May this be a new year

Firstly, I want to wish you all the happiest of times in the coming year. May you be blessed with good health, contentment, success, peace, acceptance, and love. I hope you don't just have a wonderful year ahead, but make it so for others as well.

A new year... I was always thrown off by the change in the dates... now we're in 2009, not eight, it'll probably take me until February to remember to write it correctly.

This new year, however, I'm surprised at myself. I'm actually waiting- waiting for so many events and occasions- almost all of them a continuation of the previous year, of course.

The US will get a new president, one whom the entire world seems to be pinning their hopes on, poor guy. It's ironic that almost the entire world was hoping this guy would win- including himself, I'm sure, and now that he has, he has to stop the same world from annihilating itself, which is also something it seems hell bent on doing. I wonder if he can make some sense out of all that's happening though, because if not, we'll be in it for the very long haul. He doesn't have a magic wand, though, and we'll all have to pull our own weight if we want to hear any good news before the end of this year.

The one question is, whether or not we'll be able to prevent a full scale world war... or is that a matter of perspective, I wonder, since there are various degrees of war already happening in different parts of Africa, the middle east, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh?

There's also the economic slowdown. Well, it's a slowdown here, in the west it's more like recession, really

I wonder if Roger Federer will win back his No. 1 position on the ATP rankings, or if Rafael Nadal will manage to hold him off again. I personally want Roger to win all the four slams this year- not that I don't like Rafa, because truth be told I can never decide who I'm supporting when they're having it off against each other- it's actually pretty torturous, being forced to watch as a neutral party just because I cannot decide who I like more. I just think that Rafa won Wimbledon last year, so Roger should win at Roland Garros in 2009. He (rafa) just lost his quarter final match to Gaël Monfils of France at the Qatar Open, by the way.

Then there's cricket! I'm pretty sure Australia will not continue to be the world champs this year as well. I'm not feeling particularly vindictive about it, though- what do you expect if all the best players on this planet, who just happened to be on that team, suddenly retire en masse? It's bound to happen, but I'm glad to see that there is more than one team willing to slug it out for the top spot- and in all three forms of the game, no less. Yay for good cricket! :P Yayay for good cricket played by India! :D

The most important thing this year though, as opposed to all the previous ones, is that now we, the people, will have to stand up and be counted. We must now speak out, because as our carefully built worlds crumble around us, we have a choice to make. A choice that few have had to make before us, and one that will determine the course of our many races on this planet and in history. There are many questions that will be asked of us by those who inherit time from us. Who are we? Are we the people who stood by and watched as women were raped and children orphaned? Did we step up and protest while the poor and helpless became even poorer and more helpless as the wealthy became wealthier? Were we there to stop needless destruction of man, animal and planet? Did we put a stop to it? What did we do? It is time now to make our voices heard, for there will come a time not so far in the future when we will have to ask ourselves these questions.

There is something called the 'Responsibility to Protect', the intervention by external actors (preferably the international community through the UN) in a state that is unwilling or unable to prevent or stop genocide, massive killings and other massive human rights violations. The responsibility of a state to protect the citizens of another country, in case their own government cannot, or will not, do so. I believe that each of us has just such a responsibility towards every one else- If someone does not have food to eat, no matter where the live, then it is us that have failed our duty of care. It is us. We are responsible, for the simple reason that we can think and feel, and because we have knowledge of exactly what is happening in different parts of the world, now.

For years and years, humanity has been a silent sentinel to it's own destruction, whether it lie in religion, race or gender- whether it be in concentration camps, colonial fantasies or the lack of universal suffrage. Those who came before us have let it happen, and we have judged them harshly. It is time for us to right the wrongs- so today, and every day after today, ask yourself how did you help. Choose to be the person we need- choose to be courage, choose to be hope, choose to be truth, choose to be faith, choose to be charity, choose to be love, choose to be perseverance, choose to be tenacity, choose to be knowledge, choose to be thought. Choose to be the one who takes the next step forward into tomorrow. Choose to be action.

Be that change. Be that light.

“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge - myth is more potent than history - dreams are more powerful than facts - hope always triumphs over experience - laughter is the cure for grief - love is stronger than death.”

- Robert Fulghum

The Order of the Billion Clones

I went to a wedding party today. The gentleman whose daughter was to get married, has two children- a son, who is the elder one, and the said daughter. A few months ago, we also attended his Son's marriage. His wife, apart from being breathtakingly gorgeous, also hails from the North East side of India, a fact which caused much argument between the Father and Son, because somebody told the Father that women from that part of our country are not of 'good moral character'. The situation was, in fact, so bad that they eloped. The Son with his girlfriend, I mean, not the Father- Son duo.

When I was in XIth grade (the year we have to choose our subject stream in India from amongst Science, Commerce, and Humanities) I was forced to take up science, even though I wanted to do commerce because of my mother's insistence. I later almost had a breakdown before I shifted to commerce. Not that my parents were waiting for such a dire situation- they could see that I could not keep up with the demands of the science stream, and had asked me to reconsider, but I did want to give it another try. I'm today studying a set of commerce based subjects, and the above mentioned situation is probably the reason my base concepts are still slightly confused, not that I blame my mother for it.

Currently, I'm doing a project on how parental pressure affects students in general, and their choices in academics in particular. Honestly, I never knew people could be such absolute hypocrites. While surveying for people's opinions, parents often said to me "I don't actually agree with that, but it'll sound so bad if I say so..", because you see, we just want our children to go into 'respectable' professions, and be doctors, or engineers, or lawyers, and we will do almost anything to make sure our child 'knows' what we want... however, we don't want to come across as domineering and authoritarian. It'll look so bad.

They explained that to me, and went on to check one of the other options on the questionnaires.

Of course, it's wrong, or let's say inexact, to only blame parents for such situations... our parents also have to answer to their families, their friends, the neighbours, the postman, etc. I'm not just taking a dig- for those not familiar with the Subcontinent, this really is the case. The answer to 'What will people say?' drives most decisions here. It's the reason why there was such a row over some poor girl's ethnicity- after all, someone said that people from her home- region are not well brought up, so of course, everyone else must also think something alike. We cannot associate with that girl- she'll bring a bad name to the family, never mind that my Son is in love with her.

And sometimes, it gets really strange, and on so many levels- a really close friend wished to take up Mathematics Honors as her graduation degree subject, She even got through to some really good colleges for that subject, however, her parents refused to let her- not by forbidding it outright, but they were upset and insistent, and, well... there was just one way for her to go from there. All through school, the brightest kid is the one who does well in Math, and suddenly, once we're out of school, it's not a good enough option anymore- why? Oh, you see, the greatest opportunity is in the field of commerce, or business- so now you're compelled, even obligated, to take that up.

Then there is this friend, Z, who really wanted to pursue Mass Communications, and got through to the personal interview process of the best course for that subject on offer in India. The interviewers took one look at her school- leaving examination's mark sheet and asked her, dumbfounded, "Par Beta, apke to 92% aaye hain! Aap yeh kyun karna chahte ho?" (But, my child, you've scored 92% marks- why do you want to take up this course?). Z raised an eyebrow, and asked if the course was not good enough for somebody with a good (great) percentage, to which they hastily (and unconvincingly) responded that of course it was...
The point is, an unconventional course, or one that is considered to be 'professional', apart from the regular Engineering, Law, etc., is only meant for students who don't score well enough to go anywhere else. The idea that somebody may actually want to study that subject due to free will is blasphemous.

Why does this keep happening to us? I know that our parents' want what is best for us, but so what? Don't we also aspire to the very best on offer as well? Isn't it a natural human tendency to gravitate towards the best available opportunity, whichever that may be for our individual selves? So whether it is our life partner, or the subjects we choose to study, should we not have a greater- No, the greatest- say in who or what we choose, and how we select that pick? After all, who can know us better than ourselves?

Well, the most important, I guess, is the fact of our financial dependence on them and secondly, our parents definitely want to save us from regret- you know, that potent (and rather dread- inducing, if exercised by somebody other than yourself on your life) question of 'what if?'.
What if I had done what everyone asked me to do? Would I be better off today? Would I be happier? More financially secure? Would my marriage work better? Would I own the house that I want, and the best car available? Would I?

To answer these, I will have to turn to those stores of such infinite and apt wisdom, Google, and my favourite, Professor Albus Dumbledore-

"The consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is a very difficult business indeed ..."

I love the man, I really do. I first read that line as an eleven year old, and have never second guessed my actions since- or tried not to, in any case. My mum says something similar, but since the applications of her theory are somewhat confined only to shopping, I shall refrain from quoting it here. And besides, Dumbledore said it first.

That reminds me, that we are also studying Public Relations as a subject, and our idea for the project suddenly went kaput, and so we had to hurriedly come up with new suggestions... One of my five other ideas was to look into 'The Harry Potter Alliance', and all their PR activities, since I found the concept really interesting, and their Board of Directors are available on public forums such as Facebook, etc.

They take the concepts presented in JK Rowling's books' and apply them to regular every day global problems such as poverty, free media, discrimination, government unaccountability, etc.

So, what happened?

I started getting panicked calls from the other members of my group, to tell me that we absolutely cannot do a project on 'Harry Potter'- "I mean, come on, how childish! It has to be a good project, yaar (my friend), we must get full marks in it. There's just no way I'm submitting a project on Harry Potter!" When I asked them if they're familiar with what the HP Alliance does, they were clueless, however, they wished to be taken seriously, and therefore would not be associated with anything to do with 'Harry Potter', no matter how interesting the project actually turned out to be. They even made sure I had nothing to do with that project anymore- since we're doing all other projects together, they asked me to concentrate on another subject, while somebody else handled PR. My greatest problem with this was that nobody even bother to go through the links I sent them, or any of my other suggestions.

So how can I say that our parents' are the only ones affected by social perception and the pressure to conform?

Disguised Barbarianism

It was karva chauth yesterday. Karva chauth is a hindu festival for married women, and it involves the woman keeping a ‘vrat’ or a fast throughout the day. The fast involves not eating (obviously) and not drinking anything through the day.

Now this is strenuous, so why is this ‘festival’ celebrated in the first place? It’s meant to pray for the long and successful life of one’s husband… really? Why? When was the last time men fasted for the ‘long and successful’ lives of their wives?… In India, that would be just about never.

Why is it that after so many years of education, women still go through this rubbish? My mother recently observed ‘teej’, which is pretty much the same as karva chauth, and is more prevalent in her side of India. I didn’t really know she was fasting until my brother yelled at her, asking if she had gone mad to be doing something like that…

What’s disturbing though, is the fact that education is something she received as a legacy in her family. Her grandmother was a graduate, which is saying a lot since education & equal treatment for women is something only just picking up in most of India. Moreover, the lady was an educated, degree- holding woman, who was the principal of a school, which made her an educated and earning woman. This is still a rarity in most rural and semi- urban areas of this country. For this to happen, her grandma’s family would have to be a highly enlightened lot, specially noting that this was more than a hundred years ago.

It’s a legacy I am exceptionally proud of. But, as the fourth generation of educated, degree- brandishing women in this family, it seriously bothers me that my mother kept this stupid fast. Sure, it’s her choice, and all that… but I noted that my Dad was perfectly at home with both food and water that day, just like most men in this country were on the day of karva chauth.

Of course, there are many men who observe the fast along with their wives these days, but they are few and far apart. Many of them even try and stop their wives from fasting, but apparently, the ladies insist. Ladies, if this is your way of expressing your love, then I have to point how very one- sided it is. It actually just seems to be an expression of your ‘gratitude’. The very same ‘gratitude’ that society feels women should express towards men.

This is completely baseless now, of course, specially in the cities and most towns, since women now earn their bread, rent and make up.

In the end, if one wants to be treated equally, one has to- one must!- feel equal. And so called ‘festivals’ like teej and karva chauth, don’t do women any good.