Posts

Showing posts from 2012

Toughen your daughter, sensitise your son!

“If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble, “the law is a ass — a idiot.” Dickens made one of his characters mouth this in Oliver Twist, and he was not far wrong! Especially in today’s scenario when self-styled Khap panchayats in Haryana make irresponsible statements, intoxicated with an unhealthy dose of male chauvinism, making one wonder if the 21 century is in regression, all set to scurry into the Middle Ages. Sube Singh, a Khap member, kicked up a storm when he said: “I think that girls should be married at the age of 16 to curb the instances of rape in the State.” According to him, girls themselves were responsible for their rapes, and adding insult to injury, he blamed television and movies for the incidents. “Boys and girls should be married by the time they turn 16, so that they do not stray... this will decrease the incidents of rape.” The former Chief Minister, Om Prakash Chautala, echoed similar sentiments when he suggested that the marriageable age of girls should be lo

Long years of sacrifice in an unfair society

My maid came to me the other day, a worried look on her normally cheerful face. “Madam, yesterday a boy had come to ‘see’ my daughter. He liked her but his family has made the following demands.” She rattled off the list — 12 sovereigns of gold, a refrigerator, a television, a grinder, an induction cooker, a bed and mattress and a cupboard. Plus she had to conduct the engagement ceremony and give her daughter the requisite jewellery and saris that would showcase her as a bride. She was talking about her daughter, a girl whom she had scraped and scrounged for over years of slaving at people’s homes, and whom she had moulded into an engineer. She now works for a reputed company. There was a second daughter who had finished her graduation in commerce. It was an amazing tale of fortitude and struggle on the part of a mother, whose drunkard of a husband had abandoned her for another woman. He could share none of the credit as he had never been around for his daughters, nor paid a penny t

Who's to Blame - parents, teachers or films

Image
The killing of a schoolteacher by a student in Chennai has sent shockwaves throughout the country and sparked a debate on the ills of the education scenario. Here, students of a school in Erode pay floral tributes to R. Uma Maheswari, the victim. “Those were the days, my friend, we thought they'd never end...” Such nostalgia is wrapped around this song; those were indeed the days! A house would overflow with children, of all ages and sizes! Uncles, aunts, cousins, friends, visitors were all welcome, as enormous amounts of food were cooked in the smoke-filled kitchen, and served with affection. Children went to neighbouring homes, eating breakfast at one place and lunch elsewhere. Amazing was the rapport between cousins, as also between adults and children. The parents often didn't even know what their kids were up to, and when they were naughty, anyone of their uncles or aunts had a free hand to chide them and set them on the right track! The chiding would slide over l
Image
A TEAR JERKER: Aamir Khan’s TV show, Satyamev Jayate, has hit the small screen with shocking stories of mothers who struggled to give birth to their girl child, of the killing of unborn girls. Photo: Mohammed Yousuf Aamir introduces the subject, and lights a spark, taken on by three women who bare their souls and strip naked the atrocities committed against them. Aamir Khan is a genius! Only he could have chosen a name for his show so well calculated to touch the heartstrings of all Indians, one that aids to dredge out the latent [?] patriotism with their whole heart. At a juncture when scams are the new status symbol, when politicians have copyrights on how to talk and how not to deliver, when people cluck their tongues at corruption eating away at the nation's innards, when the common man finds life turning even more common with price rise and when the rich get inflated despite inflation, here comes a star who hits out at the very poignant, very real issue of female foeticid

Politicians or Pedagogues?

Image
“Off with their heads!” The Queen of Hearts is well and thriving, but would she have been allowed to survive? Lewis Carroll would have probably had to delete the interesting character that the Queen was, had he been alive in India today. In fact, a number of his wonderful creations would have had their heads chopped off, especially with the number of thin-skinned politicians and bureaucrats who seem to dominate our country, determined to rid her of her funny bone! So the Thorat committee has taken a pair of giant scissors and ridden roughshod over NCERT textbooks, like the bull in a china shop, destroying what it does not understand — the thin line between good humour and stringent lampooning! The advisers on the political science textbooks cautioned readers at the start that “the attempt is not to hand over a definite opinion to students, but to enable them to think on their own!” Mere wishful thinking, it seems as even the immortals in the rarefied realms of politics seem to ha

Walking into a terrifying, dark nothingness

It was a sad sight! I was sitting at an eye hospital along with my mother who was due for a cataract surgery. She had decided to have it in Chennai as two of her daughters were in the city. The various tests took ages, punctuated by long waits in between to see various doctors, and we were both reduced to doing Sudoku puzzles, reading and texting. I went out to make a phone call as there was no mobile network coverage within the basement where we were waiting. As I was dialling, I saw a heart-rending sight. A young man in a red shirt suddenly appeared, holding the hand of an older woman, obviously his mother. He strode along authoritatively, as the woman hobbled along behind him. It was clear that she could hardly see anything, as she had dark glasses on. There were a couple of steps at the entrance and she stumbled over them as he did not warn her, and it was piteous to see her lifting her foot high up in the hope that it would encounter a step, where there was none. The staircase

TEDx Website Resource Person

Image
Deepti Menon has always believed in the power of the pen. Having done her post graduation in English Literature and her B.Ed. in English, she had the option of teaching and writing, and did both with great enjoyment. She started writing at the age of ten, long before she acquired a Diploma in Journalism. She also had the advantage of being an Army kid, and later an Army wife, and loved the idea of travelling around India, meeting new people and acquiring new skills. She firmly believes that much of her personality was honed during those travels. In 2002, her light hearted book, ‘Arms and the Woman’, depicting life as seen through the eyes of an Army wife, was published by Rupa Publishers, Delhi. This was written mainly to reveal the warmth and camaraderie within the great institution. She is now working on her second book that is a work of fiction, and not- to-be divulged yet! Both teaching and writing have been wonderful learning experiences in their own ways. Teaching brought out

The Lost Spontaneity in Getting Clicked!

Image
"If you look like your passport photo, you probably need the trip!" This quote revived memories of posing before a camera, going through a gamut of ‘un-photogenic’ expressions! The seedy photographer in a cramped room adjusted the angles of my chin(s), patted a stray lock of hair down and barked, "Blue or white?" My confused look went down for posterity's sake. Till today I know not whether my passport photograph boasts of a blue background or white! I would rather not glance at the abomination! My driving license picture was no better. "Sit down!" As I made a move, the flash caught me in suspended animation, like a deer in headlights, or more factually, a startled fish trying to breathe! The most constipated photos were taken before tacky backdrops - a garish forest scene or an unreal Taj Mahal. The funniest were during marriage feasts, when photographers captured the exact moment when a person had his mouth wide open to gobble down that enormous,

THE ARMY BOWLS A MAIDEN OVER!

I have no idea why I always loved the Indian Army! Was it because of the life I lived as an Army brat, or the tales my mother regaled me with after she settled down in Kerala? My fascination continued even after I became a 'Lady Wife', which convinced me that there could be no better life than that within the giant arms of this hallowed institution, a life that taught me much, not the least being the knack to get along with all the different species that make up the human race! Mom's tales remained with me over the years, and what better opportunity to put them down on paper than this - a reunion of the very people who welcomed her with open arms as a bashful [???] Army bride? Mom [Nalini] was the first young lady to come into the tight knit 17 Engineer group, Dad [Chandran] being the first to have succumbed to the malady of matrimony. And they had ended up with no official accommodation as he was underage. Mo

Heaven in a Wild Flower!

Image
As the jeep travelled up the mountains from Tezpur to Tenga, in Arunachal Pradesh, the river sparkled alongside as the sun rays glanced off, creating little silver droplets that flashed like dragon flies in the breeze. On one side, the mountain wall rose, grey and forbidding, while the valley dropped away in all its glory, on the opposite side. Tiny wild flowers grew in nooks and crannies, creating a colourful tapestry in hues of sunny yellows, blood-hued crimsons and blushing violets, reminiscent of poet William Blake’s evocative images. By evening the mist moved in, casting a pall, imperceptibly growing in intensity, till the road seemed to disappear! The clouds had descended to almost ground level, and the driver could hardly see where he was going. My husband got down, and walked alongside in the dark, guiding the jeep by following the luminescent road markers that had been put in by some canny soul in the past! After a night's stay in

BONDING WITH THE BEST – RUSKIN BOND!

Image
Ruskin Bond came into Chennai with a bang, enthralling one and all with his trademark sense of humour and his cherubic smile. He was here in connection with the Landmark Ruskin Bond Tour, to launch his latest book. In 1992 he won the Sahitya Akademi Award for ‘Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra’, followed by the Padma Shri for his contribution to Children’s Literature in 1999. An interview with him seemed to be a dream come true, and he did not disappoint! My Father and I: “My father was the one who gave me that little nudge towards writing. I wrote in little notebooks, as he regaled me with stories to stimulate my imagination. I recall reading Kipling’s ‘Phantom Rickshaw’ and my father taking me along the market in an actual rickshaw. He ran a little Girls’ school for the Royal family in Jamnagar. At the age of four, I sat with the princesses and learnt to read and write. When I joined school, I found myself far ahead of my peers who were still learning their alphabets. Ins

Wait, James Bond is Filling His last Cavity!

Image
Ruskin Bond breezed into Chennai, launched ‘Hip-Hop Nature Boy and Other Poems’, and waltzed into the hearts of his fans. The Ruskin Bond Landmark Tour saw a horde of admirers, jostling to have a chat with the amiable, pink-cheeked author. “I do feel ancient!” he remarked, when a girl asked him about generations of readers coming together. He soon had the audience lapping up every word. He wrote his first story in Class 6 in an exercise book, and featured his teachers in it. His master found it, read the piece and announced, “Bond, you’re wasting your time!” He tore the story up, consigning it to the dustbin! “So friends, if you write, leave your teachers out!” was Bond’s advice.  ‘Room on the Roof’ was first published in London, and also serialized in the Illustrated Weekly. “I was thrilled to see my name in print!” Apparently, he had picked up the weekly, in which the first installment had come, with illustrations by Mario. "I looked around for a friend to share m