Ishani's Pen

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...

“Happy Birthday to you” chortled a bunch of girls merrily as I entered into a restaurant located in the very heart of the city of Guwahati. As I sat down on my table, just opposite to the girls, I was thunderstruck. All the girls were hardly aged 12-13 years and all of them were dressed in mini skirts, hot shorts, high heels. And when I glanced at their faces, I felt short for words. These young girls had their eyebrows shaped, heavily made up eyes and huge amount of dark lipstick!!! Looking at these young kids and their body language, I thought “How did the innocence of these young girls get lost?” Their faces did not reveal the slightest hint of cuteness that children their age possess, rather they appeared to be like some models walking on the ramp. Is that what our society has come to today? Yes, we are heading towards moral degradation my friends. We no longer treat our girl kids as cute, innocent angels and try to nourish them with good values. Is it really necessary fo...

I have this habit of observing people in public, trying to gather the topics of discussion that go around in society. I usually go out alone for shopping, lunch etc. where I observe these things. This incident occurred around 2-weeks back when I decided to indulge in Mughal cuisine for lunch in a restaurant located in the very heart of my hometown, Guwahati. The restaurant was almost empty as it was not lunchtime yet, with only one occupied table (except mine) where a group of men sat huddled together. I had just paced my order when I noticed a girl dressed in a hijab (headscarf) and niqab (face veil) walk in. I don’t know but for some unknown reason I always feel myself drawn to such “covered” women.   She was dressed in a black salwaar kameez and sat in an opposite table, facing me. Though I couldn’t see her face, but I presumed her to be around my age or maybe 1-2 years older. She sat with her face down as she chose what to eat. As she sipped water from a glass, I ...

Dr. Abshar Hasan – one of the most hardworking human beings that I have met in my journey of life. Calling him a legend would be probably too much isn’t it? But we can actually call him “The” Abshar Hasan. When I saw this 6 feet something inches muscular guy during my PhD interviews at IIT Guwahati, the first thought was that – if such older (and big) people are interviewing here, where will a fresher like me hold a chance!! But fate had other plans – not only were both of us selected at IITG but we ended up sharing nearby labs. I really don’t know where to start as I don’t really know him from his early days. In fact it was only yesterday (after 4 and half years) when I came to know that he was working as a sales executive for Nestle in Punjab. So I will just go with the flow. He was one of the very first (and also probably the best) guys with whom I bonded in my 2014 PhD batch but I had never imagined  this bond to grow so much. Was it for our love for food, I wonder...