Boy! you're a...GIRL!!!

Really?You don't say!I would have never realised had you not pointed out this obvious fact to me!


You know those bizarre moments like "remember how i lost my wedding ring in hippo poop?", well recently i lost my half-artificial-front tooth while munching on French Toasts(okay so its not as bizarre but who doesn't like drama?).I was in tears from the first moment i saw the gaping hole in the mirror.There's no other way to put it,it looked hideous.I made frantic calls to dad asking him to make an appointment with the dentist.But them busybees could only see me after four days.That entire day I lived in agony.I wouldn't smile at anyone.I wouldn't talk much.And i refused to eat around others.


By the next day I was starting to feel like a hypocrite.I was always telling my girlfriends to be confident of who they are the way they are and here i was failing my own test.But could I really be blamed?Much as I claim proudly to not be a "girly girl",I love to look pretty.I love my bit of kohl when I leave the house,I love my pretty dresses and my filed nails.I love my mascara and my rouge and my funky jewellery when I am out for a party.I love my fuzz free face(even though it hurts like crazy to get rid of your moustache!).The problem was clear to me after i took a sparknotes quiz(yes,that is how i study) called "which gender are you?" .The answer,much to my cold-graveturning-tummyrumbling-toecurling-headboiling sorrow, was "you are a MAN"(and man WAS in capital letters.).It isn't my fault I am plagued with insecurities.okay,I'll give Freudian theories some credit and say men and women ARE a little different(thank you God) but the society that surrounds us is in no way innocent.Right from the time baby girls are wrapped in pink towels and baby boys in blue,we are marking the beginning of a life long gender distinction.


Any girl who prefers short hair to long,or sports to gossip or jeans to skirts is a "tomboy".Any girl who doesn't weep during movies,isn't scared of cockroaches,cannot cook to save her life is frigid and aloof.As if that is not enough,we always have a dozen fashion magazine telling us what NOT to do(pretty much everything) and we always have a dozen million of us religiously following their word too.Well,here's the deal,i love my chocolates,i love my teddy bear pajamas,i hate the bloody sight of pink,i don't like frills,i don't giggle or simper or blush,I laugh a lot and loudly too,i sit cross-legged AND i am proud to be a girly girl!(whatever heck that means!)


So when I finally went to the dentist, he started to explain to me the long painful root canal treatment that he would have to do to give me back half a tooth.and call me a coward but i said no.I can live with half a front tooth but I cannot let myself go through that pain.The dentist's reaction was funny -"it looks hideous".I gave him my brightest half toothed smile and walked out.




p.s-kudos to my male buddies for finding all my dental maladies adorable.it does help!:D

Body Dysmorphic Disorder

BDD is a fast growing anxiety disorder where a person obssesses over her/his bodily image,so much so they tend to see a mirror image of themselves completely different from what we percieve of them.Take for example,the case of Rachael given below,

Undoubtedly then,the disease causes social anxieties,depression and suicidal tendencies.the symptoms could be obsessive thoughts or actions pertaining to appearance,social withdrawal,avoidant or dependent personality or repititive behavoiur(constantly checking the mirror,applying make up,setting hair etc.)

While the cause of the disease may be genetic,it may also be caused by external facors like parental or peer pressure and influence of the media.

Cure may range from medicines and antidepressants for the very initial stages,to cognitive behaviourial therapy to plastic surgery for the very serious cases.

Love and support ofcourse,never goes out of fashion!

get all your info on-http://www.medicinenet.com/body_dysmorphic_disorder/article.htm

Here Comes the Bride

Its a regular Indian wedding.The bride is being petted and pampered.The groom's arrival is being anxiously anticipated.there's probably the regular shehnai playing in the background.But definitely the laughter of elated relatives fill the air.so what makes the wedding so special?so very unique?well,the groom is coming with all his pomp and splendor.What sets him apart is that he is the second groom to have married into the village of Devda,Rajasthan in a hundred and twenty years!Shailendra and Shagun are all set to be wedded in the very city which is infamous for its shameful and senseless ritual of female infanticide.Among the 70 Rajput families inhabiting the village of Devda,there are only 12 girl children.Infact,apart from the bride Shagun,there is only one girl,Chandra Kaur,who is above the age of 10.Panna Singh and his wife fought against all odds to help their baby girl live while the honourable Rajputs around them killed their daughters without emotions.Now following the footsteps of his brother (whose daughter Jayant was the first to marry in over a century!), he is giving away his daughter to her beloved.two words Panna Singh-Go You!

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5578348.cms

TeeHeeHee

giggle moments from google.:D

Domestic Violence Ad

ok.bloody brilliant piece!this ad was banned for its violent graphic content.please do not watch it if you feel it might upset you.this is kiera knightley at her best!

The Twinkle In Her Eye

I switch on the TV and hear a familiar song playing on Doordarshan after ages. "Nanhe munne bachhe teri muthhi mein kya hain?" croons the singer , "muthhi mein hain taqdeer hamari" chirp back an elated chorus of children. They're happy and secure. So happy that you cannot help but smile at their naive beliefs. You can't help but inwardly cringe as you think how quickly they will be disillusioned. Obviously they do not know big bad wolves really do exist.And Fairy Godmothers really don't. Obviously they can't even begin to imagine how many villainous brutes are craving to rob them of their childhood and make them work for their pleasure.Obviously they do not realise that in the world of grown ups they really have no peace.

Take for example,this little girl,

13 year-old Mira of Nepal was offered a job as a domestic worker in Mumbai, India. Instead she arrived at a brothel on Mumbai's Falkland Road, where tens of thousands of young women are displayed in row after row of zoo-like animal cages. Her father had been duped into giving her to a trafficker. When she refused to have sex, she was dragged into a torture chamber in a dark alley used for 'breaking-in' new girls. She was locked in a narrow, windowless room without food or water. On the fourth day, one of the madam's goondas (thug) wrestled her to the floor and banged her head against the concrete until she passed out. When she awoke, she was naked; a "rattan" cane smeared with pureed red chilli peppers shoved into her vagina. Later she was raped by the goonda. Afterwards, she complied with their demands. The madam told Mira that she had been sold to the brothel for 50,000 rupees (aboutUS$ 1,700), that she had to work until she paid off her debt. Mira was sold to a client who became her pimp. (Robert I. Freidman, "India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe," The Nation, 8 April 1996)

Mira is one of the 1.2 million child prostitutes working in India. She’s a part of that invisible section of the society who we refuse to acknowledge and in doing so, refuse to help. At a time when the “usual” little girls grow out of cuddling their dolls and start getting interested in make up and boys, children like Mira are already nursing a baby of their own,wearing cheap lipstick and seducing their clients. By the time their more fortunate counterparts are passing out of high school, they are nearly dying with AIDS or other deadly sexually transmitted diseases. To many this might seem an exaggerated account of non existent lives,but to Mira and her friends this is a daily nightmare.

Needless to say the young victims of such outrageous exploitation never really are freed from their blighted past. The tortures inflicted upon their tender bodies and minds plague them for the rest of their lives if they are fortunate enough to be emancipated. There are a lot of NGOs across the country such as Sanlaap in Kolkata, which work towards rehabilitating child victims. Their work however remains futile till the time society refuses to accept them as one of their own. Their admittance and acclimatisation is a slow and painful process. Understandably the more they are shunned and stigmatised, the more they recoil into their traumatic shell. It falls upon the celebrated middle class morality therefore to drive the point home. We need to protest against the practise and stop marginalising the victims. So the next time they are asked “Bholi bhali matvali aankhon mein kya hain?” they can honestly believe “Ankhon mein jhume ummeedon ki diwali.”

Gory facts and figures:- http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/india.htm

SIGHS,SALTS AND SINGLEDOM

Its nearly here. The nightmare week for all those who haven’t yet found their dewy-lipped honey-eyed soul mates. Where ever you go you see pink fluffy ribbons, red heart shaped balloons, cute naked cupid toys and pretty packed chocolate boxes up for sale. Possibly if you had been in a relationship before, you feel a knot in your stomach as you remember the red rose that had been put secretly on your desk or the glittery card slipped secretly into your bag or if you were lucky enough to have a rich partner, the candle lit lunch at the romantic restaurant. You watch couples going mush and you think “why am I alone?”. You sigh and turn away but there’s no relief. People everywhere seem to be in love. Suddenly your happy-to-be-in-love-thank-you-very-much friend calls you up and gushes “he did the sweetest EVER thing” and you smile. You want to take hold of a jagged stone and grind it on her and her “sweetest EVER” boyfriend but you just go “awwww”. Maybe, just maybe, you shed a tear or two. Or you cry a gallon and half.

Well. Get. Over. It. Look at those happy people once again!58 percent of them will be single before summer starts. The rest before summer ends. The successful couples will end up MARRIED!(yikes!) Or heck!perhaps 20 percent will break up by Valentine’s Day itself because they EXPECTED a proposal but didn’t get it! So breathe, smile and tell yourselves the words of the legen(wait for it)dary Barney Stintson-“My life is AWESOME”[How I Met You Mother in case you aren’t retarded enough]. And hey! don’t let those committed women with their strappy stags turn their nose up at you! We are happy you have a boyfriend. We really are. We just think we can do better! Be honest, do you really miss how you had to keep a plastic smile plastered while your love would breathlessly proclaim his love for you? Do you really miss having to worry about what kind of gift would suffice as a return to the hugely expensive stupid memento of love he buys for you? How do you even BEGIN to react to the cheesy bit of poetry he wrote about the mole on the side of your nostril? And incase you were a wannabe feminist dating a ball-less douchebag(happy memories of yours truly), then do you miss having to pay for that oh so pretty candlelit lunch? You don’t do you?(If you do please stop reading this and go cry to your pillow. it’s very interested in what you might have to say.) You don’t miss it because as Gloria Steinem said,”a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.” Guys are like scabs!when the wound starts to heal the scab will by painful and itchy. Eventually it’ll just dry up and all YOU have to do is flick it!(“flick it.”heh!)

As a single girl you

-> get to flirt all you want(added bonus-check out any ass you wish).

->don’t have to make constant excuses to those whiny complaints(“why did you find Brad Pitt hot?why did you not receive my calls?why did you not reply to my messages?why did you not say my mom is pretty?why did you dress up so much?why aren’t you dressed nicely enough?why don’t you like my spikes?why do you have to be so loud?why cant you be more affectionate?why are you holding hands in public? ).

->can have FRIENDS, go out with who you want, when you want.

-> can do a smelly fart and not apologise for it.

-> aren’t accused of PMS just because you have an opinion.

-> don’t have to look interested to what they have to say about their jobs/hobbies/inane fantasies.

-> don’t have to pretend to find them geniuses though you know they are complete idiots.

-> don’t have to spend time with their even more stupid buddies while they proudly flaunt the “bros over hos” BS.

-> can wear all your heels without being too tall.

-> wax,thread and generally punish your body only if and when YOU want to!

->don’t have to deal with pscho ex girlfriends(or worse,present girlfriends whose existence was unknown to you)

->would totally be mysterious!

Let’s also not forget,boys are sweaty and smelly and love kills creativity(look at all those sonnets on unrequited love!).So this Valentine’s Day,buy yourself a Chocolate Tart(or popcorn if you are so conscious),watch Jerry McGuire(you can actually be excited about the “you had me at hello” bit rather than “show me the money” bit) and feel good about the fact that you’re definitely not getting dumped this valentine’s day(ouch to those of you who have been)!

p.s-the write up has nothing to do with salts.