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Empowered on Paper, Invisible at Home: The Hypocrisy of Everyday Feminism

I never thought I would be writing a blog on such a "normal" topic but conversations with my family and friends have compelled me to write this blog. In recent years "women empowerment" has been prominent in almost every field of study and work but are women really empowered? I was playing with the kids in my neighborhood when I heard one of the old aunties say "meri bahu ka kaam he kya hota hai" (what work does my daughter in law anyway have?) Her "bahu" is a working mother of two kids.  My "feminism" (that many other people exaggerate with platitudes) couldn't be fine with it, so I went to confront the aunty.  "But aunty, I see her making breakfast for the kids and husband, attend to calls, make tea for you in the evening"(and with that, pretend to not care about everyday taunts and tantrums). Aunty goes "Well that's just how it is, am I not right?" ABSOLUTELY NOT, I say. I ask her, "then what work do ...

Stressing out?

Adolescence is such a crucial phase of life where you experience new things, that transforms you into a more mature person. So here, in the next few paragraphs I will very "maturely" explain fellow adolescents on how to be content.  The dynamics involved at this stage of life are too much to handle. You are due with 10 assignments every other day, concurrent exams, relationship problems, irritation due to small things AND SO MUCH MORE.  Just yesterday I was reading a news where a 12-year-old kid suffered a heart attack. Should this period really be so stressful? is a question that popped up in my mind. Well, the question is ambiguous. Some would say if not work now, then when; others would say enjoy the innocence right now deal with the problems later. I say that we do need to work hard today to have an easier life tomorrow. But it is not worth losing our mental and physical wellbeing in the process. There's already too much competition in the world, why don't we focu...

Biased Bollywood

There was widespread pretentiousness showcased by numerous actors of Bollywood namely Swara Bhasker  (wife of Fahad Ahmad), Alia Bhatt (daughter of Mahesh bhatt who's converted to Islam), Richa Chadda (wife of Ali Fazal) , Kareena Kapoor Khan , Sonakshi Sinha, fiancĂ© of (Zaheer Iqbal)  on the ongoing Israel-Palestinian war. They acted as fervent advocates by putting stories of "all eyes on Rafah" on their social media handles. But it hurts my heart to see that no-one is courageous enough, except a few to put a single message on the Reasi incident that took place in Jammu and Kashmir on 9th June,2024.  Everyone claims to be a sympathizer only towards the killing of innocents but were the pilgrims who were in the bus not innocent? Neither did these personalities (who have millions of followers) raise their voices on Oct 7th, 2023, when Hamas invaded the territory of Israel and raped and slaughtered thousands of innocent women and infants. If all of them are secular, t...

WHO IS THE REAL MINORITY?

 As the election season is near, I couldn't help but notice the negativity propagated by partisans and staunch supporters of the opposition parties. As a student, from the very beginning of my studies, my books have taught me how flexible our democracy is and how our preamble exhorts us to be just in all spheres of life. But I've always wondered if this plethora of goodness which is instilled in us really helps us to tackle different types of situations.  I say so because recently, I came across a news where a Hindu man was assaulted by a group of Muslim men as the former was playing Hanuman Chalisa in his shop. I'm not biased towards any one religion but having been a neutral spectator for some time, my stance on such matters has organically been influenced by interpreting who's the lesser evil.    While I was ruminating this news, I had several other epiphanies where I realized how news of atrocities faced by my Hindu brothers and sisters on a daily basis are ...

Trip to NDA, khadakwasla Pune

 We had been waiting soooo long for this opportunity .....  the chance of visiting the National Defence Academy at Khadakwasla, Pune. My father's NDA course Silver jubilee function was being organised in the second week of Dec 2022, though two years late due to CoVID induced delay. 10th-11th December 2022 -       We travelled to Delhi from Dehradun by road on 10th Dec. The next day we had an early morning flight. The desire of seeing the NDA was the only motivation that egged us to wake up so early. We reached Pune at noon from where we went to our hotel. We were welcomed with my father's coursemates hooting and shouting in excitement. Then we changed and took a nap until it was time for the course get together dinner. I was able to meet and make many new friends at this dinner; and the special thing about Army children is that they mix up really quickly. The night ended late while we jived at the DJ's music, and finally left the hotel late.  12th Dece...

MOONWALK

The moon was formed 4.5 billion years ago. At the beginning, basins were formed from the heavy bombardment of asteroids and comets which were floating in space due to explosion of big rocks in the space. Then a short-lived igneous activity happened, commonly attributed as mare volcanism. Thin crusts were formed. After this, intermediate cratering and formation of ray craters took place. Mostly regolith rays covered the moon. These rays were made from the collision of large and small meteoroids on the already forming ball of rocks. These activities kept happening for centuries and the consequent product is what we see up above the sky every evening. The first mission to moon was experimented by the Soviet Union on September 12,1959. Though the mission failed, ten years after the Americans successfully landed humans on the moon on July 16, 1969 from their spacecraft- Apollo11.                               ...

A trip to Asan Barrage, Dehradun, (Uttarakhand).

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  My parents recently joined a bird watching and stargazing group in Dehradun. It is administered by Mr. Satpal Gandhi, a professional stargazer and birdwatcher. Various sessions are conducted for the group members and their friends which helps spreading of this hobby to many future bird watchers and star gazers.            Mr. Gandhi, on 12th December, asked all the group participants if they were interested in going for a trip the next day, to a place called Asan Barrage for experiencing a meteor shower and observing rare birds. My parents asked my sister and me if we wanted to go and out of excitement we said yes. I was informed by my parents to pack warm clothes as it would be really cold and we would be staying near a water body during the month of December. We set off at noon and reached Asan Barrage at half past 2. We all got mesmerized the moment we saw that place. It was a magnificent riverscape and the cottages had a conical rooftop with...