Shades of Passion

Once in a while, there comes in front of you an image that rattles you, makes you pause whatever it was that you were doing or thinking and THINK. Think hard, at that. I came across one such thought provoking image today and I couldn’t help but relate to the sentiment. I don’t know who has written it but whoever has should see my head bent in respect in front of her (I am almost praying it’s a him!). I don’t own the copyright for this image but I want so strongly to share it!

A lesson taught different

I saw it and it just was stuck in my head! I know people will tell me, these are facts of life, we can’t be idealists, we have to live with how world is etc etc. And I want them to know that I don’t care for their ‘acceptance’ of ‘reality’, the way it is right now. If this reality has been created, it sure can be destroyed too, and a new reality can be created.

Picture this: A man looking all strong is captured by a woman and made to do slavish labour simply because he looked strong! She makes him do so much that he passes out and she doesn’t give him any food or water. She waits for him to come around, and forces him to slave labour again. And after that, she makes him to go to all her friends’ houses and work hard there too.

I can sense the ‘human rights’ thoughts forming in people’s heads and sympathizing with the man. I too sympathize. All I intend to do is to draw a parallel with the idea of rape. It is a violation of human rights, of one’s personal freedom, one’s personal space. And our Society, instead of teaching that one shouldn’t invade someone’s personal space, teaches us that one should work hard on making one’s personal space so inconspicuous that no one notices.

This image reminded me of all the warnings I have received from various quarters at various points in life:

1. Don’t stay out after dark, it’s not safe (SO, my day SHOULD come to an end as the sun sets!). If this was so in Sweden, my “day” out would be a few hours long in winter!

Can we teach a man the other aspect of the same warning? Don’t stay out after dark, you may see an attractive girl and you may feel like eve-teasing, molesting and even raping? Me thinks not!

2. Dress appropriately, don’t attract unwanted attention (and statistics will tell you that the most women who get raped are NOT the ones who are skimpily clad!)

Can we teach a man the other side of the coin? Don’t look at a girl with bare legs, you may feel like eve-teasing, molesting and even raping her? Me thinks not!

What surprises me is the meek acceptance of the male aggression and instead of addressing it, directing the lesson towards women. The males are going to be aggressive, now YOU step back.

I honestly don’t see anything wrong with a a person approaching another person (a guy or a girl is irrelevant) and initiating a conversation, to lead to whatever in Future. There is nothing wrong with appreciating someone good-looking either but forcing oneself on anyone is not DONE! And as a Society, it’s time we taught our boys to be respectful towards girls. Time to teach, “Don’t rape” instead of “Don’t get raped”…….

From the mirror, the ‘I’ said,
Stay there and get beautiful eyes
And ‘Me’ replied, no thank you
I’d rather have eyes that can ‘see’ beauty

The ‘I’ said, your hands look bad
Want some hand cream, make them pretty
And ‘Me’ replied, no thank you
I’d rather create pretty things with these hands

Exasperated, ‘I’ said, your skin
Could do with some touch up to make you glow
And ‘Me’ replied, no thank you
I’d rather let a smile make my face glow

The ‘I’ tried yet again, take this perfume
Spray it and look like you’re fresh off the garden
And ‘Me’ replied, no thank you
I’d rather walk in the garden to smell like I’ve been there

At the edge of its patience, the ‘I’ said
Here is kohl, mascara, eye liner, define your eyes
And ‘Me’ replied, no thank you
I’ll let my naughty twinkle define my eyes

‘I’ attempted once more, look at your lips
They lack colour, here, take the lipstick
And ‘Me’ replied, no thank you
I’d rather that a genuine smile adorns my lips

A last ditch try, the ‘I’ said
If you’re pretty and lady like, he will pay you compliments
And ‘Me’ replied, no thank you
He already sees me for who I am, not how I look

And then, my eyes opened,
Clarity flooded, sunlight streaming in
What a dream, oh what a realization
Prettiness gave in to beauty, let my day begin

With valuing me, for who I am
And what I can do with what I have
Brightening my inner glow, shining
With radiance of my inner beauty…………

(Deliberately left unedited)

- Pritesh

PS: Sorry, there is no rhyme or metre…………….I was merely following my instinct as I wrote

Hopping from flower to flower,

Wrapped in a rainbow of your own,

O my dear creature of beauty,

Reveal to me your secret unkown

***

I’ve met your siblings, your babies,

Your neighbours, your better half,

Such outstanding beauty you all possess,

In your aura, I all but gaffe

***

Seating herself gracefully on a leaf,

She folded her hands gently and said,

Ever given it a conscious thought?

If not, roll it around now in your head

***

No butterfly is ever ugly, you know,

But that is what we have become,

After a long journey, not so pretty,

What you see now, is its sum

***

We were not always bright like this,

Ugly we were, all mottled and grey,

Cramped together, fighting to survive,

In one place, a group of larvae

***

Change we did, with time and toil,

Overcoming our our ugly skin,

Spring we do lovely colourful wings,

And a new life we begin

***

Butterflies are never ugly,

For they go through a tough spell,

Having fought it all and making it,

In their beauty, they now revel

***

Ten quirky things I love to do!

1. Eating a chapati in 10 pieces: I have never understood why I like to do it, but I always seem to end up doing it!

2. Stacking utensils with smallest in the front (or top) and biggest at the back (or bottom)

3. Trying to walk as if I am walking on an invisible line (I do it much lesser nowadays though)

4. Remembering the “layout” of all the shops I go to (maybe, this stems from my obsession with efficiency, go straight to the aisle you need a thing from, get the bill done and Hola!)

5. Arranging currency notes so that their ‘layout’ matches

6. Making lists! I loooove making lists, things to do, things done, things to pack, people to call, mails to write…..lists, lists, lists!

7. Gift wrapping beautifully………..I do that with such sincerity that I myself sometimes end up feeling like the gift is meant never to be opened

8. Making folder on my computer – This has got to be the craziest! In Ananth’s words – Ever heard of something called a Search function? But I make folders endlessly, nevertheless!

9. Clearing off the inbox: GMail allows so much space (and I have additional bought as well!!!!) but I loooove to see a clear inbox with no pending mails!

10. Ironing clothes – I somehow enjoy seeing the creases smoothed out! I hardly ever wear clothes that need ironing but I enjoy ironing because of that smoothing! Crazy, isn’t it?

So, what are YOUR quirks?

Every single dawn, made possible because he comes

Every single dusk, made beautiful because he goes

Every single one of us, walking because he’s there

Every single plant, every leaf, every single rose

..

His rays kiss her, every minute of the day, everyday

Never does he say to her, “You owe me all that”, oh my!

Look what a love like that does to this cosmos,

A love as selfless as that of the Sun, lights up the whole sky

..

(dedicated to THE love of my life – Ananth)

(these are my fun musings related to day-to-day observations. Take them seriously at your own risk )

1. Law of infant pooping (my most recent discovery): No matter how long you wear your nightdress for in the morning (quite literally offering it to your infant as a plausible alternative), or put him on ANY other surface, the infant shall poop once you’re dressed for work, in a way such that both the kurta and the pant get soiled (along with the sofa, the floor etc.) so as to cause maximum damage At the end of such an explosive poop (thanks to Kripa for inventing the term), the child shall give you the best smile you’ll remember to disarm you effectively

2. Law of misplaced objects: The probability of the husband finding a misplaced object diminishes as the object gets closer to where it is supposed to be. After 100 instances of this kind, you shall realize that this is so because the husband didn’t know, to begin with, where the object was to be, originally.

3. Law of generalization of child behaviour: As soon as you state that you child is a social person and mingles easily with strangers, the child shall give the visitors one look and bawl at the top of his voice. This behaviour shall remain strictly till the visitors leave. Thereafter, the child shall follow the generalization to the full stop

4. Law of organizing: As soon as you finish erasing the chaos from the dressing table/kitchen/bedroom, the husband shall walk in and tell you that there WAS order in that chaos and that the new ‘chaos’ is too unfamiliar. Law 2 shall come into force then and shall remain till he has restored ‘his’ version of chaos.

5. Law of lost clothing: The socks/gloves/scarves getting misplaced during the laundry (done by the husband, of course) will invariably be yours and, of course, the probability of them getting lost will increase with how much you like that piece of clothing.

6. Law of relevant expenses: When you make a careful list of groceries to buy (and secretly eyeing a saving so that you can buy that silver+amber pendant), husband shall offer ‘help’ (under the guise of offering to carry the groceries AFTER the shopping) and the estimated bill for groceries will be multiplied by a large integral number. You shall, henceforth, only eye that amber pendant If you as much as mention liking it and wishing to buy it, husband shall promptly point out how expensive it is (never mind all that extra grocery he buys every single time he shops).

7. Law of Internet Payments: The amount of data you need to fill in is inversely proportional to the amount to be paid. An add on is a request to refill the data because you didn’t type in the security code properly, at the END of all the tedious form-filling.

8. Law of Shopping Online: The thing you need to buy most urgently will usually be out of stock in your country and available in some far far off land. The shipping charge will invariably be directly proportional to how urgently you need it, the time needed for shipping will also be directly proportional to how fast you want it to come and the cost of the thing will be inversely proportional to the shipping charge.

9. Law of Airlines Booking: Whenever you find a cheap airfare deal online, you will want to grab it and the airlines website will show an error on the LAST page. By the time you refresh and fill all the forms AGAIN, the offer would’ve run out. In the time you spent filling the forms, the coffee you made for yourself would’ve gotten cold too.

10. Law of Cricket Mania: When you plan a weekend of intensive house cleaning, the husband shall remain glued to the computer, watching a cricket match. All the help offered with the cleaning will restrict itself to the corner he’ll be holed in.

11. Law of Husband’s Loyals: Whenever you prepare a dish with utmost concentration (after reading recipes and making it as carefully as you can), the husband will come up with some make-shift dish and all his friends shall show loyalty by lapping up the instant dish faster than what you made.

12. Law of Infant Grip: The only times an infant will feel like taking hold of something and pulling it with all his might is when either your hair is loose or you’ve worn the earrings you love to wear. How energetic he feels about pulling them depends on how difficult it is to remove the earrings or how much you scream at your hair being pulled

This shall be an ongoing post……..;-) I keep observing things

There’s no ‘lovely’ without any ‘love’

No ‘yours’ either without ‘you’ in it

No ‘noteworthy’ till there is ‘worth’

‘Superior’ lost without ‘super’ in it

..

‘Joyous’ is incomplete without ‘us’

‘Miserable’ comes with ‘miser’ too

‘Liveliness’ is nothing till you ‘live’ it

‘Health’ is where you ‘heals’ you

..

No matter where life takes you,

There shall always be

A string in your hand

‘Awesome’ is nothing without ‘me’……

- Pritesh (my contribution to Dhonuk’s magazine)

Sometimes, one gets this one hour when a machine is busy measuring some data. You can’t go anywhere for the fear that the machine responsible will report this to your boss (and the machine probably doesn’t even notice you’re there) and you can’t do much sitting in front of a screen that shows a graph being plotted at snail’s pace. So, you “switch off” from the machine screen and reminisce……….memories that bring a smile on your face, in spite of the fact that you were too small or too dazed or too tutored to make much of those events when they happened. I have some fond ones……..

……one of my favourite ones is of all the frocks my mother stitched for me (and my sisters). A silk cloth (mostly gifted by some relative or the other) was a prized possession. We pestered our mother for stitching frocks out of that for us. Relatives, being as thoughtful as they were, gifted a big roll and as luck would have it, we sported frocks made out of the same length of material. All three of us dressed: Same to same! I wish I had photos of those times, which brings me to my next memory.

…….family photo!!!!!!!! The once in a year affair I dreaded! And laugh at now! The family photo used to (invariably!) happen towards the end of the Summer vacation. We were dressed in our best dresses and taken to a studio. There used to be a (usually VERY tacky) background picture, of places we either would never see in our life (okay, I did get to see some like that in life eventually!) or care to see. It would usually be a Bungalow with a brook flowing in front of it, a wooden bridge on the brook and a very picturesque Fall setting! Never mind that India doesn’t have Fall colours! The part I dreaded the most during this photo-shoot was the stiffness with which we were expected to stand and not make ANY noise (like the noise would spoil the photo, DUH!). All our photos have us in different stages of moroseness. And the moroseness gradually transformed to rebelliousness and FINALLY, we got our own camera! So this annual photoshoot affair stopped!

……the Yashica camera we possessed! This HAS TO BE one of my fondest memories! We took a calculated number of photos on Birthdays or outings to parks. We finally had REAL settings behind us! We were (obviously!) not allowed to touch the camera and the 36 photos in one roll were precious (unlike the Digital age of today when you can click away to glory!!!). It would greatly upset my father if we ‘spoiled’ any of the photos by laughing, or looking here or there.

……our first refrigerator. I can swear that I polished the ‘Kelvinator’ written on it at least once a day to keep it shining! A fridge of our own was a matter of great pride and I remember boasting about all the “frost” gathering in the freezer to whoever would listen! I missed no opportunities to come up to the fridge and eat some of the frost! More importantly, I felt great at lending a hand to my mother for the ‘weekly’ cleaning of the fridge. The cold water in summers was a blessing and we never bought another fridge! The old green thing with it chipped paint and meshed rear side still is in our house

……picking ber and imli with my brother. I have such vivid memories of being on the lookout for the keeper of the gardens next to our school while my brother picked bers and imlis. As soon as I saw the keeper, I was to indicate it to my brother, who had to then climb down as fast as possible and escape with me. I never saw even as much as a sign of the keeper but we were perennially ready to bolt. I can swear to God that bers and imlis bought from the market never taste the same and, of course, cost money!

……our first TV!!! This was an event I will never forget. The TV came to our house on a Wednesday evening at 7:00 and Dad was determined to watch the 8:00 pm chitrahaar on it. Many a scoldings later, it was plugged and switched on. I remember watching grey and black strips moving up the screen for solid one hour and we got to see the end of Chitrahaar finally.

……Ramayan and Mahabharat on Sunday morning!!!!!!! This surely has to be one of the clearest memories I have. We used to get strict instructions for finishing breakfast before 9:00 am (which used to be idli and dosa, a delicacy for us, a weekly affair). Mom didn’t want any ‘disturbances’ when Ramayan and Mahabharat were on TV. She was very particular about taking a bath before watching these serials (like anyone in TV noticed or cared! ). I know of some families (in our neighbourhood) lighting agarbatti  in front of the TV when Ramayan was aired! I also remember the “war” where the ‘funnily shaped’ arrows “met” mid-air with flares of all sorts (thanks to B. R. Chopra and Ramanand Sagar!). The serials were so effective that Arun Govil is still “Ram” for my mother and Deepika Chikhalia “Seeta” I’m sure Goga Kapoor was the most hated man in the country back then!

……Birthday cakes! I can never ever forget those hold-you-breath moments when the cake came out of pressure cooker (these are pre-oven days, people!). Sometimes, we used to get a rock solid cake which would kill anyone if thrown at them! Most times, we were lucky. As the birthdays neared, we used to wait for Mummy to go shopping for eggs and maida. And needless to say, we were all too willing to ‘help’ her with beating the eggs (a job we’d normally hate ).

……the handful of toys. I remember having been given only one doll. It closed its eyes when put flat and her hair was blonde (I didn’t know back then, of course, that I’d one day live in the land of blondes!). I used to love to comb her hair and Mom would stitch clothes for her (on our vehement insistence, of course)! I can’t even begin to describe my anger when I realized that my sister had cut off the beautiful blonde hair of my only doll!

……Campa, Limca, Gold Spot and Thums-Up. Getting a full bottle for yourself was a BIG treat that was to be graphically explained to every single friend in school the next day! We usually used to get 1/3rd of the bottle, in a steel glass, something that we’d sip on for 2 hours!

……imli chooran sold in front of the school. This has got to be the most coveted thing during my 8th to 10th year of life! The chooran seller would put a spoon-full in a newspaper and hand it to us. To enjoy it thoroughly, the chooran had to be licked. One needed to wet one’s finger with saliva, stick it in the chooran and eat the chooran that stuck to the finger! For 25 paise, the guy would give about 50 g of chooran and that was a thing to be shared with all the friends! How I loved the kaala chooran and mixed chooran!

……circus! Going to a circus needed a taxi-ride in Mumbai, something I so loved back then! We had a CAR to ourselves and the driver took us where we wanted to go! This was a BIG thing and gave me such immeasurable joy! Circus also meant getting an ice-cream (usually an orange or coconut lolly!) to myself. The elephant, the lion, the trapeze artists…….it was the height of ecstasy for all of us!

……the Annual Day Celebration! The auditions for the dance in Annual Day was a nerve-wrecking experience and I remember how I pestered my mother into stitching a frock for my ‘two-line’ part in a play. I just had to come out of the ‘bheed’ and say “Shame shame, the emperor has nothing on his body. Shame shame”. I have not the faintest idea what transpired in the rest of the play! All that I cared for was that I had a blue and red silk frock with golden buttons! Such simple things gave us joy back then!

So, what is your most precious memory?

Morning coffee incomplete without news on the web

One headline to another, interests very soon ebb

..

The lunch is incomplete without a SMS from the cell

No attention whatsoever to food’s taste or smell

..

Afternoon coffee incomplete without a status update

Within minutes replies to it is what we await

..

Dinner remains incomplete without a chat on GTalk

No catching up on the day, no post-dinner walk

..

No time to sit and just ponder, gazing at the sky

We’re busy Alt-Tabbing through life, not living it, just letting it go by……….

……………………………..

We always hurt the one we love the most,

………………………………………..

The sky, with its endless expanse,

Stretched out before her eyes,

Undaunted, she stared at it,

Passionate, determined and wise

.

A dream she nurtured, all these years

Rising high, conquering the sky

Wings attached to her dainty self

She could fly, fly and fly……..

.

It wasn’t an easy dream to have

There came hurdles, big and small

She faced, fought and won them over

Emerging a winner, standing tall

.

The wagging tongues, pointing fingers

She silenced them with her power

There she goes, blazing a trail

All around her, hurdles cower

.

Whoever told her, she couldn’t

Has been proven so very wrong

Amid disapprovers, she shines bright

Forever determined, forever strong……..

……

Dedicated to Kavita………:-)

“Children, take these sheets”,

“Take out your paints, quick”,

“Draw a scene from a day”

“The best one, I shall pick”

.

Paints appeared, so did brushes

Papers smeared, chatter abound

Cars, carts, hills and slopes

Ideas of ‘a day’ went around

.

He sat quiet, drawing slowly

Yellows and oranges and reds

Magic emerged on paper

As he weaved golden threads

.

Bell rang and the teacher came

Gathering sheets from all

She looked at him, and frowned

Uttered a sharp, “Is that all?”

.

“Just a setting sun and a bird?”

“What happened to ‘the day’?”

“But this IS a day”, he said

But soon, in his hands his sheet lay

.

He called after her, “Ma’am, please”

“This bird is a part of things”

“There is STILL sun out there”

“Days can run into evenings”

.

“Look child”, she said, irritated

“A day meant, a ‘normal’ day”

“With cars and phones and offices”

“Kids and parks in which they play”

.

He opened his mouth, but too late

She was gone by then

His painting lay on the table

His mind in a tumble again

.

He made a note in his mind

To remember what a day is

A day is full of routine things

Overwriting the idea of his

.

An evening is an evening

No matter there’s still sun

When the sun sets, it’s night

When it rises, a day’s begun

………

This post arises from a discussion started by Ananth and so ably argued with by Sujit, about mass-producing education. We often see that anything that doesn’t “conform” about a student in this system, gets labeled abnormal and the child’s creativity is hardly ever given room to develop. I hope this changes soon and the teachers become open enough to understand and accept that birds (and not only offices, phones and cars) are a part of things and “Evening is STILL in a day”……….

It has happened so many times in the past few years that I have come across this or some variant of this (essence remaining the same): “I would really like to do ………… (fill in the blank with a host of things) but I don’t have time”.  The blank varied from pursuing hobbies, reading books, spending time to oneself, exercising, socializing……..a whole range of it but the reason for not doing so remained pretty much the same, not enough time. In the allotted 24 hours to us by time, are we doing “so much” that we have no more time left to do all that we “want” to do and not “need” to do?

In my opinion, no, it’s not so. Someone has very rightly said: Your time expands to accommodate all that you really want to do.  So, this “I don’t have enough time” is nothing but probably an excuse to hide some inefficiency of our own, over-committing,  lack of motivation to do something, laziness etc. The sense of ‘investment’ of time in things that matter (to that individual) is slowly diminishing. We are spending more and more of our time in things that don’t give us fulfillment and contentment. As a result, the end of the day brings a sense of achievement without satisfaction. We have ‘done’ a lot of things but we end up feeling empty…….like something important’s missing.

Over the years, I have realized that getting rid of these excuses and using our time well is largely made up of some very small things we need to change. Taking small steps like identifying our time wasters, reprioritizing our commitments in the order of actual need, allotting some “open time” to ourselves to indulge in doing something completely for our own pleasure are some of the things that really help in making our seconds, minutes, days and years more fulfilling. By no means do I recommend living tied to the hands of the clock, but with this day and ago of so many time management tools, I find it sinful to say I don’t have time!!

And I end with a lovely quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson: This time, like any other time, is a good one, if we but know what to do with it

Every day at 20:30 sharp

I battled with husband glued to sofa

And 22 players on the TV

Vuvuzelas screaming full flow

Like thousands of bees humming

Waging a losing battle daily

Finally, had to get to me

I succumbed, eating in front of TV

And watched Brazil vs. Ivory Coast

Then started my ‘education’

My head buzzed with off-sides

Fouls and faking injury, goals

And goal-keepers, wins and losses

Ah! Marriage, thou have given me

A husband and football lessons too

But most important lesson I learnt is:

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em

- Pritesh

Scenario 1: Yours truly reading an article on CNN about a new species of fish probably going extinct because of the BP oil spill in the Gulf. Fortunately, most news websites allow commenting (often not moderated) by the website. By the time I was through with the article, I felt so bad for what the spill is doing to the environment, not just to the pancake batfish, but also to other organisms in the ocean. By the time I was through with reading first 25 comments, I didn’t know whose hair to pull. Comments like: This thing is so ugly, let it go extinct. Illiterates using Internet, looks like! Aarrrgh…….

Scenario 2: Yours truly reading an article on Rediff about music review of upcoming movie, Raavan. I had heard 3 songs already and liked one of them. Agreed, not Rehman’s best but catchy nevertheless. I finished reading the article that nearly agreed with my opinion of the Music and well, there were the comments. One guy had totally rejected the Music and argued that Rehman is not in form anymore (he quoted Dil Se and Lagaan, which are definitely some of the Rehman’s best creations). Fair enough! The replies took me by surprise. It was the reply that make me realize that the guy who rejected Raavan as a credible effort was a Hindu because the second comment trashed his opinion, not on Musical grounds, but religious!!! RELIGIOUS? I had to rub my eyes to believe! The argument being: You Hindus won’t understand a Muslim’s efforts at creating music in a film based on a Hindu epic character. Hellllllloooooooooo? Someone actually had the patience to dig out the history of Rehman’s conversion to Islam because Hinduism is not meant for anything great! Helllllllooooooo????????? And well……….there was a string of replies to this! The people commenting lost me after the second reply itself! The dip in IQ (if it can still be called that) from comment to comment appalled me so much that I’m still recovering!

Scenario 3: Yours truly reading an article on Times of India meant to advise women (Indian women, to be specific) about how to keep their husbands hooked to them. Ahem well! The article was stupid enough…..which most TOI articles are nowadays, anyway. But the comments? Masha Allah! One guy comments: You’re trying to spread immorality in Indian marriages by inciting Indian women into demanding things from their husbands. Indian women are to do their husband’s bidding, don’t publish articles like this. Uhm well………..illiterates using computers again?

Guess I’ll stop reading news altogether after some time!

“Log kya kahenge?” or “What will people say?”………it’s not very infrequently that we come across this phrase in India. Much of what we do, how we dress, what we project ourselves as is dictated by ‘log’ or ‘people’. Now, I must confess that most of the ideas of this post aren’t my own, I’m more like a reporter of an exchange (an absorbing one) between my husband and father-in-law.

Human-beings are an interesting species, they have built around themselves this interesting idea called a Society. Though there are usually no written rules of how a society does or should work, there are unsaid norms which are followed by the population in general. There are, of course, “aberrations” who disregard these unwritten rules (after all, there is no ‘place’ where these rules are written down to be read and followed!!!) and earn themselves the tag of “rebels”. But, by and large, people build a Society around them and stick to the ‘accepted’ norms.

As the human establishments become more and more complex, there emerges a concept of law and order. Humans are a race that comes with an inherent variance in behaviour, some harmless and some, destructive. In order to bring a general harmony in a gathering of humans, laws are laid down and hence forms a new set of rules, LEGAL rules.

As a society, we continuously deal with these two sets of rules, legal and societal. While legally bound, we refrain from activities that are forbidden by legal authorities, i.e. driving without license, tax evasion, electricity theft, jumping red lights etc. While socially bound, we avoid indulging things that are likely to be looked down upon by people around us, e.g. our family, relatives, friends, neighbours etc.

As the discussion continued, there came an interesting point of where do Indians stand in this? Ah, a broad question with an even fuzzier answer. Where do we stand as a society and a law-and-order follower? A very apt example cited is the law against dowry. Demanding dowry from bride’s parents has been legally forbidden under IPC 304B and 498A since 1961. We’re 50 years into this law’s existence but just take a look around yourself. How many parents have you come across who don’t ‘save up’ for their daughter’s wedding, fearing how much they will have to ‘cough up’ when the marriage does arrive? How many parents put their foot down and refuse to pay a penny? And worse, how many girls remain unmarried or are married off to less suitable boys because her family is unable to give the demanded amount? How far are we in ‘following the legality of anti-dowry law’ and ‘breaking the societal clutch of dowry system’?

The utter disregard for the legal system and a stronghold of societal system on Indian mentality makes me wonder sometimes. Though both sets of rules are man-made, why is it that legal is followed so doggedly by some societies whereas societal by some others? India seems to be in a transition phase where (hopefully) the respect for legal framework is increasing and that for societal is decreasing. Where does this exactly take us from here is anyone’s guess……

Pritesh

PS: The post may seem utterly incomplete but then, there is lots that can be said about this

As Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, filed for divorce after 40 years of being married, there was a buzz. A seemingly content marriage (so widely seen throughout Gore’s presidential campaign) which was all goody-goody for the onlookers disintegrated right under their noses and something tipped the scales. Newspapers filled columns, experts gave opinions and psychologists went berserk writing analyses of the phenomenon. Many argued in the favour of marriage and many, against it. Some advocated that marriage is a happy thing and some shot it down as stressful. There was a frenzy in written media and many pertinent questions were raised, one of which caught my attention: “If marriage is so good, why are so many people getting divorced?”.

There have been zillions of articles counting virtues of being married – emotional security, stability, satisfaction, content sex, happier children, less stressful lives etc etc etc. After counting these benefits, it would seem natural that people ought to get married and lead happier and secure lives. The ground reality seems opposite! More and more people are opting for cohabiting or remaining single. More of the married ones are calling it quits (in India itself, the divorce rate has gone up 50% in last 20 years) too…..so what is happening?

In a traditional context, marriage gave us sex, children, financial security and emotional satisfaction. With time, most of these have been made available outside the institution of marriage. Getting sex outside of the marriage is not something one needs to think too much about. There are plenty of avenues available, paid or unpaid, real or virtual. Children are no longer a benefit either. Lesser number of people want children and it is possible to have them raised with hired help in various forms. Two down for marriage benefits! These days, people are financially secure long before they decide to take the plunge, so lo! Finances are taken care of too. That leaves us with this one last thing: Emotional satisfaction.  Ummm……..tricky one…….

For all practical purposes, it is this pillar that’s sort of holding the institution of marriage now. Married people are happier…….or so say most of the ‘surveys’ and ‘analyses’. But, I came across another ‘survey’ that claims that happy people remain happy after marriage and sad people, sad. Marriage really doesn’t add or take away much from people’s basic nature. Uhm……interesting. The survey goes on to add that people who are happy in their marriage are equally (or nearly equally) likely to be happy being single as well. I am not so sure I agree but I don’t disagree out and out either. Maybe, there is truth to it! Attitude, after all, is a very important aspect to how one treats any event in life.

But where does this put marriage now? Sex, finances and children are more or less taken care of and looks like emotional satisfaction isn’t being altered seriously by marriage either.

So, I throw the discussion open…….what’s your take?

- Pritesh (with the help of Sujit)

This poem is inspired by Sujit’s post (http://sujitkc.blogspot.com/2010/05/dark-night.html), particularly the last part:

“A long dark night awaits. A very long, a very dark night. Then, we’ll most probably not have the luxury to exchange pleasantries at cafe. There will no lunch and snacks to go together to, because there will be only so much as only either of us will be able to eat. Not you and me. It’ll be you or me! In those dark times, we may have to avoid each other’s eyes. For it’s hard to look into the eyes of a person you are killing. We will soon be fighting each other. Killing each other. Just like beasts! Because there will soon be so little left to survive on, that we have to reduce ourselves to savage ways even to exist.

Meet you in the battleground. Meet you in the jungle. Meet you in the dark night.”

Green fields stretched, to the horizon and maybe, further too

Such was the tract, grass under the feet, over the head, sky blue

.

A bridge unfinished, a road undone, a little village beyond it all

Detours in rains, long walks for water, how vividly I still recall

.

Bare foot children, water from the well, games invented, hurt endured

Swings on branches, rag dolls betrothed, playing doctor, fake ills cured

.

Milk from the pot, country fairs, eating corn, herding buffaloes

Evening bells, melons from the field, picking cotton, stealing mangoes

.

My little village beyond, seems like a dream, as if from another age

A memory so alive, a reminiscence,  a little piece of time, caught in a cage

.

My bird’s flown, wings spread wide, the cage’s broken, once and for all

How lovely it was, its sweet chirps, oh how vividly I still recall…………

Sometimes, a news article, a small discussion is all it takes to bring out a thought you’d been pondering for a long time. So, when I got a link in my e-mail about women not entitled to/asking for basic hygiene facilities, it just brought to fore my thoughts on the “Pehle Aap” phenomenon I so regularly observe. For instance, here is a conversation that has taken place many a time, my elderly relatives (mostly women) vary but the gist remains the same:

Me: Hi! How are you?

Rel: I’m good. How’re you and your husband?

Me: Ananth’s doing good. Naughty, as always.

Rel: Don’t say that. He is a very good boy.

Me: Naughty doesn’t mean bad.

Rel: It does, treat him with respect, he is your husband. Where is he?

Me: (confused, because I didn’t think naughty = disrespect) He is doing the dishes/gone for laundry/vacuuming.

Rel: What? You make him do the house-work? What are you doing?

Me: I did the cooking, kitchen cleaning, organizing things and besides, it’s not like I’m not helping him at all. We share the house-work.

Rel: That is not a good thing. He’s the man, he ought not to do house-work. ‘Seva’ is your work.

Me: Ummm………….umm…………

Never mind that my husband doesn’t mind it a bit to help me with the work. Never mind that the system for work-distribution we have in place works very well for us and we fill in for each other, whenever necessary. I just got told off for ‘making the man do the house-work’.

If the situation is like this for someone who is in the highest stratum of women’s education, I find it difficult to imagine what it must be like for women who are completely uneducated. In rural India, it is unheard of to see a woman ‘asking’ for her basic rights to anything at all. Even in the richer families in rural India, the women (often weighed down by gold chains around their necks) neither ask for nor are provided the basics of needs. Their ‘quarters’ (believe it or not, most rural parts of India still have a women’s “part of the house”) are often shared by the cattle (as women take care of them), poorly lit and ill-maintained. The better facilities are always saved for “men’s part of the house”. When there comes an educated one (in the villagers’ vocabulary, the ‘rebellious’ one) and asks men the reasons for treating their women so shoddily, the replies often amount to “What do these women need facilities for?”. To say the least, I feel aghast. The horror of it all is often laced with sadness and sympathy for the women. The true horror of it all, however, dawns upon me when I talk to the women though. Their reply is, “This is our life, what can we do?”. The sheer helplessness and fatalistic attitude towards their own conditions of living makes me wonder. When, if at all, will this situation improve so that women can stop saying “Pehle aap” to men and seek at least their basic rights? Do I see a light at the end of the tunnel for these women yet?