hmm.....I'm not sure how many find this topic interesting, but i do. This time I'm after something more objective. Something that happened outside my thought, something that happened long ago.
    The story of an old India, a couple of generations old. An India where discrimination on the baseis of sex was manifest. The land that was introduced to me by my grandmother's childhood. My grandmother is 70 now, but she still carries the air of a girl of my age...no exaggerations. One day, when I visited her house, she started telling me her story:
   Her mother was a highly pampered child, for her father was a tasildar. But for a tasildar's daughter, she turned out to be more of a simpleton. Her husband, my grandmother's father, my great grandfather, was the principal of a local school. Her mother blindly believed her headmaster husband.
  The couple had ten children. Eldest among the lot was a BOY, ignore the name. Myy grandmother was the second child. Those days, the father was of the mind that the sons are the family's pillars; they are the ones that take care of the parents in their oldage. Girls are just a burden. Marriage is a way to get rid of them. Girls weren't allowed to study further than class 5.
   If a girl could sing, write, and read letters, she was an ideal. A perfect coveted bride. So it follows without saying, my great grandfather paid more attention to the boys' education. My grandmother wanted to study, but fetters of her gender held her tight. And because she was the eldest among girls, she had to do all the chores if she had to go to school. My grandmother desperately okayed it. She had to clean the house, wash the clothes of the whole family, clean the utenslis and dress up her siblings, in order to be able to go to school.
   In school, she did precociously well for her expected academic performance. She was constantly lauded for her scholastic record. Also, she was gifted with a sound knowledge of music. So she was invited to all kinds of ceremonies to sing. She was, in all, the perfect daughter any couple could wish for.
   But alas, misfortune was in store for her, for she was a GIRL. She wasn't allowed to continue her education after she had finished schooling. " ' Too much education for girls would make it difficult to find a groom,' my father used to say" my grandma said. That did disappoint her a great lot, but she couldn't argue against it.
  She also played the midwife for the delivery of her siblings. She also became their nanny. Her mother was now suffering from hysteria. She would, for no reason, revile the girl children. For no reason, yell at them.
  Life without school was miserable for my grandmother. She kept loathing these rule put on girls by her elders.
  In contrast to my grandmother's after-school period, her brother got into a college in vizag(vishakhapatnam). My great grandfather earned 300 rupees a month at that time (though it would amount to a better sum in these time). He sent half of his salary to the eldest son, hoping that would satisfy all his needs for his education. And the other half was shared by ten people.
(the next part in the next blog)

one hell of a semester...2.1, never going to forget this one. 6th of july, the first day of 2.1, i was more than excited (and few friends very rightfully call me the electron). The reason for all the excitement was the fact that we were moving "quarters" from our dept in the engineering college to the medical college.
I'm a person of utter punctuality, so i reached college an hour before the actual reporting time, and got busy rubbing my nose into the latest edition of  "Litmus": our college newspaper.
It was not very long that i started having human company. Two of my seniors came to the dept, and the only topic both of them started was "The medical college".  One of them warned me of it. " you surely will go mad this sem"
"why is that?" i asked, puzzled at his statement.
"first thing, your timetable will go on a holiday, and you'll have no idea what's happening. Second, the subjects are killing. and third, you won't feel like sitting in the classrooms."
Hm.... that sure was a little shock.
But after our curriculum started and classes were being taken, we realised our seniors were more that 100% right. We were there to study three killers....anatomy, physiology and biochemistry.
First class we had on Tuesday of the first working week was biochemistry. The lady who was giving us an overview of what we will be taught in the sem, the HOD, i realised, was just too scary. Not the appearance, but the air. She is the only teacher i ever feared in all these years of my learning.
Physiology was divided into two for us: the biological background by one doctor and the mathematical aspects by the HOD himself. He had a killer "laughing style" and i mean it. a smile on any of the students was his stimulus. and his laughter was a stimulus for mine.
Anatomy, i have absolutely no complaints. One sane dept i must say. The first class was taken by Dr.Rajasree, and we all loved the class. She became our favourite. Infact, all the anatomy professors were awesome.
We didnt notice time run by, and our semester exams started. The thing that we didnt realise all along and realised now, was that we had absolutely no idea of what we had learnt all these four months. The only thing we could do was pray and fight the battle of terrifying papers.
fifteen days of the exam schedule was a sickening one.
but now, after having finished with the troll-like exams, i hope i forget my answers to each question, and get surprised seeing my marks.
All the best to all those who are writing exams!!!

28th of june, 2009, i made a historic trip to kolkata. I went to that place earlier, long ago. but this time i had to go, to see off my dad slogging in that sultry, near-to-hell environment. four days of my stay there was big enough for me to see the diversity of life and things there.

the land of rasgullas is also the land of sweet people. noone ever messes with you. there are immigrants from bangladesh and people from the seven sisters. but they are so infilterated that its hard to make out the origins. also kolkata has the largest variety of transport. hand drawn carts(which were actually banned by the govt.), rickshaws, autos, taxis, buses, tongas, you name it. and the drivers are so skillful, they just need an inch's width on the road to drive their bikes!

the boys schoolage are usually found near malls, smoking, or outing with their girlfriends.

kolkata is a place that is structurally still ancient. the land of palaces it is rightly called. one can lose his heart out to the canadian consulate building. its a majestic grey building with a little 29th century structure.

the howrah bridge and the vidyasagar sethu count as the pride of kolkata.

coming to my favourite part....which is food, its clearly hard for a vegetarian to survive. one finds a non-veg restaurant every stride but a vegetarian restaurant is a rarity. so veggies beware!

the minus point i ever found in kolkata was its weather. 24x7 sultry. it dawns at 4am in the capital city of the land of sunderbans.

all in all, the weather was a major conspirer and spoilt very well our trip.

yet i would say its a great destination for the vacations but make it a destination in the winter....much better that would be.

in your life, the world revolves around you. you look at things in your point of view. the eyes you see through are yours and so is the mind that thinks. but have you ever wondered how others must be looking at you?
after all, it is their point of view. just look at things in their point of view. shift your origin to theirs. make things relative. i swear,when you do that, you will never feel like hurting anyone. that will sure make you wiser.
life is not always about you and your living. people around you too live. no big deal in hurting people. everyone does. but try being nice to people when they are hurt, that'll sure make a difference to you too. be a friend, a true friend, not necessarily BEST friend, but true friend.
hat brings me to the world's most confusing concept. the concept of BEST friend. you can't measure friendship. then how can you vompare it? how can you say who is better than who and who is the best?
and yet we name the ones who love us the most, as our best friends. i did too.