Much has been said and written about Nirbhaya, the brave Delhi girl who lost her life fighting her molesters. Post that unfortunate incident, there have been protests and debates galore about how unsafe Delhi is. Unsafe, not just for the Nirbhayas, but for the many Nirbhays too. You can be a victim of a road rage, you can be mugged or killed over any minor dispute. Any vindictive mind can take you down for any reason that justifies his criminal mind. There is absolutely no sense of safety at all. Even the sense od women empowerment is such a fickle one, more so when I recall the news of the murder of my then colleague Soumya Vishwanathan. The year was 2009, the month, September. As I walked up to the lift to get to my office, another colleague joined me, looking unusually serious. There were no pleasantries exchanged as we stood there, waiting for the lift. And then after he could take it no longer, he uttered, ' Do you know about Soumya?'
The question was framed in such manner, that the first instinctive reaction in the mind was - God, something bad has happened! And with great effort all I could utter was - 'What happened?' 'Shot dead last night.' A statement uttered with no emotions at all, very matter-of-factly. My heart skipped a bit. Did I hear that right? Soumya? Murdered? That smiling face that I saw in office everyday, she's no more? What kind of joke is this? My mind and heart were not in sync. Just these questions in a loop and nothing more. But who makes such jokes. Who am I fooling. I asked no more.
Inside the office, everybody I came across seemed to be dealing with the loss in their own ways. The details trickled in. Returning home from an afternoon shift that was extended due to some emergency at work, she was shot dead in the wee hours, shot dead by unknown assailants. So this was no bad dream. This was a cold fact now. As I think about that day and and reflect upon the agony of her family and friends, how I wish she had the Smart Suraksha app on her phone. How I wish she had some means to alert her family about the ghastly situation she was stuck in. As much as I want to forget about this incident I am dusting the file so that it brings to light the fact that something as unfortunate as this can happen to any of us. Let's better be safe than sorry. I mentioned about the Smart Suraksha app, here's how it works -
Smart Suraksha, is a mobile application, that can track your whereabouts and at a single touch will send an sms to the pre-listed 5 simultaneously and also the police. An additional feature of this app, is that if you are in a situation where you are able to give details of the would-be offender, you can even record info like model of the car or clothes he is wearing, in your sms.Yes, use this app as a weapon that can prevent you from becoming an unfortunate victim. Stay safe with Smart Suraksha. I am participating in the Seeking Smart Suraksha contest at BlogAdda.com in association with Smart Suraksha App
She preens and pouts And pretends too - Of being oblivious to how she is viewed Her black curls let loose Dabbed with perfume, She sets out – with all fanfare To woo those
Who do not seem to care.
She learns the tricks, And wily traps - Coy smiles and hearty laughs, Some mad giggles help her too In her many random rendezvous - To win those That she sets out to woo. But then, there are times When the winds blow too hard, and take away her wild facade, It’s then that her melancholy eyes Give her masquerade away, The farce too tumbles down and the pretensions go astray.
Note: This poem was in response to a painting prompt on some forum and was written sometime in 2012. The painting, from what I vaguely remember, was of a beautiful woman dressed up in a flowing red gown, getting ready to go out.
Malcom MacGonal, a history professor at Stonewell University was his usual pepped-up self, as he got ready for the day ahead, though today the reason behind his upbeat mood was different. It was his son Calvin's 10th birthday. Exactly 10 years ago, on the 14th of September, 2020, God had blessed him with this beautiful gift and with each passing day, he and his wife had cherished this gift more than ever. Today being Calvin's birthday, he had taken a day off from work and had plans to spend the entire day with his son, while Calvin's mother stayed at home, decking up the house for a surprise kiddies party planned for the evening . Day's itinerary included a leisurely tour around Funland Children's Park and then the kiddies' party in the evening with all of Calvin's friends in attendance. Just as he stepped out of the house, with Calvin holding his hand, his phone beeped. 'Oh no, hope it's not someone from the University looking for me,' he uttered, mentally scanning the faces of all the curious students of his modern history class. Owing to his interactive teaching sessions, he was one of the professors who was always being sought by students passionate about all things historical. He checked the phone and was visibly relieved to see that message was not from a student but from Clarks & Sponsors, his favourite departmental store. The message read: Dear Mr.MacGonal, you shopped for undergarments from us on this date, a year back. You must be in need of replacements now. Here's your personalized catalogue to help you with the choices. Have a good day.
Oh yes, indeed. He needed replacements. As he sat in the bus headed towards the children's park, he typed in the requisite details and ordered for new stock of undergarments. It was as simple as that. Fill in your order form, key in the payment and bang, whatever you wanted would be delivered at your doorstep in no time. He knew that by the time he got home, his order would have been delivered.
Mobile-Commerce : Shopping on the go!
Shopping was all about a smartphone and a good internet connection now. And of course money too. But from paper money to plastic money, it was now all about mobile money - for all the monetary transactions now happened on the smartphone! How different this was from the days of yore, he tried to recall. How the concept of shopping has changed over the decades. Take the fridge for example! Now one does not have to go the grocery store to trudge home carton full of stuff. As the stock goes down, the in-built memory chip updates the registered grocer's data and lo and behold, fresh supplies arrive. Milk, eggs, veggies...everything is on weight mode and the moment the quantity goes below what's required, the stock is replenished from the grocer's.
Down & out, well almost
In business again!
Of course technological innovation and cut throat competition in the e-commerce domain has worked out best for us shoppers, he thought. 'I am hundred percent sure of the things I buy online, so much so that I can even have a feel of the things I shop for, all thanks to the 3D imaging of the products, my needs and probable shopping list is personalized and above everything I have the liberty to walk around virtual stores without the palpable embarrassment of walking out without making a purchase.' he smiled inwardly at his own musings. Of course he was right, the meteoric advancement in the field of e-commerce had made shopping such a comfortable and convenient experience. For all his needs, he had his favourite websites bookmarked on his smartphone, and that gave him the power to shop from anywhere at anytime. A single click of his phone and there was a personalized virtual store right in front of his, a virtual store that did not close in on him and that catered to his demands and accorded personal assistance 24/7.
Personalized catalogue
Not just a personal assistant, the high flying customer savvy e-stores also see to it that they keep registered customers up to date about the things they might be interested in. If you browsed through one SLR camera section, within minutes you will have a neat collection of cameras matching the specifications you are looking for. Likewise for a million other things. And to top it all, a single point payment partner across websites too took care of the woes online shoppers had decades ago. Just one payment partner now ensures that a buyer does have to share his bank or credit details with every Tom, Dick and Harry on the internet. Plus, this single point collector also guarantees your purchase, in case of any disputes that a buyer may later have regarding the transaction or the quality of the product.
One payment partner across websites
These technological advancement in online shopping again got Malcolm recalling his shopping plights in the past. Ah, those were the days, when shoppers would crowd the shopping centres and the many malls to buy big and small things. What a pointless waste of time it was - trudging from shop to shop, trying to find that perfect fit, that perfect colour, scanning the numerous shelves in the endless stores! And then came mobile commerce and changed everything! Mobile commerce that made museums of the the shopping malls! Suddenly an idea crossed his mind. Why not take Calvin to a tour of the deserted malls instead! The malls that were once thriving and crowded with shoppers, but were now deserted, some converted into museums, standing as a relic to the era gone by, while some standing as anonymous markers of the past.
A deserted mall
Another casualty of M-Commerce - empty stores
And Calvin, being his father's son, agreed! So off to the museum he went, hand in hand with his father, curious and contemplating what a shopping mall was. This futuristic post has been written for eBay's Future of Shopping drive in association with IndiBlogger. To make your online shopping experience more satisfying and secure, you can install the official eBay India Google Chrome extension, called eBay Check. This extension helps you keep updated about the best prices on eBay.in for any products that you may be looking up.
My father was born and brought up in a small nondescript village in Punjab. I say nondescript because compared to the fancy houses and Scorpio/Bolero/Tata Safari flaunting villages of today, Punjabi villages around 60 years back (I have been told) were more about seemingly endless expanse of farmlands with clusters of houses doting them. Most of the houses had cattle-sheds for the cows and buffaloes they reared and all sorts of smells wafted from those kucha-pucca houses - smoke bellowing from the open chulhaas, smell of tandoori rotis, corn being roasted somewhere, all these mixed with the pungent smell of cowdung and drying cowdung cakes. Father spent first sixteen years of his life in one such village, before moving out to the city to pursue higher studies. Today, after all these years of living in small, big and metropolitan cities, every time he smells a tandoor being set up, or smells the powdery smell of freshly ground atta (wheat flour) or the smell from a cow-shed, he says that it reminds him of his home, his village. I cannot agree more. Research says smells have an almost mystical ability to bring back memories even with their slightest whiff. Nothing elicits memories with the same emotional punch as odor, opine experts.
Villages have their own smell
Now as I sit and reminiscence about all the smells that instantly take me home, so many smells are suddenly wafting all around me...creating a haze of smells, if something like that is possible. I can smell Rasna's orange flavour, take in the sweet aroma of Roofafza, the heavy smell of ripe guavas....the halwa poori on Durga Ashtami...the smell of kerosene oil...Ah! Like father has the smells of village to transport him back to his childhood, I have all these smells to take me back to the times when I was growing up. And now the big and small whiffs of these smells are taking me along them..to a ride down memory lane, each smell bringing back fond recollections of the time went by.
Rasna, Roof Afza and Spiderman
Every time I see a kid sipping on Rasna, specially the orange flavour Rasna, it's tangy smell takes me back to my school days and the strictly regimented routine at home. School or no school, vacation or no vacation, summer months schedule strictly included an afternoon siesta. No protest or excuse could have let me and my brother escape the punishment/compulsion that this siesta was. Sleeping in the afternoon, something that I am sure can rightly be called a luxury in today's hectic schedule was nothing less than a pointless waste of time for us. Why waste time sleeping, when you can go out and catch dragonflies, climb up the guava tree, chase crows and other birds off the branches, call on the neighbour's door and plan revenge against that neighbourhood bully...but no, all these adventures were sacrificed at the alter of afternoon siesta. And the sacrifices were later rewarded with glasses of Rasna in the evening! More often than not, it was the orange flavor, for mother believed that orange flavoured one had all the vitamins necessary for growing school kids. Occasionally, the Rasna was replaced by the more mature but interesting looking Roof Afza! The dark pink liquid in big transparent glasses! It looked so grown up! And this was enjoyed with the recorded adventures of either Tom & Jerry or Spiderman playing on the VCR! What bliss it was , to relish cool and colourful drinks while watching your favourite superhero thrash the villians! May be it's the hangover of the days of yore, but even today every time I drink Roof Afza, it's exotic taste and the sophisticated dark pink colour brings alive the memories from childhood summers.
Maggie Noodles and Baloo, the Papa Bear
Maggie noodles with Disney cartoons
I believe every one of us (well almost) has a Maggie story to share. This 2-minute noodle has been such a big part of our growing up years. Smell of maggie brings back memories of Sundays at home! For Sunday breakfast for us kids was special, a Sunday treat - maggie topped with loads of peas, onion and tomatoes. The slurrp sound it made as we tried sucking the noodle in through the fork never failed to thrill me and my brother. And this memory also brings Baloo 'the Papa Bear' along. Glued to the TV sets we would eat bowl full of maggie as the bush pilot Baloo, also referred to as Papa Bear, from the Disney series Talespin, would go about his adventures!
New Books and freshly sharpened pencils
Experts so rightly say that smell can call up memories. Every time I smell a new book, it takes me back to the start of new sessions at school, when everything would be new - new books, new notebooks, new bag, new tiffin box, covering sheets, name tags..and this in turn brings in more smells and memories - chart papers, smell of freshly sharpened pencils, ink-pots, perfumed erasers!
Smell of new books & new pencils!
Another smell that reminds me of home and childhood is the smell of kersene oil and the soot that blackens the lanterns! Electricity would be a whimsical thing in those days, and as the sun went down, lanterns would be handy in every room - one constantly lit on our study table as we went about playing pranks under its flickering flame. And more often than not, the pranks centred around ghosts and spirits!
Smell of kerosene oil too brings back happy memories!
Oh, what an incredible sniff down memory lane this has turned into! Our noses really have a way at sniffing out nostalgia. And this beautiful ride has now sparked a flurry of emotional memories! So more on smells later!
Update: This post was selected as a WOW post by Blogadda.com. This post is in response to BlogAdda's WOW writing prompt : Write a post including the two words Salaam and Namaste. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 'Salaam sahib,' the doorman hastily moved forward to open the glass door as Sandeep strode inside the lobby of his new office.
He was an Assistant Manager at a logistics firm and had been transferred to the firm's Nagpur office to take charge as the new Branch Manager. The branch had been running a loss since almost a year now and he being a bright and enterprising professional, had been sent to breathe life back into the account books that were almost on the verge of absolute collapse. Ever since the news of his promotion and transfer was conveyed to him, he had been looking forward to the challenge, charting out big and small plans to get the Nagpur office back on track and ace the onerous task handed out to him by the big bosses. And today morning, as he walked into his office, his mind was choc-a-bloc with things to do and plans to execute. There was so much to take care of, things to turn around... he was immersed in his plans as he neared the entrance of the lobby, and it was the doorman's languid 'Salaam sahib' that snapped him out of his thought flow. For a second he did not know what to say or how to acknowledge that slow salaam from the doorman who looked almost his father's age - gray haired but with a sharp presence. Coming from him, the salaam somehow sounded a bit strange. It sounded imperialistic - like the days of yore, when India was under the British rule and Indians would go about clicking their heels wishing salaam to every white man that mattered. This is how they show it on the TV, isn't it? Salaam sahib...how he detested the words. Even in the malls and restaurants, he would cringe every time a doorman uttered the words salaam sahib. Ah, was there no alternative to these bureaucratic sounding salutations, he often wondered. But right now there was no time for such musings. He acknowledged the salaam with a small smile and moved on. Once inside his cabin, the first hour of his first day at work was taken up in getting introduced to the staff from the different departments. Because of the gradual slowdown in the branch's work, there were just a few people in the office now and his personal assistant had arranged for everyone to be formally introduced to him. It was only when he was done with the formalities and doling out the first set of instructions for his assistant that his mind went back to the enervated 'Salaam sahib'. He buzzed for the doorman, as much for a little introduction as for the salaam sahib that he had a feeling would become a daily ritual if he did not nip it in the bud. Within the seconds the doorman appeared, expressions of shock, surprise and anxiety all visibly apparent on his face. 'Ji Sahib, aapne bulaya?' 'Ji. Kya naam hai aapka?' Sandeep's voice had a warm engaging tilt to it. 'Ji Bhairon. Bhairon Singh', the doorman sounded perplexed. 'Kitne time se hain is office mein Bhairon ji?' 'Ji sahib paanch baras ho gye. Kuch galti ho gyi kya sahib?' 'Nahi, nahi, sab se mil rha tha to socha aap se bhi mil loon. Aap bhi to office ka hissa hain na. Chaliye, phir milte hain.' Bhairon Singh heaved a visible sigh of relief. In all his 5 years at this office, no manager had ever as much as acknowledged him, let aside calling him inside the cabin to ask about his well being. And here was this new manager, calling after him. Though at first instance the call from the manager had sent shivers down his spine. Why was he wanted? Would they fire him? Was he now too old for the doorman's job? Questions such as these raced through his mind. But now, as he walked out of the manager's cabin, all his fears were gone, relief washing over him like a happy foamy wave. He was back at his position by the door with a new vigour and enthusiasm that looked somewhat odd for his age. Bhairon Singh was as alert and beaming as the day before when Sandeep walked into the office the next morning. 'Salaam Sahib', this morning his voice was contagiously spirited as he clicked his heels together and wished Sandeep. 'Namasate Bhairon kaka. Aur sab theek? Aur haan, salaam sahib nahi, bas namaste boliye roz aap. Aapse bahut chhota hoon,' he smiled, a warm almost affectionate smile and walked inside. Bhairon Singh stood there, weak in the knees, full of affection and blessings for the son he saw in the stranger that was his new boss. A son that he never had. This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.
To call Play It Hot a very amateur and poorly produced play sounds so heartless, but in all honesty, that is what this crude rehash of desi Rafoo Chakkar and videshi Some Like It Hot turned out to be.
The play, staged at the Akshara Theatre in Delhi has been touted as a musical comedy inspired by Marilyn Munroe’s irresistible ‘Some Like It Hot’, but unfortunately, this Hollywood-Bollywood inspired effort fell flat and came across more as a comedy of errors instead.
The story - for those who have neither seen Some Like It Hot, nor our own Rishi Kapoor starrer Rafoo Chakkar – revolves around an out-of-work boy band that cross dresses as girls to win a Valentine’s Day gig in a Goa hotel. What follows is a series of very obvious goof ups laced with slapstick humour, for the band of boys have now become an all girls band very enthusiastically named ‘The Rapchik Rockers’. Once in Goa, these garishly dressed up ‘girls’ are joined by a lead singer, a hyper band manager and hordes of leching admirers.
This trailer sourced from youtube will give you an idea about how Play It Hot looks and feels like on stage.
It’s not the now-funny-now-drab acting that puts the mood off, but the poor production value and the dismal aesthetic sense that are the biggest turn offs. Changes in scenes took as long as 5 to 10 minutes and at times the production people did not even bother putting the lights off, so right in front of the audience in this really small auditorium there’s furniture being dragged, lights being adjusted and the celebratory festoons being altered as per the demand of the next scene.
To give ‘Play It Hot’ some credit, some of the actors are good especially Nisa Schette who plays the lead singer with aspirations to marry a handsome millionaire. Another actor that really makes the audience laugh is Vikalp Mudgal, playing a Ranjeet inspired butt-pinching, skirt-chasing Rai Sahab.
And last but not least, worth a mention here is the delicious tomato soup and generous servings of sandwiches that came complimentary with the ticket. :)
P.S. This is not a sponsored review, the views expressed are personal.
My last post was about this awesome online store Rooja, that has an exhaustive collection of apparel and accessories for both men and women. And here in this post I list two of my favourite items that I got from Rooja.
As I shared in my last post, I wore these on the show Nano Drive with MTV Season 2, and it gave me a nice colourful break from the boring t-shirts and jeans routine. So here's my favouritest accessory from my Rooja collection - my car stole!
Cute, colourful car stole!
I wore this one to my heart's content, for it looks stylish and the fabric feels super soft on the skin. And it's colour - peachy pink - is vibrant, without being too bright for the eyes! Here are some more pics with me sporting my car stole! Hope you like them!
Coming up next is another favourite from the Rooja store! Stay tuned! :)
I am not a fashionista. Far from it. In fact on a very honest note, I am not even fashion forward. Most of my shopping trips end up with my bag full of T-shirts and pairs of jeans. Or some girly tops once-in-a-while.
But not any more. For I am discovering fashion, (yes, yes, discovering) thanks to the fun, colourful and exhaustive collection at Rooja - an online store for luxury designer apparel and accessories.
One stop shop for fun shopping!
Like I said, I am a novice when it comes to fashion, but then I am gradually getting inspired to look beyond the boring T-shirts with philosophical quotes . And it was while browsing the many online shopping stores that I came across Rooja. What makes it it different is the exhaustive collection of national and international brands - Italy, France, USA, Belgium, UK - they have stuff from almost everywhere!
The MANY Brands
Plus the collection on this website is exhaustive - from clothes to shoes, bags, watches and other accessories, quirky stuff for home decor and hundreds of other fancy knick-knacks, you will find it all here, and that too in fun, bright colours. (I love colours!) And if the men reading this are a tad disappointed with all the girly-girly stuff being talked about, then you can take heart for this store has some uber cool stuff for you too - right from witty t-shirts to wallets and funky accessories to gear you up in style.
Fun stuff for the men too
And now for those who are wondering why I am waxing eloquent about the worth coveting stuff from Rooja, it is because I have bought some good stuff from this store, and want to show appreciation for their excellent service! And also because I wore some of their stuff on the show Drive with MTV Season 2 and it was fun sporting some fashionable stuff for a change! The next post lists what I bought! P.S. - This is NOT a sponsored post.
Update: This post written for Franklin Templeton Investments sponsored Idea Caravan won a prize on IndiBlogger. Franklin Templeton Investments partnered the TEDxGateway Mumbai.
There's something very warm and welcoming about this woman featured above. I am not too sure how to define or describe it, but there's something about her disposition that makes her come across as a very warm human being. She looks like a typical south India woman from the rural areas - homely, modest, nurturing and very motherly. Yes, she has such motherly aura about her. But I am glad she is not my mother. In fact, the truth is, long ago she had decided that she does not want to be a girl's mother. So much so that when nature bestowed her bosom with daughters - 8 of them - she strangulated every single one of them, and buried the bodies in some corner of her farmland.
The warmth and the motherly disposition is now lost on me, as I watch her giggle and remorselessly gesture how she strangulated the girl child as soon as she was born - all 8 of them - year after year. ALL BECAUSE SHE WANTED A MALE CHILD. And this, I have now discovered, is the just tip of the iceberg, all thanks to American film maker and activist Evan Grae Davis' enlightening and goose-bumps inducing talk on gendercide at the TEDxGateway Mumbai. All this while, we had been hearing and discussing about female infanticide, female foeticide and selective abortion but it was only after watching Evan talk in detail about this horrifying phenomenon, that I was introduced to the word GENDERCIDE. Yes, in all honesty, I feel so ashamed of this, that as a supposedly 'aware' woman of the world, I was never aware that the randomly discussed-and-discarded issue of female infanticide and foeticide has now become a monster called gendercide. A Monster called Gendercide Gendercide is the deliberate and systematic killing of a gender group - usually girls. The United Nations estimates that as many as 200 million girls are 'missing' in the world today. Millions killed, aborted or abandoned simply because they were girls.
200 million girls 'missing' from the world
Census statistics report that in countries such as India and China, the male to female ratio is as high as 120 men for every 100 women. Today India and China eliminate more girls than the number of girls born in America every year. In addition to sex-selective abortion, gendercide also takes the forms of infanticide and violence against female gender at any stage of life. So much so that the girls who survive infancy are often subject to neglect, and many grow up to face violence and even death at the hands of their own husbands or other family members. A perfect case of the proverbial 'out of the frying pan into the fire'.
Evan says he too was introduced to the word gendercide only after he traveled to India. (I am ashamed to write this - a country of snake charmers, magicians, and whatnots and now gendercide too - our country's another claim to fame.) He had spent nearly two decades travelling around the world covering calamities of all kind - war, hunger, poverty, HIV Aids - but no horror of genocide had prepared him for this - standing at the edge of a farmland in southern India, looking at a row of graves and listening to a woman share how she had personally strangled 8 of her own newborn baby girls. Because she did not want a daughter, she wanted a son. And that's when he discovered that in this part of the world the three most deadliest words were: It's a Girl, or as we say it in Hindi - Beti hui hai.
Here's the video where Evan talks about gendercide and how his documentary film 'It's a girl' is educating and coercing people about taking up a more active role against gender discrimination. I request everyone of you reading this post to please see this video, for indeed it will open your eyes to the harsh facts about gendercide.
As we see in the video, Evan has no hatred or derision towards the lady who killed her eight daughters, for he knows that this war against girls is rooted in centuries-old tradition and sustained by deeply ingrained cultural dynamics which push for the elimination of girls. That's the social structure most Indian women grow up in - with the deep embedded thought that the girls are inferior, a burden on the family and the society.
What's ironical is the fact that it is not just the poor and supposedly unaware sections of society that hankers after a male child. The urban class is there too, albeit they do it all very discreetly. I am sure many of us know of family members or extended family members who bowed before the pressure of the so-called need for a male heir to carry forward the family name. And if it did not happen naturally, then there were many ways to work around god's will.
So we see how an American activist comes to India and comes face to face with one of the deadliest genocides of his time, just that this genocide is gender specific - it is gendercide. So what does he do? Make a film out of it, express concern and move on? No, what Evan did was something very inclusive and of course, heartening. He collaborated with concerned Indians working in this field and came up with what is now called - It's a Girl manifesto.
It's a Girl manifesto
Here's a clip from Evan's documentary film It's a Girl. The film tells the stories of abandoned and trafficked girls, of women who suffer extreme dowry related violence, of brave mothers fighting to save their daughter's lives, and of other mothers who would kill for a son.
Both this videos give us a fair idea about the plight of women in India and China, caught up in a war against girls. In fact in China, the situation is worse. Government's notorious One Child Policy has had serious repercussions on not just the male-female ratio in the country but also on the mental well being of millions of women who were forced to abort their girl child.
China's ruthless One-Child Policy has had serious repercussions
Studies and surveys reveal that besides the imbalanced sex-ratio, gendercide in China has had far reaching effects on its women and children.
1. Around 500 women commit suicide in China everyday.
2. Violence against women and girls, discrimination in education and employment, traditional preference for male children and birth-limitation policies are the major factors that contribute to the high female suicide rate.
3. Around 8 million women undergo abortions every year.
4. Over 35 percent of women who have had an abortion have another shortly after.
According to researcher Steven Mosher, it is no accident that, “China's women have the highest suicide rate in the world, not to mention the highest rates of breast cancer, all in consequence of having had their babies killed in utero by a state ruthlessly bent on population control.''
Here are some stark statistics that gives an idea about where India and China stand when it comes to male-female ratio as compared to some other develop and not so developed countries in the world.
In the wake of all these stark statistics, Evan's talk and work for the It's a Girl campaign looks like a big ray of hope. For this campaign aims at not just enlightening the local communities of the affected countries about the numbing horrors of gendercide, but is also try to get the support international community in pushing for stringent measures to rein this brutality against the female gender.
What Can We Do for the Campaign?
I believe most of us here come from a different breed of women, women who were proud to have us and who gave us all the freedom to live our lives the way we wanted to live. They brought us up, nurtured us and guided us to make us what we are today - independent, healthy and happy individuals. They made men who love their daughter and respect their wives and see women as strong independent entities whose existence run parallel to them and not just around them. So we all collectively can play a significant and practical role to help mobilize support for the movement against gendercide. As Evan so aptly suggests, we can all be the Culture Changers.
Let's Take a Stand -Just because we are privileged enough to have a life that is largely devoid of the misgivings related to gender discrimination does not mean that we dismiss gendercide as an exception rather than a rule. Let us all talk about it and not just talk about it, let's condemn it with well meaning powerful words. Let us make our friends and families and everyone aware of gendercide, let's make it famous, so famous the every one knows about it, and feels ashamed to be a part of a culture that has for so long supported this heinous cultural trend. Let's Speak Out - Millions of girls in India and China have no voice to demand dignity and equality and need support to defend them. Let's speak out for justice for them, let's stand with them in solidarity in every way we can - petitions, more documentaries, protests - whatever it takes to attract people and government's attention. Let us push the government to make stringent laws against female infanticide, let us relentlessly push for severe punishments for crimes against women. Let's Involve the Men - No girl deserves to die because of her gender, and the good men in our lives and outside of it know that. Let's us involve them in raising a strong voice against this reprehensible crime .
Involve the Media - Let us involve the media in highlighting the horrors of gendercide. Print, broadcast, web - all forms of media should be brought together to work in unison to create public awareness campaigns to increase the perceived value of girls in society. Use Our Creativity - Let us use our creative skills to influence the people to come forward and show their support for this noble campaign. Sing, dance, perform, stage a play, make a film, write, walk, run - let's do whatever we can do, use all our talents to help bring about a positive turnaround. Beside the above-mentioned broad steps, following concrete measures too would go along way in curbing gendercide:
Ensure hospitals and doctors uphold the law against sex determination tests.
Create rapid action task forces to arrest those who engage in violence against women.
Better enforce laws against giving and receiving dowries when women marry.
This post is written for the Idea Caravan and Indiblogger in association with Franklin Templeton Investments. Franklin Templeton Investments partnered the TEDxGateway Mumbai in December 2012. Photo Courtesy: Google Images. P.S It's heartening to see Evan interacting with concerned citizens on Twitter - he's been following people and tweeting back replies to tweeple's questions, thoughts and musings on gendercide. Here's what he had to say on my blog post:
