Moolaad

Recently I happened to read an article in a Tamil magazine (Anada vikatan). It was the review about the film Moolaad. The film written and directed by Ousmane Sembene, Africa's most celebrated film-maker, addresses the thorny issue of female circumcision. When four young girls escape the ritual of purification, they seek refuge with an independent-minded woman, Ardo, and a battle between tradition and personal freedom is entrained. Even though its about an Islamic community, the lessons it teaches can benefit everyone.

In this patriarchial society, lots of reforms has happened, that it has now come out of the evil practices against the women. Still, the immoral thoughts and the domination on the women has not yet been rooted out. When i think back, I was quickly able to recollect few of the many ways by which males strongly dominated the female in the brahmin community.

1. Child marriage, widow marriage.
2. Restrictions during the mensturation cycle.
3. Restrictions in worshiping the Gods.
4. Illitracy.
5. Restraints to Vedas.

Fortunately, the Hindu society did not turn into a path where circumcision is done. I believe that all these practices are the results of adopting the manu smriti, which was said to be written by a fictious king Manu. The rules said to be written by him, should have originally been written by the dominant males of the society that decided to restrain the society and female under the name of God and Dharma. The formula of manu smriti could have worked well for the initial period. But as the time elapsed, the chaos begun, so is the unpredictability. The butterfly flapping its wings gave the initial breeze to the society. But the time and the underlying laws has taken this complex system to its current state of ugliness. Manu smriti was responsible for the creation of Varnas in the Hindu society. It is the evidence for the origin of male dominance in our society.

Although, it is no more a law book in India, it is still practiced in many ways in our culture. When my sister is not permitted to learn Vedas, it is the evidence. When my sister is not allowed to pray during her cycle, it is the evidence. When my brother is given the first preference to my sister, it is the inference. Dowry is an evidence. How many more do you want?, anyone can give you!!

I believe, now the change should happen at the family level, and at individual level.

Realize and react...

Go Go Goa..... Day 4

The morning breakfast at Sanskruthi was very dull with our guys lacking interest as half of the gang departed. From there, we kicked off to Old Goa, St. Francis Cathedral. It was the first time I entered a cathedral or church for that matter. I found the building huge. The shapes on the floor and the walls were plain and symmetrical. I dint find any complex/fractal architecture as we see in Hindu temples. All I saw was squares and rectangles. Then I realized that, the portugese/european culture lacked the mathematics of complexities in their culture itself.

When Copernicus discovered something new, he was afraid of the church and had to say that come up with the geocentric theory. It was after the death of Galileo Galilei it was reaveled that he had discovered the Heliocentric theory. Even Johannes Kepler's inventions that the orbits of the celestial bodies are elliptical were opposed by the church. Cus, they considered the circle the "perfect" shape for planetary orbits.

I was able to correlate the patterns in the church to the frames in history. So i did not have the spiritual feeling in the cathedral, but the hatred feeling that these churches have once been the authority over the science and mathematics, crushing the scientists according to their will and wish. Here I would like to make a point clear. I am not interfering with the Christian beliefs. Every religion has some or the other belief. My target is on the humans who acts as intermediates between God and Humans. Being a brahmin, I have realised the mistakes which brahmins have committed to the Indian society. So my target is humans only. I have my own respect for Jesus, for he is similar to Ram in Hinduism or Mohammad in Islam. But not for the others who doesnt relate science and religion. Science without religion is not a problem. But religion without science is mere a dust bin. My words shall apply to any religion in this world, after all religion is a path taken by the humans to reach the God. Who are we to stop the science from progressing by the name of the God. Let me not argue further on this. I ll drop down to the Goa mood.

From there, we moved on to the World Heritage Museum. In the ground floor of the museum, there were lots of pilgrims of the Hindu Gods and Godesses. A sharp look at them reavled that the pilgrims were damaged intentionally, with the heads and shoulders damaged for pilgrims of the Gods, and the chest and face of the the pilgrims of the Godesses damaged. My mind traced back to the birth of christianity in India. One was the spreading of christianity through financial power and the other through shear POWER. It dint take me much time to realize that what happened in Goa was the latter case.

The museum contains the pictures of all the Portugal viceroys and governors who ruled Goa from 1510 to 1961. I believe that India would be the only country which has created a museum for the robbers who looted the country and to proclaim them as rulers, and also to have a WORLD HERITAGE MUSEUM for their pride. (Please let me know if I am wrong, and if there are any other countries which does the same). I left the museum with a heavy heart.

Then went to the Basillica just opposite to the Cathedral. The same old story there. Religion without Science. Was back to the lodge, took the luggages which we had already packed in the morning and left Povarium, giving a final look at the lodge and Sanskruthi. Got on to the bus at 15:30. The bus went on and on and on.... a tiresome 3 hours journey... the bus stopped at Goa-Karnataka border.. (I'm just wondering when i write this, if one of my friends was born here.. :P) we got down the bus, had a tea and mirchi-vada.. mm, great combination.. when we were talking in front of the tea stall, we saw a small boy in a football player suite, with his T-shirt having the name C.Ronaldo (7). Kudi asked him, "Dude, are you a football player". He nodded silently. Then we asked him for the details. He said that he is from Dindigul, Tamilnadu. And had been to the under 13 Indian Football team camp at goa for 30 days. His name was Alexander Romario (How will the T-shirt look with A.Romario (7)!! Hoping for it.. :). His uncle said that Alex is the captain of under 13 Tamilnadu football team. He is just 10 years old now. :) My memories went back to my 9 th standard, when i was introduced to the Cricket coaching at Gandhi stadium, Salem. Had to fight hard to get into the district team overcoming the politics within the management. Then i had to throw cricket out of my mind when my interests quickly moved on to classical physics and mathematics in 2 years. Alex's uncle said that same is the case with Indain football team selection also. He also said that he wants Alex to play just one National game and then he will take him to the Beckham football academy in Denmark where his current profession is. Beckham's academy requires that the nominee has atleast represented the national team at some point of time. Again a heavy heart... Gave great hopes and wishes to Alex and moved into the bus.

The bus again stopped at Hubli.. a north karnataka dinner at the hotel near by.. then at 08:00 in the morning we were in the Bangalore bustand.. I went direct to the office gym, had a bath and was ready infront of this system exactly at 09:00.. I know i am straining too much.. but thats how I want to be.. push hard... harder, still harder... this field doesnt provide me with much opportunities to explore and invent.. may be, this Indian software industry is not enough at all....

Go Go Goa..... Day 3

The next morning I was very tired, as i was dancing (i cant say that i danced, but jumping around and making body movements ;). Too tired to wake up, i saw guys getting ready to go to Aguada fort. As expected, it was completely a dry place. The fort was not as big as or as technical as south indian forts. I was able to see the foot paths for humans separately and for horses and elephants separately. Apart from that, it was all the same fort that we could see in any old city. The sun was on my head when we roamed there. My body turning hot and dark, I sweated a lot and felt like my body was dehydrated. After coming out of the fort, I had 2 lemon sodas, which removed all the tiredness and made me fresh again. We were ready for our next trip to the Candolim beach.

When i reached the beach, I saw Baju talking with some Police constables. Guys said that he doesnt have a driving license and was riding Pulsar. Oops.. We just let him talk to the police and kep walking towards the beach. Since I was sweating a lot, I had removed my contact lens off. After reaching the shore, Kudi asked me "Dei Scienty, did you see that da??!!". I asked him back "What did you want me to see?". He replied back "A foreigner is taking sun bath there.". I said "So whats the big deal?". He replied "Nude da.....". Oh gosh!!!!! Again a crap????!!! Then i recalled a foreigner reading a book when i walked besides her. I dint have the inclination to look at her, so just kept walking. I spent some time on beach photography (will upload the photos on Picasaweb soon) when our guys went to enjoy their feast for eyes. I would not say thats a wrong one, cus, thats individual perception. May be, I can attribute the same to the foreigner. When Baaju returned, I saw him going twice to see her. Chinnu too.. :))

After sometime, I decided to take a dip in the sea. Played for a long long time with the waves. Thats more than 2 hours. When i was about to leave, a huge wave, around 8 feet high slashed me down, and my body hit the ground stongly. I was upside down with my upper part hitting the floor hard. Somehow managed to come up and get the breath back. The hot sun made me tired and hungry. After wearing the cloths I started walking towards my bike. Since i dint wear my shoes, i felt the beach sand too hot. I felt like i was walking on flames with its ashes penetrating my legs. Again i rushed back to the shore, wore my shoes and then started walking. Thank God, the foreigner was not there when i came after wearing the lens. I personally feel that virginity is not just in body. Its in our mind and perceptions. And I consider my virginity to this extent, which everyone would definitely expect from their partners. So, i personally believe that even a small aleviation from that mind set is equivalent to dishonesty to them.

At the bike parking, we had gulfi juice + ice cream. It was really good after getting tanned in the hot sun. Oh my god, only then i noticed my skin that it had got lots of sun burns and started paining severely. Without having time for relaxation, we started towards Vagator beach for the second time. We reached there to early before anyone came, and again photography. When guys came there, we both were very hungry. So decided to have our lunch in the hotel near by. After finishing our lunch, we did not know where the guys went. So roamed here and there and again a lime soda. Suddenly a voice called "Thambi!!". I turned and saw the couple who we travelled with in the train. Just a formal talk and they were gone, giving their regards to our guys. After an hour, the guys were back to the top where we had parked our bikes. Since the chennai guys had to leave for their buses at 20:30, we decided to start early from the beach so that we can go for a cruise. Went to the lodge and slept for an hour when someone had booked the tickets in Paradise cruise. Chennai guys packed their luggages and were ready to leave. We took them directly to the cruise. Gold went along with Srikant and I was riding alone. On the way, I saw Gold with a scared face and shatterred face. Then i realised that he got frightened after riding with my bro. :))

The cruise started at 19:00. Party maadi.. The guys danced in the cruise. Sri and I did not dance. Just kept watching them and took photos. After dropping the Chennai guys with a huge cheers, we planned our next trip to Simla, Darjeling, etc. :) (Cheer up guys, I may not be able to join you guys for the next trip.) We had a fulfilling dinner at a small hotel there in Panjim. The fun was even more after dinner when at night when Gold told that he will go with Kudi neither with Sri, nor with me; and Ed, after listening to Gold's plea decided that only he will ride and will not let me/Sri ride. :)) We started laughing and somehow convinced him and got the bike key from him. For his fortune, Sri drove very slow and Ed was back home safe. :)) Back at Chandrageet, we tasted the lager which we bought and had a nice sleep to have a fresh morning at Old Goa.

Go Go Goa..... Day 2

We had asked the lodge guys if we can hire 6 bikes for our transit. The lodge guys had told that they will arrange for the bikes at lower rates and we need not go around searching for the same. But that morning, they called us and told that there are no bikes available no where. Only cars are available for hiring. We said no to them. 6 guys went out in search of bikes to Panji. after 2 hours they came back with 6 bikes (pulsar, super splendor, passion, achiever and 2 splendors). Srikanth and I took the Pulsar, with he riding the bike. "Meter closing" is the terminology which I would like to define here ;-). We (Srikanth and I) use it to indicate that we have travelled beyond the maximum indicatable speed in the bike meter. It was in good condition and had staggering pickup. We guys started at 11:45 and went direct to Calangutte beach. On the way, Pulsar was meter closed. Calangutte seemed to be a huge area, but hot and sunny. A perfect commercial beach, with people crowded like MG road signal, waiting for their turns. On the way to the beach, a guy came and asked us "Sir, Ladies massage Sir...". We rejected him. Then next came a guy marketting Parasailing, water scooter.. We started speaking with him. But the guys havent come to the beach at that time. They were walking at snail's pace. We were wondering if they had gone to the ladies massage. :D

After 10 mins they appeared on this sight. Meanwhile the marketting guy had disappeared. Thankfully, our guys appeared with a new marketting guy. We finally managed to fix the deal for Rs 700 for 3 water sports (Parasailing: 500, Water Scooter: 100, Banana ride: 100). Most of us were reluctant to agree to the banana ride cus, the name itself seemed so odd and cheap.

First 5 of our went for water scooter. When riding it, I felt like moving on a dolphin, from crest to trough and trough to crest. Wow, it was a nice experience. But it did not last more than a minute. Was back in shore within a minute. After the Water Scooter, the same guys were asked to go for Parasailing.

Next, 5 of us went to parasailing taking bumpy's cam with us. That was a dabba cam, which was behaving in its own way. Somehow we managed to get some photos with that. In parasailing, a synthetic rope was tied around our hip and was attached to a parachute. The parachute was tied with a pulley, which is inturn connected to a rotor. As the rotor rotates, the parachute is freed and the pressure difference takes us to the top. We will have a sail with this for about 3 minutes. Then back to the normal. The only thril was during the time when the parachute moves from the ground level to the top, when our brain experiences that abnormality.

After my turn in the Parasailing, the hot weather and the sea smell made me sick and i started suffereing from headache. I desparately needed some sleep. After reaching the shore, I lied down beneath the banana (synthetic baloon) and had a nap for around 30 mins.. When i woke up, I saw Srikanth sleeping with me. That short nap removed the headache that was bothering us, and so we became fresh again. By then, the 6 guys were back after the Parasailing. Now we were ready for the Banana ride.

Few of us said that there is going to be no fun out of it. So why to spend money on that. But I decided to go for it, cus, its always better to experience than to just hear by words. Banana was nothing but synthetic baloons in cylindrical shape; 2 equisized and one 4 times the size of the other 2. The bigger one was positioned parallel and in between the other 2 baloons. We 5 guys were asked to sit on the baloon. Then the baloon was tied to the boat and the boat started to move. When it moved, we felt the baloons jumping and could go out of stability. But it was a thril feeling. We did not fall for the first 3 minutes but the baloon kept jumping. Suddenly the driver took a sharp turn of the boat that led the baloon to twist on the direction in which the boat turned. We all plunged into the water with huge force. Wow.... that was really really awesome. Chinnu banged on Kudi.. For a moment we felt that it was an accident and we need a survival crue now. Another boat guy who came with us in the baloon (sitting at the tail of the baloon) helped us regaining our positions. After 30 seconds this happened again. Again Chinnu banged on Kudi.. So now we started to have fun in addition to the thril.. Then third time when we fell, Kuhu did not have the stamina to get back to the position on the baloon as he drank lot of saline water.. So he was taken over by the boat. Next, we learned the trick and we did not fall on the water. We managed the baloon by applying pressure in the direction opposite to that of the turn. This way we managed to take the baloon near the shore. But just before reaching the shore, the boat had a very sharp turn and the guy sitting at the tail of the baloon applied huge pressure in the direction of the turn that our force was exceeded and again we all were drowned. At last we felt huge satisfaction. The experience of the real thril. To be frank, only few of us know to swim and that too not in sea. So the last point to be noted here is that, we were provided with life jackets before all the sports so that we were not completely drowned in the sea. ;-)

Back shore, we shared our experience with the remaining 6 guys. 4 of them were scared to take a chance. So only 2 guys came out of them. Chinnu, Kudi and myself went for the ride again. Again Chinnu banged on Kudi.. Kudi said "Dei, I will drown you if you again fall on me.." :))

Whoooooo hooooooo.... A great experience. There was not enough guys for the third ride. So the end of ecstacy. We paid them 7600 + 50 tips (for the new marketting guy).

After the exhausting and thrilling water sports, 16:00, we had our lunch at a restaurant near by (not a beach restaurant). The food was all continental. But did not even have the taste of it. The price was hitting the sky (a veg pulav costs Rs.100). Immaterial of that our bill was Rs. 1500+.

We started from there towards Baga beach. Did not spend much time there as it was not attracting us. Then we moved on to Anjuna beach which was around 4 kms from Baga. Anjuna was an awesome beach. Did not have sportive attractions, cus it had lots of rocks (I have never seens such porous and hollow rocks anywhere) but a nice beach to explore the nature and greenery around. I tried my thoughts on photography and had few nice snaps there. mm, I felt it to be a nice beach for the couples to join hands and walk all the way till they like. AK and others insisted that we move to Vagator beach which we shall visit again the next day, if it were good. I left the beach half heartedly.

Vagator was again 4 to 5 kms from Anjuna. We managed to reach vagator just after dawn. So did not see much. But the beach was nice. A plain mount was splitting the beach into two halves, right and left. Srikanth and I went down the left side to see how it looked it. It was good. But didnt attract me. We decided to come again the next day.

After reaching home, we had nice bath and a very short nap. Dressed back again, we got ready to go to some night party. Baaju and Bumpy were riding super splendor (SS). From the morning, they were facing some problem with it. So wanted us to ride it then on and they took the pulsar from us. I had a test ride of that and found that the idling was very low and thats the reason that it was switching off very often. Srikanth adjusted the idling screw. Then, we kicked on with our respective bikes and started moving like rockets. SS was meter closed (Meter was not working on SS, so the accelerator was closed :))......

I first let everyone go and then started my SS. The pace kept increasing until the accelerator reached its fill throttle. We were around 12 kms away from the lodge. It took additional 3 minutes for others to reach the place. Kuhu insisted that we go to a night club somewhere around the Calangutte beach. So, we first went to Tito's. We were thrown out saying only couples were allowed. Mumbo was closed on that day. So we decided to go to On the rocks. Since that was the first time I going to a club, although I hesitated initially, later Srikanth and I joined Kuhu, Dicky, Kudi and Chinnu. Others felt the club too expensive, and left the place. it took around 30 mins to decide whether to go to club or not.

Finally we were in after paying 300 Rs per person. We directly went to the hall, where the air was idle. So decided to have some drink. Although i had decided not to drink any beer other than Stella Artois (an European beer) I just let it go and had a mini kings beer. Srikanth dint drink and was just watching us. Kudi had Screwdriver cocktail. We had a small dinner there. After that went back to the hall and danced for around 2 hours non-stop. Meanwhile, Chinnu went across to a lady and asked her if she is ready to dance with him. She refused. He asked her if she can teach him as she was doing to his friend. She refused to that also. I never knew it until I came out of the dance hall. It was 01:30 when Kudi said, "Scienty, its time da.. lets make a move...". Started our bikes and kicked off.

Back to the lodge at 01:50, we were totally worn out after an exciting day. I just fell on the bed and never realized what happened until morning when Kudi woke me up. Then i realized that it was my third day in Goa.

Go Go Goa..... Day 1

We have been planning a tour to Goa since our college days. As a gang (Gangs of Ettimadai), this was a dream come true for us. We booked the onward journey tickets in Vasco Express well ahead of the journey (more than a month before) and the return tickets in KSRTC 6 or 7 days before the kick off.

Srikanth had come from Selam to join us. Totally we were 6 from Bangalore (Kudi, Gold, AK, Edwin, Srikanth and myself) and 5 more guys from Chennai (Kuhu, Chinnu, Baaju, Dicky and Bumpy).

Quick note on our nick names:

Kudi - Arun Kumar
Gold - Madhivanan
AK - AK Karthik
Chinnu - Chinnuraj
Baaju - Balaji
Dicky - Arun Prasad
Bumpy - Ashok Kumar
Kuhu - Kuhankumar
Scienty - Myself

on 27th evening, I pushed early from the office @ 16:30, as we had the train scheduled at 19:50 at KR Puram railway junction. When we reached home at 17:30, there were no guys at home. We had decided gather at home exactly at 17:30. But the guys were so cool that they came only at 18:30. Srikanth and I had a nice sleep before we were woke by Gold. We had to rush to the junction by an auto-rickshaw.

The train arrived by the ISD (Indian Standard Delay) at exactly 20:30. We popped in the train with some juice bottles and snacks, hoping that we can have dinner in the train's pantry section. As we moved on a couple at late 30s who were in the same compartment as we were, told that there is no pantry section in that train, and also that if we miss the Yeshvantpur junction, there will not be any food stalls available on the way. Edwin and I were feeling damn hungry. So that akka gave us few idlys. That was over in a flash. :)) We popped out at the yeshavantpur junction and bagged 7/8 cup noodles. I ate 2 cups. That was enough for my appetitie. Later, we were mocking each other.

Guys decided to play the vobulary game, where a person will start with a English letter. The turn will be in the round robin fashion. The next person must form another word out of it, but should not be the last letter of that word. (Ex, h : ha : hat : hate <- will get a letter coined from DONKEY title) It was a nice fun, as we tried to get others rewarded with the prestigious DONKEY title :D. When the guys felt bored, we started to play Dumb-charads. That was a nice fun too. The longest film name in that was Aayiram thalai vaangiya aboorva sindhaamani. I was the dumb to enact this. I conveyed all the words in less than 20 seconds. But it took me more than 3 minutes to make them get aboorva in their mind. Somehow did it. Then we went to sleep. I took the small pillow and bedsheet that my mom had given for the travel and went inside. Never knew what happened until it became morning.

The train was in Hubli when I woke up at 7:30. Then the train had to pass through lots of hills and terrains. We passed through 37 tunnels with the longest tunnel distancing upto a kilometer. I tried to take the picture of the mountain from the train just once it comes out of the tunnel. I tried hard, but could not succeed much, as there were signal posts at the end of every tunnel. :( People were hyping that there will be a beautiful waterfall on the way. But it was not all that great. We reached Madgaon junction at 13:00. We were hungry and tired after the journey. The weather was so humid that we all were sweating badly. We took a mini bus (but there were more than 50 people in that bus) to a bus stand where buses to Panjim (Local people dont call it Panaji. They call it Panjim) were available. I was sweating a badly that my sweat fell on the lady who was seated near me like water poured out of a bottle's cap. I apologized to her for that. She was staring at me. :- From there, we took a bus to Panji. It was a 40 mins travel. From Panji, we took another bus to get on to Povarium, Chandrageet lodge. We booked 3 AC rooms. Had a good nap and then a cold shower to eliviate the heat. Then we enquired for the places and beaches available in Goa. We had some tiffin in Sanskruthi (a veg restaurant near by), which later became the default for our breakfasts till we left Goa.

We first went to Dona Paula. It was a nice location. We went there at 18:15. We should have gone at 17:00, cus it started to dawn after we went there. Anyways, it was a nice view from the top. Next we went to the Miramar beach. The first thing I noted in that beech was the bamboo racks to prevent the soil erosion. It was dark when we reached there, so could not take a picture of all that. Just had a snap. Srikanth and I dipped in the sea and got wet. Guys were waiting on the shore for us (afraid of getting in after dark :)). I kept mentoring Srikanth for most of the time on the beach. Then we left the beach at around 20:30.

We were expecting the Chennai guys to arrive at 21:00. I have heard Hemant saying that Fenni is good at Goa. So Kudi and I thought that we can taste it. I had the impression in my mind that its like beer. But after we bought a small bottle, my impression was all gone and i no more wanted to taste it. But still, for the sake of exposure (not fun), we had half of it with sprite. mm, it was okay. It did not have the pungent smell. It had jackfruit and cashew fruit odour (esteric... wow). Then the Chennai guys popped in the room. We had orderred for the dinner at the lodge itself. The last order was at 10:30, so orderred all that we wanted and went down with deadly hunger :). Had nice fun, with Baaju targetting his comments on almost everyone. We finally targetted Baaju and he went silent. ;)

The next day was 29th.....