~ Reflections ~

All of us are doing multiple things at a time... Various responsibilities... a list of pending chores...  A long list of confused thoughts and a longer list of woes.. As we walk through life, we get used to juggling everything... precariously keeping balance.... living it to the edge....and focusing our energies on keeping it together... So what happens if we just drop a ball... does all hell break lose...  Most of us aren't conditioned to handle this momentary chaos !

All of us talk about India being a progressive society. That we are catching up the "modern" world.  That women are now treated equally... or atleast will be. It is a good thought to pursue, since India is one of the few nations in the world where we have the existence of a matriarchal society, where the woman of the house has the right to property, money and business. Don't get me wrong, it is not about the money, but more a sense of power and rights, and the notional symbols attached to it by our society. Needless to say, in most cases, the woman is forced to fight for this right, despite being the care giver towards the later parts of life. And again, by woman, I don't necessarily mean daughter... it could well be the daughter-in-law who has been doing what it takes. But what good is all this power, when the same woman is beaten, raped in wide open streets, and then is told that she is at "fault" and is tainted... ironically due a crime committe...

We learn different aspects to different people/moments we come across in life... afterall we are but sponges, who absorb what we come across, both positive and negative... The love for history from a fabulous teacher in school who kept narrating history of the world like small anecdotes she witnessed herself.... The love for reading from a doting grandfather who would mark out snippets in the newspaper for us to read... The fear of traffic defaulters from the accident of a dear friend... The list is endless.... But we somehow ignore the inherent reason we are able to soak all this up... the gene pool and the environment we grew up in, thanks to our family and near and dear....