Prajnya organises a campaign agaisnt gender violence every year between the 25th of November and the 10th of December. Do take time to read what Prajnya is planning this year.

I cannot help shuddering. It goes beyond keeping children away from all this. What worries me equally is that a lot of gamers are older men, men in their 20s and 30s and even older. Men who have more access to women in offices or on the streets than say, teens.

Discrimination is viewed as a mere reflection of statistics and hence often the remedy is measured in terms of an improvement in numbers, figures and charts. Policy makers fail to see that these numbers themselves are a reflection of a cause, a phenomena much deeper, ingrained and well hidden. These undesirable statistics are but a [...]

I initially got along very well with K Paati. I still remember those three years filled with evenings of hot coffee and reminiscence of her bygone golden days when Thatha was alive and her 50 and 60 something pushing kids were literally kids. Like dealing with this big change on the personal front wasn’t enough, I also had to settle into my new job and soon I heard whispers about getting me married when I was 23.

Cricket is religion! Sachin Tendulkar is the Ultimate God! Sourav Ganguly is ‘the God of the off-side!’ We eat, drink and sleep cricket! Sunil Gavaskar is the Little Master! Rahul Dravid is The Wall! Mahendra Singh Dhoni is the Captain Supercool! Yuvraj Singh is the Style Icon! Virender Sehwag is the Master Blaster! Harbhajan Singh [...]

Shame, like failure, had two faces. She had been ashamed of her son. But she was also ashamed of herself. She despised her inability to come to terms with his dreams. She loathed her inability to stand up for him. But much as she hated herself, she could not bring herself to talk of him causally.

So where does the offender figure in our understanding of rape? Do we understand the brutality enough to actually be able to pardon it?

But what if a man does change? Does he have the right to lead a normal life?

“Oh Fuck!” is something I hear all around me everyday, as pens drop, essay deadlines draw close or the coffee goes cold. I tried the other day, to put that phrase in other words and came up with “Oh, sexual intercourse!” Upon examining dictionaries for etymological significance, there’s “Oh, strike!” and “Oh, Copulate!” Not so [...]

She knew she had failed whenever she heard Pratap’s name mentioned. She knew it when women talked of proposals. She saw it in her husband’s quiet consternation. But none of these would have scared her had she never seen it her son’s eyes. In his quiet way, Mahesh had let her know that she had failed him.