Republic Day- My Dream India

My dream India would have-

no starvation deaths

no child mortality

no infanticide-rather, birth control used wisely

equal opportunity for boys and girls

no discrimination

no dowry

no stupidity on TV (I am afraid many, many channels would have to shut down)

no immigration check (this would need cooperation of the rest of the world)

a limit on corporate income ( at a reasonably high limit), with the rest going into social upliftment or poverty alleviation managed by reputed NGOs or special purpose organisations

capital punishment for people who build bad roads

airports functioning in every tier 2 town, with easy licensing, low taxes

passport and RTO offices being outsourced to customer-friendly organisations

low paying jobs (irrespective of educational qualifications) for anyone who wants them, with chances to upgrade skills and progress higher-much higher (parallel to this, an organisation to invent useful jobs in different sectors)

easy starts for entrepreneurs

Book Review- Lady, You are not a Man

This is a book by Apurva Purohit, CEO of Radio City and an alumna of IIM Bangalore. I picked it up at the Hyderabad airport recently, and since I had heard of it from the alumni, decided to read it at once.

It has a semi-feminist  and humorous look at the positives and negatives of the workplace. Its tone and language are not feminist in its aggressive sense, and men would enjoy reading it as much as women. I did. The take-offs on men/husbands and their egos are particularly good. How a subordinate (man) needs to be cajoled into doing something after planting the seed in him and making him think it was his idea, has invaluable lessons for women bosses.

There are summaries of the sections at the end of each, which make it a little didactic (hope that is the right word), but you can skip those portions. The case studies of real people sprinkled throughout are very nice, adding to the 'theories of the workplace' coming from Apurva's own experiences.

The importance of Indian men understanding the value of women generally, and those in their lives, has been brought out well. How women can help the process, as mothers bringing up sons (the same as girls, helping with cooking or household work, and respecting husbands/fathers who do it) is also relevant to the feudal/patriarchal society that is still evolving around us.

A good read, with a lot to learn. For both genders.

Gender Inequality in the Spiritual Realm

We are generally drawn to spirituality at some point in life- generally in the later part. But this is not about man's spiritual quest. This is about why so few women are in spiritual leadership positions. A glass ceiling that  operates in their hierarchy, maybe?

Or, it could be that women are already evolved and couldn't be bothered to reform the others. After all, even in non-spiritual realms, their effort is wasted on incorrigible men. So why bother?

On the other hand, we have several Goddesses (most after the Greeks and Romans) whom we pray to. Some of them are pretty violent too, like Durga/Kali, for good reason. Anybody would turn violent if subjected to the daily goings-on on our great planet.

There is a more mundane explanation. That the daily grind gets to them, what with balancing (household) budgets, cooking and raising children, that they just don't have time for anything else (Ekta Kapoor's serials are the only exception, kyun ki...).

But I think they would do a good job of it, if more of them ventured to try. I had one of my smoothest landings while flying recently when the crew was 2 female pilots!