Blog@GraceJunction

A very strange trend, definitely looking like a trend, can now be seen in our land. People are becoming very famous in a day. So much that most people know them and about them in a just one day! Every newspaper and news channel covers them, many times for hours together!

Till that day happens, they move about, almost invisible to society, and many times even to kith and kin. They do umpteen things, but these are hardly noticed or even if they are, they are not worth a news. It doesn’t discourage them, and they go about their narcissistic lives with an almost unswerving dedication till the skeletons tumble out of the closet or the time bomb stops ticking and explodes.

What happens is so startling that people discuss it for days and weeks together! Even the judiciary and the investigators get busy and our sensation thirsty media men are kept on their toes. But most often than not, our subject under discussion is not alive any more to respond to the applause and attention! A case of Posthumous fame!! And even if they are alive, then they are either in hiding or in a place, where a lot of attention is also coming from khaki clad body guards (if we can call them so!) and more famous inmates! (more…)

‘Love Marriage’ is perhaps unheard of for some of our readers! In India, there used to be a time when almost all marriages were ‘Arranged Marriages’ wherein the parents chose the bride and the groom, at the time they thought apt and got their children married. Often, the couple would never have met before the marriage, and some times only for a brief time. But there were some bold couples who decided things for themselves and got married, often without the blessings of the elders, mostly because they were from different faiths, financial or social status, or castes. These marriages were called ‘Love Marriages’. These couples were often ostracized and abandoned and such a move was branded as unacceptable. (more…)

Baby girl… What has become of her! No one wants her! Not even the one who gave her birth! Why is this happening?? Just because the nation and the society thinks that “she” is a burden! Burden to be brought up, burden to get married off, and then the burden of taking care of her even after her marriage! Why doesn’t a nation or its people take men and women equally?? It is because we have accepted it that way!? No one wants to break the boundary. Everybody wants to play safe!

When young, I mean not married, people fight for the cause “Save the Girl Child” but what about when it comes to self!?  “Are they still able to stand for the cause? No is the answer. Pressurized by the (in law) family, by the society for the want of the boy child to continue their family heritage et cetera, they also give in! What is there in the continuation of the family!? Gandhiji’s heir are here among us….but who cares for them….no one ……! (more…)

Dear Diya,

25 years back, on a cold winter morning, God came to my home wrapped in a small bundle.  A pink smudgy face,tiny arms and legs…. eyes that learnt to speak much before the mouth did…In a flash of a second, i had gone from being a selfish young guy to a man entrusted by God to bring up this tiny ray of hope…this ray of happiness we call Diya…

Oh what a misfit I was at first! Couldn’t hold you properly and had nightmares about dropping you!  Could never get the diapers right and wished there was a mute button on you when you cried all night for no apparent reason!  But I learnt…and I have loved every moment of it….

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A lot has happened in the last decade or more. The face of India has evidently changed, but more alarming and worrying is the change in the soul and fabric of India.

I will just highlight one such issue to make my point about this decade of decadence.

A news item in a national daily a few months ago described a sorry tale. It was about the sorry plight of the widow of India’s one of the greatest music directors – late Sachin Dev Burman. Mrs. Meera Dev Burman, the lady in distress, is also the mother of another great Indian musician – late Rahul Dev Burman, and the mother in law of the one of the greatest singers of the Hindi film industry, Asha Bhonsle [nee Dev Burman]. (more…)

Husband alleges that wife doesn’t wear modern clothes. Another alleges that wife doesn’t have table manners. Still another felt that his wife didn’t gel well with his colleagues. Another alleged that wife refused to drink in some of the office parties. Another liked someone else after marriage and started finding faults in his wife. One husband was angry because she got out of bed late and didn’t make him the morning tea to sip along with his newspaper. A more enterprising husband felt that his wife didn’t experiment while love making! A wife suspects her husband of seeing someone else due to coming late from office everyday. Another feels that it is not right for her alone to do all the household chores, afterall, she is working too. Another feels that because she washes his inner wear, he should wash her inner wears too! Many other wives do not want to stay with their in-laws. Some are not happy because he gets angry and shouts. (more…)

And God created man in his own image; male and female he created them and blessed them saying,” Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it”….

Well, that is exactly what man has been implementing till date – multiply (so much such that there arises a need to develop organizations which are worried about controlling the ever increasing population) and at the same time exercise dominion over all the earth. Nevertheless, the human race is pretty adaptive and has managed to accommodate one and all.

Apart from doing what man was asked to do, he realized the need to expand his intellectual initiatives and designs. One of them was woman’s advancement!! They also gave it a beautiful synonym – Feminism!! (more…)

Dowry, Abuse for money, Harassment by husbands and in-laws to satisfy the greedy hearts, Beaten up for property, Left by the husband for not being gifted with costly enough gifts by her parents, Threatened at gun point for money…so on and so forth. Even today in this educated society of ours, these are the cases that flood “the case files” in every police station and the numbers never decreases. My father being a cop has been dealing with various cases, majority being on the issue of disturbed family relations, and even more, disturbed marriages. I remember the last time I was home for a vacation and went thru a few case files which were overflowing with complains of the wives and the daughter-in-laws pleading for justice and it was no different the next time I looked thru the case files. It all makes me feel as if, what we call the “institution of marriage” has reduced to a “market place” and people are reduced to “objects” or “commodities”. The higher the price you pay to sell your commodity, the better she is taken care of and if not, she will be turned to ruins in this educated sophisticated society of ours where I thought dowry was a crime.
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Becoming a rage is small towns and cities across India, is a new surgical correction procedure called Hymenorrhaphy.

Hymenorrhaphy or hymen reconstruction surgery is the surgical restoration of the hymen. The term comes from the Greek words hymen meaning ‘membrane’, and raphe meaning ’suture’. It is also known as Hymenoplasty, although strictly this term would also include hymenotomy.

Such procedures are not generally regarded as part of mainstream gynecology, but are available from some plastic surgery centres, particularly in the USA, Japan and Western Europe, and now India, generally as ‘day surgery’. The normal aim is to cause bleeding during post-nuptual intercourse, which in some cultures, like India, is a required (well almost) proof of virginity.

In Ahmedabad, it takes just Rs.10000/- to restore the hymen and thus a woman’s virginity! (more…)

Saturday, 22 March, 2008: (Koramangala, Bangalore) Amit (30), a native of Delhi, employed in one of the biggest software firms in Asia, Infosys, was working there since nine years.

A year ago he met Rinku (28) from Mumbai. She worked as a marketing executive in a Private Bank. Sparks flew. He met the woman of his dreams and she met her ‘knight in shining armour’! They decided to get married. They started their march to live happily ever after. (more…)