Long Live the Victim Durga!!!!

News of death generally is accompanied with anguish and grief. It's seldom that we welcome it. But, it happened with me. The moment I got the news of death of Ms Aruna Shanbaug, my instantaneous response was," Thank God, she has been relieved." The soul was trapped inside body motionless, for last 42 years and has been liberated.  
But with her death, she has raised profound questions on the way our Indian Society lives by. No, I am not talking of euthanasia. This post relates to some other trivial things. Throughout her life and in her death, Ms Aruna has caused deep agony to a sensitive mind. It's difficult to understand what her fault was? For the novice let me tell who Aruna Shanbaug was? She was a nurse in the King Edward Memorial (popularly known as KEM) hospital, merrily engaged to a junior doctor in same hospital. She was raped by a ward boy Sohanlal.She was 22 then and died age of 66 yes in May 2015. To immobilize her before the ghastly act, he used a dog chain to tie her, resulting in cutoff of blood circulation to her brain. As a result, she had been in a vegetative state since past 43 years. In simple terms, she was chained to life on hope that she may be revived one day. Yes, chained to life. Death acted as a liberator for her. It is said that Death, by its mere presence, liberates the soul of its worst fears and motivates the body to perform remarkable feats. But, here death acted as freed her body and soul from the suffering of past 42 years. Compare this to the punishment given to Sohanlal, her tormentor. 7 years in jail and freed for life. The reason for so less punishment was:a) Hospital authorities didn't pressed the case of sexual assault, fearing repercussions and stigmatisation for Ms Aruna in her later life.b) As per Indian Criminal Procedure code(CrPC), rape was considered to be committed only iff there was a vaginal penetration. In Aruna's case Sohanlal did anal sex, because she was menstruating.

After 42 years, its time to look back and see if we see any changes. Unfortunately there are no changes except some piecemeal alterations. For instance, the Supreme Court had framed guidelines for safety of working women in 1996 in absence of any concrete law.They were called as Vishakha guidelines as case was Vishalha v/s State of Rajasthan. They were followed till 2013. Only after another tight slap of Nirbhaya case, the society awakened in December 2012, the society woke up from its deep slumber. The protests that followed Nirbhaya case led to changes in laws and CrPC was amended to give sexual assault a wide definition. But what about our patriarchal mindset? Nothing has changed.

My agony is that it only takes a heinous case like that of Aruna or Nirbhaya, followed by mass protest that laws are amended. Our male dominated society is yet to be proactive to ensure safety of women. Instead of punishing the culprit, we sing paens of traditionalcity and blame the victim.Result, widespread increase in eve teasing and molestations.' Be the change, you want to be' said Gandhiji once. To initiate women safety, we need to change ourself. Instead of eulogizing maleness on number of girlfriends( or 'sperm count' as in Tank weds Many returns), let us strive to make a society where respect to women is considered as an crucial value. Then only we can have a wonderful place to live, where people are treated on their inherent qualities and not on basis of religion, caste, sex or colour of skin.If we are not striving to create such a society, then the grief endured by Ms Aruna and Nirbhaya are in vain.

P.S: The only silver lining in Ms Aruna Shanbaug's case was the way the doctors , sisters and support staff took care of Ms Arjuna for past 42 years. 

Some Leadership Quotes which have always motivated me

Hello friends, today I am going to share some leadership quotes which have always inspired me.

Initially I wanted to take one quote at time and write explanation, but after planning for more than a year, I realized that I am too lazy for this. Consequently, I have decided to update the quotes and will be disserting one quote at a time later.

I have found these quotes useful and hope you will too.
A) The art of leadership consists in getting people to do what you want done because they want to do it.

B) Leadership is hard to define, what motivates people to better performance in some cultures may not work in others.

C) The key to leadership is to accept responsibility.

D) Leaders are the people who know where they want to go, and with enthusiasm get up and go.

E) Leaders can be recognized because their people give superior performance.

F) Good leaders face up the music, even when they dislike the tone.

G) Leadership is lifting people's vision, raising their performances to higher levels and developing their personality beyond their expected leadership.

H) There  is no such thing such as good team or bad team or a term like neutral leader. Leaders are either good or bad, effective or ineffective.Good leaders guide and lead. Bad leaders misguide and mislead.

I) Leadership has a moral dimension. Followers imitate leaders.

J) If Columbus had turned back, he would not have been blamed, but he would not have been remembered either.

K) A leader's personal example acts as a catalyst in inspiring others to follow him.

Please tell me which one you like the most.
Happy Reading.

My take on My Choice

Many friends of mine have been sharing the video of Deepika Padukone titled 'My
Choice' on social networking sites. It has been shared with adjectives such as 'great', 'awesome', 'fantastic',etc.This tickled my curiosity and I decided to watch the video.
Personally, I found the video very mean,out of context and a shallow attempt to support superficial definition of Feminism.
The following paragraphs will let you know the rationale behind my thinking so.


First about the Producers. The video is made by magazine Vogue. This same magazine happily propagates a narrow minded concept of beauty. According to them to be beautiful you need to have sizezero figure, no blemishes on face, a fair skin colour, perfectly curved lips and so on. As expected, women empowerment to this magazine is more about dresses, sex and body. It can't go beyond it. Bashing this kind of narrow outlook of beauty Lena Dunham had published a book " Not that kind of Girl".  This week ( 4 April 2015) French parliament passed a bill banning skinny models in Paris fashion show.


Back to Video. Some trivial facts.The video has been directed by Homi Adjania and features 98+ women associated with film industry. Still the film is silent on issues faced by women while working in film industry. The problems faced by female artists include unequal pay parity compared to male counterparts,casting couch, portraying girls as ohe who can be seduced by stalking, the cult of item songs and many more things. The film is also silent on issues faced by women everyday like eveteasing, financial independence,domestic violence, rapes, abuses and many more social issues. I am not saying that the film should have covered all the topics. But had it been spoken on anyohe of the problems it would have been impactful. Alas! Instead the film chooses to promote personal choices and tends to promote anarchy by speaking of personal issues like sex before marriage,outside marriage, choice of clothes and a shallow definition of relationships. It is a common knowledge that for today's youth sex is not a tabooword and by the mention of these words are mere to spice up the video (typical Bollywood masala formula). By encouraging to break the established social norms and promoting despotism, the film dodges the real questions on equality,political and economic freedom, more security in live-in relationships, health and other questions.

By declaring it as her choice to whatever she likes the film is likely to damage society, culture and relationships.

I am unable to resist comparing ' My Choice' with two earlier interventions by Bollywood actresses, namely, "It's my fault" by Kali koechlin and a campaign spearheaded by Chitrangada Sen and others in 2012-13 against fairness schemes. Both of them had been very successful in transmitting the message in subtle,yet powerful manner. They questioned the societal value and forced wide scale discussions across the horizons letting society to introspect itself. Compared to these two,'My Choice' fizzles out. It seems to be a shallow and half-hearted attempt. A publicity gimmick rather than addressing the core issues.

Coincidently, the video made its debut at the same time when Deepika Padukone's new film trailer was going to release. Is it just a publicity stunt just like the cleavage episode?

A Colonial Hangover

There's a lot of hue and cry over the blipping of Mihir Joshi's song. Debate is raging on artistic freedom and argument is even stretched to state that the renaming of then Bombay to present Mumbai was politically motivated. They argue that Mumbai and Bombay are the same and recollect Shakespeare saying of "Whats there in name?" That is absurd!

This write up is being written to bust the myth.

Let's first delve in to how the name Bombay and Mumbai originated and what they represent.

Bombay:- It's a Portuguese word meaning Bom bahia, a good bay. It places emphasis on the usefulness of natural harbour of Bombay as a good port to dock in the 16th Century AD. Compared to other ports on Western coast,this was a better option,in terms of distance and was less congested. In 1661, the port and adjoining city was given to British as a dowry. Even though the ownership changed,the old name continued and British called it as Bombay,instead of Bom Bahia.

Mumbai:- The word originates from the name of local deity Momai Mata,which later became the now Mumba Devi. Thus,the city gets its name from the mother goddess,the protector and benefactor of the inhabitants.

It must be now clear to the reader that difference between words Bombay and Mumbai is not only on basis of origin,but the former represents a colonial and superiority of the Europeans.  Mumbai on the   other hand is original name,supported by the local culture.

 If people are still interested in using the word Bombay, it only shows that they are yet to come out of slave mentality. The choice is yours.

P.S: The same is true for some other cities too. Chennapatnam became Madras as Visakhapatnam became Vizag.
  Not only city's name but some last names were also changed when Britishers found it difficult to pronounce. To name a few, Mukhopdhyay became Mukherjee, Bandopdhyay Banerjee and Chattopdhyay Chaterjee.


Reference:http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/trading/bombay/history.html

How can we support our Kashmiri brethren

For sometime I have been doing some reading on Kashmir. I am very disappointed that Pakistan has been able to create such a perception that today the world thinks the dispute of Kashmir is between Kashmiris and India. Nobody talks about Kashmiris and their plight that is under Pakistan's occupation.

All the articles, whether its Wikipedia, Al Jazeera or other western news org, they all start with the following introduction -
"The issue of Kashmir is a conflict between Kashmiri insurgents and Govt Of India and govt of Pakistan"

Why websites like Wikipedia don't mention that the matter is about Pakistan sponsored terrorism & Govt Of India - now that its open knowledge even acknowledged by US govt (who recently warned Pakistan to curb infiltration for the impending US president visit to India). Also, why there is no mention of independence of the Kashmir that is under Pakistan's occupation?

I am sad by reading articles all across the web that says its a dispute by India.

While the Indian Govt is battling at diplomatic level, I think we as a nation now need to create enough noise at citizen to citizen level across the world that everyone realises the double standard of the Pakistan Govt and the futility of dividing terrorists as good Taliban and bad Taliban. Terrorism is the Frankenstein monster that is going to kill Pakistan itself.It hurts really bad when innocents are killed under garb of religion; whether it be in Army School at Peshawar or in India since 1980's. More about terrorism later,as this post is on Kashmir issue and its world perception.

We as pupils of India,spread across all the continents can surely ensure that we let the world know about Pakistan supported terrorism and its implication on local development,fleeing of Kashmiri Pandits,regular ceasefire violation across the LOC by Pakistan rangers. Lately,Pakistan has tried to gain international attention by ceasefire violations across the LoC (Line of Control) and International Border. There might be a possibility of the local news channel reporting the news in a prejudiced way. We can surely educate the readers and the newspaper staff about the issue ab initio.

This is how we can contribute to the efforts of our brave soldiers defending our border,in a small way. The act might seem insignificant in terms of the sacrifices and hardships by our army and kashmiri brethren,but will bolster their morale.

I am reminded of a story in Ramayana, where a small squirrel helps Lord Ram in bridging the gaps on the Ram Setu,by filling up small gaps.

The question is can we become a nation of billion plus squirrels?