Of This and That

Bachelors not allowed Is a sign that greets you at the entry of many societies in Pune, especially in areas like Aundh, Pimple Saudagar etc. that are closer to the IT Hub in the city – Hinjewadi. Isn’t this like stereotyping an entire set of people? And I used to believe that stereotyping isn’t a good idea. One must not have a prejudice against anyone and must allow the other person to prove himself/herself. If not here, then Where do I stay? It is unfortunate that some of our bachelor friends are forced to ask this question every now and then. The various industries (mostly IT) in Hinjewadi area today employ upwards of 1 lac people. This is the floating population that comes in to work daily and returns home in the evening. They do create traffic problems, but this isn’t about the traffic issues. It would be safe to assume that about 30% of this population are bachelors (given the average age of the IT organizations) and many of them have come from out station to create a l...

This is something that I have observed in many of the conversations around me that gives a sense that of the three generations including our parents, ourselves and our kids, we are the best. While talking about our childhood and how our parents managed us, the usual statements that I hear are – We were good kids. We would listen. Our parents didn’t have much trouble due to us. If they told us no once, we would not ask again. We understood the importance of studies. And when talking in reference of our current parenthood and our kids, it is – Today’s kids are jet age kids. They are so very fast and very aggressive. It is very difficult to manage them. We keep telling them, but they just won’t listen. We faced such a challenge in bringing them up. Our kids are nothing like us, we were so well mannered. You feel the same?

The other day while washing utensils at home, wife asked me to use Pril. Yes, I do help wash sometimes, especially when it is about our special expensive utensils. Can’t let these to be handled by the maid. Anyway, but to washing and Pril. I reminded her that we didn’t bring Pril this time as there was a scheme at Big Bazar and we had instead picked up Vim liquid soap instead. We did realize that Vim liquid wasn’t as effective as Pril liquid soap was. We got talking about how some of these schemes are on items that aren’t that effective in use and wife stated, “Yes, like that Clean Mate Harpic. That isn’t also very effective and doesn’t clean well”. In a moment we realized what she said and we both had a good laugh. But this made me realize that there certain products/company names that have become the words of daily usage and replaced their functional names itself like Harpic gets used more than toilet cleaner. Few more that come to mind are Xerox Dettol, though with Savlo...

When I had watched the female feticide episode of Satayamev Jayate , I had felt anguish within. Why would someone do this and I had shared some of my thoughts here . However with the recent rape incident of the 23 year old girl in our capital city and her tragic demise, I suddenly cannot help but wonder if it is worth bringing girl child in this world? Does a girl deserve this life? Last few days, having read in papers, watched the news in TV my heart goes all out for this girl (who unfortunately is no more). While news of rape isn’t new, this one caught one and all by the sheer brutality of the incident. We all were shaken from comforts of our ‘chalta hai’ attitude into action and the country almost came to a standstill. This girl showed remarkable fighting spirit till the very end. But it is so ironical that media is still full of more such episodes daily, but then is it really a surprise, for the statistics show that a girl is raped almost every 20 min in India. Almost eve...