Women's Suffrage

On Monday I voted for the first time - sadly no one interviewed me and asked me the favourite question of ALL news channels : "So how are you feeling right now?" ? "Aap abhi kya mahsoos kar rahe hain?Wahan ka 'mahol' kya hai?" LOL! - i was totally prepared to give a freaky answer like "Man this rocks - look I got free purple nail-polish! Dude nothin' beats this!" Wonder how those journos would react if they got some totally insane answers to their questions - ah anyways getting a wee bit serious...so this was the first time I voted. Got a voter's ID and all. Went to St.Louis with my folks to put in my vote - nopes I ain't telling you who I voted for - secret ballot remember? All I shall say is that I didn't vote for the jerk who's people called twice daily reminding us he's from the same "caste" as us and even cooking up some cock-n-bull story of how he's a great friend of Mr.Shrivastava!

After having voted we had gone to by Aaachar from this store near our place and considering that aachars don't interest me I got thinking - of the days when women didn't have the right to vote. They had to fight for that right, ofcourse, and many women were a part of the Women's Suffrage Movement. A "Declaration of Sentiments" was formulated in the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, followed by a difficult uphill struggle for all the rights due to women. The draft, among other things stated thus :

"Now, in view of this entire disenfranchisement of one-half the people of this country, their social and religious degradation, -- in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of these United States."

Women's Rights Conventions were held regularly from 1850 until the start of the Civil War. Eventually, winning the right to vote emerged as the central issue, since the vote would provide the means to achieve the other reforms. But the campaign for woman suffrage met such staunch opposition that it took 72 years for the women and their male supporters to be successful. The right to vote was finally won in America in 1920.

I found an extremely interesting article on the internet, written by one of the women who fought for the right to vote : Do You Know?--Voting facts about women (1918) - Carrie Chapman Catt

Another interesting read, for those who want to trace the Women's Movement : The Women's Rights Movement 1848 - 1998

Finished yet another play yesterday in the bus... Tom Stoppard's Indian Ink - had wanted to read it since last year when Dr.B lectured us on post-modern techniques...it had seemed interesting and it was! Oh yeah I got the green signal for the Udaipur trip from Ma - totally cool. I'm so incredibly glad my folks understand stuff and don't act like most others would at the very idea of a male-female friendship! Merci Bon Dieu - I truly realise the value of what I have!

I guess now I shall blog after getting back from Abad and Udaipur - Bon Voyage A Moi!

Back After Ages

Our computer was riddled with viruses and I couldn't use it much these past few days - it all started with the problem of pop-ups, that rapidly spiralled into a totally freaky problem with viruses, which led to us losing all our data on the computer. Bhaiyya finally fixed the problem - Merci Bon Dieu - certainly hope this doesn't recur!

I had gone to a cyber cafe once to check my email, but I hated the claustrophobic set-up with the tiny cubicles and the walls that seem to cave in on you, not to mention the AWFUL music...ran out of there as soon as possible! I must get used to cyber cafe's I guess...coz initially we might not have internet at home once we shift to pune...ah well as I say "jab hoyega tab dekhenge" ....

Hey NEWS NEWS!!! I was in the newspaper last week...not exactly headlines though! Indian express was doing a feature on blogs, so a friend who knows how much I blog told the journalist about me..and well I got interviewed and photographed (which was hilarious coz they actually took my photo in BCL, so that I look "literary and erudite" in the photo - total laugh riot!) ....anyway, the article was in last friday's Indian Express - the Mumbai supplement : New Kids on the Blog featuring 4 bloggers...incidentally all 4 have done MA (lit) from Mumbai Univ, the other 3 are my seniors! Small world isnt it?

The article isn't much but it sure earned me my 2 mins of fame...I was a bit peeved too, coz they've mixed up what I said about my 2 different blogs...but I guess for a Time-pass article like this, the journalists don't really bother with details!

On Friday I'd also gone partying - the Alliance Francaise soiree was at Rock Bottom this time - supposdely a very happening disco in town , but by what standards I have no freaking clue. The music was just about bearble initially - so I danced alot then...more coz of the adrenaline than the music believe me...but as the night wore on, the music steadily grew worse. So when somebody stamped on my much cursed toe, I decided it just ain't worth the pain - no more rocking! Yet, it was a fun night out - met some friends from previous batches...so all in all it was cool!

Apart from this I've been reading alot these days..after having finished Jhumpa Lahiri and Arundhati Roy, I'd moved on to David Dividar's mammoth work so I took a break in between and read Ibsen's "A Dolls House", which broke through the conventional image of a sweet docile house-wife and August Strindberg's "Miss Julie".

What else? Lotsa thinking, fixing personal problems, sorting out my books, CDs, my junk from school days - discovered some treasures and some total junk which got tossed out. Made extensive lists of my books, in carbon copies and packed one box of books already - ones which I won't want to open while we are in the rented flat. Incidentally my list of books is over 130 and the list of CDs also reaches nearly 100 - that's just my stuff....am so incredibly kicked!!! :)

Am headed to Ahmedabad this Saturday and won't be back till the 5th, after which I have my AF exam on the 6th and the DELF A3 exam on the 9th, so I doubt my regularity in blogging for the next one week or so...actually the whole month - coz its gonna be quite crazy henceforth...anyways until next time :

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do - you'll stay outta trouble for sure!!" ;-)

Rocking Weekend

We went shopping this weekend - like big time. Hit Lifestyle on Saturday before going to meet some relatives, which reminds me, remember my cousin who lost my French book and had all my MA I books, which I was scared about? Well, madam has lost 1 of those as well - and then did this very elaborate "I never do this" tear-jerking scene to avoid having to hear anything from me...I am actually quite proud of how I maintained a tight leash on my temper - just told her that she's lost any trust I had in her and that she won't be laying a finger on my books ever again! Man I so completely abhorr this habit in people - koi sense of responsibility nahin hoti kya? Do-char assu tapkane se har galti maaf ho jati hai kya? Bechari kitna karti hai bol dene se galti bhooli nahi jati...and puhleese I didn't ask her to take on more than she can manage. If she can't manage 2 courses not my bloody problem!

Ugh..I'm digressing...deep breaths....yeah so shopping, nice nice shopping. On sunday we hit Westside - we'd gone to Oxford Bookstore first where I was rather appalled by the lack of books. Shelves were standing disconsolate and empty, devoid of the rich collection of books I go to Oxford for. Lunch was at Gaylords....most nice! (Specially the Peach Pie!) Then we went to the Westside at KalaGhoda - so not happening. It has like just 1/3 the stock that the Hughes Road branch has..I couldn't pick up a single thing. Bhaiyya was very amused...said I'm emotionally attached to the Westside at Hughes Road...but once we got there I proved my point. Not one of the tee-shirts I've picked up was there at KalaGhoda...LOL - Amma thinks I'll probably come from Pune to shop at the Hughes Road Westside if I'm not happy with the one on M.G Road! Hehehehe...remains to be seen, coz I truly love shopping at Westside....

Anyways after that we headed to the new Crossword at Kemps Corner - VERY NICE! It's spread on 2 storeys, and has a very impressive colelction of books. I'd already picked up 4 books from Oxford :
1. "The Dolls House" - Ibsen
2. "Miss Julie" - Strindberg
3. "Animal Farm" - Orwell
4. "An Introduction to Classics"

Despite this I couldn't resist picking up 2 leather-bound classics - "Jane Eyre "and "Don Quixote". There were so many more my fingers were lingering on, but I had to restrain myself, coz it would really be highly indulgent to buy more than 6 books in a day! As it is, 6 books is something!

I've finished reading "The Namesake" which I've blogged about on Literary Mosaic, and Arundhati Roy's "In Which Annie Gives it Those Ones" - its film script which got her a National Award. Fun reading, mainly for its use of language and style...quite rocking actually! Currently crawling through David Davidar's epic saga "The House of Blue Mangoes"....got quite a few books on my plate... :)

Current Frame Of Mind

Seething rage struggling to break thrugh the surface layers...tamping it down coz this time I'm shit-scared of the damage my angry words will wreck...ugh, why couldn't I be blessed with a calm, gentle soul? Sigh..ah well...forget it...

On the other hand I'm kinda content - my trip to Ahmedabad is happening. And if all works out fine, I might even go for a quick trip to Udaipur with Kunaal - and get to see Devigadh...yippeee! Looking forward to that break and getting rid of all these unpleasant emotions warring inside me, not to mention the confusion of the past few months...no therapy beats travel and being pampered by one of your closest friends! ;-)

Also glad that I'm got to see the movie I wanted to, and am going for a play tonight at Prithvi. The movie in question was "Meenakshi" by M.F.Hussain - wanted to see the movie mainly for its music and cinematography...and I wasn't disappointed. Though the movie has no plot to speak off (or if there was one I couldn't decipher it out!), its a treat for the senses....colours literally leap from the screen at you...be it the yellow of the lemons and the auto-rickshaws in Hyderabad, the saffron on the dresses or in the jalebis, the green of the grass, on the kites...its definitely the most aesthetically appealing movie I've seen off late! The way Santosh Sivan has captured Jaisalmer and Prague is simple unforgettable! I was saying before the movie that atleast I'll get to see Prague in a movie. I did, and it only served to whet my appetite for Prague! Went into a bit of nostalgia as well, seeing the railway station at Prague and those typical narrow cobbled pathways of European cities!!!

As for performances - Tabu never disappoints. Not to forget her sensuality - if she oozed sensuality in "Maqbool" , she's sensuality personified here...her dialogue, where she compares the earth which parches under the brutality of the sun, and the human body which gets wet with sweat, yet both of them are made of the same "mitti" is mindblowing sensual!!! Kunnal Kapoor? I have just one thing to say about him - He's HOT!!! He lierally sizzles on screen whether in his avataar of the poet composing poetry on rooftops and nooks and corners of Jaisalmer, or as the guy from the seamier side of Hyderabad!

All in all an extremely sensuously appealing movie!

Know The "REAL" ME?

OK, this ain't a questionnaire I found on the net so don't get ready to scroll over it or move that mouse to the little cross on the right hand of the screen which will shut the window!! :) This is a result of a conversation I had with my mother yesterday when she remarked on how I am with certain people - my "real" self is what I like to call that side of my personality, the one that rarely bobs to the surface.

Sheesh, making myself sound real schizophrenic am I not? *Rolling my eyes* What I mean to say is that I let my hair down with very few people, am nasty and bitchy, or just plain silly with a selected few, exchange witty repartees or get into a verbal tango only with those few lucky buggers, or expect them to understand those flicks of tongues that produce my own language, can call just those people a "RAT" or a "KAMINI" at the same time as reaching out to hug them with all the affection I bear towards them.

Everyone else just sees the "society" me who doesn't do such horrifying things...So I figured if you've seen me in this avataar, you couldn't know me any better, hell you couldn't get any closer!!! Quite easy to figure out how well you know me, eh?

Just wait till I call you a "RAT" with a wide smile on my face...simple! ;-)

Dream Time

Coming back home from AF last night I decided not to ponder and plunge into my psyche for the answers I've been seeking, but indulge in some wishful fantasies, and so I did :) My senses felt very pampered by the time I got home, to the point that I walked the short distance from the bus-stop to home bestowing smiles on everyone I passed, not to mention the extremely bizarre eye-lifting conversation I had with a guy who was (as usual) fascinated by what my tee-shirt had to say to the world - at this rate I could easily become an expert at the art of answering questions with a lift of an eyebrow and dismissing men with a side-long glance! LOL! Anyways coming back to dreams, I have a load of them...not all of which are open for discussion! *Wicked smile!* But among those that are open, is my dream to travel...I've always wanted to travel - not just arond the world, but also explore the many hidden delights within our own country. Infact I used to think that I'd rather discover my country first, travel its length from North to South, West to East before venturing across the "kalapani"! That obviously didn't happen the way I planned for there's so much I've still to see in India - but here's the hitlist for the near future or distant future (as life shall see fit to follow!I'm quite flexible when it comes to wish-fulfillment!) :
1. Pondicherry
2. Hampi
3. Kodaikanal
4. Udaipur (If I could stay at DeviGarh I'd go to Heaven a most content woman!!)
5. Jaipur (seen it already, but want to experience it in post October when the weather is more conducive to appreciation of its beauties and wonders - stay in one of those hotels that are palaces transformed into commercial outlets, be pampered silly by the grandeur and luxury - roam around all day in the labyrinth of streets, in the colourful markets, visit the historical places, soak in the atmosphere in the evening when the town is lit up by soft-glowing lamps around Diwali time...stuff dreams are made up of, eh?)
6. Jaisalmer
7. Assam (post Monsoons when its all lush and one can soak in the verdant beauty of the state)
8. Add to the North-East trail, Sikkim, and Manipur
9. Leh- Ladakh (tho how I'll survive in that bitter cold, and with that level of oxygen I have no freaking clue...the stark beauty of the mountains and the cute yaks will have to make up for the lack in oxygen! The warmth I guess I could get if by then I manage to hook up with someone! Muhahah!)
10. Amsterdam (nearly reached there, but cancelled the trip last minute becuase it was too close to my trip to France, and way too rushed!)
11. Prague (Pls God get me there in this lifetime)
12. Rome-Milan-Venice (It's Italy...I don't need to say any more!)
13. Provence (for its glorious sunsets), South of France, another more extended trip to Paris (this time loaded with cash hopefully-hehehe! )
14. Greece (I HAVE to see the Acropolis before I die!)

15. Last but not the least - Poovar Island! (I dunno yet, who he is going to be, but the man of my dreams better be prepared to take me to Poovar Island. Ever since I've read about it, it's been right at the top of the list of most Romantic places in my opinion...the very fact that is in Kerala says alot, add to that house-boats! Hell, I could sink into reverie even now :) )

Thats just the top few, the ones I could sell my soul to see...well not nearly! (That was a hyperbole, for those you who couldn't recognise it!)

Enough dreaming for now - time to get back to reality and ground earth baby! :)

Happening Life?

"Happening life you lead" - atleast two of my friends have said this to me in the past 72 hours...and it had my immensely puzzled. I just couldn't get their definition of "happening" - one said it coz I eat out regularly with my family...in the last one year this habit of ours had gone a bit out of order and we were increasingly ordering food home, but after my three months hiatus when I was "restaurant-deprived" I've been insistent that we go out atleast once a fortnight, if not every week. Been to Noodle Bar last Sunday, and today it was Just Around the Corner to satisfy my craving for salads...and that to my dear friend classifies as a "happening life"!!! To me it classfies as having a life, plain and simple...

The other friend truly puzzled me coz from what I understand I have a "happening life" because I'm confused, because I carry around with me a sense of void, an emptiness that I don't want to deal with after nearly two years of battling with it - seriously if this is "happening" I'd rather lead a very placid boring life....the sense of emptiness, I thought I'd developed methods to deal with, but every now and then it crops up to cripple all my reasoning, logic and rationalising, playing havoc with the decisions I take, the relationships I have in my life and generally leaving me totally screwed up. And the confusion of where I'm going, what direction my life is gonna veer in...hell I could soooooo do without that "happening" to me!!!

On a different note, I saw two movies yesterday - I returned from my Drama exam (which went pretty well) with a rather vague, irritating head-ache....while I waited for the Dispirin to kick into action I was flipping channels and out of sheer boredom settled on this teen-flick - the only description I can come up with for the movie is that it was totally "condom centred" - been ages since I saw a movie as ridiculous as that! The second movie is worth talking about...

"The Pianist" (2002), the movie that got Adrien Body his Academy award last year for best performace in leading role, is based on the auobiography of Wladyslaw Szpilman. Wladyslaw Szpilman, in the 1930s, was known as the most accomplished piano player in all of Poland, if not Europe. At the outbreak of the Second World War, however, Szpilman becomes subject to the anti-Jewish laws imposed by the conquering Germans. By the start of the 1940s, Szpilman has seen his world go from piano concert halls to the Jewish Ghetto of Warsaw and then must suffer the tragedy of his family deported to a death camp, while Szpilman is conscripted into a forced German Labor Compound. At last deciding to escape, Szpilman goes into hiding as a Jewish refugee where he is witness to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the Warsaw City Revolt in 1945.

The Pianist

Wladyslaw Szpilman

(I strongly recommend that you go through both sites to get a better feeling not only of the movie, but also of the life and passion of Szpilman!)

The scenes in which they've shown the devastated city of Warsaw, Szpilman hiding in the bombed-out buildings, rummaging through abandoned houses for some food, at times even just some clean water to drink are some of the most stark scenes I have seen in movies...but by far, the most moving scene is the one where a German officer discovers Szpilman in his last hiding place and asks him to play the piano...Szpilman does, and does so for the entire day. The German officer lets him stay in the attic of the house and helps him till the last days of the war. Though not as hard-hitting as "The Schindler's List" which I maintain is a must-see, (since this is more of a surviver's tale than an indictment of the holocaust) the movie nevertheless leaves an imprint on the mind...definitely a Must See!!!

Preening My Feathers...

Preening my feathers like a pompous peacock...umm...peahen (just doesn't have the same effect does it - peahen? Anyways you get the message! ) Why? Well, several reasons to feel good about myself...for one, yesterday's paper was damn good. Pretty much as my expectations for the paper went (not to mean that Lit Crit was below my expectations - I didn't have high expectations from that paper, considering it's my weak point!) - it always feels good to write a good paper...and yesterday I wrote well. Now if the remaining two papers go as well, or better (that would be ideal) then i'll be truly content! Ah well it all depends on how I study...ab kal ke paper ke liye maine abhi tak gadha majuri shuru nahin ki hai to dekhte hain kal kya gul khilati hoon mein! LOL!

Yesterday just before Annika left she commented on the dignified, ''cultured'' way I carry myself. I was tickled silly when I heard that. Why? Coz "cultured" always reminds me of a comment made by a friend's mother, who was lecturing us against having boyfriends, believing in this Western notion of "love" and held that "cultured khandaan ke bacche love marriage nahin karte" - ever since I've found it remarkably hilarious when the adjective is used for anyone...invariably makes me resist the urge to smile broadly! And to have the term applied to me...EGADS!

Speaking of Annika, she left yesterday....she's gone back home...infact she should be in Frankfurt in another few minutes...gonna miss her. I got used to having her come down for breakfast daily...and then join us for lunch/dinner sometimes, go to LoPrice with her to pick up something, discuss our mutual experiences...just have her around!

Here she is, before she left :


Wearing a salwar kurta! Aadhi Hindustani hai woh - she's taken back atleast 7 kurtas and several dupattas! :)


Just before she left, with her bags...I wish I could travel as light as her!! LOL!!

After she left, I felt so bereft that I ended up calling Kunu, for some "human" conversation as I said to him...wrangled with him over who's achieved more in life - him or me! Hehehe....and apna usual TP...LOL!!

Oh before I go...there's new stuff for you to read on Literary Mosaic and Literary Mosaic II

Satirical Poem 'Innocent England'

and

Feminist Reading of 'Medea'