Letter to a Sister

Dear Sister,

I do not know by what name you were born. I do not know how you look like. But I do know how you died. I do know how mutilated your body must have been in the last 12 days of your life. And that is why I cry and I hope that you are in a far better place than this world that showed its cruelest face to you on 16th December. 

Sister, do also know, that my heart cries at present, but the tears will be replaced by a strong resolve soon. I will continue your fight. I will not let your memory fade away like a sad distant tale. The wounds inflicted upon your body and soul will remain fresh in mine. Every moment from now on I would shudder to think that what happened to you could have easily happened to my mother, my friends and me.

In another couple of days, this year will end and a new will begin. It is in that new beginning that I hope our country’s mindset will change. A girl’s birth will be rejoiced. A daughter will be encouraged to live her dream. A son will be taught to respect. A mother-in-law will take pride in the achievements of her daughter-in-law. A woman will walk the streets without fear. A girl will watch a movie, board a bus, attend a late night party in peace. And if a tainted character even attempts to humiliate a woman, there will be hundred voices to protect and defend her.

I want to remember you not as a victim of gang rape, but a hero and a martyr because though the circumstances that led to your gruesome end should never befall on anyone, your trauma united this nation. You represent the pain every Indian woman is subjected to face - A whistle, a stare, a curse, an eve tease, a touch, a shame…everything. Your fight is the young India’s fight now. You have awakened the spirit of youth, to voice what is wrong and stand for the right.

Sister, I know your family’s loss is unfathomable. No one can bring back their daughter, their beloved sister back. I cannot even begin to imagine what they are going through. I can only offer my prayer and wish upon the stars to shine a little brighter upon them. May there be many messengers of God who bring them your news every day. Tell them that you are happy. Tell them that you are finally at peace.

You are gone, but let your strength remain with each one of us so that we finish what you started. Deep in my heart, I do believe, we shall overcome someday.

Love and peace,

AG




Image via http://adventuroj.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/tear.jpg

Who’s Getting Punished after all?

I went for a late night show yesterday with my family. The hall was packed though two seats next to me were still empty. Just as the titles began to appear on the movie screen, two young men came to occupy the seats. On any other day I would have remained oblivious to their presence, enjoying the movie. But yesterday, I felt uncomfortable. I kept fidgeting in my seat not wanting to share even that common arm rest with a complete stranger. Pretty soon, I changed places with my husband who had taken the corner seat. 

Back home, away from that public place, I sat thinking about my rather odd behavior. I prefer to know myself as a modern young woman. I am well educated, have worked late nights, hung out with friends, attended conferences and seminars, traveled alone within the city and around the country frequently. Changing places at a movie theatre just because a man happened to sit next to me is totally out of character. The only possible explanation I can think of is – it was the act of my subconscious female mind which still cannot come to terms with the horrendous gang rape of a fellow woman.

The thing is, on the outside, I am still the individual ready to face any challenge, compete at work, manage home and office, take on the world, but inside I am shaken, I am fearful and I am afraid that just a few steps away from home, perverted minds might be lurking in the shadows ready to nab me and treat me like an object merely made to satisfy their carnal instincts.

I can never board a bus ever. I will fear taking a taxi ride all alone. I will not even accidently enter the non-female compartments of a metro. I will not walk in a crowd in fear of the shoulders rubbing against me. I will not walk alone without glancing across my shoulders every second. 

Yes, I do not want to be this coward. I do not want to look like a weakling who is scared of every gaze and every touch of the opposite sex. But that is what it has boiled down to because one girl as fun loving, as daring, as modern as I am was shattered to pieces so badly that even a lifetime is not enough for her to gather the pieces and regain her dignity.

Modern India is flooding with examples of women who have made a name for themselves, and made their country proud with their achievements. Politics, sports, arts, science, dance, theatre, every field has a name of a woman written in golden letters. Her achievements are not based on her gender. Her skills are not any different from her male counterparts. Her actions are not any lesser because she is a woman. But in spite of all the advancements, the only thing that matters in the end is the body she was born with and how it is ogled on in the man-centric world. 

What happened to the 23 year old last Sunday was so ghastly that the tremors are being felt by each and every Indian woman. Shaken parents are back to restricting their daughters’ movements. Male escorts namely brothers, friends and colleagues are back in action. College girls want to remain in a group. Office goers are shying away from working late. So even though everyone agrees that the wrong doers were those evil men, the punishment of their sins are being faced by woman and woman alone.

From the moment girls are born in our country, our training begins. Sit in a certain way, dress in a certain way, speak in a certain way. Is it not time that the same grooming be given to boys? The guilty will hopefully get a life imprisonment, but when will all women be released from their life imprisonments? When will women be able to be part of a society where men treat them like a fellow human being and not just a toy to be fantasized, played and tossed around?

The guy sitting next to me in the movie hall might not even have noticed my exchanging places with my husband. Even if he did, he might not have thought the act to be odd. But that’s exactly what needs to change, doesn’t it? Men need to feel equally awkward and equally insecure when a woman treats them with such mistrust that she can’t even sit next to them in a movie hall for a few hours. 

Gateway to the Gods: Haridwar

"The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions." - Alfred Lord Tennyson

An image of India for many, conjures up images of ascetics in bare minimum with locks of hair towering above their head like a coiled serpent and a trident or a metal casket in their hands. Needless to say, such saints are in plenty in this birthplace of Hindu religion and though the India showcased to the world today is vary of this image, it is still an undeniable and ingrained part of this country, just as much as the smart professionals who are revolutionising the IT sector of the world with their proven genius.

While modern India is self confident and optimistic and every inch the replica of any other western country, the mammoth cultural heritage of a thousand years or more, cannot be forgotten either. Look a little beyond the showy malls or past the concrete expressways and you can still witness the India of the nineteenth, eighteenth or seventeenth century co-existing with the modern globe.

Some cities are especially a rewarding experience for those in search of the India of fables and fakirs and one such destination is Haridwar. Known as ‘The Gateway to the Gods’ this city has remained for the past thousands of years the focal point of devout Hindus who want to exit the vicious circle of life and death to attain nirvana. And that all important status has been given to Haridwar by its glorious past and the holy river Ganga.

 

On the Banks of Ganga

Haridwar is the first city where River Ganga enters the plains. Leaving her carefree playfulness behind, Ganga descends from mountains and through valleys to transform into the feisty incarnation of power and composure. She is the secret gateway to heaven, the holy excelsior on Earth that can erase the sins of a thousand births in one drop and take your soul straight to heaven. For Hindus, there is no greater desire than to be soaked in the mystical power of Ganga and it is for this reason that many spend a lifetime wishing to come once to Haridwar and wash away their sins on the banks of the holy river.

The Legend

Legend says that Haridwar is one of the 4 places in India where a drop of immortality nectar (amrit) fell from the skies when it was retrieved by the churning of the oceans by Gods and demons. That raised the status of Haridwar to a pious strata from where it has never descended. Rather every 12 years the status is all the more glorified when almost 15 million people participate in the Kumbh Mela drowning their sorrows and sins in the biggest communal bath ever witnessed in the world.

An Ancient City

Haridwar is also one of the most ancient cities of the world. Archaeological discoveries have shown rare artefacts between 1200 B.C. and 1700 B.C.buried in the depth of this sacred land. It finds its mention in ancient scriptures as Gangadwar, Kapila, and Mayapuri. Indeed from the time when Lord Budhha traversed these paths to the Britishers who came to colonise India, the city has witnessed the rise and fall of many emporers and empires.

 

Things to See

Har-ki-Pauri – The main ghat on the river Ganga where devotees gather to bathe and pray. Evening time is especially a treat with floapting lamps covering the entire area with an ethereal glow.

Maya devi Temple – Temple in honor of the presiding Godess of Haridwar after whom it is also known as Maypuri.

Mansa Devi Temple – Atop a hill that can be reached by a cable car. The view from here is breathtaking.

Gurukul Kangri University – A centre of vedic knowledge where teaching by gurus is in traditional oral style.

Riverside bazaars – Mostly selling items related to their religious significance and thronging with small eateries.

For the Traveller

For travellers coming from beyond the shores of India, Haridwar is a place to decipher Hinduism. To watch closely how confessions are made not to a priest, but immersed in the vastness of a sacred river that ironically is becoming blacker by the day carrying the burden of so many sins.
The priests chanting hymns, little urchins pulling your shirt to buy a rupees worth flower basket or the brass pitchers filled with the sacred water, the mystical hermits who can tell all about your past births and present gastrointestinal problems in one breath, the thousand and one burning incense sticks camouflaging the smells of wilting flowers, burning pyres and waste, and the flood of human mass all converging to the ghats to find their passageway to salvation, in all these cacophany of sounds,you might just find the answers.The ravaging waters of the cold, torrential Ganga might just be able to dissolve your idea of what it is to be a human being. The cleansing of the body and the soul among a strange gathering might just help you look at life from an Indian’s point of view.

As described Sri Aurbindo once, “This physical world which for us is so real and absolute and unique, seems to them (Indians) but one way of living among many others, In short, a small, chaotic, agitated and rather painful frontier on the margin of immense continents which lie behind the unexplored. “

The Haridwar experience might just help you understand yourself a little better.

(This post was originally written by Atula for www.giftedtravel.com. You can read more of her travel stories here )

Image via cc/Flickr by Gane, rajkumar1220 and mckaysavage

Dost

 क्या बुरा है अगर श्याम की जगह सलमान दोस्त है मेरा,

क्या कागज़ की कश्तियां कुछ टेड़ी बन जायेंगी?

या फिर,

रेत पर पैरो के छाप कुछ मद्धम पड़ जायेंगे ?


कौन से प्रभु का नाम ले,

की मास्टर जी इस बार,

भूल अनदेखी कर जाएँ?

कौन सी माँ से कहे,

कि उसकी लोरी,

ज्यादा अच्छे सपने दिखाती है?


आज सलमान है तो उसके साथ सेवइयो की मिठास,

ज़बान पर बनी रहती है।

आज सलमान है तो चाँद के दीदार को,

हमारा भी दिल तरसता है.


कल शायद मैं सोंचू भी,

कि सलमान की जगह,

कोई श्याम होता तो क्या होता,

पर आज दोस्त के साथ जो मज़ा है,

उसे नाम से क्यों जोड़ू ?
 
 

Sing...Sing a Song

"Sing for happiness...not sad." - The Carpenters

Image courtesy zazzle.com

When I was a little girl my father used to sing this song a lot. I did not understand the lyrics very well. I did not know who sung this song originally. But I only knew that it was one of my father’s favourite song and one of my favourite songs to hear in his voice.

I believe the inherent quality of being hopeful and optimistic comes a little from this song. So here it is, one of the golden oldies....listen and you too might sing along...:)

Song Name: Sing
Artist: The Carpenters

  la..la..la...la..la......la...la...la...la..la...la....

 
 

Why do I bother about India’s Endangered?

"You must be the change you want to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi





As the founder of www.indiasendangered.com, people sometimes ask me, why this topic? Why did I start a blog about endangered species of India. It is not something that is expected from a blog except if the blog owner is a researcher or a conservationist working on the particular subject. I am neither, hence the confusion.



To really know the answer to this query, you should probably go back in time with me to meet a little girl born in an urban city, who loved to spend hours amidst nature. She would often wander in her home garden and scribble poems that praised land, air, the trees, flowers and everything nature made.



I may have wandered into many other paths growing up, but it is the dual love for nature and writing that ultimately led me to India’s Endangered.



But then why chose a subject that no one’s giving attention to? Because I wanted to know.



When I founded India’s Endangered a year and a half back my aim was,



1. To give a platform to all those vivid and enigmatic creatures of India that are unique but may soon perish without even a single person knowing about their existence!



2. I wished to increase my knowledge about my country’s biodiversity. I do not want to die knowing that India is only home to tiger, peacock and the lotus flower.



With each post that I have written and continue to write for India’s Endangered, I have unraveled yet another mystery about this vivid land and its landscape. Yes, I am not a conservationist but why should that stop me from wanting to protect the tiger or the Asiatic lion? Yes, I am not a researcher but why should that stop me from knowing about the Great Indian Bustard or the elusive Snow Leopard?



In the past few months, India’s Endangered has helped me know so much I had never known. I now understand why the Western Ghats are one of the greatest natural treasures any country could have. I know where to find deers that dance like ballerinas on wobbly grounds or why saving the forest is more critical than saving the tigers alone.



With greater understanding, I have also felt a greater responsibility to keep writing tales of these unknown, unheard and unsolicited species. The species I write about are dying, but hope for life should certainly not be lost just because these creatures are already on their deathbed. I hope one day I have no animal or plant left to write about because they are all safe and thriving, but until that day my humble blog will continue to send the SOS signal to the world.



Do spend a few minutes browsing India’s Endangered, for news, views and information about endangered species of India.

Table Manners Matter

"I have never let my schooling interefere with my education." - Mark Twain

 

 

My five year old came home the other day to announce that he had learnt a new thing in school today. "It is called the tables," he said and proceeded to flip through his notebook to produce the page that read -
2 x 1 = 2
2x 2 = 4
2x 2 = 6 .........

I asked him, " Do you know what it means?" and he simply replied, "It is 2 1s 2, 2 2s 4, 2 3s 6. This is not the dinner table. This is number table," he added showing off his newly aquired skill of knowing the difference.

As quickly as he had opened the notebook, he shut it down and moved on to the next important subject - that of a new classmate.

I reciprocated to his enthusiatic banter with my usual 'aahs' and smiles, but what really kept hounding my mind was the matter of the tables. It was not a subject I could forget.

In those few seconds, I could visualise a very filmy government school with the teacher or masterji is scratching his ear and asking the class to repeat with him the aforementioned tables. I could see my son sitting among the students and repeating 2 ones a 2, 2 twos a 4..... First it would be the tables, then equations, chemical reactions, scientific discoveries and definitions, theorems, sums, and formulas until one day my son would be out of school having learned everything but understood nothing.

Tell me why?

The thing is my son is just 5. He is in UKG. He has just learnt to count till 100 and 200. He has understood reverse counting. He can also now very proudly and energitaclly add and substract single digit numbers. The natural progression in my mind is for him to learn a little more of this addtion and substraction on bigger numbers and may be just may be get used to the idea that when we repeatedly need to add numbers we can simply multiply (isn't that what multiplication really does?)

So, in the end of this schooling year, I do want him to know that instead of writing 2 + 2 +2 + 2 each time we can simply write 2 x 1 and 2 x 2 and say 2 time 2 is 4, 2 times 3 is 6. I am fine if he doesn't understand this + and X things the first time or the second and third time, but I am absolutely not fine shutting down his curious mind with a readymade table.

Why not

I opened my son's school syllabus to find that they were supposed to be learning tables of 2 and 3 and 4 in October orally, and then learn to write these tables by November! Not once was it mentioned if the idea of multiplication was first being taught in class.

The more I thought about it, the more frustrated I got with our education system. Do we really want our children to turn out into subject experts or just expert crammers? Was it okay to teach children who had just entered the world of mathematics the complications of multiplications? Was it not like sowing a seed and expecting it to bear flowers and fruts immediately. If the children were just cramming the tables even without realising what they were mouthing, was the school then setting the foundation in Pre-school for a life long tryst with 'ratofication' as we used to say in school and college?

My husband agreed and decided to meet the Principal or Pre school incharge of the reputed CBSE school the next day.This was when we were in for a second surprise.

The incharge met my husband and seemed to be shocked to know that the tables were part of the UKG syllabus. She said she would speak to the class teacher and get back to us. (In hindsight we do realise that the pre-school incharge is responsible for the syllabus set before the school year and surely would have known what is going on in a class. What she said was just to appease an angry parent without intending to take any serious action) I say so because of the events that followed.

Parent meets Teacher

It was a day before the autumn break and a parents teacher meeting (PTM) was sheduled. I had prepared myself to deal with the teacher who might feel offended that we had met the incharge without speaking with her first about a class matter. There was a long queue of parents and thus I waited patiently for my turn to arrive. It was during this moment of silence when I sat listening to other parents' conversation with the teacher and I realised how different our outlook to education was from the majority.

One parent complained that while her neighbour's daughter could proficiently recite till the table of 10, her son only knew the table of 2. The teach complained to one of the parents that her daughter never gave the correct answers to general awareness questions.

"I asked her where does you mumma cook food and she just replied 'kitchen'," the teacher said to the girl's mother. "She should be saying the enitre sentence 'mumma cooks food in the kitchen'."

I realised that even when the child had answered the question correctly she was retributed for not being able to cram the 'entire' correct answer!

My turn came finally and after the teacher congratulated me for my son's excellent grasping skills and performance in class activites, I asked her why UKG students were being taught the tables.
It was not an expected question and the teacher's face showed the surprise. She replied that it was part of the course and they were preparing the kids for class 1 where they will have to learn so many more tables.

An elaborate discussion ensued where I even had to give an example to the teacher and curious parents of how I was teaching tables to my son ( I draw him 1 box with two apples then 2 boxes with 2 apples each and so on. He then counts the apples and thus learns 2x1=2, 2x2=4 etc.)
With the discussion going nowhere the teacher asked if had spoken to anyone about it. When I said that we had discussed the matter with the incharge, she was relieved, "Then ma'm will take care of the matter," she said and began her conversation with another parent.

In retrospect

I come from a family of teachers and scholars. And one thing I have learnt all through my life, first from my parent's teachings and later through some sweet and sour experiences is that you can win medals, earn distinctions by cramming all the right answers, but to be successful in life, to be the real problem solving genius, you can achieve nothing if the concepts and fundamentals are not clear.

I know it is merely the table of 2 we are talking about here and it will do no harm if my son learns it by heart just for the fun of it. But what I am really scared about is that the tables might be the beginning of the 'easy way out' kind of learning system. A whole generation of young, curious, ignited minds might grow old knowing facts and figures but will they ever be able to become the next Einstien and Madam Currie and C V Raman...I doubt it.

(Image via http://www.ocpathink.org/articles/1611)

The Beginning…







 “A friend opens a new world in you…a world that was unknown until you met that friend.”

It is my new found blogger friends who have inspired me to start a personal blog. It is not that I am new to the blogging world. I own a successful blog on endangered species of India called India’s Endangered. But it is to give expression to my personal thoughts that I venture into this new journey.

I realised after observing the blogs of my friends that a personal blog does not necessarily need to be a personal diary of the events of your life. It is more to do with self-expression and perhaps self-preservation than self-obsession (as I incorrectly thought earlier)

So here I am, writing my first blog entry, in the hope that some day when the face is wrinkled and the eyesight is not that strong, I would read these pages with a toothless grin and relive the memories that shaped my life.

Thank you for the inspiration,

Anukriti

Anju

Aabha

Vandana

And my other blogging pals.

Image via askmariahow.com