Get raped..don't care..hear about rape..get outraged!

THIS IS NOT A BLOG THAT TELLS YOU TO SPEAK UP AGAINST DELHI GANG RAPE CASE. IT IS ABOUT SPEAKING UP IN EVERYDAY LIFE.

A long time ago I made an fb page. It was made for a marketing competition and it needed maximum likes to win. I fixed the theme of the page as women empowerment (my passionate topic). I designed posters against rape, dowry and female infanticide. Then began the publicity process or rather the process of begging everyone to like the page. My competitors were pages promoting childhood memories, music, crazy jokes etc. We hardly got around 240 likes while the other pages had 1000+. The sad part was not losing the competition but the responses I got from the guys I asked to like the page. They felt it was against their dignity to like such a page. They classified it as a feministic initiative and supporting such a page seemed demeaning to their pride. Some comments I got : “ am seriously against the ideas postd there” “ithu njan like cheythal idi urappa enikku." and some curt “no thank you” responses. Those who liked the page I asked them to pass it on to their friends. But they wouldn’t do that because they would get teased by other guys!! Even a poster showing the rape statistics in India got me a response “such things haven’t happened here. Girls simply overreact to everything. Men aren’t so bad”.  

And now after the delhi gang rape incident these guys are flooding fb with outrage messages. Changing their profile pic, taking New Year resolutions to respect women and blah blah blah… Why? Are they genuinely outraged or is it because it’s the ‘in’ thing to do?

A few days back a bunch of guys threatened the gals in my class for booing at them during a basketball match and successfully scared the girls. The girls ran away and some even cried. But again the blame was on the girls. Why were the gals there at 6pm and why did they irritate the guys? They deserved what they got! Even the gals supported the whole thing saying ‘men will be men… they will say such things and do such things. We should just not bother about this and we should just keep away’. Now these same people have black dots as their profile pic and write huge status about ‘society should change their attitude. Don’t put the blame on the girls. Girls stand up for your rights.’

What’s the point? If you guys can’t change your own attitude about woman how can you expect someone in Delhi to change it? If you girls can’t stand up against guys who threaten you how can you stand up against guys who threatened some girl in Delhi?

It is good to see the entire nation being united by such an incident. It is good to see so many people protesting against this incident. It is good to see everyone swearing about the government and planning candle marches. But all this is useless if you cannot stand up against what happens to you in your daily life. Feel the outrage when a guy puts you down. Feel the outrage when you see a girl being harassed. Feel it in the everyday things because it is these small things that build up and form the general fucking attitude of the society.

This incident will fade away soon. Attitudes will remain the same. Girls who speak of woman abuse will be termed as feminists and guys who support it will be classified as ‘men with no backbone’. Life will go on as usual.  Those who think I’m being pessimistic just wait and watch. This is not the first rape incident and it is definitely not going to be the last. Let's just hope and pray these rapists get a just punishment.     

Waking up to reality!

I just realised that I had been living in a beautiful dream all  my life. A dream filled with love, care, freedom, individuality, safety, confidence..... A dream so wonderful that I assumed it to be the truth... Inspite of hearing about restrictions, insecurity, violence, trickery and suppression I never saw them as a threat. Angelina Jolie was my idol and Helen Keller was my inspiration. 'A girl can do anything' was my motto. I would mock people who ever tried to put my ideas down. I believed that as long as a woman had the strength to live there is nothing that can put us down. But then the doors of reality opened.... And what I saw beyond those doors was the HARSH truth.
When women speak of suppression and restrictions I used to wonder why they don't just walk away from everything. Why don't they stand up for what is right and do what they really want to do with their life. All my previous posts speak in this line. But I have found the reason now. In the eyes of the society the woman is always wrong. Whatever happens to a woman the general notion in the society is 'she must have done something wrong'. A guy can walk away with anything as long as this idea prevails. And a girl can never be safe as long as this idea prevails.....
A woman always needs a guy to look after them.  This is an age old concept that still holds true. The society promotes this. The only people who will support a woman who is genuinely in trouble will be her husband*.... brother... son.. or friend...(*subject to many conditions).. The rest of the world will see her as an idiot who deserves what she got. A woman can never be totally independent as long as this situation continues..
I heard the story of '22fk' and felt the climax was awesome. When I told one of my friends he said 'But its just a story...impractical..." and I AGREED!!! I myself was shocked that I'm actually agreeing that women are not strong enough. But I guess when you see the whole society turning against you, you tend to just give up fighting for something you always believed in. Stuff like 'Be strong', 'Believe in yourself', 'Never give up your ideas' etc seem stupid when the society is so large and stubborn. Indeed it is more 'practical' to just agree that we are the 'weak' section of the society who will always need protection... the section that is always wrong in the eyes of the society.... the section to which anything and everything can happen at any time anywhere while the whole world will just stand by and watch....
People say 'one day' the society will change... the attitude towards women will change.... women will have equal rights... women will be safe.... 'one day' women can hold their head up high and walk anywhere with absolutely no fear in their hearts.... And we have organisations and idealistic individuals who promote strong messages to achieve this 'one day' soon. I was one of them. But in this fight to reach the 'one day' I realised maybe it is never gonna come....

A Pink Pinafore….

I turned 20!! Let’s say I live upto around 60 (if no one kills me by then) then I have now completed exactly one third of my life. That’s like a really really long time. Gosh!! So I thought this birthday I’ll write a blog about my life or rather my educational life which obviously implies my favourite subject ‘friends and relationships’ (and I promise I’ll drag in my feministic views somewhere :P).

So it all started with a bright pink pinafore. Well… actually my first schooling was at some playschool which my chechi calls “ammamma veedu” and where apparently I was miserable. But since I don’t remember anything about it I guess I’ll start with LKG. Now these memories are also very vague and the only thing I really remember clearly is my uniform.. a bright pink pinafore. Now a pinafore is kinda like a dress but with box pleats and a white flap like piece near the neck and it’s definitely not fond memories that I shared in that attire. Like a majority of children I hated school. As I said I don’t remember much about this age but I can still feel the relief I felt when I returned home from school. I would rush inside the house and demand a glass of milk. Yuck!! I hate milk now but those days the thought of that milk helped me sit all day in class. 

Then from 1^st standard onwards I remember better. Then our uniform was a light blue pinafore. My 1^st and 2^nd I hated school. I was a sweet girl (I repeat “was”) and everyone took advantage of me. I never fought or shouted or even talked much. I just had one best friend and I talked only to her I think coz I don’t remember anyone else. One incident I clearly remember was being elected as class leader. Now being a leader was a dream for everyone those days coz we can rub the blackboard and take the chalk. This was something very special. But unfortunately since I was so “sweet” even as a leader I had no power. All the other leaders dominated me and those 3months I never touched the blackboard….

In 3^rd I magically changed.. atleast I felt so. I started talking to more people and making more friends. 3^rd and 4^th were happy days. The best part I remember from those days are the games we played. In class with the guys I used to play hand cricket which I hated but for some weird reason I was good at (I never got out) and among gals gosh! There were such a lot of games…salolaole… superkironi…charliechaplin.. hehe!! Then in the evening I had a special group of friends. We met only in the evening and we used to play such weird games. Hide and seek was our favourite but after a while we got sick of that and started inventing all sorts of crazy things.. dabdoobali… detectives… and some games I can’t even remember the names we gave for them. And in fourth I was again a class leader and by then I was quite bold and had ‘board control’.

 

By fifth all the guys were thrown out of school and it was a purely girls only zone. I made my first speech in fifth. Aquaguard (the company that makes water purifiers :P) was doing a talk in our class to promote their product and I had to give the welcome speech. Now this is a really stupid event (infact u can’t even call it an event) but still I was so proud to be selected as the “welcome speech giver”. That was the first time I held a mic I think. I loved it and from then on went for every speech competition I could go.

 6^th and 7^th were dark times for me mainly coz I was constantly fighting with my best friend. Now it all seems so silly but that time it was like a heart breaking situation. If I talked to someone else more she would get angry and vice versa. We were worse than a bunch of possessive lovers. We used to walk hand in hand around the whole campus and share all our deepest secrets (which was actually nothing). Anyway that sort of bonding happens only at that age I think (now we would be called lesbians if we did that :P).  

Then high school started. That was the time for gangs… everyone had a gang. It was a real cool term!! Ours was called ‘The harmful insects’ and now you can guess how crazy we were. There were ten of us and we had seats together in class. We have laughed so much together… cried so much together… 8^th was one of my best times in school. I went for almost every weird activity that year. There was a dance event were I had to wear a bright yellow dress and my partner didn’t turn up and I had to dance alone. Then there was a song competition where we dressed up as cowgirls and won the first prize. Since I can’t sing now I think we won it coz of our costume :D Then I remember a debate competition where we started arguing so spiritedly that we forgot it was a competition. The things we said were nonsense I guess but we won a prize purely for our energy. There was also this weird phenomenon: I used to cry every Friday. Now I can’t explain why it’s like that…. Some silly thing will happen every Friday and I will cry and then later make up and everything would be great again. 

9^th I was elected as the head girl and it was a damn crazy year. It was the 125^th anniversary of our school that year and we had some dumb event every single week. I did so many welcome and thank you speeches that I got absolutely sick of talking. The weird part was that no one had any idea about who the chief guests were. I had to say paragraphs of praises about someone I had never even heard of till that day. Then the worst part of being the school leader was that if anything went wrong it was blamed on me. If the chief guest arrived late and the students got fidgety even that was my fault though I don’t know how I could have prevented that. Also I got so little time to spend with my friends that year. 

10^th new leaders were selected and I became the ‘Ex- head girl’, this was so much better. You still have all responsibilities but the new leaders will get all the scolding. 10^th was indeed an excellent year. It was our last year in that school and so got damn nostalgic during our farewell. That was also the first time I wore a saree (and I looked ridiculous). With our eyes full of tears I bid farewell to the place I had spend 12 years of my life.

11^th and 12^th I did in a co-ed. 1^st year was so crazy. Everything was new to me. Apart from the fact that there were strange beings in class (boys :P) it was a totally different atmosphere. I found everyone to be more harsh… less sentimental.. less attached… maybe we were growing up… I assumed I would never love this place but as usual I was wrong. When the two years ended I was even more tearful than in 10^th. I made a bunch of friends I can never forget in my life and realized so many things about life. It was the time I started writing my blog. Those two years I did nothing exceptional… I was never popular… infact I know very few people apart from those in my class. But still these two years changed my life so much. 

Then college started…. it began with so many mixed feelings… fear for the seniors… excitement of staying away from home which at times turned into home sickness… and a thirst to enjoy maximum coz we all had this preconceived notion “college life is the most rocking part of our life so get maximum out of it”. I remember the first time we all went out together. It was for our classmate’s sister’s wedding and then later went to hill palace. We hardly knew each other but was determined that we should go mainly I think coz it was our first chance. It was the best of all the “hang outs” we had in college obviously coz it was our first :D I think the least time I took to become friendly with everyone was in college. Now emotions were different….. more complicated… the topics we discuss are also weirder…it was not that we grew up (we still throw chalk at each other and shout and scream like children) but we became kinda stranger in our thoughts..or so I felt… 

20 years seems like a really long time…. So many memories… when I take my old diaries and read through them at times my eyes fill up with tears… at times I burst our laughing… I haven’t achieved even 1/4^th of what I dreamt to achieve but still I think my life is fulfilling so far… though my name hasn’t appeared in Wikipedia (one my friend’s greatest dreams :P) I think the fact that I can look back and feel happiness… feel sadness… feel regret…feel proud… feel embarresed…feel almost every emotion possible shows that I have experienced everything or atleast I am capable of experiencing everything…. Like my friend said last night “there will always be someone who envies your life and someone’s life you envy so be happy about what you are”(this was not his exact words.. I made it more attractive :P). Anyway I’m twenty and thanx to everyone who helped me have a great terrific twenty years… Zindagi rocks!!!

PS: I want to dedicate this blog to some special people.. I have no idea if they will even read this blog…these are the people I lost contact with… My best friend from 5^th to 10^th…. The group of friends I used to hang out in the evening during my school days…the harmful insects… and all my 12^th friends whom I’m no longer in touch with….

Gosh! This is indeed a looooong and boring blog. A sorry to those who actually read the whole thing :P

Life Is Beautiful

Today I told my friend that ‘Life is beautiful’ but I meant it in an extremely sarcastic manner since both of us were suffering from pangs of “acute boredom due to study hols syndrome”. So why is life NOT beautiful??? I don’t know about others but I’ll tell you why MY life is terrible now….


The first and main reason is that I’m feeling damn lonely… I’m at my home town and everyone here are having exams. My college friends are all meeting each other and having a lot of fun which depresses me. The fact ‘Man is a social animal’ is so true. This lack of contact with fellow humans is driving me crazy. But on the bright side due to technological advancements errrmm… I mean due to mobiles and google talks I’m in constant touch with everyone. Friends call me daily and keep messaging nonsense which cheers me up a lot… It will never be the same as actually meeting people but still at least it shows that inspite of all the fun they are having they haven’t forgotten me…..


Second reason for this ‘life is not beautiful’ condition is that I’m in a waiting for the perfect person in my life (like everyone else) and my friend keeps telling me that I’ll never get anyone that perfect. He teases me when I tell him the kind of qualities I’m looking for in a guy. Maybe it’s true. No one gets anyone perfect but what’s wrong in dreaming??? But again on the bright side at least I have awesome friends with whom I can share all my dumb dreams… even if they make fun of it they have the patience to listen to me….


Third reason is open jealously. I have an extremely techie friend. Now I would love to be techie. I’m every much interested in such things but I’m totally dumb. I have always dreamt of creating something on my own and earning money and appreciation. But that was all a dream. Now this techie friend is just as old as me but he has his own ‘logo, template etc designing’ business. Check out his site http://www.amitspsworld.info. He actually bought a Samsung Corby with the money he earned from this. When I see someone else living my dream I become jealous. That’s natural right?? Anyway again on the bright side we have the fact that if this techie buddy turns out to be Bill Gates Junior I can always proclaim myself as his best friend and get Windows 2020 for free. Cool idea huh?? :D


Fourth reason is a very obvious one. I can’t study. I think this is something students are programmed to do only on the day before the exam. It’s not as if I don’t like studying. In fact I love studying. I always did… even as a kid. But I need to get a mood to study. I can never force myself nor can anyone force me. We have nine subjects and almost half a month is over and I haven’t even reached 0.01% of what we have to study…. Each day I become more and more confident that I will surely flunk. And sad to say I can’t find a bright side for this .


And again there are plenty more reasons to say… but absolutely to mood to put it down in words right now…But when you tally it all up life is not so bad after all… Life may not be beautiful if we look at the obvious… but if you know what to look for life can be wonderfully beautiful…. Each moment… each word…. Each conversation… each touch… each relationship… has a special meaning… Seek it.. Each day brings unexpected things… Find it….. Life is a mystery… Reveal it…. Your dreams may never come true… but life is a reason to dream…. Life is a reason to live….

PS: Check out the song ‘Aaj din chadiya’ from Love aaj kal… not exceptionally good… but I wrote this blog while listening to it…. So it’s not leaving my mind now :D

A WALK TO REMEMBER.....

Bunking class and hanging out is a normal part of college life… Nothing extraordinary about it… But yesterday was very special to me…. I learnt many things…We had already decided to meet at nine and roam around the whole day… but by the time my extremely sleepy friends woke up and got dressed it was past eleven. After spending a lazy hour in our friends flat surfing channels we finally went out to roam.
First we went to the so called “Youngsters favourite hangout place” KFC. Food is the most expensive thing in Ernakulum and the guys paid the entire bill (point to be noted since this incident affects the story again). After this my friend’s extremely tyrannical mom called her back since its getting late (It was just past 12 noon k?? :D) and another went off to see his old buddies.
Eventually me and two guys were the only ones left. We went for a long walk along M.G.Road…. It was mid-day and it was like walking in an oven kept in hell…. But still it was real fun….. We talked a lot and whenever it became too hot we got into any shop which had a/c. I think there are no shops left on that road we haven’t attacked…
We got into seemati first… a very famous textile shop… Since we are all on the verge of bankruptcy the only reason we entered that place was to shelter from the unbearable heat… first we went to the men’s section and had a gala time commenting on the various shirts and tshirts… teasing each other’s likes… tricking the salesmen into thinking we are potential customers…. After driving everyone crazy there we went to the ladies section…. I was immersed in going through the displays when I turned back and saw the guys standing back embarrassed. They felt extremely odd being in the girls section and was fidgeting. This is the when I derived my first theory…. Guys are more insecure than gals. They feel that being among ladies stuff will make them girlie… How sad…. I obviously couldn’t leave them in such a position.. So after that we entered only guys brand shops… and since there are multimillion brands for guys (basics… wrangler…levi strauss.. blah.. blah.. blah…) we had plenty of options…. We also found a bonsai shop… but they sold only pots and clipperes…and no a/c either… damn!!
Finally we entered a coffee shop totally tired out….dripping like a wet towel… and ravishingly thirsty…. It was so relaxing to finally sink into a chair and sip something…
It was a great walk… I got to know them better… realised that we are actually so different… and wondered at how we all became so close inspite of being so unalike…I mean there isn’t anything we actually agree on ..and yet we are friends.. Amazing relationship…
It seemed like the perfect day till the bill came. I thought it was natural that I should pay it since they took care of the kfc bill. They were feeling bad about making me pay and I thought they were trying to be chivalrous which is pretty sweet. But what they said next totally disappointed me… “What will your parents say when they know you spent so much money… you are a girl nah??”….. WTF!!!! I felt so insanely mad then… This is exactly what everyone believes…. These guys are kinda like my best friends and I would never say anything against them but even they have this attitude…. But I don’t blame them… it is what the society has forced us to accept… it’s what we are taught by the society… gals need to save their parents’ money since getting them married is such an expensive process while guys can just fling their money around since they are ‘guys after all’….. There are specific rules and codes of conduct for boys and girls… any deviation from them marks you as insane… crazy… rebellious….
There was a time when such an incident would be the end of my friendship… but now even if I get angry when I hear such things I have learnt to accept it… I will never support it… I will never follow it… but since I cant change anyone’s attitude I just accept it… after all friendship is all about adjustment…
Even if I can’t change the world one thing I can do is hold onto what I believe in… but I sometimes find even that difficult…. It’s hard to get accepted… you get teased… you get looked down on… you are considered as an idiot.. And most irritatingly you are branded as a feminist…. But at the end of it even if you find that no one agrees with you, you get a satisfaction of knowing that you did the right thing…
Life is an a beautiful experience…. Every moment you learn something… yesterday I learnt two things… one.. You don’t need to believe in the same thing to become friends… and two… you don’t need others to accept what you believe in as long as you believe it yourself…..
So the walk to remember came to an end with them dropping me off at the station… I don’t know if they spent the day with me as an obligation or whether they honestly enjoyed it… all I know is that it was a truly lovely time for me… thanks a lot buddies… tc..
PS: Wanted to write something on woman’s day but couldn’t get any inspiration… so I think I’ll consider this as a woman’s day dedication… Something better than nothing nah??

INTEZAAR HAI YEH PYAAR...

My friend is depressed because he doesn’t have a girlfriend… in other words he is not in love… So is love the only means to be happy?? Love has become a very popular emotion. Every tom, dick and harry on the street is in love with some ann, mary or Josephine. Love seems to be a “must have” factor of college life. A normal day in college is not complete without the discovery of a new love couple, a tearful breakup or at least a casual linking up of unexpected people. Life seems to revolve only around love with friendship and other stuffs in the background.

The world seems to be created only for people who are in love. Boys and gals who have absolutely no idea about each other are pushed and forced to fall in love with each other. Mobile companies compete with each other to provide offers which assure hours of free talktime so that lovers are not separated by time or distance. Shops adorn themselves with red and sickly pink stuff so that lovers have a means of expressing their feelings via gifts. In short the purpose and ultimate aim in life seems to be love.

In many ways this is true. We all wish for someone who truly understands us. We all hope for someone who would listen to us…care for us…spend time with us and make us feel special. Love is indeed a basic necessity for humans….

But in our desperation to fall in love we loose our happiness. We should not hope and wait and pray for love. It just happens… just because the world around you go crazy with love don’t loose your head. When the right time and right person comes you will get what you always wanted….

But this waiting is indeed a depressing process. Three fourth of my friends are already in love. Having friends who are in love is the saddest thing to tolerate. You get ignored and forgotten. You are given less importance in their life. You get to spent less time with them. You’ll be happily talking with your friend and suddenly their lover calls and then you find yourself all alone coz your friend has gone into another world….. A very very common experience I experienced very very often. But now I’m kinda used to the whole “friendship gets second priority to love” idea.

But life is more than just love. It has a lot of other beautiful things to offer. It’s a journey packed with all sorts of unexpected happenings… you never know what is gonna happen the next second which makes you wanna live the moment to the fullest.. Discover your passion…. Find something that makes you excited and happy…. 

For me making my friend smile makes me happy…. So this blog is dedicated to my “girlfriendless” buddy to lift his spirits… so please cheer up. A gorgeous gal is waiting for you around the corner but you haven’t reached the corner yet… Just wait a while… Till then you have plenty of friends to give you company… take care buddy….  

DON'T NEED NO BUDDY

These days I feel as if I’m not doing anything worthwhile. Just going on living. I need something to look forward to…something to live for… so far my life was totally revolving around friendship. I breathed friendship… and that is my cause for unhappiness. Friendship is a beautiful relationship but when you totally submit yourself to it you get hurt badly. In this harsh reality no one sincerely bothers about friendship. It is just a means of not being alone. It is a means to use up your messaging offer. It is a means of showing the world that you are popular. It is a means of sharing something no one else would bother to listen to. Friends are just taken for granted. Me, being an idiot, didn’t realise it till recently. I just adored friendship. It was all I wanted. I rescheduled my entire life for friendship. My goals, dreams and even my family was pushed back for the sake of my friends.

While people around me got distracted by love I remained uninterested. I failed to realise that friendship is the biggest distraction. I expect a lot of things from my friends. I expect them to care for me as much as I do. But this never happens. Friendship is never given that much of importance by anyone. Within the past two months I have been hurt by three of my great buddies. This has made me totally depressed and devastated. Gosh!! If I had fallen in love I would have only had to suffer a single heartbreak. I really need to stop giving so much of priority to friendship.

One of my friends once said that my problem is that I have too many friends. But that’s wrong. I have very few friends. My problem is that I don’t know who my friends are. I care for people who don’t even need me and neglect the ones who really love me. I spend my time, energy and love on people who have no time for me and ignore the ones who are there every time I need them…

I need to discover what is friendship….. I need to discover who my friends are… I need to realise that it is not the ultimate factor in life…I need to move on…. I need to start living for myself and not just for friendship…..