She Shares Her Pain with Tears

[ Wee hours of Sunday morning, the 10^th, April 2016.In a firework mishap that broke out in the Puttingal Devi temple at Paravur in Kollam district, Kerala, 110 people got killed and 400-odd injured. Display of fireworks was held despite a ban imposed by the District Collector. Pankajakshi Amma, an 80-old octogenarian made the ban happen through a complaint she has been making for years. She got the ban, but, unfortunately, couldn’t stop the temple authorities from displaying the fireworks.]

*

She is Pankajakshi Amma, a native of the Paravur village – a village in the news for all wrong reasons. An octogenarian, she is crestfallen. Still in the grip of shock waves, she mumbles: “Had the temple authorities honored the ban and heard my plea…” She sighs, lets out an air of helplessness as if she is the cause of the Sunday chaos.

 Constantly in a stupor, she was not able to focus on her daily routine. For, her mind is still at the place where the tragedy happened.  Restless, she speaks in a non sequitur. No one including Praksh, her son, can decipher her mawkish monologues.

For the first time in her life she prays to the Puttingal Devi to take away her life as the goddess did with the victims of the Sunday mishap. In fact, after the gory fireworks blast that put out 110 precious human lives and injured around 400 persons, she is praying rather vigorously for the last five days.

 That the goddess didn’t bless the devotees at the end of the festival as per the prevailing custom make Pankajakshi miff at the Devi.  ‘You didn’t bless them, Devi, but burnt them as if they were a bunch of match sticks’, she says to herself in a voice tinged with dismay.

A cold sweat popped up in her forehead. Her constant crying for the last five days dry her eyes of tears. She now wishes she were one of those star-crossed people who got blazed in the firework mishap. When she thinks about the death of Surendran, the contractor, and his competitors who were responsible for the tragedy, her stomach churns. She feels like throwing up. Surendran who got 60 per cent burns died on the spot.

“Surendra, please don’t break the ban. Your competitive pyrotechnic display of fireworks will end only in disasters.” She could now remember telling him all through the Saturday. But all her pleas fell on deaf ears.

Her heart beats fast. She knows all is not well with it since she had angioplasty and open heart surgery years back. Her breath becomes hard and she feels her emaciated body trembles often. The grisly incident she saw on the Sunday last still rattles her nerves and makes her forlorn. ‘Don’t lose heart, lady. You did what you could,’ she hears a voice speak from her head and try to console her embittered mind.

‘How can I pull my heart when I still hear the piteous cries of people getting hit by swirls of flames and burnt out so  horribly,’ she moans.

She recalls a big blaze spread around a congregation and, in no time, the crowd got engulfed in flames. Their delight of watching the marvels of the firework soon turned into cries of death. Bombed by crackers and torched by balls of fire, they shrieked like hell.

  Charred bodies lay strewn all over the temple premise. The air got polluted and there wafted a nauseating odor all around. Bodies mutilated beyond recognition gave gruesome sight. She saw flames and columns of fire rose on all sides of the temple ground, which looked like a war ravaged zone.

 The power supply got snapped all of a sudden making it hard for the rescue team to continue their work. With the help of flashlights, all dead bodies got lifted to the waiting ambulances. Crowds of people were groping in the dark to find out their missing relatives/friends. Their heart piercing cries became unendurable when they identified their father or mother or sibling from charred or mutilated bodies. Shocked and shuddered, Pankajakshi covered her ears with the palms of her hands.

She cannot no longer stand. All the gruesome scenes of Sunday morning rush to her mind. They give her involuntary shudder. She feels a whiff of sea breeze brush her face. But it cannot repress the heat that is getting generated in her mind. Grabbing hold of her fast beating chest, she plonks on the pyol [platform built along the house wall that faces the street] that too got damaged in the firework disaster. The whole of the temple premise starting from her house is littered with heaps of papers – all remnants of burnt out crackers and, smoke is still billowing from them.

 A week went by since the catastrophe happened. Another Monday now bloomed. The Puttingal Devi temple is open and the goddess, decked up with fineries, now waits for her devotees. Pankajakshi goes into the sanctum and stand before the Devi with her eyes closed. She then comes out and circumambulate the outer prahar thrice.

When she steps into the road, it’s like a graveyard and people milling the temple looks like mourners. Holding a big leather bag in hands, she walks down the road towards the bus station.

“Ma,” she stops when she hears Prakash calls out her. He must have run all the way home, following her “Ma, where are you going?” He asks her, gasping for breath.

“Trivandrum, my child,” she whispers, patting on his head. To get a ban on the ensuing display of fireworks at Thrissur temple, I am going to file a writ petition in the High Court. Hope, the Court will grant the ban after what we had in Paravur last week.” She speaks in her downright tone with her usual enthusiasm.

“Ma, for god’s sake, don’t do that.” Prakash gets scared. Fear lurk in his eyes. “Did you forget ruffians bullied us of dire consequences in the wake of a ban you got for the display of fireworks in the Puttingal temple festival? Now they may kill all of us if they know what you are doing. Ma, please don’t go…” His voice fades away as he sees his mom leaves him with a jerk.

Holding her head high, Pankajakshi walks fast towards the bus station. For her, the cause she is fighting for is more important than her survival or for that matter the survival of her family.

*

  [This post happens when I begin to look at the tragedy through the eyes of the beleaguered Pankajakshi Amma. So, readers must not suppose the incident/conversations I have narrated above are true. A blogger, I dedicate this post as a tribute to the old woman and her continuing fight for a cause.]

Images courtesy: Google

A Nice Get Together in the Attic

It is a pleasant surprise for me to meet my grandma again. She is all smiles when she sees me coming to the place where she is sitting and relaxing. A place where she would take refuge after her day’s hard work.

Her translucent skin lights the darkroom. The big vermillion bindi she sports on her forehead adds luster to her face. It makes her look like a la goddess. Embers are still flickering in her eyes. And they burn all the grime in your mind when you go under her spell.

She walks gracefully towards me. When she comes close, her aura mesmerizes me.

“How are you, Easwar?” She hugs me warmly and smile – an ingratiating smile.

‘Granny, are you real? How come I had forgotten you all these years?’ I moan, feeling guilty. Seeing her after what seems ages excites me, as I dry my moist eyes with the back of the hands.

“You look so tired, my boy,” she says with a hollow voice. “Maybe, life is not kind to you; all its odds may be stifling you. It seems it has gulped my old vivacious, giggling Easwar.”

I stand before her speechless, nodding to her discerning remarks. I no longer feel distraught. For the comfort of my being with her so closely fill me with new energy and rejuvenation; my battered self gets completely repaired.

“How about taking a glass of masala milk?” she asks, staggers towards the kitchen.

“I don’t remember why it happened?” She adds while walking. “While I was boiling milk for you, I felt a pricking pain in my chest and fell into a long sleep. Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“Gram, you fell into an eternal sleep suddenly. No one at home, including Dad, could make you get up.” I blurted out concealing her having had a massive heart attack and succumbed to it instantly. But, she didn’t listen.

“Come on, boy. Finish off your milk. It is time for you to sleep. You are so tired that you keep yawning.” She is now staring at the wall searching for the antique Swiss wall clock. She doesn’t know that Dad had dumped it long back as it stopped working.

The room is dusty and grimy. I lay down on the rough-hewn floor, resting my head on the matriarch’s lap. She strokes my hair and start spinning stories. Ram, Lakshman, Arjun, Sindbad, Alibaba, Sakuni et al come one by one and  waits for granny’s calling. She is the real juggler of stories. In her tales, you may find Arjun sails with Sindbad and helps the later overcome the perils of travel.

After some digression, she catches her favorite story and narrates it with her usual animation.

A cow sees a lion roams the forest with insatiable hunger. Its hunger bangs wrench the bovine’s heart. When the starving animal’s ravenous roaring becomes more pitiful and unbearable, the cow goes to his den and asks him to eat her and quench his hunger.

The magnanimity of the cow mortifies the hungry lion. It hugs the cow for its kindness and lets her go. That the lion becomes more honest than humans, even during a crisis is the plot of grandma’s story. I know she always manufactures stories to instill honesty and integrity into our minds. Her tales are thus interspersed with fine principles of living, but we are, at that tender age, imbibed only the story lines not its messages.

The stories are going on and on with full steam. Granma’s fund of creativity never gets dry. I sleep jolly well as I did years back. I feel I am not what I was an hour ago. A heavenly abode, the old lady’s lap transforms me into a child again. I don’t seem like a man struggling with the vagaries of life.

“Hey, Easwar! What are you doing in the attic? It’s almost noon. Come down, man.” I hear my wife shout from downstairs.

And thus ends my pleasant sleep when I get up with a bang. But granny is not there. I rub my eyes and look around the attic. The old girl is not found anywhere in the attic or the terrace. I feel all the heroes of her stories are in suspended animation.

I spot my diary that I kept by my side an hour ago. It is an old, worn-out piece. Its yellowish, termites eaten pages are rustling in the wind. The attic where I now stand and search for grandma is laden with all my old journals – gateways to my old times.

Take out any diary, dust it and flip through its pages, I am sure you would meet my mom or dad or his ilk who have gone into eternal sleep. The diary I was peeping into minutes back is full of insights about grandma. Every word of my jotting brought her alive.

I know my darling grand old lady did not go anywhere. I am not aware if she lives in hell or heaven. But, for sure, she lives in the pages of my diaries. The moment I turn their pages, she will jump out of it like an angel and smile at me. She would either give me a handshake or shed a tear if she finds life is not kindly disposed to me.

Come on guys, make a trip to your attic and explore it whenever you get tired of life. A moth-eaten diary, a bleached black and white photograph or any miscellaneous trinket buried under the dust of the attic may stir you step into your old memories. And who knows, it may bring all your forgotten golden moments that may give your hearts a twinkle.

Images courtesy: Google

Phones are Smart but not the Young Folks

Why the youngsters take fancy to selfies?

If you ask such a question, you may get looked askance or presumed to be a person living in an den several notches below a go-getting world. Again, you may get branded an odd person coming from the medieval age. For, now, the modern world discovers a new gizmo every second and, remains littered with devices with amazing Apps.

This is the time when a tiny device, apart from being an instrument for communications, dabs even in creativity, making men and their minds irrelevant. Yes, a contemporary mobile phone is smarter than a genius.

It is the age of smart phones and it belongs to the youth. The advent of such phones, in a riot of colors and sizes, creates a different world for the teens and make social media their second homes. Selfies, an offshoot of smart mobiles, enliven the life of a youth now more than ever and engage himself all through the day and night.

When the word ‘selfie’ got into the teens’ vocabulary – it very well matches with the maimed English they speak and write --   the word ‘sharing’ too got a significant space in their diction as the young folks cherish sharing their selfies rather than clicking them. As vanity chums, they go an extra mile to display their selfies and make their clan envious

.Objects of selfies may be anything or everything under the sun; both animate and inanimate things. It may be a roaring sea, a quietly flowing stream, a celeb, a Hollywood Diva with wardrobe malfunctioning, a gruesome accident with its bleeding victims – you name it, the brats will click it. Not long back I got a display of a teenager in the social media. It was a selfie of him with a dog pissing at a lamp post. Good god, I am still to understand the meaning of such a shot.

Little guys who indulge in unabashed selfies even at the risk of their lives click bizarre things, share them in WhatsApp just to get innumerable likes. You may call it an act of vanity, but to them, it’s the adventure of a daredevil. But what they don’t figure out is that such cheap adventures may be fraught with dangers.

A few days back, a crazy young boy got into jail as he took a selfie with a woman DM and had a wordy duel with the reporters who objected to his snap shot. But, this youth was better than his counterpart in Chennai who got himself run over by a suburban train while clicking his selfie with the speeding train behind him. In yet another incident, a young man got thrashed blue when he took a selfie with a bathing transgender.

In yet another case of people bypassing their personal safety just to get a glamorous selfie, a man In Kerala got suddenly whacked by an elephant in his bid to take a photograph with the pachyderm.

One of the reasons that lead a stripling to clicking selfie is a sort of syndrome – attention seeking syndrome. Besides being narcissists, the youngsters are immature lots. For they display their selfies in the social media just to earn plaudits over their peers. They want to show their audacity to the world. And there they go, pitching in themselves to click their pictures with the things they are passionate about. Sadly, they are not conscious of the dangers that lurk behind them while they pursue their mad game.

A smart phone becomes a quintessential device for a teen. It is like his sixth finger – always inseparable. But such sixth finger, at times, becomes a killer demon and suck his/her life in a flash. A bud, thus gets wilted and dropped to the ground before its time is up for blooming.

Images Courtesy: Google

Hurtle the Time down the decades…

A young man’s hearty laughter: he is riding a bi-cycle along a decrepit village road full of potholes; a ball rolls down on your way kicked off by a hunk; this happens when you speed walk on the side of a playground just to shoot down your sugar level; now a different youngster slapping his friend on the back for munching a sugar candy when the national anthem is being played; another young chap who darts to a hospital carrying a small boy injured in a road accident.

All the young fellows you run into trigger your memories. They look like your alter egos. You become pensive, begin to see in them the adolescent you from whom you have walked away long back.

Rewind the time a bit; hurtle it down the decades; and there… you are, a stunning young man brimming with youth. A rugged man, you make life run errands for you. Adventure was then your vocation given a sturdy body and mind.

We want to be what we were once. Since the past is so yummy, we wish to cud chew it whenever life’s obstacles become insurmountable. When the goings on in life become tough, old memories offer us their sanctuaries. We, again, seek to blow up our memories into a bubble and live in it forever.

I used to take refuge in the cool shades of my retrospections when life becomes so hot and scalding.

Amen!

*

Sunday morning. Predawn bustle took over the home. I was sleeping jolly well. When the alarm clock shrieked at 5 a.m. I gave it a big punch. It became subdued. But not Papa. A man not to get discouraged by a single flop, he had many tricks under his sleeves just to chase me off the bed as soon as he got up.

Unmindful of the failure of the alarm piece that succumbed to my assault, he shuffled into my room like a thief. Pinching my forearm, he tried to wake me. But I did not yield to his machinations. Like the legendary Kumbhakarna, I got myself immersed in the ocean of sleep. One of the things you should never miss in life is the pleasantness of late morning sleep. Unfortunately, Papa had no inkling of it.

‘Would Papa engage a band of musician – who might play an assortment of instruments into my ears – or a herd of trumpeting elephant to make me jump out of the bed?’. Thoughts gushed as I was half-conscious.

 My honeymoon with the morning slumber continued until it rained in my room. ‘Rain!!! How could I get a rain inside the room? Was I hallucinating? No… I wasn’t. If it didn’t rain how come I get my face wet with water still dripping from my head?’ I moaned, saw Papa exit from my room holding a water jug in hand.

When I was about to resume my sleep, I saw a scrap of paper flutter in the hot air of the whirring ceiling fan. It was placed under the time piece. I dried my face in the bedspread, took out the paper and read it. It was from Papa.

“Easwar, don’t be lazy. How long will you sleep? It has been hell of time since the day dawned. Your late morning sleep makes the sun squirm. If a bird becomes a despicable slug like you and sleep late in the morning, it could never get a worm or two. Will go without feed. If you don’t get up now, I will toss you on to the road.

Get up, moron.

Papa”

‘Huh… why Papa tortures me like this on every Sunday, thwarting my indulgence to sleep a bit late’. I grimaced, turned my head to the table. My pen wasn’t there. Only got a blunt pencil. Turning to the back of the paper where Papa reproached me for my long sleep, I scratched something that occurred to me then.

Another hour flew. I was straddling sleep and wakefulness. Soon, my room got jam packed. I writhed in pain when a rain of slapping lashed at my butt. I screamed, sat up and saw all my family, including my septuagenarian grandma crowded around me. They looked askance at me as if I was a crab.

I now heard Kala, my sister, read what I wrote and, she did this at the instance of Papa.

“Papa, why don’t you allow me to sleep late in the morning even on Sundays? You know those who oversleep are smarter than the early risers? I don’t eat worms as I am a human, not a bird. The sun comes to work early as his father may nag him like you. Papa, don’t you have any work worth doing. The barn in the backyard clutter with heaps of uncleaned cow dung. You’d better go there and clean it. Don’t fiddle with my sleep.

Easwar.”

I heard a riot of laughter break out when my sister finished reading the stuff I wrote. While my family was chortling at the discomfiture of Papa, I curled myself on the bed again, pulled the blanket, covered it on my face and began snoring.

*

 This is another bout of memory The World Sleep Day unfolds and, it helps me find out the adolescent boy I have lost in the sea of time. I love those recollections that make me smile no matter what is going on in my life now.

Guys, try to walk into your past once in a while just to see how sweet it is.

 Images courtesy: Google

When Traitors become Martyrs, Nationalists become ‘Hooligans’

The JNU imbroglio hurt me too. I felt provoked as if a lunatic smacked my mom and made her bleed. Given below is what I wrote in my journal when India-bashing was at its peak at some of the educational institutions.

Read on:

*

It was to Afzal Guru’s discomfiture that the Indian security forces thwarted his bid to raze the Parliament down. I could still remember Promod Mahajan hurriedly runs along the corridors of the Parliament with worried looks. He was so scared of what was happening around him.

There were human losses in the terrorist attack. But still, Guru might have been disgusted of his not being able to bring more anarchy to the Parliament as planned. He would have been even cheerful at the time of hanging, had he known that a herd of misguided young men would come soon, resurrect him from his grave and glorify him a martyr. Sure, we have in our midst such prats; such a bunch of devil worshippers.

I know Guru is dead and gone. But the breed of saboteurs, he left behind is still at work. They are onto his agenda to finish the work he started. Their infiltration into the highest seats of the country’s learning can vouchsafe what they are after.

Their purpose is not to bring mayhem to the University campuses through a series of bomb blasts. But, they engage themselves in doing more abominable act than physically wrecking the educational institutions they encroach. Yes, they begin tinkering youngsters there, sowing wild oats in their minds and turning them potential dangers to the nation’s sovereignty.

That is why we see a cluster of ill-advised young chaps at the JNU and other Varsities sing paeans to Afzal Guru and his ilk and heap indignities on their motherland. The bizarre slogans shouted against India at the JNU is not a freak incident, but a well-planned campaign. Thus the fringe who indulge in anti-country antics transform traitors into martyrs; anarchists into heroes.

This may be due to the handiwork of infiltrators. But what I cannot understand is, can indoctrination can go to such an extent of making innocent students a bundle of jerks? Can it make them slight their homeland and kiss the feet of terrorists? Yes, it did and would do if the nation is not on its guard.

Pitifully, anti-govt media and some revisionist ideologues defend the students’ sloganeering saying they are only exercising their right to speak and it is not an affront to India’s unity.

It is still puzzling to know why the opposition parties are silent over such campus fracas. Why don’t they condemn the smear campaign carried against the nation at the JNU during a cultural programme? Tragically, the granny Congress too – they ruled the country for a hell of time and knows what unity means to India – is not getting provoked by such anti-India tirade. May be, the party looks at this issue as fodder for their guns always trained against the ruling BJP.

Comrades, left or right, would always like to grind their own axes in the Indian political arena. I hear them shrill, too on the JNU issue. But, it is not to pull up the students for their backstabbing the nation. Nor for their singing hallelujah to the terrorists. They hop on the campus turmoil only to defend their students’ unions who are said to be accomplices to the anti-national fringe.

Berserk goes the media, especially those of the visual ones. Wedded to sensationalism, their primary concern is to either retain or expand their share of viewership. So, it becomes necessary for them to pitch in themselves against the ruling party come what may. So, when a herd of students heap indignities on India at the JNU, they manufacture their own version of the episode. They call people hooligans, Modi toadies, Patriotic freaks who condemn the fringe for throwing invectives at the nation.

The intellectuals also go wayward and buy the media’s rubbish. Their phobia against the ruling party make them invent a series of reasons to justify students adoring terrorists and maligning India. Their hostility to the govt is so strong that they don’t see the elephant in the room.

And that is the story of nationalists becoming hooligans. Anti- govt turkeys still continue to hound them for not towing their lines on JNU’s hoopla. No conscientious Indian will buy their ‘right to speech’ stuff. For, we know they lean on Constitution only to save those who are out to destroy India. We also know the social and political philosophy they teach reeks of despicable anti-nationalism.

The Delhi HC has since granted bail to Kanhaiya Kumar. He is now back to the JNU. Thanks to the efforts of a callous media, he is now a cult figure. Writers of substance vie with one another in giving him a halo of heroship.

Though I get upset seeing the nation celebrating his release from the jail, my spirit of nationalism gets emboldened when I read the remarks of the Hon’ble Judge while giving bail to Kanhaiya.

Excerpts from the judgment:

 “Freedom of speech guaranteed to the citizens of this country under the Constitution of India has enough room for every citizen to follow his own ideology or political affiliation within the framework of our constitution. While dealing with the bail application of the petitioner, it has to be kept in mind by all concerned that they are enjoying this freedom only because our borders are guarded by our armed and paramilitary forces. Our forces are protecting our frontiers in the most difficult terrain in the world i.e. Siachen Glacier or Rann of Kutch.”

“The thoughts reflected in the slogans raised by some of the students of JNU who organized and participated in that programme cannot be claimed to be protected as fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression. I consider this as a kind of infection from which such students are suffering which needs to be controlled/cured before it becomes an epidemic,”

 “”Raising anti-national slogans do have the effect of threatening national integrity. The kind of slogans raised may have demoralizing effect on the family of those martyrs who returned home in a coffin draped in the tricolor, the Judge observed.”

Jai Hind

Image courtesy: Google

Are You a la Confucius?

Have you quit beating your wife?

It is a loaded question, put forth to a man to trap him. It tries to taunt him even when he answers the question in either way – affirmative or negative. But the contemporary man is very clever. Known for circumventing things, he will simply brush aside the question with a smile. For he knows he cannot even raise his hand against the woman at home as the DVA 2005 stares at him constantly.

 But, a man from the Victorian era would be more honest. He would, without any hesitation, take this question in his stride and answer it in the negative. For, back in centuries, husbands had the privilege of beating their wives. But the stick they use for beating should not be longer than their thumbs. They called it a ‘thumb rule. And the savage male society cherished having such a rule.

Good god, womenfolk was not allowed to move in bed even during intimate movements not to speak of moaning or groaning.

Confucius must be mad when he said:

“The woman’s duty is to prostrate herself submissively before her husband in such a way as to have no will of her own, but to demonstrate a perfect form of obedience.”

 The society got wild oats sown in its midst because of the Chinese philosopher. He was only responsible for the emerging of the patriarchs and the misogynist clan in later years. I guess Confucius’s spirit had not gone anywhere. That the thinker’s spirit got hold of a former UP CM became evident when he refused to condemn a gang of rapists, but cherished calling them as ‘boys are boys’.

Women were like personal effects of males in the bygone centuries. Heeding to Confucius’s advice, the patriarchal society made women subservient to them. Even Eve knew the agony of being a woman as soon as god created her. While munching an apple, she heard a voice telling her, ‘He [Adam] shall rule over you’. Shakespeare and Milton too told the women ‘to keep silent, be modest and accept a lesser place.

At last the inevitable that was in boil had exploded.  When oppressed women rose in rebellion it was like bomb blasts. It became necessary for the 18^th century women just show to the society that there existed another human species called ‘Woman.’ They had to wage many battles before getting them released from men’s cages. Their organized strength and indomitable spirit won them not full freedom, but a semblance of esteem.

The birth of the 20^th century was like spring for women. For women folks who were chattels, at last, heard gratifying words like ‘freedom for women’,’ women’s empowerment’ et al. They are now free to scale the walls set for men. There are now no domains exclusively ear marked for the male. Fair sex can grab them and pitch in their tents with flourish. They now don’t have to fear about Confucius, who had once commanded them to kiss the men’s feet.

But the euphoria and exhilaration the present century gave women was short lived. It was to the discomfiture of women that only a minimal percentage of them are able to climb the higher rungs of society and enter men’s turfs. A vast majority of unlettered and economically deprived women is still at the mercy of their spouses for survival. Like their counterparts in the Victorian era, they too are getting beaten by their partners not with the proverbial thumb-like sticks, but iron rods.

They say Confucius is dead and gone. They claim there is all round progress in women’s life. And the chains that tied them to stakes have already been broken. Free birds, they could now fly anywhere in search of new horizons.

All hyperbole. If women are in such eminent positions, why there is a law to protect them against violence? Why we needed to get a Statue amended to prevent harassment against them in work places? Why women are denied entry to temples following the 400 year traditional ban? Patriarchal society might have cast off its anti-woman outfits, but not their mindsets. Most men have Confucius lurks in their minds who would come out on demand.

Deepa is a smart young lady, a go-getter. An executive in an MNC she earns handsome pay. Her family too is affluent. A chirpy young woman she gets her life derailed past marriage. Having a drunken ape for a husband, she gets thrashed daily for trivial reasons. Life becomes so thorny for her that it gives her only bruises and wounds.

Parvathy, our maid, is not like Deepa. Uneducated, she is homebound, looking after her three children. Her husband, though a labor, earns a decent daily wage. But he spends his earnings on drinks and cherish being drunken all through day and night. On the days when he has no work, he would pester Parvathy for money and beat her black and blue.

Of the two, Deepa could hit back at her hubby and walk out on him. But she is silent, helpless. Since she doesn’t want the society to look askance at her – she is very much scared of the social stigma as her caste is not kindly disposed to single women – she chooses to live in her marital home. She is ready to get mortified … ready to bear with her husband’s physical assaults. She doesn’t give a damn to her emotional and psychological damage.

Parvathy is not bound by any social stigma like Deepa. But, she too cannot avoid putting up with a hellish life as she is emotionally and financially dependent on her husband.

Enacting more laws won’t solve women’s troubles and trials. It is time for men to change their Confucius-oriented mindset against women. They should assist the weaker sex set their sails towards a new world of freedom.

Women too need to treat the world as their own. They don’t have to feel they are living in that slice of the world leased out to them by men. They could live their own life, not the one expected by the society. For, besides seeking happiness and love they must strive to find themselves in life. The world waiting outside their homes can be explored and tamed only if they become ferocious tigresses not timid chicks.

Happy Women’s Day.

Dr. Kalam is no more --- nation in tears

Dr. Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam is no more. When I heard about his sudden demise – he collapsed and succumbed to a massive heart attack while addressing the IIM students Shillong, an end so happened as he wished – I felt like having lost one of my close family members. I could feel a sudden vacuum enveloping the country. That way Dr. Kalam had been connecting himself with every Indian and had created a niche for him in every Indian home. For he was humane and his demeanor and deportment were such that a common man from a remote village was able to identify himself with Kalam. He abhorred ostentation. He was never putting on airs though he had held prestigious positions during his lifetime. A man among men, he proved the epithet true through the way he lived and the cause he espoused for India.

Always a humble being – simplicity and honesty were his hallmarks -- he stood tall amidst his contemporaries. This was not because of his being a missile man; not because he was once the President of the country; and not because of his being the recipient of the Bharat Ratna and other awards, but because he was a simple human being, a simple man with high and fabulous ideals, a simple man who dreamed of India becoming a giant among nations. He wanted India to be strong because, as he said, ‘only strength respects strength.’ He inspired the nation, mostly the youngsters, with his mind stirring speeches and writing. A great teacher, he had students always swarmed him as they cherished to get connected with him. His efforts to shape the young and make them redefine the course of the country by imparting to them worthy tenets placed him in high pedestal in the heart of the nation.

His striking frankness, outspokenness and flair for calling a spade a spade, though remarkable traits, didn’t bring him any plum job after he demitted the presidential position in 2007. A man of integrity, Kalam found the political arena an albatross and the politicians as Machiavellians.  This was the reason why no political party sponsored him for the presidential election for 2^nd time. Of course, Kalam accepted what destiny offered him as he refused to be a slab of a dirty political meat.

Post presidency, Kalam didn’t tie himself up to a homely tether. He didn’t relax or recuperate as his counterparts did. Stirred by the call of a new duty, a new responsibility, he thought, he owed to the country’s youth, he was always on his legs. He traveled the length and breadth of the country, met youngsters, interacted with them, with a flourish, and imparted to them the fine values of life. He said: ‘we will be remembered if we give to our younger generations a prosperous and safe India, resulting out of economic prosperity coupled with civilizational heritage.’ Younger generation of the country enamored of the new inspiration they got from Kalam saw in him their new messiah.

Kalam was not an individual but an institution; a one man army that tried to reform the youth, and, through them, make India more assertive and strong. Unfortunately it didn’t occur to him to channelize the new energy and power he created among the youth. I thought, many times, Kalam, using the potent youth power, will start a movement on the lines of Jeyaprakash Narayan’s ‘Total Revolution’ sans politics. Such a movement would have fortified the nation and healed off its ugliness. For reasons best known to him, Kalam didn’t go for such an evolution. Instead, he cherished being a teacher. India, thus lost a momentum and I don’t know how long it has to wait for the happening of another one.

While a silent and shocked nation witnessed with tears, Kalam was laid to rest in Rameswaram, his home town, and ‘a punya bhoomi’ [sacred earth] that – according to Hindu Mythology -- got the footprints of Lord Ram imprinted on its soil. A real tribute our grateful nation could pay to Kalam is to live up to his teachings, which he taught with fervor and hope.

May his noble soul RIP.