Domination. Boys Rule. NOT.

It was a college day when all of us were mass bunking (as usual) and I suddenly overheard how a group of people had gone to play football. On mentioning that we would like to join in later, we were....discouraged?

Basically, according to them, we wouldn’t like to play football, and people will make too many fouls we wouldn't be able to handle. What they said was pretty unexpected. Why this stereotype all over again? Why bring out this old age mentality after you are supposed to have got over it? What the hell do you mean by saying that we cannot handle it. A girl can take a blow as gracefully as a boy can. Yes, you people might be stronger but strength isn't exactly in our hands. The almighty creator defaulted that, not us.

The general opinion that a boy has to earn and therefore must try for a more stable job brings out the feminist side in me as well. "This is the reason behind more boys taking up engineering or science instead of arts," one of my other friends told me. The logic sucks, but I'm afraid it seems to be true. Today, there are around 12 boys and nearly hundred girls in Aditi’s college (who has taken up arts) and 10 girls and 50 boys in mine.

It's funny how this stereotype came out. I wonder when men started dominating women. I repeatedly question myself why women (in a way) surrendered. A queen would generally never get the same respect that a king gets (At least in India). Teachers scare students by warning them and telling them they would call his father. Women never, never get the recognition they deserve. Even the name in between your name and surname is your father's. Women move in to their husband's house (unless they decide to stay separately) and usually take his surname as well. I'm not saying that anything is wrong in this, I'm simply asking, why women? If a girl and a guy are together, the girl is framed as a slut, the boy is most often crowned as a 'playboy'. It's just stupid. Plainly preposterous.

Take a look everywhere in general. In my college confession page, there is enough hate to last a lifetime. (Well, I’m obviously exaggerating a bit, but you get the point!) The sad part is that most of the hate is targeted towards the girls. Everything, from backing off from their boy – at least tell them who your boy is :P – to ‘stop walking’. Who even says that? People are shocked if they ever hear of a girl who plays video games, in awe if they learn of a girl who works out regularly.

On the other hand, the military hardly recruits girls for field work at all. According to a retired soldier I once had the privilege of talking to, one in a million girls have natural reflexes. Most girls aren’t natural about the things they do. But he also says that though they may not be in the real thing, they could always help ‘backstage’. If women were allowed to do so, half of our defense could be controlled by women itself!

On my school tour, the boys were asked to help transfer the luggage on the top of the bus. I’m not complaining, but again, why? Heck, once when we had made a chain, not only did the work get over more swiftly but everyone could put in lesser effort as well! To top that, our hands didn’t even break. (Note the sarcasm.)

In this patriarchal society, I don't have any idea when and how the way people will change their thinking. I can only hope it happens gradually.

Kanksha :)

PS: Maybe what I’ve written sounds a bit aggressive…? My writing tends to reflect my mood. I guess writing is a way I channel my feelings and emotions and put them on paper. Oh, I’m also not saying everyone thinks like this.  

Are you really social?

When I thought Instagram was the new Facebook, Whatsapp had its genesis in this technological world.  Suddenly, I see people posting 'Android BBM' pins. Mind you, Android BlackBerry Messenger. (I bet all BlackBerry users are banging their heads right now!) Tumblr, Twitter, VChat; The list goes on and on. And how can I forget the infamous Confession pages?

My dear friend 'M-alley' (as I will call her from now onwards) is meticulously unwinding the thread of time on her phone whenever she is free (which she is almost always, but that isn't the point.) Why talk about her when I can talk about myself though? These days I check my facebook notifications the very minute I come back home. For a large amount of people, even trying to imagine a life without social networking sights and gizmos is next to impossible.

The reaction people give me when I tell them I'm not on whatsapp is most often hilarious. It's as if people don't know what to do anymore. If they aren't studying, they are sending text messages with both hands in a manner difficult to understand, and if not that, they are practicing the art of procrastination. It's a fact that the amount of time people stay outdoors to simply play and have fun has decreased, just like the number of times one meets his family has. In this time constraint, things are becoming more and more paradoxical. Like one feels texting, for example, helps you keep in touch. But one simple phone call means so much more! According to me, if you really want to talk to that person, you will call instead of texting. I remember a (kind of) movie I had watched in which they were explaining how happiness actually means more grief. Give me a chance to explain. Three people exist in this world playing the game of life. The amount they work is the same, the longing of a new house is the same. The first person shifts from slums to a small chawl, the second person from a chawl to a flat, the third from a flat to a bungalow. It's not technically possible to calculate but its pretty obvious that the level of happiness all of them feel is the same. Let's look at another situation. A small ragamuffin like boy wins a lottery of 10,000. An actor won the same lottery as well. Now who is happier?
This shows you that the degree of happiness you feel could be measured by how much pain you went through before to achieve it. It's like looking for treasure. Who likes easy treasure hunts? An enthralling, mind-boggling hunt with a bunch of cool riddles sounds much more fun to me!

And as usual, I digress. I started with social networking sights and ended with a treasure hunt. That's a new record for me as well. Anyways, I doubt popularity and attention will keep you 'happy'! :P After all, after a period of time, you get bored of it. I think its smaller things that matter much more. Like going out for a jog or playing a game of football that gets your adreneline pumping. The moment when you win an argument against your best friend (which often tend to be never ending!), the feeling of satisfaction when you run for a bus when you're running late and manage to catch it and the fun in cracking a joke and seeing a smile slip onto someone's face. It may also be a thirty second dance party (Tree - sit, my other friend has these whenever she is bored! xD I think its a nice idea to drive boredom over the fence as fast as possible!)
Or what I feel after finishing a blog post and reading the comments! :D

Personally, I feel these networking sights have metamorphed into the devil in disguise. Over the period of time, they are creating walls instead of ripping and breaking them down.. I'm aware that I'm generalizing and many people might be benefiting from them as well. But look back and give it a thought. Out of all those friends you have (on Facebook let's say), how many do you actually talk to face to face?

Kanksha :)

I remembered this song we used to sing in class and have been humming it all day since I started thinking about happiness. Here it is!

"Happiness is where you are and what you want to be,
If you look you're sure to find the rainbow of your dreams,
Tomorrows faller than a thousand yesterdays,
With a vision of a new day in our heart!"

PS. Doesn't the jelly look delicious? My sister had made it! xD

School!

So I used a stripper today. No, no, no! It's not what you are thinking about. This is what I call a stripper.

Basically, you use it to remove the outer covering of a wire to make connections...

Looking at the laboratories in college, conducting experiments, secretly helping friends out and lending solutions ended with me recalling sweet memories. I was hit with a wave of nostalgia, each water drop in it being a unique memory.

Every single time I sit to write about school, my thoughts get scattered. It's like they are in a frenzy. I don't know where to begin, I am at a loss of how to end it. Maybe that is because there is no beginning. Maybe there isn't an ending either. It stays in our hearts forever. School is where we made our first friends. We are emotionally attached to it. College is great, it has awesome people. But just like people say, 'Boys will be boys', school is school. It was like a family of 105 cousins and multiple parents. It's a place where we made our best friends, worst enemies, where pinky promises existed, a simple game of tic-tac-toe was exciting, eating food in between classes was (in lower grades) considered the epitome of cool, where each festival was celebrated less for itself but more to take pictures, where the whole class contributed for a cake and watching your friend fall off the chair while sitting down was probably the most hilarious thing ever.

To say I miss school would be an understatement. The mornings which were passed in convincing people to sing the prayers, secretly trying to see who isn't meditating and getting caught, organizing competitions and winning as a school are things you get to feel and experience only once! My school was a place were Michael Jackson and Doraemon talked to each other. (Code names for teachers is a different thing alltogether!) And I still haven't talked about the occasional water fights, arguments which reincarnated to debates and the boring yet ever imporatant soft board duty!

Thus, when school got over, everyone made a plethora of promises, one of them being a promise to stay in touch. It wasn't an oath bound by blood or on the river Styx. It was a simple pledge taken on friendship and trust. Floods of memories overflowed our yearbooks, well wishes were tattooed on our uniforms. We left school cherishing happy moments, brewing with curiosity at the same time. Curiosity of what is going to happen next, anxiety of a new life sprinkled with a bit of fear, mixed with tons of excitement. A longing to do something worthwhile as long as we live.

I wish I had taken permission to give a speech on the last day. I wish I, or at least someone else had been asked to. Reason being taking names now would become too personal! But I guess I just want to say, Good Luck! Dream and follow the omens. (Alright. This sentence is philosophical. Whatever. :P)

And for all those people who are still in school, remember, school is like a Cornetto ice cream. The whole thing is delicious but the last bit is something special altogether!

Kanksha :)

Interesting story..? : My friend accidentally tried dilute sulfuric acid mixed with FeSO4 and water. She said it tasted like blood. Another guy said it tasted like death. I was tempted to try it myself. Now what in the (under)world does death taste like? Hmmmm. ;)