The Circle of life

"Stop Please, I beg you. Its hurting" Sheila was crying on top of her lungs and begging her husband Viren to stop beating him.But, there was no pity in Virens eyes. they seemed to be blood thirsty and would not stop till his body was tired.

After about an hour of beating ,strangling and using almost all the equipment in the house to facilitate the beatings and sheila's momentary and failed attempt to run outside the house and seek help from the deaf neighbors.It finally stopped.

There was sheer silence in the house hold now. The daily chores had started already and it seemed as if nothing had happened a while ago. The kids were tugged to their grandmothers chest mistaking them for their mothers milk filled bosom. before they could find out the difference and begin squealing, the grandmother thrust the malnourished and naked bodies in the lap of their mother .

Sheila is woken up from her stupor and finds her children in her lap looking hungry as ever. after the beatings,she had pulled herself to the farthest corner of the house and went into a deep trance. a place she usually went to after getting physically abused by her husband. her head was bleeding and hands were swollen. there were red marks all over her body. how much she wished she could die after one of her beatings so that this pain could go forever. but Viren beat her only to the last possible limit . He was that cruel.

She looked at her two children, A son and daughter, who were now happily filling their stomachs with the nutritious mother's milk and tried to smile.they were her only piece of happiness in this hell called home.she knew what would happen to them if she died. Viren was already in the process of looking out for another bride who could give him the new love he desired. She knew what was her future, yet could not do anything about it. she had to live for her children.

what did she do to deserve this life? Uneducated as she was, she blamed it to her past life sins. She got up thinking she would work harder to change herself to the way her husband wants and maybe this beating would stop. She was brought up  listening to her mother that the life of a woman lies in the foot of her husband. She has to do whatever he says and surrender to all his wishes. There is no 'what a wife wants' in this society. At that age she would not believe to these things but after getting married, right from the painful first night to every beating she got for all her mistakes or rather for everything she did, there was no way not to believe in what her mother had told her.

she wanted to change this but she did not know how and had adjusted to her life. Her only satisfaction was when she would hear her friend from neighborhood crying out in pain when her husband beat her. she was not alone is what she felt.but she would also hear her friends mother-in-law sometimes coming in between and after the beating sympathizing with her Daughter-in-law. nevertheless, she could never stop her son from beating.

Sheila stood up from her isolation and finally went inside the house to confront her mother-in-law. why did she never came  to her rescue? even when she knows that Viren beats her out of no fault of hers. she wanted to know why she never said a word of love and pity and showed some concern. OK ,even if she was not her own mother, but in the end she was a woman. a woman cannot see other woman in pain.
In front of her mother-in-law, she stood, waiting for an answer.An answer which made all her curiosity vanish in thin air.An answer which bought a faint smile to her face, a smile that made her realize what she she would be in future. maybe that is the circle of life.


"Even I was beaten black and blue from your father-in-law when I was your age. Don't worry, your turn to watch will also come."

Its time to Rethink: Its a WE world

Imagine a scenario

All your family members have just reached home after a tiring day out. as you enter, you sit down on sofa or directly go to bed or bathroom for a hot bath. but where does your mother/wife/sister go? she goes into the kitchen to make tea for everyone and start preparing for dinner. Have you ever thought why cant she rest like us ? or for once have you ,being one of the men of the house considered going to kitchen and making tea for a change?
I don't think so. !
or in other case when any guests come to our house, the head automatically turns towards the women to bring tea or snacks for them. Are the men not a part of the family? even if the guests are in deep conversation with your sister/mother/wife, they are only expected to get up and serve the guests.

A girl in India is judged on how many religious hymns she knows ,or if she play any musical instrument, or if she can paint. Are these qualities more important than  how the girl is from inside? Isn't' a girl who has played sports her entire life and cannot draw to please the so called society, a good girl?  The parents introduce their daughters to their future In-laws not by her education or her career ambitions but by the number of dishes she can make or her 'hobbies'.
People  also judge a girl on what she wears,how loud she talks,her laughter, her trying to sit between the 'elders' of the family ( by elders I mean the 'men') and in every small thing she does. I have seen many men getting bothered by women who are smart and knows what to talk and when.
 If a girl is seen trying to give financial,career or property advice to anyone, she's never taken seriously. The females are meant to look after the house and males go out to earn money. don't you think this has changed a lot now? so why cant she bring her own experience into the family discussions?
If a woman has chosen to quit and look after her kids and family, she's becomes just a 'house-wife'. Respect her more because she has given up her life to see her family's dreams come true. that doesn't mean she didn't dream big. she has chosen this for herself and if she had not, maybe your dreams wouldn't have come true.

This is my way of pouring my heart out for small matters in our everyday life that we see but never think about it.

we all boast that India has become a lot more progressive towards woman . To some extent, the situation has definitely become better than yesteryear, but there is still a long way to go. The problem with our society is that what we preach a lot but when it comes to our own family we do not implement what we preach. Robots will be roaming around in sometime and here we are stuck on 'Oh my god! she doesn't know how to cook' . I am a married woman and I can proudly say that I cannot teach my children ,songs , religious hymns or even dance but I will definitely teach them to be a good human being and I think that is beyond everything.
 I am not fighting to get some equality or for woman rights. I will be happy if we are allowed to be as we want to be and to break this men-women stereotype.
The time has come to ReThink.
A son learns from the way his father treats his mother.so be a good model to him.Teach him to respect the women and teach your daughter to dream.

One Life: Book review of The Story of a Suicide

I was preparing for my class 12th term examination for the next day, when my phone rang. It was my school principal. Being the head girl of the school, she had called me to inform very sad news. One of my teacher’s daughter, who was also my junior had committed suicide and hence the exams were postponed. I was so stunned to hear the news that I could not speak for few minutes. There were so many questions in my mind and I was regretfully remembering the time when I had scolded her. My last interaction with her was not so good. The next day we visited her house and I was shattered to see the sadness. Our teacher was crying like a small baby. There were no words to comfort a mother who had just lost her child.

That incident changed the teacher tremendously. she was well known in school for being a harsh teacher who gained happiness by punishing the students. But after this, she became so soft, that we all were sad to see her this way. The whole year I was there, I never saw her raising her voice again.

This incident left me wondering what goes into the minds of people who think of killing themselves. At that point they only think of getting rid of their pain either mental or physical, but they don’t think for once about the people they are going to leave behind. They have to live with the pain of losing them forever. With their mind always trying to find answers, like what went wrong and how did they fail to see that their loved ones were in trouble. That pain is worse than killing oneself.

The Story of a Suicide is one such story. I applaud the author ‘Sriram Ayer’ for touching this subject with such honesty and brutality. The story is simple but the way its told is commendable. He is successful is getting into the minds of the young and describes beautifully the cause and consequences of their actions. It was a gripping novel and one cannot predict the end.

Characters:

Sam, Charu, Mani and Hari are four young students whose lives get entangled to each other when they all meet at a prestigious college, KIT in Chennai.

Sam is a self-proclaimed tech-genius who has recently been dumped for being too into social media and paying less attention to his girlfriend. Charu is a senior in KIT who is a feminist with an I-don’t-care attitude. She is very moody and one cannot really understand what is going on in her mind or what is troubling her. Mani has had a really tough childhood and has come this far by help from people who believed in his abilities. Hari has also been sexually abused in his childhood by his uncle and his friends and was never able to share this with anyone.

Plot:

Sam and Charu hook up and Sam falls in love with her but Charu is not a girl to get committed and ignores him. Mani and Hari too realize their sexual orientation and express feeling towards each other and become a couple. Hari even shares his childhood atrocities with him. Sam is hopelessly in love with Charu and when he doesn’t get his love reciprocated, he starts doubting that Charu is having an affair with Alex sir. Being the geek he is, he plans a revenge on her misusing his genius brain to develop something to expose Charu-Alex affair. His actions lead to a very major twist that changes the life of all four. 

As I said earlier the story is simple but the incidents that happen along leave a mark on the reader. The author has succeeded in exposing the minds of the young. The jealousy to see your loved one with someone else, the feminist young girl who hates men and writes aggressive controversial posts on social media, the society who do not approve of the gay community, the parents who force their decision on the children by blackmailing them on their lives and the actions of the obsessed hot-blooded young men who can go to any lengths to get their revenge.  In all this drama, sometimes the innocent gets trapped and succumbs to the pressing situation.

I relate most to the chapter where Sam’s girlfriend leaves him because he is over obsessed with social media. In today’s era we have forgotten the real worth of people and have deeply entangled ourselves into the hands of web.

As young people, the magnitude of our action out of jealousy, revenge, sadness, humiliation or enmity is doubled. We don’t really think of the consequence s and just do what we want to do. The worst possible thing to do is to kill Oneself

Whatever maybe the circumstance, however big the pain is, Committing suicide is never justified.

Anyone who has the slightest idea that someone they know is thinking about it, should confront and counsel him/her to get out of it. The parents should not force their dreams and decisions on their children. Instead they should understand and even have discussions to see what’s going on their life and what’s troubling them before its too late.

The novel hits you deeply and gives a strong social message. I would definitely recommend this to everyone.

You can read the full story at : The Story of a Suicide.  It is also available in audio book format.

                                             The Ad is chilling and gives goosebumps.

 This post is written for The Story of a Suicide an IndiChange initiative by Indiblogger and NalandaWayFoundation.

Pic courtesy: The novel Illustrations by Ghana

Book Review: 6 Degrees, Game Of Blogs

I vividly remember the day when BlogAdda team asked all bloggers to join hands and form groups. They gave us a starting point and few character names and asked us to form a story out of it. This was one of the best events I had participated in. With lot of excitement, small arguments among group members on story line and surprise twist and turns, we created our own story.

when I recently got the opportunity to read and review the Book which has the stories of the top 3 groups. all the memories of those days came running back. I was very excited to finally read the top 3 stories and relive the characters again.

The stories had to revolve around the main characters
Shekhar Dutta is a stay at home dad who also happens to be a freelance writer who lives in Mumbai.  Shekhar’s wife,Tara Dutta is a big media professional. Roohi Dutta is Shekhar and Tara’s 9 years old daughter.Jennifer Joseph is a Christian photographer who lives in Kochi and Cyrus Daruwala is a law student staying in Delhi.

The stories were judged by some of the bestselling authors like Ashwin Sanghi, Natasha Badhwar, Ravi Subramanian, Kiran Manral, Meghna Pant and Raksha Bharadia.
All the teams were given the same characters and they had to write one episode per day with collaboration within team. at the end of the event, the stories were
judged and 3 teams emerged as winners. these teams got the honor of becoming a part of this book.

The first story: The Awakening

Its a sci-fi and the theme is based on saving the environment.Its not the old aliens claiming earth and humans fighting to send them back.I was definitely surprised with the genre. although at first the story was interesting but I got a bit bored in them middle and this story took me a long time to read.

The second story:Entangled 

Its a murder mystery. there is murder in the house and the sory unfolds many characters whose liver are entangled. thus, the name .the story is gripping and the authors have succeeded in keeping us guessing the murderer till the end. I liked this story the best

The Third Story: Missing – A Journey Within
as the name suggests, The child, Ruhi goes missing and the whole story then revolves on the steps taken to find her. homosexuality issues are discussed and there
are a lot of twists and turns .there was coherence and I enjoyed reading it.

I loved reading the book because of instead of one story there are 3 stories and since the characters are same, its interesting to see 3 different stories spun around them.

This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. Participate now to get free books!

The DATSUN redi-GO: Fun.Freedom.Confidence

Car is one of the dreams of almost middle class people in India. The feeling of sitting inside your own new car and the smell of it is amazing. Buying a perfect car is a challenge these days with so many options available in market. From the purchase price to its features to the value of the car in future, we need to research each aspect very carefully.

It also depends on low end to high end depending upon our necessity and requirements. We need to outline what sort of car best meets our needs – if we are a family of two we shouldn’t bother buying a large MUV. We  need to Consider how long we plan to keep our car and how our needs may change with time – kids (future) can make a huge difference here.

The Market is booming with a lot of options, the ball is no longer in the dealerships’ court. With most major international brands available in a showroom near by, it’s never been a better time to buy a car. 

After doing a good market research I was stuck to one car which actually fit my bills.  That was the Datsun redi-GO .I was amazed with all the new features. The three features that I liked the best were

Compact design: 

The compact design of the Datsun redi-GO provides a full turn around with just a 4.7 metre turning radius which would make a drive very smooth and comfortable. Also it consumes fuel less which is economically impressive. The steering wheel which is super light which would make easy to drive in urban areas as well. It has very funky and sportive look. As the new redi-Go has very good space at the back, it can easily accommodate 3 persons. Which means it is a complete package for the family. The luggage space which would make the city ride more comfortable one. The look of the vehicle is also very modern and I particularly liked  the green shade.

Techincal design:

the suspension design is very unique. It has very good ground clearance which can deal with low deterrents that you may experience in the city also off- roading.it also claims to return a mileage of over 25kmpl.

With the modern look and modern technology Datsun redi-GO stands out of rest. The 5 speed manual transmission would be very much suitable for urban areas which demands very smooth response. The Digi tachometer provides complete information of fuel economy. The engine automatically adjusts spark timing, which makes it efficient and smart.

The classy interiors, the comfort seating gives a wonderful feel.

The price:

The best thing about his car is the PRICE. It ranges from Rs 2.5 lakh to up to Rs 3.5 lakh for the top-end model. Its highly affordable and with all these features it makes it a best bet.

Since I go for touring to new places very often say every alternate week. I happened to ride on many different terrains like off-roading, ghat sections, a high way and roads filled with pith holes in city or villages.

I would like to drive Datsun redi-GO in Ghat roads where there are many hair pin bends in a places like  Kolli Hills, Yercaud, Valaparai and also North East. I would to know how stable it is in bends and on a bumpy raod.

Datsun redi-GO, manufactured by Japanese automaker, makes sense in the crowded roads in the city. Its compact design can make it travel smkoothly and move quickly in the crowd. With the huge traffic in big cities it would be easier to beat the driving blues with the Datsun-Redi GO

Fun. Freedom. Confidence. The ultimate Urban Cross - Datsun redi-GO - the capability of a crossover with the convenience of a hatchback.

city.

Image Courtesy: google

Ariel Magic #LaundryGoesOddEven Activity

The time has gone when laundry was just a woman's job.and why it should be?

We have grown to be moving hand in hand with our male counterparts.we work and take care of the house.we cook food and also look after the children. We chase our dreams thinking of our family all the way. The time has come when the men of the house shared the  load and support the  woman of the house.

I am fortunate to have a husband who doesn't think laundry is a woman's job. When BlogAdda gave me this opportunity with the new Ariel Matic I was happy to share that my husband shares the load with me.

We decided to come up with an odd even day structure for laundry.with a powerful washing powder in hand , laundry has become an easy job to do

My day for the laundry came on a weekday which is usually very hectic. But with the Ariel matic, there was no waste of time. There was no need to rub the collars of shirts, dip the clothes in water for some time or fear about the smell. Just 2 spoons of powder and I put all the clothes in one shot .switched on the machine and just relaxed

.

I was delighted to see the washed clothes later. They were smelling so good and a brightness was there which I never saw in other brands. Many marks had completely vanished and I did not need to do anything extra.

Even my husband has tried his hands on laundry and he said that he never thought it could be this easy.

Men and women now are walking hand in hand .when a woman can run the house and also earn, then a man will not loose his manliness by working for the house. A little bit of cooperation and support is all that is needed to live a happy life .

 Cut the vegetables while she is cooking . Make the bed when she comes out of kitchen all tired and sleepy . Pay the household bills and buy the grocery and make her smile . These small gestures are enough to make her feel that you are there  for her.
All the husband's ,fathers and brothers out there ,share the load. Make the woman happy and your lives will be happier.
Come one step closer to ending gender inequality in households.


I am taking part in the #LaundryGoesOddEven Challenge by Ariel India at BlogAdda.

morning bike ride to Tettikere