Hey Ram! Leave Sita alone

Courtesy - Google

I wonder why people refuse to let go of Sita? The lady renounced public life 7000 years back and went underground. Hopefully after years of wilderness, she found salvation there. Sita was a case of bad karma. Despite having everything – good looks, royal lineage, moolah and a prince charming, she led a life far worse than a beleaguered tele bahu.

If you can’t stop outraging about how much your life sucks and what a wimp your boss is, it’s time you knew what the lady had to go through. The loyal one, who willingly followed her banished husband, wasted her youth in the jungles. Sita has many firsts to her credit - the first recorded case of a woman who dared to cross the line.

Unfortunately she got abducted by a Sri Lankan ten headed monster with a major dandruff problem. She was also the first Indian woman to fly in a private jet and travel abroad, inspiring a New York based travel agency to name itself after her – Sita Travels.

Even though she does get reunited with Ram after a daring rescue mission that looked straight out of a James Bond novel – Sita doesn’t get to live a happily after. Constantly doubted and made to sit for various exams, a pregnant Sita finally gets thrown out by her self-righteous husband. A husband who should have stood by his loyal wife, chose to pay heed to a Dhobi trying to act like the social media. When he should have said - Shutup! My wife is my personal matter, he ended up saying Get lost wifey, my Dhobi hates your face!

Imagine Abhishekh Bachhan abandoning Aishwarya just because the media can’t stop passing mean comments about her weight gain and her colourful sartorial choice!

Ironically people are still quoting from epics without probably having read or understood the underlying message. A Congress of fools, in a rare show of camaraderie, implored PJB to commit the same mistake as Ram and dump their bearded soul mate Modi.

Now that PJB is Ram, it’s only fair to compare the Congress of fools to Ravana. Come to think of it, the party does have too many heads and not one of them sees eye to eye.


Will the Bhartiya Party of the Public now wait for the C-party scion to do a Sita haran with NaMo and keep him imprisoned in a Dalit hut? If the self-righteous PJB does dump the Gujarat CM, will Modi jump in the nearest manhole to seek salvation? And most importantly, is the C party suggesting that it’s perfectly normal to torch cities with the mere swish of your tail?

Will all these secrets be revealed break ke baad? Unlikely. We all know politics is no Ramayana but a Mahabharata.

If PJB is expected to do a Ram, then Mumbai HC judge PB Majumdar expects womankind to do a Sita. While hearing an appeal by a husband seeking divorce from his wife on the ground that she was not willing to shift with him to Port Blair where he was transferred, Judge Majumdar counselled - "A wife should be like goddess Sita who left everything and followed her husband Lord Ram to a forest and stayed there for 14 years."

Yeah, right! Try spending a night in Maoist infested jungles before dispensing such sagely advice.

When Sita heard this bullshit, she had no choice but to break her vow of silence. She sighed – Ahh, the joys of being a single mother with not a single paisa for child support! And the burn marks from the Agni Pariksha still hurt.

Port Blair residents are fuming because the Judge dared compare this idyllic town to a forest!

The modern Nari chortled – Somebody please tell the Judge, a wife is not a Hutch Puppy! The only forest we’ve heard of is, Forest Essentials. And doesn’t he know that it’s distance that makes the heart grow fonder? It’s only when our husbands leave for office, do we start missing them!

And just because your memory is shorter than Poonam Pandey’s skirt, doesn’t mean we’ll let history repeat itself.

Bye Bai Patil Taai

Patil Taai was sunbathing on the beaches of Seychelles, nodding her head to Anup Jalota’s bhajans, her pallu firmly tucked under the sun hat, when she heard the first murmurs. They sounded human. Her head turned a 360° to investigate. All she could see was her grandkids kicking up a sandstorm in the horizon. She gave them a toothy smile and was waving at them Ms Universe style, when she heard a loud crick. Damn spondilytis! Why me? I hardly do any work!

She was gingerly petting a petrified cheetah in South Africa, when she sniffed a strong odour coming all the way from India. Is it the dal I forgot to put in the fridge, before hopping on to Air India One for my last Duniya Dekho trip?

It was stinking. It smelt like criticism. Concerned citizens were outraging about her 205 cr travel bills and her post retirement home in Pune. Pooh! Just because you travel cattle class and squeeze yourself in a 1245 sq ft flat, doesn’t mean I’ll deprive myself. What a bunch of losers!
 
She quickly went into a flashback mode, going back to the momentous day when Her Highness Sonia Jee had appointed her to fill long haired Kalam’s shoes. Of all the smart, dynamic, deserving candidates, it was she, the most obedient and loyal, who had been handpicked. Of course she knew she was a misfit – he wore a size 10 while she wore a size 6 ballerina, yet for the sake of her party she agreed to step in. Tai had never said No in her life, unlike her counterpart in East who has never said yes.

Being a yes-woman has it perks - Tai was appointed the Nation’s Head while Didi has appointed herself as the National headache.

Secretly, PP couldn’t stop admiring Sonia Madam’s act of bravado. Imagine replacing Kalam, one of the best Presidents the country’s ever had, with a lady whose dubious credentials make her the laughing stock of the country? But Pratibha was relieved that she had a worthy predecessor in once upon a time President, Giani Zail Singh. If Giani was willing to become a sweeper for Indira Gandhi then Tai was more than willing to clean her utensils.

Even as she was scouring dirty utensils, PP Tai had always known that she was destined for greatness. Her pet, dead Baba of Mt Babu had sent a direct message on Twitter warning her of her impending exalted status.

All my bags are packed...I’m ready to go...I’m leaving on a jet plane~~





That’s exactly what she had been doing, during her five year term as President– leaving on a jet plane, shaking hands with world leaders, posing and stunning them with her wit, attending state buffets (burp) and asking – humse trade karoge? But before anyone could say no, she would rush off to play TT.

Yet the ungrateful nation was accusing her of turning the Rashtrapati Bhawan into a retirement retreat. Which retiree in her right mind will travel all the way to Latin America, to promote her son’s business? Show me someone who has the “pratibha” to spend so much, in doing so little!

PPP (Prez Pratibha Patil) Patil Tai made no distinctions between relatives and party, party and government, merging them all into one happy family – Vasudeva Kutumbakam!

As a doting mother, she lobbied for her son to be given a Congress ticket in the 2009 assembly elections. As a loving sister she protected her brother in a murder case. An obedient wife who let her husband Devi Singh run a parallel office and poke his nose in official appointments.

A colourless, forgettable President who will be best remembered for her blind devotion to her family.




Nobody was willing to accept that she had actually saved tax payer’s money, combining family vacations with official visits. Nobody was applauding the commendable restraint she had shown as Commander-in- Chief of the Armed forces – choosing to keep mum during civilian-army strife and making feeble noises only when the crisis had blown over. Where was the applause for working so silently that her achievements during her 5 year tenure are the world’s kept secret! Ironically, all people care to know is, she plays TT with a delightful expression and beach bums in Goa in a sari.

But when PPP Tai put forth her pertinent arguments, all she could hear was laughter. When she demanded that people respect the post of the President, it was selected as the best joke for World Laughter Day! Some cad even had the temerity to suggest that she had taken out the P out of the post of President and turned it into Resident- Pratibha Patil.

Don’t forget, it is entirely due to her efforts, she had got the entire nation interested in who the next President will be. The top post of the world’s largest democracy that has been relegated to a mere figurehead, thanks to selfish political manoeuvrings... A figurehead, who has been relegated to a joke by an insecure ruling party that deliberately chooses pliant heads... Where having an opinion is considered a crime and you are rewarded for being a mere rubberstamp.... A President who has been reduced to a resident...

The Nation that should have been so proud to get its first woman President has no kind words for the lady who will be remembered for putting her self-interest above the country. The worst that followed the best.

Bye, bai Patil Tai, we will not shed a single tear for you.

Source - http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?280623

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/a-suitable-president/946944/

Image Source - Google

A walk in the wilds

It was supposed to be a walk in the wilderness for the nature deprived, polluted air inhaling, city bred brats. Stressed by the sights and sounds of the city and tired of spewing angst at news that reads more like an obituary, we had travelled thousands of miles to frolic in the jungles of Kerala. Lush green forests where spotted deer roam around like stray cattle, where pigeons don’t shit in your balcony but on trees, where you wake up to the sound of birds and not the barking of dogs. Away from civilization and the blare of TV, even our mobile connectivity was as temperamental as Mamata Banerjee. It was indeed a pleasant change.

Snail Male

A pleasant change to be able to sit back and stare at the stars, to look for butterflies, watch the snail painfully cross the narrow lane, to dream about the delicacies the chef would be rustling up for us and play badminton in a court shaded by a mango tree, the fallen raw mangoes making a squelchy mess under our feet.

 

The Serene Pookot Lake

Come mealtimes and we’d stuff ourselves to the gills. It’s not every day, one gets to eat yummy Fish Malabar curry and squid Masala with spicy raw mango chutney on the side. And when we started feeling guilty of not doing enough touristy things, we promptly hired a car to see Pookoot Lake. The lake is one the most picturesque and well kept lakes I’ve ever seen - touristy yet serene with a shaded pathway on its periphery.

Do beggars deserve our alms?

Courtesy - Google Images

For someone born and brought up in a country that accounts for 1/3rd of the world’s poor and is equally famous for the Taj Mahal as it is for its slums – I still have to get used to the sight of a bony child dragging himself on the road under the sweltering sun. I cringe at the thought that the child might not have had a decent meal in days, while I am stuffed to the gills. That for him, sheer existence is a struggle while I crib about my maid. That guilt is a luxury for him and for me, the norm.

He is now knocking at my window, his eyes pleading. From inside the car I can make out what he’s saying but shut myself off. I turn my eyes away from his outstretched palms. It requires nerves of steel not to be overcome with pity and reach for my purse. I ask him to move on.

Yes, it makes me feel like a heartless bitch. After all, how much does it take to part with some petty change? Something that means so little to me but so much for him! And yet, I refrain.

Does it mean I am a tight-fisted, mean soul who loves her money too much? I don’t think so. I just happen to believe that while benevolence may help ease my conscience, it will make that boy a beggar for life. While my intentions may be honourable its outcome may exactly be the opposite.

Imagine someone living a life where one gets to earn without having to work for it! It’s addictive, isn’t it? And thanks to your compassion, you are making sure that the beggar-boy gets caught in a vicious circle of dependency. Plus how do you make out how genuine his need is? What if it is just a ruse to fund his drug addiction? What if he’s part of a begging mafia, expected to hand over a chunk of his takings to the gang’s ring leader!

The more you pay, the more lucrative this business becomes.



I am aware that quite a bit of welfare work is directed at reducing begging but with varying degrees of success. There have been instances where people were ready to offer jobs, enrolled the homeless and the poor for vocational courses but they chose to run off. The most common problem is that beggars are so used to begging that they actually prefer not to work.

I understand that the sight of individuals in such poverty, some severely disabled, can be very confronting. But I feel it is best to ignore them. While there might be beggars who might genuinely need your help, it’s not possible to help them all. Should you give to that young girl with the wailing baby or to that gnarled looking man on a crutch? I am often amazed by the ingenuity displayed by this breed. The blind man with a patch bloodied by red ink, that girl who has hired a baby for sympathy or the man with elaborately drawn wounds on his body! The shock therapy often reaps rich dividends.

It’s not as if I am averse to helping the unfortunate – I have distributed food packets, clothes to street urchins, gone up to the frail looking man lying on the pavement and given him cash. One is often tempted to help those who are too proud or weak to beg. Definitely not the stubborn, rude ones who keep following you around on streets, ready to drive you up the wall with their whining. And certainly not children. Give them alms and their parents will make sure that this is what they end up doing the rest of their lives. Why send them to school or teach them skills, when they can make more money on the road!

We expect the government to take care of its poor, ensure education and employment for them. But it is just an idealistic dream. In reality they are a vote bank that doesn’t ask questions and complies without a murmur of protest. And even though begging is an illegal profession, authorities spring into action only if the city is hosting an important international event.

For our country to progress we need a self reliant populace and not parasites who’d rather live on handouts than stand on their feet.

If you really want to help the under-privileged, direct them to NGOs that rehabilitate the poor. Make sure you donate generously to causes you hold dear to your heart. But don’t be in a hurry to write out that cheque. Take out time to visit establishments to make sure you are donating to the right organizations. Not all NGO’s have noble intentions, in fact for a few it’s just a money making venture.

And if you are still feeling guilty about your riches, don’t worry, the government with its persistent efforts through Union Budget will make sure you will be poor eventually.

Dilemma of the SAHM

Courtesy - cartoonstock.com

For the longest I didn’t know what SAHM meant, not until I became one myself. For the uninitiated, it means stay- at- home- Mom. In our quest for simplicity we have a habit of abbreviating cumbersome words – so your husband’s Mom is your MIL, you her DIL and you wish her HBD when she touches seventy but insists she’s still 65.

The new educated me no longer responds to h r u with a - what?? I simply say FTW.

I’m always amazed when women introduce themselves as “I’m just a housewife” when someone asks them – “So, are you working?” As if a housewife doesn’t work. As if being a housewife is a shameful deed and you need to sound apologetic. So sorry, that I chose to stay home and take care of the family.

Personally, I find the term homemaker more comforting. It sounds spiffier and definitely more “productive”. The woman of the house who makes the house a home – yes, that’s me!

The Government doesn’t seem to agree. The 2010 census had very kindly placed homemakers in the same category as beggars, prostitutes and prisoners. They weren’t too off the mark. We do serve our men in more ways than one and often complain of being prisoners of our own fate. At a certain frustrating time in our life, haven’t we all muttered – I feel like a maid, driver, cook rolled into one!

In 2010, I was still working. As in, I was running like a steroid fuelled athlete, fuming, screaming my lungs off, inhaling chalk dust and trying to convince adolescents that studying is a better option than sipping coffee in the canteen. And I got paid for it. I am still working, fretting, fuming but I don’t get paid for it.

When you are an SAHM, what you do throughout the day, is the biggest secret unknown to mankind. Nobody knows because they are not at home when you’re working your ass off. Nobody cares to know because they are convinced that you are having much more fun than they are. You are not allowed to crib because nobody asked you to climb atop ladders and clean book shelves. It’s all your fault that you prefer to fill your day with needless errands and chores, when you can simply sit back and read a book.

It’s you who’s responsible for her misery. The house is perfectly capable of taking care of itself.

From what I have observed, quite a few women have the innate need to make themselves indispensable to our family. They pamper, fuss around their kids and when the woman of the house is away, the family feels like a sinking Titanic. As a wife, as a mother, they feel it’s their duty to serve their family. Unfortunately in the quest for doing a job well, their own happiness is the first casualty. I know many women who live their lives through their family. Their kid’s achievements mirror their sense of self-worth. There’s a thin line dividing obsession from concern.

Of course we are the core of the family. But the core deserves a life of her own as well. What will you do when your kids grow up and seek a life of their own? What will you live for?

I am not suggesting this is the norm and there are many happy exceptions to the rule. Strong women who keep the family together and nurture them to be responsible human beings without being cloying.

I grew up in a family of working parents. Every second Saturday of the month, Paa would stay at home and cook for us while Ma would leave for work. She only got Sundays off, Dad was slightly luckier. Baba would lovingly make pulao and egg curry for us. Yes, the same menu every month, the pulao embellished with dry fruits and the eggs curry with cream, lots of it. After a while I started dreading THAT time of the month. Come morning and I would start whining, I’m not really hungry, do we really have to eat?

I have memories of Maa cribbing about office Politics, while Baba would listen to her in complete silence. A few decades later I was doing the same thing.

I had never imagined life as a stay at home wife. I never was. Both of us would leave for work together and come back around the same time. We would lie on the bed, completely drained out, eyeing each other, waiting who would get-up first and make tea. We had conjured up an imaginary Ramu and would often order him to get pakoras with the tea. The pakoras were always crunchy, the chutney lip smacking. Imagination never lets you down.

I didn’t want to leave my job and now that I have, I don’t want to go back. I still wake up early, not out of compulsion but out of choice. I am still stressed, grappling with a never ending to-do list. But I’m finally doing things I’ve always wanted to. And what’s more I am happier.

So, am I working? Hell yeah! I work for myself and my family. I may not always be happy with my appraisal reports and the bonus I get but I refuse to let my sense of self-worth be measured in terms of how much I don't earn.

The Unfairness Of Being Fair

courtesy : Google images

It’s a crime, not to be fair-skinned in our country. I mean God must have been vacationing in Goa for you to be born so dark. In India only the fair have the prerogative to be lovely. They get courted by all the hormonal adolescents of their locality, are wedded to the scion of the rich family, only to produce fair, cuddly babies. Yes, it’s as simple as that. Your fair skin is the passport to a bright future. Employers will chase you like an agitated swarm of mosquitoes, film producers will bring their Rolls Royce to a screeching halt and beg you to debut in their magnum opus and all you have to do is blush and smile coyly.

The world is at the fair maiden’s feet while her dark counterpart looks on longingly.

One look at the ads, TV serials and you’ll know what I’m talking about. The light skinned protagonist will usually be a confident, sassy girl ready to take on the world. The dark skinned girl on the other hand is invariably portrayed as a tragedy queen, whose cup of woe runneth over. She is usually a mousy-looking girl, who smiles once a month and has yet to discover a shampoo. Her future is as dark her skin.

Do you know what that means? That someone with a lighter skin is better than you just because of that. That your skin tone is more important than your degrees and trophies, more important than your struggles and travails that carved your personality, more important than the shine you spread in other’s lives. It is more important than being loving, honest and giving. It means that the fair one is somehow better and more deserving.

The fair always have an unfair advantage especially if it’s a she.

I am not quite sure which came first, the chicken or the egg - unfair media portrayals feeding on our insecurities or the regressive ads that end up reinforcing our colour bias. But I do know this for sure that the skin care industry makes a killing feeding on our fixation for fairness, promising us the sun, the moon and a handsome groom. In reality the “handsome groom” is an ugly, beer-bellied apology of manliness, who went all the way to Nebraska to get his MBA degree. He now earns a six figured salary, drives a Honda City and puts up with his blood-sucking boss’s tantrums. Of course he deserves a fair and comely bride!

It comes as no surprise that so many comely dames are busy slathering fairness creams, readily believing that a tube is an answer to their life’s woes. Disregarding the health risks attached; the fact that most ayurvedic creams contain a harmful alloy of metals - we continue to be largest consumer of fairness products in the world.

And for those of us who care a damn, it seems the entire world is conspiring against our multiplying melanin. It’s tough to find skin care lotions without hidden fairness agendas. From your humble soap, to your body cream, your talc, face wash, even your under arm deo - all of them are threatening to rob your skin of its colour. I mean, what the hell am I supposed to do with fair armpits? For chrissake they are meant to be safely tucked under my arms and displayed only when I have to flex them at 180 degrees! And it’s not that I spend the better part of my day, hanging from a rod, in the neighbourhood park.

And just when you thought fairness could not get any lower, it hit rock bottom with an “intimate wash” that claims to make your privates fresh and fair! What next? An AC that releases fairness inducing ions or lingerie that promises to scrape off your ugly dark skin!

According to Devdutt Pattanaik, renowned mythologist, we were introduced to the politics of colour very early in life, in the most surprising of places; in children’s comic books. We had Gods who were always pink, demons who were always brown and dark gods who were always blue (the colour of divinity). Colours convey the deeper truth – while white stands for domesticity, knowledge, ascetic transcendence: black represents wantonness, desire in all its rawness, nature in its primal elements.

Is it that in our desire to be cultured and in our aspiration to be other-worldly, we choose white over black? No wonder we’d rather be called wheatish, honey, olive, dusky – anything to escape being tagged as dark skinned.

Ironically it is the same earthy tone our western counterparts so crave for. From frying themselves under the sun and risking skin cancer to letting artificial ultraviolet rays in tanning salons give them the bronzed makeover – they will go to any lengths to get rid of their fair complexion. A classic case of what you have is what you don’t want!

Thankfully there are many of us who’d rather be accepted as who we are rather than how we look. We choose to accept and live with our ‘so-called flaws’ and don’t let others trample over our self-esteem. And those of you, who think that a lotion making tall claims can improve your sense of self worth, remember this – if someone likes you for your complexion and not who you are, that person is not worth it.

Are We Failing As Citizens Of This Country?

After I wrote about the “Ugly side of Gurgaon” a lot of my friends wanted to know, what I was planning to do next. An incident such as this cannot be dismissed as a one-off occurrence. It happens every day, people face worse and we will continue to be victimized if we accept is as our karma.

Pawan puts forth some valid observations. It’s an ugly picture he has painted but it’s not far from the truth.

Today, I read your experience with the police. I am sorry you had to go through it.

And then I examined my own feelings about it. I am angry. And I am very angry, because when I read your account, I didn't feel angry. I only nodded along, thinking, "business as usual in our country."

The shocking bit, the painful bit, the irritating bit, the positively galling bit is the apathy towards the system that exists within me and I assume, by extension, the rest of the country (and a majority of those comments on your blog does nothing but reinforce that view).

I wonder why? I can perhaps excuse the uneducated, illiterate people who have to survive despite the system (on 28 rupees a day), and perhaps must make compromises. But what excuse do the educated, well-off among us have? Why do we stop at twitter-trends, and armchair outrage?



Is it that surviving in a country of 1.2bn, where each one of us has to fend for himself, has made us so selfish that we refuse to look beyond issues that don’t immediately affect us? Is it because (at the risk of sounding like Greg Chappell) we have forgotten to stand up for our rights since the British rule? Is it because we are too adaptable? Or is it because we like to feel victimized, and blame something that is not in our control. That feeling of martyrdom that’s so addictive!

Maybe it is all of the above. Or maybe it is none of this. I do not know.

What I do know is, whatever it is, we deserve what we’re getting. Why? Because we haven't done anything about it. We deserve the leaders we have. We deserve the netas that rule us. Because we let them. We deserve this “system” because we are not changing it.

And I am tired. Tired of blaming others. Crying about the problems. I'd like solutions. I want to make a difference. I have already written about how conveniently we forget that we ARE the bloody system, and for the system to change, we must change. I however, struggle to see how to make that happen? How to keep up the crusade even if it is only a single-person crusade against the apathy that infects us so. To make a tangible difference to what the problem might be.Have you ever thought of what we can do to combat this, beyond making it trend on twitter? Have you done anything? Do you have ideas? Is there something that you need people or help with? Can we take the next step after pointing out what is wrong, and actually fix it?

As a "known blogger", is that a question you can ask, and find answers to?

I realize this comes across as accusatory. Believe me, it isn't. I am not glossing over or belittling the anguish you went through. We've all been through stuff like this. I have. But it would be nice if we could do something about it, so this is the first and last time we go through this thing. It would be nice if this post didn’t end up being an ironic reminder of EXACTLY what we’re failing to do.

Pawan apportions his time between real and fictional worlds. In the real world, he pretends to be an IT consultant and wastes the remainder of his time in worlds of science fiction. He likes to reflect on the futility of existence and pontificate on things he doesn’t know much about. He occasionally blogs at @ http://pawanrajs.wordpress.com.