Sanctimonious Sanctity of Life

I’ve been following the blog “Brazen Careerist” by Penelope Trunk for some 6 months or more now and she’s a hoot to read. There have been many mornings when her latest post is the foundation for conversations with AB. I don’t agree with everything she says and i seriously hope never to have a crush on my boss (i mean AB is my brother – how icky would that be!) but i do find her mind interesting if abit strange and remarkably courageous for how much of her life she puts out there. I sometimes speak about my personal life and i can honestly say every post is a debate – am i putting too much of myself out there? Will i be judged? Will my audience get my context?

Some might say its too easy for people to put their personal lives out there but i will say its not. When you speak about personal issues its because there is a need – a need to share, to educate, to inform. A recent twitter by Penelope Trunk on having a miscarriage during a board meeting caused a furor. Some highly conservative sections of society thought she was out of line – too blase about what was happening. How dare she not take ‘life’ more seriously!

What those people missed, which was the whole point actually, was that even in this day and age where the judicial and governmental systems have put in place policies where women should have access to options they are being denied the ability to exercise those options. She did an interview on CNN where the point of the ‘abrahamic religions’ was put forward – how could she be happy about having a miscarriage just because now she didn’t need an abortion? Doesn’t she value the sanctity of life? Why is she talking about women’s business in public?

Before she made her tweet and subsequent post I’m ashamed to say even I, a woman, did not know a miscarriage takes up to 3 weeks having mistakenly assumed the expulsion of the foetus was the be all and end all of that. By her having gone public there is now an increased awareness of this and a larger understanding of this phenomenon. I’ have to confess whenever i see the religious conservatives try to put their opinions on life and choice as the ‘go-to’ choice thereby making every other option an aberration i get really angry. As a pro-choice person i do not go up to every pregnant woman and say ‘are you sure you want to remain pregnant and bring a human being you may not be able to care for and nurture to the best of your ability into this world.

So what gives them the right that they can ask you to re-think not wanting to screw up your life, a life well in the process of being lived which is being de-valued with the presence of a life not fully form and nowhere close to being lived. They believe they have the right because in their minds having faith in “GOD” gives them a moral superiority. One of the basics of Christianity seems to escape most Christians “Judge not lest ye be judged”. At the end of the day if you believe in God shouldn’t you believe that what one person does/doesn’t do and believes/disbelieves is ultimately between God and that person or is your belief in God limited to what you can pass judgement on?

I suspect I’ll be asking questions along this vein for most of my life but ask i will. Fight the good fight and enjoy the weekend doing things that make you happy. I’m sure “god” would want us to have a happy life starting with this weekend On a parting note I leave you with a quote from AB: “Abrahamic religions are born out of a fear of vaginas and dark places”. This never fails to crack me up!

Pink Dot

I’m sure images of the Pink Dot gathering at the Speakers Corner will be hitting the press soon and just so everyone knows me and my pink balloon were part of that dot. I’m not a LGBT (not sure but hacking a translation: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and transgender/transsexual) but i support their choice to live their life by their own choices.

I honestly don’t know why conservative folk react so strongly to the topic of LGBTs. Its not like they go from door to door asking you to sign up for their lifestyle as per the modus operandi of certain religious groups who seek to convert others. They do not stand tall and shout that theirs is the only sanctioned way to live – moral, social, philosophical etc the way heterosexual conservatives do – and definitely do not preach you going to hell if you don’t comply with their lifestyle.  I’m sorry but saying that god created a man and woman and gave them the ability to reproduce hence that’s the only acceptable equation does not fly with me.

People often forget that religion evolved to solve a lot of practical issues of the time. Hindus/Punjabis don’t eat beef as a result of the need to retain their food and labour sources..if they went around eating all the cattle how would they get the fields plowed or supplement their vegetarian diets with the much needed proteins from dairy products. Muslims don’t eat pork or touch dogs because they were disease carriers feeding off the carcasses of bodies left to rot during the 100 year war. Muslims and Jews also have procedure in place for the preparation of food as a means of avoiding the consumption of contaminated food which in those times, without the medical advances we have today, would have surely proven fatal.

Now lets look at the issue of procreation from this logic. In those times the earth definitely wasn’t as populated as it is now. Life-spans were much shorter and much more uncertain. Being hit by a bus wasn’t the worst thing they could have thought of in a day. Now if you were faced with population issues especially since , as documented by historians from the dawn of time, it takes a majority or critical mass to gain an edge wouldn’t a new religion or group of people struggling to establish themselves in a region want to ensure the survivability of their numbers? And what better way to ensure that than to pursue an agenda which stated any lifestyle beyond one which could produce offspring is forbidden – an act against god, against societal norms.

Now I’m not about to run out and kiss the first girl who crosses my path or dress like a guy. I want to marry the man who tickles my intellectual and conversational fancy (much more enduring than the love bug) and have children one day. That’s my choice. That choice doesn’t give me the right to deny others the right to make that same choice for themselves if it is not identical to mine. If someone does not like the same cuisine, colour or music as I do it doesn’t drive me to a point of moral outrage so this shouldn’t either.

Its a life – mine, yours, his, hers – and at the end of the day ours to do as we choose. If you feel the right to choose respect the right of others to do the same.

My Genetic Journey

National Geographic has processed my DNA results. Behold my genetic journey as told by my mitochondrial genome.

This does actually make a lot of sense as I’ve been often asked if I were Latino, a Eurasian etc everything but the Indian that has been the dominant ethnicity in the recent genetic past.

The site does go into more detail on the journey and splintering of my ancestors and does make for some fascinating reading. I will urge anyone who’s got an interest to participate in this. Definitely well worth the money spent

A Brief Respite

The sweltering heat has abated some thanks in large part to the rain yesterday. As per my commitment a day of rain = 1 post. At this point I’ll gladly post every day if the rains keep coming. The worst, since my return, has to have been 2 nights ago when the heat seemed a living breathing being pulsing with life from every surface that could possibly retain any small amount of it.

Everyone mentions how the weather is changing constantly and even from year to year the changes in the weather patterns have been marked. I wonder if the end of the ice age felt similar. Speaking of the ice-age I’ve recently sent my DNA in to be typed as part of the National Geographic’s Genographic project. AB, being a subscriber to the magazine, was part of the first batch of data which was processed for free. Since its initial launch, this is a 5 year research project to analyze genetic data from participants all over the world, the cost of participation has significantly dropped. Members of the public can purchase their kit, collect the DNA sample, and mail it off to the research laboratory for their analysis. These kits can be purchsed from the National Geographic store at Vivocity for about $100+ (i can’t seem to recall the exact amount I paid for my kit).

Here’s a peak into the kit:

and the DNA collection swabs:

In each kit there are detailed instructions on how to go about getting the DNA sample as well and honestly its not rocket science to give the inside of your cheek a good scrape.

If you’re interested in knowing where your ancestry draws from – I’m personally looking forward to my indian-chinese-?? hodgepodge – then wait no more and get your own kit.

Have a good, and fingers crossed, cool week!

"???"

I sat here trying to think of what I could possibly title a post about the terrible happenings in Mumbai last week. The sheer senseless loss of lives, destruction of property, the youthful young men who had their whole lives ahead of them choosing to go into a situation armed to the teeth to meet their own deaths and bring as many with them as they could…its beyond my comprehension hence the title as it is.

There’s much being made of the fact that its another act of violence against innocent civilians by Muslim extremists which puts Islam in a bad light once again. I have nothing against Islam. As someone who believes in the concept of God I do have a certain amount of respect for all religions and more than that I respect someone’s choice of what they want to believe in. What does bother me is the extremist fanatical attitude that’s prevalent in all religions..the “you can’t question the word of God” approach. I have questions. A lot of them.

I question the dogma that is pounded into young minds that tells them their faith is above all others. I question the religious leaders who claim to be experts and yet do not stand for their expertise being probed and obvious loopholes in the theories being scrutinised. I question how they can justify murder when the sanctity of life is the cornerstone of every religion. I question the basic interpretations put on the “words of God”. By their very nature words are open to a wealth of meaning..hence their place as our primary communication tool. What is the benchmark for being an expert on the word of God? Being able to quote scripture and choosing the meaning to uphold your beliefs and your beliefs alone? 

I question how women can be subjugated and seen as second class when they are the ones responsible for nurturing our lives as mothers. I question how they can turn the innocence of youth into the flat, cold eyes of the young people who devalue the lives of others. Most of all I question the thrall of the followers who do not seem to find the voice to say this is not the only interpretation of the teachings of God, this is not humanity, and most of all this is not ok with me as a human being.

These thoughts float about in my conscious and were brought to the fore by an article AB had forwarded me by Thomas L. Friedman, “Calling All Pakistanis”. This article specifically references the Mumbai attacks of 26th November but is a question that needs to be raised of not just the Muslims but people everywhere. Every religion carries in it the seeds of extremism. Where do we cross the line of identifying ourselves as human beings first into our religious divide or cultural identities? Why does it become easy to say ‘I am of religion A and the bugger from religion B is trying to be a punk so lets squash them all’. Now this is perhaps trivializing the feelings of some and in the heat of the moment its easy for lines to be blurred.

I am more of a spiritual rather than religious type. I find the organized doctrine of religion confining and I am not able to say this is the word of god so I’m just going to accept it no questions asked. I am also too much a believer in choice and the respecting of the choices of others even if its not what I would choose for myself.

There’s an incident I’ll share with you which has happened with me personally. Many years ago the first lesbian/gay books were being introduced into the Canadian elementary system. I lived in Vancouver at the time and many religious groups opposed the addition of those books into the system. The basic premise of the opposition was that it went against God to be Gay and to teach our children to be accepting of such a difference was intolerable as it went directly against the word of God. Petitions were drafted and signed at various religious institutions.

I went to the gurdwara(sikh temple) on one such evening as I was prone to do at that time and was asked to sign the petition. The man encouraging me to do so was elderly with all the obvious trademarks of being a ‘true’ sikh, turban, beard and all. He explained that this went against the teaching of our gurus and we had to stop it. I looked at him and said “No”. He was visibly shocked. I went on to say that I didn’t see anything wrong with children being taught to understand that we are all different and to accept each other for our differences. He thought I was a “wild, westernised, probably on drugs” girl and I thought he was an “uptight, anal extremist”. It takes a voice.

Alas my voice has failed me as well. I had a similar conversation with an acquaintance who felt much as the man did. This time I said nothing. This was an acquaintance, someone who I had viewed to have some similar background and foundation as I did.

In my eyes this makes me as guilty as the young men who shot the innocent tourists and staff at various places in Mumbai and indeed around the world  wherever terror in the name of religion has raised its ugly head. Its not enough to have a voice unless you use it. Unless you use it in every occasion where such issues which go against your moral grain arise because every silent acceptance is another layer in joining the thralled masses who may privately condemn such acts but will publically condone it.

The only way for this to stop is for the world to say this is not ok and most especially for the people of the same faith, the faith that’s being raised as the flag for such action, to say this is not ok. That it is never ok.

16-August-2008

Today Madonna turned 50. Elvis has left the building for some 31years. A smattering of entertainment personalities from both woods also share this date to mark their entries into this world. For me…well…it marks my birth too and today I’ve entered a new decade.

Khayne & I – the 30-yr old birthday babies!

Leading up to my birthday I was morose. Earlier in the week I had scalded 2 knuckles on my left hand which gave me bad burns. My ear (left again!) was having major problems and I was struggling with accepting the fact that my grandmother, the grand dame of my life, is fighting for her own life and this may very well be the last birthday I share with her. Selfish and self-pitying. For the first time I wasn’t looking forward to my birthday and was truly thinking that its begun to be just another day for me.

A little switch flipped for me yesterday morning though. My sister went all out to make my birthday the best she could. A dear friend of mine put in his efforts to banish my blues. AB, brother of my heart, and I did our usual birthday routine and since this year my birthday coincided with Raksha Bandhan, the festival that celebrates the brother-sister relationship, I was loaded down with presents

Presents and feel good things aside I spent my birthday comfortable in my skin. Last year I had themed my birthday as the Tai-tai (rich lady) birthday and brought out my pearls. This year I wore what I was most comfortable in and to me that’s because this year I’m completely comfortable in my skin. I joked about this to AB but I’m serious about it…I am not going to worry about my outer skin this decade. I wasted enough time on that in my 20s. I am confident that I’m a lovely person on the inside..and most importantly I’m intelligent and have a wicked sense of humour which leaves a vibrant and lasting impact.

As for my grandmother … I was incredibly blessed to be able to spend much of my day with her today. It didn’t matter to me that alot of that time was spent either at the doctors or with her napping because the trip to the doctors took alot out of her. She is much diminished in energy but for a moment when we were sitting and talking and I was being my usual cheeky self with her…she smiled the smile that brought out the grandmother who’s always been there for me and that was the best present I could have gotten today.

I wish for myself in this decade to be careful about what I want…to want discriminately because I know I can achieve anything I set my mind to. I wish for the wisdom to appreciate the many wonderful people and things I have in my life for the time I have them and not obsess about what I cannot control.

To an interesting year ahead and the start of an exciting decade…

Mice and men

Nope not a literary post but another activity that has been taking up my precious weekend hours. We have some festivities coming up in my family and to mark the occasion I was commissioned to outfit these 2 little ones

Anyone who has ever made attempted to make their barbie dolls additional outfits will know this is not easy at all. This somehow ended up a collaborative family effort, most especially between my mom and I, and we had loads of fun and many laughs. The moral of this story: spend time with your family doing things which build bridges between you and not walls.

I would have scoffed at this even a year ago should it have been told to me..until I tried it. I hope those of you who haven’t been doing this try it too.

If you can’t avoid it…enjoy it

So as much as I wish I could mature without actually aging its just not going to happen. AB has a saying which I can’t repeat verbatim but its along the lines of if you can’t avoid an occurrence you should quit stressing and sit back to enjoy it.

The previously dreaded 3-0 is now 25 days away. On the precipice there’s been a thought: How do I celebrate a decade which has brought about so many changes in me..so much so that the person who started off this decade is some 75% different from the person ending it?

Thinking along those lines was not getting me an answer so I decided to shift my focus. I truly think I would not be the person I am without those early experiences to find out what fits me best now. Hence this year for the 10 days before my birthday I am going to do 10 things which marked my early 20s for me, e.g. my adventurure seeking side which bungee jumped, went snow-boarding etc.

I had a lovely dinner and brainstorming session with a good friend on Friday and we settled on 4 of those items…now I just have to figure out the remaining 6..and as I type this post number 5 has just come to me. I will probably catalogue some of these 10 things but some may be just a little too private to share..but stay tuned.

As I spend Monday in recovery mode at home and realise how much more fun work is I hope everyone has a good week

3.0

Its some 60 days till I hit the big 3-0 and this third decade of my life has been an extremely exciting one. I’ve come into my own in many ways and am still amazed by the many new insights I continually gain into the person whom I have become. Lately what’s caught my fascination are these question:

1. What is my dream, my personal legend, my desire/driving force?
2. The differences within my inner self from my teens, through my early twenties, to the brink of 30.

The first question was prompted by my reading “The Alchemist”. It was a good read and the most important thing I took away from it is the importance to realise your dream, or your personal legend as the book refers to it. The idea essentially refers to having a driving desire to fulfil the one dream that we know will make us complete. Many of us can remember with clarity our childhood dreams but having a dream in your late teens or even twenties? I lost my dreams somewhere along the way. Life intruded, limitations were either self or societally imposed, and compromises were made. My life has still turned out to be a good one and I’m happy but I do feel a restlessness within my soul from time to time which I sometimes write about here on this blog. I’ve always thought introspection would be the cure for it…perhaps its my inner voice, one I stopped listening to a long time ago, reminding me of a greater destiny for me to fulfil. I’m not sure but I like the idea of finding my dream..re-awakening that voice.

I spoke of this to AB as I do loads of things trivial and heavy. His “dream” is his intensity and obsession with so many things that he doesn’t have enough time in each day and perhaps maybe his lifetime to quench his thirst for it all. That’s a theory I like because I’m fascinated by many things as well..not as many and as bizarre as AB..I mean seriously when he starts on quantum physics its all I can do to keep my attention in place so that I can respond semi-intelligently .. LOL! Back to the point..in an age where we have so many options and choices perhaps we are meant for more than one dream. Its the intensity with which we pursue our dreams that should matter.

When I was in primary school I wanted to be an air stewardess or a teacher. As I grew older I realized my parents weren’t going to go for the stewardess thing so teaching stayed..until I actually was at the decisive point. I realized my passion was to have an audience and the only forum I knew where that could be realised and accepted by my parents was a classroom. Fast-forward to today..I’m not a teacher but my lovely and patient friends provide me with many opportunities to sparkle in the limelight. Will I take it to a bigger stage…maybe. I’m still deciding. In my early twenties I wanted to be Asia’s answer to Martha Stewart. I loved and still love many different crafts and making things with my own hands and imagination. That ties back to the attention seeking part of me too. Another option to ponder

I’m not holding myself hostage to a timeline to figure this out. I did set a timeline for myself at my birthday last year and the exact goal I set will probably not be realised but the important lesson I learned along the way was to experiment and open myself to the possibilities. Instead of the goal I set out to achieve I’ve accomplished a different milestone. One I never even dared dream about and I’m just as thrilled if not more..just in a different way. So the point to consider in the forward journey…explore, be adventurous and take a big bite out of life and savour every morsel

As to how am I a different person – let me take a page out of Cosmo and do a “hot and not” type of comparison based on my 20 versus 30.

Hot	20	30
Colours	Blue – All shades	Jewel tones in reds and greens. I still have a wardrobe dominated by black though
Style	California “blonde” – attention grabbing and figure hugging clothes	Bohemian – Comfort and making a statement about my mood for the day and not my bust size
Men : Looks	Hrithik Roshan – his first movie Kaho na pyar hai was released the summer before my 20th birthday	K.K. Menon – a character actor who has an intensity that fires his eyes and even in the role of a villain in the first movie of his I ever watched I was mesmerised. His many different roles and interviews have me lusting after his very sexy mind and intensity. Also tied for this position is Shah Rukh Khan whose intelligent and quick depreciating wit makes me think he’s a far sexier individual than any of the roles he has ever played. A flawed, honest and very intensely driven man. I sense a new theme
Men: Personality	Tall Bad Boys (anyone who knows me well is rolling off their chairs laughing in agreement with this one!)	Intelligence, ability to make great conversation, imagination to go beyond his own experiences and judge my opinions outside of his comfort zone. A sensible, mature man.
Music	Hip-hop and rap with lots of swearing. Something to listen to really loud so that when I stopped at a light heads would turn to see where the music was coming from.	Still have hip-hop and rap in there. Lots of Hindi and Punjabi music and some ghazals even thrown in there. Who knew?
Food	Meat, meat, meat	Meat, veg, meat, veg, meat … a balanced diet whilst giving my stomach a vegetarian break half the week. Given up seafood and slowly trying to phase out other meats..its really s-l-o-w going. Chilllies in everything and buckets and buckets of it.
Hair	I lived most of my 20s blonde..the blonder the better	A much darker and more natural shade of brown/black/some burgundy thrown in.
Books	Discounting the reading requirements of my courses it was fashion magazines and romance novels	All over the map. Award winning fiction, non-fiction, chick lit, loads of blogs which are fed directly to my RSS reader … and enjoying it evolving with every book.
My motto	Everything now!	Enjoy the phase I am in and explore its options.

I’m not one given to regrets and what I’m about to express isn’t strictly a regret either. As a teenager I didn’t think enough of myself. As a young adult I focused more on the outside than the inside. Now as I realise there’s so much more to me than I thought – the limitless potential I thought confined to my developing years is still within me and now I have the wisdom and insight to make the most of it. So my “regret” … I wish I had taken myself more seriously when i was younger. I would have conquered so much more of the world

Here’s to each dawning day and the sheer possibilities it brings with it!

Manhunt anyone?

Well its been an interesting few days on our tiny island. Our home-grown JI terrorist cell leader had escaped from the detention centre where he was being held and is still at large. Early efforts were focused around the Stevens Rd exit off the PIE and have slowly made their way toward the causeway.

As of this evening the efforts have been focused a short 3 min walk from my home. The nations security forces have 4 buses worth of officers here and what seems to be the canine unit as well as seen from our lofty heights (we live on the topmost floor of a moderate height block of apartments that sits on elevated ground!).

Conspiracy theorists have been having a time of it though and one entertaining conversation I chanced to overhear as I was getting my foot reflexology done was that the escape of Mas Selamat was an attempt by the government to divert the focus away from the budget.

I might have given that theory some credence if I actually believed Singaporeans knew what the budget proposed beyond the cuts to personal income tax and the growth dividend bonus they’ll be eligible for. Other conversations I overhead voiced what bordered on indignation that the terrorist was short (only 1.55m tall) as though to say either terrorist are much taller and intimidating folk or its unbelieveable that such a short man could be capable of terror.

I have 3 things to say to these folk: Napoleon, Alexander the Great and Hitler

Interesting start to the week though….a good week too all!