To Blog or Not to Blog

I was advised by someone to start a blog of my own and I feel like the heroine in the Jeetendra- Rameshwari starrer, when she sings " kya likhoon, kaise likhoon, likhne ke kabil hoon ke nahi......". I feel like Jacope Belbo from Foucault's Pendulum. I cannot write, actually I cannot create anything that has not been created earlier. I can edit others works and it does not provide me satisfaction. If viewed that way, I cannot create anything that's my own. I can copy and I can do that with a panache, but the resulting artwork is not mine, it is someone else's idea and inspiration. It like living in the shadows of a great mountain, you know you will never have a shadow of your own.

But I suppose futile attempts on creation can be done safely on the net, because the creation is no longer subject to approvals. My readers are nameless and faceless and I know I would not be subject to a face to face autopsy of what I write. I am a coward hiding behind a computer and a coward I will remain. That's why all my literary works are half done and I know I will never finish them. I don't think I can take the humiliation of being torn apart publicly or of the market rejecting my work. That would be personal and my bludgeoning ego will not take it. Here it is impersonal. You are welcome to criticize. I might take your opinions or I might not. That's my prerogative. You may quit viewing my page because you find the writing banal, but then I would always write into it as it provides me the outlet I want for my meanderings. My mind wanders and I like it when it wanders. Now it knows that the places it explores and discovers can be documented, may be not for my grandchildren, but for someone's grandchild, some place.

A Nation That Lacks a Leader

I read somewhere that the main difference between a politician and a statesman is that a politician doesn't think beyond his tenure, but a statesman looks beyond himself into the future to create a vision for the society. I suppose the statesman style thinking is what spurred the whole nation in our freedom struggle. I have always read about the struggle and felt at awe of the people who could let go of personal comfort and fight for a cause with such passion that losing their life to it was but a small sacrifice. The fervor was to win our independence or die trying and this was not restricted to the people who were the leaders and spearheaded the movement but was embraced and practiced by thousands of others who didn’t even make the headlines, who died anonymous and haven't ever been mentioned in our history books. I believe the fervor was brought about by the leaders who practiced what they preached. A set of leaders that the mass could look up to and believe in delivering what they promised.

Cut to the current era and I wonder what went wrong down the line. I look at the politicians now and see apathy and greed. I see them trying very hard to hold on to their positions, as a position means moolah raked and other personal gains. What happened to idealism, what happened to patriotism, what happened to putting the nation first? Yes, I am cynical about the current political scenario where nepotism breeds and the aspirants for the leadership role have only their well-being in mind. Given the scenario, it isn’t a surprise that corruption rules.

But what got me to write this article was a dispassionate speech given by a 26 year old wannabe politician, who worships the ground Rahul Gandhi walks on. According to him the right approach will be to involve socially inclined individuals in the corporate world into politics. This stems from the profound statement made by Rahul Gandhi that politics is not a profession. Disillusioned as I am with all politicians and the lack of leaders that I can look up to in our political system, I am probably a good representative of the common man (woman in my case) to plead the case with. My first objection would be that why would I want to reduce the impact of the good that I do to the society by calling myself a politician? The mental picture of a politician is dirty and calling myself one is derogatory. Secondly, if I do in all my zeal and idealism decide to join politics for the good of the people, will the old guard accept it? The power to make or break will always lie with the children of former politician, given nepotism that has become a part and parcel of our political scenario. Thirdly, if my work is going to detrimental to those in power, I know I will not be able to survive the wrath. Our politicians are masters in the game using people’ fears to their advantage and like all human being I am no beyond fear. So can a common man (woman) like me make a difference in a system that has taken 60 years to make? Or is it that my friend is walking down the same path of disillusionment that I walked when I was his age? Only time will tell and I would require more than a dispassionate speech to expect a different ending.

PS: Currently the youth menioned is a member of BJP and is as enthusiastic about the BJP philosophy as he was about the Congress. Looks like my cynicism in him was well-placed.

What's in a name? A rose by any other name is still a rose

Yeah right!!!! I am having an identity crisis. No not the kind where you ask a question "who am I?" and look for a philosophical meaning for life and our existence. But the kind where in, courtesy the babus in our governmental department and everyone else, I don't know what my name is.

Apparently, my father wanted me to be named Anupama but was steamrolled into accepting Anuradha. Hence I started my life as S Anuradha, which invariably got shortened to Anu (people love shortening names like mine, I suppose it makes their lives easy), and sometimes to Alu if my mom was in her petting-me-mood. I continued my existence thus till I was 6 when I met another Anuradha who was my best friends sister and then I became S. Anu (the S coming in as a differentiator). Around the same time, another friend’s mom thought Anuradha was not a single name but the name of two people, one person being Anu and the other being Radha. Hence I ended up being called Radha and my sister Anu. Talk about wrong assumptions (WA as my father calls it).

I waded through the rest of my years with alternations between Anu, Anuradha and Aarti (my sister’s name, generally used by people who didn’t know mine, which was a substantial population), till my sister just to get on my nerves rechristened my Ansho and she would go “aaaanshooooooooooo” till I lost my temper. Then I moved schools and the Maharashtrian who prepared my School Leaving Certificate decided to Maharashtranise my name to Anuradha N Santhanam (Santhanam being my father’s name and N stands for Narayanan, my grandfather’s name -  talk about carrying on your family’s name). 

Courtesy my name change, my “official” name became Anuradha N Santhanam and hence ended up being called Santhanam the whole of my MBA days as we had an Anupama and another Anuradha in our class. It was hilarious for others when all the three of us turned around is somebody yelled “Anu”. I shortened it to Anuradha N S once I joined work as it was too tedious to write my complete name (all of 18 letters, though not the longest in the family, my cousin takes the prize there as her name consists of 25 letters). I have been pretty happy with my name for the past 7 years till date when a software decided that Anuradha N Santhanam was not my name but Anurada N Santanam was, as my SSLC marks card carried. Now you understand my plight……… who do I turn to, to learn my real name??? Can somebody help? Or do I just respond to anyone calling any name and hope that they were calling me. After all what’s in a name? A Rose by any other name is still a Rose…

As a footnote – All the names that get shortened to Anu include – Anuradha, Anupama, Anusuya, Ananya, Anita, Anurag, Annapoorna …. To name a few.

Ring a Ring o' Roses

I feel like I am playing an extended version of the popular playground game. It was fun playing when I was a kid, but seems to be a drag as an adult. Especially when life takes you in circles even after you are dizzy and tired and want to stop. I feel like a hamster running on the wheel. The cage changes, the size of the wheel changes and sometimes even the scenery changes but it still about running on the wheel and actually going nowhere.

I suppose this is what the Hindu wise men called Maya. The illusion we carry that we are going somewhere, whereas the only true goal to life is death. We make choices, feel happy, sad, excited and morose about a life that walks a road that leads nowhere. I suppose like all the wisemen say life is about the journey and not the destination. It’s about living each moment because we will not encounter it again. Its about living as you want to live very moment of life because you will not get a second chance and about knowing nothing really matters because once you are gone all your deeds are gone too.

I suppose that’s why its better to draw your own conclusions on the good, bad and ugly of life than follow the paths set by the society. At the least when you near death you can look back at life and laugh at it for not fooling you with its transience. We are so involved with ourselves that we don’t realize that we are just one in six billion human beings inhabiting earth and billions of other organisms. Plus we are just a drop in the ocean given the age of the solar system and even our own dear Earth. Yet we think we are important in the history of time and suppose quite vainly that we can change things and that the universe has nothing better to do than listen to us. Reminds me of the king who tried to stop the waves. How egoist and self-centered can we be? Yet we trudge through life searching for meaning in a meaningless journey.

Like the rhyme goes,
Ringa Ringa roses
Pocket full of posies
Husha Husha
We all fall down

An Elegy

Death brings life into perspective. Especially the death of someone alive and kicking; someone who you feel is a constant fixture in your ever changing landscape. This is an eulogy to Ramesh Bhai, a man of steel who was soft at heart.

I got introduced to him through my business partner and that too at a time when I required muscle power behind me due to certain tension at business. He was my Biz Partner’s distant cousin but was more a brother than a friend. The Bhai suffix to his name was true in both counts; he was an elder brotherly figure for all of us and was also one of the most well-known muscleman figures in his area. I will always remember Bhai as someone who was wily enough to siphon money off all the 20 something’s around us and at the same time maintain a completely beguiling naivety which was would catch us completely off guard that we could never be angry with him; at the least not for a long time.

I got a taste of this simple, unassuming man’s powers when one day he dropped me home and every other person on the road saluted to him. He flippantly returned their greetings and dropped me home as if nothing new had happened. But he always treated me with deference, with a respect given to someone well-learned, though I was couple of years younger to him. That attitude never changed, though my respect for and awe of him had increased manifolds. I remember him to have helped in many a tight spots that we faced as part of our business, not with his muscle power but more with his presence and support.

One fine day Bhai fell in love. The man who could smash a person’s skull with his fist was completely powerless before a girl. He fought a long battle with his mother to convince her over the match. Last year after all the drama, melodrama and action he got married amidst all the fanfare. Bhai turned a new leaf after his marriage. He became a lot more responsible about life, took on a job (a completely alien concept as far as he was concerned) and we starting meeting him seldom. Anytime we called him, he was busy. I for one was happy that he had left his wayward ways behind to settle down in life. He celebrated his first wedding anniversary last month. His wife is expecting their first kid. And in midst of all these unfinished business Bhai died day-before-yesterday night, in a road accident, all alone with none of his friends, well-wisher or family around him. HE sped on a speed breaker, lost his control, flew with his bike and hit his head on a lamp post. His head split and he apparently died on the spot. All the while his helmet was hanging in his arm. He was drunk and was under pressure at office in regards to work and had enough to worry about at home due to the tiffs between his wife and his mother. I met him last on Feb 16^th. He went without saying a goodbye, with a lot of unfulfilled promises. I am angry with him for leaving all of us shell shocked. I am angry with him for shirking his responsibility towards his wife, his unborn kid and his family.

But his death brought a few things into clear view. One, never be angry with someone, you might never get a chance to patch up later. Two, never think twice before saying sorry, because you might not be able to say it ever again. Three, for the people who matter to you most, keep your ego aside, you might be missing on some very precious moments because of your ego. Its ok to be humble with the people who matter. Its ok to be doormat too, because with the people who matter to you, you do the utmost duty of letting them wipe their feet by being one. Love like you will never love again; Enjoy like there is no tomorrow; Laugh like there is no sorrow; because who knows tomorrow may never come.

The Muslim Lady

The route from Chennai to Bangalore by the night Mail was one of the most hot and sultry train journeys I have made in my lifetime. Especially in the month of August when humidity is at it’s highest. I have always fantasized meeting my prince charming on the train. But none of my co-passengers fitted his description. The only other woman in my coupe was a Muslim lady who seemed to have taken all measures to keep her herself well fed all through the journey.

Since I didn’t have anything to do or anyone to talk to I elapsed into my favorite pastime – daydreaming. I was missing all the delicacies that would have been prepared the next day if my mother had been home as it would be Gokulashtami. Then I realized I didn’t have anything with me to offer to God for the festival. I made a mental note to buy something on my way back from station. It was just then that the Muslim lady caught my eye and smiled. I smiled back so as to not look rude.

She happened to be waiting for the response as she started talking to me and pouring questions on me about where I was going, was I alone, who were there in my family etc. To keep myself safe from giving out too much about me to a complete stranger I repeated the same questions to her and she seemed more than happy to tell me about herself. She was from Ambattur and was going to Bangalore to visit her sister, who had just delivered her fourth child – a boy. She told me that she had only one daughter and couldn’t have anymore because of some medical problem.

Her husband though very loving disliked his daughter due to his orthodox views. He didn’t want her to study and wanted to get her married soon to absolve himself of the responsibility. The mother had other dreams. She wanted her daughter to study and at the least finish her graduation. She wasn’t sure how to convince her husband about the necessity of education for her daughter. She herself being illiterate felt she had been exploited and didn’t want the same to happen to her daughter.

I gaped at the story she was telling me because I came from a well-educated Brahmin family, which gave a lot of importance to education. The thought that someone was not being given education because she was a girl was a far off happening and wasn’t from my world. I told the Muslim lady that she should stick to her stand and get her daughter educated. I tried my best to make her feel better about her thoughts. By the time we finished talking, the lights were off and most of the passengers had gone to sleep. I decided to fall asleep to and bade her a goodnight.

The next morning she got down at Bangalore Cantonment station. But before she left she gave me some bananas and oranges from her bag to eat as my breakfast. I put them into my bag because I wasn’t used to having breakfast. I got down at Bangalore City station and went home straight. It was only after I reached home that I realized I hadn’t bought anything to offer to God. So I took a bath and offered the bananas and the oranges that the Muslim lady had given to God. Now I sit and wonder, did the girl get educated, did her mom win or her dad, or was that God’s ruse of getting something for him because he was sure I would forget to buy for him. Some mysteries never get solved.

Lets start our fight for our freedom - Wednesday, December 17, 2008

The Mumbai siege has been playing on my mind for quite sometime. I have gone through rage & despondency to looking at the silver lining in the event. The supposed threat to Bangalore, Chennai and Delhi has given me the impetus to write my thoughts at last. The piece might not sound coherent as various ideas and emotions clamour my mind to gain prominence. Hopefully what I write is comprehendible if not for the thoughts, at least for the sentiments expressed.

Why have I not written about this till date? Why am I one of the last to write about this incident? I suppose it’s because at some level I am hoping that me not saying it will make it unreal. Yes, I am trying to escape the trauma of the incident, but don’t think I can anymore.

Why is this incident so important to write about as compared to all the terror attacks that happened all these days in India? Well…….. I am not sure. Probably because it’s Mumbai, the city I associate with movement and life. Probably because it was the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, the perennial symbol of Mumbai. Probably because it was a planned initiative to kill and just kill and snuff out innocent lives and nothing else. Probably because the terrorists were young kids in jeans. Probably because for the first time in my life I saw our police force, and armed force act as heroes - the heroes that are depicted in our Bollywood movies. Or probably because for the first time in my life I saw the horror creature – zombie, come to life.

The definition of a zombie is the living dead. It’s an automated body without any soul or cognitive sense. The kids I saw carrying the AK 47s and terrorising the international community were soulless, like some big bad wizard or witch had sucked them dry of their souls. Or had they sold their souls? I don’t know. But I saw Zombies and I am filled with dread. It’s a lot scarier because these zombies were created as the army of God - the entity we all human beings can comprehend only through our souls. Yes, it was this dread that stopped me from writing this piece, because by writing this piece I would make the nightmare of the Mumbai massacre real.

How do you fight those who don’t feel? Because in any war it is fear which is the primary weapon used to gain victory and its fear that the fighting troops don’t compromise. Like the Hindi saying goes “Jo dar gaya, woh Mar gaya”, we have been fighting based on just this philosophy. Now we are suddenly faced with an enemy who can’t feel fear because he can’t feel. Whereas, we are already succumbing to fear at the very first front. We are blaming each other, and have collapsed like a house of matchsticks. But isn’t the only answer one can give to people who want to spread terror is not to feel it? Isn’t the best way to defeat this faceless enemy is to live life as we have always lived and enjoy every moment of our existence? Why are we allowing them to place us under duress and handed over our freedom to be happy, our freedom to be ourselves to them? The British used the “divide and rule” philosophy to rule us for a century and now we are allowing these jeans clad kids to do the same to us? Have we as Indian not learnt anything? Yes, it is time for our freedom movement to restart. This time we don’t have a name or face for the enemy, but the tool is still proactive non-violence. Don’t give the enemy what he wants and he will kill himself in frustration. Please step out and live your lives to the fullest, without any fear. This is the best homage we can give the people who died in the massacre and the heroes who laid down their lives to let us live without fear. Our motto should be “Live without fear” and then let’s see what these soulless, religionless zombies can do to us.

Whether Men win or Lose, the Women always lose - Thursday, February 19, 2009

Been the Taliban in Swat, or the Ramasene (Rama Insane according to a friend of mine), or all the war stories written all through history, one fact is common all through... Whether the men win their wars or lose them, the women always lose. I am a 21st century, progressive young woman and after all the talk of women empowerment that I have heard talks about, it still feels like I am getting sops to shut my gob in regards to equality rather than the real deal.

As usual, my thought process has been triggered by incidents happening in the day to day world. Apparently a boy in an MBA school had been circulating a video of his ex-gf strip teasing for him. One of the comments from the user of the article was to tell the girls not to do stupid things like letting their bfs capture them on camera when their clothes are not on. Even more disconcerting was the opinion by the women rights activist who had deplored the boy, but goes on to suggest that the video is obscene. When has a woman’s body been obscene? I mean if that word had been used in the context of a man, I could understand. They don’t have the necessary curves to make their bodies art. When all the filth is in the minds of the men who treat women like sex objects, why are the women blamed for it. Why is it that it’s the women who are supposed to curtail themselves?

The connection of this incident with war and all the moral policing is also the same. As long as the woman is subjugated and deprived, the men feel they are victorious. Most of the time it isn’t about winning kingdoms, but it is about hurting the man’s ego by hurting his woman. All the rape and pillage through history has been about it. Even now a man’s or a family’s honour is decided by the behaviour of the women folk. What does all this societal crap lead to? Rules and regulations for the woman to follow. Never heard of those being laid for the men. A man can walk around the way he wants to, wearing anything, revealing any part of his anatomy, but a woman in the same clothes would attract attention, would be judged and branded as docile, homely, sluttish etc.

When dichotomy exists at such a basic level, why are we talking about equality for women? The dichotomy is so very ingrained that women think like that about their fellow sisters. Then why are we talking about empowerment of women. The battle has been fought for so long for something that is so readily available for the men, that I sometimes feel something is wrong with the battle itself. No I am not saying that I don’t want women to have freedom, but I suppose I don’t think we woman need to fight for it. I suppose we just assume it exist and live our lives with that as the basic fact. Just like we breath because we believe that oxygen exists and hence doesn’t require to be fought for. Think its time women started rewriting the way society functions. Think there has to be active revolution to change the way the world live.

PS: This blog entry I think will continue.....

I have too many thoughts clamouring my head, so will write about them some time soon.

The Moral Brigade - Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Continuing on the women discrimination entry, the quote below really got my heckles up. Like N. Selvaraju, director, drug control, Tamil Nadu, says, "We are not against women's rights, but this is a moral concern. The advertising of this drug will mean that women will think, 'I can do anything and there is an easy way not to get pregnant'. We can't allow such an attitude to grow."

http://in.news.yahoo.com/248/20091202/1612/tsc-problem-pill.html

This was published in an article about morning-after-pills and the depiction of younger women in the Ad. Wonder if the same “moralistic” concerns were raised about the male condom being introduced into the market? Given that male potency has no age bar, (a discrimination against women handed over by the nature), any man depicted in the Ad should have been a problem.

Yeah Mr. Selvaraju, the fear of pregnancy is what stops us woman from romping around the globe like sex starved maniacs. And he says “We cannot allow such an attitude to grow.” Yes Mr. Selvaraju we women have given you the rights to decide on what is morally right or wrong to men like you to decide. Yeah right!!!!!!! Since he is a Director is suppose he is “educated” in our society lingo. If educated men have such dakhyanusi khayalath, God save us Indian woman from the rest of the Indian men.

Mr. Selvaraju the Ad shows younger women because they are the women who can get pregnant, not women after their menopause. The Ad shows younger woman because like the article ‘That's because India records 11 million abortions annually and a shocking 20,000 women die because of abortion-related complications.’

Mr. Selvaraju, like men, women are human and its human to err. Doesn’t make us bad, doesn’t make us good, it makes us just human. And I don’t think you are the person to tell us about what is human and what is not. So next time on please be careful about making sexist comment or you might end up with pink panties like Ramasene did.