This blog hasn’t been going anywhere for a while now and am not able to write at length on things I would like to write about. I am going to take it offline for a while for a couple of reasons-how long I don’t know at the moment. Am sure I will be back at some point since I do love blogging and blogs!
See you one day.

Edited to add: blog back online, but am still on break.

Me: I think you should go to Thailand straight from India instead of coming back to London and I’ll meet you in Bangkok or something.

A: No, I’ll come back to London and we’ll leave immediately for Thailand.

Me: But it’s a short flight from India and much cheaper.

A: I know you. You’ll carry a huge suitcase and sprain your knee, you won’t be able to manage the bags on your own.

Me: But I travel alone all the time. And I didn’t sprain my knee the last time. I’ve carrried tables…

A: No, no, I have to be there.

Me: But my bag will be light when I’m flying out. I’ll have lots of luggage when I come back.

A: Mumbles indistinctly and leaves the room saying he has to clean his study.

What A will not admit is that he toying with the idea of hideously long flights and jet lag, simply because he wants to be with me when we make the journey to go on holiday. I know this is the reason, because I too absolutely hate not having him around to cuddle and fight with on flights.

I need to change the name of this blog…or give it a title. The domain name will remain the same. This is because I lost a bet with South Ways and promised to change the blog name if I lost. Also am a bit fed up with the name of mumbaigirl-not just because I share it with a porn site!

What should I call it?

The Mumbai Mirror tested some of Mumbai’s cops on their Marathi-asking them to translate some sentences. I speak Marathi, but clearly I don’t speak it well enough, because if anyone had said “prakaran nyayapravishta aahe” I would have stared at them blankly.

Q: The matter is sub-judice
A: Prakaran Nyayapravishta aahe
Q: Appointement on compassionate grounds
A: Anukampa tatvavar niyukti
Q: Police detain delinquents
A: Apacharyanna tabyat ghetle aahe
Q: Traffic disrupted on Expressway
A: Drutgati Mahamargavar vahatuk viskalit zhali aahe
Q: The minister will visit our area tomorrow
A: Naamdar udya aaplya bhagala udya bhet deteel
Q: Accused sent to magisterial custody/police custody
A: Aaropila nyayalayin kothadi/police kothadi zhali aahe
Q: Indian Penal Code says
A: Bhartiya Dand Sanhite pramane
Q: Post-mortem of victim done
A: Mrutakache shava vicchedan zhale aahe

Tagged by my friend, the gentle Silent One in London.

Ten Things You Wish You Could Say To People Right Now (names withheld)
1. Why don’t you talk to me more?
2. I sometimes think you’re silently judging me and that annoys me
3. Do you know how lucky you are?
4. It’s going to take a long time to undo the damage the two of you’ve done. I’m bitter and I’m hanging on to my bitterness.
5. I wish you had done things differently, much earlier.
6. I love you
7. It’s not just a question of ego, but you’d never see it that way
8. You are a terrible manager and need to retire soon
9. Thank you for everything
10. You take us for granted

Nine Things About Yourself
1. I love many different answers to a question. Being “confused” is good.
2. I have become more of an introvert over the years.
3. I am a worrier.
4. Financial stability is very important to me.
5. I have some strong socialist and communist beliefs despite living the life of a capitalist.
6. I love languages.
7. I am a failure in my eyes.
8. I believe in “God” but am still in the process of trying to understand my belief.
9. I’m tired all the time

Eight Ways To Win Your Heart
1. Tell me a story that makes me laugh.
2. Sing to me
3. Garden with me.
4. Take me on holiday.
5. Massage my back and legs.
6. Buy me books.
7. Cook for me and share a glass of wine with me alone.
8. Turn off the TV and talk to me.

Seven Things That Cross Your Mind A Lot
1. When will I put on more weight?
2. Having a baby
3. When will our family problems be resolved?
4. When will we be able to move back to India? And when we do, will be able to live there or will we miss London a lot?
5. Wish I could sing.
6. Should I do a PhD?
7. When can I get out into the garden again?

Six Things You Regret
1. Not earning enough money
2. Not being in touch with some friends more regularly
3. Not being able to do math.
4. Not being able to speak Sindhi.
5. Not letting A know how much he means to me enough.
6. Not being a better sister when I was younger.

Five Turn-Off’s
1. Arbitrary and uncalled for meanness
2. Bad breath
3. People who feel their religion/morals are superior to everyone else
4. Men who pee everywhere but into the pot
5. Too much body hair

Four Turn-On’s
1. Being together on a warm beach
2. The smell of A’s skin
3. Great Singing.
4. Ability to listen while I talk!

Three Things You Want To Do Before You Die
1. Travel a lot.
2. Start a school.
3. Start a business in India that benefits women.

Two Smileys that Describe You
1. :}
2. :]

One Confession
1. I have a toilet fetish. The loo has to be just right, otherwise I can’t go. This causes problems when I travel.

Quite a few Indian women bloggers have written about and are still writing about their names, on whether they changed them or not after marrying, the reactions of others, what they are doing for their childrens names etc. I wrote a post too some time ago. The fact that it is still a battle to want to keep your name is depressing and tiring. I had no battle at all with A about this. He didn’t even ask me whether I was going to change my name, he just assumed I wasn’t. If he had questioned me I would have had serious doubts about marrying him. Some would think this is an over-reaction and attaching too much importance to a “trivial” issue. It is not.

The other huge irritation I have is the whole “Miss, Ms and Mrs” issue. I have repeated time and again to various people that if they have to use a title then they should use “Ms”. I hate it that there are three different ways to refer a woman, and that they hinge on her marital status. A librarian once disapprovingly informed me that “Ms” was used only by divorced women. Someone else said I must be facing the problem of not being called “Ms.” only in India. Not true. The librarian was in London. The latest example is my insurance policy. I told them on the phone that they had got it wrong, referring to me as Mrs Maiden Name. They didn’t care and the policy was approved for a Mrs MG who doesn’t exist. One of the best hotels I ever stayed in and against which I had no complaint, made me an elaborate hand baggage tag in leather, which I wanted to use again but can’t, because I was Mrs. A according to them.

My own dear mother, who taught me how to look at our patriarchal society with a critical eye and to fight it, almost from the time I came out of her-refers to me with a double barelled name. I get packages from her with my “name” taking up half the space on the box. She loves A to bits and I know this is her way of showing it, but I told her to stop.

The so called “little battles” make up the big ones.

And then there is this:

On the 9th of February 2008, remarks by two eminent judiciary members the Chief Justice of Karnataka, Cyriac Joseph and State Human Rights Commission Chairperson Justice S.R.Nayak, stating that immodest dressing was the cause of increasing crimes against women were reported in the press.

The Hon’ble Chief Justice further elaborated his statement by mentioning that “Nowadays, women wear such kind of dresses even in temples and churches that when we go to places of worship, instead of meditating on God, we end up meditating on the person before us” and that the “provocative dresses that women wear in buses” put the “men travelling in the buses” in awkward situations and hence “women must dress modestly.”

The Chairperson, State Human Rights Commission, speaking on ‘Human Rights and the Lawyers Role’, gave his opinion on the Mumbai New Year molestation issue, when two women had their dresses torn off by a mob of men outside a nightclub: “Yes, men are bad… But who asked them (the women) to venture out in the night…Women should not have gone out in the night and when they do, there is no point in complaining that men touched them and hit them. Youth are destroying our culture for momentary satisfaction.”

via.

Saw this ad for townhouses in Bangalore and couldn’t believe it:

Proof that royalty still exists in these democratic times.

Contrary to the popular belief, royalty is still around. Holding court, commanding respect, oozing class, in a more contemporary way. In fact, it’s quite easy to separate these wealthy, flamboyant individuals from a commoner. From the way they live, and where exactly they live.

Come home to the elite neighborhood: Purva Parkridge. It’s not a mere possession anymore, but a reflection of your success. Remember those signposts of struggles you left behind; the grit and passion with which you built a fortune; the way you entered the league of the extraordinary?

Well, it’s time to celebrate that rate success with something equally rare. Purva Parkridge. At just 9 km from MG Road, near Marathahalli Ring Road, you’ll find these beautiful villas and town houses earmarked for the privileged.

To your highness, with love.

The rest here.

The Australian PM has said sorry to the “stolen generation” of aboriginal children who were taken from their parents.

Here is a video in the Guardian today where one of the stolen generation, Lola Edwards, remembers being removed from her Aboriginal family and placed in a domestic training home.

In response to Broom’s tag I have put up the sole scanned picture from my childhood and one of A’s many scanned pictures. I was quite funny looking as a child and not much has improved or changed since, except my hair growing long, but I think A was very cute. Look at him in his father’s hat. I’m bad with wordpress and pictures. Click on the thumbnails for a larger view.

Dear Citizens of India,

Binayak Sen - A mother’s appeal

By Anasuya Sen
I am a woman in my eighties. When we were young, people were inspired by the examples of karmayogis who were patriotic, motivated by ideals of service, wise and virtuous. We considered ourselves blessed if we could follow in their footsteps.

I had so far been a silent spectator to the injustice and violence that pervades our free democracy today, but only because I was personally untouched by it. But now, as an aged mother, and outraged by the blows of injustice, I wish to break my silence. Inconsolable in my pain at the age of eighty-one years, I now wish to make a humble appeal to the people of free, democratic India.

As perhaps many of you are aware, my son Dr. Binayak Sen is today held in jail, a victim of extreme injustice. At the age of four years, he was troubled by questions of injustice: why didn’t the boy who helped us at home not eat with us? Why did he have to eat alone on the kitchen floor? Why couldn’t he join him at meal times?

When he graduated with his first medical degree with distinction at the age of twenty two from the Christian Medical College in Vellore, he refused to heed his father’s wish for him to go to England to study for the MRCP. Whatever knowledge he needed to practice medicine in his own country, he insisted, he could acquire right here. He was subsequently awarded the M.D. in paediatrics from Vellore, and then joined JNU as an assistant professor with a wish to study for a PhD in Public Health. But he could brook no further delay. He left his academic position to take up a position at the TB Research Centre and hospital run by the Friends’ Rural Centre at Hoshangabad (MP). After a couple of years there, he found an opportunity to work among the miners in Chhattisgarh. There he joined the late independent trade unionist Shankar Guha Neogi and devoted himself selflessly to serving the daily wage labourers of the Bhilai factories and the mineworkers and
their families at the mines of Dalli Rajhara and Nandini, aiding and organizing the poor and the oppressed untiringly in their daily struggles to rid themselves of their many social ills. It was here, while working with Shankar Guha Neogi’s Chhattisgarh Mines Shramik Sangh, that Dr. Sen set up a health centre run for and by the workers of the area. Within a few years this grew to a 25 bed hospital. Dr. Sen then left this hospital in the care of the workers and a few other doctors who had been inspired by his example to work there, and joined his wife Dr. Ilina Sen in Raipur in starting a NGO called Rupantar. This organization worked in the areas of community health, ecologically sustainable agriculture, helping women become independent, and formal and informal education for children and adults. Work proceeded apace in all areas successfully. When a rice research centre had opened at Bhatagaon, a scientist cited Dr. Sen in one of his works as “Dr.
Binayak Sen, a farmer”. Dr. Sen also opened community health centres in the villages of Dhamtari and Bastar districts, devoted to treating patients and training health workers for administering primary health care and raising awareness of their own communities in matters of health. Primary and adult education centres were opened at various villages.

Dr. Sen’s example inspired several other doctors from famous medical institutions like AIIMS to give up lucrative careers and comfortable lifestyles to open similar health centres in Bilaspur. These centres are now running very successfully.

While working with Rupantar at Raipur, Dr. Sen joined the People’s Union of Civil Liberties as an all-India Vice President and Secretary for the state of Chhattisgarh. In the course of his medical work among the poor and the oppressed, which was already occupying all his time, he became aware of the abuses of the state towards the poor adivasis of Bastar district, and protested against the state sponsored Salwa Judum movement that pitted adivasis against one other. The state did not take kindly towards his protestations on behalf of the poor.

When the brother of an aged and ailing prisoner of Raipur Central Jail asked Dr. Sen to visit and treat his brother in prison, Dr. Sen did so with the permission of the jail authorities. The fact that the prisoner was a Naxalite gave the state an opportunity to arrest and imprison Dr. Sen on May 14, 2007 under the state’s Public Security laws. The patriot who had devoted his entire professional life to the untiring service of the poor - a record acknowledged by the Paul Harrison Award bestowed on him by his alma mater - that very person was now in jail charged with being a terrorist waging war against the state.

When the Chhattisgarh High Court denied Dr. Sen his appeal for bail, his wife Dr. Ilina Sen appealed to the Supreme Court. The date for the hearing of the bail petition was fixed for Monday, December 10 2007.

A Bench consisting of a senior and a junior judge was appointed to hear the appeal for bail. The initial junior judge was subsequently replaced by another. On December 8, the Chhattisgarh government invited the senior member of this Bench to Raipur as the chief guest at the inaugural ceremony of a Legal Aid Centre, and extended its hospitality to him till December 9 when the senior judge returned to New Delhi. (emphasis added) The very next day, the Bench dismissed Dr. Binayak Sen’s appeal for bail in just thirty-five minutes.

Here, without casting any doubts or aspersions on anyone’s integrity, I humbly wish to pose my question to all the people and revered leaders of free, democratic India: SHOULD I REGARD AS JUSTICE the refusal of bail to one who even as a child was moved by injustice, who having devoted his entire working life selflessly to providing food and health to the poor, who without coveting wealth survived for days on dal, rice and green chillies, who is accustomed to living like the poor, who dedicated his life to serving the people of his country, and who is now arraigned for breach of public security and waging war against the state?
If this is justice, where I should I seek redress against injustice? Should I remain a victim of injustice even at this age?
Does this son of mine - a selfless, wise, virtuous, humble, peace-loving karmayogi, motivated entirely by the ideals of service, and living among the poor - have to spend his days in prison?

My simple question to all compassionate readers of this appeal is: How much longer to that day when Dr. Binayak Sen will receive justice?

I ask this question not just for myself and for my son, but also on behalf of all mothers suffering from the injustice meted out to their children. Is justice so elusive in our free, democratic country?
*************************************************
On December 10, 2007, the Supreme Court rejected Dr. Sen’s bail appeal.