More things to get angry about

These girls are fighting for the right to use their university library. They have been banned from entering it for the very logical reason that they are girls. Obviously.

our bed

And so I have inherited my grandmother's bed. It is the bed where she spent her last night alive. It is the bed she used for the last 20 years of her life. And I have been sleeping on it for the past 20 nights.

What is it like to sleep on a dead person's bed?

Apart from feeling oddly cool about sleeping on a dead person's bed and being secretly (and eternally) grateful that no one in the house has objected to me deciding to use her bed, the experience is deeply emotional. 

I will always remember my first night on her bed. It was the first night I that slept peacefully after her death. Although I have no way of confirming it, I really want to believe she was with me that night.

Some nights are filled with a lonliness and pain. These are the nights that I remember how in winters, I used to come  to spread her shawl over her while she lay in this bed and tuck a pillow underneath her feet before she slept. This was in the last few years of her life, when she became too weak to do these things for herself.  I also remember all the times when I used to make haldi milk at nights and come and sit beside her on this bed while she drank her glass and I drank mine. This was last winter.

Other nights I just lie quietly and think about her and wonder where she is and what she is up to and I ask her silently if she would come and visit me in my dreams. She has obliged me once.

And there are still some other nights where nothing really happens, I just set my alarm for the morning and fall asleep.

And then, of course, there was the night of ecstacy, when I found a couple of strands of her hair hedged between the mattress and the bedstead.

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"It's bad manners to burp loudly. It's true. You can ask Google - "Is it bad manners to burp loudly?"
-- My aunt, to me

viewpoints

Today I discovered that the metro I take everyday to work passes over the cremation ground where we cremated my grandmother. Now I shall spend every ride looking out of the windows, trying very hard to find that exact spot where she burnt.  

peace and flowers

                                                                   Love, memories, magic. 

the lok pal post

Fans and Avid Readers - As most of you are adults, I am going to assume that you no longer receive lectures from your mummy/daddy.

Are you feeling older and wiser now?

I am now going to make you feel young again by giving you a lecture. You can all kindly thank me for presenting you this fantastic opportunity to regain your youth.

And now....

There is presently a raging debate in this country about the Lok Pal Bill versus the Jan Lok Pal Bill.
While slightly bemused by all the frenzy, I am also growing increasingly irritated by people picking sides WITHOUT READING the concerned bills.

To all those who are vehemently taking to the streets and supporting Anna Hazare and believing that the Jan Lok Pal bill is the answer to India's corruption problems- I ask - "Have you read the Jan Lok Pal Bill first? Have you read the Government's Lok Pal Bill as well? Is your decision to support one version of this bill over the other an informed decision?"

To all those who have been crying hoarse about how the Jan Lok Pal bill proposed by India Against Corruption is draconian and will create trouble rather than solve problems - I ask -  "Have you read the the Government's Lok Pal Bill first? Have you read Jan Lok Pal Bill as well? Is your decision to support one version of this bill over the other an informed decision?"

Sheesh. It's all very well to stand up for a political cause but please do it from a position of INFORMED views.

Go here for the Jan Lok Pal Bill, the version proposed by Anna and friends.

Go here for the Lok Pal Bill, the government version.

Please read BOTH. And then pick a side. That is the only fair way to do this. Everyone on both sides of the divide have been screaming about what is fair and what is not. Give yourselves the opportunity to make a fair choice first.

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Thank you Fans and Avid Readers, for hearing me out. End of lecture. Now you can feel cool and grown up again. And all your parents' friends will say "Wowwwwwwwwww, see how big you have become!" 

"If you were smaller I could have dressed you up as a brinjal or a post office and we could have entered a fancy dress competition."

-- My mother, to my sister