Life has never been easy for me, and though I have not ceased complaining,yet it has left me with little options but to fight it out. However, the only question that I wanna ask ( to nobody in particular) is that how long do I have to play these stupid test-ur-patience games ???
I fail to comprehend where I go wrong with people, am a complete dunce when it comes to being judgemental and it is not the first time that it has occured but then with me everytime is a novelty.
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Friday, September 22, 2006
Rain Rain go away :(
This is terrible..I'm talking about being marooned in my home for more than 20 hours now, and the problem of water logging won't be bettered soon,it seems..so here we go again..welcoming Ma Durga armed with raincoats and umbrellas ;)
Today is Mahalaya but nothing was like mahalaya, I mean no clear skies, no golden light n no clouds floating in the sky.
All along the day rains played havoc with the city, and the worst hit were low lying areas like my locality.I woke up to another day of 'mon kharap kora akash' , all my pent-up pessimism found a metaphor in the grey sky...the raindrops were joyfully alighting from the abode of the clouds and believe me,it didn't feel as romantic as it sounds.
Good things come in small packages..true,this packaging has been huge and clumsy too so it doesn't seem good at all...
Today is Mahalaya but nothing was like mahalaya, I mean no clear skies, no golden light n no clouds floating in the sky.
All along the day rains played havoc with the city, and the worst hit were low lying areas like my locality.I woke up to another day of 'mon kharap kora akash' , all my pent-up pessimism found a metaphor in the grey sky...the raindrops were joyfully alighting from the abode of the clouds and believe me,it didn't feel as romantic as it sounds.
Good things come in small packages..true,this packaging has been huge and clumsy too so it doesn't seem good at all...
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Commuter Diary: 21/09/06
Piping down the valleys wild
Piping songs of pleasant glee
On a cloud I saw a child,And he laughing said to me:
"Pipe a song about a Lamb!"
So I piped with merry cheer...
Piper, sit thee down and write
In a book, that all may read."
So he vanished from my sight,
And I plucked a hollow reed,
And I made a rural pen,
And I stained the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs
Every child may joy to hear....
(William Blake :Songs of Innocence)
Today was not an ordinary day, there must have been a hole in the sky and with no plumbers available, we te muggles had to brave the brunt of it. The day began with overcast skies and as it progressed from the pitter-patter drizzle, we had to experience an annoying as well as agonising torrential rain.
I had to reach the university early today because there was to be an interview and I had to see to it that the candidates and the interviewers were seated in their proper places ..CU being a perfect bhulbhulaiya..people do need directions at every stage.
I got out of my home half an hour earlier than I usually do, but obviously if things had to be so smooth then where would I get the inspiration for my blogs :(
For starters, there were very few buses and when my beloved 219 arrived (today I was extra pleased to see it as I had been waiting for a long time) I jumped right into it.
There were three kids in the bus today..all returning from school and one of them particularly caught my attention (it takes a lot to get noticed and that too my notice). They were playing with cards and one of them, that is the talkative one...who caught my attention...he was constantly keeping up a lively chatter:
"dekh dekh...aamar card ta dekh...pokemoooooooonnnnnnnnnn ,tor ta dekhi..nahh besh baje,tor taye lyaj nei.." ( he was pointing to some card that had been distributed free with some candy..n that showed a Sukumar Royesque animal with two wobbly ears and one long tail.. )
The other kid was a quiet one, he mildly nodded his small head and said nothing...
" ki holo??chol aamar maarpit kheli...aamar card vs tor card"
"nahh..ami khelbo na"
"bhoy pelooooo..bhituuuuuuuu...accha tui Ritika keo bhoy paash na?"
and then he started laughing loudly leaving the other silent kid with cramoisy cheeks...The silent baccha's mom looked scandalised with the name of her dear little son being associated with a girl. But the smart kiddo was undeterred..
"ei baba..tui Ritika ke bhoy paash..bhitu bhitu bhitu ..."
" motei na,ami keno oke bhoy pabo?"
"kal je bolli o naki tor rubber niye ferot deyeni aar tui oke bhoy e jigesh o korishni"
"nahhh..ami eta bolini..tui mithye bolchis"
"ami na tui bolchis mithye.."
They had almost embarked upon a battle, a cute one at that but unfortunately the silent baccha's mom butt in unexpectedly....I was soooooooooooooo upset :(
The mom said :
"ei Ritika ta ke re? tor rubber niye niyeche?aar amake bolli je hariye geche...tui bari chol"
The smart guy kept on smiling smugly.....
The battle would have continued..but not in front of the public eye..bad for me
I would have loved to see what incurred at the chup-chap sa baccha's home( smile..sardonically..laugh...gleefully ...)
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
A day in the life of a Project Fellow ;)
"We think of the key,each in his prison
Thinking of the key each confirms a prison"
That was TS Eliot from Wasteland .
And he's so very true :(
Life has been completely devoid of any selfless motive nowadays,what makes the world go round is definitely not any benevolent or altruistic end but the intrinsic need to find a space,own it,and call it one's own..we are all colonisers....colonising other people's spaces, their rightful spaces...we are no better than the romans or the europeans,may be some other time there would be another Conrad writing about another Kurtz and I'm sure it'll be a Kurtz I know ;)
Well to cut a seemingly uninteresting story short, today I was again alone managing around 20 different things at once all because the person who works with me was unwell and hadn't come....and so I had to metamorphose into the venerable and veritable dashobhuja.
First, the day began with the left over proofs and today I finished two of them one by Prof. Aikant and another by Drakakis.For my life I couldn't imagine how can one be so drab ( Read..utterly boring )...Drakakis's paper was pure unadulterated torture,and frankly, I wouldn't have given a damn to it if UGC was not paying me for this job.
Just when I had begun feeling nice and sleepy ..the phone rang......TRRRRRRRIIIIIINNNNGGGGGGGGG......and that signalled my initiation into the chaotic cosmos. Work for Refresher Course,then call for MA admissions(was that a part of my portfolio..never knew..), and then opening doors for the MPhil classes..if I'm not wrong and if my memory holds good,then opening doors is definitely not a part of this Project Fellow job :(
The buggers can't even relieve me by turning in the key and letting themselves into the room...huh...
I had begun concentrating on my proofs again when a guy came in all of a sudden asking me if the HOD was available to which I said .."if she were,you could have seen her"
He said in a timid voice..."na rege jacchen keno ..ami mane,ektu kaaj chilo toh tai jigesh korchilam.."
I was ecstatic...he had understood that temperatures were soaring both outside and inside the room.
"ektu boshbo..?"
"boshun" ( read AS IF MY SAYING NO WOULD HELP YOU,JERK)
"aapni ki onar chatri?"
"aapnar ki dorkar aache?" ( read HOW MUCH WILL YOU TAKE TO SHUT YOUR MOUTH UP)
"ami,mane ekta choto kaaj chilo.."
"bolun" (read WOULD THAT MAKE YOU DISAPPEAR??????)
"aapnake bola jabe?"
"aar karuke toh dekhchi na ekhane..." ( exclaim and then read uuuuuuuuuuuggggggghhhhhhhhh....ARE WE PLAYING DUMB AND DUMBER???)
"hehehehe...ta aapni besh raagi mone hoye"
wht the heck @##%$#^%~$#@%&*....had he come here to comment on my lack of ever elusive equanimity???
(very calmly yet extremely rude)
"aapnar jodi kono kaaj na thake ta hole aapni jete paren,aamar onek kaaj pore aache?" (read GET LOST FOR MY SAKE )
"aapni ki ei room ei boshen"
ajeeb banda hai..bilkul Alpenliebe par gaya hai
He tired me to such an extent that I wanted to run out of the room..He could have given Rajpal Yadav in Waqt ..a race for time a run for his well earned money.Undeterred by a stone faced me,he went on with his crap...after about 10 more minutes at the end of which my sanity had vanished temporarily, the phone rang again.........and I was RELIEVED.
Never did Sir's voice sound so sweet..heard melodies are sweetest..huh,what does Keats know ;)
He told me that two professors would be coming downstairs to our room for some work.Any amount of work would have made me happy then,if only this bugger would disappear.
"aapnar onek kaaj,bujhtei parchi,khub birokto kore fellam..."
"na na..theek aache,aapnar dorkar ta bollen na toh...(read WHEN ARE YOU GETTING LOST FROM THE FACE OF THIS EARTH)
"ami cattle depreciation conceptual propriety (im sure i hv missed a word or two but it was something like this) niye kaaj korte chai,uni jodi ektu guide koren amake"
"Cattle..wht???"...couldn't believe what I was hearing...I was left befuddled...Head of the English Department and she guide him..with catttle..the thought was too preposterous to be true...was he even in his proper senses???
"cattle depreciation..aapnar interest nei eta te?"
"nah"( read CATTLE AND DEPRECIATION...GAWWWWWDDDDD...HELP!!!!)
"eta commerce er HOD r room toh?"
"eta English Dept." (read I NEED THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE NOWWWW...TOLERATED THIS GEEK WHO DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO READ FOR MORE THAN 10 MINUTES)
"ohhh,khub bhul hoye geche,aapnake besh birokto korlam"
"nahh,theek aache" (read...#$@#%$#^&@$#%;#%$^;;*@%#~!#@$@!&&*%)
Watching him scamper away hurriedly gave me more pleasure than watching Malfoy being slapped by Hermione...
My day had only just began....
Malsawmkima..isnt that a cuttttteeeeeeee name...hehe..he looks damn cute too,has a great voice....and to shatter all romantic illusions i might have had about him,he asked the other Prof....how do I address my principal...Dear Sir or Respected Sir or just Sir...I was stumped by that query. Leaving me to deal with the certificates and the letters to be typed and sent,they too scurried away...
Thinking of the key each confirms a prison"
That was TS Eliot from Wasteland .
And he's so very true :(
Life has been completely devoid of any selfless motive nowadays,what makes the world go round is definitely not any benevolent or altruistic end but the intrinsic need to find a space,own it,and call it one's own..we are all colonisers....colonising other people's spaces, their rightful spaces...we are no better than the romans or the europeans,may be some other time there would be another Conrad writing about another Kurtz and I'm sure it'll be a Kurtz I know ;)
Well to cut a seemingly uninteresting story short, today I was again alone managing around 20 different things at once all because the person who works with me was unwell and hadn't come....and so I had to metamorphose into the venerable and veritable dashobhuja.
First, the day began with the left over proofs and today I finished two of them one by Prof. Aikant and another by Drakakis.For my life I couldn't imagine how can one be so drab ( Read..utterly boring )...Drakakis's paper was pure unadulterated torture,and frankly, I wouldn't have given a damn to it if UGC was not paying me for this job.
Just when I had begun feeling nice and sleepy ..the phone rang......TRRRRRRRIIIIIINNNNGGGGGGGGG......and that signalled my initiation into the chaotic cosmos. Work for Refresher Course,then call for MA admissions(was that a part of my portfolio..never knew..), and then opening doors for the MPhil classes..if I'm not wrong and if my memory holds good,then opening doors is definitely not a part of this Project Fellow job :(
The buggers can't even relieve me by turning in the key and letting themselves into the room...huh...
I had begun concentrating on my proofs again when a guy came in all of a sudden asking me if the HOD was available to which I said .."if she were,you could have seen her"
He said in a timid voice..."na rege jacchen keno ..ami mane,ektu kaaj chilo toh tai jigesh korchilam.."
I was ecstatic...he had understood that temperatures were soaring both outside and inside the room.
"ektu boshbo..?"
"boshun" ( read AS IF MY SAYING NO WOULD HELP YOU,JERK)
"aapni ki onar chatri?"
"aapnar ki dorkar aache?" ( read HOW MUCH WILL YOU TAKE TO SHUT YOUR MOUTH UP)
"ami,mane ekta choto kaaj chilo.."
"bolun" (read WOULD THAT MAKE YOU DISAPPEAR??????)
"aapnake bola jabe?"
"aar karuke toh dekhchi na ekhane..." ( exclaim and then read uuuuuuuuuuuggggggghhhhhhhhh....ARE WE PLAYING DUMB AND DUMBER???)
"hehehehe...ta aapni besh raagi mone hoye"
wht the heck @##%$#^%~$#@%&*....had he come here to comment on my lack of ever elusive equanimity???
(very calmly yet extremely rude)
"aapnar jodi kono kaaj na thake ta hole aapni jete paren,aamar onek kaaj pore aache?" (read GET LOST FOR MY SAKE )
"aapni ki ei room ei boshen"
ajeeb banda hai..bilkul Alpenliebe par gaya hai
He tired me to such an extent that I wanted to run out of the room..He could have given Rajpal Yadav in Waqt ..a race for time a run for his well earned money.Undeterred by a stone faced me,he went on with his crap...after about 10 more minutes at the end of which my sanity had vanished temporarily, the phone rang again.........and I was RELIEVED.
Never did Sir's voice sound so sweet..heard melodies are sweetest..huh,what does Keats know ;)
He told me that two professors would be coming downstairs to our room for some work.Any amount of work would have made me happy then,if only this bugger would disappear.
"aapnar onek kaaj,bujhtei parchi,khub birokto kore fellam..."
"na na..theek aache,aapnar dorkar ta bollen na toh...(read WHEN ARE YOU GETTING LOST FROM THE FACE OF THIS EARTH)
"ami cattle depreciation conceptual propriety (im sure i hv missed a word or two but it was something like this) niye kaaj korte chai,uni jodi ektu guide koren amake"
"Cattle..wht???"...couldn't believe what I was hearing...I was left befuddled...Head of the English Department and she guide him..with catttle..the thought was too preposterous to be true...was he even in his proper senses???
"cattle depreciation..aapnar interest nei eta te?"
"nah"( read CATTLE AND DEPRECIATION...GAWWWWWDDDDD...HELP!!!!)
"eta commerce er HOD r room toh?"
"eta English Dept." (read I NEED THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE NOWWWW...TOLERATED THIS GEEK WHO DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO READ FOR MORE THAN 10 MINUTES)
"ohhh,khub bhul hoye geche,aapnake besh birokto korlam"
"nahh,theek aache" (read...#$@#%$#^&@$#%;#%$^;;*@%#~!#@$@!&&*%)
Watching him scamper away hurriedly gave me more pleasure than watching Malfoy being slapped by Hermione...
My day had only just began....
Then came in two of the gentlemen from the Refresher Course..one from Chapra, Bihar and the other from Aizwal, Mizoram.They looked as lost as Alice would be in front of Prof. Trelawney looking into tea leaves for the grim.
Malsawmkima..isnt that a cuttttteeeeeeee name...hehe..he looks damn cute too,has a great voice....and to shatter all romantic illusions i might have had about him,he asked the other Prof....how do I address my principal...Dear Sir or Respected Sir or just Sir...I was stumped by that query. Leaving me to deal with the certificates and the letters to be typed and sent,they too scurried away...
After they left...in came another call and another Professor and some more unjust demands..I had been working since 1030 in the morning without any respite and that respite obviously had taken the shape of a mirage :(
The last nail on my poor poor little head was waiting for a Professor to hand in the keys of a room and he didn't leave that room till 530 and by that time the entire floor( the floor where our room is) resembled a curfew inflicted area.
I rushed away,chased by only my shadow, and then began the downpour...the skies had opened the floodgates,nothing could be seen properly...the pitter patter had transformed into a deluge and I longingly looked for Noah and his arc :(
Completely drenched as I sat down beside the window of the usual bus,looking out I could only mumble...
"Birth and copulation and death
That's all the facts when you come to the brass tacks,
I have been born and ONCE IS ENOUGH"
(TS Eliot, "Sweeney Agonistes").
Pujo elo bole ;)
The Durga Pujo is almost here,and I suppose some 8 days are left for it to be precise. This time around I am seriously upset with myself and the reasons..well are plenty.
First and foremost, I have gleefully worn all my new clothes long long ago,even before people started buying things at a frenzied pace :(
Second, I don't have either the time or the energy to redo all the shopping for myself.
Third, I feel guilty at not having finished off with the dissertation work and during pujo this year I have to work towards its completion and so my pujo would be more of a Saraswati Pujo than a Durga one.
Fourth, the hols :(
This year I have been blessed with just 7 days of holidays ...so much for the festivities :(
The reasons would go on and on...but all said and done...DUGGA ELO BOLE ;)
Shunte pacchi je dhak er bol...
Dekhte pacchi akashe sonali roddur...
Sada megh dekhe mon boshche na kaje...
Kash phoole hoyeto bhoreche kono ek gram er kono ek metho poth...
kumortuli te porche tuli r shesh tan...
paraye paraye cholche pandal bandhar porbo...
dokane dokane bhir je upche poreche...
pujobarshiki tao hatey eshe geche....
tai toh bolchiiiiiiii
DUGGA EI ELO BOLE...
Sobai toiri toh????
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Right to live...
Am I ashamed or am I ashamed?
More female foetuses found during digging in Punjab town
GAGANDEEP SINGH AHUJA
Friday, 11 August 2006
PATRAN(PATIALA): The digging for the recovery of more female foetuses in Patran in Patiala district of Punjab continued on Friday following female foeticide racket unearthed by Patiala civil surgeon Dr.V.S.Mohi. Several foetuses were recovered today,said sources.
The doctor couple [had] conducted hundereds of female foeticides...
More female foetuses found during digging in Punjab town
GAGANDEEP SINGH AHUJA
Friday, 11 August 2006
PATRAN(PATIALA): The digging for the recovery of more female foetuses in Patran in Patiala district of Punjab continued on Friday following female foeticide racket unearthed by Patiala civil surgeon Dr.V.S.Mohi. Several foetuses were recovered today,said sources.
The doctor couple [had] conducted hundereds of female foeticides...
Now what am I supposed to say after this?Do I even have the right to speak?If I had been strangled off to death even before I was born like these girls, then would I have been writing this blog?The thought sends more than shivers down not only my spine but my entire skeletal system.
According to this report around 50 foetuses were found in the well and that too near a nursing home,whereby,it is more than evident that after the sex-determination tests were conducted,these little girls,or should I just say lives...these lives were terminated even before they could have embarked upon the voyage of life.
Again this seems to me a gross violation of humanity and obviously it leaves me utterly at a loss to comprehend why would any doctor,taking the Hippocratic oath or for that matter any parent willingly destroy a budding life,how can one be so inhuman?
There can be just one answer...in all those strangled lives and throttled voices, in all those swollen and moist eyes, in all those lies told to uphold the family honour and in all those silences that tell tales of oppression and violent subjugation...we encounter just one answer...patriarchy.
A commuter's diary
Each day as I go to work,or to my classes travelling in buses, my panoptic vision is forced to ponder on the passengers in a public bus..the perverted pollutants (read men,no matter what shape, size,age what matters most is the gender..masculine,here) who periodically purge themselves of their pandemian paraphilia.
It is no pleasant sight, even less of a feeling,but believe it or not it is not periodic but pandemic. One cannot avoid it,hard as you might try.And the worst part of it is,they succeed in making you feel outraged,to say the least and defiled to say the truth ...
Two days back, I was travelling in my usual bus,trying to get to the university, but something is not usual,know what???The fact that I'm a woman,travelling alone and thus liable to any and every kind of molestation inflicted upon me.
The soaring temperature,add to that the tortoise speed of the bus and the anxiety of being late for the umpteenth time in the week,had made me really irritated and ready to snap off at the slightest provocation. But,truly,being a woman even when one is provoked,the best thing to do is ..SHUT UP and TOLERATE though it is definitely not my way to deal with pests,at least not with the school-going guy who tried messing with me that day...
He was travelling with his mother..I know that sounds funny but then in Kolkata,it is more usual than funny.."mayer aadure chele"; "alaler ghorer dulal"..not hard to come by. I would have had no problems with either his mom, or her persistent attempts to dismantle my balancing act in the bus if her dear little son had not decided to let all his pent-up urges hurling at me...
For some time, it left me stupified (yup, I find hard playing that role )...I took some moments to get that registered..(poor philanthropic me..am so used to the good kind of people) and then God (only if S/HE exists) would have had problems in saving that perverted pollutant of a pest.
Snapping back at him, I asked him to move from where he was standing...very timidly he cited the lack of space and the bus being crowded..before I could answer, his mom burst right in:
"See such things are normal,they happen if you are travelling in a crowded bus,learn to accept them or else don't travel in a bus,get yourself a car..."
This was not the first time I was hearing it, but something in her tone and her son's seemingly innocent face did it for them, I answered..
"Well,it might be normal,but then don't you think that it is not normal to go unzipped in a crowded bus???Or may be that too is normal???You only get zipped in a car???"
The mother's face drained off all colour( am sure she doesn't use a waterproof foundation,it was pouring from her oil-sleek face) but yet her defence ran thus...
"Ki je jata bokcho,ekta baccha chele,tar namey erom ekta kotha boltey lojja korlo na?"
My retort( I was getting bitchy):
"Baccha chele jodi aar baccha na thakte chaye,shei lojja ta aamar naki aapnar?"
Some more verbal altercations followed,at the end of which the "baccha chele" got to his school and the mother while getting down from the bus naively enquired...
"pant er botam ta ki chire geche?dara selai kore debo..etai pore chole eshechis,tui ki aar boro hobi na,dekhisni na beronor aage,aa ha re.."
I had heard that because she made me hear it but again I couldn't trust my faithful-as-a-dog ears...and to top it all,what do you think my esteemed co-passengers were doing???
well there are prizes for guessing....
For the disbelieving women...
A free ride in 219 from Nagerbazar to College Street
For the snidely smiling men...
A needle and a thread to stitch up their zippers....
ok..so let's see if you guessed right....
My co-passengers had been
1.looking disapprovingly at me
2.looking out of the windows
3.looking at other women(the males)
4.looking at the displayed saris( the females)
5.looking perfectly 'normal'
Ntozake Shange...read this n be ashamed .
With No Immediate Cause
every 3 minutes a woman is beaten
every five minutes a
woman is raped
every ten minutes
a lil girl is molested
yet i rode the subway today
i sat next to an old man who
may have beaten his old wife
3 minutes ago or 3 days/30 years ago
he might have sodomized his
daughter but i sat there
cuz the young men on the train
might beat some young women
later in the day or tomorrow
i might not shut my door fast
every 3 minutes it happens
some woman's innocence
rushes to her cheeks
pours from her mouth
like the betsy wetsy dolls have been torn
apart
their mouths
menses red & split
every
three minutes a shoulder
is jammed through plaster and the oven door
chairs push thru the rib cage
hot water or
boiling sperm decorate her body
i rode the subway today
& bought a paper from a
man who might
have held his old lady onto
a hot pressing iron
i don't know
maybe he catches lil girls in the
park & rips open their behinds
with steel rods
i can't decide
what he might have
i only
know every 3 minutes
every 5 minutes every 10 minutes
so
i bought the paper
looking for the announcement
the discovery
of the dismembered
woman's body
the
victims have not all been
identified
today they are
naked and dead
refuse to
testify
one girl out of 10's not
coherent
i took the coffee
& spit it up
i found an
announcement
not the woman's
bloated body in the river
floating
not the child bleeding in the
59th street corridor
not the baby
broken on the floor
there is some concern
that alleged battered women
might start to murder their
husbands & lovers with no
immediate cause"
i spit up i vomit i am screaming
we all have immediate cause
every 3 minutes
every 5 minutes
every 10 minutes
every day
women's bodies are found
in alleys & bedrooms
at the top of the stairs
before i ride the subway
buy a paper
drink coffee
i must know
have you hurt a woman today
did you beat a woman today
throw a child across a room
are the lil girl's panties
in yr pocket
did you hurt a woman today
i have to ask these obscene questions
the authorities require me to
establish
immediate cause
every three minutes
every five minutes
every ten minutes
every day.
every 3 minutes a woman is beaten
every five minutes a
woman is raped
every ten minutes
a lil girl is molested
yet i rode the subway today
i sat next to an old man who
may have beaten his old wife
3 minutes ago or 3 days/30 years ago
he might have sodomized his
daughter but i sat there
cuz the young men on the train
might beat some young women
later in the day or tomorrow
i might not shut my door fast
every 3 minutes it happens
some woman's innocence
rushes to her cheeks
pours from her mouth
like the betsy wetsy dolls have been torn
apart
their mouths
menses red & split
every
three minutes a shoulder
is jammed through plaster and the oven door
chairs push thru the rib cage
hot water or
boiling sperm decorate her body
i rode the subway today
& bought a paper from a
man who might
have held his old lady onto
a hot pressing iron
i don't know
maybe he catches lil girls in the
park & rips open their behinds
with steel rods
i can't decide
what he might have
i only
know every 3 minutes
every 5 minutes every 10 minutes
so
i bought the paper
looking for the announcement
the discovery
of the dismembered
woman's body
the
victims have not all been
identified
today they are
naked and dead
refuse to
testify
one girl out of 10's not
coherent
i took the coffee
& spit it up
i found an
announcement
not the woman's
bloated body in the river
floating
not the child bleeding in the
59th street corridor
not the baby
broken on the floor
there is some concern
that alleged battered women
might start to murder their
husbands & lovers with no
immediate cause"
i spit up i vomit i am screaming
we all have immediate cause
every 3 minutes
every 5 minutes
every 10 minutes
every day
women's bodies are found
in alleys & bedrooms
at the top of the stairs
before i ride the subway
buy a paper
drink coffee
i must know
have you hurt a woman today
did you beat a woman today
throw a child across a room
are the lil girl's panties
in yr pocket
did you hurt a woman today
i have to ask these obscene questions
the authorities require me to
establish
immediate cause
every three minutes
every five minutes
every ten minutes
every day.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Rage rage against....
Sitting in your cage, with your eyes shut
Chained bird, what do you ponder on, within yourself?
Or, perhaps, you alone have the right to think
These lines though written to reflect the condition of women in 19th century bengal, aptly and unfortunately comminucates the present scenario too.
The metaphor of the caged bird is one every woman can relate to,it cuts across the narrow boundaries of class, race, geographical location. It is indeed a hollow sham when we talk about women's liberation making a huge hue-n-cry about feminism and equal rights in academic and political circles whereas we suffer,and yes ,make no bones about accepting it,suffer,tolerate silently and in pliant submission the blows that patriarchy hurls at us in an unfailing manner.
I came across an article on FMG on the net while researching for my paper on Carribean women's poetry and it left me appalled,how could this be,my blood ran cold in my veins,I didn't know whether to thank my stars for being born in India or feel outraged at this humiliation that these girls have to undergo...
FMG or female genital mutiliation is a common practice in more than 28 communities in Africa.This I had heard,but I was completely unprepared for the statistics and some facts that left me pained, shocked, baffled and plain angry,very very angry...
Apart from countries like Yemen, UAE, Oman and Egypt, FMG is supposedly also practised in the Asian countries like Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Malaysia and even more shocking, India( a small community called the Daudi Bohra practise clitoridectomy).
Here is a part of the article ...http://www.feminist.com/resources/artspeech/inter/fgm.htm
Supposedly, it is done to preserve the virginity of women and nothing, I believe could be more ridiculous or inhuman,do these people even deserve to be called humans???
Chained bird, what do you ponder on, within yourself?
Or, perhaps, you alone have the right to think
These lines though written to reflect the condition of women in 19th century bengal, aptly and unfortunately comminucates the present scenario too.
The metaphor of the caged bird is one every woman can relate to,it cuts across the narrow boundaries of class, race, geographical location. It is indeed a hollow sham when we talk about women's liberation making a huge hue-n-cry about feminism and equal rights in academic and political circles whereas we suffer,and yes ,make no bones about accepting it,suffer,tolerate silently and in pliant submission the blows that patriarchy hurls at us in an unfailing manner.
I came across an article on FMG on the net while researching for my paper on Carribean women's poetry and it left me appalled,how could this be,my blood ran cold in my veins,I didn't know whether to thank my stars for being born in India or feel outraged at this humiliation that these girls have to undergo...
FMG or female genital mutiliation is a common practice in more than 28 communities in Africa.This I had heard,but I was completely unprepared for the statistics and some facts that left me pained, shocked, baffled and plain angry,very very angry...
Apart from countries like Yemen, UAE, Oman and Egypt, FMG is supposedly also practised in the Asian countries like Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Malaysia and even more shocking, India( a small community called the Daudi Bohra practise clitoridectomy).
Here is a part of the article ...http://www.feminist.com/resources/artspeech/inter/fgm.htm
Supposedly, it is done to preserve the virginity of women and nothing, I believe could be more ridiculous or inhuman,do these people even deserve to be called humans???
porbe ki amaye mone???
jokhon alo sheshe aandhare
chaibe aanmone
porbe ki amaye mone...
jokhon brishti bheja jui phul er
gondho tomaye tane
porbe ki amaye mone....
jokhon phagun er rong jeno
lagbe sobar prane
porbe ki amaye mone....
jokhon thother kone laga hasir
ki je karon ke jane
porbe ki amaye mone...
chaibe aanmone
porbe ki amaye mone...
jokhon brishti bheja jui phul er
gondho tomaye tane
porbe ki amaye mone....
jokhon phagun er rong jeno
lagbe sobar prane
porbe ki amaye mone....
jokhon thother kone laga hasir
ki je karon ke jane
porbe ki amaye mone...
jokhon eka pothe cholte cholte
dekhbe akashpane
porbe ki amaye mone...
jokhon mon kharap er aar dekho
thakbe na kono mane
porbe ki amaye mone...
nai ba thaklam ami
cholbe ei prithibi nijer tale,aapon mone
kintu tomar
porbe ki amaye mone???
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Insomnia again ...
So to begin where I had left it yesterday night when sleep fortunately intercepted...The question was why are women plagued more by lack of sleep.
In trying to fathom an answer I let my mind dwell on two factors to start off with,one is obviously sociological, the other hormonal. The sociological factors operate in diverse ways and all roads including,pathways,subways,alleys, ultimately lead to insomnia.
Sample this(not that you need to stretch your mind too far for this,instances like these are omnipresent):
A young girl admires the college hunk from afar and dreams of dating him but obviously she is not blessed with the peaches-n-cream skin that would melt the boy's heart,eyes..and let's not go any further...So what does she do..well quite the evident deed..lose sleep over it,and finally inspired by the rags to riches Cindrella story communicated to her through the media(read advertisements,anorexic models in skimpy outfits),she decides to purchase a tube of the cream that promises her the Paradiso...what else,the boy's attention. Now just as she trimphantly asserts..Veni Vidi Vinci, enjoying the fruits of her tube of fairness cream,she is gripped by the fear of losing this hunk..so again loss of sleep.
Now what anybody would say is"How silly!!!Trust women to lose sleep over a pimple or a wrinkle or even a grey strand" and we would wipe our hands across our mouths and laugh in derision. But to get to the basics, I would like to remind you of Simone de Beauvoir who had proclaimed "A Woman is not born but made".
With Beauvoir I come to the idea of social construction of gender.What both Beauvoir and later on Judith Walsh declare is that a woman is a construct, dug out of a patriarchal society's primeval need to fashion binaries to suit its patrifocal ends. Women are not born passive,submissive but they are socially conditioned to behave as such.Social conditioning also demands that a woman always be appealing to the male gaze; the image of the fair,blue-eyed blonde is one such construct meticulously permeated partout for women to follow in blind submission.
So if a woman finds it difficult to conform to the role that patriarchy has forged for her she inevitably suffers from the "anxiety of influence" and that is enough to make her lose precious sleep.
In trying to fathom an answer I let my mind dwell on two factors to start off with,one is obviously sociological, the other hormonal. The sociological factors operate in diverse ways and all roads including,pathways,subways,alleys, ultimately lead to insomnia.
Sample this(not that you need to stretch your mind too far for this,instances like these are omnipresent):
A young girl admires the college hunk from afar and dreams of dating him but obviously she is not blessed with the peaches-n-cream skin that would melt the boy's heart,eyes..and let's not go any further...So what does she do..well quite the evident deed..lose sleep over it,and finally inspired by the rags to riches Cindrella story communicated to her through the media(read advertisements,anorexic models in skimpy outfits),she decides to purchase a tube of the cream that promises her the Paradiso...what else,the boy's attention. Now just as she trimphantly asserts..Veni Vidi Vinci, enjoying the fruits of her tube of fairness cream,she is gripped by the fear of losing this hunk..so again loss of sleep.
Now what anybody would say is"How silly!!!Trust women to lose sleep over a pimple or a wrinkle or even a grey strand" and we would wipe our hands across our mouths and laugh in derision. But to get to the basics, I would like to remind you of Simone de Beauvoir who had proclaimed "A Woman is not born but made".
With Beauvoir I come to the idea of social construction of gender.What both Beauvoir and later on Judith Walsh declare is that a woman is a construct, dug out of a patriarchal society's primeval need to fashion binaries to suit its patrifocal ends. Women are not born passive,submissive but they are socially conditioned to behave as such.Social conditioning also demands that a woman always be appealing to the male gaze; the image of the fair,blue-eyed blonde is one such construct meticulously permeated partout for women to follow in blind submission.
So if a woman finds it difficult to conform to the role that patriarchy has forged for her she inevitably suffers from the "anxiety of influence" and that is enough to make her lose precious sleep.
Insomnia
Writing this blog at around 2 in the morning, the K.L. Sehgal lullaby flashes upon my inward ears...soja raajkumari soja....the ears hear it,the mind refuses to register it and the eyes, the Mangel Pandey of the group is obviously upto what it does best..yup, refuse to shut down,what else :(
Insomnia...I believe is more of a universal disease now...Lady Macbeths roam round recklessly and not-so-recklessly en todas partes. But then she had a reason to somnambulate...or did she?What about our conscientious Macbeth who "lack[ed] the season of all natures...sleep"...why didn't he somnambulate?Is it then a female preoccupation...not sleeping or tossing about restlessly...Trying to satisfy my undying urge to unearth a possible psychological malady peculiar to women,this is what I came across on the good ol' Google :))
You toss. . . You roll over on your stomach, twist around to your back, slide a half-turn onto your side. ...You're in the grips of insomnia, a problem that haunts women twice as often as it does men...(http://www.mothernature.com/Library/Bookshelf/Books/62/55.cfm)
and again...
Women are twice as likely to suffer from insomnia than men. Some research suggests that certain social factors, such as being unemployed or divorced, are related to poor sleep and increase the risk of insomnia in women(http://www.4woman.gov/faq/insomnia.htm)
Now finding an answer to why women acquire insomnia more and men don't is an issue I'd love to take up but another day...I guess my insomniac vigil for today has come to a fortunate end :))
Insomnia...I believe is more of a universal disease now...Lady Macbeths roam round recklessly and not-so-recklessly en todas partes. But then she had a reason to somnambulate...or did she?What about our conscientious Macbeth who "lack[ed] the season of all natures...sleep"...why didn't he somnambulate?Is it then a female preoccupation...not sleeping or tossing about restlessly...Trying to satisfy my undying urge to unearth a possible psychological malady peculiar to women,this is what I came across on the good ol' Google :))
You toss. . . You roll over on your stomach, twist around to your back, slide a half-turn onto your side. ...You're in the grips of insomnia, a problem that haunts women twice as often as it does men...(http://www.mothernature.com/Library/Bookshelf/Books/62/55.cfm)
and again...
Women are twice as likely to suffer from insomnia than men. Some research suggests that certain social factors, such as being unemployed or divorced, are related to poor sleep and increase the risk of insomnia in women(http://www.4woman.gov/faq/insomnia.htm)
Now finding an answer to why women acquire insomnia more and men don't is an issue I'd love to take up but another day...I guess my insomniac vigil for today has come to a fortunate end :))
Estoy Aqui
Now that I have finally found a place to unlock the boudoir of my carefully and closely guarded heart, everything on God's Green Earth is under the surveillance of my kind yet penetrating gaze :))
To begin with having an opinion on everything is a occupation of the idle and let me assure everyone that remaining idle is the world's most thankless yet unduly tiring unpaid job :(
Difficult to come to terms with what one has been taught to believe and what one encounters in life's etourdissant foire, an idle mind like mine seeks joy not in the beauty as Keats would have it but in the l'incurable ennui of life.
So look out for scathing,sometimes scalding comments on anything and everything :)
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