RIP - the brave one!

Some news don't just remain stories - they become your stories, echoing your fears, your pains. Some stories stay with you, breaking the barriers to shroud you in the grief that is hard to shake off. Some haunt you long enough to initiate an action for change.

The story of the girl brutally gang raped and assaulted has culminated in her imminent death. The violent and gruesome incident touched a chord buried deep in our soul somewhere, a chord that would awaken us from our apathy to the condition of women in India. I would like to believe that the story broke all cultural barriers and all people "human" could identify with the violent incident.

The act was gruesome, but what was amazing was the girl's brave and courageous will to fight for her life. I salute the girl who is inspiring all the other women to protests for safer streets. In a society where women just represent "honor" -where stories of girls raped, committing suicide is the norm because of rape is considered "shameful" - no not for the rapist but the victim, this story of a girl fighting tooth and nail to live is inspirational to say the least.

For me it is not the act that caught my attention, there have always been such violent crimes committed against women in India - in fact the same day, there were couple of more similar stories reported from different parts of the country. For me and thousands of others, it was her desire to survive, her desire to seek justice, her fighting spirit that will stay with me for ever. Incredibly they had managed to just break her down physically - her spirit was intact!

It's not enough to cry for a girl who has unwillingly just by her spirit, touched a million hearts , her reaction to the awful incident triggering  a change. We all wanted her to live, a beacon of hope , but today instead of politicizing her death, lets make it a safer place for women in India. Let us all start at home, with women independent and strong, teaching their daughters  to be brave and bold, teaching their sons to respect not just their sisters,but the whole race. And as we all know teaching is not words, it is action.

Dad's your sons are watching every move you make, every time you belittle your wife, you are teaching your son that it is okay, mothers each injustice, insult you ignore , you are teaching your daughter and son both that abusing women is acceptable.

RIP -the brave girl,  and let us all think what she would have wanted if she were alive. A change for sure - a change in attitude, in justice system and our relation of women to honor.

Of Endings and Beginnings

Christmas is done and the countdown to New Year has already begun. The bells ringing in a New Year full of hope and promise of new opportunities and a life better than we already have. It doesn't matter how much we have right now, human beings are basically greedy and the desire for more and better never ends. 

As we take stock of the year gone by, we all have to be grateful that the Mayans were not as bright as we thought, in the process giving us all have second chance to fulfill our dreams and live life to fullest. There are resolutions to be made, mistakes to be rectified and dreams to be fulfilled.  It is time to take stock in retrospection and tabulate our balance sheet for all that we gained and lost in our lives in the last 365 days.

Welcoming another year is our way of saying that we believe that every ending brings a hope sliver of hope with the promise of fresh beginnings. Beginnings not yet defined by the mistakes of yesterday.  It is a promise to view the world with fresh eyes, promise to wipe the slate clean of all the impediments blocking our way to a happier life.

My resolution for New |Year is simple:

1.     I will continue to view everyday as a blessing.

2.     I will continue to TRY and live in the present

3.     I will continue to refuse past experiences colour my view of today and tomorrow.

4.     I will love more, give more, laugh more everyday – and if worries tries to play catch up with me, I will bring myself back to the present and count my blessings.

5.     I will be ready to embrace my flaws, all the good and the bad in myself and welcome all the experiences with open arms.

6.     I will overcome my fears, judging people and just live for now.

New Year Quotes

For last year's words belong to last year's language

And next year's words await another voice.”
― T.S. Eliot

Tomorrow, is the first blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one.” 
― Brad Paisley

Youth is when you're allowed to stay up late on New Year's Eve. Middle age is when you're forced to. - Bill Vaughn

Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account. - Oscar Wilde

I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me. - Anaïs Nin

“Hope

Smiles from the threshold of the year to come,
Whispering 'it will be happier'...”
― Alfred Tennyson

We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day. - Edith Lovejoy Pierce

The object of a new year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul. - G.K. Chesterton

Quotes by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

“What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it.” 

“He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth  to themselves.” 

She discovered with great delight that one does not love one’s children just because they are one’s children but because of the friendship formed while raising them .

The problem with marriage is that it ends every night after making love, and it must be rebuilt every morning before breakfast.

Nobody deserves your tears, but whoever deserves them will not make you cry.

It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams. 

"He who awaits much can expect little."

No, not rich. I am a poor man with money, which is not the same thing."

“Amputees suffer pains, cramps, itches in the leg that is no longer there. That is how she felt without him, feeling his presence where he no longer was".

“The problem in public life is learning to overcome terror; the problem in married life is learning to overcome boredom”

“But if they had learned anything together, it was that wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good”

Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment

We read in the newspapers everyday about the crimes and violence taking place in various parts of the world, some war ridden, some in the dark world of Africa or places that seem too far away for us to be scared or feel unsafe. But when the same crimes happen on our turf – the civilised and educated world, where  we live under the illusion that we are safe, it finally hits home.

The news of a girl brutally gang-raped in a moving bus –brought back memories about how unsafe it is for women in India. Nothing has changed. Twenty years ago, growing up in a relatively safe part of India, I remember getting into arguments with my mother as to why was I supposed to be home before dark. Her fear for my well-being was intensified by what I believe to be every single girl’s experience of some sort of molestation – bottom pinching, being pushed, blatant staring; all a part of daily life. You learn to live around it – sort of being a girl hazard – always alert and aware of dangers lurking not only in the dark, but during daytime too. And of course, you keep quiet about it – nobody talks-and shame and guilt about how you could have prevented it sets in. There are perverts in all cultures and all societies, but if the pervert knows that his actions have no repercussions, he becomes bolder and more pervasive.

This gruesome rape – with the girl still fighting for her life, has resonated with most women in India – the worst nightmare of a parent. It is horrifying and reflects the decaying of a society. Indian movies generally depict that a girl loses her honour, when she gets raped – a shame for her family with rape depicted as forced sex –that’s it. This particular incident has thrown light that it’s just not forced sex, but an act of aggression that violates every boundary of being human. We have seen violence against women used as a tool in war – Sudan, Afghanistan and other parts of the world – some using acid, some chopping of ears and of course rape to show their dominance towards women.

It was all the more appalling to read that one of the guys had already been charged with rape in some other case- and was still free on the streets. Violence against women is something that will only change when we act fast against criminals and appropriately punish them. We need in India a judiciary with women judges and lawyers to make more women willing to come forward and report. We need the criminals to be punished instantaneously- in the lines of court –martial. A nightmare relived repeatedly is a punishment to the victim not the aggressor.

My heart and prayers go out to this brave girl who is fighting for her life, and her family and also to all those other girls out there violated and living in shame in silence. May the New Year empower women all through the world – to live like a “person “ with equal rights.

What are your views on crime against women and what can we do to prevent them ? Waiting to read all your views.

  

Of Birds and Rainbows

Nothing says “hope” more brightly than rainbows. I love rainbows; there is something magical about the colors, the perfect curve and of course the symbolic representation that the sun is smiling through the clouds. Would rainbows be as pretty if we didn’t have to bear the rain and dark clouds? I doubt it.

Recently I have been fascinated by birds – not any particular kind , just the crows perching on the wires, or seagulls playing in the fields or occasionally an eagle soaring by or chirping of the sparrows. There is something liberating when birds spread their wings, when they sing and communicate with each other – happy to be just what they are. A crow doesn’t compete to sing like a cuckoo or be pretty like a dove, just “being”, loving life and their very existence. Maybe because they are so elusive, giving you just a glimpse of their personalities that they keep me asking for more.

Walking my son to school, on some rare sunny days , I feel so blessed to tune in to the songs of the birds hiding somewhere within the branches of swaying  trees or the stern and  majestic mountains staring down at me. I love not talking, not thinking, just being present and being aware of my every movement. The 15 minutes walk is my meditation – something that charges me to smile and face the brand new 24 hours ahead of me.

I have realized that I have been complaining less – comparing less – not with others but my own situation . A rainy and gloomy day doesn’t affect me as much because I don’t accumulate the cloudy days of yesterday or the weather forecast of tomorrow. It is rainy and cloudy today period. 

Life is definitely easier and happier once you start to live in the present. Of course, I am still in the nascent stage and have a long way to go – but then I am not looking in the future either. It is now and here and I am taking baby steps to keep it that way.