The much needed letter to Tarun

Dear Tarun,

I am coming straight to the point. I have been working in a salaried job for the past three years. I understand how sexual harassment at workplace affects performance and motivation of an employee. Sexual harassment does not only mean unwanted physical contact, even sexually tinted words and lecherous looks can unnerve a man/woman, after all how long can one ignore them.

I decided to write this letter to you because this instance of harassment happened in an NGO, where one expects people to be slightly more conscious about women’s rights and laws. I started my professional life with an NGO in Ranchi, Jharkhand, which was working in the area of HIV AIDS awareness. I was really motivated to give my best and I packed my bags and went off to another city with dreams of changing the society and saving lives.

Our NGO was funded by a government organisation which sometimes sent evaluation experts. There was this really weird guy who would sometimes come to our office to check on the progress of projects. He seemed like a lecher to me and sometimes he would just sit staring at females in our office. I was new, but I understood that because his evaluation meant a lot to our fund flow everyone tolerated him and behaved cordially with him. My female colleagues also advised me that I should put up a smileand greet him whenever he entered our room. It was the most difficult task that I had to perform during my tenure there.  

Because we worked with HIV AIDS awareness we sometimes had to visit other organisations which worked with sex workers. On one such visit this lecher accompanied us to an NGO which had a female project head. After our visit he told my boss in an audible tone, “Ye bhi waisi hai, usko pooche kya wo karegi?” ( She is also a sex worker, should we ask her for sex?)  I felt sick, really sick because of the way it was said and that Look in his eyes which seemed to strip naked every female he saw. I was disgusted even though the comment was not directed at me. And this was happening in an NGO and not another IT/BPO office filled with so-called ‘socially unconscious’ robots.

The problem with working in an HIV AIDS project is that sexually coloured remarks, which also amount to sexual harassment according to the Vishakha Guidelines, can be camouflaged if one is clever enough. This socially conscious man (read pervert/ creep) was quite clever. One day, I told my boss about the problem and he said that he will try his best to keep that creep away from me. But I knew that he would do no such thing.

However, I tried to keep the faith in the importance of my work and worked late hours in office and also on holidays. I love working hard and hate laziness in office, but because of one perverted male I started losing my enthusiasm and wanted to quit the job. Fortunately, I got a good offer to work as a Research Assistant on an impact assessment study being conducted by one of the top social sciences institutes in the country and I left Ranchi. I never heard a word from the creep after that except for a few mails asking me for some non-existent documents and photos. I added his e-mail to my block list. My regret is that time I could not find proper grounds on which I could haul him up for sexual harassment.

I am really thankful that the journalist had the courage to complain against a 'high profile' person like you. I hope that your case has been a wake up call for media houses, NGOs and law firms, which find it easier to write about sexual harassment and fight such cases , rather than provide a healthy working environment for their own employees. 

                                                                     

                                                                                            
                                                                                               With loads of pity for you,
                                                                                                            M

How to say goodbye to the subway?

The lecher(To know The lecher click on this link) got down from the train after bidding adieu to his women. Little did he know that another person in the train, a 60 year-old woman, was bidding adieu to the subway itself.

He did not notice this bespectacled lady, holding a bouquet of red and white carnations. He did not see the yellow stain on her white sari, which was a residue of the turmeric-rich fish curry she had for lunch. Thus, the lecher got back to his world, leaving her to continue the series of last good-byes on the subway.

“Eight more stations. Another 22 minutes,” she counted.

She hated the subway. She hated the squabbling over seats, lecherous middle-aged men eyeing nubile young women, and the most of all - the x-ray vision of a woman sitting on the opposite seat.  After years of travelling she had concluded that one thing constant in every underground train is a woman seated on the ‘Ladies Seat’, who scans all the females in the vicinity. From the hole in the sandal to the colour of the bindi, nothing escapes the perusing eyes.

“5 more stations, 13 minutes.”

She had been working for 37 years as an accountant in a private company. It was a ‘boring’ job according to her late husband, who had been a renowned sports journalist in his time. Her stomach rumbled, and she was thankful that the sound of wheels masked the sound. The oil-rich farewell lunch, for sure, did not agree well with her. For a moment the discomfort in her belly, took her mind off from the melancholy state that she was in. But, it came back, flooding her with the thought, “What is life after work?”

“Three minutes, one station.”

The train stopped. She got down, took a few steps and then stood still. She would not take the subway from tomorrow, as she had no office to go to. Her work was done.

She saw the digital clock, announce the arrival of the train on the other platform. She dropped her bag and the bouquet of carnations. She saw the light at the end of the tunnel, drew a sharp breath and…

“She does that every night. For the past 4 years, this has been her routine,” said one aged ghost to a new entrant, a young man who had jumped on the tracks earlier that day. “Four years and she has not learned the art of saying goodbye. She hates the subway too much to bid adieu to it,” he said as he extended his arm to pull her back.

Gainor E. Roberts,Carnations and Poodle, Oil on Canvas, 35 x 27, 1977

Plum in my pudding!

Plum: a sweet and sour fruit and its smell will always remind me of my childhood.

The only dessert that I enjoy making is pudding, preferably chocolate pudding .So, yesterday I decided to roll up my sleeves, shake off my laziness and make a small portion of pudding with the leftover milk. Co-incidentally, some ripe plums also happened to be sitting in the fruit tray of my fridge asking to be eaten. So, I complied with their request; but instead of eating them like an orangutan I decided to eat them in Famous Five style, i.e. in a pudding.

I have never in my life eaten, let alone made plum pudding. It was just one of those times when I rely on my instincts (the internet wasn't working yesterday,so I had to make do with instinct) yesterday and start cooking.  So, if you ever want to try this ( because it turned out to be pretty decent),here’s a recipe to guide you to some extent:

                                               

                                                                     Ingredients

For the pudding:

1.      500 ml full cream milk;

2.      3 eggs;

3.      2 ripe plums;

4.      1 table spoon drinking chocolate power;

5.      sugar ( depends on how sweet your tooth is);and

6.      cardamom powder

For the plum syrup drizzle:

1.      One deseeded and finely chopped plum (retain the peel);

2.      3 table-spoons sugar;

3.      200ml water; and

4.       a tiny wedge of cinnamon

                                                        Process

1.      Boil milk

2.      Beat eggs, mix the sugar and chocolate powder, and start beating again

3.      Deseed the plum and take off the peel. If you have a hand blender then use it to make a purée, if you are unlucky like me, then use your hands and a spoon. The result is the same. Now mix this with the eggs mixture,

4.      Pour this mix in container, sprinkle cardamom on top of it and put it inside the pressure cooker. After 10 whistles, switch off the gas and let the pudding cool. You should ideally refrigerate it for 2 hours.

5.      For the plum syrup, combine water and sugar, bring them to boil. Now put the chopped plums into the syrup and wait for the color to change to deeper pink. Oops! Don’t forget to add the cinnamon.

6.      Spoon out the remains of the plum, and let the syrup alone!

Serving: Invert the pudding on a dish. Now, take your luscious plum syrup and smell it, isn’t it wonderful? Now, slowly drizzle your pudding with this syrup, put on some nice romantic music and indulge into its zesty goodness.

VIDEO ALERT!!  I was browsing through plum pudding recipes today,interestingly most of them don't use raw plums,like I did. But found this on youtube which I have to try. 

PS: This is not one of those snooty blogs,where everything is ladylike,hence the recipe has to bear that wild trademark. So,this recipe is not plum pudding,it's rather plum in pudding.