Wednesday, March 4, 2015

An Open Letter to India's Daughter director Leslee Udwin

Dear Leslee Udwin

First of all, let me appreciate the time you have taken to come to India and spend good 2 years to research on our problems and try to show to the world.   Glad you had both the time and money to do the same.  How I wish you packed your bags and went to any middle east country and try to do the same and then en cash on the problems by selling your research for commercial use to the world biggest Television channels. Honestly, you wouldn't have become a celebrity or would be voicing your opinion still as you do today.

Yes,  we women in India are vulnerable.   So are you.  When you said that you have hidden your sexual assault trauma over the years,  I pity that you were not able to come out in your land and fight against the molester and fight for your justice.   At least we women in India, are bold in enough to tell to the world what we feel, what we lose and what we think and act accordingly.  Nirbhaya is just another woman who suffered.  There are hundreds of Nirbhaya's all around India who silently suffer, who protest and who punish those who attack them.  Our suffering need not be your commercial venture.  Thank you for your concern.

Every day in the buses we travel, some odd guy standing next to us, pitch amidst the Saree on our hips.   Another guy tries to touch us as we sit together and watch movies in a theater.   In a classroom, students are assaulted by the teachers and in offices by the bosses.   But is it happening only in India?  Do you dare to go to any other country and try to investigate and then film it and then make money out of it?  Can you do it in UK or USA?  Then please do it and leave us alone.

Do not add salt to our injuries.  From the time immemorial,  human civilization has breathed through the male chauvinism enough.   We know how some perverted and senseless minds think.   How vulnerable they think we women are and how they think that we have to abide by their pre-defined rules of living.  We are equal human beings.  We know to fight for our rights and we don't need a foreigner to come and show case our problems to the world.   We also know to handle our men.   

Not every man in this divine land is a pervert or think like the so-called idiots you have interviewed.  This divine Mother India has seen the greats of Paramacharya,  Swami Vivekananda,  Chanukya,  Chatrapathi Sivaji and several other leaders and social-scientists.     We focus on our positives and let the law of the land take care of the law breakers.    I know we are still following age old laws in terms of punishment and it takes its own sweet time to find justice in my motherland.    Yes, we are not barbaric to jump into action and kill them on the fly.  But same time, we are not weak to let the weak-minded not to be punished.  Period.

Ms Udwin....by showcasing your documentary in my country,  it will only agitate the young minds.  It is not going to add value to us.  We are continuing our fights for justice.   We are not scared to view the contents of your videos which you promised to use for social purpose and taken it without permission to the commercial platform.   We want to stone the idiots to death.  But what are we making of us in the process.  We want to cut the prime parts of the perverts but will that bleeding stop our girls from crying?   We want to hang the criminals in open air, but will that stop the next rape.   I don't think so!

As a woman,  as a mother, as a friend, as a sister each one of us are trying to educate our young men on what is right and what is wrong.  We are teaching our girls self-defense.  We are fighting for our rights in a more peaceful way.  We will overcome this menace one day.

And that day is not too far.  The day will dawn in my country when we women will not be ashamed to be part of this world.   Till then, we request you to stay away from our problems.  We will handle them to the end and one film of yours is not going to change anything!

Regards
A thoughtful Indian Woman.


***************After watching the video****************

I watched the video today after writing the above article.  Nothing I wrote stands changed.  We knew these perverts and what they think and expecting repentance from them is like searching for a pin in a sand.   Expecting the system to change overnight with this video also is not going to happen.  

This incident is indeed barbaric and unfortunately there are more similar and more worst cases that India had witnessed.     My friends argued that this video makes us speechless and should not be banned. Agree.  Same time, the actual gruesome act, the followed media attention,  the campaigns is all what we already saw.  We know the plight of middle class parents with big dreams fighting every odd in the society to make the dreams come true.  

The documentary says is done in public interest, if so why was it not freely uploaded to you-tube and spread across all over India.  It needed a platform to bring a tragedy back to memory.  India will not forget Nirbaya.  We don't need a well thought filmmaker to bring this to the masses to create a mass hysteria again over the tragedy that already shattered us.  

We need the system to change, where our men respect us and we are fighting for it day in and  day out.   We want the crime on women to come down and legal system tightened up to punish those who do these crimes.  

Justice delayed is justice denied.   Why are we wanting to even hear the opinion of these perverts again and again when it is against the actual democratic fabric of our Nation where women are treated equally.  This is the opinion of the defense lawyers,  the orthodox community reflections in every word they uttered.  Are we not seeing honour killings day in day out?   What are we doing?  Why did media stop from even giving out her name initially?   

We need to clean our system.  We don't need one more filmmaker encashing on our weaknesses.   Not another slumdog millionaire please.   Not another Nirbaya!

Ban or No Ban!  Bottomline is this video is not going to change anything unless each one of us try to change the system where all are part of !  God bless #India's daughter.

Thursday, February 5, 2015

All in the Mind!

All in the mind!
Date:  5 Feb 2015

The opulence of the human mind,
Where we run with thoughts behind
Where is the rest to the stressed brain?
That haunts for peace and happy train
This train is not the one that runs on tracks
But in the depths of the human thoughts
This train is not the one that is made of steel
But with deeper thoughts of love to steal



Magnificence of the enchanting human race
Where we smile on the earth’s peaceful face
Ripped across the oceans with the tears
Of the violence bastions unheard of joy
But with the sage of meaningless sacrifice
The tears are red as they are shed in blood
The human race is madly stuck in this daze
In the fear, in the fight, in the blood-shed
Where are we heading to as civilized lot?
For there would be no life left behind this!
The gory has to end to bring in peace
The human race need to be saved now than it’s too late!

-Umasree Raghunath




Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Interesting Facts of Chennai :-)



Being part of Chennai Bloggers Club gives you interesting aspects of blogging.  Thanks to Mahesh Lakshmanan who blogs at https://teerthadanam.wordpress.com/ 
to whose blog I wanted to write about Chennai. 
..
I can write prose, poetry and articles on anything around Chennai, however thought that I need to collate interesting facts of Chennai-  many of which may be already known, well described else where and already in the internet.  But to me this personal collection of interesting facts is one way of celebrating the city I live and love.  To me Chennai is not just a home, but where my heart is.....Happy Blogging and Reading this post.  Thanks to CBC for this blog tag opportunity

  ‪#‎CBCBLOGTAGTWENTY15‬
 

The Birth of  Madras /Chennai








  • On 22 August 1639, the British East India Company under Francis Day bought a small land stretching 3 miles on the Coromandel Coast. They got a license to build a fort and a castle in the contracted region.   
  • The ruler Damarla Chennappa Nayakudu, the Nayaka of Vandavasi, granted the British permission to build a factory and warehouse for their trading enterprises. The region was then primarily a fishing village known as "Madraspatnam".
  • A year later, the British built Fort St. George, the first major British settlement in India, which became the nucleus of the growing colonial city.
  • Fort St. George housed the Tamil Nadu Assembly until the new Secretariat building was opened in 2010. The Tamil Nadu Assembly was again moved back to Fort St. George.
  • Military mapmakers believed Madras was originally Mundir-raj, or abbreviatedly, Mundiraj
  • Some suggest, Portuguese, who arrived in the area in the 16th century, named the village Madre de Deus, meaning Mother of God.
  • Another possibility sees the village's name coming from the prominent Madeiros family of Portuguese origin, which consecrated the Madre de Deus Church in the Santhome locality of Chennai in 1575.
  • Other parties express the opinion that Madras might have taken its name from a fisherman by the name of Madrasan from religious Muslim schools, referred to as Madrasahs
  • From the word Madhu-ras, which means "honey" in Sanskrit
  • Origin of the name Chennai/Chennapattanam : First theory explains the name that it was from the Telugu ruler Damarla Chennappa Nayakudu, Nayaka of Chandragiri and Vandavasi, father of Damarla Venkatadri Nayakudu, from whom the English acquired the town in 1639.
  • The second theory states it was named after the Chenna Kesava Perumal Temple; the word Chennai in Tamil means face, with the temple regarded as the face of the city
  • Historian J B Prashant More has stated that the origin of the name "Chennai" is Telugu and not Tamil.



Interesting Facts of Namma Chennai
  • Chennai is the first British settlement in India
  • First tricolor hoisted by the Independent India is in the Chennai Fort Museum inside Fort St. George maintained by Archeological Survey of India
  • First city to have implemented the Conditional Access System for cable television.
  • First Indian city to have the Wi-Fi facility in a widespread manner.
  • Only City in India to have a light house within the city limits
  • 'Madras Bank'  established on 21 June 1683 is the first European style bank in India
  • The Spectator, founded in 1836, was the first English newspaper in Chennai to be owned by an Indian and became the city's first daily newspaper in 1853
  • Chennai's Marina Beach runs for 6 km, spanning along the shoreline of the city between the deltas of Cooum and Adyar. It is the second longest urban beach in the world.
  • Madrasapattinam named after fisherman Madrasan   popularly known as Madras was renamed as Chennai only in 1996.
  • Chennai is now known as the Detroit of India. Most major manufacturers such as Ford, Hyundai, BMW, Renault Nissan, Mitsubishi, and Daimler have transformed the city into an automobile hub, producing more than 40 percent of auto parts and motor vehicles in India.
  • Soundarapandia Bazaar” named after Justice Party politician W.P.A. Soundarapandian Nadar  is currently cherishing as shopping hub ‘Pondy Bazzar’
  • Lifco Books shop which functions even today was set up years ago when there were just three shops in the area.
  • The World Bank office is in Raheja Towers in Chennai Mount Road
  • Chennai is the only city in South Asia and India to figure in the "52 places to go around the world" by The New York Times
  • It is also the fourth most populous metropolitan area in the country and 31st largest urban area in the world.
  • The city is host to the third largest expatriate population in India after Mumbai and Delhi
  • Connemara Public Library at Egmore is not just an oldest library but a National Depository (one of the only 4 in India) that receives a copy of all the books, periodicals and newspapers being published in India. It is also a depository library for the United Nations
  • The delicious Chicken 65 and the famous chain of Buhari Hotels has been in Chennai since 1951. One of the favourite dishes of Chennai, the Chicken 65, is believed to be introduced at Bhuhari by its founder A.M. Buhari. Interestingly they also offered Chicken 78, Chicken 82 and Chicken 90. A.M.
  • Buhari was also made the Sheriff of Madras in 1973-1974.
  • One of the oldest banyan trees in the world, around 450 years, is located inside the Adyar Theosophical Society
  • The Madras Boat Club in Chennai is almost 140 years old. It was founded by a few Englishmen in the year 1867.
  • Cricket is the most famous sport in Chennai and it is the game which led to the establishment of Madras Cricket Club in 1846 as well as construction of M.A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chepauk back in 1916.
  • A very lesser known place on the outskirts of Chennai is the Alamparai Fort. It is in an almost destroyed state now. The sandy beach and the scenic backwaters is a must-see attraction of this place
  • Legendary Alsa mall (first of few malls in Chennai) sandwich kadai (shop) is a famous destination for best of sandwiches in Chennai city.  Well known stop shop for all youngsters
  • Chennai, the first city of Modern India in Tamil Nadu completed 375 years on August 22nd, 2014. The occasion is celebrated annually as Madras Day every year
  • Chennai is the base for the Tamil film industry, known as Kollywood.
  • Chennai hosts the AVM studios, the oldest surviving studio in India.
  • Chennai is second to Bangalore in terms of information technology exports and business process outsourcing services in India
  • The city is home to some of the biggest foreign banks including; Bank of America, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Citibank, and Export Credit Guarantee Corporation of India Ltd., Ryan Services and Standard Chartered Bank
  • Chennai has more than 40 natural lakes and close 70 temple ponds which Government and NGOs are in the process of restoring the water beds
  • Shivaji prayed to Kali in Chennai and then won wars and visited in the Kalibari temple in 1677
  • Chennai has the oldest existing station in India - presenting the Royapuram station. It was the third station to be built in India – after Victoria Terminus, Bombay and Howrah, Calcutta. This station is THE OLDEST EXISTING station in India
















 I now pass on the baton to my fellow-blogger and friend,  Destination Infinity.