Sati?

For people like us (urbanites?) this term relates only to the 19th century, when it was banned by the government… a thing of past.

I will grab a moment of yours to revise what sati implied then, a woman has no right to live or enjoy any of the worldly pleasures after her husband’s death. Hence she was given a mortal death.

After a lot of opposition that started from the time of Akbar, it finally got the government seal in mid 18oo (yes, almost 200 years back).
And she was allowed to live. Her life was pardoned. A life, in which she was deprived of everything, be it colors, long-hair, any social function, any festival.
Awarded with a life of humiliation, by her family members.
A lot of films are made on their plight and these films are applauded abroad, receive awards in film festivals. They were talked about and forgotten soon. Never ever released here in India, which has the largest widow population in the world.

My aim of writing this article is not to “highlight” their misery and condition but to understand some basic practices.

Donatation (“Daan” as they say it in Hindi) can be given by everyone, be it a criminal or wealthy. And as per the Hindu “shastra” (which we Indians follow only to suppress someone), Kanya-daan is maha-daan. (In India, while marrying your daughter, you actually donate it to the groom). A murderer can do it, a widower can do it but a widow… nah!! They say if she do this all the bad luck in the world will wreak havoc on the newly-wedded… well they never ever allowed this so how do they know it? They never gave her a chance!!!

And the irony of it is, this practice and the religion is so much penetrated into our minds that the widow themselves are scared to do it!!
Try convincing her, she says, I am like that, I am of older generation, you don’t understand social obligations.
Social Obligation? what has this to do with blessing your daughter?

Does her burning-alive ban means we got rid of Sati-Pratha? When she will be considered an equal human-being?

Customized Conscience

I saw a movie sometime back, in the end of which the hero is given a choice by his girlfriend to choose between diamonds (smuggled) worth millions and the love of his life…

The man throws the diamonds in dustbin and chooses the girl… the girl smiles and says “I was just testing… pick up the diamonds…”

The man says, “Thank God you are normal”. Picks up the diamonds and they lived happily ever after.

STOP.

FLASH BACK 50 Years.

Same situation, the guy throws the diamonds and both of them walk away….. to live the rest of their lives in the same old slum…..

I was confused a lot all these months as what is correct and what is wrong.

Life is short and Money gives you the power. That’s the “Jungle” rule these days.

With the so-called wrong means you can mint money, live a lavish life, and die a happy guy.

Don’t judge me already!!

Think for yourself, how hard, by hook or by crook, you try to save (steal) taxes, showing all fake medical bills, petrol bills, paying no taxes on your FD interests.. isn’t it stealing? Doesn’t matter the amount. Haven’t you bought anything from Grey Market?

Then why do people judge the smugglers? Why not go ahead and extend your scope :).

But as they say, the one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.

Conscience (which is another huge topic in itself) varies. For me getting pirated DVDs from China is perfectly fine! No guilt in me (come-on! I saved my hard earned money).

And there is a guy, who, leave aside buying, doesn’t even watch pirated DVDs (come-on! Thats stealing!!).

For me he is a fool and for him I am a smuggler.

Here again… conscience is “self-governed” and flexible.

The morals change! They always have.

So why do we take a “mobile-phone” smuggler to court while we sit not-guilty in our home.

Cheen

After trying to equip me with all the required weapons (like, attempting to teach me Chinese, in which I failed miserably) my company finally parked me in China, a city called Xiamen to be precise, a very beautiful island in south China.
As soon as I entered here, I was shocked to see its flyovers and sky-scrapers.

The image I had of China was of a developing nation where people work very hard and are not very rich, move around on bicycles, where the government is very stingy, but you land to this place and you can confuse it with any Canadian city, Canada, of course because of its Chinese population ;).
(I realized I should not rely too much on Jackie Chan movies).

This city is so well developed and clean, with all German and Japanese cars running, beaches too clean to qualify to be of any Asian country (NO OFFENSE).
Well of course, language is a big problem here, but that’s only in small city like Xiamen.

That was my first impression of the Dragon-Land, but in last 2 months, this is my third visit here and now I have settled enough to see it nicely…. In China its like, Japanese cars running on USA roads with German speed but traffic sense, that of India (You know, I think in India we still have some traffic sense as compared to China). People here follows absolutely no rules !! No Lane system, don’t follow divider rule. As a habit, here too I sit on the navigator’s seat in a cab, and trust me, for the first time I had put on my seat-belt not cause of fear of a traffic-cop but to save my life.

The accidents here are fatal. I see a crashed car almost everyday and by the look of that car, I know there are absolutely no chances of any survivor in that.
And the best part, I dint see any Traffic Inspector here (probably they too are scared to stand amidst these speedy drivers ;)..), and cameras also at few selected places.

So want to have a car-race here ;) ??

It's a Religion

Cricket. Yes that’s what.
People (Crickettes) are crazy (I don’t know about any other country but here in India, Yes).
I remember since my childhood, whenever there was any match (specially between India and Pakistan), EVERYONE were in their house watching it !!!! Shops use to shut down at just 4 PM !! And if we win that, Oh my GOD !!! people use to celebrate as if we have won a war. With India –Pakistan I can understand but I can’t understand how someone can see a cricket-match where none of the teams is of his /her country.

I however, could never understand whats so big deal about this cricket…
There is a batsman and a bowler, bowler throws a ball and batsman plays, few guys are there to get the ball and give it to the bowler and rest other (millions) sees this happen again and again…
Once I had to see this (ya that was a punishment my friends gave me for loosing a bet..) and I realized one more new thing… this guy, the “batman”, he was dogging the ball in different styles and these cricket freaks have given all those crazy postures an unique name !! same for throwing ball... (full toss is the only one I can still remember).

Boy !!! How can someone bear that game !!!

I saw soccer, which I liked. Atleast everyone is involved and it’s a fast game not like cricket where it take days to wind up that game (I mean come on !!!! )

PS : I remember in one of the prelim rounds of a quiz, the quiz master said some number and asked in which match India scored this, can you believe that the score was of Indian team in a movie (Lagaan) and there were PEOPLE WHO KNEW THIS !!!!

Random Thought

Everyone must have thought about “life after death”. Even I am not sure if it exists. Just a thought.

As a life begins, it is in a secure world of its mother’s womb where it develops all the necessary requirements which enable it to survive in this world. As the time approaches for its birth, it might feel like a “death” to that little soul where it has to come to a totally new and unknown environment, leaving all the comforts it had.

Who knows, as we live here, we too like a small child develop all the skills required in the new world where we go after death.

What say ?

Zhong guo

I remember participating in arguments for usage of English words in Hindi (a language which these days is called “Hinglish”). If using a combination of two languages you are able to express yourself perfectly, what’s the harm???
Like every other thing shouldn’t language too be “modernized”?

I think language was invented to communicate and should be easy rather than un-interpretable and secretive.
Leave aside modernization; shouldn’t it be revised to make it simpler?

Civilization has crossed all phases but there is a country in this world that instead of having 26 or 60 alphabets in its script has more than 40,000 not alphabets but SYMBOLS. And you need to learn atleast 7,000 to just survive there. No points guessing it. It’s the language of the “Main Land”, China.

I am learning it and its freaking me out.

Its Romanization is beyond our imagination. A simple word like “Thank you” is written as Xie-Xie and pronounced as Shei-Shei.
Same word has TOTALLY different meanings when said in different pitch.
Agreed that it’s a very old language and all the sentiments related to it. But since it was developed by their ancestors (probably since the time of nomads) doesn’t mean they need to continue the same pictorial language.
Can’t this hieroglyphics Cantonese (or Mandarin) be revised to make it simpler?

PS : Zhong-guo means China

DISCLAIMER : No offense to Chinese, these are just my thoughts and may be after learning it for 2-3 months I too might develop a flair for it ;).

How Stupid are you ?

Its a chain reaction. Few of my friends tried this and I too got tempted.
I was rated "Pretty Smart".

Wanna try ? Click below.