Jessica: We are sorry

The family came crashing down like a house of cards and it kept waiting for justice for their murdered daughter. Does it take a whole life time to get justice? Parents grow old quickly, sister crosses her marriageable age without getting married and then she is left alone to fight for the word called Justice.

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Your Personality Profile “You are dependable, popular, and observant.Deep and thoughtful, you are prone to moodiness.In fact, your emotions tend to influence everything you do.You are unique, creative, and expressive.You don’t mind waving your freak flag every once and a while.And lucky for you, most people find your weird ways charming!

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Your Birthdate: February 1 You are a natural born leader, even if those leadership talents haven’t been developed yet.You have the power and self confidence to succeed in life, and your power grows daily.Besides power, you also have a great deal of creativity that enables you to innovate instead of fail.You are a visionary, seeing the big picture instead of all of the trivial little details.Your strength: Your supreme geniusYour weakness: Your inappropriate sensitivityYour power color: GoldYour power symbol: StarYour power month: January

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Your Hidden Talent Your natural talent is interpersonal relations and dealing with people.You communicate well and are able to bring disparate groups together.Your calming presence helps everything go more smoothly.People crave your praise and complements

Simple Things

It really feels nice when you could make someone feel so special.
We recently celebrated a very close friend’s birthday. It was a pleasant surprise for him. And when I realized that he actually was so happy, it gave me a strange satisfaction that I could make someone feel good.

It’s a very beautiful feeling.

In life there are tiny moments, small gestures which give life its meaning, which gives each day its worth.

Holding a new born baby in your arms is a nice feeling. Falling in love, doing something special for a loved one, doing something for your own self, all of this is so beautiful.
Seeing children play, seeing the earth getting wet. Playing with your dog, getting licked by your naughty puppy. Watching the rainbow and the stars from the terrace of your home till you fall asleep. Calling your friends home, cooking dinner together, watch a late night movie, long drive.
Isolated roads, haunted houses.
Going back to a place called home after a hard day’s work. Sharing gossip with buddies. Having dinner with your family. Getting yourself painted. Observing people. Music, light, sunshine, rains, lightning, a storm, a safe tremor of an earth quake, everything is so crazy.

Every thing makes life so happy and so beautiful.

Still we would crib and complain, about so many things. May be we take everything that God has given us, for granted. We take all our senses for granted. That’s why we hear but don’t listen. We see but don’t observe. We make friends but don’t nurture the relation. May be we think making friends, having a home, having a family, having a job, everything is part of life. This happens, this ought to happen. Something like breathing. We would breathe even if we are in coma. But how many of us realize that without oxygen, our breathing is useless?
The sun rises every morning, we know it because we have seen it, we have heard it, and we have read about it. In short, it is granted that tomorrow again the sun would rise. But without an eye to see it, without a skin to feel it and without the brain to understand it, would we know how it is to be in the sun on a lazy winter afternoon? How does it feel at 12 noon in the month of May in Delhi?
Without our brain, would we know how it is to be in love, without our senses will it be the same when you are making love? When you are giving birth, when you have a bouquet of your favorite flowers in your hand?

We are not made in factories and that is why we all are so different. We react differently to each situation. What is it that makes us different?

What is it? Who has given us this power the senses? The power of intuition, the ability to love someone, to care. The ability to feed a hungry stomach. The power of intelligence, the power of perception?

Who taught us to put our mother’s breast in our mouth when we were born and were hungry? Who taught us to close our eyes and cover our face immediately when we assume that something is going to hit our face? How come feelings like fear, hunger, happiness, grief, pain are ingrained since birth in all the living beings? How come babies of all the animals including humans have something that we call mischief? How come all animals have a desire to mate and have off springs? Who thought them the art of love, the right way of rearing a baby, feeding the baby, the art of hunting and later on cultivating? Why all species of birds make different nests and who taught them?
We may choose to call it basic instinct. But are we not getting away very easily? What is this instinct and who put this in?
For me I would say if we stop taking things for granted we would start seeing God in every small activity of life. God is what we are, what we make our children. God is the ability to feel sunshine.
God is to make someone feel good. God is the unexplained feeling that you experience when you are in love.
I know I started this post with a friend’s birthday and may have got lost in the midway. That is what many people would think. But given a serious thought would you not agree that our brains are made that way that we jump from topic to topic but the chain is never broken. One thing would lead to another always. I once read a 3 page article in reader’s Digest by Helen Keller and I realized through her words how fortunate we are with able bodies. All she wised for were 3 days of sight, sound and senses. That meant the whole world to her.
But it does not take great thinkers to open our eyes. With grave loss comes serious learning.

Found my perfect man

This long weekend was not that bad. Met friends on Saturday and saw Munich with dad on Sunday. Munich is a good movie but very long. And I found my perfect man also in the film. The hero of the film, Avna, completely fits the definition of a perfect man. He is handsome, manly yet vulnerable, loyal, loving, responsible, masculine. The hero is so real and so human. Go girls catch a glimpse of Avna, the hero, the perfect man.

P.S. But do they really exist in real life?

Samadhan

Something that bothers me a lot is the mismanagement of garbage in Delhi. Toe start with, we have overflowing garbage bins, clogged drains and then we have people who lack civic sense and add up to this problem by spitting on roads, littering and urinating in public places. The disposal of biological wastes are also a concern here. To counter all this we have to make a strategy. The points that I have thought of would not only help us organize the mess but also give employment opportunities. Lets take the points one by one:-

1. Privatisation: Though MCD and NDMC are the municipal bodies involved in waste disposal in Delhi, Privatisation would help us better. As this would lead to sharing of responsibility there by yielding better results. We can engage NGO’s or Private operators for waste disposal staring from allocating dustbins after every 1/2 km on main roads so that people don’t throw garbage on roads or clog drains. Many people are forced to throw the trash on roads not because it is their habit but because they do not find any trash can to use, this results in clogged drains which leads to water logging during monsoon creating traffic jams and other accidents.

2. Allocation of Dustbins: it is all the more important to allocate areas for dustbins areas with denser population. After this comes the segregation of dry and wet garbage which can be easily done by placing dustbins with 2 sections and “Wet” and “Dry” written on them in Hindi or the local language.

3. Clearing of Dustbins: Next step to it would be clearing the bins on an daily basis. And while doing so it is important that people engaged in it are given proper safety instruction on garbage management. People cleaning the drains , manholes should be properly geared with appropriate gadgets and clothing lest they die of suffocation or poisoning inside the drains. Training can be imparted to them by MCD and NDMC, which would also keep a check and supervise these people or agencies.

4. Role of government: After clearing of drains and waste bins, it is important to dispose the waste properly. Hence, the government should allocate waste land areas. Hospitals should be given incinerators and the government should maintain proper check on the Hospitals using them correctly. The government can also engage experts who can help us reduce or utilize industrial wastes and re-cycling them. Paid toilets should be constructed in public areas and where it is not feasible, Mobile toilets can be of help to deter people from urinating or defecating in public places. Fines should be implemented in practice which would again act as deterrent for the stubborn heads.

5. Awareness: Finally the general public should be educated about basic hygiene and the proper disposal of wastes, re-cycling so that every one can co-operate in this movement. The government can take help from NGO’s, schools for this purpose.

The above points are very basic and would not involve much investment. It is just a matter of willingness from the government and from the general public. This program would help us reduce waste, pollution, health hazards
and other problems associated with it. If implemented properly, it would create employment there by giving quality life to many and would lead to general awareness and a sense of belonging for the city.

I wanna ask the government

Why are the farmers in Vidharba and Marathwada dying a death of suicide? What is the government doing to help these farmers who are dying to save their self respect due to indebtedness and crop failure? This would only lead to a slow death of Agricultural sector. In the madness of becoming Industrialised, we have already lost so much of our culture. There are so many forms of art which have already died a silent death or are on the verge of dying and are crying for revival. There are so many Tribes who are almost extinct now. There would come a time when we will have to import food items and natural products.

Why are we still focusing on reservation and quota systems when it has not helped us much since 1978, during Morarji Desai’s regime? We should ideally be focusing on quality primary and secondary education rather than giving freebies to some. And if the government is convinced that reservation would work then the Prim Ministers seat should also have 50% reservation for the SC/ ST/ OBC which has till date been occupied by people of higher castes, except for Deve Gowda, the humble farmer, who could not continue his term.

Now I read that YaleUniversity would pick up the cream ala cream from India so that they get free education in Yale University. So now, after some relief from the brain drain, we should be ready again for some. Because, with reservations at Jobs, Premium institutes, the students would have no option, but to look else where for their career. And I am sure, universities which are offering free education and free return tickets too to its students every year during the academic session would not be doing is out of charity. After all, nothing comes for free and this too would have some price tag. May be these universities would make sure that these bright students do not go back to India for jobs but rather stay in their countries and serve them as they are deprived of quality professionals which we will fulfill for them. They might have tie ups with companies and contractual bonds, so that with each bright Indian student their country gets a promising professional. And at the end of it, India suffers and manages, somehow with these quota students, who would get admissions and jobs not on merit but due to their priviledged birth in these families.

I want to ask the government who have supporters like Bal Thackery and his likes, who are fanatics to the core and would create a rampage in the name of Hindutva and sanskriti and Christian conversion. But why are these people taking a refuge in some other religion has any body thought of it? Its not out of choice but out of need. The need for free medical facility, education and acceptance in the society which is mostly caste ridden and driven. In fact the politics is run on the caste system to gain favoritism.
And this quota system also is nothing but a branch of it so that the society remains divided. After all sanskitisation is a fact of Sociology where the one below would ape the one above and the one below has aped the one above’s policy of “Divide and Rule.”

I also want to ask the general public of Karnataka, why such a rampage on the death of a Demigod who died a natural death. 6 people dead and for what? For whom? For Rajkumar. Who did what? Who acted in more than 200 films. So what? Was he a father Teresa? When Kargil happened, people where sticking to the TV set not because of the war but because of the World Cup going on. Where was this feeling at that time? Feeling of great loss.

This post shall continue till all my questions are answered………

I did not take these photos :-)

The white sheets and the feminity beneath.

Malaika Aroroa Khan with her son, Bipasha, Mallika, Ashwairya (below)

My Dady’s Daughter

With three days of holidays, I would have planned something really exciting. But I have so many pending work that can not think of anything other than work. Life has come to a standstill. Nothing is happening. Routine, day after day just routine. There is nothing I look forward to these days. We were planning a rafting event but then my father said “No” and then finally because of various reasons it did not happen.

Things were pretty different when we were small, when my parents were young. My parents would plan a vacation every year during school summer holidays. It used to be so much fun. My dad would sit with me for hours in the train and would keep chatting, and I would patiently listen and would not get bored. I have always been fond of my dad. Though I have never been fond of his cooking. His cooking experiments are usually a disaster. I remember, once he read a recipe in the Sunday newspaper and the very same evening he made that too. It was called Rum Banana. Nothing special but a Flambé’ dish made out of bananas and dark rum. Then once he made a Bengali sweet called “Shondesh” in a pressure cooker which had too little sweet and tasted like cottage cheese. But he used to make very good ice cream. I remember, almost on every Sunday in summers, he would get condensed milk, ice cream mix, and then he would occupy the kitchen for a long time to make that ice-cream.

My father would help me make my charts, models and other projects too. It was so much fun. Infact my father used to teach me math, science and Bengali too. He would take a tape recorder, and record my voice when I would be reciting the tables that I was to by-heart. Then he would take out a slate and chalk and would write some Bangla alphabet on it and I was to over write on it, till I remembered what alphabet was it. He took a lot of pain in making me, first a literate and then educated. But later, as the years passed, I lost my father in the hands to time. May be I was too fast in moving ahead with my teenaged life that I did not care to look back to wait for him to join me. He also started other ways of keeping himself busy. My brother was more attached to my mother.

I remember, I used to go for night walks with my father, every evening after dinner and we would talk about so many things. There was a stray dog also that we befriended and it would follow us till home where dad would give him something to eat. On one such day he even explained to me the scientific reason of why a girl gets her periods. This was when I got my first periods and I was so embarrassed that I told mom not to tell dad but she did.

I was a regular companion of my dad for all the English movies. I have seen so many movies with him that I do not even remember the names of half of them. I would keep asking him silly questions and he would patiently answer those.

There was a time when my father also caught a greeting card that I wrote to my 1st crush and I was so embarrassed in front of him. He was very upset with me at that time. He was hurt when he came to know about me bunking school with friends. I hurt him and disappointed him so many times.

We still are great buddies when we actually sit down and talk. I fight with him very often. And we occasionally drink also together. He would not offer a drink to my brother but to me. It’s good that he keeps himself busy as I do not have time to sit and chit chat as I used to when I was small. I am tied up with so many things. My mom and my dad end up fighting after 10 minutes of being together. They have different temperaments but they are deeply in love. After all, I and my brother are here because of their everlasting love.

With each grey strand he is becoming more handsome and with each wrinkle she has become more beautiful. They are my Mom and Dad. So much married, so much in love.