Stop trying to educate Sex!

Image courtesy -iTricks.com

Our esteemed Health Minister, Dr Harsh Vardhan is of the opinion that sex education needs to be banned in schools. It may be his personal belief but I publicly agree with him.

Not even in his wildest dreams had Dr Vardhan imagined that someone would actually want to read his clean musings on dirty sex on his personal website. But that’s what people do when you are in the limelight. They start digging out old dirt in search of juicy nuggets from the past. And now his closed mind is out in the open.

As an adarsh nari who fakes headaches because she thinks sex is so chhee chhee, I completely get our newly appointed Health Minister’s sentiments. Sex has no business getting educated. It’s best left as it is – in the dark, behind closed doors, misunderstood, misused and manipulated for personal gains. In fact, sex should be treated the way women should have been in the first place – kept in the dark, and preferably in bondage. Look what education turned them into – out of control banshees, refusing to be oppressed and demanding respect - in other words, a feminist! Tell me, do we need another Frankenstein of our own making rearing its educated head?

Same goes for our children. It is unacceptable that they be burdened with knowledge that doesn’t help them pursue their parents’ dream of becoming a Nobel Laureate. It’s better for their well-being that they continue to believe that their parents had nothing to do with their conception and they were born through cross-pollination.

If our young are being troubled by hormones that make them get unholy feelings and do hanky-panky with the opposite sex, they should simply lie on their back and point their toes towards the ceiling.

That’s why one can’t help but admire the genius of Dr Harsh Vardhan for recommending that Yoga be made compulsory in schools. Look how well it has worked for Baba Ramdev! All he had to do was sit still and twitch his stomach muscles violently to repel Rakhi Sawant’s amorous designs on him.

Since Dr Vardhan’s new found modern views are meant only for public consumption to give their wagging tongues a rest, he has clarified that sex can be educated but not with crudity and graphic representation of culturally objectionable symbols . It goes against the very ethos of Indian culture that believes in keeping mum about sex because we are all so busy doing it. How else can you explain our population that continues to grow by leaps and bounds every day!

The case of the missing Humshakals

This is a case that has robbed Delhi Police of its sleep. It all started with a phone call from Rajya Sabha MP Mahendra Prasad’s Number 4, Tughlaq Road bungalow to report the missing twins. They had been last spotted in his garden, nestled comfortably next to each other. But the next morning they were nowhere to be seen. It was as if they had disappeared into thin air.
 
They were a family of nine and now there were seven. Their happiness now in past tense. “It now raises serious questions about the security of the remaining seven,” said one of the officers on duty. “But we are Delhi Police, we will always be with you, for you, after our tea break.”

The Police has deployed its sharpest investigators to scour the crime scene. Fingerprints were lifted from the garden and the backyard to establish the path that kidnappers might have taken. The footprints, leading up the scene of crime were approximately six inches and seem to be of a person with childlike feet.

The fingerprints and footprints that were lifted from the spot have been sent to the forensics department for examination. CCTV footage from outside the MP’s bungalow and his backyard will also be examined, police said.

The investigating officers have been asked to be on their toes till the forensic report comes out. They have approached Baba Ramdev to achieve this ‘impossible feet’. An officer on condition of anonymity has confessed that they have reached a dead-end since the remaining family members who also happen to be eyewitnesses to the crime are refusing to talk with the investigating team. We now have reasons to suspect their involvement and might subject them to a polygraph test.

It has been learnt from credible sources that the Police conducted a midnight raid in the nearby sabzi mandi based on an anonymous tip-off only to return empty handed. MP Mahendra Prasad is in mourning and was last seen resting under the tree, wiping his tears.

Is it time to RIP blogs?

I’m what they call a veteran blogger. It’s a kinder term for Aunty. I was sacrificed at the altar of Auntydom barely a few months after I’d swirled my toes before jumping headlong into the pool called blogosphere. Four years into blogging and I now realize why the sobriquet of a veteran was thrust on me. Most blogs do not survive beyond a year or two. They flap around, create a lot of splash before they sink to the bottom with exhaustion.

It’s not easy to maintain a blog. Besides having the ability to articulate your thoughts with tolerable vocabulary combined with net savviness, you have to be your own editor, PR and publicity manager. You cannot sit on your high throne and expect readers to land at your doorstep, drawn to your “brilliance”. You have to venture out and seduce them and continue to tantalize them with quality stuff to make sure they do not leave in search for meaner and greener pastures. It’s not like a marriage where once you’ve said I do, you live happily ever after with your can of beer, iPhone and cricket. You have to constantly work out those grey cells, continue reinventing yourself, occasionally shock and challenge the living daylights out of your readers with your unorthodox views and lull them into believing you’re the best thing that ever happened to them.

To cut it short, blogging is a lot of hard work. Add to that the allure of sexy young nymphets like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Pinterest, Tumblr and their sundry cousins that promise you instant orgasmic fame without demanding too much of your time, commitment and grammar, it gets even tougher to stay faithful to Srimati Blogeshwari. Little wonder the restless and the impatient are happy to file for divorce, preferring the comfort of friends with benefits.

Like any other medium, blogosphere’s natural selection ensures that only the fittest survive. Like any other relationship, your blog demands your attention and love. You either chicken out or give it your all. It takes a talented, motivated individual to maintain a successful blog.

For most of us, blogging is not just our personal space where we share our thoughts with like-minded people, rant about issues that bother us, or make others laugh with anecdotes from our life. It’s our passion, something that gives meaning to our lives and makes us believe that, in some insignificant way, we are making a difference is someone else’s life. You start from scratch, with no ‘useful’ contacts, relying solely on your talent and dedication, reach out to thousands and hope what you have to say resonates for a while.

Roaring Tiger, Crouching wife.

Love not only comes with terms and conditions, it also has this annoying habit of subjecting us to surprise tests from time to time to check the sincerity of our emotions. Like the time when your man gets to see you the morning after a night of revelry and doesn't flinch when he discovers the woman of his dreams looking like a nightmare and demanding coffee hoarsely for her splitting headache. He convinces himself beauty is skin-deep as she bloats, shrinks, bloats again and creates a stink when she can't fit in her old pair of jeans anymore. On the contrary, to give her company, he sportingly grows a beer belly and insists on wearing his pants low and his belt lower.

Time is a revelation and so is she. Her mood swings make him quake with terror, decoding her brooding silences becomes his life’s biggest challenge. As they unravel each other layer by layer, they experience a myriad of emotions. She remembers everything that he prefers to forget. What's important to him is unimportant to her. Together they learn words like adjustment, compromise and giving each other space.

But that’s what love is all about, isn’t it? Embracing each other’s best and tolerating the rest!

She nags because his tomorrow never comes. Like the time he'd promised to fix the airy gaps in the bathroom windows and took six months to get into a mood that felt right. Her right mood is always complaining of a headache and he complains that everything but him is her priority.

Little wonder, marriage is not meant for the faint-hearted.

It starts off as a gentle purr and before she can adjust the volume levels, he begins to roar. It takes her by surprise. As she tosses on the bed, she tries to decode its hidden subtexts. Is it me or is it him? At first, she tries to dismiss it as a phase that too shall pass. It does but comes back louder and so strong that she crouches in a corner with her pillow for comfort.

Oh my god, my husband is a tiger in bed!

The Vigil- Stories of love, prejudice, greed and life

This review by Trisha Ray is a part of Readers Cosmos Book Review Programme. You can follow them on Twitter for interesting book updates and free books.

A book of short stories is often a difficult feat to pull off. The reader usually comes away with lasting impressions (if any) of only a few of the numerous tales in a compilation. However, Gita V Reddy has written some really brilliant and memorable stories. We get glimpses into the lives of vibrant, fleshed-out characters, animated by desires and motives that we all can understand.

The author explores the many facets of life- choices and consequences, heartbreak, longing, chaos, doubt, friendships and family. Some stories will leave you smiling; others may even elicit an “Amen”.

Many of her stories have a strong feminist theme, but for the most part each one is distinct.

Four friends from Art school - Amit, Smriti, Yashwant and Shree, having achieved varying levels of success, meet one weekend to determine whose skill is the most “superior”. They all come away from the experience, irreversibly changed. The story unexpectedly turns into a philosophical musing on the purpose of life and what drives creative endeavours. The premise is brilliant, but fails to leave a lasting impression, being limited by the format of a short story.

The wife of a famous actor finds herself in a precarious position as she struggles with her husband’s deteriorating mental state. Devika dives into an intricate game of chess with her husband, as she tries desperately to keep his sanity intact. The twist ending is a slightly clichéd but still heart-warming testament to selfless love.

Sita calls out desperately to her mother, as she loses her children to the man she had once loved. We get a new perspective on the epic Ramayana, detailing the series of events that took place after the triumphant return from Lanka that culminated in Sita’s death. Sita bemoans the loss of her Ram, a man capable of great love and generosity to Rama Chandra, the dutiful king, who prioritises his subjects over all else. She finds that nothing can ever be the same as it was in the happy early days of the exile. This theme is without doubt very fashionable now, but discussions of strong female characters destroyed by “honour” and bigotry are needed in modern discourse.