Desert Rose

We all have that WhatsApp group that is mostly asleep but when it wakes up, you have no choice but to mute it. So the same happened with one of the groups on my list a few days back. It kick started with reactions to the Telugu version of the Malayalam fame song ‘Malare’ and somehow drifted to reservation based on caste system. Participating in the discussion that followed, I got reminded of a time when I wished my father was a Latin Catholic and not a Syrian Catholic. I would have got that seat you know! I’m sure Jesus won’t care as much as the country did whatever I called myself. The constitution of India says all Indians are equal. Oh really? Reservation today is not just an affirmative action but has become a means for getting more and more benefits. As a matter of fact, the scope of reservation has enlarged to quite an extent. Oh so the backwardness has increased? It seems that nobody really cares about the welfare of the underdog but wants to gain a bit of th...

An encounter : An 8th standard girl who is expected to be all smiles and happy during her evening play hours caught my attention as she wasn’t doing the expected. She sat in a corner, fiddling with something and stared. Something about her disturbed me and I managed to befriend her. One day as I stood up to leave, she told me that her mother was strict and had no time to listen to her. And I smiled and assured her that I would listen whenever she needed. As I walked away, I said a prayer that let her not have anything that I fret to tell me. The very next day, as usual, after my work, I caught up with her. It was always more of a monologue. I kept talking about various things and she continued staring with occasional glances. That day when I stood up to say bye, she held my hand and said “I don’t like my father.” My heart sank because I dreaded something of this sort coming up. I held her close and the story she told me, I’d like to keep to myself. She is taken care of today. Oh,...

A year apart they were born. In the same neighborhood they belonged. Being the first to both parents, they were pampered and kept the apple of their eyes. Without a reason, some universal force made them first friends and first sisters to each other. They took their first steps, spoke their first words and sang their first rhymes almost around the same time. The parents and their little girls. Their bright red peddle - cycles with the rabbit face. The Barbie dolls. The alphabet shaped fridge magnets. It was colorful. There were smiles. Only smiles. They prayed to different Gods; Hailed from different towns. But they were girls who learnt to crawl together.  No history, no religion, no society or no ethnicity was going to change that.  Never mind any of it. Years rolled by. But not too many though. The innocence and tenderness was still very much the image the little girls portrayed.  Yet the colorful times happened to be...

Mark Zuckerberg came up with something so innovative and today it is part of our routine -   facebook . At 26, he became the youngest billionaire in the world. He started this social network when he was in college (2004) and when the company went public in 2012, its IPO was valued in billions . The movie based on his life, The Social Network tells about talent, talented people and more importantly, a country that celebrates talent! A boy from nowhere creates a company worth billions in 8 years and the country celebrates by making a movie on him. From what I have read about Mark – it was not about ‘money making’ but about being innovative and cool. I was just wondering the state of our nation – it has most of the people in this world and I believe this land has some REAL brains but I feel they are sleeping or too busy thinking whether to act or maybe our system just ensures that nothing major can happen. Most of India’s celebrated businessm...