I Am Back!!

Well people, I am back! And back with a bang!! Coz am a mom now!! Yippee!! But that has not changed me one wee bit. I am still the same sleepy, lousy tomboy that many of you know me of. And yes, I am planning to keep writing. It’s like every habit – this writing. You don’t write for long, you seem out of touch. Well, yeah.. it is not ‘you’ here but ‘me’. More technically ‘writer’s block’, as my friend once told me. But more in normal terms – ‘I am out of touch’. But I don’t want to be ‘out of touch’, neither does my husband want me to be, nor do my parents want me to be, nor do my beloved readers (and that is you people – if at all you still come here to read my posts) want me to be. So here I am back, trying my hand at writing after hibernation, starting off from where I had left.

But I had no idea what I was going to write about. Mainly because the gap has been too long and lots of things have happened during this break. So I had nothing specific to say or write or share.

Firstly, of late I have watched a lot of movies (Thanks to my husband who loves movies as much as I do) – so I could start off with a movie review (pseudo-book review was done, so it’s the turn of a movie review now). We were such movie-buffs that even when I was almost 8 months pregnant, me and my husband went to Mayajaal for a HP movie. I had read, re-read, re-read, re-read that 6th part, so I had to watch the movie. How could I miss it! So I could write about that book and that movie!

But being at home and trying to be ‘be good, do good’ during pregnancy gave me a lot of free time to read a lot of ‘good’ books, that would help the little one. So I could write about the few books that I had got an opportunity to read. But you know, many of you guys would find it extremely boring. The books that I read do not make good entertainers, those books are for the oldies not for the GenNext. So that idea was dropped.

Next came the idea of writing about the zillions of soaps ’mega-serial, nedunthodar, mega thodar’ that come in all channels. Well, yes guys! Yours truly did suffer from the ‘channel-changing syndrome’ for some time, mainly due to sheer boredom. I myself realized the extent of damage done to me by me when I was actually contemplating writing about these soaps. Then suddenly, light dawned upon me, I was enlightened, I slapped myself, I woke up and said, ‘Enough! Agreed that you have spent time on these soaps, but please do not enforce this cruelty on your readers. They come here with expectations, do not disappoint them’. So pooh went the idea.

At last I got this brilliant idea of writing about myself – yes, myself. The journey from ‘mother-to-be’ to ‘the mother’. How blissful motherhood is and will be, the experiences, the turmoil, the happiness, the expectation, phew!! Precisely the myriad of emotions that I went through during this journey. But God!! What a bore it could have been. You get thousands of site listings if you searched for articles on pregnancy and motherhood. Not another one from me again!! At least for the time being, ‘No’.. So that idea also went off.

So here I am ultimately undecided what to write about! But… wait a minute!! Did I say in the beginning that I am facing a dearth of topics! I think right now the problem is one of surplus!! So I have ended up writing a full post about ‘nothing to write about’? Well… What do I say! I am not called a chatter-box for ‘nothing’!!

To Make People Vote

A couple of days back, when I was just skimming through channels, I came across this news item in one of the news channels: Some schools in Maharashtra award 2 marks as part of internals to students for the subject Civics if they ensure that their parents exercise their franchise. This initiative is as part of creating awareness among students to make their parents cast vote and hence take part in the democratic process.

When I landed in the channel, a few students were being interviewed and almost all of them voiced their opinion that their parents ought to vote, it is wrong on the parents’ part that they sit at home and enjoy the government holiday on the election date and hence they would urge their parents to get out of their cozy chairs and do their duty! It seemed interesting and I continued to watch the item. Then came the part which said that if parents do their duty their children would be awarded marks in the Civics internals. Would at least this initiative force people to exercise their franchise? – That’s how the news item ended.

And that’s what set me thinking. It is a good initiative in the sense that children would ask questions at home if parents do not vote. Parents may have lost their hopes on Indian Democracy but is it right that children are made to lose hope even before they do their duty? So perhaps, at least to convince their children a few parents may actually vote (whether to the ‘right’ party or the ‘wrong’ one is subjective and forms part of a separate discussion/debate). They would at least not sit idle on the election day.

But then one other thing started eating my head! Is it right that children be awarded marks for parents doing their duty? Isn’t it like bribing…mm.. the parents? That if your children should get those 2 marks, you have to do your duty? We are in such a pathetic state of affairs that we see corruption everywhere – even to the question of whether to do your duty or not to do your duty! But still… this ‘awareness initiative’ brings in a new dimension! Reminds me of the Kamal Hassan starrer movie “Indian”, where the Indian thatha claims that Indian corruption and bribing is different from the ones in many developed nations in the basic sense – In those countries, people are bribed and people bribe to NOT do their duty, but in India people are bribed and people bribe even TO DO their duty! Creating awareness among students is good but to actually make it part of curriculum and award marks for the same – a little too much.

Is this ‘awareness initiative’ right? Perhaps it is because children are involved in their parents’ (in) decision to vote or not and they are ultimately the country’s future. But then, perhaps it is not because we are in such a sorry state that even to make people do their duty, we have to adopt such measures as ‘bribing’. Still… thinking back I feel, the positives seem to outweigh the negatives here, so as always ‘chalta hai’ – ‘naalu perukku nalladhunna, edhuvume thappu illai’ :) :)