to say or not to say that i am gay

Posted on April 23rd, 2008 in Blogging, Gender, WTF by meetu

One of the ongoing blogathon topics is - “What are the challenges that society faces in accepting the concept of alternate sexuality? How can we address them?”

Religion, social norms, the basic need of a species to reproduce - none of these are in favor of alternate sexuality. Calling it “alternate” is alienating it in the first place, isn’t it?

A close friend, B’s sexual orientation has not at all been accepted. In every trip home he is asked to at least “try” to like a girl. This pressure brings with it a sense of alienation - from his own family. Why? Because he refuses to marry. Because he doesn’t want to make another human being miserable. He desperately wants a family, wants to have kids he can call his own. But, B refuses to fool a person into marriage.

It has to be innate conditioning that doesn’t allow his parents to accept that this is not a disease that needs curing. It has to be deep-seated cultural training over generations that B won’t allow himself a partner even though he stays in the west, where homosexuality is better-accepted.

Homosexuality is hardly a new concept. It must have always existed. Then why are we still finding it so difficult to accept? The one main reason religion, social norm are against it, has to be because it hinders the natural process of propagating the human race. The lack of awareness despite the long-standing existence seems to be a purposeful strategy of religion and social norms.

But better late than never. We are a well-informed generation. And if some of us are not, access to information is a few clicks away. Meanwhile, let’s do our bit to accept homosexuals as normal people (because they are, it’s a shame we are having to say it!) -

Let’s start by not pointing fingers at a man who has an effeminate behavior? Of course, not all homosexual men have effeminate behavior and certainly all men with effeminate behavior are not gay. And even if they are, so what?!

Let’s start by not giving our moviemakers the satisfaction of our snickers at their crude jokes on gays. WTF does, “main waisa nahi hoon” (I am not like that) mean?

Let’s start by accepting friends, relatives and soon enough … our children who might have sexual preferences different from ours.

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10 (wo)man-years of motherhood

Posted on April 22nd, 2008 in Motherhood by meetu

My son turns 6 today and daughter turns 4 tomorrow. 10 years of motherhood…so quantity we have achieved…quality? I don’t know…so far so good, from my end. They are growing up to be good, independent, more-or-less well-behaved children.

But are they enjoying being ‘my’ children? We do have our, “mamma, *big hug*, mamma, I love you” moments along with our “mamma I hate you, I will NEVER EVER talk to you” ones. I doubt that says anything about me as a mother. The I love you-s could just be a reciprocation to number of ice creams allowed and the I hate you-s because of the curfew on TV and computer time. The question is, will they ever say, “I want to be a parent like my parents!” Whether I get that passing certificate, only time will tell.

Anyway, these 10 mother-years were the easy part. I surely am looking forward to the kids growing up to be young, confident people who voice their opinion. People I can have adult conversations with. But, the apprehension co-exists.

How will I react when I am introduced to the first boyfriend/girlfriend? Will I be genuinely happy for them when they announce they want to have a career in literature history?

Will I go over-the-top to show how “kewl” I am? Or will I take pride in the fact that they use the correct spelling of “cool”…like me?

Will I, like thousands of parents around me, end up burdening them with my expectations? I know this is still a few years away. But the excitement-cum-anxiety has begun.

Happy Birthday kiddos! Looking forward to many more!!

love, war and …

Posted on April 15th, 2008 in Oneliners, hmmm...i'm thinking by meetu

We hear this way too often - “Just kidding!” or “Sorry, I was just angry…”

So, is everything fair in “jest” and “wrath” too?

If that’s so then, I have perfect excuse to behave the way I like in love, war, jest, and wrath! Perfect…looking for more to add to this list…

Sinhgad and Voldemort

Posted on April 15th, 2008 in Adventure by meetu

I’ve been meaning to trek up and down Sinhgad for the longest time. It finally happened this Sunday with a couple of friends. Of course it was fun. I am still enjoying the sore muscles. Climbing up was difficult, but as always the getting down part bored me no end.

In a hurry to get the dull bit done quickly, I slipped and tripped…let’s just say more than once. On one such occasion, in a comical turn of events, a good friend who was walking in front of me realized my feet were losing their grip. In his attempt to save me from having a bad fall, he stopped and swirled only to have his metal water bottle hit my forehead. And now I have a Harry Potter scar.

Not to worry, world…I am keeping a close watch on the new, fully formed human Voldemort.

Meet the bloggers

Posted on April 2nd, 2008 in Blogging by meetu

After some coffee and sandwiches on a hot summer morning Aditya and Netra kickstarted the event by inviting speakers to paste in their topics and introduce them. This took a whole good hour, but it was fairly interesting to see how passionately or otherwise the participants presented their topics.

After organizing the topics between blogging-related, technical (barcamp) and firetalk, the 400+ participants chose the presentations they wanted to attend.

I stuck to blog-related topics for the first half of the day hoping to get some good blogging tips. Though none of the sessions had anything new to say, it wasn’t a total disappointment mainly because of the audience participation.

It wasn’t an easy audience to please at all. No presenter got away without completely justifying what they just said. Whether it was the one who called Bombayites selfish versus Chennai bloggers. Or it was something a little more technical regarding blog security. On one occasion in fact, the speaker was stalled five minutes into the presentation and it converted into a discussion.

I am sure this reaction will only make the presenters more conscious about their effort the next time around. So, all good for quality.

Overall, while the blogging presentations were very basic, the loads of people I met were extremely interesting. Even with the chaotic nature that defines these camps, I am looking forward to the next one.

Oh yeah, we got press coverage too. Can’t deny that I loved the attention ;). Only if they got my name, the name of my blog, and the blog statistics right.

  • it’s meetu or meeta
  • it’s without giving THE movie away
  • I certainly HAVEN’T received an average of 15,000 to 20,000 comments for various posts till date., wogma would have been crushed to death. What I said was each “popular movie” review gets an average of 15000 to 20000 views over its lifetime!

I can rant on and on about how irresponsible these mistakes were, but oh well, this is the blogcamp report.

Here’s what Aseem, Deep, Ideasmithy, and Jim Karter, and Sakshi (of course) thought of the blogcamp/barcamp.

And here’s some photo coverage of the camps by Brajeshwar.

As usual, like any other any event / course / seminar / workshop, this one too eventually became more about the people than the content. It was great meeting ye’all - Abhishek, Aditya, Amit, Arun, Brajeshwar, Deep, Ekalavya, Ideasmithy, Jim, Kunal, Moksh, Nirav, Ram and Ashish, Rohit, Sakshi, Tarun, and The Twisted Indifferent.