Stand Together

In December 2014 I was in Hyderabad and I was hounded about not having children even after two years of marriage. Four months later, I am greeted with the same intrusive questions. Fortunately, I am not the only recipient of this negative welcome. The real housewives of Hyderabad (yes I am talking of all those aunties in the neighborhood who could also be related to you) strangely have an agenda against young people these days. First they pick on you for not studying engineering, they then pick on you for marrying ‘late’ (ahem… 27 is not late), then they try to make you feel guilty about the sadness you are inflicting on your parents by not having children yourself. To all of you aunties, I am still living for myself and I like it that way. So dear aunties, do not pester me about not having children. Do not irritate me by asking ‘oh now you have bought a house in South Africa, so you are settling down there’ - well, what do you think? You do not need to be curious about h...

So the Indian Government has banned the BBC Four documentary ‘India’s Daughter’. The government highly underestimates those who have voted it into power. You ban it on TV, we will watch it on YouTube, and we will also download it because when you ban it on YouTube we will upload it again a million times for everyone to watch. We are Janata-Janardhan and we get what we want, we are smart like that. As shocking as the documentary is, the reaction of a lot of people is even more shocking. I openly supported BBC for broadcasting this documentary and chided those who indulged in abusive banter against the movie, against women and against democracy. There are people who have stated things such as “BBC is very much notorious for showing dark side of developing countries n always justifies its "white agent" role” (real quote from a highly educated and popular Telugu news reader on Facebook). For some people this whole episode went from a period of self-reflection to finding...

I am not African but sometimes the lack of respect shown towards Africa shakes me up. Boko Haram murdered 2000 people in a small town called Baga in Nigeria. ( Read here ) How do 2000 lives not matter? Why was this piece of important news relayed to the world after several days of its occurrence? The attack on Pakistani school children and Parisian journalists shook the world but how is it nearly possible that the death of 2000 people and the abduction of 300 school girls not matter (anymore)? Why is the world so ignorant about Africa? Africa is beautiful and it is not all about the forests and the animals. It is not about the rich natural resources that are still being exploited by the “civilised” world. It is as much about people and their cultures and their lives as it is about people, their lives and their cultures in the rest of the world. I’m not an African but I live in South Africa and I am constantly asked ignorant and annoying questions about the heat in the Sahara ...

I am an Indian woman. I am the obedient daughter, the dutiful sister, the loving wife, the caring mother and the doting grandmother. I am more than I was destined to be and I am proud of it. I am a strong woman. A woman who can fight, a woman who can support, a woman you can rely on and a woman who can cry with you. I am all this. I simply have no defects. As a child I obey my parents. I bring them unfathomable joy. But there are those who do not want me. They kill me before I am born. There are instances where I have survived and when I survive, I repay my salvation in full with interest. I am trained to be a good wife from a tender age. At an age where my brother gets to play cricket in the street, I am set a task of learning to cook. I finish my cooking course as though I am a prodigy with a brilliant performance; a performance that lasts as long as I live. By the time I am out of my teens, I have turned my childhood nemesis of cooking into a therapy session. That is my accomp...

Belonging to a minority community in India is difficult. Minorities are asked to prove our loyalties time and again though we all celebrate Diwali, play holi, watch Bollywood movies and do everything that a normal Indian does. But, we are n ot very welcome in India. I read and hear hateful speeches all that time and they have a devastating effect on me. Especially now since I won't comply or appreciate anyone who wants to vote for Modi. I really don't care who you vote for but I care whose side you will take if Gujarat riots occur again. I have had a 'facebook acquaintance', accuse me of selling India off to Pakistan, China and other countries. What more must I do to prove I am patriotic as well? I cry every time I hear Jana Gana Mana in the foreign land I live in. But again, when this is what so called educated people believe, why take the trouble of proving myself? This is a real "comment" made by the same person and it has left me shaken and chilled to the...

Just done watching the show ‘Meri Bhabi’ (My Sister In Law), which airs at 8:00PM from Monday to Friday on Star Plus. This sister in law, Kittu, is the ideal wife, ideal daughter-in-law and of course the ideal sister-in-law. She is a character with whom the audiences instantly fall in love just as her family did.   I do not like this soap opera much because of how the characters on the show including her husband, Anand, and his family take her for granted and walk all over her. I do not know what message the director wants to convey to us about Kittu. Is he/she trying to tell us that this is how an ideal bahu and wife should be, let everyone walk over you or is the director trying to show us that being an ideal self sacrificing wife and bahu isn’t the best thing to do. I have been watching this show for the past month with my mother. She loves Kittu for being the ideal woman and I dislike Kittu for forgetting that she is a self respecting individual. Kittu is in th...

Two different stories about two different women hit the news recently. One is Nigella Lawson and the other is Yukta Mookhey. While one is a celebrated chef, the other is a former Miss World. While both their stories are about abuse in marriage, they have been treated differently by the media of respective countries. Nigella Lawson’s story was treated with the utmost respect in the UK. She is now a champion of the cause. On the other hand the Indian media handled Yukta Mookhey’s story most shamefully. Instead of writing about her plight and making her a postive example for many women who are in exactly the same situation, the media choose to write about her clothes and make up at various public events after she announced her divorce. It is such a shame. Indian media prides itself on being free and a champion of many causes then why couldn’t they show what they could do by citing Yukta Mookhey as an example and using her story to help other women fight their battles instead ...