AmarSharma-Sensible Nonsense

Context Setting: The letter is addressed to a typical RWA (Resident Welfare Association) office bearer in India who thinks he owns the whole society and misuses its resources in a wanton manner, fulfilling his personal whims and fancies. This guy/gal is also a bully, coward, spineless and usually a bigot who openly discourages residents belonging to minority groups from using RWA greens for holding celebrations and functions while opening its purse strings for celebrating festivals & rituals prevalent in his own majority community. For those opposed to his wrong acts, there is a rule book thrown at them. For others, it is forever exception season.   ====================================================================== Dear President Saheb , Saadar Pranaam Sir ji ! Let me begin this auspicious day by thanking you and your fellow travelers in the governing body profusely for showing unparalleled sensitivity towards aged men, women and kids staying in our society. I’m

At last, Lipstick Under My Burkha has been watched. And what a disappointment it has been! The film’s director and producer(s) must thank Censor Board chief, Pahlaj Nihalani for providing the oxygen of publicity to a mediocre and regressive film which came to be hailed by feminists et al as a pro-women progressive film being stifled by archaic value systems held dear by Nihalani and his employers. In fact, that’s one reason I decided to watch it…as a form of protest against this stifling. People’s right to freely express themselves is paramount regardless of the quality of the thoughts & feelings expressed.   The film undoubtedly touches upon a topic that has been a taboo in Indian society – female sexuality. It uses 4 protagonists to drive home the point that like men, women too have sexual desires and feelings which need to be satisfied. Fair enough! It also tells you that these desires and feelings of theirs are suppressed by our patriarchal and feudal value syste

  Imagine you are suffering from loose motions but cannot step out of your house to relieve yourself till after sunset. Imagine you are sitting in an open field for defecation with no bushes to hide behind because being in arid zone, there is very little vegetation around. You are forced to stand up everytime you hear vehicle approaching or people talking and wait till they pass by and are a few hundred meters away from you. Only then you get to sit again. Imagine these interruptions happening several times during just one round of defecating in an open field! As she speaks with me in the sunny back lawn of her ancestral home in her village, I can see pain and anger in her eyes but not helplessness. Meet Chhavi Rajawat, the Sarpanch of Soda village in Rajasthan. When I jokingly tell her that a village called Soda gives an impression of it being a village where people are fond of drinking, she laughs and goes on to narrate all that ails her village and how she cannot let t