Queens of India

Our sex ratio is 943 per 1000 females. We usually love to gossip, follow the latest fashion trends and use make up. We strive for independence. Our world is limited to the house. There we are! The women of this cultured country, striving to break this society and enter one of liberty and happiness.

The saying ‘unity in diversity’ definitely hold true for our country. The way our country is diverse, even the women of our country are. So, let’s discover this diversity among Indian women today:

1)    Speed Post:  The world knows them, but they know the world better. Gossip is their soul. Gossip, apart from daily soaps, is a vital source of Vitamin E (entertainment) for them. Even when they are away on a tour, they make it their business to poke their nose in other’s business. They add extra mirch-masala to the gossip. They gossip about everything; T.V. serials, their daughter-in-laws, others daughter-in-laws, how short random people’s skirts are, about aaj kal ki ladkiyan etc. They have this typical tone of talking, with stressing on specific words. They talk nonsense at time and could be irritating at times as well.

2)    Baby Lips: Beauty is their life and make up their occupation. They have lipstick, eyeliner, blush, lip gloss, eye shadow, lip liner, mascara and a lot more on their faces even when they go for a morning walk or even when they go to drop their kids to school. They are more made up than the actresses on daily soaps. Their stock of makeup is never-ending and perhaps more than that in a makeup store. They have a perception that makeup makes you beautiful. So they fill their faces with makeup and wait to look beautiful.

3)    Om Jai Jagdish Hare: Pooja path is what they love. They are the ones who keep upvaas and are devoted to God all the time. They usually do not eat non-veg food. They fast almost every day. Their devotion towards the Almighty is in the form of Bhajan every day, with a pooja ki thali in their hands. Their house will usually have a huge temple. A pandit will be called monthly, and a regular puja will be done on a regular basis. All sorts of bhajans are known to them. They do not come near God with their chappals on or without bathing. A lot of women under this category are senior citizens. They are Bhagvan ki bhakti mein doobi hui.

4)    Womeedrom: ‘Womeendrom’ is basically a combination of ‘women’ and ‘freedom’. So these are the free women of India. They strive to make a change, aspire to establish equality and break societal norms. They wear short clothes, are independent. They contribute to the Gross Domestic Product. Sometimes, they are paid less than men, but their dedication is way more than men. The Indian society condemns them, but they don’t really care. All they care about is their goal. They do all that men do. It isn’t essential that they are good at cooking or other household chores for that matter. When the society back-bitches about them, they just let out a smile. I love this category and aspire to be a part of it.

5)    Silent sufferers: Women suffer a lot. Be it stereotypes, discrimination, sexual harassment, social taboos, human trafficking, eve teasing, ragging, family pressure, society pressure, dowry, domestic violence, child marriage, female infanticide, bride burning, women are victims of everything. The women in this category face it all, but emerge as winners. They suffer silently. They are undoubtedly the bravest.

The Brand called marriage

10.00 a.m.: The scrappy sister is snoring like Kumbhkaran. How can a 9-year-old do a PhD in snoring? I guess she deserves a spot in the Guinness World Records Book.

10.30 a.m.: I wake up after getting fed up by snoring. My hair looks like one of those religious babas who grow their hair for a decade and never comb them. I head towards the bathroom to brush my teeth. I accidently pour liquid soap on my toothbrush instead of toothpaste. Luckily, this sanitized and soap-full toothbrush does not touch my teeth as I realize about the soap.

11.30a.m.: I have breakfast. During breakfast, I require a dose of music to mentally wake up and for my mind to start working. For breakfast, Maa has prepared a salad of cherry tomatoes, lettuce and cucumber. The scrappy sister hears the beats of ‘Cheap Thrills’, and stands up with a piece of cherry tomato in her hand. She starts doing Samba on Cheap Thrills. She is showing off her ‘moves’, when the cherry tomato falls for her hand. By mistake, she steps on it and makes a mess.

She blurts out “The tomato peed!” I give her the from-where-do-you-get-such-lame-ideas look. Maa shoots at her the you-need-to-clean-this-up look.

Baba enters and asks, “What’s going on?” I reply, “The tomato peed!”

“Did she do math this morning? She I acting like a wild animal!”

12.00p.m.: I have a rendezvous with my society buddies. My friend Vidhi wants to introduce our gang to a new friend of hers, let’s name her Friend A. I get ready and leave for the get-together. Avril calls me to ask what I am wearing today. I tell her I am wearing an animal skin dress and pink boots. She tells me I am crazy. I reply sarcastically and tell her you shouldn’t have asked dear, you know how much I care about fashion.

12.15p.m.: I reach Vidhi’s house where I meet my old friends and Friend A. Friend A reminds me of Mac Kenzie from Dork Diaries. Out of nowhere, Friend A blurts out, “Why does Sania Mirza play for India when she is married to a Pakistani?”

I reply, “Because her veins have bharatiya khoon and have you seen any sort of stamp or tattoo on her body that spells Pakistani?”

This reminds me of Twinkle Khanna’s tweet on this topic. Some random guy had told her that she should change her surname to Kumar now. She gave a really strong reply with the hash tag Married Not Branded.

I personally don’t feel getting married should change anything in a girl’ life. If she changes her surname to her husband’s, he should change it to hers. If she leaves her house, so should he. If she does household work, even he should do so.  A married woman isn’t a brand or property of her husband. She is an independent human being and should have all rights.

Salaam bachpan

Bhagvan ka roop, mann ke sacche and maa ke ladle are the children of India. We children are pizzas with a pinch of popping candy, travellers to the land of bubblegum, chocolate and candy, the Einsteins, Sachins, Latas and Sudha Murthys of tomorrow, the ultimate dramebaaz, sweet gulab jamun and rasmalai with some shikhanji and lemon, lollipops of different flavours and the royal family of mischief all rolled into one.

As small kids, we all had signature words from some alien language. For example, as a kid, godi (lap) was dabbi, cow was cow aunty and pig was pig uncle. When my sister was around five years old, she used to answer every question with the word papita (Papaya). I asked her once, what is the capital of India? She answered papita.

As tiny kids, we used to have the stupid concept of katti-batti. If someone lost a game, they used to get angry and used to say katti. The batti came moments later when some other person got a nice chocolate.

As kids, we danced like nobody was watching. When I now think of the way me and my friends used to dance, I remember the song, “Who let the dogs out?” Our dance could be compared to the moves of an animal! And singing, it sounded like Donald Trump shouting his heart out (in Hindi). We used to sing like howling wolves.

Birthday parties were filled with passing the parcel, dancing statue, musical chairs, newspaper dance, bombing the cities and other odd games. Dancing on latest Bollywood numbers with an addition of crazy steps was a very common thing. The cake had to be the most attractive ornament in the party. It was means of show-off. Gifts and return gifts were exchanged with the excitement of getting a gift. The curiosity to open it was more than the curiosity we have to know about the world or even our exam results. The birthday dresses were a big deal, ranging from yellow to grey, floral to traditional, hairstyles and makeup were also a part. I remember seeing girls applying eyeliners, blush, eye shadow on birthday parties and coming. I don’t use those things even now!

Well, makeup reminds me of something worse. Barbie dolls! Currently, I think of Barbie dolls as alligators in stilettoes with bright pink Maybelline lipstick, a Faces blue eye shadow, hair of an L’Oreal blonde color and a ‘pink’ dress. As a kid, Barbie doll were some sort of angels which had descended from heaven to save us from the ghost, of boredom. They are devilish for me right now.

Boys’ toys were much better than girls. I started liking Beyblades at the age of 9. They were so much better than those demons called Barbie dolls. Hot Wheels was also very popular. Getting the pleasure of driving a car, though not actually, is much better than creating some weird stories and enacting them with some idiotic dolls.

Apart from toys, even television was an integral part of our lives as children. Be it the blue octopus Oswald, or the fast-running Thomas engine, or the best builder in town name Bob, or Rob making us M.A.D., or Noddy’s ice cream world, or the Suite life of Zack and Cody, or Kiteretsu’s inventions, or the Wingz Club fairies saving the world, or even Shinchan's mischief, all were a pleasure to watch. Doraemon and Chota Bheem weren’t that popular. Cartoons at our time definitely had more common sense as compared to the current ones.

Nowadays, heaven for most people is a tub of popcorn with an amazing movie. But when I was small, heaven was bedtime stories. They were definitely the typical and ordinary Red Riding Hood, Three Little Pigs, Rapunzel, The Frog Prince, Sleeping Beauty, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Cinderella, Snow White, Little Mermaid and Rumpelstilskin, but their charm was just extraordinary.

The headline read, Happy Children’s Day, and all these thoughts floated into my mind. My mind drifted towards a new headline, Modi bans 500 and 1000 notes: a good move or a step towards poverty? What came to my mind after that is another story……

The divine life

Blue.

Blue?

Blue!

Blue is the color in town.

Blue is all that’s around.

Life is new,

Life is different,

Life has many shapes,

Life is full of colors,

Life is full of life.

Is this the way creatures live?

Is this is a dive into life?

Is life as colorful as this?

Is any color as bright as this?

Who says heaven is above?

Who says heaven is better than life?

Look at this life, and forget heaven.

Look at this life, and love life.

Who says the colors of a rainbow are divine?

Who says that a rainbow offers brightness?

Look at these colors, and travel the cloud of divinity.

Look at these colors, and leave the bright rainbow behind.

Red,Blue,Yellow,Orange,Pink,Purple,Green,Black,White fishes swimming around you.

They are like Gods descending from the sea.

Chocolate coated raindrops

My English teacher, Amit sir gave me a challenge to write a poem on chocolate coated raindrops:

He looked around,

Hoping for some chocolate.

But all he could see was far stretches of barren land.

Life was tough,

Money was running out of hand.

Life was like a piece of barren land.

Drought

Farmer

Sadness 

Poverty 

Came to my mind.

Then a new word made its way,

Help

So I decided to rescue him from this pool of sadness .

And give him the pleasure called chocolate.

To make his life simpler,

To see a beautiful smile spread across his face.

So I gathered my powers,

Ready to spread chocolate.

He looked towards the sky

And slowly drifted out of the pool of barren land.

To step into a pool of chocolate.

He looked up,

And saw

Chocolate coated raindrops 

Falling from the sky!

In this poem, happiness refers to chocolate, he means farmer and I refers to God.

The Indian killing machine

I have been obsessed with Adolf Hitler lately.  I was introduced to Hitler in the second chapter of my History textbook this year. I was in awe of
 the aura of World War II. Everything about the war fascinated me, but this monster called Hitler has been draining all my energy for the past few months. All I can think about is possibilities of different Hitler theories. I guess the thing that fascinated me the most about Hitler was this question: How did an aspiring artist turn into a killing machine?

For the past few months, I have been reading Mein Kampf and Hitler’s last day: Minute by minute. Apart from this, I Google every new thing I discover about Hitler. I aspire to be a historian, and this takes me closer to my goal.

So all this research work led to the birth of a crazy thought: What if Hitler was Indian? My previous article on such lines, ‘What if Greg Heffley was Indian?,’ was appreciated by a lot of people. So why not bring out the crazy possibilities and change in the course of history if the most famous killing machine of all times is turned Indian?

Historically, if Hitler was an Indian, India would have a conflict between two personalities with extremely different views. Our Bapu would have non-violent, equality, truthful views, but Hitler’s views would be full of inequality, racism, violence, etc. So historically if Hitler was Indian, it would be tough for India to get independence.

Now let’s come to the imaginative part. Just imagine Hitler in kurta-pyjama with a teeka on his forehead. I was just wondering, if Hitler became popular, he’d start a brand. Perhaps, like Patanjali, we would get Nazi dant kanthi. Just think of Hitler speaking Hindi and endorsing his brand on the radio. His brand, Nazi could be a big hit. He might start speaking at gatherings and perhaps become a philosopher. He might make some Indians embrace Nazism.

Hitler, as a popular Indian, he might surely be a part of a Bollywood film or Hindi daily soap. We never know, Hitler could be a superstar like Raj Kapoor or Rajesh Khanna!

Hitler might also turn into a baba like Baba Ramdev. Just think of him with a long beard, saffron robe and chest hair with a packet of Nazi noodles in his hand.

It was Karva Chauth last week. All I could do is laugh as I imagined Eva Braun keeping this fast. Braun married Hitler just a day before they both committed suicide on 30^th April, 1945. But they were in a relationship for 14 years. So I wouldn’t be surprised if my history textbook would have a picture of Eva Braun in a saree waiting for the moon to appear and later doing Hitler’s puja with Nazi agarbatti and Nazi kum-kum.

I am sure we all would enjoy studying Hitler’s history if he was Indian, but Hitler was the Fuhrer of Germany. The world hated him. But imagination doesn’t see hatred.  

An Indian Hitler is definitely a crazy idea.