Yes, I'm blogging after the longest time. NOT like I had nothing to write about. just plain plain lazy. Hmm so last I posted was around the swine flu break. Lots of things have changed!
I've at some points tried to observe 'patterns' in my life. I'd concluded that the happiest things are always the most unexpected ones, the ones which completely take you by surprise. Well, conclusion arrived at was true. :) Touchwood.
I've also firmly concluded that when things are going really, really bad, something really really good is also in store for one. I saw a bit of really really bad. Lol, had this horrendous submission which deserves a post by itself. If it werent for a bunch of stunning friends, would never have submitted. And it ultimately worked out :)
I've also travelled a LOT. As in, for me a LOT. Ok so in the break went to Ahmedabad and Udaipur. Really really nice. Then Bombay (home :)), then back to Bangalore. Then, went to Oxford, London, Cambridge. :) Really really nice. I remember when I came to know I would be going there, it seemed so surreal. I couldnt believe that I was actually going there. I've grown up reading books by English authors (way better than American authors in my opinion), and well it seemed like I already knew the place. All the names seemed so familiar! So I liked London. And Oxford. Cambridge was pretty but preferred Oxford. Simultaneously, missed India a LOT. I never thought I would be this kind of a person. Missing India so much. Nonetheless it's happened to me before, and happened when I went to England too. Missed 'my people'. Everyone seems a stranger abroad. I keep on thinking, so if I fall sick, fall on the road, will anyone here even care? Also it was bloody cold. I can't stand too much cold.
Currently I'm in a daze in re the way the trimester is going. I'm doing something which involves a LOT of work. I like it. Sometimes get motivated and work like mad. Sometimes find it boring or not inspiring enough. :( Plus I'm off almost everything else. Currently I'm sitting in the library and writing this, and it's Christmas. Past two years have gone home for Christmas. Not this year. Sigh. However have met two awesome people courtesy work. So it's all good. :)
Oh yes have completed two and a half years in college. Halfway down hence. Lovely feeling :) I look at my batch and think, wow so much has changed. People have changed. Different relationships, different priorities, different cliques (ok wait latter's remained almost constant for most people).
And I'm listening to new music! My shady new music is always there, yes. However courtesy someone have been getting exposed to awesome new kinds of music, lovely lovely :) And my Secret Santa from class gifted me Wolf Hall, which I've been lusting for for a long time. :)
Things I want right NOW? Watch Avatar, 3 Idiots, settle down to a nice book, watch more movies present on my laptop for the longest time, extermination of pimples (sigh, I NEVER get them usually), and other stuff. :)
Things I aspire for? Getting more work done, a better sleep cycle, more healthy living. Sigh.
Ok so this post has been more of an 'update' post. Generally, concluding observation is that life can be so unexpectedly awesome.
Update
Ok apparently people are unable to comment on this blog
*struggle between sticking to this new pretty awesome template and switching back to boring blogspot template ensues*
Sigh.
Oh I came across someone who feels just the same way about law school too!
I also came across someone who couldn't believe that I like law school now; aah it feels good to know that one has changed for the better!
Touchwood!
*struggle between sticking to this new pretty awesome template and switching back to boring blogspot template ensues*
Sigh.
Oh I came across someone who feels just the same way about law school too!
I also came across someone who couldn't believe that I like law school now; aah it feels good to know that one has changed for the better!
Touchwood!
I don't know what to name this post
So well I think I blog only in holidays.
So I have an unexpected swine flu break; which is prima facie awesome because it is HOME as opposed to LAW SCHOOL. However while I'm 'decently loving it' I miss college! This is slightly weird because I have a very busy trimester this time; and I KNOW tons of work awaits me when I hit B'lore. However I still miss it! See I usually have always loved home (except I think first ever Oct hols when I was missing coll dreadfully), but I think one needs to be away from it for some considerable amount of time to actually miss it, need it etc etc. Is it the same for lovers; i.e. does absence actually make the heart grow fonder? Dunno. Anyway, coming back to original topic, as I was saying, home needs to be wanted really badly to be appreciated. Plus even though I have tons of work to do and I've spent these nights (and days) utterly frustrated / sad / irritated / tense about impossible deadlines and jam packed weekends (and I know I'm going to be like that even when I go back), I had mentally prepared myself for the same at the start of trim. So this sudden break acted as a total speed breaker (I canNOT believe I'm giving driving analogies), and here I am at home. And now experiencing complete inertia of rest. So when these 'hols' end I know I'm going to hate going back. Sigh. I believe I'm contradicted myself throughout this paragraph. I think it's a consequence of always, always thinking the grass is greener on the other side; a trait which I must get rid of.
However, on a more positive note, I have managed to get rid of this trait when I think of law school. There have been times in the last 2 yrs when I've simply hated law school (have, I admit, cried on the last day of hols once) and have wanted to scamper off home and have regretted decision to not simply do a Bachelor in Arts. Now, I love law school! Yes it has these idiotic deadlines, numerous submissions, crazy people... but I cannot imagine not interacting with these ppl on a day to day basis. I live with these people ya. Another batch graduated this year, meeting them made me sad about them leaving and about me leaving too! Is 5 yrs enough?!
Touchwood, I'll always be like that about college :)
Ooh please notice - got new template!
So I have an unexpected swine flu break; which is prima facie awesome because it is HOME as opposed to LAW SCHOOL. However while I'm 'decently loving it' I miss college! This is slightly weird because I have a very busy trimester this time; and I KNOW tons of work awaits me when I hit B'lore. However I still miss it! See I usually have always loved home (except I think first ever Oct hols when I was missing coll dreadfully), but I think one needs to be away from it for some considerable amount of time to actually miss it, need it etc etc. Is it the same for lovers; i.e. does absence actually make the heart grow fonder? Dunno. Anyway, coming back to original topic, as I was saying, home needs to be wanted really badly to be appreciated. Plus even though I have tons of work to do and I've spent these nights (and days) utterly frustrated / sad / irritated / tense about impossible deadlines and jam packed weekends (and I know I'm going to be like that even when I go back), I had mentally prepared myself for the same at the start of trim. So this sudden break acted as a total speed breaker (I canNOT believe I'm giving driving analogies), and here I am at home. And now experiencing complete inertia of rest. So when these 'hols' end I know I'm going to hate going back. Sigh. I believe I'm contradicted myself throughout this paragraph. I think it's a consequence of always, always thinking the grass is greener on the other side; a trait which I must get rid of.
However, on a more positive note, I have managed to get rid of this trait when I think of law school. There have been times in the last 2 yrs when I've simply hated law school (have, I admit, cried on the last day of hols once) and have wanted to scamper off home and have regretted decision to not simply do a Bachelor in Arts. Now, I love law school! Yes it has these idiotic deadlines, numerous submissions, crazy people... but I cannot imagine not interacting with these ppl on a day to day basis. I live with these people ya. Another batch graduated this year, meeting them made me sad about them leaving and about me leaving too! Is 5 yrs enough?!
Touchwood, I'll always be like that about college :)
Ooh please notice - got new template!
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I cannot get over this picture. Photography is such a beautiful art. This one is by Henri Cartier Bresson.
Family Matters
No, this post is not going to be about Mistry's book. It's going to be a random chronicle of observations made on a recent trip to Lucknow (where mum hails from) and Arrah (town in Bihar) where Dad hails from – all being done so that I write something on this blog at the least! It’s not been updated for the longest time.
So though all of my parents’ siblings no longer stay in Lucknow and Arrah (save for one) I have quite some distant family living there. Besides my grandparents and the house in which my dad grew up in is still there in Arrah. So essentially, I was swamped in family and family matters :).
Firstly, trip was overall a LOT of fun! I met tons of relatives and received lots of compliments (:D) and a lot of five hundred and one rupees and hundred and one rupees! So even managed to make a neat haul :D Apart from that, I've realised I genuinely enjoy meeting family. There is ALWAYS so much family gossip! I really understand now why serials like Kyunki Saas were such a major hit. There are also really nice stories about how things were back in some age, how "papa was when he was your age" stories! I also got to see some lovely black and white photographs of grandmas and great grandpas when they were young.
Secondly, I've realised that there's a whole lot of truth to the statement that marriages form the bedrock of society. They also form the core of family gossip. Every, EVERY meeting with some old family friend or member, involved some marriage gupshup. About how X is marrying Y against her family's wishes, about how good or bad the hospitality was at A's wedding, about how B never got invited to his own sister's daughter's wedding because of some fallout.
I also realized that dowry is very very much prevalent in Indian society, irrespective of whether there is a law preventing the same or not. It’s terribly disgusting and abhorrent but is yet a sad reality. So there was a lot of talk about how the boy’s family made the girl’s family give a dowry which comprised, inter alia, 12 lakh rupees, an AC, a car etc etc. An old servant at my grandparent’s place was explaining how the ‘system’ works. Basically, marriages reduce the girl’s family to nothing. It does not matter what the complexion of the groom is, the bride however must be ‘milky white’. If not, pay an additional lakh as ‘compensation’. The man who was telling us, had his generator (a very very essential device in a city where out of 24 hours there is no electricity for roughly 20 hours) lifted away by the groom’s family when they had come visiting. This in addition to the lakhs of money he had already paid. He also told us which profession is valued most in the ‘marriage market’. So it’s the IAS, IPS and the IFS officers who fetch the most dowries in the market. A P.O. (a Probational Officer or some such thing) in a bank is next. While privatization and liberalization arrived in India in the 90s, they haven’t percolated to the marriage market yet. Hence, males in the private sector fetch lesser dowry than the aforementioned. Therefore an engineer is valued lesser than a PO. Lawyers (and here he looked at me with a rueful smile) are at the bottom of the market (here my mum hastily intoned, “In our days, only they did law who could not do anything else”). My grandmother also told me about near relations, who were getting their daughter married. The girl met most of the criteria, except she was a tad too short. So ‘compensation’ was required. The family didn’t have so much money. The brother of the bride then offered to marry the sister of the groom (it’s called ‘gulat’ or some such thing), as that would result in a cancelling of most of the dowry amount…!
Hearing so many stories every day of a six day visit can certainly boggle the mind. Such stories really makes it clear how difficult it is to remove practise of such well-entrenched ‘customs’, legalizing something or ‘illegalising’ something is indeed only the first step. Moving on to lighter things, I saw a wide array of animals on the trip...! My grandparents’s house (I guess I could call it my ancestral house) is HUGE and is extremely open with courtyards in the centre etc. Consequently our house is in a lot of ways a place to take an afternoon siesta or to spend the night in for many varied animals. And I tend to be scared of anything which moves (except most human beings :D) (I use this line too often, I know!). Therefore it was a horrendous time for me when I chanced upon a mongoose (yes), many monkeys (I know), mice, rats (I saw my first rat there right after I read the word ‘rodent’ in some novel!) and baby rats !! Baby rats are the size of a deflated balloon and look like that too. They’re all pink with tiny limbs and one must be careful to not step on them. I felt extremely spooked out after I saw them, I will be frank enough to say that the sight of them made me feel squishy and weird. Sigh. Oh I obviously saw the traditional cow and elephant on the street, and even a camel!
Altogether, nice trip, but I’m glad to be home :) Now before I ramble too much, I’m abruptly ending this post now! I will try to write something better later! I think the holidays have dulled my senses and made my brain cells umm not work :D
Oh random part (if it can get more random) of the post –
1. I’m excited about Vikram Seth’s sequel to A Suitable Boy.
2. THREE of my FIRST cousins are getting married (yay) – but ALL in November, when I will be in law school! I really really want to attend all of them (I have been wanting to go to a family wedding for ages now, the last I attended was back in ’97), however we can only miss three classes in each subject (making that 12 classes in all as there are 4 subjects in each trimester) in a trimester without losing marks :( And the weddings and receptions are all in different places. One wedding is in Udaipur, another in Chennai, another in Chandigarh, and two receptions are in Delhi, and one in Udaipur. And a second cousin might get married too! The wedding will be in delhi, and the reception mostly in Pune! I cannot get over the unfairness of it all:( Apparently, it’s awesome mahurat in November :D However if I had my way, all weddings would be in February when we have hols!
So though all of my parents’ siblings no longer stay in Lucknow and Arrah (save for one) I have quite some distant family living there. Besides my grandparents and the house in which my dad grew up in is still there in Arrah. So essentially, I was swamped in family and family matters :).
Firstly, trip was overall a LOT of fun! I met tons of relatives and received lots of compliments (:D) and a lot of five hundred and one rupees and hundred and one rupees! So even managed to make a neat haul :D Apart from that, I've realised I genuinely enjoy meeting family. There is ALWAYS so much family gossip! I really understand now why serials like Kyunki Saas were such a major hit. There are also really nice stories about how things were back in some age, how "papa was when he was your age" stories! I also got to see some lovely black and white photographs of grandmas and great grandpas when they were young.
Secondly, I've realised that there's a whole lot of truth to the statement that marriages form the bedrock of society. They also form the core of family gossip. Every, EVERY meeting with some old family friend or member, involved some marriage gupshup. About how X is marrying Y against her family's wishes, about how good or bad the hospitality was at A's wedding, about how B never got invited to his own sister's daughter's wedding because of some fallout.
I also realized that dowry is very very much prevalent in Indian society, irrespective of whether there is a law preventing the same or not. It’s terribly disgusting and abhorrent but is yet a sad reality. So there was a lot of talk about how the boy’s family made the girl’s family give a dowry which comprised, inter alia, 12 lakh rupees, an AC, a car etc etc. An old servant at my grandparent’s place was explaining how the ‘system’ works. Basically, marriages reduce the girl’s family to nothing. It does not matter what the complexion of the groom is, the bride however must be ‘milky white’. If not, pay an additional lakh as ‘compensation’. The man who was telling us, had his generator (a very very essential device in a city where out of 24 hours there is no electricity for roughly 20 hours) lifted away by the groom’s family when they had come visiting. This in addition to the lakhs of money he had already paid. He also told us which profession is valued most in the ‘marriage market’. So it’s the IAS, IPS and the IFS officers who fetch the most dowries in the market. A P.O. (a Probational Officer or some such thing) in a bank is next. While privatization and liberalization arrived in India in the 90s, they haven’t percolated to the marriage market yet. Hence, males in the private sector fetch lesser dowry than the aforementioned. Therefore an engineer is valued lesser than a PO. Lawyers (and here he looked at me with a rueful smile) are at the bottom of the market (here my mum hastily intoned, “In our days, only they did law who could not do anything else”). My grandmother also told me about near relations, who were getting their daughter married. The girl met most of the criteria, except she was a tad too short. So ‘compensation’ was required. The family didn’t have so much money. The brother of the bride then offered to marry the sister of the groom (it’s called ‘gulat’ or some such thing), as that would result in a cancelling of most of the dowry amount…!
Hearing so many stories every day of a six day visit can certainly boggle the mind. Such stories really makes it clear how difficult it is to remove practise of such well-entrenched ‘customs’, legalizing something or ‘illegalising’ something is indeed only the first step. Moving on to lighter things, I saw a wide array of animals on the trip...! My grandparents’s house (I guess I could call it my ancestral house) is HUGE and is extremely open with courtyards in the centre etc. Consequently our house is in a lot of ways a place to take an afternoon siesta or to spend the night in for many varied animals. And I tend to be scared of anything which moves (except most human beings :D) (I use this line too often, I know!). Therefore it was a horrendous time for me when I chanced upon a mongoose (yes), many monkeys (I know), mice, rats (I saw my first rat there right after I read the word ‘rodent’ in some novel!) and baby rats !! Baby rats are the size of a deflated balloon and look like that too. They’re all pink with tiny limbs and one must be careful to not step on them. I felt extremely spooked out after I saw them, I will be frank enough to say that the sight of them made me feel squishy and weird. Sigh. Oh I obviously saw the traditional cow and elephant on the street, and even a camel!
Altogether, nice trip, but I’m glad to be home :) Now before I ramble too much, I’m abruptly ending this post now! I will try to write something better later! I think the holidays have dulled my senses and made my brain cells umm not work :D
Oh random part (if it can get more random) of the post –
1. I’m excited about Vikram Seth’s sequel to A Suitable Boy.
2. THREE of my FIRST cousins are getting married (yay) – but ALL in November, when I will be in law school! I really really want to attend all of them (I have been wanting to go to a family wedding for ages now, the last I attended was back in ’97), however we can only miss three classes in each subject (making that 12 classes in all as there are 4 subjects in each trimester) in a trimester without losing marks :( And the weddings and receptions are all in different places. One wedding is in Udaipur, another in Chennai, another in Chandigarh, and two receptions are in Delhi, and one in Udaipur. And a second cousin might get married too! The wedding will be in delhi, and the reception mostly in Pune! I cannot get over the unfairness of it all:( Apparently, it’s awesome mahurat in November :D However if I had my way, all weddings would be in February when we have hols!
On Domestic Violence: The Bell Bajao Campaign
The past year in law school, somehow, I've done / read a lot of stuff relating to domestic violence (DV). My first tryst with anything related to domestic violence was an internship at this place called Majlis, in Bombay. Majlis is an NGO fighting for women's rights in various spheres and was started by Flavia Agnes. It was a wonderful experience, and though it may sound cliched, the internship was an eye opener.
I then did a project on DV in Crim Law I. I also studied it in Family Law I. And roomie gifted a book, Strange Fits of Passion, by Anita Shreve, which is a wonderful insight into what goes through the mind of a victim. In the book, the central character is 'free' in the sense that she at any point does have the liberty to go to the police and report the case. So at times, while reading the book, you would ask yourself - why the hell isn't she doing that? However she is so terrorised of her husband (she keeps on saying, "He'll kill me") that she doesn't. She chooses to flee to another town with her baby and live incognito, but she doesn't report the case. I won't tell you how the book ends, but I would recommend it to you all (thankoo momo :)!).
Domestic violence cases are complex in the sense that they deal with something which happens behind closed doors. I've never come across anyone who I know personally and has been a victim - but something does need to be done about it. So this post is about the 'Bell Bajao' Campaign. Some of you might have seen the ad on TV, which in my opinion is a piece of brilliant advertising work(done by Ogilvy & Mather). Boman Irani's in his house, but he can hear shouts etc from a neighbouring house - one can make out that the woman is being battered. So he goes up to the house, rings the bell. There is silence. Then the man opens the house. And Irani asks, "Can I use your phone?". The man looks sheepish, very. And as far as I can remember, the ad ends. It goes without saying that the ad does have a lot more to it - visual impact etc is awesome :)
So well, while this does not suggest a long term solution obviously, I really think it's a nice innovative idea. To be honest, I've never done much of social work - have always been too lazy to take any kind of initiative. When I saw the ad though, I was really enthused. It's a nice idea which does not require much of one. As DV is a crime which happens inside the house, proving the same is difficult. With the advent of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, the law has changed dramatically. Nonetheless I'm not too sure whether much has actually changed or not. Also while legal action is one option, a simple ringing of a bell, consequently making the abuser aware of the fact that everyone knows, an action which threatens and corners him and one which should ideally lead to a phone call to the cops, can change things. So I really do hope that I help. And would want you all to too!
The link of the campaign's website is -
http://www.bellbajao.org/index.php
Ok now time for my 'I like' thing. Ok currently, I like my birthday presents :D Birthday was on the 11th of this month, and got some really nice gifts from 'frands'. Sigh. I LOVE birthdays because of this! Yes I'm horribly materialistic and LOVE gifts :D Thank you so much to aforementioned frands and to everyone else for all the wishes (yes yes I LOVE them too, not that materialistic!)!
I then did a project on DV in Crim Law I. I also studied it in Family Law I. And roomie gifted a book, Strange Fits of Passion, by Anita Shreve, which is a wonderful insight into what goes through the mind of a victim. In the book, the central character is 'free' in the sense that she at any point does have the liberty to go to the police and report the case. So at times, while reading the book, you would ask yourself - why the hell isn't she doing that? However she is so terrorised of her husband (she keeps on saying, "He'll kill me") that she doesn't. She chooses to flee to another town with her baby and live incognito, but she doesn't report the case. I won't tell you how the book ends, but I would recommend it to you all (thankoo momo :)!).
Domestic violence cases are complex in the sense that they deal with something which happens behind closed doors. I've never come across anyone who I know personally and has been a victim - but something does need to be done about it. So this post is about the 'Bell Bajao' Campaign. Some of you might have seen the ad on TV, which in my opinion is a piece of brilliant advertising work(done by Ogilvy & Mather). Boman Irani's in his house, but he can hear shouts etc from a neighbouring house - one can make out that the woman is being battered. So he goes up to the house, rings the bell. There is silence. Then the man opens the house. And Irani asks, "Can I use your phone?". The man looks sheepish, very. And as far as I can remember, the ad ends. It goes without saying that the ad does have a lot more to it - visual impact etc is awesome :)
So well, while this does not suggest a long term solution obviously, I really think it's a nice innovative idea. To be honest, I've never done much of social work - have always been too lazy to take any kind of initiative. When I saw the ad though, I was really enthused. It's a nice idea which does not require much of one. As DV is a crime which happens inside the house, proving the same is difficult. With the advent of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, the law has changed dramatically. Nonetheless I'm not too sure whether much has actually changed or not. Also while legal action is one option, a simple ringing of a bell, consequently making the abuser aware of the fact that everyone knows, an action which threatens and corners him and one which should ideally lead to a phone call to the cops, can change things. So I really do hope that I help. And would want you all to too!
The link of the campaign's website is -
http://www.bellbajao.org/index.php
Ok now time for my 'I like' thing. Ok currently, I like my birthday presents :D Birthday was on the 11th of this month, and got some really nice gifts from 'frands'. Sigh. I LOVE birthdays because of this! Yes I'm horribly materialistic and LOVE gifts :D Thank you so much to aforementioned frands and to everyone else for all the wishes (yes yes I LOVE them too, not that materialistic!)!
Of Summer
Of ice-creams and bricks,
Of cold drinks and rasna in ice to create orange candy,
Of cold drinks and rasna in ice to create orange candy,
Of art class and casio class and once upon a time odissi class,
Of Holi and Mamma's birthday,
Of results and no school and Papa making plans,
Of Kwality in Calcutta and Eden Ice Cream Parlour in Bombay,
Of Mama and Delhi, Mausi and Noida, Baba-Dadi and Arrah, Nana-Nani and Lucknow,
Of pethas and Nani and mangoes,
Of discovering Mother Dairy and Mami's Cold Coffee,
Of dark room and swimming in Asiad and in Lake Castle Club,
Of langdas and alphansoes (or is it alphonsoes?),
Of cotton clothes and getting tanned and fretting over the latter,
Of many showers and beaches, Puri and Bombay,
Of Archies and Tintin and Asterix,
Of attempting to playing water polo and playing the rather simple, polo,
Of soup and Rajdhani,
Of changes in friendship dynamics (:)),
Of Baba and Pepsi,
Of horror movies and lays and Coke and Nitty's house,
Of Goa and tantrums (me),
Of Bhaiya always,
Of exams over and birthday gone,
Of cricket in the colony, and throwball in the building,
Of remembering some and forgetting the rest.
Summer's on the anvil, incessant perspiration is the first indicator. :) I was feeling a little nostalgic, and I was scared I'll forget what summers have been over the years. So here's a little reminder for myself :) Summer holidays are absolutely the best time ever! This time, like last year, I'm going to be in law school, and not at home. While I can't do some of the things mentioned above consequently, summers in law school are not that bad too (for instance there is always Univ Week to look forward to). Also, I just enjoyed 7 fantabulous weeks at home!
I wanted to know - what have your summers been like?
Hmm, ok I like presently - the book When We Were Orphans, by Kazuo Ishiguro. It has this lovely balanced pace to it. I thought that some things were too coincidental, but overall loved the book. Also, if you're reading this please please read Never Let Me Go! Stunning book, imo. Looking forward to reading The Remains of the Day, and picking up The Unconsoled from where I left it.
