The Distorted Mirror

I see you, You see me
Its a feeling oh so free
The world turns round and round
When the eyes meet, nothing else surrounds

When seeing becomes bare and bruises become naked
Practicality becomes outdated
The pretty and ugly comes alive at the same time
And everything makes sense, every word rhymes

I see you, you see me
The struggle begins to be, and not to be
Should you hide your scars or leave wounds open
Should you show the strong side, or show it as broken

When seeing becomes knowing and understanding flips
Emotions take an unprecedented trip
The likes and dislikes come alive on the surface
And everything seems senseless, meaningless seems the preface

I see you, you see me
It is a feeling of not being free
You hate it all, you judge every bit
Whatever you hated comes back, tat for tit

When seeing becomes hating and repulsion is felt
In the mirror, your image starts to slowly melt
Should you run away from the distorted version of you
Or stick around to cherish the feelings so rare and moments so few

I see you, you see me
Its the same, yet so different... thats all it is to be in this irony!

- Diary of an Oxymoron

Beauty, Botox and Breasts: Who Defines Perfection?

A few weeks ago I had come across a news report on a man who sued his ‘beautiful’ wife for producing a really ‘ugly’ daughter and came to know during court trials that his wife was all Botox beauty. Artificially enhanced that all her looks were, she had not informed the husband on any of the procedures she had undergone to become what she was. The statement that really struck me in the news report was how he called their daughter, ‘so ugly –hard to even look at’. And while the proceedings of the court took place, the reality was revealed and he won the case.

On the other hand, just few days ago I saw this video clip where it was shown how technology is being used since years to show women’s bodies as perfect (defined as one with no bulges, no stretch marks, no freckles). The video brought out how media and photography have shaped the images of women in my head, many of which are not even real i.e. software enhanced to suit the eye and made appealing. The reality is that these are what are termed as ‘acceptable’ now, with women and men craving for ‘size zero’ and ‘perfect model-like’ bodies, some even dying in the process of aiming to achieve this perfection.

These two very different but linked stories made me wonder on the concepts of ‘defining’ the words that surround our world; words like beauty, perfection, fair, flawless…so many definitions surround our world and while every day women crave to be called ‘beautiful’, I wonder what reason makes one crave for appreciation with respect to looks. The sudden explosion of beauty clinics (parlours too) makes me question the hidden emotion even more. It is not that I am not one of their customers but then where does one stop and label it as enough?

Let’s not even get started on concepts ofFairness and Flawlessness. Media, Marketing, Movies.. these three seem to have ruled the imaging process of women, in their own eyes (more than in the eyes of their male counterparts). Let’s start with Movies first. Be it any film industry anywhere in the world, the imaging process has been huge (and we talk with respect to looks here). Dark is not beautiful, fair is in. Those perfect bodies, perfect curves, sexy toned legs are more looked at by men, winning the hearts of the heros rather than the heavier ones with stretch marks or a scratch on her face. We all know how today female actresses a little on the heavy side are shunned by the industry, made fun of by the media. Vidya Balan and Sonakshi Sinha are breaking these stereotypes but Madhuri Dixit and Sridevi are looking at things like Botox for making their beauty last. Believe it or not, freckles are being frowned upon and those who can afford it are rushing to clinics to get themselves looking like timeless classics. Size C is more acceptable than a size A, don’t worry- get breast implants. On the hand while I say this, I know it’s a very personal choice but as we go back to the start of this article, it is nowhere bringing women closer to reality..

Media and Marketing go hand in hand. While we all look at those toned bodies endorsing male shaving products and get seduced by the fragrance of male deodorants, we wonder if this works in real life. While it has been creating a sexual image of women since ages, what I see is that for women it has the psychological effect of them disliking their reality and trying to achieve what is being depicted. Many waste a major chunk of their lives living these lies, trying to be what they are not. Using technological knives and tools to enhance pictures and then showcasing it as reality for the masses, makeup and technological makeup create an illusion that is way different from the truth. Being fit is important but becoming anorexic, injecting our bodies with chemicals just to look picture perfect is going a little overboard. As I said earlier, where do we stop?

Our media is funny. We talk about how a particular actress looks too bloated after pregnancy, how another one looks like she is on a no-food diet. The media creates images which look perfect. We forget that nobody can be the same and that bodies vary biologically, genetically and psychologically. Our matrimonial ads showcase this gruesome reality – how fair, slim and tall is all that is acceptable. Looks matter more than the person. And in our struggle to achieve those perfect images, the essence of life is somewhere lost.

I don’t know what is right for everyone. I know that drawing a line is very crucial. I know everybody cannot have a 36-24-36 figure and neither can everybody have the same face they had at 25 at the age of 40. In our struggles to achieve those, what is happening is that we are shaping coming generations with the values of ‘looks’ and not ‘depth’.

Botox, Beauty and Boobs are not synonymous. Valuing this statement is very important. We all know beauty is in the brain, and beauty is being natural, but do we really follow that? The anxiety of appealing physically to others and most importantly, the self, has made women insecure, unsure and too dependent on artificial enhancements. I know that these thoughts vary from one to another but for me, being comfortable in my own self, imperfect body, freckled face is what perfection is all about. Ageing is reality, and we need to cherish that. It is just how we see it. Isn’t it?

This article was originally published on Women's Web at: http://www.womensweb.in/2014/01/women-quest-for-perfection/

Diary of an Oxymoron

Calm me down, I m back to panic mode 

Throw some water before I explode

Beyond the mode, lies a story untold 

Don't let it be buried, layer by layer it should unfold 

For we need to speak or else it stays 

Inside as trouble, then the future pays 

But think before u say it all 

It might just make u fall, n crawl 

The art of telling a tale is tough 

If done wrong, it might be rough 

For what u tell is not what ppl hear 

It might take things far, instead of making ppl near 

Honesty, is hard to digest 

But that's what all it is about the test

Speak up or shut down, u have to decide 

Whatever the result be, take it in ur stride! 

And She Lived.. Happily Ever After

“In a land, far far away lived a princess with long silky hair and beautiful gleaming eyes, dreaming that one fine day the man of her dreams will come and woo her off her feet, sway.”

She recalled this line that was printed in her head since childhood, thanks to the numerous fairy tales she had slept hearing to as a child. As a girl who has learnt to do everything by herself, a line like that should not make much of a sense. Right?

From the fairy tales as she moved on to a not so fairy tale life, she realized how much she had been torturing herself by bearing the burden of these words. She was beaten, abused, verbally and physically. Yet she stood strong because she remembered the lines from the grandmother’s story she had heard as a little girl. “When a girl marries, she goes as a bride to the new house and comes out only when she dies.” Nothing made sense but her senses had ceased to function long back. Was it time for her to wipe these tales off her soul and listen to some new ones?

Looking at her one would often question how an educated, working young woman could be beaten black & blue, all her money taken away, and still love her husband so much? How was she bearing the torture, the horrendous crimes done upon her? Every time something inside her made her fight back, but the stories kept on coming back and logic kept on going away.

The charm of stories is that the moral and the ending are at times all we remember. She still had that torn out book from her childhood. She would often go back to it, re-read and pacify her soul, that this was a phase and would be over, and that a happily ever after would happen soon. How soon, was the biggest question?

Gleaming eyes turned into teary blue ones. Long silky hair became worn out ropes dragging her across the floor. The land far away was the land of living hell on earth. And her prince was not the prince, but the villain of the story. Could she have a happily ever after?

The story of her life originated from a story she had heard to live a happy life. But she soon became a story I tell for others to live happily ever after. We hear a lot of stories in our lives. We decide what we take out of them. For her, the fairy tale happy ending was all she wanted. She left the land hopeless and torn, may be to a land far far away.

For me, her story changed the way I looked at a fairy tale. Everyone’s life isn’t the same. And as I remember this story of hers, I have in mind hundred and thousand more to learn from. We tell ourselves stories in order to live, but sometimes we forget the whole purpose of life.

“The journey is more important than the ending.”

Things that don't make sense to me

Not much to say, still I will if I may
The mind is stuck, with words I play

The dry ketchup on the bottle makes me mad
Whom do i blame: sister, mom or dad

That window pane which is not clean
That woman in my family who is unnecessarily mean

Those little bobbins on my sweater
Those freckles on my face could be better

The little snoring noise around at night
Tiffs and irritations have their own fight

People telling me how imperfect is my life
Poking their nose, in real and my business, my strife

That freezing glass of water in weather so cold
What to be done, why am I told

My undone hair, I think I might like
But what i don't are people with funny spike

Why do people lie at drop of a hat
Should I slap them or their shoulders in pity should I pat

Blame me, cause I judge one and all
But I don't judge them for their struggles, pains and the rise & fall

Blame me, cause the nonsense around is making me little sad
All in the end I have is, this world Oh my dear is a lot mad

Should I hate or love, like or not,
I respect spaces, that is what (from life) I have been taught

Senseless, oh so numb I am turning
But still more to the world am craving and yearning

Under the Sheets: Hidden Realities & Hypocrisy of Indian Society

It really pains my heart to pen down why I consider the Present Indian Social situation is quite a bottom rock. The Media seems to be flooded with such interesting yet shameful cases that present a very shitty face of India to the world. On one hand while we brought out the Spiritual Baba & Sex Scandal out in open, on the other hand we saw the real pervert face of somebody who used to advocate the cause of women empowerment, the cause of right & wrong. On one hand we are taking about the judgment where parents were charged of killing their own daughter, on the other hand the Supreme Court comes out with a verdict where Homosexuality and Gay Sex is termed as Illegal. As a youth of this country, what does this reflect?

We have since ages been a country of hypocrites. While we are the land where the Kamasutra originated, we have ever since shunned the idea of taking about sex openly, terming it as a “Western” concept. We as Politicians are corrupt while point fingers at the other candidates, framing them in wrong cases just to gain power ourselves. We as Media professionals show the true colors of people while holding mirrors in front of their faces, talking about how the country is facing crime, power & politics overdose while on the other hand, we ourselves are involved in sexual harassment at work place (read Tehelka debate), corruption and power overdose (read Nira Radia- 3G case) and money mafia (Read Zee TV and JSPL Debate). We as society and traditional propagators talk about sanctity of women, preaching baba’s and swami’s bringing to us the do’s and don’ts of every gender while we use minor girls as sex objects, eat money from influential people to build lavish palaces as we show the world how gyani and sant we are. We as an economy talk about the rising jobs, employment rates, new enterprises coming up where we as a developing nation fail to fulfill the global agenda of Child & Maternal Mortality Rate, Female Foeticide, Violence Against women and even the basic issues of Nutrition & Hunger. What does this reflect?

As a young woman in Development Sector, to me this is a shameful reality I fail to answer every single time I look in the eyes of a woman from another nation questioning me why my land is great. This is the face of Indian Society where what we preach and what we teach vary. Where we talk about roots and age old cultural values but fail to deliver the Right, based on equality and justice. Where we blame the western media and over influence of Internet, porn and global world for the rising crimes against women but fail to reflect and see the fact that Violence has always existed in the society, unreported as it was its out in open now. Where we talk about change but fear it at the same time. What does this reflect?

Hidden under the sheets lie the realities of our roots and the fruits that we are bearing today. Can we talk about behavior change unless we change the very nature the system works? Who is accountable? As a youth who is clueless in a country like this isn’t going abroad a better option than trying to mend the rusted skeleton of the Indian Society? I can’t blame people for going out and abusing the country for being useless, but am I the youth who is ready to make that change? Are you the one who is ready to unveil the very reality of your own self? Time for change, but will it happen till we act like hypocrites?

Picture Courtesy: Self

"The Delhi Girl" Syndrome (Part 1)

Question: “Hey, where are you from?”

While I have been asked this question many a times at many places by a variety of people in a variety of manner, I am always quiet surprised by the kind of reaction my answer gets. There is something about Indians trying to know where the other person is from. And my answer to this question being “DELHI”, you should not be surprised, gets the most amazing and weirdest reactions.

The first time I experienced this in person was in 2009. Well, I had experienced it many a times before as well, but this was when I faced the reaction in person. Generally the situation in which this question had been popped on me was where my interaction with the person was only for a few minutes, typical places being airports, resorts, and railway stations etc. But in 2009 as I went on my first ever stay out of Delhi alone, I experienced and lived the tag of being a “Delhi Girl” for three whole months.

In the city of Patna when the people I was about to live my life with as a paying guest for next 3 months gave me a LOOK on my reply, I got the first shock of my life. I was 21 years old. And this being my first ever living outside Delhi (yes yes, I am born and brought up in Delhi) came as a shock to me. There was a sudden change in attitude towards me and everyone around was attempting to make me realize how much cooler they are. I was very confused. For start, I didn’t see any difference between me and them at all. Also, the confusion hailed from the fact that I failed to understand the logic of being from Delhi, and that too a “Delhi Girl” made me any different from the other team mate I had (except for the fact, she was from America, and a Korean by origin).

And there I was at 21 struggling with what difference does it make if I am from Delhi and here I am 26 writing this story from a small town in Himachal Pradesh still struggling with “Oh! You are a Delhi Girl” attitude. Nothing has changed in this regard while I have experienced the same reactions, even worse at various places. I am still confused and I still fail to understand what I should do about it.

Over the past 5 years, I have traveled. From Patna, to Singapore, to Ohio to Texas, Seattle, Orissa, Kolkata, Gujarat, Haryana, New York… cities and towns, villages and even smaller settlements. And my interactions with people in these places and their reactions to my being a “Delhi Girl” can be categorized in the following two kinds:

•        The Haters: I call the people in this category as the ones who look at Delhi with the eyes of envy. Typically educated and informed, they either want to be a part of Delhi or they simply cant understand why their cities cant be any cooler. I mean, I love Delhi, yes! But I think that does not negate the fact that every city has its own charm. But, coming back to these people. A lot of them are my friends by the way now. But they describe to me a very different version of how I see myself.  For them a girl from Delhi is a brat who not only over-shows how she is way cooler and knows everything but also has a sense of superiority, which lacks any knowledge. Basically, a girl who has no brains but thinks she has it all.  The situation is so worse at times that as soon as people hear me being from Delhi, they stop recognizing anything I do as authentic and having any substance. There is a sense of discomfort along with becoming blind and deaf to anything I do and being from Development sector, I find myself in worst situation. My personal experiences have made me hear things like these: “Oh, you are from Delhi, we should keep a distance”, “oh, Delhi..hmm..ok” “ohhhh, Delhi? Hahh” While gestures and actions speak louder then words, sometimes the words are strong enough to leave no stone unturned for me to get into an uncomfortable situation. 

•      The Lovers: These are those people who adore anybody who comes from Delhi. They welcome anyone with open arms after knowing they are from Delhi and always try to show how they are somewhere linked to Delhi. “Oh, my uncle’s aunt’s son’s daughter is living in Delhi (in reality: Gurgaon)”, “I have been to Delhi..(like some 8-10 years ago) etc.. and While they are surely adorable set of people, they also try to tell you how cooler they are. Sometimes, I have ended up getting marriage offers from this category people (they want someway get connected to Delhi).

I am personally, amused by both Lovers and Haters but it is the Haters who are more difficult to mold themselves and break the image they have of Delhi. They have developed a stereotype based on one or two girls from Delhi they have met in person (who, by the way are not even originally from Delhi but have studied in Delhi or something).. To be brutally honest, I have seen majority of girls around me also falling in this category and I realize that the image these people have build of girls from Delhi isn’t wrong totally. Stereotypes after all are built by experiences and they obviously have had their encounters with the typical Delhi girls (I hate that term, though, but still). Well, I struggle at times but the walls that are built around me based on my city make it difficult for me to function in my work life. It is a challenge I face every single time I am out of Delhi, in Orissa or even in Boston (I have an amazing Boston story to tell, but that for later).

I am breaking stereotypes and I like it. I am a Delhi girl but I am moldable, I am flexible in the kind of lifestyle I live and I owe my education and my upbringing at home for this. I also feel that a lot of girls from Delhi are like me but we are overshadowed by the ones who carry a good for nothing attitude. (I am not trying to demean anyone but this is the truth!!)

Success in changing attitude of people has been huge. I have made some great friends who have realized I am not even an inch of the image they carry in their heads and some of them love me for doing that. On the other hand, I thank them for opening my eyes to a whole new world of “how people see Delhi girls” and even “how I see Delhi girls”.. Yes, at times, they are dumb but in this era of movement and swiftness, we shouldn’t tag anyone based on the city they live in.

(Cheers to breaking stereotypes! I am in process of researching this whole issue and definitely, there are many angles to it.. Read later for more)

Go find your Mahatma!

In the year of 2007, I was strolling in this bookstore and happen to lay my hands on a book by RK Narayan by the name “Waiting for Mahatma”. I had just started working in the field of development and while I was on a journey to pursue my passion as my career, I was always looking for inspiring stories that would make my passion grow. While the book described one of the stories of the great legend that Mahatma Gandhi was, for me it made a lot of difference as I started to search my Mahatma.

I have always believed that there isn’t anything called as an idol for me. I don’t believe in the concept, like I don’t believe in ideal. And so, for me to tag one person as  ‘Mahatma’, was coming out to be very difficult. I often used to sit down and just rewind my life to experience the different times of life where I had felt inspired. Who helped me, who made me feel wow, who made me believe in myself, who made me want to do things more passionately, the questions were unending. And thereby, a lot of faces popped in and popped out.

Somehow, I came to the realization that I am definitely not that kind of person who would have a role model. I was inspired by my father’s hard work, my mother’s passion for people’s happiness, that Hindi teacher at school who made me confident about myself, my school principle who made me believe in commitment to ones responsibilities, my college teacher who made me realize that you are ok to have your favorites.. The list was unending. Everyday I would add one person to the list who had inspired me in someway or the other. But the problem was that nomatter how hard I tried I could not figure out that one person I would call my role model, my Mahatma.

And then the bulb lit! I came down to understand that the phrase “Go find your Mahatma” had more to do with getting inspired than with who inspires. Over the past few years, I have met many people while my travel from small villages in corners of the country to other nations and multi national people. There have been those homemaker women trying to find a position in their own homes that have inspired me. So has that one man who was trying to bring awareness for masses through community media even at the age of 75. And I have learnt and got inspired from many. Today, when I hear the phrase “Go find your Mahatma”, I feel excited because the wide range of people that have played Mahatma for me at various stages of my life have made my passion for my work even more stronger. They have made me realize how important it is for me to stay afloat and keep the battle going.

Its 2013, and while my trip to Ahemadabad I recalled how Gandhi and his life had inspired me in my past many years of working with people. The anger and impatience was dealt much better, the thinking about last first helped and the back to basics concept kept me solving complex problems. I realize how different people have shown me different angles to life and how it has made me know myself more, know the situations in more depth. I realize, how I have grown, have developed. 

And as I walk down today, I look around and get inspired every second of my life. Trust me, go find your Mahatma and stay Inspired!