memories of kashmir..

we came to this place called 'the heaven on earth', when I was eight years old.Father was transfered to jammu from delhi and don't remember whether i was happy to see this so called unique place,for me every place seemed to be the same 'cause we often travelled where his job takes us to.Even the changes in climate wouldnt have made much difference, for now we were accustomed to all conditions,travelling to extreme north and far eastern states.
Here..the nature is dressed to kill..jaw dropping beauty all around,snow capped mountains,pine trees,apples and humble 'kashmiris',tall, well built with cheeks like apples,red and bubbly.
I never had enough opportunity to go around because everything was available inside the military campus.of!course school was little away but we had the army bus for transportation.
The initial months,when our quarter was not allotted ,we stayed for rent outside the campus and there, I experienced something which I will never forget.Although the nature had given everything to this place,the local houses did not have the sanitation facilities as any common house elsewhere would have.
The sanitation was very primitive and unique,all the house had their toliets on terrace and they were just a block of four walls without roofs,inside you have partitions for seperate rooms and each cabin would have two rows of cemented blocks parallel to each other to climb on and sit to relieve ourself,there was no drainage facility and the waste would just accumulate on the cemented floor.Now,every next day a person would come(mostly ladies),who is employed to dispose the waste(all the people who do this job are of the same caste ) with a broom and a big bamboo woven basket.she would collect all the waste inside the basket and wash the cabins ,then
would fold the broom in one hand,keeping the basket on her head and stroll away happliy to dispose,where does she do the disposal I never cared..
Imagine,a day when she falls sick or in case of a heavy rain..uh!! This 'was' kashmir..'the heaven on earth'.
We live in such a vast country where not only the languages,food,clothes,climates differ,even the methods of disposing human waste differ..but still there is a unity in diversity..we are all Indians.
the mighty Indians, the brainy indians.This is a country where a genius called 'Ramanuja' lived,who used to scribble his mathematical theorams on waste court papers,'cause he was employed as 'sepoy' in madras court and who later died of 'asthma' in london because he did not have the physical capacity to withstand the cold in london.His reasoning of infinity is still considers to be a genious work,scribbled on some of those 'yellow' court papers..
'I am proud to be an Indian'.

journey again..

These days before going to sleep,i get retrospective into my life to see whether i can sift through the years and get something to laugh about,something original that has happened which tickle me still.
Last night,I happened to travel down my memory lane about 20 years and reached,my last year in school,12th standard.That is the year when all extracurricular activies come to an end and all of us bunch together in classroom with our books and the only active organ in the body becomes that grey substance called brain.Whatever we couldn't complete in the normal study hours in school we were taught on holidays..and that was a fun time,mainly because of a solitary reason,we get respite from our monotonous uniforms and can see some colours around.
well! this particular 'extra clas's,i believe physics, was on a second saturday, and the day before ,we boys (9 in strength out of 18,a good ratio to have) dfecided to wear 'mundu' for the day,maybe the first time most of us would try,and wouldn't reveal the same to girls,so that we throw a surprise.
As planned I arrived on time, much before the schedule start,but i couldnt see anyone outside the main gate,which was the actual practice to welcome girls.An unknown fear crept into me,for suddenly i could feel something wrong.I walked along the corridor with weary steps to our classroom at the end of the building,it was a long walk,when i reached the classroom before ours, i saw my mates appearing from inside and my fear became a reality,noone was wearing 'mundu'.
shocked ,more at the insult of being cheated after taken into confidence, rather than the ignonimy of holding pensively at one end of the cloth and holding my bag with the other hand.
Then started the real fun,they had collected a type of fruit or seed from the tree in front of our classroom,which when pressed at the swollen belly would flush out a stinking,sticky liquid.they all got hold of me, lifted my silly clothing and pumped in the liquid,wetting my 'underside'.I was completly overpowered and helpless,the commotion brought the girls outside and some of them giggled in delight,while many others sighed in sympathy.
Unfortunately,it didnt end there,during the whole period in the class, they were having fun.End of the day,when i reached home, my whole clothing was stained and stinking.
Even though,it was an embarassing day for me then, today i could see the funny side of it and laugh a lot.Oh! how much I miss my school days and my friends..
'yaade..yaade ...bas yaade rah jaathi hai'...
chotti.. ye meetti, baathe rah jaathi hai..'.

Birthday

Today 37 years before,I was born. Its going to be just another day but somehow i feel the last birthday was quite special for me,it never occured to me december 14 to be a special day anytime before as last year,and i looked forward to the day,this year the same way.but as the life itself is so unpredictable just like people and we expect a lot from life,the simple things to fall in place but it always turn out to be a grind.a hard grinding grind.
What do I expect from myself,going into the next year??hmm just a little bit more cautious,may be age is catching up,work more towards the simple things in life and continue being good to everyone and everything.Lot of ego still there in me which got to be pruned up.Be prudent enough to undersatnd situations better and continue on the path of taking risks and do things which i fear to attempt.be a better person than yesterday and try to do good to fellow human beings.
Proffessionally,set short term goals and achieve it and earn money (something new added).
A wish...!! I dont forget my loved ones ever and try to be there always in need.But then..we are mere humans we tend to forget.so let me be humble enough to admit my smallest mistakes and make people around me happy.
Laugh a lot ,so that even a hint of my grief doesn become pain for others. Meet new people ,read a lot and try to understand life ,closer..

gender gap

Man and woman,have importance in unison and seperately, as different individuals in life and in any society,be it in home making ,proffession or nation building.The capacity of each gender to perform the same deed differently,relating their emotional and physical attributes contribute to the fullfillment of the deed.
But the gender gap is very much evident in our society,a woman always considered an inferior and submissive gender,eventhough the mental strength and perseverence of a woman is far more superior to a man.Biologically,a woman is more suited to acclimitise to different conditions
and the nature has always provided and reserved the best, to a woman.
Even among the animals,its the female who hold a respected figure in the clan.Among the lion pride,its the lioness who hunt,rear children and bring food to the male,but the king of the jungle is just namesake,the armchair executive.

coming back to the humans and we indians,we limit women to the confinement of 4 walls and shirk at the first instance of empowering them.we don't send girl child to school,though the ability of a girl child to learn and grasp things is far superior to boys.We ignore their views on any issues thinking them to be foolish,while its always a woman that has caused any revolution to take place,think of the adage,'theres a woman behind every man's success'.
Relating facts, of women being set apart from the mainstream or considered an inferior class in the proffessional set up in india,only14% of major companies employ 40%or more women and most of them work in lower levels or in middle management.the disparity in the salaries obtained by women doing the same job as their men conterparts is too high.

A recent survey conducted for gender gap revelas the dismal stage of the indian women,out of the 137 countries surveyed india stand at a poor 114th position.
women,as half of the human capital of india,will need to be more effeciently integrated into the economy in order to boost india's long term competitive potential.India's middle class will see a rapid growth offa very low base,but the shifts in spending are constrained due to the women's realtively low status at least for the next 10-15 years.
surprisingly,the political empowerment is far more evident compared to the role of women in any other walk of life.And we,raise our voice for 33% reservation for women candidates in lok sabha.If the same effort is taken to establish higher rate of girl education and reducing the infant mortality of girl child,we have hope of seeing India as a superpower in near future.and why not,we call our nation 'Bharath Matha',so its the women who are the torch bearers fro this run towards success. and that how it should be..

casteism

..yesterday we had a very scholistic discussion on the prevailing cast system and the umbrella of reservation on top of it.
Division of people on the basis of the jobs they do,colour of their skin ,languages they speak and the culture they follow are as old as 'puranaas',but unfortunately even today the people at the lower strata are downtrodden still.People were mainly catagorised on the basis of their livelyhood.A person who makes shoes is a 'chamar' and one who washes clothes is a 'dhobhi',and each member of his family is supposed to sustain that proffession and the next generation to follow suit.A chamar is born a chamar,lives a chamar and dies the same,he was not given the privilige to be learned and be wise.The so called upper class remained at the high end of the strata on the basis of land they own and power they possess to expolit others.Very sad that our society didnt have the dignity of labour and still continue to reel under that stigma,very different from the western part of the world where the skilled labour is always sought after and pays too.
Now, another cast has added upto the list ,the division of people on the basis of money and political power, another dangerous rift to have.we are slipping more and more deep into the world of ignorance and dividing ourselves among ourselves.
culture,a word which we never understand, often get confused with and we try to bring the ethnic tribes from the jungles to 'the main stream' in the name of upliftment.we purposefully ignore to understand that we are trying to uproot them from their natural habitat and plant them in our world,our culture??we believe living in concrete jungles,driving machines,using internet,eating junk food is a superior culture to theirs and want them to adapt to this.Is this not barbarianism,is this not conversion?have we ever tried to step into their world and understand them? can we ever go to the jungles,not as a tourist and try to survive even a week??They have a culture which is original and they still follow that.its us who are of an inferior race.
But still we dont eat food made by 'them'.still they are untouchables and they have seperate gods,thier women are raped,their children are made bonded labourers for life and noone cares.,
but we still try to 'uplift' them by teaching them 'english',asking them to wear jeans and work on computers.
Casteism is in our minds,till the day we understand that every human is one cast,noone is superior to the other,it will remain.
The next generation should marry from different races,casts,religion and bringforth children of a new breed who are just humans,nothing more,nothing less.