Suffering and failure are part of each success story

As women we are born strong, but somehow we feel our greatest strength lies in hiding our weakness.

Even I have felt it sometimes..

Like every woman I am strong, but just like most women , I feel that any sign of vulnerability is a step towards failure. I hide my moments of defeat, just like some women put concealer on scars on their face.

Sometimes to tell the greatest story of success, one has to first write the prologue of failure.

The sufferings are true, and part of the journey, but most people are afraid to tell their whole story. Can you imagine a child learning to walk without falling down?

• I have cried in front of my daughter over small issues but there are times when I have remained calm and shielded her from the hurricanes that hit my world.
• I have a temper and I have patience.
• I also give free advice to people esp when I feel they need to hear the bitter truth; I have received the same and it has done me good.
• I am not glamorous, I can be a fashion nightmare.
• I have my bad hair day (almost everyday)
• Sometimes I am not eloquent and curse myself when I scramble my head for the exact word.
• I buy books which gather layers of dust before I can actually read them.
• I am not fond of cooking daily (only therapeutically to calm myself) but still I love to make my daughter’s school lunch.
• I have had rocky spells in my marriage (and sometimes used the rocks to build the foundation)
• I have had rough days at work,I have partnered to build something exquisite and I have parted ways too.
• I have fought with my parents and siblings but i trust them the most.

(yes, I’m my own living contradiction, but aren’t we all constantly fighting between whims and reality?)

I am sometimes scared to start all over- again,from scratch, but I’d rather give it my best, than give up.

I have felt like an under-achiever, felt I haven’t accomplished everything I dreamed of and felt I am not good enough. If you feel this way on somedays, then you just need to be kind to yourself and drop the hourglass of expectations.

Life doesn’t always happen in the order we wish, sometimes the sequence may be different, but we eventually get all that we want and deserve. Keep doing your Karma (and while you are at it, do intelligent-hard work)

Despite my imperfections, I show up for life. Despite being beaten-down, I won’t give up.

Every failure, every defeat is the battle scar I have earned, marching my way to winning-big or small.

(These thoughts came up when www.ngoexpress.com along with Sampradaa Collections started a #Powersaree contest on Instagram @sampradaa, inviting women to share their empowering moment, their saree stories, tales of rocking the world in ethnic elegance-often liek our mothers and grandmothers, and celebrating being a superwoman in their special cape- The Saree. I still come across women who need encouragement to be proud of reciting their life story, because each story is unique and is meant to help someone out there)

Is “hashtag feminism” enough or have we failed ourselves?

In 21st century, The buzzword has moved from “armchair” to “hashtag” , but both are not the same when used in context of “feminism”.

Are we truly a generation of “hashtag feminists”?

Instead of long debates, we choose to communicate via hashtags (a superpower of 21st century mortals to be able to express their emotions compressed in hashtags). People should move beyond the negative connotation of the phrase “hashtag feminism”

Hashtags have become like titles of  a book  that binds pages of individual stories. It has helped spread awareness about the sufferings of women. It has encouraged women to come together and stand up to publicly speak about the abuse they suffered.

#metoo has brought to light the perils faced by all women who have been abused, and this is but a small number. #whyistayed was an eyeopener for many suffering from domestic violence. #neverthelessshepersisted stood for women speaking up, when asked to be silenced. There are so many women who do not have access to social media to voice their sufferings. I’m sure most women have at some point wished for parthogenesis, where only the female of a species exist, like mourning geckos!

The only point where hashtag feminism has failed us is when the society around us doesn’t change .

There was a time, a decade ago, when I could still walk down the street at night in my own neighbourhood. Fast forward to this time , I feel unsafe after dark.

The society is progressing and degenerating, simultaneously.

More women are joining workforce , but they are not equally paid. More women are stepping out of their homes, but are unsafe. More emphasis is on having a girl child, but there is an increase in abusing girls.

As women, we feel unsafe. As mothers, we worry about our daughters. As daughters, we worry about our mothers. As sisters, we worry about our sisters. As friends, We worry about our lady friends. As a woman, I worry about all other girls and women out there.

We have seen an increased number of rape incidents and absolutely no effort to curb it. The laws are not stringent enough, and moral compasses are broken.

The three branches of government- executive, judiciary and legislature have failed us. Instead of being a holy trident which can be saviour for women, it is a rusted institution, ineffective to cut out the evil…

Will demanding and enforcing more stringent laws be a step towards actually safeguarding women? Changes in legislation are foundations on which edifices of social reforms are built. India has witnessed that to bring social change, first a tough legislation has to be brought in and an even draconian punishment. However, Laws only act as pointers in directions of virtues, rather than human behaviour auto-correcting itself.

How long can we just blame the government? Is moral policing also a part of civil society activism ? Are moralities not part of family institutions and basic fibre of society ? Do we always need fear of legal consequences to live up to basic moral values ?

Why are women not walking the streets , taking over cityscape demanding justice and protection? Because cities are not safe, but “hashtag feminism” is still slightly safer,if not completely immune to abuses by men.

However, I still call out the ladies , let’s do something to make our society safe. Let’s join hands together. Let’s March forward and demand our place as honourable citizens of this society rather than being treated as commodity that anyone can use?

The blind Lady Justice needs to open her eyes, throw away the scale  and lift her sword, demanding justice, and respect

 

 

An ode to foggy morning

How inviting is stillness, echoing the sound of silence… of walking into a white fog all around. Wrapped in this cold blanket of assumed softness , when life is a mystery.
It forces us to be in a moment of meditative presence.
Resonating with the soul’s need for stillnesss, quiet and not knowing what’s next but moving on with faith.

Even in a crowd, space is created with intangible cloak surrounding me.

the mental vibes of person near me is stopped by this foggy boundary

i walk on earth with a meditative presence. Embracing now every moment!
Much gratitude

It was Delhi before “gas-chamber”

Photo : chai for me and inhaler for my daughter , as we start our morning.

I woke up to a quiet morning with little time to myself. Autumn mornings and a nip of cold , the swirling smoke of warm tea tracing memories in the air. A rare delight, it was not. Delight is when you are happy but now the pleasant memories of autumn morning are safe somewhere in the past. A day off from school because the air is unsafe to “ Breathe” , was the last reason imaginable. Yet we live in a world stranger than Orwell’s 1984. Now we look at autumn morning form behind glass doors with green plants and air-purifiers adding freshness to the room.

The other day my daughter had breathing trouble in class and her classmate was quick to share her inhaler. I was shocked! Not At the quick thinking of child  to offer inhaler( offering first-aid knowing we do not share inhalers ) but at how the world has evolved from once sharing pencils and lunches, to this generation sharing “inhalers”.

Now , the school checklist each morning is inhaler and mask, followed by water, lunch, books & RFID. The school doesn’t allow sharing food due to health issues, I do not allow re-filling water bottle outside due to NDM 1 scare in water supply and the government doesn’t want us to Breathe due to polluted air.

“Vote- seekers” (politicians) call Delhi “gas-chamber” as though they will win empathy of citizens. Those in places to bring change have left it to citizens to do the needful.

Writing slogans, car-pool, online petitions can hardly put a dent in the bigger problem.

A problem that governments of various states can easily work-out together and resolve, after all it’s the lives at stake.

Innovative techniques to reduce farm stubble have to be used. Also alternate crops like maize should be grown, instead of paddy , that leaves such stubble and lowers ground water reserves. After all the wind will blow from west to east for now.

Cars are a major source of pollution but so are bigger transport vehicles like trucks but then what about the silent problems like road-dust on streets. A study by IIT- Kanpur in 2015 revealed that that cars and jeeps contribute less than 10% of particulate matter while trucks are bigger culprits. Also road dust that accounts for about 35% of tiny particles known as PM 2.5 in the air, followed by vehicles.

Construction sites are equally responsible for pollution as are restaurant and hotels.

Perhaps on a more neighbourhood level, civil society activism is needed where RWAs can pitch in to address issues like road dust, planting more trees in neighbourhood and leaving less carbon footprint in every possible way.

The urban jungles can use more green and less concrete.

However, for “vote-seekers” the problem to resolve immediately is the one that gets votes, not humans suffocating in capital of India which is leisurely termed as “gas chamber”.

If we are in gas chamber then what does it make those at top responsible for putting us in it? Need I say more or is it understood?

The only difference is we are all in the same “gas-chamber” – the haves, the have nots, the policy makers, the vote-seekers and the voters.

 

Saree story – Pre and Post GST

This Diwali season, my sister and I enjoyed going through (read as rummaging) our mother’s saree collection; we wore a couple of her sarees for festive evenings.

On last day of Diwali, I wore a Banarasi saree, which is over 35 years old and has been my favourite since childhood. The fragrance of real zari, along with the gleam and occasional dullness (when left unpolished for years, tucked away in dark corners of a box) are all part of the saree stories that live in crevices of memory.

As I took out this favourite red and green Banarasi saree to wear , I was amazed by the weight of this pure zari elegance. I looked at it in awe, as I reminisced my mother wearing it during pujas at home. The floodgates of involuntary memories opened and I remembered how beautiful my grandmother looked in her sarees — mostly crisp cottons for school , since she was a vice-principle. For all other occasions like pujas and weddings, Nani wore silk sarees. My great-grandmother, who I have little recollection of, was also a saree-lady. She was a teacher in pre-independence India in 1930s, a time when less than 3% Indian women were educated.( as per census, the female literacy rate was 1.8% in 1921 and 2.9 % in 1931 )

 

 

My mother also followed in the graceful “saree” footsteps and the glorious “education” footsteps (though she is a business woman ). Even today she wears saree when she steps out for work whether an office visit or factory. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and hence education and saree are both important to me too. Though the credit also goes to my father for always encouraging us to chose elegance and intelligence over everything else.

The one fact that my great-grandmother, Nani, mother, & I also shared until earlier this year was, we didn’t have to pay taxes on our sarees. A beautiful fact that was common for generations of women, tax-free Indian wear. My “Grands” definitely departed an India which was free of “saree-tax”. Perhaps, strong laws cannot stand strong women, and they lived through times when Independence for Country and women empowerment was more important than burdening them with taxes. I wonder if My grandmother and great-grandmother would have agreed to paying taxes (GST) on saree? I doubt they would succumb to such tax regimes.

My saree collection is divided into two eras- pre-GST and post-GST.

For working hard wasn’t good enough, nor was taking the time to keep our ethnic wear spirit alive. We must pay 12% taxes on that too.

Taxes are important for Nation-building and with evolving times, taxes evolve too. However, the rates and range of taxes imposed can surely be reconsidered to offer some relief.

right to Breathe (clean air)

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. – Albert Camus

image source : pixabay

The Countdown to Diwali has always been associated with the beginning of pleasant autumn mornings when the air is cooler and the tea cup in morning feels warm, not hot. As a child I eagerly counted days to Diwali as soon as the effigy of Ravan was burnt on Dushhera. The wait for Diwali was full of endless to-do lists : buy firecrackers, visit friends , Diwali lights,  Diyas , rangoli designs ideas (the unspoken competition of who makes the best rangoli) and of course our homes inadvertently becoming “ mithai ki dukaan”. On the day of Diwali we eagerly awaited for Lakshmi-puja to be over quickly so that we could burst crackers.

After Diwali , there was the mandatory illness due to allergies.

Now that was my magical childhood. Magical despite the pollution as childhoods often are presumptuously magical.

My motherhood has a different story. Come autumn , I enjoy the mornings from a distance, as though looking out the window but reminiscing in past. I stare outside thinking how much trouble it will be to manage my daughter’s breathing issues. She will miss out on dance and sports due to it. When she is in school, I have to ensure that my work revolves in a periphery of maximum 20 minutes drive to school, as the numerous emergency calls from school due to my daughter’s breathing issues are scary.

My to do list for Diwali still begins after Dushhera which includes Friends to visit, gifts to buy, rangoli design and most importantly stocking up on masks, mosquito patches and inhalers.

Am I blaming Diwali for pollution? Am I blaming change in season for mosquitos leading to dengue mania? Am I saying that it’s various kinds of pollution caused by us which are making us sick?

Am I blaming the farmers for burning stubbles that fill the Delhi air with unbearable smog clogging our lungs and making children fall sick?

Can a different farming technique prevent this cause of pollution across major parts of North India?

Am I blaming the pollution in metropolitan cities caused by variety of factors and not just one?

The toxic gases & particles emitted from bursting firecrackers are more dangerous.

Even though  India’s carbon emissions have increased by 5.2% in 2015 contributing 6.3% of all global CO2 emissions, even though global emissions remained unchanged (researchers at the ‘Global Carbon Project’.)

We are not alone in fireworks, The July 4 fireworks in US emit the equivalent of 50,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. (Source inverse.com)

However, cultural celebrations are not the lone cause of pollution.

Industrialisation without consideration for environment, decrease in number of trees per capita , increase in urban density of population, rapid urbanisation with environmental disregard , and mobility of population are amongst the prime reasons for India being ranked 4th in carbon dioxide (kt) emissions (2,454,968 kt)

The difference between reasonable restrictions and blanket ban is the degree of trust put in citizens to be responsible humans. The demand for clean air or even the Right to Breathe is because somewhere over and over again our government has failed to give us holistic economic development.

Thanks, to the Supreme Court’s ban on firecrackers- No one will buy and sell firecrackers in Delhi, it’s a breathing respite. But there will still be buying , selling and burning of firecrackers . There will also be pollution on the other 364 days .

I have an urban jungle in my house and balcony, even though having greenery in house comes with the fear of mosquito-friendly existence. The added electricity bill due to air-purifiers makes me guilty of  consuming electricity by burning fossil fuels in order to have clean air. 

Perhaps now is my turn to demand Right to breathe (clean air). We live in times where high-speed data is more important than clean air. A generation that can tolerate air-pollution but not mobile phones without internet connectivity (carcinogenicity of cell phone towers is a debate for another time )

For now we are gifting plants on Diwali as my 9 year old feels that’s the best gift along with sweets.

Does pseudo-faith supersede humanity?

We returned on Sunday 27th august, since Monday is school day. In evening the rumour mills started about schools being closed on Monday. ( since the deraviolence might spread more after the quantum of punishment is announced on 28th August ). .
A late night tweet put speculations to rest as schools remain open. On Monday morning the watsapp messages kept increasing, mostly parents who were asking each other if they were sending their kids to school? In one class 16/ 20 were bunking school. In another 12/20 would bunk. Then other friends, from other schools all over Delhi, were both contemplating and deciding in the same sentence as to not send the kids to school.

The mass bunking had begun.
Fear crept in and had taken form of inaction in action.
The last time I remembered something like this was more than 2 decades ago when a certain place of worship was demolished. Fear then , fear now. The common denominator is always a pseudo-faith that supersede humanity.
A shaken belief in government and administration reminded us how vulnerable we are in the hands of those who are to protect us? How unsafe we feel when small sects of blind-faith erupt like volcanoes.
Dera verdict is victory of the silent victims against a greater established organisation well funded with muscle, money and masses. .
Sometimes the truth echoes greater than the noise of violent mobs.
Faith is a beautiful emotion as long as its put in the right place.
Peace out~ Prachi .

A house for everyone

Radha was particularly happy today. It was a mild autumn afternoon. The air was fresh with a slight chill that could only be felt on the tip of the nose. The leaves had started to turn shades of orange, sienna and amber. It was the incidental beauty of autumn when each leaf turned into the colours of spring flower. Radha’s children were playing outside, under a tree and the sounds of their laughter and crackling of leaves when crushed under their feet, was music to her ear, along with occasional beating of the hammer. The final repairs on her house were about to finish. Radha had helped her father-in-law and her husband all along the process from planning out the date of repairs, arranging the material and until today. Now they were fixing one last section of the façade of the house – a 6ft x8ft piece, which went on the front wall. Her father-in-law was inspecting it before it went on to finish the house-repairs.
Radha offered her husband water and said “ I’m so grateful the work is over before cold winters set in. I was worried about our children spending time in the house in its former condition.” “it was all possible because of you, esp. the money we saved on repairs due to your careful planning” spoke her husband, as he looked at her face,  the slight wrinkles that smiled with her smile.  The wrinkles that defined the smile in her kajal smudged eyes.
Her husband smiled at her and returned to work.

Radha watched her kids play near the house; they had mud all over them. An antic, which usually upsets Radha, did not bother her today. She was way too happy about what was being accomplished. She had requested her husband and father-in-law over a month ago for weatherproofing the house for the chilly winters.
Radha’s husband interrupted her trail of thoughts as he asked her to help hold the 6ft x 8 ft frame in the centre, while he and his father nailed it on both sides to the rest of the structure. The 6ftx8ft frame was the front wall. The side walls were 6ftx6ft.  The walls were wooden frame with plastic sheets tied and nailed on them. The plastic sheets were sturdy and durable. They were from the sacks used to sell dry cement and sand in, which was used for construction of permanent brick and mortar houses for most city dwellers. Radha got them from the construction site where she worked as a labourer. Usually the construction contractor sold the empty sacks for Rs. 15 each, but Radha got ten of them in exchange of one day’s wage. She thought it was a fabulous deal to get 10 empty sacks from the construction contractor , because if she went to the kabadi wala(junk dealer) he would charge her Rs 18 or Rs 20 per sack. For the rich it was the contents of the sacks that built their massive dwellings, For construction labourers like Radha the empty sacks were as good as cement to build her tiny box house. After all it sheltered her family- their dreams and disappointments.
(wrote it last autumn…. maybe now is the time to share)