tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65867325889601545532011-11-04T19:41:39.305+05:30<b>A woman's-eye view of India and the world</b>moinoreply@blogger.comBlogger341100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-43419443047252410202011-09-12T09:37:00.000+05:302011-09-12T09:37:55.147+05:30

For perspective: My house help, who has a TV, had not only no idea that yesterday was 10 years since 9/11, but also no idea what happened on 9/11. She was living in Delhi in 2001, although I don't know if she had TV at the time. Different worries, I guess. Obviously, sentiments expressed on Facebook do not represent those of a cross-section of the world's population.

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-16461141652364037332011-07-02T15:43:00.000+05:302011-07-02T15:43:38.393+05:30

Graphic explains procedure. Click to enlarge. Amrita Kadam in the Hindustan Times, edition dated Delhi, June 26, 2011: Docs turn baby girls into boys Girls are being 'converted' into boys in Indore - by the hundreds every year - at ages where they cannot give their consent for this life-changing operation. This shocking, unprecedented trend, catering to the fetish for a son, is

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-13697142846621535052011-06-18T15:23:00.000+05:302011-07-02T15:24:18.993+05:30

My Saturday started off on a joyous note. My mother said her 18-year-old house help has passed her Class 10 exam. This is a real accomplishment. The girl's father died years ago, and her mother considers her, the youngest of the four children (all girls - such a "responsibility"!) the dull one. The mother has repeatedly discouraged the daughter from persevering with matriculation (this was the

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-26481127877332028542011-02-27T16:49:00.002+05:302011-02-27T17:04:00.097+05:30

Girl selling flags in Mumbai traffic, on the eve of Independence Day 2009 The counting for the 2011 Census of India ends tomorrow. In the last census (2001), the sex ratio, or the number of women per 1,000 men, was 933. In a normal population, women would slightly outnumber men because a female fetus is more likely to make it through the full term than a male fetus. This probability is distorted

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-36281144559072869462011-02-05T02:48:00.003+05:302011-02-27T17:05:47.516+05:30

In the context of a conversation, she said: "This society does not support singlehood." He heard: "I am single. Pity me." He rolled his eyes and turned his back on her. He did not hear the criticism of the society that he (and she) are part of.

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-55456837878529309102010-10-21T14:00:00.000+05:302010-10-21T14:00:15.486+05:30

Image: From the Marilyn Monroe Photoshop contest at freakingnews.com A beautiful and sympathetic portrait by Ms. Dowd in the New York Times, as an allegory for politics in today's America: The false choice between intellectualism and sexuality in women has persisted through the ages. There was no more poignant victim of it than Marilyn Monroe. She was smart enough to become the most famous

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-31263745677666554502010-10-17T23:45:00.002+05:302011-03-22T23:31:05.231+05:30

A pompous old geezer relative, who never calls to ask how I'm doing and has no idea about my life (which is OK with me), had the nerve to send me this (which is not OK with me): DAUGHTER, FATHER'S HEART AND SOULદીકરી બાપના દિલની શાતા....     ........ક્યારેય તમે તમારી જાતને દુનિયાભરના તમામ દુ:ખોથી ઘેરાયેલીANYTIME IF PARENTS FEEL BEING SURROUNDED BY ALL THE WORLD'S UNHAPPINESS મહેસુસ કરો

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-23332310341478020092010-10-10T15:03:00.003+05:302010-10-10T15:31:57.612+05:30

It's not enough that gay people stand up for their rights. Straight people need to do so too. If you hear someone in your class or workplace laughing at a gay stereotype, say something. Even if you're not inclined to get in an argument, make a remark, however small and in passing. Your unenlightened colleague's behavior could be making a gay colleague very, very uncomfortable, and even if no

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-20255950495185267622010-09-05T11:27:00.001+05:302010-09-05T11:32:45.577+05:30

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-81874395957785338322010-09-01T01:25:00.001+05:302010-09-01T01:27:40.921+05:30

Click on the image to enlarge it.

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-69889280748257784212010-06-27T10:25:00.004+05:302010-06-27T10:53:26.056+05:30

“My strange shape is paying off”: Burberry model Davo who is 6ft 1in, with a 35in chest and a 29in waist. Photograph: Levon Biss for the ObserverHere's Polly Vernon's article "Thin is in: in search of the perfect male body", which is in today's Guardian, under Life & Style >> Health and Wellbeing. I found it thought-provoking, and it also made me go "Yes!". Enjoy.The well-built man, complete

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-13339797603419453252010-05-15T00:06:00.005+05:302010-05-15T00:36:40.914+05:30

A stenciled graffito amid ongoing construction near Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium reads, "I hope the games are a disasater". (Apologies for the image quality - I took this picture from a moving vehicle.)An ancient Roman satirist noted that to keep the people happy, the government resorted to purveying bread and circuses rather than implementing sound public policy. But the Indian capital, Delhi, has

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-54037285480477665882010-04-11T22:28:00.005+05:302010-04-11T22:43:18.703+05:30

Thought-provoking column in the New York Times by Maureen Dowd today. Makes me think about what kind of Hindu I am. When I was in Saudi Arabia, I had tea and sweets with a group of educated and sophisticated young professional women.I asked why they were not more upset about living in a country where women’s rights were strangled, an inbred and autocratic state more like an archaic men’s club

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-20462015442085455592010-04-01T10:21:00.005+05:302010-04-01T10:32:39.244+05:30

An article about an interesting piece of research:Quota for women doesn’t always mean just electing the few for whom seats have been reserved. Over a period of time, reservation leads to many more women winning elections than the designated quota.Data from the Mumbai municipal corporation indicates that the impact of women may extend even after a seat has been dereserved. The data shows a

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-21202049299845301852010-03-26T09:47:00.004+05:302010-03-26T09:55:00.325+05:30

From BBC Online:Using a traditional verse form native to the Arab Peninsula's nomadic tribes, she writes critically about the country's hard-line Muslim clerics, calling them: "vicious in voice, barbaric, angry and blind".Condemning the violence that she says lies beneath their religious messages, her poems speak of some of the clerics "wearing death as a robe cinched with a belt" - an apparent

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-40684407792863540962010-03-06T13:04:00.010+05:302010-03-27T00:18:39.408+05:30

On Friday I went to Old Delhi for lunch. Old Delhi is a 500-year-old part of the city, built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. The Red Fort and Jama Masjid stand at one end of what I imagine was once a grand avenue. Today that street, Chandni Chowk, is a noisy mess of cycle rickshaws, cars, shops, vagabonds, illegal stalls on the curb, places of worship (Sikh, Hindu, Muslim, Jain), cows, dogs,

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-33853234900971480212010-02-05T02:37:00.005+05:302010-02-05T03:46:16.048+05:30

From the Gandhi museum at Mani Bhavan, Laburnum Road, the Mahatma's words in his own hand. The quote above says, “I want world sympathy in this battle of Right against Might”. It is datelined Dandi, where Gandhi (aged 60) and his followers walked more than 100 miles, to “illegally” make salt by the sea. It was a peaceful act of civil disobedience to defy the oppressive salt tax imposed by the

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-59001716573678548962009-10-25T04:13:00.007+05:302009-10-25T04:39:15.948+05:30

This tribute to my cousin and her parents appeared in the Times of India Crest, Saturday October 24, 2009.My cousin IlaShe’d be in her forties if she were alive. Like a beautiful haiku, her life was terse and full of wisdom. She was the centre of our extended family, and taught us the difference between the important things in life and the superficial stuff.My cousin Ila had Down Syndrome. When

moinoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-30038589522436363452009-10-19T00:59:00.005+05:302009-10-19T01:30:10.332+05:30

Below is a tongue-in-cheek column I wrote for Intelligent Investor, the old avatar of what is now Outlook Money. It appeared in the issue dated October 13, 1997.If you get it, it's not wisdomI once had a Mizo classmate named Mimi, who loved to poke fun at pompous Bengali babus. "They use big words to say little things," she would say. "If they want to beat you up, they say, 'I will horizontalize

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-8309185458670118842009-10-10T04:18:00.005+05:302009-10-10T04:37:04.847+05:30

Diwali kandeels (paper lanterns) at the heinous high-rise premium apartments built on land that was leased to the National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai. The space was once a garden where you could hang out before or after a concert or play. What would you choose - a pre-concert stroll amid foliage, or exclusive homes @ Rs 93,000 (over US$ 2,000) per square foot (yes, during this global

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-55111667885430932252009-10-07T23:41:00.005+05:302009-10-08T00:46:48.592+05:30

Film maker Karan Johar outside the home of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray in Mumbai on Friday, October 2, 2009, after apologizing for the repeated use of the name "Bombay" in his latest film, the Rs 35-crore (US$ 7.5-million) Wake Up, Sid. Just before its release, Thackeray threatened consequences (the Thackerays' style generally entails the bashing up of things and people) for

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-13146341706165574092009-10-07T23:19:00.004+05:302009-10-08T01:23:27.457+05:30

My weekly column in The Pioneer, Mumbai (Friday, July 12, 1996, p. 2). Indian cinema is vibrant as ever"It is the necessary fate of Asiatic empires to be subjected to Europeans," wrote Hegel in his Philosophy of History. Marx, too, thought that pre-capitalist Asian cultures would disappear before the march of progressive capitalism. It is as if they saw unchanging, outmoded tradition pitted

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-70058230054313194582009-08-17T02:24:00.006+05:302009-10-07T23:19:02.232+05:30

Image: Children pour colored rice into a traditional kolam on the patio of the Palmer Museum of Art, Penn State University. The kolam was drawn by my friend Srividya.My weekly column in The Pioneer, Mumbai (Friday, June 28, 1996, p. 2). Some of the following is no longer true. Some, sadly enough, still is. Don't confine it to the galleriesA couple of days ago, I had in my hand a picture of a

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-83194936323427421012009-06-24T03:20:00.004+05:302009-06-24T03:32:43.963+05:30

November 2005: French police hold position in Corberil-Essones, southern Paris. Dozens of policemen were injured in riots that broke out on October 27, 2005. Stuart Jeffries in the Guardian: I once wrote an article under the headline "If only we were more like the French: Call me a chippy atheist, but I'd rather see a headscarf ban than Muslim ghettoes." I thought forcibly liberating people from

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-89135629670341865102009-04-26T12:18:00.024+05:302009-05-23T05:28:02.007+05:30

Image: Cup I bought at the British Library, London, in 2006I've lived on my own for many years, in India and in the US. But until two months ago, I had never lived on my own in Bombay/Mumbai, the city in which I grew up. There are three reasons for this.First, Mumbai is ridiculously expensive real estate (by far the world's most expensive if you consider value for money in terms of municipal

moinoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-67955297612175980202009-02-22T05:10:00.012+05:302009-02-22T15:08:40.255+05:30

Above, kids play badminton across from Platform 7 at Bandra station, in the five or six feet of space that separate the train track from their homes. I'm not sure whether this is exactly the slum from which Slumdog picked its child stars Azhar and Rubina (this is just one segment of a very large stretch of shanties), but it's at least the general area. In this space, men smoke and

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-84523383038674485762009-02-12T00:24:00.006+05:302009-02-13T22:33:28.243+05:30

From The Times of India, Jun 8, 2008:A historic campaign has ended in the US, and everyone is heaving a sigh of relief, especially late night TV comedians who have run out of campaign jokes. Given Hillary Clinton’s steadfast refusal to quit a long drawn-out and close contest, many joked that she would still be campaigning for the Democratic nomination while Obama or McCain was being sworn in as

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-28432151901695613672009-02-11T23:39:00.003+05:302009-02-13T22:34:37.429+05:30

From The Times of India, Oct 21, 2007:Even though my parents live in a flat, they don’t regard their hoard of old stuff as clutter; it’s well-organised so things are there when they need them. When they need string, a plastic bag, a clean jar or bottle, a lid or nail of any size, a rag to wipe a spill, they know exactly where to find it. Only when I lived in the US did it even occur to me that

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-22608578668584159712009-02-11T21:09:00.005+05:302009-02-13T22:36:22.030+05:30

From The Times of India, Jul 22, 2007:Bhutan, the last country on earth to introduce television, ranks eighth in the Happy Map. Today, psychologists and economists in the West argue that SWB [subjective well being] should be a goal of government policy and a measure of national success. But Bhutan figured it out long ago: “Gross National Happiness”, a concept it invented in 1972, is officially a

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-73652662124630166182008-11-12T02:51:00.004+05:302008-11-12T03:16:10.576+05:30

On Veteran's Day (Armistice Day in the UK, Remembrance Day in Canada), The New York Times had this video about women on the frontlines in Iraq. They are necessary, for example, for things like searching Iraqi women, who cannot be appropriately be searched by a male US soldier. They end up in combat situations, but without having gone through the same training as their male counterparts. And yet,

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-45849320826592988022008-11-12T00:59:00.005+05:302008-11-12T01:22:24.840+05:30

I'm back in Mumbai after a wonderful four-week visit to the US. Here are some pictures I took to share with friends in India:

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-35061552718380782732008-09-05T02:36:00.010+05:302008-09-06T13:49:00.326+05:30

The state of Bihar is suffering the worst floods in years. That's really saying something, for a state in which thousands are displaced by floods every monsoon. Officially, only 65 people were dead as of August 30, but the reality is that thousands are missing, and one report estimates 2000 dead, and 2.6 million people in 16 districts affected. The fact that the problem recurs annually in a state

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-71144997705804890222008-08-22T01:50:00.005+05:302008-08-30T03:23:32.704+05:30

Here's a picture I took on my way to work yesterday. It's the A. H. Wheeler magazine kiosk on the harbor line station at Bandra, in suburban Mumbai. On the left, you can see part of a sticker that said "Books for ladies and children". The kiosk stocks everything from daily newspapers to train timetables to bootleg Hindi translations of American self-help bestsellers.For those who don't read Hindi

moinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6586732588960154553.post-27653192191069969532008-08-22T00:28:00.011+05:302010-10-03T21:14:21.118+05:30

About the name of this blog Mukta means free or liberated in Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi, and other languages. Bai is Marathi for lady, and a suffix denoting respect. Muktabai, whose verse you see at the top right, was a 13th century poet, often regarded as a saint. She and her three brothers, Dnyaneshwar, Nivrutti and Sopan, are considered the founders of the Warkari tradition of what is now

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