Happy international Women's Day 2017!

In rural areas, women are living the life of a slave. They as "invisible worker" contribute a lot not just to the household activities but also in other activities like fetching water from a distance. They work as a labour in agriculture farms and get only half wage as compared to men for the same work. They eat the leftover meals after feeding to the male members of the family and have to face the violence from their male counterparts. Child marriage, lack of education to a girl child and female infanticide are very common. Even if you talk about the Urban areas, you see woman as a working independent girl and talk about the equity but if you look in your households, in majority of the cases, it's the women who have to do all household activities, even if she is working equally as their male counterparts, their domestic responsibilities are not alleviated. They work two full-time jobs - one in office and other at home and not even get paid for the second one. It is the love, care and beauty of womanhood by virtue of which they love to do things for family but it becomes a problem when we started considering their love and care as their duty and take them for granted. Today, people are celebrating women's day, wishing and thanking them all over social media but at home they are the one who expect them to cook food for them, wash their cloths and ask for the equal contribution even financially as they are allowing them to work, giving them equal rights. Is this equity we all are talking about?? Who are we to give them equal right? Who are we to allow them to work? Who gave us this authority? It is their right and we are no one to give them! All these thoughts came to my mind after I wished one of my friend happy women's day and got this reply - "don't wish me woman's day, just treat me as another human" ~ AB

The unanswered question of my life!

I always have this dream of running in a forest since my childhood. I run for hours with no exit, hopping from one tree to another, with no hope of coming out of it. With every dream, I was going deeper into the woods. Initially, I used to get scared and wake up sweating and screaming with breathlessness but with time I got used to it and started observing things around me. The scattered sun rays falling on ground through the large canopy of forest is like creating a tyndall effect and making those small particles of the air visible to naked eyes. The decomposed leaves, animal droppings and dead trees on the ground are giving it a little brownish look with green bushes, mushrooms and small plants around. The rustling sound of walking on dry leaves now turned in to a melody of comfort which initially was like a lonesome sound of leaves scratching and scraping. The young trees growing through the bushy ground sets a perfect example of struggle faced by them in order to come into existence and become full grown trees. The susurrating sound of the wind, flowing through the large trees and small bushes, the humming of insects, chirping of birds, the sounds of critters, tickle of a distant stream, all these sounds create an aura of complete wilderness and produce a mysterious voice through which forest tries to speak to me and calls me deep within itself. I started feeling like someone is calling me there; someone wants me to be there in the forest. Someone wants to speak to me in the woods and one day I started my journey to find that someone. From one place to another, I was chasing that voice in every forest I come across. Each time I visit a new place, the magic of the voice grows stronger and the invisible force pulls me deeper into the wilderness. All these places, I am visiting for the first time, I feel like, I have been here earlier, I have seen them before, I know this place. That feeling of Deja vu reminds me of the places of my dreams. I don’t know if I am living my dreams or my dreams are merging into reality. The question is still unanswered ~ AB