BOOKS AND BEYOND

But a Mother

2011-06-09T00:36:00.000-07:00

"You just hound people down using your towering size and matching sound box," said my friend Mathew to me when I told him that I had yelled at the kids and come down hard on them. Cannot remember what it was but the old boy was rather scathing in the clipping that he gave me online. This little poem was my response to that!!

Oh ye of little faith
Ne’er a word can I say
That’d make thee believe
For I am but a mother
With responsibility unlike ether
Cannot but bestow care and thunder
Lest they run asunder
My fledglings
Need grow stronger
And be proud and confident
As they soar the skies yonder

Note:
1. Matt with Tam - photo courtesy Aarzoo Kaveri Sen
2. Eagle - wallpaper images courtesy Google images

The Nomad's Home

2011-05-10T11:13:00.000-07:00

I was a nomad
Even before I became this body
A result of the union of two souls
That met
In the high mountain ranges
Of the mighty Himalayas
A long way from the place
That once served as their individual cocoons

Conceived in the plains
Birthed in an ancient land
Of universal learning, scriptures and spirituality
And the journey began
One with no particular destination
Or so it seemed

The wilderness was familiar territory
Swimming across the choppy ocean waters
Was no big deal
Enclosed spaces meant nothing to me
Did not make me feel secure
For it was in them that I was violated
Neither threatened
For when innocence is taken nothing more is left to be
Surviving was easy
Yet the turbulence ran deep

Home was just another word
In the dictionary
Till the day you walked in
Through the door
Ambling in with the gait
Of one who could easily
Break down the walls
Of the fortress round my heart
And then the moment came to pass
That I sat next to you
And rested my head on your shoulder!!

Note:
1. Tibet Nomachi Nomads in Nagchu - photo courtesy - Google images - anjalidsouza.blogspot.com
2. Tuareg Nomads with Camels in Sand Dunes of Sahara Desert, Arakou - photo courtesy - Google images - art-posters-prints.posteravatar.com
3. Otterly adorable - photo courtesy - Google images

Anthems & Growing Up

2011-03-15T07:53:00.000-07:00

“The years teach much which the days never knew.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have never really gone with the anthem, “18 till die”. More the one moment in time or its my life kinda girl. Greatest love of all by Whitney Houston inspires me.....The Top Gun Anthem is my all time favourite. Exhilarating!

To think of being stuck at 18 when the cells continue to divide and grow and commit hara-kiri on a continuous basis is akin to being stagnant for me. So never mind if one follows this up with the Oh! I meant in my heart or in my mind or whatever (and yeah some unprintable stuff I have heard about some libidos), 18 till I die to me suggests being in a limbo, being stationary, being in the same place, time, et al. Too much of a free spirit and as wild as they come, you may as well kill me. I am high on life and greedy too. Because, no matter what one may say it is in growth that one gains not just weight but wisdom too and eventually one hopes for enlightenment.

A wise woman once said, At 20, you are worried about what people think, at 40 you don’t care and at 60, you realize that no one was looking in the first place. Lucky me, I was 18 when these gems were shared with me.

And then of course, my wise old man always said, you have only one life. Live it. Experience it. Only word of caution, never hurt another. Years later, explanation given to this by my Baba was very simple, you don’t want to tie yourself up in karmic time zones. For you will have to do that to make up. It is tough to get out of the life and death cycle if one is not careful. I reckoned, it was all up to me, folks.

So my bucket list began quite early and there are checks against some and I keep adding some. Save for the time I fell in love with the man I consider my “my one true love” and proposed to him only to be turned down, I have never really mulled on stuff and dwelled on failures much. On hindsight it was a good thing to be nursing a broken heart rather than be saddled with someone who does not want you. Or to be privy to the farts and warts of one’s muse and trust me dearies, even the hottest of them will have those.

Also the need for the person could lead to the understanding of the nature of life and love and beyond it to the Realization of self. Distance makes the heart grow fonder. Imagine this in eternal time and juxtapose this with the attachment and moksha theory. Attachment = No moksha and No attachment = moksha. Simple formula that.....

So attach myself is what I do in the hope of an eternal love that is mine and mine alone. Moksha be damned. Yet enlightenment is what I seek. And so I live life out. And to its fullest. Not as a 18 year old in heart, mind or whatever, but with a song on my lips sung, like only a 40 year old Barbara or Whitney or Celine can belt out. Recall Connie Frances who did not fall for an excuse and belted it out to the man straight with the “Lipstick on your collar, told a tale on you”?

Well, I have gotten to a stage where I have no time or patience for crap. Especially when you have a brat at home to deal with. Try stepping into the washroom and just when you have fixed the bolt in place, you have the three year old banging on the door with the query, "Mommy what are you doing in there? When will you come out?". Now if there is anything that needs you to be grown up in real terms, this is it. Helps if you have a fine sense of humour in place and telling her you are flushing the bogeyman down the pot.

“Life is calling. Where are you?”, lines that go abuzz every morning and get me to move it. Better to walk towards eternal peace rather than get stuck in a time warp. And yes Denzel Washington, still manages to take my breath away! “What’s love got to do with it?”, you may well ask. Go figure.

The past year has been one of reunions and it was, “Soup for the Soul”, like no other. Took me to another time and place wherein I was relatively unfettered. But was quickly reminded of the facebook status of my friend, JJC (John Jacob Cherian) which went, “Note to self: Just because you are meeting your college mates after a long time, doesn’t mean you are 18!”

Having said that, I agree with Jim Fiebig – “Age does not diminish the extreme disappointment of having a scoop of ice cream fall from the cone!”

Abyss

2011-02-26T06:37:00.001-08:00

The life breath
Ticks away
Waiting patiently
In the abyss
Of time

Is it aware
It will float
Into eternity
When the words
Are whispered
Into the
Universe

[Note: Image courtesy Google Images -
Christ of the Abyss
tripadvisor.com]

Hearts & Knives

2011-02-19T05:39:00.000-08:00

Knifing my heart,
You have fine tuned it
Into a perfect art.

Is it as easy as it seems?
You know I have nothing,
If I don't have you....
What made me give you
The Power,
To break down my walls
I will never know

You are the only one,
I ever really made
The connection with.
It's a love,
That's been through lifetimes
And will be into eternity!
But why is it that
Only I feel so?

How much longer,
Will I have to wait
For you to come by
And mend the wounds, caused
By your knife?!

[Image Courtesy: Google
Website: bibleprophecyupdate.com
& Road to Eternity from kevinalfredstrom.com]

A Buddha Lesson For Me

2010-12-28T08:20:00.000-08:00

I think I am turning into a borderline Facebook addict. Well, it’s just me. Sitting on the fence is an old habit. Can be pushed either way, but will take my sweet Mother Mary time and thankfully I am not yet a total addict. Anyway, I seem to find a lot of gems on the networking site and this is one such. Thanks to friends and acquaintances I am able to share words of wisdom. This is a beautiful story and really hits the home run especially for an impulsive person like me. Lucky me, I have my own Buddhas in my life who keep me grounded and calm.

Once Buddha was travelling with a few of his followers. While they were passing a lake, Buddha told one of his disciples, "I am thirsty. Do get me some water from the lake."

The disciple walked up to the lake. At that moment, a bullock cart started crossing through the lake. As a result, the water became very muddy and turbid. The disciple thought, "How can I give this muddy water to Buddha to drink?"

So he came back and told Buddha, "The water in there is very muddy. I don't think it is fit to drink."

After about half an hour, again Buddha asked the same disciple to go back to the lake.

The disciple went back, and found that the water was still muddy. He returned and informed Buddha about the same.

After sometime, again Buddha asked the same disciple to go back.

This time, the disciple found the mud had settled down, and the water was clean and clear. So he collected some water in a pot and brought it to Buddha.

Buddha looked at the water, and then he looked up at the disciple and said," See what you did to make the water clean. You let it be, and the mud settled down on its own -- and you have clear water.

Your mind is like that too ! When it is disturbed, just let it be. Give it a little time. It will settle down on its own. You don't have to put in any effort to calm it down. It will happen. It is effortless." Having 'Peace of Mind' is not a strenuous job; it is an effortless process!

Picture Courtesy: Google images (600 × 446 - Budha Painting - Budha Fine Art Print. Budha Painting by Pc fineartamerica.com)

Children Have Rules Too....For Us

2010-12-15T03:04:00.000-08:00

It was the Parent Teacher Meeting at Tamanna’s school. When she turned two and a half, she followed big sister Aarzoo into the portals of Little Feat Montessori. Insha-Allah, she should be there till it is time for her to move to Grade I.

I met her Teacher, Ms. Paromita, who has nothing but praise for her wards. And when one has had both sisters under one’s wing as a teacher, comparisons are bound to arise, much as Ms. Paromita hates it. Heretofore, she always maintained that the two girls were very different in temperament and attitude. But this time, her report was entirely the opposite.

“Tamanna, is so like Aarzoo!! It’s not funny,” she exclaimed. “Remember, how Aarzoo used to be such a perfectionist and had to cross her t’s and dot her i’s?” I nodded, recollecting the times when I had gone to fetch Aarzoo from school and was made to wait because she had not completed her work to her satisfaction and insisted on doing so.

“Tamanna is just the same. I am amazed,” said Ms. Paromita.

“Well, don’t blame me”, I replied. “It’s their Bengali genes that are responsible. They get it from their father. Next time Parag is in town, I will send him to school and you can give him a piece of your mind”.

“I am guilty of that too”, said Ms. Paromita, who is a Bengali herself, laughing.

We had a good laugh.

“I am very laid back, I assure you,” I said and was pleasantly surprised at the work that the brat had churned out that term. Owe it big time to her teacher and her school.

Waiting to meet Ms. Munira Akhtar, the Principal, I came across this eye-opener message on the notice board.

Unspoken Words From The Heart Of A Child

My hands are small; please don’t expect perfection whenever I make a bed, draw a picture or throw a ball
My legs are short; please slow down so that I can keep up with you

My eyes have not seen the world as yours have; please let me explore safely. Don’t restrict me unnecessarily.

Housework will always be there. I am only little for a short time, please take time to explain things to me about this wonderful world and do so willingly.

My feelings are tender; please be sensitive to my needs. Don’t nag me all day long. (You wouldn’t want to be nagged for your inquisitiveness – would you?) Treat me as you would like to be treated

I am a special gift from God; please treasure me as God intended you to do, holding me accountable for my actions, giving me guideline to live by and disciplining me in a loving manner.

I need your encouragement to grow. Please go easy on the criticism; remember you can criticize the things I do, without criticizing me

Please give me the freedom to make decisions concerning myself. Permit me to fail, so that I can learn from my mistakes. Then someday I will be prepared to make the kinds of decisions that life requires of me.

Please don’t do things over for me. Somehow that makes me feel that my efforts didn’t quite measure up to your expectations. I know it’s hard but please don’t try to compare me to my brother or sister.

I realized then how important it was to keep going back to school. Those walls are teachers of the immortal kind!

Mommy's Boyfriend

2010-12-01T22:07:00.000-08:00

It was evening and I was ready to go over to Kavita’s for a hot cup of chai and some chill out time. And loads of laughter of course. Inevitable when two mad hatters catch up, considering a full 48 hours had gone by without meeting up.

I go upto Devamma, my angel housekeeper, to tell her of my plans and this is how the scripts played out eventually. Enjoy

Me (tongue firmly in cheek): Devamma, today I am not going to meet my boyfriend but am going to call on my girlfriend instead.

Devamma (Giggling away and blushing): How many chappatis should I make? And (pointing to the casseroles) is this enough or do you want me to cook something else?

Me: Hmmm.....this is enough. Make about 16 chappatis. And come early tomorrow.

Devamma (laughing): You have a boyfriend??!! Who is he? What is his name?

Me (trying hard to keep from laughing): Well I am not about to tell you. What if you two meet and he falls for you and ditches me!!

Devamma (blushing beet): Haiyoooooo!!! What are you saying?!!

Me: But of course Devamma. Look at you. You are very pretty.

Devamma: You are mad. You have lost it completely. Please go and let me get on with my work.

(Both of us burst out laughing)

A little voice rises with insistence and we turn around to see Tamanna (my three year old) standing there

Tamanna(like a stuck record): Mummy, mummy, mummy, mummy

Me (irritably): What is it, Tamanna? I have to go now.

Tamanna: Mummy, Mummies don’t have boyfriends!!

Silence into what sistah girl Tulsi would term a “bowtie” moment.......before we are in splits again

P.S: Ranjit Menon, this is for you. You urged me to write again. And, the little critter needs to know Mommies can have boyfriends too, no matter that the definition has to be tweaked around a bit!! Big hug......of the grizzly kind.

The Romance of Want

2010-08-26T10:33:00.000-07:00

Population explosion played a very significant role in my life too. The genesis of this lies in the fact that my parents (read Father), decided on only one kid, as their solution to the burgeoning population!! But I digress.....

The summer of ’89 was a kind of turning point in my life. I turned 18 in July, that year. I am aware that this age is special for most of us, but to me it marked the planting of a seed of want that was to remain and grow within. It continues to do so, to this day. I prayed and prayed and prayed for my heart’s desire for atleast ten years after. And yes it hurts like “Billy O”!!

I still send petitions in all directions now and then. But the Power that is, does not seem to hear. And I blame it on the Homo sapiens that have taken over the planet. With the numbers running into billions, the Power is bound to get stressed out and goof up a little. “A little!!” you may exclaim given the botched up lives a whole lot of our brethren lead.

Maybe, the Power did not plan for that many of them. Or maybe, somewhere along the way, the Power forgot to pull out the “Rabbity DNA” and is now paying the price for over production. Everything is part of the larger PLAN!! It has been scripted and planned to the littlest detail, so says vox populi. Wonder if the person who made the plan, if there is such a person, should have been put in charge in the first place. I mean if this person is the CEO of the Universe, I am sure there is a support staff; administrative in function at the very least. As I see it, the war between the CEO and the erstwhile Number 2, who according to a handful of so called wise men claiming to be in the know, resides in the netherworld, is reaching holocaust proportions. (For each of you who confuse netherworld with Netherlands, I convey due apologies to my Dutch brethren. Especially Marlen, Guus, Sandra, Anouke, Hanna, Evelyne......).

Coming back to what I was saying, in order to stem the damage that the war is causing the favourite creation, Planet Earth, head honcho CEO is getting bogged down and is receiving no quality support from the celestial staff. The less said about those appointed to take care of matters on Earth, the better. Be that as it may, I got the bite out and two of my best friends got what I prayed for. Bummer!! That’s the script that the Universe handed out to me.

Or maybe that is the power of prayer. I prayed so hard and for so long, that the best that I wanted went to, not one but two wonderful women. Now this is where the above mentioned population explosion comes into effect. Even answers to prayers have to be apportioned if possible. Maximum utilization of available resources and all that jazz. Who cares if the answers to those fervent words, were given to those who had not asked in the first place? You just got to get those piles of petitions off the desk!!

However, that does not stop me from wishing, wondering and getting all misty eyed. As pointed out earlier, this is another case of negligence in circuitry by the Supreme Planner. This is what I call, the “Romance of want”. Like all romances, it needs a lot of work. It gnaws and aches from within. But that’s the baby I am left holding.

Laugh out loud folks.

Baby to Man

2010-07-01T06:21:00.001-07:00

29th June, saw me at my emotional best (or worst). The heart surged like never before and it was tough to keep the tears in check. It's been a long journey and it does seem like I am stuck in a time warp.....Manoj, my oldest child, a football fanatic and a living, breathing, walking, talking encyclopedia on the Beatles, turned 21. I guess it is a good training ground for the time when my girls get into this phase of transition......but for now, I am amazed at the level of my vulnerability and the roller coaster ride I am having with my emotions. Wrote this for him hoping to soothe myself!!

The years,
They slowly crept by
Day after day
Season after season
The highs and lows
Of the tides
That saw the Moon
Turning from new to full
And full to new
The cycle of life
And in time, you turned
From Baby to Man

Born not of my womb
But my heart
Yet
You were the first
Hence will always
Hold that special place
It was not you
That made me prove
My fecundity
To the world
You nursed not
Of my breasts
So how do I explain
The enslavement
That snatching away of freedom
That took place
The instant
The very instant
You wrapped
Your chubby little hands
Around me
The little beads of sweat
That formed on your upper lip
Wet my neck
And your innocent little breaths
Oh so softly
Brushed its nape

Funny though
That I who cherished
My liberty
Did not complain
Alas,
I am aware that
Like most loved ones
I gave you the right
To hurt me
In more ways than one
Things will not be the same
The passing moments have
Wiped away some
That I took for granted
And I wish in vain
That time stood still

But you are twenty one
At the threshold of life
Waiting to unlock your potential
And change is here to stay
As you go forth
Know that I will
Always cherish the times
I had with you
Hope there will be a gazillion more
You will always have
My love, prayers and blessings

Even though you may not need it
If ever such a time comes
I will be there
To hold your hand and walk
Through the tough times
With you
Just my way
Of thanking the Universe
And your parents
For weaving your life
With mine
And making you
An inextricable part
Of me.....

Moms - Past, Present & Future

2010-06-16T09:27:00.000-07:00

Minal, my wonderful and gorgeous, sister-in-law sent me this piece a few years ago. It makes a beautiful and emotional read, so I suggest you keep those tissues handy. I had stored it in my Inbox and stumbled upon it recently.

My friend and Godmother to my daughters, Elizabeth once told me about these lines that she had read which went

“God could not be everywhere
So He made Mothers”

Well I prayed hard for siblings and got two sets of parents instead!! So either God is dyslexic or I am the Numero Uno Problem Child that needs the supervision of not one but two MOMS!!! Mummy is what I call my birth Mom and Amma is my heart Mom. They can nag me up a creek but.......... Anyway I dedicate this piece to the two of them.

To me becoming a Mom is not just about bringing forth from one’s womb. I was a Mom long before I gave birth.... The instinct laid its foundation the day I carried new born Lakshmi on my lap and was strengthened with the arrival of Tulsi. She was barely a month old when I lay down beside her and felt the stirrings within. And the day the soft breath of a little boy, who clambered up my lap, brushed the nape of my neck, I became a Mom.....just like that!! His little chocolate arms went round and clung to me. A strong, seminal, protective and nurturing instinct overtook me and there was an instant connection....I was never the same, life was not the same......

Enough of my rambling, read this......and God Bless the Author.....

FOR ALL MOMS (PRESENT, PAST OR POSSIBLY FUTURE) .

We are sitting at lunch when my daughter casually mentions that she and her husband are thinking of starting a family." "We're taking a survey," she says, half-joking. "Do you think I should have a baby?"

"It will change your life," I say, carefully keeping my tone neutral. "I know," she says, "no more sleeping in on weekends, no more spontaneous vacations...."

But that is not what I meant at all. I look at my daughter, trying to decide what to tell her. I want her to know what she will never learn in childbirth classes. I want to tell her that the physical wounds of child bearing will heal, but that becoming a mother will leave her with an emotional wound so raw that she will forever be vulnerable.

I consider warning her that she will never again read a newspaper without asking "What if that had been MY child?" That every plane crash, every house fire will haunt her. That when she sees pictures of starving children, she will wonder if anything could be worse than watching your child die. I look at her carefully manicured nails and stylish suit and think that no matter how sophisticated she is,
becoming a mother will reduce her to the primitive level of a bear protecting her cub. That an urgent call of "Mom!" will cause her to drop a souffle or her best crystal without a moment's hesitation.

I feel I should warn her that no matter how many years she has invested in her career, she will be professionally derailed by motherhood. She might arrange for childcare, but one day she will be going into an important business meeting and she will think of her baby's sweet smell. She will have to use every ounce of her discipline to keep from running home, just to make sure her baby is all right.

I want my daughter to know that everyday decisions will no longer be routine. That a five year old boy's desire to go to the men's room rather than the women's at McDonald's will become a major dilemma. That right there, in the midst of clattering trays and screaming children, issues of independence and gender identity will be weighed against the prospect that a child molester may be lurking in that restroom.

However decisive she may be at the office, she will second-guess herself constantly as a mother. Looking at my attractive daughter, I want to assure her that eventually she will shed the pounds of pregnancy, but she will never feel the same about herself. That her life, now so important, will be of less value to her once she has a child. That she would give it up in a moment to save her offspring, but will also begin to hope for more years -- not to accomplish her own dreams, but to watch her child accomplish theirs. I want her to know that a caesarean scar or shiny stretch marks will become badges of honour. My daughter's relationship with her husband will change, but not in the way she thinks. I wish she could understand how much more you can love a man who is careful to powder the baby or who never hesitates to play with his child. I think she should know that she will fall in love with him again for reasons she would now find very unromantic.

I wish my daughter could sense the bond she will feel with women throughout history who have tried to stop war, prejudice and drunk driving. I hope she will understand why I can think rationally about most issues, but become temporarily insane when I discuss the threat of nuclear war to my children's future.

I want to describe to my daughter the exhilaration of seeing your child learn to ride a bike. I want to capture for her the belly laugh of a baby who is touching the soft fur of a dog or a cat for the first time. I want her to taste the joy that is so real, it actually hurts.

My daughter's quizzical look makes me realize that tears have formed in my eyes. "You'll never regret it," I finally say. Then I reach across the table, squeeze my daughter's hand and offer a silent prayer for her, and for me, and for all of the mere mortal women who stumble their way into this most wonderful of callings. This blessed gift from God . . .that of being a Mother.

Please share this with a Mom that you know or a future Mom you know.

- Author Unknown

Happy Birthday, Mommy!!

2010-06-14T09:32:00.000-07:00

Ma,
We share a rather tempestuous relationship
You and I.
I seem to do no right
And we hit the rough notes
Often enough
But this I know
That no matter what
You have always been there

In private
You berate me often enough
I will be hitting forty
A couple of birthdays down
But it takes just a glance
From you
To send me packing to four!!

Yet
There could not have been
A more ferocious
Tigress with a cub
Or a Grizzly with hers
It has not been easy for you
Raising me
But you have stood by me
Rock solid
No matter what

It was tough
Facing the odds
That were stacked
Against you
You bore all the pain
Sacrifice came easy to you
For my sake.....

Saying I don’t
Want to be like you
Is perhaps nothing
Just a reflection
Of my own inadequacies
And the insecurity that gnaws
Telling me that I cannot be
Half the mother you were
And continue to be

Love you Ma,
Wish you a very
Happy Birthday

Woman

2010-06-11T07:48:00.000-07:00

Woman,
Mother, Sweetheart,
Lover, mistress, wife, pawn
Used, abused
Scarred, tortured
Mentally, physically
The soul destroyed
Dreams and aspirations
Blown apart
Doomed to a life
Of subservience

She was violated
Battered, bruised
Broken in spirit and body
Yet it was trivialized
But when it dawned that
A torn piece
Of tissue
Was a matter of honour
She was killed!!

Freedom

2010-06-08T07:43:00.001-07:00

Someday, somewhere
In not too distant a future
I shall be enslaved
Shackled and bound
By the diktat
Of the regime
I who thought
That I shall always soar high!!

Is this hallucination?
Or a dream?
For am I not
Fettered already?
Makes me wonder
Was I ever free?
Or, is freedom
A mirage?!!

Resolutions Again

2009-12-31T09:33:00.000-08:00

Old habits die hard and there are certain lessons one never learns. Or perhaps one does not wish to. After all they are somehow connected to the matters of the heart. Anyways, I am back a year later in my reindeer print PJs and ready to pen down my resolutions for the New Year. Last year's resolution did not go down the drain....still a work in progress I assure myself.

2009 is on its last legs and 2010 is waiting in the wings. As I sit and write, I can hear the revelry outside. The DJ at the Woodrose Club has really pumped up the volume and I can hear the popular Hindi film ditties that are traversing the air waves. Earlier in the evening I was told that by the time he is through, the dance floor would break. That was his famed notoriety!!

The house is quiet and almost like an empty shell. Every member of my large family is away in some other city except for the daughters. My babies are asleep and so is my Aunt (dear Kusum Bojawa) who is visiting along with Boogie her little old Dog. I tried to get drunk and fixed myself a stiff one but hey it was a failed attempt. So here I wait for the clock to strike the midnight hour. Will then light the lamp, say a little prayer and head for my babies under the covers. The toddler's snore and warm breath is very calming. When she grows up I must tell Tamanna that it was she who breathed the lullabies to me. And Aarzoo's long limbs come out of nowhere and land on me. She has healing hands that one....its been a blessed decade with the arrival of the girls.

So it is about time I took a good hard look at the life that I have lived so far. And in doing so have decided that "Shut up and Listen" is going to be my New Year resolution. So here's to a new me......

HAPPY NEW YEAR WORLD.............

Tamanna's Initiation

2009-11-14T08:18:00.000-08:00

Tamanna, turned two and a half in October this year. Perfect timing to start school and Little Feat Montessori was the answer for her as it was for Aarzoo when we moved to Bangalore in 2006. Perfect timing also because late September this year had India celebrating Dusshera, a ten day festival, which culminates in Vijayadashami.

Vijayadashami, is the day when most children are initiated into the world of learning. In the southern states of India, a big deal is made of it with the toddlers taken to the temples and carted off to scholars and others who the parents decide are the ideal candidates to guide their precious little ones at the start of this long journey. Though I could describe myself as agnostic, there are certain specific philosophies and rituals that I put my weight behind. The initiation of toddlers on Vijayadashami is a very Hindu practice. But my mother, a practicing Catholic, tells me that this has become the norm amongst the Muslims and Christians in Kerala with the little ones being taken to their respective places of worship.

For those in school or college, across India, this festival is a very special time and looked forward to with great earnestness and fervour. For a great many of these kids, it is not because of any high special purpose or spiritual understanding. It is an escape from the drudgery they are subjected to for the major part of the year. This is the only time that parents who are otherwise nagging the kids to “study, study, study”, voluntarily ask them not to touch their books. On the 8th day of the festival, known as Ashtami, books and other tools or instruments of academic interest, are placed before Saraswati, the Goddess of learning and worshipped. A lamp is lit and many a prayer sent with fervent requests to help them get through the academic year without any major skirmishes with red marks in Progress Report, which arrives with clock work precision at the end of the term. Though they look quite cute in aesthetic terms on the said Report, the downside is that one had to deal with the red faced folks at home and teachers at school! These books are moved from the altar on the 10th day after elaborate prayers. Despite the fact that there was no nagging or bullying to study from my parents, I adopted this ritual when we moved to Madras (now Chennai) and I saw my friends, Sridhar and Vijayshree, who lived next door, practice it. Of course, my way of practicing it was minus all the rituals and the paraphernalia. But the prayers were very heartfelt and the kind where I meant every word to propitiate the Goddess of Learning!

My oldest, Manoj, is in his final year of undergraduate college. My fervent prayer (among other requests put forth) this year to her, was that he carry on in academics for a few years more before bidding "Good Bye” to the academic world. And the baby of the family has just stepped into the fascinating world of stories and rituals and learning. As for me, I have begun a journey of whys, whats, wheres, hows, buts, ifs…..all over again. With B.T.Venkatesh, one of the finest human beings in our little world today, as the first Guru having helped her take the first step, Tamanna has a lot of promises to fulfil and miles to go before she sleeps. I am sure Baba, who initiated Aarzoo, must be sitting beside Saraswati and nodding his head in approval.

Bend it like Alex P.Thazhamon

2009-11-01T02:34:00.000-08:00

The son will tell you that no conversation on football goes anywhere without fat Momma mentioning Alex P.Thazhamon. Alex was my classmate during the last three years of school and captain of the school football team, Kendriya Vidyalaya - Port Trust. And if memory serves me right, he also played with the big guns on the Cochin Port Trust Football team. A champion and an athlete to the core he was also very aggressive in any sport that he played; and he played to win. This made him quite a hero in school, not to mention the couple of hundred thousand crushes and broken hearts that he was the root cause of.

But all those who knew us will tell you that Alex and I had an unreasonable mutual hate society going. I don’t know what Alex’s reasons were. But after all these years, I finally figured out the “why” from my end. For me it was the fact that Mom considered him a good boy. A good sportsman and footballer and the blah, blah, blah!! Talk about irony. Of all the guys in my class, Mom liked the guy who picked on me for no reason that I could fathom! And when you are sixteen that is just not done. It was like mutiny at home! At some seminal level I probably felt that Mom wished that he was her son instead of me being the daughter. Totally, irrational and unjustified, I know. But that my friend is the whole truth. The days when Mom and I had the most turbulent times in our relationship, were the times when this feeling assumed monstrous proportions!!

Historically the mother-daughter relationship has always been one bumpy ride. All hell can break loose when they do not see eye to eye. And despite the few breaks in between, the tradition continues from generation to generation in most homes. There is always some amount of bickering. But this really took the cake for me. Could she not see that he was mean to me? He was constantly teasing me and making me miserable. Did the reports of this rift not mean anything to her? Any other girl in my place would probably have given up school, cried buckets and got daddy dearest to meet the Principal. Highly dramatic I know but for sure it is true. It was thick skinned me who behaved as if it was water off a duck’s back and stood my ground.

Coming back to Mom who heaped praises on Alex. Could she not have picked K.J.Antony who by far was the most even tempered guy? With his cute dimples and an ever smiling face, he was a church goer to boot. In all the three years that we studied under that asbestos roof, KJ lost his cool only once. It took every one in class by surprise and caused a major stir. I still remember that murderous look on his face and still find it hard to believe that it was dear good-humoured KJ.

That Deep Pande was IIT material and the favourite of the parent’s collective of the school was a given. So no issues there for lesser mortals like me. I knew my place under the academic sun. References to him were made from time to time by the old lady but they did not give rise to bile. Or thoughts of murder for that matter!!

I could list the entire class here. But will save it for another story. Writing all this down has been quite cathartic. I am glad I lived through it all and it is out of the way.

Yet, despite all that negativity, I really cared for Alex as I did for the others in my class. I rooted for him, cried myself hoarse and cheered him on when he was on the field. As he did for me. Despite all that anger and resentment, I know he watched out for me and wished me well. Go ahead, call me biased or whatever, I still think he is leagues ahead of the current crop of footballers, anywhere in the world!

And it looks like this sport and memories of those times gone by will have me in a bind for kingdom come. My son is a crazy football fanatic and a Chelsea supporter. It goes without saying that he has turned me into one too. My older daughter plays football in school. The toddler, all of two and a half, too seems to have the knack for it, along with the style and the chutzpah of my champion friend!! The son is a major influence on the girls and the three of them spend a considerable amount of time kicking a ball around. For all you know my girls are probably going to do a “Bend it like Beckham” on me!!

Baby P - A Tribute

2009-10-25T08:30:00.000-07:00

The time has come
The womb has begun to spew vitriol
And messes with the mind
So the end is near
That's right Humans
The end is near
There is no way out

Words so harsh
They sear the soul
Mince the gut
Wince is all one can do

Where has the love gone
That of maternal origins
Which was meant to nurture
But now all askew

The boy named It
Was the first story, I guess
To be documented
Violence inflicted on the innocent

Videos circulate in cyber space
About Baby P
Wounded, battered and bruised
The concept of right and wrong
Not even an idea within
The life that had just begun it journey
But a life's journey cut short

The hands that were meant
To nurture, turned murderous
Assaulted,
Caused unbearable pain and suffering
A mother's compliant silence
A father's brutality
And a baby who turned one
Passes on

And we go all teary eyed and say
He is far safer and happier
Where he is now

Rest in peace
Baby P
Rest in Peace!!

-------------------------------------------------

For more details on this story, please check the following link

http://media.causes.com/564357?p_id=12614341

Psalms from my Bible

2009-10-23T10:04:00.000-07:00

This forward has probably gone round the world and still continues its jet setting as I write. The originator of this was a person of Indian origin, our very own desi Jitendra Singh. He has no idea of who I am, but if I were to draw parallels from the family tree then I would say that he is a friend four times removed; that is to say he is a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend!! Phew……but thanks a ton Jitendra for taking the effort.

Anyway, lucky to have him in the pyramid of friends because I have been able to read through some lines which are profound in their very simplicity.

ANNA QUINDLEN

Anna Quindlen was a first rate New York Times reporter who left at her prime to pursue her life as a writer. A few years ago she was invited to speak at the commencement at Villanova University. But given her views on abortion, some people threatened to demonstrate against her. She declined to speak, since she thought the students did not deserve protest demonstrations for their graduation ceremony. But when some students wrote her for the text of the speech, she did e-mail it out and it became an internet legend of sorts.

THE COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS

"It's a great honor for me to be the third member of my family to receive an honorary doctorate from this great university. It's an honor to follow my great-uncle Jim, who was a gifted physician, and my Uncle Jack, who is a remarkable businessman. Both of them could have told you something important about their professions, about medicine or commerce. I have no specialized field of interest or expertise, which puts me at a disadvantage, talking to you today.

I'm a novelist. My work is human nature. Real life is all I know. Don't ever confuse the two, your life and your work. The second is only part of the first. Don't ever forget what a friend once wrote Senator Paul Tsongas when the senator decided not to run for reelection because he'd been diagnosed with cancer: "No man ever said on his deathbed I wish I had spent more time in the office." Don't ever forget the words my father sent me on a postcard last year: "If you win the rat race, you're still a rat." Or what John Lennon wrote before he was gunned down in the driveway of the Dakota: "Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans."

You walk out of here this afternoon with only one thing that no one else has. There will be hundreds of people out there with your same degree; there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you will be the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk, or your life on a bus, or in a car, or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account, but your soul.

People don't talk about the soul very much anymore. It's so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is a cold comfort on a winter night, or when you're sad, or broke, or lonely, or when you've gotten back the test results and they're not so good.

Here is my resume:

• I am a good mother to three children. I have tried never to let my profession stand in the way of being a good parent. I no longer consider myself the center of the universe. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh.
• I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows mean what they say. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh.
• I am a good friend to my friends, and they to me. Without them, there would be nothing to say to you today, because I would be a cardboard cutout. But I call them on the phone, and I meet them for lunch. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh.

I would be rotten, or at best mediocre at my job, if those other things were not true. You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work is all you are.

So here's what I wanted to tell you today: get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger house. Do you think you'd care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in your breast?

Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze over Seaside Heights, a life in which you stop and watch how a red tailed hawk circles over the water gap or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a Cheerio with her thumb and first finger.

Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Each time you look at your diploma, remember that you are still a student, learning how to best treasure your connection to others. Pick up the phone. Send an E-mail. Write a letter. Kiss your Mom. Hug your Dad.

Get a life in which you are generous. And realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no business taking it for granted. It is so easy to waste our lives: our days, our hours, our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the color of our kids eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again.

It is so easy to exist instead of live. I learned to live many years ago. Something really, really bad happened to me, something that changed my life in ways that, if I had my druthers, it would never have been changed at all. And what I learned from it is what, today, seems to be the hardest lesson of all. I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get.

I learned to look at all the good in the world and to try to give some of it back because I believed in it completely and utterly. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had learned. By telling them this:

Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby's ear. Read in the backyard with the sun on your face. Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness because if you do you will live it with joy and passion as it ought to be lived.

Well, you can learn all those things, out there, if you get a real life, a full life, a professional life, yes, but another life, too, a life of love and laughs and a connection to other human beings. Just keep your eyes and ears open. Here you could learn in the classroom. There the classroom is everywhere. The exam comes at the very end. No man ever said on his deathbed I wish I had spent more time at the office.

I found one of my best teachers on the boardwalk at Coney Island maybe 15 years ago. It was December, and I was doing a story about how the homeless survive in the winter months. He and I sat on the edge of the wooden supports, dangling our feet over the side, and he told me about his schedule, panhandling the boulevard when the summer crowds were gone, sleeping in a church when the temperature went below freezing, hiding from the police amidst the Tilt a Whirl and the Cyclone and some of the other seasonal rides. But he told me that most of the time he stayed on the boardwalk, facing the water, just the way we were sitting now even when it got cold and he had to wear his newspapers after he read them. And I asked him why. Why didn't he go to one of the shelters? Why didn't
he check himself into the hospital for detox? And he just stared out at the ocean and said, "Look at the view, young lady. Look at the view."

And every day, in some little way, I try to do what he said. I try to look at the view. And that's the last thing I have to tell you today, words of wisdom from a man with not a dime in his pocket, no place to go, nowhere to be. Look at the view. You'll never be disappointed."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I find a lot of people are making it easier for me by handing me adequate props for use in my role as a mother. And also as mentor, teacher and friend. Thanks to friends even a hundred times removed, I am able to collect the Psalms for my own personal little Bible!! Take for example the video of Kate Bornstein speaking at the 40th reunion of the Class of 69, at Brown University. It was posted by Anita Mathew, friend (and co-actor from The Roosters) on her profile on a social networking site and I copied it onto my profile as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcKLBi00EHE

Hope someday my children would care enough to read from my Bible of Life as well!!

A Footballer and A Legend

2009-10-20T23:32:00.000-07:00

Danny Varghese was my junior in school; by three to four years, I think. I went to quite a few schools thanks to my old man and so have to specifically mention that school in this instance refers to KV Port Trust, Cochin. I remember Danny as a footballer and a cute guy; very cute with a curly mop on his head. If memory serves me right, he played on the school team as well.

Danny was more interested in football than in the Chemistry classes and therefore preferred the hospitality industry over pharmaceuticals. I don’t quite know how the two or rather three add up. But that is his story. He quit the B.Pharm course he enrolled in and opted for a Bachelor’s Degree in Hotel Management. He started his career as a Restaurateur, which unfortunately was cut short by a major accident. Not to let these “little incidents” deter him, the champ set up a medical transcription firm. He invited me to his wedding, which I could not attend. Unfortunate for me.

I remember him as a delightful young boy with an ever smiling disposition. A few years ago he sent me this beautiful story with an awe inspiring lesson.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ONE PARAGRAPH THAT EXPLAINS LIFE

Arthur Ashe, the legendary Wimbledon player was dying of AIDS which he got due to infected blood he received during a heart surgery in 1983. From world over, he received letters from his fans, one of which conveyed: "Why does GOD have to select you for such a bad disease"?

To this Arthur Ashe replied: The world over -- 5 million children start playing tennis, 50 thousand learn to play tennis, 5 thousand learn professional tennis, 50,000 come to the circuit, 5000 reach the grand slam, 50 reach Wimbledon , 4 to semi final, 2 to the finals, When I was holding a cup I never asked GOD "Why me?". And today in pain I should not be asking GOD "Why me?"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

I came upon it a couple of days ago while going through my old mails. I guess it says a lot about Dan’s outlook to life as it did of the great legend Arthur Ashe. So this is my tribute to you Dan, for overcoming the odds and beating them down.

And yes I try to remember this little message you sent me.

Happiness keeps you Sweet,
Trials keep you Strong,
Sorrow keeps you Human,
Failure keeps you Humble,
Success keeps you Glowing,
But only God keeps you Going.....

Keep Going.....

Cheers to you Danny Varghese.

I finally figured why I don’t go all ga-ga over the so called heroes. It’s because I went to school (and college) with them. And now there are heroes in my life that I have the good fortune to be working with. People who put their lives on the line for what they believe in.

Erma Bombeck

2009-10-19T21:36:00.000-07:00

Erma Louise Bombeck – Rest in Peace. I am a huge fan. Do not possess the same felicity and verve with words that you did, but this is my tribute to you.

She had me well and truly hooked, booked and cooked from the time I read her book – “Motherhood – the World’s Second Oldest Profession”. Arguments about the veracity of the title abound; considering that one could easily claim Motherhood as being almost as old as life itself. But hey, also considering that the title of the Oldest Profession had already been taken or rather thrust upon a certain group, we would not want to get into silly little technicalities now, would we?

Anyway, I have been a huge fan of her writing. I confess that for a short fuse like me, it has been her writing that has kept me from bursting arteries and veins and what have you in my role as “Mommy”!! I have been able to maintain a sense of humour in some of the most trying situations with the kids, thanks to those words she cared to pen down. There has been many a moment that hairbrush did not connect to bottoms, when it should have and my brood may want to confer sainthood on her. They owe it to her that I was able to see “funny side up”.

“At Wit’s End” is a book of hers that I am keen to read. The irony is that I have it in my personal collection but have never been able to lay my hands on it simply because it is constantly in circulation!! And yours truly has been stupidly generous enough; not just with urging people to read but giving them the copy as well!

A few years ago, this piece was forwarded to me by a friend. I had not deleted the mail and chanced upon it recently. I realized that I just had to share it. I could not give better advice to my children or to those that I love or to the world at large. As for me, I am trying hard to follow the lessons Erma learnt instead of reinventing the wheel.

IF I HAD MY LIFE TO LIVE OVER - by Erma Bombeck
(Written after she found out she was dying from cancer.)

I would have gone to bed when I was sick instead of pretending the
earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren't there for the day.

I would have burned the pink candle sculpted like a rose before it
melted in storage.

I would have talked less and listened more.

I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was
stained, or the sofa faded.

I would have eaten the popcorn in the 'good' living room and
worried much less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the
fireplace.

I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble
about his youth.

I would have shared more of the responsibility carried by my
husband.

I would have sat on the lawn with my children and not worried about
grass stains.

I would have cried and laughed less while watching television and
more while watching life.

I would never have bought anything just because it was practical,
wouldn't show soil, or was guaranteed to last a lifetime.

Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have
cherished every moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me
was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.

When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, Later,
now go get washed up for dinner."

There would have been more "I love you's." More "I'm sorry's."

But mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every
minute...look at it and really see it ... live it... and never give it
back.

Stop sweating the small stuff.

Don't worry about who doesn't like you, who has more, or who's doing what.
Instead, let's cherish the relationships we have with those who do love us.

Let's think about what God HAS blessed us with.
And what we are doing each day to promote ourselves mentally, physically, emotionally, as well as spiritually.

Life is too short to let it pass you by.
We only have one shot at this and then it's gone.

I hope you all have a blessed day.

We Didn't Start The Fire

2009-10-19T07:37:00.000-07:00

Title Copyright - Billy Joel...

Mathew Jacob was my classmate in College. He would always start the day with a rendition of "We Didn't Start The Fire" replete with drumming the table and head banging and foot stomping. Turned it into some sort of an anthem during my undergrad days. Sat right behind me and hummed even when we had some time between classes and in the breaks. And no, unlike what it sounds there was no romance budding!! He just sat behind me in the most uncomfortable seating arrangements there ever were.

Today I just have to listen to the song and Mathew comes hurtling out of the recesses of memory. With all the accompanying images. Sorry Billy Joel. Mathew made me forget it was you who sang it originally and it was almost the same with that song about the Nile. Sue him on copyright issues....LOL!

And then there comes Anita Iyer...who a while ago did such a brilliant parody that I just had to share her version of the lyrics. Billy I am sure you will approve. True artiste that you are. But of course you will have to appreciate it in the Indian context as well. Anita is a colleague in the Disability Sector and we have never met but are friends on the phone and have some idea of one another thanks to Facebook. And thank you very much Mark Zuchenburg.

Here is Anita's version that was her status message on Facebook. I so loved it that I had to copy it. Have her gracious permission to do so.....

We didn't start the fire...

Obama ko Nobel, Amitabh ko doctorate,
Sharukh Khan - black belt..Rakhi Sawant finds a mate

Akshay Kumar fly in soup...A R Rehman and his troupe
Thackray, Johar, everyone is in the loop...

Saas bahu saw its end, reality sets a trend
little kids - big talk...stop driving us round the bend...

chorus!!

Have a good laugh folks. I am sure you will agree it is indeed very apt.

Dedicated to new friend Anita Iyer for bringing it on and to old pal Mathew Jacob for the ample supply of happy memories. Priceless!!

Right to Education

2009-08-10T09:35:00.000-07:00

For the past week the news channels were full of the Right to Education Bill and the protest marches that were being held at Jantar Mantar in Delhi and in solidarity across cities in the country. I know a good many of the cynics have snorted and cried hoarse that this was motivated and was done for the sake of it. A large number who did not know any better were appalled that there actually were people who would have objections to something as important and as crucial in this country as the Right to Education. I wonder if the reaction would have been the same if the latter had known at the time that the reason was the a good twenty million children in the country found no place, no mention in what was to each citizen a significant and far reaching piece of legislation for every Indian and the future of this great Nation. Children with disabilities. This despite the fact that India had ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and thereby made a commitment not only to its citizens but also to the International Community at large.

Events that unfolded thereafter was nothing short of a miracle. It was unheard of. Unbelievable. I am still in a trance. The naysayers have gone into hiding.....

Be that as it may I share here a piece that truly tells the story of this disappointmment, this crusade that had to be undertaken. The whys and the wherefores..... It appeared in the edit pages of the Indian Express dated 3rd August, 2009. Written by Javed Abidi, the pioneer of the Disability Rights Movement in India.

RIGHT TO EDUCATION BILL

As most people are aware, the Right to Education Bill 2008 is before the Lok Sabha since last Thursday. It is due for debate later today and if passed, the Bill will become an Act, i.e. the law of the land. Rajya Sabha has passed it already.

The entire disability sector and its leadership are strongly opposed to this Bill in its present shape. If it is allowed to be passed by the Lok Sabha later today, it will exclude 30 million children with disabilities from the so - called ‘Right to Education’. It will have a gravely damaging impact on the life and future of these children, who are already excluded from the mainstream.

There are three fundamental flaws in the present Bill:

1. Under definitions, disabled children have been excluded from the definition of children belonging to ‘disadvantaged group’. The term disadvantaged has been classified as owing to social, cultural, economical, geographical, linguistic and gender, but the term disability which was there in the previous draft, right until last year, has been deliberately left out.

2. Similarly, where the term ‘school’ is defined, there obviously is no mention of special schools or other unique infrastructures that are needed by various types of children with disabilities.

3. Under the chapter on Right to Free and Compulsory Education, there is a reference to children ‘suffering’ from disability! But even there, the Ministry of HRD has failed to capture the genuine challenges that disabled children face. Here, the Bill restricts the definition of ‘disability’ to only the Disability Act of 1995. The babus were either unaware or have deliberately neglected the other most important piece of legislation, namely the National Trust Act of 1999. For the average reader, it is important to know that the Disability Act covers only the physical disabilities, for example blindness, deafness, locomotor impairments, etc. Other disabilities, the more difficult ones, namely cerebral palsy, autism, multiple disabilities, etc. are all covered under the National Trust Act.

If the Bill is not corrected at once and God forbid, if it is passed by Lok Sabha later today, it will automatically exclude all these severely and multiply disabled children. I am a physically disabled person. As a child, I started on crutches but soon had to start using the wheelchair. I have seen it all; I have experienced it up close. And inspite of all the difficulties and challenges that I faced as a physically disabled child (and most certainly not, I was not suffering!), let me clearly say it on record that those difficulties are nothing as compared to the challenges faced by a boy with autism or a girl with cerebral palsy or a child with deaf - blindness or mental retardation or muscular dystrophy, etc.

The babus are infamous for their insensitivity but callousness of this kind??? I could not have imagined this day in the worst of my nightmares. How the Ministry of HRD has bungled and bungled so - so badly, I am unable to comprehend.

It is extremely important for the Nation to know that the disability sector was not sleeping on this issue! We have put in hard work and not since yesterday or last week or even last month. Our struggle is more than a decade old.

It was in early 90s that the disability movement advocated that the Nation and its laws and policies must move away from the paradigm of charity and welfare to that of development and rights. The concept of ‘inclusiveness’ was put forth and defined, that people with disabilities especially children should not be segregated, that they should firmly be part of the mainstream. Until then, the so - called education of disabled children was restricted to ‘special’ schools, mostly badly run by NGOs. Blind school for the visually impaired. Deaf school for those with hearing impairments. Spastic Societies for children with cerebral palsy and so on.

No one paused. No one bothered to think or to worry as to what would happen to these kids after they finish their schooling in these artificially created, supposedly protective environments? Wouldn’t she or he have to be mainstreamed one day? Wouldn’t she or he attend a regular (normal!) college or university some day? And if so, then why not prepare them from Day One! Why segregate them? Why not allow them to be an integral part of the regular, mainstream educational system?

That is when, India decided to move away from the so - called special education to integrated education, and then finally to the concept of inclusive education. That is when, India first passed the Disability Act in 1995 and then, the National Trust Act in 1999. And since then, we have covered a long road. There is a National Disability Policy. The current XIth Five Year Plan has a whole chapter on disability issues, where firm commitments have been made, not only about policy but also about resources. Finally, as recent as two years ago, India ratified the U.N. Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (UNCRPD).

In the previous government, when Arjun Singh was the HRD Minister, Dr. Mithu Alur and I were asked to serve on Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE). We and several other experts from the disability movement actively participated on several Sub - Committees and Working Groups.

And all this hard work of a decade and more, finally lead us to a day in 2008 where disability and related issues were firmly entrenched in the Right to Education Bill 2008. If you take a look at that draft Bill, disability is clearly listed as a category under ‘disadvantaged groups’. And several other measures.

Now, suddenly, literally out of the blue, we find that all of that has been quietly deleted! Why? The colour of the government is still the same, with Dr. Manmohan Singh as our Prime Minister and Mrs. Sonia Gandhi as Chairperson, UPA. Two individuals, who beyond a shadow of doubt are extremely pro - disability. They must intervene, firmly and urgently. The Bill must be withdrawn.

We are asking for only three changes. All three, to my mind, are totally non - controversial – (1) Include disability under the definition of ‘disadvantaged groups’; (2) Include special schools and other necessary infrastructures under the definition of the term ‘school’; and (3) Under the Right to Free and Compulsory Education, firmly mention the National Trust Act of 1999, along with the Disability Act of 1995.

Without these three changes, the Bill must not be allowed to be passed by the Lok Sabha later today. To commit a mistake unknowingly is one thing, but to do it knowingly based on arrogance of power and the strength of numbers would be no less than a crime. I hope better sense prevails.

* Javed Abidi is the Convenor of Disabled Rights Group (DRG). He is himself a wheelchair user.

Friendship

2009-06-28T09:39:00.000-07:00

"Making millions of friends is not a miracle
Miracle is to make such a friend who will stand by you
When millions stand against you"

A message from Rupan sent on the 28th of January 2009. It was one of those messages that I did not delete from my Inbox.

It probably must have come as a cheesy forward to her in the morning and she quickly shared it with me. But the thing is that in all the years that we have known each other (and we have packed in quite some), she has lived by this diktat. It is something that she actually stood by when it came to me.

So in my list of "been there done that" I think I can add "created miracle". All thanks to a certain Ms. Rupan Bedi......

And the next day the woman sends me the following message -

"Dear GOD,

Touch the people I care for.

Keep them safe and happy.

Give them love and good health

Bless them

Especially

the ONE reading this message."

The person sending it meant every word and that to me is the biggest blessing.

Instinct vs Logic

2009-06-27T10:42:00.000-07:00

I have a problem with logic; yeah go ahead and make snide remarks about women and logic! But hope you will hear me out.

If you speak of instinct well then now you are talking and I am a firm believer of this little niggler which watches out for most of us. Where logic is concerned, I tend to treat it more like I would my child. Let me explain.......instinct to me is more me more something that was born with me so it is more a part of me that I can trust and rely on. But logic is a different matter altogether. It reeks of potential in the future and as a woman I would say that it is to me the same as the potential to bear a child.

Women and instinct and I think - Calpurnia. Have not done much Shakespeare, so I hope I got it right.

Logic - yes at workplace

Loads of people I have met who keep referring to logic to disrupt proceedings

Many a time logic stops you from actually listening to a person and assimilating the information he/she is providing. Instead you are listening to the conversation that is going on in your head with yourself. Which is fine if you are at the workplace and at your workstation when it is important for you to challenge yourself in order to ensure that the project/report/paper or whatever it is you are working on meets the deadline......

But when you are having a dialogue with another person, a physical entity, then surely it is disrespectful to say the least if one does not listen to the other's point of view.
...................................................................................

I found this draft while looking through my blog. This was dated last August 28, 2008, so I am not even sure if I wrote it. But hey I second these thoughts and this was in my draft list, so what the hell.....

In case you who is reading this at this point is the one who wrote it, then by all means take credit love.....

If it is indeed I who wrote it then I am darned sure that I had more to add but as my fingers pummel the keys into words, I have no idea what it was that I wanted to say. But I hope what is said would suffice and that it says it all......

Inbox 100% full

2009-06-26T09:45:00.000-07:00

The inbox of my cell is constantly getting jammed and I should have had the good sense to delete all the old messages. But no I had to hang on to them like they were the family heirlooms!!

The wise old timers; they are right as always - old habits do indeed die hard. For the longest time I remember collecting the wrappers of gifts received on birthdays, special occasions and even rotten dates for crying out loud!! Then there were the diaries, the clothes, the news clippings, the candy wrappers, yes candy wrappers, ticket stubs of dates at the movies, a train ride, Aarzoo's first boarding pass......and a gazillion other things were squirreled away. For what? I don't know. Really cannot answer that question without honestly admitting that I am a really pathetic and emotional basketcase!!

Well that was forcibly cured when we had to move to Bombay. And Baba, in his infinite wisdom asked me if I wanted a home for my family or my furniture? That was it, out went the heirlooms by the truck loads. Cochin and its huge homes can be really spoiling. In comparison, the multi-storeyed flats in Bombay would seem like tree houses or in most cases doll houses.

But coming back to the Inbox of my cell which warned me at least 20 times in a day that it was 100% full. This meant that I had to delete some messages. That was a hard task. No, could not, absolutely could not delete those from the son....even if all they conveyed that he would be late coming home as he was either playing football or jamming with his friends or attending a birthday party!! Not those from the Boss who is the icon of all night owls; his messages conveyed the chores for the workday ahead. Did I mention that he worked through the night? And ensured that we slaved through the day! The ones that encouraged me to check out my future life / love / partner etc. were easier to delete as even I knew it to be pure bunkum. Then there were those that told me to send / download the popular songs / ring tones. DELETE. No doubt about that.

But then there does come a time when one has to let go - the son off the apron strings and the to do list from the Boss is completed. No other option for the latter unless you wanted to get the BOOT on the BUTT. So those messages got deleted too. The ones that reminded you of bills to be paid went once you got your pay cheque and did the needful. Then what was it that jammed the damn Inbox?

Well here I am sitting through the night sifting through the messages and realizing that I am not fully cured of my emotional "basket caseness". Yes the son's, the boss and the hubby messages were all there and did get deleted from time to time but there was also this huge pile which grew over time. I could never bring myself to delete these. After all these were which came at the lowest ebbs from that very special person who just knew that you had to gain from this ancient wisdom, corny though some of it may be. This person who knew that you needed that smile that laugh to get you through the day. It came with the Good Morning wish across the miles, over the Vindhyas headed south on the sub-continent and made sure it brought a smile onto the face of the reader - me.

I guess that Supreme Power that guides me through life on Earth, gave me this Soul Sister for a very special reason. And I just could not hit the delete button. Instead I found a new storage space. Infinite and fast unfolding its secrets to millions. My very own space under the cyber sun.........

So here they are.....not hidden away in the Inbox. Its time they outed....corny, wise, silly, school girl autographish, whatever...some of these "heirlooms" still brought joy on the cloudiest of days. And on other days, they reminded me to count my blessings for the warmth and love of my loved ones. Thank you Rupan!

When we walk alone, we wish that we could reach the end of the road.
But when we walk with friends, we wish that the road never ends.....

I asked God to give me everything so that I can enjoy life
God replied: I have given you Life to enjoy everything!
So enjoy LIFE....

Friendship is the rainbow between two hearts
Sharing seven feelings
Love
Sadness
Happiness
Truth
Help
Secret
And most important
Respect

Every morning has a new beginning
A new blessing
A new Hope
And its a perfect day
Because it is God's gift
Have a blessed, hopeful perfect day

A Honest smile from a smiling heart
Crossing many kilometres
Has just reached
Your INBOX
Wishing you a life
Full of SMILES
KEEP SMILING

Just got a great health tip!!
There's no reason to fear
Menopause....
It's the eggs that expire...
Not the hen!!

One stone is enough to break a glass
One sentence enough to break a Heart
One second enough to fall in love
and
One SMS enough to keep relations in touch!!

A sunset here is a sunrise on the other end of the world.
Never give up because what appears to be the end
May actually be a new beginning

Friendship is a collection of hearts
Ready to forgive and understand
It never fades and never ends
It only reminds us life is not perfect
Without a good friend

Friends are like streetlights along the road
They don't make the distance any shorter
But they
Light up the path
And
Make the walk worthwhile

If you wait for happy moments
You will wait forever
But if you start believing
That you are happy
You will be
Happy Forever

Life is not an iPod
To listen to your
Favourite songs
It's a radio
You must adjust yourself
To every frequency
And
Enjoy whatever comes in it!!

There are more, many more. But I guess I will let them be for a little longer. Moving is a lot of effort. When you move house, the Packers and Movers are there to help you - dime a dozen. But emotional baggage; that is a totally different pie to bake dearies.

A Thousand Hits...

2009-05-25T10:39:00.000-07:00

Nothing but some kind of depraved vanity led me to put the hits counter onto my blog. This coupled with dollops of low self esteem issues on my writing skills and it was quite a confusing time when I decided to see how many of the millions of people in cyber space would be interested in what I have to say. I must say visions of each entry being a best seller and publishers queuing up outside my door and the millions I would make did cross my mind. I also spent the millions by the way!!!!

Anyway the reason why I am going on and on like a hyperventilating rabbit is the fact that I happened to see the counter a couple of minutes ago and saw the magic number - 1000!! Yippeeeeeee

Thanks everyone.....its worth more that the millions I spent in my dreams. And you got it, that is the extent of my creativity and imagination folks.....nothing short of raking in the millions which is my next target on the hits counter of my dreams!!!

Mixed up family

2009-05-24T07:51:00.000-07:00

This entry is a few months behind schedule and is dedicated to Shalini Froiland who gently kicked my butt to ensure that I woke up from the lazy stupor I had gotten into....

"Mummy, I know Runa Aunty's full name", was how the conversation began.

"Oh really! What is it?", I responded

Aarzoo : I know all the full names. I'll tell?

Me : Tell

A : Runa Banerjee, Samrat Banerjee and Aditya Banerjee.

(Sam is Parag's colleague and over time he, his wife Runa and son Aditya, have grown into family)

A: Everybody is Banerjee, like Shitiz Banerjee

(Shitiz & Aarzoo were best friends when we were neighbours. He lived across the corridor in Flat No. 1308 and we lived in 1306. Runa lives in the same complex but in Flat No. 1306 of another building. We too moved into another building and live in Flat 404)

A : Everybody in 1306 & 1308 are Banerjee. Only 404 is only Sen.....

M : No Aarzoo, Sen & Devaya

A : Yes, I know. This is a mixed up family. Even the languages are mixed up; Bengali, Malayali, Hindi.......

My daughter's take on the linguistic & cultural diversity of our family had me laughing till my sides ached.

This Could be Your Story

2009-02-16T02:04:00.000-08:00

This is a rather long piece, so sit back and get ready to be shocked or numbed or spurred to action or whatever. A friend had posted it on Facebook and I had to put it in this space..............no edits at all.....put it in as is......

THIS HAPPENED IN BANGALORE(BENGALURU):SHOCKING
Buzz up! ShareThisFeb 13 2009 | Views 889 | Comments (50)
Tags: Standingup Being counted
This shocking yet at some level encouraging tale is reported by a friend who knows Sugata Chaterji the rapporteur of this shocker...Boohoo to ramsene and idiots of their ilk.DOWN WITH OBSCURANTIST POLITICIANS AND MORALPOLICE
3 CHEERS TO SUGATA CHATTERJI FOR STANDINGUP
...

Millionaire slumdogs and how things change.... (read this, for you may have a role to play!) 10:38am
Yes, everything changes.

The fantastic invisible sweep of time rushes and roars past us every dull and intense second that ticks relentlessly away every day, and all around us things constantly morph. Twin towers crumble, good people die, the good earth turns brown and bare, and old love fades.

And what precisely is your role in the incredible kaleidoscope of change?

A slack-jaw by-stander who barely registers the impact and implications? A commentator spectator who freely critiques but somehow rises above being affected by it all? A fatalist loser who bemoans everything and blames it all on circumstances and other people?

Look around you, you who reside in the so-called mind and knowledge capital of the shining new India. This is Bangalore.

Many of the quiet avenues that used to snake through the wooded shades and fragrant flower-scatters of a thousand gulmohars, flames of the forest, bougenvillias and silver oaks are now shorn of even a single blade of grass, their tar guts upturned by mammoth earth moving equipment, tortured sites full of grime, steel and concrete through which an endless procession of loud vehicles crawl back and forth, utterly indisciplined, frothing with impotent anger and frustration, from the early dusty dawns to the midnight hours, every single day.

We are the victims, you say? The civic governance of Bangalore is sub standard, you claim? Well, you may be right, but does that mean that even as an individual citizen whose real powers to influence matters is way less than what it theoretically should be, we have absolutely nothing to do?

I am re-thinking this premise, my friend. Unfortunately not a self realization case, but prompted by a black incident last Friday, 6th February, 2009. And this time it was not about aspects that affect your life and mine indirectly. It wasn't the death of yet another 100+ year old tree. It wasn't another instance of criminal neglect of any civic infrastructure. It wasn't road rage. It was a kick in the groin. Literally. And it woke me up all right.

So, in brief, this is how the drama unfolded:

A few of my friends and I were just paying our bills and coming out of our regular Friday night watering hole and dinner place in Rest House Road, just off Brigade Road, and most of the women in the company were already standing outside. Some of us outside were smoking, people were happy, there was laughter and jokes, as there were many other people in the street, all coming out, satiated, in the closing hour of the various pubs and restaurants around.

Suddenly from up the street a massive SUV comes revving and speeding, hurtling down, and stops in a scream of brakes and swirling dust, millimeters away from this group of 4 women, barely missing one of their legs. A white Audi, imported, still under transfer, with the registration plate of KA-51 TR-2767. Some millionaire's toy thing, that in the wrong hands can kill.

Naturally the women are in shock. And quickly following the shock comes indignation. These are self made women running their own businesses, managing state responsibilities for global NGO firms, successful doctors. They are not used to being bullied. So they turn around, instead of shrinking back in fear. They protest.

And as soon as they turn around in protest, the car doors are flung open, and a stream of 4-5 rabid men run out towards these women, screaming obscenities in Hindi and Kannada against women in general, fists flailing. Some of us who came in running at the sound of the screaming brakes now stand in the middle in defense of our women, and then blows start raining down. One of the goons make a couple of calls over the cellphone, and in seconds a stream of other equally rabid goondas land up. They gun straight for the women, and everyone – a few well-meaning bystanders, acquaintances who know us from the restaurant, basically everyone who tries to help the women – starts getting thoroughly beaten up.

Women are kicked in the groin, punched in the stomach, slapped across the face, grabbed everywhere, abused constantly. Men are smashed up professionally, blows aimed at livers, groins, kidneys and nose. A friend is hit repeatedly on the head by a stone until he passes out in a flood of blood.

A plain-clothes policeman (Vittal Kumar) who saunters in late stands by watching and urging people to stop, but doing absolutely nothing else. A 'cheetah' biker cop comes in, with our women pleading him to stop this madness, but he refuses action, saying a police van will come in soon and he cannot do anything. Everyone keeps getting hammered. Relentlessly.

The carnage continues for over 20 minutes.

Finally when the police van does come in it is this vandals who are raging and ranting, claiming to be true "sons of the Kannadiga soil", and we are positioned to be the villainous outsiders, bleeding, outraged. How do the cops believe them, especially seeing the bloody faces of our men and the violated rage of our women, while they carry nary a scratch on their bodies? Don't ask me! Yet, it is us who these goondas urge the newly arrived law-keepers to arrest, and the police promptly comply, and we are bundled into the van, some still being beaten as we are pushed in. Some blessed relief from pain inside the police van at least, even if we are inside and the real goons outside, driving alongside in their spanking white Audi. The guy who was hit by the stone is taken separately by the women to Mallya hospital.

Inside the police station at Cubbon Park it becomes clear that these goons and the police know each other by their first names. The policeman in charge (Thimmappa) initially refuses to even register any complaint from me, on the purported grounds that I am not fluent in Kannada and I have taken a few drinks (3 Kingfisher pints, to be precise) over the evening. No, it doesn't matter that I didn't have my car and was not driving, and no, it doesn't mater that the complaint will be written in English. We watch them and the goons exchange smiles and nods with our our bloodied and swelling eyes and realize in our pain-clouded still-in-shock brains the extent of truth in the claim of one of the main goons when he claimed earlier in the evening in virulent aggression: we own this town, this car belongs to an MLA, we will see how you return to this street!!

This was the turning point of the saga, I guess. For we refused to lie down quietly and be victims.

One of our girls, a vintage and proud Bangalorean who is running one of the town's most successful organic farming initiatives, took upon herself to write the complaint, when I was not allowed to write the same. Another Bangalore girl, a state director of a global NGO firm, wrote the other molestation complaint separately on behalf of all the girls. Some of us called our friends in the media and corporate world. Everyone stepped up. And even when the odds were down and we were out, we did not give up, and as a singular body of violated citizens we spoke in one voice of courage and indomitable spirit. That voice had no limitation of language, not Kannada, nor English, or Hindi. It was the voice of human spirit that cannot be broken.

And in the face of that spirit, for the first time, we saw the ugly visage of vandalism, hiding behind the thin and inadequate veil of political corrupt power, narrow-vision regionalism and self-serving morality, start to wilt.

We spent 6 hours next day in the police station. The sub-inspector of police who filed our FIR, Ajay R M, seemed a breath of fresh air inasmuch that he did not appear a-priori biased like others, even though the hand of corruption and politico-criminal power backing these goons was still manifest in many ways: a starched, white-linen power-broker walked in handing over his card to the sub-inspector in support of the goons; the goons got an audience with the Inspector because of this intervention, while we had to interact one level lower down in the hierarchy; the plains cloth policeman of last night, even though he had arrived far too late in the crime scene, gave a warped statement, passing it off as a "neutral" point of view, repeatedly stressing that we came out of a pub and hence were drinking, positioning this as a 'drunken brawl', while completely forgetting to mention the unprovoked attack against the women and the one-sided vandalism and violence that ensued. I guess one cannot blame the low ranked police officer – the criminal connections of these goons must be pervasive enough for him to be careful.

Thanks however to the impartial handling of the situation by Ajay, soon the goons were all identified. The lead actor was one Ravi Mallaya (38), a real estate honcho and owner of a small property off Brigade Road which he has converted into a "gaming" (you know what that means, don't you?) adda. The others identified are Mohan Basava (22) of Chamarajapet 12th Cross, R. Vijay Kumar Ramalingaraju (25) and Shivu Rajashekar (20). All are residents of 12th & 13th Cross in Vyalikaval. Their bravado and machismo were by that time evaporated. It was good to see their faces then.

Of course nothing much happened to them, nor did we expect it. They were supposed to be in lock up for at least the weekend till they were produced in court, but we understand that they were quickly released on (anticipatory?) bail. The car, purportedly belonging to an MLA, also does not figure in the FIR, apparently for reasons of "irrelevance to the case".The media also have given us fantastic coverage and support so far, strengthening the cause.

The goons meanwhile, as an after thought, also filed the customary reverse complaint on the morning after we filed our own complaint: the women have apparently scratched the car! (Why did they not file the complaint the same night, considering they came to the Police Station in the same car? Why was the car allowed to be taken off police custody? Why is the car still irrelevant to the case and not in the FIR? Questions.. questions..).

Is this the end of this saga? Probably not. Are these women, more precious to us as friends and wives than most things in our lives, safe to walk or drive down Brigade Road from now on or are the goonda elements, slighted by this arrest and disgrace, are lying in ambush, waiting, biding their time to cause some of us more grievous harm? We don't know. Is there reason for us to remain apprehensive of future attacks and victimization? Perhaps.

But here is the point.

We stood up.

We believed in the power of individual citizens even in the face of hooliganism, intolerance, corruption and power mongering. Even though many of us have the option of leveraging political or government connections, we deliberately chose to fight this battle as individuals. Sure, these connections have been activated and they have been kept informed, should the worst case scenario unfold tomorrow. But we have chosen to not leverage them. And in every small win we register as a group of individual outraged citizens of Bangalore and India, however insignificant these milestones may be in the larger scheme of things, there is one small notch adding up in favor of what is right, one small notch against what is wrong. And we believe that every such small notch counts, each such mark is absolutely invaluable.

It is the people who make this city, this country, this world. It is you and I, as much as the terrorists inside and outside. And in our small insignificant little ways, it is my responsibility and yours to not shirk from investing effort – not just lip service or any token attempt, but real effort – in backing up what we ourselves believe in. It is so easy to logically argue that everything is corrupt, nothing is worth it, there are so many risks involved. We must not fall trap to this escapist trend. We must not fail to try.

Next time you feel outraged, violated, abused, don't let it go by and add up to your list of litanies and complaints. Stand up and take it to the limit - at least your own limit. Not in the same way as they wrong you, but in the way that every citizen, at least in theory, is entitled to complain and protest. Do not let the hooligans power rant scare you or prompt you into submission. Do not allow the corrupt cop make you give up trying. Carry the flame forward. Try harder.

If are up to it, start right now.

Forward this note to everyone you want to be made aware of this. Post it in your own blogs. Talk about it amongst your circles. And if anyone of you should like to step forward with a word of empathy or advise, talk to me. Comment.

It is not Bangalore that is going to the dogs. It is us. We have far too long become accustomed to let everything go. And the more we let things go without any protest or fight, the dormant criminal and dark elements of the society get that much more encouraged. Every time we turn the other way, the hooligan next street gets incentivized to push the boundary a little further, provoke a little more, try something a little more atrocious. It is time for us to refuse to let this go on. We are responsible for making ourselves proud. Lets believe in ourselves. We can do this.

My name is Saugata Chatterjee. And I am standing up.I refuse to let Bangalore go to the hooligan slumdogs, even if some of them are pets of corrupt power millionaires.

Promises to myself

2009-01-30T02:15:00.000-08:00

I had promised myself that I would write regularly in my blog....but I find that the promises I break are the ones I make to myself. I am ever willing to let myself down at the drop of a hat so should I crib when others do? What is so tough about writing that I cannot update this little space that I have created for myself. Suchi was cribbing the other day about my disappearance from the blogger world.

I have some stuff that I had written down some time ago but have not yet found time to punch it in. Also have some lovely forwards waiting in my Inbox but then again have deadlines hanging over my head and let the writing get least priority.

Anyway, here I am trying to keep awake in office and dealing with the hurting eye. The only thing that keeps me going is the fact that I am writing. Keeps me from growling and being nasty to everyone.......

Resolutions

2008-12-31T09:40:00.001-08:00

It is close to midnight as I sit on my bed comfy in my navy blue, reindeer print PJs and write this. No big bash this year.....just watching TV at home and sending out New Year wishes.

HAPPY NEW YEAR WORLD!!! Hope 2009 is filled with peace and joy and beautiful moments for all of us.

Looking back I think I managed to keep to most of the resolutions I made last year; of course the most important one was shedding weight. Last time I checked I had lost seven kilos in a month. Felt really good but I had to go and stuff my face with all that yummy plum cake we had at home.

Have to make that extra effort to get in shape; promised Tulsi I would get into shape for her big day and I realize to my horror that I have only three and a half months left. Quickly put down that slice I was going to sink my teeth into!!

The minutes tick by and it is the last half hour of 2008; time for my resolution for the New Year. Stick to the same old ones with losing weight topping the list. Old wine, new bottle story? But hey hang on, this time the resolution comes with a twist. I am going to aim for the 2010 Kingfisher Calendar.

I aspire for a shoot at the Bondi Beach, Australia. Atul Kasbekar, watch this space. Same time next year you will want to get in touch with me!!!!

Hahahhhahahaaaa.......have a good laugh people! Continue the laughter into the New Year.

Loads of love and God Bless

A Christmas Wish

2008-12-25T08:03:00.000-08:00

Rama, a dear friend and colleague, sent me this poem that she received along with a mail from the author - Naveen Thomas. I told her that I hated her for sending it to me; it moved me so much that I felt I had turned to dust and one could easily sweep me off the floor with a broom. I have too much love and a deep respect for Rama to be serious about the hating her part but I was serious when I told her that I would put this up on my blog.

Naveen Thomas, I hope you read this someday. Thank you and God Bless.

A Christmas Wish

- dedicated to all the people of Kandhamal, Orissa, especially to the 8000+ people still living in relief camps, and to all those who live under the shadow of violence, anywhere in the world.

It was almost 12 at night
I tiptoed to where my children lay
Christmas was here, here at last, it was just a few moments away.
The Christmas star was burning bright
and it showed me the way, as I slowly tiptoed, very slowly tiptoed
to where my children lay.

Last year we had a blast,
Christmas had been a merry day
This year we are on a fast, on this beautiful Christmas day

By then I had reached the spot
the spot where they lay,
my children's grave was bathed in light, in the silvery whey.
The Christmas star looked so bright
as it did that early Christmas morn,
much like the time in Bethlehem, when the little baby Jesus was born.

As in those days, Herod had said,
no baby boy should be alive, kill them all, show no mercy,
all I want is their head.

So it happened 2000 years later, in our very land,
in the land we call our home, they came,
and desecrated it with a sleight of hand
They burnt our places of worship
and set our fields on fire.
Next they came to our home with lathis and burning tyres.

As they looked at my sleeping children, I pleaded
and fell at their bloodied feet. Spare them, my brothers, and take my life, I cried.
but it fell on stone deaf ears.

2008 has been an eventful year for us.
driven out of home, plundered and murdered, were we
but Christmas this year has become, has become very real!
The baby who was born
on that cold Christmas night, grew up to show
that God's love is for all, yea for all, irrespective of who we were.

Give it, spread it, never withhold it, He said,
more for those who hate you, than for a friend.
As a witness of this love, you I send.

As I knelt down at my children's graves
I shed a silent tear. Yes, for my little children,
but also for those who shed their innocent blood.
With hearts cold with haterd, and eyes filled with fury,
no rest, no peace they knew
for as they killed my children, they killed a piece of themselves too.

With these thoughts raging in my head,
I wondered, if peace I would ever know,
Must be the same, I thought, for those, who had struck the fatal blow.

As I closed my eye in prayer, His Spirit did I feel
urging me to love them,
for they too needed to heal.
Filled with His Spirit, I shouted into the night,
Lord I have a Christmas wish. Help me to love as you did,
so much, that for us you even died!

- Naveen I. Thomas
Dec 24, 2008

Baba at Christmas

2008-12-25T07:23:00.000-08:00

It was my Catholic mother who first told me the story of Christ and Christmas and I fell in love with Jesus; it was easy considering that my Papa was also called Jesus. I was a little girl then, not much older to Aarzoo. I hope to tell the story to my daughters someday and hope that I can sow the seeds of peace, joy and hope into their beings too.

As I sit here writing these lines, I think of the Christmases past when in Cochin, we used to have Baba and Amma over for lunch and it became tradition with the family. Parag used to join me in the kitchen and we would rustle up a fairly decent meal with Mummy cooking her special ginger garlic rice and chicken curry. Shibu, dear Shibu, would traipze in just in time for lunch. Baba used to sing a couple of carols and "Silent Night" was mandatory. I still remember the rich baritone of his singing voice and the manner in which the song would resonate with our home; it was as if the angels were playing the harp and bringing in the blessings of the festive season!!

Last year, Baba went away and Christmas was spent with Mano Mama, Lola Memi and Appu at their place in Pune. Amma was there too. The home in Bangalore left bare and no mention of the times in Cochin. I could not take it. Christmas would never be the same again. Would probably have let it be this year as well if it were not for Aarzoo who seemed was very excited at the prospect of attending the various parties in the Complex we live in. She also kept up a steady and ever increasing in decibel demand that I put up our Christmas tree. I did and it was well worth the effort just to see the delight in her face. Must say she did irritate me a hell of a lot with her constant singing; songs she made up for the most part set to the tune of jingle bells!!

The other reason I made a big deal about Christmas this year was because I wanted to sock it in the face of all the violence that has been a part of our lives. For Kauser, for the victims of Kandamal, for those who survived and live in relief camps, for those who fell to bullets and those that survived in Mumbai, for the victims of riots and war across the world. Against hatred that seems to consume us. Turn us into beasts of the worst kind. For my own soul and for the love that threatens to leave my being.

We had Tulsi and Appu over for lunch; a celebration of their love for each other. Kusum Bojawa came too after much cajoling; it is always such a delight to have her over. Runa, Samrat and Aditya, who are family now and a joy to be with, followed. Tripti didi graceful and beautiful as ever was the last to arrive. It was a happy time with much laughter and teasing, much shrieking from the little ones and a heavy meal. I missed Amma and Manoj who is on holiday in Cochin. Missed Shibu, Santosh and Bisu and Cochin and the times past when life was different. But I did hear the baritone in the background and knew in my heart that Baba was here today and had brought with him the angels and their harps to bless our home. And keep my soul from being consumed by hatred.

Of Fathers and Daughters

2008-12-17T09:31:00.000-08:00

I intended to conclude the earlier entry (which was meant to be an introduction) with this piece. However, as usual I got so carried away that the introduction turned out to be a complete identity by itself. This piece is a letter that Parag wrote to one of the schools whose approach to education he totally endorses. He is telling them about Aarzoo and seeing her through his eyes, I am amazed at the love and tenderness that this Leo carries within him. Need I add that I am bursting with pride at the father he is……..

Dear Sir/Madam,

Aarzoo, our elder daughter is all of five and loves everything that a regular five year old should - chocolates, ice-cream, music, dance (the bollywood type), colouring, fish, chicken et al. As usual she hates vegetables. But she also understands that eating vegetable is important for one's growth and when in mood she devours the most unlikely of the stuff - bitter gourd, brinjal! These events happen not so regularly, though we would prefer they happen more often. A 'language girl' she speaks fluent english, hindi, malayalam & bengali. By birth bengali, malayalam & kodava would be her mother tongues (father bengali, mother half kodava & half malayali). Interestingly, she picked up these languages while growing up, without being goaded into learning them (except perhaps english). More interestingly, she rightly chooses who to talk to in what language!

She goes to Little Feat Montessori in Bangalore and loves her teachers and friends there. Last year when she was ready for M3, she refused to change her class as she wanted to be with the same teacher and friends! She continued to sit in the old teacher's class for a few days. By herself she realized the oddity and walked upto her teacher one day to ask if she can go to the other class! Since then she has fallen in love with her new teacher and loves to chat with her. At home she has assumed the mantle of elder sister after Tamanna, our second daughter was born. She does the role to perfection. Oh! she also loves play-acting - about her teacher, about her doctor, about her mother et al. She loves to watch Pogo and somehow manages to understand that it is time for Pogo though she does not know to read time! We are yet to find out how she manages that, as she is dead right every time. Like any usual girl of five not going to a 'regular school' she has learnt everything she needs to continue enjoying her childhood. The Montessori environment has given her enough space to grow up as an individual.

Next year she will complete her M3 from Little Feat and we will have to get her to a new school. A school where she can continue to do the usual stuff that she does now. Without having to bother too much about what others are doing. She deserves an environment where she can do her thing and where she would be encouraged to be herself! Needless to say, ________ School interests us a lot. I was hoping if we get a chance to visit your school and interact with the staff. Of course take Aarzoo along with to let her see the place. Whether she finally gets admission in your school, only time will tell. Its a chance we would certainly like to invest our time and efforts on.

with warm regards,
Parag Sen

Of Schools and Education

2008-12-17T09:12:00.002-08:00

Parag and I believe in the alternate method of education which is child-centric. But of course he is the stronger and more vociferous advocate of this philosophy of pedagogy. Our move to Bangalore, the proposed move to Bombay and the final decision to stay on in namma Bengaluru, have all been the outcome of the availability and proximity of schools that profess this philosophy, where the child and not the academics/syllabus is the focus of attention.

The teaching methodology practiced in the majority of schools today is such that the child is under tremendous pressure to perform according to certain set standards. Anything below that is unacceptable. The increase in suicides amongst the young is most certainly an indicator of how taut and tension-filled is the wiring within.

My brother-in-law, Gautam, in the course of a recent conversation recounted his experience with learning Math whilst he was enrolled in one of the top notch schools in the city. His story, at least the part about struggling with Math is something that most of us will empathize with. Anyway, he was telling me about this school he went to where he had a tough time with the subject but he was expected to perform well and cope nevertheless. His move to the school where he subsequently passed out from proved to be a real blessing for him. Here the onus of his education and understanding of the syllabus was not his alone, but mainly that of his teachers’. It was his teacher’s responsibility to ensure that he understood the mathematical concepts that were being taught in class. And if he did not, then constant efforts were made till he did! The teacher approached the problems / concepts in a variety of ways to ensure that he understood them. There was no question of taking extra tuitions. It was a journey that both teacher and taught made together and Math was no longer the “Bogeyman”.

Cryin' Back to Mamma

2008-12-17T04:50:00.000-08:00

This piece was an attempt at songwriting. I have made attempts at writing poetry in the past; and in that sense this is my first attempt at writing a song.

It was an effort that was inspired by the presentation on the blues by the group – Barracuda Blues – in the course of the seminar in performance in literature. I wrote this sitting there in the Christ University Auditorium (which has fantastic acoustics) and listening to them. Thank you, guys!!

This song may not cover the day and time when the Blues originated, the beats to it are set to that style; in my mind at least. Anyone out there who wants to give it a shot at setting it to music / singing it? To me the story that the song conveys seems more contemporary and could surprisingly reflect the story and setting closer to home!

And dear Reader, if you consider this a pathetic piece, the brick bats are mine alone.

CRYIN’ BACK TO MAMMA

I’m gonna go cryin’ back to Mamma
Coz if that ain’t gonna work
Then nothing ever will…..
I wan’ a dress for the dance in the fall
And pretty shoes to match steps at the ball
Mamma says she ain’t have no money
But I don’t care much for that honey
She can sell her body, her soul for all I care
But my need, my greed is bare.

I’m gonna go cryin’ back to Mamma
Mamma she works day and night
Toiling by the firelight
Working on the floor, the mop, the bowl,
The oven, the dough, the meat and fowl

I’m gonna go cryin’ back to Mamma
Now Pop he ain’t gonna do nothin’
But park his fat arse on the couch, a cretin
He came in one day drunk to the gills
Yelling at Mamma for not paying the bills
Beer in his belly
Bad breath and burp in his gully
Eye candy on his arm
For darlin’ he had his charm
He walked away taking her dreams
Left her cryin’ streams

I’m gonna go cryin’ back to Mamma
Will give my shoulder in need
Coz I gotta protect my greed
Now my baby waiting for me
At the coffee house by Lincoln Street
He is a dream
Tall, dark and handsome
Perfect for me who is lissome
He and I will buy a house by the lake
Make babies and keep awake
Life will be beautiful and perfect
I shall have the chance to resurrect
My life and dreams, passion and hope
I shall go meet sweet Willie o mine,
Not the Pope
But for now

I’m gonna go cryin’ back to Mamma
Really need that red satin dress
Feels great to caress
And the dancing shoes
Shake the booty and land the hottie
That was my plan
Mamma she worked three jobs
Toilin’ even on the day of the Lord
Told me to stay away from trouble named Willie
I thought she was being jealous ‘n’ silly
I cried to Mamma, my eyes swollen ‘n’ red
So she got me the dress and the shoes, she did

Willie and I we made out
In his car in the parkin’ lot
We made babies we did
Twins, I named Rosie ‘n’ Sid
Willie did not buy the house by the lake
Turned out to be a bloody rake
He beat me up black ‘n’ blue
And shacked with a bitch named Sue
I have no house by the lake
No dreams either
My babies keep me awake

I don’t go no cryin’ to Mamma
God bless her soul, she passed on
And I’m livin’ on
I can’t go no cryin’ back to Mamma
But I’m toiling on

- Written September 21, 2008

Talking Texts / Backstage Passes

2008-12-15T08:55:00.000-08:00

My young friend Ashwini is responsible for this. Sunday, September 21st could have been spent at home lazing!! But Deepti, her best friend and she felt that I would enjoy the workshop being held in their college – Christ University.

It turned out to be a day well spent. Talking Texts was a fantastic concept which examined literature in the performing arts – Theatre, music and dance. Seminars have been held and discussions held ad nauseam about the various authors, poets, playwrights and their body of work and contribution to literature. In that sense this effort by the students from the Department of Media Studies at Christ University was unique and truly commendable.

I had planned this blog entry the following day and did make simple notes that Sunday night. But……….sigh!!!! So memory is a bit dim as I sit multi-tasking; watching the news of Sachin dedicating his century to the victims of the Mumbai terror attack, President George Bush having boots thrown at him by an Iraqi reporter (for those who missed it I am not being irreverent or joking or kidding you), Aamir Khan’s eight pack, cash for votes scam, blah, blah, blah and try to make sense of my notes. I think they also had the title “Backstage Passes” and I am not sure if this was the main title for the workshop. Sorry!!!

Anyways, when it came to music, the workshop dealt with the history of the Blues by a fine group of musicians – Barracuda Blues – as well as the rock music and its contribution to literature. It was amazing and I learnt a great deal. The education was priceless. My notes pertain to the session on the Blues - “History of the Blues”. It began with the music of the slaves who were brought in from Africa to work in the plantations in America. This music which had its seeds sown in the dark continent, was evolved in the plantations, fanned out and spread from plantation to plantation. The lyrics that have been penned over the ages, reflect the times and the rebellion of the people. The spirit could not be enslaved!! The Blues also depict the spiritual essence of those that penned the lyrics and this style of music played a major role in the civil rights movement.

I was fascinated and can’t thank Ashwini and Deepti enough. Trust girlfriends to know how, what and when you need some “time off”.

What struck me during the course of the presentation on the “Blues music” was that here again there was no mention of women’s voices though. To think of the indignity and humiliation they had to undergo not to mention the exploitation and violence that would have been part of their daily lives. Was there no desire to give back in equal measure? No song in their hearts?

RANDOM THOUGHTS ON THE EVE OF THE WORLD DISABILITY DAY - 2008

2008-12-02T09:09:00.000-08:00

Hi there,

I am sitting at the desk allotted to me at the NCPEDP office working away for the big campaign tomorrow. It's a chilly winter night here in Delhi and I am looking forward to the warmth of my little cot and desperate to snuggle under the blanket. But before I go I had to share this with you. This is a piece that was written by Javed Abidi, friend and an undisputed leader of the disability sector that is my 'karm bhoomi'. I stop here else I can go on and on.....

RANDOM THOUGHTS ON THE EVE OF THE WORLD DISABILITY DAY 2008

Preparing for this World Disability Day has not been easy.

A grave terror attack hit our Nation on 26th November. We have become so immune to bomb blasts that earlier in the evening as news trickled in, I didn't pay much attention. I switched off the TV, had late dinner and concentrated on work. It was only very late in the night, at about 2 or 3 a.m. that I switched on the TV and was quite awestruck because by that time, almost a full battle was on at The Taj in Mumbai. I could not believe my eyes and kept switching from one channel to the other. And as I surfed, the enormity and the vastness of the tragedy unfolded. I remained glued to the TV till almost 6 or 7 a.m. Finally, I had to go to sleep, only to wake up some hours later but the picture on the telly had still not changed. And then, it went on and on and on…

How does one divorce oneself from such real grief. Well, you can switch off the television but how do you switch off your own mind, your heart, your soul? It could be me. I could have been there or one of my loved ones. I and my family have absolute fond memories of Bombay, now forcibly called Mumbai. My sister got her education there and worked there for many years. My brother's sasural is there. And I have visited the city a zillion times.

I could never afford staying at The Taj but always made it a point to visit its Coffee Shop overlooking the sea and the magnificent Gateway of India. At the Trident, I have stayed many a times. One of the things that most of you wouldn't know is that it has one of the most disabled-friendly toilet anywhere in the world! Also, the largest. The room was so-so-so accessible that leaving the routine features aside, you could even draw or open the curtains by merely pressing a few buttons on a remote control, sitting in your bed. While it may seem funny or odd to some of you, ask me as a paraplegic as to what a delight such little facilities are. I truly wish all our hoteliers and developers were as humane as the Oberois are.

The Sea Attack in Mumbai has finally ended. The burst of the AK 47s has given way to a loud chatter. Switch on any television screen and people are speaking loudly. Generally, people are angry, upset and above all, helpless. Can we change the system? Is it possible for us to change the system?

Some basic questions continue to haunt:

* How come we were caught so off guard? Especially, with all the intelligence inputs available much in advance.
* Why did it take NSG 9 hours to get there?
* Why did it take 67 hours for NSG, Army and Navy, not to mention Mumbai's police force combined to kill a mere 9 terrorists?
* Were there many more? How come they escaped and where did they escape to?

While one was/ is coming to grips with the tragedy of almost 200 people dead and hundreds injured, came two more shockers: (1) The Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, RR Patil said, "Such small incidents do happen in big cities". (2) The Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Vilasrao Deshmukh visited The Taj to inspect its scarred remains and decided to bring his son along, who is a mere second rate film actor, called Ritesh Deshmukh. The son, in turn, decided to bring along his friend, a third rate film maker by the name Ram Gopal Verma. What saved India from committing mass suicide, woh bhi chullu bhar pani mein, is the fact that Ram Gopal Verma did not take Urmila Matondkar along or whosoever his latest 'muse' is!

Horrible. The Nation has a lot to introspect.

I feel good when I see people angry. Anger is the catalyst that leads to change. If you are not angry, then you are content and that contentment invariably leads to status quo, even lethargy.

We the disabled people of India were angry too. Angry at being neglected. Angry because this Nation still does not treat us as equal citizens. Angry because inspite of all the lip service, only Sminu Jindal can "inaugurate" the fourth or fifth edition of the ramp at Qutab Minar; and Sanjeev Sachdeva/ Anjalee Agarrwal can endorse Delhi Metro to be disabled friendly when a significant number of its stations are completely inaccessible. Angry because basic education is out of reach for 98% of disabled children. Angry because inspite of all the noise made by UGC and the promises made by our HRD Minister, not one of our 300+ Universities are accessible to a wheelchair user like me. Angry because a Nation that produces the world's best bicycles, has till date not been able to manufacture a half decent wheelchair. Angry because our deaf still do not have access to basic sign language facilities. Angry because our blind cannot access 99% of the Indian websites; while everyone is racing away on the so-called Information Highway, they can't access even NASSCOM's Website. Angry because employers still discriminate, because CII has got a Corporate Code which it does not enforce, and because FICCI doesn't even pretend to do that much. Angry because the Finance Minister's scheme which was supposed to create 100,000 jobs for disabled people in one year, has not yielded even a single job with over 6 months having gone by.

Over a year ago, we had to undergo tremendous hardship to be able to get a Chapter of our choice (on disability rights) in the XIth Five Year Plan. It was the dharna outside the Planning Commission, where we almost got beaten up by the Delhi Police, that forced their eyes open. Montek Singh Ahluwalia called us in, admitted his guilt in so many words and promised the moon. Within six months of the approval of the XIth Plan, all the relevant Ministries will chalk out their respective schemes/ policies vis a vis disability issues. Each Ministry would allocate 3% of its budget towards disability schemes. The Disability Division in the Ministry of Social Justice would be upgraded to a full fledged Department. We of course were/ are demanding a Ministry. The dream Ministry. The Ministry of Disability Affairs.

That was one year ago.

Till now, NOTHING has been done.

No wonder then that we were/ are angry. About a month ago, we decided that we will not celebrate World Disability Day this year. Instead, we would agitate. Hold a Night Vigil. An all night vigil, which if need be will continue forever. The idea was/ is to force the attention of the Nation and its Prime Minister towards our cause, our dreams, our aspirations. Because, otherwise, the World Disability Day is meaningless.

However, now we are caught in an awkward situation. World Disability Day is less than 24 hours away but the Nation is faced with a serious situation. A very serious situation.

And at a time like this, would it be appropriate on our part to launch an agitation? Would we not be taking away the Prime Minister's attention away from an issue (fighting terror) which is far more important?

We cannot cancel the vigil either. Thousands of disabled people are already on their way to Delhi. It was/ is practically impossible to inform them. Therefore, I am proposing that we convert this Night Vigil into a SOLIDARITY VIGIL. Let us, all of us, all the 10,000+ of us, express first of all our condolences to the families of those who have died. Let us then express our solidarity with the Nation and all those who protect us. Let us pray that the politician becomes a better human being. Let us remind them that it is we, the ordinary men and women of this country, who bring them to power. And we bring them to power to serve us, not to serve themselves and their political affiliations.

We the 70 million disabled people of India are Indians first and Indians last. We just want to be equal partners, to be able to work, to be self-reliant, to be able to serve our great Nation, to be able to contribute to its economy, to be tax payers and not be a burden on society.

With best regards,

Javed Abidi

Convenor

Disabled Rights Group (DRG)

2.12.2008

NOTE: ON 3RD DECEMBER, OVER 10,000 DISABLED PEOPLE WILL ASSEMBLE AT INDIA GATE, FOR A SOLIDARITY VIGIL FROM 3:00 P.M. TO 6:00 P.M.

AT ABOUT 5:30 P.M., THOUSANDS OF CANDLES WILL LIGHT UP OUR HEARTS, OUR SOULS AND OUR MINDS AS WE PRAY FOR THOSE WHO DIED AND THOSE WHO GOT INJURED IN THE MUMBAI SEA ATTACK.

My Handprint

2008-11-18T20:27:00.000-08:00

November 14, 2008 - Children's Day - Aarzoo's handiwork at school. The words stapled to this piece of art had me all choked up.

My Handprint

Sometimes you get discouraged
Because I am so small
And always leave my fingerprints
On furniture and walls
But everyday I am growing big
And soon I will be very tall
Then my hand prints
Will be hard to recall
So here is a special handprint
Just so that you can say
This is how my fingers looked
When I placed them here today

My baby turned six last month. Soon she will be ten and inch into her teens and there will be major battles for independence. And turf wars that will leave me battle worn, tired and weary. But for now I retreat into my maternal corner and let the "Kaveri" flow

Mommy Rupan

2008-11-18T08:42:00.000-08:00

Some smses that I receive are really cute. Here is one such that I cannot help sharing with you all. I was sitting through a really boring meeting; post lunch session trying hard to keep awake as I have yet to master the art of sleeping with my eyes open and pretend to be really interested and make intelligent noises. Currently I have only managed to ensure that I do not snore. Yes one of the fallouts from feminine graces post pregnancy. Damn the diaphragm and the fat!!! So here I was almost falling off my chair when this sms from Rupan came through. Rupan - soul sister, friend, critic, sounding box, huge support system, and loads more - all rolled into one. She sends me the cutest and also the naughtiest messages that have me falling off my chair and rolling with laughter. Thank goodness this was the cute one else I would have had all eyes on me and would have had to leave the room aka the mishief maker in class

"Well wishers are like
the walls of a home
Sometimes they hold you
Sometimes you lean on them
And sometimes
Its just enough to know
They are around you!"

Well that just about sums up Rupan's presence in my life. Nine years ago today, she was handed yet another leading role - Mommy to Rakshita. Now this is not to take away from the very special day of the birthday girl but a time to reflect, atleast for me, and to pay tribute to her best friend - her mommy.

P.S: Happy Birthday Rakshita. I love you and you are always in my thoughts. You are special because you are you. You light up our lives in ways both big and small and in the radiance of your smile, it is easy to turn away the dark clouds of despair and bring in the sunshine of hope.

Balloons

2008-09-17T21:38:00.003-07:00

This is again a cute forward but did not threaten me with "dire consequences"

Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who treat you right. Forget about the ones who don't

Believe everything happens for a reason..

If you get a second chance, grab it with both hands. If it changes your life, let it.

Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would be worth it.

Friends are like balloons; once you let them go,

you can't get them back. So I'm gonna tie you to

my heart so I never lose you. Send this to all your

friends including me and see how many you get

back. Send this balloon to everybody you like. You

may also return it to me. Send a lot of little balloons to

your friends!!!

Good Karma

2008-09-17T21:38:00.002-07:00

I am constantly besieged by forwards on e-mail urging me to read the pieces and forward it to "n" number of people, it should leave my hands in "x" number of hours, not to break the chain and so and so forth, else bad luck would befall. These were the new age chain letters that I used to get as a kid. India in the seventies and the eighties had a lot of them. The carrot for not breaking the chain in those days was that it would create a world record and find a mention in the Guiness Book. You have no idea how much of my precious pocket money I have wasted in this exercise. Added to that I also ran errands and did odd jobs to earn a little extra to take care of the postage. Really a stupid, naive fool.

Anyway back to this story. In the early days of being on the net and some, I used to diligently do as told. It was my way of sending good wishes and also letting friends and family know that I was thinking of them and not sending a mere forward. Until one day my sister Tulsi threated to spam me. I was most upset that this "mere chit of a girl", the baby I had once held in my arms had the temerity to "talk" to me like that. However, I realized that not everyone would appreciate what I was doing and rightly so. These were friends and family, my loved ones that I was sending them to and it was certainly not on that my mails would carry threats of dire consequences if instructions were not followed. No matter whether or not one believed in these things. My baby, that mere chit of a girl had taught me an important lesson in cyber space courtesy; I had to hand it to her.

But then there were those who sent me these forwards and meant well. They truly wanted me to receive the blessings and be safe, prosper, be happy, get a windfall, etc. etc. I could not let them down either. Quite a dilemma. That is what it was until a few minutes ago when I had this brilliant idea. Hereinafter, I was going to put up these forwards that I liked on my blog. That way the world would read the piece and I would meet more than my target of "x" number of people to forward it to. Also the people reading it did not have to forward it or face any consequences or any such thing.

Really I surprise myself with my ingenuity and genius!!! Genius??? Just kidding, dear reader. Here is the first of these forwards.....Enjoy

Inclusive Education

2008-09-02T10:36:00.000-07:00

This piece was written by Elu, a dear friend and colleague at Raksha (www.rakshasociety.org) in Cochin. She probably does not know or does not remember but she is also Aarzoo's Godmother. A few days ago she sent me this by e-mail and I told her that I was going to put it up on my blog with a few edits. Did not ask her just told her.........because these are my thoughts too and I could not have penned them down any better!! And knowing Elu, she is not going to start blogging anytime soon, so world please thank me for sharing this with you!!

Inclusion recognizes an individual's right to be treated equally. It aims to impart the same services and opportunities as everyone else. Inclusive Education in its ideal form is useful for both children with disabilities and also typical children. It also sensitizes the policy makers to build an inclusive society which will be efficient and ultimately useful for all the citizens and not to a selected group. The issue is: are we doing this just because we are one of the signatories of the UNCRPD (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) which forces us to implement the concept or are we really recognizing the fundamental right of a person to have an opportunity to learn, achieve and function as everybody else? I do hope it is the latter which not just signals a mature approach to education but also reflects a true and deep understanding of the universal nature of education itself. An effective inclusion in pedagogical terms requires sensitivity and a change in attitude towards the needs of a child with disability. The education system must be flexible and adaptations not only in teaching methodologies but also in the built environment - like the approach road to the school, the main gate, the main entrance, classrooms and toilets - are a necessity. Inclusion offers a child with disability an opportunity to cope with the challenges of the outside world. After all when these children grow to be adults they are not going to live in a special environment, they are going to live in regular society.

Elizabeth Philip

Rehabilitation Psychologist

Raksha Society for the Care of

Children with Special Needs,

Kochangadi, Kochi-2

Instinct vs Logic

2008-08-24T07:35:00.000-07:00

I have a problem with logic; yeah go ahead and make snide remarks about women and logic! But hope you will hear me out.

If you speak of instinct well then now you are talking and I am a firm believer of this little niggler which watches out for most of us. Where logic is concerned, I tend to treat it more like I would my child. Let me explain.......instinct to me is more me more something that was born with me so it is more a part of me that I can trust and rely on. But logic is a different matter altogether. It reeks of potential in the future and as a woman I would say that it is to me the same as the potential to bear a child.

Women and instinct and I think - Calpurnia. Have not done much Shakespeare, so I hope I got it right.

Logic - yes at workplace

Loads of people I have met who keep referring to logic to disrupt proceedings

Many a time logic stops you from actually listening to a person and assimilating the information he/she is providing. Instead you are listening to the conversation that is going on in your head with yourself. Which is fine if you are at the workplace and at your workstation when it is important for you to challenge yourself in order to ensure that the project/report/paper or whatever it is you are working on meets the deadline......

But when you are having a dialogue with another person, a physical entity, then surely it is disrespectful to say the least if one does not listen to the other's point of view.
...................................................................................

I found this draft while looking through my blog. This was dated last August so I am not even sure if I wrote it. But hey I second these thoughts and this was in my draft list, so what the hell.....

In case you who is reading this at this point is the one who wrote it, then by all means take credit love.....

If it is indeed I who wrote it then I am darned sure that I had more to add but as my fingers pummel the keys into words, I have no idea what it was that I wanted to say. But I hope what is said would suffice and that it says it all......

An Anonymous Poem

2008-08-18T01:14:00.000-07:00

This little piece is again courtesy Aarzoo's school and Padma Aunty, the administrator. I loved it and had to share it. The lines are few but say a lot more than tomes on pedagogy in a library. I am not going to spoil it with my commentary save to say that it works.........

I tried to teach my child with books
He gave me only puzzled looks.
I tried to teach my child with words
They passed him by often unheard.
Despairingly, I turned aside,
"How shall I teach this child?" I cried
Into my hand, he put the key,
"Come," he said, "play with me".

AGM

2008-08-16T23:43:00.000-07:00

Circa 2005......I attended my first ever annual general meeting at Human Rights Law Network [HRLN] where I worked in the Disability Rights Initiative [DRI]. Post the AGM, Sujata my colleague who is with "Combat Law" (www.combatlaw.org) the bi-monthly human rights magazine that is an integral part of HRLN, asked me to write a report on the meeting. My first instinct was to say no and I should have considering the tall order she gave next.......to put into a paragraph, max a page, the proceedings of the four days of meeting!!!!

I was going through my files and chanced upon the report that I finally managed to put together for Sujata. She was really kind in her praise and put it up in our in-house newsletter. I have made a few edits and thought it a good idea to enter it in my blog. Hope I receive more bouquets than brick-bats!!!!!!

HRLN - Annual General Meeting, October 2005 - GOA

Large organizations can often make an individual feel very insignificant in the larger scheme of things. At one end a “doing something for the sake of doing it” and “have to earn buddy” kind of attitude can set in that can send everything into a downward spiral. “What I do and I” are important to the exclusion of everything else is at the other end of the spectrum. And, of course, there is lots else that lie in between. But a four-day organization review meeting seemed a most unlikely strategy to rejuvenate the cadres, especially during the holiday season! Management gurus please go back to school.

Speaking for myself, it was a very grumpy, sleepy zombie that arrived in 'paradiso' Goa. But as the moments ticked by (a little too fast during some sessions; very slow in others) one could barely stop oneself from jumping right in and taking ownership at the macro-level. Just could not help it! Meeting colleagues from across the country; some old friends, some voices transformed to faces and sharing the same roof with some strangers for a major part of the day. The presentations of each initiative, the explosive intensity and the drama during discussions; the anger and the frustrations, the laughter and ribbing that followed the goofiness of co-workers, all came tumbling out. The slave driving was expected but then there were a couple of time offs for a walk on the beach long after sun down, a rain soaked cruise, some wine, some beer, some shopping and some dancing! Hey there was some singing during the sessions as well!!

The insignificance I then realized was after all only in relation to the larger scheme of things; things that belonged in the realm of philosophy and high brow intellectualism and not in the harsh realities faced by the millions of individuals across the nation. Further realization that a Network is a support system, a strength in numbers which lies in the spirit, grit and determination of its members. And, each member, is an important and integral part of what has gone into and continuously contributes to the relentless evolution of the organization from a mere idea to a major factor in the Human Rights movement in the country. Is this the secret formula for “conversions”? Anyway, I was transformed from the grumpy, sleepy zombie to a rejuvenated individual who came away from Goa, raring to go!

Yours sincerely,

Sitting Duck for Management Gurus

Take a bow

P.S. : Visit www.hrln.org for more information on the organization

Ajja

2008-07-31T22:55:00.000-07:00

It’s been 49 years since he died – July 31, 1969. My Ajja (paternal grandfather) – B.D.Appaya. I never knew him. To me he was a photograph in “Shivananda”, my granny’s home in Mercara (now known as Madikeri) the district capital of Coorg. I still remember the pedestal in the corner on which his photograph was placed. This was in the living room and you could see it as you entered. The table top of the pedestal was always covered with a white crocheted piece or a damask table cloth, again pristine white.

The Kodavas are ancestor worshippers; they also worship the river Cauvery and call themselves the children of Cauvery. “Meedi Beppaddu” (an offering to the ancestors and to loved ones who are no more) is an important ritual in every Kodava family. Even today, I associate this ritual with my Ajja, despite the fact that on special occasions and on their death anniversaries, I do it for Papa, Umesh Bojappa (Papa’s younger brother) and for Avaya (as I used to call my paternal grandmother).

I remember in “Shivananda”, every morning, afternoon and evening, the ‘Meedi’ would be placed before Ajja’s portrait. The ‘Meedi’ would consist of a small portion of each item freshly prepared that would consist of the meal for the rest of the family at that particular time. This would usually be placed on a small plate or a small portion cut from a banana leaf. For the non-Kodavas reading this, it may sound funny, sacrilegious even, but the ‘Meedi’ in the afternoon and evening would be accompanied with a lit cigarette placed on a small, clean ashtray and a peg of liquor!!! I got to know Ajja smoked and enjoyed his drink.

On special occasions or before the start of an important event such as an engagement, wedding or birth in the family, the entire family (immediate and extended) present in “Shivananda” would come together in the living room and stand before his portrait. A lamp would be lit and along with the ‘Meedi’ comprising the meal, a betel nut placed over a paan leaf and a small brass vessel with holy water (from the river Cauvery) would be placed before him. Everyone would be given a few grains of rice and Avaya after blowing the conch shell would lead us in prayer seeking his blessings and those of our fore fathers before him. Now the prayer did not consist of any shlokas or bhajans or any such thing, just plain speak; something akin to the evangelist’s style but a trite more sophisticated and low-voiced!! Once the prayer was over, we threw the grains of rice onto his portrait. Avaya would ladle out the holy water with a small conch shell and pour it three times onto our extended palm (the right palm in a scoop, placed on the left). We would then stand in queue to touch Ajja’s portrait three times as a symbol of touching his feet. I have seen some people even touch the foot of the pedestal!! We would then disperse and that was it.

Ajja died two years before I was born. So there is not even a fuzzy memory of the man. Even if I was born earlier it would not have made much of a difference because I was about five when I first visited Coorg. Looking back I realize, I don’t know much about him; I probably know far more details about not only the various Gods in the Hindu pantheon but also various other religions. But not my own grandfather!!!

Yes, yes……there are millions in this world in a similar situation and HELLO, if they don’t feel a thing, then good for them and if they do then I totally empathize. I empathize because there are times when I think of him and I feel like a part of me is missing, like a piece of a puzzle or something.

Of late, it has also begun to dawn on me that when my sisters and I get together (especially Tulsi and I), we have these really funny anecdotes that we share and at times some very intense discussions about our family but Ajja has never been a part of any of these. The reason could be that we don’t know much about him. In fact, until this morning, I was not very sure of his full name and I had to call Chima Bojappa (my father’s younger brother; next in line to Papa). I also mentioned to him that I wanted to know more about Ajja and he promised to share his memories when I visited next. Come to think of it, I have not seen another photo of Ajja either, just the portrait on the pedestal.

P.S.: Suchsmita Majumdar is responsible for this entry. The other day (July 30) she wrote a beautiful and nostalgic piece ending with a few lines about her grandfather. I read it again on the 31^st which happened to be Ajja’s anniversary and I guess all my emotions and memories came to the fore.

I am grateful to Suchi though; this entry of mine will probably help my kids – Manoj (in the immediate future), Aarzoo and Tamanna (in the not too distant future), know me better in some ways and see the softer, bumbling and confused side of me.

Thought for the day

2008-07-29T21:09:00.000-07:00

Across the country in all the Kendriya Vidyalayas, the morning assembly is much the same. You have the drill called out by the School Captain. Then the prayer

ॐ असतो माँ, सद्गमय
तमसो माँ, ज्योतीरगमय
दया कर दान विद्या का
हमें परमात्मा देना
दया कर दान वीद्या का
............................
........................
....................
ॐ शांती शांती शांती

That's how the prayer ended. The students were divided into four houses. In most of the schools the houses were named - Ashoka, Shivaji, Tagore and depending on that particular KV there was one more which may or may not be common with the other KVs. For example, in my school in Chennai, K.V.CLRI, the fourth house was Bharati after the great Tamil poet Bharatiyar but in my school in Cochin, K.V. Port Trust, we had Raman after the great scientist and Nobel laureate Sir C.V.Raman. Every week each house would be assigned the task of carrying out the assembly programme which included the pledge, the thought for the day, the news, announcements and the National Anthem. There would be a slight variations in the theme if it were a special occasion or we had a special guest (more likely the Assistant Commissioner or the Education Officer of that particular region).

Now the assembly programme would be in English, thrice a week, in Hindi - twice a week and in Sanskrit, once a week. This meant that the pledge would be taken according to the language of the day and the thought for the day and the news too would be read in the same language. The pledge - All Indians are my brothers and sisters......... - led to a profusion of PJs (potta/poor jokes) with, "Why did Rajiv Gandhi marry Sonia Gandhi?" taking pride of place. The answer was because she is Italian and all Indians are his brothers and sisters. Truly juvenile!!!

The, Thought for the day, depended on the school. In some KVs the student assigned the job would just read a line like, "Pride comes before a fall" and be done with it. At times which were few and far between, a student may seek something more profound and read it to the assembly but again it would be just a line or two. But some schools insisted on a three minute speech as a means to ensure that students were trained in public speaking. The news consisted mainly of the newspaper headlines of the day. Announcements would include the results of various competitions or the exam dates or some new rule or whatever........ My school in Mangalore, K.V.Panambur used to set aside one day of the week for quiz during assembly. Unlike in other schools, here we used to stand according to the house we were in and not in single file along with our classmates. More like Hogwarts (surely you know the school that Harry Potter went to). So there were four questions asked; one for each house.

I must mention K.V.Vasco-da-Gama here. It was the first KV, I went to, after a brief stint in the world of convent/private school education. I was in Class IV and I do have many memories of how naughty I was and also my first serious crush (after my dad of course).

When we had a special guest for the assembly, he/she would give a speech and we would have to sing a few extra songs of the patriotic type; read Vande mataram, Sare Jahan se acha, Ekla chalo re, Hey Muhinjo watan etc. Or put up a little skit or dance, in short a little programme showcasing our talents!!!!

Assembly times could be tough, especially with the sun beating down on us and we would become very fidgety (we would make marks on the ground with our shoes, whisper to the friend ahead or behind, pull the skirt of the girl in front or if one got really bold her braid, some really naughty boys would manage to sprinkle ink on our shirts and so on). Those who had a class test would bring out little sheets of paper and try furtive rote learning; we got quite good at that and were rarely ever caught. A few lucky ones would faint in the heat and be carried away into the shade. We would also be envious of the mate who was on class duty (this came according to roll number) or who had prior permission to stay away from the assembly owing to ill-health or some such reason. The really sneaky ones would somehow manage to be let off only to sit behind and complete the unfinished home work or project. But hey it would be their turn to envy us if we had a games period on that particular day. The ordeal would come to an end with the singing of the National Anthem which we would sing full throated and with gusto.

I must confess that I am severely musically challenged and would often get kicked in my shins for singing the prayer and the anthem (and of course the special occasion songs) off key. My best friend, please note, my best friend - Indira Krishnan - would actually turn around and gnashing her teeth, whisper loudly, "Muthamma, just shut up", or "Shut up ya, stop braying like a donkey"!! Can you beat that? The other person who quite vocally blew away my musical aspirations was my sister Tulsi (my father's favourite niece....grrrr) and the man himself, B.A.Devaya (my father) but we shall talk about it some other day.

Well, I have no idea, for what joy I have written all this. But I was going through my diary in which I had written some lines, each of which would have made a good, 'Though for the day' and memories of school came flooding back. In case any of you reading this are in KV currently, please feel free to use these lines for your morning assembly.

"What we are is God's gift to us. What we become is our reciprocal gift to God".

"It does no good for sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism, when the wolves think otherwise".

"A good teacher's influence affects eternity".
(you will surely score brownie points for this particular one. Better still use it on teacher's day and by jove, all thy "sins" shall be forgiven)

"There is nothing in the world so much like prayer as music".
(Now use this with care. If you have a Princey who is not in favour of extra-curricular activities or CCA periods, you will be a marked person and hence I will advice caution. For the uninitiated, CCA or co-curricular activity periods is time set aside for inter-house competitions or various school club - like nature club, scouts & guides or drama club etc. - activities. These are usually the last two periods on Saturdays in about 99% of the KVs)".

"One who brags that he is a self-made man relieves God of an awful responsibility".
(Again caution kid, don't say I didn't warn you; your Princey/class teacher/house master or mistress may believe he/she is self made and will haul your arse for a good kick)

Hugs for Rakshita

2008-07-28T23:02:00.000-07:00

This is for my favourite niece Rakshita……..my lovely princess and champion all rounder. Tuesday is the day of the week we had set aside for us to have our long telephone conversations but somehow I have not been able to stick to the schedule. Let me clarify, I think of calling her every Tuesday, but it is always either too early in that she may still be in school or too late, she is in bed!!!

Rakshita is a lot like me; shows affection quite easily and showers me with loads of hugs and kisses. Quite a few times she told me, “Muthamma Maasi, you are the best”. The memory of this perks me up whenever I am feeling low and never fails to bring a smile on. She came visiting this summer and we had a great time, the ten days that she was here. Rakshita and I would hug each other often and Aarzoo would join, followed by little Tamanna and we would get Rupan (Rakshita’s mom and my soul sister) to join. We christened this group hug our circle of love.

Aarzoo and Tamanna’s paediatrician, Dr. Nagesh has this poem on the notice board at his residential clinic. I have always wanted to write it down but could never do so as I would be busy with either one of the girls or both. But the other day little Aditya fell ill and I went with my friend Runa (Adi’s mom) to the clinic and while they were consulting with the Doctor, I jotted this poem down.

So Rakshita here you are; today is a Tuesday and you must be in school in far away Chandigarh. And I am sitting here at my desk in Bangalore and hoping that someday when you get net savvy (which will be sooner than I think) you will read this……

Hugs

There’s something in a simple hug

That always warms the heart

It welcomes us back home

And makes it easier to part.

A hug’s a way to share the

Joy and sad times we go through

Or just a way for friends to say

They like you ‘cause

You are you

Hugs are for anyone,

For whom we really care

From your grandma to your neighbour

Or a cuddly teddy bear.

A hug is an amazing thing –

It’s just the perfect way

To show the love we are feeling

But can’t find

The words to say……

I don’t know who wrote this piece but the copyright belongs to Kingsley, USA.

I Did Nothing Today

2008-07-27T22:21:00.000-07:00

Suchi this is for you – a tribute to the weekly checklist you put up

I saw this on the notice board at Aarzoo’s school – Little Feat. I just loved it and requested the Admin Officer at the school to give me a copy and she did. Thank you Ma’am. I wanted to share this with everyone and hence the entry in my blog. In a way, I feel it does hold true for all of us……….

I Did Nothing Today

When children come home at the end of the day

The question they’re asked as they run out to play

Is “Tell me, what did you do today?”

And the answer they give makes you sigh with dismay

“Nothing. I did nothing today!”

Perhaps “Nothing” means that I read a book,

Or….with a directress I got to cook.

Maybe I painted a picture of blue,

Or heard a story about a mouse that flew.

Maybe I wrote in my journal myself,

Or found a great book on the library shelf.

Maybe I helped a friend today,

Or went to my favourite area alone,

Maybe today was the very first time,

That my scissors followed a very straight line,

Maybe I sang a song right to the end,

Or worked with a special brand new friend.

When you’re three, four, or five your heart has wings

And “nothing” can mean so many things

I have no idea who wrote this gem. But whoever did was a very keen observer and may be a teacher. However, I think that this is true for anybody whatever their age. There have been times when I have come home after a long day at the office and felt that I had not done anything. But if I were to list out the things that I had done that day, I am sure I would have quite a long one, which may include –

- chatting with a friend who is feeling blue

- thinking, strategizing and drafting a proposal

- making those calls which could clear paths or create new obstacles

- tearing my hair out

- taking a break and actually doing nothing

Thank you Suchi, for putting out that list. Like I said, this one is for you………….

In case you are wondering who is Suchi; check out http://suchismita-wwwsuchsimita.blogspot.com/

My daughter, my teacher

2008-07-21T07:41:00.000-07:00

I am usually not one to fall for those pleading eyes and whiny pleas of the puppy dog kind but for some reason gave in to Aarzoo’s pleas of, “Please Mummy, please, please, please, just this once”. I had picked her up from school and she wanted a balloon; the last one left from the balloon seller at the gates. I am really tough on the kids and therefore quite unpopular with them. Brook no nonsense because give and inch and my brood will take not just the mile but the whole darned 1000 square miles!

But on the afternoon of the 17^th of July 2008, I gave in for some reason. Maybe it was because I was recovering from a bad cough and did not want to lapse into a spasm arguing with the persistent daughter. Maybe it was my sister Deepti’s birthday and we were on our way to wish her after school. Whatever the reason, Aarzoo couldn’t believe her luck and because she did not want to take a chance lest I changed my mind, she quickly scampered towards the hawker. The lone balloon was round in shape, translucent white in colour with a bright magenta coloured heart shaped balloon inside. The treasure cost us Rs. 10/-

Aarzoo was excited beyond words when the plan to visit her aunt unfurled and she decided on the spot to gift the balloon to Deepti. The ride from school to Deepti’s place was spent rehearsing the process of gifting the balloon and what she was going to say. Me of little faith was quite cynical about the whole thing and I was like, “Yeah, right! Let’s see if you go through with this”. For when push comes to shove, the kid within might win over and all those generous intentions may slide down the drain. Come on, let’s be realistic. After all who does not like to own and play with a fancy balloon like that, aged five and a half.

Thankfully, all that was just thoughts I had and were not said aloud. Impervious to the doubting Thomas gnawing at me, the little one was glowing with delight and getting on my nerves with her impatience. I guess, at that age, when you have a plan and focus, even a five minute drive can seem pretty long.

Deepti is my youngest uncle’s (on my father’s side) daughter and among my youngest sisters; Aarzoo addresses her as Deepti Kunjavva (Kunji = little, Avva = mother, in Kodava Tak, the language of the Coorgs). We arrive. Finally!! Aarzoo jumps off the car and runs up the stairs hesitating a little on hearing Nano’s barking (Nano, a six month old Labrador retriever, is the latest member of member of my Uncle’s family). Now my daughter is not afraid of dogs or animals but she does respect their space and temperaments and I am pleased to see that in the manner in which she deals with Nano as well. Anyway, she is the first to reach and there is total pandemonium. Aarzoo was screaming her lungs out singing, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEEPTI KUNJAVVA, Nano’s barking had reached several notches higher in terms of the decibels and he was jumping on Aarzoo. Poor Deepti was trying hard to keep Nano under control, respond to Aarzoo and welcome me into the home, all at the same time!!!

Aarzoo stood her ground, so Nano piped down and I could give Deepti a hug and kiss her cheeks and wish her in relative peace. Aarzoo immediately held out the balloon and said, “Deepti Kunjavva, this is for you. My birthday gift for you”. Deepti was all smiles and mid-way through a “thank-you Aarzoo”, when the brat quipped, “And see that heart shaped balloon inside this round one? That is to tell you, I love you, Kunjavva”.

Hold it. What was that? I don’t think that was part of the rehearsed lines. Where did that come from? I got all choked up and risked getting emotional and teary-eyed. So I bent down to pat Nano still reeling from what had just happened.

“No big deal”, you may say. “Not worth wasting reams in cyber space”.

“Ah! But you are of the generously forgiving nature”, I say. “Remember the cynic who did not believe that her five and a half year old brat would part with such a treasure as a balloon with a magenta coloured heart-shaped balloon within?” “It was ME of little faith!!

Well, I better start eating my thoughts, for my little one has a lot of teaching in her soul for this weather beaten hag of a mother.

Rumblestrip Venkity…....for Kauser

2008-07-19T01:58:00.000-07:00

C.S.Venkiteswaran is a friend who writes his column Rumblestrip every Thursday for the City Express in Cochin. I am a privileged reader in that I get a preview whenever he remembers to send me his piece for the week a prior to it being published. He constantly urges me to write and I love reading his columns. The following is a chat we had one afternoon in late 2006. He has been nagging me for quite a while to put my thoughts of Kauser on paper. One fine day I shared this chat with my film-maker sister Shubashini and she suggested that I enter this chat into my blog as is. I do as she suggested and I hope you understand the connection I have with Kauser…………

Chat begins:

2:59 PM me: Hi

How are you

venkity: fine

me: I am Ahmedabad now

venkity: on nation-trot again?

3:00 PM me: Hahahhhahhaha

venkity: on business?

me: Do you know Kauser Banu

Yes on work

venkity: no

3:01 PM how r things?

9 minutes

3:11 PM me: Sorry was on the phone

Ok about Kauser Banu......

neither do I know her

3:12 PM But we have something in common

Both of us conceived our first child around the same time

3:13 PM Only I did so in peaceful Cochin and she was in Ahmedabad and during the riots was raped and "dewombed" and left to die

Her foetus thrust onto a trident and taken round the streets

Am I traversing the very same streets now

I will never know

3:14 PM venkity: mm

me: But I am pregnant with my second child and

Am in Gujarat

Do I have a destiny for these things?

I will never know

venkity: (congrats anyway)

me: Kauser Banu I will never know her either

3:15 PM Thanks

Bye for now....got to go

venkity: there is a very touching aspect to what u said

me: Will be writing about this soon and will send it to you for editing

Oh tell me what

is it

3:16 PM venkity: the parallels i mean

me: Yes I know

I saw the picture of the foetus on the trident

3:17 PM Aarzoo was a foetus at the time and of the same age

venkity: phew

where?

me: You can imagine what it did to me

venkity: i can guess

3:18 PM me: There are times I look at my baby and can't help but think about the baby that was and of Kauser

Being here in a sense is quite traumatic

You should see the Hindu Rashtra sign boards

venkity: send me some pics

u have a digicam?

3:19 PM me: Nah....wish I could send you

3:20 PM Sorry about that

Will you take a look at the piece when I write about this and help me with it

3:21 PM venkity: sure, but pls do write it

me: Will do

venkity: it is something that should be written i feel

me: In fact I want a big favour from you

Can you save this chat and forward it to me as e-mail in order that I will be able to remember it

3:22 PM I was thinking about this and wrote to you impromptu

3:23 PM venkity: ok done

3:24 PM me: Thanks and I promise to write it as soon as I can

venkity: i think it gets automatically saved if it is not off the record

3:25 PM me: Ok ....but I want you to save it nevertheless as a file and then copy paste it and send it to me as an e-mail

venkity: ok

me: One can never be sure of these things

Ok then

3:26 PM venkity: take care

bye

me: Bye for now and thank you for agreeing to help

venkity: anytime, mam

End of Chat

I often think of her and her unborn baby. Aarzoo is a constant reminder and Tamanna to an extent. How old was Kauser when she conceived and when she was killed? What were her dreams? Did she think of her future and that of the life within? Was hers an arranged marriage? Did she love her husband or had she made compromises? Was she a working woman? Did she live in Ahmedabad all her life or did she come there after she was married? Did she plan to go to her mother’s for her confinement? Would our paths have crossed, ever?......Millions of questions for a woman I will never know……….A woman I would not have heard of and we each would have lived our own lives and played out our destiny. May be this is it…….this is the way it was meant to be. She going away and I overwhelmed by the connection, writing these pieces as a tribute to a fellow human being, a woman I will never know. Adieu Kauser, may you rest in peace, may your baby forgive this cruel world. May I be a good person and a good mom and bring up my daughters as good human beings, a fitting tribute to your “ajanmi bitiya”

Thank you, Venkity, for the constant encouragement to write about this. It helped as you said it would.

Of Poets and Healing…….

2008-07-19T01:09:00.000-07:00

I found the poem in my last entry a couple of years ago. The Gujarat riots of 2002 shook the very foundations of my faith in our democracy, secularism and all the other isms and made it collapse with the earthquake within, that measured 7.0 on the Richter scale. The riots of 1984 which shook the country prior to this was the first instance of my core turning to rubble…….all that I heard and saw on television or read in the papers made me question my oh so “Kendriya Vidyalayan” beliefs.

The riots of 2002 received greater coverage owing to the influx of cable television and the increasing number of news channels. In the melee that followed, the newspapers and magazines were not to be left behind. I had seen photographs of the massacres and in particular the picture of a foetus on a ‘trishul’ (trident) was devastating for me but I had to stay strong for the foetus inside me. She (I did not know it was she then) gave me the will to go on and take a breath and then another and live on, not reel under the images that I was seeing.

I realize though that I was not healed. But this poem, this poem was written for me. For closure. For healing. For peace. For hope. There have been many instances when I have read something that either seemed as though I had written it or that the author was me, only in a different body, space and time. It was the same with “Kauser Bano ki ajanmi bitiya ki ore se” – the poet knew something was amiss and wrote this piece to heal me or was it to heal himself and in turn offer me some kind of closure?

Found this poem in the compilation titled – Dark Leaves of the Present, Edited by Angana P.Chatterji & Shabnam Hashmi, Published by ANHAD

Thank you, Anshu Malviya for writing this poem. If I had the same felicity and verve with Urdu, I would have written this posting in the very tongue which was the first language I ever spoke.

Kauser Bano - A tribute

2008-07-17T23:04:00.000-07:00

कौसर बानो की अजन्मी बिटिया की ओर से

सब कुछ ठीक था अम्मा
तेरे खाए अचार की खटास
तेरी चखी हुई मिट्टीअक्सर पहुँचते थे मेरे पास.......
सूरज तेरी कोख से छनकर
आता था मुझ तक

मै बहुत खुश थी अम्मा
मुझे लेनी थी जल्दी ही
अपने हीस्से की साँस
मुझे लगनी थी अपने हीस्से की भूख
मुझे देखनी थी
अपने हीस्से की धुप

मैं बहुत खुश थी अम्मा
अब्बू की हथेली की छाया
तेरे पेठ पर देखी थी मैंने
मुझे उनका चेहरा देखना था
मुझे अपने हीस्से के अब्बू देखने थे
हीस्से की दुनीया देखनी थी

मैं बहुत खुश थी अम्मा!

एक दींन
मैं घबरायी....... बीछली
जैसे मछली.......
तेरे कोख के पानी में
कीसी चीज़ की छाया थी
अनजानी.........

मुझे लगा
तू चल नही घीसठ रही है
मुझे चोठ लग रही थी अम्मा

फीर जाने क्या हुआ
मैं तेरी कोख के
गुनगुने मुलायम अंधेरे से नीकलकर
चटक धुप
फीर
चटक आग मैं पहुँच गई

वो बहुत बड़ा ऑपरेशन था अम्मा

अपनी उन आंखों से
जो कभी नही खुली
मैंने देखा
बड़े बड़े डॉक्टर तुझ पर झुखे हुए थे
उनके हाथ में तीन मुह वाले
बड़े-बड़े नश्तर थे अम्मा........
वे मुझे देख चीखे

चीखे कीसलीये अम्मा-
क्या खुश हुए थे मुझे देखकर
बाहर नीकलते ही
आग के खीलोने दिए उन्होंने अम्मा.........
फीर तो मैं खेल में ऐसा बीसरी
की तुझे देखा नही -
तूने भी अंतीम हीचकी
से सोहर गई होगी अम्मा
मैं कभी नही जन्मी अम्मा
और इसी तरह कभी नही मरी
अस्पताल में रंगीन पानी में रखे हुए
अजन्मे बचचों की तरह
मैं अमर हो गई अम्मा!
लेकीन यहाँ रंगीन पानी नही
चुभती हुई आग है!
मुझे कब तक जलना होगा ...........अम्मा!

- Anshu Malviya

Kauser Bano ki ajanmi bitiya ki ore se

Sab kuch theek tha amma

Tere khaye achaar ki khatas

Teri chakhi hui mitti

Aksar pahunchte the mere paas……

Sooraj teri kokh se chankar

Aata tha mujhtak

Main bahut khush thi amma

Mujhe leni thi jaldi hi

Apne hisse ki saans

Mujhe lagni thi apne hisse ki bhookh

Mujhe dekhni thi

Apne hisse ki dhoop

Main bahut khush thi amma

Abbu ke hatheli ki chaaya

Tere pet par dekhi thi maine

Mujhe unka chehra dekhna tha

Mujhe apne hiss eke abbu dekhne the

Mujhe apne hisse ki duniya dekhni thi

Main bahut khush thi amma!

Ek din

Main ghabraayi…..bichli

Jaise machli…….

Tere kokh kepaani mein

Paani mein kisi cheez ki chaaya thi

Anjaani……..

Mujhe laga

Tu chal nahi ghisat rahi hai

Mujhe chot lag rahi thi amma!

Phir jaane kya hua

Main teri kokh ke

Gungune mulayam andhere se nikalkar

Chatak dhoop.......

Phir chatak aag mein pahoonch gayi

Woh bahut bada operation tha amma

Apni un aankhon se jo kabhi nahi khuli

Maine dekha

Bade bade doctor tujh par jhuke hue the

Unke haath mein teen muh vaale

Bade bade nashtar the amma……

Ve mujhe dekh cheekhe!

Cheekhe kisliye amma –

Kya khush the mujhe dekhkar!

Bahar nikalte hi

Aag ke khilone diye unhonne amma…..

Phir toh main khel mein aisa bisri

Ki tujhe dekha nahi –

Tune bhi antim hichki

Se sohar gayi hogi amma!

Main kabhi nahi janmi amma

Aur isi tarah kabhi nahi mari

Asptaal mein rangeen paani mein rakhe hue

Ajanme bachchon ki tarah

Main amar ho gayi amma

Lekin yahaan rangeen paani nahi

Chubhti hui aag hai!

Mujhe kab tak jalna hoga……..amma!

- Anshu Malviya

This poem written in the Hindi font will make all my teachers cringe with dismay and for all you know they may hunt me down and march me right back to school. I shudder too when I look at the grotesque spelling errors!!!! Therefore it is not only for those of you who cannot read the Hindi font but for my own peace that I have written this piece in the English font too…….

I have read this piece a number of times but not once have I been able to keep my emotions in check. Aarzoo who sees me like this once asked me to stop reading it if it makes me cry………The sweetheart, if only she knew the deep connection the two of us have with this person and the unborn baby……

Will explain later……..

Sausage Stuffed Tortillas

2008-07-15T02:50:00.000-07:00

It’s been over a month since I quit my job and turned myself into a stay at home Mom. Not that the kids are very happy with the situation considering that I can be quite the Sergeant Major!! Anyway I have taken it upon myself to fix breakfast for my brood these days. Was warming up to the whole deal, getting comfortable about it and wondering why most women cribbed so much about a simple chore as this. It does not take much to get the cornflakes bag out, fix some toast with butter/jam and fry a couple of eggs. Do a couple of variations on the theme from day to day (depending on how short a fuse you are on of course!) and you have the first “grab-meal” of the day on the table. Hah!! Simple enough isn’t it?

That was until late last evening when Supriya announced – no bread in stock, no eggs, low on the stock of cornflakes and no, not enough dough for puris to be served at breakfast as well. The dough for puris is just enough for the lunch tiffins, she insists. This, just when I thought, I could nip the panic attack in the proverbial bud and have a restful night’s sleep.

Watching a lovely movie, “Khuda Ke Liye” from across the border managed to stave off the anxiety for the following morning. The movie did disturb me and move me and added to the myriad thoughts and emotions racing through though of a different kind and context. Will write about that later, I promise myself. Good-nights said the family dispersed to their respective rooms and I snuggled into my bed. Just as I was getting into the REM stage of my slumber, a “Sanjay Kapoor”, “Karen Anand”, “Madhur Jaffery” and “Grandma” kind of light bulb clicked on in my head and I almost sleep walked to the refrigerator hoping against hope. Well what can I say save for the fact that the granny spirits were with me and YIPPPPPPPPEEEEEEEE!!!!!!! I did have sausages in stock and enough left over chappattis in the safe to save my morning. The idea was to roll a sausage each into a lightly buttered left over chapatti! Problem solved.

But with the first light of a new dawn came new ideas bursting forth. Quickly took about six sausages and defrosted them in the microwave (dumping them in some warm water could have served the purpose too). Once done, I then chopped them into little bits. Took the processed cheese left over in the little storage container, and chopped that too. Would have grated it if it was a decent quantity but with the teeny bit that was there I did not have the skills required to grate it without doing serious damage to my fingers. Something I could ill-afford at that point.

Prep done, the skillet was on the stove pronto. A dash of olive oil, heated slightly and in went the chopped sausages and cheese which melted just enough to blend in. This mix was then sautéed. In another burst of inspiration, I grabbed some kasundi (a staple presence in the larder of any Bengali kitchen and a secret ingredient that adds that extra zing to any dish). Now kasundi could be simply described as mustard paste and I am not sure if it is any different from the English Mustard, but the ingredients in this paste include – salt, turmeric, dry ginger, black pepper, tej patta (bay leaves) and vinegar (acetic acid). I am told that this secret ingredient is an import from erstwhile Bangaal (currently Bangladesh). Will research a bit and confirm that for you. So far so good but I wish I had some spring onions in stock but no such luck. I lowered the flame and placed the tava on the other burner. A bit of butter on it to melt and a left over chapatti was placed on it, then turned over and another bit of butter to coat the reverse side of the chapatti sizzled on the tava. That done, a bit of the dressed sausage bits are placed on the chapatti. A wee bit of tomato ketchup splayed on and this is then made inot a roll and secured with a toothpick or two. Voila! I step back to admire the handiwork for just a second before placing the plate on the table before the teenaged son, Manoj. With an expectant look that only a hungry teenager can have he asked me what it was. Sausage stuffed tortillas I responded without batting an eyelid. He was suitably impressed but I am like, “Now where did that come from?”. Tortillas are the Mexican equivalent of our very own chapattis and I did good. I mean imagine saying – Chappattis with sausage. The buzz would have gone round and everyone would have run the marathon in the direction opposite of the table. A case of the “ghar ki murgi, dal barabar”. Tortillas sound more exotic.

The kid took a bite and of course despite the bravado my spasms of anxiety came rushing back (if the experiment turned out to be a disaster, I had no plan “B”). I needn’t have worried because seconds later the word “Awesome” came tumbling out. I take that as a true compliment for he is the son of Radha Chechi in Cochin (the lady I consider the best chef in the world) and having grown up in her home you can well imagine his discerning taste buds. Whew!!

Given a chance I would have also added some baked beans to the mix giving it a true Mexican texture or maybe added some soya and chilli sauces to bring about the Chinese flavour. But now having made a mountain out this molehill of an incident, I cannot help but admire homemakers who came before me to the profession and wonder how they managed. I look at their world with a whole new pair of eyes and spectacles too. It dawns upon me then that we share a common gene pool which comes to our rescue and helps us think on our feet.

To the scores of home makers past, present and to the future generations of them, known and unknown, please accept this as my standing ovation to you. I would not have made it thorough without your collective energies which propel late starters like me forward.

The Cellphone has eaten up my family!!

2008-05-08T10:08:00.000-07:00

As a kid growing up all over the country, all I ever wanted was to have a large family. I was the only child of my parents with no easy access to cousins or the large extended family that I am still in the process of discovering. As a result, books became my best friends and our dogs, pigeons, rabbits, cats and other creatures became my siblings.

But that’s another story.

Cut to the present and I do believe in dreams coming true – at least some of them. In contemporary terms, I have a large family comprising my husband Parag, sister-in-law Mona, son Manoj, daughters Aarzoo and Tamanna and my mother who we all live with. Add Supriya the General Manager of the Devaya-Sen "baadi" (Bengali for household) and a three bedroom flat can be quite a hovel. Won’t blame you if you think of it as such when you visit.

Be that as it may I love dinner time as it is then that the entire family gathers at the table. I rush home from work, wash up and sit at my place expectantly. Tamanna is asleep at the time; baby that she is. But the rest of the family is no where to be seen either. I begin the task of gathering my flock round the table; manage to get three and somewhere one will disappear.

Getting Ma to the table is yet another mammoth task. She sits glued to the TV watching her favourite Malayalam serials and quite unwilling to take a break during commercials; instead she prefers to switch channels from Asianet to Surya TV and back. Aarzoo poor thing has little choice what with me alternating between gentle coaxing and threatening her with dire consequences. Phew! I finally manage to get some of them to the table and there it erupts, the ring tone of a current favourite Hindi film song. The husband is off in a merry trot. Yet the conversation round the table is on when there is another urgent call from yet another cell and off goes the sister-in-law. Midway through the meal my son is summoned by his cell going off as though the house was on fire. Lanky chap that he is, three strides are enough to get him to his destination.

Even when we are out for lunch/dinner, I find these three musketeers on the cell jabbering away. Frustrated at this I once quipped, "Next time please date your cellphones"! The husband will probably have to hunt for a wedding ring for the cell and I have visions of the family courts having a new reason for a divorce petition - incompatibility owing to spouse spending time with his/her cellphones!!!

Mom grabs her plate and rushes off to her room to watch TV. That leaves a sulking Aarzoo at the table with me and my grandiose dreams of a large family gathering at the table blown away to “ring tones”. But hey the “hovel” leaves little space for the privacy of a long drawn telephone conversation, especially when the two balconies are already taken. Little evil nuggets of knowledge that I can take comfort in; short lived though it may be.

A Reader’s Digest piece with the title “The Television ate up my best friends” comes flashing through the inner recesses of memory; a story of how the advent of television left play areas bare and the narrator no friends to play with. Today is no different; the TV has eaten up my Ma and the cellphone the rest of my best friends!

As for the computer and its seductive prowess, well, no competition there. Ah! But I shall leave venting about that for another time.

Patriarchy

2008-04-24T02:50:00.000-07:00

Life as I know it

Is none the same

From the perspective

Of others

Yet they say

Each of us is unique

Each special in her own way

So where do the roads lead

Each path tread

Is different from the other

However,

As the journey unfolds

Pain, tears, violence, abuse, debasement

With words and gestures

Within and without the

Confines of home

As women we see this

In one form or the other

No where to turn

And when courage

Beckons

No support

The uniform every bit the

Monster of a dreadful

Nightmare

Yet a kindly and kindred soul

Keeps the flame burning

Walking a few steps too many

Towards the path

Seeking justice and reprieve

But

The Judge impartial and unbiased

Or so he is supposed to be

Looks at the petition in disdain

And no different from others

Banishes her back into

The feudal castle

Of pain

An excruciating death sentence

Of Life!

Bereavement

2008-04-24T00:19:00.000-07:00

Years ago when I was in the Mills & Boon and other pulp romantic fiction phase of reading, I picked up these words which are a constant source of strength and assurance for me whenever I think of the loved ones I have lost along life's journey.........

People don't die
Don't really die
If loved ones
Left behind
Think of them
Once in a while........

These lines give meaning to the phrase "passed on"; in that it makes me believe they are away somewhere among the stars that shine bright in the heavens and galaxies above.

So Ammachi, Appan, Avaya, Daadima, Umesh Bojappa, Achamma, Naanima, Papa, Chachaji, Achachan, Ammu, Baba............for the days that I may not think of you (though they are few) this tribute is to ensure that you continue to be among brightest shining stars

Love you and miss you