Five days of national drama followed by debates, interviews and all the usual “Media hungama” we united as a country against the 'Cancer of Corruption'. This time around it wasn’t just the social workers and feisty citizens, but kids, oldies and all those who have been scarred by corruption. Thanks to my job, I got to visit the second important ground zero (among the many that sprung up to show solidarity) in the country after Jantar Mantar in Delhi—Azad Maidan in Mumbai.
From kids, to retired people, men and women from all classes, boys with goatee and girls in shorts united on the maidan to fight corruption. I interviewed a few people there and most of them had passion spewing out of every word they said and wanted an end to India’s new chronic problem—Corruption. All said and done the fast was called off the very next day and the weekend was spent in celebration. I wonder though if the Lokpal Bill will see the light of day or have we fought a lost battle like every other in this country? Somewhat we Indians come is many layers and have an attention span of a toad, we can’t focus, we tend to digress easily. Which is what happened even here and Anna Hazare was accused of the most miniscule of his ‘offences’ by a few let’s say wandering minds, who wanted to take it up as an opportunity to prevaricate from the topic.
Well, while the C is being taken care of, we have a major rise of the D (DIVORCE) in this country and I don’t need to prove it with any research report. While it’s habitual for the celebs to plunge in to a divorce as quick as they plunge in to marriage, the recent news of Shewta Keswani divorcing her husband ALexx O’Neal was a major shocker.
I have spoken to Alexx for a story last year and he seemed to be very much in love with his wife. Wonder what happened there? Closer to us commoners, two girls (long lost schoolmates) reunited in the train after a long time. I happened to eavesdrop on their “catching-up” chatter and it went something like this….
Miss A: Hey u know about Suchi??
Miss B: No, last thing I knew about her was she is married
Miss A: yeah, well she is divorced now, after two years
Miss B: You remember Archana?
Miss A: Yes.
Miss B: Well she had a nasty divorce. Her five-year-old kid was asked by the court whom does he want to stay with? He chose Archana Thank God!!
While last year it was marriages galore this year it’s suddenly the ugly D has shown up from nowhere. Not that it wasn’t existent before no I’m not naïve, but worried? yes that I am. Maybe divorce his on rise because it’s not only the men, but also the woman who have life now. No, I’m not talking about pantsuit careers, we are way beyond that, but women have a life—they have friends of their own and not just the husband’s friends’ wives. They go to party as young girls and would prefer to do so even after marriage, now that’s something married Indian women “don’t do”. In simple words I believe Indian Marriages are falling prey not to “space” problems but cultural discrepancy.
Coming to the last part of the title Womens’ T’s well don’t worry here T stands for Thoughts. Sleepovers can be exciting, but they are also thought provoking and give you epiphanies. The recent one I had gave me an epiphany which is that—all women think alike when they are in love—it’s uncanny how they build the same world revolving around Marine Drive (for Mumbai women only), concerned calls, text messages and all that jazz. And when we do this we are mostly on the wrong page, which is important in the initial stages of life as lessons are learnt for future purposes.
So the C, the D and the T are pretty much here to stay, though I hope we get rid of the C and D sooner, but then again that’s just utopia I’m stressing on. As for the Ts, I hope they flourish; women are better when they are connected as a group rather than left out to be on their own—don’t mean to be sexist just a realist.
