You can help and it can make a difference!

Im not much of a social worker. What I’m is, a very emotional person who always wanted to do help others, but didn’t do much.
Thousands of people die in the world everyday – out of hunger, chronic diseases, accidents, war and terrorism. Although I feel for it, nothing shook me up like the death of Aylan Kurdi.
Three-year-old Aylan Kurdi was born into a country eaten up by war. His parents wanted what any other parent would want for their children - what hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war-prone violence want -- a place to be alive- a safe home. This is what is driving them to Europe – a hope to get grip on their life although they have to start from scratch.
Trying to make that simple but treacherous dream a reality, Aylan, his brother and mother drowned in the sea enroute Greece from Syria when their boat capsized in Turkish waters. An image of his dead body washed up on the Turkish beach came to my notice when I was reading my daily news update in the morning on my way to work. So why did this shake me up? Im a mother myself now and the image of this boy’s dead body resembled nothing different than the sleeping position of my 2 year old baby before I woke her up that morning. Just that he didn’t smile and respond to anyone who tried to wake him up. His dream to live took away his life.
It got me thinking to what extend am I blessed. I might be struggling with different problems everyday but is it anything in comparison to what these fleeing refugees, for example, encounter in their daily life? This weekend, when the borders of Austria and Germany opened up for refugees, there were more than tens of thousands of refugees coming to Austria – via buses, trains, by foot.
Me and Vivek were following the twitter feeds of what was the condition of these people where hundreds of volunteers tweeted continuously on what the refugees needed help with. We went to the railwaystation where the refugees were pouring in and tried to distribute showergels, wet tissues, clothes etc. We lay it on a sheet in front of us and were handing it over to whoever came by us. It’s a funny story coz we were also mistaken for refugees (probably due to skin colour) and people were handing things to us too…hehe… We continued to do this throughout the weekend with the help of friends and family who also wanted to give away their jackets and warm clothes and shoes and thus help the refugees in whatever little way they could. So many people were forthcoming to help with food, clothes, medicines and other supplies, that I was suddenly so proud to be a part of the helping hand.
Why was it important to do this? This is a very humbling experience on its own. Just to give some examples: There was a almost new pair of men’s shoes donated by a volunteer which was lying in front of us. A refugee who obviously walked miles and miles before he reached Austria had half worn out shoes and when he saw this new pair of shoes, immediately tried it on.. luckily the same size too.. he happily discarded his shoes and left with the new ones on.. Then minutes later, another refugee walked past who had torn shoes with holes. He saw these discarded half worn out shoes and was happy he could get a better pair than his own. Eye-opening incident of how one’s left over becomes a fortune for the other (when we try to buy new shoes every other month coz it doesn’t match the colour of our dress.)
Every little thing you do to help is a big help. If you don’t have any materialistic things to give away, but if you have time, its good enough coz you can use it to help others those who want to help. Get involved! coz refugees are also human beings who are educated and entitled to a normal day to day life like us. Help them get back their lives on tracks by doing every little thing you can. You can make a difference. There needn’t be loads of Aylan whose future are washed away in the tides of the sea coz they dared to dream and live and to be safe.

I have a daughter and I'm Scared...

The other day I was going to meet my husband in the city and then go together to meet some friends for dinner. It was 7 in the evening. It was dark and cold. And when the bus came, I was the lone passenger in it with a baby. Even after knowing that I’m the only lady passenger in the bus, I was not scared. And then it suddenly strikes me why I was not, given the situation would be of panic if I was in India.
Being in Europe, I have heard lots of criticisms on how how there’s more of a skin show than of respect. I haven’t seen boys or men drool on women or x-ray women on the street. Maybe its coz they see it all and have it all. So there is no unknown for them. Given this is the cost for safe travelling without fear even at wee hours in the night, then I’m happier to stay in Austria than in India.
People in my hometown have all civilized as ages passed by. The question is in what aspects… Posh houses, expensive jewelry and comfortable cars… but theirs thoughts are still uncivilized.. Coz even now, when they see a girl in a tight fitting dress, they tend to see through her. Even when they see a girl dressed in skirts above knees, their eyes fiddle their way up through the skirts.
These thoughts, this mental illness, this uncivilized animal like behavior is what results in rape which India is now almost unparalleled in. There must be something terribly wrong somewhere or else how can a country so rich in its cultures and respectful upbringing top the number of rapes in the world.
If a lot of what happens to women on the roads of India is to stop, the change will have to come first at home, from the family. Boys, as they grow up, will have to be taught that their sisters are not there to get the leftovers – the one piece of chocolate that couldn’t be eaten, the tricycle with a broken wheel that couldn’t be driven, the school with expensive fees that couldn’t be afforded. Boys have to be taught how to treat women with respect. Showing the aptitude of his physical strength or sexually assaulting a woman does not prove being a man. It is by taking up responsibilities and living up to it, treating every woman with respect and taking care of your family. One must always remember that one always has a mother if not a sister and wife, who is a woman and could be attacked by this mental irrationality.
A lot of how India will be in the future, how one half of the population will treat the other half, will depend on the lessons from parents and teachers. GPS and CCTVs, after all, cannot track what goes inside homes and the minds of men; they can only make our streets a bit safer. The violence to women within families is many times deadlier. And often it is this violence, the mentality and justification of it, that spirals away and gets carried out in cinema halls, moving auto-rickshaws and crowded malls. It is this that makes well-dressed men in sharp suits and shiny shoes traveling in planes and expensive trains say a woman is responsible for everything bad that happens to her. (sharing a thought of a fellow blogger)
If only half of the spirit of how we cheer India in the Cricket worldcup, could unite us in our voice against RAPE, against this injustice, make noise that we be heard….that a woman never has to go through it again. that we really live up to the best cultural upbringing that we boast of…let us take an oath that we will take part in this righteous war against rape in a hope that we pave path for our daughters to live not in fear.

Rebooting

For generations, women were just expected to pack their bags, put a few of their cherished belongings in their bridal luggage, and leave behind a whole lot of friendships, associations, hobbies and interests to be with their husbands. In their new world, they reboot. Make new relations, new friends, learn new hobbies, new languages and face a new set of challenges.
Then when she enters a job and is doing well, she becomes pregnant. As much as a thrill of a new member joining in, there is an untold fear that every career woman goes through. She will have to stay back at home tending to the baby as her other colleagues races past her. Another rebooting kicks in where her daily routines are amended according to the baby’s.
Motherhood can never be compared to petty issues. But once she wants to return back and kick back into her career life, that’s when the cold naked truth hits her. She’s lacking the knowledge of the two years of fast paced business life while she was breastfeeding, changing nappies and capturing smiles of her little one. Not to forget those daring women who went back to working soon after delivery coz they didn’t want to lose out… were never looked upon with respect from society coz they were those mothers who had no time for family anyways.

Its not her fault coz it always has been a woman’s sacrifice- very rarely appreciated though. After a while when people ask someone, what does she do now…. The answer is horrific to hear….” She’s at home now”. How many of you have heard the answer to be “ She’s a 24*7 mother “ Here she reboots again. She has to go back to being the fiery, do-it-attitude business woman, unwittingly suppress the sublime motherhood and lash it out at her work to climb up to the top again, at least to catch up to what she was missing out.

Are women the only ones to be in the reboot modus or let me word it differently….” Who sets an expiry for a woman’s dreams”?