Law against violence on women

Its big news on the channels that are the mouthpieces of the moderate Indian. NDTV, CNN IBN, Times Now. It’s the new law against violence on women.

Advantages:

1. This is a civil law, hence no criminal procedures involved. No need to show bruises scars and other physical evidence, usually necessary to file an FIR
2. Law applies to women in general – the wife, any woman residing in a house and even a live in partner
3. Law applies to physical abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse and any other form of intimidation and subjugation of a woman’s dignity
4. If the ruling of the civil court is not adhered to, then criminal action may be initiated by the complainant

Disadvantages:

1. The woman has the option of staying on in her marital home
2. How does one assure the woman of security other than rendering a threat of criminal proceedings, which is not working and hence has brought forth this law?
3. As is always the case, even our criminal courts are slow, civil courts have redressed/judged cases for decades

The channels are doing a stellar job by highlighting the law and actually urging women who are facing abuse to take advantage of this new enactment. The startling news is that woman abuse is not relegated to the lower strata of the society or to any other distinguishable stratum of the society.

I was shocked to see a career woman breaking down in front of the camera because her husband has abused her for 20 years, and she has nowhere else to go. She does not want to leave home because her son would get affected, and hence has not filed a criminal case against her in laws and husband.

I was further more startled to know that parents of even the abused woman usually take the part of the husband, and condemn the woman for bringing family issues to public. The woman is thus cornered, with no one present for emotional support.

Education to women is being promoted to make the Indian woman independent, to protect her against social evil, prejudice, abuse and to provide her with a means to sustain her dignity and livelihood, in case a marriage goes awry. A sound education is necessary to give women the confidence they need to face social injustice.

The reactions to this law, by what I have seen – that social abuse of women is more widely prevalent in India than what is believed to be correct, that is, contained to the lower social strata. And it also shows that our society is still male chauvinistic to the core.

A society is not male chauvinistic because men are dominant. Men are dominant, and will be. It is because women feel meek, helpless and hence resign to their fate of subjugation and daily abuse. Women are not vigorously protective of their rights. This is so because the elders of today still don’t believe in social justice for women. A woman is like this because she is merely a woman, is a simple reasoning.

Women feel weak because they are not being shown otherwise. Many women still prefer to be “home makers” to a career. What will happen if marital life is not a bed of roses ten years from now? Being a house wife is good for the family, but the average Indian house wife watches 10 mega serials a day, has her siesta everyday, has an assured three square meals package all in one combo dish, served in a platter. She forgets how to read and write. Forgets the accounts she studied in B Com. Her skills are focused on making a samosa with as little oil in it as possible. What will she do if marriage is not a bed a roses? She will live on, with the assured combo dish. Is stigma worse than being abused?

Exploitation will happen on the intellectually lazy in the guise of duty. The disadvantaged will always remain so, if they choose to. Walk out if your husband beats you, before he breaks you. The world is bigger than your home. Social revolutions are built on individual instances of courage and not on walls built by the establishment.

I have loved three women till now and in love with the fourth, my fiancé.

I have loved three women till now and in love with the fourth, my fiancé. I still love the other three, and there are times when my heart lingers around them, fond memories and sweet fragrances. I have never hated them, I don’t want bad things to happen to them, and I want them to be happy.

There are instances when life feels like a compromise, when I have given up a relationship for my own and the other’s good, and I still feel like a loser. Tonight I got the invitation for my first love’s marriage. It feels strange, I still want to call her up and ask her to be with me, after 3 long years have passed. Be my woman and be no one else’s. I am feeling sad.

I don’t know if I am being unfaithful to my fiancé. It’s much more complicated than that I believe. I have never figured out this part of me. It gets me mad to try to figure it out.

“Good people also get bad thoughts, but only bad people actually commit bad actions. Good people and bad people are differentiated by actions and not by thoughts. My mind has the propensity to deliberate in every angle that any person would conspire to act. I am better in my ability to ponder, and yet do what in my right mind is the right thing to do.” I read this somewhere and I bought it.

I think I am doing the right things in life by deciding to be married to a simple girl. I have agreed to be an ox, lugging the load of a family through life. I can’t have a better life.

Sogathai maraithen uyir vali poruthen…..
Suyathai ethuvo suttathadi vandhen……

Oru nalil - Pudhupettai

Oru naalil valkai ingay yengum oodi pogathu
Maaru naalum vanthu vittal thunbam thedi thodaRadhu..
yethanai koodi kanneer mann mithu vizhunthirukkum
athanai kanda pinum boommi ingu poo pookum
ohh ohh ohh...kaaru vassal vittu vantha naal thootu
ohh ohh ohh...oru vassal thediyae villaiyaattu
ohh ohh oh...kann thiranthu paarthal pala koothu
ohh ohh ohhohoo...kann moodi kondaaal...
ohh ohh ohho
(Humming)

Porkalathil piranthu vittom vanthadhavai ponnavai varutham illai..
kaattinilay vazhgindrom murkkalin valli ondrum maranam illai..
irutinilay nee nadakayillai un nizhallum unnai vittu villagividum..
nee mattum thaan intha ullagathilay unakku thunnai yendru villainge_vidum..
theeyodu pogum varaiyiL theerathu intha thanimaii..
kaarai varum neram paarthu kappalil kaathirupom..
yerimalai vanthal kooda yerri nindru poRz thoduppom..
ohh wow woow...andha Dheva ragasiyam purigirathey
ohh wow woow...ingu yethuvum nillayilai karaigirathey
ohh wow woow...manam veytaa veyiLilay aalagigirathey
ohh wow woow...andha Kadavulai kandaaL
wow wow oohh..

adu yennakku ethu unnakku ithayangaL podum thani kannakku..
aval yennakku ival unnakku udalgalum podum puthir kannakku..
unnakkum illai inthu yennakkum illai paadaiththaavaanai ingu yedduthu kollvan..
nallavar yaar ada kettavar yaar kadaisiyiL avanay mudivu seyivaan..
pazRi podum ullagam ingay balliyanna uyirgal yengayaay..
ullagathiL Oram nindru athanaiyum paarthirupom..
nadapavai nadagam yendru namum senndhu nadithirupom..
ohh wow wow...pala mugangaL vedum seri maatikollvom
ohh wow woow...pala thirupam theyriyum adhil thirumbikollvom
ohh wow woow...Kathai mudiyum pokkil athai mudithikollvom
ohh wow woow...Maaru piravi vedumaa...
ohh wow woow...
(Humming)

Where to now Krishna?

The world spins on and on
As I tramp on in life listless.
Time turns the world bygone
To art enduring and ageless.

History’s mortals stand up tall,
Amid us, todays impudent dwarfs.
Can we ever beat the glorious past’s call?
Today seems equally an image morphed.

Where do I get my bearings right
When my compass fights for its poles?
The other one within often sets me alight
With passions that set me free to the devil.

Tomorrow’s visions seem enough
To push me off the endless precipice.
The run toward what is this life
But toward endlessness of form?

Pure love has come over in swells.
The spirit broke only to mend.
Buried, but game for the recall.
Now what is this calm in my mind?

Depressed

When Love is finished
What solace is a woman.
When Beauty is painful
What comfort is content.

Bright sunshine turns cold
At my sight that looms ominous
To the beholder young and old
Is it so vile and bilious?

The fine blooms on the bower
At once turn coarse and sour,
At my sight they do cower
My eyes their tears pour.

Save me oh God from this love.
Is there a clean, poor hearth?
A solitary, quiet, dark cove?
It is peace in love’s dearth.

Elections – No Bar

Been a long day today. A day full of sales calls, stone quarries and customers, calls from my fiancé, parents, boss, colleagues, travel and sweat. Believe me, one world, a few people and one mobile phone can make a man go stark raving.

I retire to my hotel room after 12 hours of work, eager to get a refreshing drink at the bar, at about 7.30 pm.

No one is answering the phone in the in house bar. I call up the reception to find out why. “Day after tomorrow is the day of elections, sir. No liquor as per government order.”

I ask him if he can serve me in my room itself, he says a flat no. I am left wondering why I must not drink today. Who decided that my thirst for a drink today is abusive to the nation’s sovereignty?

They say very popularly nowadays “vote for your rights, else shut the trap”. Citizen journalism. Lok Paritran. What is all this? Is it my fault that a lot many fools sell their right in exchange to a pint of country liquor? Cant a man drink in peace? Oh can’t a man drink today in peace?

They say “think from the social perspective”. How many of us haven’t taken a cutting chai from a road side shop from a kid as young as 4 years old? Oh what can man change his destiny to, other than to a different form of death? Then what futility are nations, elections and victories other than castrated vanities seeking refuge in a mass of matter due to their lack of intellectual space and density? Ideas and institutions are formed for other people by people who translate their internal quandary into empirical notions.

Fuck all this!!!

Oh I am raving for a drink today! Wish I was carrying a hip flask full of scotch! Merci!

Where are we headed?

Today, I had to stand in a government office in chennai for 4 hours. The whole place was physically stinking of urine and rotting paper, not to mention the other stench from the system itself. Moist walls, dingy furniture, lazy looking people.

We had to get a paper signed by a big shot bureaucrat. Something of enormous economic interest for our company and to some extent in tax revenues for the government. As is usual in India, there was a broker. A sleek, smooth talker, with all the right connections, always dressed like a plain clothed policeman.

The private sector is used to working at better speeds than the government. We want to get things signed and cleared fast. The sole work of the government employees seems to be in slowing down the whole thing to a point, where there are enormous losses and thus to extort more money for a routine process of paper work.

There are two types of kick backs:
1. for doing something wrong or unlawful
2. for doing what is called your job responsibility

The former can exist anywhere, in any country since it is dependent on one man’s moral disposition or depravity or desperation. Anyone can commit such a crime out of simple needs. It need be out of greed, but out of pure necessity.

The number 2 (!) thrives in our country. What do you do when I want my client to pay me money for supplying him this month with N number of trucks, when my only goddam work is to just supply trucks? The person who is my boss then will ask money from me for me to carry on doing this. Then his boss, then his boss….

The system is rotting. India, they say is emerging into a major global power through economic growth, robust fundamentals (no one I am sure knows what that means), and a general euphoria that India is hot and happening. Our nation is growing, yes, economically. India is being invested in because of the following reasons:

1. low manpower costs
2. average to good manpower quality
3. an alternative to the leftist Chinese – more security in the longer term
4. English is popular – a robust educational network and universal content
5. the Indian government is ready to be proactive in policy making to bring in investment
6. a resultant consumer market that is maturing slowly into a buyer’s market – a boon for any company with a lot of products, technology and money
7. to sum it all up “a better cost benefit proposition”

Walmart wants to come in. Nokia is already in. IBM is big. Ford, Hyundai, Toyota, Mitsubishi, a thousand other companies from a hundred different industries have successfully set up shop in India.

What we fail to notice here are the following factors:

1. corporates just choose to work around the red tape and slime
2. the attitude is that “get the work done, whatever it takes”
3. what happens when the advantages stated above are not unique to India anymore?


When Brazil or say Egypt offer the very same advantages as India today, which many nations will in the not too distant future, where will we stand then?

Today, land acquisition costs very less in India, so it makes sense to bribe a politician to get the work done. What happens when it is not the case?

There is always a tipping point. Things will slide after that, no matter how well glued. When will we reach this tipping point? 10 years? 20 years?

India cannot grow in the real sense if it does not address the issue of corruption. This can be done only through transparency, centralization and deregulation. India is growing in terms of factories, software companies and refineries, through a better economic proposition rather than a sustainable set of ethics.

India’s cost of corruption is being built into the costs that customers pay for goods and services. No one notices this.

Old Dog

Near my home, there is a tea shop and a Tiffin center. There is a resident dog on the pavement nearby. It’s an old female, without teeth. It keeps shivering when it sleeps. No not shivering, it is like convulsions reverberating through the whole of its body. It never makes any movements other than to look for food in the garbage nearby.

It’s a beige color, its coat. Its tail is always sagging. It looks slovenly, lazy, devoid of all activity. One can either see it sleeping or lying down doing nothing. Dogs have nothing to do anyways. But still this dog seems to be doing nothing at all.

One evening, I had stopped by for coffee at this shop. I got the coffee and turned around to see this dog wagging its tail at me. There was even a smile on its face, alternated by its convulsions. I could see the whole of its gaping mouth without teeth, and my heart was instantly moved. I thought it was hungry and so I decided to do something about it.

I went into the Tiffin center and got a cake for Rs. 2.50, it smelled nice and was very soft too. I had the temptation of eating it myself, but I went back and held it forward for the dog to grab it. Its attitude now was completely changed. It looked at me coolly, sniffed at the cake and stepped back with an insulting look, though looking pathetic with its nodding head and convulsive body.

I thought it was afraid of me and so I laid the cake down and went back to my bike. The dog came back, sniffed at the cake again and you know what, it sauntered away, with a flourish of arrogance and started wagging its tail at someone else. I murmured, “Bitch!”

I was totally stupefied by such behavior. It set me thinking too. I thought may be the dog wanted some scratching behind its ears or a gentle pat. But can it be? May be it had a case of amnesia, where it forgot what it had asked for some time back. Who would know? May be it did not like the cake! Yes, it did not like the cake. It might have even puked after eating that cake from this shop. Who knows! A kid nearby was eating some cream biscuits, and its charms moved the kid too. It was eating a sweet, cream biscuit after 2 minutes. Superciliousness, I can understand, but from a street dog?

Wanderlust!

Wanderlust

“All move away!
Hurry, make way!
Here comes me along
On to where I belong.”

Thirsty was my flittering spirit,
Rising from the trodden past.
In my blood was speed
“Romp ahead, my arrogant steed.
I’ll reach those gardens yonder
Where my heart, alone, wander.”

The Gods rolled me out the mellows
The stars led me out of the shadows.
The light paved the road toward harmony.
The throttle showed me to every possibility.
Free I was to sleep under any bough.
Futile were storms that rent and blew.

Then, the ride a fair maiden partook.
Poetry her fragrance and laughter spoke.
Love my parched lips boldly stole.
Proud, I slid down the mossy stile.

I said I would never compromise
Though living with many a surmise.
Hope was redundant yet pressing.
Faith was alive yet dying.

“I’m not where I am now.
I’m not what I am now.
I’m not where I used to be.
I’m not what I used to be.
I’d wandered unmolested by man.
I’d been a free man.”

A thousand births I have since died.
A thousand deaths to be so reclaimed?
A silent night moonless rendered
Is a man’s loving when smothered.
Have nature and growth ever pondered?
So is love even when wistfully rejected.

To “The Wanderlust” – 2003 – 2005 & “TN 33 S 7403”

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old, and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast
That, whether there be shine or gloom o'ercast,
They always must be with us, or we die.

Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
Will trace the story of Endymion.
The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
Is growing fresh before me as the green
Of our own valleys: so I will begin
Now while I cannot hear the city's din;
Now while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer
My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimmed and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finished: but let Autumn bold,
With universal tinge of sober gold,
Be all about me when I make an end!
And now at once, adventuresome, I send
My herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed.

A Time to Change

Its time for another change now. I am leaving Vijayawada for good, to go to Chennai. A different company, a different city, a different life.

It feels good that I am going to my home state. I have always wanted to work in a metro, for the exposure and the opportunity it offers, if not for the company and entertainment value.

I have sort of found a place to live. I have to get used to traveling 17kms to office everyday, from my 1.5 kms now in Vijayawada. I have to wash my own clothes. I have to be thrifty with water. I have to start saving, this I dun no how! I have to learn a lot.

The past year has taught me a lot. Through all the deprivations and solitarian explorations, I have pondered and drilled deep down into my mind. I am more self-reliant now. I now don’t need anybody for my sake alone. No one needs to support me. I am self-sustainable, though I am still not viable to operate financially!

I have learned a new language, the language of my forefathers. I have learned to live in a different culture and still remain original. I don’t mind wearing an odd red tee shirt, but overall, I am still suave, in sense and form.

Whenever I leave a place forever, I have always felt a pang of sentimental and/or genuine regret. This time, I am only too happy to be going from this place. May be I will miss it later, but now I am happy.

Farewell Vijayawada!

So long, boy you can take my place
Ive got my papers, Ive got my pay
So pack my bags and Ill be on my way
To yellow river

Put my gun down, the war is won
Fill my glass high, the time has come
Im going back to the place that I love
Yellow river

Yellow river
Yellow river is in my mind and in my eyes
Yellow river
Yellow river is in my blood, its the place I love

Got no time for explanations
Got no time to lose
Tomorrow night youll find me sleeping underneath the moon
At yellow river

Cannon fire lingers in my mind
Im so glad that Im still alive
And Ive been gone for such a long time
From yellow river

I remember the nights were cool
I can still see the water pool
And I remember the girl that I knew
From yellow river

Escape

I could go on like this…..
Toward the dawn, toward light,
On my steed black, in flight.
Escape.
The path moulds to my fickle heart’s amour.
My horse asks for distance ever more.
Unwind my destiny, yet wait till faith
Wilts from within my spirit’s flight.
Lend me speed, call I, to the winds.
Drift me on to places, all sorts.

Fallow

~~ Under your feet lies the land, fallow.
Burn those pretences shallow.
Untouched by your hand worthy, shall
These grasses forever wallow?
Under your feet lies the land, fallow.
Burn those pretences shallow. ~~

I am a rock

A winters day
In a deep and dark december;
I am alone,
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.
I am a rock,
I am an island.
Ive built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
Its laughter and its loving I disdain.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

Dont talk of love,
But Ive heard the words before;
Its sleeping in my memory.
I wont disturb the slumber of feelings that have died.
If I never loved I never would have cried.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.

???

What a compromise life is. My heart is where it is not supposed to be, where I don’t want it to be. And it refuses to come back to me. It does not seek my comfort anymore.

Why must I experience my suffering? Why can’t I suffer through life without knowing? Why can’t I drag through existing like everything else? Why can’t I surrender forever, this pain for comfort?

To love or not to love?

Why do I come across women, who want to keep you, but not love you? Who are not willing to take the responsibility to say a no when a guy proposes? If the guy is not lovable, then how can he be a friend?

What is the meaning of loving as a friend? What is the meaning of loving as a girl friend? What is the meaning of lets just be friends?

Why are narrow understandings and shallow interpretations sullying such golden terms like friendship and love like this? Why do women want to keep a guy, and yet not love him or be committed to him?

Is it because I am like this, I want things in black and white; or is it because I ask for truth from people who cannot furnish it for themselves or me? Am I being over realistic or am I being a simpleton?

Purple Haze

It had been a long day, with all the top bosses swarming down to Bangalore, to give us the pleasure of their wisdom, though unsolicited. The dealers were there too, and it was old wine in a new bottle.

Effectiveness on the field was perceived to be low, and thus we had to go through another round of cleansing and enlightening about the mysterious new gearbox of our trucks, the E2 series is here to stay, and we were discussing or rather being told of the future of the technology. That no one understands the technology is not a point to ponder without some nausea.

Then the dealers left, and the meeting turned into an internal meeting, what with all that went on and on through the day being repeated in the evening. We were let go at 8 pm, from the Leela Palace, apparently a 7 star hotel. I stole all the nice, black pencils that had been kept for our use. I need not buy pencils for a decade now, at the most conservative estimate of my rate of usage of pencils.

I have a colleague in Hyderabad, Karthik, a Tamilian, who earlier worked for Tata. He is from Bangalore. Both of us decided to go get some beer after all this hulla had gotten over. He suggested the Purple Haze. We landed there.

Once the door opened, I was literally hit by the music, smash across my face. Audioslave! We found a couple of seats at the bar counter and ordered beer. We were the only guys in formals that evening, and everyone gave us a desultory glance for our liberty.

It all started off fine with me. The music was great and the beer was good. The people were young and there was a strange sensation within me. Then I started swinging. My head was darting forward and back. And with a pitcher guzzled and with the music, I finally had got to a high.

Then it was a maelstrom of the nirvana’s, erasmus’ and the what nots. Another pitcher and it was getting late and the tempo changed to some slow music. Altogether that night, I had drunk 2 pitchers and 2 rounds of my favorite scotch, nothing much by my standards. I manage to guzzle more at my place with Jagjith Singh, Farida Khannum and Abida Parveen.

We somehow got to our hotel rooms, and the next day I woke up with pain at the back of my neck. Head banging, something I am not used to. But it was an amazing evening. In a pub after a long time. But I had never been to a theme pub before. I rocked!

Strange(r)

In the dark journey through last night
I had traversed a 1000 miles.
I had come to a different land
From a different land, a stranger
From stranger parts, with strange
Wisdom, with a strange look.
The world is watchin me,
The world is watchin me….
I gaze back, lost, crouched within
I gaze back, lost, crouched within….
I am a stranger, I am a stranger,
They tell me yet again, when
I had just stood tall among men.
A stranger I say is nothing,
A stranger I say is nothing….
What good could you do?
When no one knows you?
What good can happen to you?
When no one knows you?
Oh love, no one knows me here.
They say I am dark within
My deception is glaring thin.
My grave would weep they say
To hold me when I sleep….
For they say, I enjoy my pain
My pain is my design, they accuse.
Oh love, tell them they are wrong….
What good could you do?
When no one knows you?
What good can happen to you?
When no one knows you?
Oh love, no one knows me here.