HOnor amongst thieves

Every day like the sun which shines bright, we have a long queue of interesting visitors standing outside the gates who come forth with their problems, ordinary mundane problems, health issues and the usual attar dal scheme and some come just to gossip and pay respects.

Yesterday, one of them who had just come back from phoren came to pay her respects. She is a young woman who had turned her life around. Nikki (all young girls are called this in Punjab) had been our maid and when she got older she was married off. She has two children but was married to a no good alcoholic, wife beater of a rascal. She eventually divorced him and taught her self ; elementary English and later on enrolled herself into a beauty parlor to learn the tricks and got a diploma. Nikki was very enterprising and ambitious; she also managed to get a visa to work as a maid at Singapore and went on a contract!

This was her visit back and she was wearing the gold bangles, gold chain, a few gold rings and a diamond ring and gold baaliyan / loops that are the trademark of every Punjabi returning back from’bahaar.. Oh, did I mention Nikki is a young fair striking Nepalese Indian citizen so she looks very western in her appearance.

 We kept on talking and admiring her jewelry and even told her to be careful while visiting family in Ludhiana for fear of chain snatching that is very common in Punjab. She then told us, her brother had refused to take her with him, as he knew the groups of boys who were involved in petty crime would target them and  would beat them if they resisted.

What she told me, made me laugh. Actually, these thieves also have honor, and a policy albeit a strange one.

She told us that last week in one of the many streets of our crisscrossed village, a gang snatched off an old woman’s earrings. They threw her down and went away, after a short while they came back and threw the earrings back at her and told her to stop wearing these artificial earrings as that wasted their time! This checking is done at the corner Uncleji’s dukaan that doubles as the village goldsmith too.

They actually came back, returned the earrings and issued a warning in the village cautioning the women to wear only real jewelry and no artificial gold look a like stuff as that wasted their time!

It was such a funny laugh. Imagine, the instructions and the code being laid down by the thieves! Standards in Punjab have gone up and the beggars so commonly found at the red lights of every intersection also do not take alms if they are less than 10 Rs. Gone are the days ,w hen one could appease one’s conscience by just slipping a few coins.Now days, with inflation they also have their standards and need a minimum just like the farmers who need a minimum support price to sell their crops.

Bhagkton, what do you say to this? Honour among thieves ; taking a cue from our beloved neta who has set the standard for the society….

Children and trying times..

Every evening since the last two years, I take an extra class for the underprivileged children who cannot afford extra classes or tuitions and help from their parents as they them selves work /toil in the fields and are illiterate. It is a class that started from 3 and peaked to 120, the common denominator being their zeal for life and to soak in anything and everything. They love studying, acting as sponges soaking in anything and picking up small nuances, mannerisms improving themselves.

Be it manners, social skills and how to conduct themselves in the correct manner in public, to moral values and basic cleanliness, hygiene they have improved drastically from uncouth hooligans to disciplined, well mannered children who know their P’s and Q’s and now can speak rudimentary English and also have learnt the lost of respecting their elders.

This change is a start. However, it is a drop in the ocean. They are victims of an obsolete, dead education system that has to learn by rote. They are given free clothes, free books and notebooks but are then told by their teachers to buy the essential guidebooks. Guidebooks are their lifeline. It is by these they pass and learn and learn so well, that they can repeat them ad verbatim. The sad part is the monopoly by these books, you buy a particular JPH or MBD book and that guide will ensure you mark.

Also, the interesting twist is that teachers tell you, in advance what the questions will come, which sums to revise, and what blanks to learn. Imagine being taught in this manner. These children are no different from your and mine and our children but are a victim of a system that pays no attention to them. They are just bothered with results, and board percentages. These children lack simple mental math calculation abilities, simple English and if they learn about science, history or computers its in Punjabi. And, trust me, its downright difficult and even more difficult to pronounce. I am always left embarrassed.

So many times, I have seen them being helpless when they cannot spell or calculate math sums. They hide behind the class or don’t submit their notebooks.

This is what 60% of the population is headed towards. Imagine, a gen-X that cannot calculate or spell or even operate a computer because the keyboard is in English. The board is under impression that being lenient, no failing in the classes and passing them to the next and also having no fixed percentage of attendance leads to a stress free child. However, a balance needs to be struck.

We need to tame the child, to nurture, shape them for tomorrow. I feel, to a large extent it is the teacher who are responsible, they are paid well and as gurus they should dispel the darkness that bogs them down. The parents all send their children with a hope that they will better them selves and their future getting out of the rut of daily wages and working for a pittance. These mothers are illiterate who work day in and day out trying to save their children from poverty, drugs, alcohol and unnatural sexual advances.

It is a sad state and till we don’t completely over haul this system starting from teacher selection (which is also filled with corruption) to the syllabus; that is obsolete, archaic. It’s not the children’s fault that we punish them for being poor or subject them to inter departmental bureaucracy dramas.

Carpe Diem or Seize the moment and change tomorrow and then try to get rid of other evils like alcohol, drugs that all stem from lack of education, unrest and frustration among the youth.

Musings of a 40 year old

Musings of a Middle Aged Woman

Time flies, I didn’t know when where time flew and I am 40 and enjoying it.

Yesterday, read a most interesting conversation / debate where else but face book because I was directed to it. It was a public post. And, I apologize upfront because I shouldn’t have done, as I wasn’t a party of it. The sentiments were all well meant and so forth.

We actually live in a society where we love to confirm aka the women into the stereotypical traditionalistic sati savitri type of photos imprinted into our minds. We think, and yes this is what the population thinks that we need to mellow down when we hit the 40-age bracket!

Why are woman picked upon? After a decade of catering to the whims of an overgrown boy –turned, husband, raising the 2.2 kids, dealing with work pressures, social expectations, and dealing with life, plus being the supermom, super wife and also balancing the monthly budget, a woman finally heaves a sigh in her 40’s.

If she happens to dress wearing tighter than thou clothes, waving a diamond ring, carrying a fancy schmancy designer bag and tries to lose weight, and subjects herself to kamikaze torture exercise to the metabolism going, whose fault is it?

It’s the media, the advertising, and the bombardment of the svelte body that stares down back at us. If we are dark, we lose the man, if we wear Indian clothes; we are Aunty ji, not modern enough.

Why are we judged upon? If we wear tight jeans with a short shirt, we are displaying ourselves. Imagine if you are in the west, an obese 40 year old woman walks at the road, you don’t say anything but here in India, pura bhashan milta hain!

 Women like me, you, us just want to chill, enjoy and relax the final years before we start counting medicines, and making doctors appointments. Men, themselves, preen about, start buying flashy cars, and pick a hobby like motorcycling in obscenely priced motorcycles, driving up and down the Himalayas for a break.

What about us, Monsieur? Is wanderlust different for us? Just because we have a few grey popping in the parting of our hair we are old, has been; while a man starts to look distinguished!

I so wonder what would be said of me, a village wale, and 40 yr. old mom of two wearing a stalwart suit with grey outnumbering the black who is old in some manners but is a child in some.

I wish when we were growing up along with the do this, do that, sit stand, cry, don’t cry, and don’t ever express one’s mind, be demure, be ladylike (where did they get his one from?)  They would have given us a secret book to be old and to not be young.  Also, the society then labels us feminist jhola type if we express our mind or have an opinion.

In today’s world, which is growing smaller , by the second and where the media infiltration is so subtle ,that it subconsciously imprints our mind to form opinions based upon the bombardment of images that we pre-judge , and preconceive that it becomes difficult for us simple village folk to match up . we are doomed if we wear the Punjabi suit and damned if we wear modern clothes ; have a heart ! the social pressures and intimidation makes us do all this to blend in !

From the Heartland of Punjab ,

Ravneet Sangha.

The After effects

I am a morning person, and before you take this to mean anything else; it just means I have oodles of energy and I love my routine. You know, the morning walk, just soak in nature and marvel and then the famous calming chai, prepared the right way and strangely enough after I’ve checked what’s been happening in the virtual world. It always seems that something must have happened, earth shattering while I was sleeping but nothing ever does. I zone into the morning kirtan that is like a balm and then as the internal clock tunes in I put on the national news.

It’s as simple as breathing and I have it down to a clockwise. You know the first cup goes down quietly with the kirtan and then the second one starts of after giving instructions to the ever- faithful Nikki and then news starts. Imagine, my surprise, I am watching news and it breaks for the advertisement. Trust me, I never pay attention but today I did.

And, it disturbed me. A man is presumably getting ready for a party later in the evening whilst his date and he are chatting on the speaker phone. A bell rings while he has primed himself and she walks in. Before this, he had sprayed himself with some deodorant. The minute the door opens, we see the lady dressed up with her hair up, conservative and she smells the air and him and opens her hair and tells him, shall we go to the party a bit later? The door opens.

Call me old fashioned, traditionalistic, stuck in the 1900’s, it made me laugh and wonder what is the world coming to. A multi- national is seducing its customers to use its product while promoting and promising sexual favors.

I wish it were so easy to fool us women! And, then the next clip went to the devastation in Kashmir floods.

I feel as if society has changed its standards to such an extent that we are insensitive to what happens around us till it happens to us.

The extent of commercialization of the needs and the wanton display on media has made us prey to the needs of these so called beauty products with which we would feel confident , desirable and more attractive. It’s just not limited to deodorants, it starts with the hair on our delectable heads to the creams to look fair and lovely and to the clothes we wear. Use a particular shampoo and sweep the love of your life banishing away the dandruff, use a particular cream, and become fairer and sickly white to win beauty contests, get a groom to marry you (who had earlier rejected you ). Imagine not being fair makes you not get a job, not win admiration, makes you the subject of every joke in town. And, then if you don’t wear the trendy clothes how many of you are called bhenji or bhaiya .

Increasingly, the society is defining what ‘we ‘ should look like ! Be it the hawai chappal that has changed its image with Hrithik wearing it, using John’s face wash to become fair and to carry a smart phone to impress and win the girl in the club. And, to top it, wear the particular deodorant , you can land her straight to bed.

I think, I’m parenting my boys wrong, what use is an education or values or striving to be a free -thinking balanced individual where the value of a human being is based on the color of his looks, the fair-o- meter and the car he drives.

The after affects of this scent are multiple and when I quizzed my kids who belong to the under- privileged section they all said they use the 2re sachets and five rs cream to look white. The glistening faces, powdered and primped all reflect a color conscious complexed tomorrow. Till, we change, the afternoon news still carried a fluttering sari clad woman humming a tune and being led like the mice in Pied Piper to her lover.

The higher ground

Every day the sun comes up, we are faced with infinite options, choices to make, and paths to follow that ultimately set the journey for us. Today after, evening class, a young girl came up to me, shy at first and then she hung her head down in sadness and starter crying softly and then big loud sobs. I asked her what had happened; that she was crying so much. She replied that her mother had suffered a heart attack and she had no one to turn to as her father was working in Oman and the money doesn’t come every month, but after three months. She had no one to turn to.

 I told her to come with her mother s reports, because I knew that she needed to be calmed down and I needed to make the call whether to give in or not. A family friend had given me the best advice to follow; he had said to always take the higher ground and to follow one’s heart. Well, it was evening, time and even if the sun beats fearlessly during the day, dusk falls swiftly and sharply in the villages. During my evening chores, I kept on thinking about her and her mother and what if I didn’t give the money her mother would go worse? On the other hand, one part of me kept on saying No, maybe she is making a fool out of you because how can she be alone?

However, I gave in and helped her monetarily and when I looked at the reports, it was a case of high blood pressure with lots of tests written on it. We all have our inner voice and we need to just listen to it. Let it live, let it breathe, it sure leaves a fuzzy warm feeling and you know about money well, it always will come back!The scriptures say we should do our karma and not count our results.

The smile in Nisha’s eyes and her gratitude well cant is explained. Of course, a lot of you will think I’m a sucker for sob stories, broken wings. Yes, I am.

Spoilt Tweens !! invasion in India

We live in an age where the world is spinning faster and faster, we all want instant gratification and we want it now or in some cases before the actual moment. As a mother of a teenager and a young adult, I have come to realize the mantra is getting things right now. Technology available to us is delivering fast results. This means we are accustomed to getting what we want at our fingertips. Disposable Income means we are buying things instantly without having to budget, save and to buy later. Today’s teen is a spoilt child, who wants things and with the external bombarding of clever marketing that scores in the product again and again the kid is convinced that he or she cannot survive without the product. A whole new wide world is available to them, and they are not shy of voicing their opinion. .

Once upon a time, children were seen and not meant to be heard, parents were the masters of the house, and youngsters did what they were told to do. But slowly, and slowly the power balance is changing and it has shifted to them subtly. A new study shows 7-14 years have more power on their parents than before. . More than half of them confess that they are influenced by what their children want in the manner of groceries, what they want to eat. Children also say they want the ‘it’ product of their times where the possession of that personalize/ bespoke product will singularly set them apart and set them apart from their peers. Societal pressures dictate how they should dress, what to wear what to do and how to behave, the way they should speak. Marketing hype demands and states the law for the teenagers to have that it product.

Kids dictate what laptop to buy, mobile phone to carry.

56% of the kids want instant gratification and they want to spend their time on their virtual umbilical cord connection to the www. You never know, what one may miss when they were talking or heaven forbid conversing with the family, someone might have just posted a status update.

This generation is called the dumbest generation. It is a paradox of the times- we have the maximum advantage of education, learning political action, cultural activity, but also on the same hand instead of using the world wide web to learn as a center of knowledge we are using it as a place of gossip, follow pop culture, relentlessly keeping up with ever shifting lingua- franca of being school / college.

Social life is the most tempting to and to miss out is the most painful. This peer- to –peer activity is worrisome, as it stifles one, kids seek out what they want, want it fast, and with minimum effort.

They do so with bad spellings, civic illiteracy and a complete disregard of family and endless postings of trivia. Educators, parents need to not ignore this down ward spiral, and they need to check this only by checking themselves. How many times, have you while the commercial comes, started surfing the net meaninglessly?

We can get students to raise the bar, delay their gratification, by being there for them to begin with for starters. It’s all about parenting , and we need to take a leaf from our parents lives . Children must be taught how to think, and not what to think. Margaret Mead.