Beginning with the last thing first, we (I and Pulkit) just shifted our location (again!) to Hyderabad. Hopefully we will sustain our stay here for next few years . Since the time I left my house in Ahmedabad, this is going to be the 6th city I am going to live in and I’m pretty excited about it! We just rented a house in Kondapur and are still in process of settling. Pulkit has joined Microsoft and is undergoing a promising Ayurvedic treatment for Ankylosing Spondylites (a chronic dicease that he has been suffering since teenage). This treatment was one of the key reasons for the shift to Hyderabad, apart from the better lifestyle (compared to Noida) and fun of having Ruchi (Pulkit’s sister) living with us! As for me, I am still considering several options in front of me. But nevertheless, I will always continue volunteering for various causes related to urban environmental conservation, like I have done so far.  For the regular followers of this blog, I am back to the Dailydump home-composter. With the help of  Sahaja Aharam, we are also planning to buy more organic than ever before.

I and Pulkit just entered into the 5th year of our wedlock! In the last 4 wonderful years, we have witnessed each other growing together and have stood by one another through all the ups and downs. I truly relish all the unforgettable moments that we have shared so far, and look forward to many more of them!

Last year has turned many things around, including the way I look at some of the matters concerning social change-making. Embracing Veganism may have played a major role in this. I have always disliked cooking, but after turning vegan, cooking has been added to my list of hobbies. It has become a challenging task, which makes it fascinating for me. I am gonna leave the detailed reasoning behind my Veganism for the next post. Until then, ciao!

Traveling through rural and tribal parts of MP, Bihar and Gujarat was quite an eventful time, giving me several firsts in life. The experiences of staying in the huts of people in rural and tribal regions gave me some insights of  rural and tribal lifestyles. It was, of course, strenuous for me, having been a city dweller all my life. Walking long distances and climbing hills to reach one village to another, cycling more than 30 kms on bumpy and flooded road (with an ordinary bicycle), walking barefoot through flooded fields, sleeping in a hut and getting soaked in the middle of the night due to leaking roof, learning to de-weed the fields– each of these episodes took me through an uncharted territory. I traveled to many places in this phase, from Gujarat to Rajasthan to MP to Orissa to Bihar to Karnataka, all of them by  non-AC trains/buses. I’m glad to have been able to avoid buying bottled water (disposables) in all the journeys till date! Looking back, I also find it striking that I ended up using almost all modes of sustainable transportation – trains(non-AC), buses, trucks, tractor, bicycle etc. (avoiding the fuel guzzling flights).

My attempts to understand problems from various viewpoints,  have helped me connect many previously scattered dots.  Quite a lot reasoning with myself and others, made me decide Environmental conservation as my area of focus.  As for concrete plans, there are none for now. Hopefully I shall be able to throw more light on this in sometime.

Btw, we’ve shifted to a new place, and while continuing the other  eco-friendly practices, I’m also experimenting with a new method of composting (suggested by Divya). Friends are most welcome for a good homemade vegan meal. 

It’s estimated that every year more than 1000 young girls in Karnataka are sacrificed in the name of tradition. These girls come from Dalit families, primarily  belonging to the lowest strata of the society.  The girls are given away often for money, at times to save the cost of dowry and marriage. Often parents seek boy child and when a girl is born instead, she’s sacrificed. The disabled or deceased girls  too end up being the victims. On a few occasions, the Gowdas (upper caste) of the village, on suspecting an evil force active in the village, urges (forces) a lower caste family to sacrifice their daughter in service of GOD. Such a girl is known as a ‘Devadasi’, a servant of God.

The origin

In the medieval times, Devadasis were upper caste girls,  who dedicated their lives to performing art and rituals at the temples, serving God and remaining unmarried. They commanded high respect for their art and service from the society.

The system today

With the demise of the ancient kingdoms and deterioration in the situation at temples, the lives of Devadasis started becoming tough and the respect was lost and was replaced by lust. The parents from upper class , hence, stopped giving their girls away as Devadasis. With the gradual change in times, original meanings were forgotten and then came a time when  the poor who were abused by the system started using this changed system for their own benefits. The untouchable girls became touchable in the night. The new version of Devadasi was married to the God at young age (at times even at 3 years!).  After she reaches her puberty, the head of the village or the priest generally has a first go at her virginity. Sometimes she’s sold to a particular man who’s called Malik and supposed to take care of her  and her children. The girl, although given away by the family, needs to take care of the family with her new profession now, which often is a new form of prostitution. At village fairs or temple festivals, she needs to show her great art of dancing. During the dance, any man can lay hands on her  and then throw 5-10 Rs at her. Many such nights are spent being beaten and stripped by drunkards. Devadasi in the village sometimes does have one man to take care of her and her children, but in the cities she’s always a synonym to a prostitute. Those women who manage to find themselves some labour work, try to get their kids into schools. Such children, with no father, face a lot of stigma in the schools, sometimes even denial of admission. Their daughters often end up being Devadasis.

Attempts for betterment

Devadasi system has been prevailing in parts of Karnataka and AndraPradesh and a few places in Maharashtra. Although Karnataka Governemt issued Devadasi Prohibition Act in 1982 (and 1984 in AP), a large number of girls are still turned to Devadasis in many parts of North Karntaka. They are often known as Mathamma or Jogini. NJMO has been working for betterment of Devadasis for over 5 years now.  With numerous struggles, they have been able to provide help with education and vocational training for the children of Devadasis, ration cards, housing to these women along with empowering them by forming collectives, which benefits in terms of ensuring livelihoods. They could even assure pension for these women with the help of Women and child welfare department (the scheme is halted for time being). “The process of providing housing facilities for homeless was not easy. It consisted of a good deal of survey and the report then was sent to Rajiv Gandhi housing board in Bangalore. It was a continuous follow up for nearly 2 years then with respective Panchayats to get the sanction of 280 houses.” remarks Manjula, my co-fellow at CHC and one of the founding member of NJMO. The girls found as prospective Devadasis or daughters of Devadasis were sent to Visthar in Bangalore, a group that runs school for children at risk.

Although the work of groups like NJMO does help these women, the bulk of the blame lies with the society. A lot of girls are given away due to poverty , patriarchy and oppression by people of higher strata.  I’ve always wondered what it takes to treat a fellow human being with respect, not as an  object to derive fun from.

Sources

- Interactions with Manjula (my co-fellow at CHC) and women workers from NJMO

- ‘Holy Wives’ – a documentary by Pedestrian Pictures

There have been plenty of questions from friends and relatives upon breaking this news, but I wonder if I have been and will be able to satisfy anyone’s curiosity to the fullest! There were also typical patriarchal reactions such as “Oh so you are quitting to become a housewife?” “cool, good thing to pass time, keep yourself busy” … Not that I undermine the role of a home-maker, but it saddens me to see that the value of married woman in the society is (largely) thought to be reduced to a house-wife if she is not doing any income-generating work! Many also had concerns about the finances, when they figured that Pulkit too might take similar plunge soon. But, we have done adequate calculations and pondering on that aspect. Also, this brings me to what Gandhi once rightly said: “There’s everything for one’s need and not for one’s greed”. We had decided to do away with many of our greeds long time back; that has helped us save good amount for our sustenance for next few years .

For a long time, even before I came to know of the concept of volunteer work, I knew that I had slightly differing views than many in my surroundings. Be it my atheist and feminist ideas or being a bit  compassionate towards someone’s pain. But all said, I had never imagined myself being where I’m today. Like any other stereotypical Indian student, I too after my schooling had dreamt of getting a good job, having a respectful position both in society and work place.

Going through the past, I now figure that my year on year job-hopping(sometimes without much good reason or pay) was partly also because I was finding my work increasingly futile for the society. Sure, money could also bring about (i.e. fund) a great deal of change, but in my case, I believe my full time involvement would make a bigger impact. As my involvement with AID and other  groups drifted my interests to different issues, the job was becoming an obstacle for contributing to what I felt was more worthy of my time. Can’t say I found my true passion, but I am convinced of this being the best way to go.

I am currently clueless about my final destination after a year, but I will try to keep things posted on this space.

I relocated from Pune to Bangalore with Pulkit after tying the knot, one of the best events that have ever happened  to my life. Pulkit has brought a unique flavor to my world, one that I adore (despite our fair share of squabbles)! I wish I could say the same about the truck load of weird nick names he has coined for me .

The highlight of the stay was undoubtedly my involvement in activities at AID, which introduced me to several other like-minded groups and individuals across India. Quite a few of them inspired me towards a more eco-friendly lifestyle and are responsible for my improved depth of thought. I must admit my ignorance about some issues pertaining to the injustice that prevails in my surroundings. The more aware I became, the more agitated I grew. Fair amount of debates, discussions and reading have altered my views to such a degree, that I’m now not surprised at seeing many of my closed ones being unable to relate to me at times. But deep down, I still feel the same Sejal,  cheerful around the near and dear, proudly feminist, (increasingly) compassionate and (decreasingly) lazy.

I also had a bunch of ‘firsts’ in Bangalore. I took Pulkit’s suggestion of cycling to work, a decision which I will never regret. I am proud to have paddled 20-25 kms at a stretch! I also had a successful stint at growing a  tiny balcony garden and home-composting! Our first door-to-door relief collection (for Bihar floods) still brings a smile to my face, wherein we had unique experiences of catching people drinking in the middle of the afternoon and seeing the door being shut on us because we were mistaken for sales people . The visits to villages such as Unnainhalli or Potnal were also the first of their kind. It was also my first time at a course such as the one conducted by PHM on ’Health and Equity’, giving me enhanced  clarity for possible future directions. With the participation of roughly 70 people  from across the globe, I was not only exposed to some enlightening discussions, those 10 days’ stay at NTI campus also gave me a much-needed boost amidst the otherwise boring routine of mine. I took back some fun memories as well, like the non-Indian gurls enthusiastically trying Saris, and seeing them, a guy from Kenya wanting to buy himself a “men’s sari” . Besides, it had been long since I enjoyed the company of female roomies!

Another significant development was my hunt for passion, something that stimulates me to go on.  Hopping jobs year on year for work satisfaction doesn’t seem to work for me. I find my interests venturing into many non-IT avenues, most directed to social change. The exploration is ongoing, and I hope to post more concrete plans in this space, in a few months from now.

For now, I have begun trying to find some ways to engage myself in various activities of AID NCR.  Hoping to get through the difficult (as in transition) first few pages of this latest chapter of life as quickly as possible!

PS: After carefully thinking over several factors including concentration of friends, work hours/flexibility, cost of living (esp. rent) & presence of one person (Pulkit) at home for the cook, for now, we have rented a 1 BHK in Noida (over South Delhi).

When it comes to financial security, we all think long-term, we save money for our kids’ future, get their insurance done and what not. But on the other hand, we go on adding heedlessly to our carbon footprints, which will only lead to a disastrous life for our kids. Why don’t we ever think that if we have witnessed the temperatures rising till 45 degree, earth quacks, Katrinas, Tsunamis and a number of floods in last 25 years (my age), it’s more than likely that our kids shall see even worse?! They may not even have access to enough water, let alone fuel. At this rate, there will certainly come a time when no  amount of money would be able to rescue us.

There are people who complain about congestion (best illustrated by this witty cartoon), from sitting inside their SUVs. There are others that crib endlessly about what we have done to Mother Earth, despite being among the prominent culprits.  “It’s become too hot”, “Bangalore isn’t the same green city now”, “there’s just too much of pollution”, “traffic congestion has become a big nuisance”, “fuel prices have gone sky high” … the list just doesn’t end! We do acknowledge the existence of  the problems, we do voice our complaints, often quite aloud, but then just sit tight and retreat to our mundane tasks and momentary comforts, rather than channeling the fire to action.

But thankfully, not everyone thinks or acts the same way! Each time I meet a new chap who walks the green talk or hear about an organization  plunging to alternate energy, I feel hopeful. For last few years I have been able to find myself a lot of like-minded fellows who ardently attempt to keep their carbon footprints down: be it BCW [Bus/Cycle/Walk], cutting the usage of plastic, water conservation and so on. Even here, the list is endless

A discussion with my cook when I was telling him why I do home composting or cycle to work ended with “Madam, aapke akele karne se kya hoga, baki sab to vaise ke vaise hi hai”. True, I alone can’t do it, but imagine out of 20 people I talk to, 2 of them start cycling to work, and they talk to another 20 and the chain-reaction continues. Some day soon, it could reach 100 such people who try to make 2000 (20*100) more people aware,  and the numbers may keep multiplying like this! This is not just possible, but also probable.

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. – M K Gandhi

Small steps like using cloth bags, getting tap-leaks fixed at once, shutting down the computer, switching off appliances – if practiced collectively – can go a long way towards restoring the balance. And, once you jump into this ocean of change, you will subconsciously make sure that the chain continues. For example whenever I refuse plastic bags, I try make my reasons clear to the shop-keepers too . Here is a complete list of such tiny steps that can make a substantial change.

If only each one of us would  take a step forward, without worrying about others, I think we can conquer any challenge.

As Margaret Mead rightly said: Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

(Left)Rice before transferring to Haybox, (Right)Rice after Haybox cooking

These Hayboxes were basically designed to help the villagers of Srikakulam   cook rice efficiently and save on fuel as well as time. It also serves a means to support their livelihoods.  ‘Hay’ being an insulator is able to  preserve the heat for sufficiently long time, hence when rice is transferred to Haybox after having been brought to the boiling point, it cooks on its own. I also tried this at home with the Haybox that I bought (Demonstrated in the photograph). It took around 25 minutes to cook 1 cup of rice for me. There was no access water left and it was also possible to keep it hot till lunch time.

The detailed report from AID Srikakulam can be found here.

Haybox in Srikakulam, is primarily used to cook rice, but it can be used for most of the cooking for which we use pressure cooker such as making Khichadi, boiling vegetables etc.

Here’s a video that shows a Haybox demo given by Ravi Kuchimanchi to the villagers of  Srikakulam.

I came to know about the existence of JMS during the AID-India Conference, where Savitri displayed terracotta jeweleries. Later Sudha mentioned to me about the help required for terracotta unit, and that’s how I ended up visiting them.

Jagrutha Mahila Sangathan (JMS), a collective of dalit women and agricultural labourers struggling for their rights, was started by Premdas (who’s now working with CHC) and his friends in Potnal in 1999. It has found its office in a hut kind of an arrangement in Potnal, a village in Manavi Taluka, Raichur district. JMS now has grown in to 50 Sanghas (covering villages in Manavi and Sindhnur talukas) that mobilizes women agricultural laborers.

I reached there on 7th Feb around 11am. I was taken around the place by Savitri, a young JMS worker who’s from Potnal itself. She briefed me about JMS activities in general till the Karyakarta meeting started. It is a monthly meeting, where in 2 women from all the 50 Sanghas come as representatives. There are 7 full time Sanchalikas who manage these Sanghas. The meeting begun with kannada songs that discussed issues with PDS, Devdasi system, etc. Savitry tried her best to give me a running commentary about the songs in English! Later the women came up with various issues regarding NREGA, NRHM, untouchability, etc. that prevail in their villages. For instance, there was a complaint from a woman that she hasn’t been getting full pay for her work under NREGA; later we discovered that she had handed over all her account books to Gram Panchayat people and relied on them for her money!

Thadakkal village has a new PHC sub-center coming up, for which a gowda has been handling the contract. Even though the government has issued a grant of 2 lakh, he is planning to build the center in a relatively small place (it’s not that there is not enough land available), so that he can put the rest of the amount in his pocket. Just when the women were discussing this issue, someone informed about a Taluka level public hearing in progress at Potnal PHC. Everyone headed towards PHC to share this concern. Savitri and other JMS workers helped the women to frame their complaints.  Finally,  the officer agreed to set up a visit to the village next week.

After coming back to the JMS hut, Ratna (JMS worker and Taluka level coordinator for JAA-K) and Snehalata (JAA-K resource person) gave information about some of the new NRHM schemes to all the women. When they discussed JSY, there was a mention about nurses taking money for the delivery, let alone JSY benefits. The women were scared that if they refuse,  the delivery of the next child in their family may be affected!

Post lunch, I spent some time with the Terracotta Unit. Koshi, another founder of JMS had trained around 150 women several years back, out of which only 14 consists the SHG at present, each drawing 50/- per day as salary from the income.  There are other women wanting to get involved , but due to high inventory and slow sales, they are suffering from a huge backlog of payments as of now, hence can’t expand. Though Dastkar has been able to provide some help in arranging ~4 exhibitions a year, it has not been enough. None of the women knows Hindi or English to communicate effectively in big cities. I and Savitri exchanged several ideas, one of which was to create a brochure and web presence. Hopefully, I shall be able to help them with that.

Later in the evening Chilipili kids positioned themselves in a circle outside JMS hutf or tuition. Chilipili is a residential school (running inside the JMS hut) started  a year back to help ex-child laborers, funded by SSA and NCLP.  They have around 40-50 kids (mostly drop-outs) and 3 teachers. However, the funding per child and teacher’s salary that they received from government is quite insufficient, hence the rest of the requirements are supported by JMS funds. Kids started the session by singing songs on child labour. I tried to talk to some kids having Savitri as interpreter. I thought I’d make them talk to me in Hindi, but kids turned out to be smarter,  forcing me to learn to converse in Kannada .

Next day early morning, I was awakened by the morning prayer and Yoga sessions of Chilipili kids. Sunday is the cleaning day for the kids. Since it’s not possible to afford any full-time maid for the premises, kids are taught to be self-sufficient. They clean their rooms, wash vessels and clothes, plaster the compound outside with cow dung, maintain vegetable garden, etc. very efficiently. At 11 o’ clock, kids packed their clothes and headed for a bath at Tungabadra river. Some of the photographs in my album show their  innocent  exuberance. They just loved being photographed.

My noon time was spent with one of the workers in Herbal medicine group. Over 15 women constructed this group and a few of them have been trained in Herbal medicine at several places. Their herbal clinic on Thursday witnesses a big crowd from surrounding villages giving them a fair sale. Neem fertilizer group is another income generating group,  totally managed by 20 women and produces 50 tonnes of unadulterated need fertilizer that is supplied to various groups practicing organic farming. The unit begged ‘the Citigroup/UNDP 2005 Micro Entrepreneur Award’ for South India. Unfortunately time did not permit me to know more about them or talk to them. All the three income generation group fall under one brand coined as ‘Chirugu Enterprise’.

In the evening, I talked to Chilipili kids about lifestyle in Gujarat. When Savitri suggested this to me, I was blank about how to begin. Somehow I ended up telling them about Gandhi/Sardar Patel and food/festivals later.  I understood the reason behind Savitri’s suggestion as soon as I heard the questions from kids. I truly wished I could spend a day more with kids when I found them asking – “do they have monkeys/buffaloes in Gujarat?”, “Do you find grapes, apples there?”. Kids then asked me for a photography session, after which I started back for Bangalore.

On the way to Bus-stop, I along with Savitri, Snehalata and Padma (a chilipili teacher) visited Potnal PHC. Though the board outside said the center functions 24*7, Sundays are treated as holidays by doctors. However,  Snehalata mentioned that PHC has improved a lot after NRHM in terms of facilities.

In all, the weekend at JMS proved to be eventful as well as educational, and I didn’t miss having Pulkit around at all  .

PS: In case anyone is interested in helping the Terracotta group, please contact me to discuss more about the possibilities.

home-composting bins at my place

Waste segregation is something I’ve been practicing over a year now. Though I was never sure if that remained segregated after having been collected by BBMP, I feel the chances of the source segregated waste getting mixed with normal waste are lesser and it may even make segregation at destination easier. I’ve read and heard about some initiatives by BBMP for solid waste management, but I still have some doubts about it’s efficiency when I see piles of jumbled up garbage lying on the street sides. Finding more about this schemes and implementation level details is another action item pending in my list. But till that time, I thought of solving at least my in-house waste problem, by getting a home-composting kit from DailyDump. After getting them, the dustbin for ‘wet garbage’ has become almost obsolete in my kitchen. I never knew composting can be so neat and easy. The final compost that comes out of the waste, indeed gives a typical fresh earthen smell. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to understand such complexity of the nature, that grows food out of the soil and has a way to finally get them back to the same form!

I’ve also put together a mini garden outside my kitchen, to utilize this compost. This, in a way, has become my new-found hobby

‘Naama Raste, Naama Ooru’ was a protest to assert our right to inhabit a green city. The government seems to have been reading so much into road widening, that it has greatly undermined the value of trees, a fundamental necessity for sustaining the human race. The event was master-minded by the Environment Support Group (ESG) [many of you may relate to this by the name Hasiru Usiru ]

Coolest caption . It reads "Do you want a barren city like my head?".

The walk was quite well organized. It didn’t disrupt the traffic at all!

Hundreds of concerned citizens turned up for the walk. It was heartening to see many kids also marching for this cause! I was accompanied by Goli and Mayank, two of the more concerned people I know. We walked from Lalbaugh West Gate to Town hall, sporting colourful, innovative posters, roaring slogans against the government’s unlawful steps [Yes, much of the tree felling was illegal. More in the report]. The participants signed an appeal to the Chief Minister of Karnataka, urging him to preserve the green cover.

At town Hall, the destination. The volume of the crowd is a testament to the fast-growing realization of climate change.

Here’s something more on the subject you can read.

On the lighter side of things, as I had remarked earlier, there is a scarcity of decent guys in the country (and everywhere else, for that matter ). Hence, unmarried gals have got to pray for a good dude, and those, who are fortunate to have found rare good ones, have to try all their might to hang on to them for their lifetime!

I have hated this traditional art (read cooking) since my teens, when mom would poke me every now and then for learning it, reminding that I will have to do it some day, and I would go all cranky on such ‘Bhashan’ of hers

Cooking was not-so-horrible initially, but sooner when I begun to handle other stuff at work and life, self-cooked food didn’t seem to be a good idea. The time I took for cooking was so long that we could only dine by 11pm. So finally we got ourselves a cook! But I have continued on my cooking experiments during Sundays.

Honestly, sometimes I do find this art interesting. It’s indeed a magic, when I find how the taste of any vegetable changes altogether when it’s cooked. How with some permutation/combination of different vegetables and spices, one can come up with a whole new sabji! Sometimes there is a pinch of suspense too; when I don’t know what would be the outcome of the dish I started with, until it’s been tasted by Pulzy!

So all in all, I have begun to like cooking a bit. My mom, if by any chance she gets to read this post, would surely be delighted

This excellent, fast-paced video coverage will give you a bigger picture in terms of environmental effects of blind consumption and wastage of stuff. I simply loved watching the entire series of video chapters. My recommendation is to go through all of it, but in case it looks time-taking, don’t miss at least last two chapters (consumption and disposal).

Green is the way to go!

(In case the above link doesn’t work, please visit http://www.storyofstuff.com/)

This was my longest but eye-opening cycling ride that broke my misconception about my limited cycling capacity. If I recall the first time I rode Pulkit’s bike to work, I had found the drive so exhaustive that the moment I got hold of Pulkit, I told him that I was dropping the plan of getting a bike for myself. But, soon after a few more rides, I found myself quite comfortable with this new mode transportation, and now I have come to a stage of where I am truly enjoying my rides to office.

It was very heart-warming to interact with many like-minded people, conscious on matters of environment and pollution. May more and more citizens become aware of these issues, and more importantly, start acting on them!

PS 1: For those who are in support of using the bicycle as a preferred mode of transportation: you are not alone, find more like-minded chaps on bikeszone forum.

PS 2: For those of you who had asked, here is the link to that newspaper article.

After a bit of survey of girls who were going for ‘Karva Chauth’, I could figure out, most of them do not carry faith in the charismatic effectiveness of the fast. They primarily go for the girlie fun part of the festival. Some of them also go for it simply as a part of herd following the tradition. Although, the day, as a usual festival, is successful in bringing some fun moments apart from routine life; the issue I see with ‘Karva Chauth’ (and those that fall in this category), is, they are too male centric. Such tradition shows how the life of a female in Indian society, always has to revolve around the male counter-part. The girl from her childhood would start praying to God to lead her to her dream-boy. (Oh btw, this magic wand works only for Hindu-religion followers!) The guys, on the other hand, don’t need to do any such ‘Vratas’ to get good girls! This only hints me to thinking that, either all the Indian girls are perfect for marriage, or there’s a scarcity of decent guys for marriage in India Again, getting good guy is not enough, now it’s time for some maintenance! A woman being relatively weaker substance (in terms of physique), has been endowed by God with a secret power of fast (Tapo Shakti – is the word, if I am not mistaken!) She can now prolong the life of her husband by this magical power!

One feedback said that such events add some charm in married life. Well, you, as a husband would be impressed, if your wife stays without water and food till night for your long life! It may be a way to show the dedication for your life partner, addition of a few years in his life doesn’t really take precedence. But then, why only wife? Why not husband too? Although there are some hubbies joining their wives for the fast, but that goes only as an add-on to what is called a regular duty of the wife. Another thought says, how can your keeping fast show your ‘true’ love to your life partner?

With this question still open, I’m off to my own wedding

My journey to professional career started with Reliance Communication Ltd. While working for this company I used to feel proud of myself thinking that I was working with one of the biggest Indian company that has made quite a significant contribution in Indian cellular telephony market. When I changed to Flextronics, that feeling went off, as I was not working for an Indian company itself. After coming to Wipro, here it’s a kind of mixed feeling. Though I am working for one of the biggest IT companies, MNC in fact, which is based on India, I am not contributing anything to India. I am in fact working for a foreign company. Those companies get benefits out of my work, not the Indian society.

India today has become one of the top countries involved in outsourcing business. Be it a software industry or a BPO industry. The companies like Wipro, Infosys, TCS etc. have played a major role here. Any top foreign product company you can think of, has outsourced something to one of the IT companies in India. These companies have got the best experts in all the domain, whether it is finance, banking, telecom, electronics and semiconductors, health and insurance and what not. But in this race of outsourcing, people have not realized that nobody is now considering India’s capabilities of producing. Agreed, that IT companies today have played the major role to provide employment to most of Indian people, but apart from that, there is no contribution towards Indian productivity. For example, think of any electronics items, be it laptop, music players, cameras, mobile phones, etc, people can’t think of any Indian company producing these items. India still is dependent on foreign electronics market for these equipments. Why not any Indian company can become one of the top vendors for mobile phones, routers, switches, cameras, or one of the top contributor to even IP telephony or telecom hardware solutions, or any other domain solutions ?? (I do not have enough expertise to comment on other domains). After all it is not the case that we haven’t got any expertise. Indian engineers have been developing and testing the firmwares for all these things, why not build the whole product then? Till what time will we keep on working for the benefit of foreign companies (while working ‘in an Indian company’!!)?? When will we start working in Indian company who produce for India?

Things above are easy to think, but hard to implement. Still someday I would love to work for such company who works for India

(As already said, I might not have complete information here, please provide your inputs where you think I have gone wrong!)

It was all dark
I saw nothing, I saw nobody
A dark endless tunnel
my sides were invisible
was I becoming blind?
Yet I marched ahead
It shaped into a black cloud,
slowly encircling me
I wondered what to do
Panic surged through my veins
I was loosing faith
I wanted to run away
And I turned back,
To find where I forked in from

But, suddenly I saw a faint beam
it was a ray of light
for me, it was a ray of hope
Hope to get through the darkness!
I accelerated towards the light,
Regaining confidence at each step

And then I saw him,
smiling, welcoming with open arms,
As if he knew I would come through!
Soon I was in his embrace
Feeling his warmth
it was a rejoicing victory!

Now, I’ll never run away
Coz I know, if I am lost
He will be there to illuminate my path,
showing me the way out of the tunnel!

Later that evening, me and my roommates were having fun at shopping and ended up eating sandwich at a roadside sandwich counter. One street kid came to us asking for food or money, and Tanu asked if he’ll have sandwich. He agreed and we ordered one sandwich for him. I was really touched by this gesture. Now the other street kids saw this kid eating sandwich and we were under impression that they all will come to us asking for more. Instead they went to that kid and he happily shared each part of the sandwich! And  then this thought struck me – these kids do fasting almost daily, and yet they do share their food without any hesitation!!

Why people fast? These days it can be due to two reasons – one, they want to have an indirect way for dieting or second they do this for some religious purpose.

Now if it is just for dieting, then one should follow a well prescribed healthy diet. I don’t think food people take while they are on fast is healthy at all.

Say in case it is for religious purpose, then I have a serious question here – why any religion would demand fasts? Most of the time fasting is done to fulfill one’s wishes, but indirectly isn’t it a kind of emotional blackmail to God that please do ‘this-this’ for me coz I m not taking food for ‘these’ many days!! Now to my opinion for any religion God is believed to be a divine soul or a divine entity. And any divine entity will not want someone to get hurt for achieving his/her wishes. And if at all one gets something he/she wants by fasting then why do those street kids still starve? Why are they still on the streets although they do fasts daily!!

My intension is not to hurt anybody’s sentiments here or not to force somebody to stop fasting, but just to convey that – God does not want you to hurt yourself to do something good for you. Hurting oneself makes nothing good for anybody either. Instead if someone at all wants to do fasting, then it should be done in a beneficial way. A suggestion here is: Why don’t you give your one day’s meals (which are not taken by you) to any starving kid who really needs some food?

Not claiming to be successful in all of them, yet, I’ve notably succeeded in sustaining my latest resolution. On my 24th birthday, I determined to lower all my expenditures on movies. The thought had been molding for a long time, undergoing self debates. It had been slimly uphill, at times when I had to refuse the movie proposals of friends/acquaintances, and then tackle the laughing faces on revelations of my reasons for denial. But in all, I’m glad to live up to my decisions.

Here’s an effort to synopsize some of the points. Citing the current scenario, the major part of the cinema audience is dominated by students and software professionals longing for some fun out of their routines. (Here, by no means I am denying the possibility of me being one of them!) And it is because of those chaps, who are obsessed with their state of having enough money to spend for sake of their so-believed well-deserved pleasures, and who are ready to pay whatever is needlessly demanded for these momentary pleasures; the cinema ticket prices are flying immensely high. Now the question is, do we gain the much-anticipated fun during those 3 hours spent inside cinema hall? In my view, watching movie in cinema should only be desired when the movie under consideration is worth watching on the big screen with the cinema sound systems. After all, these are the only primary facilities that a movie-theater is required to provide. Otherwise the comfortable homely coziness may win higher preference over cinema set-up.

The sole motive of this post is to ignite cognizance amongst the readers for the ever-raising cinema ticket prizes.  Having money shouldn’t lead to the necessity of spending it on unessential needs. Same way, lack of alternatives for effective utilization of free time shouldn’t result into option of watching movies in cinema-halls.

He was in 6th class, studying in a government school. I pointed out that government schools don’t charge fees and textbooks too are normally given for free. I was given the clarification that the money was required to buy stationeries for him and his younger sister(who’s studying in 1st class) and also to feed the family. Probing further, I demanded info about his family and their whereabouts. He resided in one of the nearby slums, with his mother who’s working as a maid. His father had gone missing 3 years back and the family hadn’t heard anything about him since then. His mother makes 5000/- per month. Now 5000 per a month is, though not too much, but nearly sufficient to buy some nominal stationeries and feed the family. So the kid shouldn’t go begging on the road. He reflected saying his mother hasn’t been working for more than a month due to bad health. When I advised him to work instead of begging, he said he doesn’t usually go for begging, instead earns some money by washing cars. But that day he was too tired due to starvation, so chose the easy way out.

As if it wasn’t enough, I asked him what subjects he is studying in school and to counter check, I also made him write a few things in hindi and English! Having been satisfied about the genuineness of all his explanations, I hired an auto and took him to Aundh sabzi mandi, got some veggies. Also we went to a grossary store to get him some groceries (aata, daal, rice, salt, etc). I somehow couldn’t find the stationary shop around, so unwillingly I had to handover some money to him, trusting that he will buy required stuff with that.

The reason given by this boy for his begging, has evoked this tiny thought. Often you will find people with motto ‘give nothing for free’. We would pass notes saying beggars should stop begging and start working. But who’ll have enough energy and motivation to work with empty stomach? They may just go for easy ways like this boy! The immediate suitable solution I see as of now is, to give enough food to such beggars rather than money and then give them some motivation to work. (Although some of you will say child labor shouldn’t be encouraged, but then is it right to encourage the kids to start begging on the road? I still wonder as to what should be the right option for such cases.)

Where am I?
Do I know this place?
It was all the same yesterday
But it sounds unfamiliar today…

Is that really water I am running after?
Mirage – Is that the reality of my life?

And before I realized, I was dragged into an unwanted discussion. So as it had already started, I had to end it with proper answers. And shockingly I discovered, what a cheap thinking this man had whom I used to respect. According to him in the movie though shilpa’s character is of a perfect wife, he found KK’s character of perfect husband!!! How on earth one can agree to this silly point, where that character was shown so selfish and narrow-minded, and so I had innocently believed that it was kind of exaggeration in the movie. May be such kind of Men are there somewhere in India, but I was pretty sure that the guys whom I interact with and who represent the youth of 21st century will definitely not fall into that category.

All my arguments/comments to change his mindset were useless to him and he chose to stick to his only one counter-argument, “We live in Indian society where it’s OK for guys to do anything, you know, ‘ladko ke liye sab chalta hai’, it can’t exactly be called ditching or being disloyal as far as they are not breaking the marriage, but the same can never be acceptable for a wife!!!” Well, He turned out to be one of those obstinate, close-minded people, whom I usually hate to argue with and I anyhow did not want to argue more on this shit mentality of his, coz he wasn’t worth it, but I was again dismayed when he claimed that most of the guys of his age carry the same mindset!

Now I am asking to the guys reading this blog to post their honest point of view.. are you all really fall into the same category as this guy?