Reminiscence

“Babies are necessary to grown-ups. A new baby is like the beginning of all things–wonder, hope, a dream of possibilities. In a world that is cutting down its trees to build highways, losing its earth to concrete … babies are almost the only remaining link with nature, with the natural world of living things from which we spring.”

The pristine joy, inexplicable pleasure to be among plants in my garden, is something I live for. Similar to cuddling up with little babies, fresh from their bath, smelling of powder and cream,and listening to their happy gurgling. All woes of the world then seem far away and unreal.

SSShhh…

Guide: I welcome u all to the Niagra falls. These are the world’s largest waterfalls & the sound intensity of the waterfall is so high, sound of even 20 supersonic planes passing can’t b heard! Now may I request the ladies to keep quiet so that we can hear the Niagra Falls??

Hubbys reaction: EGGJACTLY!

Not Bad!!

My piece titled ‘An Uncommon Love Story’…was selected ‘DESICRITICS Editor Picks Of The Month’..

Murder of Justice- Jessica Lall Case

Jessica Lal, a model, was murdered brutally, shot in the eye on 29th April 1999. Judgement has been delivered . All the nine accused, including Manu Sharma, son of Haryana minister Vinod Sharma, and Vikas Yadav, son of Don-turned politician, D.P. Yadav were let off

It is devastating to acknowledge the fact that we live in a country where the killing of a deer is a punishable offence, while the murderer of an innocent girl goes scot free!! It is a

Bird flew!!

Am reproducing the ad board at the local fish market at Pali hill:

BIRD FLEW.FOUNDERS WILL BE REWARD

Give it a thought. Some things in life need figuring out. Not just the philosophical.

Since I doubt the possibility of you coming close, let me give you a hand. You see, hubby and me finally had to enquire from the concerned individual. It had intrigued us so. Now read what it should have meant for us mere mortals:

“Bird Flu. Informers will be rewarded”.

Another gem from the same vidvaan

“when birds flew, fish sales”

Awww I know this time around it was easier

‘Bird flu, fish sell’.

On the repurcussions of ‘bird flu’. What is exasperating is the diverse and contradictory information. Birds in lakhs (nine, according to the deptt) have been culled. The farmers knew of the outbreak in January, but did not report of the deaths to the ministry or the Animal husbandry deptt. It would have instrumental in controlling the damage.Maneka Gandhi has her own take on it, involving the American govt in the propoganda.

We have been fish-eterians for a while and now more so. Eggs too are at present taboo. My German Shepherd Rusty, is in a foul mood though .He LOVES eggs. The whole family is coaxing him to accept Soya nuggets. But he takes one look at it, lets out a grunt and saunters off in the opposite direction, sulking.

Did India Give Kissing To the world?

TIMES OF INDIA NEWSFLASH: For all those who thought kissing was un-Indian and a foreign influence on desi sensibilities, here’s a reality check to make you pucker up and take notice. Research reveals the first recorded kiss in human history can actually be traced back to Indian origins. In fact, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that Indians were alert and kissing way back in 1500 BC. Forget the simple zero, it seems the sizzling smooch is actually Hindustan’s greatest contribution to the world.

According to Texas A&M University anthropologist Vaughn Bryant,”References to kissing did not appear until 1500 BC when historians found four major texts in Vedic Sanskrit literature of India that suggested an early form of kissing. There are references to the custom of rubbing and pressing noses together. This practice, it is recorded, was a sign of affection, especially between lovers. This is not kissing as we know it today, but we believe it may have been its earliest beginning. About 500 to 1,000 years later, the epic Mahabharata, contained references suggesting that affection between people was expressed by lip kissing. Later, the Kama Sutra, a classic text on erotica, contained many examples of erotic kissing and kissing techniques.

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Hmmm.. No connection, I am sure. But thinking aloud, would our population problem have been non-existent in the absence of the said discovery??.. Naah.. thats silly!
All said and done, our ancestors were hip.. Gotta hand it to them! Won’t be a bad idea for our censor board to learn a thing or two from this report. In light of this, can you imagine the absurdity of the fact that kissing is taboo in our films?
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Hubby’s contribution;
“Emran Hashmi is a true Indian “

My Guide- Gautama The Buddha

Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.

What we think, we become.

Do not overrate what you have received, nor envy others. He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind.

The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you, depend on no one. Only the moment you reject all help are you freed.

An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind.

Neither fire nor wind, birth nor death can erase our good deeds.

To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent.

Words have the power to both destroy and heal. When words are both true and kind, they can change our world.

Anger will never disappear so long as thoughts of resentment are cherished in the mind. Anger will disappear just as soon as thoughts of resentment are forgotten.

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned.

–Buddha

Jokes apart!!

My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me.
Benjamin disraeli

one liner

After winning an argument with his wife, the wisest thing a husband can do is apologize…

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On reading the above, Hubby looked up from beneath his bi-focals perched precariously on his nose, and suggested the following changes in parenthesis, in all seriousness.

Read revised:

After winning an argument with his wife (in the rare event that he does and rarer that defeat is conceded), the wisest thing a husband can do is apologise..

Aftermath

The flip side of irresponsible dramatisations, as featured in Rang de Basanti. What could have been a fine specimen of Indian cinema, with its youthful vivaciousness, is denigrating to misguiding gullible youth(70% in villages according to the latest ORG_NIELSEN survey) to perhaps connote patriotism as taking up the mantle of self proclaimed do gooders with violence as their tool.

Walking the Tightrope of Life-Part ll

In continuum of my earlier post on ‘The suicide of Kuljeet Randhawa’
The press is now waking up to the seriousness of the suicide and looking for deeper underlying causes and its implications. They were late at it, considering that they unceremoniously , unethically/calluously chose initially to quote celebrities who were dimissive of her death in rather uncomplimentary terms. Media today bows down to pressures of readership, viewership often at the cost of their own credibility.

BRAVO!!

It was so astounding to read this report. Indian women rock, irrespective of their rural background.

Illiterate Indian woman to address UN meet

Thursday, February 09, 2006

PATNA: A poor and illiterate Dalit woman from Bihar has been selected to represent India at an international UN-sponsored seminar to share her experiences of livelihood and development.

Girija Devi, a mother of four children in her late 40s, from Chipulia village in east Champaran district will attend the meet in New York Feb 27. She belongs to the poor Dalit community of Musahars that is known to eat rats for survival.

She will address the seminar on “Women Environment and Development Organization” in Bhojpuri as she does not know either Hindi or English. She is the first rustic woman from Bihar and fifth from India to participate in a UN seminar.

She has been invited for her work on empowerment of disadvantaged sections of society, particularly women and her anti-liquor drive in rural areas. She is credited for making her village free from liquor.

“She single-handedly started a campaign against liquor traders and forced men of her community to end their drinking habits,” said a district official.

Last year, two Dalit women from Madhuban district - Tiliya Devi and America Devi - were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005

Cute!! I am rightly impressed

13-Lucky For Some

Today is the 13th and to be selected as “Desicritic of the day”,is a great start to the day.

Pleasantly surprised.I consider myself a novice, still floundering in this gargantuan universe of erstwhile bloggers.

Gratefully accepted though. It means a lot since the site in question is among the best we South Asians can boast of.

www.desicritics.com/

Walking The Tightrope Of Life

Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest–whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories–comes afterward. These are games; one must first answer.” -Albert Camus

When one awakes in the morning, opens the papers, and is startled by the news of the suicide of a co-actor, then after the initial despair, outrage,helplessness, what comes to mind is the saying which I have quoted above.

Read news clipping;

The problem that has no name

Quote
WASHINGTON - Betty Friedan, whose manifesto “The Feminine Mystique” became a best seller in the 1960s and laid the groundwork for the modern feminist movement, died Saturday, her birthday. She was 85.

Friedan died at her home of congestive heart failure, according to a cousin, Emily Bazelon.

An uncommon love story

A true Love Story

Going back into the recesses of my mind, a voice emerges. Clear and lucid. In the throes of a party. A sea of smiling faces, laughter, mirth, camaraderie, at its best. Suddenly there was silence. An announcement was made, and an expectant hush fell over. The song began. It was resonant with melody, sounded good to the ears. A little girl was watching . She froze. Shyness seemed to take over completely. But nobody noticed nor did they care.

Short changed!!

A whole page dedicated to a news item “Alert citizen gets cabbies taxi seized for over charging”. It seems an everyday occurence, but what was unique and therefore creditable was the effort the concerned citizen invested in seeing the action through. He had been over charged to the tune of a couple of 100 bucks or so. Not having discovered it at the time of payment, though suspecting foulplay, he went on to locate the cabbie at the airport, from where he had previously hired it. To his good fortune and the cabbies misfortune, the same guy was parked there. On a complaint from the citizen the cabbie was hauled, though he raced to unplug the cables which he had used to enable the meter to run faster. It was too late. His cab was confiscated.

The good news was that this is exemplary and reformative, hopefully. The bad news being that on a conservative estimate, 90% of the cabs and auto rickshaws in India are manipulated. It is not practical and feasible to expose the errant drivers on a daily basis, especially if one is a woman. For one, no cabbie is going to relent getting his meter checked. For another, it is easy to temporarily rectify the manipulated cable, when danger approaches and later revert to the same modus operandi. Frustrating?? Oh yes.. that is putting it mildly. Is there a way out? Most definitely. Stricter rules, easy appraisals, periodic checks, consumer friendly complaint cells, cooperative (meaning also incorruptible.. but that is topic for another blog) Police officers, stringent punishments.

Translate the above incident into almost every area of life in India. Corruption is , to my mind , the most rampant evil, in need of immediate rectification. For the simple reason, the inroads it makes , affects us directly or indirectly , which leads on to serious repurcussions in housing, employment, food, you name it. Inflation has its roots in something as innocuous as a corrupt municipal officer, or even a clerk at the housing board, who sanctions plots to the highest bribe. It is the trickle effect over 57 years, that has impeded our progress at every stage.

I believe that India could have been a power to reckon with. but those in Power, betrayed India.

Seamlessness

 

The sea has cast a shadow

The veil now turned dark

Awaits the rising of light beyond

removing the mists of life material

 

A need unsurmountable now lies ripe

harken the sound

of peace approaching

Its calmness prevailing amidst gloom

 

All goes white

The rising effervescence

In dew drops of gold

Behold the miracle

 

It is now or never

That once after aeons

For a life time to follow

 

Timelessness is new

And all doth fade

For nought to remain

Generation awakens?

Went to the movies and saw’Rang De Basanti’..The byline screamed ‘a generation awakens’.That really set me thinking. Till the flick was a non pretentious Indian Movie, with a 40+ superstar playing a college student, and ‘willing suspension of disbelief urging me to resign myself at watching the tamasha with fervour, all was going fine.The moment the seriousness of a message creeped in , where a generation recoiling at the ’system’ and their impotence at getting things ‘right’ resorted to violence and bloodshed as the only alternative, it got my (imaginary) goatee!!The makers further rationalised and logicalised their reasoning by equating the gang with the likes of our freedom fighters of yore, Bismil, Bhagatsingh and Azad..This to me was a trite outrageous..Why do we Indians tend to get overdramatic? It has always been a question that has perplexed me .The answer ofcourse lies in the ‘box office’ collections and catering to the lowest common denominator, while at the same time endeavouring to keep a semblance of serious cinema, as the motive. This itself is fallacious. Box office and ‘quality’ in India are at opposite ends of the specrtum. You cannot appease both together. One will have to be sacrificed. Without question therefore that ‘commerce’ rules ‘art’ . It will truly be a’ generation ‘ before this ‘awakening’ takes the shape of reality. Till then it will remain a pipe dream , like the rest of those dreams which never see the light of the day, because of the lack of ‘takers’. Creativity is abundant..Connoisseurs are rare. Success coupled with creativity, rarer.

We as a nation seem to have it all , but somewhere down the line seemed to have lost it all as well..Our philosophy, morals, values, ethos, sensitivity , compassion, spirituality.. all seem blurred and misguided. Why have we relegated it to the background?? Will we ever re discover the Indianness of our India? Will this be a pipe dream as well?

Ranking: ***