Life - As I See It!

My New Blog

2011-03-14T16:38:00.000+05:30

Hi, I have moved to WordPress from Blogger and my new blog home is called Sharbori's Blog I have imported all my posts and comments. More importantly, I have also imported all my favourite blog links there. So, do come and visit me there. Cheers!

Rendezvous with Bengaluru Weekly Street Market

2011-03-14T01:00:00.000+05:30

Today I went out with friend Vishnu who also acts my guide to discovering Bengaluru, to Sultanpet weekly second hand goods market. The market comes alive once a week and all kinds of second hand goods are available there .... electrical, electronic, shoes, cloths, hardware, etc, etc. The place was teeming with people of all shapes and sizes ..... women wearing colourful cloths, toddlers

Sexuality and Old Age - In India or Anywhere Else

2011-03-12T11:38:00.001+05:30

Ok, so this is a taboo subject … for all of us … in India or anywhere else, except may be in some of the tribes who have not been infected by our kind of “civilization”. So what is it that I want to write about? Sexuality in old age, or the way society looks at it? I am not sure, for the subject is so vast and there are so many things to say, that I think I will limit this post only on one or

Courtney Martin: Reinventing feminism | Video on TED.com

2011-03-09T10:46:00.000+05:30

Courtney Martin: Reinventing feminism | Video on TED.com

Re inventing feminism

2011-03-09T10:45:00.000+05:30

I found this talk both hopeful and inspiring, especially when it is so easy and"tempting" to feel overwhelmed and disillusioned in the current context of the world. Courtney E Martin chronicles and encourages the current generation of young activists and feminists. She's the author of "Do it Anyway - the new generation of activists" and an editor of www.feministing.com

Amazing women in my life - part 5

2011-03-08T23:06:00.001+05:30

Although I am writing this on International Women's Day, I personally do not believe that we have to have a special day to commemorate women ... we ought to do it every single day at all moments in our lives. This can not be a politically correct, nice to do thing, it has to be in our bones, in our blood and in our hearts. I started to write this note about another woman that I met recently ...

2011-03-07T20:55:00.003+05:30

Hello Dear Friends, I am back, from a long hiatus - been working and travelling; and in between all of that, lost the zest for writing the blog. Every time I thought of writing, I told myself, I must come back better prepared, with good material and stories, and snippets and insights, and photographs and, and, and........ And the return never happened. Friends dropped into the blog, left

Gender & Identity Lab

2010-10-25T16:43:00.002+05:30

Ooops, I have not written for so long and my apologies. Many stories are waiting to be told and muh sharing is waiting at the doorstep. I have been busy with very little breaks in between to give the right amount of focus and attention to the blog. My apologies :-( But I do want to share with you an interesting program that I and some of my colleagues will be facilitating in Bangalore next

continuity - on the move

2010-10-01T20:37:00.002+05:30

We have been touring North India currently and I have been fascinated by the land, the people and the culture. More fascinated by the smaller unknown places, people and their little stories. Presenting one such here: On the national highway between Chandigarh and Amritsar lies this dhaba which is quite famous in its own way ... the owner proudly told us that cricketer Harbhajan Singh came in

patriarchy,clan, people, organisations ... not in that particular order

2010-09-26T22:25:00.001+05:30

No, this post is to not bash either patriarchy or clannish culture. I have not posted for quite a while and have been busy with my consulting work with organisations. As I was looking back at some of the experiences in the past, I was struck by certain themes that seem to be repeated in many organisations, in groups of people and in our daily lives. theme number one is "Hierarchy" - Socialism

Amazing women in my life - part 4

2010-09-14T23:15:00.002+05:30

This story is about B .... she was born in erstwhile Bangladesh, eldest of three sisters. She grew up being educated in the village school and finished her Matriculate. The stories that I heard from her about those days, were full of her liveliness, her feeling one with nature, her writing poetries, her curiosity about people, life and the world in general. She loved teaching and did not

to deal with ghosts of the past!

2010-09-09T23:32:00.006+05:30

Had a chat with a few colleagues and friends this evening. The chat was intended towards finding an arrangement for a business proposition, but before that it was focused towards looking at the emotional tonality lying around. What came about were the past hurts, reactivity and mistrust that were lying around, willingness to bring in some clarity about the way forward and some new

What is your idea of peace for yourself?

2010-09-05T20:36:00.003+05:30

This question is not about the macro context, of what is happening in the wider context, in the community, in the country or in the world. This question is asked more from a fantasized dreamy personal point of view, i.e. when we think of peacefulness for ourselves, what is the idea, thought, imagery, visual for ourselves?for me, peacefulness for myself brings up imagery of water, shades, trees,

Being Female!

2010-09-01T12:27:00.002+05:30

I was quite stirred by an article called “Unwanted daughters” by Harsh Mander in the Hindu Sunday Magazine dated 29th August, 2010 on a major recent study done on female feticide in India by Action Aid India and International Development Research Centre, Canada. The article among disturbing facts like methods of killing the female child, neglect, illegal connivances of

Your Well-being Is Your Responsibility

2010-08-23T08:42:00.001+05:30

Concern with well-being has been with man kind for as long as we remember. However, the definition of well-being and how we generate it and who is responsible, however, has changed over time. There was a time when people left the responsibility of one’s well being to their clan, their community and believed that if all was well with the community or clan, their well-being was taken care of as

Connecting!

2010-08-12T23:45:00.006+05:30

I will be out for the weekend and I realised how much am I going to miss my blog and my blogger friends. If I look back at the last couple of months, I can see how many wonderful and talented people I have met in the blogosphere. People who write about varied subjects, people who are as different from me as cheese and chalk, people who have very similar interests in life as me, people who have

Wordless Wednesday - Monsoon!

2010-08-11T00:37:00.000+05:30

Lazy afternoon monsoon in Kolkata, India Right after a heavy shower!

Where do we go from here?

2010-08-08T13:47:00.003+05:30

Have you ever felt like not doing anything at all and just let the world pass you by? I do, quite often, and at those times it feels like being in a haze. I know I have these three hundred thousand chores to do, many other ambitious plans of writing, singing, going places, connecting with people, taking care of my well being, blah, blah! And, those voices seem

Wordless Wednesday

2010-07-28T13:07:00.005+05:30

Dubare - Coorg

Bloopers of the World - Unite!

2010-07-24T15:21:00.003+05:30

Blooper - an embarrassing mistake :-)) (blunder, boner, boo-boo, botch, bungle, flub, foul-up, fuckup, pratfall, bloomer, error, fault, mistake - a wrong action attributable to bad judgement or ignorance or inattention) So, as you must have guessed by now, today's topic is bloopers committed by .... Who, you ask? Me, obviously to begin with :-) and then we can move on to

Do we know who we are? Really?

2010-07-22T12:01:00.002+05:30

"I seem to see my self from his eyes while i have always possessed the intelligence and politics to know or perhaps i should say interpret who i am as a woman. But this knowledge i cannot assimilate in me, the experience is of being in ruin, ............ " mail from a dear friend to me, in response to an anguished mail sent to her. Says another vivacious, lively, intelligent, perceptive woman,

The Story Of Cosmetics

2010-07-22T10:01:00.002+05:30

It is a must watch for every person, men and women.

Nature, us and the education system

2010-07-20T12:59:00.003+05:30

Posting a link to a video done by my friend Tess Joseph on natural learning. it is a beautfully woven moving story. watch it and you can write to her if you feel like at tess_joseph@hotmail.com, or at tessofficial@gmail.com. You can watch the video by clicking on the title on this post The intro and the credits for the film go like this: Me and My World (Documentary) [HQ]by Tess Joseph

Amazing women in my life (part 3) - the story of J

2010-07-14T12:28:00.008+05:30

J was born into a trading community in undivided Bengal. She grew up with a unstable mother, a nervous father and five or six siblings. As was the custom in her community, she was married off quite early to a man twelve years older to her in the same community. Barely did she attain puberty, she was pregnant with a child and from this point on, her life took an altogether different turn. Her

when we can not make up for lost times anymore!

2010-07-12T23:47:00.001+05:30

Just finished watching a lovely movie called "Everybody's fine". It has great actors like Robert De Niro, Drew Barrymore, etc. Pretty simple story of a widower father living in a small town in America all by himself, his four children spread all over the country. He sets off to give them a surprise visit when they fail to appear for a pre-scheduled holiday. The storyline then moves through