Petals of Life

Many a times, we hear our elders saying, "Don't go against your conscience, 'coz it will land you in trouble". But most of the time, we do actually go against it and end up making a lot of mistakes. And then we say proudly, "I learnt from my mistake". But why make a mistake and learn, when our conscience clearly tells us that it is a mistake already. Being human, we tend to be curious towards what is denied to us. So, when our conscience says, "You shouldn't be doing this", we seldom pay attention and go on to do it anyway. This sometimes results in huge blunders or rarely accidental success. But first lets know, What is CONSCIENCE? It is a set of instinctual principles that is inherent to all sane human beings. Some might call it as MORAL sense and some might acknowledge it as the Speech-of-Soul. Whatever be it, it is an inner voice, which calls out when we are doing something unacceptable and points out a better way.  People s...

Normally, I try my best not to discriminate between genders. But almost every day, I face the discrimination, either to my advantage or to a worrisome disadvantage.  In a country where Boys are assumed to be a more productive offspring than Girls, it is not surprising to face gender discrimination. But still, it surprises me every time I face it, because even for trivial matters, people start discriminating. I was brought up in a liberal household, given freedom from discrimination, until I came to what they deemed as "marriageable age". Roaming out after hours was not allowed, staying at even close friend's place for too long was forbidden, talking with guys outside family wasn't allowed, dressing conservatively was a must and suddenly, being religious and offering pujas for getting a good husband was top priority. And then came the topic of Dowry. To someone as me, who grew up thwarting guys in education, having a bunch of girls as friends who are exce...