Good Traditions, Bad Traditions

Beautiful Angami Naga girls looking gorgeous in traditional finery. Photo Courtesy: EM

US President Barack Obama has just made a historic visit to Africa, returning to his ancestral homeland Kenya for the first time since he reached the White House and also becoming the first sitting US president to visit Ethiopia. It was a significant visit on many levels, not the least being the very personal connection for the president.

Unplug, Pause, Listen

Staying connected – that’s what it’s all about today, isn’t it? We’re plugged in, keeping in touch, updating, informing, getting informed…….we are obsessed with staying connected.

We have our smartphones practically attached to our bodies which we check and fiddle with incessantly. We have hundreds and thousands of ‘friends’ on Facebook and spend our waking hours liking status updates and photographs and sharing links. We ‘chat’ with people we have never met and give opinions on any and every topic. We ring, tweet, skype, email, text, instant message, post on walls and add each other to circles. We are tagged and notified constantly.

Yes, it would seem that we are eternally connected and even fearful of being out of touch.

Nurses and Traffic Cops

Where would we be without nurses and traffic cops? And street cleaners, garbage collectors, electricity and water supply maintenance personnel or ‘linemen’ as they are known and so on.

This thought has been on my mind since the Nagaland Nurses went on strike recently to voice their grievances and press the government to remedy what they feel are certain injustices in the implementation of their service rules.     

These are the unglamorous and thankless jobs that go unnoticed. We know that the jobs are getting done but never give it any real thought and many times even mistreat the people doing them. We don’t think about what would happen if suddenly there's no one to do these jobs.

It's nice to know

The musical ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ is one of my all time favourite movies. I’ve watched it over ten times and cried every time. No doubt there’ll be more tears the next time I watch it. All the drama surrounding Tevye and his family, particularly with his three strong-willed daughters who wished to marry for love, always manages to tug at my heart strings.

There's a lovely moment in the movie when a touching conversation takes place between Tevye and his wife Golde.

I wish.......

UPSC topper Ira Singhal is the inspirational story of the moment. And it is indeed a story of grit and determination, a story that speaks of an exceptionally strong person who refused to be treated like a second class citizen. If that is not inspiring, then what is? More power to her!

Her story has impressed so many and it is great that someone like her has stood out to put focus on the gross injustices faced by people living with disabilities in this country.

But once the flavour of the moment changes and all the gushing and rounds of interviews by earnest reporters fade away, will it have changed anything for the country’s disabled population?

Well, the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disability, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, is now assuring that steps will be taken to address the problems as highlighted by the Ira story. We will just have to wait and see, won’t we?

Sunday and Family on my mind

Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest. Even God took one day off after a busy six days of creating the big wide world. He certainly deserved the rest. We ordinary mortals look for the slightest excuse to plonk down on our behinds, while He definitely had good reason to want a quiet, undisturbed day to recoup His energy. It couldn’t have been easy creating the world!

But restful Sundays? Not the ones I remember growing up…..the mornings anyway. Those who grew up in a household like mine will know what I’m talking about.