The Brave Girls Of India

This write up is courtesy Mr. Nilendu Ganguly, but I had to post it.

 Few days back, as a billion plus Indians slept, a handful of tribal girls proudly held aloft a trophy they won in their maiden entry in a football tournament in far-flung Spain.

It was the night of July 13. Hundreds of fire crackers lit the skies as the girls screamed Vande Mataram – their battle cry – for being placed third in the Gasteiz Cup, the world’s best testing ground for teenager football in Victoria Gastiez, also popular as Europe’s Green Capital.

They were the same girls who were slapped, kicked and made to sweep floors by arrogant bureaucrats in Jharkhand when the girls asked for birth certificates, a necessity to apply for passports.

But they eventually managed their passports, thanks to a strapping American, Franz Gastler, who pushed the cases of the girls with mandarins of the Ministry of External Affairs in the Indian Capital.

He was a lone ranger in his efforts.

The girls were lovingly titled the Supergoats by the organizers in Spain the moment they saw the girls playing barefoot in practice matches on arrival.
Why?

The girls had limited football gear and could not take the risk of tampering it before the tournament. They were overawed by international teams in the first tournament, the Donosti Cup, but came to their own in the second tournament.

Offering a consolation prize for the third team – winner of a match between losing semi-finalists – was a mere formality for the organizers.

But for the girls, it was a giant leap into global soccer from their impoverished Rukka village near Ranchi, considered one of the world’s epicenters of child marriage and human trafficking.

As soon as the announcement was made for the prize distribution ceremony, the girls rushed into their dressing room and returned, some barefoot, wearing red-bordered white saris, their traditional festive dress. Many had their plastic flowers in their hairs.

And when they huddled together after the mandatory photo session, some wept inconsolably because they had almost given up their hopes to participate in this tournament.

“They were over the moon. It was their night,” said Gastler of the girls, who subsist on less than a dollar a day.

For a country low on soccer, this was - arguably - good news for the mandarins of the game. But no one cared. All India Football Federation (AIFF) president Praful Patel was not aware of the girls’ superlative achievement, nor was the country’s new sports minister Jitendra Singh.

“We could not sleep that night (July 13),” says Rinky Kumari, 13, captain, Supergoats. Once she bunked her school helped her mother do household chores. Today, thanks to football, everyone knows her name in the village.

She says she remembered the days she was slapped and sweep floors when she went to the Panchayat Office get birth certificates for her passport.

“That is the pain of being a tribal girl in India. I do not remember the slap, I remember the Cup,” says Rinky.

For her, and her teammates, it means a lot.

Food and Me (June 12)

I like food and food loves me, cause it goes and settles quite nicely in all the right places that it calls "home". And I for one have tried very hard(hardly) in the past to shoo it away with half hearted exercise regimes, my own way of controlled dieting and crash dieting(and oh! it crashed into the Grand Canyon on day 3).When I was young(yeah, "WAS") , I was skinny , never ate, had no cravings and life was bliss!!!And now I am eating one meal and deciding the menu for the next one.

The  other  day my older one, Adi said" Ma...aap aage se toh theek ho peeche se mote tagde dikte ho"..He doesn't mince his words.Poor fellow doesn't realize he is never gonna get a girl like this. And this sentence of his is the reason I am writing this note.

I have , in the past neglected myself and the subtle hints that my body gave , only because people flattered me with compliments and compared me to a some what famous actress(Vanity is my Name)...It got to my head ...I never understood the joke when they said I was the fatter older version of her.

But a serious wake up call , a lifelong need for medication and the much needed motivation has brought me to my senses.Though they say " Its never too late", But most of us make the mistake of postponing it till it's rather late.

I love food and food loves me... but now in moderation.. I exercise and I take care. And for all those who tell me I look like a certain actress.. let me tell u that she looks a bit like me and when she grows older and fatter she will look a lot more like me( Vanity is still my Name)!

Ma .. this note is specially for u.

The Incredible Indian Male

A nation rose from silence to a horrific truth that women are the “weaker sex”. Contrary to the belief that we are a developing nation, we went back a few hundred years where a man’s penis was of great value. With testosterone raging and adrenaline pumping high he would go on to the battlefield to justify his “manhood”. And this is what he is doing today- be it in words or in action. Somewhere he is loosing it, his right to control the once meek and submissive woman. All his life he has seen his grandmother, his mother, his aunt going about the house with their head held low, uttering monosyllables only when the dominant male spoke to her. So now, how can he see his wife, his sister, his own daughter break the monotony of the patriarchy rule and become his boss at work, his equal at home and his contender to his father’s will.
It is but natural that to such a man a woman may look “dented and painted”, to this man she is the face of urban India and not the rural Bharat , that she is his next conquest and that she needs to learn her lesson right away.
As a woman today living in this “developing nation” I salute to the rise of the “Incredible Indian Male”. I feel a deep urge to serve him, to be honoured by his presence and feel duty bound to give into his whims and fancies cause I was born to do so. What he says is right , what he does is right too! And god forbid I go against his will and wishes may the earth give way and I be buried alive.
My mother taught me wrong that being born a woman was something to be proud of. That I had the charm and the wit to make men dance to my tunes. That I could do whatever I wanted ,whenever I wanted and I could do better than a man. But, she taught me wrong cause she never took into consideration that men had egos the size of their you know what that grew at the slightest of provocation.
Men of honour and men of pride are an endangered species or rather an extinct species that we may now find as fictional characters in books, cause the “Incredible Indian Male “ finds it difficult to digest that objects like women have to be treated with dignity, have to be given a place in society and Oh, good lord! Be treated as an equal.
With debates and counter debates dying their own death in all social media as time passes by, me an “Average Indian Woman” would wait anxiously for another national uproar, hoping that politics and media would again “talk” about ME and MY PLACE in the society. Give me the importance, and try to lay down laws for my safety, since I am already born and they cannot do anything about that! And till such time I hope and pray that I am not the cause of the uproar.
I walk on the streets today with the latest update that how my bare midriff is going to be the cause of me getting raped and not those lecherous eyes or the sick mindset of the awesome male species. That I should remember to call him “bhaiyya” , if he forces himself upon me and thus he will let me go to find another one of my species who doesn’t know this magic word.
I bow down in admiration to the “Incredible Indian Male” as he has shown me light that he may worship my form as the Goddess of Wealth but my true place lies in my mother’s womb- safe, secure and loved!
The end to this note is wishful thinking though I don't believe it too... I am angry, hurt and confused... I want to live safe and with dignity. This seems too much to ask in the present scenario... And it's only a wish!