All posts tagged: relationships

Justice shining?

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I am trying to stifle the fan within me as I write this post, because objectivity is important. There is a 4-letter word doing the rounds on Indian news channels and I cannot hold my silence any more. My intention here is merely to weigh the arguments I have been constructing in my head since June 16, rant about the media, and assess the state of affairs in my dear country. If you haven’t figured out yet, I am talking about Shiney Ahuja. The 4-letter word is rape. I quote from Wikipedia (which I am way more tempted to trust as a source than everything that appears as breaking news on CNN IBN, NDTV, Headlines Today and the like): On the evening of Sunday, June 14 2009, a household maid working at Ahuja’s house lodged a compliant with the Mumbai Police alleging that Ahuja raped her when they were alone that same afternoon. She further claimed that he threatened her life to prevent her from disclosing the incident. At first glance, or if you have …

I do?

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One of the side effects of turning 21 is that the word ‘marriage’ seems to be floating in the air, all the time. It makes people emanate all kinds of sentiments – obsession, fantasy, detest, and the most boring, acceptance. Lately, too many of my discussions with people revolve around the subject, and I hope this post is going to be a closure.  Given how rapidly our Indian culture has progressed, generation gaps are so glaringly obvious. Apparently generation gaps work in multiples of 7, and on some level, I have started to notice that. Anyway, this cultural progression seems to have been segregated by community, and some orthodox ones are still in the 20th century phase of arranged marriage, where girls are showcased to boys and only one-sided approval is necessary. I won’t address such an outrageously ridiculous custom here.  Recently however, I had a long debate with a friend who compares arranged marriages to Swayamvaras of history. The similarity is uncanny, if you think about it. Back in the day, suitors would line …

No more evil

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Randy Pausch wrote in The Last Lecture, “Find the best in everybody. Just keep waiting no matter how long it takes. No one is all evil. Everybody has a good side, just keep waiting, it will come out… Wait long enough and people will surprise and impress you.”   It never struck a chord with me, until now. The negativity in me had set my default mode to ‘don’t trust’, ‘the world is bad’ and ‘people are guilty’, until proven otherwise. Small gestures, strangers, life, does change the way we look at things, and sometimes for the better. I’ve realized that the world is not all bad and not all evil, but we have to believe that before we start to see it. I think I’m starting to believe it. It’s the beginning of a new phase for me, one that I hope will outlast all the hatred. Evil really lies in the eyes of the beholder. It’s a nice world from hereon. Shivya NathWelcome to my blog, The Shooting Star. I’ve been called a …

The Blogosphere – my second home

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What started as my lonely little space on the world wide web has integrated into a community of bloggers-turned-friends, rather fast. Well, virtual friends. It took me a while to realize that the blogosphere is full of some amazing people, writers, acquaintances, readers, visitors, even stalkers! I am very honored and rather touched to receive my first ever set of blogging awards today, from a fellow blogger, Nikhil. Thanks Nikhil! Blogging friends forever indeed!  Honestly, I’m not too sure what the 2nd award implies. Oops, honesty I suppose. I’ve seen such blogging awards on some blogs I’ve visited in the past, and today, when I finally became a recipient, I started to explore the origin of these awards. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find much, except the blogs of fellow award winners. So now, I’m quite convinced that someone, somewhere, woke up one morning and thought of creating a way to appreciate the efforts of bloggers who kept him entertained on mundane days, informed on busy days, and connected on lonely days,. A way to strengthen blogging bonds among …

The Last Lecture

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I suppose we all have our notion of how we’ll confront death, when the time comes. Carnegie Mellon (CMU) created a platform for its professors to imagine such a confrontation and gave us the invaluable gift of Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture. CMU’s tradition asks professors to imagine the end of their lives and address graduating students, sharing with them their philosophy of life and what they might have done differently if they could do it again. For CMU’s computer science professor, Randy Pausch, things were a little more real. He was diagnosed with cancer and given a few months to live. His Last Lecture was indeed his last.  Randy’s lecture was a keepsake. It did the rounds online and became one of the most inspiring, most viewed videos on youtube [The Last Lecture, view here].  “Under the rouse of giving an academic lecture, I was trying to put myself in a bottle that would one day wash up on the beach for my children. If I were a painter,  I would have painted for them. …