How will you ever change the world lady?

To be honest, I did not want to write about this. And it was something that struck me months ago. And it takes me days to get over things like these but I did and then it happened again.

I have never been a champion of 'Feminism'. Simply because I think respect has to be earned, power has to be won and rights have to be fought for, irrespective of you being a man, a woman or just queer. For every 10,000 examples of 'the oppressed', you will find 1 person who earned whatever he/she wanted against all odds. One may not get something as easily as another privileged person but then there are privileged people who could not make use of what they had. It evens out. I think in this whole process one is driven by the self esteem they have for themselves. Ones with lower self esteem will try to seek patronage and the ones with higher self respect will fight everything and everyone to achieve what they want. But I thought everyone has it in them even if not in same degree. Days ago I was shocked and disturbed when I learnt that this may not be true.

This was when the Delhi-rape case happened and we were discussing this among friends. And a friend who is born and raised in the city said, "Oh, I am so glad I don't have girls, girls are so hard to raise." To which another friend responded, "Yes, after this incident, I would not want to have a girl." Two dear friends, one used to be a women's rights activist in Delhi and one is a bright IT professional and both women! In those two lines without realizing they trashed their whole existence and acknowledged the huge responsibility they presumably were on their families when they were born. Boys get raped too. And there are men who feel ashamed that a man did this to a woman, but I have never heard a man trashing his own existence over it. 

It got me thinking, it must have taken centuries of cleverly designed societal practices and that too world-wide to belittle the female of this species; to an extent where they themselves feel lowly about themselves. It makes me wonder if it was indeed men who oppressed women in the first place. Think about it... mothers raise their sons instilling in them the special privileges they earn thanks to being males. You would think a woman whose self respect and ego was trampled at every stage of her life would end up raising her children doing it the right way but guess what happened! Men never think too much, mom says I don't do dishes, 'Great'! But in that one small lesson, he was taught, all work is not equal, all work is not dignified, you can expect some else do things for you, especially if it is a female. Your mom can be bigger to you in age, relation and respect, but she will still do your dishes! And I will bet my bottom dollar that a man will ever reconsider this after he grows up. It's us women who have the boon & curse of thinking too much, not them.

Next time lady, when you plan to raise those placards against the oppressions of the male-dominant society, do give two pence to the fact that maybe you are barking at the wrong tree. Maybe it was always in your own hands.

Crossing the t's and dotting the i's

Does anybody use a notepad (the one that has real paper) and a pen anymore? Do you feel a little romantic when the ink flows beautifully on a smooth sheet of paper? Maybe not.

I grew up with a love for writing. No, not the creativity, but the sheer act of forming beautiful letters on a piece of paper. In my initial years in school, handwriting wasn't something I paid attention to. But one evening, in fact 2 days before the final exam of my fifth grade, my mother made me rewrite an entire year's worth of school work because she did not like what she saw in my notebook. According to her, handwriting and writing itself spoke a lot about the person. That was an 'aha moment'.

Since then I wrote! It was my second hobby (besides reading). What did I write? Anything... I filled diaries with poems, anecdotes, things that I read and liked. In fact scribbling was such a bad habit, I would have scribbled in almost every single classmate's notebook by the end of the year. People saved their special notebooks from me, because I would just mindlessly scribble something on them. There was a bright side to it too. Since I had a good handwriting, all teachers would ask me to write their journals, students grade records, even report cards! Yes, you read it right...I knew the class results much before everyone else in school. I was privy to very confidential information simply because of my handwriting. :) I wrote banners, my school projects, my brother's, cousins', nephew's. If there was something to be written, I was the go-to person. I still use a notebook in office/home to plan my days, my engagements or to simply write for the love of it.

Off late it felt like I was an artisan of a dying traditional tribal art form called 'Cursive'and I was coming to terms with it. But the other day I heard Sugata Mitra (of the NIIT fame) talking very convincingly about how reading was more important in today's education than writing; that how writing was totally redundant in today's life and I realized its just a matter of time! Cringe I may at the difficulty with which the new interns in my office hold their pens and write those barely decipherable disconnected alphabets to make them look like a word, but they are here to stay with their tablets and smartphones.

So for the millionth time I am going to read all those hand written notes from friends over the course of years. From a four year old neighbour to the one from a dear friend who was leaving town for further studies, observing the curves, the lines, the sweat of their palms on the edge of the paper and once again appreciating how their writing indeed spoke so much about them and what they thought of me; noting that probably those are last handwritten notes I would ever receive from someone in this lifetime.