The Rebelle blog

My first post in March after such a lull and it has me ranting. I'm an Architect with no experience in Residential Architecture. So when we decided to remodel our house, I knew my parents would be looking for my inputs. I started by searching Home Designing websites and some blogs written by practising architects with more than 20 years of field experience. I have to say that redoing involves a lot of stress and lot of fact crunching. I have been looking at samples of flooring and wall tiles, kitchen designs and bathroom fittings and fixtures. All the building services lectures come back flitting to me. I was almost tempted to retrieve the building services drawing sheets and go over details. It's no wonder that building construction is in so much demand everywhere. Interior designing is way too overrated and over-hyped. I have witnessed as a layman prior to my architecture education, the enormous amount of treachery that goes with unassuming people who are conned by contract...

It's AUGUST! I have been reading a lot of books lately. Read them even during my exams which is not a good thing to do i.e. deviating from coursework and spending time with literary characters. Now that exams are done, I look forward eagerly to more Kindle reads, library reads and my To-Read pile from April. I never thought how much I would enjoy reading on the kindle. Although, I still hold my paperbacks and Hardcovers dearly.  I recently gave away a large chunk of my Childhood favorites to an orphanage housing girls aged between 8-12 years. I was very clear about including books that would be academically useful to them so Atlases, Thesaurus and Dictionaries, Spelling & Grammar books from Webster's made the list. I was happy to part with the books although initially when I thought of the idea, I thought I wouldn't be able to. So I took a day off to bask in my memories with those books and then decided it was for the best. Someone else will be able to hold them d...

I watched 'Prem Rog' today. Yes that movie which is tagged as a super hit romantic movie on youtube, for reasons unknown. Raj Kapoor is said to have returned to making movies on social causes with this in 1982. It has been 34 years since then that the truth of widow remarriage as documented in the movie is a harsh reality even today for millions of young girls and women across India. Why can't we really let go off these horrendous cultural norms passed off as traditions? Why can't we let them go? My heart cries knowing that in remote areas where the families don't have an inkling of their constitutional rights but only the village council decrees and rely on their unfair verdicts as justice. There is so much angst building up inside me right now. Anger marrs sense of judgement and ability to distinguish between right and wrong. There is this helplessness against the shoddy condition of women in villages, hamlets, tribal districts and places where they are stil...

http://theladiesfinger.com/2015-is-ending-where-are-the-women/ And while we read this article, I am also reading about the murder of Allison Baden-Clay, 43, a Brisbane resident who was killed by her husband in April 2012 and now the court verdict is out wherein he won the appeal against his murder conviction instead being accused of manslaughter. So yes, such judgements get passed not only in India but everywhere in the world. A woman is murdered and all the court does is convicts her husband of manslaughter, not murder. How convenient for the judiciary! The Reeva Steenkamp murder verdict proved how blinded the legal system is! Her cold blooded murderer got away with an 'accidental self-defence' argument. He'll live the rest of his life, alive and doing things while that young woman will lay forgotten. That is what is happening with women! We don't exist- we don't matter, unless we speak up. At least a voice is a reminder to the other gender to look around and s...

So this comes from an article I read early in the morning today on Medium. It's written on the likes of Dark complexion and girls like the author who herself has one, embracing the skin and experimenting with bright colours on her body. She writes of some incident where her bright yellow outfit and bobbed hair with bright pink lipstick got censored by some women at a body shop. As I kept reading the article and came to the end where the author posted her pictures in different bright coloured outfits she wore, I thought about the need felt by us women to still justify our choices whether they are regarding make-up or our hairstyle or the most important of them all, clothes. One recent personal experience of mine that I think is quite harmless to write about here is when during a friend's wedding, this common girl friend of ours gave me some jewellery to wear because it went with my outfit, applied a dash of lipstick and blusher on my face while telling me it looks great on...

आज २७ फेब्रुवारी. कविवर्य कुसुमाग्रज यांचा जन्मदिवस आणि मराठी भाषा दिवस. त्यानिमित्त मला आवडणाऱ्या एका मराठी लेखिकेच्या पुस्तकाचं विवेचन इथे करते. गौरी देशपांडे- मराठी वाचणाऱ्या साऱ्याच वाचकांना हे नाव जितकं परिचित आहे तितकच फार जवळचं देखील आहे. मी सर्वप्रथम गौरी देशपांडे यांची एक कथा शाळेत असताना अभ्यासली होती- कलिंगड. आणि कित्येक दिवस मी त्या कथेच्या पुढे अजून काही असेल का म्हणून उत्सुक आणि अस्वस्थ होते. दहावीत असताना वाचली होती म्हणून त्यांचं सर्व लिखाण वाचून काढायचं हे ठरवलं. पुढची चार- पाच वर्ष त्यांचं असं काही वाचनात आलं नाही. नंतर 'आर्किटेक्चर' शिकताना कॉलेजच्या ग्रंथालयात मराठी पुस्तकांचं कपाट दिसलं. आणि पाहिलं पुस्तक जे मी घेतलं नी वाचलं ते गौरी देशपांडेंचं 'मुंबई-तळेगाव-ग्रीस' असा प्रवास करणारी 'मुक्काम' हि दीर्घ कथा/कादंबरी. त्याचं दुसरं पुस्तक वाचलं ते म्हणजे 'आहे हे असे आहे', आणि त्यात मला परत एकदा सापडली ती 'कलिंगड' हि कथा. मी चार-पाच वेळा ते पुस्तक वाचून काढलं परीक्षा सुरु होण्याच्या काही दिवस आधी, एप्रिल मधेच आणि त्या कलिंगड...

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." — Mark Twain Have I ever mentioned Dr. Ida Scudder? She was the daughter of a missionary who became a doctor and worked in Vellore, Tamil Nadu all her life. She dedicated herself to the people of India. This book that I had been reading was first published in 1984. I first read it in 2004. What a long time! I would be lying or not be true to myself if I say I did not cry my heart out while reading it. Do you imagine a young American woman settling in India in 1900 and giving not just medical treatment but hope to the people of Vellore? She continued working till 1960. 60 long years.... She founded the Vellore Medical College and Hospital through endless struggle and she also encouraged and educated young Indian women to study medicine and become doctors, nurses. How inspiring! When I look around the dearth of goodness today, I wonder how and why wo...