Churning the Cerebrum

V-Day

Yes, this is one of those posts where I am going to vent, rant and go philosophically bezerk, so you are warned. 🙂

When something happens to a near or dear one, that’s when I take a moment to start thinking about stuff, the things I maybe should do, or should have done etc. My Uncle recently had a heart attack while on a visit to the States and had to undergo an emergency bypass and thankfully is doing fine now.

I am fairly close to my uncle, but yes I have never made it too obvious to him how significant he is in my life. As a kid being brought up outside India, I was bereft of all the love and care of my grandparents, something I feel unfortunate to have never enjoyed. Probably one of the reasons why I am not too expressive when it comes to letting loved ones know how much they really matter to me. When something as serious as this happens, where in a matter of a few minutes, he could have possibly parted in a foreign land with me not even having a glimpse of him, it hit me hard. I fervently visited my temples appealing to the big fellow to return him back to India in good health, something I have never ever done before.

When two days ago, my aunt called asking me to come over because he was having a similar chest pain, I was worried. Rushed there, took his vitals, he seemed stable, but the anxiety of knowing he barely escaped the clutches of death, and that fear, made him get admitted for 12 hours to the nearby hospital, just to ensure everything was fine. Such is the uncertainty of life, you just never know what is gonna happen the very next moment.

So if there is someone out there who really matters to you and you realize their significance only in their absence, then please do let them know that they matter, you don’t need to tell them, gestures are self explanatory. Life is precious, disease and death precariously joyless.

Soumya – R.I.P

An incident that occurred on a local passenger train shunting from Ernakulam town to Shoranur where a 23 year old working woman was robbed, shoved off the train, and sexually assaulted by a Tamilian criminal. [She eventually succumbed to her injuries]

It wasn’t just another evening for her as she was heading back home from work. Her parents were groom hunting and she was coming home to look at one such proposal, at the cusp of embarking into the journey of womanhood. She was seated in the last coach [Ladies only] which was almost empty as it left the Thrissur station. Midway this random criminal tries to steal her bag, she refutes, in the struggle, she falls off the train, he jumps off as well and rest is history.

To question the ease with which a criminal is traveling on a public transport is futile, should there have been more security, should the railways be culpable, the blame game has already dissipated as I type this now. It could have been one among us.

Whenever I read about the progress the State of Kerala has made in leaps and bounds over the last few decades, it is inconceivable to dispute that this continues to be a Male dominated society. One community that are ardent followers of the culture and tradition of yester years, no emigration has changed the values that are deeply entrenched in the minds of Malayalees.

And yet, a woman is not safe to walk alone past sunset in any part of Kerala in fact most of India. However most of Mallu males limit their sexual perversions in public to voyeuristic limits [stare beyond comfort]; those going beyond are invariably intoxicated [sadly we are the topmost Boozing state as well].

In a society which is gradually changing, where divorces are peaking steadily, working women class is expanding, somehow we don’t seem to have yet come to terms of giving Women the respect they deserve. And this reluctance to change is something which will hinder us.

As a member of the male species, I am ashamed by such brutal and cynical acts, and this general nature of men makes even the majority of the good men look ugly.

Seeing the brother of the girl on tv, so hapless and devastated at the loss, I was just imagining, it could very much have been you, me or any one of us.

Living in a nation where we have time only to clean up the dirt that the government is full of, scam after scam after scam, what action will be done for this.. the answer is nothing. The matter has already died down, only the family to suffer, the world moves on and we wonder if things will ever change.