Why we women love men

• They give great hugs, (and always melt our hearts when a sweet "I love you Princess" is added)
• What they lack in talk, they tend to make up for in action.
• They're at peace with their bodies, except for maybe some minor anxiety over height and baldness.
• They make excellent companions when driving through rough neighborhoods or walking past dark alleys.
• They're enthusiastic about our bodies, even when we're not.
• They have an uncanny ability to look deeply into our eyes and connect with our heart, even when we don't want them to.
• They fall in love so hard, once they finally fall.
• Tho they often try to hide it, they're very tender-hearted and caring
• Chest hair, forearm hair and the feel of a newly shaved cheek.
• That spot right between a guy's neck and shoulder that's just so perfect for snuggling. :)
• Their near-endless appetite for discussing completely uninteresting things like the ins and outs of work and money - ours as well as theirs.
• Their face is a treasure to behold when they give us a present they picked out.
• Their unapologetic lust for a nice hunk of beef or chocolate cake.
• Their ability to solve problems simply by throwing a ball around.
• They give us a peek at the little boy inside when they get sick or happy or hurt
• How tender they get when they cry, and how seldom they do it.
• They don't mind accompanying a woman to a party even though she looks like a movie star and they look like the chauffeur.
• They don't care whether colors match, but are willing to be concerned if we want them to be
• Their genuine ardor for tinkering with toilets, changing oil and assembling gas grills- jobs any intelligent woman can do but would be nuts to volunteer for.
• How much they like us just the way we are.
• That they are bigger which makes them perfect for spooning.
• The way they get protective when someone hurts their loved ones.
• They are lovers who only rest when we have had (or pretend to have had) pleasure
• When, in the middle of a sentence, they decide to tell you how much they care about you. Gets me every time!
• Because despite everything they try to demonstrate, they can’t live without a woman

A prisoner at home

It started on Friday. Suddenly amidst the heat of the blazing sun, started a downpour…lasting and unexpected.

The first showers of the year. It was exciting but the timing was wrong as I was just getting ready to go to a movie to kill boredom

This continued on Saturday. This time around I enjoyed the showers…it wasn’t just a shower but sheets of rain…nature unfurl its most furious...I stood in my balcony; arms stretched welcoming the rain inhaling the smell of the waters from the sky.

But by Sunday it all got a bit too much I guess. I want to go out and get some provisions for the home…the rain doesn’t stop. When it relents, I get dressed but by the time I get dressed, it starts all over again.

I need a hot cup of tea in this cold environment and there’s no tea powder at home.

It’s Hyderabad but it behaves as any other village during rains. During rains there is no power, the TV connection is disrupted and the internet is down.

It’s Monday and finally the skies have cleared. The three days of holidays just flew…I could do no shopping what with the incessant rain. The TV and the internet are back. Life returns.

Just another dowry death

“A father’s tireless fight for justice neared fruition on Saturday with authorities agreeing to seek a CBI probe into his daughter’s suspicious death two years ago… Mr Kuruvilla, who firmly believed that his daughter was killed, continued his fight for justice. He also started a blog to present his case. The decision to hand over the case to the CBI brought him some relief” ran the news.

Relieved about what, Mr.Kuruivilla? Will this bring your daughter back?

I may sound heartless when I say this but this is probably a well-deserved punishment for not empowering the girl child enough to enable her to earn her livelihood and choose a partner.

When will the parents realize that marriage is not the be all and end all of a girl’s existence...or for that matter any person’s existence.

Why should the girl be considered such a burden that one needs to get rid of her at any cost? In this case, five lakh rupees were paid as dowry apart from 50 sovereigns of gold.

When I hear fathers paying fat dowry to buy the boys, I feel that if the same amount was given to the girl to set up her own business, and if she was clever enough, she would in no time be able to use that money to run a flourishing business of her own…or go abroad…or study…find her feet…find herself…or whatever it takes to feel confident of herself… and once this is done, will there be a dearth of men who wan to marry her?

These dowry deaths will continue in India as long as the parents consider their daughters a burden…the girl is ‘paraya dhan’. I have absolutely no sympathy for such fathers who consider their daughters as someone to be taken care of till the great son in law arrives at the scene to take her off his hands. He is so relieved to get rid of the daughter that not only does he host the wedding, submit to every demand made by the groom and his parents but also remain subservient, and heed to their every demand.

If he has to fight for justice, let him now fight on behalf of all those underpowered, voiceless, unfortunate girls who are ready to be sacrificed on the anvil of marriage! Only then will I be able to call it a fight for justice.

My carpenter-Mattaiah

We shifted recently, on 1^st October 2007, to our new apartment.

There was lot of wood work that went into the construction of the house. Unfortunately, we had to shift before the woodwork got completed.

There was lot of noise, dust and chaos for 2 full months till the guys hung around while completing the work.

The chatter-box that I am I didn’t spare the carpenters either.

I asked the head of the carpenters, a person called Mattaiah about his family. He was quiet for sometime but slowly opened up.

With tears in his eyes, he spoke of how he had lost his only son, a 14-year old, to drowning in the river.

He said that life had become a zero for him since…he didn’t know what he was working for and why he wanted to make money.It took 3 years for him to come out of the trauma.

One day, he spoke to his neighbor whose wife had just delivered her 4^th baby daughter. They didn’t want another daughter. Something stirred him to just reach out and take the baby home. The baby is now 3 years old and has become the joy of his home. He says she has brought meaning back to his life.

I salute to his nobility in doing great things in a simple way.

Marriages in India

When a girl is 20, its time for marriage in India!
Is there a ‘Time’ for marriage? How can it be?! That time may come anytime… when you are 18, 30,50 or 80! We don’t know when the cupid strikes! In India it’s the parents who strike first … lest the cupid strikes!
The best part of the whole affair is that the girl is never or rarely informed.
This how we begin our groom-hunt:
First we see if we speak the same language, then whether we belong to the same caste, the same sub-caste. These are considered of utmost importance in deciding the compatibility between the pair. Once these things are out of the way, then it’s the turn of the astrological charts! The old, bespectacled astrologer has the power to peep into the hearts of the girl and the guy and decide whether these two will be a compatible pair for the rest of the lives!
If there is a match as far as all the above factors are concerned, rest assured! These two will never have any trouble in their marriage and will surely live happily ever after!
After all these things match, let’s now inform the girl that hey…you are getting married to this guy, ok!
God forbid, she dares say a no …how can she say a no …she is so lucky to be selected by the boy (or rather his parents)!
Let’s pay a fat dowry as we are SO grateful that we have found some one to take away this burden that hangs like the Damocles sword on our head!
When this is the case, I wonder why the girl’s parents cry at the ‘bidaayi’ (sending of the girl from one's house).
This might sound ridiculous in the modern context to many people but this is how it happens even now with most of the girls in India.
This blog is triggered after witnessing today a well- placed professional couple trying to get a match for their 22 year old daughter in her final year of Medicine (of course without informing her).
Referring to the two consecutive blogs, I wonder do we still have reasons to celebrate Women’s Day?

Disparity at both ends

I read in the newspaper today that women and men laborers will start getting equal pay!
It was Rs 30 for a woman and Rs. 50 for a man all these years.
It was now proudly proclaimed that it's going to be an equal Rs. 80 for both!
Finally!
The claim for the difference seems to be the difference in the physical strength!
Sigh! As though the woman laborer doesn’t work equally hard throughout the day! The woman laborer carries the bricks on her head all day long and the man picks up the bricks, aligns them and applies cement .Whose work is harder?
Well, if this is the situation at this end, the same is with the elite.
If Akshay Kumar, Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan get paid 7 crore for a film, the top actresses in the film industry get paid 3 crore!
The fire brand Kareena Kapoor accepts this without a protest or whimper.
The situation of the middle class or rather the corporate is much better.
The IT industry proudly claims a 33-35 % women work force.

Disparity here too but, at least, not in terms of pay.

A hectic week

Well, the last week just whirred by!
On Sunday last, I locked the house and went to spend sometime at my mom's place. I couldn't take the deafening silence at home anymore.
I commuted to and fro to office from there.
The presence of people around gives a comforting feeling.
The house being closer to the office, I missed out on my regular train journeys for the entire week.
I returned on Thursday and was immediately caught up in an MDP training program on "Planning for Effectiveness and Efficiency". This was on Friday and Saturday. I have got so used to getting up at 10 am that getting up at 8 am was definitely a pain! The program itself can be rated a 7 on 10.
While returning from the training program, I was thinking that its been so long since I have actually worked from 9am to 6 pm--the regular office hours.
The week was quite hectic, yet seems so empty because I return to the same empty house and the same meaningless work at office.
I know that fulfillment comes from within and one cannot seek it outside oneself. Yet...
There was an upside to this too..had food at a 4-star restaurant the last two days.
There were exquisite 7-8 starters to begin our meal with. And 11-12 varieties of desserts at the end. I enjoyed both ends of the meal more than the middle (the main course)! And also met with people from different industries...from an NGO, from edible-oil manufacturing industry, from health care, banking and an MBA student too. Very interesting mix of different professions!

Khushwant Singh-- I adore you!

Khushwant Singh: We grew with this man. Those were the days of glorious periodicals, namely, ‘The Illustrated Weekly.’ Unfortunately, many of those weeklies have fallen by the side. And along with the decline of magazines, we have lost potential compositions of many of our erudite writers.
Thankfully, Khushwant still writes. Every Sunday, I eagerly turn towards the column 'With Malice towards one and all’… the one column that I have been faithfully reading for all these decades. The acid pen hasn’t changed one bit.
Being born in 1915 makes him 93 now. When I feel lazy about typing these 200-300 words in my blog…I wonder how this person who continues to write by hand day after day all these years is a source of inspiration to us all. I admire his spunk and his tongue- in- cheek comments on the social issues in India.
Second, I like his open admiration of women. He was known to have had his fair share of 'friendships’ those days. His pen continues to sing praises of the fairer sex.
Frail of body but not of mind!