It's your fault!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hC0Ng_ajpY&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Five things you SHOULDN'T do before you turn 30!

Teenage and Twenties – these are the coveted years in anybody’s life – time to live carefree, time to rebel!! And during the revelry, we sometimes end up with burden that we carry in our thirties which we are not very proud of or are happy about. I can actually imagine some of these things right now.

So, the next time a person in his / her thirties tells you that “I wouldn’t like to go back to my teens”, don’t dismiss him / her as a case of “sour grapes”. He / she just might be one of those persons who actually believe that the teens and the twenties was not the best time of their lives and that they may have actually done some stupid things which if asked to do in the present, they would certainly do differently.

And if you may ask what some of those things may be, then I am probably in one of those moods today to list some of them down:

1. That embarrassing email address you made long ago: What was it really? therealhulk@whatever.com,thecharmingprincess@whatever.com, therealstupidcupid@whatever.com or was it missloveable@whatever.com. To be honest, many of us had made really stupid email addresses when we were teenagers. Most of them may just be a result of not being able to manage our real full name as email addresses and may often be a combination of certain clichéd teenage words and slangs with our full or nick names. Nevertheless, they can be really embarrassing and most people in their thirties would not normally be continuing to use the same.

2. The permanent tattoo you so try to cover up now: Okay, now what was your first tattoo? Che Guevara’s face? “Peace” written in Chinese script? “Love” with the infinity symbol? No matter what it was, you probably wouldn’t get the same tattoo now when you are past your twenties. The fact that they are permanent doesn’t really help. So you try your best to cover it up using clothes and make-up. So, the next time your kid brother / sister or your daughter / son asks you if it’s okay to get a tattoo, you should advise them to get one when they reach their thirties and know where their ideologies lie.

3. The school / college slam book entries at the time of farewell: Your school / college slam books are really lying in the farthest corner of your store room. Isn’t it? And you secretly hope that all your friend’s slam books are being treated similarly where you have filled pages and pages of stupid useless stuff most of which seems really embarrassing now if you read it again. So, it’s best that those slam books never really resurface to remind you what a romantic fool you were.

4. The dozens of piercings that leave a mark: When I was a teenager, piercings were really trendy. Although our school authorities really tried to keep a check on those (like no piercings near the eyebrows, etc. were allowed), people still managed to get away with quite a few undetected ones (e.g. navel piercings?). Over years, having tackled with unintentional injuries to the body caused by entangled clothes and having applied ointments to bruises and swellings, some people I know have actually left the piercings on their own to reseal while others continue to deal with the same with subdued fervour.

5. Those mushy collections of recorded videos and books: Not much unlike the slam books stashed away, there may be quite a few collections of mushy books and videos that you may not be using any more and more so do not feel much proud of. Having studied in an all-girls school, I have seen quite a few Mills & Boons exchange hands and have known boys maintaining the same for magazines (read Playboy and sometimes even Filmfare) and videos. Same goes for the posters put up on your walls which have since been taken off or disposed permanently. While at that time you would have doled out a major chunk of your pocket money or your parent’s hard-earned cash on those and they would have been considered your prized collections, some may even have been trashed by now while others may be lying in a corner having not seen sunlight for years.

Well, to be fair, I should say that all these have also served a purpose in your life which probably was right for that age, however, it’s relative permanence in our lives and the understanding now of how far and better we have evolved since then does lead us to some embarrassment. Today, if you were to make an email address, get a tattoo or start a book collection, I am sure your choices would be much different.

Who are you?

who are you,
really?

you are not a name
or a height, or a weight
or a gender
you are not an age
and you are not where you
are from

you are your favorite books
and the songs stuck in your head
you are your thoughts
and what you eat for breakfast
on saturday mornings

you are not
where you are from
you are
where you're going

you are a thousand things
but everyone chooses
to see the million things
you are not

© Nishtha Khurana, 2013. All rights reserved.

Change - first and foremost in mindsets

Over the last few days, post the Delhi brutal gangrape case, we have been able to get an idea around how even in today's world, the male members of our society in India still consider the womenfolk as a second grade citizens of this country. When Malala Yousafzai was attacked by the Afghan Taliban, we were quick and sharp in pointing out that the incident is barbaric and how Taliban is trying to opress the womenfolk in Afghanistan.

Then, when a Delhi girl is raped and brutally assaulted, the highly regarded male members of the Indian society come out in the open and shamelessly display their hypocrisy. Be it self-proclaimed Godman Asaram Bapu who claimed that the victim is equally guilty as she did not beg the rapists to spare her and did not address them as "bhaiya" (brother); or be it Mr. Sharad Pawar who bashfully declares that all males have a sexual need which should be fulfilled at least every 15 days, else such incidents might take place; or even one of our esteemed courts who recently ruled that forcing someone into prostitution is not equivalent to abetment to rape; we have witnessed such a spate of reports and statements giving us sheer examples of orthodox male dominance. We hear reports about proposals to ban jeans / skirts in schools and colleges. We even heard someone suggesting overcoats to be made compulsory for girls elsewhere. What is this? Is this not equivalent to imposing burqas and head veils on women? It makes me think whether India is heading for some kind of non-religious Talibanism to say in the least. In fact, for every male supporter of equal female rights, we have about 3-4 voices of orthodox male chauvinists.

Then, I came across this picture of Nelson Mandela and his beautiful words and I can't help thinking that the same logic applies to gender bias. Just like no one is born with hatred or discrimination for people on the basis of caste, colour and creed; no one was born with a gender bias. It is the same society that has engraved this in its own DNA. The upbringing the kids are provided at home is responsible for this mindsets. Every day, we shout out and demand protection for women, and reservation for women. Why do we not instead discuss respect and equality for women. We worship our deities and call our daughters and sisters as "Lakshmi" but in practice we do not have basic respect for the females.

Let us first work to change the mindsets. It is a humongous task ahead but we will not be able to bring about the change we want to bring without taking the first step towards the right mindset. And that step begins within our own homes.

Have a hopeful New Year 2013!!

"There comes a day when you realize turning the page is the best feeling in the world, because you realize there is so much more to the book than the page you were stuck on."

Yes, 2012 did not end on a happy note. But, it rocked us enough towards the end and leaves us with a hope that we all will carve a better 2013 and a better future for ourselves and our generations to come. No female will ever be afraid to live with her head held high then.

Wish everyone a very optimistic and hopeful New Year 2013!!

Tribute to "Braveheart"

In response to my first post regarding the Delhi Gangrape, a friend of mine, Meenal Sarda, wrote to me regarding how initially she also felt the same but her feelings changed when she read in the newspapers that she had written to her mother that she wants to live.

I must confess that even my heart broke when I read about her death. My heart goes out to her and her family and I pray to God to give them peace and solace.

I would like to reproduce here what my friend had written to me. I find it very beautiful and very expressive. Hope all my friends like what she had written to me. Thanks Meenal for such an inspiring mail.

When I first read the news about the gangrape and comprehended, with shock and horror, what the girl had been subjected to, my reaction was similar. I thought- how can this girl now live, without intestines and on intravenous fluids all her life. Somewhere, I also silently prayed that God would relieve her of the constant suffering and pain and let her rest in peace.


But then I read in the newspaper that she wrote a note to her mother - I want to live. And that changed my perspective. Who would know better than that girl the pain that she would have to undergo, the condition in which she would be everyday, the challenges that she would have to face for the rest of her life? And yet she wanted to live. If that was the case, things would have worked out somehow, maybe a transplant, maybe artificial support would have made her life easier. It doesn't matter how, but if she wanted to live, she should live. And so I kept hoping against hope that somehow, she would survive. I find it all the more heartbreaking now that her wish was not fulfilled, that though her spirit was very strong and was fighting till the very end, her body gave up....

I agree with many things that are being demanded by the protestors- capital punishment for rapists (this being a rarest of rare case), stricter laws, fast track courts etc. This is definitely a law and order issue- if there is no deterrant for a rapist, what will stop him or someone else from raping again.

But more than all of this, it is very much a social issue. It is the deeply imbedded attitude of society against women that is at the root of all this. One of the most disturbing facts I found about the incident is the testimony of one of the accused, who said that they wanted to 'teach her a lesson' for speaking up against the men to protect her friend. Men, no matter what education, profession etc, feel it is their birth right to teach lessons to women. Society, at large, wants to control everything about women and girls- how women dress, how they eat, what they can and cannot do, where they can go or not, when they get married, when they have kids etc etc. Rape is also about control and power. It is about showing who is the one with power.

Another disturbing aspect is the issue of 'honour'. I have never understood why women are the custodians of the family honour- maybe this is another way of restricting their movements and keeping checks on them. When a woman is raped, she is 'dishonoured', her family loses its honour. Why? Should it not be the man who should be dishonoured and his family who should be hanging their heads in shame?

It also gets assumed that somehow the woman must be at fault, she must have done something to deserve this. As for the man, it is never his fault. 'Men will be men'.

Ads, films, TV serials, songs- all these propagate these norms and contribute towards the problem. But that is the subject of another long write-up.

The only positive in the entire incident is the fact that people have taken up the cause and are demanding justice in a united way. Ofcourse, there are people with political affiliations that join the crowds and try to create trouble. But these are far outnumbered by peaceful protestors and people who are there simply because they want things to change.

And no matter how long it takes or how difficult the challenges, change they must.

Violence to protest against Violence?

As the public outrage against the brutal gangrape of the 23 year old continues, we have all seen one common mode of protest come to the fore - the so called "candlelight vigils" or "candlelight marches".

However, unlike the very nature of this mode of protest, the recent candlelight marches have turned violent. We see the news of water cannons, tear gas and lathicharges during these protests. We hear the statistics of civilians and police personnel injured, even 1 casualty in the case of police officer Tomar. But, the instant reaction is to hold the police responsible; without giving a thought as to why would police resort to such measures unnecessarily. There have been protests earlier, why didn't the police then use such measures in all protests, deterring the people in a democracy from exercising their right to freedom of speech. Or is it the case that this time over we are doing something wrong and the police is forced to resort to such extreme measures?

Don't get me wrong, I am not supporting the police force in Delhi or anywhere in India, for that matter. The law and order situation is all time worse than ever before. But I also feel that this time round, we are doing it all wrong. To protest against the pathetic law and order conditions, we are taking law in our hands. To protest against violence against women and children, we are becoming violent. We are not respecting the fact that peaceful but determined and patient protests get more things done. Only we need to be persistent and consistent. That is the nature of "candlelight marches". The candles are supposed to symbolize the awakening and knowledge and not anguish, even if it is rightly justified. Also, I am slightly curious as to why most protests which turn violent have the name of Baba Ramdev associated with them somehow.

Also, I think that these "candlelight marches" are becoming more of a fad instead of people understanding their real essence. I recently attended one such protest organized by a RWA, and was disheartened to see that the people around me were more interested in getting their pictures clicked and holding the best looking banner / placard. Slowly, the protest turned anti-Congress and was lambasting Sonia Gandhi and Dr. Manmohan Singh. Now, I am not a Congress supporter, but I think that making insinuations against 2 people is outrageous when we know that it's the society at large which needs to change.

Maybe we need to think this over...