Weak

Delhi medical student gang rape case isn't an eye-opener..our eyes were peeled open many years back. But we have to live on with our daily lives after criticizing.
I am someone's daughter, sister, colleague and friend too just like the medical student in Delhi. I too watch evening movie shows and return home at 11. Does that mean that every time I board a bus,train,taxi or auto I havta thank the driver that he didn't choose to rape me!!!
Is this what we have become? Independent, hard -working , educated women living at the mercy of men who can't resist their animal instincts the moment they sight anything close to female. Is there any possible solution to this or should we shut ourselves in our homes and pray to be safe each day?

The nasty kid with a bagpack and a gun

When 21 year old Ajmal Kasab arrived in India without a passport and a sinister mission in mind, little had he imagined the (de) fame he was to earn in this nation! He lived the quarter of his life in fanaticism and hatred against a group of unseen faces who never caused any direct harm to him or his family but yet he was determined to kill them.  Bottled anger is apparent for most at this age and it has long been exploited by all terrorist groups.

We waited for four years to execute a murderer who did not pause for a moment to kill innocent lives and rip our nation’s peace into shreds. We keep waiting for justice to be justified by itself for decades till common man grows ‘sick’ of the same headlines – Jessica Lal,  Aarushi , Babri Masjid, Godhra, Naroda Patiya, Best bakery.. an endless list of unjustified, unanswered questions that force us into submissive observers. 

Caving

Its quite comfy in here with the fire lit and the downpour outside. The insects are a bit of a menace though. The smell of roasted meat and stew remind me of the oven bell in my furnished kitchen. I do not even lift my head anymore if something hisses around, shiny hides aren't terrifying to my sight now. I am letting my toolbag to dry in this humid weather(funny expectations!) by emptying it and laying down all my rare tools on the ground that cost me a fortune.
and I ask .... Is this what I had planned for myself? I did not go entirely wrong there. Didn't I phrase it saying "carving out my space". Carved this space so much so that it has turned into a cave. A large empty dark cave where the only response I receive when I call out is of my own echo.
But its still comfy here...

Behind those slit eyes

Its a general school of perverse thought that is deep rooted and the recent NE exodus from southern cities are reflections of it. The bloodshed & gore occurring in Assam between Bodos & immigrants wouldn't have taken a communal shape if news channels and media made true projections that the riots were a clash for political supremacy and dominance. But the fact still remains the lack of awareness of the general public (including educated/school & college students) who still cannot differentiate a North Eastern from a Nepali or Burman or Chinese or Japanese or Indonesian or any other slit-eyed yellow skinned for that matter. Its both shameful and sad that even after struggling through 65 years of independence together as a country, the seven sisters still receive a step-motherly treatment.
I was given the role of a waitress in a play once because thats what we do! (LMAO :D)
Racial discrimination has turned into a daily part & parcel of my life and my family, cousins, relatives, friends once we venture out from our home states. Once an auto driver checked whether I paid him Indian currency! Besides these funny experiences there are the intolerable ones that go beyond jokes & laughter. Eve-teasing, name calling, bullying are actually the lighter sides of this perversion (to them, not to us). The unwarned sudden attacks on the Manipuri students & workers in Secunderabad & Hyderabad as knee-jerk reaction to the doctored videos of killings in Myanmar, which again wasn't a religious conflict, are subtle hints to enemy who target at nothing else but weak points of  our nation.

Porcelain

It was delicate & tiny. Protected from everyone, cupped between my palms...my precious. I never gave it to anyone for I cared so much for it, wouldn't let anyone even glance at it let alone touch it. Scratch-less, glazing and enticing as always...it made me such a proud owner....my precious!

But then you came along with your deceiving smile befriending with lies and false promises. Apprehensive initially, but you convinced me well. I believed your words and gave in to your lies.
I handed my precious to someone else for the first time. You held it gently and slid it in your breast-pocket of your jacket. I was assured for sure that my precious was protected from this world forever and heaved a sigh of relief. You held my hand inter-twining with my fingers and we walked together for a while, when all of a sudden you turned around to face me.You took out my precious from your pocket while I watched confused, and then you smashed it on the road. It numbed my mind for a fleeting moment for I couldn't even believe what happened a while ago. I shrieked and led out a desperate cry for help. You turned your back to me and then started walking forward. I yelled out and asked with despair why you broke my precious. But you wouldn't even look back. Hell-struck and shocked I screamed and screamed and screamed.....

You had taken me a long way along and I couldn't go back to from where we started because I had lost my way. I stood there knowing nothing what to do next. Then I knelt down rubbing my tear smeared cheeks and started picking up the broken pieces of my precious. It was smashed so bad that some of the pieces were crushed to powders and I couldn't even glue them back. I collected all the pieces and swept the powders too with my palms, trying to take every bit I could. It ached me for I knew my precious was broken and I couldn't have another one ever. I put the pieces in a polythene bag and started treading an unknown path while I heard the clinking of the pieces of my precious as I moved.

Do criminals who are celebrities side step the law?

                     "Justice is tempered with mercy, but it still maintains a sense of retribution "
People get convicted and sentenced for their crimes despite their celebrity status which proves the very fact that no one is above law. When celebrities commit crimes just like any other criminal  they go through the same trial and the celebrities are well aware of it. Being financially equipped and able to hire the best lawyers does not mean they are given special treatment.

In fact contrary to that the celebrity cases are subject  to more harsher sentences and inconsideration. This is done to set exemplary cases for normal citizens who look up to these celebrities. For e.g the Wesley Snipes case who charged of defrauding and claiming false tax refunds. He was sentenced to 3 years prison which was the harshest statement considering his crime. When defense lawyers urged leniency, prosecutors argued that Snipes made an example because of his fame.

The Mumbai bomb blasts of 1993 which involved Sanjay Dutt was a high profile celebrity crime case in India. The leniency plea was rejected and Sanjay Dutt was given a 6 year jail term. These criminal cases are hyped by media and the limelight given to these cases affect the prosecution process immensely. No other rapist in India has grabbed so much of attention and made it to the front page besides Shiney Ahuja. Media takes the advantage of a critical situation to slander celebrities and dig for gossip. Many times false accusations on celebrities are blown out of proportions for the sake of cheap publicity by media.
It is easy to ridicule and make a mockery of celebrities for the slightest mistake they commit and yet we often tend to forget that each day they face a billion eyes waiting for them to falter. Crime offenders who are celebrities do not take law for granted merely because they will be condoned for their status.Instead, they need to be more wary & calculating of their images even with each tweet!

When Salman Khan underwent a trial for poaching which was stressed by the Bishnoi tribe who are protectors of endangered species i.e Black buck, he was sent to jail for 15 days whereas there are numerous cases of illegal hunting & poaching that go unheard.

Loopholes in judiciary system are misused by high profile acquittals but to directly blame the celebrity side stepping law will be an overstatement.    

My appendectomy

We made a table in our behavioral class. It was called the prioritisation table.
Mine looked somewhat like this -

	Urgent	Not Urgent
Important	Study,	Daily chores (brushing ,bathing, washing clothes), reading newspaper
Not important	Facebook , Computer Games	TV

I have successfully given up on my addiction to computer games (thats because I started working a year back and have barely time to eat ). TV was never a bondage so I was set free from its clutches right when I entered college. But facebook was an all time fad. It started my day and I ended my day with FB. I bought a phone HTC Chacha with a freakin quick FB access button on its keypad!

But then the worst happened and I thought of leaving facebook for a while. It saddened me but every change is for something good. Deactivating my facebook account felt like a break-up to me. Everytime I had spare time on internet I felt lonely and aloof from all my networking friends busy posting their best pics and tagging. It was dull & morose googling for words, searching for people on Linkedln (mostly uptight ones and profiles of friends filled with impressive descriptions, certificates and technical forums they have attended - the kind of work they usually prefer to be kept in secrecy from their friends). A month has passed since my deactivation and I am learning to keep myself pretty occupied. Its amazing that so much can be done in 24 hours of a day and facebook all this while was nothing more than a vestigial organ!

Mean,Median and Mode

I was revising my statistics chapter today and met the three brothers (mean,median,mode) again with their naughty lil sister (standard deviation). To come to think of it average is an under-rated term. It is undoubtedly essential for all but receives a step-motherly treatment when it has to be asknowledged. Excellence has always been kept on a pedestal but in actuality its the average which has been driving this world.

If it weren't, the statistics would have emphasised on the majors,extremes and highest values on the graphs instead of the middle values. Average represents a group and yet it has an identity of its own unlike the members of the group. It is unique and yet so humble to quietly accept its rank while delivering whenever required. Man has a tendency to associate itself only with the best despite the fact that its the average who work and run a  system. Its the average who make brilliance seem apart in contrast to them. Without average, perfection is baseless and so is its inflated ego.

We might not deserve the laurels & trophies for being the best, but we are consistent performers. I take pride in being amongst the average because it makes me unique.

Grounded

It is natural for one to dream. Dreams that make us forget what surrounds us and to hope. Hope for better things that fancy us and look forward to life. One life to live and one life to love.

But the secret to all is to realise the strength of equanimity. A day comes when you have to accept the stark ugly naked truth after persistent denials. Fate and destiny are neither friends nor foes to anyone. Inculcating that negative phase change in your wave of life is difficult and hampers your average level of performance, but the sooner this phase is adopted the faster is the revival.

I love the sound of the word - setback. Could it be more honest! Then comes the pre-eminent quote which states that “Every arrow is pulled back before shot, when life pulls you back you know you still have to fly forward.” which instills a ray of hope to every lost person who is awaiting the flight. Life is the best teacher when you move out of your shell away from your loved ones to strive each day against odds and mingle among those competing against you. Hard-work may not be enough, good will may not suffice, honesty will hit you back , trusts will be broken, hearts will be broken, prayers may not be heard...and yet you have to believe.

Start accepting that years of promises, commitment and trust are broken in a minute and all those memories scar your thoughts. You can never be an angel because in the end you will be just a human being hurt by another human. Its the course of life and there is nothing improper about it.

Start accepting that burning midnnight oils and toiling may not always yield fruitful. Your prize can be bagged by that snitch who spent more effort adulating while you held your misplaced pride.

But.......there lies a big butt....the butt which rubs against your face and has "don't quit" tattooed on it!

Fragrance of a Jasmine

The heat of the Arab Spring had drenched not just the middle-east but shivered the world over.What could have been the possible reason for such a co-occurrence of civil turmoil in all these regions?The scent of the jasmine filled the air and blew across along with the trade-winds making everyone agitated for a democratic change.End of tyrannical eras brought about spurs of hope in these autocrat nations wafting winds of change to look forward to a prosperous,happier developed tomorrow.
The jasmine revolution will be written in the chapters of history for our kids to read.The names Hosni Mubarak,Md. Gaddafi,Ben Ali and Saddam Hussein all of them conspicuously share two resemblances -dictators who ruled for decades and violent uprisings marking their declines in their own reign with devastating fiasco.
Sun Tzu phrases in the Art of War "The enlightened ruler lays his plans well ahead; the good general cultivates his resources." Clearly,true leadership takes a back seat when the state has been quashed for years at a stretch.

But there are certain germane questions which need to be answered to understand the system of running a economically growing, prosperous, developed and healthy nation:

Q1.Has 62 years of democracy proved successful or do we have more number of demagogues arising each day from everywhere ? Some dressed in saffron and some not.

Q2.The awakening of masses happens under years of suppression under a single leader but what about gradual dilapidation led by varied corrupt parties?

Perhaps,we could say that it takes time for a nation to rise & build. We are still in adolescence trapped between old & young leaders.
 

Real emoticons

The window seat,

cuddling your grandma,

patting your dog

,the first drops of rain,

brunch on sundays,the shitty movie with your friends in the theatre that made you ROFL,the first kiss,

warm water shower after a tiring day,the midnight birthday bumps,no brainer jokes shared amongst friends,window shopping,air hockey rounds,pani puri contests,

that new chick in the campus,

the tantra tee that tells the world you are cool,

meeting of those eyes,highest seeded episode,getting drunk coz its a weekend,
mom's lap,

the friends who call you a b***h on the face and not behind,
cold rainy weather siestas in a cozy blanket,

the new exotic dish that you invent with your friend in the kitchen only to be yelled later by your mom for not cleaning up,
floating on water coz u are tired after all that swimming,
bonfires,

decent pics that can be uploaded,singing while shampooing,

the 3 pointer baskets you score when no one s watching,















rainbows,
surprise gifts,
that song on your ipod which you replay everytime,
the sexy biker who should never take his helmet off to ruin it,

dad driving you to the airport at 5 am,
cute babies who smile at you in the mall,

dancing like no one s watching to your favorite track......
Isn't there too much to look forward to in a one & only lifetime?