Quick Hi!

Thank you my quirky reader. It does not matter who you are and where you from but my words sure are from the heart. You may follow, read at leisure and leave a comment. You may share the good word if you like a quickie note or even if you do not I am okay with you peeping here once in way ..there will always be something for you at Fortified Quickies from writingdoll. Some words may sting or bite but some may soothe your soul.
Quirky reading !!!
Cheers!
Mridual

Be warned against plagiarism. I take it seriously. (Do not cut, copy, paste any original content)

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Elephanta Festival at Gateway..for the first time!


The three-day Elephanta Festival was celebrated after a gap of two years. And for the first time, it  was not held at the Elephanta island near Mumbai, but at the Gateway of India, with an inferior adaption of the famous Trimurti Sadashiva on stage to create the ambience of Elephanta. The three-day event, organised by the Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation, which was opened on Friday, March 23, with a recital of Marathi sugam sangeet (light music), was followed by a performance by Hindustani classical vocalist Parveen Sultana, and a collaborative one by singer Runa Rizvi and percussionist Sivamani, who played Sufi rhythms. Unfortunately the event was poorly advertised and not many people know about these cultural events which are actually supposed to be annual festivals. 
On Saturday, March 24, sundari player Bhimanna Jadhav and Hindustani classical singer Arati Ankalikar-Tikekar  performed solo recitals in the spiritual morning session, which began at 6.15am. I and my daughter cycled our way to reach Gateway of India to enjoy a part of Tikekar's performance. There were a handful of people in the first few rows and it practically looked like the organizers and media personnel. There were few foreigners of course but thats about it. Nonetheless it did not affect the singer or the accompanists who were completely enjoying performing for a minuscule few. One did feel that had it been advertised on social media as well it would have got a much bigger and discerning audience for the performers. Thankfully on Sunday the crowds were a respectable size of music connoisseursI was again there in the morning.
There were four classical and folk dances being performed in the evening, which I could not attend but I landed up to hear my favorite voice, of Hariharan. He sang Gazals like 'Tere kaandhe pe mera sar hota'......'Marz e ishq'....which had a mesmerizing effect. The beautiful sea breeze on a hot summer evening added to the romance of the gazals. The attendance that night was better but still not enough to occupy the huge number of chairs which were lying vacant. Resources wasted, that's how I felt. Speaking to some people one came to know that they had no clue about the festival. It was a mere coincident that they heard the music while they were strolling around Gateway and they came to check it out. Thank God...

 I am glad I was there for bits and pieces. I missed listening to Parveen Sultana but I was enthralled by 'Tu hi re' from the iconic movie BOMBAY......... a mellifluous composition by Hariharan, which was also an audience choice and incidentally the concluding piece of that evening and the festival. I came all the way back home singing the song....It was a an evening to remember!

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Better than an Audi!!

I don't own an Audi, not as yet, but I am very fond of my 'Merc'…that's my cycle and I have been riding it for many years now. Going to the local market for fruits and veggies or shopping, going to the club for a game or library, going to the swimming pool, taking kids (when small) out for a ride, going to the bank…its with me everywhere. My friends whom I refused to, when they offered me a lift, often ask me, "How have you come?" I say 'My Merc' just like I answered the first time, and watched the bewildered lot while waving at them, pedaling my 'Merc'.

So many friends have expressed their desire to ride one after seeing me, including the ones who have never done it before. Actually we women lose touch with many people and activities that we were so familiar with in our maiden days. Life is truly demarcated into two worlds…before marriage and after marriage. I have seldom seen a man not doing what he did as a bachelor, that includes chasing women (now may be with eyes alone??) and playing all the sports he loved. Speaking about men is like opening a debate….so I leave it for the time now.

Ah…cycling is fun, always, but earlier I combined it with purpose and now the sole purpose is pleasure… on weekend mornings. Thanks to my cyclist friends in Bandra who came all the way to Afghan Church, where I joined them for the shortest ride from home, I am beginning to enjoy SoBo rides to begin with. I have begun cycling on holiday mornings on Bombay roads exploring places like you can never do in your swanky AC four wheelers. Its an added delight as my daughters have gained height (and now also the confidence) to follow me through the sparse morning traffic. 

My younger daughter has to be dragged out of the bed with the angry bird face but once we hit the road she tweets "Its fun". She still is scared but given the fact that she has recently graduated from her kiddy bike to a 26" and started negotiating the traffic (BEST buses and BMC trucks) makes me look at her with pride. My elder daughter who otherwise fights with her all the time becomes hugely protective towards her on the road and urges me to take the lead while she follows her behind, keeping and eye on her sister, at times stopping and helping her on a turn or a signal. Its a great way to see them bonding even if you come back home to witness them fight like cats for the title 'Ring ki Queen'…both girls you see!

Yesterday it was just my elder one and me. We cycled to Gateway of India and attended the concluding part of the musical morning of Elephanta Festival. Today it was all three of us and it was fun because on our way back we went to the BPT Garden. Bombay Port Trust garden is an oasis of greenery and very popular with health freaks. So just when we were leaving the place on our bicycles a gentleman smiled at us and waved. I liked it. I guess my Merc and kids' SUVs with low carbon footprint impressed him too. And guess what, he was in an Audi….!!


PS: Kids just requested me to mention their beauties; younger one's 'Bentley' and elder one's 'Ferrari'!…LOL


Sunday, March 18, 2012

Pre Marital Sex ???? OMG, OMG !!!!

Preity Zinta is back in town and busy chatting up with tweeple about the hackneyed PMS..pre marital sex. Oolala! That was my the lead story in Deccan Chronicle's Sunday Page co authored with a friend. A well researched article that was published in 1994 in DC sizzled the ground I walked on. The heat was unbearable. The responses ranged from this extreme to that. Many chose to believe our researched facts in the story and others just chose to abuse me and look at me with suspicion and contempt because I was a young unmarried woman writing about it. What people did not understand that I was not endorsing or supporting PMS. 

I had not known the story was already in print for the Sunday edition when I walked into the DC office on a Thursday evening that time and the reactions and the glances of some people were just too much to handle. Uff!!!

As a woman writer I always feel  sensitive to whatever gets written about sex...pre or post marriage. And how the spoken word goes around. From an innocuous SEX column where each one of us have been ticking Male/Female to announce who we are to SEX as a three letter forbidden word the whole perspective changes. 

Read this:
 i think it's completely OK as sex is an emotion more out of love than marriage & love does not wait for marriage to happen.

Friday, March 16, 2012

Women Changing India...Symposium

Attended a symposium organized by Barnard College. Listening to the various women panelist was like recharging, rebooting and reinventing myself. It was a day well spent educating myself, reaffirming and reinforcing my belief about my role as an individual. We women keep grooming ourselves with regular spas and parlor visits but it is when you hear women achievers, their words clear the dust off your brains, clean your ignition plug and polish your mind for that brilliance which was always there. They are not any different from you and I. It is like visiting a MIND PARLOR.

The only thing that took them to break the ceiling was that they kept on going where as some of us slowed down or rested....perhaps longer than we should have. There is so much that my nosey, spongy journalist-writer brain has soaked up from there that I could write series of articles on HOW WOMEN CAN CHANGE THE SOCIETY.  Nah, darlings I might keep writing nuggets about it in my future quickies but I need to first apply this knowledge to my life.

Panelists, of course were the celebrated and emancipated Indian women from nearly every profession, (you can check the details in the link given below). Nonetheless the women in audience weren't any less interesting. Met some wonderful women across ages and bonded with some for some great karmic connect in future :)....coz nothing is without a purpose. I strongly feel that we women really need to collaborate to paint a much bigger canvas.

After all that food for thought, we indulged in some gourmet delights and deserts without feeling guilty about it. Yes, guilt was the point of discussion and it was a great way to break that stereotype and enjoy and live the moment.

Good days are generally followed by good nights. So right now, I am relishing a good dinner cooked by my darling husband.... exotic stir fried vegetables and Cottage Cheese in Hoi Sin Sauce. See thats how Good women are changing their world and making things work for them. Ah, time for thanksgiving.....to him of course. :)

I got a feeling......tonight's gonna be a good night!








https://www.facebook.com/pages/Barnard-College-Global-Symposia-Series/142792982508260?sk=wall

Cool Japan Festival....Mumbai Mein!! (Biggest)

Sometimes I just land at the right place, like today when I was at the Phoenix Mills I did not know that I actually would be attending the opening ceremony of Cool Japan Festival celebrating 60 years of Indo Japan relations. As the tag line read "Feel Japan like never before"...well, the opening set the tone right by bringing in some traditional things for the first time in India.

Ah, not another Sushi darlings, that is available everywhere now. They brought a Robot, made like a woman and something that could  move and shake hands. Robots is again a synonym with Japanese so no big deal if they brought a machine like that. The big deal was that they brought in a Maiko in flesh and blood...the Japanese doll like. Okay, you would know a Maiko if you had read 'Memoirs of Geisha.' Well she is a trainee to become a Geisha, the traditional entertainer and dancer. I had read the book twice over because the detailing is so vivid that you can actually visualize the whole life of a Geisha.  When Maiko later performed traditional Kimono dance it felt so beautiful living a page from the life of a Geisha to be.

How could I not tell you about Wadaiko Drum performance that was before the Maiko's. That was an electrifying performance by young drummers lead by a girl. Oooh.....it was certainly not to be missed as I was told by the back stage guy. Thanks to him I was hooked on to the event till the end.

Did I say end?? What an end! Oh, that was quite a surprise. Have you ever seen a Japanese Sardar? I did, today night. Check out the flicks to believe and to feel like Japan. Chadda came on the stage attired like traditional Japanese and a turban on the head crooning saki O..the sad, sombre song which he explained were similar to our Gazals. Then his own rendition in Hindi but sung like a pure Saki O floored the audience. The MC was half Indian half Japanese and Chadda was 100% Japanese, at heart for sure as he said "WE JAPANESE"....

Well, thats a great way to celebrate a great bond....!!!      Great evening for me and AB....            Sayonara!!





Check all the flicks on fb too , I will upload Chadda's Video link too.


Saturday, March 10, 2012

Dirty girl gets pregnant...and wow!

Dirty girl Vidya Balan got pregnant and delivered a breathtaking performance. Watched Kahaani yesterday. Its a gripping mystery that keeps you glued without giving much time to think. She is natural yet intense and sporadic laughter moments that she lives at some points in her characterization makes you love her some more.

Move over Khans we have a new HERO!! and as far as the items and the item numbers of a masala film are concerned....this KAHAANI is a hit without any.... as I would say...'cut the crap'. Vidya has rewritten history and boy who is the writer...........got to grant it to her too. Oh yes, it is a woman. Advaita Kala!

Advaita, Kahaani itself is so good that it could not have been told in any other way. Shokti!!

Friday, March 9, 2012

Relive your first crush!!

Life is so damn fast that we hardly have time. Time to pause and think, time to pause and introspect and time to pause and rewind. We just doing things...turning them trite actions without creativity. Suddenly you realize the years, the months, the days, the hours, the minutes.....the countless moments wasted.

I have just paused holding all the moments to my bosom, nurturing the beautiful ones with love and care. It feels so nice once again. Like the first crush when you break into a song and dance, unaware of the things around you. I am in love again....and this time with myself...for the first time.

Hold on, I keep reminding myself. This is it. This feeling. This feeling is what makes me come alive, rejuvenated and regenerated.

There could be many expressions of this feeling but I want to go Bungee jumping and scuba diving....right now! Bizarre and crazy??? But isn't that love's nature?

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Happy Woman’s Day!

For my Wishing Tree installation at Kala Ghoda festival I received one WISH many times.....to have a SON before the world came to an end. Daughters...well, they just arrive anyways....as if!

Every woman is someone’s daughter however wanted or unwanted. My elder daughter had asked me why people did not like to have daughters after watching a short film on female infanticide. Barely six at that time she had begun to understand things I thought she would not so soon. My little girl at five had asked me why she did not have a brother while most girls in her school had one and I told her that we asked for only two baby girls from God.  

Today I dote on my daughters but I too am guilty of nurturing a desire to have a son when my second child was to be born because like every conditioned Indian I too believed that an ideal family constituted of a brother and a sister. It’s a confession to all my readers and today I feel relieved. But let me tell you I am not guilty of an infanticide. I never even prayed for a son. I never ever asked for sex determination test. So much that when my second daughter arrived my aunt was shocked to know why I never went for such tests. I was always against such prejudices and I thought educated women do not need to subjugate to try and produce only male babies.   

But education has nothing to do with this great Indian desire for a son. We Indians, rather Asians are obsessed with the want for a son. Our traditions and rituals from birth through marriage till death are not complete without a son. Our blessings are ‘doodho nhao pooto falo’ and we are conditioned to pray for our brothers, our husbands and sons. We have dedicated festivals like Karva Chauth and Ahoi Ashtami for the husband and the son respectively. Our daughters are a burden for us. They are so called guests at the parents place and sadly even at their permanent home at the in laws their presence is not acknowledged without conditions.  Of the various ‘Conditions Apply’ dowry is one practiced by one and all. It seems like a fine of sorts as if you produce a daughter you are liable to be punished for it. You can bail out only by giving hefty dowry. 

It is hardly surprising that the missing girl child from the villages of Punjab, from the families of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh have resulted in alarming sex ratio. At some places there are only four girls for every ten boys born. Wonder what would diminishing numbers of women in the already male dominated set up do. Even with the present numbers, the status of women is not truly liberated or empowered. An average woman can not make a choice be it education, career, job, marriage or bearing a child. Would women ever seek that place of dignity in the society, have a voice and decide for themselves if their tribe becomes lesser every year? More so, will there be a civilized society with so few women? Check out the plight of women in Haryana.

Just a few women in high rise positions in the cities do not define empowerment. And what kind of empowerment. If a lecturer in a government college says she can’t afford to have a second daughter and she must have only a son, our education has not achieved much or there is something seriously wrong in it. Actually speaking, a look at the rhymes and the other story books of elementary education reveals the truth about it that nothing is being changed at the grass root level of education, that the stereotype gender bias is reflected in everything from education to media. A serious campaign by the government of India on elementary education, Aayo School Chale Hum, has a focus on a boy and a girl at the end. While the boy says he would like to be pilot and girl says she would want to be a teacher. Sounds innocuous, is it?  Well, not really. When I heard my daughters, that time just 4 and 5 years, discuss that girls do not become pilots, I was surely disturbed. If only the film makers could defy the stereotype and made the girl make a difficult choice we would have set a whole generation of young girls thinking that they too can. It is no longer only dolls for girls and cars for boys. It is a matter of opportunities. Girls have proven in science and technology and mathematics is no magic to them. 

If the statistics are any indication then we need to sit up and take note of it. My educated friends tell me that it doesn’t really matter in this age and time. Well friends, check out the statistics and look around you. It is not difficult to find families with two girls and a third son among the educated middle class. Because an average Indian family craves for a son till they reach their grave yard. Else how do you explain people with grown up daughters or marriageable daughters ending up having a one year old baby boy? Some say they had to because they need an heir to their large inheritance.  Imagine the plight of a girl that despite Supreme Court giving her equal right to all the parents’ possessions our society still thinks a male makes the suitable heir.

From men to women of various cross sections of society we have invented various reasons to suit ourselves and we justify the need for a boy in the family. An educated young lady talks very pragmatically that her daughter wants only a brother and that her husband feels that in old age they must have a place to go to, so they must have a son. Mr. Singh has a huge inheritance so he needs a son to pass it on. Mrs. X says dowry in her community is a big menace so she would not want to have a daughter. 

The only lady who said she missed having a daughter was also because she would have loved dressing up a baby girl and she had only sons. What a weird reason to have a daughter as if daughters were rag dolls. There is so much more to a daughter if one realizes that a girl, eventually a woman, shapes the society. It is so much important to raise our daughters with security and confident. Educating them does not mean imparting degrees alone it means teaching them to be independent thinkers and decision makers. Daughters need to be respected in their own homes first for them to learn to live with dignity at their in laws or any where else in the society. 

Whether a woman is working or not she must be allowed to make independent decisions. Sadly we have no respect for and no recognition to the role of a home maker. A lady at home is ‘just a housewife’ who is not allowed to comment on financial and other important matters. So even when it comes to her own health or having a baby the choice is forced on to her by her family. It is important to understand emotional and physical needs of women. Just as it is important to have a woman in the family, it is important to have daughters in the family. As for the ideal family definition it is important for a child to have a sibling, brother or a sister.

The male chauvinism and the lewd and lecherous male attitude forces people to think about the security of their daughters. The safety of women is one major cause for concern. But can not having daughters in the family absolve us of our responsibility towards women?  Men who do not respect a girl or a woman on the road do not have any respect for the women in their homes. It is my observation and not without a base. So even those who have sons must teach their sons to be more respectful and sensitive towards women in general, women in their lives, women in their work places. 

And women, learn to respect yourself and your tribe. True celebration of womanhood would be when we would celebrate the birth of a daughter, first or second, yours, mine or someone else. 

Darlings, Happy Women's Day!!