Happy Women's Day

This is the Email that I sent out on Women's Day. :-) Storing it for posterity. Laugh Away!

Women still remember the first kiss after men have forgotten the last.- Remy de Gourmant (French writer)

A man loses his sense of direction after four drinks; a woman loses hers after four kisses.- H.L. Mencken (American writer, 1888-1956)

Why get married and make one man miserable when I can stay single and make thousands miserable?- Carrie Snow

I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb…and I also know that I'm not blonde.- Dolly Parton

You see a lot of smart guys with dumb women, but you hardly ever see a smart woman with a dumb guy.- Erica Jong

I've been on so many blind dates, I should get a free dog.- Wendy Liebman

Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth.- Erma Bombeck

If high heels were so wonderful, men would be wearing them.- Sue Grafton

I think-therefore I'm single.- Lizz Winstead

When women are depressed they either eat or go shopping. Men invade another country.- Elayne Boosler

Behind every successful man is a surprised woman.- Maryon Pearson

In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man; if you want anything done, ask a woman.- Margaret Thatcher

I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career.- Gloria Steinem

If men can run the world, why can't they stop wearing neckties? How intelligent is it to start the day by tying a little noose around your neck?- Linda Ellerbee

"Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same."- Oscar Wilde

"Insurance is like marriage. You pay, pay, pay, and you never get anything back."- Al Bundy

"I recently read that love is entirely a matter of chemistry. That must be why my wife treats me like toxic waste."- David Bissonette

"If variety is the spice of life, marriage is the big can of leftover Spam."- Johnny Carson

"If you are afraid of loneliness, don't marry."- Chekhov

"Maybe this world is another planet's Hell."- Aldous Huxley
"Sex alleviates tension. Love causes it."- Woody Allen
"Sex is hereditary. If your parents never had it, chances are you wont either."- Joseph Fischer
"Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. "Yes" is the answer."- Swami X
"The right half of the brain controls the left half of the body. This means that only left handed people are in their right mind."- Anonymous

"We spend the first twelve months of our children's lives teaching them to walk and talk and the next twelve telling them to sit down and shut up."- Phyllis Diller

"I'm an excellent housekeeper. Every time I get a divorce, I keep the house."-Zsa Zsa Gabor

"The only thing worse than a man you can't control is a man you can."- Margo Kaufman

"I don't worry about terrorism. I was married for two years."- Sam Kinison

"I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury."- Groucho Marxv

"Eighty percent of married men cheat in America. The rest cheat in Europe."- Jackie Mason

"When you see what some girls marry, you realize how they must hate to work for a living."- Helen Rowland

"Whenever I date a guy, I think, is this the man I want my children to spend their weekends with?"- Rita Rudner

"We had a lot in common. I loved him and he loved him."- Shelley Winters

"I'm not into working out. My philosophy: No pain, no pain."- Carol Leifer

"A hotel is a place that keeps the manufacturers of 25-watt bulbs in business."- Shelley Berman

"I have six locks on my door all in a row. When I go out, I lock every other one. I figure no matter how long somebody stands there picking the locks, they are always locking three."- Elayne Boosler

Come, Blue Bird

Come Blue bird,
The one with the blue neck
That drank of the nectar of death
And lived to tell the tale.
Come, Blue bird,
Bring that nectar
To souls parched for death
The multitudes left uncounted
Because the world only recognises
Souls parched for eternal life.
A brief life can be bliss too.

Come, Blue Bird,
To the ones not counted
To the thirst not yet quenched.

Why reservation is misused by the REserved

The occasion was the selection of candidates for a well known business school. The panel i got was 9 candidates aspiring to make it using the OBC quota.

Of these, 4 were from middle to high income class, and 5 were from a disadvantaged background.

In addition to the fact that the 4 who were from a well off background did not make the basic cut, they had one other disqualification that led to their summary rejection.
When you have had educated parents, with one or both parents being in government service, have gone to above average educational institutes and have been an average student or more, have afforded CAT coaching and GD/PI coaching as well, and if you still want to take the reservation route to an admission just because of the caste that you were born into, that tells me that your ethics are all in the wrong place. It tells me that in a fight, you will not think twice about using unfair tactics. It also tells me that you are willing to step over other people to serve your end, even if they justifiably deserve the opportunity more than you do.

Is that the kind of manager that a B School wants to send into the world? Is this what we want to portray in our alumni?
We decided against it. We want alumni whose integrity is at least as good their intelligence.
And therefore, I am personally against all people using the quota route when they don't have any disadvantage in their background. They rob a deserving candidate of a fair seat, and they use an unfair mechanism to further a selfish end.

From "A Thousand Splendid Suns"

"Each snowflake was a sigh heaved by an aggrieved woman somewhere in the world. That all the sighs drifted up the sky, gathered into clouds, then broke into tiny pieces that fell silently on the people below.
As a reminder of how women like us suffer," she'd said.
"How quietly we endure all that falls upon us"

If you don't know already, "A Thousand Splendid Suns" is Khaled Hosseini's second book. This one is about women in the Afghanistan of the Taliban.

More than anything else, this book makes one feel grateful to have the right to education and livelihood, the right to go out of one's house unescorted, and the right to travel alone.

We forget that these are rights, and in some parts of the world, nearer than we think, (i.e., right here in India), there are women who do not have these rights.

Fund For Lalit Mehta

On May 14. 2008, Lalit Mehta of Vikas Sahyog Kendra was brutally murdered by those threatened by his work.

Lalit’s colleagues and friends have now come together to raise funds for his family. The aim is to raise a sum of Rs 6 lakhs that would enable Ashrita to receive an interest of Rs. 4000 per month. In addition , FD of Rs. 1 lakh each in the name of the 2 children. Thus the target is to receive at least Rs. 8 lakhs. Please send your donations in the name of Vikas Sahyog kendra . The account details are:
SBI , Daltonganj Bazar Branch, A/c No – 10801981840;
For Direct transfers – IFSC Code – SBIN0001221;
For FCRA Donation, A/c No. 10801935906 ; IFSC Code – SBIN0001221
In case you are mailing a cheque, please send it to – Manij Singh, President, Vikas Sahyog kendra
Chhatarpur , Dist. Palamau, Jharkhand. – 822113
Tel no – 0656-285483; 290013

Please also send an email to vskmanoj@yahoo.co.in stating the purpose of donation as support for Lalit Mehta Family.

So why is one posting this? One did not know of Lalit Mehta before this. I do not know if he was indeed doing what he was purporting to do (which is a mean thing to say, but one is the devil's advocate today) .

However, I do believe that even if he was a bandit(which he decidedly was not), that does not change the fact that his family needs financial security - his wife and children were not Veerappan, and we owe them something for the loss of an engineer husband who did not want to work in a corporate jungle and instead, chose the grassroots for his work.

I have not made too many appeals on this blog- that goes against my nature. But in this one case, if you can donate, please do. No amount is too small, and SBI has branches all over.

PS: And if you want to know more:

http://www.doccentre.net/Tod/TOD1_80519zzz1_B.php

http://www.binayaksen.net/2008/05/murder-of-lalit-mehta-in-palamau-aimless-crime-or-planned-intimidation/

You will want to read this.

http://lawandotherthings.blogspot.com/2008/06/niyamgiri-and-ramar-setu-study-in.html

Totiya Manmotiya by Rabbi Shergill

In Rabbi Shergill's first album was a song - Totiya Manmotiya.

What is this song about? Its a deeply stirring song, and one has heard it at least hundreds of times, and have a strong feeling that it is connected with something in our world, but can't put my finger on it. Does anyone know? can guess?

The Bridges of Madison County

It is strange when a book in English (The Bridges of Madison County) inspires thought in Punjabi.
When the thought first came , it was written, and then adjudged to be too tacky to be shared. S.m.a.r.t thought otherwise, and has inspired me to put this on the blog. She says the brickbats can be directed to her(but then, of course, we do know that all the readers are too polite to offer brickbats even when they are due.)

So here goes, with reference to context - The Bridges of Madison County.

ਤੇਰੀ ਯਾਦ

ਮੈਂ ਸਾਂਭ ਕੇ ਰਖੀ

ਇਕ ਦਿਨ ਹਵਾ ਮੇਰੇ ਕੋਲ ਆਯੀ

ਤੇ ਬੋਲੀ

ਸੁਗਨ੍ਧੀ, ਬਨ੍ਦ ਪੋਟ੍ਲੀ ਵਿਚ ਸਾਹ ਨਹੀ ਲੈ ਸਕਦੀ

ਐਨੇ ਮਰ ਜਾਨਾ

ਤੇ ਮੈਂ

ਓਦੀ ਗਲ ਮਨ ਕੇ

ਤੇਰੀ ਯਾਦ

ਹਵਾ ਦੇ ਹਵਾਲੇ ਕੀਤਿ

ਹੁਣ ਸਾਮ੍ਭੇ

ਯਾ ਪਰਸ਼ਾਦ ਵਾਂਗਨ ਵਂਡ ਦੇਵੇ
ਮੇਰੇ ਜਯੇ ਹੋਰ ਕਮਲਯਾਂ ਨੁ

ਹਵਾ ਦੀ ਮਰ੍ਜ਼ੀ ..

ਮੇਰੀ ਪੋਟ੍ਲੀ , ਮੈਨੁ ਪਤਾ ਹੈ

ਚਿਟ੍ਟੀ ਤੋਂ

ਗੁਲਾਬੀ ਹੋ ਗਯੀ ਹੈ.

तेरी याद
मैं सांभ के रखी
इक दिन हवा मेरे कोल आयी
ते बोली
सुगन्धी, बन्द पोट्ली विच साह नही लै सकदी
ऐने मर जाना
ते मैं
ओदी गल मन के
तेरी याद
हवा दे हवाले कीति
हुण साम्भे
या परशाद वांगन वंड देवे

मेरे जये होर कमलयां नु
हवा दी मर्ज़ी ..
मेरी पोट्ली , मैनु पता है
चिट्टी तों
गुलाबी हो गयी है.

Your memory

was in safekeeping.

Untile one day

the Wind came to me

and said,

"Fragrances cannot breathe in closed knapsacks."

Obligingly, i handed over

your memory to her

For safekeeping

Or, to give away as holy offering

to other mad people like me.

What do i care?

For i know

that my knapsack, once white

is pink now.

*****************

So there, i still think its hideous(and no, am not fishing for compliments here), but there it is, for you to suffer.

A post worth reading

if you've been here before, you know Amrita Pritam. Am ever so grateful to Aaina ji for posting this by Amrita Pritam. Haven't read this before, and am pleasantly surprised. Do read.

http://aaina2.wordpress.com/2008/05/29/ek-shahar-amrita-pritam/