Single woman? Produce a NOC if you want to travel overseas.

Its 2015 already. Time is slipping away, quiet and unnoticed. What is noticeable for me, is the change in the way I now see things. I see things. I see the consequences of an ancient ideology of gender superiority fed into the mind of men, in the seemingly mundane acts of our everyday life. A by-product of a far-reaching ideology that has perpetrated minds of the entire human race, not just the men. This in a way carries forward what I previously spoke about humans filled with an innate desire or urge to express superiority on another set of humans in the name of gender, religion, caste, colour, place, GENDER.

Even when all the problems of the world are solved, humans will still find a reason to kill each other. And one sure-shot reason is a presumed dominance over the other.

I read about women, grown-up, independent, working women being asked to furnish a no objection certificate (NOC) from a male member of her family (father/husband) when applying for a visa. An absolute manifestation of the assumption that a woman always 'belongs' to a male, her father before her marriage, and her husband after her marriage. As if she in incapable of taking care of herself (ironically the same people proclaim that a woman's duty is to 'take care' of her family) and require permission from men to travel somewhere.

To a sane male this may sound preposterous. To a chauvinist, reasonable. For a moment Stand in my shoes, and see, as a Woman. The closest I can get to is 'outrageous', and even that doesn't entirely describe what I feel. There are people all over the world fighting tooth and nail for women's liberation, and then comes along an archaic idea such as this. Its as if suddenly my eyes were opened, and I could see such ideas of dominance lurking behind so many routine things, feeding ideas into other minds, silently, in an obscure manner. Be it the tv soap in which the husband declares to his wife that he married her in order to avenge his sister and that he loves another girl. The rest of the episodes are focused on the wife's attempts of 'winning him over', where she should have instead slapped him hard and walked out. She eventually does win him over, and he falls 'in love' with her, which supposedly makes up for all the atrocities he committed on her in the meantime. An idea which says that men can do all that they want, and that the duty of a woman, a 'good' woman, is to put up with her 'man' and work on 'winning him over'.
Take a real-life incident where a girl is forbidden from studying any further because her brother, who may even be younger to her, believes there is nothing to be gained for a woman by studying. The rest of the family concedes because he is a guy and 'obviously' knows much more than a girl would.
I see men in my own family saying cruel, inappropriate things, doing the wrong things and getting away with it. Possibly saying and doing such things in the first place because they know they can get away with anything on account of being men.
I see men on bikes, hooting and yelling at me as I ride my bike along with a female cousin on a lonely road. While earlier I would have passed this off as an immature, fun things for these boys, I then started wonder what is it that they get from this hooting. It is not fun really. If it were for fun alone, they would have done this to every passing vehicle and not just the ones that with girls riding on it. And anyway, their tone and choice of words would have more than suggested whether they were having fun. No this is not fun. This is a rude thing to do. This is harassment and they know it. They do it anyway because they are sure that the girls wouldn't yell back rude profane things at them considering how desolate the road is (haven't we taught our girls to bend our heads and walk when being eveteased?). This is just some outlet for their puffed sense of a male dominance, to satiate their shallow ego and their assumed dominance. And our silence and conformity to these standards bloats their ego much more. The brunt of which are to be borne by us.
Stand up for yourself, and for every single girl around you.


- 10-01-2015

Power

I think that humans have an inherent, innate desire for power. For superiority and dominance over someone else. Throughout history, one can find instances where one group has sought to control another group, group with members belonging to maybe a different gender, religion, race, colour, caste, piece of land. There has always existed this desire to be dominant over someone else, to achieve which they build stories and give reasons to justify the atrocities committed on others.  Be it the Whites' atrocities on the Blacks, the Aristocrats' on the Peasants wars, Crusades, Holocausts, Genocides, Terrorism.
The phenomenon is becoming increasingly clear to me. Yesterday, armed men allegedly claiming to be 'jihadis' from Al-Qaeda stormed the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a French daily which was previously under attack for having spoofed Prophet Muhammad by way of caricatures and cartoons, and killed its editors and various other cartoonists allegedly in retaliation to some tweets against the ISIS Chief. Later, they stormed out of the offices shouting that they have avenged the Prophet and their Chief.
What makes men believe that they have the right to take away another man's life? Our own lives are so precious to us, there are so many things that we wish to do with and in our lives. It is preposterous for another man to come and take my life away simply because he has ideologies and beliefs different from that of mine. Are you going to force belief out from me at gun point? Is that how little faith you have in your ideologies that you think you need guns to propagate it?
What I know is that its only when you have no knowledge or basis for your belief in your faith, that you cannot take any criticism or any questions against them. When you are sufficiently knowledgeable, you are open to criticism and have the ability to be cynical about your beliefs, in fact this way you strengthen your own beliefs. If you do not have the ability to do that, you resort to violence, force and denigrate others.
Shouldn't we be doing something about it as opposed to just making observations and verbally condemning the attacks? Its our collective silence that spawns an avenue to inflict more harm and subsequently endanger the entire community. Many of us Muslims know that we oppose such acts, but are not even vocal about it on a public platform. We have to act and not go about living our lives oblivious to all that is happening around us, thinking that it isn't happening to us after all. Today it is not, tomorrow it may. And if that is inevitable, we can at least rest eventually knowing that we have done all that we can towards building a life that is better for generations to come.
Sometimes I think that we humans have survived through so many generations, lets say lived through, lived through so many generations, and people in each generation may have had grand plans for the humanity, for the liberation of man's mind from petty things and to focus it on important things such as love, respect, honour, courage. And along may have come a few who sought to break these in their war for power, and in the process, taken humanity back to being uncivilized. Next some others rise, trying to steer humanity towards better values and restore civilization. Thus the cycle continues. A wheel, that may have been set into motion from the moment humans graced this earth, and which may continue for eternity. It makes me wonder what is the point of it all? What difference does it eventually make in the grander scheme of things? What is the grander scheme of things? What is the point in me even attempting to try to change the society if the society is to eventually fall back upon itself the moment it gets the opportunity to do so? Is it only for the sake of a clear conscience on my death bed? I hope its more than that. I hope that these little acts actually add up to something in the grander scheme of things. I hope that there IS a grander scheme of things where we are moving towards the better and where these thoughts and actions of ours have played their part.

- 8-01-2015

The Great Gatsby

When the trailers for The Great Gatsby were out, I was excited to watch the movie and parallelly the thought that no  movie could be as good as the book itself ran in my mind. I did not take serious efforts to watch that movie though.
The book, I remember, had a great effect on me. Some of the quotes were so extraordinary that they have stuck with me years after I have finished reading the book. The opening line which says, "Remember, not everyone has had the advantage that you have had" has helped me in many a occasions and has kind of shaped a huge part of me single-handedly. I always get back to that quote. Even what he says about how even Daisy cannot quench what a man can store up in his ghostly heart, the quote on the green light at her dock, many such were really impressive for me, and it made my list as one of my most favourite books. And we are all very possessive about our books, especially when someone has set out to make a movie of it. Take for example Harry Potter series, when I look back now, the movies aren't half as bad as I had criticized it when they were out. Of course yes, there are still some parts that you are unhappy with, but honestly, you do tend to get over critical about the movies. At least I do, especially about the ones adapted from my favourite books. I still prefer books over movies, preferring to read the book before I watch the movie as much as I can.
This movie, got me hooked right from the beginning. It was the direction I think. The director has really made a wonderful movie, brimming with imagination. The characterization is also exceptional. Leonardo DiCaprio fit the role perfectly, I couldn't have asked for a better Gatsby, and the way he has put for every expression of Gatsby, I felt that the man truly understood Gatsby's character from all its depths. He definitely was the hero for me in this movie. The movie didn't have some of my most favourite quotes from the book, and had instead some of its own beautifully written dialogues. It has depicted Gatsby in all his grandeur, the parties, his mansion, his love, for Daisy and for the past and the future even, Nick's innocence everything to perfection. Its one of those movies you are glad you finally watched.
At the end of it I couldn't help but feel disgusted over how some people get away with the lies and the cheat and the outrageous things that they have done. And this is something that you very often see in real life as well, that there are certain people, who do all shit in their life, towards others, and get away with it just as easily. It is just not fair, and there aren't many people who would stand up to them, thereby pushing them to do such things even more. It leads me to realize that the world is filled with such people and you can only do your bit to change it by not siding with such people and being an example to the others. Sometimes people just need to see to change, they need to see and know that such people also exist, this will help them take a different stand too.

Written on - 1-7-2015

One step at a time

What's certain is that the journey is not going to be easy for you. You are going to be cussed, pulled down, criticized, lied about, misunderstood, underappreciated and ignored in general. Because you have aimed to do the things which no one else dared to dream. And inspite of all this, you have to go on.
While people around you may make a hundred mistakes, even a single mistake of yours will be paraded ceremoniously. You cannot crib, you cannot complain. It won't make any difference. Instead you have work with more single-minded determination towards whatever it is that you want to accomplish.
Most of them here have their focus on things which are so frivolous in the bigger picture. You cannot lose your focus on the important things on account of that. You have to continue doing what you are doing. Question every act, reject anything that is immaterial. Its always difficult to be the first one doing it, but even so, continue doing that. What you continue doing now, will affect many generations to come. And that is possible only because you took a step ahead.

Written on: 1-3-2015

On another land

To borrow from Julie Delpy, when you are younger you think that you are going to find many people who you connect with, and over a period of time you then realize that there in fact are very few people that you connect with. Its true, you meet so many people all through your life and its only a few who you can connect with, with whom you can be yourself without any worries and very few who can really relate to and tolerate on a daily basis. And when you do have those rare encounters where you find a person you connect with instantly, a person you have so much to talk to, with who you can be yourself and with who you have a lot of fun, who you think really makes sense, when you do have those chance encounters they are moments of pure bliss. During the times you get lost in the company, oblivious to the people and surroundings and really discover a new self in you. It is also interesting to note that such encounters usually happen when you are in a new place, a place where you have no usual routine, nowhere to get to, no one to go meet, a place where you are just there. Just there with the person and you discover the joy of discovering a new place and a new person. And those feelings, that connect, that joy is precious. They always remain with you, irrespective of whether you are in touch with the person, or whether you feel the same towards the person or even if your equations are still the same. The memories you cherish nevertheless. You look back, and you feel that its sad that you don't have the same equation with the person, but you don't cry over it, because maybe you have gained more than lost in the process.
I think the reason that this may fade is because you don't take the effort. The first time around when you have that spark you bank on it and everything rides on it, and then you get back to your routine and you think that the spark will remain, which of course it may but with some effort. We always forget that part of it, the effort. Not everything comes easily. It may come easily the first time around, but following that, things need some effort. Even friendships require some amount of effort.
I think what makes you most queasy is the thought that it may have not been for the other person all that it was for you. Even if it is downplayed one percent in his mind, for you its a total disaster. And that uneasy feeling always remains, what if it didn't mean to him all that it meant to you, and I'm not even talking about getting into a relationship with the guy.  What I'm talking about is the connection, that joy, those moments, that may translate into a life-long friendship even. Its sad when people don't take the effort to maintain relationships, to work on something that may have blossomed into something beautiful. To leave it mid-way can mean two things, one - that you think its not worth the effort, two - that you want to leave things the way they were. Of course the optimistic would prefer the latter over the former, but would that mean having a romantic ideal?