Day 4 (02/22)- El Salvador--> Nicaragua

At 1.30am a taxi pulls up to take us to the bus stop. We get there but it is locked. The driver meanwhile gets out to take the luggage. I point out to him that it’s locked and tell him to take us to the other stop. He takes us, along the way tripling the fare on the pretext that he is now traveling all the way across town. In 10 minutes we arrive at the area Juan was nervous to be in in the daylight! The man with the huge rifle is there, I ask him about the bus, then walk in and ask the lone passenger sitting there. Nervous, we pay the driver and settle down to wait. Lots more passengers show up in time, including an old man who tries to chat me up (B snaps at me to shut up!), a couple of young Salvadorian women with no luggage, and some completely tanned European backpacker chicks. When it is time to board the bus, the front door is locked and the man with the rifle moves to the back entrance where we board. I am a little freaked out by this level of security. We pull out and pass by some good-looking hookers who I am convinced could have made a fortune on the streets of Hollywood. In twenty minutes we pull up at the first bus stop, which is now open and bustling. The rest of the trip is uneventful. By 11.30am we reach Managua, Nicaragua and get our tickets for the next leg. The driver from the hotel El Maltese in Granada is not there yet, so I make a local call to the hotel. He shows up a little later, his name is Sr. Don Rigoberto. En route he points out Masaya Volcano and Mombacho Volcano. We ask him what local dish we should try and he suggests Gallo Pinto, which he describes as a mixture of rice and beans. We check-in and take a walk into the small colonial town of Granada. On the way we pass a sign for night tours to Masaya Volcano, and decide on the spur of the moment to do it. Thus what was supposed to be a relaxing day turns into a rushed affair. We run to Parque Central, snap a few shots, then stop at a restaurant for some Gallo Pinto. It turns out to be a mixture of rice and beans, but so much tastier than that description implies! We change into sneakers and head out to Masaya, where we climb to the top of a hill overlooking the major active crater Nindiri, and peer down into the smoke. We walk to a dormant volcano in the complex, and then trek down into volcanic caves full of stalactites. This proves quite an adventure, as we are surrounded by shy fruit bats. We come to a temple in the middle of one of the caves, the spot at which the subjects for human sacrifice were chosen. Our guide, a sweet Nicaraguan girl with a strong accent, tells us the volcano is like a cemetery. As usual, the chief victims were beautiful virgins and children! We walk to another cave but the weather is too harsh to attempt the descent. The guide kindly offers to take four cameras in and snap bat pictures, and lo and behold, ours is the lucky camera that gets the best pictures! It is very dark at this point, so we walk back to the crater to attempt to see the glow from down below, but are unsuccessful. Meanwhile, the sulfurous gases are choking us, and the group is overcome with a long bout of coughing. We are dropped back at the hotel but the restaurant is closed. No dinner tonight, just beer.

Day 3 (02/21/2009): El Salvador- R and J’s wedding day

We wake up late and saunter down for a ‘Desayuno Tipico’ (typical breakfast) at the hotel, which consists of an egg, refried beans, plantains, and toast with coffee. It is satisfying, and I learn that ‘estrellita’ means sunny-side up. We begin the long process of getting ready for the wedding, including struggling in vain to get our sari pleats to fall properly. The coaster bus (which turns out to be the big Toyota bus I went to school in) shows up, J’s younger cousin coming in to get us. We feel distinctly out of place in our ostentatious get-ups, seeing that people seem more simply dressed for the wedding. We pick up a family with a little old grandma, who very excitedly makes conversation with us, most of which is too fast for me to understand! We get to the ranch where we see J, and R’s sister H. We’re told there’s a mix-up and we were supposed to go to the church. We pile back in and get to the church. It is a meltingly hot day to be in a fancy outfit! We try to locate a fan to sit under, but are quickly shooed to the front like guests of honor. People are extremely friendly and excited about our foreign appearance, and we're overwhelmed to be treated so lovingly. J’s dad comes up and breathlessly welcomes us to El Salvador, which simple sentence I am unaware how to respond to and grin stupidly. B asks me how to say congratulations, I am lost, she asks ‘feliz something’, and I blurt out ‘Felicidades’! Sr. Coto seems confused but smiles graciously. The band strikes up with classical melodies. Soon enough, R walks in looking demure and lovely with a single red rose in her hair. She is handed over to J, beginning the mass. The priest is an awfully sweaty young guy, and B leans over to ask if I can understand him. I am not sure, because from what I can tell he is telling the lovers that their lives are wasted and marriage means nothing. R later tells me I understood right, and she was looking down in anger rather than being the blushing bride I supposed her! He also fumbles through the vows, making them say two or three versions, with the ‘sickness-health’ promises a couple of times. Ultimately though, he proclaims them wed, and a white cord of roses is placed around them, sealing them together in this lifetime and the next. We blow bubbles at the couple as they walk back. We are then taken back to the ranch for hors d’oeuvres, which are such a treat, and B and I sample the local beer, Pilsener. The guests are friendly and try to make broken conversation with us. The day is unbearably hot, so dinner is served only at sunset. A little old lady at our table asks if we like the guacamole, and tells us they make it at home with onions and eggs. Sounds yummy in a completely new way! T suggests we get our feet wet on the beach, which turns out to be a lovely idea. After dinner, there’s mad merengue dancing! B and I try our hand but have trouble keeping up. There’s a dash to catch the garter and bouquet, I make an attempt :-) The wedding cake has almond filling, which I prefer to the jammy stuff in other wedding cakes. J’s parents have a lot of energy on the dance floor, in light of which J’s dislike for dancing seems very surprising ;-) We are introduced to J’s best man, who we were firmly convinced was his brother..they look like twins! We meet H’s best friend D, who lives in New York. We promise to meet up again once we’re all back. We say our goodbyes, but J’s father wants to take one last photo with the ladies in costume! The photographer is totally enamored of us and tells R he wishes he could’ve been able to communicate with us. We are dropped back at Happy House, where the bus waits to make sure we are buzzed in safely. Tired, we begin packing for the bus trip to Nicaragua and take a short nap.

Day 2 (02/20/2009): El Salvador (Santa Ana Volcano complex)

The day starts at 8.15am, when our tour guide Omar, apparently a surf instructor, has shown up super early. He looks amusing in his khaki shorts, sneakers and white T-shirt, like an out-of-place aging surfer dude. We scramble to get ready soon, no breakfast except for cereal bars. We pull up at a convenience store that’s seemingly everywhere, called ‘On the Run’. The boss, Julio, meets us and sets us up with a lunch box, giving us the usual stories about having to charge more for credit card or travelers cheques. We offer cash, and are on our way. Omar regales us with his life story- apparently he was an agricultural engineer who quit his job to surf, and wants to take us to see his beautiful beach house. Two hours of solid drive later, we pull up at a stunning vista of Lago Coatepeque, a crater lake in the complex. Meanwhile we’ve picked up a passenger in the back of the pick-up, a fact that makes me slightly nervous. He jumps off soon enough though. We enter the volcano park, whence our guide points out Izalco volcano and expresses his excitement over us climbing it. We look at each other in alarm and quickly assure him climbing it was never our intention. He seems very disappointed. The entrance fee is a dollar per head, and we have a boy speaking broken English as our guide. We trek down Ilamatepec, down a series of what one could call for lack of a better word, ‘steps’, defined by a log across the end of each one. The trek down takes half an hour, bringing us to the foot of Izalco. Izalco is dark grey and devoid of vegetation. It is an incredibly windy day, and even climbing up a few feet of the mountain leads to us almost toppling over. We decide to break for lunch while Omar happily saunters up the volcano. After a while, we begin the slow hike back up Ilamatepec; every ten minutes I am convinced we must be close to the top. But it takes an agonizing two hours back up. B has difficulty breathing and stops every few steps to calm her heart down. I break ahead occasionally only to realize my heart is beating like a jackhammer in my ears and I may drop dead unless I slow down! The security guards in front and behind us have a tough job of it, waiting patiently as we huff and puff our way back. When we have been going for a while, the guide points to a marker and tells us that is the height of Izalco, which is the first point at which I realize the mountain we are climbing is even higher! Getting to the top is quite an event, needless to say. B takes Omar up on his earlier suggestion of driving us to the beaches, and he resists citing time constraints, but she persuades him. Exhausted from the midday sun, I fall asleep in the front seat, but when we get to the beaches, oh what a sight! Straight out of a postcard!! The sea and sand are beautiful, coconut palms dotting the shoreline, a few brave surfers battling the indomitable waves. The beaches we see are in an area called La Libertad, the tiny one we first saw being Playa Mizata (Mizata Beach). He takes us to another that is a fishermen’s haunt, lined with row upon row of fish stalls. I walk queasily through the market, while B takes in delightedly the smells and sights of dried fish slit open and displayed temptingly. We also stop at the small resort Omar works at, where there is a tidal pool filled by water from the sea. It is lovely and we wish to stay longer, but the day grows long. We ask Omar to stop at a Pollo Campero (like KFC but so different!) on the way back. After showers, we settle down to our feast of fried chicken with buns, and coleslaw that tastes like green coconut chutney…yum!

Day 1 (02/19/2009): San Salvador, El Salvador

The airport reminds me awfully of touching down in Trivandrum, hot dusty tarmac rimmed by coconut palms. The ‘visa’ line is empty, and they seem so surprised to have visitors that we are ushered to the front of the line ahead of residents. The customs guy rambles on in Spanish, of which I only hear the word ‘declarar’. I emphatically declare ‘nada’ (nothing), later praying I hadn’t just done something illegal. We wheel out and around, coming upon a throng of people waiting for loved ones (Trivandrum again!). R and J find us easily- I guess the two lost-looking foreigners is an easy call :-) Amazingly, I feel like a giant in El Salvador, the men here come up to my shoulders. This is a completely new feeling for someone who’s been a pygmy most of her life! We drive out and stop by a street-side ‘Coco helado’ (ice-cold coconut) vendor. This is our typical Kerala coconut water, except that instead of drinking it straight from the fruit, they pour it into a bag with a straw! We marvel at the concept of taking something so intrinsically organic and environment-friendly and turning it into something non-biodegradable. R tells us that’s how most things in El Salvador are- there’s a big focus on ‘disposability’. A little nervous about the hygiene, I take small sips of my coco helado in a bag, it’s cool and refreshing, not too sweet. They’ve also scraped off a few chunks of the cold delicious fruit into the bag for good measure. We stop at the bus terminal to buy tickets but are told it’s the wrong place, the right one being in the heart of mangy scary downtown San Salvador. J drives us nervously there. The entrance is a small door, at which stands a guard brandishing a Civil-War era rifle, I mean, this sucker’s huge! We buy our tickets and are deposited in our Hotel ‘Happy House’, where they speak no English. R takes us on a walk to MetroCentro, one of the big malls, which is right down the block. It all seems very modern but in a decidedly un-American way, which I love! We stop in at Mr. Donut, which sells traditional food. B points at some empanadas, and I can’t take my eyes off a black sticky mess of plantain. The empanada is tasty but familiar, the black stuff turns out to be called ‘Platanos en miel’ (plantains in syrup), though what it really is like is the dense black sticky jam we make in Kerala out of jackfruit that’s had the heck boiled out of it with jaggery..yum! We walk back in the hot sun and pass out in our cool room for two hours. R comes to get us and we drive up to Los Planes de Renderos (a place famous for the traditional dish called ‘pupusas’, which are stuffed tortillas, and for a make-out hill where much of the last generation is believed to have been conceived!). I have some hot chocolate, which is delicious and completely unlike the Swiss Miss version! This one is bitter but sweetened overpoweringly, boiling hot and thin. The pupusas arrive after a long wait and they are wonderful! I try a corn stuffed with cheese, and a rice stuffed with beans and cheese. B goes for the meat. There’s a humongous jar of some kind of pickled cabbage on the table, we take heaping spoonfuls to go with our food. I’ve never tasted refried beans like this in my life!! I do it Indian style and lick my fingers happily :-) B wishes for an aloo (potato) or mooli (radish) pupusa! We walk back and look over the mountains. R’s incredible sweetheart of a best friend, who goes by T, makes conversation about the weather, during the course of which I mistake the word for ‘wind’ as ‘snow’, leading to some excited debate. R puts us straight soon enough :-) We go home and fall asleep.

Some long overdue travel blogging..

I traveled to Central America for a good friend's wedding last year, during the course of which we hopped between El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize. It was one of the best times of my life, providing me a healthy dose of rejuvenation when I needed it desperately. I intended to record my memories via blog for the longest time but never finished my journal. Having come across it recently, I felt sad for such good memories to be accumulating electronic dust in a hidden folder on my work computer, and decided to put them online in whatever half-finished condition they're in. And with that warning, here goes...

Food for thought

Last night in a half-stupor after a few nights of very little sleep, I watched an episode of the Simpsons on late-night programming. There was a little bit in the beginning about Homer getting into a feeding frenzy of sorts and ending up eating a pair of slacks. When Bart points this fact out to him, Homer remarks "oh well, still tastes better than Indian food!". For the remaining 25 minutes of the episode, I found myself obsessing over this, wondering why that was funny. Perhaps it was my own ethnocentrism at finding my home country's food among the most yummy and complex in the world that I was unable to (pardon the pun) stomach this insult! The range of thoughts running through my head included (in roughly this order):
1) Whoa! Is the rest of America laughing at that statement and agreeing?
2) Why would it be a given that Indian food tastes bad? Or is this is a given or just the opinion of Matt Groening and his writers?
3) If more of an individual opinion, then what is Mr. Groening basing this on? Indian restaurants in his hometown? I mean, I don't have a particularly high opinion of most Indian restaurants, and besides they're mostly one-trick ponies with the same range of bland (to the Indian palate) dishes. Besides every community in every state in India has their own cuisine, accounting for probably a couple hundred in total, so how could he make such a blanket statement about 'Indian food' when there's no such single identity? And has he ever tasted Indian home-cooking? Any idiot would know that home-food is very different from restaurant food, and I for one vastly prefer the former to the latter when it comes to Indian food.
4) What ethnic cuisine does Mr. Groening prefer? Does he think boiled potatoes and meat is far more sophisticated and tasty than the wildly varied range of Indian food? (Here I got defensive and mean obviously!) Once in my Wisconsin days, I tried a local 'delicacy' of Scandinavian origin called a 'fish boil'. It turned out most disappointingly to be just that, chunks of fish thrown into a cauldron of boiling water with salt, and served just so...
5) I'm so disappointed in Mr. Groening for making such an uneducated and disparaging statement in a show that most intellectuals I know revere. I mean, this isn't Family Guy for heaven's sakes!!
6) Wait a second, would I have laughed at that joke if it were about any other kind of ethnic food? I think I may have...I disappoint myself :-(
7) Am I being one of those touchy fools I hate? Was I not supposed to take that statement to heart seeing how the dumbest character on TV made it?

At this point I nodded off to sleep...

Ik Onkar (One God)

I recently came across a Sikh blogger writing about the 2005 film 'Amu', whose storyline is set against the backdrop of the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 in India (a response at the time to the assassination of the hindu Prime Minister by her Sikh bodyguards). A commentator on the blog was very upset about the status of Sikhs in India, saying "sikhs in india are living under a hindu rule which does not recognize sikh as a different religion but rather a sect of hinduism." He pointed out in particular that Sikhs are classified as Hindus on marriage certificates.

In response, I posted the following:

My parents lived in Chandigarh during the time of the riots, and my mother emotionally tells of the time our Sikh milkman risked coming out during curfew to deliver the milk so that 'baby' (i.e., me) wouldn't be hungry. She also tells me that the daily chanting of the Mul Mantra that she woke up to was the most soothing sound in the world, and she often reminded me growing up that the Guru Granth Sahib says that while some may call Him Ram, and some call Him Allah, God is only One. I have always been bowled over by organized religions that actually bother to preach a message of tolerance.

 

Re: the relations between Hindus and Sikhs: I am not familiar enough with the Hindu Marriage Act, and will take your word for it that Sikhs may be classified as a sect of hinduism for the purposes of that specific law only. In all other matters, Sikhism is considered one of India's major religions, completely separate from Hinduism. Laws that were drawn up during the formation of an independent country will often be archaic and incomplete- recently a distant relative married a Muslim, an event that caused us to discover among other things, that a Hindu and a Muslim cannot just walk into a court and get married, but must have their intentions registered for a certain period beforehand. This was pretty surprising news to me.

 

I can empathize with the struggle of being a minority. As an Indian hindu, I am a minority in the US, where I currently live. All things considered, I believe the signatories of the original Indian constitution had good intentions, however flawed in its execution it has ended up. I am indeed ashamed that the riots of '84 occurred, in which hateful generalizations led to the targeting of innocent people in the desire for revenge against a few misguided folks. I was encouraged that we as a society have moved past that to some degree, seeing as how the recent attacks in Mumbai did not cause any widespread targetting of innocent Muslims.

 

I believe collective memory is important, but it is just as necessary to consider that the rehashing of past outrages (human beings are nowhere near as civilized as we consider ourselves to be, alas!) just perpetuates the pain for future generations who have been fortunate enough not to have been directly affected by those tragic events. In some cases, it is best, for one's own sake, to forgive, and even more importantly, forget.

Shakti, or the female potential

Some time ago I went to see Naalu Pennungal (Four Women), four short films stitched together to encompass the range of the female experience in 1940s Kerala. The movie was directed by the eminent Adoor Gopalakrishnan, recipient of the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, India's highest for achievement in film. Adoor's heyday was in the early 1980s, at which time, a struggling generation yearning for escape found no respite in his gritty arty cinema. My father once reminisced amusedly how his movies included 5-minute long hand-washing sequences! With a recommendation like that I steeled myself for what could possibly be two very long hours in a small cramped theatre. I couldn't have been proven more wrong. The short films bear elemental titles: The Prostitute, The Virgin, The Housewife, The Spinster, and are based on short stories written by Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai.

The Prostitute opens with the title character spurning for the nth time a humble laborer's offer of marriage and companionship. Convinced by her friend that this would be her only means of escape from the underground world they inhabit, she acquiesces, in the process growing rather fond of her new husband, and takes up hard honest work as a commitment to her new life. However, her reputation precedes her, and her erstwhile clients continue to harangue her for favors. Her husband teaches one of these drunkards a lesson, as a consequence of which they are framed for illicit public fornication (they share a mat on the roadside). The judge and attorneys are elitist anglophiles, and mock the couple as the street trash they believe they are, refusing to acknowledge the validity of their marriage without documents to prove it. They are sentenced to jail in spite of the their constantly repeated, and only, defence, "we are husband and wife".

The Virgin begins with the arranged marriage of a beautiful virtuous maiden to a shopkeeper from a neighboring town. She is constantly reminded that he turned down many proposals before her, and regaled with stories of his stinginess and odd habits with doting affection by her mother-in-law. The doltish husband goes right back to work after the wedding, returning late at night and avoiding any contact with his new bride. The couple return for a visit to her hometown, where the husband displays an absurdly enormous appetite and corresponding lack of shame at the various homes they are invited to. The mortified bride is spurned by him nightly on pretext of his being too full. He abandons her at her ancestral home, spurring the village to cast aspersions on her character as the only possible reason. Unaware that his daughter is nearby, her hurt father reprimands the marriage broker and demands the dowry in return if a divorce is desired. The bride walks up in just anger and asks why such a big deal is being made when they are not even husband and wife. Her confused parents ask what she means by such a declaration. She reiterates "we are not husband and wife".

The Housewife is the story of a childless married woman, who is visited by her paramour of years ago. She confides in him that they have tried everything to have children but in vain, and he concludes with obvious ulterior motives that the fault is not hers. Stirred up by these thoughts, the woman complains to her husband about his excessive working later that night, and brings up her need to have children; he walks away in frustration at her odd behavior. The ex-lover makes it a point to mention the next day that he has sired eight and can give her the child she always dreamed of having. She is momentarily swayed, but they are interrupted by the visit of an elderly uncle. Later that evening her husband returns uncustomarily early, and surprises her in an amorous mood. The next day she turns away her lover in disgust at herself, and swears loyalty to her husband. Years later, we hear her voice as if just having recounted a story, one that concludes 'and that's how I almost had a child. But I know I did the right thing'.

The Spinster is the stark tale of an unmarried woman. We open with her latest go-see ceremony from a prospective groom, who decides he wants the sister 5 years junior to her. Her mother, concerned at her age, and unwilling to lose an eligible match for her second daughter begs her not to oppose, and she willingly sacrifices her happiness. Her sister is married as she watches, growing quietly desperate, and she finds herself soon after relegated in status, while her sister, as a married woman, is given more of a say in important household decisions. The sister is pregnant in quick succession, and a few years later we are at the wedding of their youngest sister. Her desperate mother begs her elder brother to find someone for her soon (she's past 30 at this point), and while he reassures her it is a priority, he instead finds a bride for himself. Some years later, the ailing mother on her deathbed begs of her children to show mercy to her eldest. The matronly middle sister assures her they will look after her, and she is taken to their home after the death. While living there she forms an attachment to her two nieces, and clings on to them in vicarious parenthood. Soon the heavily pregnant middle sister grows jealous and suspicious, claiming that the villagers are spreading rumors about the 'threesome'-like living arrangement with her elder sister and her husband. The elder sister is sent away to her now desolate ancestral house. There her youngest sister offers to take her away, but she insists she is comfortable with her lot in life and promises not to bring shame upon the family. Some time one night we hear a man knock upon her door and call out her name, and she quickly answers in ashamed fear and entreats him to go away. She tells him her mind was swayed momentarily by weakness and desperation and led her to accept his proposition, but that she 'is not that kind of woman', and would he please spare her for the sake of God. Her entreaty ends on a note of strength: "after all, it should not be impossible that a woman can live without a man".

What I find amazing about each of these stories is that in spite of the setting (poor to lower middle class families in 1940s Kerala), each of them resonated with me as a non-resident Malayalee in the 21st century. In Kerala, a traditionally matrilineal, nay almost matriarchal, family structure is but theory these days. The only remnant of our proudly feminist past is that women sometimes carry their family name as a middle name (which I insist is only a reflection of elitist traditionalism, and not one of liberation), and inherit property. Expectations of women in Kerala changed irrevocably following British colonization, and to this day we subjugate our needs, desires and personalities to those of our men. Sure, to the untrained eye, it can seem that Kerala women are very liberated, which holds partly true considering the extreme misogyny that characterizes other parts of India. Malayalee women are the most educated in India, and Kerala boasts an opposite trend in the sex ratio of females:males compared to almost every other state in India. Another somewhat more dubious sign of progress is the highest divorce rate in India. Many Malayalee women hold high positions in government, corporations, and healthcare. My own grandmother went to college for her bachelor's in chemistry at a time when other parts of India burned young widows alive. My mother, a surgeon-professor, gave birth to two girls, both of whom she always egged on to be the best they could be whatever it was they chose to do.

On some level, much of this progress is superficial. As an unmarried Indian woman in her late 20s, I find the burden of expectations has shifted from my career and achievements, to the task my parents have set themselves of ending my existence in single womanhood. Having had to think about marriage for a while now, I find myself increasingly analyzing societal expectations and their place in modern life. What struck me about the movie is that I could just as easily restate my first sentence as 'encompass the range of the female experience, period'. Society has not reached a stage where complexity is attributed to women or their thoughts. Elemental role definitions (virgin, spinster) still are applied to us readily. A woman’s place in the world is still defined in large part by her sexuality, nay perceptions of her sexuality, and her marital status. Note that the titles of the four short films stand in almost direct opposition to each other, i.e. a woman is either a prostitute or a virgin, housewife or spinster. There is no middle ground. No shades of gray. Unidimensionality is an underlying assumption of modern womanhood. Mankind finds comfort in this fact.

While I cannot condemn the concept of generalizations since they are implicitly Darwinistic, essential to our primordial survival instincts, I do call upon my sistren to fulfil their responsibilities to themselves, to their 'being'. I wish for you that…

you would not let your current societal obligations limit what you or your daughters may be

you do not brand as ‘failure’ one in your global sisterhood that stands up to the system, abandoning the conventional trappings of womanhood many of us were saddled with at birth

you abandon the language of implicit angry misogyny that characterizes much human experience (‘whore’, ‘wifebeater’, ‘cuckold’, and the like)

you recognize yourself as a whole human being, and never let yourself be summed up in one word

Now inasmuch as it may appear to the naked eye as such, I am not really a misandrist. I have known some wonderful men that have respected the Tolkien-like complexity of my personality and contributed in no small measure to development of the same. The concept of complementarity is one that appeals very fundamentally to my eastern worldview, one that encompasses the Yin and Yang, the Ardhanareeshwara, the very Balance in the Cosmos. I am very lucky to be female in this timeless equation with the universe, embracing my traditional role as receptacle for all that is good and ungood.

It is poignant in no small measure that the most fleshed out portraits of the joys and trials of being a woman that I have encountered recently in film was brought to life in the sensitive adroit hands of one Mr. Adoor Gopalakrishnan.

The Resurrection

I'm back from the dead! A couple of fiery female friends have inspired me to get off my arse and broadcast my opinions fearlessly. And so I shall once more.

Message to Ms. Clinton: you go girl!!

It's a woman's world...

Yesterday, March 8, 2007 was International Women's Day- I accepted best wishes, albeit in a somewhat befuddled manner, from a friend and a cousin. I was completely unaware of the existence of such a day, and I am still very amused about it. According to the timeline on their website, this day has been observed since the beginning of the 20th century! I salute the women of that era right up to the present, who have fought racism, sexism and disenfranchisement with unshakable conviction, and who are the reason we as a society can take so many rights for granted. If it were not for the likes of Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King, I, like my granddaddy once told me he did, would have had to walk out of my way to the 'colored' diner to be served my morning coffee and donut. If not for the strong women who marched out in protest to demand that we be recognized as thinking citizens with an equal right to direct the future of a nation, women like Margaret Thatcher would not be able to rise to positions of power. If not for the feminist bra-burners of the 60s, women in the workplace would still be subject to humiliation and second-rate pay and status, and we would have never seen the day that name-brand corporations like eBay and Xerox are led by women, as they are today.

At the same time, my appreciation for and gratitude to those visionaries was dimmed by the knowledge that in 2007 there is still need for an International Women's Day. Today there is an anti-feminist movement that threatens to relegate women to their former inferior position in society. It's depressing to know, for instance, that in the US, which country I should have expected to be a beacon of progressiveness, women are still paid 80c on the dollar for the same work as men. Many countries, even in Europe, do not have supportive pregnancy and maternity laws, forcing many women to quit employment or accept less work responsibility. The US has yet to appoint a woman as president. In so many other countries, women are denied fundamental rights like voting, education, access to healthcare and justice. All over the world women's bodies serve as a battleground for men's honor (Ref: Mukhtar Mai). This is unacceptable- is it going to take another 100 years for a woman to be treated as and valued for the amazing individual she is? We have instituted so many holidays...Mother's Day, Secretary's Day, even Grandmother's Day, to get men to appreciate the women in their lives for a minute. Do you really think all that suffering can be wiped out with a spa gift certificate?? If life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are inalienable rights, then it's time we stopped taking those rights for granted, and spoke up to ensure that those rights remain so and can never be denied to our daughters. Women of the world, unite!