A Happy 78th year of independence. Really?!

A few years ago, Bollywood celebrity Aamir Khan shared a personal conversation with his then-wife Kiran Rao about feeling unsafe in India and considering relocating. They were harshly criticized, labeled as traitors, simply because they were public figures. Yet, many Indian families have similar discussions daily.

As an ordinary citizen, I'm proud of my culture and heritage, but I find the country increasingly unbearable. I'm fearful for my loved ones—my daughter, mother, toddler, and friends.

On India's 78th Independence Day, I question whether we truly deserve this independence. We’ve always been told India is the world’s largest democracy, but is democracy even functioning anymore? Theoretically, yes; practically, no.

Inhumane behavior is escalating daily. Rape. A crime which in itself is gruesome. There was a time when the 'girls' were labelled as reasons to call for rape as they would wear 'provocative' cloths and mingle with men. Can an infant be wearing provocative cloths? Can a wheelchair bound 80 years old lady be wearing provocative cloths? Can a little boy be the reason for the 'invitation' to sexually molest him? Can a doctor on duty be calling for a brutal rape? Not just that, but with glass shreds, needles, cigarette butts and what not in her private parts? I mean, what goes on in the minds of such perverts? The cruelty is unimaginable. As I write this, I'm trembling with anger and fear after reading about yet another rape case in Kolkata.

Despite celebrating Indian women's achievements, many still consider daughters a burden and uphold regressive traditions like dowry. Educated or ambitious women are expected to bear the sole responsibility for home and family, while men are allowed to rest because they "provide." We are in 2024, yet these archaic mindsets persist. We worship goddesses but continue to oppress and harm women in real life.

"How dare she is fulfilling her dreams."

The roots of our problems lie in two areas: India's history of colonization and an uneducated population (not just in literacy but true education). Years of being ruled have embedded a "hoard money and power" mentality in our DNA, something that can’t easily be changed. Those with access to money exploit it, while others, desperate, resort to inhumane lengths to get it.

Our uneducated population believes in endless reproduction, preferring male offspring regardless of the consequences. This has led to a severe imbalance: more people, fewer jobs, and a growing number of egotistical, unemployed males who feel entitled to act out violently.

In our 78th year of independence, India has become an angry, unhappy, unsafe, and corrupt nation. Concrete jungles replace green ones, and jealousy and perversion are rampant. Yet, those who speak out are labeled traitors.

I’m immensely proud of my country, but I am also a stressed and sad woman, still striving for a safe, successful, and happy life here.

Just how much is too much?!

A couple of months back I had joined an online course on Digital Content Writing and our trainer decided to have an icebreaking session by throwing in a topic for our discussion - AI: can it replace the writers/authors and content writers? My take on it was that any creative field will always look for the human, emotional touch and cannot and should not be replaced by any technology. The hardcore writers still prefer to pick up their pen and paper to write. For non-creative fields, it can definitely be a big helpful technology.

Though I had zero idea about AI or ChatGPT till that day, we had gradually been introduced to this tool to keep ourselves upgraded, with a caution: always be a writer at heart. Use AI as a helper.

However, there are few who would use caution. In a competitive world, I know those in this field who blatantly use AI to 'create the original content' before anyone else does. Still, creating content may seem like a harmless usage of AI. It gets ugly when those with the criminal mindset grab any latest technology to rob people of their hard earned money and respect.

We were all enjoying AI generated images of celebs - the cast of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. if they wore Indian ethnic, Avengers on Indian streets, Ed Shereen enjoying Indian street food, 'living' Ram lalla idol, and so on. But it soon turned out to be a nightmare for celebrities and several people when their morphed and AI generated images were used for not-so-pleasant purposes and obviously, without their consent.  A few months ago, a well known music composer of the Indian music industry created a duet song using the AI generated voice of two late veteran singers and though divided reactions, but a lot of people were in awe of what this new technology could do.

"We could literally keep on getting blessed with new songs in the voice of our favourite singers even when they are long gone. Being made 'amar' in true sense"

Now the same technology is creating havoc when people with criminal bend of mind are generating voice of your loved ones begging to save their lives by giving money to these impersonators!

I read about it a few weeks ago. One morning, I just watched a reel by the Tech expert Rajiv Makhni on how criminals are posing as CBI or Narcotics officers and claiming that your family member has committed a gruesome crime and if you want them to not get tangled in the web of police and court hearings, pay a certain amount of money. I downloaded this reel to share with my family and guess what, my father told that my first cousin just had a narrow escape with his quick thinking. Another cousin of mine had also got such call about his son. Luckily at that very moment, his son was sitting right next to him. But they were lucky. Everyone is not. Criminals have siphoned off lakhs of money by misusing this technology.

Many months back I had watched a video where the man removed the SIM card from his mobile and even switched it off and roamed about in the entire city throughout the day. Still, at the end of the day, his phone had the entire details about where all he went.

Can I just throw away my 'smartphone' which is literally listening to me all the time? Probably, smartphones are better listeners than our husbands! Jokes apart, even if I would want to throw it away, I don't think I can. Every communication whether it is from banks, schools, offices etc are on Whatsapp. People are being discouraged from 'crowding' institutions. Do as much online as you can. Even the artists now have to use the social media to reach out to the larger audience. On one hand, government is encouraging digital transactions. On the other hand, well known and some of the biggest companies in the world are selling our data.

'Once you have created a digital footprint, you become a part of the web. You cannot escape. Every movement of yours is seen, every word that you speak is heard, even every thought in your mind is being read.'

Its like a few extremely intelligent people all around the world work really hard to solve the problems of the world using the technology and even before the world could start seeing the benefits of those inventions, the criminals start working on the crimes that they are going to commit using these latest sophisticated technologies. We step on those marshy patches to use these advancements and by the time we realise that we are getting trapped, its too late to come out of it. Who knew that mobiles which were extremely bulky and expensive and owned by the exclusive set of people would one day enslave the entire world?

Sometimes I just wonder about how much technology is too much technology?

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Yes. Pronounce this title and you get a chance to spend a lovely evening with me. I know, not a very promising prize. You would rather not pronounce it. So, what is it?

Living a generally mundane life, I saw the Whatsapp status video of my mentor (for all practical purposes) in the writing area and my daughter's Creative Writing teacher - Anupama Dalmia, where she was playing this "guessing" game. The question was - which is that word in English Dictionary/language which was actually a song but it became so popular that it was included in the language. And the video ended there...

With my limited exposure and love for English songs, I made no efforts and asked for the answer. She - equally aware of my limitation - immediately gave me the answer. And it was Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. It took me a few seconds to figure it out that it was not a typing mistake and I asked for the Youtube link, if available. She sent me that too. My mind was blown away. Whoever thought of that word and the lyrics of the song, who composed it, who sang it...

Such a small thing but it got me excited as a child.

Once, a family friend and a life coach, told me. Our brain needs to be challenged and indulged into something new every now and then. You go to office from the same route every day. Try a new route some day. You use your right hand to brush your teeth. Try brushing them with your left hand some day. See the fun. I did some of these things and I was totally amazed. I think doing such things actually increases your concentration amd makes you stay in that moment, which is something very important. Thinking of 10 other things while doing that one thing actually increases anxiety and lack of concentration. So when I was brushing my teeth with left hand, my mind was totally into it. No other thoughts. But our resistance to do things differently also increases with our age. In fact, seeing somebody do something differently makes us (at least me and a few others that I know) irritated. Young kids are the best example. If I make some stupid sound or a gesture, my baby boy burst into laughter and I am like, hello, what was so funny about it. But he likes it. The babies use the 'tools' that we give to them in unimaginable ways. Give them a spoon and they may use it as a tool to do everything but to eat. Thats curiosity. Unfortunately, our curiosity slows down as we age. 

I am on a BREAK

 

This is something that I wrote within 4-5 minutes for a Daily Prompt from a Bloggers' platform but due to some issue, could not get published there...

Prompt word for the day was BREAK...

Part 1: The Unnamed Caregiver

The first “Human of my life” that came to my mind the moment I thought about this series was someone who took care of me, without being asked to do so, during my pregnancy. Since this episode happened during my pregnancy, I wanted to share this beautiful story with several other fellow-mommies and that’s why I had posted it on another online platform that is exclusively for the Mothers – Momspresso.

Here is the link to the first part - https://www.momspresso.com/parenting/nikita/article/humans-of-my-life-part1-the-unnamed-caregiver-7iqpmo18cftg

New Series - The Humans of My Life

Life is short and unpredictable. We keep coming across life coaches who suggest we to not wait to do something in our lives but just do it. Many of us have even seen that happen.

In our everyday busy lives, we are so engrossed with our mundane jobs that we rarely get time to take a pause, appreciate little things around us that give us joy. We are surrounded by news of dangerous crimes and criminals that we just cannot see some beautiful people who might have selflessly helped us in some way. 

I, too, have several instances where I kept on thinking about calling someone and talking to them or reaching out and convey my heartfelt gratitude to them and regretting my laziness as I lost touch with these people or lost them forever.

“I will call her on this Saturday”, I thought to myself very recently, only to know that she left us forever on Friday – a day before I was thinking to call her.

“I will retire after 3 years Nikita and I am not going to miss even one single Bharatanatyam performance of my daughter”, said my ex-Manager, only that a massive cardiac-arrest took him away forever the very next morning.

I cannot undo what I have done, or rather not done. However, what I can do now is to think about and express my gratitude towards these angels and heroes of my life – The Humans of My Life.

In this series – The Humans of My Life – I am going to share the stories of several strangers who I might have met just for a day or over a period of time and they helped me in some way or the other and left a major mark on my life.

A grand funeral

“Guys. I have sad news for all of you”, said Swatee to her group.

Group - It was a group of five, nicknamed SAVAN, using the first letter of the names of each of the members in the order of their ages. Swatee, Ankur, Vipul, Anurag, and Nikki. They were cousins. Swatee, Ankur, and Anurag were real siblings while Vipul and Nikki were the children of their aunty. All of them were very close to each other and most of their summer vacations were spent together.

Everybody looked up as Swatee announced the sad news.

“What is it?”, asked Ankur

“He is no more. I just checked on him”

“Oh no. I knew something was wrong with him. He was sitting still for a long time there. God knows if he passed away when we saw him yesterday night. You guys did not let me go near him. We could have saved him somehow”, said Vipul

“Where is he now?”, asked Anurag

“Still there. In the corner of the garden. I went near him and called out his name many times. When he did not respond, I went close and nudged him. That’s when I realized that he is no more”, explained Swatee. 

“He must get a very nice burial spot and a grand funeral. Shall we inform our mothers?”, asked Vipul

“No. They won’t allow us to do the last rites. Let’s do it ourselves. How about making his grave right there at his favorite spot - the corner of the garden?”, proposed Ankur

“Won’t our mothers scold us?”, asked the youngest of all, Nikki

“Don’t worry. Now, go and get a cloth to cover him. You can find a white one in my cupboard”, instructed Swatee and Nikki took off.

Everybody got up and went outside and made sure that nobody was there. As it was mid of June, the hot weather made sure that all the adults were sitting inside. Nobody can force the kids to stay indoors though. The boys dug the grave at the corner of the garden. By that time, Nikki had already got the white cloth. All of them gave one final teary look to their friend and covered him. Ankur and Vipul picked him up and lowered him in the grave.

They all stood around it and then slowly started covering it with mud. Everyone stood in silence, tears rolling down their cheeks. To everyone’s surprise, Anurag suddenly ran inside and reappeared after some five minutes. He came near all of them, made his way closer to the grave, and planted a flag that he just made, with their friend’s name on it.

“Goodbye, my friend. Rest in peace”, said a teary-eyed Anurag

Everyone shared their memories about him and occasionally had a brief laugh thinking about the precious moments spent with the departed soul.

“He always liked this corner. Whatever the season be, however hot or cold it might be, we could always find him here”, remembered Ankur

“And he instantly became our friend, isn’t it? None of us hesitated to play with him the moment we saw him”, said Vipul

“Yes. May he rest in peace”, finally said Swatee and placed some fresh flowers near the grave

“Nikki, won’t you say anything for him?”, asked Vipul

“Ummm… I… What do I say? He was very friendly and free-spirited. Always jumping and hopping around. Do you all remember his long tongue? I freaked out when I first saw him catching that big mosquito with his tongue. I wish we could have played a little longer with him. He used to play hide & seek with us here in the garden and it was always so difficult to spot him, for his green color. I’ll miss playing with him now. 

Goodbye dear friend, Froggie”

And SAVAN bid adieu to their friend, a green frog, who they had fondly named as Froggie.

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This is what our childhood was made of. Memorable summer vacations and stories to narrate to our next generation and laugh about them. This story is part fiction and part real. The real part is that we did name our group as SAVAN and had also performed the funeral of a frog. But we were not that dramatic in those days. We still are not!