Nostalgia

I visited this blog of mine after so many days, and felt how could I possibly abandon it, I have shared so many of my thoughts here. I mean, we can grow up but we cannot detach ourselves from the memories of the past. Because as they say, most of my life is there! It was my first brush with blogging. I have started another blog but I think I would continue with this one also.

Work is worship

Today I realised how much I have missed Blogging, reading and doing the things I love doing. But to think of it, I enjoyed doing my work also, which kept me on my foot for one and a half months. It was really, really hectic. I literally was breathing work but it has helped me in learning what goes behind sending materials to Print media.
See I did not have enough time to think of a good Title for this post also. But anyways, life is in a fast lane. I still maintain that I hate Mumbai but I love my work and the work environment, and anyways, right now I do not have time to think also whether I love or hate Mumbai. Time kiske paas hai!!!

Back to where I belong-2

And why not when we are on the verge of getting sequels of every damn thing!
Anyways, I don't know how I managed to remain out of Blog world for so long because I really love it here!
It is just that on 1st June I joined my dream job. For two months, we had training; and after that when we were alloted our offices, the Mumbai disaster struck us--the Flood!But now, work has started. I'm learning. But to top it all--I M LOVING IT!Next weekend we have our First Alumni Meet. Add to that 15th Aug is on Monday, and frankly I'm not excited about Republic Day, but the Holiday as a result of it!!!
That reminds me, today I read in MID DAY, that Karishma Kapur's husband has stopped her from making a trip to US, and she was going there to be a part of Independence Day Celebrations??!!What about our own Independence Day?
Waise bhi, mainu ki?!

Back to where I belong!

Somebody pointed out that my blog is increasingly becoming academic. So I take a break because academics anyways, is over!
Two days back, I saw Hazaron Khwahishen Aisi at INOX. Actually, it has been 2 years and I had never been to INOX, the Multiplex, in Pune. I am a regular at E-Square. And it is the best in all respect. At INOX as well as at ADLABS, you don't really know that you are in a multiplex, you enter by some gallery and leave by another. What about EXPERIENCE!!!
Anyways, coming back to the movie, considering the fact that I am not an intellectual, this movie was a bit over the head for me. But it is good. The award-winning type! Actually, it is the true off-beat cinema type! It does not tells you each and everything, assuming that you are intelligent. It showed the total collapse of all systems in the interiors of Bihar. It was really a hopeless and a doomed picture! All actors were good! I really liked the way movie has been given a background, and the missing links have been beaded together with the help of letters.
Also read this review.

To all my friends at IMDR!

I don't know how these two years
just slipped off my hands,
I am still awed!
But it was wonderful to live,
near perfect, almost unflawed!

Can I forget,
life's first late nights!
Can I forget
inconsequential fights!

Getting late for classes,
despair of poor marks
low pay packages,
Ghorpade's n Doc's idiosyncracies,

No match to
anything we expect!
Now seems trivial,
in retrospect!

But for our frontiers,
when we leave,
We'll meet at every crossroads,
I believe!

From heart to heart,
there is a bonding we share,
though miles apart.....
All of us belong here!

Yet another Swades!

Swades has left an impression on me and I seriously feel that if our country can become a developed country, the development has to be at the most lower level—the villages! It was a shock when Mr Pravin Chordia said that about 60% of our land is increasingly becoming barren! And to come to think of it, as far as I could remember, I have always considered India synonymous with an agricultural country. But as he said that only Kerela has been able to sustain its agricultural productivity to some extent, Maharashtra has failed miserably.
The objective of going to Chinchni was to see for ourselves how a change in our habits and ways of doing things, can bring a lot of changes in the consequences. It was important to see it because it definitely makes a bigger impact than just listening to stories. We have already heard a lot of stories, its high time we checked some things ourselves.
The first thing strikes you before you reach the farm, is the stark contrast between the land which has organic farming done, and the rest of the land. There are patches of greenery, which makes everything obvious.
Mr Pravin Chordia, who initially worked on organic farming, incorporated the ideas of Shripal Achyut Dabholkar. Dabholkar gave birth to the idea of Prayog Parivar. As the name suggests, it is a community, which experiments and works on the idea that it is absolutely possible to live a good life at higher middle class income levels with just 1000 sq. metres of sunlight, 500 litres of waste water for a family of 5 per day. The idea is to enrich soil naturally as it has great potential and if it is done right, there is no reason why the results would not be favourable.
The idea here is to do a multi-level farming by incorporating as much varieties of plant species as possible. It helps to enrich the soil, as different kinds of plants give and take different kinds of nutrients. For example, the various levels could have as follows:
Level 1: Papaya, Teak
Level 2: Custard apple
Level 3: Bitter gourd
Level 4: Green vegetable plants
Level 5: Potatoes
This creates a bio-diversity, which makes a forest-like ecosystem, thus there is a symbiotic growth of all plants. You can find an odd sunflower, rose, teak, spinach, tomatoes, papaya, mangoes, curry leaves, henna, and just about anything. The more diverse, the better! It is also taken into account the things, which these plants would provide, for example,
For Bio Mass: Eucalyptus
For Cash crop: Teak, Sandalwood
For fruits: Min 1-2 of each species
For economic returns: mangoes
Thus by an intelligent mix of plants, all needs are taken care of. This experiment is not only self-sustaining but also makes decent profit making. But it is also important to take note that if one buys expensive land, then it would be very difficult to break even fast, thus the land should be bought at far off lands, for cheaper rates, otherwise all efforts would go in paying off debts.
Working in farms does not mean that one should live a life of deprivation, as this place also has satellite connection and even power is generated locally by water. About 70-80 people stay nearby to water the farm and take care of it. It s amazing to find out that handicapped people take care of this farm. It is also an effort to empower them, so that they do their bit of work and earn accordingly, not relying on government subsidies but dignity of labour.
To begin with, the soil is not necessarily fertile. It is made fertile by a process in which 9 alternating layers of ordinary soil and biomass are made. Then varieties of crops of diverse varieties are planted in this soil bed. After 21 days, one-third of the plants are cut and put into the soil. Again, after 21 days, another one-third is cut and put back to the soil; and then repeated for the last one-third of the plants after yet another 21 days. This makes the soil ready for farming. Then various levels are created by planting trees, and plants, which would form the various levels after they grow up. It is really amazing how everything works, but it is all a fact.
We also saw another of Mr Pravin’s farms, which has grown into a forest. In fact, 30 women from a village along with their women sarpanch, also came to visit his forest to know more about this kind of farming. Increasingly because of global warming and what we have done to our atmosphere, the rains are decreasing slowly; so slowly lands are becoming infertile because most of our land depend on rain for good crops. That reminds me of yet another startling fact about this farm that sometimes, it rains only in these farms and not in the surrounding areas! Actually, these methods gel well with the environment because it does not use chemicals in any form, whenever trees are cut; several are planted to replace it. Thus, when you do everything right, can you get wrong results?
Thus now increasingly people want to learn of such methods, which could make their lands fertile again, and bring prosperity to their villages. The use of chemicals over the years has made our lands sterile, which could be enriched again only through Organic Farming, there is no other way. Mr Pravin as well as all others who are involved with Organic Farming, are propagating this idea, so that if it takes up with even a small portion of our country, it would bring back great results; and then the idea would catch up with the rest of the population.

Factory Visit

This season is full of trips and tours, but all fun-filled and great learning experiences.
This Friday (8th April) our Science, Technology and Ecology group went for a factory visit and a farm visit (dealt with later).
The factory we went to is owned by Pravin Masalewale, which owns a range of brands of spices--Ambari, Suhana and Sarvam.It is into a variety of products like turmeric powder, chilli powder, coriander powder, garam masala, chatpata masala, Biryani masala, chaat masala, etc. We saw the processing of raw turmeric, chilli and coriander into powdered form, which are used at our homes.
Each spice is processed in a separate division and each has its own set of workers, dressed in the corresponding coloured uniforms, for example, Coriander ones wear green uniforms, Turmeric ones wear yellow and the Chilli ones wear Red. This is to avoid the confusion.
Turmeric: Raw Turmeric is fed into the machine, where it gets separated from any dusty particles and adulterants. Further there is also manual surveillance after the machine has done its job in the best possible way. This filtered Turmeric is then ground whenever required.
Coriander: Similarly raw coriander is fed into machines and there are several steps where the dusty particles, stones and adulterants are filtered by the machine. Mostly it is done by vibrating plates. Later on, here also there is a manual surveillance, while coriander is still in the machine. All these spices are used as single ingredient spice as well as in the various masala mixes like paav-bhaaji masala, sambhar masala, etc. For masala mix, Coriander is roasted in huge machines, which have an arrangement such that at the lower end there is a container filled with water. This container is heated at 230 degrees centigrade, and coriander is roasted in a container at the top of it, thus there is no direct contact with heat. The grinding is also done in several steps. As in case of coriander, it is first ground coarse and then finely.
Chilli: There are several varieties of chilli and it is determined by the oil content in them. Chilli also goes through a similar grinding procedure.
Quality Check: There is a Quality Check department where the oil content, moisture, flavour, ash content (adulterants), etc are tested. In fact, it is also tested here whether the raw materials are of standard quality or not. For this, any random sample is taken from the stock of raw materials.
Packaging: The smaller packs are done by machines, while the larger packs are done manually. It is amazing how little packs of 50 gms (which we saw) are made by the machine with absolute precision. The process is termed as Formed, Filled and Sealed. The printed flat plastic packets, roll through the machine, making a cylindrical shape along the way, where it is filled by the required spice and sealed after specific intervals. These intervals are determined by the quantities of packets to be made.
Canteen & Ambience: An absolute serenity pervades the place, as also because it is in the outskirts of the city. It made the memory of Factory visit of Marico come alive, which I had been to with my group members.
The factory has an open canteen, with natural breeze flowing. An ideal place to take time off from the work for people, working there. Even though so many people work in this factory and the fact that it is after all a factory, there is immense tranquility in the environment; and the factory has been aesthetically maintained!
In short, a great experience!

You can visit the company's website through here

Hivre Bazar trip

I was discussing about IITians doing great work at the grassroots level in one of my earlier postings, with a friend, so thought should write something about it.
Last weekend, our class went to Hivre Bazar, near Ahmednagar, about 122 kms from Pune. You can read about it here. The experience was amazing.There the connection of cities and villages became all the more apparent. Mr PopatRao Pawar (yes, the name makes you laugh!)has done a pathbreaking thing at this village. Within 2 decades, this village became a self-sustaining village, which earlier was deep into alcoholism, smoking, fights, crime and all the other vices. What can you expect out of hopelessness and frustation! But PopatRao focussed on developing a system (Water shed management), which not only solved the problems of drinking water and irrigation system but it also brought a social change. Now very few people are in the holds of such vices. By 2006, no family of this village would be Below Poverty Line. They plan to venture into marketing milk and milk products, produced at the village. In fact, they are also going to make HIV test mandatory before marriage, within a couple of years. The gram sabha of this village made certain things compulsory for everyone like no grazing, no personal bore well, no deforestation, family planning, etc.
The point is if all our villages become self-sufficient in respects of health, education, water facility, power supply, etc, the villagers wouldnot need to move out of their house to make headway to cities. Nobody likes to leave their house to make roads or dirty, diseased places, their home. Secondly, we should move away from idolising cities so much. Villages as well as cities have their importance, and we need to understand the connection between them so as to make life better at both the places.
Once a villager understands that he would not leave his village. A large number of migrations would stop, and the cities would also be saved from the threat of bursting of its seams, because of slums. The slums make a bad picture of the cities. Any system installed to manage the urban development falls apart because it is unable to cope with the migrations and the number people in the cities increasing at an unnerving pace.
If villagers stay in villages, get good education, relevant education, all facilities of a good life; and if a city dweller also plays his role well, then only we can dream of a civilised society and a balanced growth, otherwise there is no other way!
We need professionals who can bring change at the lowest level, and make a difference to the lives of people at that level.Actually, we should focus on need-based planning and not blindly ape the West. We have to see what we need. Surely, what US needs would be different from what we need! In fact, what different parts of India needs would also vary, after all, we are a heterogenous country!

Interview with a Slum-dweller

The recent demolition-drive in Mumbai has, once again, brought the plights and anguish of slum-dwellers in the fore. It is that part of urban reality, which we like to ignore. It is treated like that dirt, which we slip beneath the carpet. That brings us to the question of who is a Slum-dweller? We call any person, a slum dweller, who do not have any formal housing facility, access to basic necessities like shelter, food and water, and who do not have a fixed source of income. In short, they are the cause of our embarrassment because although we feel pride in our civilized society, yet allow people to live in such degrading and inhuman conditions. Go to any city and finding slums is definitely not a hard task.
Following is an interview with a slum-dweller, who lives on Footpath near the Corporation, Pune:

There are two women, busy with their household work near their “homes”. Their homes are a small triangular arrangement (like a tent) with plastic sheet.
Ques: Do you speak Hindi?
Ans: (One of them) Yes, I do but a little bit—only bits and pieces.
Ques: That would do. Would you like to talk with me for a little while?
Ans: (Unsure) OK
Ques: What is your name?
Ans: Ranjana
Ques: How long have you been here?
Ans: Since always. I was born here.
Ques: What about your parents? When did they come to Pune?
Ans: No idea.
Ques: Have they come from village or somewhere else?
Ans: Don’t know.
(A few people make a crowd around me; perhaps they were wondering what kind of enquiry is it. So I make it clear that I am a college student and have come to ask about the problems they face in their day to day life—problems of staying on the footpath, problems of water, problems of eviction and problems thereafter, etc. Most of them leave after that, barring a few children).
Ques: Who stays with you here?
Ans: My parents, my husband and my daughter.
Ques: What do they do?
Ans: My father works as a lights man with the Municipality, while my husband works???
Ques: Does your husband smoke or drink or creates any problem?
Ans: No he does not drink but he does smoke. He never creates any problem whatsoever.
Ques: How much does he earn?
Ans: No idea. He does not tells me.
Ques: Does Corporation’s truck bothers you?
Ans: Yes it does. Sometimes it comes once a week, sometimes once a month.
Ques: Where have you been living since your birth?
Ans: Here.
Ques: Here? Didn’t you face problems staying here, Corporation’s truck bothering you every now and then?
Ans: Yes, there were problems, but cannot help it. There is no place to go from here.
Ques: Do these trucks take your stuff?
Ans: Yes they do, and then we have to get it back by paying Rs 500.
Ques: You have to pay Rs 500 every time? That is a lot of money!
Ans: Yes. But there is no other alternative.
Ques: Why don’t you get yourself a house, cemented one?
Ans: How would we get that? They say that only those would get houses, who have stayed here since before 1995.
Ques: But when they find you staying here for such a long time, after they have evicted you; don’t they ask you to vacate this place?
Ans: They ask us to vacate this place and live near the river.
Ques: So there must be other people staying there? Are people allowed there?
Ans: There are people staying there but they are also about to be evicted.
Ques: Then why do they ask you to stay there, when they would anyways evict you from there also?
Ans: No idea.
Ques: By the way, since you said that you have stayed here since the time you were born, so you are definitely here since before 1995, then why don’t you get a house?
Ans: They say you would have to pay Rs 7,000 then only you would be allotted a house.We cannot pay that much.
Ques: Any other problem? What about water? Where do you get it from?
Ans: There is water problem, you can say. We get it from there. (Across the road, near by there is a tap in the neighbouring locality, where there are a couple of little cemented houses.) But the women there stop us from getting water. Although they have taps in their houses. Somehow we get it.
Ques: So every day, over the years, you have been living with this problem?
Ans: Yes. Can’t do anything about it.
Ques: But isn’t it a problem staying here throughout the year? Don’t you have problems in the summer or winter or may be during rains?
Ans: No we have got used to it. We put this plastic sheet to protect from the rains.
Ques: What about education? You have a child you said, right?
Ans: Yes, a girl. She studies at a school nearby.
Ques: In which class?
Ans: (Confused, asks from the daughter. The daughter starts to answer) In class 4.
Ques: Where is your school?
Ans: It is in 14 No., near Congress Bhavan.
Ques: How are the teachers? How do they teach?
Ans: There are many teachers, and they teach well.
Ques: Do other kids go there?
Ans: Yes, several.
Ques: What about food? Do they provide you with lunch?
Ans: Yes, they do.
Ques: What?
Ans: Rice.
Ques: Only rice?
Ans: Yes.
(Again I turn my attention to the mother of the girl, Ranjana.)
Ques: What about your marriage? When did you get married?
Ans: It has been a long time.
Ques: Still, what age were you at that time?
Ans: I must have been 18 years of age.
Ques: What about your child? When did you plan to get her married?
Ans: Now she is too small.
Ques: Of course, not now! But when do you think you would get her married? What age?
Ans: Not until she is 19 or 20 years old.
(I thanked her and left the place.)

After I had taken the interview, I was a little ashamed and uncomfortable about all this. I felt that we as students go and ask them various things, about their lives, their problems, to get an understanding; but at the end of the day what do they get? They remain in the same misery ever after. What difference did this exercise made to her life? To her, I might be another student, who came to make a mockery of their lives! For us it is a subject of study, for her it is an everyday life.
There are some things, which make us look helpless and stuck in the various systems. It is not that our legal system did not think of it. Every one is equal before Law, but we are smart enough to establish loopholes in our Laws and our systems. There are laws, which say that a notice has to be put up or circulated before eviction or demolition. Besides, there is a provision that people, who have stayed here since before 1995, should get a proper house. But look at what this Law actually turns out to be in actual life. Corruption in rampant, and nobody can do anything bout it! And we are part of this system. Look at the very case of trucks, which come to lift vehicles parked in non-parking areas. Most of the money, they pocket themselves; and we like it that way because it relieves us of paying more and the unnecessary trouble of going to their office.
Everyone knows that these poor people cannot file a case against the unauthorized evictions and demolitions, and the partiality and injustice met to them.

Book Review: The Dark Holds No Terror

A Book is a journey. The process is important, and not the end! It takes you to a different world, a different myriad of emotions unfold; and you are left with the feeling that it was not a mere book after all, but an experience for a lifetime. Perhaps for this reason only, every voracious reader would vouch for the experience and importance of books. In fact, it is a blessing that we have something called books, which gives us pseudo-understanding of situations and experiences. But all these things hold true only for good books. As also I recollect from somewhere that when you read a book, and if you do not like it, it motivates you to write something worthwhile, which would improve the value of the book. But personally, when I read a good book, it motivates me to write something as good, and as true to us. It is a characteristic of a good writer that when a reader reads it, he would feel one with the characters. The characters would be real, who think like us and feel like us. Additionally, a writer’s work is complete when a reader reads it. That is when the process gets completed.
Coming back to the book, a book can give you the joys of achievement, the anguish of failures, the pain of unending struggle, the longing of love, the pleasure of companionship, and every colour of life.

Selection of Book

I have been a reader (would not say a voracious reader), all of my life as far as I remember. I started reading novels from the time I was in Class 6. I started with Famous Five series, Hardy Boys’ series, Nancy Drew series, St. Anne’s series, and the likes; then I moved to Agatha Christie, then to Sidney Sheldon and meanwhile I was heavily into Mills & Boon series (read more than 100). But in the last two years, I experimented a lot of other authors because I suddenly realized that I am still an illiterate as far as literature is concerned. It is almost unlimited. In fact, the whole life is also not enough to read all of the literature of my interest only, leave all of them! So from that time, I am on a pursuit to read as much as I can. Some people say that Sidney Sheldon, etc, is totally crap. But I think that all of them definitely say something—either about the characters, the context, or at least about the writer. So in the last two years, I read Shashi Deshpande, John Grisham, Arthur Hailey, Jhumpa Lahiri, Robin Cook, Anurag Mathur, Sandipan Deb, and am yet to read Khushwant Singh, Gurucharan Das, Shashi Tharoor, Vikram Seth, V.S. Naipaul, and the list can just go on.
So when I chanced upon Shashi Deshopande’s novels in my library, I tried The Binding Vine. I found it awesome. Then I read Intrusion and Other Stories; it was remarkable. Then I read The Dark Holds No Terror. I look forward to opportunity to read her other books.
When it came to writing a review and the reflections of Indian Society in any book, the obvious choice had to be one of the books by Shashi Deshpande.

About the Author

Shashi Deshpande, daughter of the renowned Kannada dramatist and Sanskrit scholar Shriranga, was born in Dharwad. At the age of fifteen she went to Mumbai, graduated in economics, then moved to Bangalore, where she gained a degree in law. Her writing career began in earnest only in 1970, initially with short stories, of which several volumes have been published. She is the author of four children's books and seven previous novels, the best known of which are 'The Dark Holds No Terror', 'That Long Silence', which won the Sahitya Akademi award, and 'Small Remedies'.
The best thing about her is that her characters are real and alive. They are not cut boards in black and white; they are grey characters that behave differently in different situations. She creates a world of characters and situations that are identifiable, and experience emotions that are at once complex and cathartic. There is so much detailing in her novels that you cannot but feel the joy and pathos of the characters inside you. They appear as mere description of your own feelings. She leaves back such imprints on the mind of her readers that they cannot let go the experience for a long long time.
Her books are about families, real families, the bondages, the bindings and the confinements of relationships. She has been quietly writing for the last thirty years, without fanfare, without ceremony, about the human predicament, playing out the lives of ordinary people who we might encounter on the streets, bringing into sharp focus the meaning of life itself. She started her literary career in England by writing short pieces on her stay there, moved on to writing short stories, which were published in leading Indian magazines. In 1978, The Legacy, the first collection of short stories was published in India. Since then, she has brought out four other collections of short stories, has written six novels, two crime novels, and four books for children. Her work has been translated into various Indian and European languages.
Whether she writes short stories or novels, Deshpande writes mainly about "everyday India, a society in which we breathe, a culture to which we belong. Her major concerns emerge from our own environment, from our immediate world, holding up mirrors to our own lives

Introduction
The central character of this novel is Sarita, and most of the issues she has, is related to the patriarchical society. Thus we might tend to believe that The Dark Holds No Terrors is a feminist novel. But this is not a story of an oppressed woman, or abusive marriage or monstrous men - the usual fare of feminist agenda among Indian writers! There are places where she takes a few digs at the patriarchy but it is essentially about a human being who has suffered terribly all her life and then finds the courage to take control of her life. She tries to analyse her life, what she has and what she has not, the experiences from the past, which haunt her, her current predicament. Thus essentially, this novel is about an individual and her dilemmas. She gets an upbringing typical of that time—the importance given to male child, the reminders of her identity as a girl, importance given to people placed at high places in the society (for example, doctors), sanctity of marriage as an institution, etc. All these experiences make the person she becomes eventually—as all of us do!
'The Dark Holds No Terrors' is a very intense book. The book is full of sentences which one would remember for a long time, which one would love to quote many times.

Analysis

Shashi Deshpande’s The Dark Holds No Terrors is so strikingly real; you need to touch it, to feel it. It is the story of you, I, some friend or just anybody from the faceless crowd. It dwells into the human predicament, playing out the lives of ordinary people who we might encounter on the streets, bringing into sharp focus the meaning of life itself. There is intense interiority in this novel, and the use of the first person by the writer, for her female protagonist weave a web of intimacy around the reader, an effect that is enhanced by her near total focus on the domestic - the almost mundane. It is so easy to lose one’s own identity to the protagonist’s.
This is the story of Saru who feels like a trapped animal, trapped by her own guilty feelings. The story that unfolds is the guilt she bears for her brother Dhruva's death, along with guilt of abandoning her parents, guilt about her mother's death which she learns about accidentally, which in turn permeates her entire life, her feelings about herself, her career as a physician, her marriage, her feelings towards her husband Manu and the kids. Throughout her life she remains trapped by her need to succeed at any cost. By the prize she has paid to succeed in life. By the reason behind her ambition to succeed. By her need to find somebody who would care for her. The futility of her search becomes obvious to her when she hears what her mother had commented on listening to the end of the war in Mahabharata. The mother had said, on listening to how Dhuryodhana leaves the battlefield and goes into a lake waiting for the Pandavas to come and kill him, "… that's what all of us have to face at the end. That we are alone. We have to be alone."
This kind of utter loneliness a human being faces in life stands at the core of 'The Dark Holds no Terrors.' Saru is lonely because she has not received any love all through her life. As a child, as a young girl, she felt rejected by her mother, who preferred Dhruva, her younger brother. She felt rightly that her mother blamed her for the death of Dhruva, who died by drowning when he was just seven. Everyone has failed her. She lived her life with the guilt, which was inflicted on her not by her on conscience, but her mother. Later when she begins to think that she had found someone in Manu, who would cherish her forever; she goes through traumatic experience when he rapes her. Suddenly, she is alone again.
Perhaps it is not the story only of Saru; most of the women live their lives in loneliness, in one form or the other.
At one point of time, the writer writes about women… “ going on with their tasks, and destroying themselves in the bargain, for nothing but a meaningless modesty” Womanhood has always been made a source of great shame. There is promiscuity in the affairs of a girl. She is made ashamed of her body and she ends up hating oneself, for no reason or fault of hers. Obviously, this does wonders to her self-image!
This leads me to one of my own experiences with one of my relatives. She is my mother’s sister-in-law. She has 6 sisters in her family, and adding her, they are 7 sisters. Thus she did not have much affinity towards a girl. Her first child has been a girl, but after the second child, a boy, came; she started abusing her daughter by saying several things to her. Her daughter was a premature baby and extremely weak, who had to be kept in an incubator in the hospital for 6 months. Thus she is weak by birth and hence not too bright in her studies. Instead of motivating her to do well in her studies, my aunt keeps harping to her that—you are dumb. You cannot do anything in life. You are totally useless. You do not have way of doing things. Day by day her academic performance is deteriorating. Initially she was with the best Convent school in her town, but when she failed, my uncle admitted her to some other English medium school; and with promotion to the higher class. She failed again; he transferred her to a Hindi medium school, and again with promotion. Obviously she is doing worse in her studies, and it is understandable that this would not improve. I really feel that if a mother cannot empathise with her own child then who would the child turns to? Was it her fault that she was a weak baby? Was it her fault that she was born to a mother who already had 6 sisters? To top it all, the future of this girl is quite apparent. She would be married off as soon as she does her graduation, if at all she does it. Then she would spend the rest of her life with that low self-esteem, a sense of incapability and incompetence. Why women are so alone whatever role they are in? Everyone says and signs off that it is very difficult to understand women, and that nobody can. And she remains lonely.
The illogical and absurd traditions, ironically followed by women, are bondages on her growth as an individual—pain, sufferings and compromises—the great essence of woman. She has just remained a ‘thing’ to be passed on from parents to husband.
Even in the novel, all through her life one passion rules Saru's actions, to show her mother, to make her realise that she is also a person, a living and breathing person, a person with her own will, ambitions, and rights; to succeed in life is to be the panacea for Saru's maladies. The only way for her to avoid being bothered by her mother's words, "Why didn't you die? Why are you alive and he (Dhruva) dead?" Years on, Sarita still remembers her mother's bitter words uttered when as a little girl she was unable to save her younger brother from drowning. Now her mother is dead and Sarita returns to the family home, ostensibly to take care of her father, but in reality to escape the nightmarish brutality her husband inflicts on her every night.
To 'show her mother, to make her realise', Saru works hard as a student. Only her school and her books exist for her. It is like revenge against her mother because she makes her believe that it was she who let her brother die. Her mother trivializes her being by saying that she should have died instead of her brother, as if her life did not have any meaning. Just like happens in households. Men always have a superior position in Indian household. All of us must have seen at least once in our lives how women of the house serve the food first to the men. In those houses where the means are limited, even there, the women are supposed to live in scarcity; the men most of the times get what they want. Why men are considered superior to women? Why this inequality?
Saru’s life is unconsciously oriented towards proving something to her mother. Her burning ambition to study medicine is rewarded when she gets a first class in the finals at the school. That is the one time her father supports her, against her mother. Saru moves to Bombay, joins medicine, meets once again Manohar whom she had known long ago as a dashing young poet, the heartthrob of most of the college females. This meeting culminates in the two of them falling in love. Marriage follows soon. Against the wishes of Saru's parents. During the time they spend in a chawl with a toilet they had to share with others, she tells herself "…if there is a heaven on earth it is this…" It is the only time in her life that Saru experiences what it means to be wanted, needed, loved, and to love without any kind of reserve.
But soon Saru's confidence in Manu's literary capabilities evaporates. To succeed professionally is the one goal of her life, and she does not allow any sort of scruple to come in the way. Saru has no respect left for Manu who does not question her ways but takes revenge on her by behaving sadistically towards her in the nights, turning the darkness, once more, in a terrifying experience. She says,”… the esteem with which I was surrounded made me inches taller. But perhaps, the same thing that made me inches taller, made him inches shorter”.
Saru explains her predicament gruesomely. “The hands continued their quest for new areas of pain. Now the horror of what was happening to me was lost in a fierce desire to end it. I could not, would not, bear it.” To think of it, they had a love marriage but the perhaps the idea of success is nice, not a successful wife! Her husband actually rapes her every night to show his contempt towards her. She is stuck in a marriage where things have turned sour. She had taken up every opportunity to stand against her mother—be it education or be it marriage—so standing at this threshold, she is afraid to accept it even to herself that she wants a way out. The first thing is that she would be proved wrong in her decision.
It is when Saru is almost at the end of her sanity, not knowing how to deal with such a sadistic husband, that she accidentally hears of her mother's death. Suddenly she is shaken out of her obsession in life till that point of time—revenge! Throughout her life, she wanted to prove something to her mother but suddenly when she discovers that her mother is no more, the reality dawns her that she actually neglected her mother in that period of time, and now she is no more. There is no more opportunity to make things even, to make things right. This instigates a sense of guilt in Saru.
The 'rape' she endures every night with her husband, is the way she punishes herself, again brought on with a lot of guilt from her past and now combined with her doubts about her love for Manu, even her being ashamed of him
Saru returns to her parent's home, in the pretext of comforting her father, but actually seeking comfort herself by getting away from a marriage, which has become a farce. The novel in fact opens with Saru's coming back home. The eventlessness of the life there, the affectionate but undemanding relationship between Madhav, a young student who lives at this home, and the old father act as soothing balm to Saru's deep wounds. She is content to be part of this quiet life, to forget her profession, her young children, her life till then. Just to drift along in life. Asking nothing of the days, expecting nothing from them. Still she feels acutely lonely till she finally opens her mind to her father. It is this seemingly colourless person who advises her to let go of the dead people - of Dhruva, of her mother - and, not to turn her back on things again, to turn around and look at them, to talk to Manu. It is not only these words of his, but also his listening to her voicing her innermost wounds, and acknowledging readily that he really cannot do anything for her that heal Saru. She knows that like Dhuryodhana she also is alone and she is ready to bear, finally, the responsibility for her life. She tells herself, "All right, so I'm alone. But so's everyone else. Human beings … they're going to fail you. But because there's just us, because there's no one else, we have to go on trying. If we can't believe in ourselves, we're sunk."
It is when Saru understands that mere darkness of which Dhruva was scared, during which she was terrorised by her husband's behaviour, in which she was troubled by her nightmares, does not really hold any terror. Rather such terrors are harboured within herself. Only she can exorcise these demons. She faces the fact that in the end it is SHE who has lost her love for Manu, and it is SHE who needs to make the decision about her life and marriage on her own. No one to blame, no one to give her easy answers, no absolutions.
The nightmares that Saru has in the dark reflect the terror that Dhruva felt of the dark and the reason why he would beg to sleep with her as a little boy. She carries this image with her whenever she thinks of him. It is not the dark that holds the terror but what is in her own tormented mind. The physician who thought the body is the 'ultimate reality' realizes the real control that the mind has over matter and finally learns to heal herself.
When she thinks about her family, images of her children come alive, the interactions she has with them. In the initial part of the novel she says about her family--“A family the right size. The right kind. Like the ads. A happy family…With the skeleton locked firmly in the cupboard.” It reflects the dichotomy of most of the Indian families. We feel pride in the number of successful marriages. But when we look deeper into the real cause of this ‘success’, we would find that even the definition of successful marriage is far from real. In India, a marriage is successful until the time the couple live together, or if they are not separated. No matter that the man beats up his wife daily, no matter that the children are not looked after well, no matter that there is no love left in the marriage. The problem in India is that historically women have been dependent on men financially. Thus till the time they came of age for marriage, they have been properties of their fathers, and later, after marriage, they were considered properties of their husbands. Once married they were supposed to be at their in-laws’ place; and no matter what happens, they have to bear all injustice and compromise to make their marriage ‘work’. There has never been any support structure for women who have divorced their husbands. They have rarely been taken back. Thus a woman tries her best to cope with the situation till her last breath. Even today, no matter how much liberated women have become, culturally they are still the same. Divorce and separation do not list there. From outside it might seem like a successful marriage, as Saru says, but it might not be so really, like her own! But her case is not only a case of Marital Rape but there is complexity in understanding the psyche of Saru. The 'rape' she endures every night with her husband, is the way she punishes herself, again brought on with a lot of guilt from her past and now combined with her doubts about her love for Manu, even her being ashamed of him. Coming home, getting into the routines that her mother did, transforming herself into her mother, young Madhav's presence in the house and him calling her Saruthai as Dhruva did, all these are mechanisms that help her towards healing herself. The last conversation she has with her father is very telling. She faces the fact that in the end it is SHE who has lost her love for Manu, and it is SHE who needs to make the decision about her life and marriage on her own. No one to blame, no one to give her easy answers, no absolutions.
The nightmares that Saru has in the dark reflect the terror that Dhruva felt of the dark and the reason why he would beg to sleep with her as a little boy. She carries this image with her whenever she thinks of him. It is not the dark that holds the terror but what is in her own tormented mind. The physician who thought the body is the 'ultimate reality' realizes the real control that the mind has over matter and finally learns to heal herself.

Issues related to Indian Society reflected in the book

Preference of male child
Preference of male child is inherent in our patriarchical society. Many a times it leads to sibling jealousy, as also evident in the novel. But more than that it has led to angst for her mother. The truth is that the desire for a boy is so inherent in our culture, that no matter how much people claim that girls are as desirable as boys; once in a while the fact is definitely spilled out. Earlier the difference in their upbringing was too stark, but now although there is no real difference between the upbringing of a girl and a boy (in urban India), the difference still becomes apparent when she cannot go out unchaparoned, when her education is a tool to get her a good husband, when the idea that a boy stays to take care of his parents, is too overwhelming.
In the novel, when Saru informs her mother that her brother was drowned, her mother instinctively says why did not she drown in his place? There were other instances also when she was reminded by her mother again and again that she has to be married off.
Female foeticide is a product of this obsession with the male child. It is assumed that since girls are married off, and the boys stay with their parents, thus parents would depend on them later in their old age for their care. But there have been numerous cases against this assumption. Another thing is Dowry. The tentacles of the vice called dowry is so deep that even after such a large population has been educated, it has stayed. When a girl is born in a household, it is considered that she is a debt, a liability; while when a boy is born, he is an asset, who would earn and take care of his parents later on. Thus any expenditure for a boy does not seem much, but when it comes to girls, there is always this thought at the back of their mind that they have to pay a huge sum of money as dowry for the girl, so why spend more on her! Perhaps relationship as pure as a parent’s and a child’s also driven by what do I get, and what do I lose!

Male ego
In a patriarchical society, it is neither accepted by the man himself, nor by the society that women should hold a better position than men. In a marriage, if the wife earns more than the husband, the separation is almost imminent. No matter how much love the man claims for his wife, when it comes to difference in earnings and status, he always expects that he has to be superior to her. Over the years, women have accepted this without question, but now that she is a little more liberated, she questions this. As even Saru says at one point of time that had it been the time when women were chained to their husbands, and liked it that way, it would have been better for her marriage, but the idea of liberation and equality has brought turmoil in our lives because women’s expectations have grown but men have not accepted it yet.
Saru and Manu had been in love deeply. They married against the wishes of her parents. But later when Saru becomes more successful and respected, it creates a rift between the two, which was forever. It is really a matter of wonder that a man who claims complete love and devotion for his wife, suddenly starts to think her as his competitor.
In a movie called Arth by Mahesh Bhatt, the story is about an extra-marital affair. The wife is completely ignorant till the reality actually hits her, that her husband is being disloyal to her. She is left to wonder about her own incapacities, faults and reasons why that happened to her, when theirs was also a love marriage! She begins a journey of self-realisation, begins to discover life single-handedly. Later, when the husband wants to get back to her, she asks him only one question,” Had it been her, who had been disloyal and went away leaving him behind, for some other man; would he accept her back?” He said,” No” And she leaves without a word. It is an excellent portrayal of the truth of the society how men are easily forgiven for their deeds, and how women have to carry the burden of mistake for the rest of their lives. In fact, even men think that it is quite acceptable for them to commit mistakes, because they know that it would not be remembered for much time. This attitude of society has developed this male ego, and pampered it over the years; that is why it does not and cannot go so easily.

Marital violence
Over the years, men have used violence to express their dislike and hatred. There have been cases of violence against women in various forms—domestic violence, female foeticide, dowry deaths, etc—but for too long, the existence of marital rape had remained unacknowledged.

Female—the inferior sex?
There were several instances, including the one when Saru’s mother asks her why she did not die instead of her brother, which reflect the orientation of the society itself.
“You’re growing up,’ she would say. And there was something unpleasant in the way she looked at me, so that I longed to run away, to hide whatever part of me she was staring at. ‘You should be careful now about how you behave. Don’t come out in your petticoat like that. Not even when it’s only your father who’s around.” This conversation is not an isolated case. I am sure most of the girls have heard this during their growing up years. Why is it done so? Perhaps all mothers have done this to their daughters since time immemorial. But they have never tried to cure the problem, by instilling the right kind of values in the men folk she can approach, at least her son. She is the first school where he learns the trades of this world. A mother might think as her duty to teach her daughter that she is vulnerable, but could not it be better that she rather taught her son that women are to be respected. If a man errs, the blame is still on woman because the man gets off as he is expected to behave errantly. But never a woman. After all, a woman should be responsible for herself.

Final word
Perhaps there is some fault in our system, in our society. The women are liberated, supposedly, but the minds of men as well as the women are not liberated yet. So we have miles to go.

School-time Confessions!

Two days back one of my friends from Kinder Garten days came for interview at my college. She is one who would always remind me things about me and other friends, from our school days together. So I thought that would add to ay earlier blog on childhood stories. This one is from school.
My school was at a distance of 15 minutes walk. Throughout the later part of my school days, I used to take badly calculated risks for my exams. I remember I would not start studying as soon as possible, and keep postponing the cramming, ad on the day of exams there would be so much to study that I would be in a total chaos. In Class 10, I remember I had left the whole of Economics and most of Civics, and sat for the Board exams!!! Add to that, during my Class 12, I had studied only the Physical Chemistry and a little of Inorganic, leaving the whole of Organic Chemistry.Just a day before my Hindi exams, I watched Hamari Bahu Alka on TV. Could not miss the joy of watching Utpal Dutt at one of his hilarious best! But now I have changed in that respect, or should I say things have changed to suit my habits. Now we have 3 Trimesters in a year, so instead of 3 exams, I study the whole course in 3 parts. So I still study that way, but the course has decreased!
When we were in Class 8, we were hit by a wave that forced us to put a tail made of paper behind any person we get our hands to! Our class was on first floor, and adjacent to it, was our Chemistry Lab. Our Chemistry teacher(great looks!) was a terror! So we had this free period, everyone was busy in their own masti, at that time I was trying my best to put a paper-tail to my bench-mate. It so happened, just at that moment, our dear Chemistry looker, crossed our classroom. And bang!he saw me busy in my mischief. After that, he honoured me by making me stand on the stage of our assembly, near principal's office. I fondly remember this incident as having been crowned "Miss India"!
This reminds me of one of my friends, lets call her A. She was extremely notorious for her sleep. I and another friend (who visited me recently), let's çall her S, usually went to her house. And it usually happened to us, that whenevr we would visit her, she would be sleeping. Somehow she would manage to open the door, bear with us for sometime, but after we had talked with each-other for sometime, we would tell her that we had to go. And she would say-OK!Come again!And nobody'guess, she would conveniently go back to her sleep, and we would be left to walk back the long distance in hot sun!
There are really so many instances that sometimes when I get hold of them, I feel hey, I had nearly forgotten them. They are all so hilarious that we have laughed hundreds of times on the same joke!
One of my childhood friends'elder brother is getting married in May to his girlfriend. Luckily, I would be home at that time, and thus would get to meet my friend also, and be part of the fun. It is really a different feeling to be part of a marriage of somebody you know from your childhood!

Education System be damned!!!

Today we had a guest lecture, and somehow we wandered to the issue of Compulsory Education. In fact, it is only today that I realised that Compulsory Education should mean that one need not have to apply. And really how true it is! But look at the situation prevalent especially in urban India. If you had to take admission in school, you would have gone mad!I mean it really scares me! My heart really goes to those children who are growing up in this scenario.
I remember, 2 years back, when I was in Bangalore, I happened to stay at one of my distant uncle's place for a couple of days, and I came to know that they were to planning for their daughter's admission but the city's supposedly best girls' school, needed a donation of 20-25,000 rupees. And they planned to settle for the next best because my uncle was expecting a transfer. Imagine paying such a bomb and then shifting to another city, and pay again a similar exhorbitant sum. The child had to get admitted in Class 1. In fact, all of us very well know the plight of urban families, who have to pay huge sum of money in the name of education. Capitalism in Education, as they say!!!
But I really liked the idea of Universal Education in US. There you have to pay extra taxes in order to study beyond your district limits. One child is supposed to get her education in her own community. Yeah, it definitely instils a feeling of community because everyone comes there--the brightest as well as the dumbest!
I definitely do not believe that institutes like Bansal tutorials in Kota or institutes and schools of the ilk are doing wonder. Their cut off is 80% and then they take a written test. After you qualify that you are assigned groups like A,B,C,...according to your excellence and brilliance. So when you already filter out the cream, what can you expect other than the best from them. For example, if IITs or IIMs do well, do you wonder why??!!
The idea of private schools should be banned because on one side it instills a sense of disparity among children at a very young age, and secondly they never get to see the complete community. Remember schools were supposed to be a mini-world, where you experienced the diversity of the world outside in a small scale. But in this case, you end up meeting people of your ilk only, and sometimes you don't even realise that there is life beyond fashion, latest music video, Kareena's latest hair colour, and the glamour world. In fact, there is tremendous amount of harsh realities waiting for you out there, but you are not prepared; with that kind of education system!

Bachpan ki Baatein

When I think about the weirdest thing I have done as a kid, I instinctively start smiling. Because there have been quite a few! Now how this cropped up? Well, just now one of my friends said something, which made those old memories alive; and since I was just thinking about what to write about--I got my answer, bang on time!

I remember it was afternoon, and I had to go to my friend's house. So I had to iron my clothes. My mum was sleeping, and somehow I had to put on the press there.So I thought if I would switch on the light, my mum would wake up, and she would give me a lamba chauda lecture on not go out in the afternoon, its too hot, go later, study, blah...blah....blah!Guess what I did? I thought I would just finger the holes to find out where the socket is, and then put in the the plug. Yeah you got it right! I actually tried to find out the holes of that socket by fingering inside the hole. And as expected (or unexpected, at that time), I got shock of my life!!!Thank god, I did not get stuck there!

There's this another story of my school days. You would not believe how silly one could get! I used to forget my bag at home, and walk to school. I would feel that something is missing but would not be able to locate, what!!! Then some friend, who would meet along the road, would ask where's the bag? Then it would struck me as a lightening, and I would be embarrased like hell. But managed to make some story!

There's this story, which my brother used and over-used to fool me, whenever he wanted any favours.For example, he wants to eat my share of chocolate or cake or anything else; he would tell me that I know a cat,and she has a family and they have all gadgets in her home which are very high-tech. She has everything, and when he goes there, he gets whatever he wants. So if I give him my stuff to him rightaway, he would get me several later. Somehow I was convinced by him, not to mention this to anyone.And with this laalach I would give up my sweets, etc. Someone has rightly said that one bird in hand is better than two in bush; but I had not heard this then!!!

Book Review: People Unlike Us

I wrote this almost an year back:

A book is an experience-good or bad! And if it is well written, it is more than just an experience, it’s like spending some time with someone, exploring a new world, wide-eyed, surprised, shocked, touched and moved! Reading a book is living a pseudo-life.

People Unlike Us was a chance discovery in our library and the topics it covered were known but not felt. So there was a desire to explore this horizon, to spare some time to know life beyond personal boundaries, assignment deadlines, hanging out, gossips, etc., because life is mind-boggling beyond our secured limitations.

Background
This book is the third in the Contemporary Essays series by HarperCollins India. The media is flooded with issues (we can assume that from the fact that earlier we had only DD1 but now we have a host of 24-hour news channels). But the problem with our so-called competent and omnipresent media is that it chooses only those issues that the mighty, English-speaking middle-class finds interesting. If Lakme Fashion Week or marriage of Karishma Kapoor finds more time and space in the media than the plight and injustice to the poor and, and if we stay glued to our TVs so that we do not miss even one of the leggy ladies in the beauty pageants, then there is something seriously wrong with us.
Sometime back there was a Gender Workshop in the campus and surprisingly, I came across many guys in the group who were unable to buy the fact that girls are actually the less privileged in Indian society because in their immediate vicinity this did not happen. This beat the entire logic of conducting the workshop that was to inspire sensitivity towards each other and visualize things in a macro perspective. If I’m not dead does not mean that death is not a reality! While reading the book, I could relate this insensitivity with our own insensitivity towards several issues like encounters in Kashmir, sati, caste system, etc.
This book is an attempt to go beyond media approach of covering stories. Everyday there’s at least one news about murder, encounter or rape but how much does it affects us? This book lends faces to issues and brings them closer to reality, to our understanding. All the essays have been penned by competent journalists who took time off from their usual jobs to draw a picture of our country that has been highly marginalized.

Invisible Grief by Muzamil Jaleel

It dates back to the time when militancy had just taken birth in the Valley, around 1988. The essay is about two remote villages along the LOC in Kashmir—the army massacred people in one, the militants in the other. You realize what has happened to the Paradise on Earth when you read the line-“the stadiums where we had played cricket and soccer, the beautiful green parks where we had gone on school excursions as small kids in white and grey uniforms, were turned into martyrs’ graveyards. One after another, those who used to play there were buried there with huge marble epitaphs detailing their sacrifice.”
The stories of two forgotten villages, both situated in the frontier district of Kupwara stir sentiments when you come to know how silent tragedy and invisible sufferings mar their life. In Warsun, the people had resisted the tide of militancy and were punished for garlanding a Union minister, while Pazipora witnessed one of the first, and biggest massacres by the army in 1990. There’s a woman who curse her for making her son stay back for one extra day for vacation, there’s a man who lost 22 of his family and friends, another woman who had to marry her late husband’s nephew, half her age and whom she had even cradled and there are numerous such living stories fresh on the minds of survivors of fate.
The army protects us from outsiders all right but the atrocities done by them on the natives of the Valley due to their own incapacity to deal with militancy, bring them to a human level, a human who errs and scars of which remain forever! It’s not about blaming the army but it’s about understanding the plight of those innocent people who happen to be there where politics and militancy is at its best.

The Economics of Sati by Sagarika Ghosh

The essay is about an economically backward village in UP, where Sati is viewed in terms of the benefits it would attract, nobody bothers whether it was really a Sati or a suicide framed a Sati. Actually, people live under this assumption that when in Rajasthan anyone commits Sati, it leads to a Sati temple and it attracts donations for the temple and thus, development work is initiated.
When you read about a son who’s not bothered to discuss whether his mother really committed Sati or just jumped into her husband’s pyre on impulse, you are amazed by the insensitivity of the people. But when you actually go through the plight of people living in that area, and the level of development across decades and through several election promises, you realize that it’s not people who should be blamed but it is poverty that is to be blamed.
This has been put out very clearly in the following lines-“ Poverty, as Amartya Sen has written, is not simply the lack of income. It is also the lack of a voice, of a responsive local administration that can redress local needs, the lack of a system of governance that is transparent and accountable to the people it supposedly exists to serve.”

Still There by Sankarshan Thakur

In our caste and religion obsessed society, this essay is a leaf from the level to which people fall in enforcing that perhaps caste is supreme to humanity. This particular essay talks about how two teenagers were hanged for daring to fall in love with each other, in a village in Uttar Pradesh-Rajasthan border. The girl was from the upper Jat community and the girl from the lower Chamar community. This was done to re-enforce the fact that in future nobody dares to attempt the same crime otherwise the fate of those two teenagers were exemplary. The fact that this story was narrated to the writer by a little boy, states how deeply this has been engraved in their psyche.
In fact, even after 10 years of this incident, that village has a Chamar sarpanch but things have not changed. The authority is still in the hands of the upper caste Jats, and this fact is not stated but meekly accepted.
In discussion, this matter came up that the so-called lower castes are actually taking advantage of the laws in their favour, for example, now nobody can call them Harijan or any such lower-caste name, because they can file case against anyone on the basis of discrimination. But the thing is when someone is victimized for long, he learns to take advantage of the situation in the way he can. We cannot expect a victim to remain suppressed forever.

Fragments from a Folder by Siddhartha Deb

This essay deals with the mainstream India’s lack of interest in Northeast. As is quoted in the essay-“ secession for the North-eastern States is simply a ratification of their alien status, an attempt on their part to make the contract bilateral so that they may be as free of India as India is free of them.” This essay brings forth the general Indian psyche about our view of people from Northeast.
I remember, I read once in the Times of India, a journalist accounted that wherever she went in India, she was always mistaken for a Chinese or Nepali or Burmese or anything else but not Indian. She had to actually make people believe that she was as much an Indian as anyone else. In fact, this is a general psyche because people from Northeast look a little different but then so does people from South India or North India. There is certain degree of ignorance and indifference in us towards them. This is reflected in the following line-“Ten years after I began explaining to people that Shillong was in Meghalaya and not the capital of Assam, there is still an imaginary Indian border that stretches as far as Bengal-sometimes up to Assam-and stops there.”
The essay talks about Government’s and general people’s indifference towards Northeast; in the wake of flattening out of differences and imposition of a structure that does not considers small anomalous groups.

Recommendation

I recommend this book to everyone as it mirrors that part of society, which we do not think about. Speaking about my own experience, after reading this, I felt blessed for having the life I have, and pained for the real people who suffer this, day in and day out.

Highly Opinionated!

There is an issue going on in my class these days. It is about why the opt-outs should not be part of Farewell Party in our honour. The opt-outs are those people who did not participate in the customary Induction (read ragging)process done by the seniors. They were told at that time if they opt-out of the Induction they would be out of all parties among seniors and juniors, and they accepted that. After that there were Freshers' party, Picnic and the Mentor-Mentee movie, which they were not part of! At this point, with the initiative of these opt-outs, we were supposed to get Farewell Party, but suddenly some of us came to know about this, and it was time to call for a meeting among Seniors. The majority of seniors decided that they do not want opt-outs in the party. There would be two parties--the Farewell (by Junees)and the Farewell Returns (by seniors). So that's the story.
Now my story is that I want the entire juniors to be part of this Farewell and ot a section of them, because I think that we are parting as IMDRites. It should not be related to the Induction. In fact, those opt outs are ready to let go the party, and even I don't have any particular sympathy with this group but it just not seem right to me to exclude them. If it has been the so-called tradition, I want to go against the tradition because to my justification it is unjustified. I am not going to be part of this Farewell which is going to be without opt-outs because I think its high times I let things be. I mean, it is time I had some opinions of my own. And it may not necessarily be with the majority. It is really OK with me!
But yeah, I really felt bad about how my friends have come down to calling each other names, stupid, idiot, childish, insensible, and what not! I mean, all these things were not required. There could have been just a discussion of opinions but I don't know why people have turned sore on differences. It is anyways going to happen in life later also. We cannot always have a unanimous decision. Can we? After all, Life is all about differences. So why not celebrate it!

Casting "Ouch"

After the Shakti Kapoor episode, there has already been lots of arguments on does casting couch exists in the Indian film industry? Well, what I think is it certainly does! More than a film industry thing, it is definitely a dynamics between who is powerful and who is without power! Power Play! It could be called Casting Couch, sexual exploitation at work place or anything, but it definitely is the uneven power distribution in society. And if you ask me, I definitely believe that it does not limits to the arena of film industry. It exists wherever there is such unequal power in question. Just wait and watch, it would be in Politics, it would be in Fashion Industry and it would also be in the big bad Corporate world!
If people say that the big established names in any field are beyond this syndrome, then I surely differ because that cannot happen! It is just that once you become a big shot, nobody can point finger at you! But who knows the truth?
As far as India TV's take on casting couch is concerned, it is definitely in bad taste. Had it followed up a genuine case, it would have been an investigative journalism, but look what they are doing in the name of journalism!
It makes me think what has become of us as a society? Where are we heading towards? Everyone knows about such things but we like to ignore things which could lead us to trouble or any kind of uncomfortable situation.
It really makes me afraid, it makes me wonder, what life is going to be? And at the end of the day who is victimised pre-dominantly?The women! And as a "mature" society we like to believe that we have given women equal opportunities and consider them at par with men. There is a wonderful article "Stop Blaming Indian Women" in today's Indian Express by Nandita Patel.

Demo-crazy

I read Mr Advani's interview in Indian Express, dated 16.03.05. He seemed to be vouching too much for the democracy in India that it has given the country its reselience. But, as Mr K. Subrahmanyam rightly points out that Indian political system, barring the polling and declaration of results, is largely undemocratic (Call this a Democracy?Don't, Indian Express,14.03.05). I don't know which democracy is Mr Advani talking about?Is it that where the entire constituency is oblivious to their representative? How justified is this representation?The irony is that our government is formed on this presumption that these people represent their constituencies, and would stand for their needs and objectives! In fact, in the 'democracy' like India, you could also see those people getting elected whom you voted out, with the brilliance of coalition. After all, what matters is Power, everything else is negotiable!

Sunday is a Holiday!

Yeah, I know, everyone knows that, still there was no other better title to give.Anyways, I am doing time pass at a cyber cafe.Because Sunday is a Holiday! I washed a lotta clothes today, because Sunday is a Holiday! I finally started reading Arthur Hailey's The Evening News because, yeah, Sunday is a Holiday! The greatest of all deeds, I got 3 newspapers for myself--TOI, Indian Express, Mid Day.Because Sunday is a Holiday! So you see, this justifies the title for my Blog!And I can assure you that I have not become a gone case, and also that Sunday is a Hoilday, but not for my brains!ENJOY

Marriage Blues!

Since some time my family is really bothering me with its intention of getting me married! They don’t say this overtly but there are explicit undercurrents. In fact, even my brother told me jokingly about the plans-in-process! I guess, they think that my disinterest in marriage is as much as everyone else has at some point of time! Well, to that I would say, they still consider things same as they used to be; but for me things have changed! I mean, talking about girls, earlier it was considered that girls should be married off as soon as possible. But now priorities have changed. And the most frustrating issue is you have a tough time explaining this to the women community itself! I know, to some extent women are responsible for their own plight, but anyways, my issue is to enjoy my job and not to spend rest of my life, starting from here, to carry on responsibilities and fulfill expectations. Take a Break!

A Peace of Mind

Have you ever wondered, how much we talk! Think about the dialogue that goes on and on inside your head! It never stops. You saw a handsome guy/beautiful girl (whichever applies) and your mind goes "WoW"!The moment your spotted at the wrong place, you go "Shit!". Besides, the obviously looooooong monologues about how you were justified in giving tit for tat to that girl who thinks, don't know what she thinks of herself!. Or you take a break from the fast pace of life and say "just chill out"!The point is we never stop. I remember when I saw "What Women Want", I realised what a blessing our inner voice is! You can go on bitching about anybody right infront of her, and just make an innocent face, nobody ever knows. You can fool your boss by saying hoe brilliant his ideas are, and go on mocking his foolishness. It is fun, isn't it?
eople say, life has become so busy or we pretend to be busy so that we do not think and thus do not come face to face with our conscience. We are afraid of ourselves, are we? I can speak for myself. I am definitely not afraid of myself because I am not a hypocrite. I do what I say and stick to my words. I do not double time anybody, so why should I have pangs of guilt! In fact, the time when I go for walk and have my inner voice as my companion, is the best part of my day. I think the most important thing in life is loving oneself or should I call it ACCEPTANCE!Another thing which is very important, which I have come to realise is defining one's priorities. For example, if everyone is running after good jobs (read big pay packages), should I also make head way there? It depends, on what I want in life.I have come to accept that those like us who are not confident of our abilities want to cling to safe jobs and salaries, as soon as possible. But those who are passionate about certain things, do not behave in this way. They do not need anchors, for they are anchors themselves! They do not hunt for secured lives, they hunt for fulfilling lives.

Life,largely

Blogging is great, and since I missed it for a couple of days so here I am! So what have I been doing? It began with catching Socha Na Tha on Sunday, then we (I and my roommates) saw Love Actually and Never been Kissed! Did not like any of them. They were both Average movies! I also read a book The One Straw Revolution, and started the Interpreter of Maladies, which would be finished by today. Another on the pipeline is a book called Fast Food Nation. I have lots of books to read—fiction as well as Non Fiction. I am also simultaneously reading India in Transition by Jagdish Bhagwati. I mean I don’t HAVE to read, it is just that I get so overwhelmed by books that when I get my hands on them, I do not like to leave them until I am through! You know what, more than reading; I love company of books; and my secret desire to start something in the lines of Crossword. Then I would have the latest books in my hands, all the time! That reminds me of something! When I was a kid, I used to wonder, why the shopkeepers did not eat their chocolates!!??
Hey, I went completely off-track! Where was I? OK, I was telling about the movies. Well, I love Drew Barrymore but in Never Been Kissed, she was looking absolutely Bekaar! And guess what, today I saw Mitr—my friend; and it was really nice. Shobhana deserved the national award. I hope you remember she shared it with Tabu (for Chandni Bar)! At the cost of repeating, I would say that among Page 3, Satta and Chandni Bar, Satta still is the best one by Madhur Bhandarkar!
Now I think I should rush home because since these days I cook at home, so I gotta get my dinner ready! But I would be back soon. Watch this space!

Socha Na Tha!!!

Yeah, I saw that too! I went to catch this movie on Sunday with a friend. Actually I got bored with the course of my days, all of them have started to seem identical, so that day I suddenly planned to go for a movie. I checked the review and found it decent, so there I was! It is clean--no love scene, no action--movie. You could say it is a light movie, you never get tensed up!This was my first one of Ayesha Takia, and though she does not really act well, but she is different, and I guess she would learn fast. She is this normal girl-next-door kind. No Aishwarya or angelic face here.Talking about Abhay Deol, he badly needed a haircut. But he looked decent in the last few scenes where the story ends in a couple of photographs.
Socha Na Tha is refreshing!

An ideal Morning

Today I got up at 6 am, finally!!!I exercised for a while and went for jogging. But I was extremely bad at it. I got tired in 2 minutes and I was unable to push my leg forward. I felt that my legs were not moving, as if they were locked!Then I started walking, and while coming back home, I found that the paperwallahs weren't still there. So I thought I would have to make another trip of the streets. But then I spotted my old paperboy and got my morning 'food for thought' from him and engaged him for delivering newspaper daily at my place. Earlier I used to get Indian Express because undisputedly it is one of the best as regards the editorial page is concerned. But Times of India scores on its coverage of news, thus I decided that I would get TOI at home and read the edits of Indian Express in college.
Anyways, that done, I reached home, took bucket, etc, and went downstairs and finished with my long pending work of cleaning my scooty. I had a tough time putting it on Main stand!Then I washed some clothes and watched Babe; and then I realised that I had an assignment to do. So I picked up my stuff and did my assignment. (I slept in between for almost half an hour). In the evening, I came to my institute for assignment submission and read some parts of SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL. Then here I am!
I hope I would go for the movies to be screened by Open Space, made by Iranian directors, tommorrow!

Fat Is Not a Fairy Tale

By Jane Yolen

I am thinking of a fairy tale,
Cinder Elephant,
Sleeping Tubby,
Snow Weight,
where the princess is not
anorexic, wasp-waisted,
flinging herself down the stairs.

I am thinking of a fairy tale,
Hansel and Great,
Repoundsel,
Bounty and the Beast,
where the beauty
has a pillowed breast,
and fingers plump as sausage.

I am thinking of a fairy tale
that is not yet written,
for a teller not yet born,
for a listener not yet conceived,
for a world not yet won,
where everything round is good:
the sun, wheels, cookies, and the princess.



from Such a Pretty Face May 2000
Meisha-Merlin Publishing, Inc

Partners in Crime!

I felt a little uncomfortable when I came to know how much deep I am into the cruelty done to animals. It is all pervasive, where do I go?
For example, look at Milk & Milk Products companies like Nestle. I gathered from my class in Science, Technology and Ecology, that it actually makes cows stand in rows, which looks like an assembly line. There are udders are attached to machines, which take out milk, and it is processed for later use! Technology at its best, I suppose! Besides, as we know that cow gives milk for her cattle; so these companies stretch the time when cows give milk to extremely long periods with the help of artificial methods, which include painful hormonal injections also. And top it all, the poor cattle hardly gets the milk. Commercialisation is thy name!
Second case, did you imagine or think about the state of poultry or other animals destined to be part of our meals? They are given hormonal injections at a very young age so as to make them grow fast. Their legs are tied so that they could not move, and thus they put on a lot of weight. Some birds like hens and cocks, sometimes become so obese that they are unable to carry their weight on their legs and results could be broken bones! Ll this to increase the quantity of meat as much as possible to get maximum profits out of the investment. Think about the pain of those animals and birds; and then think about your own fate when you eat such things!
Third case, following are some of the companies which use animals for painful testing:
Proctor & Gamble
British Petroleum
Christian Dior
Clairol
Colgate Palmolive
Gillete
Givenchy
Glaxo Smithkline
Johnson & Johnson
Nestle (L'Oreal, Helena Rubinstein, Lancome, Laboratoires Garnier)
Novartis (Ovaltine)
Reckitt Benkiser
SC Johnson
Unilever (Calvin Klein, Cheesboro' Ponds, Elida Gibbs, Helene Curtis)
Wella
And this, I can assure you, is not an exhaustive list of companies. You know how you use their products every single day of your life!
Now think about this—where do you go? Isn’t it stifling to be in here, amid such companies which get down to any standards to achieve their ends—MAXIMUM PROFIT—the objective of any business!

BLACK

I finally decided to take the initiative to go and watch Black.It was a good movie, I would say, but I would not say--mind blowing!My decision is based on a simple thing. If I look at my watch more than twice in order to see how much more time I have to be inside, I know the movie is not in the category of EXCEPTIONAL.It was heavy, as I expected. And that was one of the reasons I postponed watching it!But I missed 'Little Terorrist'.
I also read at several places that the movie was predominantly in English. Well, I did not think so. Yeah, Mr. Bachchan did teach her student in English but it had not been shown in detail.
Anyways, my day started with a little bit of exercise but I have not yet been able to fight my lethargy and resume jogging.Atmost I manage to get up at 7.15 am, not earlier. Then I decided I would go for the movie, since Monday is a holiday. I had to complete my INDIVIDUAL AND INDIAN SOCIETY assignment but I had zeroed down to what I was going to write, thus it was not going to be a problem. And anyways, I had finished half of it.
Yesterday I was thinking about things I read in SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL. It really made me think that growing GDP does not ensure growth or development in our lives and people around us.It is just an economic parameter to gauge the over all health of the industries.It is too macro to affect us at the grassroots. Even if Indian economic is growing at a rate of 6.9% this year, does that make any difference to the poor people. There problem has not been dealt with. Not this year, not the year before and not likely even in the year after.So why do we put forth an argument based on growing GDP? This takes me to another problem of ours--the jobless growth.It means that the economy would grow but it would not create new jobs, as anticipated. Do we really think about all these? I mean there is another thing bothering me after my SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND ECOLOGY class, I never realised how inhuman conditions are in Poultry and dairy farms. I mean think about the injections they are given to make them fatter and thus more meat. It is so disgusting to even think about it.It really relieved me a bit that there are cooperatives like AMUL which do not stress on more productivity (as in more meat produced or milk obtained by whatever methods) rather empowerment of people at the grassroots.I am glad that such institutions exist. I am seriously thinking about turning vegetarian after acquiring knowledge about what is done to poultry and other animals for meat.I would really like to know more about various companies which sell there products to us, to know what kind of products I am consuming. Awareness is really blissful, and extremely important too. If IMDR stresses on anything, then it is AWARENESS more than anything else!

Convocation

No I am not going to write any detail about Convocation here. The thing is I arrived late for Convocation, that too when the Chief Guest had already begun his speech. When I did it, I did not give it even a second thought. Indians are known to be late, in general. In fact, fashionable! And we also like to get away with this habit by proudly declaring that we are Indians! But today I got scolded for this act of mine, and the worst thing was that I was not punished. Punishment, I think, relieves you of the burden of guilt and regret. When you don’t get punished, you do not get over the incident! In fact, I really thought about this issue, which seems little, for a long time. I realized, I have in fact got habituated to be late, unless I have to go for a class. Perhaps that is why in 23 years of my life, I have not yet learnt to manage time well! But now I have promised myself that I would keep my promises and commitments. It creates a bad impact about you and your attitude!

the Film festival ends, and.....

After 'ChinaTown', the next day I went to see 'Citizen Kane'. Initially I felt out of place watching it but later I got what was it all about!The day after, I went for 'Rear Window' and it was good! Somewhere in the middle I thought that the actor is just sufferring from some psychological problem because he has been confined to a place for long! Thus he was reading too much into a non-issue, but then things happened.Grace Kelly was really graceful and this was my first Grace Kelly flick!You can also read its review here.
Today it is 26th February and it is Convocation-eve for the batch of 2004. Most of my seniors are already here. Today there was a play by OORJA, the theatre group of IMDR, followed by Mushaiyara, which is still going on. Then we have a party because they cannot stay till late on Sunday! Anyways, I met my mentor after a really long time. And it is good to see him again.
That's all for now.Got some work.

Mystery Theatre

As I promised myself two days back that I would do something different, a different experience, everyday; on Wednesday I was wondering what to do because almost the whole day had slipped out of my hand in classes, etc. And then suddenly one of my friends asked if I would like to go with him for a movie "ChinaTown", in a Film Festival running at the National Film Archive of India or NFAI. And since I do not lose any opportunity to be a part of anything like a Film Festival and since I have not really decided upon what to do, I accompanied him. I was extremely tired ny that time, but a promise is a promise, and that too to myself. I never lie to myself!
When we reached there, we found a really, really long queue, and we were wondering whether we would be able to get in or not, but after the earlier show finished, we got the chance. Two of our other friends were there too.
It is a Film Festival organised by Indira School of Communication, and it is called 'Mystery Theatre'.I would go there today also. Theatre and Film Festivals are new experiences, I never had in my life.

War and Peace

That is again another award-winning documentary by Anand Patwardhan. As described by one of the websites "WAR AND PEACE" examines not merely the militarization of India, but analyzes the human cost that is extracted from its citizens in the name of 'National Security."It is shot over a period of 3 years in India, Pakistan, USA and Japan. I saw only the first part and next week I would see the second part. It was about Nuclear tests in Pokharan. It talked about do we really need nuclear weapons, and if yes, why do we need them? They just pose threat to our national security and nothing else! The most contentious issue is that how justified is it, when it eats up millions of dollars when on the other hand we are absolutely helpless about what to do about poverty. Is it justified spending so many of the tax-payers money for such ends? General notion of people who supported nuclear tests was that it was about self respect even if costs a lot of money and diseases to people staying in the vicinity of tests sites. But are we so rich that we could spend so much for just a superficial self respect? How much respected are we otherwise?
Another issue which cropped up after India’s nuclear tests, was Pakistan’s step forward towards nuclear weapons acquisition. It deteriorated the already worse situation between India and Pakistan, but self respect was intact!!!
After watching this documentary, I thought about only one thing what is that which motivates people like Anand Patwardhan? I mean if we look at the general people like you and I, some of us do not care about such issues at all, some give it a thought and move on. But there is something so passionate about works of Anand Patwardhan that it makes me think, what is that which keeps them going against all odds! Perhaps, we are all very ill-informed or atleast not well-informed, thus it is very difficult for us to decide what is our stance about any and every issue. To come to think of it, we know so little about everything!!!Thus we do not really stand for anything, like these people do, because they believe in something and that too quite passionately!
I am really looking forward to see the second part of ‘War and Peace’ and also ‘In the name of God’.
Atleast I did something different today! Tomorrow is another day!

My Resolution

I got so much frustrated by present scheme of things that I promised myself that I need to do something about it. So I promised myself that I would do one interesting thing everyday, interesting or different from what I usually do.Everyday I must have something to think about!

The Assassination of Gandhi

Ashish Nandi has written about 'The Politics of the Assassination of Gandhi', and it is quite informative. I am not going to reproduce that piece verbatim because it is an extremely boring thing to do. Rather I would like to comment on the content.
I must confess I was a complete ignorant as regards knowledge about Nathuram Godse is considered. I felt he was just a petty, fame-thirsty person. But Nathuram Godse and the assassination was a complete case in itself. During his early childhood, Nathuram was brought up as a girl, which eventually, perhaps, led to the indispensablity of proving his masculanity to the world.There were two things which Gandhi dreamed of, alongwith his struggle for freedom from British rule. They were--the eradication of power structure or the caste syatem in the society which accumulated power and respectability to a few; and the second thing being his negation of the concepts of masculinity and femininity. Godse was against both the ideas.
Nathuram belonged to the community of Chitpavan Brahmins of Maharashtra. Gandhi's call to disintegrate the caste system meant losing the power status which the Brahmins enjoyed, more so by the Chitpavan Brahmins because in Maharashtra there is no one equal to Kshatriyas, thus the divide between the Brahmins and the non-Brahmins was huge.
Along with this, Godse had to open a shop when he was 16 and later become a tailor because of poor economic conditions, but resorting to economic activities were considered to be demeaning for Brahmins. Thus there was all the more reason for him to establish his superiority in the society.
Submissiveness was equated with femininity and legitimate violence with masculanity. Perhaps this was the premise for his choice of a violent way to freedom struggle.
But it would be really unwise to say that it was because of Godse's planning that such action could meet its end. Rather it could be said "it was an idea whose time had come!".
There were mounting security issues regarding Gandhi yet nothing substantial was being done. The police force turned lethargic and even his contemporaries felt that Gandhian principles had become anachronistic for Post-independence.
Gandhi himself had lost his zest for living because of Partition and the riots thereafter.
All these laid the foundations for a drama which was enacted by Nathuram Godse!Perhaps!

Happy B'day Mum!!!

When you came into the world, she held you in her arms.
You thanked her by wailing like a banshee.
When you were 1 year old, she fed you and bathed you.
You thanked her by crying all night long.
When you were 2 years old, she taught you to walk.
You thanked her by running away when she called.
When you were 3 years old, she made all your meals with love.
You thanked her by tossing your plate on the floor.
When you were 4 years old, she gave you some crayons.
You thanked her by coloring the dining room table.
When you were 5 years old, she dressed you for the holidays.
You thanked her by plopping into the nearest pile of mud.
When you were 6 years old, she walked you to school.
You thanked her by screaming, "I'M NOT GOING!"
When you were 7 years old, she bought you a baseball.
You thanked her by throwing it through the
next-door-neighbor's window.
When you were 8 years old, she handed you an ice cream.
You thanked her by dripping it all over your lap.
When you were 9 years old, she paid for piano lessons.
You thanked her by never even bothering to practice.
When you were 10 years old, she drove you all day, from
soccer to gymnastics to one birthday party after another.
You thanked her by jumping out of the car and never looking back.
When you were 11 years old, she took you and your friends to the movies.
You thanked her by asking to sit in a different row.
When you were 12 years old, she warned you not to watch certain TV shows.
You thanked her by waiting until she left the house.

Those teenage years
When you were 13, she suggested a haircut that was becoming.
You thanked her by telling her she had no taste.
When you were 14, she paid for a month away at summer camp.
You thanked her by forgetting to write a single letter.
When you were 15, she came home from work, looking for a hug.
You thanked her by having your bedroom door locked.
When you were 16, she taught you how to driver her car.
You thanked her by taking it every chance you could.
When you were 17, she was expecting an important call.
You thanked her by being on the phone all night.
When you were 18, she cried at your high school graduation.
You thanked her by staying out partying until dawn.

Growing old and gray
When you were 19, she paid for your college tuition,
drove you to campus, carried your bags.
You thanked her by saying good-bye outside the dorm so you wouldn't
be embarrassed in front of your friends.
When you were 20, she asked whether you were seeing anyone.
You thanked her by saying, "It's none of your business."
When you were 21, she suggested certain careers for your future.
You thanked her by saying, "I don't want to be like you."
When you were 22, she hugged you at your college graduation.
You thanked her by asking whether she could pay for a trip to Europe.
When you were 23, she gave you furniture for your first apartment.
You thanked her by telling your friends it was ugly.
When you were 24, she met your fiance and asked about your plans for the future.
You thanked her by glaring and growling, "Muuhh-ther, please!"
When you were 25, she helped to pay for your wedding, and she cried and told
you how deeply she loved you.
You thanked her by moving halfway across the country.
When you were 30, she called with some advice on the baby.
You thanked her by telling her, "Things are different now."
When you were 40, she called to remind you of an relative's birthday.
You thanked her by saying you were "really busy right now."
When you were 50, she fell ill and needed you to take care of her.
You thanked her by reading about the burden parents become to their children.


And then, one day, she quietly died. And everything you never did came
crashing down like thunder.

"Rock me baby, rock me all night long."
"The hand who rocks the cradle...may rock the world".
Let us take a moment of the time just to pay tribute/show appreciation to
the person called MOM though some may not say it openly to their mother.
There's no substitute for her. Cherished every single moment.
Though at times she may not be the best of friends, may not agree to our
thoughts, she is still your mother!!!
She will be there for you...to listen to your woes, your braggings, your
frustations, etc.
Ask yourself.....have you put aside enough time for her, to listen to her
"blues" of working in the kitchen, her tiredness???
Be tactful, loving and still show her due respect though you may have a
different view from hers.
Once gone, only fond memories of the past and also regrets will be left.

**DON'T TAKE FOR GRANTED THE THINGS CLOSEST TO YOUR HEART. CLING TO THEM AS
U WOULD YOUR LIFE, FOR WITHOUT THEM, LIFE IS MEANINGLESS*