Should We Become Less Uptight About "Going Dutch"?

Stumbled upon this article that talks about Dutch women working less, having a big gender pay gap and loving it.

According to this article, most Dutch women work half days, meet their friends for coffee at 2 p.m., and pity their male colleagues who are stuck in office all day!

Now that's a life any working woman will be willing to trade her present life for (working beyond office hours, not being able to meet friends for coffee even after work, and still having to crib about sexism at work). The flip side, of course, being that we'll have to depend on the male species for money. Is that something I'm willing to make my peace with? I don't know. What I wouldn't mind of course is working half day, making enough money to be able to meet my personal and very important shopping needs :D and the rest can be taken care of by the man! They are genetically programmed to be ambitious, ruthlessly competitive, and more objective about work than women, anyway.

What are your views on this article?

Take Back the Night

It’s happened with every woman at some point of time or another – some man brushes against you intentionally on a crowded street, men leer at your breasts at a public place in the most disgusting way, men on the streets pass comments of a sexual nature when you walk by, attendants smirk at you when you go to a hospital/clinic to get a pap smear done etc.

I've seen it happen to women when they go to a pharmacy to buy birth control/emergency contraceptive pills. The store attendants will either smirk or talk in hushed tones and generally be so secretive about the entire process, it makes you feel as if you’ve got the plague! After all, it’s not for no reason that women in India don’t go to buy condoms themselves.

We (Indian women) encounter sexual harassment at every nook & corner, every day of our lives. We can’t walk down the streets without getting harassed either overtly or in a covert manner. The men that are less brave will leer at you or pass a comment, while the relatively braver ones will brush against you or try to touch you at the most private places, pretending it was unintentional of course. It’s disgusting.

It’s just so sad that a woman has to constantly fear for her safety in this country, where as it should be our birth right – just as the right to breathe. We shouldn’t always have to look over our shoulders, always beware of who’s walking on either side of us. Freedom to walk down the streets without having to worry about getting harassed simply on account of our gender should be our basic right, not something we have to fight for.

Unless all men in this country, down to the last social strata, learn to respect women, and not see them as merely sexual objects or 'things' to procreate with, we are not going to progress as a society. Bad news is, I think we’re light years away from that happening!

Bengal Votes!

The verdict is out – Bengalis are not passionate only when it comes to discussing politics, they vote passionately as well.

West Bengal registered close to 70% turn-out during this election, one of the highest in the country. Though the choice they had was pretty limited – basically a call between the Communist Party & Mamata Banerjee, and no ‘No Voting’ option on the EVM - they still went out & voted.

I was SHOCKED to hear that Mumbai registered only 46% voter turnout. For all that anger against politicians following 26/11, the fervent appeals by public personalities to the people, especially the youth, to go out & vote, the candlelight vigils at the Gateway, the marches on Marine Drive, the public outcry against citizens who do not vote – Mumbai registered one of the lowest voter turnouts. So what was all that noise about?

I agree our options were dismal. The list of competing candidates was bad across constituencies, not to mention most have criminal cases pending against them. Parties have been fielding the same candidates for the past hundred years! There is a severe dearth of young, dynamic, clean politicians to lead a youthful & vibrant India.

BUT we have got to choose the best from amongst what is available to us – the one who is likely to be the least regressive, the one who is likely to bring the least harm to society & our country. Expecting a positive change would be too hopeful and optimistic at this point of time. We aren't there yet. Therefore, we've got to choose someone who will do the least damage.

OR we should join the fray. South Mumbai did have some atypical candidates like Meera Sanyal who asked themselves the question "If not me, then who??". That's the same question that we need to ask ourselves when it comes to voting. "If not us, then who??"

For all the promises that Mumbai made post 26/11, they blew their chance! Let’s wait and see what India did.

'He' Had A Dream

Ladies & Gentleman, It’s Barack Obama for America!!

I was going to write a post on my absolutely fabulous trip to Bombay last week, but I'm assuming the election of Barack Obama to the post of the President of the United States is a bigger defining moment in History & world politics, and therefore it should come first. My post on Bombay will just have to wait :)

Who would have thought that a Black, or a “person of color” as non-whites are referred to in politically correct terms, would become the President of a predominantly White America?

Obama won by a landslide. This signifies change, for sure. I guess Americans have been craving change for a while, and they’ve never desired it more desperately than now when their economy is battered & their country alienated courtesy George Bush’s ‘Shock-N-Awe’ military policy across the globe.

Obama’s election signifies progressiveness, but it also proves that skin color can only run so deep. Ultimately, it’s your vision for your country & its people, your beliefs and how steadfastly you stand by them, that will see you through.

This is indeed a historic moment for African-Americans in America. For centuries they were enslaved, segregated. There was a time not too long ago, when everything in America was segregated – schools, work places, public transport. There were separate schools for black & white kids. The ones for white kids had better infrastructure, of course. Offices were segregated along racial lines. Blacks sat in a different portion of the bus/train, usually at the back & were expected to give up their seats to Whites.

The Civil Rights Movement officially started in the mid-1950s with the Montgomery Bus Boycott when the Blacks of Montgomery, Alabama, led by Rosa Parks (who was asked to give up her seat to make room for a White passenger, decided that they would boycott the city buses until they could sit anywhere they wanted, instead of being relegated to the back when a white boarded. The Movement got its nationwide pioneer in the form of Martin Luther King Jr. who, through his ‘I Have A Dream’ speech, galvanized the African-Americans of the entire nation to fight for their freedom. America to this day celebrates his birthday in January as a national holiday.

Unlike MLK Jr. however, Obama does not ride the wave of Black politics. He has been voted in as much by Whites as by Blacks. It’s his vision for America & the constructive role it can play in the world at a time of financial & political crises, that saw him at the hem of the country. In spite of considerable improvement in race relations across America, African-Americans still continue to live at the fringes of society, for a large part. But change seems to have finally caught up with the country.

Barack for America, I say.

Of The Great Debacle & Other Things

I had always lived with roommates before moving to Calcutta. Through college and my stint in Bombay. And both times I was lucky to have roommates who were from neighboring towns so they would go back home every weekend or at least every other weekend, so I could have the place to myself for at least two days every fortnight. It worked wonderfully well…I would get my space at regular intervals, and would be ready for company again by the time Monday rolled by & it was time for them to return.

At times, I used to think how nice it would be to live alone! To have the entire house to myself all the time, to not have to co-ordinate my shower time with that of my roommate in the mornings (which you can’t avoid in Bombay where you pay a bomb to live in shoebox apartments with one tiny bathroom), to be able to watch whatever program I wished to watch on television, to be able to sleep whenever I wanted to etc.

So when I moved to Calcutta I was all excited about living on my own. I got myself a pretty house with mind-blowingly well ventilated rooms, plenty of sunlight, quiet surroundings, a nice balcony & lots of trees outside my bedroom window!! It helps that the building is new and the house was freshly painted in a happy shade of pink before I moved in!!

However, five months of living alone and I’ve already had enough of it. I’ve realized that I’m not made of stuff that can handle - leave alone enjoy - living alone. I need people around me. I need people to talk to. I need someone home in the evenings.

I have come to believe that people who enjoy living alone and those who don't are inherently very different. They have a totally different set of characteristics. I just can’t fathom how some people can live alone, out of choice. And they seem to have a blast doing it too!!

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On another note, I’m reading Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan’s book ‘You Are Here’. For the uninitiated, she’s the author of the “popular” blog ‘The Compulsive Confessor’, and also writes a column in Mumbai Mirror called ‘Ms Adventures’. Sadly, her adventures are limited to drunken org*s at Zenzi, mishaps with her bra straps, being single, dating a guy, being dumped and being single again.

(Disclaimer : If there are any fans of her blog/column reading this blog, I’m sorry if I am hurting your sentiments, but I’m invoking my Fundamental Right of 'Freedom of Speech' granted to me by the Constitution of India)

Anyway, back to the book…IT IS UTTER CRAP. The material is no different from her blog - s*x, bra straps, being boy crazy, being cheated on, being dumped etc. The language is immature and straight out of high-school! The book is in first person, and though the protagonist is supposed to be a twenty-five year old, she talks like a ten-year old!! Now, I’m not a sucker for ornate, fancy-schmancy language and I’m all for authors who write in a colloquial manner, but I do expect a certain level of maturity in the writing, which is acutely missing in her book.

Which brings me to Ms Reddy Madhavan herself. I think she needs to simply take a break from trying so hard to be perceived as cool & modern. That’s the problem with her – she tries too hard. There are plenty of liberated, emancipated women in India today. One doesn’t need to be talking about one’s s*x life & dusfunctional bra straps on a public forum to be liberated. Being cool, modern & liberated is an attitude, not something brought about through words. Someone needs to tell her that. To me she comes across as someone who is trying desperately to prove a point where there is none to prove, to people who really don’t care!!

The latest update on her blog is that she's single again. Surprise, surprise...I wonder why!! Afterall, don't guys just love it when their girlfriends splash the details of their love lives & stories of how psychotic they were before they met the guy, on the web for the whole world to read!!

Anyway, on to other things…

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Winter is finally approaching in Calcutta! YAY!! All of a sudden, the weather changed yesterday. There was just that slight bit of nip in the air the night before, the morning was cooler than usual, and on my way to work - at around 10am - I noticed that the sun had to make an effort to shine!!

Can’t tell you how excited I am!! I love winters!! Not that I get all excited about sub-zero temperature & all, but I can handle cold much better than I can handle heat. Besides I love the feeling of being warm & fuzzy inside my home when it’s freezing outside! I love the winter sun! And I love wearing sweaters and socks and gloves and woollen caps and scarves and all that jazz when it's cold….what fun!!

Make Over

The blog has undergone a change!

This blog is an extension of me, so like me, it was craving change as well. In template, ofcourse. The content will continue to be as random, irreverant and (sometimes) brazen as it was.

I have also decided to shut down one of my other blogs 'Lux Libertas'. Started it with a lot of gusto but I couldn't come up with substantial things to say at regular intervals. Also figured that random & funny is much better than serious & thought-provoking. Hell, I think enough at work & so do all of you, I'm sure :)

So here's to more random, funny, sometimes sensible, rarely emotional, often girly blogs. Heck, whose line is it anyway!!