Women - rights and wrongs

Women - rights and wrongs

Recently a Lt.General in the Indian army came under a lot of negative publicity for his remarks about women in the army. It is possible that he had good reasons for his statement besides being purely male chauvinistic but in today’s time and age, you do not make such statements publicly without explaining or qualifying. A combat role in the army is very hard because of the demands it makes on one’s physique, rough and unfriendly terrains and finally the emotional demands– not something easy for men either but I suppose if there are women willing...

WorriSUM problems

WorriSUM problems

Children in the U.K. will be asked to work out the speed and distance sums by using examples from football and the speed and the distance of the ball that Beckam kicked to the goal. This is part of the GBP 4 million campaign to make mathematics more interesting for children.Very interesting!! I am all for any effort that makes these speed sums interesting for children.I have traumatic memories of speed related sums from my school days that have left me permanently scarred. There were this particular genre of sums where the tap was filling a tank...

jadoo ka jhappi

jadoo ka jhappi

As a nation I think we are not a very demonstrative people particularly of emotions of love and affection.While we may jump and scream during a cricket match and express our joy and anger, when it comes to showing love and affection we tend to underplay and even suppress.Most Europeans and even in America, it is common to greet each other with a peck on the cheek, a hug or a half hug. But in india, most of us shy from being touchy-feely and demonstrative. It is not difficult to understand it as in our culture physical contact was restricted to...

dads - ad ones and mad ones

dads - ad ones and mad ones

Anita nair had written a nice article in the New Indian Express on father's day. I always get very interested when people talk about their relationship with their father, the jokes and pranks they shared, their discussions,arguments etc. In our family, we knew our father only through my mother. He hardly spoke to us and if we needed anything mother conveyed it to him and it was either approved or rejected. No further appeal. He was not someone who was ever worried about our academic performance - perhaps because we were all inevitably at the top...

Women issues

Women issues

Saw two films in the past few days - both left me thinking about women and their life and psyche just about 100 years ago.The first was a french film "Camille Claudel" - based on the life of Camille, who was the pupil of Auguste Rodin, the French sculptor who attained immortality through his carving of "le Penseur"(the thinker). She was so talented and inspired in her work that she became his muse, his model and collaborator for some his best works. They had a passionate relationship which ended when she realised he would never leave Rose Beuret,his...

what is "enough"?

what is "enough"?

The Income Tax forms to be submitted in the coming years will collect information on the spending details of the assessees. When I read this I wondered if the Finance Minister was trying to understand the soul of the assesees as I had read somewhere:"How you make your money is unimportant;how you spend it reveals your soul." I suppose the FM today is such a harried man that he has no such desires but yes, the spending habits of a person or family speak a lot about them. The FM himself is a personally wealthy man with simple and refined tastes and...

Idiots guide to Indian traffic

Idiots guide to Indian traffic

Traffic in Bangalore tops the list of my pet peeves. I can claim to have some experience on the subject having had the experience of driving 28km each way from IIM to peenya every single working day for 3 years and that practically covers a diagonal sweep from southeast to northwest ends of bangalore (in the early 90s - now bangalore has stretched beyond in both directions)And I have spent another 20 years driving around town to different workplaces and so I can speak about it with some authority. But one can sum up Bangalore traffic today in one...

Pallankuzhi

Pallankuzhi

If you were born after the 70s and lived in one of the cities all your life, it is very likely that you do not know what Pallankuzhi is. But those older, especially from the smaller towns of South India...