The verdict and the shame it brought

I am often asked why am I not proud of my nation. My answer is simple, I never felt that this nation loves or cares for its people. Call me whatever but I am not proud of my country.

After SC gave its verdict on LGBT's rights and re-criminalized homosexuality, I felt sorry for the country... for it can not even feel the anger, disgust and disappointment it has created in people.

This medieval mindset makes us feel let-down. Why haven't we read our own scriptures? Why are we so ignorant about ourselves? Why is our culture janus-faced?

We have been okay with rapists going scot-free.... we have been okay with dowry deaths, marital rape, sexual abuses but homosexuality is criminal. Isn't it just ridiculous?

I was wondering if now we will be destroying kamasutra or perhaps also demolish khajuraho since it depicts homosexuality. We have not been able to wrap our head around the fact that homosexuality is not a western influence. It has been in India, since the days of Mahabharata.

It is violation of human rights and the verdict is a loss to all the Indians.

Today I thought of Rand again!

I read something while at work today and it reminded me of Ayn Rand…

I realized that no other author has gathered enough grit and confidence to write that we are selfish and being selfish is not a crime. I remembered how I loved these from her books:

“I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I’ll never live for the sake of other man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”

And I also went through her book to find another excerpt which I have loved dearly:

When you see a man casting pearls without getting pork chops in return – it is not against the swine that you feel indignation. It is against the man who valued his pearls so little that he was ready to fling them into the muck and let them become the occasion for a whole concert of grunting.

Happy reading to Rand’s fans!

Mid summer madness

And the wind blows again 

Some more drops fall 

 And the wind beckons

 My coral made bones 

 Nestles my frame in hug 

 Absorbs my conscience 

 

And the wind blows again

 Flitting the leaves hard 

 Pebbles shine as the rays fall

 Tessellating the road 

 It addled my brains 

 And I stood in a frail frame

A birthday to remember

I thought to myself today if I have become a grown-up. I wondered if now I am supposed to have that regal poise when I talk about me or when somebody asks me what I want for my birthday.

 The thought arose when my birthday just went by and I didn't feel sad about it. I remember, when I was a child my birthdays were of supreme importance. Anything else around my birthday was a mere footnote in time. And anyone who forgot wishing me was temporarily ticked off my list and how I always thought of myself as the queen in one of the ferret fantasies and foibles. I would always think of my birthdays as the astrally blithed days when everybody around me would look cosmically and eternally happy. And now when I turn 28, I am not a child anymore! 

Life is strange in its own ways. You feel bogged down by petty things.  Like yesterday, I felt awful about something.  I didn't know what. Since morning my day was dripping boredom.  One incident dangling from another made my sloppy mood grow bigger.  I behaved erratically with V also.  I lamented growing up to have become like this. 

The only incentive of growing up is perhaps having V in my life. Thank you Lord for small mercies! 

Happy birthday to me after all :)

When I took 'Wake up and smell the coffee' too seriously

When I was leaving for work, it started to rain. It being a Saturday, the traffic was smooth and to appease me further it looked beautiful outside.

Spots on the drenched road shone like moonlight. We stopped at a signal and I saw a girl with a blue umbrella... The umbrella flew with the wind, handle broke and a part ripped a little. She tried hard to contain the last straw to help herself from getting soaked in rain. I looked at her and smiled while she tried hard ensuring her umbrella doesn't defy gravity.

We moved on, reached office. I wasn't happy about coming to work, not on saturday. and I guess happy is too a 'glint' word here with the organizational politics brewing at my workplace. I took a heavy sigh, spoke to few colleagues.

I am definitely not in a mood to work... Tepid coffee at work wasn't doing the needful. I wanted it to fill me with peace and wistfullness.

The politics here has started to grow and it is pricking like an icicle. I wanted that cup of coffee to thaw this stubborn, clump of jagged icicle inside me.

Oh! how I wish... And i work for a development sector!

Life is too short, I will pick my ironies whenever I see them.