Free Basics is not Free

For the past few days, my notifications on Facebook are flooding with the fact that my friends have voiced their support for Free Basics. The way Free Basics is being advertised for the past few weeks, it seems like it’s the ultimate solution to the poverty and illiteracy problem faced in India! Overwhelmed by these notifications, I have had the urge to be a part of this patriotic spirit more than once, but my stubborn nature has prevented me from following the trend. Thank God!

The reason I am relieved is that I recently realized that Free Basics is nothing but a scam organized by none other than Facebook and it is conning people into believing that they are doing this to support Net Neutrality when actually they are doing the exact opposite! It took me a while to really understand how dire the situation is (and I’ve provided links of a couple of videos that explain this scam really well). I’ve also tried to explain it here:

• What’s the difference between Net Neutrality and the principle behind Free Basics as claimed by Facebook? Facebook says that EVERYONE should be able to access the Internet. True. Access to knowledge (which in today’s world is equivalent to the internet) is a basic human right. Net Neutrality on the other hand means that EVERYONE should be able to access EVERYTHING on the internet. That one word changes everything! In order to achieve Net Neutrality, all content on the internet must be treated as EQUAL and they should be accessible at EQUAL speed.
• Right now, Free Basics is an ad-free zone but this doesn’t ensure that it will remain an ad-free zone in future. Personally, for the sake of my nation, I wouldn’t mind watching a couple of advertisements, provided that the revenue collected from these ads is used to provide the free basic internet to masses. But that’s not going to be the case. What’s going to happen is that everyone will be provided with very basic internet facility (a collection of apps and websites handpicked by our TSP) free of cost. But whenever we’ll need to use apps and websites outside the available limited choices, we’ll have to pay extra money.
• Fledgling businesses and start-ups will suffer tremendously because they won’t have the financial capital needed to partner with TSPs and hence will never see the daylight. Ironically, Facebook itself started small and then became the Giant that it is today. If the current situation would have taken place before February 2004, then Facebook would have born and died without even creating the slightest stir in society! Even though Internet.org is open for third party developers to develop their services on the given platform, they have to adhere to Facebook’s rules and face major restrictions. Facebook isn’t trying to protect your rights; it’s only eliminating the competition and making sure that there’ll be no other such contender in the future, ever.
• In some cases our telecommunication service providers might partner up with certain services and make that free and available for us. Hypothetically, say your TSP has a pact with some hypothetical news website named The News. Hence its website will be available to you for free and will also load at a much faster speed. On the other hand, other news website, say Times of India, will load at snail slow pace and that too after we have specifically purchased the respective package. Over time we’ll always settle for the free and faster deals. Thus TSPs get to play God and any company or brand which doesn’t partner with it will eventually fade out.
• The Telecommunication Service Providers want to slice the services available on the internet into various packages and charge money to the customers as and when we use a package. So for example if the email facility is available in the basic package then nobody needs to pay extra money to use it. But suppose you want to use YouTube and that is not in the basic package, in that case customer has to pay extra. After that suppose you want to access Amazon which is in a different package altogether, customer has to purchase that package separately. Is it fair? It’s the digitization of television all over again; only worse because the Internet is the last frontier where everyone is equal!

 

If you too have been fooled into supporting Free Basics, well that can’t be undone. What you can do is visit SaveTheInternet.in and email TRAI, the deadline being 30^th December, 2015. Go through the email that you are sending (It’s long but not too long) if you want to make an informed decision. You can also check out their blog if you need more information on this. Be a responsible citizen and fight for your right: all you have to do is send an email to TRAI. Spectrum is a public utility and telecom operators should not be allowed use it to advance their business interests. As consumer, only we should have the right to decide which service or product we’ll use, not the TSPs. Please share this information and make sure that you email TRAI.

5 Bisexuality Myths BUSTED!

It’s been a long time since I posted on my blog; like more than two months! Had been caught up in final year college projects (still working on them), and then some sweet family drama followed by some more exam drama. Planned to attend the Pride March but couldn’t because it was BAM right in the center of the exam window! Suddenly woke up to the realization that my baby will be turning 1 today and yet it had been dormant for the past two and half months. So I’m back for good!

  

Today I want to write about the top 5 things that some bisexuals are simply bored of hearing. Here’s hoping that next time some fellow ignorant person opens their ignorant mouth to shoot an uninformed opinion at one of us, we can direct them here so that they realize that their thinking is very mainstream and nothing out of the box and so that they can educate themselves without our intervention:

1. Bisexual? That’s not even real! Most people can’t the digest the idea of sexuality where an individual is attracted to more than one gender. Often homosexual people claim to be bisexual when they are still unsure about their orientation. Sometimes when coming out gets real nasty, being bisexual is more palatable to the audience than downright homosexuality. That probably is the reason for the general opinion that bisexuality is just a phase. This however does not mean that being bisexual is only an intermediate step. For lots of people being bisexual is the ultimate concrete reality, it's a part of our identity.
2. Bisexuals are just confused… Most uninformed people truly believe that a person identifying as bisexual is just undecided about who they want to be with, whereas the truth is that, for us the gender isn’t just that big a deal! Some women only date men who are clean shaven; some women go only for the ragged beard look; whereas for some other women, facial hair isn’t a factor at all even though they might or might not have some preference. Some men always date younger girls; some men go only for the older women; whereas for some other men age isn’t a constraint at all. Similarly some people only date people from their own gender; some people only date people from the opposite gender; whereas for bisexuals...
3. Bisexuals are Cheaters and Poly-amorous. Cheaters are cheaters. Period! Alex can cheat on Ben with Chad. Alan can cheat on Betty with Carrie. Betty can cheat on Alan with Carrie. Betty can also cheat on Alan with Charles. Alice can cheat on Bob with Alan. Anybody can cheat, but that’s not because of their sexuality but because of their lack of loyalty. Same goes for poly-amorous. Note though: the most common form of poly-amorous behavior is polygamy. Going by that logic, straight (heterosexual) men should be considered the most poly-amorous of them all (even though it’s not true).
4. All women are bisexuals. That’s just plain wrong. Indeed a lot of women are extremely comfortable around other women. Some of them are even willing to test the waters to determine their sexuality. But that does not mean that all women are bisexual. Hell life would be so convenient and easy if every woman was bisexual! But I feel that it’s the most unfounded assumption ever!
5. Bisexuals Love Threesomes. It’s simply another one of those unfounded generalized assumptions. Yes, bisexuals love sex with men; they also love sex with women; but that doesn’t under any circumstance imply that they will definitely love a threesome. Let’s consider Arya. Arya loves to eat sushi. Arya also loves to eat biriyani. But Arya might or might not want to eat biriyani and sushi together! Some people, irrespective of their sexuality, believe that sex should happen between two people only.

I either cleared a few doubts or created more confusion, probably the latter! Bottom-line is that bisexuals are real people with real feelings and although you are free to judge them, they are not really under any kind of obligation to prove anything to you or to reflect your idea of what an ideal person should be like. If you agree with my point of view, hit a like, or a +1, or drop a comment or just share it with people who could help a nice doubt clearing session.

Female Genital Mutilation: Yes, it exists!

Recently a page that I have been following on Facebook posted quite a few articles on Female Genital Mutilation and that’s pretty much how I got to know about this horrific practice which is still prevalent, in the 21^st century in various places on the globe! Call it tradition, culture or religion; society always finds a way to oppress its daughters and comes up with senseless arguments to support its actions.

Female genital mutilation or FGM is the partial or complete removal of the female external genitalia or any other kind of injury to female genitals for non-medical purposes. The circumcision is carried out by older women in the family or some female relative or barbers or members of secret society etc. These people may or may not have any medical training to perform such operations. Usually there’s no anesthesia, antiseptic or sterilization of the cutting devices involved. The cutting devices used may be special knives, scalpels, razors, blades, glass, sometimes even bare fingernails. Girls may be subjected to these practices at any time: when they are a few days old, during their childhood, puberty, before marriage or before childbirth etc. There are two main reasons that parents make their daughters go through this. Firstly, Religion: lots of Muslims believe that such practices are highly recommended in Islam despite the fact that no Islamic laws or Quran verses even mention female genital circumcision, let alone making it compulsory. Second reason is obviously women safety and controlling of female sexuality.

Here’s the fact sheet on FGM by WHO. So basically in some cases, the clitoris or the clitoral hood is removed so as to reduce the sex drive of girls as a method of prevention of premarital sex among girls. Often their vaginal opening is sealed completely except for a small orifice to enable urination and menstruation. This seal is again surgically removed before marriage and widened further before childbirth. The main objective of all these practices is to direct the female sexuality. These practices are usually done in secret and are often termed as an occasion where a girl embraces womanhood. These girls are forced to give up their femininity in order to embrace womanhood. Her body itself is considered cleansed only after she gets rid of parts of her God-gifted self. There’s also the custom of breast ironing where her breast tissue is compressed or pounded using hot iron so as to make them look less feminine and thus less attractive to prevent them from being sexually harassed or raped. What’s worse is that even people in the UK are starting to use this method to protect their girl child.

These practices affect the physical and mental well being of probably millions of girls across the world. Mostly, the physiological damage is irreversible and makes normal life extremely painful. A woman is neither considered pure nor safe in her original body and the uneducated society dictates their life. Thank you for reading. Here are a few places wherein you can make an impact:

http://www.cawogido.co.uk/
http://busts4justice.com/2011/09/20/association-of-aunties-tackling-breast-ironing-in-cameroon/
https://www.facebook.com/StopFgmMiddleEast?fref=nf

To Vote or Not To Vote?

Every citizen of India is given a number of fundamental rights. One such fundamental right is the right to vote. In a country with such a huge and diverse population, one’s voice tends to get lost. Hence our votes act as our voices. However small, when put together they form the vociferous Voice of our Nation, our state, our municipal corporations etc. Yet, in the Municipal Corporation Elections of Kolkata, October 2015, the voices of the common people were snatched away from them in broad daylight.

For the Ruling Party, the poll results of Salt Lake were especially important so as to prove to the Nation that they are not losing out on the trust of the sophisticated, urban voters. In fact, one of their legislators (who care which one) guaranteed that if any voter with a valid voter card is unable to exercise his right to vote, then he’ll fight for their cause! But as we all know, some people and some political parties are just full of lies. The elections held on October 3, 2015 at Salt Lake were extremely peaceful. It was so peaceful that residents couldn’t recall when the last time that elections were accompanied with such calm environment was! Hundreds and thousands of goons, bouncers and villagers flocked the polling booths. They forcefully stood in the queues meant for the voters. When reporters quizzed them about their address, they came up with answers that shocked the hell out of the original residents of those areas. Leaving a few, most residents turned up to the polling booth only to realize that their votes had already been cast and the booths were under the complete control of outsiders!

Luckily I was the second voter (and the first female voter) from my block. Hence I was able to exercise my right. However my neighbors who turned up later, informed us of the mass rigging. The first couple of hours were peaceful, the next couple filled with turmoil and after that the only votes cast were purely false in nature. Polling agents of the Opposition Party were threatened, harassed, beaten up and finally they were forcefully removed. In my ward, even the candidate (who is a favorite of the locals) was beaten when she refused to comply with the threats of the Ruling Party. The news channels were overflowing with horrifying images and videos of people being inhumanely thrashed for standing up against oppression. Even reporters and photographers were not spared. The funniest part was the role of the police. At some places the police, residents and opposition party members tried to chase away the false voters only to be greeted with bombs. However in my ward, the police didn’t even raise their head to look the complainants in the eyes. They simply didn’t budge their asses from their seats!

The person appointed by the Chief Minister concluded that the election procedure went smoothly without any disturbance. The areas where re-election were announced turned out to be the handful of those areas which indeed had a serene voting environment on the original day (no sarcasm here), even though most people didn’t turn up out of either fear or the realization that their votes really do not matter especially in a state which is being run by a bunch of greedy good-for-nothing hooligans.

The S-word We Don't Talk About

I think it’s time to address the elephant in the room which keeps creeping in every now and then but never gets the attention it deserves. So I guess it’s time we talk about the topic which is a taboo in India. If you guessed “SEX”, then you are BANG on target! It comes as a huge surprise that the same country which gave the world Kama sutra doesn’t permit sex education as a fundamental right to its children and that is something that has to change soon if we intend to bring a positive change to the society.

Firstly, I found a question which is asked pretty often on the internet: How is it possible that sex is a taboo in India when it has such a huge population? This question, my friends, is its own answer. Necessity is the mother of invention. By virtue of nature when man is hungry, he gets desperate to locate food. When man is horny, he gets desperate for sex. Almost every smart kid will eventually find out about sex, that’s the Law of Nature. As elders it’s our responsibility that they find out about it from reliable sources and don’t get misled. If you do not attend to this topic at all, then how are you going to teach the children about the difference between ‘good touch’ and ‘bad touch’ or the importance of ‘consent’ in any form of sexual activity? If hunger is treated as a sin, then eating will become a crime and people will find unscrupulous ways to meet their needs. A smart kid is supposed to be curious and question the unreasonable unjustified notions of society. If you refuse to entertain their questions, you are only blunting their inquisitive nature.

Indian parents’ reaction to sex is ridiculous! Is there any other activity which is considered a sin at a certain time frame with a certain set of people, and a virtue at a different time frame with a different person? I don’t think so! Women will continue to be objectified and continue to remain helpless about it unless at least basic sex education is introduced. People need to explore their sexuality in order to uncover their own identity. A large chunk of divorces in India happen due to sexual dissatisfaction and lack of sexual balance. An Indian woman is expected to ‘save’ her virginity for her husband. Yet often, after getting married, she and her husband both find out that they don’t complement each other’s needs. That’s a sad situation. Some people are not heterosexual and since talking about sex in society is not allowed, they do not find out about it till it’s too late and has already caused enough damage to lives. How are you supposed to teach boys to respect girls when you won’t even talk about girls with them? The way sex is treated in our society, it’s like we were not born through reproduction, but photosynthesis!

As parents I’m sure talking about sex is extremely awkward but the West call it the ‘Birds and Bees Talk’ and there are some TED talk videos which does it so well that you would wish they were the official instructors for sex education in your child’s school. We need to stop going all hush-hush at the mention of sexual topics because that is what gives children the impression that we are hiding something from them, as a result turning up their curiosity quotient. Do hit a like or leave a comment if you agree.

Proud to be Criminal

I’ve been contemplating to write about this for a while now but as usual have been delaying it. However sometimes time passes too quickly and one realizes that some things should be done sooner than later. So here I am to talk about the ‘H’-word issue because I need to do this and it’s my basic right and duty to fight for my identity and in doing so if I can make the slightest change to society, then that’s even better!

 

‘Carnal intercourse against the order of nature’, better known as section 377 these days, was criminalized in India during the British colonial rule. The LGBT community heaved a sigh of relief when the high court struck it off as it was found violating human rights. However the victory was extremely short lived because four years later, in December 2013, the Honorable Supreme Court ruled out the High Court’s sentence and thus re-criminalized sexual relationship between consenting adults of the same gender. What’s ironic is that the LGBT community is being accepted worldwide. Even Britain have amended their laws and have given the community equal rights. Since 2007, same sex relationship have been legal in Nepal, thus making it the most open South Asian country to recognize the LGBT Rights and to give them higher standards. Yet our motherland refuses to accept us for who we are. She would rather disown us for being the bad child than being the good parent. The way India’s laws are fashioned, I would say that she is committing filicide and also encouraging honor killing of her LGBT children.

People come up with ridiculous arguments in a desperate attempt to discourage or prevent same-sex relationships (like these).  Personally I have never liked the concept of ‘coming out’ since straight people do not have to go through the unnecessary ritual of formally telling their parents that they are heterosexual! (That reminds me, check out this hilarious ‘coming out straight’ video!) In fact in most families of Kolkata, if a girl so much as even tells her parents that she is dating a boy, she is sure to be greeted with a slap followed by a wide range of emotional blackmail! Coming back to my point, I’ve never believed in the concept of ‘coming out’. I’ve always been frank about my choices whenever topics like that have come up and since in Indian household we NEVER talk about sex, my parents don’t have any inkling. Dealing with my friends, on the other hand, has been fruitful. Initially they thought it was a joke, some discouraged me, some thought I was confused etc. But eventually, I’ve been able to eradicate their homophobia and even though it’s not much, it is something to start with.

  

The sad part about all this is that any form of sexuality or relationship that ‘goes against the nature’ is openly and widely ridiculed by the Indian society. Even movies, at times, treat this as joke. Perfectly straight people act ‘homo’ as an attempt at humor. Life would be so much easier if everybody was straight or if everybody could stick to the genders assigned to them. But no matter what, it’s important that we hold our unique identities without bowing to the social pressures.

My Beloved Girlfriends

 

It’s been more than a month since I updated my last blog post but the past few weeks have been very stressful and yet enriching for me and I am glad to be back. It is said that a man is known by the company he keeps. I agree to a very large extent. I pride myself on the fact that I happen to be a close friend and in most cases also a confidant of some amazing ladies I have ever come across.

It’s not that I don’t have guy friends, because I do, but I’ll spare them the spotlight, for now. My girlfriends are my life, literally. I share every trivial detail of my monotonous life with them. My life, pretty much, revolves around these ladies. These are probably the only people who know me inside out, every dirty disgusting bit of me, and still they choose to love me for who I am. Obviously most of the time, as unique as we are, it’s difficult to have them on board with me on any particular topic but eventually, we agree that our differences is the ingredient spicing up our relationships. My luck with girl friends hasn’t always been good. I’ve lost quite a few to misunderstandings, ego crashes or plainly to the transferable jobs of their parents. But slowly my luck turned around. I’ve found stability in my life owing to these wonderful people who paint my life with shades of every possible hue. Be it love, jealousy, possessiveness, encouragement, joy, depression, tragedy, comedy or horror, I have it all right in here with my beloved girlfriends. Hence I wish to reminisce about each one of them.

To the girlfriend with whom I have had a lot of ‘firsts’, I wish to say thank you for making me take pleasure in the little joys of life which wouldn’t have existed had you not shown me how. To the girlfriend who literally proposed me to be her best friend forever, I wish to say that I love you even when I hate you and you are the only sane thing in my life, which is almost an oxymoron because you are insane. To my first girlfriend in college I wish to say that your crazy ideas make you the most unstable and dangerous person to be around. Yet, I would prefer being demolished to the ground rather than not being around you and your infectious smile. To the girlfriend with whom every moment is a karaoke I want to say that if fate permits I would love to sing with you every single day and be there for you whenever you need me (peace ho, all in good humor) so that you can also make sure that I don’t stray from the right path. To the girlfriend who hugs me at least once every single time we meet, I promise you I’ll try my best to keep up this tradition even when I’m old; all we’ll need is for the Universe to make our paths cross again and again. To my Sunday evening girlfriend with whom I entered the world of boy-browsing, I wish to thank you for always being there, ready with an open mind and for saying the perfect things that I needed to hear.

The last paragraph got too long so I’ll just randomly break it here. To the girlfriend who makes me go ROFL even when I’m planning to shed buckets of tears - how do you do that? Teach me so I can be of some service to you when you need me. To the girlfriend who is submerged neck deep in all kinds of worldly theories and who has either a surreal or a zodiacal explanation for every damn thing that happens, I wish I were like you - so passionate, so encouraging, so confused and yet such a believer. To the girlfriend who is a dream-come-true for every orthodox Bengali parent, I wish to say that I’ll never introduce you to my parents, because if I do, then they might disown me and adopt the soft-spoken, good-natured, studious you. But I want to thank you for believing in me even though I have let you down time and again. To the overqualified girlfriend who has a habit of slapping people, I want to say that I feel lucky to even know someone as strong, beautiful, bold and quirky as you. To the girlfriend who I have met for roughly two hundred days during high school and who have played a crucial part in my life ever since, I wish to thank you for staying with me even when you were miles apart in a different state. 

Honestly, I didn’t realize that I had this many girlfriends till I started writing this. To all those girlfriends who have accidentally been left out, I wish to apologize in advance. Also to those girlfriends who have been left out intentionally, it’s just that I’m not sure about how to put my feelings into words and I know you understand. But in general, I’m proud of the company I keep and my girlfriends define my fabulous taste in people.

Enid Blyton: The Bestselling Author Since 1930

As an adult it’s sometimes embarrassing to admit my love for author Enid Blyton. The truth however is that she was the only author I read for a major chunk of my middle school days. She introduced me to the world of fantasy and as a child, her storybooks have pretty much designed my creativity and imagination. Her 118^th birthday was on 11^th August last week and I decided to dedicate my blog post to her.

After reading any random book of The Five Find-outer and Dog series, I felt desperate to live in the British countryside and be friends with native children. I wanted to form my own little team of detectives who would go around solving major crimes. I longed to have a secret meeting place where the door would be opened only after giving the correct password and once inside I would be greeted by the crackling fire, the warm smiles and an assortment of delicious snacks. I’m sure, any girl who has ever read the St. Claire Series or the Naughtiest Girl series, have at some point wanted to live in a boarding school! Yes, Blyton has that effect on children; she made the dull school life away from home look like picnics peppered with birthday celebrations, midnight detours and hanging out in the common rooms. I always wanted to own the “wishing chair” which would take me to faraway places like the Land of Goodies or the Land of Dreams. Personally I wanted to find the Wishing Chair more eagerly than the Faraway Tree in the Enchanted Forest because climbing a tree seemed like a lot of hard work!

Enid Blyton used to write with the pen name Mary Pollock. She was a versatile author who apart from the above mentioned themes wrote about education, natural history and biblical narratives! Her works have been translated into ninety different languages. Children in Britain voted for her making her the most popular children’s author of all time! Sadly though, critics, educationalists and even parents have widely criticized her works deeming them unfit to be read by children. Her books have been banned at quite a few schools and libraries owing to their supposed elitist, sexist, racist and xenophobic nature. She never researched for any of her stories and thus inevitably plagiarized the stories that she read, sometimes her own works too! She claimed that planning the course of action for her books had never worked out for her. She let the stories unfold themselves before her eyes, in their own time and pace. She herself didn’t know what direction her plot will take at any point of time.

In spite of all the charges made against her, Enid Blyton continues to be the most celebrated Children’s author. Reading her works has had a positive impact on our moral compass from a very tender age. She has made us realize that even as children we can work wonders if we are kind and focused on our work. She made us realize that nothing can hold us back from achieving greatness if we put our minds to it and for all these wonderful lessons I salute her.

College Is Just Fine

It occurred to me that although I’ve been writing for quite a while now and going around shoving my opinion down everyone’s throat, I really haven’t written about myself in a while. With the pre-placement training going on in my college since the past week, I’ve been asked one question quite a few times already: “Tell me about you” and so here I am writing about myself, and honestly my college has made me who I am today. So there's no way I brag about myself without talking about my college.

I am a fourth year undergraduate student enrolled in a private engineering college of the state, pursuing my degree in computer science and engineering. My father’s a retired medical representative, my mother is a housewife and my sister is the only girl in the world who I love from the core of my heart even when I hate her. I was born and brought up in Salt Lake and have spent more than two decades in the same neighborhood. In spite of that I have exactly one friend in the whole locality. She lives in the house right in front of mine and she’s beautiful, smart and culturally evolved.  I spent a decade of my school life in my last school and yet made just two friends for life. One of them is the craziest and cutest woman in the whole world and she has always pushed me to enjoy life to the fullest. The other is my best friend, the only person in the whole wide world who understands me inside out and always has my back. College has been more rewarding that way, I’ve made about half a dozen good friends and irrespective of whether we keep up or not, the bonds I share with them are going to be prized possessions forever.

I have to admit, my school days weren’t really great. The time spent with friends was undoubtedly wonderful but a school is meant to be much more than just a place to hang out with peers. College on the other hand has been unbelievably kind. Obviously there are various close-knit groups in college, but there aren’t any cliques. People are judgmental by nature but they are also open-minded and do not outcast you for any reason. My school was polished. It is reputed and is considered among the bests in the city. Yet, it failed in my eyes. My college, on the other hand, is located in the middle of nowhere and looks far from appealing. It doesn't have a canteen. Travelling there is probably an obstacle racer’s worst nightmare. And if it’s the rainy season, then do not even imagine about it! But in spite of that, we all got used to it and now the very thought that it’ll soon be over is eating us up! College gave me a new outlook in life. It made me aware of things that I never I knew I had in me! It helped me find my passion and made me realize my potential. It gave me confidence, attitude and a hundred other reasons to love myself while looking forward to life. It made me who I am now and is a very crucial part of my identity.

My life is at two extremes right now! At home everyone is convinced that I won’t get a job because although I love the college version of me, at home I’m still the timid schoolgirl. On the other hand, my college friends act like I will be the first person to get the job; the reason being my aptitude, verbal and communication skills. The truth however is that I am a seven pointer who has just made a couple of eights! Now that I’ve started thinking about jobs, my brain has again started getting clogged with worry. So I’ll be back next week. Do hit a like or give a +1 if you can relate.