A Second Chance

Right from childhood I have heard some phrases and philosophies which are extremely confusing yet convenient. Those two phrases would be->


I. There are no 2nd chances/ Opportunity never knocks twice on a man’s door

II. When God closes a door he opens a second one/Life always offers a second chance

I can’t even begin to tell you how many times people have thrown these phrases my way depending on the circumstances. Not to say that these are right or wrong but these two thought processes have made their way through ages and certainly make or mar one’s success and fulfillment quotient in life.

Will let you in on a small story. One of my friends is on the cusp of her 40s and has a 6 year old daughter. I was very happy to be attending her wedding recently. Ok, I can see the question mark on your face. In India we get married first and then have kids. Fair enough. She got married a few years back, had this cute little kid and then her marriage was up in flames. Nothing, no amount of convincing and compromises would work. It was irreparable and they had reached a point beyond reconciliation. So they ultimately had to do the most debilitating & dreaded thing-> Divorce. It is a conflicting, difficult, painful and a soul-corroding experience. You wouldn’t wish it on your enemy. In our self-proclaimed educated society, Divorce is symbolic of a person who is a failure, doesn’t value relationships and the SELFISH one. But what do you do when life hands over a lemon to you.

Let me not delve into the mysteries & miseries of Divorce. The Happy news is I saw my friend getting married. Again! Trust me she was looking content but all through the wedding there was a palpable discomfort. Her eyes were only for her daughter and even in the middle of the hustle-bustle I think I caught her brooding whether this was the best decision she could take for her growing daughter who will need a father figure at some point in her life. Life was offering a 2nd chance. Whether this decision was good or bad, that only time will tell. But what mattered was that she took it.

I read somewhere that we have been programmed to look at all the negative things in life. We all err and make mistakes all the time. We allow life to batter and bruise us in ways and manners which are beyond belief. But then even more unbelievable is our inability to forgive ourselves. Our ability to look beyond those mistakes and say ‘OK Boss..I Screwed up.. Screwed up big time. What now?’. We are not concerned of what the society at large opines about it/us. This is a myth. The society is just on top of our long list of excuses. It’s our own thinking which stops us from taking that leap of faith and say “So what? I still deserve one more chance”. The best part is we have a tough time admitting that we want a second chance, since we don’t think we deserve it. It just doesn’t come till our lips.

90% of the time, life gives us second chances and even more. A 2nd chance is only the first one delivered better or the 1st opportunity capitalized the 2nd time. We don’t know how this one will shape up but we need to allow ourselves to explore & find out if our 1st understanding of ourselves due to such failures is true even to this date. After all, aren’t we constantly evolving?

Now I am actually wondering what are the things that you do only once in your life? May be a world tour or a 10th /12th board exam or aging which is irreversible. I see a lot of parents labeling their kids as losers or imagining their kids doomed to failure based on the scores in their exams, be it college, school, KINDERGARTEN??..We all keep giving exams day in and day out, money handling, Driving, Eating, Exercising, Working, Sleeping, Loving…a long list.. albeit there are no tags to it like the crowned ones like Marriage, Parenting, Work,… But we unknowingly give ourselves 2nd chances in the former. Why not for the latter?

Life is not a series of events lined up one after the event that if we fail to deliver the first wicket all the other things that we aim for would slip away, rendering a dominos effect. Life is random so are our thoughts and beliefs about certain subjects at every point in life.

This doesn’t mean that you go about investing all your hard earned money in the stock market to check if the market offers you a 2nd chance. The stock market is a game of emotions. Emotions of millions, whom the stock universe knows how to entice and behave in a certain way. Not the main point here though. Have you wondered how many failures an entrepreneur goes through before succeeding? Edison failed a 1000 times before creating the correct bulb. These distant examples won’t help you. Let me come back.

One of my friends, he got married the first time and got divorced. He got married the second time and guess what happened, he got divorced again. Now what? Can you believe that he got married again!! Now he has a kid as well and he seems to be at ease with who he is and whatever he has done in his life. You already have your mouth agape by now. Take some time digesting it. 10 years, 2 divorces, 3 marriages. How many people do you know, who can proclaim that they have been 3rd time successful in marriage (Ohh without the earlier spouse departing for heaven?). This guy thought and felt he deserved more and so he asked for it.

The depressing aspect is we have a pivotal role in denying ourselves 2nd chances, denying & stalling our growth. We deny new experiences, people, luck, money, lady, etc coming into our lives. Denying our destiny. All said and done if you still regret & fear, all the opportunities that you didn’t take, mon amie reassess your situation, prepare, do your part and if you hear a resounding yes from within, ASK,ASK for a 2nd chance and life will give it to you. If not now wait for some time and ASK again. After all how many times can one refuse? Life is ruthless but she is not shameless coz she also wants you to give her a second chance.

Assurance

Nope. This is not a blog on Insurance or the types of products they sell for assurance. This is an even more tangible product.



On a Saturday morning, all I was trying to do was to get out of my bed. It’s 9 AM already. Luckily I don’t have much on my to-do list & I try to wake up without guilt. Out of the blue I get a call from this friend of mine with whom I have been playing a game of missed calls. When I would call her she would be busy and when she would call I would be busy. For some reason this had become a practice. Today, although I was in my morning slumber, I took the call & spoke to her.



This friend of mine is a mother of two beautiful girls, a good daughter-in-law and an excellent wife. She understands her role very well in life and is one of the happiest people I have seen who has the courage & sensibility to delay her dreams for a while, to be with her kids and family. She quit her job for her girls, who are at a very impressionable age (One is 3 and the other is 6) and want their mother to be with them 24X7. Her hubby also came across a good man and he wanted his wife to do all that she cared for in her life. Could one ask for more?



While talking to her, I could sense that something was tugging at her. She seemed a little depressed, worried over the state of things and moreover there was a loss. Loss of self-confidence in her voice. Both of us had met at a foreign language class and she wanted to start teaching in that language. To that effect she was continuing her classes at the institute but the teachers at the institute didn’t think she was up to it and wanted her to go back to the basic levels and then come back to this 6th level. This was a little jarring for her, since she bought this as the entire truth.



As a friend I heard her out and found that this was the chicken in her that was speaking. She also knew this and wanted to know some more portion of the truth. After half an hour of talking, both of us came to the conclusion that what everyone around her was saying was Bull. (Pardon my words). Now she is OK and is still continuing with her fight to get closer to her dreams under all the constraints that life has to offer. It’s funny and stupid as to how easily we allow events, circumstances and people to discourage & dissuade us. (If I may add, people whom we don’t even know or who don’t know us). It’s become one of our rights. Right to be pushed around by others/strangers. Confounding isn’t it?



My friend was looking for an assurance that she could do it and she still had it in her. How often do we look for this assurance in all the wrong places? The biggest place we look for it is the Office. We want our colleagues and seniors to praise us and appreciate our existence. Well an honest admission. I have been there and I still do it at times. Sad fact->The Corporation is not a place to pacify or allay your fears. It is neither an insurance nor an assurance company. The business of a business is to do business and we are the conduits through which it gets it done. The same holds true for the language institute too. Then why do we do this to ourselves time and again?



That brings me to another assurance point. Facebook. I would like to call it the Jealousy book. (I can already hear you disagreeing with me.) It’s all goody-goody feeling book because when people post about all the things happening in their lives they wait for that assurance and comments from others in the form of ‘Likes’. Tell me how often you see people tell the truth about their lives in these books. It’s all half-baked. Well packaged. To add to that, we very aptly take it on Face Value. Of course FB is turning us all into good marketers but is doing a bad job at showing the reality. When people keep doing it every now and then there is this inherent question that so many things are happening in their lives and why not mine? There comes in the green-eyed monster. I just cannot tolerate Facebook. Although I know that people are only showing the good things in their lives, I can feel happy only for the 15-20 people in my life with whom I regularly interact personally coz I know the story behind the scenes and it is never a bed of roses. So when I post my pics and status, how can my FB friends (other than the 20) like and provide assurance to me?



It is unbelievable that we tend to fall for such sources of assurances. I am not saying that they are bad but they are not viable. A short term fix for a long term problem.



I recently came across this word called “Schadenfreude” which means to feel good about the misfortunes of others. Initially I thought that this was just a negative concept. But the penny dropped when on a not-so-good night I found myself howling and crying. I didn’t log on facebook or turn to my outlook inbox or work, but I called my sister. She knew something was amiss and the only thing she told me was “Mujhe tere problems sunna acha lagta hai kyunki mein apna sochna band karti hoon”. (I like to hear your problems coz it makes me stop thinking about mine) and there was my answer, that all of us are in this shit together and it is tangible things and people whom you know, can truly provide the required validation and verification you are looking for. In short you feel assured.

Respect

It’s a normal day at office and I'm on my way to the pantry to fetch a cup of tea for myself. You know the drill right. There are already enough people there, waiting in queue or jumping the line to get sugar, milk, hot water, coffee concentration or the stirrer or the cup. Today as I entered the pantry, I saw 2 other folks who were in there and I went about my routine getting the cup. It was just the 3 of us. Going by their costumes, these gentlemen looked like someone who were in our company for doing some paint and repairing work. Their clothes were crumpled, torn and also had some paint on it.


One gentleman was standing next to the vending machine, figuring out what to do. While I proceeded towards it, the 2nd one instructed the one near the machine “Give way to the lady.” The 1st one immediately moved away and stood aside. I was taken aback. I told them that it was OK and they were not slowing me down in any way. Still he insisted the man to move away and they waited on the side of the room till I was finished. All this while I was thinking that they didn’t need to do this. Finally when I was done I told the gentleman that “Aapne humhe itni izzat di, humko bahut acha laga” (You showed a lot of respect for me, I felt very good). There was a smile on his face and we parted.

How many of us do these in day to day life- show respect or say thankyou. Both of them were easily 15-20 yrs elder to me and belonged to a religion with which we are constantly fighting & blaming. Both of them thought that being an employee here, the first right on the machine was mine and not theirs, even though they were there first. But they waited out patiently.

The need to feel important is inherent in all of us and as we age or grow bigger in our jobs, we want others to show this respect to us. Why? Because we came here first. How often do we do it the other way round? It was a simple act and yet I am blogging about it.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad

P.S: This post is not for those who are not bothered by their financial situation or debt. If you are still reading this then you are on the wrong page. For the rest pls proceed.


Rich Dad, Poor Dad was authored by Robert Kiyosaki and still sells a good number of copies which only proves the unique point of view that the author has brought in terms of Financial Education. I first came across this book in 2005 and had cursorily glanced through it thinking it was written only for the Rich. Somehow this book was parked at the back of my head and when I read it again there were enough gems of Wisdom that I have to share with you my readers.

So what is the story of your life? Wake up, go to office, work, come home, relax. Cycle repeats. Come month end you get your salary and although it puts a smile on your face there are enough people standing outside your door to be paid. (Rent, Phone bill, internet bill, medical bills, education loan……) the list can challenge the heights of Mt. Everest. Monthly cycle continues. Now you are excited coz you have your appraisal coming along and you are secretly aiming for a double digit % hike in your salary. But your boss and the organization think otherwise. So what do you do? You join a new company and all the above continues. Job cycles continue and the number of people knocking on your door during the month end also increases.(New additions on the list->Credit card bills, car loan, home loan, golf club membership,..). Now you are at the end of your life and when you look back you see that all this while money has been dominating & defining a major part of your life. Story of our lives. Next generation comes in and again begins this Rat race.

When the author was a child he had 2 fathers. One was his genetic father, whom he refers to as his poor dad, who had a doctorate and believed big-time in education. His Rich dad was his best friend’s father who taught him the ropes to become rich, was a 9th grade dropout and also a big believer in education. The stark contrast in the ways, his both fathers viewed money made it easier for Robert, to choose what kind of life he wanted to lead. A Rich life. The book commences with a note saying that Schools seldom prepare children for the real-world and one of the most dangerous advice that a parent can give to his kid is “Go to School, get good grades and look for a safe, secure Job.” Money makes the mare go and although we realize it at a very early stage of our lives we come to understand its full import only when a fair share of our income starts reaching the government coffers. How much of financial education has your school imparted to you? (Apart from simple Interest and compound Interest.) Not much. Most of us learn about handling money from our parents. Even I did. So who is it that your parents pay out to?

When you are working, the money that your employer pays to you, works for him first, next when you received your salary the money works for the government in the form of taxes, then when you pay out your mortgage the money starts working for the bank, when you pay your expenses it is again working for someone else. When is your money working for you? Rarely or never.

I know you are going to argue with me like “My company doesn’t pay me well”, “I don’t get enough Salary even though I have a post-graduation degree and a doctorate”, “I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth like others”, “I have a big family and bigger responsibilities”, “I have to pay my debts” & the best one “What do you know?”.

The Rich are rich coz they have a solid understanding of how money works and how to keep it working for them & their generations to come. Most of the rich folks who are termed as “Old Money” put their mouth where the money is. How many of these folks have you seen go bankrupt when compared with the “New Monies” the ones who have had a windfall and are enjoying the riches. But within a short span of time they are broke and are living on the streets.

A formal education from Stanford, Harvard, IIM is not an indication of your genius or greatness. It’s a definition of you being cast into the mould set by the corporate world. Look at some exceptionally rich & successful people like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates who were college dropouts and still made it super- big. We might be tempted to believe that they got lucky, but they were very educated in the fields in which they shined and contributed. They knew what they wanted to be educated in. I agree not all of us can become them. We commoners seek more traditional routes.

Our fundamental problem lies with our antiquated education system. They focus more on our scholastic skills and prepare us for standard jobs in the corporates, producing bean-counters. Pls tell me that you have used trigonometry, history, literature in your jobs. I have not. I think that along with “Financial Education” the modern schools needs courses more on the lines of, “Creative thinking”, “When & where to Imagine”, “Stop Rote-ing”, “You are not in a competition” & “Be Yourself”.

In his book, from a very young age Robert read and understood his fathers’ attitudes towards money. One was always in a mode that said There-is-nothing-one-can-do-about-it. The other one was more of a What-can-I-do-about-it type. The rules by which the rich play are different that the rest of the 95%. There is not a hint of victimhood in its voice.

The story begins with Robert and his best friend Mike, deciding to get rich at an age of 9 with both of them being very close to casting nickels out of lead & literally minting money. After comprehending the futility and illegality of their work, both of them decided to work in Mike’s father’s warehouses. Within the first few weeks of their initiation into the job, the boys displayed traits of typical employees of “I’m being paid Peanuts”, “I’ve Worked overtime”, “I deserve this raise”, “My boss is a jerk”, “I Quit!”. After this drama Rich dad began his formal training and the lessons began to unfold. It has taken more than a decade or two, for the author to implement the below. He didn’t build his empire in one day and neither can we (unless we have rich billionaire fathers). Here are the lessons.

Lesson No. 1-> It’s fear that keeps most people working. Fear of losing their jobs, fear of not paying their bills, the fear of starting over, fear of a steady income not flowing in. Your employer will pay you only so much so that you won’t quit and an employee will ask for a hike only so much that the employer doesn’t fire him. The Rich completely avoid this loop. They don’t work for Money. They make money work for them.

Lesson No. 2-> Emotions of fear and greed have the entire mankind under its control. The moment we are able to master these emotions, half the battle against money is won. The pattern of fear and greed is vicious, one breeding the other. First the fear of money makes us work, then when we have money, the greed to own and buy things and then again the fear to make more money to maintain those incremental aspirations and greed, pushes us to march to work. The Rich learn to control, observe and make these emotions their trusted allies. They don’t react to their emotions.

Lesson No. 3-> It’s not how much money you make, it’s how much you keep & how many generations you keep. Hence financial literacy is an absolute must. Once this foundation of financial education is laid, it becomes easier to survive the vicissitudes of life. One of the basic things to understand is the difference between an asset and a liability. The author’s simple definition is “Anything that puts money IN your pocket is an asset; anything that takes it OUT is a liability.” Your mortgage, customer loans, credit cards are all liabilities which go out in the form of your monthly expenses. Asset means stocks, bonds, real estate, intellectual property which add to your income in the form of dividends, interest, rental income, and royalties. The rich focus on keeping their liabilities down and tune more into increasing their income through their assets so that their expenses are covered by their income from these assets.

Lesson No. 4-> Mind your own business. We have financial struggles since we work for someone else all our lives. Working for oneself brings in a complete transformation in the way we view the world and money, in short, our own business makes us more financially astute. The author encourages one to maintain their day job but try having a night job or weekend job which allows you to develop skills other than the one required at your job.

Lesson No. 5-> Understand Taxes. The number one expense for most folks is taxes. One is taxed when one earns, when one spends, when one saves and even when one dies. What history suggests is that taxes came into existence only to be levied on the rich so that their money could be redistributed/ recirculated amongst the poor & the middle class. Modern day taxes suggest that a major burden of the taxes is paid only by the middle class and more so by the upper middle class. The rich took help of their accountants, attorneys and the corporation to win more contracts from the government and reduce this tax effect. There are several advantages that a corporation gets that an individual doesn’t

Lesson No. 6-> Build your Financial IQ. The 4 pillars of your Financial IQ are Accounting, Investing, Markets and Law which translates into the ability to read financial statements, experimenting with the science and art of money making, figuring out the supply-demand dynamics of the market and being on the right side of the law.

Lesson No.7-> Work to learn, don’t work for money. Our job and education all prepare us for specialization in one field. Specialization is dangerous especially if you plan on making money since it limits your view and understanding of the larger world. Try taking jobs that expose you to new fields and you get to learn skills, skill like selling, negotiating, et al.

The author also completely understands that most of us are set in our ways and we will face obstacles both internal and external which will hamper us from reaching the goal of financial independence. Some of them are fear, cynicism, inertia, laziness. But just imagine a day when we don’t have to go to work, get up in the morning, don’t have to worry about meeting the impending deadline at office, sweat about paying your bills and concentrate on the assignments that truly matters to us. How many such days have you had in the last month?

By this time you have some drift of the concept that I have been trying to tell here. This book is a must read for all those who want to learn about money and the role of human behavior. (Behavior finance) .There are a lot of things that I would like to say but that would call for another blog. Although it has been years since I have read this book, I am a long way from my financial independence but it has provided me a vital lesson about myself as to why am I holding on to my job & behave in a certain way. But I’m taking baby steps towards this goal and maybe someday I’ll be on the other side of the bridge and wonder what the race was all about.

O Ri Chiraiya

O ri Chiraiya


The 29th of December is a sad day. Nirbhaya is no more amongst us. I got to hear this news today in the car, while I’m on the streets of Delhi. I pretend not to be shocked. But I do utter a silent prayer for the girl and feel that this somehow was the best possible end for her, given the brutal and unforgiving circumstances. The society anyhow wouldn’t have allowed her to lead a normal life. But something within me gives in as I hear the non-stop repetition on the radio news station where this is just one more item on their agenda to discuss.

I have been reading about this major headline in the newspaper since the last few days and I just wanted to keep the newspapers & media away from me since it wasn’t giving me a good sense of who I was? A female.

As I try to find out more, I am all agog & livid as my sister gives a complete account of why the girl’s intestines were ruptured. Radio Silence. Time has stopped as I try to take in the goriness of the rape. Do you really need a ROD? I am sad and don’t know what are the sea of thoughts that are churning within me. The radio is playing the Song by Ram Sampath “O Ri Chiraiya”. That somehow does it for me and I burst silently. I’m crying for someone else and can completely feel the angst, the anger, the loathing and the pain that comes with it. Not that this is the 1st time that someone has been raped. This is being talked about so casually. What irks me the most is that I feel helpless. I am trying to find out why.

As 2012 comes to an end, I was thinking of what I should be doing this year of my life just like anyone else. I have everything one can ask for. A family that loves me, a job that keeps me engaged, some bank balance for emergency, friends to talk to in the middle of the night, a good health to bank upon. What are all the above called? Security. Security matters to all of us and it comes in many forms. When I was young and wanted to move out of my house, I read something in my mother’s eyes. It was fear. I dismissed it so easily in my naïve youth which gives everyone the feeling of invincibility. Now I can sense the feeling with which all parents allow their kids to move out of their shelter & try to drill this into us that freedom should not be abused, misused, or even overused. More importantly I think they pray real hard that the villains of the world shouldn’t prey on us.

Coming to the point of helplessness. I am still sleep walking and wish someone would wake me up and stir things inside me so that I do something about this situation. But the sad fact is I’m a coward. I cower for my own safety and those around me. Although I can instigate things and broadcast my views and opinions, shout from rooftops, participate in demonstrations..BUT again fear has me in its grip saying what if you become another Nirbhaya?? We know that the entire country feels for this. I am sure we are praying, Praying hard that God provides the girl’s family strength to bear this loss and girl rests in peace, but above all, we are thanking the almighty that it’s not you, me, us or our family. But it’s not us only THIS TIME. How do I hide from this truth which is staring me in the face? We always think that such things happen to OTHERS only, which is not wrong since a majority of us go through lives unscathed by such instances, accidents, atrocity & violence. May be we got lucky.

Recently the girl’s friend came out in the media who also had to go through this trauma and said that Nirbhaya was more worried about the hospital bills that would have to be paid by her family rather than thinking about her mental trauma. My heart just melted thinking how practical could this girl get? Here she is lying in the bottomless abyss of her life, rather than allowing the soul-corroding memories to flood her, she is providing solace and comfort to her family. Yes, she must have had the feeling of revenge in her heart but she had more important things to worry about. Although she was 23 I think she had the wisdom of ages in her and she knew that she didn’t have much of a chance of finding her faulters or fighting the dubious ways in which our Indian Society works. Shaming the abused rather than the Abusers.

The common man is practical. Tell me whom do you turn to during such events, is it the government, the goons or the gods? You know the answer folks. The common man is practical. He knows how much, when, where and how to stretch. In incidents like these the more practical & realistic approach is to keep quiet since rape is something that a female brings upon herself because of her behavior, dressing habits, talking habits, et al and not because ill-will lurks in the hearts of commit this crime. (As quoted by new wisdom floating around). Really?

My heart reaches out to that family who lost their daughter. Who cares if anybody names a law on her name, honors her, and remembers her? She is gone forever and the void is irreplaceable for the parents and brothers. Her only fault was that day she got into a private bus to reach home at a decent hour of 9 PM and to protect her own dignity she bit the offenders. Alas, the sparrow (Chiriya) has flown forever.

Karma, Dharma, Geeta is all good in theory. When it comes to reality who is to measure it? I don’t have much faith in our judiciary system. It all seems to be one more method & means for politicians & leaders to garner free footage. Even right now whatever is happening with the Fast-track courts all seems to be a pre-election gimmick. Sorry for being politically incorrect but all of us know that this is a complete hogwash. I don’t want to give speeches saying ‘I want to build a safer country for my future generations’. What about us who are living existing now? This country is unsafe and that’s about it. Period. So who is coming to protect me? ___________<>.

Now that I have posted this, I am also scared to think that I might have crossed a line here. I might become one more victim considering the example of the 2 girls who were reprimanded and arrested for posting their views on Facebook on the demise of one of the most influential politicians of the country. All to say that I live a democratic country which allows one the freedom of Speech although Controlled freedom of Speech. Come to think of it, our struggle for independence has been futile. We were able to drive out all the external demons of our country but didn’t realize we had so many demons to deal with internally. And since this was Ghar ka maamla it never came to the spotlight. May be we need another internal strong Andolan to deal with this.

Let’s leave the country aside. Getting on with more domestic issues. First of all my dear fellow gentlemen, pls don’t chuck this article thinking that it is one more rant against the behavior of Men. We are all collectively responsible for this and trust me even you, the men in this society are not safe and spared.

I have not been myself since this incident. These are not minor transgressions. A colleague of mine in office shared a small note with me on his behavior when a lady in office approached him for some help during the evening time around 6 PM. Since her husband had to stay back at the office he wouldn’t be able to pick her up and she requested this colleague to drop her home or close to home (Starting from Electronic City). On further enquiry my colleague found out that the lady’s house was around 9 Kms away from where he stayed. So he agreed to drop her till his place and requested her to take the bus since he would be bored of driving for another 9 Kms. Finally the lady said that it was this 9 Kms stretch that she was afraid to travel since that place is a little deserted and kind of people that she finds on the bus are kind of shady. She approached him since she might have thought that he was a good & secure man, which is a big compliment from a woman. What do you think my colleague did? He tended to his job in the office and couldn’t drop the lady home. I am not saying this is right or wrong. These are day-day situations that we find ourselves in and there is no escaping it. Who is responsible for the safe landing of the lady at her place-> My colleague, the lady’s husband or the lady herself?

My colleague was lamenting about his behavior but he was like that. He was not proud about it neither was he doing anything about it. To add to the point I myself have seen this behavior with my own brother who had arranged for a call taxi so that I could be dropped at 10 PM in the night to board the bus on the outskirts of the city. He owns 2 cars though. Why the Taxi? Because the Worldcup finals were going on and he couldn’t miss it. All that time I was in the taxi I had this sick unrelaxing feeling in my stomach. You know how highways are with few people around. I reached this spot a little early and ended paying up the Taxi Guy 150 bucks extra so that I could sit in his car for 15-20 mins until my bus came or I could find another lady in sight. Finally I could see my bus around and was more than relieved. Those 20 minutes in the car felt like hours to me. All I am trying to say is that I had to buy my security that day. Don’t get me wrong, I love my brother very much and I know that he will fight against the world for me. But how many of us can have and wait for such brothers on days like this? On that day I learnt this invaluable lesson that we are all responsible for our own safety no matter how secure/insecure our families makes us feel. I never booked a bus ticket at 10 PM after that (assuming someone else will take care of my arrival & departure). Now I am always off at 8 PM. I don’t know what would happen at the highway after boarding the bus but all I can control is this. Even if I have a flight at 4 AM in the morning, I reach the airport by 8 PM the previous night. Taking risks with your security & safety is never worth it.

Ladies and gentlemen here is the truth. Our country is boiling with a severe case of misplaced anger. I am not even going to make an effort to find out what is the root cause for this, is it sexual repression, ( with a population of more than 1 Billion, I don’t believe this) eating too much of chowmein ( Chinese folks would be raping left and right,no?), not wearing adequate clothes to cover our modesty( we are all walking in our bikinis and there is no imagination involved at all), and reasons galore…

Every day before going to bed if something is troubling me, I just ask myself one question->”Did you do your part?” this can be for any aspect of my life. What do I do for those countless nirbhaya’s? I am wondering if I already know one. There is no point in understanding. Or have we become so lost in our lives that we think our mothers, sisters, wives, daughters girlfriends can never become victims? How about yourself? I feel shallow. But what do I do my audience. All I can say is ‘To each his own.’

I am really unsure if I should be proud of myself or be ashamed to be a part of this society. Guess what the people who are reading this are folks who are just like you and me, who can echo with these sentiments and have been brought up with the same background and mentality. The ones who should be reading this are somewhere in reality asserting their manliness on some man or woman.

All said and done, it’s neither the government nor the goons but it’s a plea to the gods above where we have sent our Nirbhaya Chiriya (Fearless Sparrow) to ask God are you listening? I don’t know of any other doors to knock. Pls help. This country and generation needs you. Think we have lost our hopes, faith & belief with you along with this young girl. Pls send us all these 3 things back. A small ray of hope so that we can believe that the greater society is also an angel guardian for each and everyone in this country where we take care of one another and do not resort to tactics like this to vent out our frustations and disappointments. In the end I also want to join Ram Sampath in singing

“O ri Chiraiya, O Ri Chiraiya, Nanhi si chidiya, Angnaa mein phir aaja re, Andhiyara hai ghana aur lahu se sana, Kirno ke tinke ambar se chunn ke, Angna mein phir aaja re, Angna mein phir aaja”