How Can I Be Proud Of Being An Indian Woman?

     A few days ago I turned 20. I presume I can now safely say I am a woman and not a girl anymore, and have lived a life long enough to form opinions and be considered as an adult(To my mother I am still a 13 year old kid!). Today I write not as Spoorthi, a college going girl who is always so cheerful and loves Dogs, but I write as a Woman...an Indian Woman.
     I wasn't born in a typical Indian family, but it was rather just me and my mom my whole life. So, I have lived a life where I have seen how strong and independent a woman can truly be, in all circumstances that life and society can throw at us. Today, I too can proudly say I am a strong woman!
    I walk with my shoulders straight and head held high. I voice my opinions in a country where almost everything has gone wrong; starting from the government to the social set-up of caste and religion. I truly believe that no dream is too far away to be achieved regardless of your gender, caste or colour.
     Yet, today I write this feeling pain, disappointment and distress, and am standing on the cliff where I am only a few centimeters away from giving up on this nation. I love my country, and I always will, but will I ever be truly happy in this society?
     From the moment I open my eyes in the morning every force around me wants to show me my place! My place as a woman! I am stared at by the men on the streets for the body I walk in. I am unheard in a debate in a group of men. I am told I need to marry a man to take care of me.
     I pick a guitar, I am told to pick a spatula instead to learn cooking. I try to ride a bike, but no man is ready to sit behind me since it is embarrassing for a man who would let a woman take control of a bike. I want to make decisions for my group, but I don't see a single ear hearing me.
     Why is it so rare in this nation to see a woman making decisions and taking control of situations, and  a bunch of men listen to her and truly respect her decisions without prejudice? Why is so rare to see an unmarried woman successful in her life, being appreciated and held as an example of strength, and not forced to find herself a groom? Why is to so impossible to be a woman and even feel safe in this country?
     Will I really be happy in a nation where everything in my life is decided by the gender I belong to? The clothes I wear, the people I spend time with, the education I get, the lifestyle I want to lead, even the time I have to get back home is decided on my gender! My worth, my value, my talent, my respect and my place in the society is careful measured based on my gender! How can I be happy and proud of being an Indian, when it truly hurts to know this inevitable fact of this society?
     I am writing this under the risk of sounding like a whining woman, who is desperate to seem victimized. But no matter how I am looked at for writing this, the truth will never change. Women have always been and will always be objectified, disrespected and will never be treated as equals!
     We are used for the maintenance of a household and used for the sexual gratification of men(The recent rape cases, and this nation's inability to stop it still is the biggest and the most shameful evidence). Our dreams are crushed and replaced by dreams already planned by the society.
     This is a democratic nation. But, a democratic nation for men! Freedom? Liberty? Equality? How can I ever taste? How can I ever be proud to be an Indian Woman?

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Only Because She Was A Woman!

     When it comes to music, I must say I am lucky to always be surrounded by friends who are musically oriented and motivated(Though somehow, most of them seem to be of the male breed). Last evening was an evening with one such group of friends, practicing and creating tunes and rhythms,with guitars, bass, drums and voices.
     There came a moment in the practice session when we had to refer to Youtube for one of the guys to check the guitar cover of a rock song. One of my friends sat himself in front of the computer screen and typed in the search for the guitar cover(All those who may be musically- retarded, a cover is when an artist reproduces the original song, but is not the original artist).
     The first video suggested by Youtube was that of a girl with her electric guitar. Since I wasn't the one playing the guitar I wasn't paying much attention to this quest, until I hear my friend's comment and the giggles that followed from the rest of my group!
     "You guys wanna check out a chick playing the song" *Read the phrase with utter sarcasm and cynicism in his voice*. Then all I hear after that gender-biased comment is all my friends giggling! No one protested against that remark!
     Maybe the fact that I was the only girl present, made me the only one to yell out against it. But being a man is no excuse to underestimate the talent of a girl, is it?
     Being the rebel that I am, I had to say something. My comment went something like this, "Hey! Don't underestimate anyone based on their gender. Girls can play the guitar too!"
     Though I heard further protests from the guys saying they didn't judge based on the fact that she was a women, they still chose to watch a video by a guy!
     I further put forth my point saying, "She has got the most views on Youtube, so obviously she is good".
     To my utter dismay, my well-educated and open-minded friends commented "She got the views because she is a woman! That is how it works in Youtube".
     The rebel in me couldn't sit quite while this group of men, who will later become the future of this country and become accountable for this nation's fate, undermined the abilities of an entire population of women, and that too only for the fact that they are women!
     What seems like a common interaction of men in this nation on a daily-basis, is in fact the very reason as to why women aren't given the credit, opportunity and the life that they deserve! I live in a nation where it is completely normal that I am judged as incapable of anything worthwhile ONLY BECAUSE I AM A WOMAN!
     They all assumed that the girl wouldn't play well without even listening to her play. Worst of all, they all truly believed that the views that she had earned were purely because SHE WAS A WOMAN! The people in this country believe that when a woman earns any recognition or credibility,  it is purely because of her appeal of BEING A WOMAN, and that it has nothing to do with the fact that she may actually be good at what she does, and worked hard to get to where she is!
     Having a debate would make no sense, so once they were done listening to the guy play, I had to go back and play the video where the woman is seen playing the song. Any guesses of how she played?
     If you guessed she was horrible, then you are exactly like those who judge based on gender! Because she played really well. Even my men-friends had to finally agree that she was better than the male counter-part, and hence actually deserved the high views that she earned for her skills, and not just for the fact that SHE WAS A WOMAN.
     Its time we look at people for what they truly are capable of, which means looking beyond their gender too!

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CHOOSE TO LIVE!

     Its been a couple of hours into the day predicted by the Mayans as the End of The World. I don't really feel a tremor, or hear a meteor crashing anywhere close by or feel a flood coming in. Inspite of all the drama about the end, I as a true optimist have all along believed that the world will not 'end' today, and as the dreaded day has arrived, I still choose to lazily sit in front of my computer and ignore the 'warnings' of the end.
     As I sit browsing interesting artists to listen to, I wonder why we all are afraid of the end. Since the day the word 'death' enters our vocabulary, we all know that it is inevitable, don't we? Nobody in the history has ever been to skip that part where we leave the earth and go to another life(or anything else that you may believe in, happens after death). Not even geniuses like Socrates and Einstein could. I highly doubt it is going to happen anytime soon. Yet, we do not accept death as a milestone in our lives, just as we accept our graduation, our wedding or even our divorce. 
     Maybe it is that we value life so much that we do not wish for it to end. We all wish to wake up everyday and smell the flowers while the warmth of the sun’s rays make our cheeks glow… As if!

     How many of us really do stop and smell the flowers, or look up at the sun and appreciate the fact that without that ball of flame high up in the sky we all would cease to exist? How many of us, since the day we heard the ‘doomsday’ was arriving, did anything to make the rest of our living days meaningful and worthwhile.

    We heard the news, gasped in disbelief and went right back to living as the same old sheep following the herd, didn't we? Most of just sat counting down to this very day, instead of adding unforgettable moments and smiles to our days that slipped away.

     Maybe if we all had managed to make those remaining days meaningful and worthwhile, and truly lived it to the fullest, we would not be so afraid to face the end. Maybe if we realized what our hearts and our souls truly wish for, and worked towards it, rather than setting goals that the society has already set for us, we would probably have been closer to being happy.

     If the world doesn't end today (which I really think it won’t!), let’s all take this as a second chance at life. From this day on let’s choose to take life as a second chance to make it right. Let's choose to spend our days the way it’s meant to be. Let’s choose to listen to our hearts and our souls instead of the people around us. Let’s choose to live our lives!

    Or choose to wait until the next prediction of 'Doomsday'...




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STOP SCREAMING!

I am a girl who loves watching horror movies. The most gruesome, bloody and horrific movies are some of my favourite movies to watch. Yet I am not the kind of girl that is frightened easily. You may find me with tears rolling down my cheeks for an entire day or eyebrows all wrinkled up in rage for silly things, but you will hardly find me screaming because I was scared. Or so I thought!

            There is a first time for everything I suppose. That is probably the whole point of growing up, where you learn new things not only about the mystical world around you with its bounty of hidden secrets, but also about the hidden wonders about yourself that evolve along with you as the years pass by. The same happened to me last week.                                                

            I am the kind of person who can manage to get sound sleep even in the middle of an earthquake (the fact that I don’t scare easily might be an attributive factor here). I don’t even wake up when there is a loud noise nearby, when I am asleep. This night was certainly different. I wasn’t even having a nightmare, but I suddenly woke up only to find weird shadows moving on my window screens as if the shadows were trying to tackle the light that was trying to get into my room.

            Just then I saw something moving behind the screen, and before my brain could grasp the situation, I was screaming so loud and running into my mother’s room! At that moment all I could think of was that a man was trying to get into my room and I needed to get away (How he was trying to get in through the thick metal grills I didn’t think). I managed to scare my mother out of her wits (I sure get a laugh out of it now)

            On investigating (which my mother did all by herself while I hid under her blanket) she came to the conclusion that it was our usual cat thief who had had a stomach-full meal from our kitchen and was trying to escape from my bedroom window. All is well!

            But as a person who asks too many questions and thinks more than normal, this was an incident that needed much more thinking than the fact that a cat managed to pull a classic prank on me.

            When I was faced with an uncertain entity trying to get into my room, I would expect my head would think it to be a ghost or some sort of paranormal entity (Yes I recently watched the movie paranormal entity. The realism with which they have made the movie must have had some affect on me I expected), considering the fact that I watch so many horror movies. But instead my head thought it to be a man of flesh and blood trying to harm me!

            This is a little disturbing to think that a girl would consider a real man a greater threat than the unexplained!

            That night when I screamt and ran out of the room, I was not just a girl scared of a man, but I was every girl who has a fear of being attacked by a man. That night I felt what every woman and girl feels as a vulnerable and ignored half of the society. Every woman understands at least once in her lifetime, what it means to be helpless and have no power, like how I felt when I thought a man was getting into my room that night.

            I am happy to announce that I do get sound sleep now and the cat has stopped pranking me, at least for now. But I wonder how many screams of little girls and women all around the world are going unheard this very second. When will we stop screaming?

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DREAM TO BE FREE

NOTE: The idea for this article was given by a dear friend of mine, Arpit Singh. He is also the author of the short poem quoted in the beginning of the article.

"chal uth, uth jaag

aur jagade sabsoye sapne,

chal jaag , aur bhaag

mitake sab raston ke kaante

kar galtiyan , kar chah se

kha thokrein, har rah pe

kar himmat, na maan haar kabhi

tu ccheen , tu noch

kar le jo karna hai muthi me

na fikar kar

tu azaad hai!

iss band muthi ko khol de

jo chahe voh tu bol de

chal ab jaag, aurbhaag

aur jagade sabsoye sapne,

tu rukna nahi

TU AZAAD HAI!"

                                                         -Arpit Singh

 I wake up every morning with a dream. A dream to show the world who I am, to open up my soul to everyone, to stand up and tell the truth. Every morning I wake up with the zeal to listen to my heart and to be who I am. But as the rays of the sun falls on me, as the glares of the people falls on me and the air they breathe falls on me, I lose my voice. My head bends down in the fear of losing. I know if I stand up for what I believe, I stand up alone. I know if I raise my voice, I will have a million voices juxtaposing it. And I know if I break away, a thousand chains pull me back. I think too much, I worry too much and I lose even before I really lose!

I am afraid no one will understand me. I am afraid they will say I am crazy. Then I ask myself  who are they to judge me? My conscience softly answers, they are the world! They rule this place I call home. They make the boundaries that I cannot cross. It is a war I shall never win, or is it?

When I feel all hope is lost, I see another soul caged in this place called society, suffocating for free air just like me. He screams out in his dreams only to an audience of empty space. He writes down his thoughts only to read it himself. He talks about his passions but only to the mirror. I know it because I go through the same unending ordeal every single day. I see the fire to break free, in his burning eyes. It fuels my own desire to fly away, soar like an eagle above all.

He talks of big things. He says the day the Berlin wall fell, the day Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery, the day our country won independence, were days that man won the war against those suppressing his very soul. He says they faced society and fought in spite of all the pitfalls along the way. He says we may lose many battles but if we listen to the heart we will win the war. I listen to his words and my desire to fight burns brighter than ever. I want to stand up and say “this is who I am, this is what I believe and I am happy”.

I dream of the days of triumph. I play the scenes of my free life in my head over and over again. Do not be misconstrued! I do not wish to be free to do whatever I want, but I wish to be free to decide what is right and what is wrong. I long for the day when I am my own self without having to worry breaking the rules this world set for me. I want my wings to open and lead me to where I belong…

The day is finally here. The day we face the world and tell them they cannot hold us inside their unseen boundaries anymore. I stand up and open my mouth. My heart burns like dry leaves on the peak of summer. I cannot hold my soul in anymore. But just then I feel a cold breeze chill my skin. I look around and I am alone… all alone!

He has left me all by myself. Standing alone I lose my voice again. Responsibilities, consequences, duty, wealth, family, career… he sacrifices his freedom for the same society that suffocates him everyday. I see him choke for the free air that he gave up. The flame in his eyes is slowly fading away as he gives in to this society and allows them to bind him tighter and tighter to their rules. I look in despair. I know I lost this battle but I shall never lose hope. I have lost, only to come back stronger. There will be a day when I wake up with my dream and it will come true. The day I break all boundaries around me and fly above all.

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HOW TO BE HAPPY IN ‘N’ OUT OF A RELATIONSHIP

If you have started reading this thinking that I will present to you a set of instructions on how to be in a happy and successful  relationship, or steps on how to keep you partner happy, then, I must warn you that I am the last person to be preaching such things! Since my mother will be reading this, I have never had a relationship. But hypothetically speaking, even if I have had them, then I have never given them enough priority to study them that intently.

            Hence, the instructions for manipulating a relationship is for commercial magazines and tabloids to take care of. My words are more concerned with aspects deeper or rather more significant in an individual’s life. Matters concerning that little thing called happiness.

            So why the word relationship in the title you ask. Sadly, I have come to observe that, with the rise in the population of this planet, there is an equal rise in the feeling of loneliness amongst us beings. The more faces we see around us, the more alone we feel. Ironic! All of us are after something or the other, aren’t we? Money, smartphones, love, lust, God, new Jimmy Choo shoes, what not.(If you aren’t one of these then I must say I’m very pleased) We are looking to relate to something… anything to gain a certain sense of satisfaction in our souls, simply called peace!

            But are we satisfied? Are we happy? Are we at peace? If we were, then I wouldn’t be writing this article and you wouldn’t be reading it.

            A new boyfriend or a girlfriend is certainly not going to change that cycle of pain-joy-pain that is eternal. YES! Sorry to break that bubble, but a new anything won’t make you happy, Unless….

            Unless you learn to be happy from the inside. Today a lover’s hug might give you the warmth and delight you crave for, but no celestial being can assure you that it will remain with you always. When your happiness is dependent on something or someone, it is next to impossible to say that it will remain with you forever. Simple logic isn’t it?

            Peace is when you are happy when you are stripped of everything that you have today. Your family, your friends, you lover, your new phone, your big car, your credit cards, your everything! The day you can say with confidence that “I am happy no matter what or who leaves me”, then that is the day that you are truly HAPPY! Now, you know the secret.

            Be happy with nothing, then even losing everything can’t take away your happiness!


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The Little Things That Make Heaven

     I look for a happy relationship with a happy man to make my life happy. I look for a bag full of gold to get me new shoes and make my feet happy for the rest of my life. I look for a happy group of friends to drink with and make merry. Am I happy? 

     The man walked out of my life, the bag of gold is all gone and the group of friends started to fade away. Am I still happy?

      A wise man once said -   
                                'Heaven on Earth' is a choice you must make, 
                                                                                    not a place you must find.'

     Every day I am given 1440 minutes to live. Every day I am given 1440 opportunities to be happy. Instead I choose to frown, whine and shed tears down my face.
  
     A happy little boy happens to look at me by chance. The intensity of the sadness spreads to his innocent heart, and I see his smile lowly turn upside down. I did him wrong. Him and many many others who are around me.

     Then I hear a song -
                         "When you wanna give up, and your hearts about to break
                                Remember that you're perfect, God makes no mistakes"

                                                                                                              (Its Jon Bon Jovi....:))

    Every day I meet many people, see many things, hear many things and feel many things. What If I smile at every person I meet, instead of frown. Sounds fairly simple. What If I look at the little things in life and let it amuse me, instead of letting my tears blur this beautiful world away from me. Sounds even more simple. What if.....

     Today I don't have the man, I don't have the bag of gold, I don't have the merry friends. But, I am happy. 

     Buddha always said that nothing in life is permanent. The sorrow, the pain and the worries that seem herculean today, will be a page in a fading past tomorrow. Choose to smile at everything that life throws at you. Before you know it, all the things that brought you down are gone, and you are a survivor.








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