Celebrating Womanhood during Diwali

When I am explaining my non-Indian friends what's Diwali, there is something that makes me subtly proud. Being a woman, the last two days of Diwali celebration are very special to me. The days of Padva and Bhaubeej. The days to celebrate the essence of being a woman-honoring the contributions of a wife and a sister. When I tell my non-Indian friends about it, they are jealous that they don't have anything special for a wife and or a sister ( Valentine day doesn't count, its for lovers) I am happy to see that centuries ago, despite being predominantly male dominated, my culture decided to acknowledge the contributions of the women. The joy isn't about getting gifts or stuff like that. Gifts are very secondary. Besides, now a days, there isn't much left in gift giving and receiving..everyone has everything..plus a good percentage of these wives and sisters now are capable of earning and can buy whatever they wish.. That's not the whole point. Getting acknowledged is.... I understand, that it still tilts little male oriented , in the sense that you still have to have a husband and a brother for these days but still centuries ago, when they decided to have these special days as part of our festival of light, they covered a large chunk of the women population. And I am thankful we at-least got that. I am a feminist but not the fighter type. I have come to realize that you can gain substantially by negotiating and compromising than fighting. More of the democratic way than the autocratic. I grew up in the house where being a daughter was nothing less important than being a son. And growing up with two smart sisters was icing on the cake. In a way, I never had to fight the gender bias . There was no inherent inequality either. I am proud to be a daughter, sister, wife and now a mother but more importantly I absolutely love being a woman. That's why these two women centric holidays make my Diwali very special... Let's celebrate .. Cheers to Womanhood!

Rewarding wrong behaviour

My current state of mind is little nervous. Just like millions around the world, I am anxious about the economic turmoil. My entire life is not dependent on stock market swings (luckily may be) but its unnerving to see my hard earned folio free falling. Of all the things I hate, sense of helplessness is the worst..History suggests that its just a cyclical pattern and the bulls will come back again. But do we have enough patience to wait? Stock market is just one of the indicators, a reactive factor. If the economies are in shamble, the stock market can't do much either... Besides just like million others, I am just a by-stander watching from the sidelines. Neither do I have insider information nor enough clout to change the policies... And I am not happy that we have to go through this much of a mess because of sheer greed of wise and unwise fools. The solutions policymakers are offering look like a ransom in exchange of hostage. Every time why the remedy has to be at the expense of the good behaviour? I know the whole thing started with the bad housing loans. We blame banks for lending irresponsibly but all those borrowers should have known better too. Most of these defaulting people knew very well what they could afford and what not.. I don't believe for second that they are innocent either... With the abundance of the easy credit, people have forgotten the basic rule of living within their means. When are these credit hocked folks going to learn save $2 and spend only $8 if you make $ 10.....This does not at all mean that one shouldn't be ambitious and dream big. But financing these shady dreams with over the top credit is not a wise way of living. I know this nation is proud of the personal negative savings rate and capitalism is fueled by the personal consumption and spending. But in these bad times one can see how the credit empires can crumble spirally down uncontrollably and good moderate people get rolled helplessly. I was watching Suzy Orman show couple years ago and I heard her advising somebody about declaring the bankruptcy. I am glad that bankruptcy loophole is now closed but now here comes the foreclosure mess. Its really hard to be sympathetic about either situation ( except in the very unfortunate situations related to health, disability or death) People who pay off their monthly credit cards on time get screwed by higher interest rates because of people who make only minimum payments. People making regular mortgage payments get screwed by defaulter in the form of falling house values. People trying to save through planning and sacrifice get screwed by the historically low interest rates. And if we were to get universal health care, we will also be paying for all those illegal undocumented immigrants through higher taxes. Where is the incentive to save if the interest rates are hovering around 2-4 % and temptations to spend are limitless? Somehow, people in the middle always get burnt. It almost seems like society as a whole is rewarding bad behaviour often enough. All those hard working, responsible, law biding people of middle class get sandwiched every time. In the middle, you are not fortunate enough like all those CEOs who still get their millions in severance packages despite their faulty judgements and wrong decisions and in the middle you are not destitute enough to get benefits of social welfare either....In fact, you are rescuing both of them without a choice. That's why there should be a solid third party for independents !!!

And the winner is.............

As predicted, yesterday's final debate was once again the boring fiasco. Rehashing the same old... Sadly, neither Democrats nor Republicans have convincing solutions. Both candidates, as predicted were very calculated and lacked care, passion and spontaneity. Mostly they offered only half of the equation diluted with special interests... ...So one would think that the independents will shine through this like stars..... but Ralph Nadar ????? BTW, one thing for sure, they need to get rid of all the same debate moderators from the sixties era... All four moderators were weightless and very ineffective. So much for by partisan journalism...Maybe they should have Oprah, Ryan Seacrest, Ellen Degeneres and even David Letterman, Jay Leno types. At least they will be able to extract the true personality under the mask of these well scripted candidates.. So in the end, sadly the winner is : working man named Joe from Toledo, Ohio ... He got his 15 minutes of fame..

Political Drama

Hush ! finally the long exhausting election season is coming to an end soon.. I don't even live in those so called battleground states.. but I am exhausted listening about it already. We are down to the last political debate. All pundits have rolled their sleeves up . The self proclaimed best political teams on every news channel are ready to fight over party lines. No doubt, Democrats are going to claim victory for Mr. Obama... and Republicans for Mr. McCain. Hopefully the format will be little more effective than the two debates before.. and hopefully both candidates will keep their scripted messages aside and answer the actual questions relevantly .. Is that too much to ask? How about some " straight talk" on real issues with specifics and facts? Well, sure I know they won't risk it but won't it be nice to see the punch fisting real debate? Won't it be fun if they went after each others claims about fixing what is broken or they want us to believe is broken? Well, for me, I still don't have satisfying answers to any of the questions I have from either of the candidates. Answers about health care, better education, improving decline American image in the world, reducing dependence on oil , war for democracy and many more. Besides I am still disappointed about Hillary Clinton not being on ticket and very uncertain about Sarah Palin I guess, nothing will change personally for me either way.. Just like majority of others, I will continue to work my way for my own victories... But still looking forward to tomorrow's debate !

Charity and Capitalism

American Express recently concluded their Members Project campaign. The whole idea was that the members were requested to submit innovative projects that could make a difference in the world. After several vigorous voting rounds, 5 winning projects were to share 2.5 million dollars. On the surface it certainly looked like a great cause to achieve a positive impact in the world. 2.5 Million sure looked like a large enough sum to make a difference.... And then I started to see a massive PR campaign, ranging from TV commercials to pop ups to billboards promoting the idea.. all those commercials with who's who of the celebrities endorsing the project. Now I can see that this is hard-core self-promotion, using $2.5 million from advertising budget to paint itself as a good corporate citizen while spreading its advertising as far as it can. I don't like this type of cheating under name of charity. I am one of those high EQ people with very sensitive tear ducts. So every time I see someone suffering , I want to help. And with best of my abilities I do try to help. I do believe that I am fortunate enough to be born in decent well-to do family with well educated and utmost caring parents. Having a solid start in life is increasingly becoming an integral part of success end game. Sadly, I am starting to realize that the social class one is born into largely determines how successful they will be in life. Admittedly there are quite a few examples where people have broken through the barriers by hard work, efforts and determination but largely our plutocracy society has tried to keep the classes in tact under the name of the welfare.... With ever increasing calamities, disasters and crisis the entire world certainly needs help. I know there are hundred and thousands of people that want make a difference. But purely as a gratitude and without a grandeur! Thankful for whatever we have and trying to help the have- nots. And I am proud to be one of them. I am looking for ways to make a positive impact that touches the lives of people in a significant way, maybe on a very small scale . But my feelings are real and genuine. Anyway the whole thing came about because of AmEx charity/Advertising campaign. And more and more I am looking at this, I am feeling frustration about some of these very well funded charities. Besides I absolutely don't like the way they try to make you feel guilty about not giving every time. I think the focus is more on fund raising than actually helping. Every year American Cancer Society gets over Billion dollars in funding yet they are yet to find cure for cancer. I am sad to see that one of my favourite charity Red Cross spends over 47 % of their money on administration costs including salaries. And AmEx spent millions of dollars advertising budget to promote 2.5 mil in giving to paint itself a nobel corporate citizen. Recently we were invited to a big Gala dinner to raise money to feed the hungry children of developing nations. How strange... only after wasting so much food and with full bellies we can help these hungry children.. All those fortunate, rich and famous attendees don't need to feast on another lavish meal in name of helping starving kids.... Very Ironic ! Charity should be sacrifice. It shouldn't be a calculated expectation in expense of any worthy cause. That's where it clashes with the capitalist nature of human being. We are all so focused on acquiring material wealth,comfort, fame and name. There is nothing wrong with that. But I know I am sensitive enough to help make a difference and truly give hope to those where hope does not exist. One person-one cause at a time.. that's my contribution with genuine scrifice! Let's call that compassionate capitalism !!