Quarter-life is the new Mid-life

"Who am I?" "What have I achieved?" "Is life meaningful?" "What have I got to live for?" The typical menopausal-andropausal questions are no longer the exclusive preserve of the 45+. Gen next is ridden with this nature of angst in its twenties. Yes, quarter-life is the new mid-life. And I am surrounded by sufferers! What on earth is driving them there so soon? Any guesses anyone?

Because I care

As part of a team creating a series of self-help books on various topics for children in the eight to twelve age group I had an experience that is imprinted in memory forever. I’d written a book on child sexual abuse by relatives – a fictional story about a little girl who had suffered sexual abuse at the hands of her maternal uncle. It was being tested with a group of twenty girls in Karnataka. The facilitator read out the story. There was pin drop silence in the room. The story concluded and suddenly on of the girls burst into tears and then another. Slowly they began to speak of their own experiences with sexual abuse and how they had been able to tell no one about it all these years. What echoed most resoundingly was the plea: “Please help us. We have no one to turn to.”

Back in Mumbai, when I shared this heart-rending experience with my college going daughter, her response was equally wrenching. “Ma,” she said, “this kind of abuse is everywhere. I have a friend who was abused regularly for four years by a caretaker. She’s so distraught I feel terrible. The abuse stopped many years ago, but she hasn’t got over it. It haunts her every day. She feels very helpless. And there are many cases like this.”

Statistics on recent sexual abuse cases against children tell a horrifying tale. A 1999 World Health Organization report stated that 1 in 10 children is sexually abused. But Lois J. Engelbrecht, a researcher working on the problems of child sexual abuse, quotes studies showing that over 50 per cent of children in India are sexually abused, a rate that is higher than in any other country. Huma Khan of the Kanpur-based Centre for the Study of Human Rights terms child sexual abuse as one of the least documented violations. But studies made across India, documented in Grace Poore's resource book The Children We Sacrifice show the wide prevalence of the problem.

A survey with 350 schoolgirls in New Delhi by Sakshi (an NGO) in 1997, showed that 63% had experienced sexual abuse by family members; 25% of the girls had either been raped, made to masturbate the perpetrator or perform oral sex. Another 1997 study on middle and upper class women from Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi and Goa by the NGO, RAHI revealed that 76% of respondents had been sexually abused as children, with 71% been abused either by relatives or by someone they knew and trusted.

Samvada's 1996 study on students in Bangalore stated that 47% of the respondents had been sexually abused with 62% having been raped once and 38% having been repeatedly violated.

Tulir-CPHCSA`s study in 2006,conducted among 2211 school going children in Chennai, indicates a prevalence rate of 42%. Children of all socio-economic groups were found equally vulnerable. While 48% of boys reported abuse the prevalence rate among girls was 39%.

Yes. It is a reality that sexual abuse of kids is rampant. As adults, we need to be acutely aware of the fact that any child we know is vulnerable to sexual abuse. As it is not always possible for us to ensure a child's safety, it is critical that we teach children how to protect themselves.

Struggle ends

Today I grasped the difference between overcoming and transcending. What a critical difference it is!

People who find life full of struggles tend to become "overcoming" specialists; warriors against obstacles and impediments so to speak. I kind of always put myself in this category without being aware of the fact. And I have used it as a weapon even when it came to impediments and obstacles within myself, internal to me...with very little success.

Then today a penny dropped. I was reading Osho's Secrets of Yoga where he says, "Overcoming is a repression: it is a conquering over. You fight, you force it down, you jump on the chest of it and you sit there, you wrestle with it; then it is overcoming. But it is always there and you are caught in a trap; now you cannot leave it because the moment you get off, it will get up. Overcoming is not the same as transcending...Overcoming comes through struggle. Transcending comes through understanding."

The passage spoke to me. Almost as if it was written just for me. It shed instant and blinding light on several areas of and incidents in my life.

I will try now not to overcome. Perhaps I might then transcend.

Finale

Death.

Ultimate. Embrace.

Holding. Tending. Mending.

Forever more.

Slumber.

Roje ki baat

Wet and weary night. Slightly frustrating auto ride looking for an address I can't find. The auto driver, a 50 something north Indian, hard of hearing can barely follow my instructions. Finally, after some texting and calling, I manage to obtain detailed directions. Relief. My mind turns to other important things -- like buying something for my hosts; a task I have left, as always, to the very last moment!@#$%^&!

I spot a wayside flower shop. Eureka. "Rokiye, rokiye" I shout practically into my auto driver's ear. He, somewhat reluctantly, halts the vehicle. In deference to my leg in plaster and crutches, the young boy manning the flower shop comes up to me. A couple of quick questions, some nifty bargaining in Bengali (I cannily latch on to the boy's accent) and he returns to make my bouquet. A moment passes and then the auto driver turns to me, points to a bunch of vivid purple orchids in the shop display and asks, "Madam, woh roje hai kya?" "Nahi, usko orchid boltey hain," I reply, not surprised that he doesn't recognise a videsi phool. Right then comes his googly, "Phir roje kaunsa hai, Madam? Humney kabhi deykha nahi."

Now my eyes pop! I'm trying to figure if this guy really means what he's saying. Realise he is for real. So I point out a bucketful of red roses to him. The guy steps out of his auto, walks up to the shop, picks a rose and actually buries his nose in it. Then he walks right back. My bouquet is ready. I pay. The auto driver revs up the engine, and before shooting off Schumi style, turns to me and grins, "Pehli baar roje sunkhaa Madam. Bahot khoobsurat hai."

Surviving life

Reviving my dying blog so thought it appropriate to begin with a post on survival :). Read this interesting blog on survivalism and learnt a few things. Here's an extract that kind of blew my mind, especially as it connected with something I've experienced myself, the day Mumbai drowned:

"survivalist knowledge and skills can vastly magnify your chances of surviving a major disaster up to and including nuclear war or worse, while also increasing your chances of being able to save dozens or even hundreds of lives of others in such a scenario. . Even straightforward knowledge like the fact that millions of gallons of water could be recovered from underground water pipes in undulating terrain even in a grid-down scenario by opening fire hydrants at the lowest available altitude could save hundreds of lives in a disaster. During the exodus from Hurricane Katrina, thousands of thirsty people walked right by fire hydrants. There are many thousands of similar examples of people suffering due to lacking simple knowledge as soon as they are transplanted outside of their zone of familiarity."

If you'd like to read the rest you can find at

: http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/ 

 

Gandhi on Piccadilly and building a brand

Gandhi on Piccadilly and building a brand

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