Democracy = hypocrisy

This morning while I was surfing through my daily web routine, I came across this headline

'Democracy strengthened, says CEC'

right below that headline, there was another one.

'We will not allow Valentine's Day celebrations'


No mistake, we are talking about the largest democracy in the world --India . I had a nice chuckle reading these articles.. The second announcement is a direct result of Ram Sena's activities in Mangalore. A group of political wannabe's beat up/molested women who dared to bare some in an absolutely "safe place" a pub.


To the so called moral police of the nation, I have two questions.. what were these men doing in a pub ? did they go there to attend a rally ? What were they doing in a pub at night ? Did they have a couple of drinks while waiting for their leader to announce a toast ? ( drinking is so not against Indian culture when MEN do it) . Did they make passes at some of the girls who were there ( this is also not against indian culture... where men don't respect women) , who in their right minds refused their advances . Did they get enraged in their intoxicated state by the refusal of the girls.. and took it upon themselves to teach all of them a lesson, (not for stepping out into a club...but for actually refusing the next leader of the country)

Then they have the audacity to say that their activities were to protect the Indian culture..

The six fundamental rights of an Indian as defined by the constitution:

1. Right to equality


2. Right to freedom


3. Right against exploitation


4. Right to freedom of religion


5. Cultural and educational rights


6. Right to constitutional remedies

I would like to know which right of ours was Ram Sena protecting? And I would be mistaken in isolating just Ram Sena...I would like to pose this question to every political party that changes it agenda at its whim and fancy. Shiv Sena, BJP , Samajwadi, UPA and every party in India.
What rights of ours are they protecting by banning valentine's day? I don't hear anybody opposing Mother's day or Women's day or Father's day... aren't these western concepts as well ?
What rights of ours are being protected by Shiv Sena, when they are ready to stone shops run by immigrants to Maharashtra ?

Why should we give the control of our nation and state and people to parties , to whom all this means nothing but power and money ?

What will it take for us Indians to come up with an honest party which has integrity and honor as its base values and the welfare of the citizens as its main agenda..

If we want to be the largest and the best democracy, we should not fight for differentiating people based on religion, sex,caste,language,origin ...but for the equality of all despite this variation.


---"Today I am waiting for a new dawn"

Adios
Kavita

Slumdog Millionaire

Every one I know who blogs has blogged about this movie.. and I don't know why I waited so long. I saw this movie about 3 weeks back. This is not in response to the golden globes the movie won or the Oscar nominations that the movie won..

Whats got me riled is INDIA and the frog syndrome.. A couple of days back, I saw a news article on rediff.com which says that the slum dwellers association in mumbai has sued Anil Kapoor and A.R Rehman. Anil Kapoor because not he.. but the character he portrays in the movie calls the boy a slum dog... where is the line between reality and cinema? Why pull down the one frog that managed to climb out of the well ?

Another thing that bothers me.. yes the movie is shot in India and yes its made in Mumbai and yes its got indian actors... how does that make the movie Indian? It could have been a story set anywhere..Not a single filmmaker in India would have dreamt in their wildest dreams that they could make a movie on life and innocent love and win the globes or the hearts of a million people.. because whats a movie without SRK or a few girls in skimpy clothes and a few dances?

I loved the fact that Danny Boyle gave 3 dimensions to his characters.In traditional Indian movies the good guy is always good.. the bad guy is the epitome of evil and demon...but in this movie..there is no good or bad guy essentially..the host is arrogant and bewildered by the success of the "slumdog"a s he calls the boy. The brother is practical and led astray by the glitter of wealth but still rejoices in his brother's success.. the slum dog is naive and remains so.. the beautiful girl is beautiful and good but still practical enough to know that life as she knows it cannot get better evn if she dreams of another life...

The music is another aspect of the movie I love.. its vibrant and its colorful.. No one else could have done justice to the music as Rahman did..

here is wishing Danny Boyle success at the Oscars for movie that belongs truly to him and his vision

Planet Earth

I stumbled across this series thanks to A and I fell in love with the series. The cinematography is so beautiful only because our earth is that beautiful. Discovery is planning to broadcast this series next weekend and I don't intend to miss much of it..

Time to write something

Allright, so I have been very reticent about writing on my blog this long and its high time I did ..

So here are the few highlights of the last year..

March 2008 we had a long vacation in India

April 2008 , I did some major circus and lost my front two teeth (thankfully got them replaced) else it was hands down Halloween costume winner as early as April.

July 2008: Took that long awaited trip to New York New York..It was the best so far.

Aug 2008: We found out that as eventful as our lives were so far, it was going to be to more so.. as we were going to be blessed soon with our own baby to spoil and raise as we choose too.

Sept 2008 : We heard our baby's tiny heart pumping blood as quickly as possible.. and got the first glimpse of the baby.. just 2 circles one for the head and the other for the body.. and one tiny limb poking out.

Oct 2008 : I determined that its a low maintenance baby.. gave me no nausea..only reduced my appetite considerably. I started feeling my baby move.. and the best I can do to describe it " I tiny flutter, like a small butterfly moving under my belly" . I also started giving the baby a personal concert to my favorites.. And noticed a pattern where the baby moved for Asha Bhosle's voice a lot more than it did for Lata Mangeshkar..

Nov 2008 : 5 months.. and we got a full anatomy scan done..saw the baby resist the nurse's prodding to give a full profile of the face.. and when it did.. it was wonderful... :) We moved to a new place to make room for the new addition...

Dec 2008 : I got the first taste of knowing what it is to love someone so much that it hurts. I thought I knew love.. but I threw the idea right out of the window.. Early December, I realized that my baby had not made any noticeable movements for almost 2 days. Experienced mothers told me to drink cold apple juice and that would set the baby moving again. Tried cold and hot...nothing worked. So I called the doctor's office.. The nurse said, nothing doing go directly
to the hospital. Now being the pessimistic that I am, the worst that can happen at a doctor's is an injection .. so the worst at the hospital was much much much more.. So called Ranjith and in between my sobs he heard something that probably made sense to him and asked me to meet him at home. We both drove from our respective work places to home and then from home to the hospital.. all the while I was raising the water levels in Atlanta . When we reached the hospital, I must admit the receptionist there was much more comforting than anybody I have ever met in a hospital and after some paper work, had us go upto the examination room . There I was hooked onto the baby monitor...which failed to detect any heart beat. As the doctor left the room I had a sinking feeling in my stomach that all was lost...

She returned though with a Doppler m/c.. and placed it all over the belly and finally after much searching found that tiny heart beat again. To us it was the most joyous sound that we heard...

Being a first time mother, I realized that maybe the movements change and I just didnt know what to expect and no one was around to tell me any different..

As the year drew to an end, I realized the importance of having family and friends close to me.
I grew a year older as well.. and it was the best birthday any girl could have asked for.. and for that I have to thank my husband , my brother, my friends Ashka and Satlaj.. for making it the best.

Some people are moving out of our lives while others are moving in as well..
so a lot of big changes happened... 2008 has been eventful and very eye opening for me..

Adios!

Everyone condemns

but what happens.. Bombay gets her legs broken.. she limps back to normalcy and then her legs are broken again!

and everyone just condemns .. over and over again!

Review:Fashion

It's been a while that a movie had made me want to write about it. The last one being Rang De Basanti. This time it's Fashion.. and I know that the movie has been panned by many critics as being a superficial look at the fashion world. The movie takes one through the journey of a small time model who makes it big in the fashion world and becomes a super model.
Now the premise of the movie itself doesn't excite me as much as the journey itself.

Bhandarkar could have taken any premise apart from fashion , such as the world of cinemas, cricket, politics etc...
But he being the intelligent film maker knew that his movie would then be lost amidst the million attempts by other bollywood film makers who have ventured into de mystifying these super glamorous worlds . Ramp walking and modelling clothes is a glamorous profession, that makes to page 3 of the society columns. So I can see where he got his premise from and why. It will surely draw people in.


now the reason why I liked the movie is because of the journey portrayed .. of a small town girl who moves to the big city away from the protective roof she knew all along. She makes it through the ardous path set before her towards her success. On the way she meets people who believe in her and finds friends who shares with her the same dream for her, people who genuinely want her to succeed. At the same time she meets people who tempt her for more . She decides her journey and on that path she succumbs to arrogance and derisiveness towards everyone around her. The rest is for people to watch and enjoy..

adios

Disconnected and disillusioned

For the first time in almost 6 years, that I have been in America, I felt homesick. It's quite strange , because I didn't feel homesick ( not to this degree ) when i first came here. I was in awe of the country, of the Indian community I met at school , of the friends that became a part of every day life.

This evening we went for Garba and dandiya raas organized by Maharashtra mandal of Atlanta. We came away without even dancing a step. Not a familiar face.. everyone had a small smile that danced on their lips..but never reached their eyes.. Curious eyes that followed us and people talking in a strange tongue, even though marathi was no strange language to me,

Back in Mumbai, when we went for dandiya.. we would know people we were dancing around with.. they were part of a community, be it school , colony or work that we belonged too. They would know you and genuinely acknowledge your presence as some one who had a right to be there. Even at UTA, the feeling of belonging still remained.

Back home, the malayalees from the colony would get together a month in advance. The festivities of Onam would set in then as practiced for various programs would start in full swing. At the end of the feast..we would all go back knowing that Onam couldn't have been better. This year we decided to attend an Onam program at the temple here. Malayalees from Kerala who had settled in Atlanta were the organizers. It felt strange to celebrate Onam with strangers , eat lunch next to person you had never met before. i am hoping that next year it would be better.

Now in Atlanta, when we dont belong to any community , we feel out of place at most Indian gatherings..I am still trying to find a community here that I could belong to here..despite efforts to find some comfortable common ground to be on..its a slow and deliberate process albeit a very slippery one ...


Adios.

My mother's doll

My mother never played with dolls..( she told me this) .. Her free time as a kid was spent ensuring that the younger kids fell in line. I love hearing the stories of how she got my uncles to sing .. a radio and a safety pin played a big role in the whole thing...

She grew up being the best at everything she did, was one of nine women who enrolled for engineering in REC ( her bacth) and graduated with a job in her kitty from a very male dominated industry.. she then got married to my father.. and had me .. and thats when she got her first doll..( so I say) .

This time when i went back to india, i was looking through some old albums and i began to notice a trend which i didnt recognize till now.
my mother stitched my birthday dresses.. and she would not leave it at that.. she made matching accesseries as well. All this while ensuring me and my brother did our best in school, in all the activites she enrolled us in and working. I dont remember where all the material came from, but i think dad got some from kuwait and amma would promptly make me a dress.

there was a yellow frock with black flower print on it. It had these capped sleeves and it stood out at my waist . I had a matching bow to wear on my head. It was the most beautiful dress ever.

i then grew up and she could no longer make me dresses.. instead.. somehow all the pictures had us color coordinanted.
if she wore black there was no way i was wearing anything but black... ( ma looks gorgeous in black)

So thats why i say I am her doll and she loves to dress me up ...

The long and short of it

I just realized that it has been a little over a year since i moved out of dallas to Atlanta.. It was a huge move for me, considering that I spent a big part of my adult and single life there. It was here that I got doctrined in the general unfairness of life, in the unhinging belief of long standing support of friends who till a few days back were strangers... in the fun times that i had watching movies, playing games ( who thought board games could be played after 21) , taking road trips, sipping coffee at 2:00 a.m outside the computer lab, hitching rides to get groceries... , going to the temple to eat free food.. and so much more..

i miss dallas a lot .. but i am enjoying my new role and new life just a little more... :)

Books,Dance and Pedicures

The past four or five months that I spent in hibernation was a rediscovering period for me.

First I rediscovered my long forgotten passion of reading.. My long commute to work and back was now converted to reading time as I discovered the joys of audio books.

For those of you looking to read something that was as insightful as Agatha Christie or as whimsical as PG Wodehouse, you might want to try AlexanderMcCall Smith.. his character Mma Ramotze can give Miss Marple a run for her money.

So while I went back to reading (read listening to) books , I started wondering which was the other activity that I was missing so much. Dance..I had left BharatNatyam over 7 years ago and then even though i had countless opportunities to start again, I never did.. So finally I googled for a teacher and went back to re discovering bharatnatyam.. in the process I also discovered countless muscles in my body that I didn't know ever existed. The first class completed.. and i am all agog for the next one.

With these aching muscles.. I went for a pedicure and discovered the pleasures of strong arms massaging my tired legs , applying a masque that made those aches go away..All my toes look pretty now , Red and shiny and I love showing them off in my peep toes. I vowed since then to pamper myself with a pedicure every month.. even if it left a tiny hole in my pocket.

If you were wondering where I had been and why I hadn't been writing.. now you know..


Adios...

Yippeeee

Let's all just raise our hands and shout yippeee..... the world can now breathe in peace... we need not worry about "our dear one" for she is safe.... Yayyyy Paris Hilton is out of jail and she is OK!!

I could'nt beleive the number of channels that covered the 50 baby steps that she took and pranced to her mommy dearest... smiling and pouting her way through the cameras...

It's Raining.

The recent downpour in mumbai took m down memory lane, back to the time when rains didnt mean stalled cars or losing deadlines, buildings falling down and walls crashing...when it meant, no school , no homework turn ins.... cold wet shoes... the lovely plasticy smell of the raincoat, the rising aroma of the wet mud, trees shaking of droplets of water, stepping unknowingly into a muddy pit... hot chai, hot samosas, a very warm and cozy blanket , I dream of Jeannie... , nights without electricity and light, evenings in the balconies, watching life go about you in a whirl , playing carrom with mom and dad and kiran , trying to catch a few words in the dim light of the candle wick...

welll memory lane it is!!

The Snooze Button

For the past few days, I have been resorting to the good ol' Alarm clock to wake me. My dad used to do this effectively earlier on. Sadly, due to the distance between Dallas and Mumbai, waking me up everyday turned out to be an expensive deal for my dad. Hence walked in my new alarm clock to give company to my old cell phone and my new cellphone and between them 5 alarms to wake me up.

Everyday, I have trouble opening my eyes, until the sun is shining brightly and almost blinding my closed shutters. The alarms that I keep do not help me in anyway , because all I do is snooze them. Today when I snoozed my alarm at 7:30 and then was woken by the next ring at 7:39, I realized that there was something aberrant from the usual. Why did my alarm go of at 7:39 and not at 7:40 ? ( I am gald, that gave me an extra one minute more to get ready and catch my 8:16 train.)

I got to work and was yawning away , when I remembered the point that had bugged me in the morning. This prompted me to get online and do some research on why alarm clocks had a 9 minute snooze interval. I came up with some captivating answers.

Engineers believe their bosses come to check on them every ten minutes. Ho ho! ---I am one!!

Physiologists have found that a sleeper who doesn't want to get up will fall back into a deep sleep if left for longer than nine minutes. ----------------Very True...

Wiki said: "Well, I have researched this topic and yielded some theories. If the snooze button is 9 minutes then the digital clock would only have to keep track of the last digit, because the last digit would go down by 1."

So thats the digital clock. What about the analog one?

"Clock experts say when snooze alarms were invented, the gears in alarm clocks were standardized. The snooze gear was introduced into the existing mix and its teeth had to mesh with the other gears' teeth. The engineers had to choose between a gear that made the snooze period nine-plus minutes or 10-plus minutes. Because of the gear configuration, 10 minutes on the nose was not an option.

According to these clock historians, engineers chose the shorter snooze, figuring "less than 10 minutes" seemed more punctual and marketable than sending people back to dreamland for "more than 10 minutes." "

Have you realized how that has messed us up.. I get these amazing dreams in those snooze periods.. and just when I am about to get to the most interesting part of the dream .. RINGGGGG RINGGGGG.

And now I have to snooze my outlook calendar every 5 min, that reminds me to update my time sheet. I think the problem is not snoozing..it's just me PROCRASTINATING.

Well anyway thought for the day...

"Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. - Edgar Bergen "

Waking up one morning

One morning I woke up with this question in my head. It kept haunting me.. What is fate? I asked myself. Can we explain all events in our life to fate and destiny, or is it that, the events and the consequences that follow are a direct result of the choices we make, or let others make or us, consciously or sub consciously.

Other than life and death, don't we control everything that happens to us and around us?The force we call god, i believe exists within us. We get the strength from within us to face situations that we never thought we would be able to. Hence I find it very difficult to understand that an external force affects our lives.

Isn't it strange that none of us have problems more than we can deal with. Ultimately we as human beings rise to the occasion and are quiet capable of dealing with the issues that bother us, without breaking down.

So if someone can tell me what fate and destiny are... and convince me.. I'd be grateful, then I can blame my choices and consequences to fate, and not to myself.

another one

In the hours of darkness many, the sky wept and cried loud
Defying her in her angst, my little home, stood too

The wind bellowed through, the Oak trees standing tall
Branches wilted from most all, flying fast at my window

The churning storm it turned, the gentle ripples of the brook,
Into the big swirl of water, that spilt onto the brick lane

My white fence, built around, she didn’t spare that as well,
It broke in places, leaving me open, more to her grief

In her anger, ruin she did, everything that stood put,
Plunging the world around, into a sinister vacancy

And then she cried, till she could no more
Deep sighs filled the silence, left by the wind behind

Waketh I the next morning fine, to see my world as it should
The bright sun had come by, and wiped her tears away

-Kavita

Apr 02 2007

India's Backdoor Entry

After the recent worldcup debacle( India's) the entire blogging population in this cricket loving nation hopped onto the bandwagon of discussing why? Why we failed? So since I follow the pack and never lead it... I did too and thats why this post.

Since the world cup was not too far away this time, the fervor reached me ..and i had retired from active cricket viewing long back..Rediff and its live score cards kept me hooked for the matches... India lost to Bangladesh... sad.. we can do it...provided Pakistan loses to Ireland we still have a chance.. so Pakistan did... and we won Bermuda..Woolmer died and then we lost to Srilanka.. Thats the world cup recap for what it matters.

Then came the office coffee talk.. The importance of the worldcup didnt escape my American colleagues. They knew how we felt, every week of the year they have a football, a baseball and a basketball team to support.

Now that India lost, our converstaions turned to fine tuning what exactly was the problem.. Dravid..no way he is the best.. tendulkar hmm maybe yeah we have seen him throw that wicket away one too many times.


Now the latest buzz word is MSD and though i never understood how he became the captain and the mysterious circumstances of Dravid stepping down.. I dont mind ..Dhoni is bringing cricket back to its fans and we are eager to watch him lead the side for more games to come..

If Life gives you a Lemon...

The old adage never seemed truer.."if life gives you a lemon, make some lemonade..." but the chances of knowing how to make the right lemonade is very small..

Bein optimistic has never been a trait in me... every situation , that arises in front of me, I pose a dozen questions to it. So how do you make that lemonade ?

Sometimes situations crop up, and I pose questions to it. I end up playing scene by scene what could happen. My thoughts flow in a manner of a flow chart. And in doing so, I have allready created my responses and reactions to situtations that are a result of the above lemon. Now this is what gets to me at the end, because then in my little world, I want that flow chart executed. I dont stop to think, what if the flow chart I executed was just one side of the whole problem. Where do I get the sweet juice from ? In the process of putting myself in front of all these decision boxes, what would happen if I just let go and let things work out for themselves. Then probably it might work out for the better

A very close friend of mine told me when I said "I will try to be more positive from now" , "When you use the word try, you are not very close to being positive" .

Maybe I should practise my " Leaping "and Hoping that the net will appear..



I wonder if anyone else had a chance to make that lemonade?

People amuse me.. no they surprise me!

People always surprise and amuse me. I was reading the 7 habits of higly effective people. Stephen Covey gives a very humane incident that occurred while he was on train . A co passenger seemed unaware of his children’s boisterous and unruly behavior. The other passengers were shooting dirty looks at him and were exclaiming at his nonchalant attitude. This went on till the author drew his attention to his kids. The man apologized and went on to explain that his wife had just passed away and he was just not sure what to do with the kids. At once, the same people who were getting annoyed by the behavior of the kids now sympathized with the man.

The other day, I was traveling back home on the train. Being a peak hour, it was late and the train was crowded. We barely found places to sit. A couple of minutes after we started off , the train conductor came by to make sure everyone had place to sit and no one was standing unless absolutely necessary.

She found a woman prostrate, occupying two seats. She said “Ma’m, we need you to sit up”. The woman who was bundled in an old parka coat mumbled, “I’m not feeling too good. I am cold”. We were all watching the proceedings and were very surprised with the tone taken by the conductor. All our sympathies went to this poor lady who just didn’t seem too well. The train conductor refused to let go. In a polite but distant voice she said, “Ok ma’m I shall call the ambulance. They will meet us at the next station”. When we arrived at the next station, the ambulance was not there. We didn’t mind waiting as it was only humane to understand and sympathize with the sick woman. The ambulance got there a good 5 minutes after the train. The paramedics came in to check on the woman. That was the last the woman was going to get any sympathy. As she moved out, she left behind her a terrible stink that was most definitely due to at least 6 or more hours of constant alcohol consumption. She could barely stand straight let alone walk out. As soon as she left, the compartment was in an uproar. Everyone suddenly found the 5 min they lost waiting at the station too valuable. The shows they were going to miss, the start of the game that was going on that night etc.

No wonder people amuse me and surprise me. I’m not sure in which order though

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My Fav-- among the Calvin n Hobbes...

My stories can get pointless too...

When my mom starts with how things were in the good ol' days, I would wonder, did the years just slip past her...But today i realized that, poor thing must have felt a little overwhelmed at how fast life moves.Do we all get stuck in the same rut and refuse to move on with life.

Today I am very comfortable using a laptop... an ordinary one.. but put an Ipod in front of me...yeah I had an Ipod for approximately 30 days.

On the day it arrived, I was at work and all my colleagues called me the techie freak, and the gadget queen...I had just managed to figure out my digital camera. They all came over and ooohed and aahhhed over my video Ipod.. It was a proud me standing in front of my desk on which i had gingerely placed the black Ipod, so as to avoid getting it scratched. come 5:00 p.m , i was ready to go home ipod and all...so we reach home where I started my experimenting on it..
the first step was to install itunes..ahhh see that was not difficult because it was as simple as 1 2 3 : inserting the CD in my laptop--which i knew to work and install the software.

Once I got that done.. I felt very geeky... I was one step closer to listening to my songs on the go . Step 2 : port the songs to the ipod. I figured it should be as easy as plug and play...so that's what I did.. plugged in the Ipod and dragged and dropped the songs from my folder to the hard drive..(I was good to go...and I kept the ipod to charge) and got to bed with dreams of rocking like the cool punk kid who sat on the train next to me, with earphones stuck in his head and rock blasting at a volume that would have woken the dead. My dreams were all about how I got to show off my latest and funkiest ,maximum memory sized BLACK IPOD.

Next day morning, I got into the train and reached for my Ipod as I sat next to this kid... I could feel the kid's awwwww at the side of my neck as he craned to check my Ipod out. With a nonchalant attitude, I plugged my earphones in and the catastrophe striked... my menu didntshow any songs.. I turned the wheel right and I turned the wheel left.. then i turned it up and down again...and I pushed it...no use. The kid's awww turned to a smirk...

I resolved to go and figure out how to work my ipod. So I googled the google on the subject "Ipod for dummies" . Finally i got a document that lists out what I must do. So started working on that.. and tried creating albums. as soon as one album was created, the one i had created previously would mysteriously dissappear. the songs from one album would get into the new album. Finally i got the albums right.. now came creating playlist...i was ready to tear my hair out.. but was resisting the impulse, considering that the damage was going to be inflicted naturally anyway.

Finally I called Pratman and asked him how he did it... I guess even he had not figured it out (he got his ages before i got mine), since he gave me some vague answer... basically told me to do something that I allready knew. Realizing that he could hardly be of any help, I decided to hit the" Ipod for dummies "again.
I finally got my ipod configured 4 days after I got it. and then a month later of competing with the punk kid, as to the loudness of our respective pods, much to the disdain of the other passengers on the train, I gave my ipod up to my brother.
I was ready to smirk at how he was going to configure it ...he was at the computer faster than lightning and he had his own personal Itunes , playlist, albums and had also ported songs from mine in no time on the Ipod.....

So I guess we all have pointless stories at one point of life... it's when we find the right audience to tell these stories too, that we stop realizing how pointless they actually are...(to us not to our audience) and to some of us, who havent been blessed with that audience yet... we choose to force our readers to go through the pointless story..

Adios...