Ashtaputra Akhand Saubhagyawati Bhav.

One more Dowry DEATH. Husband booked. Parents complain. Police investigate. A tortured young existence ends.

One more news. We have become immune to such news items that appear in out newspapers daily. Many go unreported. In this case,( as in most others) , marital violence and monetary demands were reported. The girl  even returned to her parents home , only to be sent back again after reaching  a 'compromise',. and then the news that she is dead - has committed suicide . Parents cry foul, No, not a suicide , murder ! Does it matter now?

Who is responsible? Husband, Parents, tradition, society, or the girl herself? How can a girl in her twenties be so helpless? Why can't she walk out on her husband? Why doesn't the husband seek a divorce if he is unhappy with her?  How can a life be lost so casually? Why do we react in such a sanguine way?

Are we bringing up our girls and boys right ? Why is marriage so important , especially for a girl? Why did the parents send her back? Knowing fully well that she was getting beaten up daily?  Why did she think the situation was so helpless, her own life so worthless?

I have only prayer to God. O God, Let each woman bear only sons.  We love sons. We really do. We tolerate the daughters. But we will be absolutely happy if one is not born to us.Why have the burden, the tension, the expenditure?

So God , LET EACH WOMAN ONLY  BE ' ASHTAPUTRA AKHAND SAUBHAGYAWATI.*

*  ( Let each woman give birth to eight sons, and let her die before her husband does, loosely translated)

Road Angst

Participated in a traffic jam today. It was certainly a community experience, a peek in the minds of people who participate in the circus that is Dehradun traffic.

Well, Traffic anywhere in India is a nightmare. Delhi, Bombay are a wee bit better as the Police force there go through the motions of being the enforcing agency. Some cities like Nagpur, Hyderabad are redeemed by having a good wide road network. No such luck for dear old Dehradun.

Dehradun, as I saw it first, was a sweet pensioners' paradise. Till about 15 yreas ago..Then Uttarakhand happened and Dehradun grew like a puffer fish, in an instant..in the blink of an eye..so the roads shrank, the roadside nullahs grew wider and filthier and the wheels just multiplied exponentially. And the traffic !!

Traffic in India is free for all.  ! Let us over take, overover take and overoverover take. So we had three lines of four wheelers and absolutely haphazardly standing two wheelers and the complete road blocked and no place  to make a left turn.

This road called Subhash Road is a fair enough two lane road ( Hope they cover those horrid open drains in the entire city) But as the traffic was crawling , each one wanted to race and come first. so these utter chaos.
I ended up spending about 40 minutes , first ten minutes waiting hopefully for the chaos to straighten themselves out,and then next 20 biting my nails and last 10 trying to sort things out. All because some people wanted to use a two way road as one way..

The name saga...

This is the story of my name. Iit is as racy , as tragic and as comic as your current neighbourhood hit film.. Don't believe me? Read on !

To the onreader , my name looks pretty ordinary..Vandana Jakati. Just a common female name. right? We will see.

My mausi named me Vandana. I had absolutely nothing to do with this act, had no opinion about it and so I accepted it with equanimity . and so I grew up as Vandana..and kept growing with it till about 19 yrs and a few months.. I matriculated, HSSCed and graduated with this name ..Vandana Shankar Tuljapurkar , to be precise. ( For the non marathis here , we MUST mention the name of our father and husband as our middle name or Sacrilege!!! ) To write this three word name on all copies, books, and sundry forms was as simple as breathing...and there I was cruising along with this rather heavy name !

And then marriage happened !

We marathi people have a strange tradition. The husband has a right to change the first name of his wife..as if it is not enough that she is giving up the surname she was identified with so far, the change in identity must be complete..so post marriage the bride has a complete new look name too..and so it happened to me.

To be fair my husband , Ram Jakati did not want to change my name. But I was young, foolish and an idiot. In my family, my mom, my mausi, my buas and most others had a pre marriage and post marriage name and each one had an interesting story that went with it. To top it all, a friend who had got married just a few months ago, too had a swanky new identity to boast.. so I fell to that false ( which realised later after much jhanjhat) glory and insisted on a name change.

After much consultation and discussion, I decided that I would be named Lakshmi post marriage.. So Vandana Shankar Tuljapurkar was to become Lakshmi Ram Jakati.

AND so it happened !!

Next part coming shortly..

The floral Sachin!

The house was full of flowers, still is..colourful, fragrant, happy flowers and that too in great profusion..It was such a joy to find homes for them, glass bowls, vases, jugs !

The house loooked delightful, festive and really welcoming.. In fact, THE GUESTS SHOULD SEND THEIR FLOWERS ONE DAY BEFORE THE PARTY...SO THAT THEY CAN ENJOY THE SPECTACLE , THE FLOWERS ARE BETTER CARED FOR AND LAST LONGER... right? And the hostess does not have to scurry around looking for appropriate holders for them. Imagine, friends after friends walking in, handing over the most gorgeous flora to you and you must offload it on a chair just to accept the next one. I think I will try to send in the flowers a day before !!

It is four days now and today the water had to be changed again..and my blossoms are showing signs of withering. The magnificent red roses, the lovely pink ones, the royal yellow ones are all wilting. The glads are drying up. But the gerberras are are still going strong. The multi hued , large radiant flowers look set for a long innings at the crease. They are the ones for me..

It is a fact that I am not a writer..but I happen to have views about everything...There are no inspirations too, hence the name...
This is just an attempt to express my views to no one in particular..Let us see what comes out of an expressly blank mind that one has.
why should someone like me blog? Frankly just because one can. So if you happen to come across this post, pl know that technology is a great leveler- making writers ( typers ) out of every single person with an access to the world of internet...
I am as curious as you are where these ramblings are leading to! Yes, right.. To a full stop.