Ishani's Pen

It is a general observation that I am having over the past few days as an individual and as a woman in general. Women, I had observed over the years (with my mother and aunts), never really wish or thrive to take the front seat for anything, how much educated they may be! Women tend to be satisfied with the success and achievements of their husband, brothers or any other male member. I am a person who is in that stage of her life where she is trying very hard to build a career and make a place for herself in the society, coupled with the fact that she tries very hard to change people’s the mindset about age-old traditions and customs that degrade women and promote gender equality. Our country is currently in such a state where we have witnessed a huge number of “she”roes, especially clad in hijabs and burqas. The video from JMI University recently that went viral couple of days back lead us all to think that “we are not the weaker section of the society – when the need ar...

The protests in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has been going on for quite some time now. Though the media is coming up with a number of stories and facts regarding JNU, there is one facet of JNU protests that only very few news pages are talking about. While students are protesting against the sudden hike in fees, news channels are diverting our attention to the age of the students of JNU.  Media is also going to the extent of doing photoshop and providing fake information regarding some students of JNU (probably to spread this propaganda!!); where on earth is journalism, where are we supposed to get news from? Being a doctorate myself, I know very well about the challenges and hardships that any student has to go through to attain the Ph.D. degree; a lot of factors like supervisor, topic chosen, publications, etc. have a cumulative affect on the duration of any student’s Ph.D. Ideally, any person would be completing PhD by the age of 27-28 years if he/she had an academic ...

An innocent heart fell in love With a man, fondling with her like dove Cooing to each other they lived Everything he asked for, she gived! Unaware of his intentions In love she pushed her boundaries Accepting and fulfilling all temptations Forgotten were the barriers of age and countries!! Suddenly dark night fell on her Cz he left her suddenly without a word Betrayed and broken In her nothing  was going to stir!! Years later, she felt love again A love to heal her broken heart She had a past, so did he She just wanted to heal n gain. Alas! The past always haunts back She was impure, he commented Her love her care was real -aloud se lamented Her cries couldn't make him turn back. Didnt he also have a past, she wondered I had accepted everything, why cant he? "Nothing matters, because I love n take you" How hollow those words were - she pondered Only because he is 'a he' and she 'a she'?!!

Once a while in a far away land Lived a handsome clever lad Shortage of fine things he had But was never for once he sad. His mother he called his 'lighting guide' A person who never left her family's side During rains, she guided her kids with a lit stick To walk through muddy waters and not get sick.... 20 long years passed with turmoil Winds changed and so did the soil The lad was now well educated Nothing for his family was overrated! So many years hence the lad remembered Every passed hard day he encountered Journey to barren city was his homage But the 'lighting guide' is a fresh image! The lad had learnt it long ago Though days are easy now, hardships may come Fathers build house, mothers make home That's why he never had 'The Male ego!!'

I was woken up by a dream The only one and first of it's kind That of a pretty maiden With a handsome knight by the stream The maiden kept her distance Because the knight was betrothed Even when there was chance When on a stallion he roded She walked to the stream Her hands she wanted to cleanse When firm fingers grasped her palm Making her loose her sense It was the knight...oh why was he there He didnt reply to her curious stare Unleash your clasp she tried through actions But it didnt yield fruitful reactions Shaking from the dream I woke without the sense of day or night Thinking of the maiden by the stream Because rules she was trying to follow Even if she wanted the knight She knew Even though the clasp was from him, not her The betrothed of another damsel The world will always blame not him, but her For a paltry price, her innocent heart Was going to sell!!

The drizzling sound of first rain The pure smell of earth Things that tend to keep me sane Even in these times of dearth!! The setting sun in the blue-black space The saddening sky in its greyish hue Every drop of blue that falls on my face Is a reminder OF HOW FAR I AM FROM YOU!!

It’s been almost 2 months since I have settled in the beautiful city of Mangalore – the once unfamiliar city feels more like a ‘new home’ now, the people who seemed “foreigners” before are now more welcoming – the language barrier doesn’t seem like a problem anymore and I am also making an effort to learn Kannada for basic communication! However, one thing or rather culture of this place seemed a bit disturbing to me – the look of horror that is reflected in the people’s faces when they come to know that I am a 28 year old unmarried and “working” woman. What I realized here is that unlike North India or maybe unlike Assam, women’s education is not well promoted here. Though Mangalore is very near to Kerela, the state having 100% literacy rate in the country, literacy here is sort of limited only to men probably! Another thing which I had observed is that no sooner girls reach their teens, they are hooked up for marriage. And it is not that they are allowed to complete thei...

I was 18 years old when I moved out of my hometown, Guwahati for a hostel life in Delhi. That was July 2009! And now with the successful achievement of doctorate in 2019, I have completed 10 years of hostel life. With each hostel, I had gathered new experiences and made many new friends – some of whom are still in contact with me – and learnt many different things about different places of India. Like every other PhD student (and losing my father in between), I too was faced with the dilemma of whether I should continue with further research and move abroad or look for job in India. I believe that everything happens    for a reason – we just need to seek what that reason is! Though I had got a postdoctoral position in one of the “white collar” institutions of India, NCBS Bengaluru, I decided to join a teaching job in another city of Karnataka, Mangalore. After a tiring and SOLITARY journey of almost 7 hours (with 2 flight halts in between) from Guwahati, I landed in this ...

A very common question that we are asked as kids or perhaps that we too ask kids is “What do you want to be when you grow up?” As a child, I used to be very happy when I was asked this; it seemed more of a flaunting my wish to be a doctor or a teacher or something else (which changed from time to time of course!). The deeper implications of this question never occurred to me at that time. But now if I think deeply, I just wonder “does growing up stop at an age or rather after attaining a certain degree or getting a particular job do we stop growing up?”   It took some time to realize that the definition of a grown up is specific to each individual. My house has a very strong wrought iron gate and it almost impossible for me to pull it shut. A 3-year old boy in my family saw me (a 28 year old doctorate) one day, tugging hard at the gate, in a vain but desperate attempt to close it. He came upto me and said “You will be able to do it when you grow up, not now.” I just came t...

I had a chance to visit Bengaluru a few weeks back for some work. It was my first ever trip to this beautiful city and thus, my first-ever landing and takeoff from Kempegowda International airport. However, what I am about to pen down is interestingly not about this high-tech city itself but something that I observed in the washroom of its airport. Interesting isn’t it? As I waited for my turn in one of the women’s loo of the airport, a sign posted outside the door caught my attention. It said something about “Bio-Clean” with a picture of a comb-like device. As I was trying to figure out what that meant, the lady in front of me came out and I went into the loo. Call it my habit or my over-conscious sense of cleanliness, the first thing that I look for in any public washroom (apart from it “being clean”) is a functional tap with mug or jet spray and to my surprise, I found none. No!! This can’t be possible- this was an international (though a domestic terminal) airport; what ar...

Humans are considered to the most superior of all creations, isn’t it? Because we are endowed with a brain that can think and reason for its own. However, there are certain things that I have observed in the recent past and it really got me thinking – is this what being the superior of creations mean? Orissa was recently hit by a tragic natural disaster – the cyclone ‘FANI’. Many videos of the havoc were broadcasted by the news channels and circulated by people through social media. Though the focus of all these videos was to spread the news quickly to the masses, what gripped my attention was that where there were people running for their lives, there were others who were smiling and waving at the camera on which these videos were being shot. Doesn’t it seem a bit odd – I mean there are precious human lives in the middle of a catastrophe and there are others, who instead of helping these people, are having the fun of their lives. Somebody sent me a video few days back on wa...

Khapla was a 23 year old man residing in a small village of Manipur, India. Born in a poor family, Khapla’s parents could not afford to send him to college for his graduation, though he had secured good grades in his 12 th standard in Science stream. Despite lacking higher education, there was no end to his inquisitiveness and thirst for gaining knowledge. He loved his hometown, his folk culture and his ethnicity. He was very proud to the fact that he was born in North East (NE) India, which was abundant with natural wealth and spent his free time in observing and studying the plants in the forests. He did a number of odd jobs in his day time for his family’s sustenance because his father’s meagre wage (who worked as a mason) was not sufficient.   One day while going to his work, he decided to take a detour through the forest and enjoy amidst nature for a while. There, Khapla saw a man, dressed in a suit (which immediately indicated that he was an outsider), carefully examini...

Many people might say that at my age, I haven’t seen and experienced life at all. But I would just like to say (and my fellow research scholars would agree) that in 5 years of PhD, we seem to experience almost every facet of life. My journey as a research scholar began with my sister’s wedding and it is sort of ending with my father’s first death anniversary, with the birth of my niece in between. However, something else has shaken me up quite as much and led me to write this piece. I was educated from an all girls’ convent in Guwahati in the late 90s’.   I remember how innocent and naïve we were in those days. In high school, if some boy from Don Bosco (an all boys’ school at that time) just looked at us, it used to be a huge discussion in the class.   The topics that are sort of ‘in vogue’ today like “one night stand, live-in relationship” and most importantly “sex” didn’t really grab our attention; in fact, I don’t think any of us knew the proper meaning and use of ‘...

A Holocaust survivor has said "Hate is a very strong word....It is a disease........Never say I hate a person; you can say i don't like this person but NEVER say i hate this person" Mohabbat baaton doston...nafrate to pehle se bohot hai duniya me #spreadlove#

As most of us are a “Google friendly” group now, I googled the word “taboo” and this is what I came up with: “ a social or religious custom prohibiting or restricting a particular practice or forbidding association with a particular person, place, or thing.” At the onset, I would like to simply pose some questions: How exactly do we decide that something is a taboo and most importantly, who actually decides that?? Is it our religion, our caste-creed or our race/color? In this whole myriad of “Dos and Don’ts” (specifically don’ts) that we grow up with or rather are raised with, what we don’t give importance to or rather forget is what is “rationale or logical.” Yes, we are not always right; obviously we cannot be always right but we are all gifted with intellectual minds – minds that can think of their own, decide on their own. Isn’t this the reason why we, human beings, are placed on the highest point of creation? These minds get nurtured with and flourish under education – edu...

“We are all equal, have equal rights”…but do we really? We live in a world with more than 7 billion people and we all have the same rights everywhere as it is proclaimed- same right to speech, to dress, to practice etc. If so, then why is it always observed that a particular group of the society called “muslims” face hardships when it comes to assessing one’s rights? From my very childhood I had observed people everywhere glance very disapprovingly at a muslim. Is it because how most muslims dress, how they look and what they practice? A general notion that prevails in the society even today is that “Muslims are bad and Islam teaches them to do so” but my point is - can any religion teach its followers to be bad? And the saddest part is this notion is inculcated among children from the very childhood. The Arabic word ‘ Islam ’ is “submission of one’s will to The Almighty God.” This religion, till today, believes in monotheism and preaches the concept of “ONE, INCOMPARA...