Ramblings

I wonder
... what Mr Bean does for a living
... how a spic-n-span house like the one in Tom & Jerry can be infested with holes
... when in a fight scene, the hero and villain shatter earthen pots and squash tomatoes, who pays for the shattered pots and the squashed tomatoes -- the villain or the hero? Do the vendors go after them after the fight is over?
... if the hero goes back to look for his sunglasses, which he invariably throws away before plunging into the above said fight

I like
... the smell of a bookstore
... the smell of fish being fried at noon that wafts in from a neighbour's house
... the smell of first rain
... the smell of freshly ironed clothes
... the smell of a hundred flowers and fresh leaves as you walk by a florist's shop

I remember with nostalgia
... the afternoon spent under the mango tree at home, discussing Kahlil Gibran with a friend
... the late evening walk with a friend and someone special, wondering what he was thinking, wondering what he would say, wondering where we were headed
... the walk in the rain with a friend under one umbrella, unmindful of one half of me being drenched
... the Sunday sojourns with my mother
... waiting for my father's letters from Calcutta

Swooooshhh...

Been realising that it is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never able to know ourselves fully as we are.

Oh well

I have given up worrying about the night shift ban. Most of the women I spoke to about this have found it so ridiculous, they are sure none of this will happen or can happen. So then, why should I be the only one worrying so much?

But at the back of my mind, the feeling of helplessness still nags.

Safety of women, my left foot

I guess the only purpose of that bill (see previous post) was to generate some shock waves. In an interview with The New Indian Express (I can't find the link), the state labour minister Iqbal Ansari says that IT , BPO and media companies can get exemptions. Most sectors that have women working in night shifts can get exemptions.

So then why the bill, you ask? In this interview, the minister says that when a woman becomes victim of a crime, the government is blamed for not providing enough security to women. Now when this law comes into effect, the company that employs the women will have to take completely responsibility of the women's safety. Basically, with this law, the government washes its hands off the issue of making the city a secure place for women.

All this apart, I would like to know who came up with this harebrained idea. Was even one woman involved in the decision making? These so-called people's representatives -- did they ask those they represent?

I am being eaten by this damning feeling of helplessness.

When incompetence meets male chauvinism...

... you get the heights of ridiculousness.

How else would the Karnataka ministers come up with something like this? To ensure the safety of women, what do they decide to do? Send all women home by 8pm. No night shifts for women, just send them home fast and keep them out of trouble.

Here is a reaction story to this move.

Each time something like this happens, one thinks this is the heights, it can’t get worse than this. But now I realise, we probably severely underestimate out representatives. They outdo themselves each and every time.

The safety of Bangalore city has been debated time and again. What measures have the government taken? More cops on the roads, well-lit footpaths? None of those. Instead they try say that woman is the root cause of it all, so let her stay home.

I am lost for words…

What happens to the hundreds of women working in BPOs, call centres, media houses? Imagine this:
“Thank you for calling, how may I help you? Oh wait a minute, sorry, it’s 8 o’ clock, I have to go home.”
“Sorry, I can’t finish the page, it’s 8 and I am going home”

Considering the perpetrators of all crimes on women are men, why the hell didn’t anyone thinking of making the men go home by 8??

But the icing on my ire was the fact that two women who heard this said, “Ooh.. how wonderful! So no more nights shifts and we can go home by 8.”

The usually silent feminist RBCs in me are screaming for justice.

Update: Times reports that there really wasn't any such legislation and that the minister merely goofed up by stating so.

A trip home

After nearly a year, I went home recently. What is the point of being just an overnight journey from home if you can’t visit as often as you would want to? But well, that is enough matter for another post.

Anyway, the first two days I found myself struggling not to feel and behave like an outsider, like a tourist. The place had changed, new swanky buildings, more apartment blocks than I would ever have thought possible in that little city, twice as many vehicles on the roads… Ah roads – they were the same!

Roaming around the familiar streets of Fort Kochi, I was fascinated by the many little things that I had merely looked at in passing during all earlier walks there. The quaint buildings, the park, the roads, the cafes, the ancient trees, the “you buy we fry” stalls. Maybe the fact that S was going berserk with the camera helped this feeling. At the Chinese nets, the fishermen called out with a well practiced sophistication that ill suited them: “Come on madam, come up here, take nice photographs, see the fish”.

Drive along the water front and sure signs of the great growth the city is waiting to witness – like a roll call of all the major builders in the country, boards proudly announce the upcoming residential complexes. Advertisements everywhere you look announcing even more such properties, in areas that would have been considered back of the beyond as early as five years ago.

The city is changing faster than I can grasp or keep track of. There’s only one solution – go home often enough!
:)