Kolkata safe for women drivers??

Time: 10.30 am
Place: Salt Lake Sector 3, near Stadium
Bus No: WB 02 Y 1928

The road is itself bad, horrendous. Anyone travelling that route will know your car is at a risk if you dont go at 20 kmph. I was coming from byepass road toward Salt Lake, travelling to office near PNB. The bus was one of those private buses ferrying people to office in Sector 5.

As I was negotiating the potholes, I was at the extreme right of the road, almost touching the divider but for a few inches. I saw the bus hurtling down from behind me, and slowly inching right, directly towards my car. I honked with all my might, braked, stopped. the bus simply came and hit my passenger door.

Of course I was not at fault. And hence, of course, I had to do something about it. My passenger door was anyway quashed. But I wanted to take the driver to the police. I drove right in front of the bus, in the middle of the road, the bus was trying to swerve and flee... and stopped. There was enough space on both sides for traffic to cross, I had made sure of that. I got down and approached the driver. Even then I could see men hanging their heads out of the window shouting at me to move. Then it started.

The men ranged from my age- early 30-s to late 50-s. They surrounded me, first 5 then 10 then slowly maybe 25... surrounded me and started shouting, abusing, just short of touching. I said call the police, I want this sloved. The moment I said police, they started banging on my car. I was inside the car then having taken down the number of the bus. They started hitting my car on all sides, screaming at me to move. They started pushing my car. A mob of grown educated well dressed professionals... they were getting late for work.

I had a camera phone but I did not take photos. I wish I had taken the photos of the screaming mob and posted them everywhere so that employers would see them, families would see them. Men, employees, surrounding a lone woman in a car and abusing her, trying to intimidate her into moving away. But then maybe they would have taken and broken it anyway.

This is what men in Kolkata do. Nincompoos, good for nothing backboneless saviours of society.

Shishu Sadan, Thakurpukur

Priyanka is a student of Class 9. She writes- poems and short stories. Her poems are well thought out protests against social ills, against smoking, or a call to youngsters to rise and serve their country. Her stories are memorable, full of ghosts and villains and innocent girls. She is bright for her age. She sings a little, dances a little. She could have a bright future, maybe graduate with honours if she tried, and study further and have a good career of her choice. She has a career of choice. She wants to be a nurse. She will complete her 10th and go for nurse's training. Why, you ask? Priyanka is an inmate of Shishu Sadan, an orphanage, that she was sent to when she was 5, by her mother. Her mother is the only earning member of a family of four and could not afford to keep her at home.

In Thakurpukur, near the Cancer hospital, tucked away is this home for needy girls. With an inmate count presently of about 100 girls, between 5 and 18 years of age, it gives shelter to girls who have lost either or both parents, or are too poor to be sustained by their family.The girls go to school in nearby areas, education is in Bengali board. They are sent here by relatives or aquaintances and probably get the childhood here that they would have otherwise lost. They study, play, sing and dance, cook and do some gardening too.

The orphanage is not in very pristine condition though. The main rooms are fine, though like very old homes without maintainance, they have paint peeling off the walls showing plaster, furniture a mix of metal, wood and plastic. There is a 'teacher in charge', a lady in her 50-s who, the girls told me, takes good care of them, much like a mother. The caretaker is a man of 45-ish, and seemed to me to be kind and simple, with the wellbeing of the girls as his primary concern. Apart from that I did not get the necessity of the presence of the couple of men that I saw, one with half open shirt and bad manners, the other most probably the account keeper.

The living area of the girls have no separate gate or boundary but can be walked to easily from the reception rooms. The bedroom consisted of 2 attached sheds, with open asbestos covers. It would be open to climate influences, both in winter and summer. The bedroom seemed at that time to be quite unkempt and unmanaged, beds all falling on each other, floor unswept, untidy to my somewhat finicky eyes. Maybe I was expecting something unrealistic.But the girls looked happy. They study and learn to sing and dance and some art, when they get some volunteer teachers, the orphanage cant afford to get paid teachers. They have a cook who they help in teams to prepare all meals. That is how they learn to cook. They have to leave when they complete their 10th standard. Some of them become nurses, others go back home and I never really got to know what happens to them. I did not hear of even one girl continuing studies. They are too poor to afford it.

It is a great thing that these girls are getting a chance at life. They are not spending their childhood working i people homes as maids, getting abused, or cooking in tiny rooms with a dozen siblings to take care of. They are normal, leading normal childhoods. I just wish something could be done that they have a normal adolescence and normal adulthood, continue studies till a level, and work in respectable professions which gives them financial independence. Only that could pull them and their whole families out of the muck that is Indian poverty.

Shishu Sadan
Save the Children Trust
Near Cancer Hospital, Thakurpukur
To contact- please write to me

Believe it or not

An "about me" declaration from a dude on a networking site. Its copy-pasted exactly as-is.

ABOUT ME: ********SIMPLY BEYOND EXPECTATIONS....********
My Heart is like a VIOLINE......
if you strike wrong note,In a wrong string...
It will make noise,And will really irritate you...
But if you strike a beautifulnote,On the right string with loveand feel...
You will find the Music...
Which you were seeking andmissing in your Life.......
***********************************
I am like WIND...
No one can hold me,No one can keep me beside.
I follow the path of my will,And my will is a fervent followerof Dreams.
I care for no boundaries,I browse through meadows and dirts Right and Wrong, Vile and Virtue,Never bothers me at all...
I do carry the essence andfragrance of all,Whatever comes in my Way...
I may flow through your mind andHeart,Distracting your thoughts and disturbing your feelings...
If u d'nt want me In...Close the entrance and windows ofyour mind and heart.....

30 Things To Do before 30.

1. Learn to drive a car- check.
2. Own a car- half check.
3. Own my house- Dream on.
4. Marry- check.
5. Have my first child- check.
6. Settle down in a job- check.
7. Wear a boot and stilletos- check.
8. Get a business suit- check.
9. Know what true love feels like- check.
10. Rearrange my life, list all birthdays anniversaries and names, make everything work like clockwork- no comment.
11. Finish my MA in English- I can only say I started 3 years back.
12. NGO work- I tried for sometime, but its not a "check" yet.
13. Start my novel- Yeah, right!!!
14. Read all the books I have bought over the years- No time.
15. Become a culture vulture, start visiting music festivals and theatre performances- ditto.
16. Get my finances on track- no comment.
17. Search out Promita Adhikary, my college buddy who went underground- I wish.
18. Get ego out of the window, kill them with kindness- Still at it.
19. Mature- Ditto.
20. Start something, a business, something, anything...- no comment.
21. Visit Paris.
22. Learn calculus, I mean really learn it.
23. Read Bangla, at least some of the classics.
24. Finish Joyce's Ulysses.
25. Learn to play the sitar- oh well.
26. Learn to play the piano- ditto.
27. Have only sexy underwear- ;)
28. Learn to dance.
29. Learn to cook a mean biryani.
30. Love like there is no tomorrow- check check check... No really, this one should be- Learn to speak French, even if broken- C'est la vie, mon amour.

It was cold last night... the type of cold where your can see your breath. We had gone to a friends wedding, our city batch mates, which counts up to probably 5 or 6, nothing compared to other cities... and I was friggin shaking in my 4 inch heels. Felt good catching up but its all so yawn nowadays. All I want to do is, yeah yeah, have some fun, and all I ever do is bare my teeth and hear everyone around me speak speak speak. Oh, for the lost days of innocence. One would give an arm to have a guffaw team around, and laugh till ones bladder rebels. Sigh! Where are all the laughathons gone?

On the turn of the year

So much is happening in 2008... my daughter had her annaprashan ceremony (rice ceremony) last week. Just a family get together, a 20 person affair... it went off well. We did not have a big ceremony. My family, who were largely left out are not done complaining yet. They have this to say- it seems my annaprashan was a gala affair. Another one of those things. When you were a child, so and so happened! Did anyone tell our parents that?

It still takes a lot to accept that I am not a little girl any more. I have a little girl of my own. It seems just like yesterday when my cheeks would get pulled by everyone... now its my daughters turn. Seems just like yesterday that I changed school and came to the place which shaped much of my adult life. Gave me friends for a lifetime... "jibono moroner shimana charaye" - beyond boundaries of life and death... and soon, too soon my baby will be going to school, making friends of her own.

It is good that I remember much of what I went through at every juncture of life. I will know what to expect when she cries on her first day in school, or throws a tantrum when, some years later, I tell her, no, she cant go to the sleep over at her friends place.

I want to be a good mother. A good mother is a combination of disciplinarian and friend. I hope I will be able to keep the balance. I hope I will be able to instill in her the respect and compassion my parents did. And whatever happens, I make a promise that she will never feel lonely as long as I am alive... she will never feel so lost that there is no way out.

I am waiting for her to start talking so I can tell her stories, fairy tales and where they are wrong about life (happily ever after??? really!!!??? - more on that later), fables with a moral and why they are important, stories from my head, of magical lands and mythical creatures. I am waiting for her to walk and run so I can take her to open fields and run on the green soft grass with her, holding her hand when she is tired and needs reassurance. I am waiting for her to start her lessons, studies, music and whatever else she wants to do. But most of all I am waiting for her to turn 15, when she will start discovering the world on her own... so that I can stand in the sidelines with my arms folded, and a smile, watching my baby as she finally learns to fly. I will be right here, when she wants to fly back to me to dry her tears and then tell her its ok, life is beautiful, life is as we see it... we can color it with our technicolor dreams in whatever shade we wish it to be.

Ahhhh! Three cheers for retail therapy. Last night I thought life had ended... right now, Im on Cloud 9. And about 8k short in my bank. Oh but its so worth it. Not only am I on a non-alcohol induced high, but also, I have 4 pairs of shoes, and a couple of shirts to show for it. Didnt binge of food though, just a juice and a strawberries with cream for my partner-in-shopping sister... Im an angel.

http://www.people.com/people/package/gallery/0,,20160055_20160112,00.html

We poor things are competing with this???

Long ago when I was a kid, my mum, sister and I used to spend lazy winter afternoons on the verandah, soaking in the sun, and peeling oranges to eat. The smell of oranges remind me of those days of innocence, when the biggest fear in life would be the term end examinations and biggest trouble the next days home work.

Isnt it amazing how different smells can transfer us to the past. My favourites- Johnsons baby products, because they remind me of my baby sister, I use their lotion and soap till this day, always will. Certain soaps, some fragrances or talcs remind us of specific people or of a phase in ones life... onions and stale cigarette smoke, wierdly... oh, well!