opinions

>so the women’s bill got passed in rajya sabha. feels good and i am quite impressed with sonia gandhi. the way she has been handling power is quite unprecedented certainly in that family but also among other politicos in india. read one of the comments about the above by geetanjali kirloskar and she says she believes men and women are equal. i wonder when people make these statements, what are they really saying? from which point of view and what do they really mean? what does equality mean? i just don’t get it.

> Like thousands of Indians, i too have been witnessing and anguishing on the Mumbai carnage and the outrage and outpourings that is flowing non stop. much as i like to think of myself as a open minded, liberal, rational human being, to whom, communalism is associated only with the likes of fundamentalists of all kinds, the inner voice told some other tale. This came up during a discussion with a dear friend who confronted me with the issue that one can not be anchored on one’s own heritage and convictions unless one explores, understands and accepts both the primal and the socialised parts of the heritage, in its particularised context. This pushed me to look at the number of communities that i emotionally connect to; and i came up with the following in order of psychological priority: 1. Bengali 2. Hindu 3. woman 4. middle class and this list can go on and on. however, it is during the

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