This is probably one the most debatable pieces on my blog. It’s also going to be a very short piece at that. This basically puts the blame of the exploitation of women squarely on the shoulders of the woman.
Most ‘liberated’ women try and speak like Jack Black in School of Rock – “Don’t let the Man get you down”. Standing in the midst of the cackle that surrounds them, they have difficulties deciding on the real perpetrator. Little do they realize that the largest obstacle that stands in the way of their potential being fully realized is feminine. There is a stark difference in the culture, nay, the psyche of the women in the ‘free’ zone and those outside of it.
Last night, while travelling in a cab with a few women of varied ages I noticed an aberration in a ‘free yourself’ movement. One woman was trying to put the brakes on the other girls. She was trying her best to thwart the expression of their thoughts. Now, that is a difficult thought to live with. She was also noticeably behaving like she was stricken by some male chauvinistic disease. What I realized after a few moments of thought was that though the women of the rest of the world (outside the Indian subcontinent and the other arid places) have managed to create an identity outside of their association with men, we Indians are, at best, struggling to get to the half way mark.
The woman finally draws her own lines…That should always be the attitude…achievement in any field is no substitute for mental servitude. Yes, have a heart and your manners around you…even drape the cultural nine-yards around yourself but never…Never let the (Wo)Man get you down!
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Between Battlefields
News: I had to travel to Haryana to meet the chaps who make us loads of dough – not art-of-living-babas dudes…the Profs. Give me time to mention a few facts and I would be done. The glorious past of Kurukshetra, I would not even touch. I may briefly remark that the present Kurukshetra is a pilgrimage center: it’s the place where the war between the righteous brothers and the hundred other brothers took place. Brother versus brother…bloodshed aplenty…bring on Martin Luther King…save our souls!
So, it may seem a little out of colour (pun intended) for me but I had to quit my condo at 6:00 a.m. to reach the railway station in time. The wind almost froze my ‘you-know-what’…in fact I was just happy not to be superman (man of steel with ‘you-know-what’ of steel). The train left the station at half past 7 and virtually whizzed past desolate trees, urinating dogs and half-naked children. On entry, I saw that the train had its own charms (really good-looking I tell you!). I sat in my seating hoping that some beautiful miracle might happen to keep me company for the next 2 hours. Exactly like clockwork along came a gang of – hold your breath – retired military chaps. Apart from the pain of having a beautiful wish crushed under marching orders, I had to deal with the chap sitting adjacent to me. This chap was made of an exceptionally sonorous material. God knows what He used for construction…was it necessary to bring in bronze to add variety to human species?
A minute into the journey, my attention was caught by a little kid (with a Brit. accent) sitting behind me. Junior was having trouble managing his mother who was behaving in a manner most unbecoming of civilized people. Just imagine her cheek – asking him to don a sweater through the journey. Which self-respecting male would wear a sweater? When he saw that she was becoming difficult he said, “But you said that I would have to wear it if I felt cold…you promised and now you want to break it…and that is a very bad thing.” I could see that the kid had a bright future…after all, how many of us can successfully fend off mothers? All this while junior’s little sister was playing hide and seek with me. She would quietly peep from behind my seat and if I turned around, she would slowly fade behind the seat. I played hide-and seek with her till the moment she thought that I was too daft to play with and dumped the idea. (Guys, this is getting serious – even small kids dump me!). Suddenly the broadcast system came alive with the voice of an absent lady declaring that we had reached Panipat. Junior looked out of the window at the platform and said, “I want to go and fill some water!” - How funny is that? Although the kid did not realize it, he had a good sense of humour (Pani is water in Hindi). Panipat was the great battlefield that finally stamped Mughal supremacy over India. It can be considered our very own waterloo (pardon the pun!). It was ironic that one battlefield lead to another that lead to a third – my first battle with the throes of the academic community.
Breakfast was being served – finally. I was just beginning to lose my patience with waiting and (not) playing hide and seek. Now when my tray comes what do I see? - 3 spoons. No fork, no knife and of all people, it happened to me. By this time I was hoping that nothing else goes wrong, this being my first trip. Soon the voice of the absent lady crackled again and it was time to get my rump off the Shatabdi and onto a rickshaw plying on the dusty streets of Kurukshetra.
Kurukshetra was like any typical North Indian village-town hybrid. I was expecting a Basanti to show up with her tanga except that I was on a cycle-rickshaw with a Jay-paji in charge. Even with my sweater and jacket on (I could not fend off my mom…not then, not now!), my you-know-what were in danger of becoming dessert. The short ride to the University campus cleared a lingering doubt – Yes, mule-shit and horse-shit are different. It also gave birth to another doubt – what was the horse thinking?
While these thoughts were lingering in my mind, my trusty Jay-paji had already reached the University campus and was steadily progressing toward the NIT (National Institute of Technology) guesthouse. Upon reaching the guesthouse I entered with a swagger (after all I was an executive with a Multinational and my booking was done by a senior member of the faculty) and called for the manager. On my asking him for a room to put up in, he simply said, “Booking is cancelled sir. Pakistanis have come to stay. Conference no?” I stood there too stunned to say anything reliving the times when guesthouses such as these had boards saying: ‘Dogs and Indians not allowed’. Was I going back to such a time? What would a self-respecting, ration-card (and driving license and voting card and passport) holding Indian like me do in such a circumstance? Would there be bloodshed and hell to pay for igniting the fervour of patriotism in an Indian?
A minute later, after having paid my rickshaw-puller, I was lugging my bag and taking a walk to the Computer and Electronics department in search of shelter. So you think that I ran away from the battlefield? No. I decided to exercise the quality of mercy that is so strained...
The Computer Science department had a dingy looking office with a fat aunty sitting at a terminal and playing solitaire. On my asking the whereabouts of the Profs. (All their rooms were locked) she said, “pata nahin” (means don’t know in Hindi). This coupled with the fact that I was visiting one of the premier seats of Engineering in the country must not give you wrong ideas about the country dudes. Wanting to loosen up a little, after my stiffening journey, I decided to saunter a little and discover a few things by myself. First stop – HOD’s office. The deliberations began after this meeting and continued with other teachers all through the day (I’m leaving out all the sad and boring parts).
It was 5 PM when I took off from the university campus. It was a day spent entirely in the engineering college amidst some really good teachers. The cycle rickshaw was taking its own sweet time and I was not complaining. It was courtesy the rickshaw that I saw the largest tank in Asia – The Brahmsarovar – An amazing piece of work. Evenings in Kurukshetra are a time to behold. The beauty of the rustic township is worth the praises in the Puranas. The hotel I was putting up in, (oh, I forgot to tell you sooner…I managed to find a place to stay!) was probably the only ‘decent’ place to stay in Kurukshetra. After a long and tiring day, I just switched on the television and went to sleep – The pursuit of academic nirvana takes its toll. Hunger woke me up. It was 9 PM already and I quickly freshened up to go for dinner. After reaching the in-house restaurant, I ordered some oriental food that looked promising on the menu card. Two hours had passed and I was still eating…God bless the cook’s khadi socks!
7 AM: I was left at the edge of sudden realization that the entire world was up and I was not. Forty minutes and I was well on my way to the University block. I was chock-full of the good energy that drives mules to work. The unbridled love for all nature’s creations was on the verge of gushing out. Then I met Dr. K.S. Ghouri.
It is amazing to notice how the turnaround time for emotions and their build up is considerably lesser than that for reviewers. There is no questionnaire, no pages of silly paper work and most definitely no protocol on honorarium received. There is but one single outburst and it comes through like a deluge. This dude Ghouri could be the standard test for faculty of juvenile detention homes. If the faculty could handle him…they could handle anything!
Of course, appearances are deceptive. Any editor, for instance, who had been standing outside the front entrance of the Bio-Tech Department at twelve o’clock on a fair Saturday afternoon might easily have made a mistake.
Such an editor would probably have jumped to the conclusion that this was a department with very serious students and teachers. He would have mentally praised the efficiency of the department and put his best foot forward to meet the inmates.
Sherlock Holmes himself might have been misled. One can almost hear him explaining the situation to Watson in one of those lightning flashes of inductive reasoning. “Elementary, my dear Watson! If the students were of a normal ‘university’ temperament, you would have heard the ruckus that heralds their presence. Also, it is a fact that a fair Saturday afternoon is the best time to study bottled up invisible creatures that are a threat to our existence.”
As a matter of fact, only the inmates of the University campus recognized it as a sign of desertion. The entire building was emptied out because a Pakistani delegation was present in their auditorium (are you listening …architects of peace).
As I left the premises of the University (not having anyone else to meet!), I turned around to take a last glimpse of that enormous tribute to learning. Then I resumed my journey toward the railway station.
With four hours to spend at the station, I had my priorities mapped out – Find the First Class Waiting Room, settle down with John Mortimer, tuck into the plantain bought at the station and wait for the Shatabdi to turn up (on time). After a long walk along the only inhabited platform of the station, I decided that the open platform would be preferable to the urinal that they call ‘Waiting Room’. Four chapters, half a dozen plantain and a couple of 40 minute naps later, the train arrived.
The journey back to base was very uneventful. This was predominantly because my eyelids insisted on going on a strike. My vision was slowly getting blurred and gravity was taking its toll on my head (damn Newton!). Dinner aboard the Shatabdi was an equally sleepy affair and for the first time New Delhi station was a heart felt prayer.
It did arrive eventually and I gently stepped away from what was my first professional trip. It definitely gave me enough input to put on my tour report (the remains of which are spilled here) and also enabled me to get the right perspective between two battlefields – where the mind bleeds for want of knowledge and victory is much more than a rarely used word.
So, it may seem a little out of colour (pun intended) for me but I had to quit my condo at 6:00 a.m. to reach the railway station in time. The wind almost froze my ‘you-know-what’…in fact I was just happy not to be superman (man of steel with ‘you-know-what’ of steel). The train left the station at half past 7 and virtually whizzed past desolate trees, urinating dogs and half-naked children. On entry, I saw that the train had its own charms (really good-looking I tell you!). I sat in my seating hoping that some beautiful miracle might happen to keep me company for the next 2 hours. Exactly like clockwork along came a gang of – hold your breath – retired military chaps. Apart from the pain of having a beautiful wish crushed under marching orders, I had to deal with the chap sitting adjacent to me. This chap was made of an exceptionally sonorous material. God knows what He used for construction…was it necessary to bring in bronze to add variety to human species?
A minute into the journey, my attention was caught by a little kid (with a Brit. accent) sitting behind me. Junior was having trouble managing his mother who was behaving in a manner most unbecoming of civilized people. Just imagine her cheek – asking him to don a sweater through the journey. Which self-respecting male would wear a sweater? When he saw that she was becoming difficult he said, “But you said that I would have to wear it if I felt cold…you promised and now you want to break it…and that is a very bad thing.” I could see that the kid had a bright future…after all, how many of us can successfully fend off mothers? All this while junior’s little sister was playing hide and seek with me. She would quietly peep from behind my seat and if I turned around, she would slowly fade behind the seat. I played hide-and seek with her till the moment she thought that I was too daft to play with and dumped the idea. (Guys, this is getting serious – even small kids dump me!). Suddenly the broadcast system came alive with the voice of an absent lady declaring that we had reached Panipat. Junior looked out of the window at the platform and said, “I want to go and fill some water!” - How funny is that? Although the kid did not realize it, he had a good sense of humour (Pani is water in Hindi). Panipat was the great battlefield that finally stamped Mughal supremacy over India. It can be considered our very own waterloo (pardon the pun!). It was ironic that one battlefield lead to another that lead to a third – my first battle with the throes of the academic community.
Breakfast was being served – finally. I was just beginning to lose my patience with waiting and (not) playing hide and seek. Now when my tray comes what do I see? - 3 spoons. No fork, no knife and of all people, it happened to me. By this time I was hoping that nothing else goes wrong, this being my first trip. Soon the voice of the absent lady crackled again and it was time to get my rump off the Shatabdi and onto a rickshaw plying on the dusty streets of Kurukshetra.
Kurukshetra was like any typical North Indian village-town hybrid. I was expecting a Basanti to show up with her tanga except that I was on a cycle-rickshaw with a Jay-paji in charge. Even with my sweater and jacket on (I could not fend off my mom…not then, not now!), my you-know-what were in danger of becoming dessert. The short ride to the University campus cleared a lingering doubt – Yes, mule-shit and horse-shit are different. It also gave birth to another doubt – what was the horse thinking?
While these thoughts were lingering in my mind, my trusty Jay-paji had already reached the University campus and was steadily progressing toward the NIT (National Institute of Technology) guesthouse. Upon reaching the guesthouse I entered with a swagger (after all I was an executive with a Multinational and my booking was done by a senior member of the faculty) and called for the manager. On my asking him for a room to put up in, he simply said, “Booking is cancelled sir. Pakistanis have come to stay. Conference no?” I stood there too stunned to say anything reliving the times when guesthouses such as these had boards saying: ‘Dogs and Indians not allowed’. Was I going back to such a time? What would a self-respecting, ration-card (and driving license and voting card and passport) holding Indian like me do in such a circumstance? Would there be bloodshed and hell to pay for igniting the fervour of patriotism in an Indian?
A minute later, after having paid my rickshaw-puller, I was lugging my bag and taking a walk to the Computer and Electronics department in search of shelter. So you think that I ran away from the battlefield? No. I decided to exercise the quality of mercy that is so strained...
The Computer Science department had a dingy looking office with a fat aunty sitting at a terminal and playing solitaire. On my asking the whereabouts of the Profs. (All their rooms were locked) she said, “pata nahin” (means don’t know in Hindi). This coupled with the fact that I was visiting one of the premier seats of Engineering in the country must not give you wrong ideas about the country dudes. Wanting to loosen up a little, after my stiffening journey, I decided to saunter a little and discover a few things by myself. First stop – HOD’s office. The deliberations began after this meeting and continued with other teachers all through the day (I’m leaving out all the sad and boring parts).
It was 5 PM when I took off from the university campus. It was a day spent entirely in the engineering college amidst some really good teachers. The cycle rickshaw was taking its own sweet time and I was not complaining. It was courtesy the rickshaw that I saw the largest tank in Asia – The Brahmsarovar – An amazing piece of work. Evenings in Kurukshetra are a time to behold. The beauty of the rustic township is worth the praises in the Puranas. The hotel I was putting up in, (oh, I forgot to tell you sooner…I managed to find a place to stay!) was probably the only ‘decent’ place to stay in Kurukshetra. After a long and tiring day, I just switched on the television and went to sleep – The pursuit of academic nirvana takes its toll. Hunger woke me up. It was 9 PM already and I quickly freshened up to go for dinner. After reaching the in-house restaurant, I ordered some oriental food that looked promising on the menu card. Two hours had passed and I was still eating…God bless the cook’s khadi socks!
7 AM: I was left at the edge of sudden realization that the entire world was up and I was not. Forty minutes and I was well on my way to the University block. I was chock-full of the good energy that drives mules to work. The unbridled love for all nature’s creations was on the verge of gushing out. Then I met Dr. K.S. Ghouri.
It is amazing to notice how the turnaround time for emotions and their build up is considerably lesser than that for reviewers. There is no questionnaire, no pages of silly paper work and most definitely no protocol on honorarium received. There is but one single outburst and it comes through like a deluge. This dude Ghouri could be the standard test for faculty of juvenile detention homes. If the faculty could handle him…they could handle anything!
Of course, appearances are deceptive. Any editor, for instance, who had been standing outside the front entrance of the Bio-Tech Department at twelve o’clock on a fair Saturday afternoon might easily have made a mistake.
Such an editor would probably have jumped to the conclusion that this was a department with very serious students and teachers. He would have mentally praised the efficiency of the department and put his best foot forward to meet the inmates.
Sherlock Holmes himself might have been misled. One can almost hear him explaining the situation to Watson in one of those lightning flashes of inductive reasoning. “Elementary, my dear Watson! If the students were of a normal ‘university’ temperament, you would have heard the ruckus that heralds their presence. Also, it is a fact that a fair Saturday afternoon is the best time to study bottled up invisible creatures that are a threat to our existence.”
As a matter of fact, only the inmates of the University campus recognized it as a sign of desertion. The entire building was emptied out because a Pakistani delegation was present in their auditorium (are you listening …architects of peace).
As I left the premises of the University (not having anyone else to meet!), I turned around to take a last glimpse of that enormous tribute to learning. Then I resumed my journey toward the railway station.
With four hours to spend at the station, I had my priorities mapped out – Find the First Class Waiting Room, settle down with John Mortimer, tuck into the plantain bought at the station and wait for the Shatabdi to turn up (on time). After a long walk along the only inhabited platform of the station, I decided that the open platform would be preferable to the urinal that they call ‘Waiting Room’. Four chapters, half a dozen plantain and a couple of 40 minute naps later, the train arrived.
The journey back to base was very uneventful. This was predominantly because my eyelids insisted on going on a strike. My vision was slowly getting blurred and gravity was taking its toll on my head (damn Newton!). Dinner aboard the Shatabdi was an equally sleepy affair and for the first time New Delhi station was a heart felt prayer.
It did arrive eventually and I gently stepped away from what was my first professional trip. It definitely gave me enough input to put on my tour report (the remains of which are spilled here) and also enabled me to get the right perspective between two battlefields – where the mind bleeds for want of knowledge and victory is much more than a rarely used word.
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