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..