After a long time... and yes relations still are complicated!

I know, this title does'nt make sense! Well can't think of any right now, to be frank, this is the first time that I have written a title first and then the post, so if there seems a disconnect between the title and the post, you know from where that's coming.
Enough of the disclaimers... I have been away from the blog for so long, I was scared I might end up forgetting how to find it! Well, with a kid around, things are not easy, and whenever you do find some tiny bit of free time, you tend to sleep...this is the story of most new parents nowadays... sleep deprived parent... I must add ... It just makes me wonder how my mom took care of us when we were babies or toddlers for that matter... whew!
That brings me to another topic, Why are we so judgemental about everything, more so if there is a girl/woman involved. First of all, till things are not outright heroic, we tend to assume, that's simple .... everyone does it. I mean I never fully understood the complexities of being a mom and raising a kid, till I had one. I regret many of my outbursts targeted at my mom now... I mean most of the mom's are our punching bags... stressbusters. Dad's furious, boss is irritating, work pressure... study tension... you could take it all out on mom... But did we ever stop and think, how does she release her stress... and yes when she does try by getting irritating or edgy... we blame it on the age gap and tend to say ' Oh mom's are so nagging!'
If a wedding is called off, people so easily and quickly judge that it must be the girl's fault. I mean if the girl calls it off , then it is ; 'she must adjust' If the boy calls it off, then there must be some problem with the girl.
It could have been a mutual decision... or even if it was not, who are we to expect them to follow our belief's and thoughts. Are'nt they told enough to know what's good for them! Why this sudden outburst of soceital commitment and lessons in rightous behaviour?
The society was formed so that humans could live safely and lead a life free of chaos. Sadly, today society itself is one of the dangers. Be it honour killings, dowry deaths or plain mental torture of the 'log kya kahenge' phenomenon. If only we could ponder more before we talk and behave, things could be so different.

Liberated and Free India… Is woman a part of it?

Is woman truly liberated? Is she truly free in a free India? The Mangalore pub incident left such haunting questions in my mind. After 60 years of independence, if some perpetrators can assault a girl in full public and media view and still get away do we still hold the right to call ourselves secular, liberal and a democratic country?

Democracy by definition means by the people, for the people and of the people and people includes women! Our constitution acknowledges freedom of speech, freedom of expression, right against exploitation among many more. These constitutional rights ideally should be applicable to the women in this country too; sadly, not many in this country consider it wise to know these details.

Who gave these self-proclaimed moral police the right to monitor and decide what’s good or bad for me – a woman? I have enough well-wishers on whom I can rely, while deciding what is best for me.

They hail the Hindu culture while justifying their acts; saying it does not allow pub culture. So do they mean that Hindu culture allows assaulting, hitting and abusing a woman? They call themselves Sri Rama Sene and don’t know the basics that Sri Ram never upheld disgracing a women let alone hitting her!

What I fail to understand and pity the most is the callous attitude of the government, police and the media. The media was invited to this mayhem and they did a great job by covering the whole thing religiously. After all they were witnessing the primetime news. It was going to be their first cut- breaking news.

But didn’t any of them consider the act audacious enough to inform the police immediately and get the culprits arrested on the crime scene? Well that wouldn’t have kicked up so much of dirt isn’t it? Or maybe getting the culprits arrested is not a part of their job description. Or maybe they realized if the culprits got arrested how would they be able to have special episodes for the next whole week. After all opinion polls, debates, exclusive interviews and stinging editorials wont hold any spark if the matter ended on the same day! TRP’s come only with burning issues – I should have known.

The police sleepwalked through the whole issue. Media was present there, yet police seemed to be the last one to know about it. With this apathy in their information and response system, I wonder how they would ever be able to nab any militants or curb any militant activities. Even now they have managed to arrest 27 out of 30 and have not been able to take any action against the top-brass of this Rama Sene. Politicians are busy mud slinging on each other. They are trying to rake in as much publicity as possible for themselves, how can we ever expect them to have the time to take any action!

Even today it is so easy and simple for a man to hit a woman, eve-tease her in public, rape her by just pulling her off the street, assault her, molest her and then just apologize and get away or use some loop-hole in the judicial system and continue to humiliate her for years to come. Do we have to wait for another revolution or beg these culprits to give us our rights? If any of this is a solution then I would never celebrate the birth of a girl. A life burdened with shackles and dictated by unknown bloodhounds is not much to celebrate about.