If You Clean Your Ass, Clean Your Surrounding Too

"Keep your surroundings clean"- was just the lesson number 5 in science text books of primary school, till the 56" wide chest Prime Minister of India awakened the sleeping India to wake up from the dirty slumber and clean our surroundings in actual!



This is India. Now it is safe to toss your trash on the supposedly called roads. It is safe to pee or poop in those bushes for the germs to survive and thrive. India has huge human population so do the germs. It's liberating and freedom. It is also safe to clear your throat and cough out the residual on the street. We are at our disposal to clean our car and flush the stagnant water in public for the mosquitoes to flourish. And we are named bloody Indians for this. Let's remember!

What a marvel nation we have turned. After the perfect independence decades ago, we turned completely independent and free enough to puke, pee and dirty our own surrounding. While the school teacher yells at the top of her voice on value education, health and hygiene, it is restricted to inside the examination hall. We are free to dirty our surrounding in the outside. Education from text books is a ritual. 

There goes a saying in most vernacular like in hindi " Jaisa Raja vaisa praja", which clearly lauds the leader who leads us is how the followers are. So do we observe too the randomness in the earlier decades and the discipline in the past hardly an year. Work towards cleaner India is the mantra our new leader has given us and so should be our actions focused on to. There are places that need cleaning, people who deserve your attention and authorities who need to hear your opinions.

You or me have never bothered to perhaps question or request the relevant authorities as to why the public trash bins are not placed in several areas or never emptied even if placed. One of the worst disasters called waste management. A call to recall. When you see that man spitting on road, try pricking his ass and remind him you could do the same like he did, but this time on his ass. 

We know that raising our voice against all that is dirty in our country is a power that we all have. Shall we spur and pledge to work towards a #SwachBharat ?

"The art of medicine consists of amusing a patient while the nature cures a disease"-Anonymous

If you clean your ass every morning take the courage to kick his ass whom you see littering the public area. Keep the clean thoughts to preserve your nature. Here's today's youth that challenge the challenge! That is exactly how Montu clears  his voice and shouts out too. This post is written for the campaign http://www.abmontubolega.com as well as Strepsils on Facebook and Twitter joining in hands with Indiblogger

Kyuki Bin Bole Ab Nahi Chalega #AbMontuBolega. 

Name Game - It's All In A Name - From The "Shy Girl Of Manipal"

That book you write,

not read.

That road, with return none,

only lead.

That lane you walk,

not run.

Life with pain,

still is fun.

Life with no name,

Sounds dull & lame.

Fancy naming a new born after a popular Bollywood or Hollywood star? Please do so. What's in a name? Bang onto "What's not in a name?". Remember you might hit a jackpot sometime when bizarre airways offer concessions to selected popular Bollywood character names. Recently the Virgin Atlantic Airways that threw away exciting offers to "filmi named" people. Behold- now say what's in a name? Whether of much use or not, I did muse upon the options on, what if I was named after some "Simran- sanorita"; the popular "pooja beti" the Yash Chopra's Madhuri Dixit; Priya or the bubbly Rani Mukharjee as Tina in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.

Aargh, well I love my name. not the airlines!

There was a time, my introduction would compulsorily include "shy girl from Manipal!". If that meant a coyish girl, please don't be duped at all. Yes, I did be a lot much pessimistic in  communication and outspoken category. In parallel, there was the big mischief soul inside me that has attempted simpler tricks to horrendous college pranks. To the extent of ragging a senior graduate fellow in university.

Absolutely remember mother often tell me the n number of choices they considered when a fifteen days old "ME" was named. "Sushma", with literal meaning being beauty, perhaps they saw beauty of life in me. I wasn't technically named after any ancestors. But existence of many "Suhmas" in that era, marked a trendy name.

Identity apart, every single person to whom you mean calls you "a name". They symbolize affection. Hence for the past years I must have had numerous names from family, friends and so on. Either the nickname, sometimes a 2nd name, at times an abbreviation of full name. Sometimes a roller coaster of it like "Sushuuuum, suhumaaaa..so on". At times shortened, at times sweetened, at times tasty like "Sushi". The proper noun that I have accepted and adored. All through life as I was brought up almost caned to understand, the beauty was not in the physical appearance, and that perhaps inspired me to see the "beauty" in absolutely everything around me to every action of mine. Even in a few naughty teenage tricks I tried, I found a beauty called fun. If my little girl today calls me "hey your teeth are paint box" for the different enamel colour each has developed over the years, I don't mind. Find it creative. Big joys in small things. Those peppy nicknames that turn out to be relevant identity that ages later an college mate can not recognise you on facebook but marks that nick name as the verification code. Authorised for friendship, call it!

If familiarity to Indian culture strikes to you all or not, we Indians, specially South Indian Brahmins do have a ritual of changing names after marriage. The first name too! With changing world, which is losing its acceptance, yet the tradition was fun. You adapt yourself to your in laws and also change your name. Identity challenged!

"Only Love"- let me declare it so, the noun that identifies you, the name by which you are recognised . While there's a literal sense of "what's in a name", my love for my name is unique. It's the perfect love compatibility match. There is no "rename" option in real life for me. Apparently perceptions of name and identity have some perpetual thoughts beyond the "noun" factor. The identity tag that finds its best love match with the personality. Brought up in "Manipal", I love the place and the name. There's no rename option for it too! I would hate it.

An exotic illustrations of the name game can be hilarious.

How about the "bhagwan ke naam pe de do baba".  Popular slogan meant for unfortunate beggars, with the mention of "in the name of God". Times when the names turn into those of Bollywood stars are heard of too. You see, it's all in the name!

I was taken by surprise when my daughter at her age 5 had declared "Jui" is a childish name. She must change it as she grows up into some adult type! With occasional breaking burps in middle of a dinner I had to answer her, "adult type are not so popular"! Just the trend matters. She is now convinced as she reaches her teens. Take an instance if I had chosen to call my new born "Mukesh" "Aamir"! Or perhaps giving up to "adult types" changed her names to "Kiran (after Bedi)"' or "Kalpana (after Chawla)", what was the probability of the fun in matching the gravity in those names to your whims and choices? When a chord strikes between my name and "Sushma Swaraj" of Indian politics, I ....errr...let me sign off friends. It's Sushma from Manipal and that's how I love my identity tag to be fixed up forever.

Links used:- http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-03-20/news/48401922_1_virgin-atlantic-air-tickets-discounted-tickets



This post is also linked in following blogs:

www.manipalblog.com

http://abcwednesday-mrsnesbitt.blogspot.com/

Petals Of Love

Wafting petals of love,

 

Abhors the horrendous wind.

 

She, is a beautiful bloom,

 

Held high & cosy in delicate palm,

 

Now withered, from  glory to gloom.

 

Fret, shall be no mercy,

 

Time lost is irreversible,

 

The new bloom on -looked.

 

Shaky petals of love,

 

Abandoned with time,

 

Marred by the wind,

 

Tackling the destiny.

 

She, is a beautiful "life"!



Love it's divine essence!

 

 

An ultimate comparison of life with the rain, clouds, or bloom, and so on.... finds never ending prose & poetry.

 

Her Dare and Scare

Here is a true incident when my heart ached.

Here is one girl so vulnerable. She carries no chilly powder, she knows no martial art, but she hides at a shadow of a man! She fled like that deer who spotted the lion in the shrub when my better half approached her for a picture with a camera and some pocket-money to offer her and her little sibling. Upon my request for an explanation with a hug, she weeps , weeps about her woes, about her chores, and how she is supposed to stay away from "any man!"


Her House she guards. A sibling in her arms.

A kitchen awaits her.There's a dad who hates her,

A mother the breadwinner.

A big money of mine did no magic, while,

A big hug of mine made her smile.

Life for her is a workshop,

joy a mystery, love a mock-shop.

She breathes, eats, works, sleeps.

A living human body, sometimes weeps.

She's another "Girl" deprived of respect, freedom. love.

For shes considered a, burden a bane?



Her voice has no weight. Her life has none too. Because the world told her "Sorry, You are a Girl"? 



With the growing reports of crime called rape in India it can not be concluded this crime increased now. It existed in this men ruled society always. Today it is the media that brings it in limelight and at times blows it off too.

Stop rapes in turn only points at respect that woman and give her the freedom of life.

Labyrinth of Anguish

http://adda.at/Spicy117

This is an ode to the countless "women" who are physically exploited and to those female infants who were cursed/killed/abandoned for they were born with female hormones.

The bearer of progeny,

She is

Pacifies a man's existence

Personifies love.

A bubble of life her seat,

Stretched hands, quench of love,

She was to soar.

Expecting eyes, looks of hope, she wore.

Wading in flood of hatred,

Venom of dejection poked,

Hurled stones of dislike at,

Pricked thorns of curses,

Anguish revoked?

Sheer agony, yet,

Flee to where?

Earth her Bosom,

Life her breath,

Turmoil in mind

Labyrinth of anguish,

Alas, She has just one wish.



Girl a hatred?

Woman a material piece?

"I am the Woman,

Give me my respect"

Free me of this Labyrinth of Anguish

---------------------------------------

The New Me

...............and I go on

I have often been writing about life of Doha but fear to crib at the  tampered thought about missing the India life. Missing home. Friday to  friday [weekly off being friday here-Jumma ka din] just swings in it's own pace and leaves us with the flying dates on the calender. Time management is tough balancing act and my mind still haunts with the new me today. 

I am at the threshold of a new career and change has been one constant factor in it. I have worked in varied fields in the past decade. Now different from my profession is a rekindled passion that  is bubbling withing me. The new writer in me is active round the clock and I feel like a childish excitement in the new endeavour of mine. My best pal tells she remembers me scribbling small poems even in childhood. Shes a big inspiration to me in continuing my writing.

I care to rediscover myself everyday is what I care to self proclaim too and as I do so I also bother to instill in me the fact that every dream has its tale. Reveries are reveries. The dream that you cherish with eyes open are yours alone and why let go..........

In my school days as my dad, with much love would buy me those diaries that I much wanted to write my poems and stories, I have to confess I did dream one day I will write on my own. Yet the much loved but less grounded hobby was stamped on and curbed into rolls of guilt buried deep inside me for the very fact that the entire social system around me pointed stubbornly at the Institute  that taught technology. Those which kindled the children with 98% marks in sceience, like me. So it is yet another confession of my choosing a field that was so different from the dream that I never thought I would ever tackle.

Why did I choose not to write? Inspite of once blurting it out aloud in class 11 too, only to be hushed down by my mentor and role model then, my Physics professor who silenced and locked my other thoughts in the science books that I grew up with for the next 6 years, and placed the keys away.

So I know why I chose not to write then, after all.

Much later perhaps after over a decade, one evening I just happened to accumulate some structured thoughts in my mind and cared to compose this post in my mind "Cycle and the Chicken"[Read it here if you have not yet read] which became my first post and my favourite till date too, on my own blog soon. I myself lay bewildered at the irony of how I still cherished writing yet had not let it happen.  Thus began the journey of Sushma's Page. A venture from gags to a new saga. The new me was born to overcome the agony of inhibiting the nostalgia attacks that erupted from the memoirs of the life and time spent in India.

The decipline of being grounded to things, the entire lot of patience that I have recently instilled in me is all one of the few compliments I owe to my own writing.

The thoughst that I download in writing is the ease of mind, a state that I enjoy in my hectic schedule now.

Yes indeed I love writing and with so many lovely people reading them I am yet more concious not to disappoint anybody.

source:http://juiscastle.blogspot.com

Let life seem like a melting candle with diminishing time

Why bother?

Let me look at the light that always stays bright till the end..........

Cheers,

Sush

Girl Child's Agony

"May you be the mother of a son"- is a common blessing for a married woman in India. Is this a step motherly attitude towards daughters? A girl child in India leads a neglected multi-cursed multi –abused life? She is toned to accept a second class status in the traditional male dominated socio-economic set up. AtharvaVeda aptly sums up this fact with the verse "Grant me a son and a girl elsewhere"-I remember reading this somewhere. No, when I write this it is definitely not a generic offensive statement but surely a factual reality still pertaining in human world especially in India. Today's educated class longing for a girl child after birth of a son is no new. Vice-Versa also applies. The interest is positive. Successful women aren't unnoticed. The concern of mine here only is a girl child's manifold problems with religious preaching, social environment, and economic compulsions in many parts of rural as well as urban areas which are still "uncivilized".

A childhood of girl generally constitutes to too many rituals, law and rules, in fact to a mass of cultural directory which eventually form her core identity as a adult. An entry to school is a highlighted milestone. University education is like a heroic deed ending with a certificate that adds weight age to the unending list of "skills" during her "bride seeing ceremony". And by chance if she excels in school then there is tremendous speculation of her ability to be accepted by a equally well matched or "well-to-do" groom.

She is like a liability? She will be raised with all the "values" and beliefs she needs to be imbibed with to keep her in laws happy in future.

The preference to the male is because he is the flame of the family passing on the torch to the next generation. Whereas she is a guest in the paternal home till she is tied to a "husband" material. Liability ends.



Not just India but in many parts of the world she is brought up by assigning negative values as her own entity. The socialism of a girl is still explained by the theme: unwanted, neglected, underdeveloped and exploited.

This is still a concern in the parts of society which will be termed uncivilized. For this to turn into civilized requires the education to realize and accepted equal to a male child.

All that is required is thinking and belief.

Cheers,

Sush

I dedicate this post to the G-Day of round 10 of ABC Wednesday meme. 

Please click here for details and more shots.

Tug Of War

Robotic routines in the recent past left me so anguished that last night that I felt deflated. Outrageous. I hardly spared time to work out some math sheets with my daughter. Office, home and one child. These were the projects in my life. And then came this blog where I would crib about it all.



I wanted to open the floodgates of my mind's dam where numerous thoughts had been circling in orbits. The speed went directly proportional to the speed of our routine. The endless list of jobs. I wanted to fall flat with my laptop and write. Write write and write. The cherished dream of childhood. I cherish those evenings sitting in my home garden as I wrote my school times poems. The aroma of the agarbatthis my mother lit after evening prayers to god, still tickles my nostrils at the very thought. One small Red Diary of mine that holds a treasure of my bits of writings, poems and thoughts lie with me, slightly soiled with worn-out pages.



And after a few months of the "routines" in Doha, we can't wait to block our travel dates, pack and rush home. The hustle-bustle of preparations includes a few shopping hauls too. I behave like a child, waiting to go home after a boring day at school.

Home!! For me.

There is a paradox always when my daughter says shes so very excited to go to India. But for a holiday only and come back home! 

For her, Doha is a home.

It is so very natural. But my heart longs to go back home. Perhaps nothing much different than the busy bees that get busy collecting nectar to return home one day. 

Just before the travel day, my daughter starts exhibiting her enthusiasm in her craziest ways. She has just wriggled into the blanket like a mouse trying to pull out a piece of cheese stuck inside a hole. She shook her ass continuously and stuck it out of the blanket and kept whistling until I had to quieten her. Her excitement has no bounds. All her bags packed and announced to most important people in her life like her Ballet and Art teacher, her class teacher, her playmates, even the school bus driver.



We are no less. Pulled out Indian currency and admired all the five and ten-rupee notes that seemed so good. I smelt a note as slipped it into my bag and that reminded me how I used these notes as I took the autos of Bangalore in early 2001. Naa a holiday to India is not new. We go every year. Even at times for a day or two.

But I want more and more. And more.



After a break as we visit India, there is fun even in watching the street dogs bark, lizards patrolling the home walls, the beggars bugging you by pecking at your shoulder, the continuous nonstop honking on the roads as if there has been some kind of emergency.

Standing in the center of a crowd and stuffing "paani puri"  in my mouth while my relatives pull my legs over that too. And as a typical NRI coming from "foren" who visits India only to eat all the street food, go back in branded clothes exclaiming how much we miss India.



Well, as for my daughter she will clap and jump on seeing some stray puppies on the roads. She will roll and laugh when she sees people hanging out of the local city buses around Manipal/Mangalore. She will carefully watch the street vendors shouting their typical lines, selling tomatoes,  onions, or fresh flowers on Bangalore roads. And then imitate that in her games with friends back in Doha.



And then as we [me and my hubby] exclaim a sad ending to our holiday, for my little one, it is the other way. She is a "forener" in India waiting for her return one day to her home where she is brought up!

As for me, life in Doha is a tiger ride. Neither can I get off the ride, nor can I ride much longer in peace.



There goes the tug of war. Wonder till when!

Dancing Silhouette

Dawn to Dusk ebbs the day in silence

As the twilight dances in glory

So does the silhouette of the little dancer





Dusk conquering over the sunshine

Sun diminishes reluctantly

Like the shy bride unveils

The cold wind that kissed my cheeks closed my eyes

Sun seemed to bid good bye whispers in my ears

And I smiled





There went a trail of thoughts in the mind

Agony and high expectations are like friends hand in hand

Peace and low expectations another pair so joyous




Hopes resemble those blooming flowers

Spring awaits those new triumphs

Fondness is that tool



It cradle your thoughts like a baby

That sprouts into new dawn, new hope, new wish

Life blossoms into laughing flower



New dawn demonstrates smiles and promises

Again to end in a dusk

That which seems dark and painful like agony yet promises cheers.

Gulfi's Rainy Day

Distant flickers of puffy clouds as they crawled in on the blue mat of sky ........it dawned to me about my reading the weather forecast on the weekend. There were rains, "good rains" expected in Doha on Saturday. Much awaited indeed. Hail rain in this desert. It is not uncommon for we Asians here in this part of the Gulf to exclaim in much overwhelming gesture about a welcoming rain.

I am not less than one crazy creature on a rainy day here in Doha. On a lighter note can say it's silly to be so mad on seeing rain perhaps but this is "Gulf".

I do not have pictures please. Have this words as all.

An absolute unending downpour the whole day leaving the sensitive bitumen lay ed roads of Doha wrecked. They are not rugged & designed so well for  rains. These roads  are perfect mirage providers. Yes it was an one mark question that occurred in school time tests "what is a mirage?". And only as I drive on the Doha roads in mid summer did I see there is a real beauty in it too. As I drive at 100 k mph I get the creepy feeling there's water a little ahead. It doesn't turnout to be. A little ahead it is, there...now there's is water, so it goes on throughout the drive with ultimataley scotching heat only.

Rains are a boon in this city. December is month that generally sees some rains before the winter shoots in full swing banging the weather to a zero Celsius of the midnights.

Wish  the rain could wash some of the uncouth realities of life too. That it rains and everything starts looking so bright and nice in life. How true. Does it not revitalise your adrenaline to new tunes of liveliness and vibrancy. Everything around you looked so full of life that day but could not help the thoughts of the torrents of rains in other parts of the world that is so unwelcome.

I bet people dwelling in parts of world like India would appreciate a dead opposite scene. Specially the coastal Southern India where the rain god has been too generous.The lashing rains has devastated the people calling for causalities, material damage.

As I could not withhold exclaiming about this day to my India guys there was hardly any reaction from there. Understandable. Dad retorted" OK". That's all!! It is actually raining here..you know. huh. Only we felt the depth of it. The much awaited moment. Specially for our children who are brought up here and do not understand the India rains at all. I was glad my daughter wrote her first verse as she galloped in her room with all windows open and embracing the water sprinkle against her window.

Yet one rainy day was a pleasure and welcome scene for we Doha'ites. And aah as I write this post two days later it is raining again outside. I just love it.

Hail Rain.

As I waited

Sitting in a corner,

Like a loner,

I lay pondering over your thoughts,

You dint turn up after all my waits.

Expectations burnt inside me with glare,

Seldom for which do you care?

Vacant seats filled up with all couples,

The noise of all talks and many chuckles.

Time fled in silence yet,

No signs of you, but,

My eyeballs raced, door to the podium,

Awaiting a figure, if at all you come.

My heart wept, not eyes,

As I waited, For You.                                                              

                                                                                                         

Cheers,

Sush