The Evening of Eve

"Black and White" – Rating ** said the newspaper last Sunday. I did not give much thought to either the title of the movie or the rating that day. But today, when I started thinking, I realize it is not only about colors, God’s creation has always struck a balance – whether it is day and night, Birth and Death, Man and Woman. Did I say woman? That brings me to what I have been thinking about the whole day, nearly one week after the "International Woman’s day". Both men and women are God’s creation. It is a well known fact that they are different, their needs are different, and their roles are different. Where does the problem lie? The problem arises when we as individuals fail to take cognizance of our as well as others’ abilities and limitations. Why do I see so many women’s forum and councils coming up while I hear of men’s council only regarding sports? We all know that March 8th is International Women’s day. How many of us know that the first Saturday of November is International men’s day? Probably very few. What is the need to have an international day for women? When I posed this question to different women the answers I got were – "Because the rest of the 364 days are men’s days" - "We have been oppressed since ages and we need to rise now"-"Men have April 1st and we have March 8th". What were these people trying to communicate? This is precisely what I wanted to find out by attending a Women’s forum meeting devoting 4 hours of my time. If I could learn a lesson or become aware of so called "women-specific" problems, it would be worth it.

I walked in the corridors of a five star hotel searching for the venue of this meeting like I used to search for the train compartment in the last minute during my college days. This search was easier because the decibel levels act as indicators of gatherings of women. So here I am amidst women of age ranging from early twenties to early forties. So it was obvious that women specific problems would be a function of age and I got excited looking at the spectrum I was exposed to. This is how the forum meeting started – "Welcome to the gathering FREE OF MEN" and a wave of giggles traveled through the room. My expectations committed suicide jumping down a valley like Hrithik Roshan in Dhoom. That was shown in slow motion at least; here I could hear a THUD sound. "Is this a Women’s forum or an anti-men forum?" I thought and stopped myself thinking that it is too early to jump to conclusions. 15 minutes into the address that the head of the forum gave I started contemplating – "Am I very different from the other members of the fairer sex? Why am I not able to enjoy the *alleged jokes* or *gossips*?" I heaved a sigh of relief when I was assured that there are >1 people who shared parts of my experience. Is this session for bitching about men or development of women? Why do I see common needs of men and women in the agenda for women forum? Leadership skills need to be enhanced in both men and women. Both need mentoring. Both need to do good financial planning. Both need to have good health. By putting these as women-specific agenda, are we not widening the gap? I see more dissociation in the company than development. Are we not repeating the historical mistake by discriminating now in a different way? But whom do I shoot these questions to? After all I am also among those who do not want to take the risk of antagonizing the majority.

What are we trying to address by calling this meeting and inaugurating a forum? The women specific problems I can think of are –

Women have been assigned the job of managing the household and nurturing kids for ages. Now they are taking up an extra job which is perceived as "job" in the real sense by the world. That does not mean they resign their previous job. A woman will have to continue with the old one, probably she can have an assistant which could be her spouse or mother or the legal mother. Extra load means extra problems.

Strangely, maintaining the household has never been considered as a job because it does not have monetary returns. If it was considered as a significant contribution to run a house, we would never call only CEOs as achievers without House wives anywhere in the run for the title. It is human nature to pamper the ego by achieving great things, receiving rewards and recognition. Women are also human beings which is why they also entered the race in the corporate world. Women are taking this up by choice. Due to the extra load they do face more pressure. Bearing a child is one of the important stages in a woman’s life. She definitely more corporate maternity leave to take good care of her health, she needs more time to devote to the baby as a feeding mother, she needs cooperation from the company to take care of the baby till it is on its own. "

I don’t see this in the agenda though everyone talks about it.

Women are different from men physically, biologically and to an extent psychologically. When God did not create the two equal, it does not make much sense to claim equality too. Rather what each individual should be claiming is Opportunity and Rights Commensurate with abilities. Just because Kalpana Chawla went to Space, all women can’t. For that matter, all men cant too. Each individual has a set of unique abilities, talent and limitations. If an individual is not allowed to achieve up to his/her ability it is unjust irrespective of the gender. So what kind of woman rights are we talking about? It is not that all men or bad or all women are good. Men have their own set of problems to deal with. Let us look at the other side of the coin. Being a woman has its own advantages –

A woman can call it a day anytime; she will not be questioned by many. But do men have that luxury? If a man quits his job, he will be labeled IRRESPONSIBLE and WORTHLESS. "He is supposed to earn for the family". Actually if we look at it, it is an initial condition problem of distribution of load. The cart of home needs two M wheels – Maintenance and Money. Long then, job did not mean resting on a ergonomic chair with only two parts of the body working – Brain and the fingers. It meant roaming in the hot sun, lifting loads of weight and sweating it out more than the current day Gym. Commensurate with the physical strength of men and women it was quite logical then to distribute it that way. The Stereotype has just continued till this day though times seem to be changing pretty evidently.

How many times have you as a girl felt relieved or as a guy felt jealous when the Physical training sir gave 2 rounds as punishment to girls and made boys run 10 rounds in school?

How many times have you spent a minute appreciating the variety of choice women have in terms of clothing and accessories? Do the shopping malls have anything more to offer to men other than shirts, T shirts and a pair of trousers? Sadly they had to resort to earrings, chains and pony tails. :(

How often do we talk about the tax exemption or the favors we receive from people from various rungs because of the universal bias towards the eve?
It is just that women have the amazing quality of amplifying the lack more than have. I don’t deny that we have women suffering from dowry deaths, prostitution, and lack of freedom or education in the Indian society. But definitely corporate women forum meetings will not cater to those people.

We will not achieve anything by putting down men or boasting about our strengths. At the end of the day we are going to go back home and have a coffee with a father or a husband. It is wise to understand the composition of the universe and that men and women are like irreplaceable pillars of a building. We as human beings (Does not matter whether it is a man or a woman) should recognize the success rate of working together rather than secluding ourselves and fighting for nebulous rights.

Alas! All I enjoyed was the Vanilla ice cream! :D

Astrology

Astrology-"the study of the movements and positions of the sun, moon, planets and stars, and the skill of describing the expected effect that these are believed to have on the character and behavior of humans". This is all Cambridge dictionary told me about it.

Being from a biotech background and working as an Analyst in the corporate world, how-much-ever unconnected the two fields may sound, I have no clue how some celestial bodies floating somewhere in the universe can decide how my mom takes the news of me having a boyfriend or my boss deciding my annual rating or for that matter Shahrukh Khan’s "Om shanti Om" being a hit. I was wondering about this sitting in a room in which patches of the walls tried to take a peek at me from behind the innumerable posters and banners that spoke high of astrology, depicted planets as deities and had tables representing the positions of planets which made me recall my practical notebooks of eleventh grade. I was there for a reason. It is not as strong as the previous sentence may sound. It is because my uncle took me there. :) We were treated as VIPs as my uncle is a long time friend of that astrologer who makes money predicting others lives. This gave me the chance to observe a lot of things based on his interaction with his other customers.

Customer No. 1:

A mid-aged man with a hangdog look complains about his daughter- "I sent her to college thinking she will become an engineer, but she has forced me to leave all my dreams about her and plead the parents of that guy who does not even come close to the imagination I had about the groom I would get for her. The problem is she is elder to him and my daughter has "Mangala Dosha". I don’t know how I could even go and ask them about it". Our "solution-for-all" guru says with a wry smile and know-it-all attitude-"Well, that does not look like a problem to me. Date of birth can always be changed and kundali modified to get rid of problems. In fact, why don’t u get the horoscope of the guy. I can tailor your daughter’s horoscope to that."

Wow, that’s cool. Marriage is reduced do a garment business. If we can change everything in the horoscope, why do we need to match them? These questions of mine may never get answered.

Customer No. 2:

An old man with lines on his forehead that speak about his unmarried daughter gets in with some pieces of paper out of which all or one may end up in the dustbin in the corner of the room after the astro researcher speaks up. "Sir, I have these options in front of me. Can you tell me which of these is the best match?" Not spending more than 5 seconds on each, he says. "Well, I don’t recommend any of them". That man with the same look on his face after paying 20 Rs.

Is this great astrologer so proficient to make that out in 5 seconds? Probably at his age the visual power itself will bring a delay of 10 seconds. Or may be he can make that out and it is just my limitation to suspect it. But how was he sure that those horoscopes were not tailored artificially for someone else? ;)

Customer No. 3:

This time it is a woman who brings the horoscope of her very successful son who has everything but is not getting married and is 35 years old already. She asks –"My son is 35 and is not married yet. "

What is the whole point? You should be handing over the horoscope and be asking that guy to predict the scenario with marriage and not be letting the whole thing out.

Our astro king brushes it off with a bombastic statement –" How is it possible madam? I see that Shani has become asthadipati and is higher to Budha who has been looking at mangala from 4th house."

Does that make even one iota of sense to a layperson? What is he intending to do here?

" He will have to visit a temple which is beyond the hills and the mountains and do a pooja there. I understand that he will be busy with it. Let me suggest something for your good. It can be done by someone like us. All you will have to do is pay us some 5000 bucks. That’s all. That is nothing compared to your son’s future"

Great. I got my answer.

I thought horoscopes describe the way things take their course. So can that be changed by doing what he said. Will Budha stop looking at Mangala? How will that happen unless you change it and reprint it?

Customer No. 4

A guy of my age is here finally. He wants to know about why he is not successful in his career and is burdened by debt.

Burdened by debt at this age itself?

This lead to the same kind of fuzzy description and the conclusion was to make the guy wear a ruby stone ring on his middle finger. "How much would that cost?" he asks wishing as much as he could that it would not be high. "15000. That is fine. It makes you conquer the sun" comes the answer and I see a total eclipse on the guy’s face.

A guy is burdened by debt and you make him drown a little more by making him spend like this. Is this astro king sure that it helps? Will he pay the debt if it does not help? Ah look at his hand. I could see all the precious stones on the earth dancing on his fingers. Does this guy have no problems in his life now that he has conquered all the planets and stars?

The guy is hesitant to go ahead with it when asked if they could call the jeweler there itself. Of course, commissions are an unsaid part of it. After a lot of –"Go ahead" and "Hmm, I need to think", the astro says with the same know-it-all tone –" Your horoscope tells me you are stubborn and you wont listen"

Then why the hell were they trying to suggest or advise?

The guy leaves the room with nothing changing in his life other than the fact that now his pocket was lighter after those ten 10 Rupee notes left his pocket.

After all this I am left alone for a whole day of pondering on many things I see in life. I do believe that there is a power which is the reason for how different lives take their turns, intersect, diverge and converge. But my reservations are about the claims of understanding that power in totality and making a business out of the claim. If someone could conquer the forces that affect our lives, why are they still working for the 100 bucks that the guy gave? If they knew what to do to earn well, why have they not taken over Azim Premji or Narayan Murthy? Given that I have spent only 24 years on this earth, I don’t know what is the absolute truth and may not come to know even after spending 80 years. But that does not stop me from penning down my views and things that make me put my thinking cap on.

The touch of gratitude

A bank is a place where money flows in and out, customers come and go but occasionally some customers tend to develop good rapport with the officials in the bank and one such event lays the foundation to the story I am going to narrate. It is important to mention here that my father was a bank official who gradually started speaking to a customer who came to the bank every month to collect a $100 check. On one of my periodic mischievous ventures to the bank to do role play as the manager in his absence, I got an opportunity to listen to that customer who made me embody gratitude as the basic plus point in my character just by narrating his personal experience in a laconic way. And here begins his experience which is translated into a story as narrated by him….

"Seeing an old man who waits for the Government pension every month end coming to the bank to collect $ 100 check without fail, I am sure you have assumed that my son staying abroad and is sending it to me as it is considered a son’s duty to take care of his parents. But let me tell you, I don’t have children. But the story of this $100 check dates back to 1975 when I was still working as a Government clerk. I had gone to a post office to send a telegram to my sister when I saw a charming young boy at the entrance badly searching for something and I could make out from his facial expression that it was nothing more than a wild goose chase. But I don’t usually approach anyone and delve into their personal matters and therefore I carried on with my work. It is unbelievable that out of around 50 people moving here and there in the big post office that boy chose to come to me. I don’t look that social and approachable, do I? He came to me and said "Excuse me, sir". The voice was anxious and apprehensive, he seemed completely demented. I gestured vaguely that I was ready to listen to him as it is human to do so when a person seems to be in trouble. He continued speaking with his hands trembling in nervousness. It was making me believe that he had a genuine problem. He said, "Sir, My name is Ramu and I have just completed my B tech and I wish go abroad for my higher studies. I have to send the application today so that it reaches before the last date. I had 20 Rs in my wallet which I lost on the way. As it is closing time now, I will not be able to get the money before the time. I am really in a very helpless situation. Can you please lend me Rs 15? I shall definitely return it to you if you give me your address"

I am a skeptical person and don’t believe things easily and as the world is getting worse everyday I find it hard to trust anyone. Fifteen rupees was not a negligible amount at that time. Yet I thought for a minute. As the time was running out I decided that Rs 15 can be earned by me easily; if it is helping someone it is good to spend for such a cause and even if this guy is lying to me, it is fine as it is not a very big amount for an earning man. So I took out Rs15 from my pocket and handed it over to him. His eyes reflected happiness, unlimited joy, gratitude and hope. For that one moment I felt so good about myself for bringing happiness into someone’s life. And after that he pestered me to give my address to him and I gave it to him hesitantly. Later I walked out even without being vigilant to check whether the money was used for the purpose he mentioned.

Neither the amount nor the duration of the incident was remarkable for me to give persistent thought to it and I happily forgot about it. I remember to have doubted the genuineness of that guy a couple of times when I did not get that Rs 15 back. The incident was so evanescent that it did not occur to me even when I received an air mail about two and a half years later. I did not have any clue as to who would have sent it to me. I had no friends or relatives abroad. I opened the envelope eagerly and found a letter in a beautiful handwriting that showed maturity and good organization. I read through very fast at the end of which a tear or two rolled down my cheeks. It was the same boy who was completely erased out of my memory, the same boy whom I had considered insincere on not getting back my money, the same boy who had respected me and worshipped me throughout those two and a half years when he was doing his post graduate studies. He had written to me as soon as he had got a stable job. Believing that he remembered me was far, I could not even accept the fact that he had preserved my address which I had given him that day in the post office on a piece of paper that had very less lifetime left. I realized that he must have written it down in an important diary or a notebook with the intention of thanking me some day as that paper would not have existed so long. The very realization that he intended to be thankful to me touched my heart.

I felt like reading the letter again as I had just glanced through it in a hurry. Those words were so sincere and heartfelt. He had written,

"Sir, I am sorry that I could not return your money for this long as I had to make arrangements to leave after that day and was very busy with it. I am indebted to you throughout my life for the crucial help you did. If it was not for your kindness, I would not have been sitting here in this office in such an honored position today. I know that what you have done to me cannot be redeemed. Still I shall make my effort by being there for you whenever you need for whatever reason. You can count on me in any situation in your life. I am giving my Phone number and address. I don’t know anything about you, except that you are a very kindhearted person. I don’t know about your family, your financial status or your likes and dislikes. I want to do something for you for my satisfaction. If you give me your account number in a bank, I shall send $100 every month to you. Please don’t think that I am degrading you by sending money. I have a lot of respect for you. You can think of me as the small squirrel that did its share of work in the mega task of building a bridge for Rama in the Ramayana. It is just a small way of expressing my gratitude from miles away. If you agree to this please let me know.

Yours sincerely

Ram

After reading this letter I wiped my tears with a smile. I got an assurance that being childless is not a disadvantage as long as such people still exist in this world. And now you have guessed that it is the same person who sends me $100 cheque every month. The value of dollar may go up and down, but the value that I hold in his heart shall always remain the same. I am proud of myself for changing the turn of someone’s life by my small action and I am sure he too likes himself for being a grateful person. Such small things really make you feel good about yourself as well as others."

I listened to him with astonishment and I remember that I hardly blinked my eye. His story was really an eye-opener for me. And can you believe it? I have a small diary in which I have written the names of all those people whose little acts of kindness have contributed in changing the course of my life significantly. It gives me a sense of well being. I realized that day that acts of kindness and gratitude touch heart instantly.

The arms that cuddled with Love

Now this is something I wrote long back for a Magazine but it was not selected...so I publish it myself here...

The arms that cuddled with Love are stretched pleading for the same...

"Blogspot" provides a platform to give lyricism to feelings and thoughts dwelling in the heart of hearts, to render the beauty of words to our contemplation, meditation and introspection. As an adolescent of fifteen sitting in a clinic where my mother had gone for a check up, I started deliberating on this issue. This whole contemplation was kindled by a few words written on a poster hanging on the wall. The words went like this-"If you think SOMEBODY is a burden to you today, DON’T FORGET you were a burden to that SOMEBODY in the past and you will be a burden SOMEBODY else in the future." These words made me think hard to decipher who that SOMEBODY was and it was only a matter of seconds and I realized that the person who said these words was referring to two people by "SOMEBODY". Two people who are indispensable for your whole existence in this beautiful world. They are the ones, who introduce you to the world by giving you a name, by giving you your identity. Mother is the one who carries you in her womb for nine whole months embracing every hardship that she encounters, every pain that she suffers from, absolutely for you to come to this earth. Your father is the one who holds your hand and helps you in taking your first steps, in bouncing back every time you fall learning to walk into the grand entrance of your life. The lives of parents change when their entire dreams and aspirations take the human form. Every decision they take thereafter is touched by you – the privileged life-affirming person in their life. They see their dreams live through you. The subtle sacrifices they make for your sake may go unnoticed several times but the fact that their love is the most unconditional is carved in stone.

It is very unfortunate that old age homes are filled with such "once upon a time" loving parents who spent all their life insuring their children against the forces of evil and the necessity for insuring their own life was expunged by their enormous love for their offspring. The same child who was the apple of their eye a few years back has orphaned them after growing up. I wonder how a person can hesitate to even feed the same people whose hands fed him in the past. The same people who slogged their guts out for his education, for his progress. Why does one kick the ladder after reaching the pinnacle? This is not an imagination as the large number of old age homes which exist are a proof of this. Why does one not realize that life not only evolves but also revolves like a wheel where the person at the top has to go through the stages where he too gets crushed between the wheel and the hard land? The glory days are ephemeral.

I have personally come across families where retirement marks the end of all happiness, freedom and respect for the parents. They are then doomed to depend on their children who consider them as burden and suffer humiliation and insult. They have to put their heads down which they had always lifted up till that point in life. There are instances where a father cannot even make a phone call without his son’s permission; a mother cannot cook what the current BOSS of the house dislikes. How can a person forget the reality of life that everyone has to go through every stage in life? When the parents never treated them as dependents earlier in life and instead made their children the prince and princess of the house why should they be a sentenced to a life filled with insult, sorrow and disparagement? Does money make man forget his responsibilities, his duties? Is the extensive world filled with cut throat competition where people are racing to outsmart each other shrinking at the level of moral values and sentiments? I fail to understand why a person who can support his wife and his children thinks twice before spending a hundred rupee note for his father’s medicine. The increasing number of nuclear families may be due to several factors like job opportunities in big cities, education, money etc but this escapism from responsibility towards parents is definitely a factor.

Parents are also human beings and as it is said "To err is human". Due to generation gap there may be issues on which the elderly differ, they may also make mistakes and be emotionally unstable due to old age. But all these are microscopic when compared to the amount of love they always showered on the pieces of their heart that they allowed to walk out by having children. So the younger generation needs to realize that there is no need for old age homes where humanity exists, where love exists, where responsibility, duty, sentiments and gratitude are given prime importance. Finally at the end of our lives when our entire life flashes in front of us we should rather feel proud about the way we kept the two important people in our life happy and not be guilty of making the people who loved us suffer. So I urge the youth to take an oath of being responsible and giving care and love that our parents deserve.