What do you do for your country?

I am quite impressed by India's new PM's agenda through his independence day speech. May be we can look forward to a positive 'corruption-free' development for the next few years under the new govt. here are the highlight of Mr. Narendra modi's speech.
What caught my attention most was his talk about the issues of rape, development of villages for the over-all country's development,integrating the poorest of the poor with bank accounts and also giving an insurance through debit cards for upto 1 lakh rupees.

"I want to ask every mother and father, you ask your daughters 'where are you going, who are you going with'. But do you ever ask your sons these questions? After all, those who rape are also someone's son."

True, when we talk about rape our heads do hang in shame. I totally agree with what Mr. PM said. But In this case I would even blame the girls  who are also responsible for such a situation to arise. Not just that, one should be educated about sex - the good and bad about it from the age the individual reaches his/her puberty, or may be even younger. But one thing i notice in most Indian families is, there is always an embarrassment among the family members to even a mere utterance of the S word, which i feel would also lead a young adult to this situation of confusion on what is right and what is wrong. It might also be a struggle between his/her animal instincts and morality. Moreover, as far as my knowledge goes, only from the colonial era, many of these sexual liberalism (so many of the ancient sculptures show only nudity) in India got stigmatized later to a better establishment or rather colonization of the Indian minds with European values
Making the long story short, i would say, parents/guardians or any elders in the family should also take responsibility in talking about issues like child abuse, sexual abuse and rape seriously to their children.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVDAuevGq98

"If we want to develop India, we need to develop villages."

Having a goal of developing at least five villages by every Member of Parliament, by the end of five years is a big deal. It would be amazing if they do succeed. It all sounds good to the ears of every citizen, but are we all doing our bit of  work to improve our society?  Every individual's mentality is such that when there is a change in the govt., they will wait for a year and see if there are any good changes made by the govt. if they aren't the blame the govt., and even if there is a  slightest change, they wouldn't be satisfied. People should realize one thing 'Rome was never built in one day'. In this case may be we can substitute it with "the Taj Mahal' ;) 

Every individual should take responsibility in doing atleast one or two of the following thing a day to the society, it would not just give a personal satisfaction but also, others  will see and learn from us.

• Not littering; throwing any waste fallen around, into the dustbin. http://www.theuglyindian.com/
• obeying the traffic rules, not jumping signals, make way for emergency vehicles. It makes a BIG difference. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ1hCZtZyes
• Learn to live life selfless and trustworthy. I'm not say, you should donate all your earnings or property to some random person, but when you see some one in need, please help, may be not money, at least by uttering few kind words. You never know, someday a mere stranger you'd helped long time back,may return your favour. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N47HULidOY0
• report any kind of violence seen or experienced. ignorance will only aggravate the problem.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWouX49lGiw ,  https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=541868952609495&set=vb.426895610773497&type=2&theater ,  https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=540462819416775&set=vb.426895610773497&type=2&theater

Easier said than done, but we should at least not do bad, if we cannot do any good to the society or people.

Hoping for a better India. Jai hind!

My Pet Plant? !! :P

I have always had a close connection with dogs, and have always had one as a pet from my childhood. Even now in my parents place in India, they have a Labrador named snoopy, the youngest and the most adorable family member.

 But since i have relocated to the US two years back, i have never thought of having a pet here, for certain reasons. But I have started gaining interest in gardening, which is a common one for both, my husband and me.
Though we live in an apartment, we managed to grow a couple of ornamental plants, and just started trying our luck in growing some veggies and herbs, out of which the Curry leaf plant is doing the best,having survived the winter last year. Usually the summers and winters go by almost 10 degrees higher in Sacramento when compared to the weather in the bay area. This amazed many of our friends who have been unsuccessful in growing the same and hence we were also motivated to take extra care of the plant.
Now, the plant has grown double its height from what it was in January.
My husband would even go and check on the curry leaf plant everyday before he goes to work. And everyday I just go and stand in the patio admiring the plant closely for sometime. My mom and dad, would even ask me to show the plant on the Skype calls I have with them every week, for seeing how big its grown. I know this must sound weird, but this plant has also become a common topic to discuss with my loved ones. My silently growing, green pet :)

cynicism everywhere

Unfortunately, I see the world is full of cynicism! :(
Not just a stranger, but even a close family member or a close friend can be very cynical.
 I am not a very out spoken person who would  talk openly about a lot of things, but now that I am married I try to open up conversations with this new family and the relatives. Having had a chat with distant relative in my new family few weeks back, the call ended up making me sad in some way. Though the conversation was mostly the general, how are you? What are you doing? And stuff like that, having remembered this last talk about her husband who doesn't help her around in the house hold chors, I asked her in a jovial way if her husband has started helping her (not minding her husband who was also a participant in this conversation) now that she is carrying a big bump. She shunned my question in such a way making me feel shameful for asking the question. Eventually she abruptly cut the call while i was going to say something.

There were some strangers disguised as friends who had made me feel bad before, but this was the worst i have come across with a family member. I feel very insecure to talk freely to some of these people who have become my relatives

curious minds leads to redesigning and engineering!

Unlike the cats, being curious, i think, is the last thing that can kill us, humans.

 My li'l cousin became fidgety with the new toy he got, may be just five minutes back. He, not listening to his grandma's advice of not breaking that, my cousin continued doing his job and finally tried splitting his new toy into as many pieces as possible (of course he din't break anything). My brother and I kept watching the fun, apart from hearing to the grandma complain to us, not to buy him new toys. My brother remarked, this is the way one can redesign things and develop the interest for engineering new things. Eventually, this little boy tried fixing this toy back to its form. Indeed he did it. This amazed all of us, and so did my brother's remark.

 

Weekend hiking/camping!

I had finally got to visit my cousin brother over the weekend, who stays in the Alameda county of California. On Saturday,on my way i came across this,

Yolo!
Though it made me laugh at that moment, I think one should live life doing whatever pleases them not fearing the consequences of the risks they take.
Apparently, I did an off trail hike, getting frequent helping hand from my husband and my cousin. Momentarily i feared skidding down as the climb was very steep but ultimately I was utmost satisfied climbing to almost the top of the mountain.
This was the best hike I have done, also because this was the first time i saw a snake so close

The common king snake!

After camping for the night, we hiked around the Anthony Chabot lake. Came across a variety of vegetation there; the water fowls, People fishing, the golden eagle. The view was amazing!  It was my longest hike so far, - 10 miles and I realize how much my stamina has improved over one year, motivating me to improve more over my upcoming hiking/camping trips.

a short visit to the land of enchantment!!

On my visit to my brothers place for the July 4th long weekend, with a desperate need to escape from my mundane stuffs, this was the first time I was able to explore some good places at the land of enchantment -New Mexico. Though the weather was as bad as it is right now in California, the place has always made me feel relaxing. It's architectural design which matched is desert environment; the New Mexican authentic cuisine; and of course my brother who made me feel like I'm home. I enjoyed everything thoroughly.

These were some amusingly unusual things I came across in the four days

1.

This was an advertisement of the arts and handicrafts at one of the native Americans village. Real indians ;)

2.

This made all of us Lol at once.

3.

House on wheels. :P

Some shocking tamil quotes

With my love for poems, and as an amateur poetess, I learn a lot from reading the works of some great poets. Today, I came across this blog while searching for some old Tamil poems online. Till this time I had a positive impact about quotations and proverbs because of the philosophical nature of most proverbs I have read. But the proverbs that are talked about in this blog shows how much of differences people had in the society a century ago. How peoples perception changes about an individual based on his/her profession.

Dance, which is today considered a very lively form of art, was some time back considered as the prostitute's job, and the dark comparison people have made with their superstitious beliefs, cultural and ethical standards, comparisons with laziness, selfishness etc had all the more brought down the reputation of dancers in those days.

The blog gives detailed explanations of the foreign authors interpretation and the view points of the present day dancers and other people, regarding this topic.

But what confuses me is, if dance and dancers were considered so awful, then how did  bharathanatayam, kuchipudi and other classical dances get popularity over time? Were they specific about what kind of dance/dancers to be put in the above mentioned category?
Brahmins are considered the highest caste in the tamil society, And as far as my knowledge goes, almost all my Tamil brahmin friends have classical dancing as their hobby. How did they face this situation then?

Having read this article in the blog, with the foreigner's 'so-called' exaggerated interpretation of these proverbs may not actually be as hyped. May be the Indian society before the British Raj would have had more number of prostitution going on.