Living in this painful world.

Shobha shrieked with pain; the blows continued to shower. When she could not defend herself against her husband’s cruelty, she fainted. She found herself in the hospital ward as she opened her eyes. Eyes blood shot, body ached as she lay attached to thousand tubes “Do you have something to report ma’am?” asked the police officer. “No,” she replied simply supressing her pain.


Men subject more than 60 percent of women in the poor countries to domestic violence, according to the UN development program. It says: “Women may be half of the world’s population, but seven tenth of the poor people around the globe are women. Two third of the illiterate adults are women, and those who remain, if they are lucky enough to have the freedom to work, can only expect 75 percent of the salary as the man doing the same job. Everywhere women continue to be the victims of violence listed as significant cause of disability and death among women of reproductive age.

International Women’s Day is celebrated on March 8. The idea of celebrating this day is for recognizing the importance of women’s role in the society. It is an occasion to review how far they have come in their struggle for equality, peace and development. It is also an opportunity to unite, network and mobilize for meaningful change.

It dates to the year 1857, when one of the first organized actions by the workingwomen anywhere in the world took place. Hundreds of garment and textile women workers went sent on strike in the New York city protesting against low wages, long working hours and inhumane working conditions. The event ended in violent struggle with the police. Fifty-three years later, in August 1910, at a meeting in Copenhagen, the women’s Socialist International decided to commemorate the strike by observing an annual International Women’s Day.

Today, they still refuse justice to women in those countries, where women are treated as second-class citizens or the property of men. Women’s work is unrecognized everywhere in the world and there are still disputes over women’s rights, sometimes cultural, sometimes religious and sometimes social. There are some women, who feel that there is no point in having the international woman’s day every year if the woman is forgotten for the remaining 364 days of the year.

Man and woman, both are essential parts of the most basic human equation. While the circumstances of the cobbler and the judge may clearly differ, nobody would question the right of each human to equality as a citizen, or before the law. In the same way, man and woman can only reach the true equality through the recognition of their substantial differences. A truly civilized society would relish those differences rather than punish women for their sex. But still, nowhere in the world can a woman claim to have same right and opportunities as man. “The advancement of the woman and the achievement of equality between woman and man is the matter of human right and a condition for social justice and should not be seen in isolation as a woman’s issue.” According to the Platform for Action the final document of the conference held in Beijing in 1995. “They are the only way to build a sustainable just and developed society.”

Society neither helps a mother to work, nor makes her feel that she has right to do so. Regardless of the evidence of research, a deep almost subliminal idea is encouraged to needle away at her conscience that the child needs his mother all the time. The guilt can go with her everywhere, augmented by the notion, that only woman has the natural proclivity towards the mother. At work she feels the guilt of not being a good mother and not spending more time with her children. Since she has children, she also suffers the guilt of not working hard enough at her job. In both the quarters, working mothers feel compromise and inadequate.

International Women’s Day is the day we need in order to remind the women around the world to stop, take a deep breath, and think about where we are, what have we achieved, to re-energize ourselves, to mobilize ourselves and set new goals to where we want to reach. This is the day, which the UN has conferred for women because it also enables nationals to stop and think about what they want their women to achieve.

Addressing the problems faced by the women is at heart of a global agenda promoted by the United Nations. By adopting international laws and treaties, United Nations has established a common standard for society to achieve equality between man and the woman. The world now has a growing number of women as policy makers, with a recorded ten women as heads of the state or government.

In his message marking the International Women’s Day in 1995, at Beijing, Boutros Boutros had said; “In the global efforts for peace and enduring progress, the promotion and protection of women’s rights are central. Success in the tasks means progress for everyone, young and old, men, women and children,”

And the success for the protection of women's rights is yet to come. We are still waiting......Alas!!

ps: I would like to request Sandhya, Pallavi and Annie to participate in this contest

Who is Coming over for Dinner?

When I can’t think what to cook or too lazy to cook, I opt for Chinese. Why? Because it is the most tastiest and nutritious food that I can think of and it takes me just fifteen minutes to prepare it. My fridge is always stocked with fresh and canned vegetables, lotsa sauces and some dried mushrooms too. Initially, during my trips abroad, I would pick up too much food stuff from the supermarkets, most of packet would rot, exceeding their expiry dates, and there were some soup and sauces packets, bought blindly, would lie unopened for years, but now I am glad that we get everything here in Mumbai and I can do just weekly shopping in small quantities.


There is a small store close by, which stocks all the exotic foods. This week I picked up firm tofu (there were other types too like silky tofu and soft tofu, but thats for later), some fresh mushrooms, and Japanese Soba noodles (On the packet of this soba noodles it says that it is a traditional style buckwheat and wheat flour noodles with a nutty taste, I was buying it for first time. One packet only, see, economical? yeah?))

Now this tofu is really very tricky. Tofu is actually the Chinese cousin/version of cottage cheese (Italian) or Paneer (Indian). The method of making it is also same except that it is made from soya milk. Get it? But it is rich cousin, mind you and little ‘light’ to eat, melts in the mouth, a great source of high-quality protein, rich in B-vitamins, iron and an excellent source of calcium. The best way to use the firm tofu is to wash it with water, squeeze it out and then marinate it before using. Tofu acts like a sponge and it sucks in the juices of marinated ingredients. Since I am going to use it in Chinese, I have marinated in garlic, ginger and vegetable stock cubes. Okay, I have stored in my fridge, so for next two days I must eat Chinese if I have to finish it in two days. Of course, I will add in soup once and another time I will make salad, can’t have same stuff every day. Isn’t it?

But just now, what I had was quite tasty. It looked dull because I didn’t add colorful veggies like reds and greens (my friends always adds red and green peppers, but its okay if I don’t add when I am making only for self) but it was tasty.

Its so simple to make. why do my friends make such a fuss while cooking? So much drama over nothing!!

In the oil, I added crushed garlic and then I just stir fried shallots, mushrooms, bean sprouts green chilly and corn. Then added these boiled Soba noodles and tofu. Next added Teriyaki sauce, soya sauce, sesame oil and chilly sauce.and Voila!

Wait, let me take one more spoonful. chomp! chomp! burp!

And yeah, I made dip too. I just added garlic, ginger, salt, wasabi, dried herbs into curd. Mixed it and hung it for three hours, squeezing out the water. Then added olive oil to give a glossy look.

Yummy. When you come to visit me, I shall make for you too.

Sita joins the FB ??

Okay, I admit it that this is not my story,(I can only comment and give my tipri) I would never have such a talent to reproduce a story so cleverly. but it arrived in my mail box through the forwards and it has amused me a lot

This first page on the FB gives the Live Feed that shows:

 
I am amused that Bharat is 'pissed' with his mother and starts a group called 'Parents sometimes go crazy' the youth of today would happily join this group because they have a mind of their own and are hardly listening to thier parents. but the question is 'how many would bother going through this swayamvar?' It happens only in TV reality shows and viewers are actually 'pissed' with these shows, although they are still watching it. but that is how far it goes....there are no marriages in the end (remember Rakhi Sawant?)


that brings me to the second page of this Live Feed that shows:

haahaha! Even in the remote jungle, they have access to internet and are recruiting friends, playing 'Mob Wars' and writing on FB walls and discussing the laxman rekha? Amusing, Isn't it? Ram seeking Hanuman's help on FB wall....Can we trust our friends (in our absence) to save our spouse from...cough! cough!! no comments on that!!!

and the page three shows the Live Feed as:

And when Ravana is dead only 132,457 people like it. hahahaahaa! there should have been bigger numbers. but since Ram and Sita did not live happily after, Sita's page should not expire.

So what would Sita's activities be, had she not opted for earth to swallow her???

Picture Portrait

I have this huge picture of my spiritual Master, Maharaji Charan Singh, nailed up on the wall, in the foyer. It is very old picture of Maharaji in white kurta and white turban with the backdrop of blue and it has been there as far as I can remember. The picture has different expressions at different hours of the day and they change according to my moods. On the days when I am happy, I see the smile and on the days when I am angry, I see the grin. My friends, who don’t know him, ask me if this is the picture of my father and I always say ‘Yes’ cause he is the only father that I have known, having lost my biological father at the age of three. This picture gives me inner strength.

Maharaji was very photogenic and I think he used to love to pose. Whenever I had visited my paternal aunt (who was a very close friend of Maharaji), I used to see the beautiful poses in her house of her trips with Maharaji. There would be picture of his trips abroad; there would be party pictures and many more in my aunt’s personal album. There was one picture that I had liked which was actually a painting. It was a huge painting of Maharaji sitting on an easy chair,outdoors, cross legged, in churidhar-kurta and a shawl, looking out into the fields, his gaze fixed at hundreds of sevadhars doing manual labor of lifting/sifting sand, transporting it on their heads. I used to love that painting and I would always stop for one moment longer, whenever I passed by that painting.

My aunt is no more and so have Maharaji Charan Singh too, but what happened to those pictures and that painting, I have never asked.

But I am thinking what happens to those pictures when the person is not there no more? How long do the people preserve the photographs before they decide that they don’t need it anymore? And how do they dispose it?

With the digital camera, now we click too many pictures and then dispose off those which we don’t care, but in the days gone by, each picture had a story to tell. Whenever we visited our family, and if ran out of conversation, family albums were taken out to discuss the pictorial stories. Portrait pictures were clicked in the photo studio and blown up to life-size to decorate the foyers and the bedrooms and the halls.

I, for one, don’t buy pictures nor calendars of Gods or of any spiritual Masters because I worry about the storage. I would not like to insult the photograph and throw them away in the garbage when I don’t need them anymore. Why must we buy so many pictures and put them up in every room? We just need one picture to remember and admire the person. Some people like to keep it in their wallet, visible only to themselves, and to admire it secretly. But having too many pictures, all over the house, is quite scary to the non-believer.

When I inherited my family house, first thing that I did was to bring down all those life-size pictures that ruled every wall of my house. I have packed them up and stuffed them into the drawers, out of sight. There are too many albums sitting in the cupboard and I really do not know what to do about them. The photograph which don’t have me, don’t interest me and I am sure that even if they become antique, they will still not get me any copyrights.

Only this picture of Maharaji, which I had loved it even then, is still hanging up in my house, but that’s because it speaks to me.

I don’t store nor develop any more memories, I would never want the abuse of my pictures, even after I am here in this world, no more……..and I am certain that nobody else would want it too….

Muse over FB message 'Acceptance'

With twitter and facebook becoming a strong board for exchanging ideas and thoughts in this social media network, not all status messages are funny and light hearted, some are thought provoking too and force us to re-think on issues which could be just a passing phrase. One such message, that I copied on my page and then was pleased to see it on my friends’ page too was:

"My wish for 2010 is that people will understand that children with disabilities do not have a disease; children with disabilities are not looking for a cure but ACCEPTANCE........93% of people won't copy and paste this, WILL YOU be one of the 7% that does and make this your status for at least a hour?”

I saw this message on many of my friends’ pages and someone even argued saying that “Just by copying and pasting are people going to change the attitude? No offence to your friends who have already copied and pasted it, they may have done it because they are among those few people who understand that children with disabilities do not have a disease......”

My reply to that comment was: “yes! Attitudes do change with the wind. .specially by those who believe in the message and pass it on....and unfurl those soft pebbles off the hard rock...

But the page that really caught my attention was when someone commented:

“Wait a minute... I'm pretty sure that people with disabilities ARE looking for a cure... No one willingly accepts that they are disabled when there is a readily available cure out there that can make them "not disabled."

He found it difficult to accept the fact that handicap people can be accepted in this society as productive member of the society if they are allowed to perform the task to their best of their ability.

He argued that “You can’t accept someone who is disabled as a productive member of society when you still have to watch over them and make sure that they don’t fall and/or jump in whatever they need assistance. If that’s the case then there is no full acceptance, only fake acceptance that will make these disabled people feel a false sense of security of their place in society. And to be honest, if I was disabled and wanted people to treat me with respect, the same respect they treat everyone person, and you were patronizing me in this way and treating me as if I was less of a person then I would hate it. Your saying that disabled people want to be treated like everyone else.. well you can’t treat them only half way, because they still aren’t equal, and never will be. It’s all or none. I’m afraid.”

Actually I would hate it too....but that is where my point was, I meant to say that either the people are patronizing the disabled too much or ignoring them completely and both ways it hurts the differently-abled person.

Society just cannot see the talent beyond the handicap at a first glance, a differently-abled person has to prove their capability from time to time, they have to prove that they are capable of performing as perfectly as any normal person , and there is no need to sweat over them if they are able to deliver....independently....every disabled person can also be the productive member of the society, if he is allowed to follow the profession in which he excels and in which he has faith in, but the society never allows him to forget his handicap.

Every individual should be able to decide when they need to be over-protective and patronizing and when they should just accept them and let them perform to their fullest ability and in every case, acceptance in important because they are not freaks.

And he was confused as to where does one draw the line?

What gives anyone the right to tell one person that they fully capable of working on their own and another that they cannot be trusted to be on their own and must be supervised? He argued that when people say that "We wish that society would accept disabled people as being productive members of society, there isn't a special clause that states: " this only applies to people who are able to function independently, with out supervision, everyone else isn't fully accepted as fully functional and must be watched and cared for."

And he wondered as to what happens to those who don’t meet those specific criteria? Are never to be accepted as part of society and considered the useless ones who have no place in the society?

“ I know it seems harsh,’ he continued, “ but if they cannot be accepted as productive members of society then what are they? Or do we reevaluate what that criterion is so they can be accepted? But what about the people left over from that? Who are not accepted after that second evaluation of who is productive and who isn’t?

It’s an endless cycle that will never end.” he concluded

And I am left wondering whether the society will ever wear the cap of acceptance…ever……