Good bye 2011...

Its that time of the year when we look back and realize how fast the year passed! Its time to be thankful, celebrate and share all the blessings God has so generously bestowed upon us.   

There is celebration all around and for a change, everyone seems to be happy. The mood for the party has set in and I am busy planning for the same. A lot has happened in year 2011 that changed me as a person and I am thankful to life for that.

I must also thank all my friends, well wishers and readers of this blog for their wonderful support. The comments, mails and suggestions that I receive for this blog have helped me immensely to grow as a person and writer.  My heartfelt thanks for that!

Catch you in 2012 friends, with many more rendezvous with life. Till then, happy holidays and God bless you!

"I am JUST a housewife"

When Neeraja, my friend called, she was sounding very disturbed, "Simi, cancel all your appointments for tomorrow; I don't care how important they are. Just come over, I need to talk to you." "Would you teach me how to invest money like you? I need to flaunt that Goddamn business card and earn my own money." That was the first thing Neeraja said with tears in her eyes, the moment I reached her home the next day. What followed, was nothing unexpected. 


I had always sensed some dissatisfaction, a strange stirring that she suffered alone. I preferred to just listen and observe instead of intruding with probing further on the issue. Deep inside I knew, when the right time arrived, all her pain that lay buried for many years  would organically find its way out. 


Neeraja was married at age of eighteen. Being an exceptionally bright student, she qualified for IIT and had nurtured dream of a great career. Her ambition of studying at IIT was shattered when there wasn't enough money to support education of two family members. She was obviously expected to sacrifice. Albeit after few years when financial problem was resolved,  she managed to secure first class in M.Sc and did M.B.A from a premier institute!


When life presented opportunities for her to work, she could not take them due to changed priorities. Sometimes it was for the sake of children, husband's career, old parents or in laws that always required her to be around. When her responsibilities got over, her health didn't allow her to take up any job. Neeraja is exhausted by unequal sharing of burden of all these years. Despite performing all her duties in every possible role with love and utmost precision, she feels completely worthless and unappreciated!!


With a brain wash session that lasted for few hours, I managed to bring a smile on Neeraja's face when I left but our talk made me think about general attitude and mindset when it comes to housewives. I have met many women like Neeraja who are the pillars of strength for family and always perform their duties silently. Sadly, in many educated families there is condescending attitude towards a housewife. The general perception of the term "housewife" is still that of a woman who has all the time in the world but barely participates in anything constructive! Her domestic servitude is often perceived as birth right by family members!


A dear friend of mine, a very gifted person I have ever met - Mathew George, has interesting take on the issues of housewife. He says, " Approximately 50% of the population are women; a fair fraction of them, highly educated. Out of these highly educated fraction of women, a fair chunk perform the most difficult role there is; that of a housewife. The very fact that these ladies do not perform a formal job is a national waste of educated working age population. There ought to be a way of putting them back to work towards national gain. The internet provides one such way where one can perform gainful tasks without compromising on their responsibilities at home. The government, instead of giving lip service to the emancipation of women should be actually thinking up a workable strategy on how to utilize the wasted yet significant talents of this quintessentially backroom type of human being!"  


Being "just a housewife" is not a curse. It is a commendable job without whose support very many families would collapse!  It is time to respect and honour that truth! 

Inferno, the dance of death and despair

I was reading the latest news of terror attacks in Afghanistan, during Ashura mourning. The news carried a photograph of a girl barely eight, looking with disbelief, at the dead bodies strewn all around her. With her clothes drenched in blood, she was in a complete state of shock and visibly numb. Deeply pained with that sight I thought, what could be worse than a child that young having to witness such inhuman acts of violence? I was struggling hard to get that heart wrenching picture out of my mind and then arrived the shocking news of tragedy at AMRI hospital at Calcutta.

Some incidents are far too painful to comprehend! How can we justify loss of 90 precious lives, charred to death at the hospital? I stopped watching news on television as the visuals were too uncomfortable. People who went for treatment at the place that is supposed to give a new life, met with such horrible death! 

Like it happens every time after any tragedy strikes, we have a long list of reasons and flaws that are being established and blame games are changing with each passing day. There is clear  repudiation of laws and glaring neglect of safety issues by the hospital. It is shocking that even medical staff, except a very few, abandoned their patients and ran for their own safety during this grim incident.

Who all are the culprits in this episode? Hospital, for its complete disregard for certain rules and for not having a speedy evacuation program meant for the most crucial time like emergencies. Respective authorities, for allowing hospital to bend rules (suddenly, the authorities have realized that certain part of the hospital is unauthorized! I wonder how come this was not noticed and reported before the tragedy struck?) To some extent, medical staff that could have perhaps dealt with this tragedy in much better way and saved few lives. And, us. 

Yeah, we as society, are responsible in some way for this tragedy. How often do we bend rules for our convenience and take things for granted as we think everything can be purchased and fixed by money and power. We thrive in the culture of "sab kuch chalta hain". We take pride in being "smart" and "practical" (read, manipulative and corrupt). Greed and corruption are so deeply ingrained in our DNA that we have forgotten where to draw line. We are too obsessed with our own survival to care for anything wrong that is happening around us. We have learnt to ignore things that are blatantly wrong but don't affect us. Why take panga (why bother)? 

Do I need to give any example of how our system is rotting with corruption? Even a school going kid knows that one can get away with crime by offering some money. Of course, we have rules and stringent punishments for the law breakers. Is any amount of monetary compensation ever enough to make up for loss of life? 

Accidents happen. At times, tragedies occur out of sheer accidents that are beyond anyone's control. We need to ask ourselves; how comfortably numb we are going to be, consumed by our greed? How far will we continue to be mere silent spectators? NOBODY deserves to die the way people died at AMRI hospital and till such loss of precious human life continues, I doubt we can call ourselves a civilized society. 

Morning hues at the Hanging garden

I feel a constant compulsion for discovering unfamiliar territories of life. When that urge is not  satiated, there is a turmoil in my cerebrum that nudges me incessantly and my only salvation is in taking my camera, exploring new places and experiencing amazing hues of life at different levels. That is precisely what  I did yesterday. After a very long time, I went for outdoor shoot at the Hanging garden with a group; Mumbai Weekend Shoot, of which I am a member. What an amazing start for the week! 

There was much more  than the usual December pollen and the stunningly beautiful butterflies fluttering all over. What mesmerized me was the subtle unfolding of various shades of life present at the garden, that early in the morning.

While we were waiting at the entrance of the garden for all the members of the group to arrive, the day had started with languid pace at the main road. The group of bicycle riders had gathered in their interesting attires, ready to hit the road - their adventure. A roadside joint was serving fresh breakfast and had started attracting customers already.

From across the road, hurriedly came an old hawker, carrying all his wares to set up his shop before any of his competition arrived. The dog walkers, giving in to the tantrums of their dogs and allowing the passers by to play with their friendly dogs, made a beautiful sight!

The moment I entered the garden, I got to inhale divine fragrance of wet soil, soaked in fresh dew. There is this lingering urge in that fragrance that holds us silent and transforms us in tune with our inner self in some subtle, magical way that is infinitely precious. There is divine stillness that it brings along that soothes heart which is completely rejuvenating for the body, mind and soul!

A group of young people from a family were playing cricket, while the elders were confined to being fair umpires and supportive spectators.

People doing pranayam, yoga and other exercises, very senior citizens in their late seventies and eighties strolling leisurely, enjoying spilling of tender rays of Sun and the abundant beauty all around made a happy picture of a life lived well.

Magnificent trees offered shade of solace and many senior citizens grabbed the secluded places and were busy sharing stories of their life, laughter and pulling each others' legs. When they saw so many photographers, they asked many questions and some of them ebulliently suggested some nice spots worth taking pictures. They proudly narrated details of the various groups they had formed and their participation in various activities. 

Trees, full of blossom and fragrances stood with lonely grandeur and amid the brocade of leaves and flowers; birds, insects, bees and butterflies were having a blast! Looking at the sheer abundance of spectacular colours, forms, textures and perspectives I was wondering if I could ever capture all that beauty! 

I left the garden when the sunlight became too bright for the photographs. My heart was oozing out with magnificent energy. The fascinating glimpse of various stages of life and its different rhythm I observed at the garden was going to be cherished for long. I knew that I was going to return to this place again and again as just one visit to such a heavenly garden isn't enough to capture its ethereal early morning beauty!

Why this murderous rage?

What an eventful week! Two sensational news that gobbled up our time, energy and attention last week were; a song sung by Dhanush, "why this kolaveri di " and mr.Sharad Pawar, our agriculture minister, receiving a slap from enraged man! Well, in the era of serious deficiency in attention spans, anything that holds our attention long enough and makes us talk about it, is worth mentioning, isn't it? 

In my futile attempt of enjoying the song "kolaveri" I wasted few minutes and realized that it doesn't make any sense (at least to me, even after asking some of my Tamil speaking friends for help). Albeit, there is an interesting lesson to be learned in understanding how to convert an absolute gibberish into a hit, whether it was by default or by design (any PR agency, digital media marketing firm listening?)  I am sure this sudden sensation would provide quite an inspiration for advertising and song writing for the days to come and we would welcome it as "cool"! We have humongous appetite for absolute rubbish.

Talking about the slap-trap episode of mr. Sharad Pawar; I watched the entire episode with great shock and disbelief but have been guilty of enjoying brilliantly brazen humour on social networking sites, born out of this slap incident. I have laughed incessantly at unguarded comment of mr. Anna Hazare, "he slapped only once?" It makes me wonder aren't we encouraging a dangerous trend here? We are champions at mud slinging and by cheering for such acts of assault and violence we have conveyed our misplaced frustration and irresponsible, disdainful judgments. Instead of  condemning tamasha of such despicable incidents, we are getting kick out of it! Is it our catharsis? 

The people who slapped  mr.Sharad Pawar, hurled a shoe at mr. Arvind Kejriwal, attacked mr. Shanti Bhushan or assualted mr.Sukhram are NOT representatives of rage of nation. There is a pattern emerging out of these sad incidents of unease and intolerance. Agreed, our political leaders have failed us pathetically. Our country is in a huge filthy mess due to complete lack of political will to address issues of a common man. 

Before we react or justify these attacks, do we ever ask ourselves, if we are doing our bit? Who is responsible for bringing these very spineless leaders to power? How many of us have really not participated in some corruption for sake of our advantage? How many of us really vote, pay our taxes, make purchases without paying taxes or have been really aware citizens and performed our duties when we should? I am sure most of us have been guilty in some way or other. Why blame government then ? They say, people get the government they deserve and we got whom we voted for. Simple. Why this kolaveri di?

No civil society can thrive on lawlessness. If we are truly fed up with the issues of governance, lets bring in people who are good leaders and know their business well. If we are sick of corruption, let's not encourage it in any form. There are ways to address challenges but taking path of violence is not answer to any issue. And in a democratic nation like India, with its unique challenges there is all the more need to understand and address the challenges in much more responsible manner. Lets not give in to temporary titillation of acrimonious acts of rancor. Solutions to our problems lie in considering our real issues with candour and addressing them.  Its time to think, where are we headed really?