Are we finally accepting our heroines in lead roles?

Bollywood or Indian Cinema is more than just entertainment for Indians....it is like a celebration of life. People blindly follow their favorite stars ...be it the goatee style beard from Aamir Khan's character in "Dil chahta hain" or the long hair of Salman Khan in "Tere Naam", people have blindly copied them all. It is needless to say that even if real life, people believe and follow their movies and stars very seriously. The "Raj of DDLJ" has been the prince charming of millions of young girls throughout India. Every young girl saw herself as Simran waiting for her Raj to come and rescue her from "saat samundar paar". Basically, Bollywood mostly shows women following norms, values, customs, highly dependent on the approval of the male members in her life (father, brother, husband,son ) who needs to be protected and rescued.

Indian Cinema has always been more of a male dominated space just like the country. Actresses were merely for few dances, skin shows and minor side roles. It is always the hero who takes up eighty percent of the screen space, fights with the villains and wins everyone's heart. It is always his story. Ofcourse some women centric movies like Mother India, Aandhi, Arth were released from time to time featuring some of the best talents the industry has ever seen Nargis, Suchitra Sen, Shabana Aazmi, and many more but the numbers are very less. These movies somehow got lost among the huge number of Hero-dominated movies. 

Times have been changing and our country has been progressing. Our women are progressing in all fields. This change is even reflected in our Indian film industry....movies like Nobody killed Jessica, Kahaani, Mary Kom, Neerja, English Vinglish, Piku, NH10, Queen and many more movies with women is the lead role are rapidly on a rise in India. These movies are being accepted and loved by the audience. The audience is slowly accepting these kind of movies with women lead.

Women-centric movies don’t typically make lot of money as compared to blockbusters starring the biggest male stars.  No wonder, our female leads today complain about unequal pay. As of now, these women-centric movies are mostly low budget movies and are not becoming blockbusters yet but I am sure slowly we'll get there too.    

What we need to understand is that a major section of Indian population is still uneducated but this section have access to cinema. A rickshaw puller from a small town doesn't mind spending a day's income on a Salman Khan movie. Cinema actually have a huge influence on them, on the way they think, the way they behave socially. We can use this media to change the mindset of people and our social condition to make the country a better place for women. Most of the filmmakers are not ready to take this risk of making something different. They are concerned about their movie's profit, they have to enter the 100 crore club. Infact, to make a movie hit, they often add item numbers which mostly objectifies women. This is adding more and more to the already existing social evils. 

Slowly we are breaking the stereotype and heading in the right direction. These kind of movies should be more encouraged . More women centric movies should be made and more money should be invested in them.

For the love of rain

I am a Pluviophile...I simply love rain :) Everything about rain ...the way the earth smells when the first drops of rain hits the ground, the way the wind blows, the way the view becomes dark and hazy, the way the water droplets rolls down the window shield, ..............I can go on and on. I just love watching rain for hours and hours sometimes with a thought inside my head or sometimes just blank.

Somehow, rain always make me happy, like temporarily-real happy, if that even makes sense. It makes me forget all my current pains and problems of life and makes me gaze dreamily into the unknown. Sometimes, I think of love, not pains of love but hopes of love. No matter how sad I am, rain instantly makes me happy. Most Indians relate rain with a chai-pakoda thing but to me its an internal soul-connecting thing.

Rain reminds me of my childhood days when I could afford to spend hours watching the rain through my big glass window sitting beside the pane..........when I had no pain or worries of the world. It reminds me how I use to go to class with my friends carrying an umbrella and jumped on pool of water(on the sides of road) to splash it on them. The worries of clothes getting ruined/becoming unpresentable for the important meetings or how to wash stains off light colored clothes did not exist back then. It reminds me how our shoes used to get all wet on our way to school and we use to open our shoes in class and hang our socks on the window racks and roam around barefooted whole day. The worries of a favorite expensive shoe getting spoiled did not exist back then. Life was much simpler back then :) Only the hopes of the unseen future and the joy of being a kid existed. Beautiful unforgettable childhood memories :)

Growing up sucks, specially when its raining outside and you can't give time to watch this beauty of nature which detoxifies your soul......when you have client calls to attend, when you have code deliveries, when you have to work. Job. Jobs which pays our bills :)

But still, no matter what, even today whenever it rains outside, my otherwise dead/in-a-coma heart skips a beat and becomes unexplanatory out-of-world happy. Maybe that's the beauty of the rains :)


N.B: Apart from watching rain, I love clicking rain too :) The pics posted here, have been clicked by me from my office desk.

Is age really just a number?

As I went through the status update of a school friend of mine on Facebook which reads ‘last day in my 20’s ‘, I could not help wondering that is really age just a number? What is the big fuss about turning 30 then? Will the concerned person change overnight as she wakes up the day she turns 30? Will she age overnight and her face will be full of wrinkles or will she become wiser overnight? Nothing, right? Then why we people specially girls become so sad and freak out when we turn 30 whereas we remain just cool at 29? Does the real problem lie with our Indian outlook that a girl must get married in her twenties or no guy will marry you? Or are women all over the world actually freaked out at turning 30? What is the real truth ?

I personally feel that after turning 30, you enter the best phase of your life. You become serious in your life and leave all immaturities behind. You have already completed your education and you have already worked for few years or maybe even switched few jobs. You are economically more stable and pay all your own bills without asking your dad to help. You have already bought a house or a car or plan to do so in few years. On personal font, you know yourself so much better now. You totally know if or not you want to be in a relationship. And if you want a relationship, what exactly are the things you are looking for and what all are a strict no-no. You learn to say "NO". You do realize what adjustments are worth doing and what not. You have so much more clearer vision in your head about you , your life, things in your life.

The 20 year old me would do super crazy things, take silly risks and try out anything.....just anything. There was no worries, no stress...as if tomorrow does not exist. I had dreams of tomorrow...real big dreams. Today I am in that "tomorrow". I know much more about the world and about me as compared to my 20s. That does not mean I have turned all boring now, but I know my limits now and am mature enough to take better decisions. I know now when to stop and when to let go. So, growing older is indeed better :)

Today is the tomorrow I already dreamt and worried about yesterday :)

12 types of men to avoid …………

When in dating, what should we women keep in mind to avoid a disaster and save our sanity? Having gained some experience from studying so many friends around, let’s see if I can sum up the characteristic traits and jot down a list of guys we should avoid dating. If we get the list, we can save our valuable time and emotions.

1)Mr.I KnowAll : He is the type of guy who is filled up with huge male ego and whom you can’t beat in anything. He seems to know everything about everything. And if you dare to excel in anything, do not dare to prove it. These relationships usually end up in disasters until and unless you decided to be totally submissive. Even if you are submissive by nature, there has to be a limit. Who loves to stay with a guy who doesn’t make you feel good about yourself?

2)TheCheatingGuy: If he has cheated once, take it from me in written, he’ll cheat again. All he is waiting for is the perfect opportunity. You will always feel very insecure with this type of guy and if he is not around, even if he is doing some official work, your mind will keep on wondering if he is with some girl. Just avoid these types of guys or dump them straightaway. Who doesn’t want a peace of mind?

3)TheNaggingGuy: There are these guys who will always complain and nag about everything around. The food is not good, the place is so populated, the boss is bad, the ex was horrible, his friends ditched him,…………….. just pick up your bag and run before you become one of his nagging subjects.

4)TheSuperActiveGuy: Then there are these super energetic adventurous active guy who makes you wake up at 5 am in the morning and run with him or plan dates at weird timings and who is always so active and running. Beware, before you know you would be already running to keep up pace with him and exhausted.

5)TheSmellyMessyGuy: It’s good to take care of your guy but it’s not good to be the mother of a fully grown up guy. You are his girlfriend not his housekeeper. It is next to impossible to make him take a daily shower and make him wear clean clothes. Not to forget, you are the one who’ll need to take care of his house………..oh how can I forget a guy’s bathroom………….yuuuuuckss!!!

6)TheOverPosessiveGuy: He’ll make your life hell and will make sure that you cut off from rest of the world. He’ll be keeping an eye on you and keep monitoring your behavior. Forget all your male friends, even long conversations with female friends can raise a suspicion.

7)TheJustTooPerfectGuy: He is the one whom may seem to be your prince charming but over a long period of time you’ll realize that when they say “to err is human” what do they actually mean. No one wants to date a GOD after all. To do small things non-perfectly seems good at times. At the end of the day, you should also feed needed.

8)TheTooCasualGuy: To be casual is good but to be over casual is good. Ultimately, a girl needs a guy who can take care of her. Not that she’ll be dependent on him but to have an emotional security is always good.

9)TheOverAmbitiousGuy: It is good to be ambitious but excess of anything is bad. It feels good to read about a Nobel Prize winner but nobody wants to date one of them in real life. Basically all they can think of is their career. They will absolutely have no time for you. And if you end up marrying one, you’ll have to take care of the family all alone and will never have enough of him.

10)TheFoodieGuy: It is good to date a guy with whom you don’t have to worry about being very thin but nobody wants to date a restaurant, right? All he is concerned about is food and nothing else. And before you realize, you are spending all your time in kitchen cooking for him. Not only he’ll hamper your fooding habits, he’ll also make you unhealthy.

11)ThePervertGuy: You should just run away from these guys. Initially you may feel that being extra physical is good for a change but slowly you’ll realize that all he can think about is sex…..basically he is a sex maniac. He not only fantasizes about you but about all the females around him including your friends, sister or may be mother. Just pick up your bag and run.

12)TheCoolDude: He is the party animal,the coolest person around .He is like extra cool with everything with his hairdo, his bikes, his parties,………..and as soon as you no longer fit in that cool quotient, you’ll be dumped.

At the end of the list, I think I have possibly defined every kind of guy who has ever walked the surface of the earth and left no one who can be date worthy :P Its true that men are from Mars and women are from Venus :P :P

Why is it a crime being born as a girl in India?

Disclaimer: Feminist post ahead :)


Being born as a female in India, does it mean that I should not have any aspirations in my life? Since I was born as a girl am I assumed to have less IQ than a guy? If no, then why can’t a girl have aspirations? Well, one would argue that in modern India we do let our girls to go for higher studies, get a job and wear western clothes. But is it just enough? What if she wants to go for some more higher studies after marriage? What if she deserves it? What if she gets an onsite opportunity and her husband doesn’t and she wants to go? Then, what? Basically, if she is more talented or intelligent or smart than her husband, she should not get the opportunity, right? Why on earth? Does it harm your male ego?

First of all, why is marriage a mandate for girls in India? What if she is well qualified and earns enough to sustain herself and do not wish to settle down with anyone less than the love of her life? Why is she being forced? As if girls are born with the sole motive that she should study so that one day she can get to be the wife of someone? Is that the only motive in life? Should she just be a housekeeper, a sex partner, a care taker of the family who is at the mercy of the male members? Why do all the people keep bugging you about marriage? Why am I supposed to feel ashamed or sad that I am career wise successful and still not married because I did not meet that special someone? Why should I arrange up a guy and get married or in short say yes for arranged marriage?

If a guy opts to go for higher studies or onsite after marriage, he can….rather he is considered to be very successful in life. Even in that case, women have to adjust……she either has to leave her job to accompany her husband or she should opt to stay alone. Why is it the vice versa for women? Why can’t men accept women growing or leave his job to be with her or take care of the family alone in her absence?

Being a girl, I feel it so disturbing that I need to choose between my personal life and professional life? Why can’t I have both? What is it with the male ego thing that we girls need to suffer? I was born as a girl and I am sorry to say but I am better than many guys as far as my analytical and managerial skills are concerned. So, should I be punished for it? How come a guy with similar or may be lower capabilities can have a great career and I should end up in someone’s kitchen and bedroom or just have a low profile professional life?

My culinary skills should be perfect or else he’ll be offended, the water should be perfectly warm for him to bath, the tea should be ready when he enters the house………..does my analytical skill be put to no better use than this? Why can’t I expect the same things from him? Why should I have to leave my family and stay with his parents and spend my life in being the perfect housekeeper than being at the top managerial ranks of some multinational company? Why do his parents have so much expectation from me whereas my parents don’t have any such expectations from him? For god’s sake, I want to be your daughter in law not some hi class housekeeper!

A girl leaves her family, her career, her life for a guy? Why? Why can’t a guy do the same? She is physically weaker than you not intellectually. Why don’t you take care of the family or at least share her work? Why can’t you let her advance like other developed countries allow their women to advance? Why do you keep saying to a girl that one day her prince charming will come and take care of her? What if she can take care of herself and the prince charming? Why is she expected to be dumb? Or at least dumber than her husband? Why is she treated as a different class of human beings? Is it a crime to be a smart, career oriented girl in India?

When in marriage , how old is too old ?

Disclaimer: Feminist post ahead :)


When my mother got married at 20, my grandmother thought that she was very old to get married and if she doesn't get married right away, she may remain a spinster through out. This kind of thought is totally expected from a woman who got married before she started even menstruating . For my generation, parents set the target of 25 for girls to get married. Now that I am approaching 30 and am still single , this question really makes me think ...in marriage, how old is really too old ?

Have the boat sailed for me ? I am really too old for all the cute guys out there? Would I never get married ? Do I have to die alone now ? Or do I have to settle with some fat bald smelly 40 year old someone ?

Have I really wasted the precious years of my life concentrating on my career and having fun with my friends ? But what is life without any aim or without any fun ? But then does it mean that I have to pay a cost for this ? Does it mean I won't get anyone anymore?

When I look around I see all my friends married...most of them even having babies . Even girls much younger than me are getting married and I can see the look in their eyes when they hear that I am still not married. Does it mean that everyone around me knew it from before that you need to settle down as soon as possible or does it mean that I am the only fool around who was wasting time ?

But then I took a real close look at these girls, these so called happily married girls with their great hubbies and cute kids and ask myself "Are they really happy?" . A friend of mine who is getting married in two weeks said she kinda hated her fiance because she had to miss her onsite opportunity to get married.....the opportunity  for which she has waited for years and have worked so hard! Another friend of mine who is getting married in six months to her long term boyfriend is upset with her bad relationship with her in-laws ! Another friend of mine who is getting married in four months is upset because she had to leave her job,her family, her country,her friends to stay with her husband abroad. Putting your life on stake......what if it's not worth that much ? How happy these young brides are ? Are they really happy ? Would their marriage last ?Is their life really filled with all golds and jewels and am I missing out a lot ?

Ya I agree they have a guy to love and support them at the end of a hard day.But does love remains ? Does it really grows with time as it happens in fairy tales where they say happily lived ever after ? Or is ever after just a myth to trap young women into marriage vows ? Does all the love vanishes and a couple literally tolerates each other after a span of time ? So ,should a woman never get married at all ? Or is there a perfect time when she can ? May be after she attains a satisfying position in her career and is no more confused with her decisions in life, she can think of marriage . Because as far as I know it takes a lot of mental work and stability to make a marriage work provided you don't end up marrying a moron. But then who needs a man when you have great friends to share your life with !!!

Marriages in India

Disclaimer: Feminist post ahead :)

Being brought up in conservative society of India, girls are being brought up in a way where they think that marriage is the topmost priority in life. Being married to a well earning guy should be one’s dream of life. You can study and can afford to have an independent career or may be a house or car, but you cannot stay independently.  You need to get married and have kids. Only then your sole motive of existence is fulfilled. Isn’t that ridiculous? I mean why do we women need male companion or in that sense security.  Marriage is a wonderful institution but one should only go for it when one is madly in love with that person and wants to spend their whole life with that person, accept all flaws of the other person and want to start a family together. I don’t understand why on earth I need to get married otherwise.

Who would look after you when friends and family are not around? What? Am I going to turn anti-social as I age? People meet new people and make new friends. Everyone is not going to stay around always. But isn’t that the truth of life? What is the surety that the man I get married to won’t die before me leaving me all alone? Men die before women, so that’s totally possible. I may not have kids from my marriage or my kids may be way too busy in their career or life to care for old parents. I cannot take them for granted. So, what happens in that case? I got married and had kids for not dying alone but I end up doing the same. How would I make up for the fun and enjoyment I missed in my life due to these things?

Arranged marriage….another disaster in India …I mean why on earth should I marry a guy whom I, leave alone love, don’t even know?  I mean why should I one fine day go and marry a stranger? They say parents choose more wisely than us …but isn’t it my life? I would be way more happier to take risks, make mistakes, fall and then learn from my mistakes and get up. Do not spoon feed me throughout my life. I have my IQ, I can use it….it is my life. Let me decide. I’ll know when I meet someone special. Nobody wants to stay alone, we are social animals, but no relationship is way better than a bad relationship. How can you people know more when you don’t even know the guy? How can you know better when it is me who has to stay literally live with that person for may be whole of my life.

You should marry a rich guy, the richer guy you get to marry, the luckier you are. For heaven’s sake, it is my life we are talking about, not some gambling game at some casino or club. Yes money is of course very necessary in life but that does not give you the surety that a rich guy will keep you happier than a poor guy.  Love, happiness, satisfaction…these are very different things in life which money cannot buy. All you need to survive is a small house, and enough money to feed yourself and pay your bills. We can always work on the money factor to earn more, but happiness? We cannot work on that to become happier!

In India 25 is considered the correct age for girls to get married, 30 is too old.  Whereas for a guy, 30 is the perfect age. A girl should be younger than the boy.  So that a guy can keep doing her for longer? Is this a setup for a sex racket? As if ,if he can keep doing her, he gives a written commitment to never cheat. As if the most important relationship of humankind which should be solely based on love should actually be based on sex. She should be of the same caste. Why on earth you need to break up the human community into groups and sub groups and smaller sub groups? Do people of other groups have different biological structure or different genetic composition? People prefer honor killing than accepting a bride or groom of other community. I mean for god’s sake nobody remembers the name of their great grandparents and the traditions they used to follow. I am literally exactly the same as my friends from different castes and religions. So, why can’t we just give up? She should be pretty, fair, slim, beautiful. She is a girl not a cow for god’s sake. She should know how to do all household chores. My god, why don’t you keep a housekeeper for yourself? And who the hell asks for these things? The ugly looking fat morons whom you would have never dated in your college are the valued contenders here. All the good looking ones are taken i.e. engaged or married. And if by ill-fated luck, any good looking guy falls into the arranged marriage category, he will have huge expectations. As if he should straight away get to marry Princess Diana. Oh how could I forget, a princess Diana who does all household chores and takes care of her in-laws and produces a lot of children and above all keep shut. What are we? Aren’t we humans like them?  Then why on earth do they get to be preferred ones and we the less privileged ones? Oh, how can I forget the famous Indian dowry system? A girl’s parents must be punished for giving birth to a female child and should pay the groom a huge dowry (i.e. cash, jewelry, car, house…) to compensate for his daughter’s lifelong expenses. Why on earth why? Is the guy physically handicapped and not capable of earning enough to feed his family? Well, in that case why is he getting married in the first place? I am so shocked to see how well this dowry system flourishes among the so-called educated class! Even if government tries to put a fine on these things if caught, the educated class makes sure not to get caught and the upper class uses this to show off of their wealth and power. If you are so rich, why don’t you help the underprivileged ones? Why don’t you understand that these things lead to female foeticide, female infanticide, dowry killing and many other anti-social events. And again an interesting fact, the female foeticide also happens mostly among the educated lot of people. How can you kill your own child just because she is a girl? Only that's her fault ?Why don’t you understand that this degrades the position of women in society and leads to rapes? Why don’t you understand that you rich people are setting this wrong trend in society which the poor are also following at the stake of keeping their house or domestic pets on mortgage to marry off their daughters? 

Ours is a male dominated society, women in our country do everything they can to satisfy and massage that male ego. A woman herself is the enemy of her own gender. If women would not have supported, it would never have been possible for men in our society to rule. In our country we say that western culture is very bold. You feel our youth is trying to be like them .What are you people worried about? That someday your women will be like theirs and you’ll no longer be superior and will no longer have her to dominate and suppress?

Is that the reason you are trying to force to get her married? So that you can feel safe that she no longer would be a danger to you? Or as a society we literally are so un-advanced that we have hell lot of free time and we just can’t stop discussing about people’s life? Or are you as a married man suffering so much that you want others to go through the same pain? Or you are not sure about your society that this single woman can be safe in future staying alone, and so want to get her married for her security? Isn't it better to keep a security guard ?

Whatever it is, the question still remains the same how should one, staying in this society, undergo all the society and family pressure and not give in to it?