Closeness

I am watching an 18th century drama and heard this,

'If you were close, the closeness never dies'

I wonder if this is true. I am yet to disprove this line. Thank goodness for that. Still, just a thought. I hope it is true.

The difference between how a person treats the powerless versus the powerful is as good a measure of human character as I know

- Robert I Sutton

Good but not good enough

I had a presentation today. We are doing an infrastructure project on a hospital. We came up with a creative one. We were quite sure of ourselves.

Presentation happened.
Prof claps.
Walks up to the podium. Says we were very bold and very creative. He liked our approach most out of the 8 groups that presented today.
Smiles for a bit.
BUT.
Thats not what we want.

What do you do when someone tells/implies that you were good, but not good enough. It made me feel inadequate and incompetent. Been facing this particular implication repetitively these past few months.

Is it just me? I wonder.

Infinite possibilities

I was walking to the bus stop from my room, when I notice some posters stuck improperly. There was a bend in the poster and it was not stuck parallel to the wall. I got annoyed at the fact that the person was so careless in sticking the poster. I corrected a couple of them.

However, when I was coming back I realised it was MEANT to be stuck that way. They were dance class posters and it was a nice way to attract attention (obviously!). I laughed at my silliness. And thats when I realised there are a million ways to get to a place. Who ever said posters have to be flat?

The way up to the top of the mountain is always longer than you think. Don't fool yourself, the moment will arrive when what seems so near is still very far

- Paulo Coelho

Forgiveness

'Forgiving does not make the person who hurt you feel better, it makes you feel better'

I think this is the only thing I liked about Chetan Bhagat's 2 states. Of course I also made a mental note to think ten million times before I decide to marry a Punjabi boy.

Theres been something on my mind lately. I had a situation with this person. Person X. (I like calling people X, makes me feel like I am crossing them out and marking the target straight on their heart!) So yes X. Lets just say something went wrong, misunderstandings and the like happened and I ended up getting hurt. I felt bad for sometime and then I spoke about it to people, helped myself feel better. Told myself that, that was the end of it and I would worry no more.

Naturally, the episode wouldn't just go away. However, I realised something today, just now. I realised that the episode would indeed go away if I forgave X. I told myself that X did so and so things only because it was justifiable to X. From X's shoes it all probably seems right. So what do I do now. Forgive X. And guess what, I feel good. I feel absolutely relieved. A simple solution to a potentially complex issue.

PS: I think I am becoming Buddha, tch tsk

Room with a love

I entered my room just now. My bed was neatly done. The cluttered and clutter-free zones on my table look organised in its own way. My shelves are pretty neat too. After a weird night, and some thinking, it is relaxing to see my room. The relaxing room freshener. Things which I wrote to inspire myself. Tamil/Sanskrit prayers in english (fail). Even though I miss the PGP room's coziness, I must say the blinds in Temasek are actually creating a wonderful depth to the room. Looking at the ridiculous picture Pigs framed for me makes me smile and miss him, yet thankful. The candle reminds me of power-cuts at home and how he would want to pee at that exact same instant. I looked at all the people on my wall, people who have meant something, people who mean something, and will for quite a while, people who will always be there, people who make my day, people who make me laugh, people I love. They look down upon my clean room and asked me to smile. There is something in the space that holds some love and feeds my heart every now and then.

I derive my energy from my environment. Thats why I love walking down a green lane. And thats why I am glad my room makes me happy. 

How you do anything is how you do everything

Apologising

Does not always mean you are wrong and the other person is right
It just means you value your relationship more than your ego

Taste of a different world from a different view

It was a wonderful week in terms of the couple of experiences I chanced upon.

Mom and I went to T.nagar to pick up a couple of things we needed. I was looking for chunky traditional earrings. I was scanning the platform shops as we were walking past. This one guy had a very pretty pair of earrings and as I was getting ready to show-off my bargaining skills I noticed this kutti(small) kid standing by the side of the store. The store guy asked him to take put mom’s million-specifications carrying pottu from the sides. He jumped up trying to reach the shelf. So I moved forward o help him. Some thing came upon me to talk to this kid while mom bought some more things. His name was Xavier and he went to a nearby school. 7th grade. The store guy was his mama and he used to accompany him in the evenings when he was bored. It was a very tiny bit of my day, those few seconds of conversation. Nevertheless was heart-warming to know him. I left asking him to do well in studies. It went back to my thoughts on how it would be to read minds, to talk to every person I see, to know what goes on in their minds, to know who they really are. Oh and btw, the store guy was impressed with my little rendezvous and gave us impossibly cool prices. Haha.

I was waiting for dad to pick me up from the office campus. There is an auto stand right there and I was standing next to one of the autos. This auto driver walks up to me from behind and suddenly says ‘amma’. I had taken an auto from this stand once before and he charged me SUCH a humongous price that I naturally took a hatred to the guys at the stand. All my protective, survival, just-scared-like-shit, call-it-whatever-you-want instincts came alive and I replied in a rude, trying-to-hide-that-I-am-guarded tone ‘enna, enna, venum’ (What, what do you want?). HE replies in a kind tone. ‘B.A economics nalla padippa maa?’ (Is B.A Economics a good course?) I however overlooked the tone of this question and my instincts gained strength as my crooked mind told me that he was trying to distract me while some other guy would now come and snatch my abg. So I held my bag closer to body and said ‘Yen, nalla padipu thaan. Ethuku kekaringa’ (Yes, It’s a good course, why do you want to know?). He stared off saying how his daughter has just completed her class twelve and that she scored 55% in her exams. Around this time I dropped all guard and got interested. He belonged to SC category. One of the numerous footprints of India’s ridiculous caste system. A child from the Scheduled Castes category is treated like she doesn’t deserve education. The varied sensibilities of the society fail to see that she has scored that mark without the support of her illiterate parents and the luxury of long hours of practice a regular child get. All right, I can go off track very easily. Coming back to the auto driver. He wanted to educate his girl and a college professor advised him to enrol her in a B.A economics course. Seeing me, he wanted to know what I thought about the idea. And I spoke normally. I asked him what she was interested in studying and told him that he should indeed provide her with education. He wants her to earn enough to be independent. It was nice to see how some people were thinking ahead of their peers and not just stopping the girl child’s education after high school. I prayed she fulfils her father’s dream and her own for all good.

It was the one day before I left for Uni. I chanced upon this NGO, which works with poor kids and enhances their education by providing additional tuitions. They teach art, math, songs and other basic enrichments. I went to meet this bunch of kids in Besant Nagar. Sad old government building from the outside. Exciting with colours and patterns on the inside. Much like the kids themselves. Oh my and were they pretty. There were about 20 of them. All were between the age group of 4 – 11. They greeted me with all the warmth. I had planned a little origami session with them. They huddled in circles around and overwhelmed me with their chants of ‘akka akka akka’. They learnt what I taught them with such passion. A couple were quick in the head and even became my teaching assistants. One or two even knew how to work their way around a laptop. That day, I spotted so much potential in that room. It was an eye-opening evening.

Little one-minute things that made me think. The world can be a better place with more opportunities reaching the less privileged. God gives equal capacity to all man. It’s the process he goes through that makes one a grace and another a disgrace to the society. One day, I wish to provide all the opportunity I can afford to kids like these. That’s enough to help India.

AARAK SHUN

An article from Times of India

A knock on the door always makes Amit nervous. If it is daytime, he quickly moves the book rack so that it hides the framed photo of B R Ambedkar, dressed in a dark suit and looking at some distant horizon. If it's night, Amit lies still in bed, staring at the fan. As the banging goes on, he slips in and out of sleep. In his dreams he often sees a boy putting a noose around his neck. Sometimes he sees the boy hanging from a rope that's furiously twisting by itself. Then there is dead silence. He can't go back to sleep.

Amit, a student of IIT-Kanpur, is not suicidal. He has been to a shrink, though, and says he lives in some kind of dread. For two years, life on the campus was beautiful - at least until the day his classmates found out his caste, a fact he had masked with a caste-neutral surname. The Ambedkar photo had already made some "friends" suspicious, and when a clerk in the scholarship section "exposed" his caste, Amit's world changed. He lost his place on the dining table. The batchmates became hostile: jibes in the classroom or an accidental jab in the ribcage every now and then became a common occurrence. And the midnight knocks started. "They don't want me to study. People may think it's a seat of high learning but for me it's living hell," says Amit, who has a brilliant academic record. "People here don't believe in merit. They will push you if you perform better than them," adds the final-year student who is too scared to give his real name.

Amit is not paranoid. His fear is real. In 2008, the year he joined the institute, a fellow student called Prashant Kureel was found hanging in his room. In 2009, an MTech student, G Suman, killed himself. And in 2010, Madhuri Salve, a final-year student, used her dupatta to hang herself from the ceiling fan. All three were dalits and IIT authorities were quick to blame academic pressure for these deaths. "It's because of constant ragging and brazen casteism on the campus that my son killed himself," says Sunder Lal Kureel, the father of Prashant, as he continues his fight for justice.

But in this battle, Sunder Lal is alone. There are no middle class-led candlelight vigils at India Gate for Prashant. There are no campaigns by TV channels, just the lonely battle of a broken man. There are many like Sunder Lal in their peculiar tragedy. Since 2007, 18 dalit students pursuing engineering and medical courses in the country's top institutes, including the IITs and All India Institute of Medical Sciences, have committed suicide. And here's the real shocker: only one of them, Jaspreet Singh Government Medical College, Chandigarh, left behind a suicide note. None of the others who hanged themselves or jumped from a building blamed anyone for pushing them to take the extreme step. "All of them had complained to their families about harassment at the hands of faculty and fellow students, yet they didn't leave a suicide note. Only Jaspreet's was there because his father found his body. We wonder what happened to all the other suicide notes," says Ratnesh Kumar of Insight Foundation, which is trying to get justice for the families. "We're sure the notes vanished because the victims had accused the authorities of harassment."
Hidden in these missing notes are the dirty secrets of India's top institutes, where dalits have been treated as outcastes ever since reservations were introduced for SC and ST students in the 1950s. Nobody likes to talk about this dark side. Now, as filmmaker Prakash Jha takes a "fresh look at the issue" with his Aarakshan, the dalits fear that the film may reinforce old biases. "We get only 15% seats, while the OBCs get 27%. But, it's the dalits who have to face the brunt of hate campaigns," says Surya Dev, a 25-year-old engineer from Guna, MP, who now works with the Insight Foundation helpline.

Ironically, anti-dalit sentiment erupted in 1991, when the V P Singh government decided to implement 27 reservation for OBCs. In the Capital's "Left-leaning" university, JNU, caste clashes took place between students; in the dining-halls of IIT-Delhi, dalits were forced to sit on separate tables, and the walls of urinals in Delhi University were covered with puerile graffiti. And the authorities just watched. "The atmosphere in our institutions is very brahminical as the upper castes dominate the faculty. In such an environment, the lower caste students automatically become outcastes," says Dilip Mandal, who teaches at Delhi's Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC).

Many dalits have paid a price for being what they are. In 2008, Narendra Divekar and Nitin Kamble, who worked as cameramen at the Centre for Distance Engineering Education Programme at IIT Bombay, took part in a meeting of the institute's union for backward classes. A torrent of casteist abuses from the centre's web coordinator, Rahul Deshmukh, followed almost immediately. Deshmukh told them that they were "not fit to work here". A complaint was made to IIT authorities and the police. But the abuse went on. Unable to handle it, the duo tried to commit suicide outside Deshmukh's office.

Many, however, have fought back. Dr Ajay Singh, who joined AIIMS in 2002 with the same marks as the cut-off for "general" students, was the only dalit in his hostel wing. He was barred from entering the carrom-board room and one day someone scrawled "Nobody likes you here. F**k off" on his door. But Dr Singh fought back and that led to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appointing a three-member committee, headed by University Grants Commission chairman Sukhdeo Thorat, to look into caste harassment in the country's top medical institutes. The report was shocking: dalit students were bullied into vacating their hostel rooms, leading to a ghetto being formed on two floors of a hostel; they were specifically targeted during ragging; they were not allowed to play cricket and basketball; they were not allowed to eat in the "upper-caste mess"; and the teachers ignored them in class, sometimes deliberately failing them in exams. Shamed by the damning report, AIIMS took some remedial steps. "Now the hostels are allotted through a lottery system and general harassment has come down a bit, but all the recommendations of the panel are yet to be implemented," says Dr Singh, who now works with a government hospital in Delhi.

But resistance is growing on some campuses. "Now the number of upper-caste and reserved category students is almost the same. It's not easy to bully them," says Mandal of IIMC. And dalits are now not prepared to be shunned by the system. "We started celebrating Ambedkar Jayanti on our campus to unite us," says Manju Kumari Rao, 28, a former student of Benaras Hindu University who was once denied permission to go abroad on an exchange programme because she was dalit. "We don't want to join the system, we want to change it.

Seven Blunders of the World

1. Wealth without work

2. Pleasure without conscience

3. Knowledge without character

4. Commerce without morality

5. Science without humanity

6. Worship without sacrifice

7. Politics without principle


—Mahatma Gandhi

After a while..

After a while you learn
The subtle difference between
Holding a hand and chaining a soul
And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning
And company doesn't always mean security.

And you begin to learn
That kisses aren't contracts
And presents aren't promises
And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes ahead
With the grace of a woman
Not the grief of a child

And you learn
To build all your roads on today
Because tomorrow's ground is
Too uncertain for plans
And futures have a way
Of falling down in mid flight

After a while you learn
That even sunshine burns if you get too much
So you plant your own garden
And decorate your own soul
Instead of waiting
For someone to bring you flowers

And you learn
That you really can endure
That you are really strong
And you really do have worth
And you learn and you learn
With every good bye you learn.

Veronica A. Shoffstall

"I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it's the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It's probably the most important thing in a person."

— Audrey Hepburn

JUDGING PEOPLE

See that boy doing his homework in homeroom? … He couldn’t do it last night because he was too busy talking his best friend out of suicide. See that girl, with her face caked in make up? … She’s bullied, she needs to feel beautiful. See him, the one who wears long sleeves everyday? … He covers his arms to hide the scars. See her, with the cheap, hand-me-down clothes? … Her family can’t afford food for half the month, let alone get brand names. See the girl who laughs and smiles at every little thing? … She cries herself to sleep every night. Wonder why she never lets her friends over her house? … Because she’s afraid they’ll see her dad passed out drunk on the floor, as always. See how that girl cringes as rape jokes? … She was raped. See the boy who everyone goes to for advice? … He wishes someone would do the same for him. See the girl who never brings a lunch? … She’s disgusted by her body. See her, with the little waist? … She goes to the bathroom and forces herself to throw up so that she can keep her waist that way. See the boy over there, see the dark circles under his eyes? … He has insomnia, he fears what he’ll see in his dreams. See that girl daydreaming over there? … She has schizophrenia. See the boy biting his nails? … He has cancer and he’s wondering how much time he has left. See your best friend? … She’s addicted to drugs, but she can’t tell you because you wont understand. See that boy reading all about 9/11? … His parents died on that day. See her, with her phone on her at all times? … She’s waiting for a call saying her sister was found after a kidnapping 4 years ago. Don’t judge.

I have judged people in the past. From this day on, I make a promise to self. I wont. Ever again.

Source: http://alonetilforever.tumblr.com/post/3992368091/osee-that-boy-doing-his-homework-in-homeroom-he

WHY cant lizards talk?

Last night, I was trying to put myself to sleep when something struck me.

This GRAND idea.

That could actually be a solution to all my nightmares. Why cant lizards talk? So, imagine if they could. All I need to do is hold a gentleman’s conversation with them and let them know that they are trespassing private property and that I could sue them for the same if they do not oblige to move out. That’s it. End to all the nights I wonder if that creepy ugly thing is poking its head from under that table, or from behind the tube light. And if they refuse to oblige, I could even report the damned lizard and get him to evacuate my house forcefully. These guys can even get lizard lawyers if they want. That way, we would have a proper and sensible argument and justice would be served.

YES. OMG.

God, grant me this much. Rather, grant the lizards this much. Let them talk.

Peace.

As an Indian Citizen

Singapore was preparing to vote for its leader. And it was my first time around rallies in another country. Not just any other country. It was one of the most developed economies in the world. I had always thought that the process was pretty much simple. There is one party that stands for the elections. And you pretty much don’t have a choice but to vote for them, given that they do a really good job. However, it was surprising to know that, this time the scene was changing a little bit. My Singaporean friends were attending rallies by different other parties (They actually exist!). I came across debates among my Singaporean peers, on whom they should vote for and why. At the same time, Tamil Nadu State election results were coming out. Newspapers and TV channels had new meat to chew on. Parents and relatives talked about it on the phone. At home. People in restaurants. Old men in the park. My grandma was talking about the scene for her bit. Analysis of which leader should come back. Who was going to win? Who had contributed anything at all for the community? Who had robbed more? Whose family was looting? So many questions were drifting in the air.


Two scenes. And I’d say from completely different movies.


Scene 1: One would think that Singapore having all that it does, would elect their ruling party. And yes they did. But all the debates that took place gave me a new perspective. There were people who were looking for change. They wanted less foreigners, better roads and drainage systems (They’ve GOT to be kidding me), speedier government procedures, etc. Nevertheless, what they wanted dint matter so much to me, as the fact that THEY ACTUALLY DID WANT MORE. There is always door for change, space for more. That’s what I learnt from those few weeks of exposure.


Scene 2: Tamil Nadu elections have always been this way. One party would take care of one small thing in their reign. Other would give attention to another small issue. They are united in one issue though, never failing to give attention to looting public money. It doesn’t matter to me which party comes to power.


Digitally printed banners of party leaders’ blown-up faces with head shots of the guys who made the posters, carrying slogans that claim these leaders to own the state (I should give it to them, they are very honest people) – are ALWAYS going to be around, destroying the beauty of the city. I remember once, the government decided to ban the huge advertisement banners around the city. Wonder what category these fall under. And every time they take a certain route in the city, the roads are going to be adorned with their faces and flags. Flags which are stuck inside holes bored on the granite walkway. Oh yes, new holes every time they decide to stick flags on the roads. We kinda know who we voted for and who the ruling party is. I wish they realized that, and dint try to remind us every single day. What happened to beautifying Chennai, keeping it clean? One party would decide to waste hundreds of crores and build a new assembly building. And the other party, would decide to move back to the old one, spending even more crores and wasting more public money in the end. These are just starters. Very petty issues. There’s agriculture getting less importance by the day, city getting crowded, land prices, corruption, unemployment, theft, road discipline, accidents, what not. It hurts to know that these parties don’t give a damn to these issues. Issues which will, when addressed, probably give them more recognition. Ignorance is not just by the parties, even the public care less for issues that matter. They would go by number/values of freebies or even worse by religion and caste. Yes, we are a religious nation. I am pretty sure that never meant vote for the guy who is from your sect of belief. Hurts.


Comparing these two scenes. Oh yes, the second one is my own perspective and the first is borrowed hence the difference in size! I pray and hope for the day my countrymen would start demanding for a better government. It is not at all the fault of the parties. It is the attitude of every citizen that matters. Singapore is a hardworking nation. Yes, I have complained of monotonous life a million times, these past months. But they are people who know their duties. They form a responsible nation. They care for their government. Government cares for them. They are selfish yes, but selfish for their nation. That counts. That is the quality we lack. We do not know our duties. We rarely work hard. We cannot care more for the government. Government cannot care for us. We are selfish people, but our selfishness stops with self and family. The day we extend it to nation we would succeed. The saying for cleanliness comes to my mind now, ‘Keep yourself clean, keep your house clean, and keep your road clean. And if every citizen did the same thing the entire nation would be clean’- Can be applied to any situation/issue.


Overwhelming emotions due to boredom at so-called work. ‘True’ overwhelming emotions though.

Karma. again.

Hahaha, I love karma jokes. Guess because I believe in it TOO much. 

Live it like it is

I was having a bad day until now. Actually I'll say HORRIBLE day. I am sitting in my room after my semesters. It was a bad paper. I can say without exaggeration that it was the worst paper I have taken in these two years in university.

I was cribbing about that to a couple of friends and feeling disappointed with myself till I decided to stumbleupon. And I saw this..



I remembered how I was talking about graduating a few days back.


Bad exams will pass. Come again (I am sure) and pass.
Meanwhile, I'll hold on and live. Right through. :)

Hahahahah. Karma.