Satyameva Jayate - Episode 2 & 3

My Sunday evening time slot has been taken up by Satyameva Jayate for the last few weeks. The effort Aamir and his crew has put behind every episode is commendable.

Episode 2 focused on Child sex abuse, It was shocking to see the stats and how the people whom the parents trust turn into monsters. Hope this episode not only empowers the parents and the child to prevent and stand up against child abuse but also instigates the guilty feeling among the abusers.

Apart from child sex abuse from my perspective there is one another abuse that today's children in India undergo, "mental abuse". I was recently watching "Dance India Dance - Little Masters", it was great to see the world class performance of 8 year old kids. However what goes through the minds of the thousands of children who failed to qualify and the millions of children who didn't make it even to the qualifiers.The expectations from the parents today are through the roof, they want their child to be a topper in studies, a top performer in dancing, singing and a top performer in sports.

 One of my friends nephew who is a 10 year old kid has a 16 hour schedule every day, starting with early morning yoga classes, then school and after school he has to go for chess coaching/tennis coaching classes,then dancing classes and finally studies and homework. If he comes second in any of the activities he has to hear an earful from his parents. I am not a parent so i would not want to comment on parenting but  i think every child deserves a good childhood with great memories and a lot of self confidence for the rest of their life. Fortunately i had a great childhood but seeing the kids at DID -Little Masters i still feel my parents should have sent me to some dance classes.

Let the children follow their heart  

On a lighter note, one my colleagues from a non english speaking country spoke in the meeting telling "The Paedophile is not coming". Every one in the meeting was shocked, then another guy jumped in to explain that this guy meant "PDF file" not "Paedophile".

Episode 3 was on marriage becoming a business, the way this sensitive topic was approached was very good. There has been a lot of discussions, debates, articles on dowry hence this topic didn't struck with the same intensity as the previous two. However, it was nice of way of put it forward i don't think anywhere the word "dowry" was mentioned. I totally agree that today marriage has become a business and a show off. Why do you want to invite so many people who never even thought about you until the day of your marriage and would not think about you the day after your marriage? I personally think the western method of marriage makes more sense where you only invite people who really care about you making it a simple affair.One of my colleagues got married with only 5 people one priest and 3 of his children and a photographer.

"If you were absent during my struggle, don't expect you to be present during my success - Will Smith"

I have felt this during my sister's marriage, i still don't know how i controlled my anger during those couple of days. These are people whom i have never met in my life, who were upset for stupid expectations and these are not only from the groom's side but also relatives from our side. These included outbursts for the fact we didn't personally ask them to go and have breakfast, the food didn't have a potato curry, there were 3 sweets, the invite was sent through post which was insulting. Come on folks grow up at some stage, this was an important occasion for my family and they expect me to take care of their stupid expectations. I thought of announcing in the loudspeaker when the lunch was ready but didn't want to make it a scene so went to each of them and personally invited them to have lunch. My friends noticed my stress and jumped in and started helping me out of that mess.Why would someone want to invite such people and ruin one of the best occasions of their life?

Should the volume of Gold really define the happiness the marriage?
Gold Smelting @ Ballarat gold mines

On the subject of money in marriage, i don't think you can start a good relationship on top of a debt. i also think it is all based on your upbringing and a the main culprit is  the groom doesn't have the guts. My role model in this case has been my dad, my mom used to always tell us how my dad said no to any dowry when he knew his parents had asked for without his knowledge. I still remember my my grandparents brought us a "VCP (Video Cassette Player") from their Singapore trip from along with a lot of other gifts, my dad silently packed it in a bag and placed it in among their luggages and told them when the train started moving. My granddad was furious he said we think you as one of our son but it looks like you dont think the same but my dad wasn't the one who would go by emotions. On our way back i asked my dad why he did that because we had to rent VCP every month to watch movies, he said "Money and luxury is not everything in life, you should never get used to living at other's expense. The feeling you get when you buy something with the money you have earned is priceless. The day you start living on other's expense, you stop living you merely exist in this planet".

Looking forward for another touching episode of "Satyameva Jayate" this weekend.