Old Whine in Another Bottle

Yet another year passed by.

It was an eventful year 

of

daily agony 

to a section of society

grown bigger than last year.

Suddenly everybody seemed abuzz 

in celebratory mood

&

it took me a few a minutes to realize

Women's Day was the culprit.

All I could still relate to was only

Prostitutionalization

The Savior

She was brought-in unconscious

with broken jaw &

cracked head.

Her relatives were depressed & devastated.

With a deft confidence HE promised them,

 her complete recovery.

She got back home in three days,

hale & healthy.

However

not a single soul ever thanked HIM for what HE did

because he was just a mechanic.

Achievement !!!

Right from the day she joined school

all she was coaxed repeatedly,

 was to excel in her education.

She topped throughout school,

further onto securing State-Ranks,

and the Gold-Medals at graduation,

was a pioneer in a ground-breaking research in her PG

and FINALLY went on to start her proud career as

"Dr.Mrs.Homemaker"

Why not Mommy?

From the day she conceived

till the day she felt I could take care of myself 

I grew up on her care, concern, teachings, wisdom and what not,

only to realize that

 the world was so chauvinistic 

cos almost everyone's "getting to know me as a kid" conversations 

began with the question

"What's your father?"

Destiny?

We both grew altogether right from our birth.

We looked so alike

In-fact we were looked upon as twins.

We were nurtured and fed without a shred of partiality,

irrespective of the person who did that.

But WHY, did I land up decorating a stinking dead body

whereas her,

a gods' idol!!!

Unasked Reservations

         Reservations in India has been existent for more than half a century now. It was then, the need of the hour, to close the gap on discrimination. Throughout the tenure of existence it has for sure made a lot of impact on the lives of almost every Indian, be it good or bad. Some of its notable impacts are as follows...

• It has given way for the people from the backward classes (which was also the economically backward class, when this was introduced) an equal chance to be able to pursue education at esteemed institutions as well as be able to get reserved opportunities to have a shot at the employment prospects at all Government  and PSU establishments.
• It has been a very effective political tool to win elections since then, till date.
• It has failed to completely bridge the discrimination on the people's mind but has been aiding communal clashes both big and petty.
• It has made any government employee reap benefits (everything or nothing) resulting in a divided mindset on this concept.
• This has paved way for a few truly potential individuals and many incompetent individuals to rise to higher levels in the organizational ladder.
• With bribery and falsehood at ease, another very important impact is that countless people have doctored their caste identity to fall under one of the backward castes to harness its benefits.

          It's certain that a politician will neither raise a voice to, if not abolish but even alter the reservation rules based on the present needs nor will he allow any other person who may try to do that, be heard. Also they (The Politicians) have already started looking at roping in other MNC based employment sectors to abide by these reservation rules as well, to boost up their political presence 

                 Since the idea of reservation was started for the equality of opportunities in education and employment. There has been a few other sectors which hasn't been incorporated into this system for a long time and I would like to throw some light in that direction.

In Politics

• Why not the 825 (280 in RS & 545 in LS) seats in the parliament be apportioned and alloted based on the reservation quota rules?
• Why not every state election strictly abide by the reservation rules. E.g in Tamil Nadu the 234 legislative seats must constitute the combination of all castes summing upto the total count of 234?
• Another option for the previous one, every political party should choose their candidates with the mix of people, applying the reservation quota rules.
• The elections at reserved constituencies must be contested by the those of that caste only.
• During the vote counting in a constituency where the a BC candidate of a party and SC candidate of another party are contesting, the SC candidate should be given more preference even if lesser number of people have voted for him.

In Sports

• The playing team in every sport should be according to reservation quota policies for whichever level of participation, be it school, college, state or even representing India.
• If it's an individual sport, matches should take place between players of different castes, wherein the winner will represent the State or Nation in that sport. However the winning rules are different for different castes. For eg in a five game encounter, the upper caste has to win all 5 to move on further however the SC/ST are through to the next round even if they win just one game.
• In the IPL, every team MUST consist of at-least one of OC/BC/MBC/OBC/SC/ST. Also the at least TWO foreign players MUST have valid caste certificate belonging to any one these.

In Entertainment

• How about the lead role casts be chosen on caste based reservations? Why do they need to pick the cast and crew based on their skill, beauty or talent?
• The screening or the auditioning process MUST have the caste based preferences as the   entry criterion.
• Why to spare the beauty pageant shows from these rules?
• The reality / talent shows should not eliminate people even if they are voted out, if that person belongs to any of MBC/SC/ST.

            Whatever that is age old, needs restoration and renovation and the Reservation policies are no exemptions. It's high time that either the bureaucrats and the politicians woke up and wear their thinking hats for the true progress of the nation or make the nation uniformly go down the drain on all fronts (like the few which has been suggested above) so that there is no discrimination (which is the core mantra of the reservation policies).

Discriminations - Unnoticed or rather unheeded..!!!

Gender, Color, Religion, Caste, Status, Nationality...etc

  The above list goes on and there had been countless occasions of discrimination where people have experienced and fought against many of these both in vain as well been successful. The word DISCRIMINATION has gained so much importance, sensitiveness and  no surprise it has become a weapon in politics.The above mentioned are some widespread and popular ones however if we just stop a while and take a look, there are quite a set of unnoticed discrimination that are still prevalent in the world around us.

• As a kid in school the same mistake done by a girl gets a different treatment that of the same being done by a boy.
• A younger one is almost always muted out of a conversation by the parents or other elders without neither having the slightest idea of the point they were about to make nor giving them an opportunity or space to participate.
• Going out with friends has always been a piece of cake for guys and not for girls, be it any age.
• Most buses have seats especially marked for ladies and the rest is untagged and hence ladies too sometimes sit there and no fuss is made until a guy sits in a seat marked up for ladies.
• When standing in a queue never a guy is pitied upon and made to jump the queue where as a girl is.
• The girls alone have to change their last names and many change their initials too upon marriage, hope some have their identity spared at least.
• The dowry system is still at large, exclusively demanded from girls, for ages now.
• Neither the society nor the family will question a guy who remarries because his wife can't bear a child but will react to the worst possible extent that they won't even let a girl think of remarrying someone else because her husband's impotency.
• There is no part of the world and even the world that proposed and practiced male polygamy accepted the polygamy of females.
• Even Barak Obama seems to have got the Peace prize not for his contribution to world peace but just that he's Black American.
• In local news media, its Flash news if its about Karunanidhi (DMK) or Jayalalitha (ADMK)  but the news about the rest of the world is just secondary.
• In the so called National media or the English news channels its breaking news even before rain hits New Delhi or Mumbai but its just news even after the casualties of the flood elsewhere in the country.
• In Orkut or FB, a community or person hosting a picture of Indian flag burning  is reported as abuse but not many bother to realize and help the actual Indian dying out of hunger, on the streets.
• Even the local native people started to accustom to believe Hindi or English being the medium of socially acceptable and appreciable language,music, culture, fashion, food and what not, compared to their native ones.
• In addition to that in service based entities like Gymnasiums, Spa, Disco etc....playing an English or Hindi song is termed cultural and even an etiquette but never a local native music, though umpteen good ones may exist.
• Dosas and Idlies have become once in a long time as compared to the daily burgers pizzas or dhabas.
• Though available in abundance and good for health as well, water is replaced by carbonated drinks by many people as a thirst quencher in-between meals.
• Almost every FMCG to automobiles and to mobile service provider make many of their advertisements neither in Indian locale nor use Indians actors but the products are marketed for being sold to Indians.
• Though men and women shop to their best possible extent, the variety of products are incomparably a lot for ladies than for men.
• The Indian movies are 99.99 % are themed for male actors and female actors just enjoy the so called glamorous heroine part, almost always.
• Internet is not spared nevertheless, the voice and video traffic is deemed high priority when compared to the  helpless data traffic.
• Last of this list and definitely my personal best in the list of discrimination is the age old game of chess where the White is always the first one to make a move, till date.