Living on the edge

Have you ever watched those quaint picturesque Ghibli movies? A world of Hayao Miyazaki? Movies of pleasant memories, of moonlit/sunlit backgrounds and shades of green, of flowers and birds and of creatures of amazing brilliance, depicting what’s lost with such subtleness which many of us thought only in our imaginations! Of a world of tendernes s and kindness, of a world of miracles and destinies, of a world of dreams and a will to follow it, defying all those odds. A world where human emotions ain’t just to dismiss in the orderliness of things, but to cherish in its ordinariness. A world where hopes reconcile and biases disappear. But does it only remind us of the world we left behind or which we can’t have? Perhaps not!   Have a look ! Peep a little in depth! See the colour of water or the morning sun in ‘Yesterday only’. Watch the boundless imaginations fly in ‘spirited away’. While the ‘Secret World of Arrietty’ will create a new longing and desire to be close to na...

I have immense respect for all those courageous  women who have come out against male chauvinism and taken a stand against sexual harassment. Also for the fact that it takes more than just courage to speak up. To let those around them and everyone else harbouring such opinions know that there’s no such thing called eternal impunity. Also for reasons that somehow it might deter future tendencies.  My recent accomplishment (if I may call it so) in UPSC hold less regards for the sick attitude I seem to be witnessing myself. I have also come to realise that such accomplishments and proving yourself worthy hold no good even for my peers who see me as just another woman commodity with whom they can get friendly the way they want and act in a manner less worthy of the post they represent. That it doesn’t matter what position you hold in a patriarchal society as long as you are woman you’ll be treated like a woman. For me, it time and again,  reestablishes notions of patria...

I have amazing friends, friends who enlighten me on a list of things, friends who share ideas I thought were impossible for me to think of, friends who make me realize my own weaknesses and also those who share a different opinion then I do. Lately it is because of such friends and of those others around me, who have triggered me to write on an issue which is not only rampant but also sensitive and often lost in stereotypes and its changing notions. It is relatively complex and has a lot of subjectivity attached to. As in our well stratified society, individuals are living in different class, caste, regions, urban-rural set ups and face the issue as per their own conditioning of attitudes. Perhaps also because the advanced forms of it are often taken to be reformed and progressive, this may not necessarily be! The issue relates to the Institution called Marriage and the different underpinnings of it in a patriarchal society. How the two are a related concept and how without un...