Musings.....

For a last few days I have been pondering over common rituals Indian women follow and how most of them revolve around the fact that a woman could be happy and enjoy her life merrily only if her husband is alive. In short, a woman’s life cannot be complete without a man standing by her. God forbid if your husband passes away prematurely; in no time you will be ousted from the entire society. And I am not referring to the dark ages or remote villages, I still see this regularly in the upper middle class of our society.

It is absolutely appalling and pathetic that if you are a widow your presence is considered as a bad omen and are banished from all the merrymaking. What’s really interesting is, often this cruelty is imposed on the widow by none other but by fellow women. Do we all realize what we are really doing? or are we just blindly following the rituals that have been followed for ages? and for that matter are an insult to the fact that many of us are well educated women. It is really pitiful that any human would treat another human based on marital status.

We also have a common custom of touching the feet of elderly to seek blessings and pay respect to the elderly. However as a woman, it brings me to another reality related to the similar absurdity, and surprise surprise what blessings does the woman usually end up getting? "akhanda saubhagyavati bhava" meaning "stay married all your life" The overtly benign looking blessing reveals a kind of cruel connotation if you think beyond the obvious meaning. What this blessing suggests is, ‘A woman is blessed if she departs before the demise of her husband.’ The very notion that men always should live longer than women underlines the gender inferiority still prevalent widely. How many of us give any thought to it before practicing it blindly? What is the point of such ridiculous, obsolete and intellectually insulting customs still followed in a civilized society?

I know we have come a long way and we are much better off compared to ultra conservative cultures such as Saudi Arabia where women just got a right to vote and women are still thrashed for mundane things such as driving an automobile and the year is 2011! But, just these subtle issues with Indian culture that have been bothering me for a past few days. I am also pretty sure these rituals are not enforced upon the Indian women, But are blindly followed.

The Pike Place Fish Market, Seattle.

I had first read about the Pike Place Fish Market about 7 years ago when I was reading the book FISH. The fish market was the inspiration for this FISH philosophy and it seemed like that unreal fun place that you only read about in books and are too good to be true!

On our recent trip to Seattle, I wanted to check out this place for myself. Its the first thing you see as soon as you enter the market. There was a huge crowd surrounding the fish market, we made our way in up to the front of the crowd. It was one of a kind fish market and there definitely was something about this place that made me happy. I could stand there for hours and watch them yell gibberish and throw fish! Yes THROW!

The prepping station is in the center and it is surrounded by the the ice stands with fresh fish and when there is an order the guy near the fish stand throws the fish to the guy in the prepping station, who catches the fish accompanied with all the vibrant screams and laughter. The people working here have exuberant energy and are genuinely happy. Their energy is contagious and puts an instant smile on everyone watching them.

Offcourse, I had to take a video of this!

Moving to Toledo....

Moving (back) to Toledo was a different experience..completely offbeat. This is where I started my life in the land of opportunities and now I was back to it for a brand new opportunity. Toledo is full of surprises. To me it feels like big size small town. It has almost everything that a metro can offer but at the same time you are never alone, isolated in your loft staring at the traffic and a sea of people.

A few weeks ago we bought some patio furniture to enjoy the beautiful summer weather here in up north. We bought it from a local Kroger store and it looked great in our backyard. A few weeks later I found out that the umbrella wasn't working. By now we had thrown receipts and boxes everything, so only option we had was to either repair it or buy a new one. After spending a long time on trying to fix the pulley that opened the umbrella, we gave up and went back to the same store we purchased it from. At the service desk, we recognized the employee, an aged woman who had checked us out when we had bought the whole set. She was busy helping someone else this time. A young employee called upon us and we explained to her how we had just bought the set a couple of weeks back and now the umbrella wouldn't work. The girl obviously asked for the reciept and since we did not have it she would have to scan our store savings card and check the computer. However the computer was held up by another customer service agent so we were waiting for for her to verify our information.

In the mean time, the aged woman, who had checked us out got free and said "I remember them they had bought the whole set a few days back you don't have to look up in the system" and asked us " would you like to replace the umbrella". I was stunned by the fact that she could remember us. The store must be having hundreds of customers each day and we go to the the "other" Kroger which is near our home. So we were to that store only the second time !

Sure enough, the girl helping us asked someone to get another umbrella and in five minutes we were loading the new one in our car!

I love Toledo !