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!)!
Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Checklist for the hols!
In case I forget :P. Oh and not in any order of priority.
1. Read!
2. Watch movies and sitcoms and serials!
3. Try to resource episodes of OTH (S. 4 onwards?) and Grey’s Anatomy (S. 3?)
4. Work! (Internship)
5. Exercise!
6. Swim! (special emphasis)
7. Not think about stuff I'm always thinking out.
8. Let it be. Do NOT think.
9. See South Bombay during course of internship (excited here :)).
10. See a play in Prithvi!
11. Learn how to drive (sigh- this is dad induced)
12. Eat healthy (umm, Mum induced)
13. Shop! (Certain essentials - a white kurta, a skirt, a belt)
14. Get pretty chappal repaired (sigh).
15. Meet certain friends definitely - D, Sr, Sa, Sho, GS, RS, Shi. Call them first!
16. Umm start work for eventually getting the desired b'day present from parents (B’day in March - but need to get on the job now itself :D).
17. Ok some B'wood flicks which need to be seen in the theatre - Ghajini, Luck By Chance, Dilli 6.
18. Download new music!
19. Do up room.
20. Be happy!
Post Script - drove today for the first time, I take back my reservations, was awesome fun! It's like playing those racing games in real life (I can hear people going duh - but still!)
1. Read!
2. Watch movies and sitcoms and serials!
3. Try to resource episodes of OTH (S. 4 onwards?) and Grey’s Anatomy (S. 3?)
4. Work! (Internship)
5. Exercise!
6. Swim! (special emphasis)
7. Not think about stuff I'm always thinking out.
8. Let it be. Do NOT think.
9. See South Bombay during course of internship (excited here :)).
10. See a play in Prithvi!
11. Learn how to drive (sigh- this is dad induced)
12. Eat healthy (umm, Mum induced)
13. Shop! (Certain essentials - a white kurta, a skirt, a belt)
14. Get pretty chappal repaired (sigh).
15. Meet certain friends definitely - D, Sr, Sa, Sho, GS, RS, Shi. Call them first!
16. Umm start work for eventually getting the desired b'day present from parents (B’day in March - but need to get on the job now itself :D).
17. Ok some B'wood flicks which need to be seen in the theatre - Ghajini, Luck By Chance, Dilli 6.
18. Download new music!
19. Do up room.
20. Be happy!
Post Script - drove today for the first time, I take back my reservations, was awesome fun! It's like playing those racing games in real life (I can hear people going duh - but still!)
Books!
Someone recently, quite unassumingly, told me that I have limited interests. It wasn’t an accusation or anything… just a simple statement of what that someone believed was fact. So I thought about it. Thought quite a bit, for after all, it isn’t a very nice thing to be characterised by, is it?! I realized that I do have a lot of varied interests… it’s just that they can’t all be put into nice, neat categories. Everything, to put it simply, is quite jumbled up… like the rest of my ‘self’! My room and my cupboard is a testimony to that. My brain functions in a similar way too. Nothing is neat. While this does cause agony at times (recent events will confirm this!)… it’s not a bad thing I’ve kind of realized that it’s fine not to know at times what is it that I want, it’s fine to not know what is it that I want to do in future, it’s kind of ok to mess everything up in the head and in reality (like how!) and hence take things headlong… because well I’m made that way… and so it is fine. Maybe not perfect, but then again, nothing is.
Now coming back to the interests thing. While I am genuinely interested in a lot of things, it would be too tiresome to list all of them down here. The overriding interest, which is what I’m going to talk about now, is my reading. Most of my nineteen years (yes, it has been only so many years :D) has been characterised by books. I don’t remember when exactly it was that I started reading. I know that it was my brother who hooked me onto it though. As a kid, my brother read everything. If there was nothing else to grab onto, he would read the railway timetable and memorise the same (yeah, unreal). When we had a scooter, brother would be standing ahead, while the vehicle was moving… and he would be reading. When my cousin sister got new books, brother would proceed to read them first… and then shred the book to pieces (some weird child psychology I guess). So well you can guess where the interest comes from then.
I’ve not read a lot… as in, there’s still so much more to read! However, what I’ve realized is that a lot of what I do or like has been influenced by what I read. I guess this is a natural conclusion… it’s just that the same has to be asserted again! Before one gets an ‘interest’, one has to be ‘curious’ about it. It’s only when one is curious, and acts upon that curiosity, that one comes to know whether the thing that one was curious about is interesting or not. I think reading provides one of the platforms for such ‘discovery’. One example of this would be how some people who are presently in law school became interested in law because they started reading John Grishams (it’s similar to how I always want to be this hotshot surgeon when I see Grey’s Anatomy or wish I could be a stunning basketball player whenever I see One Tree Hill!). So suppose X reads a Grisham (an author which, with the exception of ‘The Firm’ I have never read… quite a loss I guess), he becomes interested in the law profession. He looks up law related stuff. Decides he wants to get into law school. Gets in. Then studies the law there. Likes it, maybe loves it even. Voila! ‘Law’ is an interest now… initiated through the process of reading :D
Maybe the above example sounds juvenile to you. But it can be true you know! Plus an interest does not mean that you have to know everything under the sun about that subject. It anyway is not possible to know everything…! So when I started reading Isaac Asimov I fell in love with the science fiction genre. Anything related to robotics seemed interesting. I shamelessly admit that I still know nothing about robotics except the three law of robotics and some other stuff what Asimov talks about. But I still have that minimal knowledge… and that is gratifying Another example is my fascination for the field of criminology (ok I know that sounds a little pompous!) I LOVE Agatha Christie and her work. Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple’s various exploits made me interested in the genre of crime, mystery blah I then went on to read ‘Crime and Punishment’ and ‘My Brothers Karamazov’… both fuelled that interest. Sherlock Holmes helped a bit too. So that’s another genre I love.
Then there is humour and there is Wodehouse. There is fantasy and there is Potter, Eragon, the Bartimaeus (or however it is spelt) trilogy. There is school and there is St. Clair’s, Malory (or Mallory?)Towers, Sweet Valley (yes you heard right :D). There is the ‘future’ and there is 1984 and Asimov. There is the classic and there is Austen, Eliot, Maugham, Woolf, Bronte, Dickens, the book Polyanna…and so on. There is even horror and umm, R.L. Stine (I haven’t read Stephen King, and read only one Higgins Clark… so umm, Stine is the only one in the horror genre for me ). There is ‘inspiring’ and there is Roots (Alex Haley, an all time favourite), To Kill a Mockingbird, My Experiments With Truth. There is fascinating and there is Freedom At Midnight and Indira. There are let-downs and there is Kiran Desai (for me, that is), The Gathering, and the 6th Harry Potter book. There is philosophy and there is Sophie’s Choice. There is time pass and there is Jhumpa Lahiri, Chitra Banerjee Divakurni (or however you spell it), Erich Segal, Jeffrey Archer, chick lit, nri lit…and so on! There is self help and there is the Chicken Soup series or the Seven Habits series. There is Bollywood gossip and there is Filmfare, Stardust, Bombay Times, Mumbai Mirror, Bangalore Times. There is ‘chick’ stuff and there is Cosmopolitan, Femina and so on. There is news and there is The Hindu, the Times of India, Frontline. There is fraud and yet pain…and there is Frey and his million little pieces, Kaavya Vishwanathan and her book. To put it in one word, there is life…and there is Rushdie, Wells, Yann Martel, Anita Desai, Ishiguro, Vikram Seth, Amitav Ghosh, Hosseini, Atwood (The Blind Assassin, do read that!), Pahmuk (have I spelt it right?), Tinkle, Ruskin Bond, Amar Chitra Katha, Coelho, Archies, Tintin, Readers’ Digest, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, R. Mistry, Nehru and his Glimpses, Asterix, Noddy, Champak, Shakespeare, Saki, O Henry, Dahl, Brown, Narayan, Maupassant. There is, simply, just so so SO much that all can’t possibly be listed down here!
Hence, and I know my aforementioned friend also believes the same, reading is not ‘one’ interest. It is a gateaway to so many lovely things. It isn’t about articulating that you know X or Y, it’s simply about knowing something about it, or basically having the ‘feel’ of it When I was trying to assess whether I have limited interests or not, I had done some bit of introspection. Initially there had been some remorse…save for some other things, it seemed to be that my entire life till now had been about reading. However better sense dawned. I realize now that the fact that I’ve whatever I have till now is more than enough. It is only through reading that I know a lot of things, which I wouldn’t have otherwise. So well I’m proud of the fact that I’m a ‘bookworm’. Consequently I disagree quite vehemently with some of those friends back in school who could not fathom why I read so much, when there was already Chem, Bio and Physics to read! So well, that is all.
Now coming back to the interests thing. While I am genuinely interested in a lot of things, it would be too tiresome to list all of them down here. The overriding interest, which is what I’m going to talk about now, is my reading. Most of my nineteen years (yes, it has been only so many years :D) has been characterised by books. I don’t remember when exactly it was that I started reading. I know that it was my brother who hooked me onto it though. As a kid, my brother read everything. If there was nothing else to grab onto, he would read the railway timetable and memorise the same (yeah, unreal). When we had a scooter, brother would be standing ahead, while the vehicle was moving… and he would be reading. When my cousin sister got new books, brother would proceed to read them first… and then shred the book to pieces (some weird child psychology I guess). So well you can guess where the interest comes from then.
I’ve not read a lot… as in, there’s still so much more to read! However, what I’ve realized is that a lot of what I do or like has been influenced by what I read. I guess this is a natural conclusion… it’s just that the same has to be asserted again! Before one gets an ‘interest’, one has to be ‘curious’ about it. It’s only when one is curious, and acts upon that curiosity, that one comes to know whether the thing that one was curious about is interesting or not. I think reading provides one of the platforms for such ‘discovery’. One example of this would be how some people who are presently in law school became interested in law because they started reading John Grishams (it’s similar to how I always want to be this hotshot surgeon when I see Grey’s Anatomy or wish I could be a stunning basketball player whenever I see One Tree Hill!). So suppose X reads a Grisham (an author which, with the exception of ‘The Firm’ I have never read… quite a loss I guess), he becomes interested in the law profession. He looks up law related stuff. Decides he wants to get into law school. Gets in. Then studies the law there. Likes it, maybe loves it even. Voila! ‘Law’ is an interest now… initiated through the process of reading :D
Maybe the above example sounds juvenile to you. But it can be true you know! Plus an interest does not mean that you have to know everything under the sun about that subject. It anyway is not possible to know everything…! So when I started reading Isaac Asimov I fell in love with the science fiction genre. Anything related to robotics seemed interesting. I shamelessly admit that I still know nothing about robotics except the three law of robotics and some other stuff what Asimov talks about. But I still have that minimal knowledge… and that is gratifying Another example is my fascination for the field of criminology (ok I know that sounds a little pompous!) I LOVE Agatha Christie and her work. Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple’s various exploits made me interested in the genre of crime, mystery blah I then went on to read ‘Crime and Punishment’ and ‘My Brothers Karamazov’… both fuelled that interest. Sherlock Holmes helped a bit too. So that’s another genre I love.
Then there is humour and there is Wodehouse. There is fantasy and there is Potter, Eragon, the Bartimaeus (or however it is spelt) trilogy. There is school and there is St. Clair’s, Malory (or Mallory?)Towers, Sweet Valley (yes you heard right :D). There is the ‘future’ and there is 1984 and Asimov. There is the classic and there is Austen, Eliot, Maugham, Woolf, Bronte, Dickens, the book Polyanna…and so on. There is even horror and umm, R.L. Stine (I haven’t read Stephen King, and read only one Higgins Clark… so umm, Stine is the only one in the horror genre for me ). There is ‘inspiring’ and there is Roots (Alex Haley, an all time favourite), To Kill a Mockingbird, My Experiments With Truth. There is fascinating and there is Freedom At Midnight and Indira. There are let-downs and there is Kiran Desai (for me, that is), The Gathering, and the 6th Harry Potter book. There is philosophy and there is Sophie’s Choice. There is time pass and there is Jhumpa Lahiri, Chitra Banerjee Divakurni (or however you spell it), Erich Segal, Jeffrey Archer, chick lit, nri lit…and so on! There is self help and there is the Chicken Soup series or the Seven Habits series. There is Bollywood gossip and there is Filmfare, Stardust, Bombay Times, Mumbai Mirror, Bangalore Times. There is ‘chick’ stuff and there is Cosmopolitan, Femina and so on. There is news and there is The Hindu, the Times of India, Frontline. There is fraud and yet pain…and there is Frey and his million little pieces, Kaavya Vishwanathan and her book. To put it in one word, there is life…and there is Rushdie, Wells, Yann Martel, Anita Desai, Ishiguro, Vikram Seth, Amitav Ghosh, Hosseini, Atwood (The Blind Assassin, do read that!), Pahmuk (have I spelt it right?), Tinkle, Ruskin Bond, Amar Chitra Katha, Coelho, Archies, Tintin, Readers’ Digest, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, R. Mistry, Nehru and his Glimpses, Asterix, Noddy, Champak, Shakespeare, Saki, O Henry, Dahl, Brown, Narayan, Maupassant. There is, simply, just so so SO much that all can’t possibly be listed down here!
Hence, and I know my aforementioned friend also believes the same, reading is not ‘one’ interest. It is a gateaway to so many lovely things. It isn’t about articulating that you know X or Y, it’s simply about knowing something about it, or basically having the ‘feel’ of it When I was trying to assess whether I have limited interests or not, I had done some bit of introspection. Initially there had been some remorse…save for some other things, it seemed to be that my entire life till now had been about reading. However better sense dawned. I realize now that the fact that I’ve whatever I have till now is more than enough. It is only through reading that I know a lot of things, which I wouldn’t have otherwise. So well I’m proud of the fact that I’m a ‘bookworm’. Consequently I disagree quite vehemently with some of those friends back in school who could not fathom why I read so much, when there was already Chem, Bio and Physics to read! So well, that is all.
