No woman’s land

India, the land of goddesses, has become a place where women are treated worse than animals. In Assam, one teenager is publicly molested by mob, another by army men, while their MLA is beaten up by mob. In Maharashtra, a school girl is made to drink her urine for bedwetting and a model is beaten up by mob. In Karnataka, a dentist husband makes his wife drink his urine while torturing her for dowry. In Uttar Pradesh, while the village panchayat orders that women below cannot go outdoors, cannot have mobile phones, policemen rape women. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, just some of the reported cases. Instances of harassment of women are increasing day by day. With rising cases of female feticide and infanticide and abandoned and battered babies, acid attacks, molestations, dowry deaths, honor killings, it is difficult to say if girls of any age are safe here. Girls are molested by strangers and their own kin alike. From before her birth till after her death, a girl is never safe.

Human rights violation in Syria

The Human Rights Watch has reported that there are about 27 tortures centres in Syria run by the country’s intelligence agency. The group has reported that torture of detainees in the form of burning with acid, pulling out nails, sexual assault, beating with cables and batons is carried on by the various state agencies. The acts of torture are a gross violation of the basic human rights and are opposed to human values. Such acts of state sponsored violence should not be tolerated in civilised society and actions should be taken by the international community to curb them.

On divinity

Who is God and who is man? Man may attempt to seek God, to know God, but God Himself is the complete knowledge. Where man wanders in search of truth, God is the Truth. Man seeks infinity in what is obvious, while God encompasses of all that is obvious and all that is hidden. While man is the seeker, God is the prize. While man is the traveler, God, the destination. The journey towards discovering God will go through the journey towards discovering all the truth, all the knowledge of this universe. It will take man into the skies and under the seas and deep inside his own heart. It will require the heart to be tested by fire, of love and of compassion. It will burn the desires and end the trauma and a deeper meaning to life. But wanderers may wander and weepers may weep. A heart devoid of love fails to succeed in any way. No gift is precious than a gift of love. And love alone can purge the soul, clear the mind and guide the heart. To reach God, love can empower, love be the guiding light in the journey so hard.

Learn and live

Life is a continuous learning process. You live only as long as you are able to learn something new. The process of learning, discovering and evolving is one that determines the path of life. When you learn something, you evolve bit by bit. The wiser you get, the longer you live. You become a better human person. You live not as a physical being but something greater, something immortal. However, this process stops the moment you stop learning. You stop growing, you stop developing. You die when your mind stops evolving itself. Don’t die before death. Continue to learn and live.

Eighteen summers

And this one is for my friend Vaidehi. I first met Vaidehi in July of 1995 when we were mere shrimps of 12 years. I remember as a shy silent girl who had accepted the fact that people will make fun of her and of her name. She had joined our school because her uncle had started teaching there. I used to have a large group of friends at that time and we took Vaidehi as one of our own.

In the next few years, Vaidehi was a shy girl, who didn’t express herself, who never lost her number and who, more often than not had people trample her feelings. Most of the times, she took herself for granted. One of her hobbies during school was watching commercial advertisements and imitating them, a hobby she shared with Saumya.

As school ended and college began, Vaidehi started asserting herself more. She even started getting angry. But her anger was never because of her own ego, it was because she had witnessed some injustice or other. But with time, she took some major steps; she accepted those who were alone.

But this is not about Vaidehi. This is for the relation that I share with her. She advised me, that I never followed. She scolded me (sometime) but I always laughed my way out. She stood by my side when I was sad, when I was angry, when I was mad, when I was unreasonable, when I was lonely; and she stood by my side through my work and marriage and after. She tried to understand me, though I have serious doubts if she understood me. But all in all, she has always been a good friend. Maybe she has been a little strict friend; but nevertheless a good one.

So this is for the eighteen summers that we spent together. Laughing and sharing and studying and playing and arguing. With all our differences we gelled together. Maybe this is friendship.

Friends once,

Friends forever.

Come back

By the stars, the moon and the skies

I think of you and I cry

I call out your name aloud and softly

Waiting for you to come back gently

Hoping to see your bright face

Anticipating my heart would race

I have spent many sleepless nights

Tossing and turning and sitting upright

I wonder when I will see you again

And free will I be from this pain

Come back to me, I need you so much

Come back to me, I miss you so much

Tracing the roots

It is a difficult task finding out about one’s roots, tracing one’s family history, especially if generations had moved to different lands, inhabited most distant places. It becomes even more difficult if subsequent generations had changed the family name. Many a times, people try to find out their family history to lay claim to some past glory. Often this is just a general desire to know about one’s origin. And sometimes it has to do with one’s pride. But one question invariably comes to mind, what if the family past is not something that would make us proud? What if our ancestors did acts that will make us try to cover up our history from the world? There have been many instances where a curiosity to find out family history has turned into a costly affair, with huge money spent in cover-up.

Maybe what is required from us is that we accept who we are. Instead of trying to find pride in our ancestors’ past, we should work so that people are proud of us. What we are is not determined by who our forefathers were but what we do. It is not the past, nor the future; it is the present that matters. It is this moment that determines our worth. We are the choices we make. We are the tree nourished by our deeds. Our roots are our self worth.