jithU = jithU + 1

It was almost midnight and I woke up hearing a loud noise. Some one was knocking on the door. From the sound, it was obvious that there was more than one person outside. I woke up in half sleep and opened the door. Flash lights went off and the gang outside caught me by my hands. They pulled me outside and I was taken towards the brick wall.

I wondered what they were going to do with me. Two of them continued to hold me and the rest moved backward. There was a burning candle on top of something, at a distance. I struggled to reach the candle. But the firm grip of the two stopped me and I couldn’t move atleast an inch ahead. Flash lights shoot off. I tried and tried, got tired and finally gave up.

The two of them receded and another four from the gang came towards me. Two of them hold my two hands and the other two hold my legs and pulled me up and then I found myself in the air, horizontal to the ground. Then only I realized that there was a sizeable crowd in front of me. Ten! Twenty! Thirty! Forty! Was there even more?

They were all shouting at me. I tried several times to release myself from the hands which hold me. But it all ended in vain.

“By the power of?” Some one from the gang yelled and someone else kicked my butt to red.

“Rekha!” I screamed all of a sudden. I didn’t know from where this word came to my mouth that time.

They took me a little further, towards the candle light. Flash lights show themselves again.

“By the power of?” I heard it once again. This time, it was a whack with a sneaker.

“Smitha!” This word followed the sound and I was moved a little further.

With every such question, a girl’s name came out from my mouth and I was moved more and more towards the candle. Whacks, kicks, slaps etc enriched my back.

When I was some what close to the candle, someone ordered me to blow off the candle. I tried but the candle was just outside my reach. After a lot of effort and when I was almost tired, some mercy soul pushed me ahead.

The clock had just passed 12 am. And finally, I made it! I blew off the candle!

“Happy birthday to you”
“Happy birthday to you”
“Happy birthday dear (Jithu)”
“Happy birthday to you”

The crowd was singing, rather saying, in one voice!

Then I realized that the entire ordeal I went through for about fifteen minutes was for my mistake of being born! But yeah, it was fun! :-)

Vanishing Childhood

“Vinu, wake up my dear, mamma is going to office.”

His mom’s voice used to be the morning alarm for Vinu.

“Have your break-fast which is kept on the dining table. Don’t forget to drink the milk. Yesterday you didn’t drink it and it was wasted.”

By the time he wakes up from his bed, Vinu’s pop and mom would have left for their offices. The maid would have started her work in the kitchen. Though Vinu is only three years old, for him, time immemorial this has been the routine.

Straight from the bed he went to the window of his bedroom to have a look at the world outside. The sun was already up and running and so do the crowd in the roads outside.

Their flat was located in one of the busiest corners of the city. There was no space left in the city. So less so that even the buildings found it very difficult to stand up. There weren’t any independent houses with lawn outside but only flats with balconies of the size adequate only to hold some junk, two three flower pots and a rope to hang the clothes.

Vinu never went outside for playing. There were't any free spaces for him to play. In fact the case was the same for any other child in the city. He used to see cartoons, played with the pokemons and did some artistic works on the bed sheet. Very rarely only he saw his father and mother. At first he felt sad. But then, even at that small age, he kind of adjusted with it.

Once, his cousin from the village came to Vinu’s house for a visit. Vinu was amazed by the stories he told. He said they have a very large open space in front of their house. They have very big fields. He even explained its size to Vinu. He said it would be covering a distance equivalent to that from his flat to the junction nearby. Vinu became extremely jealous hearing all these things. He even presented the topic to his parents thinking that they all would go and stay in the village. But his pop’s and mom’s job was in the city and they said they will be falling short of food and toys. And he agreed to them.

Vinu looked out through the steel grid attached to the window. In one of the branches of the lean teak tree which stood beside the flat, he saw a bird-couple with their small kids. The kids were about to fly and the birds were helping them learn flying. While he was observing this, one of the small ones took off from the branch. Its parents helped it to fly towards the open sky, towards freedom. And the other ones followed.

Vinu watched all these carefully. He didn’t feel much about the happenings. In fact he was so young to think about those. To think about growing up in the open world, to think about doing things he liked, to think about playing in the open space, to think about how his childhood is being killed inside the four walls of a flat. Only thing which was there in his mind was his mom’s words.

“Have your break-fast which is kept on the dining table. Don’t forget to drink the milk. Yesterday you didn’t drink it and it was wasted.”

He ran towards the dining table to drink the milk. He didn’t know that the milk was already frozen.

thE faireR seX

#include universal_disclaimers.h
I was watching National Geographic Channel which was showing some documentary about animal life that this thought came to my mind, once again, after such a long time. It used to be one of our favorite discussion topics during engineering days and the absence of the discussing gang somehow had killed those discussions. Sorry, I haven’t mentioned till now, what this so called topic is. Carrying forward the fairer assumption you got from the heading of this post, and living up to its expectations, it is nothing but, who is the fairer sex? Male or female? Men or women?

Let the story start from the birds and animals because they were the first inhabitants of planet earth before humans. Let it end with humans because that is where the basis of this thought lies.

If we look around us and observe the nature for a while, there is something which doesn’t go without attention. Its beauty! Beautiful flowers, beautiful birds and beautiful animals! But hey, there is a small problem! All these birds or animals are not beautiful. In fact only half of them are beautiful. Always one class of birds or animals is more beautiful than the other. In birds and animals, this class is the Male! To be frank, I am not becoming chauvinistic. Instead I am trying to look at this case with a neutral stand point.

Well, for a bird or an animal beauty is given by nature to attract their female mate.

The cosmetics industry of India had a size of Rs. 126 billion (Rs. 12,600 crores) in 2001 with 8.7% growth rate. By this rate it would have grown to Rs. 175 billion in 2005. And who are the users of cosmetics, females! I know this is not entirely true, hence let me have an estimate of 90% of this usage being done by women. This story is similar world-wide.

Here I find a problem. When it comes to humans, who are the beautiful class? Men or women?

By the law of the nature, extending from the case of birds and animals, it has to be men. Does nature got it wrong in the case of humans? Or does it deliberately put it the other way round when it came to humans?

But nature played a mysterious role here. It didn’t give man or woman, the brilliant colors of a male bird, the long tusk of a he-elephant etc as the differentiating factors denoting beauty. Or in the case of humans, the definition itself of beauty went wrong?

During the previous sessions, we had our own view points and opinions. I am inviting you to take part in this discussion. What do you feel about this? Who exactly is the fairer sex? Men or women?

PS: These are my own views and are not intended to hurt anyone's feelings. I want to give a thought as to why this happened in the case of humans. On a much more personal note, I believe that women are indeed the fairer sex, the beautiful class. But that should not stop me from finding out the reason, right?

An Untold Autobiography

I was alone in the Eden on earth. Small-small dreams filled my days and I spent my time patiently waiting for my love to come. My love, my prince charming; he would be the strongest in a million. He will embrace me with all the passion. I know he will turn up here one day and then my loneliness will come to an end.

I dreamed about building a small house near this river. We will have one child. She will be the most beautiful girl in this world. But now I am alone, waiting for my love to come.

Days passed and the faith in me grew stronger. Then a day came. I had never seen such a day before. Everything was trembling around. The earth quaked. Birds flew away. Animals ran and hide in their caves. And then, there was a landslide.

In the peak of the tremor, I saw my prince charming being carried, down the river, by the landslide. He was fortunate enough to ground on the river-side. The moment he saw me, he seemed to have reinvigorated from the sufferings he had. Then he embraced me. In front of the world around us and we became one.

Seasons passed. Like two souls in one body, we lived happily in the Eden on earth. I told him about my dreams and he agreed to fulfill those. He said he will take me to a distant place. A place which is full of colorful flowers, blue sky, beautiful birds and above all, a place where there would be people like me. I was so excited.

We listened to the voices coming from that distant land. Once I heard a rough voice, “Definitely, if a girl child!”

It was a moody afternoon. Hearing a loud noise I woke up suddenly. It was from a distance. The noise was growing louder and louder and my ears started paining. Something was coming towards me. It was a machine. It was destroying everything on its way. I ran for my life; as quickly as I could. But it was following me.

Finally it caught me. I struggled for my breath in its strong grip. My body was becoming weak. Before the world around me turned to darkness, I heard a word, “MTP”.

PS: MTP – Medical Termination of Pregnancy
Courtesy: My friend Aravind Nair, who once put this idea into a beautiful poem.

Janu’s Small World

It was a foggy morning and young Janu was sleeping peacefully in her house. She was seven and had five siblings. They lived in the heart of the busy city. Her father took his family to the city from the village because of his work. Her mother was supposedly a house-wife, but was always out working with her father.

Janu’s days were fascinating. She used to go to the road in front of her house and watched the vehicles which pass by. She waved her hands to the people inside those vehicles. When a plane took off from the nearby airport, she watched it going up and finally disappearing in the sky. She never waved her hands to the airplanes. When the initial drops of rain came down, she catched it in her hands and also counted it. Later she gave up due to losing the count or due to the rain turning strong.

Janu maintained a collection of paper clippings. Every night, before sleeping, in the light of the candle, she used to look at all those clippings. She was able to identify some of the alphabets. Her father used to say that he will send her to school next year. Thinking repeatedly her father’s words, Janu used to embrace sleep. No one from her family had ever gone to school.

The school was near their house. Both shared a common wall. Students of her age studied in that school. But they never played with her. The school had a slum nearby. The school authorities disliked the presence of a slum next to their wall.

Hearing some loud sound, Janu woke up from her sleep. Her father and mother had already gone for their work. Her siblings were already awake and were playing outside. An odd looking vehicle, the biggest she had ever seen, was approaching her house. She was amused to see that vehicle. She ran towards it to see it in close.

The big vehicle didn’t stop and continued its way towards her house. From a distance, she saw the bulldozer sweeping away her house!

On the next day a small column appeared in the last page of a local vernacular newspaper. “The slum near the city school was evacuated. The school authorities are planning to build a park there. It is really sad that a school which is supposed to spread the light of knowledge is doing this.”