Growing up from within

God didn't give us negative emotions to make us feel negative about life. Negative emotions can lead to a positive life if they are harnessed. It is simple: One can make the choice to let the emotion rule us, whereby it becomes our weakness, handicaps us. Or, overcome it with inborn change. There is a fear initially, but with time we realize that it is our life, and it is for our good to grow out of that fear. Then we begin respecting ourselves, trusting our own abilities, knowing that we are useful to our own life and leading a happier life.

It is a cycle. And it is best to be active in the cycle so that we move onto other stages and get out of it. Much time is wasted in thinking and not doing anything about it, thinking is like reliving that misery continuously. Doing is a step towards freedom, doing is another step closer to confidence & mental liberation. 

After all, it is our own life, nobody will care for an individual's happiness unless the individual takes personal interest in themselves. 

We should listen more to our conscience, and try to love ourselves. For if we love ourselves, we will be friends with ourselves, our conscience is always there to help, there is nothing like loneliness. There is life all around us, struggling to survive, no being has a life as easy as a human being. Since I believe in Karma, I wonder how much I must have struggled in my previous lives to finally be born as a human being. When I picture that struggle in my head, this human life feels too precious to waste in compromise. I try to give my best, and I try to get the best. Life is about attitude: the will power to do things, the belief in self, the confidence that "I can do this right". Ultimately, the evolution in thought from "I need someone to do this for me" to "I can do this for myself" to "I can do this for someone".
It all begins with taking control of our own life, being able to picture life without depending on anyone for their approval. Taking control of life doesn't mean financial/economic/physical living, that is a very narrow thing. I am talking on the lines of mental liberation, psychological freedom. Nothing in the world can restrict or censure the thoughts in our head. We self censure and admonish ourselves.
Also, regarding "taking control of life", here I am not referring to "Living a life of arrogance", I am referring to "Living a life with self-confidence". In some blind Indian families, many a woman is accused of "being arrogant" if she tries to assert herself. So women don't even realize when they lost the ability to think for themselves. They waste a lifetime in compromise which eats away their confidence, because all along, they're indoctrinated into believing that they are ridding themselves of "arrogance".
This post of mine is meant for all such women, who don't know what to do with their own head, their own desires. They feel confused, they don't know where their feelings belong, they're torn between here & there, now & then, just stuck in thought, guilty of that thought, miserable in compromise.
To them I say, O my God why should you be scared of thinking, of feeling, of wanting? No woman, it is not wrong to want to live your life your way. And it is not necessary to compromise on your feelings in the quest for approval, waste life, and then look back on what passed with regret. Be responsible for your own thoughts, reap the benefits, accept the pitfalls, there is a joy in this mental liberation, for it is freedom.

On friends and friendships

"Sometimes I think books are the only friends worth having."

                                                                                      -- Susie Derkins (in Bill Watterson's Calvin & Hobbes)




I feel this sometimes in life. They don't judge you, they only open themselves to give you more knowledge. If you disagree with a book, you can just close it shut and its realm doesn't exist anymore. If you disagree, it won't tell you that you're wrong. It gives you its views, you may absorb them for your life, or cast them away right then. 


Best of all, it is the sweetest escape from reality, you live another life in a book. 

Masoom (1983)

I don't know how I got around to watching this movie today. Wow, it really really touched my heart. I have fond memories of Lakdi ki kati, Anuradha mam used to sing it with us in Mont II G. But I have never watched the movie.
It was really thought provoking. It made me consider so many social issues, so many stands. The story is very well written, it shows the viewpoint of all the characters who suffer their own share of pain.
It made me think on abortion, it tore my heart watching a dejected lonely little boy, how insignificant & cheap he felt when he came to know of his father, it questioned the independence of a woman, the mutual trust & respect needed to found a solid marriage, parent-child bonds, the give & take of relations, some relations only have give, while some only have take, so many facets of society/relationships shown in one single movie, wow!
Shabana Azmi's character showed the love that a woman feels, how every woman wants to believe her husband as perfect, but life is not always so. She portrayed the feelings that a woman goes through, out of her mothering instincts. Women feel very territorial & possessive about their family. She wanted to shelter her children at all costs, she wanted things to be normal, the boy was a continuous reminder of her husband's faults, so she just couldn't stand him. I could really understand her feelings, any woman who watches will understand. When we know that our husband has let us down by not supporting us, we always continue to love him and push the blame onto the other person involved in the argument- the "Sautan", the mother-in-law, the sister-in-law, the father-in-law, the illegitimate child, whatever... The moment she came to know of her Sautan, her first reaction was, "what does she want from us now?". It is the belief that the husband is naïve, that he is being harassed/blackmailed. Isn't this what all women feel when their 'perfectly able adult' husband puts them into trouble?
Rahul's presence was like a needle pricking into her all the time. Yet, somewhere inside her heart, she pitied the boy, he didn't even know the backstory, he was just an innocent little boy craving for the love of parents. It broke my heart when he apologized to her upon finding out the truth, he felt so guilty of "existing", he wished he hadn't lived....
The movie also showed the soft side of womanhood. On the outside, every woman is an independent dreamer. But on her inside, she craves to be able to emotionally depend on a man, she wants to be able to let go with her eyes closed, she wants to be able to trust blindly.

"Love is like giving someone full power to destroy you, but trusting them not to."

We live our life with our eyes open. But at one stage in life, with someone special, we want to be able to close those eyes and feel with the heart. If things work out, we feel proud. If things don't, we feel foolish. Sometimes people close their eyes in youthful folly, other times it is just cruel misfortune.
That is the blind trust Shabana's character had, the trust which every married woman wants to be able to feel for her husband, and God, how her heart broke when she realized she'd been left out by her husband! There is a rage, there is a sense of having the mat pulled from under your feet, there is a sense of shame at self, the feeling of "how could I have been so stupid", there is the worry of "what will happen of my children", there is the hope (though in denial) of "how I wish everything could be okay"... Shabana finally realized that her so called "independent" friend returned to her husband & child when he called her back. One line summed it up, "a woman can stand up as a woman, but the mother inside her is very weak", she couldn't face abandoning her child.
Even for Rahul, he trusted DK 'uncle' blindly, how his heart broke when he realized he was an unwanted child.
Well, it is a lesson in relations for everybody, we can never go back in life and undo things, but it is a lesson in realizing how important family is. If we misbehave with our family, we can apologize, but we can't undo the pain & bad memories, the lack of support & deceit pricks for a lifetime.
Naseeruddin Shah's character was torn between wanting to appease his wife (because he did wrong to her, trying to set the wrong right by listening to her), yet his fatherly duties were nagging at him, he wanted to be able to love his son, he wanted to be able to give his son a better life.
Actually everybody acted too well, Urmila, the other little girl (I don't know her name), Jugal Hanraj (Rahul), Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi... O what a story... I actually wept for Shabana and the little boy.
I have a problem with "forgiveness". I believe in giving my best in a relation, and I believe that I deserve the best. I believe in total commitment. I find it very hard, almost impossible, to forgive a breach of trust, to forgive intentional harm, to forgive an instance when the husband lets somebody else come in their relation.
Hence, I felt weird that Naseeruddin Shah's character gets to do everything in life, the bastard cheated on his wife while she was pregnant with his first child!! What a shame... Yet, his wife didn't leave him and he got to keep his son. However, I still like the story, because it didn't have any hogwash of "making the woman feel guilty about motherhood, making the woman feel as though her duty is to stick by her husband, making the woman feel responsible for it all". For example, many shallow chauvinistic Hindi movie stories convey themes like it is the duty of a wife to forgive & adjust for her husband like a "pativrata" when he begs for forgiveness. That is not how this movie was, Shabana's character chose whatever she wanted to, out of consideration for the little boy, out of consideration for her own children. Another woman may have reacted in another way, it didn't demonize a woman's right to make her own decisions.
I guess why I really liked this movie is, it was very real, very close to real life. The problem and solution were all portrayed very close to real life. This is how real life is, two adults make a mistake, an unwanted unfortunate child is born. This is why I thought of the issue of abortion. Innocent children have to pay for the stupid irresponsible mistakes of adults. Every once in a while in life, I have asked my mom & dad how they felt when they came to know of my existence, how they felt when they saw me born, how they felt when I came into their life. Mom tells me so many stories, of how they taught didi to call me "little brother" (they already had a daughter, so they wanted a son next), how they prayed to God everyday because mom was sick while carrying me, how concerned they were of my safety because of all the medication she had to take, all the complications I had after birth. Watching this little boy's anguish, especially when he felt so ashamed of "existing", so unloved, I thought, o my God, how a child is suffering an adult's mistake. His father wished he didn't exist, his step mom hated his presence, he was after all an unwanted unplanned pregnancy. God, there is nothing worse than being unwanted by your own parents in this world. I can't imagine anything worse, right when you're a little clot of blood, if your parents hate your presence & wish you didn't exist, and wonder if they should get you aborted, or go ahead with it, but all the time regretting, it is so sad. They say a baby can feel everything inside a mother's womb since they share flesh & blood, I don't ever want to be inside my mommy feeling that she doesn't like me there.
Anyway, back to the movie, Naseeruddin & Supriya Pathak's characters made a mistake, which Rahul & Shabana suffer. That is how life is, somebody in your family makes a mistake, and you have to bear the burden of rectifying it, setting them right. Sometimes you have no choice, you become the "bali ka bakra" (like Shabana Azmi & Rahul), they just fall on your head with their mistake.
That's why I found this movie so real, there was no filmy melodrama, no filmy miracles, no filmy patching up, because life is real, life needs to be faced, every character has their own influence in life, there are different perspectives, responsibilities, duties, victims. And this movie successfully showed real living from all angles. A must watch for all.

An attempt to analyse self

Over the last 49 blogs, I have analyzed and commented on everything in society, other people, events, characters etc. So I thought, why not for a change, let me do some self-criticism! :-)
Self-criticism is hard. For if people were aware of their weaknesses/flaws, they would have rectified them. Our eyes are clouded with ego when it comes to seeing our own self. We love ourselves too much to be able to find something wrong with us. And if we were capable of realizing our faults, they would no longer exist since we'll correct them ASAP!! 
There is a character trait though in myself that I can notice very clearly. I won't call it my weakness, I would call it a dominant character trait. If I am sure of something that I categorize as my values/principles, I am very stubborn. As to whether it is my strength or weakness, that depends on the situation. Being right helps me sleep a peaceful sleep, I know that I have nothing to feel ashamed of if I died just now. However, being right is  a weight I have to carry around, it can cause conflict when others around me refuse to accommodate my being-right. 
This quality has done me a lot of good in life. I never suffered from the condition called "Peer pressure". Even if I am in a situation where I feel very cornered or bullied, I don't give in. If I am in a minority position, I shut up and wait it out, but I don't cooperate. I am always certain of wanting to pursue my principles/values. I am obsessed about my karma. This trait has helped me live life with a clear heart, I suffer no confusion about myself or my decisions. It helps me clearly delineate my psychological territory, my responsibility, my duties, my rights. I do not believe in crying over the past, I do not believe in letting myself regret my stand, I do not believe in shifting blame onto others. I want to be clear about my mistakes so that I can live with them instead of making somebody else guilty about my suffering.I stand by myself. This is a positive stubborn trait. It is a very silent trait though, I live it out quietly. Only the people who really pushed me to the extreme would have seen how stubborn I can be in the pursuit of being right. 
I won't say I am inflexible though. I am quick to accommodate, I try to evolve towards better karma, I am ready to change when I realize it is the right thing to do. 
Of course, it is very difficult to live with this trait, you lose some friends in life. Over the years, I have toned down my stubborn attitude. I realized I might be all alone in life if I pursue this trait. So now, if I see a neighbour do something wrong with their own life, I watch on passively, I just concentrate on doing the right thing in my own life. 
I am still learning though, on how to balance family life with this stubborn trait. Would I be able to throw my child out if they did something wrong? I guess God sets some tests just to see how far we go with 'being right', He rewards us, He penalizes us, this is the game called "Life". Probably when I die, I can meet Him and ask Him how I fared. Meanwhile, like the Bible says:

But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.                                                                                                                                                    

                                                                                                                                Isa 40:31


I didn't quote these lines in some religious mood, it is pure human psychology, belief in self increases our confidence & drive to continue.

Women's reservation in the Parliament" The Bill went through

So the bill went through! Wow! Nice.
People are wondering on what benefits it has/will have, and what other problems it creates.
What I can see in immediate future, those men who lose their tickets because of this reservation, I am sure they'll prop up their wives/daughters/daughters-in-law to stand for the elections.
Initially, I thought it unfair. But then I changed my mind after reading the statistics. In my real life, I have seen too many educated women who are not as concerned about politics, not as concerned about right-wrong, not as concerned about equity/equality. What I mean by "not as concerned" is, I see too many women who talk when it is just about debating/commenting on others lives, but choose to give in when faced with the situation in practical. So I was wondering, in such a society, where women are not as bothered about politics, is it fair to reserve seats for them? So that the half hearted candidates get through for being 'female', while the struggling I-really-want-to-do-it men fail to get through because they're 'male'? But then I read, that upto 40% of grass root level politicians are women, they feel bullied out of the male-dominated higher levels of politics. So I guess the reservation has a point then.
This thing of "reservation for women" creates a temporary imbalance in society. Indian rural society still follows the norms of joint family wealth distribution. Though the joint family system is fast breaking up, yet, parents think the male child carries forward their responsibilities/culture, while the female child is simply a temporary gift to be looked after & given away to her husband.
In such a society, there is enormous pressure on sons to succeed, and enormous pressure on young ladies to get married. So reservations create a temporary imbalance in that generation, because all of a sudden, parents see their girl child working & earning & not getting married off, parents see their sons not able to get the best jobs because women snatch them away in competition.
But society gradually accepts these changes and realizes that women too should share responsibility of family, women too can carry forward their culture, women are not born just to get married. And that sons too can follow their heart, they needn't just stay pressurized to succeed as per father's wishes, etc.
In that long term way, legislation definitely helps reshape society. And it is for the better, women live better lives in a nuclear family where they have greater control over their life. Of course, nuclear families also means that women end up bearing the burden of responsibilities too. But anyday, women prefer that to the earlier joint families where they had no individual rights, they had to give up all their dreams and conform to the standards set by the joint family, and live in a rigid regulated environment where they couldn't exercise their freedom or build a confident relation with their husband.
Coming to this bill which went through, O my God, I was shocked at how some hooligans in Parliament literally snatched papers from the Vice President, threw them into the air, grabbed at his pen to prevent him from signing.. Those hooligans are so called "Ministers"! If some public rights activist speaks out against the judicial system, they can go to jail for "Contempt of court", but what about these Ministers who were misbehaving right in Parliament? Why are they not punished under "Contempt of Indian Constitution"? This is the boon of coalition politics, where ruffians can rule the roost. All my skepticism for the bill vanished when I saw those male hooligans rioting in Parliament, those bullies who are thirsty for power.
Some parties were opposing the bill, because they wanted reservations for Muslim women too. That is just cheap politics. First of all, there are different categories of underprivileged people: Minorities, Women, Backward castes, Scheduled Castes/Tribes, Disabled, etc.
So why create a sub-reservation for Muslims within the reservation for "Women"? These parties simply aimed at scuttling the entire reservation bill. If minorities issue comes up, the right wing opposition would have refused, the Communist parties would have dithered, there would have been no consensus, those men who don't want any reservation bill would have won under the guise of fighting for Muslim women's rights! I say to such chauvinists, "Arre what will you fight for Muslim women's rights when you don't care about Women's rights in the first place!"
Nice attempt at creation of communal feelings, but nicer that it failed, the bill successfully went through Rajyasabha, after fourteen long years of struggle! I hope they introduce necessary amendments & pass it through Loksabha too.

On Reverse Bullying

I am sure some of you would have experienced it personally or noticed it in life.
Bullying stems out of a "Superiority complex" ego, where people feel they are "better off" than the other party whom they want to bully or deserve more from the person they want to bully. (Some psychologists however are of the opinion that today's bullies are yesterday's inferiority complex sufferers.)
My parents always taught me that hard work and character are what matters, we might have different skin shades just like dogs and cats come in different shades. But we are all human beings, with the same heart & mind. We may be "better off" than others who are economically backward, socially backward, I was always taught to sympathize with such people and help them, be friends with them, treat them as equals.
And that is how I have been, I do not walk around with any kind of superiority complex.
But I noticed this phenomenon that I name "Reverse bullying", "Reverse Racism", "Reverse abuse". This is a trick employed by incompetent or inefficient people to shift blame on others. However, it is not always a trick, most of the times, it is a sincere 'reverse bullying' which steams from "Inferiority complex". This is where you are wrongly/falsely/imaginatively accused of bullying when you have not done anything of that kind! So in effect, you get bullied by the person who pretends like you're bullying them!! You just want your private space, but you get accused of dominating them if you refuse to adjust for them!
For eg, I have seen cases where a maid doesn't work properly, but when her employer points it out, she retorts on how she is being exploited for being lower-caste/uneducated/illiterate etc.
I have seen a case where an Asian boss fired her Black secretary for being consistently late to work, so the secretary raised a hue & cry amongst all her Black colleagues that it is a case of racism.
I have personally experienced these kind of things in India. If somebody performs a task in an inefficient manner and you show them the flaw, they start on the debate of high caste- low caste!
In my life, I have accumulated a lot of such "reverse bullying" experiences.
There was a day my friend & I were discussing books sitting in our college garden, both of us are avid readers, we discussed so many novels, school curriculum, Rohinton Mistry, Oscar Wilde, classics from English literature, to the latest Harry Potter. Finally we somehow ended up discussing "Sold".  I simply told my friend that it is the story of Zana Muhsen, a young Muslim girl born & brought up in the UK, her father was Yemeni, he tricked her into embarking on a holiday in Yemen, but she didn't know that he had sold her off in marriage, her sister too was sold to a family in Yemen. Zana escaped after long years of struggle with the aid of her mother (who too was brought up in UK). As I told my friend this story, two Muslim girls were sitting a couple of feet away from us. And one of them shouted into the air, "Daughters being sold by fathers, what kind of shit is this, I want to give one tight slap to the stupid people who think all Muslims are like this, I hate them.".
Now this again was a case of reverse bullying, I was discussing a book with my friend, we were not commenting on a religion, we didn't say "all" Muslims are like this. My friend & I were dumbstruck, we pretended like we didn't hear that very rude girl, we moved onto discussing other books. We felt very bullied & harassed, she wasn't party to our long conversation on books, books were the subject, how dare she eavesdrop on our conversation and then shout so rudely, falsely accusing us of being bigots? Whereas, she was being the "reverse bigot".
Especially try talking ethics with unethical economically backward people, "O what do you know, you have educated parents who gave you everything" is the quick retort to make me feel guilty!
Ha, that's when I realized, I have no superiority complex about being from a high caste upper middle class educated family, but there are others in this world from economically backward/uneducated/socially deprived families who try to dump their inferiority complex on me!!
Someday I want to tell such cheap people, that my parents toiled hard day & night to earn what they have, it didn't drop into their hands from the sky, it wasn't easy, and they never broke any law or regulations, they have always tried to help other economically deprived people. They built it from scratch, my grandmother didn't have enough to feed my father, he had a malnourished childhood. But whatever she had, she was so hardworking, toiling until she died, worrying about her son's upbringing, and worrying about our upbringing after we were born. And whatever I am today, my parents didn't give me everything as a free gift, education & character were always stressed on, it is not like money is accumulated by sitting at home doing nothing. And it is not like all rich people are characterless, look at the colossal amount of charity done by the very rich people of the world. But then, why do I owe an explanation to a Reverse bully?
The funniest thing is, these "reverse bullies" don't follow ethics/rules/social norms when it is their turn to follow! It is all about "convenience", so they get things by hook or crook in life, they bully their way up, they evade taxes, don't care to apply for licences, submit false cooked up documentation. Then when they are rich one day, they don't care to help those from their background, they just forget their past life and no matter how much they earn, they join the rat race of greed. They don't realize that they get transformed into the very beast that they have spent their life falsely accusing others of being!
The best way to avoid trivial arguments with such charged up people (especially if we know that they are of no consequence to us in life) is to just apologize & pacify them during that one particular altercation, and then limit the conversation to a hi bye.  They come in all hues & shades, ready to accuse you of being money minded, racist, rich, high-caste, of some particular religion, prejudiced with this, that, blah blah blah. It is all to hide their own inefficiency, to divert the topic from examining their mess, their own jealousy, their own hatred, their own dominance & bully power. So they pile it all on you so that you feel guilty & apologize back to them for no fault of yours.
Seriously, character development should not only focus on tabooing "active bullying", but even this "reverse bullying". There is a theory that most bullies suffered an identity crisis/inferiority complex in childhood. But this is known only from studies of real bullies, what about these reverse bullies?? They have no self-respect in accusing us of things which are all in their own dirty head.
"Bullying" is a character trait prevalent in all sections of society, in all kinds of people, rich or poor, educated/uneducated, socially forward/backward, after all, there are all kinds of people all over this world, and all this complex stems from human desires & wants. However, "Reverse Bullying" is especially practiced by those who can categorize themselves as "underprivileged", so that they can then bully somebody with false accusations. The simplest example of reverse bullying is manifest in a parent-child relation. Parenting is a long process and the parent-child go through moments of joy, sorrow, mistakes. In most cases, parents never remind children of their errors. However, there are many a child who reverse bully their parents, accusing the parent of negligence, "You didn't care enough for me in my childhood, you neglected me at so & so time", so that the parent feels guilty and gives in to every demand in the present. In most cases, parents don't dare to retort & remind the child of its own share of errors. Even the duckling in Tom & Jerry goes around accusing others, "Nobody likes me, nobody loves me, I am ugly". ;-)) Well it's cute if it's a sad little baby duckling, but so not cute when adults try that ugly duckling act! :-O
In an extreme form, it is actually downright criminal, when a 'reverse bully' misuses law to frame innocent people. For eg, I noticed in Kenya, maid servants who threaten male employers with false accusations of rape. Or India, where some married women threaten their husband by falsely implicating them in dowry harassment cases. Nobody believes the innocent male employer or husband when an illiterate/poor maid or a hapless bride accuses them of cheap immoral behavior. But look, who's the bully and who's the victim??!!

Can people be studied by reading their blogs?

I don't think so. Would someone be able to understand me by reading my blog? Would they be able to draw a correct picture? Not really.
People only blog on certain issues, a blog is one window into their mind. But it is not the only window. There are several other angles, other windows, which together make up a person's life.
I recently read that recruiters try to gain more insight into a prospective employee by going through their internet profiles, blogs, etc. So I wondered, what would someone think about me if they read my blog? I think they would think the following or not know the following about me:

1. This blogger is very religious, thinks too much about religions all the time.
I am just another normal person. I take interest in the history of religions, cultures. But I am not obsessed about them to the point of being fanatic. It is not like I spend all my times praying or performing some rituals, in fact I can't remember when I last did some prayer ritual. I am more into spirituality rather than rituals, and I don't say that as an excuse. ;-)

2. O what a prude, what a bore, over-thinker:
Wrong! I think about right-wrong, ethics, morality, law, character etc. Well, that is part of what they try to teach us under "Corporate Governance", isn't it? So if I blog often on these issues, it doesn't make me a prude, it is just that I really feel for these issues, and talk about them because I do not believe in pushing things under the carpet and pretending like they don't exist.

3. Sad angry person:
I guess I have blogged so much on things that I find wrong in this world, I might come across as a pessimist, or somebody who is dejected with life or angry with the whole of mankind! Wow, it is not at all so. The kind of person I am, I can't silently shut up and tolerate wrong things. I do understand that not everything is perfect in this world. I have no problems with adjusting when things go wrong. But what makes me hurt is irresponsibility, unaccountability, callousness, apathy, laziness, liars, cheats. If something goes wrong inspite of our best effort, it is okay, it is the will of God. I appreciate people who put their heart into their bit of work, I like that attitude, the helpful nature, the desire to learn & improve, the responsibility to own up for errors & the will to rectify them. But what about when people intentionally do things wrong because they don't want to be better, because they want to take the easy way and make us suffer the consequence? What about people who refuse to discharge their minimum responsibilities/duties? I feel frustrated when I have to bear the brunt of such people in my life. Since I can't do anything else, I blog about it. Probably that makes my boiling blood cool down? It also builds my resolve, that I will never make another person suffer if I am in the position of control/authority. I also hope that if somebody reads such blog entries, it might register in their mind/heart too. Now if I keep on collecting such angry frustrated entries, I might sound like an angry sad person. I guess I should concentrate on blogging some happiness & cheer too :-)

4. There is so much in my real life that I never blog about. I never see myself blogging on IFRS or US GAAP, though studying accounting takes up most of my day. So this blog would really be a very incomplete picture of me.

5. Music. Indian classical music, Ghazals, such a huge part of my life. Though I contribute my bit to a cousin's music blog, I have never blogged on the part music plays in my life. And yet, it is a huge part of my life.

6. I lovvvve reading books, and I have never blogged about the books that I read, which leaves a huge hole in my blog character.

7. I have noticed a stark contrast between real life people and their internet profiles. The same could be true of me too! It is very easy to 'break the ice' in internet based social networking, it is faceless, a definite confidence booster. People may not be as aggressive or as egoistic in real life.

8. Talking of ego, since blogs are written by the author and are a one way communication, naturally, they may tend to sound egoistic. My blog might make me sound egotistic. After all, my blog is about my world and my perception of the world & its events. Real world communication is face to face, it is two way, has multiple stakeholders, it is not just my thought that matters, but another person's thought too. A blog cannot predict real life.

My blog is a part of me, it is not the whole me. In fact, it is a very small part of me!

Ladies and Lady's fingers!

What is it about these aunty jis and ladies who shop at the Indian grocery store's vegetable sections? I haven't been able to figure out in over one year of shopping, how do they choose the perfect lady's fingers??? Most of the lady's fingers are old, overripe, huge, thick, brownish, going yellow, fibrous. So in such a bad heap, how do you pick the perfect one? As they do it deftly, I try to steal quick glances, watching their fingers, wondering what is so special about the piece that they finally decide to bag. I have still not been able to figure out.
There is one small crate of lady's fingers, and three or four ladies hovering over it like vultures, their fingers sorting through the pile. Every lady feels that the piece deep inside the heap must be the best, so they keep digging in deeper. I notice they try to snap off its sharp end with their fingers, tender young lady's finger snap easily, so these are chosen. Whereas, their overripe friends are quickly discarded back into the heap.
Just imagine, auntyji after auntyji, sometimes some young ladies like me, all of us, snapping the ends of lady's fingers stored in one small crate.... Just think logically, won't the so called 'best tender ones' be picked within an hour? I tried copying them, to fish out the smallest, greenest pieces, but most of the pieces look identical to me, they're all as bad or as good. But every auntyji feels that she's picking up the best by sorting through them.
As for me, I still fail to understand the guidelines they use to pick or discard a piece. I just pick what my heart tells me to, my heart is not a filmy irresponsible heart, so I don't pick any brown or yellow pieces, or any very huge overripe ones, but I do not yet have an auntyji's heart to feel the psychology of a lady's finger!
I have a long term plan, when our parents visit us here, I should go vegetable shopping with mother(-in-law) one day and learn some vegetable psychology from her.

How old am I really?

Of late, I have really been thinking, how old am I, where am I in life?
I can't believe it, I have crossed 25, that's like a quarter of a century!!! Inside my head, in my heart, I still feel like I am a girl, or a young lady. But not a woman. I mean, at least not in the way I behave, not in the way I live life. There's so much I want to do, there's so much I enjoy, I feel like I am a girl!!! I could say I am a young woman, but I just can't picture myself becoming an "Aunty ji" woman as per the eastern traditions.
5 years down the line, I will be over 30! And the way the clock is ticking, I won't be surprised if it's 5 years later when I finish this blog entry! That sounds old, but I don't feel like I am old. What's wrong?
I want to be the little girl of the house, I want, I want, I want. I think about myself, I dream about myself, there is so much excitement, so many plans, so many desires. And I tell myself, "O I am going to do all that in due time". Psychologically, I would like to say I am 23, there are so many 20ish things that I want to do, keep planning to do, have been doing! Now that I am on the other half of the 20s, the half that is nearer to 30 than to 20, I feel like my biological age is old, but my body doesn't show the signs, nor does my head, neither does my heart.
O God, can somebody just fast forward my birth year by 3 or 4 years, so that my biological age rewinds back to the psychological me???
Help! Is there any other young lady out there who's actually a girl living in a young lady's body with a woman's biological age? Complicated eh!

Media potrayal of M.F.Husein's acceptance of Qatari citizenship

I have blogged about this issue earlier, about how Indian media doesn't 'report' facts, but rather, 'persuades' viewers to stir up their emotions over nothing. It doesn't 'report' what people said, but 'puts words into their mouth' and 'creates' news.
That Mr.Husein accepted Qatari citizenship is his personal matter. He had tax benefits, he enjoys being part of the booming international potpourri that Middle East is hosting, he has international collaborations which he wanted to work on.
Why do news channels come up with phrases like, "India rejected me", "Has India failed him?" etc. It is very easy to now rake up the issue of his paintings and claim that he was driven away due to extremists, that he is suffering, that some terrible wrong was done.
I don't watch much of other news channels, I only watched NDTV, so I base my views on what Ms.Barkha Dutt said while interviewing him. She tried her level best to squeeze some remorseful rejected emotions out him and failed, he is too clever for her ;-)
Mr.Husein, how do you feel, at 95 years of age, giving up citizenship of your motherland, how did your family, your children react to this, do you feel somewhere that enough wasn't done for you, did the State fail you? etc, she just went on and on. But let us hear Mr.Hussein speak. Philosopher that he is, he simply laughed and retorted, "I think the media is feeling more pain than I am, I am an artist, I belong to the world, first of all, I never made any such comments like India rejected me. I had tax benefits in being an NRI, more scope to accomplish what I want, international collaborations, etc. I have some Arab projects to handle, I can work anywhere, everywhere, citizenship is a piece of paper which doesn't matter. If all these court cases happened 40 years ago, I would have fought tooth & nail in my defence. At 95 years of age, I just want peace, I don't want to spend the rest of my life in court cases, I want to concentrate on my art. Only 10% of my potential has been painted, 90% of me is still inside my mind some of which I want to put out, most of which might go to my grave. The Supreme Court judgement honoured me, the Government stood by me". He didn't sound like he was scared & bullied into speaking those things, he seemed to have said them genuinely, out of his philosopher spirit.
When Mr.Husein has no complaints, when he is enjoying his work, his art, what is the media's problem?
Then NDTV threw together a talk show, I think it was titled, "First Rushdie, Taslima Nasreen, Now MF Husein".
Wah re wah, how can you compare these things?
Rushdie and Taslima have a fatwa on their head, armed militant fundamentalists are baying for their blood. Taslima wants to be able to go back to Kolkata but cannot because of the death threat. Rushdie lives undercover, he gave up his religion to get rid of the death threat, it only exacerbated the problems, so he apologized and reverted to Islam, he lives in undisclosed locations, shuttling between USA and Europe.
Whereas, Mr.Hussein, there are 3 court cases against him, he is not hounded by some armed militant fundamentalists, he is harassed by some citizens of the country who openly filed cases in court against him, all done under the Indian Constitution. Mr.Hussein doesn't have enemies baying for his blood, he has Public Interest Litigations filed against him. Yes, there were unfortunately some rowdy elements who destroyed his paintings during some exhibition, which is very shameful. But you can't compare the threats that an artist faces from court litigation & streetside rowdies, with threats that an artist faces from armed fundamentalists who run their own parallel 'justice' system.
And all this discussion started by NDTV, just under the assumption that Mr.Husein fled India because he had no choice/protection from the Government of India, as though he is suffering in Qatar. I wonder why Barkha Dutt wants to feed us this news? She miserably failed at extracting any such feelings from Mr.Husein, that man is a true philosopher, him with his paintbrush, just unmoved by all this controversy/debate that people are raking up in his name.
Worst of all, Ms.Dutt's opening lines on the show were something like, "What the whole of India has been debating on for the last week". Wow, does she really believe that the whole of India is obsessed about this issue? Most people are illiterate, poor, starving to death, farmers have their own issues, swathes of rural land under the grip of maoists, Government struggling over negotiations with Maoists, now was this really the most important news of the week???
Not that I have anything personal against Barkha Dutt, I am sure her peers from other channels must be doing the same kind of news coverage, Star News is even worse. NDTV is actually the best among that bandwagon of emotion cookers.
The Hindi movie 'Rann' showcased this media wars problem with precision (Though I think they didn't handle the rest of the movie well, apart from pinpointing the issue).
All in all, it is very easy to now rake up the issue and say that the Government of India didn't do enough for him. Well, what did the media channels do? It is very easy to do post-mortem analysis on any event, and easiest to blame the Government. Have the media channels ever talked about him all these days? Why get obsessed about him now that he accepted Qatari citizenship and shove emotions down our throats, blowing it up out of proportion, showcasing it as though democracy's failure led to this? In fact, Mr.Husein doesn't need democracy to practice his art, he wants peace, which he found in Qatar, why should he care if it is not a democracy? Somebody should tell Barkha Dutt, that she can't function in Qatar (she will be behind bars for cooking up such emotions when there is no democracy and freedom of speech) but Mr.Husein can, since he is not a journalist but an artist. So for all you emotional journalists who can't understand why Mr.Husein chose Qatar, he paints colours, he doesn't cook up emotions. So the king or Emir or ruler of Qatar won't find him as intolerable as I am finding you.
Perhaps the paintings controversy prompted him further to shift base, by why assume that he shifted base only because of democracy's failure?
Mr.Husein could have settled down in Qatar even if all this painting controversy wasn't there, why relate the two events in absolute? That sounds like non sequitur logic to me. He is enjoying his work, let him enjoy his work, don't try to make him feel guilty for having given up Indian citizenship, and don't blame the Government for his choices. Let us face the fact, that even if the Government of India did 'more' for him, it could only be in terms of offering protection/security. But the international attention & contracts that Qatar brings, India wouldn't have. Mr.Husein himself said so in two interviews that I watched, that the process of shifting base was started long ago, the court controversy only further hastened it.
Also, for all those who hate Mr.Husein without having heard his part of the story, please watch his interviews, it might alter your perception.

Riz Khan One on One with M.F.Husein- Al Jazeera English
Barkha Dutt interviews M.F.Husein- NDTV

Stolen Summer (2002): Religion: Reconciling the Ego & Conscience

I watched a most beautiful touching movie today. Stolen Summer, it released in 2002.
I take a deep interest in spirituality. I love to read on the history/evolution of religion. Why do I say "evolution" of religion? Well, God has always been there, He will always be there, but human beings keep trying to come up with different schools of thought to be able to 'rightly fit' God into our imagination. I think all living beings have the concept of 'God', some higher being, some higher power... Our puranas talk of animals & birds that prayed. We do know that some animals have death rituals (elephants). As humans, we have elaborate rituals to mark death, a funeral, cremation/burial/rituals depending on our culture. It is because we feel attached to our family/friends. I think it was only when man began questioning "death" & the purpose of life, that the quest for God started. When man wondered, "What happens to me/my loved ones when we die, where do we go, why are we born?", it is to answer these questions that religion first started. It is the search for God, and from all our different languages and cultures, different schools of philosophy/thought, different paths to God have emerged. But they all had the same source (all religion was born from mankind's thought process), and yearn for the same goal (God). I think one finally finds God when one overcomes the obstacles of material religion, and embraces spirituality (love for all mankind, love for all of God's creation, seeing good everywhere, wishing good for everyone). Religion is a path to God, but one mustn't become too obsessed with the path to the extent that they no longer want/remember to reach the goal! It's like going on a long drive from New York City to Washington DC, what if I love the road so much that I no longer want to reach my destination??? What if I become so engrossed in staring at other people's cars, commenting on each other's cars, and all of us totally forget that the point of being on road was to reach the goal!!!
That is how religious paths have become for lot of people in modern life. They don't really concentrate on finding God, they are more obsessed with commenting on each other's paths. Therein starts the problem of thinking that one religion is the best, others are sinners, others don't reach heaven, it's a kind of self-righteous ego that we cultivate, we judge others as inferior and think ourselves as the best.
I have faced this kind of problem in recent times, I was really hurt. An old time friend of mine (at least I thought she was a friend) told me on my face that Jews, Christians, Hindus (please club all Dharmic religions under this umbrella term, be it Sanatana, Shaiva, Vaishnav, Sikh, Buddhists, Jains, etc, I am sure she didn't know the difference), Shias have all deviated from the path of God, that you shouldn't read/believe any history or events narrated by them, the only pure people in the world are Sunnis, and that I still have time to reform if I read the Quran. Well, I wasn't angry with her, I was just deeply hurt, that somebody whom I considered a friend, an equal, thinks of me (and most of the world) as inferior, infidel, impure, brainless, not deserving of heaven, less intelligent, not loved by Allah, whatever...
I didn't want to argue with her, so I politely ended the communication. But I actually wanted to ask her, why does she think Allah made all these different kinds of people, why do we exist if we are not good enough, why does she believe that God gave her the mandate to judge peoples of the world? What does she know about the world? Who is she to say that all Jews, all Christians, all Hindus, all Shias are lost/liars/manipulators/deviants?
I wanted to blog about this issue for long, for all those of you out there who hate people who don't belong to your religion, or those who think that people who don't follow your religion are lesser humans, please take a moment to reflect, "Are there no errant people in my community? Why did God make peoples so different, surely He loves them too & has His own plans? Surely there are good & bad people in all societies, surely no religious movement is totally full of good people or bad people, surely life is grey and not just black-white, Surely the purpose of religion is to inculcate goodness/humanity, which any human from across the world would be capable of. Surely you should respect God's creations, be they other tribes, other nationalities, other religions, other animals, birds, any living being."
To believe that your religion has the mandate of God, I can smell a strong ego, that is what leads to partiality/racism/cronyism/nepotism/bigotry etc.
But I somehow never got around to blogging on this issue, because I didn't want to put up a public display of my freshly boiling emotions, I didn't want to put my friend's (I still wish her well, I still pray for her good, even if she thought of me in such depreciating terms) feelings into a blog.
But today, I am blogging on this issue, because I watched a wonderful movie, which summed up my feelings about life, my feelings about the relation between mankind & God, my feelings about spirituality. It is the understanding/interpretation of religion through the eyes of an 8 year old boy. He is Roman Catholic and his parents/nuns at church tell him that non-Catholics can't go to heaven. He befriends a little Jewish boy, and earnestly tries to convert him to Catholicism so that the cancer stricken boy can attain heaven. It was a very touching movie, and the boy taught a lot about spirituality to his narrow-minded father.
The adults forgot "Compassion" in the pursuit of God, whereas the little boy knew nothing other than "Love for his friend".
God is there for everyone, he is there for the rich, the poor, the lame, the sick, the healthy, the prosperous, the wretched, for the sinners, for the winners, for all of his creation, for everyone & everything, because He created it ALL. It is good to be proud of being religious, but it's really wrong to be arrogant about one's religion, arrogance is when we start inflating our own value & depreciating another's worth. That ego is what manifests itself in different ways: whether it is racism or bigotry, the root cause is all "EGO".
As for my friend who labeled most of the world as infidel sinners, well, my friend, thanks for that label, for Jesus said in the New Testament, that the Lord the shepherd cares more for the lost lame lamb rather than the healthy sheep. Jesus told his companions, that the lepers needed him even more than anyone else. So if you labeled most of the world as sinners, I hope you pray for us sinners, so that the world becomes a more peaceful place.
And no honey, I am not angry with you, I was just hurt for a day or two, but I healed. And I will continue to heal others who face such uncomfortable situations. For what is life, if there is no "Compassion"? What is the purpose of searching for invisible things like "God", if you can't feel your fellow human being's emotions?
In this globalized world, all of us may not have read the Torah, the Bible, the Quran, the Hindu scriptures, the Buddhist scriptures, there may be materialistic/ritualistic/cultural earthly differences in rituals/scriptures, but the underlying thread is "compassion", without which religion has no point. I wonder what the Egyptians thought of God and afterlife, I wonder what the Shintos in Japan think of spirituality. What did the Celts imagine, what did the Macedonians think? We may not know those cultures & languages, but please tell me, didn't the authors intend to spread compassion & peace, and weren't all those ancient civilizations/writers created by that same omnipresent God? Now instead of scoffing at the whole world, can we please offload that elephant-sized ego masking our ant-sized character, can we stop feeling like we're Know-It-Alls, and try to learn about our ancestors, our neighbours, other languages, cultures, civilizations. If we concentrate on things like self-respect and compassion, tone down ego, build our character, examine our own conscience instead of evaluating our neighbour, we'll find God.
Or should we wait until a Martian invasion for us Earthlings to unite?