This is one of the shorter books I've read in recent times. It is a collections of essays, with a little bit of poetry thrown in, describing life's lessons and experiences through the eyes of a strong, independent African-American woman. (You can read more about her on her website. There's a lot to say about her and I can't say all of it here.)
The author never actually had a daughter, she has just one son. But she sees women all over the world, women of different cultures and races, as her daughters to whom she can pass on her experience and wisdom.
The book, though short, is packed with insights and interesting incidents, often occurring during her travels, which took her far and wide. She talks about respecting other cultures and respecting people who are different from yourself while being straightforward with people who do not deserve your respect.
The book gives the reader a certain amount of insight into a vibrant life of courage and strong will, of refusing to accept things as they are and trying to be your own person and shaping your own destiny. You may not be able to relate to her, because she is a rather unique person, but you can definitely appreciate and respect her and her writing.
Maya Angelou is an inspiration to people, especially women, of all ages and all countries. This book definitely makes a worthwhile read.
Showing posts with label Being A Woman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Being A Woman. Show all posts
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Driving On The Other Side Of The Road
These days I am familiarising myself with the rules of the road in the States and polishing my skills so that I am ready to take a road test and get a full license so that I can drive around on my own. There are some things I've learnt in the three hours I spent with my instructor and approximately the same amount of time that I spent practising with my husband in his car, and also when I was reading the manual and preparing for the written test for my learner's permit. The first thing that struck me was that these guys have such a well planned training programme developed for kids who want to get their first license. There's a certain amount of class room teaching and a fixed number of hours on the road that you have to go through. And then, you have to spend a certain number of hours practising with your parent or guardian. Now you don't have to do all that if you have previously held a license in another state or in another country, but if you're sixteen and want to drive yourself around, then you certainly do.
Then, of course, like everybody knows even if they've never been to the States, traffic is a lot more organised and follows the rules a lot more strictly than it would do in Delhi. Now I knew this beforehand, but it's a different thing to experience it from behind the wheel. I still tend to stop briefly or slow down at green lights to make sure nobody's jumping the red light in the other direction. In India, that was a useful and practical thing to do. Here, people will tend to think that I'm a little crazy, stopping at a green light. People over here use their horns only when they're really bugged, not to tell the driver in front of them to wake up and see that the traffic light has turned green. They have very clear right-of-way rules for for crossings with no red lights, and almost everybody obeys them. There are right-of-way rules for pedestrians. You have to let pedestrians and bicyclists pass. Your car touches a pedestrian, and you're in trouble. People stop in the middle of the road to let pedestrians pass. It takes some getting used to. Whether you're on foot or inside the car. For the first few weeks, when I was waiting to cross a road and a car stopped for me, I would wonder what I did wrong and why the person was stopping. This morning, I was coming out of a parking lot on to a main road with heavy traffic and a woman stopped so I could enter traffic. People do that often. And then you're supposed to wave a thank-you. People do that too.
It takes some getting used to when you've always been driving a car with a stick shift and suddenly graduate to an automatic. Not that you have to do anything extra that you didn't do with your previous car, but these automatics are so light, they fly to fifty miles an hour the instant you step on the accelerator. Or gas pedal, as my instructor calls it. The first couple of times she used the term, I didn't really understand what she was telling me to do. What do you mean, give it gas? Fifty miles per hour doesn't really feel like eighty kilometres per hour. It feels like fifty kilometres per hour. Because the roads are so much smoother, and the cars are lighter.
You know what I really like? Teaching people to drive is a perfectly respectable occupation that you can make a decent living from. And women do it too. That's one thing that India definitely lacks. It's a blue collar occupation. And people assume that women are just not as good at driving as men. Maybe I know why that happens in India, other than the fact that Indians are still very strongly of the opinion that men are much better than women at everything. Some people here are of that opinion too, but they don't show it that much. But the other reason that comes to my mind is that, based on my observations, girls tend to learn to drive at a much later age than guys in India, for various reasons. Even if guys don't drive cars, they ride bikes and scooters at a young age and get a decent amount of road sense. This is something that you acquire much better earlier in life. I've seen that girls who were two years younger than me and driving around for two years were better at it than I was, as I was better than girls two years older with the same amount of experience. Now over here, everybody learns to drive at sixteen. Boys and girls. Asians and Brazilians. In India, I saw a woman driving an SUV maybe three or four times in my life. Here, they drive everything. Not just SUVs. Cargo trucks, school buses, the works.
Oh well, I hope I am good enough to take my road test soon. Because this is a place where driving is actually fun.
Then, of course, like everybody knows even if they've never been to the States, traffic is a lot more organised and follows the rules a lot more strictly than it would do in Delhi. Now I knew this beforehand, but it's a different thing to experience it from behind the wheel. I still tend to stop briefly or slow down at green lights to make sure nobody's jumping the red light in the other direction. In India, that was a useful and practical thing to do. Here, people will tend to think that I'm a little crazy, stopping at a green light. People over here use their horns only when they're really bugged, not to tell the driver in front of them to wake up and see that the traffic light has turned green. They have very clear right-of-way rules for for crossings with no red lights, and almost everybody obeys them. There are right-of-way rules for pedestrians. You have to let pedestrians and bicyclists pass. Your car touches a pedestrian, and you're in trouble. People stop in the middle of the road to let pedestrians pass. It takes some getting used to. Whether you're on foot or inside the car. For the first few weeks, when I was waiting to cross a road and a car stopped for me, I would wonder what I did wrong and why the person was stopping. This morning, I was coming out of a parking lot on to a main road with heavy traffic and a woman stopped so I could enter traffic. People do that often. And then you're supposed to wave a thank-you. People do that too.
It takes some getting used to when you've always been driving a car with a stick shift and suddenly graduate to an automatic. Not that you have to do anything extra that you didn't do with your previous car, but these automatics are so light, they fly to fifty miles an hour the instant you step on the accelerator. Or gas pedal, as my instructor calls it. The first couple of times she used the term, I didn't really understand what she was telling me to do. What do you mean, give it gas? Fifty miles per hour doesn't really feel like eighty kilometres per hour. It feels like fifty kilometres per hour. Because the roads are so much smoother, and the cars are lighter.
You know what I really like? Teaching people to drive is a perfectly respectable occupation that you can make a decent living from. And women do it too. That's one thing that India definitely lacks. It's a blue collar occupation. And people assume that women are just not as good at driving as men. Maybe I know why that happens in India, other than the fact that Indians are still very strongly of the opinion that men are much better than women at everything. Some people here are of that opinion too, but they don't show it that much. But the other reason that comes to my mind is that, based on my observations, girls tend to learn to drive at a much later age than guys in India, for various reasons. Even if guys don't drive cars, they ride bikes and scooters at a young age and get a decent amount of road sense. This is something that you acquire much better earlier in life. I've seen that girls who were two years younger than me and driving around for two years were better at it than I was, as I was better than girls two years older with the same amount of experience. Now over here, everybody learns to drive at sixteen. Boys and girls. Asians and Brazilians. In India, I saw a woman driving an SUV maybe three or four times in my life. Here, they drive everything. Not just SUVs. Cargo trucks, school buses, the works.
Oh well, I hope I am good enough to take my road test soon. Because this is a place where driving is actually fun.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
All People Are Equal, But Some People Are More Equal Than Others
I've recently moved from a country where, in a lot of communities, women are not allowed to step outside the house, except to go to the community well or hand pump to get water, and are expected to make it the business of their lives to raise a family and maintain the house, to another country, where women are commonly seen doing just about anything that a man would do, from driving a bus to managing her own company.
I recently found out, that, even in this country, there are certain Christian sects where the women don't work, and they bear like eighteen children, and the kids don't get much of an education. And to add to that, these people vacation only in those regions which are inhabited by their own people, so that the kids are not exposed to the outside world, until the time that they have, perhaps, six children of their own, and too many family responsibilities to think about getting themselves a real education. Apparently there's a reality show on Discovery Channel about these people, and my aunt watched it a few times, and she told me about it.
It was rather strange for me to discover that such communities still survive in this day and age, even in this country. How do they even manage to do it? I mean, you would need to keep your kids away from all kinds of mass media in order to pull off something like that. You would need to live in a neighbourhood which has only people from your sect, and send your kids to a school with the same restriction.
What is more interesting is, once you actually know that there is a more free, more open world out there, why would you still want to continue to live the way you do and keep your kids in the dark, the way your parents kept you? I mean, people spend their lives and die fighting for equal rights, and then there are those people who have equal rights and actually want to be left behind! Why they would do that, continues to puzzle me.
I recently found out, that, even in this country, there are certain Christian sects where the women don't work, and they bear like eighteen children, and the kids don't get much of an education. And to add to that, these people vacation only in those regions which are inhabited by their own people, so that the kids are not exposed to the outside world, until the time that they have, perhaps, six children of their own, and too many family responsibilities to think about getting themselves a real education. Apparently there's a reality show on Discovery Channel about these people, and my aunt watched it a few times, and she told me about it.
It was rather strange for me to discover that such communities still survive in this day and age, even in this country. How do they even manage to do it? I mean, you would need to keep your kids away from all kinds of mass media in order to pull off something like that. You would need to live in a neighbourhood which has only people from your sect, and send your kids to a school with the same restriction.
What is more interesting is, once you actually know that there is a more free, more open world out there, why would you still want to continue to live the way you do and keep your kids in the dark, the way your parents kept you? I mean, people spend their lives and die fighting for equal rights, and then there are those people who have equal rights and actually want to be left behind! Why they would do that, continues to puzzle me.
Monday, July 6, 2009
We Eat, They Eat
I'd read somewhere, long ago, that one of the main reasons that women gain weight after they get married is that they tend to eat the same sized portions of food as their husbands. Now, in general, men's appetites are a lot larger than women's appetites, and, somewhere along the line, if you lose track of that, you start eating a lot more than you actually need to and begin to bloat up. I had a hard time explaining this to my husband in the first couple of weeks of our marriage. My mother-in-law would serve me the same amount of food that she would serve him, and it was rather overwhelming for me. Now I've straightened things out with my husband and taken charge of the kitchen, so things are the way they should be.
This weekend, when I was visiting my uncle and his family, my aunt and I were talking about how much her elder son eats these days. He's on a 3500-calorie diet these days, because he's at an age where boys eat a lot and, on top of that, he's taken up a summer job with a landscaping company and carries rocks all day. Now I eat that much in about two days. So does his sister, who is two years older than he is.
My aunt told us this story about this woman who had seven daughters and no sons. One evening, one of her daughters brought her boyfriend home for dinner. Now the mother served everyone their regular portions of food, and the girls ate their fill and the boy, well, he ate too. Then the mother asked if people wanted to go out for a movie. The boy said, "Okay, but can we stop and get dinner on the way?"
I think my husband and his family had pretty much the same problem. He just has a brother, and no sisters. It was news to him that males and females have different appetites and that it is perfectly normal if I eat less than he does. I had to explain that men have more muscle mass, so their bodies burn more calories even when they are at rest. I had to hammer the idea into his head for a couple of weeks before it finally got across to him!
This weekend, when I was visiting my uncle and his family, my aunt and I were talking about how much her elder son eats these days. He's on a 3500-calorie diet these days, because he's at an age where boys eat a lot and, on top of that, he's taken up a summer job with a landscaping company and carries rocks all day. Now I eat that much in about two days. So does his sister, who is two years older than he is.
My aunt told us this story about this woman who had seven daughters and no sons. One evening, one of her daughters brought her boyfriend home for dinner. Now the mother served everyone their regular portions of food, and the girls ate their fill and the boy, well, he ate too. Then the mother asked if people wanted to go out for a movie. The boy said, "Okay, but can we stop and get dinner on the way?"
I think my husband and his family had pretty much the same problem. He just has a brother, and no sisters. It was news to him that males and females have different appetites and that it is perfectly normal if I eat less than he does. I had to explain that men have more muscle mass, so their bodies burn more calories even when they are at rest. I had to hammer the idea into his head for a couple of weeks before it finally got across to him!
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Musings For Today
I just heard Mohit Chauhan's Tune Jo Na Kaha from New York. This is the first time in the last two months that I've heard a song worth writing about. True, I've been out of touch with Hindi music a little, but even so. I really liked this song, with its soulful, touching words.
It's funny, how Delhi is drying up, how the monsoon refuses to arrive back home, and here it's been raining almost all week, with the rain not stopping even for long enough for me to take a short walk outside. I've been spending more time in the gym all week.
I never before saw a man go out of his way to hold a door open for a woman. A couple of days back, as I was walking to the gym, which is in a different building in the same apartment complex, I was just outside the building and fishing for the keys to the building in my pocket. And this guy who happened to be in the corridor, walked all the way to the door and held it open. I thought he's opened it because he wanted to come out. Then he told me he didn't, he was just opening it for me. He said that no gentleman wants to see a lady fishing for her keys in the rain. I was slightly dazed. I think that kind of chivalry is fast dissolving into nothingness these days. It's great, however, to see a glimpse of it every now and then.
It's funny, how Delhi is drying up, how the monsoon refuses to arrive back home, and here it's been raining almost all week, with the rain not stopping even for long enough for me to take a short walk outside. I've been spending more time in the gym all week.
I never before saw a man go out of his way to hold a door open for a woman. A couple of days back, as I was walking to the gym, which is in a different building in the same apartment complex, I was just outside the building and fishing for the keys to the building in my pocket. And this guy who happened to be in the corridor, walked all the way to the door and held it open. I thought he's opened it because he wanted to come out. Then he told me he didn't, he was just opening it for me. He said that no gentleman wants to see a lady fishing for her keys in the rain. I was slightly dazed. I think that kind of chivalry is fast dissolving into nothingness these days. It's great, however, to see a glimpse of it every now and then.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Feeling Like A Princess
So I went out with my soon to be in-laws to shop for some wedding jewellery today. I haven't really done or witnessed anything like it before. Trying on all those bangles and necklaces and my in-laws mentioning that some of it looks like it is from Jodhaa Akbar made me feel like a princess. I must say that they were really sweet to me. It felt good, since this was the first time I actually spent such a significant amount of time with them. I think we all had a pretty good time today.
By the way, trying on a mangalsutra to see how it looks on you is quite an experience. It really does something to you.
By the way, trying on a mangalsutra to see how it looks on you is quite an experience. It really does something to you.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Mixed Bag
Just a few varied thoughts I want to share today.
- International Women's Day reminds me of this Swedish guy whom my dad used to work with, years ago. He said something to the effect that Women's Day is the only day in the year that is for women. All the other days are for the men.
- Today I learnt how to make Dal Makhani. And I also practised my chapati making skills. I am getting better at it, slowly and steadily.
- I am feeling totally awesome today. I called an old friend from school and told her that I am about to get married. It felt great to catch up with her after a long while. I also caught up with my best friends in Melbourne. And there is another reason for feeling great today which I will keep to myself!
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Random Afterthoughts
A mixed bag of afterthoughts I had on a few recent posts.
A Thousand Splendid Suns: A Review And My Afterthoughts: I owe this book a lot. This is the book that helped me rediscover the joy of reading. I did read Lajja before this, and it was a pretty good book, but it was not powerful enough to get me addicted. Now I need a new book to read within an hour or so of finishing one. I think that this is a significant stepping stone on the path to my ultimate dream.
Feeling Safe: A lot of people have told me that I am not a very "girly" kind of girl. No matter how far that may be true, no matter how independent I may consider myself to be, there are some things that are the same for all girls across the city. It's pretty unfortunate, but quite true.
Maa Da Laadla Exits Indian Idol: You know, in the earlier rounds of the show, I used to get some amount of sadistic pleasure when Mohit got fewer votes than the rest, and was on the verge of being eliminated, had the judges not brought him back through a special wild card entry. I was wishing for him to leave the show, so that my mom would stop watching it and we could watch something else and also, we would all eat our dinner at a more reasonable hour on Fridays. But as the show progressed, I grew to like his singing, to appreciate his talent and to see the improvement with every successive round. I felt genuinely sad, and I thought it was grossly unjustified that he had to leave so soon. He had it in him to be the first or second runner up, and if it were left entirely to the judges, he would have been. Well, that's quite enough for me. No more of that show for me. Otherwise every episode will have me writing a post about the injustice.
Happy Birthday, Akash: I also miss having a known, friendly face in the diagonally adjacent cubicle, as opposed to seeing some random guy sitting there!
A Thousand Splendid Suns: A Review And My Afterthoughts: I owe this book a lot. This is the book that helped me rediscover the joy of reading. I did read Lajja before this, and it was a pretty good book, but it was not powerful enough to get me addicted. Now I need a new book to read within an hour or so of finishing one. I think that this is a significant stepping stone on the path to my ultimate dream.
Feeling Safe: A lot of people have told me that I am not a very "girly" kind of girl. No matter how far that may be true, no matter how independent I may consider myself to be, there are some things that are the same for all girls across the city. It's pretty unfortunate, but quite true.
Maa Da Laadla Exits Indian Idol: You know, in the earlier rounds of the show, I used to get some amount of sadistic pleasure when Mohit got fewer votes than the rest, and was on the verge of being eliminated, had the judges not brought him back through a special wild card entry. I was wishing for him to leave the show, so that my mom would stop watching it and we could watch something else and also, we would all eat our dinner at a more reasonable hour on Fridays. But as the show progressed, I grew to like his singing, to appreciate his talent and to see the improvement with every successive round. I felt genuinely sad, and I thought it was grossly unjustified that he had to leave so soon. He had it in him to be the first or second runner up, and if it were left entirely to the judges, he would have been. Well, that's quite enough for me. No more of that show for me. Otherwise every episode will have me writing a post about the injustice.
Happy Birthday, Akash: I also miss having a known, friendly face in the diagonally adjacent cubicle, as opposed to seeing some random guy sitting there!
Friday, January 9, 2009
Feeling Safe
You remember the part in Ghajini where Ghajini's goons were in Kalpana's house, looking for her, to kill her off? This particular scene had me terrified like I've never been, during any movie I ever saw. After I watched it the second time, it gave me a few sleepless nights. That was only a phase. It passed. But you know what continues to haunt me? The part just before that, when Kalpana tells Ghajini that, because of people like him, girls are terrified of stepping out of their homes.
Every so often, incidents ranging from chain snatching to daylight rape are reported, even in the most crowded places, ranging from the Delhi University Campus to the vicinity of malls. The more recent ones have brought home the realization that not only are girls unsafe when going out alone at night, but also when going out with a guy in the daytime. An acquaintance of mine, who often works late into the night, says that, when she takes a cab from work and is alone, she feels safer if they don't send a guard along with the driver. Because if it's just the driver, that's one man to be wary of. If there's a guard as well, that's two of them. I wholeheartedly echo her sentiment. That's what this city is coming to. A place where a girl just cannot trust a man she doesn't really know, where she absolutely cannot be assured of her safety at any time during the day.
How is a girl supposed to feel safe? How is she supposed to get her peace of mind in this city?
Every so often, incidents ranging from chain snatching to daylight rape are reported, even in the most crowded places, ranging from the Delhi University Campus to the vicinity of malls. The more recent ones have brought home the realization that not only are girls unsafe when going out alone at night, but also when going out with a guy in the daytime. An acquaintance of mine, who often works late into the night, says that, when she takes a cab from work and is alone, she feels safer if they don't send a guard along with the driver. Because if it's just the driver, that's one man to be wary of. If there's a guard as well, that's two of them. I wholeheartedly echo her sentiment. That's what this city is coming to. A place where a girl just cannot trust a man she doesn't really know, where she absolutely cannot be assured of her safety at any time during the day.
How is a girl supposed to feel safe? How is she supposed to get her peace of mind in this city?
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
A Thousand Splendid Suns: A Review And My Afterthoughts
This is Khaled Hosseini's second novel, after The Kite Runner, which, by the way, I haven't read so far. I originally intended and wanted to read that one, but after a recommendation from Bhatti (verbal as well as on his blog) and a stroke of chance, I ended up reading this instead.
Never have I been so enthralled, so glued to a book. I just realised, that in the four days in which I read this book, I did not even listen to any music! Well, except for the songs that were playing when I went to watch Ghajini and when I went shopping yesterday... there was probably some music playing at the malls, I guess.
Khaled Hosseini has done a brilliant job at describing the terror inflicted upon the people of Afghanistan by the Mujahideen, the Taliban, and later, briefly, the American army. He has done an equally great job at describing the emotional turmoil the people went through in that time, the shattered hopes, the lost love, the separation from loved ones, the complete agony of it all.
The story revolves around two women, Mariam and Laila, who, by a twist of fate, end up being married to the same man. Both have experienced the loss of loved ones. Initially, they are rather hostile to each other, but eventually, a strong bond forms between them, out of their shared abhorrence for their husband, and the fact that both have seen so much anguish in their lives, and don't have much to be happy about in life, other than each other's company, and, later, Laila's daughter Aziza, who brings into their lives the love, the joy, the fulfillment they lacked.
The powerful narrative makes the reader feel the tragedy, the hopelessness, the ecstasy, with the characters. I actually wept through some of the more agonizing parts. And I was pretty shaken up during some of the more gruesome parts.
The Taliban forbade women from getting an education, from taking up jobs, even from going out on the street without a burqa and a male relative to escort them. They forbade people from writing books, from painting, from watching films. It makes me think, how lucky I am, to be living in a time and place where I have the freedom of creative expression, the same educational opportunities as the men, an opportunity to work in the same workplace as them, and to be treated in the same way. There are men (even women, as a matter of fact) that I know of who do not think that women can do the same job in the same way as men do it, or that they do not deserve the same rights. But they are way better than men who think that a woman's purpose of existence comprises of cooking for him, cleaning up behind him, bearing his sons, bringing up the sons, satisfying his lust, and then, being locked up in his house and then, on top of all that, becoming the target of his sneers and his cruelty. Men to whom it never occurs that women are also people, who have dreams, hopes, desires, who feel pain, agony, ecstasy. I am thankful that I do not live in a time and place where one constantly lives in fear of death, of impending doom. That I do not have to flee from my own home in order to live.
By the way, I checked off all four items from my list. Read two novels so far, watched two movies alone so far, went out shopping by myself yesterday, and found myself sleeping from midnight to noon almost every day. Cheers!
Never have I been so enthralled, so glued to a book. I just realised, that in the four days in which I read this book, I did not even listen to any music! Well, except for the songs that were playing when I went to watch Ghajini and when I went shopping yesterday... there was probably some music playing at the malls, I guess.
Khaled Hosseini has done a brilliant job at describing the terror inflicted upon the people of Afghanistan by the Mujahideen, the Taliban, and later, briefly, the American army. He has done an equally great job at describing the emotional turmoil the people went through in that time, the shattered hopes, the lost love, the separation from loved ones, the complete agony of it all.
The story revolves around two women, Mariam and Laila, who, by a twist of fate, end up being married to the same man. Both have experienced the loss of loved ones. Initially, they are rather hostile to each other, but eventually, a strong bond forms between them, out of their shared abhorrence for their husband, and the fact that both have seen so much anguish in their lives, and don't have much to be happy about in life, other than each other's company, and, later, Laila's daughter Aziza, who brings into their lives the love, the joy, the fulfillment they lacked.
The powerful narrative makes the reader feel the tragedy, the hopelessness, the ecstasy, with the characters. I actually wept through some of the more agonizing parts. And I was pretty shaken up during some of the more gruesome parts.
The Taliban forbade women from getting an education, from taking up jobs, even from going out on the street without a burqa and a male relative to escort them. They forbade people from writing books, from painting, from watching films. It makes me think, how lucky I am, to be living in a time and place where I have the freedom of creative expression, the same educational opportunities as the men, an opportunity to work in the same workplace as them, and to be treated in the same way. There are men (even women, as a matter of fact) that I know of who do not think that women can do the same job in the same way as men do it, or that they do not deserve the same rights. But they are way better than men who think that a woman's purpose of existence comprises of cooking for him, cleaning up behind him, bearing his sons, bringing up the sons, satisfying his lust, and then, being locked up in his house and then, on top of all that, becoming the target of his sneers and his cruelty. Men to whom it never occurs that women are also people, who have dreams, hopes, desires, who feel pain, agony, ecstasy. I am thankful that I do not live in a time and place where one constantly lives in fear of death, of impending doom. That I do not have to flee from my own home in order to live.
By the way, I checked off all four items from my list. Read two novels so far, watched two movies alone so far, went out shopping by myself yesterday, and found myself sleeping from midnight to noon almost every day. Cheers!
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Bad Bad Girls
I really like some of the songs from Chak De! India. I just felt like putting down these lines from Bad Bad Girls to remind some of the guys out there who need to be reminded that girls are no longer living in the nineteenth century and that they have come a long way. They are not going to stay in the kitchens and allow themselves to be treated like dorrmats. They have a mind, a life of their own.
na roti khilayegi na chotiya banayegi na palke jhukayegi
na chhat pe bulayegi na nange pair ayegi na sar pe bithayegi
...
na ankhiya milayegi na sakhiya bulaayegi, na nakhare uthaayegi
na gori hoke aayegi na chori se manaayegi, na bori mein samaayegi
Just could not resist the desire to go back to male-bashing mode!
PS: Anyone who dares to comment that quoting from the Hockey Doongi Rakh Ke number would have suited me better will be subjected to the treatment described in that song.
na roti khilayegi na chotiya banayegi na palke jhukayegi
na chhat pe bulayegi na nange pair ayegi na sar pe bithayegi
...
na ankhiya milayegi na sakhiya bulaayegi, na nakhare uthaayegi
na gori hoke aayegi na chori se manaayegi, na bori mein samaayegi
Just could not resist the desire to go back to male-bashing mode!
PS: Anyone who dares to comment that quoting from the Hockey Doongi Rakh Ke number would have suited me better will be subjected to the treatment described in that song.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Of Confusion and Women
Something interesting I heard on the radio this morning:
Female RJ: A woman’s weight varies with her relationship status. At the beginning of a relationship, it reduces. When the relationship becomes a little stable, it increases. When her wedding approaches, it starts to reduce again. Once the wedding is over, it increases again. When she is expecting, it increases. Once she has her baby, it reduces.
Male RJ: So a woman’s weight is just like the woman – confused!!!
I shared this little piece with my friends in the morning. Bhatti was really happy that I shared a thought like this one after the male-bashing phase. Akash was happy that I admitted that women were all confused. Well, I told him, women are intelligent enough to figure out that they are confused and mature enough to admit it. Men are neither of these things!
And I'm back to the male-bashing!
Female RJ: A woman’s weight varies with her relationship status. At the beginning of a relationship, it reduces. When the relationship becomes a little stable, it increases. When her wedding approaches, it starts to reduce again. Once the wedding is over, it increases again. When she is expecting, it increases. Once she has her baby, it reduces.
Male RJ: So a woman’s weight is just like the woman – confused!!!
I shared this little piece with my friends in the morning. Bhatti was really happy that I shared a thought like this one after the male-bashing phase. Akash was happy that I admitted that women were all confused. Well, I told him, women are intelligent enough to figure out that they are confused and mature enough to admit it. Men are neither of these things!
And I'm back to the male-bashing!
Saturday, September 27, 2008
What Women Don't Want From Men
Some people thought I would soon write a "more dangerous sequel" to What Women Need From Men. This is not exactly that, but somewhere on those lines. Last week I saw the much-awaited first episode of Season 2 of The Big Bang Theory. The general theme of this series revolves around four highly qualified Physicists who are total geeks and totally clueless on how to talk to women. Three of them can never talk to women without mentioning Schrödinger's Cat or the Doppler Effect, and one of them simply cannot talk to women.
Here's what I wanted to say here. Even if we women are engineers or scientists ourselves, we don't want men to behave like total geeks all the time. We like it if the men in the house are qualified enough to fix all the electronic equipment in the house whenever it needs fixing, because that saves us a lot of time and money. (In this context, you may want to revisit what I wrote about my brother in Life With A Geek.) But we do not like it if they explain to us how all that equipment works. We most certainly do not like it if they explain that sort of stuff to us just because they feel like it. Hey, we know you know all that stuff, we like the fact that you do, but that is just the kind of knowledge that we don't like you sharing with us.
Here's what I wanted to say here. Even if we women are engineers or scientists ourselves, we don't want men to behave like total geeks all the time. We like it if the men in the house are qualified enough to fix all the electronic equipment in the house whenever it needs fixing, because that saves us a lot of time and money. (In this context, you may want to revisit what I wrote about my brother in Life With A Geek.) But we do not like it if they explain to us how all that equipment works. We most certainly do not like it if they explain that sort of stuff to us just because they feel like it. Hey, we know you know all that stuff, we like the fact that you do, but that is just the kind of knowledge that we don't like you sharing with us.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
What Women Need From Men
I admit we're a complicated species. We're pretty difficult for guys to figure out. We're actually sometimes pretty difficult for ourselves to figure out. We'll tell guys that we want them to be truthful and honest with us, and then we'll go and get offended when they do. I know I'm no expert on the subject that I have picked for this post, but well, I am a woman and that does put me in a position to be able to express an opinion on it. And I've also gathered a lot of sense from whatever I've heard from my female friends.
We need you to make us feel good about ourselves. To tell us that we are beautiful. We may not be Aishwarya Rai, but we may have a really lovely smile. Or really beautiful eyes. Tell us that. And remind us of it every so often. It would also be great if you'd compliment us once in a while on how well we balance work and family and still find enough time to spend exclusively with you. Or how good we are at the work we do. That, coming from a man, does wonders for our self esteem.
We do need you to be truthful and honest. An occasional white lie in response to a question like, "Does this dress make me look fat?" is fine, but never, ever lie to a woman on the bigger, more significant things in life. Because she'll find out sooner or later. And when (when, not if) she finds out on her own, it will be a lot more damaging to the relationship than it would have been if you'd told her the truth in the first place.
We love surprises. Showing up at our workplace unexpectedly or sending us flowers for no occasion is going to make us feel really special. Not to say that it's not important to send flowers or bigger gifts when there is an occasion. You better remember our birthdays and anniversaries and make sure that those days are really special.
We're all a little insecure. We know we have our male friends and colleagues, but we're always a little jealous of your female friends. Not that we want you to not have anything to do with any of the other females on the planet. We know it's only natural and healthy for it to be so. We'd just like that, once in a while, you should remind us that we are more special than the other women around you. And don't just say it. Show it.
We want to be respected. We want to be acknowledged as confident, well-educated, professionally qualified, financially independent individuals in our own right, in case we are all those things. And even if we aren't, even if we are homemakers, we do not want to be treated like doormats and we will not have you walk all over us and have your way in everything. This is not the nineteenth century. We are just as significant in the scheme of things as you are. We do not owe you anything more than what you owe us. A relationship needs to be based on equality, understanding and trust. And it all needs to be mutual.
Okay, I guess I have a pretty long list here. I think this should do for now. I'll follow it up with another post on the subject if I feel like it some other day.
We need you to make us feel good about ourselves. To tell us that we are beautiful. We may not be Aishwarya Rai, but we may have a really lovely smile. Or really beautiful eyes. Tell us that. And remind us of it every so often. It would also be great if you'd compliment us once in a while on how well we balance work and family and still find enough time to spend exclusively with you. Or how good we are at the work we do. That, coming from a man, does wonders for our self esteem.
We do need you to be truthful and honest. An occasional white lie in response to a question like, "Does this dress make me look fat?" is fine, but never, ever lie to a woman on the bigger, more significant things in life. Because she'll find out sooner or later. And when (when, not if) she finds out on her own, it will be a lot more damaging to the relationship than it would have been if you'd told her the truth in the first place.
We love surprises. Showing up at our workplace unexpectedly or sending us flowers for no occasion is going to make us feel really special. Not to say that it's not important to send flowers or bigger gifts when there is an occasion. You better remember our birthdays and anniversaries and make sure that those days are really special.
We're all a little insecure. We know we have our male friends and colleagues, but we're always a little jealous of your female friends. Not that we want you to not have anything to do with any of the other females on the planet. We know it's only natural and healthy for it to be so. We'd just like that, once in a while, you should remind us that we are more special than the other women around you. And don't just say it. Show it.
We want to be respected. We want to be acknowledged as confident, well-educated, professionally qualified, financially independent individuals in our own right, in case we are all those things. And even if we aren't, even if we are homemakers, we do not want to be treated like doormats and we will not have you walk all over us and have your way in everything. This is not the nineteenth century. We are just as significant in the scheme of things as you are. We do not owe you anything more than what you owe us. A relationship needs to be based on equality, understanding and trust. And it all needs to be mutual.
Okay, I guess I have a pretty long list here. I think this should do for now. I'll follow it up with another post on the subject if I feel like it some other day.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Dard Koi De Gaya
Just felt like quoting these lines from the song Kaun Dagar from Lajja:
Apni dhun mein ud rahi thi chanchal si hawa
Dard koi de gaya, pankh le gaya
Saturday, September 6, 2008
The Battle Of The Sexes
A number of people have accused me of being a feminist after reading some of the stuff I write here. Well, all those people are going to say that again.
I just don't understand why, even in a day and age when women are doing just as well as men are doing in every field, the institution of marriage still does not comprise of equal rights and equal duties for both partners. Why is it that, even if a guy marries a girl who is just as well qualified as he is and earning a comparable sum of money, he'll still expect a large sum of money and gifts as part of the dowry? I mean, here is a girl whose parents have put in just as much time, money and effort in giving her a good education as your parents put into your education. An earning member is being added to your family. Why do you need her and/or her parents to push themselves beyond the limits that they can comfortably afford?
And that's just the beginning. When it comes to household duties, they're all hers. Does it matter to you that she leaves the house at the same time in the morning and comes back at the same time in the evening as you do? And contributes equally to the household finances? Well, why should it? She's the woman of the house. She should cook, clean, take care of your parents, supervise the domestic help. If you have young kids and one of you needs to take care of them, she's expected to sacrifice her career. If you have deadlines to meet and stay late in the office, that's supposed to be normal. If she does the same thing, she's told stuff about acceptable behaviour for bahus from respectable families. If you get an opportunity to go abroad for a long term, that's welcomed with a great deal of joy in the family. In her case, she's questioned on who will take care of the household duties during that time.
We've come a long way since the days of Sati. But we're still unable to come out of the mindset that it's absolutely essential to have a son. That his education and upbringing are more important than a daughter's. That if you cannot afford to educate both your children, your son gets priority over your daughter. That when a wedding is being planned, the girl's parents should spend all the money and the guy's parents should always have the upper hand in making all the decisions. Even in well educated, urban families, this is the attitude. And what totally eludes me is that, even women who are well educated and have a career of their own, have this sort of attitude. I mean, if we don't stand up for ourselves, how can we expect anyone else to ever do that?
We need a major change of attitude here. And we need to be more vocal about it. More clear on what we expect, need and want from our prospective in-laws and from society at large. Even one girl who does something like what Mahima Choudhary does in Lajja can make a difference, albeit small, to the way we think and act.
I just don't understand why, even in a day and age when women are doing just as well as men are doing in every field, the institution of marriage still does not comprise of equal rights and equal duties for both partners. Why is it that, even if a guy marries a girl who is just as well qualified as he is and earning a comparable sum of money, he'll still expect a large sum of money and gifts as part of the dowry? I mean, here is a girl whose parents have put in just as much time, money and effort in giving her a good education as your parents put into your education. An earning member is being added to your family. Why do you need her and/or her parents to push themselves beyond the limits that they can comfortably afford?
And that's just the beginning. When it comes to household duties, they're all hers. Does it matter to you that she leaves the house at the same time in the morning and comes back at the same time in the evening as you do? And contributes equally to the household finances? Well, why should it? She's the woman of the house. She should cook, clean, take care of your parents, supervise the domestic help. If you have young kids and one of you needs to take care of them, she's expected to sacrifice her career. If you have deadlines to meet and stay late in the office, that's supposed to be normal. If she does the same thing, she's told stuff about acceptable behaviour for bahus from respectable families. If you get an opportunity to go abroad for a long term, that's welcomed with a great deal of joy in the family. In her case, she's questioned on who will take care of the household duties during that time.
We've come a long way since the days of Sati. But we're still unable to come out of the mindset that it's absolutely essential to have a son. That his education and upbringing are more important than a daughter's. That if you cannot afford to educate both your children, your son gets priority over your daughter. That when a wedding is being planned, the girl's parents should spend all the money and the guy's parents should always have the upper hand in making all the decisions. Even in well educated, urban families, this is the attitude. And what totally eludes me is that, even women who are well educated and have a career of their own, have this sort of attitude. I mean, if we don't stand up for ourselves, how can we expect anyone else to ever do that?
We need a major change of attitude here. And we need to be more vocal about it. More clear on what we expect, need and want from our prospective in-laws and from society at large. Even one girl who does something like what Mahima Choudhary does in Lajja can make a difference, albeit small, to the way we think and act.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Mirror, Mirror On The Wall, Who's The Fairest Of Us All?
These days I've been reading a lot less than I used to, a few years ago. There are a number of reasons for that, which are not part of what this post is intended to be about. But, from time to time, I do try to pick up a novel, or, an issue of Reader's Digest or Femina, both of which I used to read regularly a while back.
So recently I picked up an issue of Femina. I saw they were doing a feature on the 50 Most Beautiful Women. It's on their site too. They want their readers to vote for their ten favourites from a list of hundred women that their team came up with. This is a women's magazine which has been airing feminist views for about fifty years now. I fail to understand how they can be so shallow as to run a feature of this sort, and attempt to make it an annual event too. This is the second year that they are doing this. This is the same magazine that ran a feature, a few years back, on how shallow we all are, how obsessed with appearances, how, in spite of how lovely we find Kajol, Bipasha and Rekha, we'll still look for a "very fair" girl when we go looking for a bride. How can the same people actually encourage their readers to judge women based on appearances? Every woman is special. In her own unique way. Every woman is beautiful in her own right. And we all need to reminded of this fact once in while. We all need to be told that we are unique, that we have a place in the scheme of things which nobody else can take. We don't want to be told that we are less beautiful than Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan, or fatter than Sushmita Sen, or darker than Kareena Kapoor. Because there may be a dozen qualities that we have and they don't. We need someone who appreciates us for those qualities, and reminds us that we are wonderful people because of those qualities.
So recently I picked up an issue of Femina. I saw they were doing a feature on the 50 Most Beautiful Women. It's on their site too. They want their readers to vote for their ten favourites from a list of hundred women that their team came up with. This is a women's magazine which has been airing feminist views for about fifty years now. I fail to understand how they can be so shallow as to run a feature of this sort, and attempt to make it an annual event too. This is the second year that they are doing this. This is the same magazine that ran a feature, a few years back, on how shallow we all are, how obsessed with appearances, how, in spite of how lovely we find Kajol, Bipasha and Rekha, we'll still look for a "very fair" girl when we go looking for a bride. How can the same people actually encourage their readers to judge women based on appearances? Every woman is special. In her own unique way. Every woman is beautiful in her own right. And we all need to reminded of this fact once in while. We all need to be told that we are unique, that we have a place in the scheme of things which nobody else can take. We don't want to be told that we are less beautiful than Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan, or fatter than Sushmita Sen, or darker than Kareena Kapoor. Because there may be a dozen qualities that we have and they don't. We need someone who appreciates us for those qualities, and reminds us that we are wonderful people because of those qualities.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
My First Brush With Being A Published Writer
Not too many people know that the first time I ever made money on my own, it was from my original passion - creative writing. Flashback to November 1997. (Yes, it was that long back!) There was a magazine called Teens Today that I used to read regularly back then. They had a regular feature for which they invited readers to contribute full length articles, of which they'd pick one every month for publication. I made my attempt in, like I said, November 1997. And it was actually published in their January 1998 issue. It earned me my first pay cheque worth five hundred bucks, and a lot of recognition, appreciation, and criticism from my schoolmates. I wrote any number of pieces for my school magazine before and after that one, but this was what gave me an opportunity to bask in the limelight for a little while. I did this while we were all busy preparing for our pre-board exams and attending extra classes left, right, and centre in order to finish off the syllabus. So I'd actually been forced by my teachers to temporarily give up my almost full time job as the Editor-In-Chief of the school magazine. My desire to write was feeling suppressed, restless. And this was the outlet I found.
I was actually looking for my original, handwritten transcript (Because this dates back to a time when I didn't have very convenient access to a computer, except in the Computer Lab in school. And in class ten we did not even visit the Lab, because Computer Science was not a subject then, and supposedly that was a year to study seriously.) which I did not find, so I'll settle for the very slightly edited version that was actually published.
What follows is to be read in the light of the fact that I wrote it a little over ten and a half years ago.
Original Title: She's a Teenager, She's Pregnant, Whose Fault is it?
Teenage pregnancy is not very common in India, but in the US a large number of girls have such experiences. However, even in India, unmarried women do get pregnant while in, or after, college. Whatever may be the number of cases, the fact remains - teenage pregnancies are something that should not happen but do happen.
What I would like to discuss is, who is to blame and why. Is it the poor girl who has never seriously been told about contraception? Or is it the boy who is hardly any better informed than her, and even if he is, has developed the attitude that it's not his problem if she gets pregnant?
What I feel is, it is our society that is to blame. For, it is our social stigmas that prevent us from talking frankly about subjects like sex. But, why on earth do we have this bias against sex education or even against talking parent-to-teens on the subject? And then parents feel bad if their daughter gets pregnant before marriage! They feel worse if she doesn't tell them about it. In my view, every girl will tell her parents about such things if they do not hesitate to tell her the facts of life in the first place. If they don't even tell her that much, why should they expect her to take the initiative of talking about a subject like the birds and bees? Parents should make the first move towards bridging the generation gap and moving towards frankness.
Anyway, my main question is, why don't we talk about sex and contraception openly enough? Sex is what makes life continue - it is the major contributor to our very existence. It's something life cannot be sustained without. And above all, it's absolutely illogical to hide these facts from your kids because, even if you don't tell them, they'll get to know from somewhere else after a while. But they ought to hear it from you, even if not in complete detail, the very first time they ask you - it's your duty to tell them.
Times are changing. Just because your parents told you nothing till you were, say, twenty, doesn't meant you won't tell your kids till that age.Today's teenagers need to know everything there is to know by the time they are about fourteen to fifteen years old. Because, if kids don't know the facts, they tend to adopt wrong ways. And then the kids are blamed. What I feel is that teenagers indulge in sex because they are curious and are not given adequate or proper information. They have to satisfy their curiosity somehow. And if the theoretical way is not made accessible to them, they adopt the practical way - which is not considered acceptable by our society.
I feel that if we wish to make our society a liberal one, our first move should be to encourage sex education and awareness about sex and contraception. And it is not to be forgotten that though journals and books do have a contribution to make in this direction, the role of the parents can be played only by them. Parents have to tell their kids quite a few things that they alone can talk about.
When parents expect their kids to adopt good morals and ethics, they tell them about moral principles. They tell them about discipline. So why don't they tell them about sex? Is sex a crime, or is it something only social outcasts indulge in? Why is it that despite the fact that parents and kids need to talk it over, we feel embarrassed when we talk about it or even think about it or hint that we want to talk about it? If people can toilet-train their kids, why can't they sex-educate them?
Liberalisation is not just modernisation and being able to think about something from someone else's point of view. It's about removing the ills of society by talking openly and frankly and bridging all kinds of communication gaps, whether created by society or by personal opinions. And sex education and being open and frank about the subject is about the most important step towards a liberal, and better society.
I was actually looking for my original, handwritten transcript (Because this dates back to a time when I didn't have very convenient access to a computer, except in the Computer Lab in school. And in class ten we did not even visit the Lab, because Computer Science was not a subject then, and supposedly that was a year to study seriously.) which I did not find, so I'll settle for the very slightly edited version that was actually published.
What follows is to be read in the light of the fact that I wrote it a little over ten and a half years ago.
Original Title: She's a Teenager, She's Pregnant, Whose Fault is it?
Teenage pregnancy is not very common in India, but in the US a large number of girls have such experiences. However, even in India, unmarried women do get pregnant while in, or after, college. Whatever may be the number of cases, the fact remains - teenage pregnancies are something that should not happen but do happen.
What I would like to discuss is, who is to blame and why. Is it the poor girl who has never seriously been told about contraception? Or is it the boy who is hardly any better informed than her, and even if he is, has developed the attitude that it's not his problem if she gets pregnant?
What I feel is, it is our society that is to blame. For, it is our social stigmas that prevent us from talking frankly about subjects like sex. But, why on earth do we have this bias against sex education or even against talking parent-to-teens on the subject? And then parents feel bad if their daughter gets pregnant before marriage! They feel worse if she doesn't tell them about it. In my view, every girl will tell her parents about such things if they do not hesitate to tell her the facts of life in the first place. If they don't even tell her that much, why should they expect her to take the initiative of talking about a subject like the birds and bees? Parents should make the first move towards bridging the generation gap and moving towards frankness.
Anyway, my main question is, why don't we talk about sex and contraception openly enough? Sex is what makes life continue - it is the major contributor to our very existence. It's something life cannot be sustained without. And above all, it's absolutely illogical to hide these facts from your kids because, even if you don't tell them, they'll get to know from somewhere else after a while. But they ought to hear it from you, even if not in complete detail, the very first time they ask you - it's your duty to tell them.
Times are changing. Just because your parents told you nothing till you were, say, twenty, doesn't meant you won't tell your kids till that age.Today's teenagers need to know everything there is to know by the time they are about fourteen to fifteen years old. Because, if kids don't know the facts, they tend to adopt wrong ways. And then the kids are blamed. What I feel is that teenagers indulge in sex because they are curious and are not given adequate or proper information. They have to satisfy their curiosity somehow. And if the theoretical way is not made accessible to them, they adopt the practical way - which is not considered acceptable by our society.
I feel that if we wish to make our society a liberal one, our first move should be to encourage sex education and awareness about sex and contraception. And it is not to be forgotten that though journals and books do have a contribution to make in this direction, the role of the parents can be played only by them. Parents have to tell their kids quite a few things that they alone can talk about.
When parents expect their kids to adopt good morals and ethics, they tell them about moral principles. They tell them about discipline. So why don't they tell them about sex? Is sex a crime, or is it something only social outcasts indulge in? Why is it that despite the fact that parents and kids need to talk it over, we feel embarrassed when we talk about it or even think about it or hint that we want to talk about it? If people can toilet-train their kids, why can't they sex-educate them?
Liberalisation is not just modernisation and being able to think about something from someone else's point of view. It's about removing the ills of society by talking openly and frankly and bridging all kinds of communication gaps, whether created by society or by personal opinions. And sex education and being open and frank about the subject is about the most important step towards a liberal, and better society.
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