A letter from a father

Dear Daughter,

It would be very incredulous for people to understand as to why a father has to write a letter to his daughter when both of them are in the same house !!!
I am writing this to you with a lot of angst, fear and disillusionment.
Actually this is more of an apology from a man born in the illustrious land called India to a woman who happens to be his girl child.
Daughter dearest, I am extremely sorry to have given birth to you in this country where you are no more revered as mother, loved as a sister, leave alone prayed to as a Goddess. You my child,  have become an object of lust, carnal desire and a symbol of subjugation.
Be careful ! You have many animals in the garb of men, prowling like the worst of predators and it shall be vilifying the animal wold if I compare them to any animal. Animals have a code of conduct and do not vitiate their world.
O fore bringer of happiness ! I am scared to death when you go out alone and start conjuring up the worst nightmares that have happened to women around you. How can I protect you my child in this land, where everybody seems to be a possible threat. I am ashamed to tell you that I have started distrusting myself since I am cursed to be a man.

I think enough is enough and my perseverance is running out. To hell with society and social norms if they cannot protect you. Arise my child and start taking your destiny in you hands ! Do not wait for any law enforcing machinery to come and help you, since most of them happen to be men and they shall again let loose the predator with some flimsy loophole in the system. Have you not seen it happen to Nirbhaya's predators. The adult like crime committed by an overgrown teenager is overlooked since it does not define the parameters of our law. Ask the soul of Nirbhaya and she would cry foul for a thousand times ! Ask the parents of Nirbhaya and they would cry foul for a million times ! To hell with such kind of laws which cannot even deter a criminal, leave alone punish him !
These hounds of humanity are not even leaving elderly women as was the case of a middle aged lady in Vijaywada. My sympathies to the husband and teen-aged children of the poor lady who begged her attackers to show some sympathy but it fell on deaf ears ! The life of the poor soul was ebbed out of her body by the demons.
The irony in most such cases is that a near family member or relative or an acquaintance is the culprit.
O my child ! I again apologise to you for bringing you in this murky world.
The least I can do is :
I promise to protect your dignity, honor and self respect in every which way I can, even if it means to kill somebody or get killed.
It shall be my privilege to be your protector and I shall always strive to serve you with my utmost diligence.
I promise to take care of your mother who has been a source of inspiration and courage to me with the same kind of sincerity. O mother in heaven, let me make you proud to have a son like me.
I ask the gods for strength of mind and soul to keep up my promise and prove my mettle to be called as a man.
I promise ! I promise ! I promise to be a man !

A dog's dilemma

I dont understand as to why I dont keep blogging regularly. I should understand that it is actually a very big stimulant. Anyways here I am !!
Now to tell you about the big story of animals and animal lovers..
About two days ago I saw a stray dog in our colony which was lying immobile on the road without even budging as vehicles were passing by. My curiosity got the better of me and I got down from my motorbike to have a closer look. To my utter relief it was breathing and kept moving its limbs. I rushed to my home which is two blocks away from the road and came back with some biscuits and my daughter Sanju towing along with me. We fed the biscuits and were surprised at the alacrity at which it gobbled them down. We tried for Blue Cross for the rescue and after a marathon effort at getting their number we dialed their numbers. Unfortunately we could not connect to them though their numbers kept ringing. Maybe a hitech glitch at their communications center....
However the ever on rescue social media came to help, and my daughter came with a number of PFA (People for Animals). We were able to connect to a lady who in turn agreed to pass the message of the dog and its plight to the concerned volunteer.
In the meanwhile we were able to gather information from a local samaritan who also was taking care of the dog,  that it was the result of a post delivery complication that the dog was in that condition. He also told us that all three of its puppies had died immediately on birth and since then the dog was in that condition.
By now it was raining very heavily and we were at our wits end as to how we can take care of the dog. Luckily a call came from Prasanna the PFA volunteer who resides in a nearby colony. She came at 9-30p.m with another volunteer on a bike and immediately got on to the job of handling the rescue like a professional. The dog was bundled carefully and taken by our superwoman Prasanna to the shelter.
It was a big sense of relief for me since the plight was nagging me for 2 days, ever since I first saw the dog in that condition.
A big salute to PFA, Prasanna and everybody associated with animal rescue.

Team Anna and a tame game

Couldn't resist myself giving a go at the Anna team trying to negotiate a hard settlement with a sometimes lame, sometimes tame and sometimes 'what a shame' government. With all and sundry talking about the Jan Lokpal bill including the corruption ridden netas and half baked knowledge laden movie stars, I also wanted to be a part of the bandwagon and so this blog.
What is Anna talking about ? "Corruption". A loosely used and abused word nowadays. If we are talking about corruption by netas and bureaucrats then we are only only talking about a minuscule lot. How do we measure corruption ? Is it by the amount of graft that has changed hands or the number of people involved or what the state exchequer has lost ?
In India we have every conceivable probability on the making of a scam, whether it is the amount of scam or the stature of the personality who is involved. However, are we also not to be blamed to allow this rot to set in. Let me tell you all that corruption begins at home. We are corrupted with goodies to attend school by our parents. We as parents pay exorbitant sums to get our wards admitted into sought after schools. Have we not overshot long queues by paying a broker his commission to get our driving license, passport, or a simple movie ticket ? Arrey ! we have not left even the Gods. To have a glimpse of God we have bribed the temple officials to no end. Is this not corruption ? How do we drive a wedge of clean governance in a system of well oiled corruption with our handicapped moral ethics ?
Anna has brought all of us out on a single platform with his stand on corruption. But Anna has also got to show the way to the common man on how to deflect away from the malaise of corruption. Only then his crusade shall have a meaning.

Tipsy woes

Its a long time ago that I had last posted something on my blog. Well with none to follow my blogs it doesn't make a difference I suppose. Need to mention that it was my daughter who spurred me into blogging again. I had read her blog post titled " Big Fat Shedding " and was stupefied.It was a marvelous piece and as a parent couldn't help raving about her literary skills.

However I feel that she could have avoided the luscious bashing of the host and could have kept some for me.

Well, not that I don't have my own bickering on the event .............!!!!!!!!!

As a connoisseur of good food and drink I have my own grouse on the event. Amidst all the melee that was taking and my family was hurling the choicest expletives on the host, I was lured by my select company of friends who had abandoned their respective spouses to be in the august presence of Mother Liquor so that we all pay our obeisance to her.

We were secretly led by a distant relative of the host, into a publicly advertised space designed as an Arabian Night theme park serving liquor on low benches called "chowkies" in local parlance that could seat around 5 to 6 people. Our joy knew no bounds on hearing that all the tippler guests would be served imported liquor with an unending supply of the most delicious food. The excitement had built up to a frenzy in the crowd of the known and unknown, all waiting to guzzle. The frenzy had now taken shape of a free for between all with the lucky ones who had managed to get a seat waiting since eternity and the standing rows of the disgruntled lot like us to at least try and sit on the celestial sands. All were waiting for a glimpse of the ambrosial fluid to come and quench. I was reminded of "Lagaan" and the futile wait for the heavenly downpour.

The sudden gush of my already tattered ego made our group rush out of the venue with our already exhausted families experiencing first hand famish in the promised land of wedding.

We had a rollicking time at a close by bar and restaurant and by then our maddened tempers had cooled into utter disgust and contempt for the so called elite.

Terror and the terrified

After a long hiatus I am back ! It took a shattering disaster for me to be back on the blogging circuit.

Yes ! I am being one of those endless cribbers who do nothing when their turn comes to do something but are quick to blame everybody or any body in a disaster or rather call it as a systemic failure. Absolutely right ! I am the one speaking on the 26th November 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.

It was not a terror attack in the first place since nobody was terrified ! We are a nation of gullible,stupid and forgetful people but sorry ! Sir we are not cowards and cannot be subdued by acts of mindless violence.

I say stupid,gullible and forgetful since we vote back the same set of politicians who do nothing but sleep in their mansions of safety, oblivious to the perils of everyday survival of the man on the street. These peddlers of power can be seen groping for their share of media attention in the aftermath of violence but not during it. They are like the scavenging animals who have their fill on the carcass of humanity.

It was surprising that the media was also behaving in a similar fashion with the so called keepers of moralistic values trying to up their TRP score on the scene of a death carnival.

Whom do we blame ? The politician ! Of course not. Who voted him to power ? No use cribbing. Atleast let us wake up now and have a "clean" vision of the tomorrow that is going to dawn on our children.

Election blues and reds.

The entire state of Andhra Pradesh was waiting with bated breath for the bye-elections to come to an end. It was not without the usual drama and its associated paraphernelia.
The Congress & Telugu Desam parties are a releived lot on account of their intrinsic support to have a unified Andhra Pradesh thanks to a severe drubbing of the TRS party which was for a separate Telangana.
This blog is not to analyse the wins or defeats of the political parties but to highlight the suffering of the voters ( read common man ). Mr.K.Chandra sekhar Rao should have waited for the term to get over next year instead of giving an en masse resignations pre-maturedly to highlight the backstabbing of the Congrss. This has left the state ex-chequer with a huge hole in its pockets in these trying times of inflation. Who has to bear all these expenses ? Yes ! It is we who have to bear the extravagances of the whimsical politicians.
It is high time that the constitution is amended to make it mandatory for the elected representative to continue till the term is over irrespective of his personal prejudices. There can be a bye-election only if some public repreentative has expired an has a period left over of more than 2 years. Anything less than that cannot be considered for a bye-election and has to be managed by the adminstration.
Lets hope that better sense prevails with our rulers !

Ethnic Indians & Native problems

After a long lull I was suddenly spurred into action mode by a friend's blog on rediff news. This was on how we Indians like to heave ourselves on our long lost to culture, now distant cousins of ethnic Indian origin in other countries.
Be it a Sunita Williams or some one else. Yes ! we fall head over heels to welcome somebody who is of a different country and has only a genetic connection to the Indianness. This was disliked by my friend Raja Baradhwaj in his article saying that we should first care for our own countrymen and then talk about our ethnic cousins elsewhere.
Personally I feel that even though people have left our country they would very much retain the essence of Indianness because it is a subtle bond thicker than blood or genes. If we don't care for them they would drift more farther and after a few generations nothing of them would be ethnic.
I accept the fact that sometimes we go overboard to felicitate people even if they are least interested. A classic example being VS Naipaul who refused to call himself Indian while the whole nation was going gaga over his winning 2001 Nobel award for literature. He rebuffed this overwhelming gesture of we Indians and we as a nation were a flustered lot.
Many ethnic Indians play against us in various sports and games. More particularly cricketers of West Indies have a breed of ethnic Indians playing against us. Why do they play against us at all ? Agreed it is not war but a game but in India cricket is not game but war.
Now coming back to the original story from where it started as a discussion was the ethnic Indian in Malaysia being persecuted. Should we as cousins be bothered or not ? Or do we just ignore the whole episode as an internal matter of a third world country in SE Asia.
These are the times that we stand up and shout hoarse on top of our voices in support of our long lost cousins irrespective of their nationality and willingness to be a part of our culture.
If we don't do it then who else will ?
After all we have a history of intervening into the political affairs for Sri Lanka and losing a prime minister to the machinations of our own cousins named as LTTE.