GIRLS !

A friend was blessed with a baby girl a few days ago,his second ,and was quite distressed by sympathy calls.
Its navratra time,and almost every household worships little girls as kanjaks (little devis).
In a casual chat during an odd job,our old electrician tells me that the marriage proposal of his son (class 3 dropout,unemployed)did not materialise.because though the girl was ok (12th pass,working) ,her complexion was wheatish!
A few kms. away the same evening,at a farewell party at a friend's place,much to the amusement of all the guests,his old mother confronts his boss in crackling bhojpuri,about the office policy of not allowing more than two kids.
The much embarrased friend admits that due to her constant nagging about his two daughters and  the need to have a son ,he had cooked up the entire office policy story !

I hate to think this is India 2010,where daughters are still considered not good enough to complete a family.A son is still the ticket to salvation and pride,because daughters will go away to another family.
Yes to another good family only if they are fair ,slim,tall and beautiful !
Why ?why?
Will it ever change?
The need is not to worship little girls as devi ,but to give all girls a warm welcome in our lives and society,to treat them with equal love and respect .
Our girls don't need validation of their existence but acceptance of their being.

LOVE , *** aur bahut kuch !

I am no film critic and generally also I avoid passing judgements on other people's creative outputs.So whatever opinion I have about a poem,a book, a film or any other art piece I try keeping it to myself.However ,I do feel like absolving Ekta Kapoor of some of her saas-bahu sins for producing a film called Love,Sex aur Dhoka.Not that its a masterpiece,but Dibakar Banerjee does raise some relevant questions for the Youtube generation.

• We are liberated enough to send our daughters to film schools ,but are we ready to accept their decisions about their own life?
• Our society was always ridden with class and caste problems,but why are honour killings rising faster than our literacy rate?
• We take pride in the globalisation of our country but what about the productification(my word!) of women in our media?
• It is nice to have cameras in our phones,safety cameras in our stores,nanny cams in our homes,but are we mature enough to handle the voyeur in our mind?
• When we have hundreds of friends on ****book and 1000000+ scraps in **kut ,aren't we stealing away time from our real life relationships?
• Is privacy only a kind of setting online ?
• Are we a society of scopophiliacs,so hungry for entertainment that we can sell our own private moments for it?

The quest to find these answers is on,atleast till I get the gory image of the brutal honour killing in the film out of my mind,and I am sure it will be a long time.

I SALUTE THE MARTYRS

It is 23 March today,and because it is not valentines day,mothers day,fathers day,uncles day or any other such archies endorsed day we choose to forget that it is Martyrs' day- the day three young men ,Bhagat Singh,Sukhdev and Rajguru were martyred.
I won't be self-righteous and so have to admit that I am ashamed of myself that I also had no clue till I saw an Ad in the paper.
I have always believed that Bhagat Singh, had he lived more,would have surely been one of India's most learned and insightful leaders.In his short life-span he exhibited unmatched determination,sparkling intellect and a broad vision for a bright future for his motherland,qualities that any nation would be proud to have in their young leaders.
He was a self-proclaimed atheist who believed in himself more than God.
Lets pray and hope that his spirit lives on and inspires all of us to do whatever little we can for a better society and a stronger nation.

FRIENDS HELP ME TRACE THE SOURCE OF THIS WONDERFUL PIECE !

The game we play
is let's pretend ans pretend
we're not pretending.

We choose to forget who we are
and then forget that
we have forgotten
who are we really?

The centre that watches
and runs the show
that can choose
which way it will go.

Thinga just happened or
that we were being controlled
taken over
we put ourselves down
and have become
used to this masochisticposture
this weakness
this indecisiveness.

Then I am consciousness
that powerful,loving,perfect
reflection of the cosmos.

But in our attempt
to cope with early situations
we choose or were
hypnotised into a passive position.

To avoid punishment
or the loss of love
we choose to deny our
response/ability
pretending that
but we are in reality
free,a centre of cosmic energy.

Your will
is your power.

Don't prtend
you don't have it
or you won't.

                    -from A FEMINIST

TV TALES !

It was one of the most eventful days of my early childhood in early 80s ,when my father brought home a TV.It was not the brand which was neighbours envy and our pride,but still it changed my life forever.
Other than my mom and dad , a few more people became part of my life - Spiderman and Superman on weekends took me to a far off place called America,and Vikram Baital to an imaginary country every week.
The adults too gave plenty of time to their relationship with this new member . My dad watched the asian games with a lot of interest wheras mom and my aaya used to eagerly wait for Chitrahaar.
A few years later things changed dramatically.Now we had our own TVs in our respective bedrooms,but growing up strangely left me with a little time for it.
When I moved to a university hostel I rarely went to the TV room,except for this one lazy afternoon as I sat flipping channels I saw 9/11 live.
It surely robbed me of peaceful sleep for many nights to come and so did some more damage to my already weakening connect with the idiot box.
When I got married to my movie-buff husband,TV was used only to watch movies on dvd and otherwise.
A few months ago as a new mom with a young baby who would sleep only during the day my relationship with TV had re-started,but sadly we are again at crossroads.
Obviously I have to be careful lest this idiot monster tries to play baby-sitter to my toddler and also there are 100+ channels but rarely things worth spending my precious time on.
I had some problems with the idiotic tendencies of the idiot box,but now it is no longer idiot.The luminous screen has become a sadasitic,voyueristic window ,in which we enjoy other people's pains and humiliations.Reality shows (what a misnomer !) are distorting all reality and most facts to tittilate and abuse rather entertain and amuse.
So today I decide that I'll treat my TV now as an Ex.I'll respect it for the good times it gave me,look forward to a few fruitful meetings now and then, and will be kept at a safe distance from Sonee.

My reservations about women's reservation

1. When will the clowns of the great indian circus,popularly known as our parliament ,learn to respect national time and money?
2. Is reservation an intelligent solution?
3. Does having more women MPs improve the lot of a common indian woman?
4. How will we prevent proxy-politics that this kind of reservation usually leads to?
5. Isn't it more essential to have more gender-sensitive legislators , irrespective of their own gender?
6. If all political parties were so pro-women(as they all claim now), why did it take 12 long years to get this bill passed?
7. Doesn't this whole fiasco make women feel like mere pawns in the dirty games of politics?
8. What about the majority of indian women who are still illiterate and more so what about those literate ones who are on the exploiter's side?
9. Don't we need only an attitude change as far as status of women in india is concerned?
10. Finally ,does anyone seem to care about the more than 50000 girls being killed in india every year?
    
    
    Maybe it is just too little too late , but then better late than never.

Women's Day Thoughts !

PHENOMENAL WOMAN

                    -Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

Now you understand
just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care.
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

@31

Today I know for sure that Robert Frost,one of my favourite poets was wrong when he said,"Time and Tide wait for no man, but time always stands still for a woman of thirty."
Yes I am sure about this because today I am no longer 30 ,I am 31.
The 30th birthday was sure a milestone of sorts.There was a new awareness of the meaning of time,as it was my first as a mom.
I started looking at the world differently but it was not as different as it seems today.I had just stepped into the thirties and so it took a while to sink in.Now that I am 31,it has set in with an indelible impression.
Some important things I have learnt in last one year:
1: LET IT GO !
2:LIFE IS LIKE A RIVER : A RIVER NEVER PASSES THE SAME PLACE TWICE.
3:SOME PAGES TURNED,SOME BRIDGES BURNED,BUT ALL ARE LESSONS LEARNED.
4:LIFE IS DIVINE CHAOS.

GRANDMOTHER....

I often wonder
how old were you,
or what was your name.

From the carefully draped cotton duppataas
I could see your grandmother eyes
watching the maneouvers of the little one
in the balcony.

Or sometimes on
exceptionally quiet summer afternoons
hear you sing softly some old devotional song.

You smiled at me once
as you fed some pigeons
and the little one played alongside.

Yesterday it was another lady
probably a daughter or a daughter-in-law
doing the same,
and then it hit me some where
where it did hurt

That you had passed away a few days ago
and for me now
you will always remain
the old lady in flat 1-B.