Sunshine's song.

PS: This is for my friend's pet who I loved dearly. Sunshine. She had the loveliest voice ever. I tried to make this good but I couldn't. But I do want this to be my 50th post on here.
************************************************************************
Oh little yellow Canary
Perched on top of a mighty tree
You sing songs of melancholy
As we stop to listen.
Everyday your feathers fall
A reminder of your final call
Your sadness makes us all look small
And teardrops in our eyes glisten.


There's a distant look in your eyes
The color of the deepest skies
The window reflecting your helpless cries
But no one seems to see
For a bird's song is always careless
Free of impending worries or stress
So people laugh and say god bless!
Our chirpy little Canary.

Then one morning you were gone
And it was before long
No more was heard of the song
That still lingers in the air
But oh what I wouldn't give
To see you come back and live
And once again hold me captive
In your voice's golden lair.

Breast ironing and irony

I spoke to this Nigerian girl a while back -Mahparah (not her real name). She is a lively seventeen year old and the first girl in her family to go to school. She laughs like an angel. A laugh that conceals all the pain that her past carries. Every moment of horror and agony that she went through. 

Mahparah misses her sister. She's dead. "Dead!" I exclaim. "How? What happened to her?" Mahparah does not answer. She says I might not understand if she told me. After some reassurance and prodding Mahparah says she was killed by her mother and by the society. By now I am sure it's some evil ritual of the community she lives in. I ask her to tell me more. She shared some pictures with me. Pictures of breasts. Deformed breasts. Breasts that looked like they had froth forming on them. Froth of scalded flesh. Blisters and boils. Her breasts were ironed with a hot grinding stone -the traditional way. 

I took one look at those pictures and I supressed a shriek. Mahparah continued to speak without emotion. Three days after her sister's breasts were ironed, her genitals were mutilated. She died shortly after that due to a horrible haemorrhage. It has been ten years now but Mahparah has not forgotten her sister's screams. And her mother's. She remembers her mother screaming... at her sister... telling her to bite her lip and take it all in. 

Mahparah said to me... you're a feminist... please do something about this. Tell people about this. Nobody even knows what we endure. Nobody knows what this is all about. And even if they do... it's only through all the scientific terms they use in articles and papers. Nobody understands the gravity.

 It's true. People know about many problems women face. Seldom have I come across people actually knowing what breast ironing is. Her words saddened me so much that it felt like somebody just placed a rock on my heart. This is why I want to tell Mahparah's story to the world. I really can't say much because I am not at liberty to reveal where she is from. (((Yes she told me not to eve if I said I changed her name :-| :'( )))

To Mahparah's luck, after her sister died... a qualified doctor had come to visit their community. He warned her parents that she would take Mahparah away to America if they did any of this BS to her. Mahparah and some other girls in her community were saved. But those were only a few. 

You must be wondering why on earth they do this. Because according to them the girls don't get raped by boys and men. Because the name of the family is held high. Because there's no loss of reputaion. And genitals are cut because they are evil and they are unhealthy. Because they will cause a woman to become a monster. Don't all these "religious" people who think that FGM should be done because god said so THINK for one moment? If god didn't want women to have clits, then they wouldn't have them. But they do so why cut it off? Patriarchy -down with you. 

A note to all people saying I'm not a feminist BUT I care for women's rights... You know guys? Feminists are not evil devils who want to turn all men into stone and then destroy them with sledgehammers. We only want equality. There are some bad apples who claim to be feminists but they want female superiority. I think they're idiots. All the real feminists think they're idiots. So if you want equality for women and men then you ARE a feminist. Why the term feminist? Because this has always been about women not getting the same legal or social privileges as men do. Not the other way round. 

Anyway that's not what, Mahparah is a hero to me. To anybody who cares to listen to her story. She is the face of bravery and courage. She stood up to her parents and said she needs to go to school like her brothers. "I'm first in class. I finally beat the boy who sists next to me in math", she said to me with an undeniable sense of pride and innocence. My heat goes out to her and all the other girls in that village who have sad stories to tell but they don't find the time to tell it. They are now shaping the future of their country. 

At the end of it all Mahparah returned to her usual self and with the laughter that captivates all souls, she said to me -"You know Swati, it's good to finally see some girls with breasts!" 

F.R.I.E.N.D.S

Today as I sit here having my lunch alone in my room, my thoughts drift back to this same day two years back. I see a terrace and six friends. Standing and talking about everything under the sun.

Suddenly A aimed to hit at B who ducked and C got the shot instead. D,E and F started laughing and E laughed so hard that she started crying. I think about this and I cry. It was beautiful. To always have someone beside you who will not let you feel like you're alone. Solidarity, trust, loyalty... Those were/are the ideals by which we lived and we still do. But then this thing called growing up happened to all of us. And so today we're poles apart but I can tell you... nothing has changed. We have to live where we have to live -- Not close by anymore. We can't spend much telephoning and messaging each other. A) There's no time and B) There's no money. But when we do get to talk to each other... it is one of those things which can not be described... Surreal. To know that the chipmunk that you knew finally got that haircut, the sly fox you felt like beating with a sledgehammer actually said "I miss you sis"... It's just out of the world. Ms. Studious managed time out of her studay (Study day but to her everyday is that so...) and sent me this message : Hey... Sem's going on. Will message you after it's over :)
I swear I could have hugged her. Maybe it's not much but just when you're feeling low there are these faces that you know and these hearts that you've shared so much with say hey you're not alone... It's just the best feeling in the world.

This is one thing among those many other things that MasterCard can't buy. :P

Rachel Corrie

I don't know why it took me so long to write about her but I now am. The world should know her.

This is the speech she gave when she was in 5th grade:
I’m here for other children.
I’m here because I care.
I’m here because children everywhere are suffering and because forty thousand people die each day from hunger.
I’m here because those people are mostly children.
We have got to understand that the poor are all around us and we are ignoring them.
We have got to understand that these deaths are preventable.
We have got to understand that people in third world countries think and care and smile and cry just like us.
We have got to understand that they dream our dreams and we dream theirs.
We have got to understand that they are us. We are them.
My dream is to stop hunger by the year 2000.
My dream is to give the poor a chance.
My dream is to save the 40,000 people who die each day.
My dream can and will come true if we all look into the future and see the light that shines there.
If we ignore hunger, that light will go out.
If we all help and work together, it will grow and burn free with the potential of tomorrow.

– Rachel Corrie, aged ten, recorded at her school’s Fifth Grade Press Conference on World Hunger

She was an American who left to Palestine to lend her support for the people out there. Her protest was non-violent and like all the other people who wanted to do good for the humanity, she was killed by the Israelis. Crushed by the merciless blades of a bulldozer. She stood up and looked straight at the operator. He carried on and ran over her. Then he moved back and buried her deeper into the sand. She was only able to say : "My back is broken". She was taken to a hospital and later, she died. The American government funds the Israelis and they are yet to say anything about this issue.

These are two interesting links and if you're reading this blog, I request you to please take a look at them.
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/corrie.html

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/rc-myth&fact.html



Palestine will miss you Rachel Corrie. So will the rest of the world. We hope that the Gaza strip will not be taken over by wrongful hands. Rest in peace. You are and will always remain to be mine and many other people's hero. Thank you.

A day with my best friend

For you TP :)

When I first joined my college, there were two people who I thought I could NEVER be close to. One of them, is this girl who is ebullient and cranky and wants to do ten things at one time. Vaish. Today she is good company when I'm bored. Nice girl. The second is TP. Brilliant woman. And I MEAN brilliant. She aces quiz. So good at it that she made it look easier than a nursery rhyme. Economy, literature, politics - you name it. TP knows it. OK so she is a little opinionated and gives her opinions when not asked sometimes but it is sort of hard for her to see even teachers talk crap and just sit there.

I never really spoke to her properly in the first year but as we advanced into the second, I got to know her better. The first response that you would elicit by TP's mention is 'Intellectual'. But as I interacted with her, I got to know that beneath those owly spectacles and assertive arguments, TP was a really nice person. She has absolutely no arrogance or haughtiness. Yes she has really high self - esteem and she has what it takes to back it up. An amazing writer, TP can shuffle and juxtapose her words so well that I have little doubt that if she ever writes a book, it will sell like hot cakes. Not just because she can make it sound good but because she believes in what she writes and her conviction just makes my respect for her go two-fold. A strong feminist, armed with a library of facts and figures in her head, TP is quite a scare to some chauvinists!

But at the end of the day, my favourite thing about my best friend is that she can really listen to you. If she wouldn't have been there I don't know how I could have waded my way through college thus far! Maybe sometimes she is busy and doesn't get to spend much time with me. But when she does, it is one of the best days of my life. Because she will sit there and listen to you rant, vent out your fury about anything from the stupid budget or the size of Cadbury's chocolates. She's this not just to me but to her lil baby brotha, T and some other people. And I'm sure we all love her.

TP, thanks for today and everyday. You make friendship a celebration. :) I have absolutely no doubt that you'll have no trouble climbing your way up to the top. Thanks for being you and thanks for being there :)