Bloggers can be change makers

I don't blog frequently, but whenever I do I write about how can we tackle gender inequality. This maybe because there are few gender bloggers in India, and fewer conversations about how things can be set straight. Over the years the voice is growing a strong unbent backbone, and it won't be long before this will snowball into a revolution.

Ofttimes I have found myself in the midst of blogs and bloggers who have personal anecdotes to share. Yes, memoirs can be good learning lessons but to be told about every moment that they spend under the sun, can sometimes stifle you. I had aspired to be a journalist as a child, but my possessive mother thought that of it as a bad idea. She knew that I won't just be another one in the crowd, who would follow the people in power to earn her bread and butter or would write about parties and events in the glossy pages of a newspaper. She knew that I would seek the truth like a dog that chases a bone, which may create trouble for me and my family, because of which she firmly put her foot down against the idea of me ever becoming a reporter.

In my own way though, as I took up blogging in 2012, although I must admit that I haven't followed a schedule or taken the pains to scribble often, I have seen myself writing a post occasionally that has been an honest account of how gender benders can shake up the system and create a difference in the lives of women like me, who feel like scared cats before stepping out of our homes.

A Doctorate degree is a not a freebie!

We treat our celebrities like kings and queens. Don't we? Other than cheering for them and paying for their bills, we shower them with a lot of love. The recent case of a stampede at the Vadodra railway station during the promotion of the SRK movie Raees is an example of how devotedly we worship our heroes and heroines. 
While most of these celebrities stash a lot of wealth, indulge in financial frauds and get away with crimes, there are a handful of them to whom we can really look upto. The ones who inspire us with their rightful actions and set an example for the future generation. In the past I have quietly seen famous celebrities accept honorary degrees for outstanding contribution in their fields, and blow one's horn about their achievements. 

The Benefits of Filing your Tax Returns

A few days ago I happened to do a post on why the Danes were the happiest people in the world. I was amused to discover that the people in Denmark were fond of paying taxes and did their best to pay it on time. Since most financial transactions in Denmark happen through plastic money, cheating on taxes is difficult. Danes consider paying taxes as a sacred duty and in a country where air-surveillance is employed to make sure that everyone gives their dues, to pilfer is a tough task. In countries like Denmark, citizens focus on paying taxes and getting as much as they can, back from the government, in the form of paid maternity leaves etc. The government of Denmark is doing its best to provide the best of facilities to its citizens by judiciously investing the money in the development of the country. 

Coming to our part of the planet.

In India, everyone considers paying taxes a moral and social obligation, but very few go down that road and make sure that they give their dues. While most people are aware of the requirement of filing taxes, many more are still unaware of the implications of not filing returns on time.

The last date for filing returns is 31st July for the financial year ending on 31st March. The government has made it mandatory for all citizens to file returns whether they belong to the taxable bracket of income or not. Filing returns has made it easier for firms and individuals to enter transactions that are in the knowledge of the IT department.


My friend had always nurtured the dream of going abroad for the future seems to be grim in India for research students like us with the slashing of research funds by the government and the sub-standard research facilities in the laboratories of the country. She filed the papers for permanent residence for Canada recently along with me when her visa agent told her that for applying for VISA she needs to show her income tax returns. Since she was getting a meager stipend until now she was not punctually filing her returns. Her agent's words came as a shocker and she decided to start filing her returns immediately, but her dad gave her a pleasant surprise when he told her that he had filed her tax returns in the past. Her dad came as a messiah saving her from the hassles of paying her old returns, as she realized the importance of dutifully paying her dues to the government.   

Is Caste-based-reservation a fair deal?

I am taken back to my college days, a few years ago, when I am starting to write this post. I had the aspirations to become a doctor, and opted for physics, chemistry, biology in class eleventh. The rut and rigmarole of studying for medical entrances wasn't helpful either and perhaps since I wasn't a student belonging to the OBC or SC/ST castes, I was left behind in the race of becoming a doctor. My dad didn't support the idea of paying capitation fees and getting me a paid seat, and much like most of my friends in the graduation batch I was compelled to devise a plan B. Little did I know that I would end up becoming a teacher, which is a profession I didn't want to take up in the first place. But slowly with the passage of time, I'm loving the idea of enlightening minds searching for knowledge.
For all my friends from the backward castes who are doctors now, all thanks to the cakewalk they had during admission, life is indeed a "pain in the neck". And here I'm enjoying the fruits of a profession that has fixed working hours, awesome perks and most of all paid holidays, which being a doctor wouldn't have offered me. Reservation that way, was a "blessing in disguise" for me.
But then only if, I were to be a doctor, I could have only become one, if I was entitled to a reservation. Else I might have got a medical seat only if I was the best in the lot, which I wasn't. I believe these are the reasons that initiate and impel "brain drain" from India.  Many of my friends who couldn't live up to their dreams of becoming a doctor in India, went abroad.Only because our incompetent classmates from the backward classes realized their dreams of wearing a doctor's coat.
Not because we weren't more qualified than them, but because "reservation based" quota had got them their dreams on a platter.

Rising out of Bullying

Bullying is an evil we may have all grown up with. Infact, it is a terrifying truth that plagues the society, where in a stronger person pulls a joke on a weaker person for not being like them, resulting in a repeated rut that drives the victim to depression.
As a child I was carefree, but a strong believer of equality. For me a fair person was in no way special than a friend with darker skin. I had brown skin myself, which gave a fair skinned friend of mine all the wrong reasons in the world to bully me. His mother was a fair skinned punjabi and father a dark skinned south Indian. This wasn't a deterrent for him and he went on bullying dark skinned people for being wrapped in browner membrane. I was fed on the perception that it was penurious to have brown skin. I decided to treat my skin to creams and charms like "Fair and Lovely" only to get into the good books of this fearless bully, but it didn't yield results. I remember hiding in the darker corridors of the school only to not come in the sight of  this bully who never got tired of addressing me as "Kalicharan".

Is urinating in public an Indian man's birthright?

While the poor creatures of the weaker sex in the country, need to hunt down a washroom or a public paid "sauchalaya" or try and figure out the location of the nearest Mc Donald's or CCD, the men of our country, well many of them can be seen relieving themselves in full public view. I had grown up to believe that it was due to lesser number of cleaner and usable toilets in the country, which is more or less a fact. As if it was the most coveted of birth rights they were bestowed with. Sadly, the licence to commit such a crime, was born out of the fact that in a country where more than half of the population doesn't have proper toilet facilities at home, this carte blanche freedom is just fuel to that fire. And mind you, one will never see women urinating in the public, it is just the men who were given these exclusive rights. Look it is easy, just unzip, bare your privies and unload the bladder. 
The first and the foremost reason for this menace is the cultural conditioning which allows the man to do anything in public. Men can get away with anything while a woman is a private being. She would never dare to even think of it in her wildest dreams. That is why we women either run to find a Mc Donalds or CCD and its cleaner restroom or in the worst possible scenario, hold our breath and use one of the paid "sulabh sauchalaya" most of which isn't properly maintained and cleaned. Many Indian women dread to have water, if they are out on long road trips. The reason: patriarchal apathy, which doesn't allow us to walk out of the boundaries of our modesty, while for men these rules don't make a difference.

22nd September 2013/ AIIMS metro station #Vote4Children

It was lazy evening in September. I had boarded the metro from DU North campus to AIIMS. I was tired and my legs were breaking into pieces. I was hurrying up to be at home. The music had filled my ears and I wasn't bothered about the humdrum of events around me. I slowly paced up the elevator and was taking the dirty streets lining the Vardhaman Mahavir college. As I was treading down, I saw a crowd of people. I was expecting an accident there and hurried up to check. 
What I saw after that left me scared witless. A man in his middle age, was slapping a young boy who may have been not more than 11 or 12. The boy I believe was the employee at this man's tea stall. He was dressed in a torn shirt and pants and  very shabby slippers.
What amused me the most was that everyone was watching the show with no one offering a hand of help to the boy. The blows got nastier with the passage of time. And the police people deployed at the other end of the road, were also only by-standers. Sadly for quite sometime, even I was murmuring under my breath, a quiet prayer for the young boy. I was alone and had no one to support, and even if I would have jumped into the scene, I was sure that no one would have braced themselves up to me. All the boy did was cry with folded hands.

Aadhar- A Scam of Myths

I recently came to know that Nandan Nilenkani will be contesting for the Lok Sabha elections from Bangalore South against the five time elected BJP MP Anant Kumar. In a larger scheme of things, I now realize why Nilenkani left his high paying job at Infosys and decided to head the UID project. 
For someone as prolific as Nilenkani, to not have weighed the pros and cons of Aaadhar and jumped into the bandwagon of a schematic scam was weirdly unbelievable. With Nilenkani declared as candidate for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections, one can only think of how the Congress led UPA government has hit the wall when it comes to scams. Touted as a scam bigger than the 2G, since it was passed through an executive committee outside parliament,  one can only feel extremely disappointed and sorrowful at Nilenkani's political ambitions. And the mountain of lies he had to heap, to reach his goal. 
Despite a Supreme Court bench questioning the scheme's validity and passing an order which said that "No benefit of service shall be denied on account of non-possession of Aadhar and no illegal immigrants would be issued Aadhar. The government drunk by power, is carelessly misguiding the nation by linking Aadhar to essential services like LPG, gas connections, marriage registration, salaries and provident fund disbursal, until the September 2013 Court ruling against it. Since Aadhar is being linked to the NPR or the National population Register, it is stealthily being made mandatory. And nothing is being done to keep a check on this misgiving.

To begin with, it is impossible to roll out a scheme like Aadhar in a country like India. For the many Indians living on the streets this card would only be an added burden. Many of the farmers and laborers do not have fingerprints of good quality, neither do the elderly. People suffering from diseases of the eye and the aged, would not be able to give iris imprints of the quality that a person with an empirically average eye sight can. In places like J & K and the North East it will always be difficult to enroll citizens for Aadhar, because of security issues. 

Aadhar: Why a voluntary scheme is being pushed through?

Delhi High Court recently challenged Delhi government's guidelines to make Aadhar mandatory for procuring a National Food Security card for citizens who are enlisted below the poverty line.
The petitioner put forward a plea citing the apex court's ruling of September 23rd 2013 last year, that said no person should be left behind while availing social welfare benefits in the absence of an Aadhar Card. The petition by Ram Kishan and others sought taking away Delhi government's guidelines which requires submission of an Aadhar card and its details by a household for getting National Food Security consumer card.
The plea filed through advocate Yogesh Kumar also aims to order the Department of Food and Public supplies to look into the petition application for food security card without Aadhar and to provide foodgrains as per the old rates and norms.
The National Food Security Act which came into being on September 12th 2013 with effect from July 5th 2013 aims to provide foodgrains to eligible households at subsidized rates through PDS system. The petition is against Delhi government's guidelines under the Act asking for Aadhar number for identifying eligible households that is those below the poverty line.
The last date of submission of the application for food security is March 15th. Earlier in the year, mandatory Aadhar linked transfer of LPG subsidy to beneficiaries accounts was suspended and the cap raised from nine to twelve.
Also to avail government benefits and services like gas connections, marriage registration,salaries and provident fund. Aadhar is not mandatory as per the September 24th 2013 ruling of the Supreme Court.
The interim order was passed in a PIL filed by KS Puttaswamy who stressed that the UID scheme was not passed as per the directives from the Parliament and without discussion in Parliament, and only by the executive ruling.

Aadhar - What people know and think of it?

It is astonishing to note that the government's populist gimmick in Aadhar is a firecracker with sound and no fire. Most people especially the educated Indian doesn't have the slightest inkling of what Aadhar is all about?









When interviewed as shown in the video above, people only had ignorance to mete out. Some said it was as important as pan card and perhaps its replacement. Others sweared by its importance and called it an Indian's citizenship card while many more called it a populist persuasion by the government. While only one gentleman believed that it was being thrust on the citizens of the country while plying with our security.

Aadhar/UID: The Myths behind the National Identity Project

Col (Retd) Mathew Thomas happens to be one of the many crusaders who are trying to bust the myths surrounding the Adhar/UID. As per Col Thomas and the many anti-UID activists, UID number is highly invasive and raises serious concern regarding the critical personal and biometric information. What Adhar does is ask for one of the 14 identities recognized by the Government of India and an address proof and issues a number against those proofs of identity. UID number or fingerprints or irises do not identify the person like the passport does, until the person handling the database vouches for your identity. The government's tall claims of arresting leakage of subsidies also falls flat since the government has conducted no studies on how the leakage has happened.

As opposed to the government's promises of issuing cylinders against a UID number, and directing subsidies to lower income groups, the cylinders are being distributed to the public sector against the UID numbers of citizens. The exemption given to commercial consumers was not accounted for. Also the need for UID for the transfer of subsidy to bank account is ridiculous. Only the bank account number is needed to transfer the subsidies as against the popular notion of a UID number. The money doled out for the project is a waste as biometrics is a probablistic answer. It is difficult to capture the traits of a human in real time. The quality of fingerprints may be poor in elderly people and those who do manual labour. Also for people with visual impairment like retinopathy or glucoma etc. iris prints may not be as perfect as for those with empirically average eye sight. Then how can biometrics be considered a full proof method of identifying a person. More so, Adhar doesn't recognize the migrants or the mobility of population that moves around in search of livelihood. Thus UID in no way grants citizenship to the citizens of India. It is also being issued to foreign nationals and illegal immigrants putting the national security at stake. Justice Puttaswamy filed a PIL against the UID seeking its conversion to a citizenship card like in USA to weed out illegal immigrants. Moreover no parliamentary approval on UIDAI was sought. The bill rejected by a 30 member panel was bulldozed by an Executive order. 

Similar PIL's have been filed by Citizens forum for Civil Liberties and The Beghar Mazdoor foundation, an NGO working for the upliftment of the poor. Aadhar is therefore violating the right to privacy and dignity which forms part of Right to Life under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. How then can this national identity project be deemed rightfully constitutional and in lieu of the laws laid down to guard the citizens of the country? The project therefore be halted to conduct: A feasibility study to cover all the aspects of the project, with the main focus on the workability. Experts must be asked to verify its constitutional significance. The law on privacy should be urgently worked on to protect the rights of the citizens. A cost benefit analysis of the project should be conducted while giving an account of the costs incurred. A public, informed debate be conducted through newpapers,television, neighbourhood meets etc before any such major change is brought in.

Adhar: A Flagship Programme or an Unaccounted Scam?

Our maid lost her Aadhar card the other day and she was petrified, shedding the last drop of her sweat in fear. Since she is poor this card entitled her to subsidies which people like her are in dire need of, to live through the curse of poverty. She asked us for a day's leave which obviously we didn't refuse. What is interesting was the next day's conversation. Since her husband is uneducated just like her, they were accompanied by their fourteen year old son to the nearest Adhar office. They got the duplicate cards by providing the demographic information that was necessary. Now why this hurry was my question?

8th February 2014

I happened to discover a new feature on facebook after seven years of using it. It was like pulling out a rabbit from the hat.
I am talking of the 'other messages' folder which isn't available to you on the facebook android app, and only if you browse facebook using chrome or opera. It was startling to lay my sight on it after seven years of being a facebook user. Which leads me to the conclusion that there are many features on social networking sites, that lay buried like the undiscovered islands under the ocean. Once when you know of them, you are thrown in for a surprise and many like me even end up writing a blog post on it.
The option to view this folder exists at the bottom of the page of the messages folder. Messages from people whom you have not befriended on facebook and from pages that hold your interest are carefully coiled in this folder.
While many of the messages I had recieved were cheesy friendship requests from people smitten by my bio and picture, many more were conversations I regret having given a miss. A few were e-mails seeking submissions while many more were event invitations that never caught my eye, all thanks to my ignorance. 

Dear Racists, I am not a Madrasi and nor is any South Indian!

Today was an amazing day, until something uncanny happened! We happened to go out for lunch after many Fridays. Since mom and Roger are in Kerala and I am almost done with clogging up my bags with clothes and books, this was small hope in the offing. For it seems, after hopping homes it would be long before I could catch up on this kind of Friday fun. We first went to buy books, two of us who read and the other three went bowling in the meanwhile. I picked a few more short story collections that won't read like cliche. Seemingly this reading ritual will help me improvise on my writing skills, so will it help a few more story ideas to take root in mind. What scripted the destiny of this day was the behavior and mannerisms of my batch mates that left me wide eyed.
After our shopping spree, both of us ladies, decided to book the tickets for the men in the group. While the movie of choice was something I had seen two weeks ago, the experience didn't ring in my head at all except for John Abraham of course. While that reminds me of the fact that I am yet to review that movie "Madras Cafe" and give it a four star rating for sure. I went over to see a beefy John Abraham playing with fire and ice, any number of times can I sit in the depths of darkness of a movie hall, to see that gorgeous Malayali. While I sat through the meaty tales of the movie, I decided to surprise the other people by taking them for a typical South Indian lunch. For not everyday, do these people mostly from the plains of Northern India get to feed on South Indian cuisine. After the movie, I gave them an intimation of my ideas. 

Acts of Everyday Kindness for the Enviornment

The other day someone pulled a joke on me for not having a pet. Keeping an animal at home and tending to its needs is 'animal activism' for some. But the truth is I am allergic to animal fur and an animal anywhere in my vicinity can trigger a sneeze more rapid than the rounds of a machine gun. That's why most of the times when a dog or cat petted at a home I am paying visit to, comes near me I pretend to have a fear for animals and try to shoo it away.

What embarrasses and irritates me more is the fact that these alleged activists who claim to be saviors are the direct reason for the killing of a lot of animals, butchered every year for food and fur. I recently happened to visit KFC, for the very first time and could see people gorging on chicken and other meat products sold there without any apologies. Don't know what kind of an irony is it? Saving four or five animals in your lifetime or maybe a few more by petting them at home and killing hundreds to feed your gastronomic gullibility isn't in anyway a step towards saving the fauna! The same holds true for the incessant cutting and destruction of trees and plants for food and furniture and such nubile necessities. While I turned a plant eater long ago, I knowingly have made sure that I do my bit for the environment everyday. 

A Sold Out Idea

I have worn tens of hats before having met her. But never in my life did I imagine that the eleventh hat would come with a feather. Alright, I was aware of what the dictionary had to say about an entrepreneur and entrepreneurship, but then as they say to taste how cold the water is, you got to get into it.  In my graduation days, entrepreneurship  development was a compulsory minor subject that we passed as a last minute ritual to garner good grades. Other than the books on entrepreneurship, that I once read as leisurely as Chacha Chaudhary comics, business of any kind was rocket science for me.

Until one day on a cold December night, while dallying around my monday assignments, I got a call. For the first two times, I didn't bother to show any signs of euphoria towards that phone call. Although the third time, something ramified my head and I got up to answer to a vivacious Whitney Houston crooning in chorus.

Of Virtual And Real Identities

Facebook has lately become like a lice,  that crawls over the head. It itches, scratches the skin on the surface of a world we carry inside us. Status updates are confessions we make to a hundred or more mediators. The more, the merrier. Depression is a catapult that is set free as the burden we carry through such a communion of secrets escaped into the blue. The syllables are a war of words when it gets typed into the box that asks me with a pause “What’s happening Rinzu?”

It is a bourgeois concept to fill that empty space every day when I log into my facebook account but often I’ve felt that rants and especially those against the destructive demurrals of the society make a way into that white space often. And many times it talks of the boredom I encounter, but not for long. Once the wall appears in front of me I am treated to a Pandora’s box that I feel opened the world’s woes in front of me.

Of Weddings and not Marriages

It's that time of the year again, when the stars say a prayer for the sun and all of them stand to salute the marriages that might perhaps, have been made in heaven. Weddings in India are more of a social hogwash and less of a marriage, which has made it a Page 3 affair and a stage for Katrina to gyrate on. Of course if Shahrukh is available, after making up with the friends he turned to foes, it surely will be all over the Delhi Times Page 3 the next day. 

And before I talk of the fairy tale wedding I happened to attend a few days ago, let me tell you of something ridiculous that took place recently. A stranger I had barely spoken to, for a few times over the google talk messenger during my tryst as an editor, sent me her wedding invitation. I really didn't know how to take it? As a personalized invitation or as the ceremonious celebration of a phase in life, that after countless fake relationship statuses on facebook is finally becoming a reality! What was worrisome was the reply, which was obviously a no, for traveling to the southern tip of India for a stranger's wedding did not sound like a great idea! Often I had heard this about girls going to get wedded. A few days before their wedding they start flying high in air without wings. This just holds true for this lady! The stakes attached to getting wedded and being wedded are too high for Indian girls,which just blinds them to commit such brainless bloopers and sadly one can't blame them!

Before I got this bolt from the blue I happened to attend a  Baniya wedding, one that was a chapter straight from the fairy tales. The invitation in itself was a  seductive snare of ladoos, dry fruits and chocolates with an endless queues of cards choking inside a wooden box gilded in  gold, which had given me an inkling about how they would dress up both the brides. Oh yes it was the rarest of rare weddings, twins getting married to twins, so both the sets of sisters and brothers also became each other's in-laws after the event. What managed to arrest my attention was the farmhouse they had booked for the wedding.

The land was spread in  acres, with a giant gold stage and three more that looked like its babies. Along both sides, were these endless enclosures, again all set in gold laying down a food festival for the guests in attendance. I saw CCD, Dominos, Haldirams and almost every other food outlet I had ever eaten at, gripping the gastronomic gullibility of the guests. People could be seen enjoying the food fare while music was being played into the balmy brightness of the night, all set for an extravaganza. With all the gold glaring into my eyes, I was fearing visual impairment for even the dancers on the stage were all dressed in gold and painted in gold. I could neither see SRK, nor Katrina but for some reason this was one of the most exuberant of weddings I had seen in my lifetime. While the women in the vicinity could be seen getting crushed under the bulky Benarasi sarees and lehangas, and throttled by the yellow metal in various shapes and sizes, I was there dressed like a school girl in pink and black checks and blue denims, watching the visual vitality on display. The exchanging of garlands was another treat to watch, for the fear of falling down from the towering platform could be seen clearly etched on their faces stealing the joy of garlanding each other. So also, the hosts for the night had left very little imagination at our behest since their commentary reminded me of a confused plot between a Cinderella story and the famous Ram-Sita wedding. While watching the melodrama unfold a few things crossed my mind.

Why are the Indian weddings more of a social flimflam and less of a personalized plan aimed at celebrating the coming together of two souls? A thousand and more guests at such events have left me wondering as to what sort of an event are they rooting for? Flashing of flamboyance or calling for a ceremony that will be commemorated as memories in the family album. Rather than spending lakhs and lakhs of rupees on one ceremony, can't we call for simpler sophisticated weddings with the money we otherwise intend to waste going to a charity. The idea of feeding a thousand or more guests who can afford three or more square meals a day is stranger than a lie, for many lakhs are dying without food everyday. The thought of feeding a stomach that is already filled doesn't go well with me. 

Many parents of girl children in India do no have reasonable resources to organize a simple wedding ceremony for their daughters, can't all this money that is being burned in the name of traditions be given to them.   

The big fat Indian wedding is a national obsession which might in the years to come, even start attracting tourists during the wedding season as they famously call it, for such is its shameless splendor. Being less of a memory for those celebrating it, and more of a social hogwash.

50 Different Types of Facebook Users

Facebook was one of the best inventions of this century and Mark Zuckerberg needs to be thanked a million  times for huddling and holding the world together. While it has turned out to be a morning manner for some and an inevitable evening activity for many, turning down the TRP's of many eight pm teleserials, this platform of social networking has brought a lot of undiscovered personality traits in us. I made a closer call and saw this

There are 50 different kinds of facebook users as per my observations

1) The one who befriends you with 125 mutual friends in the list, but still doesn't know you and will never talk to you.
2) The one who still plays Farmville and are constantly sending you invitations for Farmville 2.
3) The one who plays all the games that uses facebook as a platform and floods your inbox with their invitations.
4) The one who adds every person who sends a friend request to them.
5) The best friends who blow kisses and keep sending hugs many times in a day on each other's walls.
6) The one who pokes everyone on their list.
7) The one who is always logged out of chat.
8) The one who changes their profile picture everyday.
9) The one who changes their profile picture every week.
10) The one who never sets their own picture as the profile photo. 
11) The one who will never change their profile picture.
12) The alarms clocks who have made it a deed to wish everyone "Good Morning" and "Good night" ever day.
13) The one who updates everything on their walls by using facebook mobile, just to show how busy they are to ever use a laptop.
14) The compulsive liker.
15) The person who wishes "Happy birthday" to everyone, every day on their list, not missing out on a single day unless of course they are chronically ill.
16) The obsessed commentor.
17) The one who tags you in bad pictures, not of your interest and only their interest.
18) The one who untags themselves from every picture, they ever were tagged in.
19) The one who writes notes everyday, and tags all their friends to it.
20) The one who has 50 photo albums consisting of pictures that aren't theirs.
21) The person who puts quotes as status updates everyday.
22) The deeply depressed facebook user who updates their status with sad song lyrics often.
23) The silent watcher who rarely likes, comments or posts anything.
24) The philosopher whose status updates are as vague as they can get, with  squarely senseless replies to them.
25) The social activist raring to change the world.
26) The ones who post updates and posts on their wall, not for others to see but for themselves to read and watch, much like a bookmark.
27)  The facebook "friend" who takes up fights publicly, knowingly or unknowingly.
28) The person who always requests you to "like" their status updates.
29) The "eternal" brag box who has boasted about all their achievements in life, right from their grade twelve percentile to their intelligence quotient.
30) The "Page 3" facebook user who invites you to every event that will be held under the sun.
31) The person who gets annoyed when someone unfriends them.
32) The married couple who shares a joint facebook account with a joint name such as "Maria and Thomas Anthony" always leaving their friends in a fix as to who did it, when someone posts something on the wall.
33) The grandma who just learnt to use the Internet and doesn't know the difference between status updates and comments.
34) The couple who fights and makes up to often switch between their relationships statuses. 
35) The ones who can't keep their personal lives under wraps.
36) The sports commentators who appear on facebook during an India-Pakistan or India-Australia match and floods your wall with live commentary. 
37) The chronic liker who likes your status updates and posts everyday and sometimes minutes after being posted on your wall.
38) The one who has owed fanship to every page ever created on facebook.
39) The shameless advertisers of their blog and websites.
40) The user who just had a baby and is keen on exposing the life of the child to the world.
41) The one who adds the prefix Dr. to their profile name just to hoot the trumpets about their achievements in life.
42) The user who always posts help columns or "DIY" columns that holds their interest.
43) The one who updates their status every two or three hours with nothing interesting to share, except for cribbing or cussing.
44) The addict.
45) The addict who tries to act as if they do not care two hoots about the existence of facebook.
46) The advise seeker who can never make up their mind about anything in life 
47) The one who can't post a status update in the first time, and needs to redo it always.
48) The user who is obsessed with the facebook maps and is always updating their latest location on it.
49) An eight year old who lied about their age to make a profile, or an eight year old's mom who has made a profile for them so that they can gift it to them on their eighteenth birthday.
50) The one who doesn't have a facebook profile.

I fall into more than one of these categories and this was a post I did for harmless fun. Do not lynch me after reading this.

The Irony of Traditions!

It's that time of the year again.  Dasara also known as Navaratri, as in the first nine days the Divine Mother Goddess Durga is worshipped and invoked in different manifestations of her Shakti. The 10th day is in honor of Durga Devi.  The basic purpose behind this festival is to worship feminine principle of the Universe in the form of the divine mother to remind the teachings of the Taitareeya Upanishad, "Matru Devo Bhava."  Essence of the navaratri celebration at social level is to remind; respect all the women, who are the guardians of the family, culture, and national integrity, to take lead in times of crisis to guide the humanity towards the path of social justice, righteousness, equality, love, and divinity.



If we look at the figures of sex ratio in India, according to the 2011 Census, the number of girls stands at 940 which is a marginal increase from 933 in 2001. Not surprisingly, Haryana has the lowest sex ratio among the states while Kerala remains at the top with the highest sex ratio. In the national capital Delhi, the statistics stand at 821 girls against 1000 boys in 2001 compared to 866 in 2011. 


According to the statistics, nearly 10 million female foetuses have been aborted in the country over the past two decades. Of the 12 million girls born in India, one million do not see their first birthdays. 

What sort of a celebration is this when the femininity is devotedly doted upon while on every second street corner a woman is mauled. Sometimes as a foetus, for having had the XX combination of chromosomes and many times as a woman who is nothing more than a huma who is supposed to confine herself in the cage of clothing she wears. As a foetus,  her father and her grand parents had already been damned with the thought of  doling up dowry for her sometime in the future. Dowry being the bride price the parents of a woman pay to buy her conjugal rights into a household, with not much exceptions to say a no to it. If she manages to see the light of the day, she is not sent to schools, is made to milk buffaloes, cook and clean while her brother is sent to study and given good clothes to wear. And forcibly married to a guy, eons elder to her while she rents out her womb with the dowry to bring out a male heir for her husband's family. She isn't asked to voice her opinion about whether she wants to marry and bear kids, these are her duties towards a sexist society that considers womanhood synonymous to a womb. This way she becomes the symbol of family honour, dare she doesn't offer herself for this role, she isn't allowed to live. This is the story of the villages, where a woman is the emblem of social and religious biases. If we hop on to the cities it is no better. Foetuses are thrown into dustbins or fed to dogs for a little over two thousand rupees that the doctor charges, after having been killed in posh localities, where boys are still preferred over girls as a status symbol and the legal heir to the property and family business. Again, if she lives, she is sent to school without any signs of discrimination, until the roles of home making don't give her a call which is supposedly not taught to her brother. She  has to dress down to save her soul and isn't not allowed to go to parties and pubs for she may be punished in the name of morality. After she marries, she is burnt with the explosion of a cylinder,  for she did not bring the cash and kind that her husbands family had anticipated for.

While she is out on the streets, she is raped by a thousand men with two thousand eyes yearning to get a glimpse of her cleavage or her legs. Men are waiting on the streets, to lift women for no reasons or chase a woman to give her a heart attack in triplicates, so that from the very next day, she can be this coy cat who is dropped to work or college by her dad or brother. I have for so many times, dreaded doing the rounds of the Rajiv Chowk metro station or travelling by buses for the fear of being groped by men, for its an ill wind that blows in the life of us women, that has done us no good. Even then it is a hapless habit when it comes to travelling everyday for work or college. If a woman gets raped in this part of the world, the fear of societal stigma keeps her from even reporting the matter to the police. They say shamelessly that she deserved it, never letting conviction be confirmed in most cases of sexual harassment, molestation or rape, each a mutated manifestation of how patriarchal and pervert this male dominated society is. 

Rather than empowering the woman and giving her a reason to celebrate her femininity, the society has made her weak and always runs to cover her up. She needs her father as a daughter, a husband as a wife and when he bids farewell to the world her sons as a mother. Again I wonder,  how will the calculations be considered if she has no sons? 
The sleeping dogs start lying when talks of equality get a voice owing to the media and social networking, while she is expected to accept a seat in the buses or metro, for that they say is her right. A separate coach for women in the metro or the reservation in the Parliament or for that matter the ladies queues in government offices has only added fuel to the fire. These have only made her weaker not sponsoring the cause for which she has been fighting for long. Equality! 
Ironically, travelling in a compartment full of women or seeing a man vacate his seat for me doesn't make me felicitate freedom, that supposedly the government thinks is enabling empowerment to the fairer sex.

When Shakti is being glorified in gold, in pooja pandals all over the country, a female foetus is thrown in the bin for dogs to devour while in another part of the country a girl from a poor family is being sold for a little over ten thousand rupees to a rich farmer in Haryana so that she can be a breeding machine for his babies and a sex object with which the man can play.  

In a country where femininity is being plundered, looted and even traded for a few thousand rupees, is this vain inglorious deification of goddesses so necessary, just to tout for traditions? Shouldn't we tirelessly toil to first make the open spaces safer for women, before trying to glorify goddesses of stone and gold? Hasn't hypocrisy being written in bold letters all over the walls of homes, that testify of Shakti but, are killing their girls and women to root for misinformed misogyny! And do you think the goddesses will be pleased any day, if only what is happening continues, to never see light at the end of the tunnel?