A Night of Horror....

I was reading through a news-piece in TOI(The Time of India) today and it talked about how rapists are treated in jails in Ahemdabad. It talked about how people serving for murder are treated with sheer respect but rapists are given a SPECIAL treatment. Their ordeal starts from the moment they enter jail-compounds at the hands of the jail-staff first and later they are beaten up by the gangs in the jail and left to rot. Some of them who have committed crimes with minors are turned to the homosexuals in the jail for their interests. I am not sure if the report was targetted towards sympathy for the rapists or for a fear of punishment at the hands of not only the law but the co-prisoners. My question to the reporter is : Does he knw the trauma a victim goes thru when she is subjected to not only physical but mental torture when she is raped and her real trauma begins after the law takes its course and the news is out. With media peeping through the windows, trying to get the dark side of the victim out, it becomes more tough for a victim to come out of the shell and approach the path of law.Surprisingly they concentrate more on the character that she was, what she wore and how many guy frenz she had and did she drink? Ah! Gimme a break guys! Its no TV reality show. Soon the moral police is out with statements like , Gals shud wear this and that, my question to them is, do they know that maximum number of rapes involve a victim who is covered from top-bottom in traditional Indian wear. The statistics for Delhi says , 85% of the victims were dressed in Indian attire.And how about the infants and kids below 2 yrs of age, are they also trying to attract attention of men?I wonder what does the moral police have to say about it. The other day me and Bhai were discussing such a case and we concluded that such people need medical help as they are sick minds. Its not that we are the first people to think so, the great expert Psychiatrists have given similar verdicts on the psychology of such criminals. There have been debates about capital punishment being given to the culprits, women judges being assigned the cases, in-camera trials, fast-track courts etc but none has materialised to the extent of extending a practical help to the victims. There are many unanswered questions and ironically, when I am about to finish this post, a new bill has been passed by the cabinet as per which the victim will be given a fair trial at her place only(she will not even have to go to the court).The union cabinet's decision last week to bring in amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) to help rape victims, including having women judges and conducting trial in the homes of the victims, may sound good on paper but it is not practically feasible, say legal experts.I am not sure how feasible it will be in practice but I am sure that the law is moving somewhere here.I hope someday India will be safer and better for everyone especially children and women. In past few weeks, reports of child abuse have haunted all newspapers in Delhi and they make me shiver in fear and shock and if that was not enough then I read about a woman who had to fight hard to get a report lodged in a Punjab police Station.No matter what day and date it is, if I decide on reading the papers,they are full of such news. Makes me feel really helpless at times. :( I have also encountered one such incident almost 3 years back, when I was working for DELL Technical Support in NOIDA. On my way back from office in my cab at around 8 pm, we were 3 people in the cab : A guy from my team, the cab driver and myself. We were on NH 24 and as we were nearing ghaziabad, the cab driver pushed the breaks so hard, it screeched. It was a female trying to stop the vehicle signalling with her hands and sooner she disappeared. The cabbie and an army guy from another car ran in her direction and as they told me they saw her pushing two men off the pavement in the middle of the road and collapsing there only.I was inside the car as advised by my team-member and the army guy.In a lapse of few moments I saw them carrying her to the car and we gave her water and asked her to take some deep breaths so she coudl tell us what exactly happened there. She told me how the bus driver deserted them on a lonely spot on the highway and she was walking to get a richshaw to get home and these two guys started following her. Her clothes were terribly torn. :( She said one of them grabbed her from the back and the other one kissed her forcefully and then they tried pushing her towards the densely-forested spot next to the highway tearing her clother apart and that too in the middle of the road that had good amount of traffic even 3 years back. Nobody stopped to her rescue and thank god we did. She kept on repeating one thing, " I am a software specialist, I work with CSC and how can this happen to me?". I dont remember how many times she said that. But she kept mumbling all through the way to her home.She was a petite and innocent person to look at and was in shock.I hugged her and told her it can happen to anyone and she is lucky she had someone to help her and she should feel blessed about it now. She did not even tell me the way to her house fearing something I really dont have a clue about. Finally I convinced her to lead me to her house so I can drop her, the poor thing stayed alone with her grandmother and thus was petrified if what would she say after seeing her in this condition. I can never forget that night, it is deeply carved in my mind. I could not sleep the whole night thinking what if it was me or someone I know for that matter. I told my parents and I know even they did not sleep. I still remember how she shuddered in my arms when I tried to calm her. I still remember the fear in her eyes. I never made an effort to get back to her and ask her as to how she is coz I dont want her to ever see me again or remember that incident. But Will she forget?? That night was a NIGHT OF HORROR and I have seen it so closely that I still wonder what if we did not stop for her, what if we coudl not save her? Wish people become more aware and helpful towards others so we can avoid such traumatic experiences for several women and children spread across India. P.S. It may not sound ironical enuff to spend time on it, but it will definitely make the readers think before they ignore a call for help.

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Yeh Dil Maangey More!!

Whenever I am off to bangalore for an official trip, I make it a point to catch up with frenz. Some of them are a permanent fixture in the itnerary. So on one of such visits to a dear friend of mine, I met someone I used to be a great fan of. Reason being I assumed he was a person of great conviction,loyalty and sensitivity of what all I had seen of him with my friend. Anyways, the post is not about him to start with but about something bhai told me once. Let's get into a flashback.My kid bro is a big committment-phobic or shud I say he assumes so, probably he thinks that means you have attitude...watever..So when i got to know he had two galfrenz, I was shocked. I mean me being a person who has grown up on romantic novels and movies , can never digest this. He asked me such an innocent question ," Why cant I fall in love with two gals at a time?". "Oh poor thing! sure you can if you are insane or a super-confused character who does not know how to differentiate your emotions", I told him. I know he did not take me seriously on that. Afterall, how many guys take gals seriously no matter wat? lolz... Now back from flashback : So wen kid bro asked me this, it was time to give it a thought but then it disappeared amidst my busy schedules and on this trip to bangalore, I met this superstar. I was telling my friend how bhai was telling me this and we both were discussing it with amazement and soon this Mr. Superstar steps in the discussion and says," Why not? he is right, one can love as many gals at a time". haha... I am terribly disappointed here, although I know how famous he is for being a casanova character but saying you LOVE two people at a time is a little difficult. I was delighted I had two subjects to study now: If bhai was not enuff, someone else too joined the bandwagon and I was sure there were more to come. I looked at Mr. Ex- Superstar( now ex coz my assumptions somwhere misled me, i realised) and with a smile was telling myself in punjabi," Kar lo gal, ikk kamm sigaa ikk hor aaya". All that I know of him, he is as good as my kid bro, not yet found the ultimate love of his life coz he has a super-power to fall in love with more than one woman at a time... ;) I did not get time to think about it in early future though but then I saved this for my diary article and the more I talked to my guy frenz I realised that "Falling in love with more than one person at a time is Confusion ka sabsey badaa side-effect".... :) You have someone and u crave for better and better but where does the search end...It does end somewhere...I am sounding like Baba Ramdev now...ha ha...but truly it has to end somewhere..In my romantic novels, it does end...he he :) Realistically speaking, I go shopping and even if i buy my favourite designer jewellery, as soon as I step inside another store, I feel so bad I spent 2k already on it and there is somethig much better I can buy not knowing that my first buy was worthy enuff until after few months when I wear them on the ocassion I bought them for, i get so many compliments for them and I see someone else wearing what I thought was worth buying and it looks pathetic for that ocassion....ha ha...its a typically girly story.... But its wat we are all about, arent we? So why cannot we look beyond perfection and why does yeh dil maange more and more... and gets nothing at the end :) I am looking for answers but my subjects have not yet found the worthy enuff yet....poor chaps!! Guys, do you have any answers?? I am left wondering...

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Confusion ke side effects!!

Although my English teacher insisted you shud never begin a piece of writing with "ALTHOUGH" as it reflects a confused personality of the author...I dont mind being touted as confused...at times, its safe to be confused. Ask me why? Well, my dear friend dumped his galfriend one fine day and I ask him why? and he says, Yaar, I am confused. She is the best I can ever get, she loves me more than anyone, she knows me inside-out and blah blah...but( here he goes again) I am confused if she is the one. Oh my god! at 2.00 am in the morning someone calls me up and tells me," I think, I am confused"...I felt like kicking him hard!! I asked him what you told her, i mean she was so excited abt the whole thing and there were no problems, then wat went wrong. He said, I am CONFUSED....ha ha....this one-liner is such a shield at times, I tell you. Being confused can make u save ur ass anytime. He told her: I am confused. When I have to chose between education and marriage, I am confused( so neither am I taking up a course nor am I marrying).When I have to decide on wrking frm home or office, I say I am confused( so I end up staying in my comfort zone). When I have to decide between having my best fren as my lover or just as my best fren: I say I am confused( now I dnt have to answer his fone on a gal's nite out and I dnt have to justify why George Clooney make me go weak in knees and not him..ha ha). Being confused is an amazing escape from everything but it does not save you from what awaits you : like for my committment-phobic friend its such a relief that he can shout I AM CONFUSED. Man! you need to revisit your confusions..right now..else she will move on... Well why did I post this, I am confused....... P.S. I dedicate this post to HIM coz if he doesnt see this one as an eye-opener, he needs to know, someone asked her out for coffee today and I gave her all thumbs-up to go ahead, after all she also told me that she is CONFUSED...lolz

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Jab We Met :)

Just to start with, probably after a long time I am going to write something positive about men. Ahum! before someone blames me, they hardly give me a chance to write good things about them. So for a change this post is not going to be based around Men and you know how bad they can get...ha ha.. During the jittery UNFAIR INDIA experience,When I was told that flight was late, I did not know where to go and what to do, I had exhausted all my HK dollars and thankfully did not want to get back to the hotel travelling for 2 hrs and come back again. While I was making my frequent trips to the AI counter from the waiting area I happened to exchange a friendly smile with an athletic-built guy who had a great sense of humor.You ask me why? Well, when I was at the counter , the desk manager told him that the flight is some 8 hours late or so and he very calmly said, "Ah! where is it coming from? Space?" haha... I still remember this, afterall that was the only thing about AI that made me smile. I hung around and then accompanying him was our own Punjabi Mr. Ranbir Singh ( To make things easy, I am going to refer to Mr Singh as Mr. S and the funny guy as Mr. A and ofcourse we have another interesting character to this story Mr. J). Mr. S, A and J were standing together when I was making these trips to AI counter in vain. We shared ocassional smiles( I was pathetically irritated with the jokes life comes up with but atleast I cud smile). Sooner we exchanged greetings and they extended a helping hand without even giving me the pain or embarassment to ask them. That was the last thing I expected after meeting the Saudi uncleji who made my life miserable in the bus. These 3 guys were pure gentlemen with ample of chivalry, I was surprised and muttered to god ," Hey! are u trying to be good to me??, its not by bday anyway". They stuck together along with me to make sure I have a seat near them and that I am safe,secure and all-smiling. Lets talk about them: Mr. S is a retired Air-Force personnel, you bet and a senior pilot with a leading domestic airlines. Meeting him was a pleasure. He came across as a warm person who has immense respect for not only women but fellow-men. I could see an anxious dad in him, a passionate defence-person, a thorough-gentleman and a full-of-life punjabi. I really liked the way he answered when I asked him, " Aren't you bored of flying a passenger carried every other day?", he said that what matters is the attitude, there is a thrill in flying to the same route too, you may never know when an adevnture awaits you.Well!! I like that...he is a great guy...coz with that kinda attitude you can go thru anything in life wearing a smile...we discussed fighter jets,passenger carrier,challenges, life and a lot many things. I liked the way he presented his point that not all jobs are meant for women, that too in front of a feminist like me...he he...but the clauses he gave in support of his belief in the same can ofcourse never be denied. Mr. S, I agree. The best thing about him was that he never believed in sticking to HIS opinion, HIS stance and he gave room for all of us to speak our mind about our respective professions and he was really patient. His daughters are really lukcy to have a father like him. It was great to meet him let it be for 15 hours or so... When it somes to Mr. A, he came across as a man of attitude,style and aggression when I first spoke with him. Later I got to know, he has been with the merchant navvy for 14 years or so and has been flying passenger carriers alongwith Mr. S. This man was charming ( well the desk managers were smiling at him all the time) and had really good conversing skills. He was chatty and most of the time I was in conversation with either Mr. S or Mr. A. Now, Mr. A spoke at length about almost everything and well he strongly believes that he is good at making frenz, Yeah! I agree. He was really helpful to an American Guy who came to us asking for details about India and how to manage his travel to Jalandhar. He patiently answered his queries and jokingly explained to him the most important things he needed to know. This man looks gud, talks gud and has a great heart too, you know why, coz no matter where he is, his heart lies with his family...he adores his daughter and I still remember the sparkle in his eyes when he said, "oh! my wife is gorgeous". He showed me their pics and let me tell you he is a proud family guy. I really liked that, and anyways to win a woman over all you need is to be a family person :) I am floored with the patience,persona and sensitivity of this guy. I learnt a lot from him as I learnt from Mr. S. Mr. J was a quiet guy who just returned from his ship, he is with merchant navvy. He was almost in another world : dizzy,confused and calm. He spoke about his ship,wife ofcourse( he kept calling her evry hour to make sure she knows he is safe and fine) and about air-stewards. He was a great company coz when we all spoke at length, he was an avid listener or shud I say patient? Finally we got to board a Cathay Flight at 11:30 pm and ah! we had comfortable seats. But the fun had just started, the seats were at extreme end( I am allergic to these areas in planes). And well when we finally landed it took us sooo long to get down and later aha! lady luck was smiling at us, our bus did not come and we 6 were stranded as some runway was blocked...gr8 the bus came after a while and now what, at the immigration some 300 Indian soldiers were in the queue........I love my life!! Mr A and J decided to get freshen up and they left for men's room...it tuk them a while and they came up smiling..and why? well they were caught smoking in the loo and had to pay the fine..What a day it was....ha ha... We bid goodbye once we got our luggage...but let me mention... I am gonna rememebr these people for the rest of my life...reason may be not being that they stood by me when I was stranded but coz they really are men of attitude and character, and I loved meeting all three of them..I have learnt a lot after having long chats with them and I am sure they'll do really good in their respective careers. Wish them loads of luck and here ends my journey when I wave to my kid bro and ask him to help me with luggage at the gate as I was holding dad's scotch ka quota in one hand.. :) This trip was truly a memorable one...Hats off to these Men!! Thanks guys........

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10 things I hate about you...

Dad says - "Everyone has to fight their own battles and when you rely on someone to help you, you have to wait, and when you wait and they don't turn up, you leave it all in despair. You lose a battle without even putting up a fight"
Yeah right!! I agree. Been there, seen that.No sob story, people! No sob story! ;)
It is okay che! When you need them the most, people leave...coz they are there to teach you a lesson. Never Trust. Nopes. Never trust anyone but yourself.

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