I am Pro-Choice

Fiercely.
Disclaimer: I do not hate children.

Most of my peers don't seem to care about childbirth/motherhood related issues. Why should they? They're at least a couple of years away from getting pregnant, assuming they marry an arranged match. As much time as most girls of my age (i'm 20) spend talking about who's-going-out-with-who, no one really has an opinion on abortion. Many don't even realize that there's a global stigma surrounding this word and what it stands for.

A friend of mine chipped in saying that for most Indian girls, pre-marital sex is itself off the table and consequently, abortion would be an alien territory. I agree with him to a certain extent. Only someone who's been faced with the possibility of an unplanned pregnancy can even begin to have an opinion on abortion.

I get fairly agitated whenever people take a pro-life stand from a religious point of view. Take Christianity for example; Mankind's only significant goal in life as the many christians i've known have conveyed is procreation. So we built bridges, landed on the moon so we could all have babies? Recently, i happen to read this post by a female acquaintance on facebook; liked by about 5 women i know. Check it out yourself.



Let's take a look at the situation in the usa. There are people burning down federal-funded abortion centers; Catholic hospitals don't house abortive pills. So if you're unfortunate to get raped and a samaritan (read: smart ass) gets you admitted to a catholic hospital, you will not be given an abortive pill as a precaution. If you do end up getting pregnant with your rapist's child, then too bad darlin' cos there ain't a damn thing they'll do.

India still happens to remain fairly neutral on abortion. Even though pregnancy out of wedlock is largely frowned upon, at least women in India still retain the right to their own bodies. However, what bothers me is that many young women today claim to be pro-life without any meditation. In a country of recurrent female foeticides and infanticides, abortion by consent is a ray of hope for women who do not want to ruin their future and the offspring's as well. A summary ban on abortion would leave thousands of women stripped of one of their last remaining rights as a woman; India being a male-dominated country.

Unplanned teenage pregnancy is because of unprotected sex or improper contraceptive measures. A large section of people suggest abstinence. I don't really see the relevance. I say i broke the vase and people tell me i should not have broken it the first place? You fix a problem with a solution. There's no going back in time.

Bottomline: Get educated, Ladies.

Dimpled Einstein (D.E.)

In his late 20s, he's tall, slim, agile and has dimpled cheeks. He teaches us DSP. I make very few personal references in my blog but this man just had to be written about in my blog for lack of a better and far-reaching medium.

The Dumb Fuck managed to rub me the wrong way and 110 other students as well. His highly questionable English has taken a turn for the worse this semester. If last year saw his sentences interspersed with "okay"s at the rate of 6-7 per min, this year has exposed us to his "listen carefully" before the beginning of every sentence.
And mind you, his source is almost always the internet; So much so, he recommended we use the site 'dspguru.com' to understand dsp better. What's the site's USP according to our Dimpled Einstein? The damn url contains the word "guru" in it.
However, his mispronunciations are the best thing in the world. I've listed some of the recurrent ones.

D.E. says:__________________It really means:
Sexan convolusan - - - - - - > Section Convolution
China Cars - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > Sine or Cos
Sifting Property - - - - - - - - - > Shifting Property
Pas ban - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > Pass-Band
Stowband - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > Stop-Band
Dissorsan - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > Distortion
Casual System - - - - - - - - - - - - > Causal System

To add to this shit, he makes us take 1.5hr long tests designed to be written in 2.5hrs

I am Grateful

A Not so beautiful Tuesday morning. I get ready for college. Start for the bus stand. Sit in the bus. The bus starts. Time to buy a ticket. I start tearing my bag apart. Why ? Because i cannot find my frickin purse !

People always keep asking me why i don't maintain a purse and go around stashing money in four to five arbit places within my bag. I thought over this and got myself a tidy little black purse from home. I remember how meticulously i put in loose change into it today morning. And damn ! How i cursed myself for even paying heed to those idiots who gave me the "maintain a purse" advice. And then i remembered -- this is the fuckin reason why i never maintain a purse unless i'm on a formal outing. Because, of all the things that i usually take to places, i know i ll end up forgetting this one thing !!

I was still tearing my notebooks apart when the couple sitting next to me noticed i was going crazy. When they heard i had forgotten my purse, they offered to pay for my ticket. 7 rupees. Gawd and i was able to fish out 2 bucks from my now disheveled bag. I decided it would be too cheap to give the 2 rupees to them. So i clutched it tight in my fist till it became almost as hot and flushed as my face !

Sincerely, I thank you, Mr & Mrs. XyZ. (i was too embarassed to ask your names)

But the cynical, ungrateful, bitchy me couldnt help thinking -- If i was not dressed as i was, or if i was not carrying doesn't-come-cheap electronic gizmo or if i was not wearing those diamond rings on my fingers, i wonder if they'd deem my unfortunate mishap genuine and help.
Damn my impudence

I am a cow

Happened a couple days ago. 7 30 am. On my way to the bus stand. calm, clear morning. I'm all fresh with just washed, still wet hair. I'm walking along the roadside (there's no pedestrian pavement). Out of nowhere, i hear the blaring horn of a motorbike speeding up the road.

The road was 10ft wide and i was off the tarmac ! .. The fucker would blow the horn till he reached the next corner .. WTF .. And i starting wondering if i was a cow .. If u haven't guessed, i ll tell u why

The horn originally fit in vehicles so as to help easy navigation when drivers came across stray animals or animal crossing. A loud horn would scare the poor farm animal off into the oblivion hence clearing the road for the vehicle. But in India, the horn serves any function but that. We here have 1000s of different horns to fit the owner's personality. Hence a motorbike can sound like a truck charging and a truck sounds like it's got ten horns mounted all being blown at once !

What did the fucking biker think when he came down the street blowing the horn ? Did he expect me to just fly and vanish into thin air the moment i saw him coming ? Or did he think i would jump right into the middle of road cos i was unusually fond of hurting myself in automobile accidents !

So much has this issue progressed that average, non-thinking citizens of India no more respond to horns. A bunch of ppl might be walking in the middle of the road and 20 seconds of blowing a horn gives u about a 40% chance that they ll turn around and move out of the way ! Wonderful, don't u agree ?

Where will this stop ? .. How much louder do they intend to make the horns ? Till majority of the population is deaf ? And since "cow" features in the post's title itself, let me tell u something very interesting about these meek, dumb creatures : When in India, u spot a cow lurking on / along a road, ur best chance to get around / past it is by NOT blowing a horn because if u do, the cow ll stand still till ur 2 seconds away from it and then it ll mostly stick it's hip or it's head outside just so it can get blood on ur bonnet / windshield.

Almost Worthless. Almost.

Real Date: July 16, 2011.

Today, in fact until a few minutes, i wanted to die. I've mentioned before that my desire to live life exceeds everything else. Today it didn't. Today the reason was the memory of my mother; The only person whose life i actually affect, affect it enough to make me love her as much as i do.

I'm fat and ugly at times but she continues to love me.
There have been times when i hurt her, really bad but she continues to love me.
There have been times when she hurt me, real bad but i continue to love her.

Last time she recalled how when i was born to her, i was the most beautiful and smartest and not to forget, the most responsive doll she'd ever been presented with. She took it as her life's goal to educate me, to enlighten me, to strengthen me in a world which largely enervates you.

I cried after reading "The French Lover" by Taslima Nazrin. I felt so bad for the mother in the book. I go out of my way to not ever treat my mother that way. I'm not always successful; For all those times, i'm so sorry. I love you, mamma. Love you truly. You saved me again, today. Muax :)



It's because of her i have dreams today, i aspire to live life; She introduced me to the concept of ambition and living life. She's seen a lot in her life; It's so uncanny that i'm able to smell her aloo parathas right now even though she's miles and miles away from me. Today the group of kids she's trained to dance for a folk song are performing today. She sounded happy today. I love it when she's happy. I love my mother.

About the title, it's about my life.

Great Transition There

Disclaimer : The article does not advocate ANYthing.

TASMAC (Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corp) controls the sale of any kind of alcohol in Tamil Nadu. Anyone who wants to set up a business of selling liqour will have to obtain a license from tasmac, including pubs. Every drop of booze is marketed by the board.

TN went from banning alcohol to regulating booze by tasmac. Great transition there. The projected objective for this action was to reduce deaths n alcohol related fatalities by consumption of untested / country alcohol. But the picture is very different indeed.

The turnover of tasmac as estimated in 2007-2008 was 10,000 crores INR. Yes, i do appreciate the heavy taxes levied. But no price tag is too unaffordable for a man who guzzles down booze like water. One can see tasmac retail outlets in the most inappropriate of places. These include Bus Stations, pedestrian infested roads, etc.

And let me not get your imagination to go too far. These stores look so horrid that one wouldn't even touch a bottle bought from there. Their boards are a discreet dirty green. The shop houses really cheap-looking alcohol. I'd want to paste a pic of one typical store just so u get the idea .. But then i'd dare not go anywhere near a store ! One of my friend once described a tasmac-run bar. He said,"The place was so damp, eery .. I was scared when some drunken bastard would come hit me!!!" ..

Wondering why ? Cos tasmac caters only to the low-income group. People who can hardly or not afford alcohol. Men who consume booze to show how manly they are by later beating up women in their home. Tasmac was handed the alcohol regulation in order to help the stinky situation of the poor. But no, all it has done is increasing profits by over a half - By achieving monopoly. If at all their aim was to control alcohol-induced harassment cases, then why allow a "wine shop" by every street corner ? .. LOL .. Misunderstood intentions ..

One section of the society who suffer a disadvantage are those who are rich enough, provide for their families, drink responsibly. Purchasing premium liquor in Tamil Nadu is virtually impossible. Though good liquor is served in select hotels, it is priced manifold times ! This almost clearly shows what tasmac aimed at was not "regulation" but just more money.

Yes, I've heard a few few shops have opened in Chennai which sell good liquor ("good" by tasmac standards), But then well-to-do people live outside Chennai too. Sigh ..

Says someone in a forum--"There has been news about making some of the TASMAC shops more comfortable. Well, comfortable, even --- currently they are just road-side counters without even a chair. But I think they will continue to be places for a heap of guys to stop and get drunk before driving their bikes home to beat their wives..."

Is it Sad ?

Excited Minds

I have had Kalam's book "Ignited minds" for about four years now .. Never red beyond a meagre 50 pages .. Anyways this post has nothing to do with Kalam's work ..

If u can remember, i've already done a post on sexuality and india in "India promotes Homosexuality" .. This is another one under the same broad taboo-ed genre ! .. Hmmm .. so msk, the other day was telling me of an article he read in India Today .. Read it here

I also happen to watch this highly sordid french movie yest called "irreversible" .. For me, personally, sexual assault always has sounded very alien .. Having been in the company of decent people all my life, it is very difficult to imagine what rape is like.

Dictionaries define rape as sex without either partner's consent .. It is quite hard to imagine how u could hump someone while they're screaming and howling with pain .. Sounds very non-sexual to me !! .. It is pure exploitation imo .. u might hate me for this, but i believe that a rape experience, at some point, will be taken into a victim's stride and life might go on whn the trauma ebbs. The worst case is murdering the person u just exploited. Not only do u traumatize the person u raped, but u also take away his / her right to live !

Can't talk anymore .. really

Days of the Year aren't jealous of Feb 14 anymore :D

http://www.hindu.com/2009/02/06/stories/2009020657590100.htm

I honestly don't get it .. People say : put nothing in paper, cos it may be held against you .. India may be one of the rare few countries where a 80-yr old with more than 3 wives is elected s the Chief Minister .. Or nincompoop who's had more than 50 film releases, starts a political party on his own .. WHAT THE FUCK !!

But if a guy who is unmarried is with an unmarried girl and roams on the streets or hols her hand .. or dines in a restaurant, he is gonna be forced to marry her .. wait wait wait .. Only on Feb 14 .. right .. How dumb can these people get ? .. It's funny if u see it my way .. Don't they understand that people who date on Feb 14 will date on any other day as well .. So what's with the whole Valentine's Day stigma ?

Feb 14 is receiving extra extra attention in India ! .. Cos it's an understood taboo .. Just like sex .. Now people wonder why it's such a taboo and end up getting AIDS (2.5 million is not too big a number, is it ?) .. Since we very well know how reliable law-enforcement is in India, couples ll definitely prefer shifting their Feb 14 plans to another date .. Meaning Feb 14 will lose it's status in India but the dating will go unabated .. So good news for the Other Days of the Year .. Feb 14 will now get as much less attention as you guys get .. dont you worry honeys' .. Big daddy - culture conservationist has taken care of it !

Have fun ! .. cya !! .. And Just a teaser for Mr.Feb6 :

Hell - O ! : 2

Hi, .. no unnecessary pleasantries to exchange this time .. cos i have the creeps coming .. may be i have lost my bloogin ability .. but i wanna grant myself pity owing to the fact that i'm dc most of the time (This "most of the time" period is where i'm itching to blog on some really coooool post) .. And when i am online, my stomach's always full .. so i can't think .. even now, i'm typing this post at about 25 words per minute .. Sad .. Real sad ..
Btw, got my own lappy .. things hopefully should get better .. I'm worried !

Beginning of the End

Some things i have learnt in the past few days:

>> If things are already going bad for you, people who can better your status will actually reduce you to further hopelessness

>> Yet again, life is a game of cards, once dealt, you need to play the best game out of them

>> Luck is something India is very full of

>> If you are a girl, India is not the best place to be born in

>> Love by itself, may not be blind. But people do become blind.

>> Dreams are supposed to only motivate you, not consume you. Yes, this is a consolation because i cannot live them.

>> Even when you are feeling worse than anybody, even when the bullet has caught you right in your gut, still you need to manage others feigning stability.

Yes, this has been a very erratic and a very emotional post. I let it pass.

For Muffy

For those who don't know / can't remember what / who Muffy is .. He was a 1.5 yr old Boxer dog .. Fierce, concerned, capricious, sensitive and male, He was one of most vivacious things that i had ever seen ..
Mama and attha haven't stopped crying .. It seems mama saw froth in an unconscious muffy's mouth and rushed him to the hospital .. Lying near muffy was a dead, shredded chameleon.

So, from some 1 in the night yesterday, the recovery attempts began at the local vet's .. It's 5:46 pm now .. Muffy died about 3 hours ago ..

The muffy guy always liked to go after lizards etc .. This time it was a chameleon .. poisonous, least to say .. This wasn't the first time either .. Once muffy bit at a lizard and suffered fits attack but was saved in time.

This time things just didn't work out :')

Been 10 Days

Oh yeah !! .. I realised this with bone-chilling horror when i woke up this fine morning. It's been TEN days since i last posted .. Oh My Godddd !!! ... Geeeeezz ... My Oh My .. what have i done !! .. Oh God !! .. Oh God .. !! ..

So, but for the few people who have been incessantly bugged by me (Oh yeah .. Karthik and Baargav) , no one knows that i have been raving like mad for the past two weeks .. LOL .. It so happens my reservation category got messed up frmo being OBC to GEN =)) ..

The try was desperate .. It goes like this .. I call up mnnit, Allahabad .. But the scum bag there says he cannot do anything .. Then i call the ccb's chairman .. Unusually he talks to me patiently .. gives my directions (which actually helped) ..

So i mailed the cbse, Delhi 'requesting' them to get my godamn category changed .. And next day, ccb.nic.in shows : Discrepancies related to category, sub-category, gender and state of eligibility in the computer record generated on the basis of AIEEE 2008 application form earlier submitted by the candidate to CBSE will be rectified by the competent authority at the counselling centre on the basis of the original certificates.

So now i'm not bone-chillingly horrored .. But those stupid ccb guys .. They could've told me before that i could get this thing done on my counselling date in Trichy .. Oh yeah .. The fricking hot Trichy .. For now watching FRIENDS ..
All Hail Karthik. Guess why

Buying Your Vote

I know i'm not into politics .. With the results of the Karnataka general elections have come out, and some Yaedurappa guy being sworn in as the new CM, ppl in white are all red and purple ;)

Its actually fun time for ppl like me to watch, in my native hospet ..
ok now what / where is hospet ?? .. Right, so its a small city in north Karnataka, some of whose people are growing rich at a rate that the city itself is not able to keep up with these "big shots" .. Meaning, people are rich, the city is damn poor (like india) ..
And with these general elections, watching how these so called "political workers" gather supporters is a very interesting process .. That is what happened when one day, before the elections, i heard my grandma's maid tell that she was given cold hard 8K so she could vote for this particular candidate ..
LOL .. normally i dont talk to strangers (other people's maids etc ) .. but i couldnt stop myself .. When i asked her the what-when-how, she said, "Since there are eight voters in my home, each of us is getting one thousand rupees. All thanks to Anand saheb" .. .. .. And i was like "what the .. .. .. ?!!! " .. For once i regretted not being 18 yet .. lol or i could also have voted for Anand saheb and gotten a cool-something for 1k ..

Imagine, this Mr.Anand is a major iron mine owner and is rich enough to give each of his voters a thousand bucks (btw he won in the district) .. then why did he want to contest the elections? what would politics give him that mining had already not ? Why this unquenchable thirst for power ?

Also, i was thinking what would happen if india had a bi-party system as the Americans do, Would it help the political system? .. lol it would be easier on us .. you know how difficult it is to remember the various parties in India ..
I really feel like laughing at this comedy but stop myself cos there's NOTHING funny about this .. They keep buying your vote, not earning it .. They keep fucking you and you let them ... Shit !! ..
The thing is, who wins /does not win hardly makes a difference .. its as good as thinking whether to buy a blue trash can or a red one .. Because both are gonna hold trash in the end .. Makes no difference .. It just doesnt ..

Time and again

Yeah, it keeps happening time and again .. first of all i might be dwelling on some "old" news in this post cos i was on a 'holiday' until now ..

So, its just one of those times when someone you really hate wins, i'm not talking of my board exam, but rather of the epl championship. For all the hatred many people feel and share for Ferguson and his boys, they always seem to do right things at the right time and not only get away with it, but come up on top .. so much for all of sir alex's non-fans.

And as for my board exams, yeah there are people i hate, who did better than me .. but the hate i feel for them is not intense. In fact, i feel no hate, cos may be deep down i KNOW what i want to do with my head and my life ..
Btw, i was at a farm-house in the middle of a coffee estate in Sakleshpur (karnataka) and baby, baby, baby, .. i get bitten by some snake .. lol so much for a holiday .. (i'm alive) ..
We (couple cousin bro's and cousin sis) were driving unto the night when an interesting "me first !! , no Me first !!" was going on the road, the road was hell narrow in the ghat section when both a SUV and a truck (huge huge load at the rear end) tried to make a pass at the same time, with the truck ascending, the suv going down .. There was no way the truck could go off the road lest it should tumble down, but so much for the suv guy's ego, he didnt go off the road to let the truck pass .. then some words ran outta my mouth " one's got a fat head, and the other a fat ass"

Now now now .. i know i'm one, am i the other as well ??

Toying with innocence

Its now in all medical papers, that a human being now is categorised a “child” only till the age of 11 .. meaning, a kid is not a kid anymore once he / she is 12.

Last week i accompanied my mom to the local shandy market to buy some groceries (cos the only super market we have here, sucks !! ) ..

one scene: four guys were standing nearby .. they'd almost pass for decent blokes .. but no !! .. a small girl not more than 10 was going around the place with a pot of water, when these guys ask up the girl for water ..

then a series of statements follow ( in tamil) :

guy #1: (drinking the water) oh, your water is really good
(girl smiles, and looks down)

guy#2: why dont you place the pot down? It must be heavy
girl: (blushing) no, its ok (obviously happy that some stranger 'uncle' was so kind to her)

guy #3: do you always go around this place?

... ...
... ... and i had to walk away, because the fourth guy was ogling me !! lol

The fact was that, the little girl didnt even know she was being toyed with !!

What basically is flirting? .. When both the parties involved know that they are toying and being toyed with .. But some men (read : sexual predators) in their desperation or psychotic state swoop so low as to abuse small kids ..

gone is the time when we, as kids used to roam around carefreely in the streets .. we have times now, where my mom is reluctant to let my small sis play in the street .. ha ..

For Champi :)

For those who dont know who / what “champi” is .. he was my VL mam's (my physics teacher at iit class) little white dog .. he died last friday .. in the early hours of november 30, 2007 .. this post is for him ..

first time i saw champi was an year and a half ago .. when i happened to drop by VL's home .. little white thing .. a promerian .. “champion” he was called .. cute guy .. came tugging at my duppata and all .. mam's daughter--a great animal enthusiast .. told that champi especially fell for girls .. lol .. and i had replied “ well .. he would have had a better chance had he been taller and less hairy .. “

it all comes back now .. even if he wasnt “tall” and “less hairy” .. i liked him nevertheless .. i personally have never had a dog .. because mum says that the grief that shrouds one after a pet's death far outweighs the joy the pet had brought when it was alive .. and me always fond of keeping things in control .. didnt experiment with a pet ..

and now, inspnite of myself, i feel sad there wont be another champi ..
For Champi - ummah !!

we ll miss you da :) .. :) .. :) ..