A BIASED BEGINNING: by Naveeta Gupta

Follow your dreams, they all say. Go for what you are passionate about. Take the road not taken. Create your own path by doing something different. Amidst all the preaching, we forget the harsh reality that we all don’t start at the same page, we all don’t get the freedom to be what we want to and how destiny serves dilemma to our table to make it a Biased Beginning.

PART-I

It was just another Sunday morning for Swati, she was messing around the house, wiping the kitchen-slab, grabbing her toast and running to catch her cab which had been waiting outside for a while. She pulled the door of the cab, sat down, and apologized to the driver saying, “Sorry bhaiya! I will try to be on time from tomorrow.” The driver smiled as he pressed on the gas pedal, ‘cause he knew there wasn’t any end to her tardiness’. The sunny morning with wind blowing her hair around initiated her chain of thoughts, or rather regrets, that she never gets to be with her family not even on Sundays. And this thought took her down the memory lane to the series of instances which changed her life.

Five years back, she was working hard to become one of the best and renowned dancers of India. Dance, was her passion, her life. She couldn’t even think about not being a dancer. She was one of the best dancers of her academy, had won many state level competitions and was appreciated by everyone. She was so happy in enjoying this phase of her life. But little did she know what destiny has planned for her. Next, she was given with an opportunity to learn further in U.S.A at a workshop. Only a few privileged ones like her had a choice. But life gave her a hard hit, she was not privileged enough to continue and pursue her dreams. She financed her dance classes out of her pocket money and now she couldn’t afford all the expenses to go abroad. She couldn’t even stress her family as she belongs to a middle-class family and know how much pain her parents are taking to make her life better, she couldn’t ask for more. Being the only child, she had responsibilities to fulfill. Her parents expected her to be successful, earn a handsome salary and have consistency in life. She wanted to give it all back to her parents, live for them so she chose to be an engineer and now what she does is all work, work, and work. Nonetheless, how much she wanted to go with her passion, she chose to go and lead a life which most of us are forced to live as we fail to fight back our destiny.

PART-II

It was a great day for Shanaya, she was busy setting up things, making sure everything is perfect. While she was checking for the music system, she caught a glance of herself into the big mirror covering one of the walls of her dance academy, and, felt proud and ecstatic, like never before. Her happiness knew no bound as it was the D-day when her dreams were getting fulfilled. She had waited for five long years for this day to come. Her hard-work, her persistency, her talent made her one of the best and renowned dancers of India. She worked hard in her journey to get to this position but being born with a silver spoon, she was always provided with the best she could have. She was taught by the best dancers from the world and got the opportunity to pursue her dreams without giving a thought to other things in life.

Both Swati and Shanaya were from the same academy, equally talented, but Shanaya was able to grab the opportunity and live her dreams and Swati focused on finding stability in her life. In doing so, Swati just fulfilled everybody’s dream, gave happiness to everybody, made them proud but forgot to live a little for herself. This is how life works.

Compromising on your dreams to find stability, is it wrong? It’s not wrong, sometimes life leaves us with no choice but to quantify a simple livelihood over dreams. We say everybody is born with equal opportunities, equal freedom to follow their dreams, but it is not always the way we paint the picture in our mind.

It is mostly a Biased Beginning.

 

 

PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY- A HINDRANCE TO WOMEN’S AUDACITY: by Naveeta Gupta

A society which expects women to be obedient and submissive at all times,

A society that oppresses women, exploits and abuses her in the name of control,

A society that considers women as subordinate to male dominance,

A society that offers protection of patriarchy by imposing boundations,

A society which provides moral values and a society which allows women to compromise on those values if and when required,

A society which poses a threat to women’s advancements, limits their scope, make them vulnerable to raise their voices and avoids the values of equality, is our deep rooted- Patriarchal society which covers the harsh realities of system in its dubious veils.

Patriarchy has become a deep rooted mindset of people in many cultures, both men and women. Women find themselves in a dilemma whether to rebel or hold back as Freedom is considered synonymous to Loss of Security. This can be exemplified with a real incidence of a girl, which is the story of more than half of the women. Let’s name this girl Anu, a sincere and introvert girl who was approached by a boy, but she didn’t respond. She was continuously being followed by the guy and then after some time they became friends, they used to meet often and she never knew that he has been giving her some drugs which would lead her to loose her senses. Taking the advantage of this opportunity many times he used to assault her and make videos of her, this went on for long and then the boy blackmailed her that all this would be posted on the social media if she doesn’t obey him. This made the girl suicide and give away her life when she could not fight more. This made her do everything she didn’t want to in order to protect her image, her family’s reputation in the society.

Did living with values of the society, not rebelling, saved the girl? Protected her from the pain of the heinous act she went through? No, raising voice should have made a difference but girls are taught to keep quiet by our society and families even in such situations. These fears and values symbolize the emotional, mental and physical vulnerabilities of women which give men the power to control, insult and assault them in the name of protection- a unique point of  male dominance.

India proves to be a good example of patriarchal society where a woman cannot do anything without the permission of the male counterpart. In Indian culture, the society teaches girls from the beginning to respect male, follow them, be timid, accept the decisions of males and teaches boys to be dominant and physically strong, i.e, a boy cribbing over something is considered a  weak trait, a characteristic of a girl. This discrimination allows men to disrespect women since childhood. If any act or mishap occurs, it is always a girl who is accused despite of being the victim and the culprit lives with all the freedom and respect. Had boys been given the values at childhood to respect women, consider them equal, protect them, rather than making them learn to make women respect them and making them dominant in the society, would have changed the way the society exists. Are you ready to bring this change?

THE WRETCHED KARMA : by Navdeep Singh Pabla

ACT 1 : THE GUY

It was just another morning for Karthik , a 20 year old orphan lad staying in the lower suburbs of the city. But he did not know that this day was going to change his life forever. He was basically a street hawker who met his ends of life by selling different stuff every day. Today he had to sell a dozen of fresh flower bouquets by a deadline of evening 5:00 PM . He began his work quite early in the morning and he being quite a witty and smart street guy, sold the bouquets quite quickly, and then approached the roof of a deserted under construction building. Another huge and burly man approached him. The man looked as shady as their place of meeting. Karthik addressed him as boss and informed about his today’s work that all bouquets had been sold. The Boss seemed quite happy and handed Karthik a briefcase. Karthik inquired that had his wish been fulfilled or not. The boss replied with a smirk on his face ”Yes man, you got what you asked for, the briefcase has your 50 lakh Rupees”.

 

ACT 2 : THE KID

For a child of his age, he drew really well with his paintbrush gliding on the sheet of paper as smoothly as strokes of air. But he could not make out or name what he was trying to draw, it was all in his head and simultaneously his thoughts took the form of colors on paper sheets.  An Eight year old Vishnu studied in the local Centre For Children With Special Needs. Vishnu had his own special needs because he was autistic. He suffered from autism.  He was an orphan and hence could not get any proper treatment for his problem. But he was still quite gleeful with all other similar children around him. He finally completed his painting and took it to his teacher to show it her. The teacher seemed happy and gave Vishnu a gift.

 

ACT 3 : THE LADY

As the alarm rang early morning, Namitha woke up quite excited. Today was her first marriage anniversary. Namitha was a woman in her early thirties and was a teacher. Since her husband was still asleep she went for a light morning walk. She was thinking hard about buying a present for her husband and what should it be. But she managed to buy a bouquet from a street side vendor. She returned back home and took out the card which she had prepared herself lovingly to present it to her husband. She thought of giving the bouquet and the card together wishing that her husband would love it. As she approached her bedroom she heard whispers from the room. Her husband was talking to someone on the phone, ” Darling Priya , please try to understand , I love you . I will soon try to create issues between myself and Namitha and get a divorce as quickly as possible, then you and me can stay together forever”. Namitha felt completely numb. She was dejected, hurt, and heartbroken. She managed to stuff the bouquet in her purse, got ready and fled to her school without making any kind of contact with her husband.

 

ACT 4 : THE END IS HERE

 

Namitha reached her class and sulked up in a corner. She refused to talk to anyone and remained teary eyed for a couple of hours.  Just then a child came up to her and handed her a painting, the painting of a married couple. Namitha did not know whether  to cry over the situation or feel better after seeing the painting, so she just praised the kid ” Vishnu, you draw very well ,here take a gift” and handed him the bouquet she had brought in the morning for her husband.

Meanwhile Karthik destroyed both his sim cards and cell phone. He went to School of Children with Special Needs in his locality to pick up his brother Vishnu. On their way back home, he held the briefcase close to himself and told his brother that he had earned enough money for getting a good doctor for his autism treatment and assured him that he will be fine very soon. As they reached home, Vishnu told Karthik that his teacher had given him a present. Karthik was delighted and told him to show the present, Vishnu took out the bouquet from his bag and handed it over to Karthik.  Karthik looked in horror as it was the same bouquet he had sold earlier this morning, and then he turned to see the clock. The clock had just ticked 5:00, and BOOM!!!!!

 

The very next hour all the news channels were flashing this breaking news ”12 simultaneous bomb blasts have put the city in complete shock. Shockingly, traces of burnt flowers were found in all blast sites”.

 

BIBLE; MATTHEW 25:40

” I SAY UNTO YOU, IN AS MUCH AS YE HAVE DONE IT UNTO ONE OF THE LEAST OF THESE MY BRETHREN, YE HAVE DONE IT UNTO ME”.

 

The Story of a Warrior – by Srinavya

A hero, if gone by the definition that a person who is admired for their courage and noble qualities. But, what if they have little to no recognition they are called unsung heroes. One such unsung hero is Yogendra Singh Yadav. He is the Youngest Param Vir Chakra Awardee which is the highest Indian military honour. He was awarded for his action on 4 July 1999 at the age of 19. Hailing from Aurangabad Ahir village of Bulandshahr in Uttar Pradesh, Yadav had joined the Indian Army when he was only 16 years and 5 months old. His commando platoon Ghatak was given the responsibility to capture three strategic bunkers on Tiger Hill. In the dead of night on 4th July 1999, twenty-one Indian soldiers began a trek to the Tiger Hill, one of the highest peaks in the Drass-Kargil area of J&K. A group of 7 soldiers got ahead of the rest and reached the top. When his battalion, reached the top in the wee hours they were faced with three attacks by enemy soldiers. Fighting without enough arms and ammunition, 6 soldiers out of the five that went up the hill have died except for Yadav. He took 17 bullets. Severely wounded, lying on the ground, Yadav pretended to be dead while listening to the conversation of the Pakistani soldiers.

He heard that the Pakistani army was planning to attack the medium machine gun post of India, located 500 meters downhill. Yadav was immediately alerted as he doesn’t want his companions to die. Despite bleeding profusely, he wanted to keep himself alive just, so he could give a tip-off to his platoon. In the meanwhile, the Pakistani soldiers wanted to capture the arms of the soldiers who were died. So, two Pakistani soldiers came and began shooting the already dead soldiers again to make sure that everyone was dead of which one bullet hit Yadav in the chest. Even in the extreme pain, the brave men found a hope to serve his country. During this as he was a part of the grenadier regiment he took very quietly took out a hand grenade and threw it at the Pakistani soldier who was just a few feet away from him. The grenade landed inside the hood of his jacket and before he could figure out what had happened, the explosion blew him off. Yadav then crawled, took hold of one of the rifles and began firing at the enemies while shifting his positions so as to give an impression that there were more than one soldiers. Soon, there was a situation of confusion and panic among the Pakistani soldiers. Assuming that the Indian army reinforcement had arrived, they fled. Yadav had crawled only for a few meters when he saw the Pakistani army’s base, their tanks and their motor position. He wanted to give this information to his unit as soon as he could to avoid any casualty to the other Indian soldiers who were already on their way to Tiger Hill. But before moving ahead, he crawled back up to the spot where the 6 soldiers were lying dead and checked if anyone was alive. Instead, he saw their body parts lying here and there. He broke down and cried his heart.

He heard that the Pakistani army was planning to attack the medium machine gun post of India, located 500 meters downhill. Yadav was immediately alerted as he doesn’t want his companions to die. Despite bleeding profusely, he wanted to keep himself alive just, so he could give a tip-off to his platoon. In the meanwhile, the Pakistani soldiers wanted to capture the arms of the soldiers who were died. So, two Pakistani soldiers came and began shooting the already dead soldiers again to make sure that everyone was dead of which one bullet hit Yadav in the chest. Even in the extreme pain, the brave men found a hope to serve his country. During this as he was a part of the grenadier regiment he took very quietly took out a hand grenade and threw it at the Pakistani soldier who was just a few feet away from him. The grenade landed inside the hood of his jacket and before he could figure out what had happened, the explosion blew him off. Yadav then crawled, took hold of one of the rifles and began firing at the enemies while shifting his positions so as to give an impression that there were more than one soldiers. Soon, there was a situation of confusion and panic among the Pakistani soldiers. Assuming that the Indian army reinforcement had arrived, they fled. Yadav had crawled only for a few meters when he saw the Pakistani army’s base, their tanks and their motor position. He wanted to give this information to his unit as soon as he could to avoid any casualty to the other Indian soldiers who were already on their way to Tiger Hill. But before moving ahead, he crawled back up to the spot where the 6 soldiers were lying dead and checked if anyone was alive. Instead, he saw their body parts lying here and there. He broke down and cried his heart.