Hooked to Horror flicks?

My husband complains when I suggest watching a horror movie. His reason? Well, why do you want to pay money to get scared? What's the point? He argues.

Why do adventure enthusiasts jump off a cliff or do a bungee jump? How did racing come into existence? Isn't the thrill involved, a BIG factor? Astronauts?
Are spaceships fool-proof?

All-right! I understand I'm going slightly overboard with my comparisions. The fact is, we all like thrills. Human mind seeks something to pump up the adrenalin..To get away from the mundaneness of daily existence. But not all of us go to any extent for it.Some thrills do kill.
Hence, my dear friends, I conclude that for all of us who do not indulge in the 'greater' risks, horror flicks are the best bets!

Go for them! Even if it means you watch the movie with your TV muted or hiding under the couch! Go watch! Feel the fear, the next time you are all alone at home.
Prove it to yourself that you outlived your fears. Go watch! ;)

Whats wrong if...

a woman ....

...Challenges the notion that 'lady of the house' needs to take care of domestic needs ?
...Wears clothes that she chooses to wear?
...Refuses to be stereotyped to a 'traditional Indian wife/mother' - ever accommodating,ever pleasing and self sacrificial?
...Is disturbed on learning about the ill-treatment met unto other women?
...Condemns religious restrictions imposed only on women?
...Condemns treatment of women as a inferior race?
...Questions the interpretations of religious texts that dictate women to be 'submissive' & 'ever pleasing' ?

Is she being uber feminist? Are these the characteristics of a FCP (female chauvinistic pig) ? Does she needs to be rebuked for acting immature or trying to ape the so called *New Age Woman* ? Are her thoughts very shallow and selfish?

Who is a feminist?
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Per dictionary:
feminist fe-mu-nist:
Of or relating to or advocating equal rights for women


Hello folks! I'm back after a long pause. Pause - not because I was out of topics to blog about, but because I was trying to put together some of my thoughts , bits and pieces from the conversations I had with some of my friends on this topic. ....So, here I go!

Yes, so all you ladies out there reading my blog, do you think you are an extreme feminist?
All you men, what do you think? Do you encourage your daughter,wife,sister,colleague when you catch her reacting this way or chide her for being a FCP?

If you ask me, I don't think any of the points I listed above make one a FCP or a super extreme feminist. I believe, in these changing times, men & women should learn to adapt and cope with the changes around. These are not the same times , when educating a girl child or sending her to an expensive college are considered a waste of money! Times have changed a lot! Many of the modern parents treat their kids equally - boy or girl, doesn't matter.

Given this background, its not surprising to find a woman who is as educated & earning equally (or more) than her husband, more now than back in our parent's time. With her education and the financial independence, the woman of today has come to believe that she is equal, in all respects, to the male. And,what's wrong with that? For example, what is wrong if she expects her husband to share all of the domestic chores with her? Isn't she slogging the same way he does?

Indian men are notorious for their ego levels. I will not say every man has a bloated ego, but yes, some of them do have a superiority feeling and think they are superior to the female population. Leave alone helping with domestic work, this kind of man gets threatened because his wife is "better" than him. Women married to this breed of men, I'm not sure how they survive! (Thankfully, mine doesn't belong to this breed.Amen.)

Being sensitive to each other, showing abundant understanding, being adaptive and some amount of tolerance towards each other, is the key for any new age marriage to survive.

Having said that, I'd now like to throw open this blog for discussions/dissections :) . I'm open to both. I urge my readers to please share your views/opinions on this topic.

Just another attack!

Came across this nice article in the paper today, which discusses democracy vs dictatorship, Indian vs Chinese governments. Creating a new post, only to save the article on my blog.

Terrifying question

Jug Suraiya, 23 February 2010, 08:59 PM IST

Would a Pune-style bomb blast have happened in a Chinese city? Or a 26/11? Or any of the scores of terror attacks that India has been subjected to over the years?

Forget the fact that the Chinese economy has grown faster than India's. Forget the fact that in terms of infrastructural development - be it power plants and highways or hospitals and schools China is way ahead. Perhaps the most fundamental difference between China the world's largest dictatorship - and India - the world's most populous democracy - is the vulnerability of each to terror.

China has its share of internal problems, its discontented minorities, like the Uighurs and the Falun Gong sect. But dissent, even non-violent dissent, has been ruthlessly nipped in the bud before it can erupt into extremist action. The scars of Tiananmen Square are a deterrent testimony to the consequences of dissidence in any form.

China's relative immunity to terror is due to the fact that it is a 'hard' state, perhaps the hardest in the world. When terrorists attack hard states as happened when Chechen extremists held a schoolful of children hostage in Beslan in 2004 the response of the state is often so swift and brutal that it out-terrorises the terrorists. In the Russian case, the final death toll included some 200 children who were sacrificed by the iron-fisted authorities as unavoidable 'collateral damage'.

The game plan of terror or what is sometimes called 'propaganda by deed' is to ensure media coverage in order to highlight the supposed cause the terrorists are fighting for. In hard states like China and to a lesser extent Russia the media can be, and are, kept on a tight rein. In China certainly, a terror strike would be totally blanked out by the state-controlled media, thus negating the publicity value of such an attack. If a tree falls in a forest where there is none to hear it fall, does it make a sound?

In a hard state like China which with impunity recently violated the privacy rights of its Google users real or imagined anti-state elements are denied freedom of movement and information before they can get themselves organised. India's anarchic democracy in which each and every one of us does exactly what we please is the diametric opposite of China's police state, where the freedom of the individual is stringently monitored and curtailed every step of the way.

Yes, India is a free society, and China is a muzzled and shackled polity. None of us or at least not many of us would willingly trade places with China on that count. But the in-built Achilles' heel of any democracy particularly one as determinedly indisciplined as India's is its susceptibility to subversion.

Is exposure to terror the price that we have to pay for the freedom of which we are so justly proud? The freedom to travel the length and breadth of the country as David Coleman Headley did without hindrance. The freedom to congregate in public, as the victims of the Pune bomb blast were doing. The freedom of our media openly to report news, even when such reportage jeopardises rescue operations as happened during the live TV coverage of the Taj Hotel siege during 26/11.

When the intrusive Homeland Security Act was introduced in the US after 9/11, many asked if in the name of deterring terrorism America was undermining the freedom by which it defined itself. If indeed it has done that, then the terrorists have already won. Similar questions might be raised in India. Will the recent tightening of visa and entry rules for foreign visitors be a genuine safeguard against terrorism, or will they merely deter tourists and business travellers, to India's detriment? Will re-introduction of oppressive laws like TADA curb terror or promote more human rights violations?

Is democracy doomed to be the unwitting bedfellow of terror? That's the truly terrifying question.

Stone Soup

This one belongs to my 'Nostalgia' series.
Its a short story named "The Stone Soup". I studied this story as part of the school curriculum. Back then,the idea of making soup out of stone, fascinated me no end. In fact,inspired by the lesson, I had even pestered mum to make some for me!

Cookery shows that promise scrumptious meal using umpteen spices,dry fruits and other savories, propel my memories (& mum's) back to the *stone soup*!
We tell each other : " A dish prepared from so many delicious ingredients has to taste good despite the recipe! ;)"

So here you go - enjoy this simple,cute story :)
The Stone Soup

Laws (loss?) of the Land

How or why do people get away with so much destruction of public property, murder, rape, communal/terrorist attacks and other such crimes? And...importantly, why doesn't it matter any more, unless a *celebrity* is involved? Is our law administration system flawed? Most of the crimes seemed to fall into a particular category and a pattern is soon visible - that of belonging to one of the several cases where, if I dare say, Indian law seems to be failing! These thoughts plagued my mind whenever I came across a disturbing article in the newspaper. I never intended to pen-down these thoughts, but had to give a way to the constant mounting disappointment in me.

Read this article : After 36 years of misery, a fresh hope of death
The first thought that crossed my mind is why the hell did the culprit get only 7 years of sentence? Isn't the crime he committed as serious as a murder? In reality, I believe,its worse. He caused the poor lady to not have any life of her own, banished to a mere ward bed for about thirty six years. What kind of justice system is this? Directly or indirectly, isn't it in the criminal's favour?

Kasab's case is one more saga of never-ending twists.Only God knows when the victims' families would get some respite and when his *trial* comes to an end!

A brief search on the net tells me that the average age of a criminal case(i.e. from the time of committing a crime to the culprit getting punished) is somewhere between 5 years to 40 years or more!! Unbelievable, isn't it? Well, with such a law administration system as the backbone for providing justice to its people, I'm sure countries like India can promise only so much.

Quicker resolution of cases and stricter punishment to those who violate the Law may hopefully,bring in some good changes to the system.
While our great politicians strive hard to break this country into tinier bits and pieces, let us only pray that some common sense dawns on them sooner or later. Then probably,we might have bills passed in the Parliament for amendment of the Law Administration in the country.

Fingers crossed!

Do you post?

Yes, do you post? Not scraps or blogs silly! Do you post letters (not mails / mail chains) ?
When was the last time you actually posted a letter?
With due credit to this *Internet age*, I must say, people have almost forgotten how to write letters.
There was this interesting conversation at the lunch table today - My friend mentioned that she'd dress up her kid as a post-box for the fancy dress event at his school! Reason? Well, so that the kids are aware of a thing called 'post box' existed once upon a time :)
We talked about our school days, when we kept in touch with friends/cousins in another city, through letters.
I remember waiting for the postman to deliver that day's letters. He would make his rounds on the cycle of his, going house to house, every afternoon at around 3 pm. Nothing stopped him. Not the rains. Not even the sultry heat of the coastal city.
I dint receive any letters on most of the days. But on the day I got one, it'd fill me with an unusual sense of joy - something you feel when you get a surprise gift. My cousin and I wrote letters to each other. Every letter had the same opening & closing lines - "Hi, How are you? I'm fine" / "Bye, ta ta " followed by some stupid hand drawn cartoons saying "bye". We both treasure those letters as precious tokens from our childhood.
Going through those letters now makes me fall out of my chair, laughing! They seem absolutely hilarious now.
Do e-mails/facebook/orkut have the same feel? Can one treasure one's childhood/adolescence years through these community sites or emails? Can the 10 year back scraps bring me the same joy as a 10 year old handwritten letter?

Pre-Wedding Blues

One of my cousins is getting married next week. Though we've been planning on spending some time together, it dint really work out. Finally we could coincidentally meet at my parents' place the other day.
After casually yapping about the shopping details, the discussion moved towards 'pre-nuptial anxiety'.
Anxious and excited, my cousin was really in a confused frame of mind. She isn't even married yet, but is already worrying about losing her freedom! She worried about how she'd mingle-mix with her soon-to-be-husband's family. All in all she was a very stressed. I could connect to her very well..actually could understand her thoughts because I've been through it not long ago!

I remember feeling anxious, restless and stressed out as my wedding date drew closer. I wondered if I'm going to lose my freedom forever. Silly thoughts like being addressed as 'aunty' possessed me :) The whole idea of setting up your own home, scared me no end. I thought I'd be doomed to the kitchen and all such mundane chores that come with an independent setup! Shopping for long hours , running around for petty things & going to bed dead tired, dint help either. Actually, I started worrying about all the finer details of the wedding arrangements, inspite of being aware that my dad is already taking good care of them. I fussed about not getting enough time to relax. Complained about having to work till about 3 days before my wedding ( yeah, leave planning is not my cup of tea!).All in all, I'm ashamed to admit that I made life miserable for myself and others around me.
I recollect how I nagged poor hubby dear with all my growing fears/anxieties. I'm really grateful to him for lending a patient ear to my rants. He'd calm me and reassure me that he is going to be by my side through thick and thin. To this day, he stuck by his word and never shies away when it comes to helping me out with the dishes, cooking or any of the other household chores. I should admit,I'm very proud of him.

I digress though. Yes, pre-wedding blues are common. Every person has his/her own way of reacting to losing that 'single' status. There are people like my husband, who really look forward to it, enjoy and treasure every moment - since marriage is 'once in a lifetime' thing. And then, there are others like me, who get hyper-stressed and worry about every little thing.

If you are interested in reading more about 'pre-wedding-blues', you can find a good article here