when was the last time you did not feel any fear?

To Love, is it to love with the understanding that you are prepared to lose what you love? can you love knowing that this is not permanent? or can you love only if you know for sure that this is worth investing in?

that is the thing about life - the changes that it brings about.... and you never know the turn it is going to take.... in the process you loose a lot of things that you held dear in your life.... and sometimes even wonder why it came into your life only to go away...
 

My visit to the Dhobhi Ghat

advice from a father to a daughter on the anvil of her marriage....

whilst family is important, always remain a true professional - both are consistent...

now why dont I hear this more often??? especially to a generation of women professionals like me??? why do I constantly have to figure out which gang I belong to? the modern woman (implying career oriented women who are independent) or the traditional kinds (who would presumably give up career after husband and kid)... why cant I just be me... whether it is as a career oriented woman or a traditional woman or both sometimes???

Please can the world give me back my choice??? and can my father just tell me the above as well... that as a man he does not feel the need to choose either one ....and that he sees me as a completely perfect woman no matter what I choose....

I have just been approached to be a mentor to a young professional... she is all of 22... and bursting with enthusiasm I am sure at having joined one of the prestigious firms.... in short, as a mentor, I am supposed to help her navigate her career... and hopefully help her achieve heights of success..

If I were to look at my career progress and think about the advice I wished I had received, here is a list:

a. dont be afraid of enquiry... it might not amount to much but you have to keep an inquisitive mind
b. dont be afraid of getting it wrong first time..... just make your best effort no matter
c. be open to feedback
d. WORK comes first for the first 3 years of your life... then other things can come up...
e. Always keep your boss informed..
f. Be proactive...
g. dont hestitate to ask for work
h. Never tell the Boss you need downtime...

I am sure there are more.... for now I am hoping that I will get it right with this young associate...

ok change in gears.... reversal is in order.... hmmm... Alice, get a grip and decide...

would you ever walk away entirely from a person with whom you have had a mental connection with?

BJP.... why are you so in disarray.... how can you bring back Rajnath Singh... do you have no one more credible?? why do you waste an opportunity to be a party with a difference....

all this is going to benefit the congress.... which is happy situation for congress but not for the country.... one needs a viable alternative to make democracy work...

on another note, how touching was Rahul Gandhi's speech at Jaipur..... obviously playing to the gallery.... but seriously, it was very touching.... and a reminder of the sacrifices that these kids have seen in their lives.... I always tell people... they were just born into the family... and they have seen two violent deaths and myriad attacks on their character.... is it possible to live sanely in such situations?? i doubt it ....

have I really stumbled on it??? will I go through with it??  is the universe prodding me to???

Lincoln, Gandhi....

Both superb failures in their careers as lawyers... and yet the greatest leaders...

there is a sudden spurt in the number of people viewing this blog.... I am confused.... am I suddenly a celebrity blogger? and I dont even know about it?? well all I can say is... how about leaving some comments on my blog if you are actually reading it?

No country for women

It appears India is no country for women... the gang rape has brought about the worst and best in India.... on one hand is the spontaneous outburst of reaction from the common man.... the scores of men and women who came out on the streets of India to protest this declining safety record for women... and then there are the politicians who came out and the most ghastly things about women....

RSS chief says rapes happen only in India and not in Bharat, despite evidence to the contrary.... and then he says that women are meant to do the household chores... and that if they dont look after the husband then the husband is entitled to leave them and go..... and then ofcourse the shocker from Asaram who thinks a rapist would stop raping if the woman begs him and calls him brother....

Now that the skeletons are out, perhaps its time to acknowledge that there is no country for women....

The Delhi Gang Rape has caught India by storm... and for the first time I feel such agitation is needed to draw attention to this problem.... rape is always such a sensitive topic... prevention rather than cure is always the norm...

Growing up the only thing i used to fear in my life was rape.... to me that represented the ultimate humiliation of a girl... the subjugation, the sexual abuse and the exercise of power over a woman was to me the greatest fear I had... added to that was the societal acceptance that yes, you could get raped... something in the attitude also spoke about how as a woman you should prevent it from happening... and if it did happen then you need to figure out why.... it seemed, at that point in time, to be the worst possible thing that could happen to a woman...

that fear never left me... I went to law school and the one thing that happened was the fact that I dont need to feel helpless in the face of sexual assault... and that if you are raped that does not mean that it is your fault... that the man can be challenged....that there is life after rape... I felt calmer and stopped including this in my list of things to be afraid of... but the fear never left entirely.... Benazir Bhutto in her autobiography specifies that she herself was so scared of rape that many times she would not step out of her room at Harvard if there was man in the hallway .... so it was not just me... every woman feared this.....

most recently, when the robbery happened the first thing that crossed my mind was what if the robber had decided to attack me... and till today I do not know how I would have reacted if I was attacked....and thank God everyday for sparing me....

I have always felt strongly about rape and rape victims... many times helpless in the wake of what I consider is a societal attitude... movies depict rape as an "easy option".... an easy weapon to use against woman and her family.. its almost like she doesnt matter in the game of life.... and she can be swept aside by any man for any reason....

When will start viewing women as human beings????

New Year

2013 is finally here...now back in my youth I would have imagined 2013 to be so far ahead in the future that the images of the future as shown in the movie "Back to the Future" with flying cars and sky signal stops etc... well no country in the world is close to that kind of a lifestyle... India is far far behind ....

how was 2012?

well year end introspection is always good .... 2012 was very frankly a mixed bag.... a lot of ups and downs... and at the end of it, all incidents seemed to have shaped me in some way or the other... I was as always my over imaginative self... imagining the worst even in cases where there was really no need... with all my friends lamenting that I am an otherwise normal person.... except for my over imagination.... well that being said, 2012 was challenging in its own way.... and nice and pleasant in other ways... 2012 surprised me ... I was mature when I least expected me to be... I realised how far I had come as a person when I put my head down and realised that i had moved on in many ways...

2013.... how would I like it to be? my simple answer.... just surprise me...