entire life has been about), etc. All of that combined traumatized Pharma to the point that the only way he could avoid cracking was to just stop caring about all of it. Because at least then, even if he's still murdering patients to save Delphi from a group of sadistic freaks, Pharma doesn't have to feel guilty and sick about doing it. As opposed to the alternatives, which were probably either going off the deep end and killing himself to escape, or confessing to what he did and getting jailed for it.
In that light, Pharma becoming a mad doctor makes sense. It avoids the bad writing tropes of "oh this character who was good his entire life was actually just evil and really good at hiding it" as well as "oh he got tortured and went crazy that's why he's so random and silly and killing people, he's crazy" and instead frames Pharma's evil as something he was forced into, to the point where in order to avoid a full psychological breakdown and keep defending Delphi, he just had to stop caring about the sanctity of life or about what other people might think of him.
Then, of course, the actual Delphi episode happens, and Pharma's own lifelong best friend Ratchet basically spits in his face and sees him as nothing more than a crazy murderer who went rogue from being a good Autobot. Then Pharma gets his hands cut off and left to die on Messatine. At that point, Pharma has not only been mentally/emotionally broken into losing his feelings of compassion, he's received the message loud and clear: He is alone. Everyone hates him. Not even his own best friend likes him any more. No one even cared enough about him to check if he actually died or not. He will only ever be remembered as a doctor who went insane and killed his patients.
So in the light of 1. Having all of your redeeming qualities be squeezed out of you one by one for the sake of survival and 2. Having your reputation and all of your positive relationships be destroyed and 3. People only know/care about you as "that doctor who became evil and killed his patients" rather than the millions of years of good service that came before.
What else is there to do but internalize the fact that you'll forever be seen as a monster and a freak, and embrace it? People already see you as a murderer for that blackmail deal you did, so why not become an actual murderer and just start killing people on a whim? People already see you as an irredeemable monster who puts a stain on the Autobot name, so why beg for their forgiveness when you could just shun them back? You've already become a murderer, a traitor, and a horrible doctor, so what's a few more evil acts added to the pile? It's not like anyone will ever forgive you or love you ever again.
Why care? Why try to hold on to your principles of compassion, kindness, medical ethics, when an entire lifetime of being a good person did nothing to save you from blackmail and then abandonment? Why put yourself through the emotional agony of feeling lonely, guilty, miserable, when you could just... stop caring, and not hurt any more?
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