Tanzerin

Come Independance Day and we love to come together and sing Vande Mataram and Jana Gana Mana. "We are ONE irrespective of caste,creed or religion or region etc etc etc." But I sense that this is a time when we want to come together by getting rid of our identity as being a Hindu or a Muslim or a Christian. Religion does not define me. We want to rid ourselves of our identity as a Tamilian or Kannadiga or Bengali or Kashmiri. It isn't region or language that defines my patriotism (Subramanya Bharathi: You should have written patriotic poetry in a language everyone understands!) We definitely want to rid oursleves of our identity as a Dalit or Brahmin or Kshatriya or Baniya. Caste is a complete No-No. It does not matter that I am an engineer or doctor or lawyer or artiste or sculptor. All professions recognise that August 15th is a holiday. I may be a mother or father or grandmother or aunt or cousin. It is "I" that matters. Not my identity in my f

 I just found out that yesterday was Doctors' day... I've grown up with a few doctors in the family, a few friends are now super duper doctors, and since I've also been ill every now and then, I've been treated by unrelated unknown doctors. So here is my 5 pointer check list for lay people like you and me: 1. The next time you whine about how long you have to wait outside the doctor's office, kindly- yes PLEASE please also make sure you whine while you wait in a long queue outside the box office. After all, both are a matter of life, health, happiness and death NO?! 2. The next time the doctor prescribes antibiotics "unnecessarily", please don't take them. When you go back after 3 days with a condition that's worse off, I love watching the doctor bang his/her head on the wall once you've left. 3. If the doctor said that bump on your head is boil, it most likely is- Oh wait it can't be that simple. Dr. Google says it's a malignan

A few days ago, my daughter walked off to a birthday party saying "I will go my alone." MY ALONE was her new English phrase for the week meaning 'all by myself'. Not just 'myself', "ALL BY MYSELF"! And as I watched her walk down the hallway to the neighbour's house, I felt a funny feeling in the pit of my tummy. Of all the funny-feelings-in-tummy motherhood brings you, this one was new. WAS MY BABY GROWING UP? You see, mothers are usually programmed to be blind to any of these so-called hints of growing up. So obviously it surprised me that I was thinking this at all! Growing up in Mommy language usually refers to other things like: 1. Baby Being toilet trained after months of cleaning up and mopping up and coercing and making sssss sounds while the bored baby sits on the Potty. 2. Baby Being able to chew food -accompanied by a lot of "CHEW CHEW CHEW" and nudging the food stuck in the cheek. 3. Baby Giving up the feeding bott

Has it become so difficult to be happy? or even just optimistic? In the days following the O-so-talked-about "India's Daughter", we have been engulfed by a sense of rage- at the government, at the system, at patriarchy, at men, at some women and unfortunately at anyone who talks well of anything! I was chided yesterday for being cheerful. I am chided today for being optimistic. Mind you - I was taken in by the same rage - at the audacity of the defense lawyers, at their attitude that seemed to be not unique to criminals but rampant in our society. I shared the link to the leaked video on my facebook page, urging my friends to share it and take responsibility for being a part of the system that bred such criminals, a society that continued to breed the horribly chauvinistic attitude that women were dispensable. It made me angry and I made that very clear. And then I heard another side of the story as well- some said the real purpose of the documentary was to "put