Ishani's Pen

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...