Eco-friendly Ganesha

I made this Eco-friendly Ganesha.
My ‪#‎ecofriendlyganesha‬ Hope everyone becomes wise like me

This Ganesh Festival say no to

1. Colourful statues made up of POP and toxic colours

2. Crackers and Loudspeakers

3. Plastic

4. Polluting water bodies with religious garbage.

To all the dear men in my life

To all the dear men in my life,

Eyebrows raised? Why? Do men in my life mean only my partners in bed? Of course not. I am a woman born in this country. Since my birth, right from the doctor who brought me out of my mother's womb safely, to the bus driver who takes me to my place of work daily, I have come across many many men in all these years. Most of them treated me good and some of them, umm…. well to say it in polite words, not so good. 

 

Whenever I am late from my work my father or brother comes to receive me at the bus stop. They have assigned to themselves the role of being my protector. Isn’t that what our culture has taught them too? Every year I tie the rakhi on his wrist so that he will protect me.

There are some gentlemen who vacate their seats in the crowded bus to offer me the  place to sit. I say to them that I am fine standing. But they compel me to take the seat. Reluctantly I plonk upon it. Dear men, I want to tell you I just don’t want the seat to sit. I am as strong as you to travel standing in a bus. 

My only expectation is that while I am standing please do not deliberately jab me by your elbows. Don’t try to find a reason to touch me or please me. I am a woman and I am gifted with the sixth sense to differentiate between the deliberate touch and the accidental one. 

Just give me my own space to stand whether in bus or in my life. Don’t offer me clutches to shape my persona in the mold which you have selected for me. Just give me a little space to grow, to blossom on my own. Don’t try to be a tree guard protecting me from getting uprooted. Don’t worry. I am strong enough. I will sway with the wind and yet stand tall. Its fine if you don’t appreciate my beauty. I am no longer only thing of beauty which will give you joy forever. 

Moreover I am not a thing at all. I am a human being with capacities equal to you. Yes, my dear men, you heard it right. I am equally powerful. Some of you chauvinist may ask whether I can work out in gyms like you and lift  the heavy weights. Yes, I can do that and even win a medal for the country. I can guard the borders and work as a permanent commissioned officer in the army. So instead of estimating my capabilities, better work on yourself.

I am not begging for a chance from you. I am not encroaching on your jobs. I know many of you feel insulted when you have a woman as your boss. You don’t want to take commands from a woman. But I never feel like that. I am just doing my job. I never look at you from the gender perspective. So get out of the complex that I am competing with you.

I just want to be myself. I want to test the waters by myself. I want to stand tall without any comparisons with anyone. I just want to blossom. There is a Japanese Haiku which says I asked the tree about God and it blossomed. The blossoming of the tree itself is manifestation of the God. So I just want to blossom. He (I am fine if God is He so longer as he doesn’t consider me to be His inferior) has bestowed me with few good qualities, which I want to work on. I want to pursue those as my career. I just want to be myself without you instructing me what is good for me or trying to protect me. So no special or equal treatment for me. If you want to give me something just acknowledge my independent existence.

Your beloved

An Indian woman. 

“I’m blogging for the India Today Woman Summit 2015 #WomenPower activity at BlogAdda.” 

Turn Thy Waste into Gold

Every house generates waste. We have a dustbin at our home and office. We make it a point that no rubbish should lie outside. Everything should go to the dustbin. Be it plastic, leftovers of lunch, twigs of vegetables, broken bottles, plastic everything goes to the same bin.

Segregation of waste is not done in Indian houses. Even if you are educated, holding high posts of power and authority, you don’t segregate wastes. This is posing a great problem. We are making our earth, which is our big house in common, dirty.

Even where waste is being segregated the local body collects it and dumps it into the same truck and the same dumping ground. So you may wonder what’s the use of my segregation.

Yes there are problems, but there are solutions too. First of all let us separate the wastes. The biodegradable should be separated from the other wastes. Plastic, papers should be recycled. Now you may ask where do I recycle it. Just sell them off to the kabadivallah and he will do the needful. How about donating the money you get by selling these wastes to charity?

As regards the wet garbage like flowers, vegetable twigs, fruit peels, left overs of food, tea bags is concerned, we can use them to make compost at our homes. If you have some open space, dig a pit. Put all the wet garbage which you have segregated into it and cover it with mud. Within two to three months you will get excellent manure. You can use this for your garden.

If you are living in the cities and have space crunch, just two earthen pots will solve your problems. Put the garbage into one of the pots and cover it with little mud. Keep it aside for two three months. Until then use the second pot to store the wet garbage. Don’t worry it doesn’t smell foul.

Your little acts of segregating domestic wastes will go a very long way in reducing the garbage on our planet. Already a large part of our planet is full of garbage and in coming years the problem garbage disposal is going to assume great proportions. 

 

It is our collective duty to contribute in making our planet clean and green. This small act of segregating waste will not cost you anything. It is just a matter of habit. Rather it will pay you, in the form of money which you get by selling your paper and plastic. Also you will get valuable manure absolutely free.

You can also start composting collectively. The biodegradable wastes of the entire building or society can be collected together in a big pit. There are many societies which do so and earn by selling the money generated by the compost.

So dear friends I appeal to you to kindly take a step forward and make your own contribution, not in terms of money, but by segregating your domestic waste.

Compost pit at my home