India is Misogynous!

When the rest of the World is talking about reproductive rights, women in India still cannot freely leave their homes at night. Even having someone to "protect" you has proven useless - like this case in question.

You know what's worse? Comments like this - the Chief Minister of Delhi (kind of like the governor of the state) calling the journalist "Adventurous" like it's a negative term.

Delhi police is made up of victim blaming misogynistic assholes who say things like "Sometimes these girls go out, get drunk, have sex and then make a rape complaint". They also say things like "they wear revealing clothes, thus provoking young men".

And guess what the barbarians who assaulted this poor young woman who's in life support are saying? They wanted to "teach her a lesson".

India is full of misogynist assholes who actually genuinely think a woman's place is in the kitchen. 

A couple of months ago a woman returning from a pub was assaulted and molested in public view by these "culture worshippers". The morons who think women should not drink. The morons who uphold "Indian values". Watch this to know what I'm talking about.

There's more!

Female infanticide is still a problem. Female fetuses being aborted, young girls poisoned and buried. Men expecting their future wives to be virgins, but going around putting their dicks in anything that moves.

What's the reason for all this? Sexual repression? That's a cop out. Not every sexually frustrated teenager ends up being a rapist. No fear of law? The law is still there. A rapist gets 7 years in prison. That alone should instill fear.

I think it all boils down to the idea that they can perpetrate crime against women and get away with it. What's the reason? I think it's a deep rooted cultural problem. Watch any typical Tamil/Hindi movie to see what they think about women. Women are objectified beyond measure. This line from this article captures what Indian media is all about:

"Next time, when you cheer an unruly group of lumpen men led by the macho hero collectively leching an item-girl on screen, don’t forget that you are encouraging a culture of sexual objectification and domination over women. "

Some of the heroes/actors themselves are shown as "eve teasers" (that term itself causes such outrage in me, it's not teasing, it is outright sexual harassment in any other corner of developed world). Sometimes the hero gives sermons to the female lead about the virtues of being an "Indian girl". She should not wear "revealing clothes", not talk back when a man is talking and not act like "they are equal to men". Even a lot of modern films tend to portray this.

Is education the answer to this?

Not exactly, you see in arranged marriages even among educated families. People talk about "what is their demand?". Demand is just a different term used these days for the evil called dowry. The demands vary from a lot of jewelery + cash to jewelery + cash + car + practically your life's savings. Families agree to this for the sake of a good future for their sweet daughter. Don't they realize what they are doing? They are telling people it's okay to treat women lesser. Even those with education. 

You just have to go into the boys' hostel in any college/institution to listen to all the smack they talk about girls. "She wears revealing clothes - must be a hooker". "She is a slut". "You are dating her? She is a slut who'll sleep with anyone?". "She's easy, try her". These are not uncommon. All this, even without evidence. All they need is proof that the said girl went to a bar/a pub with a guy friend. That's enough to talk smack.

It is a deep rooted cultural problem that cannot just be taken away by educating everyone. Education is the start to a long term solution. When we are mothers and fathers, we have a responsibility to teach our future generation that talking smack about a girl because of her choices is not okay. A girl is not a second class citizen and is in no way less than a boy. The changes have to happen in every house. It will take time. But we should vow to start. From within us, our families, our friends and their families.

The Quarter Life Crisis

You've graduated college - a dream of your last 15 years. You always dreamt of this day when you will be a grown-up, have your own life, your own money and make your decisions. Time to step into the real world, take up a job and you do. And then.. and then, it hits you. Hits you hard. You see one too many 20 somethings who are just where you are now. Graduated college, have a job (a career) and living everyday as it comes.

What happened to that guy who played basketball everyday? The guy who wrote every once in a while? The guy who loved reading? The guy who wanted to change the world? The guy who could make things? The guy who loved exploring? The biker? With each passing day, you realize your skills are waning and you're becoming uni-dimensional - a.k.a "boring".

You were riding a giant wave - you went with the flow. Worked hard in school, got into a good college, worked enough in college and got yourself a job. What now? The giant wave is long gone. All you have left is this colorless, lifeless ocean of choices and opportunities - but there is no wave to carry you. There is no motivation.

Lying in the ocean, ditched by the wave, floating towards meaningless oblivion, you realize - Quarter-life crisis strikes and strikes HARD!

Sachin's match winning centuries

Sorry, the analyst in me couldn't resist doing this. I recently came across this photo.

"Sachin has more match winning centuries than Ricky Ponting has in total" - that's the stupidest argument, mathematically. So I just went ahead and did a little bit of analysis.

Ricky Ponting: 30 centuries, 25 of them victories - win % when Ponting Scores a 100 - 83.33%

Okay, now the argument becomes - "hey, Australia was a much better team than India during that time and they won a lot of their games invariably". Well, I say - "very good call".

So I went ahead and studied another Indian who had significant success in ODI Cricket and was a peer to Sachin - Saurav Ganguly.

Saurav Ganguly: 22 centuries, 18 of them victories - win % when Saurav scores a 100 - 81.81%.

Sachin Tendulkar: 49 centuries, 33 of then victories (according to the image) - win % when Sachin scored a 100 - 67.34%

That is *significantly* lower than the two considered above.

I'm not under-mining Sachin's achievement at all. But when someone says Sachin has more match winning centuries than any other player, he also has more centuries in lost causes than any other player, even as a percentage.

Rafael Nadal - The Warrior

Truly unfortunate that I missed the EPIC Australian Open finals. Two WARRIORS standing toe to toe, only one had to win. Kudos to Djoko. A few years ago, in one such epic, Rafa stood victorious against one Mr.Roger Federer in Rod Laver Arena and when asked about the game after his loss, Roger Federer ended up in tears. This time, Rafa was at the receiving end and when asked about the game he said:

“That's nice be there fighting, trying to go to the limit, bring your body to the limit of his chances,” he said. “Something I really enjoy, and I always said is good to enjoy suffering, no? So when you are fit, with passion for the game, when you are ready to compete, you are able to suffer and enjoy suffering. So today I had this feeling, and is a really good one. I suffered during the match, but I enjoyed all the troubles that I had during all the match. I tried to be there, to find solutions all the time. I played a lot with my heart. I played a lot with my mind, and is something that is nice to be around and not just play tennis.”

Don't make fun of his grammar, just SALUTE him for the WARRIOR he is.

P.S - Really, no offence to Federer fans, he is truly a great player, he has grace, he has style, but Rafael Nadal is a WARRIOR.

I'm Ashamed!

Every second item on my Facebook wall is about Anna Hazare and how corrupt the government is. Seriously guys, talk about corruption, eradicating it in it's root etc, is kind of very ironic. Anyone who has ever bribed an official voluntarily to speed things up and get things done faster has no right to comment on how corrupt the government is. Corruption starts and ends in us. Unless we are clean, we are all just a bunch of armchair critics!

If we are all that concerned, why don't we do something about it, rather than just "raise awareness" in Facebook? How does that even help? Our raising awareness is isn't going to move a gear or a cog in the government machinery.

What can we do, you ask? There are so many NGOs that support poor kids in their education, we can help them. We can teach underprivileged kids in our free time, it's doing our part in getting people what they need.That's not good enough? If "system change" is what we need, why don't we become the bureaucrats and politicians we're fighting against? Why don't we join politics, why don't we become ministers, why don't we become MLAs and MPs? Why don't we become IAS, IPS officers? We won't do it, we want a "Safe career", we all want to go to "good engineering and medical colleges", we all want "good jobs".

Yes, being selfish is okay, if you are more concerned about yourself and your family more than the country, it is totally okay, just accept it and move on. Do not do things because everyone else seems to do it. Your candle-light vigil is not going to help anything except maybe get YOU some media coverage. Is that all you need? Your candlelight vigil is like the useless "strategy" meetings that happen in big corporate houses, it's all glittery, everyone's dressed up, everyone talks of great things, but nothing ever comes out of these meetings.

I'm extremely ashamed of my generation right now. Half the people who're crying about corruption don't give a rat's ass about what's happening to their own maid-servant's sons/daughters in school. Do they even go to schools? Do you know?

I'm not pointing fingers, I'm not calling everyone bad, but anyone who just decided to jump into the "stop corruption in India bandwagon" overnight, needs to be honest with himself/herself.

PEACE!

Friends!

In life you make friends, you move away from them (physically) and make new friends and the cycle goes on. There are friends from high school, you leave them behind and make friends in college, leave them behind and make friends at workplace, you quit work and make friends at a new workplace and it just goes on. Before you realize, you know more than a 1000 people that you've been friends with at some point. But still, there are a bunch of folks, who, in-spite of not being in touch for ages will start off a conversation where you last left. They are your real friends, friends you should never stop being in touch with. I've been blessed with such awesome friends in life and from now on, I make it a point to keep in touch with them. E-mail, Facebook and IM can never replace a real conversation.

It just sucks that we have to grow up and move on, leaving behind friends from various stages in life. Yes, you meet new people, make new friends, but no one can ever replace some friends.

Dedicated to all the awesome friends I've ever had!

Filler Tag!

Filler it is, till I come up with something on my own. A tag I picked up from Ashwin.

1. When was the last time you swore? Which swear

word was it? Why? At who?

I swear a lot and not really mean it, I probably just called a friend a "bastard" maybe a few hours ago. Does that count as swearing?

If it's swearing at someone with all the emotions, I think it was a few days back.

2. Describe Ms. Perfect.

Tough one! Still giving it a shot:

Someone who's smart, who can get into an argument with me and probably win. Win - not with typical "it's all your fault" argument, rather a scientific argument.

Should share similar interests, which include our taste in music, movies, sports and books. Need not necessarily like the same things, but share interests. Does that even makes sense?

Someone who has goals in life, a goal that is not "get married and have kids". Someone who'll respect me for who I'm and accept me as a whole than try to change me. Someone who'll let me have some me time with my friends and not complain about it.

3. Tell us three qualities that you hate in people (in general) and three that you love.

3 qualities I hate

1. Fake people
2. People who are socially awkward - making fools of yourself for fun is still okay, but acting like a weirdo is not okay
3. Spllng lyk dis

3 qualities I Love

1. Intelligence
2. Taking things in the right sense - not getting hurt for everything
3. Being open and discussing things rather than expecting me to understand and act

4. If you could pick one person to survive Apocalypse, who would it be?

No one really. When the World ends, it should end with everything in it (which includes humans)

5. What is your greatest strength and your greatest weakness?

Strength: I can handle pressure, a lot of it. I'm very level headed (at least I think so) and I will not knowingly hurt a person, I will try to be friendly with even strangers.

Weakness: I over-think things, I dig deep into what a person could have meant when he/she said one simple sentence.

6. Apart from your father, who is your hero?

My department's head in college Dr. S. Jayaraman - a man know seemed to know, literally EVERYTHING! I really don't know what kind of a man he was in his personal life, but when it came to academia, he was easily THE BEST!

7. When was the last time you wanted to kill a person? Who was it and why?

Political and it could be a CLM.

8. Put up a picture of your room.

9. Do you consider yourself materialistic? Prove either answer.

I'm very unsure of this. I like my car, I like my gadgets, but I'm not attached to any of them. If I end up losing my phone or my laptop - I would be more worried about the stuff inside them (letters, pictures, movies etc.) that I lost than the laptop itself. Does that make me materialistic?

10. Apart from the obvious, what is the first thing you notice in a girl?

Grammar and accent (this is a new interest now, trying to find out where the girl is from based on accent). If you thought everyone sounded same, you must watch this.

11. Who, after 24 years of living, would you consider your best friend, the one who’ll remain so till you have ten great grandchildren.

Pavitra Subramanyam closely followed by the G Gang and Rafi.

12. What was the last joke you heard/read which had you laughing till you cried?

When Chemists die, we Barium.

13. How often do you lie? (Don’t tell us you don’t because everybody does)

I don't count. Really.

14. What was the last gift you gave (to who) and received (from whom)?

The last time I gave someone something on my own for no occasion is to Vignesh Deivaraj. Aviatoresque shades from Fast Track.

Last gift I received was a blu-ray disc of The Dark Knight with extras from Rafi.

15. Can you write haiku? If so, give us one. If not, die trying (for convenience, I leave the topic upto you).

No.