Discomfitting Questions

On 'our shock' over the Malegaon blasts...

2008-10-25T17:32:00.002Z

For long the hindutva have called for
'mussalman ka sthan
pakistan ya qabrastan'

Made fun at them
'hum paanch hamaare pachees'
notwithstanding, the blatant call for
'hum do hamaare char'

All this while,
middle-class India went to work.
Lived our dream lives.
Earned in dollars and pounds
Only as glorified manual labourers though.

The poor shouted, and we shut our ears.
Let them fight for our so-called Hindu purity.
How does it matter, if a few monkeys
wipe each other out?
As long as we build, and exhort our enterprise
On their blood.

Development indeed!
And what better way of winning?
If we can achieve both
in the same game?
The convenience of the proletariat mass
fighting each other, in the name of religion.
Especially when we, the middle class
swoop in to divide the bloodied remain.

And one fine morning,
we realize
the joke is finally on us.
This bomb of theirs
is a bomb of ours.
Of our very own making.

Of our shared indifference
Apathetic
And it ticks down
3...2...1...

Still I Rise - by Maya Angelou

2006-10-09T00:52:00.000Z

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

greer meets marx

2006-09-27T11:19:00.000Z

Women's liberation, if it abolishes the patriarchal family, will abolish a necessary substructure of the authoritarian state, and once that withers away Marx will have come true willy-nilly, so let's get on with it.

Burn Bride, Burn

2006-08-24T23:52:00.000Z

A shocking 18 dowry deaths every day, that is, there is one woman dying every 80 minutes in India (link given below).

A reality check for the 21st century: http://www.pucl.org/Topics/Gender/2006/crimes.html

Burn bride, burn
In this world that you did spurn
Not a drop of tear was shed,
On your death,
Just the sound of a newspaper rustle,
Perhaps a shake of head.
Over a cup of morning-tea.

Burn bride, burn.
seeking refuge, when you went home,
Deaf ears greeted your appeals;
Your father looked at you sadly,
You hadn't learnt your lesson well.
"Sita Sati Savitri are your ideals!
daughter dear, suffer if you must,
But do not complain."

Burn bride, burn
"It's for you to adjust,
how else would you live in this world?"
- struggled your brother, to explain.
Your mother, perhaps understood
But held her tongue, and thought,
haven't I lived so far, as well?
my suffering couldn't have all been in vain.
And so she said, with a breaking heart,
"My daughter, my love, my heart, you too,
will eventually learn the sweetness of life's pain."

Burn bride, burn.
And you were sent on your way,
To your "home",
Packing.
One more martyr
in the making.

Tell me, dear bride, as you burned
and screamed in agonizing pain
that drowned within the kitchen walls,
Why didn't you grab hold of your husband's hand,
this one time?
To take him along with you,
and cull his ultimate destiny?
For wouldn't that be following
the truest traditions of your ideals,
Sati, Sita and Savitri?
To reclaim in death,
what was denied in life,
Your right to life with dignity.

the unknown soldier's memorial

2006-08-20T22:01:00.000Z

'For your tommorow,
you asked me to die,
If I ever come back
will you tell me why'

Jargonized syndrome: agonized by jargons

2006-07-05T17:59:00.001Z

The lamentations of a ph.d. student

step one: swallow half truths

step two: digest fractal truths

step three: churn out "myths" in the name of research

step four: try and live with yourself after that!

My body is a non-negotiable demand.

2006-06-24T01:57:00.000Z

When will I ever understand?
That patriotism is a prerogative of the penis
Subsumed in this brahminical India,
I am the mother, I am the cow
A four legged creature, with breasts.
Milked by men at their convenience.

Stay at home and nurture the womb,
And wait till they disagree over lines again
For I am the mother-land
The battle will be fought on my body

In the name of country,
I am raped by my own army.
In the name of struggle,
I am raped by my comrades.
In the name of family,
honour, dignity... izzat
I am raped by one and all...

For every movement, indeed,
Precludes movement on my body.
A battlefield for community lines.

It is your definition of my body that I fear
A repository of culture in me,
The honour between my legs.

Please! Let me be…
I do not want to be revered any longer
Neither as land, nor as mother.

My body is mine alone.
My body belongs to me.

Please!
Just
Let
Me
Be

fractal truths and grey areas..

2006-06-07T00:41:00.000Z

"I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing - I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything, and many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here, and what the question might mean. I might think about it a little bit, but if I can't figure it out, then I go on to something else. But I don't have to know an answer. I don't have to... I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn't frighten me." --- Richard Feynman

Musings: Funny that I recall this piece today. My friend asks me for solutions. Real life. Yes or No. To be or not to be? Fair enough to indulge and be comfortable with the ambiguities of psychological theories (or the lack of it) within the protected environment of academia, but what does one do, when real life brooks no delay? And no grey areas? How does one negotiate with the multiplicities of truth?

To build on shifting grounds... is this life?

Tinker Tailor, Abuser Teacher

2006-05-26T00:41:00.000Z

Utkal University: Psychology Department

Two professors absconding...

The FIR's have been lodged. Yet, the professors remain "absconding". Funny word that, conveniently used by people in power when they need to remain officially unseen.