The hollow and hungry media has ripped apart the dignity of Santhi Soundarajan. She won a silver medal for the 800m run at the Doha Asian games. Soon after headlines ran screaming that she had failed the gender test, hyping and sensationalizing the fact that she lacks female sexual characteristics.
Why does this make front page headline news? Because she is of ambiguous gender? Because she cheated (if she did)? Because the Indian sports council or whatever it is that decides which athletes represent India deliberately hid facts? ……the only thing that seems to be highlighted is that she has failed a gender test ,leaving the rest to everyone’s imagination.
It appears that she studied in a girls school and college. She has lived all her life as a woman. This is possible in certain genetic disorders where the sex gene combinations go haywire eg xxy ,xxyy, x0 etc. Such people may be intersexuals.
I do not dismiss that Santhi knew she was not a woman, she preferred to be a woman due to a combination of genetics, hormones and perhaps some external attributes. If that is so, then we need to rethink our outlook to people with gender ambiguity and find a way in which they can be equal participants in events such as this. Unless it is a clear cut case of cheating, I think no one has the right to strip her of her medal. More importantly no one had any right to strip her of her dignity.
Monday, December 18, 2006
Sunday, December 17, 2006
My determination to gym can qualify as the newest DSM entry. Gymming can be great fun on some days and a complete torture on others. The weighing scales in the gym are rigged..always!!!.....the gym instructor has a new challenge for you everyday…but at the end of that hour I feel great.
Recently I have tried out running sideways on the treadmill. When I first tried it, I was sure that I would get hurled out of the window and land on the branch of the tree outside. With practice, it has become my favourite form of treadmill exercise.
Does anyone have challenging exercises to do on the treadmill? If you do…do post them!
Recently I have tried out running sideways on the treadmill. When I first tried it, I was sure that I would get hurled out of the window and land on the branch of the tree outside. With practice, it has become my favourite form of treadmill exercise.
Does anyone have challenging exercises to do on the treadmill? If you do…do post them!
Monday, December 11, 2006
Exams!
So the exam corrections have begun…..
Some answers….
Science grade-8
1.Define population:
• A place where there are people or cars.
• A non renewable resource
2. Business Studies grade-9
What is a franchise?
When KFC opens many branches or chains.
………………..more to come…………….
Animal cells dont have animal cells (bio answer grade-11)
an answer to "Explain how HIV-AIDS can affect the economy if the government does not take measures to prevent it"
HIV-AIDS is a commodity. It is good for health. (grade-12)
Some answers….
Science grade-8
1.Define population:
• A place where there are people or cars.
• A non renewable resource
2. Business Studies grade-9
What is a franchise?
When KFC opens many branches or chains.
………………..more to come…………….
Animal cells dont have animal cells (bio answer grade-11)
an answer to "Explain how HIV-AIDS can affect the economy if the government does not take measures to prevent it"
HIV-AIDS is a commodity. It is good for health. (grade-12)
Monday, November 13, 2006
If the legal system in India flushed itself down the loo, everyone will clap their hands and be happy.
A recent verdict spared a rapist from the death sentence by saying that he had a momentary lapse seeing a girl alone in a field. The girl was eight and she bled to death.
A senile lawyer, rotting in the body and brain now tries to bring Jessica Laal’s character into question by saying that she refused a sexual favour because she preferred someone else.
Justice for Hetal Parekh, raped and murdered, came after 14 years.
The parents of Priyadarshini Matoo still wait………
And along with the judiciary the media and human rights activists can become a part of the sewage.
The media simply loves to give long sleazy insights into “a day in the life of the rape victim”……………………mostly she is a woman of loose morals………so , that being the case, implies our puritan media, she asked for it……..
Poor guy…all he had was a momentary lapse…..
The human rights activists meanwhile hold candlelight vigils to prevent the hanging of rapist-murderers. While the victims families suffer through agony the HRA holiday in Hawaii…………when Dhananjoy Chatterjee was sentenced to death, the media and the HRA’s went to every extent possible to make him out to be a poor bloke who was wronged……….
We can protest, cry, scream, blog, get violent…..but it is that minority that wins…Vox Populi??!!………….as if!
A recent verdict spared a rapist from the death sentence by saying that he had a momentary lapse seeing a girl alone in a field. The girl was eight and she bled to death.
A senile lawyer, rotting in the body and brain now tries to bring Jessica Laal’s character into question by saying that she refused a sexual favour because she preferred someone else.
Justice for Hetal Parekh, raped and murdered, came after 14 years.
The parents of Priyadarshini Matoo still wait………
And along with the judiciary the media and human rights activists can become a part of the sewage.
The media simply loves to give long sleazy insights into “a day in the life of the rape victim”……………………mostly she is a woman of loose morals………so , that being the case, implies our puritan media, she asked for it……..
Poor guy…all he had was a momentary lapse…..
The human rights activists meanwhile hold candlelight vigils to prevent the hanging of rapist-murderers. While the victims families suffer through agony the HRA holiday in Hawaii…………when Dhananjoy Chatterjee was sentenced to death, the media and the HRA’s went to every extent possible to make him out to be a poor bloke who was wronged……….
We can protest, cry, scream, blog, get violent…..but it is that minority that wins…Vox Populi??!!………….as if!
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Reading blogs here and there, about this thing and that, annoys me even as it amuses. But I must not rush to type out hard hitting adjectives and nasty things that my brain is throwing up at a speed that frustrates my fingers. They are being held down, each on some letter on the keyboard, while a diplomatic discussion via my nerve impulses goes on between them and my brain. The brain trying to work out the best way possible to communicate its (imagined) excellent analysis, and if I may add ,superior view of the
mangled and confused (though excellently worded) , highly opinionated and sting ray venom loaded rambling on these blogs. The fingers tap their impatience. Diplomatic dialogue is the same everywhere.!
Ah! But I ramble myself…….
Clothes, jewels, houses, cars and gadgets…….the labels of snobbery for the intellectual's poor country cousin……… and identity, political alliances, religion and such stuff, the shredding and salad making of which, the status symbols of the imagined intellectual elite.
As far as I can see, their arguments stand only on the debris of those they have verbally destroyed. Certainly not on their own merit. What good an argument is that? The school bully is happily fed with the snack time munchies of other children, is he not?
With so many examples that I want to give to substantiate my haphazard thoughts, I feel limited by saying “Now take for example what the rag and tag girl said about designer jeans”………….so…….I will allow my thoughts to jumble and tumble and occasionally my fingers may outsmart my brain and quietly push in some evil refreshing thought, well camouflaged .
And….may I add…kind of you dear reader for still reading on……
So why must the priestly caste be shredded in order to make the non temple inheriting, non thread wearing but otherwise perfectly normal multicellulars feel good about themselves as they sit shaking their heads over cups coffee and deep fried things?
……………if you stand tall on debris, you will crash right through and the splinters will cut you and the ash will blacken the many parts of the anatomy that hit it……………….
Besides all that is achieved is another layer of cement to strengthen the granite stone strong dividing wall…………
Actions, I was taught in my Human Values class, a century ago in school, speak louder than words. So list 5 people ( non kudumbi) whose standard of living , education, health and general well being has improved thanks to consistent hands on effort and struggle by the eminent authors of such blogs………………..um….list 1.
………………and now as my lunch bell rings……I must go…..more later…..
mangled and confused (though excellently worded) , highly opinionated and sting ray venom loaded rambling on these blogs. The fingers tap their impatience. Diplomatic dialogue is the same everywhere.!
Ah! But I ramble myself…….
Clothes, jewels, houses, cars and gadgets…….the labels of snobbery for the intellectual's poor country cousin……… and identity, political alliances, religion and such stuff, the shredding and salad making of which, the status symbols of the imagined intellectual elite.
As far as I can see, their arguments stand only on the debris of those they have verbally destroyed. Certainly not on their own merit. What good an argument is that? The school bully is happily fed with the snack time munchies of other children, is he not?
With so many examples that I want to give to substantiate my haphazard thoughts, I feel limited by saying “Now take for example what the rag and tag girl said about designer jeans”………….so…….I will allow my thoughts to jumble and tumble and occasionally my fingers may outsmart my brain and quietly push in some evil refreshing thought, well camouflaged .
And….may I add…kind of you dear reader for still reading on……
So why must the priestly caste be shredded in order to make the non temple inheriting, non thread wearing but otherwise perfectly normal multicellulars feel good about themselves as they sit shaking their heads over cups coffee and deep fried things?
……………if you stand tall on debris, you will crash right through and the splinters will cut you and the ash will blacken the many parts of the anatomy that hit it……………….
Besides all that is achieved is another layer of cement to strengthen the granite stone strong dividing wall…………
Actions, I was taught in my Human Values class, a century ago in school, speak louder than words. So list 5 people ( non kudumbi) whose standard of living , education, health and general well being has improved thanks to consistent hands on effort and struggle by the eminent authors of such blogs………………..um….list 1.
………………and now as my lunch bell rings……I must go…..more later…..
Friday, October 13, 2006
Monday, September 04, 2006
Living in the eternal hope that there might be some truth…...just some in the Bermuda triangle mystery.....as well as so many others ......Easter Island, Atlantis, the Aztecs, the Myans….. I wonder with cat like curiosity about the things people believe in totally or at least secretly hope might be true………aliens….yeti…..vampires……timetravel……..
Do write in……..
Do write in……..
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Monday, August 14, 2006
Fear freezes us into inaction. As a defense mechanism, inaction works quite well. What fear also does is fills the silences that it creates with despair. Despair fills everything with everything unsaid. Words, chiseled and polished in the mind, in the hope of the sentence being perfect, come out instead haphazardly and strew themselves around, so that all one ends up doing is hurriedly gathering them up and trying to string them together again.
Fear. That is what it does to us.
And so it is the fear of loss that causes the loss. We go back to our fetal self . Close our eyes, curl ourselves into that state of being which was the safest. We weld slowly and surely each link of the chain that we allow to rest on ourselves, cold. What is that strange comfort that we find in allowing ourselves to be so bound?
Inaction the conjoined twin of Fear freezes us.
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
………………………..
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
………………
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all
already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
Extracts from the love song of J Alfred Prufrock-TS Eliot.
And so fear prevents us from feeling, from believing, from accepting want.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”
Extracts from the love song of Alfred J Prufrock-TS Eliot.
Bleak?....defeatist?....yes…but also true?.....
I am not talking here about having the will to conquer fear, nor about being able to pull together and all the talk that accompanies such thoughts. I am limiting myself to understanding Fear and its possibilities……and I am still groping….
Fear. That is what it does to us.
And so it is the fear of loss that causes the loss. We go back to our fetal self . Close our eyes, curl ourselves into that state of being which was the safest. We weld slowly and surely each link of the chain that we allow to rest on ourselves, cold. What is that strange comfort that we find in allowing ourselves to be so bound?
Inaction the conjoined twin of Fear freezes us.
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
………………………..
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
………………
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all
already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
Extracts from the love song of J Alfred Prufrock-TS Eliot.
And so fear prevents us from feeling, from believing, from accepting want.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”
Extracts from the love song of Alfred J Prufrock-TS Eliot.
Bleak?....defeatist?....yes…but also true?.....
I am not talking here about having the will to conquer fear, nor about being able to pull together and all the talk that accompanies such thoughts. I am limiting myself to understanding Fear and its possibilities……and I am still groping….
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
CUPA-Large animal urban camp
Last month I helped out in an large animal camp near mysore road. CUPA holds these camps every month. One camp is held in a village and the other in the city. All kinds of animals are treated free of cost here. Horses, bullocks and cows form the majority of the animals who are treated.You can sponsor a camp..Rs 5000/- for a ruralcamp and a little less for an urban camp!....do help.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Cat went hop hop hop….flew up the curtain, hid behind it…and no..she does not care if you don’t come to look for her. An occasional paw , a careless tail , grins and says she is still there incase you forgot……
Soon enough she gets bored…hops out…strolls…no…blinks past….gives a quick lick to an already gleaming coat….(ye she says, I know I am beautiful)…….lands on the bed…and purrs…talk of seduction! Learn it from a cat!
Naturally when you pick her up and cuddle her, she, queen like, tolerates it…and when she can take it no more flies off…leaving you with shredded hands and a bleeding heart…
Soon enough she gets bored…hops out…strolls…no…blinks past….gives a quick lick to an already gleaming coat….(ye she says, I know I am beautiful)…….lands on the bed…and purrs…talk of seduction! Learn it from a cat!
Naturally when you pick her up and cuddle her, she, queen like, tolerates it…and when she can take it no more flies off…leaving you with shredded hands and a bleeding heart…
Monday, August 07, 2006
The not so pretty always have it hard. Try as we may, it is difficult very often to shake away the sheer physicality of a person. More so if that person is us. Superficial? No.
Even our folklore tells us that it was the beautiful one who got it all. The ugly step sister always lost everything. Besides being ugly, she was a wicked conniving vengeful creature, as opposed to the simple lovely well meaning beauty. Thus pairing up beauty with virtue and ugliness with all that is bad.
I wonder if we have the courage to look within and honestly say that physical attractiveness or the lack of us does not affect our relationships with people. In a group of people with everything else constant except that one is a stunner and the other has some form of physical drawback, a person is very unlikely to get attracted to the ugly twin. True?......
So then what happens to the ugly twin? With society reinforcing constantly her limitations, she withdraws. What is the use anyway?.....
Even our folklore tells us that it was the beautiful one who got it all. The ugly step sister always lost everything. Besides being ugly, she was a wicked conniving vengeful creature, as opposed to the simple lovely well meaning beauty. Thus pairing up beauty with virtue and ugliness with all that is bad.
I wonder if we have the courage to look within and honestly say that physical attractiveness or the lack of us does not affect our relationships with people. In a group of people with everything else constant except that one is a stunner and the other has some form of physical drawback, a person is very unlikely to get attracted to the ugly twin. True?......
So then what happens to the ugly twin? With society reinforcing constantly her limitations, she withdraws. What is the use anyway?.....
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
What stuff are we made of?
Alice Sebold’s Lucky made me sad, angry and strangely happy. Rape is a difficult word. Difficult to say, difficult to discuss and indecently invading to read about.
Alice, who was raped when she was 18 tells her story in a language that is simple, straightforward and uncomfortably honest. The world for her is divided between those who have been raped and those who have not. She speaks of her anguish at being treated like something no one knew what to with, of her humorous tolerance towards those who tried to be nice to her, of her having to become her family’s emotional crutch post her rape and her relentless battle to get her rapist convicted .
Makes me question empathy. To what extent can we truly claim reach out and feel another’s pain as our own? A pain that we may never have experienced? “Oh I know how exactly how you feel!”……empty even if well meaning.
The fumble, stumble of words. “Just give me a call if you need me”….., the discomfort of hanging around the person, not knowing what to say. The intellectualization, or worse, the “it could have been worse” cliché….(someone had told Alice she was lucky that she had not been killed), the pity, the deep sighs and the whispering of “poor thing” compound an already terrible situation.
Perhaps sexual abuse is the worst of traumas that a person can experience. Even as I type this, I am already dividing and distancing myself from those who have experienced such abuse. I wonder how I would feel if I were to read this if I had been abused. Would my mind replay the trauma each time? I do not know.
And what about life? Is it ever the same again?.....relationships? will they ever be the same? The way a person is perceived?...what changes?....
We are a cowardly lot, we humans. We cannot deal with our own discomfort. And don’t we feel a guilty relief at not being the person we cannot suddenly deal with?
Disillusionment….that’s what I feel…with myself and with the way we have turned out to be.
Alice, who was raped when she was 18 tells her story in a language that is simple, straightforward and uncomfortably honest. The world for her is divided between those who have been raped and those who have not. She speaks of her anguish at being treated like something no one knew what to with, of her humorous tolerance towards those who tried to be nice to her, of her having to become her family’s emotional crutch post her rape and her relentless battle to get her rapist convicted .
Makes me question empathy. To what extent can we truly claim reach out and feel another’s pain as our own? A pain that we may never have experienced? “Oh I know how exactly how you feel!”……empty even if well meaning.
The fumble, stumble of words. “Just give me a call if you need me”….., the discomfort of hanging around the person, not knowing what to say. The intellectualization, or worse, the “it could have been worse” cliché….(someone had told Alice she was lucky that she had not been killed), the pity, the deep sighs and the whispering of “poor thing” compound an already terrible situation.
Perhaps sexual abuse is the worst of traumas that a person can experience. Even as I type this, I am already dividing and distancing myself from those who have experienced such abuse. I wonder how I would feel if I were to read this if I had been abused. Would my mind replay the trauma each time? I do not know.
And what about life? Is it ever the same again?.....relationships? will they ever be the same? The way a person is perceived?...what changes?....
We are a cowardly lot, we humans. We cannot deal with our own discomfort. And don’t we feel a guilty relief at not being the person we cannot suddenly deal with?
Disillusionment….that’s what I feel…with myself and with the way we have turned out to be.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Thursday, July 27, 2006
School School!!!
One week of school ….almost done…..mostly a good week. Loaded with extra work this year…hmmm…
An interesting bunch of new colleagues…..one of who promptly came up to me , struck up a 2&1/2 minute conversation, mostly hers, and told me that I seemed to be the kind who will not settle for just anybody….whatever that meant!.....further to that she said she could just see it……right away…the moment she saw me….and went on to add something that was supposed to be a compliment about the way I was dressed…..did not quite come out that way…..hmmm…
And…..yesterday I had a chaat orgy at school……lunch had chaat added to it…so yum yum yum!
Meanwhile our school….getting their documentation perfect …are making us do the following….
1. Curriculum overview- something that spells out all we will do this year….
2.Scheme of work.. something that spells out all we will do this year..
3.Lesson plans…. something that spells out all we will do this year
5.Level-1 Planning.. something that spells out all we will do this year
6,Level-2 Planning… something that spells out all we will do this year
7.Level-3 planning… something that spells out all we will do this year
8.PBL-Problem based learning.. something that spells out all we will do this year
Apart from lots more….join to find out.
……and…..when we get out teacher hand books….this is hand written once again in the form of Daily Planning….
Now beat that!
……………….
And we get chocolate chip cookies everyday….
I miss the kids….badly!
I want Brandon George!
I do not want to get back to regular classes…..
…………
I am currently bunking the IT workshop……never thought that the staff room, that I avoid totally, fully and completely will be my refuge!
My colleagues look at me with holy horror ( how can she dare to bunk?!)
Ah! Dear ol Meenakshi joins me!
Bunkers love company!
An interesting bunch of new colleagues…..one of who promptly came up to me , struck up a 2&1/2 minute conversation, mostly hers, and told me that I seemed to be the kind who will not settle for just anybody….whatever that meant!.....further to that she said she could just see it……right away…the moment she saw me….and went on to add something that was supposed to be a compliment about the way I was dressed…..did not quite come out that way…..hmmm…
And…..yesterday I had a chaat orgy at school……lunch had chaat added to it…so yum yum yum!
Meanwhile our school….getting their documentation perfect …are making us do the following….
1. Curriculum overview- something that spells out all we will do this year….
2.Scheme of work.. something that spells out all we will do this year..
3.Lesson plans…. something that spells out all we will do this year
5.Level-1 Planning.. something that spells out all we will do this year
6,Level-2 Planning… something that spells out all we will do this year
7.Level-3 planning… something that spells out all we will do this year
8.PBL-Problem based learning.. something that spells out all we will do this year
Apart from lots more….join to find out.
……and…..when we get out teacher hand books….this is hand written once again in the form of Daily Planning….
Now beat that!
……………….
And we get chocolate chip cookies everyday….
I miss the kids….badly!
I want Brandon George!
I do not want to get back to regular classes…..
…………
I am currently bunking the IT workshop……never thought that the staff room, that I avoid totally, fully and completely will be my refuge!
My colleagues look at me with holy horror ( how can she dare to bunk?!)
Ah! Dear ol Meenakshi joins me!
Bunkers love company!
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