Why should women cook at their in-laws place?!

I had an interesting, or should I say irritating discussion this morning. One of my friends was more than convinced that his wife should cook at HIS parents' home. I was rather too surprised to learn that he himself had never cooked at his own home. And it was too much for me to digest that he expected his would be wife to!

Worse than all, he defended his position. And it was quite simple. My wife would be a woman. A woman should know cooking. And it simply follows that a cook who is a woman and is his wife should cook for his family members too. Which woman would accept his proposal is an interesting event to watch for. But what surprises is that he has the heart to expect all this.

No, my friend isn't from the half-baked kind you imagine. He's an accomplished experienced and financially stable officer, with knowledge good enough to stir you up. But the conversation, or debate we had this morning proved to me beyond a shadow of doubt that male dominated culture/attitude still prevails even in affluent and literate circles.

I was further shocked to learn that many of my friends held a similar view, even women thought it was okay - and that was a bit disgusting. Of course, this conversation led to further shocking revelations. Someone said that even though he was quite a flirt, he would never tolerate his wife seeing anyone else. Men have that right, he believes. I promised myself that if I happen to be a daughter's father, she'd grow to be the toughest feminist this planet has ever seen!

Changing Lanes

It almost always intrigues me how some have nearly perfect career sketches. Even as far as my personal side goes, I'm of the double-minded kind and my career per se has been a jigsaw puzzle. Once it seemed to be all in control, but suddenly things began to shape themselves and I seemed to experiment with every opportunity coming my way.

Computer Science, of course, was my first love. It all started during the summer of 2001 when I joined Aptech's e-ACCP programme. I was more than convinced that computers were my Midas' touch. It seemed to flow that way as I also took up an engineering course on Computer Science. Interestingly, Providence didn't want it that way.

I landed up in an MBA programme much to my own surprise. Anyway, I really loved what I learnt and did. Marketing had a good appeal and I also spun a couple of researches on the same. It looked as if my career would take of from there. Also, the job markets projected that most MBA positions were for Marketeers than for anyone else.

But, again I switched. When asked to opt for a specialization, I confidently chose Finance. Finance is of course the heart of the business world, isn't it? And so my argument sold. It was all glossy. Numbers still enchant me. It is so much fun to work on numbers. Crunching and churning and truncating and adjusting are really a cool job to do.

Eventually, I also had a short stint as a Verbal Ability faculty at PSG's MBA Entrance Exam coaching center. Finally, now I work for an Insurance company. Where next? I'm afraid, only time can tell...

So hard to say goodbye

Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.
- Romeo and Juliet Act 2, Scene 2

Its been one and a half months since I've left home for Mumbai. On the outside life has been going as good as ever. With friends for colleagues and an amicable office atmosphere, things can't be more better. But in the inside I really don't feel like having left home. I still haven't really said goodbye to my family back at Coimbatore. They're still close to my heart, their breath still brushes my face each time the wind blows.

Everything just goes around and round. I take a train at 7:45 and reach my place an hour and a half later. The journey is so awfully long that I sometimes need two newspapers to pass the time. The return journey is just as long and consumes another newspaper. The railway stations are so crowded that sometimes I wonder if all of India had suddenly migrated to Mumbai. Sometimes when I stand back to watch the crowd, it seems so awfully funny - people scurrying everywhere, all the time. Everyone is so busy, someone drops his bag and spends a quarter of an hour to pick it up. 'This is Mumbai,' quips a friend.

As I walk back to my sixth floor flat, I reminisce my sweet hometown, Coimbatore. A quiet and a calm place, a distant cry from the hustle and bustle of Mumbai. I often long for that night walk on my terrace, those cauliflower fry vendors and sugarcane stalls on the road side. People never ran there, they always walk, so unlike Mumbai. Yet for all that, Mumbai is a place where everyone feels at home. There's something so unique about this place that no one regrets for having come here.

Mom calls every other day to check out if I had my breakfast, lunch and dinner. Dad still recharges my prepaid connection. My brother Clarence is still my best friend ever. Life may never take me back to my sweet home. In fact, even I dont miss home that much after all - for there is always a world of dreams and illusions where I still sleep on momma's lap, where dad still prepares apple shakes and I still play chess with my brother.

We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
- The Tempest Act 4, Scene 1

How society and the big media systematically denegrate women

Victimized women are always on fire for doing the wrong things!? Whenever there's a rape or molestation, the media and society jump in almost immediately to the conclusion that the victim was wearing short skirts, went out all by herself in the dark night, was dead drunk or whatever they could imagine of - to such an extent that the audience would even sympathize with, or justify the attacker. Worse still is the case of domestic violence. Women are supposed to take in all their husbands' egoism and chauvinistic sadism with meekness and quietness - for the sake of the so-called family honour. Its so obnoxious that makes one wonder how honourable can 'family honour' be when its blind to the honour of a woman - the mother of the family. Damn!

Recent days have shown to how far the media can go and denegrate women. Two women have been favorites for several news media - Sania Mirza and Sunanda Pushkar. Case 1, Sania might have done the worst possible thing in marrying whoever she is now married to, but isn't that her right. There is no real reason as to why she shouldn't marry a foreign national. Honestly, she was in the news for no fault of hers. And she in fact deserves appreciation now, that she's announced that she wouldn't be dropping her maiden name. I've no idea if she's a feminist, but certainly its a good start.

Case 2, Sunanda might be innocent or not. I have honestly no means of finding out if she used her relationship with Tharoor to win the bid - in fact, no one knows! She might have and I'm in no mood to defend her. However, the way the media has treated her is horrible. It seems the media just cannot accept that women can be successful in business. They went to the extent of projecting her as a slut. Its so unfortunate that media in a country like India, which has seen women like Kiran Shah, Indra Nooyi and Kiran Bedi still struggles to accept women as independent and capable of succeeding in business all by themselves.

Obviously things get worse when these attitudes are reflected by law. The recent judgement of a Bombay court that forbids abused women from filing cases in police stations other than the place of abuse has raised eye-brows. People end up wondering if there is any point in asking a woman who had just escaped a place of torture to go back to the same vicinity to seek justice. Families also contribute to this jeopardy. Young women are taught to obey their husbands and in-laws too.

Here's a typical scenario. When a couple get married, say the wife prepares tea for her husband. He thanks and appreciates and even makes a godess of her. Next day when she prepares tea again, he might thank and appreciate. Day three, he merely thanks her. Day four, he asks her to leave the tea on the table. Day five, he doesn't even care. Day six, she is now supposed to prepare tea. Day seven, she's got headache and needs someone to prepare tea for her. This guy calls her mom and rants 'your selfish daughter didn't even give me a cup of tea!' If your planning to marry, I think I should advice you to let your husband prepare tea for himself from day one.

With dipping sex-ratios and a male-dominated social setup, feminism in India has a long way to go. Yet, this is what I believe in the core of my heart - if you are female, if you are feminist you are FREE!

The Cry Of The Children

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,
Ere the sorrow comes with years?
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,
And that cannot stop their tears.
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows,
The young birds are chirping in the nest,
The young fawns are playing with the shadows,
The young flowers are blowing toward the west—
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
They are weeping bitterly!
They are weeping in the playtime of the others,
In the country of the free.

Do you question the young children in their sorrow,
Why their tears are falling so?
The old man may weep for his tomorrow,
Which is lost in Long Ago;
The old tree is leafless in the forest,
The old year is ending in the frost,
The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest,
The old hope is hardest to be lost:
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
Do you ask them why they stand
Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers,
In our happy Fatherland?

They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
And their looks are sad to see,
For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses
Down the cheeks of infancy;
"Your old earth," they say, "is very dreary;
Our young feet," they say, "are very weak!
Few paces have we taken, yet are weary—
Our grave-rest is very far to seek.
Ask the aged why they weep, and not the children,
For the outside earth is cold,
And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering,
And the graves are for the old."

"True," say the children, "it may happen
That we die before our time.
Little Alice died last year—her grave is shapen
Like a snowball, in the rime.
We looked into the pit prepared to take her:
Was no room for any work in the close clay!
From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her,
Crying 'Get up, little Alice! it is day.'
If you listen by that grave, in sun and shower,
With your ear down, little Alice never cries;
Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her,
For the smile has time for growing in her eyes:
And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in
The shroud by the kirk-chime.
It is good when it happens," say the children,
"That we die before our time."

Alas, alas, the children! They are seeking
Death in life, as best to have;
They are binding up their hearts away from breaking,
With a cerement from the grave.
Go out, children, from the mine and from the city,
Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do;
Pluck your handfuls of the meadow-cowslips pretty,
Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through!
But they answer, "Are your cowslips of the meadows
Like our weeds anear the mine?
Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows,
From your pleasures fair and fine!

"For oh," say the children, "we are weary,
And we cannot run or leap;
If we cared for any meadows, it were merely
To drop down in them and sleep.
Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping,
We fall upon our faces, trying to go;
And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping,
The reddest flower would look as pale as snow.
For, all day, we drag our burden tiring
Through the coal-dark, underground;
Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron
In the factories, round and round.

"For all day the wheels are droning, turning;
Their wind comes in our faces,—
Till our hearts turn, our heads with pulses burning,
And the walls turn in their places:
Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling,
Turns the long light that drops adown the wall,
Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling,—
All are turning, all the day, and we with all.
And all day, the iron wheels are droning,
And sometimes we could pray,
'O ye wheels,' (breaking out in a mad moaning)
'Stop! be silent for today!' "

Ay, be silent! Let them hear each other breathing
For a moment, mouth to mouth!
Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathing
Of their tender human youth!
Let them feel that this cold metallic motion
Is not all the life God fashions or reveals:
Let them prove their living souls against the notion
That they live in you, or under you, O wheels!
Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward,
Grinding life down from its mark;
And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward,
Spin on blindly in the dark.

Now tell the poor young children, O my brothers,
To look up to Him and pray;
So the blessed One, who blesseth all the others,
Will bless them another day.
They answer, "Who is God that He should hear us,
While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirred?
When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us
Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word.
And we hear not (for the wheels in their resounding)
Strangers speaking at the door:
Is it likely God, with angels singing round Him,
Hears our weeping any more?

"Two words, indeed, of praying we remember,
And at midnight's hour of harm,
'Our Father,' looking upward in the chamber,
We say softly for a charm.
We know no other words except 'Our Father,'
And we think that, in some pause of angels' song,
God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather,
And hold both within His right hand which is strong.
'Our Father!' If He heard us, He would surely
(For they call Him good and mild)
Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely,
'Come and rest with me, my child.'

"But, no!" say the children, weeping faster,
"He is speechless as a stone:
And they tell us, of His image is the master
Who commands us to work on.
Go to!" say the children,—"up in heaven,
Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find.
Do not mock us; grief has made us unbelieving—
We look up for God, but tears have made us blind."
Do you hear the children weeping and disproving,
O my brothers, what ye preach?
For God's possible is taught by His world's loving,
And the children doubt of each.

And well may the children weep before you!
They are weary ere they run;
They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory
Which is brighter than the sun.
They know the grief of man, without its wisdom;
They sink in man's despair, without its calm,—
Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom,—
Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm,—
Are worn as if with age, yet unretrievingly
The harvest of its memories cannot reap,—
Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly.
Let them weep! let them weep!

They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
And their look is dread to see,
For they mind you of their angels in high places,
With eyes turned on Deity;—
"How long," they say, "how long, O cruel nation,
Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart,—
Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation,
And tread onward to your throne amid the mart?
Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper,
And its purple shows your path!
But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper
Than the strong man in his wrath."

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

A call to Nehruvian Nationalism

Over the years it has been repeatedly proved that public sector companies fare a lot better than their money-crazy private competitors. Be it BSNL or ONGC or LIC or whatever, India as a nation I feel is yet to realize that nationalization of industries is a lot better and our beloved forefathers weren't wrong after all. Of course people complain about the speed of delivery, corruption and quality of service... and what not. Its so interesting to note that, they gleefully ignore to ask if the private players are any better!!!

PSUs have been accused of monopoly for decades. So what am I supposed to accuse the private players of? Monarchy?? Most of those huge private players, say Reliance, or Jindal, or Mittal, have a huge portfolio. Reliance for example does all kinds of integration - vertical, horizontal, cross, you name it. Where's the perfect competition market or the emancipated consumer that the LPG revolution boasts of so often.

On the other hand, PSUs have stood the test of time. There have been pitfalls, agreed. But they've braved the rains and storms and still stand tall. Here's an incident that took place right before my eyes. A colleague of mine was asked to report at Chandigarh (while most of the vacancies were at Maharashtra and Gujarat - quite unheard of in private cos) because she's married and a mother too. She requested the management to change her posting to Ludhiana because her family was there... and guess what??!! THEY DID! And that's the pleasure of working for a public sector.

I'm reminded of a PPT that took place at a college. An HR of a software major proudly announced that the average age at his organization was only 32. A young voice rose from one of the back rows shot back, 'so what happened to those loyal old people, did y'all kick 'em out?' Its a known fact that one out of one ages. One of these days we're getting old. Forget the profits, quality, reliability, stability and trust which are of course a part of the package. But at the core of it all, PSUs have a heart and that COUNTS! Its time to return to Nehruvian nationalism. After all, socialism works!

We three idiots - height of overconfidence

'twas the third day in Mumbai. Myself and two of my my colleagues took an auto to our office... as usual. The auto was going on and on and on. Suddenly I and another friend of mine supposed that we had spotted the lane where our office was located. Unfortunately, we aren't conversant in Hindi. So our third colleague stepped in to take charge. He argued and debated and eventually forced the poor, experienced rickshaw driver to a pre-mature halt in the pretext of the said driver trying to fool us. We got off with assumed anger and a sense of inner satisfaction in having out-witted a sly rickshaw driver.... But our joy whatsoever, was rather shortlived... as we eventually found out that, the rickshaw driver was right after all....

We had fooled ourselves...