Monday, December 31, 2007

New Year Wishes ...

Augment … laughter

Ignore … pains and tears

Rekindle … zest

Forget … failures

Reinforce … confidence

Decorate … dreams

Embrace … forgiveness

Express … care

Replenish … hope

Celebrate ….life



Welcome … Time



Wishing you and your loved ones, a very Happy and Successful Year Ahead!!

Friday, December 28, 2007

Knowing Right and Doing Right!!

Last few months have been crazy at work. There have been no date and time, just deadlines. I understand and acknowledge the concept of work-life balance, sharpening the axe and all that… but just some more effort, one more milestone and some more learning … thoughts that still drives or misguide you…
Knowing what is right and doing things the right way is so different, almost always. For example
• Eat healthy
• Exercise :)
• Positive thinking
• Think before you speak
• Don’t react in anger
• Don’t get angry for that matter
• Don’t let ego rule relationships
• Accept people, no ones perfect
• Etc, etc, etc ….

The ideal way is a tough way…or honestly …I think the abandoned way, know nobody taking it …he he. May be because it’s the way of mind…which is never alluring ….

Life is to be lead and lived by heart.

That is probably why even in life without exercise, sporadic proper meals, lack of sleep, bursting stress level and growing coffee addiction …writing is still therapeutic.

A big thanks to everyone who has read my writing and special thanks to ones who have dropped their comments, to my blogs…This happens to be the fiftieth :) ..Thanks again!!

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Benazir Bhutto Assassinated!!

The terrible news brings two threads of thoughts to my mind…

One that this lady has seen in her life time what most people take many incarnations to even know. She was born the daughter of President of Pakistan, Zulfiqar ali Bhutto…but she was only in her twenties when coup against her father was done by Zia ul Haq. She was jailed and her father killed. She had mentioned the pain of knowing the inevitable end of her father and expecting the bad news at any point of time, in her jail cell. She was allowed to leave the country after her father was hanged.

She came back after several years and won election in huge majority. These were the elections where she was supposed to face Zia ul Haq who however died shortly before facing the elections, in a plane crash.

As ruler of Pakistan though she was recognized as the pioneer of democracy, she and her businessman husband were accused of ramped corruption. She lost elections to Nawaz Sharif and her husband was also put to jail on corruption charges

After Parwez Musharaf seized power, he offered a safe passage to her and Nawaz Sharif and their respective families to leave Pakistan. She left Pakistan again.

She moved to London, but her efforts to come back to Pakistan and establish democracy never ceased. She was accused to have got in a Deal with President Parwez Musharaf which facilitated her comeback to Pakistan.

Greeted with a bomb blast on arrival to Pakistan at Karachi in October,2007, she continued to talk about elections. Though her approach towards Musharaf changed everyday, her pursuit for democracy only ended with her life.

Second thought … We should stop cribbing about Indian Politics. We still have democracy.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Indian Women!!

As per the UNICEF report titled ‘Progress for Children’, Fifty-four per cent Indian girls and women aged between 15 and 49 said that a husband or partner is justified in hitting or beating his wife under certain circumstances.
The circumstances enlisted in the UNICEF report are: Wife neglects the children, wife goes out without telling her husband, wife argues with her husband, wife refuses sex with husband, and wife burns the food.
“In the context of gender inequality, women’s response to abuse reflects their relatively fewer options to change or leave the relationship and their assessment of how best to protect themselves and their children,” the UNICEF report also stated.



These findings are unfathomable for some of us. It is very difficult to comprehend a mindset like this. We may believe that violence against women as outrageous. We may even call it primitive or oppressive and feel superior for our modern outlook.

But it is worth taking a stock, as to in how many layers, does the Indian society exist? There is no comparison of attitude, aspirations, visions and needs of Indian women across various strata. In India some marriages break as the women seek more space and some marriages/relationships persist despite physical abuse.

And population sporting the later attitude is in majority.

And people talk about India being the next superpower!!! Duh !!!

Thursday, December 06, 2007

The new Indian Society!!

India was always been divided by various factors… religion, caste, regions, language, ethnicity, economic status …and many others. Yet India was always known as hub of culture and literature, known for non-violence and tolerance and essentially looked upon by the world.

But now Indians are divided on by a single reason into two categories: the powerful and the powerless.

The powerful have money and connection and hence the spirit to shoot at people serving them drinks at party (Jessica Lal Case ), murder the love interest of their sisters(yadav brothers), murder their son-in-law (todi’s), rape and murder (priyadarshani mattu case) and make mockery of justice. I wonder what would have happened if media had not highlighted these cases. While the powerless are on the receiving end of justice, long court cases kill both seeking and receiving justice. A convict in Maharashtra spent 13 years in jail as an under trial before he was given a sentence to serve 10 days for giving false information in his passport.

The powerful hold the right to be offended. They can get offended by what M.F. Hussain paints, Mira Nayar films, Taslima writes and Madhuri dances to. Of course at appropriate timing like when BJP needs votes , kolkata government wants to divert attention from Nandigram and UP government is scared to loosing dalit votes.

The powerful can insight riot and kill innocent men and the system including CBI protects them like accused of 1984 riots. They can be associated with murder an heinous crimes, still hold important public offices, amass inappropriate wealth and practice evident nepotism.

To take the focus away from this divide and stay powerful, these men and women again and again bring to focus on the earlier prevailing divides of religion caste etc, making mockery of humanity.

This is why hue and cry is made over one line of a bollywood song, calling it derogatory for dalits while crime against them is on the rise. Who can forget the crime done against a dalit family in the village of Khairlanji near Nagpur on 29 September 2006.

Inciting religious hatred is now an official way to grab a vote bank. A very very mutilated picture of fundamentalism has surfaced reaching epitome with the heinous murder of family of Graham Stains, Demolition of babri majid, Gurjat riots and many such black days.

Terrorism reigns and continue to kill the powerless as money and personal guard the powerful.

India is now a nightmare for artists; superstition and fallacy represent culture, and the frustration of common man manifesting as mob violence.