Mar 26, 2010

Girls or boys

Our guest blogger today is 10 year old Samyukta. She is answering the question, 'Who do you think is better, boys or girls and why?'

Here is her uncensored, unedited response
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I always feel that of course girls are better than boys. Girls are threatened so much, especially in India, but still they don’t lose their confidence or strength. Suppose, girls do some mistake they are shouted and sometimes beated also. It’s like a crime. But if the boys do the same thing people say there is no problem.

I am really against the systems like the sati system in which the women have to burn themselves in the funeral pyres of their husband. If the woman don’t go, then the relatives push them inside the fire and they get burned. After marriage the bride has to leave her family and friends and go to a new place. I can imagine how painful it will be. But people think girls are not at all intelligent and strong.

I like girls because most girls are sweet, beautiful, kind and sensitive. They also have the power to protect themselves from the atyachar (threatening) of the boys. There is an upcoming word- balathkar (rape) which I don’t like at all. In earlier days, girls could not go to school and had to work all the day and housewives have to hear a lot from the saas (mother-in-law). From all these things I can conclude that the way to the girl’s success is full of sharp needles.

I will tell you a poem:

Girls, jab life ho out of control
To saas ke data ko rok ke bol
I am the best! 

Mar 24, 2010

Small change

Here is a joke I read recently. The monk told the sandwich vendor to make him one with everything. The monk hands over a $20 bill in return for his deck sandwich and waits for the change. He waits for a long time. But, when finally, he asks for it, he’s politely informed that “change comes only from within”.

I remember an incident when I purchased some film rolls and handed over a 500 rupee note to the shopkeeper. He gave me the change and, as I was in a hurry to buy tickets for a train journey, I rushed to the ticket counter nearby. Standing in the queue, I leisurely counted the change given by the shopkeeper and realized that there was a mistake.

I rushed back to the shopkeeper and told him that there was a mistake in the amount of change given by him. His countenance changed, he became wild and started saying that he never makes a mistake, people like you are out to cheat us, you should have counted the notes before you left the shop, there is no way I am going to entertain you, you think you can easily fool me, I am not going to fall into your trap, what do you think of yourself and he went on and on. He paused only when he noticed that I was just standing there looking at him without reacting. I took advantage of the pause to tell him,

“But, bhaisaheb, you have given me 100 rupees extra”

It was a treat to watch his reaction as he had to suddenly change from a very angry victim to a grateful person. He did not know where to look and sheepishly accepted the note.

Why did he react the way he did? In my view, there are basically two kinds of people with two different basics approaches to people, mainly strangers. More about these two approaches in the next post.