Loosing touch with you...

so many things have changed since then,

so many faces have turned black.

so many trees have fallen since then,

so many tears have shed.

i left you all with dreams of joy,

i return to see no one rejoys.

i lived on the land far away,

and now i have come to see all this.

Alas! i feel like an alien to this wonderland.

This land where i lost my heart happily,

but dread to share my pride with anyone now.

Oh land! what a game to play with me.

Without telling me that rules have changed,

Is this the way to over rule me?

I accept to accept my defeat,

at the hands of those who have overgrown claws.

The soft fingers of comfort and joy,

have gone numb and dry...

Increasing sexual violence against women in Haiti must be addressed...

Julsaint has recently returned from a solidarity visit to Haiti with the ecumenical ‘Living Letters’ team and is concerned about the levels of violence, especially sexual violence, against women and young women. “Women and young women who have been raped or have experienced sexual violence are unable to get legal assistance and support. The judiciary system is not working in general and poor, marginalised women are the last to have access. The rule of law is inexistent in Haiti and there is so much stigma attached to rape that women prefer to remain silent.” 

Silence is not a reaction Julsaint will be looking for from the CEDAW Committee. “I hope they will insist that there needs to be more data on the extent of sexual violence and rape on girls in Haiti. There needs to be a specific national law prohibiting violence against women, including different forms of violence such as psychological violence in Haiti. This is currently inexistent, although Haiti has ratified CEDAW.” 

Julsaint says although there is a lot of work to be done, progress has been made for the women of Haiti. "In 2005, a national plan of action to fight against violence against women was adopted for the 2006 - 2011 period. The Ministry for Women (Ministère de la Condition Féminine) has worked hard and in collaboration with many women's NGOs to put this 7th periodic combined report but still so much needs to be done," says Julsaint. 

The YWCA of Haiti works in education and leadership of women and girls and will explore the issue of violence against women at the upcoming Caribbean YWCA Regional Training Institute 'Women Unite Now! Creating a Caribbean free of Violence Against Women and HIV’. 

The 2007 YWCA World Council adopted a resolution requesting the YWCA movement to place emphasis on CEDAW implementation as an affirmation of the organisation's commitment to global action for women. ‘This important resolution calls on YWCAs to take part in the monitoring and implementation of CEDAW in their countries,” says World YWCA General Secretary Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda. 

The full list of countries to present country reports at the 43rd CEDAW session are Armenia , Cameroon , Dominica , Germany, Guatemala, Haiti, Libya and Rwanda. 

The post is an excerpt from an article by YWCA member (Published: 15th jan, 2009)

Welcome

You are back to the land of love

A lot of friends have been colored in black

Do not see from someone else's glass

For the glass you own is the best in town

The soul u carry is the purest amongst all

Walk briskly for the steps others tell are not true

True are the ones who waited for you

And watch you with hope of turning to them

Take their hands and pray to God

For showing you once again that correct path.

a dosa...no no idli..... no no.... Dosa

How often does a situation arise when u have your toes in you mouth. Often, seldom or never?
For those who have faced such situations rarely, add Sarah to your list. 

It was a friday, and she was full of energy as it is the last working day of the week. Soon after  settling at her work-desk, she was told to brush through some documents for the test. The team was asked to collect in the conference room and started their training. From 10:30 to 2 o clock, they had all the gyan given to them about instructional designing. Sarah was happy having learnt a great deal about the subject. It was like getting a degree, but the grumbling stomach interrupted Sarah's happiness. 

She came out of conference  room, ordered for a dosa...no no then changed it to a plate of idli. CEO asked her manager for a dosa. Sarah'

s manager called the office boy, asked for two plates dosas. Over!

Is it...No.

Dosa arrived, Sarah got her change back and vroomed into the lunch room, gulped the dosa down her throat and came out. 

"Did the office boy get my lunch?", asked CEO. Sarah's manager had no clue....with half dosa on his work desk and half already in his stomach. 

"You ate his dosa...you had ordered for idli naaa", told Sarh's colleague to her. <<<<<<<<" I gave him a 100 rupee note, told him to get dosa. By the time he reached my manager's workdesk, i told him to get idli instead.

He came to my desk, gave me a dosa packet and 84 rupees", recalled Sarah

That is how she saw the event. 

Sarah felt she was getting choked. Gosh!! did i eat my boss' lunch. Damn it!! no way...the office boy forgot to get my idli...and he thought the manager asked for two dosas: one for himself and one for me. 

But, where is the idli then??.....

This was the first time Sarah had eaten lunch in such a hurry, and in the lunch room, sitting all alone in dark. And trust me, she looked like a thief, eating other person's lunch. God damn her, that other person was not a colleague but her CEO. Poor lady was feeling so lost and was jumping all over the office, assuring herself that the dosa was hers.

How would you feel if same happens to you someday? Am sure it would be somewhere similar to what Sarah felt like...

yet again...

No one knows what is Sarah’s complaint? But, I know it happens. You wish that God would send positive signals to you, when you know it is the best thing that can ever happen to you. Instead, you get something unexpected…

Who knew life would ever take such a drastic turn. All the happy days would become teasers. Sarah never thought she would fail yet again. She was sure the henna on her hands would mark the beginning of her new life. But before it could dry and give her the sense of never ending happiness, things went astray. Even before she could go and choose the colour for curtains of her newly bought home, her eyes had failed to search for any colour.

“Sarah..Sarah..honey. pass me that tumbler”, she could still hear the voice from the other room. She would go running inside the room with a whole jug of water and pour the water bottoms-up on him. And then, there would be pillow fights, the real bad ones.

He would never fail to take revenge and will return to room with a bucket full of water, ready to dampen all the furniture in the room. She had to board the flight next morning and was pleading him not to throw water on gifts she had picked up for family. They were to be together forever after she returns from delhi. Shitt! Man… u spoiled my laptop. Buy me a viao now..huh!, she screamed.

“So, what will you cook when I am gone?”

Hmmm..i will have momos every day….he said, not knowing how painful would be the jealous pinch this time.

Every office has it own rules. His office commanded that mobiles be on silent mode during working hours.

12 missed calls!! “f ****! I missed it. She will be angry. Hope she dint buy bright blue coloured curtains. She should have sent me a text atleast. God… help me. I will tell her I had a meeting with a client.”

“What if I die in a boom? What will you do?”, he still remembered her silly questions.

It was 14^th September when serial blasts happened in Delhi. She was eating her ever lovely puchkaas and the blast sent off a piece of heavy iron piece right into her leg. The first thing she could think of was to call him.

Another boom! a few meters away made everything dark in front of her. She could still hear the call going in the loudspeaker mode. She screamed… hoping some one would reply.

This was one of those times she had hoped that God would help.

Sometimes, when we see our prayers fail, we go into a state of silence and madness or higher sanity, as i call it. Sarah had taken refuge into the same mode. She has refused to recognise anyone. Her silence raises a question to heaven upward. What question? What happened to her?

Across a road...

I walk across a road,
The road has markings in blood,
There is a crowd walking with me,
The crowd is silent, with veins around their mouths,
Their teeth send a ripple of fear down my spine,
Their breath smells of blood and dark fears,

I scream for answers with questions in my head,
I see the death all around me echoing,
The dark clouds stare at me and smile,
The rain is pitiless and burns my sore feet,

I give a last try and scream for answer
And a voice says, " Cut cut!..good shot...we will go with this one"

Me, Mine, Myself part of life...

No creature in the world can compete with humans when it comes to calling something 'mine'. Even a small child is taught to call toys his own and at the same time he is taught to learn sharing. Poor child takes years to understand what his elders meant and by the time he learns sharing, he is grown too big to even tell his dad that he has a girlfriend.

A friend of mine decided to start a blog where four of people would be writing and sharing our ideas. It died down in a flick of time and he went mad, when we all started asking him how to differentiate between 'our personal' blog and 'shared blog. We all felt threatened by the public nature of it. And, thus the decision was taken to bury the idea and carry on with our personal blogs.

It was not only this, it was basically our failure to identify our writings as personal, creative and thoughts. Frankly speaking, all of it is personal as far as it comes from one individual....and if one writes it on the blog then nothing is private!

But yes, it does give a good feeling to know that we have a space where only 'i' write (even if it is once in six months). Same is the case with our lives. We love to know that we have a life, even if we are wasting it. Inspite of being taught several times the concept of 'sharing' , we go on living our own way with indifferent nature ever increasing.

The net result is....no matter how liberal minded we are...we do want to live in our own little compartment, in our own way...and yes no sharing!