Rattled But Resilient

It was just waiting to happen. And am sure that like me many other women in this city were well aware that it was just a matter of time. When it happened in Delhi, I wanted to pen my views but could not. A strange numbness would take over my mind each time I wanted to express myself. I would relive all those moments when I had been groped and pawed as a young girl. All those times when I would hate myself for being born a woman. I wanted to cover up my body in layers and layers of clothing, be invisible or would pray to God to bestow me with some magical powers to punish the perverted animals. It was all the more confusing because the two men at home, my dad and my brother gave me all the freedom while the men on the streets exposed me to the inhumane side.

Fate brought me to the then Bombay and I took my first breath of freedom. In a crowded bus I would anticipate something to happen but nothing happened. I was scared to join an evening college for my post graduation but my brother laughed off my fears. And as I learnt to live without fear, I realized that I didn't need a male to be besides me always and slowly I fell in love with my life as a woman. In those days when there were no mobiles for my mother to reach out to me, my deadline to be home was 11PM. Can you beleive it? I could be out without a male escort till 11 in the night!

Then, I started working and my job demanded irregular working hours. I have driven back home in the middle of the night, all alone. The cops at the nakabandi were a positive assurance of my safety. I have never been scared in this city, of walking up to a cop and asking for help and they have always been there. The few shameful incidents that ever happened didn't daunt my trust in them and still hasn't. 

One day, in the evening at around 5PM, I was driving back  from Lokhandwala. A group of youngsters returning from their routine cricket match shouted out some comments. There and then, I knew that my city has changed. The daily newspapers loaded with horrific crime incidents confirmed it all the more. Initially I tried to pass it off  as wild imaginations of my mature age. But then when I exchanged notes with my friends, I knew I wasn't wrong. Somewhere the city had stopped respecting its female inhabitants while the women on the other hand, got more and more self dependent. Is it this insecurity that has forced the males to turn barbaric towards the womenfolk?

The system of law and order is crumbling and we are talking the same things over and over again each time the youth of a girl is humiliated. Our demands are heard but not paid heed to and heard too only because they are in the form of an outrage. They talked about speedy trials when the rape happened in Delhi. That was December. Eight months and where is the verdict? As a woman I don't see it as a fast track case anymore. And neither will any pervert male waiting to pounce on another innocent female! 

The accused claim to be minors the moment they are caught. Why not consider only those who can produce a proper certificate acquired at birth as minors and the rest be treated as majors no matter what? How many more to be victimized to guard the human rights of a wrong doer? Do they even deserve to be allowed to cover their faces from the world?

Since childhood a woman in India is taught not to step out without a male as an escort. But now one male can't save us. So should we start moving with a posse of males as our security guards. Oh No! We should now ask for police protection each time we go to a lonely place!! 

I can go on and on like the endless debates going around. But I can't, because the more I talk about it the more suffocated  I feel. But come what may, as a woman I refuse to let my spirits be dampened. I am answerable to all those males who have let me be alive in my mother's womb, to all of them who have held my little fingers and made me learn to walk, to all those fellow students who have been besides me whenever I excelled, to all those colleagues who have believed that I can reach the skies and to all those friends who have been besides me in the hour of need. So the ones who have not been able to adjust to the strong headed independent woman of today can sit and sulk because there will be an uproar each time a heinous crime is committed against a woman in my country, till the laws are strong enough and the lawkeepers are left with no option but to provide a safe environment to us.  And above all every modern day mother will bring up her sons instilled with tremendous respect towards women. Because after all, the onus to change the society has to be taken by us, to make it a better place for our own survival.

Some Scenarios of Being Cheated - I

The crow cawing outside my window in this lovely weather of Mumbai is a proof of the fact that certain things don't change at all. Thank God! Though, this goes even for the potholes on the city roads. They have a tendency to get worse but alas! not disappear or for that reason reduce in numbers. The chaos of our everyday life and the chaos in which the country is in, also seems unchangeable. While a part of the country is moving ahead, a bigger part is still fighting with trivialities of life. We are busy cheating each other over small things.

The prices have gone up but the packaging has become smaller. Are you even aware of it? You are being robbed of on both ends whiz a whiz paying more for less stuff. 

Go and buy a car. You will be promised by the sales team all sorts of add-ons. The promise that you don't have to pay for the insurance, for the teflon coating and the anti rust coating brings a big smile to your face. So much of expenditure saved, your mind calculates. Your big smile is intact only as long as the car doesn't go for the first service. Then a call from the company workshop knocks off that smile because he wants to know whether with the free service you want to get the coatings done. Your logic to him that while buying the car you were told that you don't  need to worry about the coatings for four years and there is a warranty on that is answered in a very convincing manner, "Oh that they say to sell off the car." You are left shocked. However, you decide to not get the coating done. Are you taking a risk with your car or you are being intelligent by not letting yourself be cheated by the servicing guy is a question only time will answer. 

You want to buy a Vaccum Cleaner. Well the sales guy comes to your home. You don't have to take the trouble to go anywhere. You get a demo and you tell the person that you will look at other available options from other companies and then get back to him if you decide to buy his product. The sales person has to up his performance quotient. So, with the vaccum cleaner he promises you a bag in which you can store all the parts accompanying the machine, a discount of some percent if you order immediately and a home delivery within the next forty eight hours. The piece is so much in demand that by the time you decide to buy it, it might be out of stock. That does it! You place the order, only to discover later that the model sold to you is the one being phased out and the company as it is has a policy to deliver within forty eight hours. OH THE BAG! When the machine is delivered to you, the bag supposedly was out of stock and it remains out of stock and an illusion for you always. The reason being that from now on the sales person will stop taking the phone. If you manage to trace his boss he will promise to get back which he never will, and after making some futile attempts you will give up thinking why are you breaking your head over a minuscule bag.

How many times have you bought a mobile phone plan only to discover later that it's not as profitable as it was made out to be because only when you start using it, do you discover the hidden costs.

How many times have you bought clothes in sales to come home and discover a piece that is torn at a place which you would have not been able to notice then, and now you have to live with your buy because of the no exchange no refund policy during the sale period.

How many times have you bought an expensive electronic item with the tag of two years extended warranty only for it to go kaput exactly at the end of those three years leaving you wondering how did the company know that the product will last only that long? 

Such happenings or coincidences leave me questioning myself again and again whether this is the nature being unjust to a select few or lack of ethics by the companies. But it does pinch. No not for the money going down the drain but the fact that I got cheated by my own fellow human beings. Thanks to the crow outside my window. At least somethings never change.

The Wandering Me

Oh! what a wanderer am I ?

wandering in search of my soul,

though it lies within me

I search for it in other times.

The soul that donned other bodies,

That which could give me answers for now;

I have searched for it forever 

Forever, since I remember.

Why am I here, I would always ask,

As a child, looking at people 

oh so comfortable,

in their human garbs.

Trudging the arduous paths of life

awakening the soul within,

My heart still seeks an answer

Like a child in an overgrown garb

WHO CARES??

A couple of weeks ago I did what every Hindu in Mumbai is proud to do....Yes!!! WALKED ALL THE WAY TO SIDDHI VINAYAK TEMPLE FOR DARSHAN ON A TUESDAY MORNING. I can not explain the exhilarating feeling I had after the darshan. I felt so elated. For the next two days the very thought that I had walked down to Siddhi Vinayak kept bringing back a zestful smile to my face. Every year at least once I visit Siddhi Vinayak, but that day at 3.15 AM when I set sight on the idol of Bappa, it was a different  feeling altogether. This was the  night of 17/18th June.

Today when I look back I remember that on that very day when I had reached out to God, many pilgrims      were struggling to survive in Uttarkhand. No matter how much we pass off the floods of Uttarkhand as a natural calamity, we all know that we have pushed the nature to a point where it has started revolting back. Hinduism, which represents the culture of living life in a simple way has lost its true meaning for all of us. The calmness and serenity of our minds is long gone. We have made competition a part of even the most mundane activities of our lives. Everything is materialistic because money brings in all the happiness.

Hills are being developed to accommodate the influx of tourists. Any piece of  land available, is being constructed upon. The outsiders go and leave behind plastic, litter and marks of  hooliganism. The locals take it quietly without uttering a word because,  these are the people that are bringing in money and with the soaring prices there is nothing else on our minds. Religious places have been modernised  to make life easier for the pilgrims. A couple of years ago I was shocked to see the changes that had been done to Vaishno Devi. Frankly I found the Vaishno Devi which I had visited in 1984 better than the concrete structures that have come up today. Why? Why do we kill the basic character of a place in the name of modernisation? Go to Shirdi. Lost is the beautiful, serene village where Sai Baba once lived. Horrendous, ugly malls stare at you in the face.

On my way while walking to Siddhi Vinayak there was not a single place where the people walking for the darshan could sit and relax for a couple of seconds. Since ages Tuesday after Tuesdays after Tuesdays people have been walking to Siddhi Vinayak on Monday nights, but I didn't find a single footpath on which I could walk. I had to walk on the wrong side of the road to keep an eye and be alert, lest a speeding vehicle bumped me off. I had to sit on the edge of the high footpaths smelling in the stink of the city. Yes, have you ever noticed that in addition to all other problems during rain nowadays the city stinks! There were huge piles of filth pulled out from the drains and left in heaps as it is. Alas! the memories of the deluge are long forgotten.  And by the way, whose idea are those footpaths because I don't see any senior citizen able to use them without the fear of increasing their arthritic problems.

The authorities decide to extract two different kinds of taxes namely Vat and then Property tax for your properties, in one year. They also add up the pending amounts for the last couple of years and you have to pay it. Giving a relaxation of a couple of months is enough they think. Taxes have become more of a kind of the punishments the headmistress Miss Trunchbull  used to vent out to the children in Matilda. Moreover, you pay the taxes and forget about your rights as a citizen. The roads you move on are so bad that I am sure we spend a larger amount of money on getting our cars and bodies repaired.  Yes the living and the non living are in the same boat so they are repaired, The air we breathe is full of pollutants and nothing new in that complaint. The vegetable, pulses and any other thing we eat or drink dumps in loads of chemicals into our body. We have stopped thinking as to how much of chemicals or banned substances they have. We make ourselves happy by looking at the size of the cauliflower, the brinjals and the gloss on the fruits.

If the authorities themselves are so unconcerned what to expect of the common citizens. In Hindi there is a saying 'Jaisa Raja waisi Praja' ( As the King so are the Subjects).What better way to explain the situation today. We don't think twice before fleecing our fellow citizens, before finding ways for breaking the laws or before bribing. Sadly, it's a never ending circle of life during Kaliyuga that's swallowing us in.

As a harrowed citizen my dejected feelings...? Well, I'd say that I don't know the statistics and I don't even want to figure it out but yes it seems, the system and the authorities have only in mind the top percentage of the country which is already affluent and can afford just about anything. The rest can fend for themselves for their survival. Even if they can't Who Cares? 

Dunkin Biscuits

As I write my blog, I should warn you that I will take a short break somewhere in between my writing. Don't worry nothing serious! It will be to dunk in the last biscuit into my evening cup of tea and then finish off the remaining tea.

I don't know about other countries but I am sure most of the Indians love dunking their biscuits into their cup of tea. I love doing it. Today though I dunked in a few Oreos and mini Chips Ahoy, but my all time favourite is Parle G.

I remember earlier I used to not share with anyone my love for my biscuits dunked in. I mean, I used to take care that nobody other than my close family was around, when I relished my biscuits that way. So mostly, when I visited someone, I used to hate it when they served tea and biscuits. The reason being I used to miss my dunking ritual so much that the moment I returned home, I would rush off to prepare myself a cup of tea and then dunk in a whole packet of Parle G and enjoy. Everything wrong with it. Firstly, think of the amount of calories I had taken in when I ate those biscuits and tea at the friends place (and somehow most of the times Indian chai is nothing but milk and sugar boiled together with some tea leaves added to it), and then the double dose of calories I thrust into myself to overcome the urge that simple tea at the friends home had left behind. Sinful...

Over a period of time I developed different tastes of dunking, as per the mood. Like it was different to have it with tea, absolutely different to dunk in the biscuits into a glass of hot milk and if nothing else, very different to dunk it in a glass of water. Water is preferable if you don't want to mix any other taste into your biscuits. The moment you pull them out after keeping them dunked in for the right time, they will be soft enough to ummmmm melt into your mouth. And its an altogether different experience when your attention is diverted by a regular chit chatter and you over dunk the biscuit. Now, in the journey from the cup to the half open mouth full of juices ready to work on  biscuit, the over softened biscuit doesn't reach the target. It plops down into the cup and dejected you just get to gulp down the juices. But the next moment your mood lifts up again because as an experienced dunker you remember, that the last sip will be the best.

All said and done, a few years ago I seriously wouldn't have had the courage to write about dunking biscuits in tea. Then one lucky day I read a write up by Vir Sanghvi and my inner voice said, " OMG! he knows about it too? And he does it too? If someone like him, who has eaten out of the hands of the best of the chefs enjoys doing it, then why should I be hiding my skills of dunking?"  And since that day, I don't feel ashamed of dunking my biscuits into my tea. It's an altogether different issue though, that now I only drink black tea. But then, that again is a different experience, of dunking your biscuit into a hot cup of black tea.