Equality- Too true to realize

Well, I’m back after quite a long, long gap - spent a few weeks at Hyderabad. I also missed out my one of my friend’s wedding that I actually wanted to attend. My summer vacation is going to end this Monday. Back in college again! Huh!

I am reminded of a certain incident and I'll share it with you. I’m very particular about gender discrimination and I don’t encourage it. I will tell you a small incident which will mirror this very idea of it. It so happened that a few weeks back I went to the RTO office to get a learner’s license for a four-wheeler. There were many others who came with the same purpose as mine. We were asked to stand in a queue to pay some amount for the receipt and to get our photograph taken. It was quite a long queue but, what troubled most of us was the soaring heat at that part of the day.

It took 5-10 minutes for each person to get his work done – my turn came up only after waiting for 40 minutes. I was the only lady in the queue. After sometime, a 30-35 year old lady showed up and forced her way into the room (where we were supposed to go) by avoiding the already formed decent long line. Some of the gentlemen raised their brows but didn’t say anything to her. After sometime, an elderly man came up to me (it seemed to me as if he was an employee of RTO) and told me that this queue was not meant for ladies and that ladies (here, I) can go inside without standing in lines and get their work done becaue they had to be given special treatment, unlike men.

I politely turned down his advice and continued to stand in the same place where I was before. A little while later, he came up to me again and gave me the same advice. This time I had to give him my answer. I told him that I would be quite comfortable standing than going inside under such special norms. I also informed him of the equality between men and women that I believe in. He was quite surprised to hear such a thing from a girl. He said that if you (women) yourself say like this then what can we men do about treating you specially at public places and government offices. I said there was no need of such so-called ‘special treatment’ and moreover, if they (men) can stand in long queues and wait then I as a woman also can do that.

Don’t degrade us nor provide us with any special treatment. Treat us properly as you would treat any other man and that’s more than enough.

Spoken...

Fortunately, somewhere between chance and mystery lies imagination, the only thing that protects our freedom, despite the fact that people keep trying to reduce it or kill it off altogether.

- Luis Bunuel

భరత మాత

అదిగదిగో ఉత్తరాన హిమ సిఖరాలు,

ఆ నడుమ ప్రవహించే గంగాది నదులు;

తూర్పున పాటలీపుత్ర, కలింగ నగరాలు,
నీ గొప్ప చరిత్రకు అవి ఇంపయిన చిహ్నాలు;

సుర్యోదయ సమయమున దక్షిణాన,

ప్రకాశిస్తావు నీవు కన్యకుమారివయి;

పడమటనూ నీ అందాలు విరజిల్లె,

అలరించే నీకు ఇక లేదుగా సాటి;

ఓ తల్లీ నీవు మా భరత మాతవు,
నీవే మా మతము, నీవే మా కొలువు.

A flickering probability

Now that I am completely free I have again started to show some sort of an inclination towards singing, which I usually do all the time (typical crooning). I learnt carnatic classical (vocal) music for some time long back. Then I suddenly stopped singing. You would not dare to listen to my voice now. Would you? It's become coarse, something that arises from lack of attention or committment as somebody would say. Or, let me put it this way- misusing or literally 'not using' what you could use to the widest.

Well, past is past and that is something which I hate pondering over again and again. I also don't know how long this singing schedule will continue. It might get stopped invariably or it nay just go on and on!

లేదు ఏదీ, కానిది నాది

లేదు ఏదీ, కానిది నాది

అందీ అందని ప్రతి ఆశా నాది,

అందక మానేనా నాది అన్నది;
ఊరి నోట వచ్చు మాట ఏదీ,

ఆపగలదా నా రేపు అన్నది

లేదు ఏదీ, కానిది నాది

కాలము విలువ తెలిసినదానను,
కాలముతో నే పరిగెడతాను;
కలవర పడను,కలము వీడను,
కలమేగా నా చెలిమి అన్నది

లేదు ఏదీ, కానిది నాది

నక్షత్రాలే కాంతులు జల్లగా,
మబ్బులే రాగాలు తీయగా;

అబ్బురపరిచే ప్రక్రుతి అందం,

అందిచదా నాకు త్రుప్తి అన్నది

లేదు ఏదీ, కానిది నాది

మనస్సులో ఏదో కలత ఉందని,

ఆగిపోవునా నా పయనమన్నది;

సముద్రములోని నావ వలె,

ఎల్లప్పుడూ సాగుతూనే ఉంటుంది

లేదు ఏదీ, కానిది నాది

vacation

Finally, I'm out of the examination crux! We took the last one today. Most of my friends are on their way to get trained for the competitive entrance tests/exams like GRE/GATE/CAT/GMAT- what not?

I must blame myself for spoiling today's paper which otherwise should have been answered very easily. I was very cool yesterday without any prior exam tension and watched two flicks- 'Forest Gump' and 'Mr. Bean'. Now who is going to accept any of the reasons that I might give once the results are out. I won't be giving any of them, though. No plans of scheduling my vacation as of yet, but I would certainly watch 'constantin', 'million dollar baby' and 'kingdom of heaven' amongst others.

After a while...

Only two exams left. I took one on signal processing yesterday. My set (paper) was the toughest one. I managed well though. I’m a bit scared about the last exam which I will be taking on the 5th of May. It’s an advanced course in my chosen field of technology – Advanced control systems. We studied control systems in the last sem. And, this is not the end of it because we have Adaptive control systems in the next sem. Good god! - Whoever designed these courses.

Laxmi told me that our internal marks were on display the other day. But before I could get a glimpse of my marks, they were taken off the board. Thank god! otherwise it would have been another scary day for me. I never understood this particular gesture of displaying everyone’s marks in front of the examination cell by our college for everyone to get to know one’s marks. If they are outstanding or par excellence in academics, then its pretty fine and it’s also something which you can, for a while, take pride in. But, what if they are scaled down the list? Who ever will enjoy such statistics or situation?

This time I didn’t want my Computer networks’ marks to be displayed in public; I couldn’t manage to score well in it. And, any guesses on what my next exam is? – Computer Networks!! So, let me make this blog rest for sometime while I go and take on the mighty networks.

హరివిల్లు...

నిండు హరివిల్లు నేడు దిగివచ్హెనా,

నన్నెంచి, అలరించి పులకించెనా;

మదిలోన ఓ వాన కురిసేనిలా,

స్వప్నమో, సత్యమో తెలిసేదెలా?

computer wiz!

That's what I am going to become if I open my computer again. My system broke down for the umpteenth time. Every time it goes down and I keep opening my processor to find the fault. Now my mouse isn't working. It says some USB device failure. I think now there's some problem with the mother board. So, I've to open it again. Just a couple of times more and I would be ready to build a new computer myself becuase I've almost got used to each and every hardware component on the chips. Let me see if I can do that in a more economical way. :D

Short journey

Back after a two day journey to Nellore. It was a long journey by road. If you go by a bus or train, it will take around 3 ½ hours to reach there. But, we hired a sumo. So it took us just 2 hours to reach Nellore, mainly because we preferred NH5 (national highway 5). We encountered three toll gates in our one-way journey. So, on the whole a total of six toll gates for the two-way journey and we ended up paying 20Rs/- at each gate.

Though we hadn’t much to do, we managed to spend our time in a better way. We visited ‘venkiah swami’s Samadhi (coffin or a sarcophagus, being precise). As far as my knowledge is concerned, he was a singer who had won the hearts of the people through the magic in his voice. It is also believed that he often used to cure the ailments of those who came to him with belief. I really wonder when I hear such things. Can someone do any magic with his/her voice? Anyways, my voice isn’t so great that I can make wonders with it. I also heard before that Balamurali Krishna, the great classical singer down South made the skies rain with his voice. I remember seeing few movies on these lines as a child, where the hero had to light the lamps (guess what… he had to do that without touching them!!) in a temple (or some foolish place!) in order to have the consent of the heroine’s father for their marriage and in the end he lights them up with a senti-song. When will the Indian cinema raise its standard? :(