A face in the crowd...

A  lot is being written about her and the whole incident. I did not want to just write something for the heck of it, but it is all so disturbing that I couldn't help but jot down what I am going through.
We as Indians boast a lot about our great culture and traditions but where do we see it? Only in weddings and family functions? How about showing culture on streets?

I am not saying that my father is a bad man but he from the typical male dominating era (which is still persistent). I have seen him insult my mom in front of her and his own family. Only when I grew up, started intervening and eventually got married he started understanding what he was doing wrong.
I feel that if  I had a brother or was a man myself I would have had the same kind of attitude towards my own wife because no matter how much we think India has moved forward, we have grown up seeing our mother's get disrespected every now and then and it has inadvertently got into our system.

I come from a small town and eve-teasing is very common there, nobody thinks of it as disrespect towards females and the men who are doing it are not from a previous generation but they are people I grew up with, went to school/college with and played with.

Instead of saying that the rapists should be castrated or hanged we should try and change the mindset of the people of our country.
When the Guwahati molestation case was beings talked about all day and night my own parents said that girls should not wear skimpy outfits and walk alone in the night. Which means that what the molesters did was justified? If a girl is going out alone at night or if she wants to wear a mini skirt she can be objectified? Istead of making such statements parents should put those values in their off-springs' minds that they keep boasting about all day.

This so called brave daughter of India was probably wearing what I wear everyday and was accompanied by her male friend. It was only 9:45 PM when she caught that unfortunate bus, she was not alone, it was not midnight and she was not probably dressed in her innerwear. We cannot blame her for what she went through. It was the shameless Indian men with unsupressable male libido that are to blame. Males who will only respect and protect women they have a blood relation with.

Don't blame Delhi, it is the country that is to blame.
For a long time now I haven't felt proud to be Indian.
India whose cultures is the oldest and greatest where King Ram doubter and abandoned his wife because his subjects wanted him to, where Dushasan tried to publicly undress Draupadi because she made fun of his brother at one time.

My heart breaks to see such things still happening after thousands of years.

Zara hat ke...

This post is a little different from what I usually blog.
I'm not sad, lonely or disappointed with anything right now, in fact I'm happy and have a lot of things to look forward to.
I've had some amazing times with friends lately and watched a superb play and shopped a lot.
And if I think about it I had been crying over such petty things that really don't even matter that much in my life.
Just want to say Thank you to whom it may concern ;)

Cheers!

Big Boss - Small people

This is not a review not a judgement of the show or the people who have been and will be a part of it.
And honestly I myself am a big fan of the hugely popular and largely criticized show.

Just a few days back when I was snooping around the internet trying to find out details of when the new season will start, who will be the house guests etc, I came across the link to be the part of the show. And *sheepishly* I did apply for it.
Not because I want to be on TV or anything but because I wanted to experience that atmosphere where people living with each other only for a few days become thirsty for each others' blood.
I have been following the show ever since it's inception India and in someway or the other I did get either attached to or related with atleast one of the participants.

People say it's scripted, it's controversial, it's negative, they fight for no reason and all sorts of things about the show but let's think about it.

A bunch of people who may or may not know each other personally are put in a house with nothing to do, read, watch and are not even allowed to sleep for more than a fixed number of hours in a day and sometime not sleep at all, with no contact with or about the outside world.
Then there is the concept of nominating someone to evict the house at the end of every week.
If you are too loud people would not appreciate it, if you are too quiet they will doubt your intentions.
And on top of everything the creators of the show put the participants in psychological situations such that they would get into arguments or fights with each other.
Nobody in this world like rejection and the feeling that people don't want to live with you is almost everybody's biggest fear and that is the basis of the whole show. People would judge you for whatever big or small flaws you have in you. The creators bring people of different temperament and of different backgrounds and lock them in together.

Of all the seasons that I have seen the last season (season 5) was the most cringeworthy.
I have seen all the fights of all the season until now but some of the most nasty and useless fights happened in the season, there were moments when probably no-one understood why they were fighting. All sorts of controversies got attached to the show from Salman Khan favoring a particular contestant, to bringing in a pornstar to raise the TRPs. A lot gets speculated as the formula of sustaining on the show, some say you can fight and get footage, so say get into some kind of controversy, some believe that if you joke and "entertain" people is will work, what I believe is if you are yourself and people are able to relate with you there is a big chance of surviving. But there is the biggest factor of popularity. Actors from daily soaps and people with fan following or influence on people are most likely to win.

Given a choice I would really like to be a part of the show and see myself in a psychological situation as difficult as Big Boss.

PS : I love Salman Khan

Disappointments

You don't always get what you expect. Life is not a cakewalk for everyone.
Right now I am going through a series of disappointments, most of them are a result of the decisions I took for myself.
The biggest one right now is my career. Or may be I took it for granted.
Quitting my job was not one of the wisest decisions of my life.
So was moving back to Pune.

Hope the years to come are better!

Hmmm that smell...

I remember reading a study about how we link memories with smell sometime ago. I don't know if it was the study that has impacted me but I have really started believing in it.
Whenever I smell the floor cleaning liquid I remember my Ahmedabad house and how good it used to smell after the floor was mopped.
Or when it rains, it just reminds me of childhood days.
Whenever I smell Old Spice I miss my dad because he used to wear the same after shave.
Whenever I pass by the perfume section of a store and smell David off Cool Water I think of a certain someone I don't want to think about.
And now there are about fifty smells that remind me of my husband.
It is weird sometimes when just a smell that you pass by leaves you thinking all day long.

The Great Hindu Religion

I recently visited one of very old temples of Lord Shiva at Bhimashankar, Maharashtra.
I am not a very religious person and I generally try and avoid going to any religious visits. Apart from me not being very religious there is another reason I don't like these temple visits.
People are very impatient to see "God" (which is actually just and idol). Most of the times I end up having arguments with people around me in queues, who would just start behaving incessantly, as soon as they start approaching the actually temple/idol.
As if, if they don't go and see the idol in the next second "God" would disappear.
Also there is this thing about Hindu places of worship. We take our shoes off when we enter the temples but we have no problems with throwing bottles, wrappers of chocolates/chips etc, plastic bags, coconut coir part and anything we don't find of use in or around the temple.
We keep our homes clean but we make our places of worship so dirty that it is hard to walk barefoot in it.
Around 10 years back I took a trip to Tirupathi with my aunt and her family. We took some kind of VIP pass so that we could have early darshan (another thing that I hate about Hindu places of worship).
Despite of the extra money and the VIP pass I had to stand in queue for 8 odd hours before I could reach the actual temple and there also before I could take a look at the idol the police man pushed me forward.
That day I decided to not go to any such religious places unless people were a little more civilized and disciplined.
I have  nothing against the religion itself but it's the people that have ruined it for me.

First rains

So they came a little early to take away the heat and the humidity.
I keep saying how I hate rains and getting wet. I hate the feeling when my clothes smell, the towels never dry up fully and the way it rains in Pune you can't go out if you don't have a car.
But rains do remind me of a simpler and happier time when as kids we used to go out on the streets and just puddle jump and enjoy. When there were no tensions of future and none of the people around you judged you.
The water used to get logged in our colony and we sailed our paper boats in it.
I remember the feeling when I used to get up in the morning and it was still raining and I would make excuses of not getting ready for school and some of those rainy day half day chhuttis in school.
We did not have a car and mom used to wrap me in raincoat and I used to just squish between dad and her on the scooter.
Mom made pakoras and you could eat as much as you like without worrying about getting fat and stomach getting upset. I remember how me, my dad and mom used to sit in the balcony watching other people run here and there in the rains.
How I wish I could get those times back, just for a little while.