Ladybug's field notes

I would start this write up with a mail that I had once written to The Telegraph in response to a column by a certain Ms Singh who ridiculed the idea of tribe groups protecting forests. She compared forest dwellers'claiming the land they have been living-in, with Waqf board claiming Taj Mahal. Laughable as it may seem now, for me, who was then working with the groups that were fighting for the passage of Forest Dweller's bill, it was enough to sit down and write a scathing letter to the editor and my boiling blood (which is colder by 10 years now!) made me make two "personal" comments. I said probably the author's limited exposure to the tribal and forest villages had led her to believe forests can not be protected in presence of human inhabitants living there whereas history shows in India, communities were brought-in, to protect forests (Van Tongiys for example). And I made a reference to her privileged upbringing. The editor of the news paper thankfully omitt...

We grew up in an industrial township. My life has been my field of learning (and unlearning) in that way. My father worked as a laborer in a steel factory. No. He was not an officer. He was a steel factory worker. It would not have been so much fun otherwise. Officers had ground floor bungalows, separated from others' bungalows by boundaries. We grew up with other steel factory workers' children. They were our brothers, sisters, friends, love interest and idols. Imagine a whole world made up of steel factory workers and their families! We   all had the same two room flats known as "quarters". We had two rooms; the "inside room" (bhetorer ghar) and the "outside room" (bairer ghar). The household often poured outside these two rooms. Backyard gardens of the ground floor quarters were used to store coal for fuel. Stairs going to the roof used as shoe-racks for two quarters on the second floor. When I fell in love with the boy next door, I used to...

Apparently all three of them are very different. One is very fashion conscious and likes to match every accessory she carries, the other could not care less. One can not be found dead without her books and the other, well! she could die at the sight of a book till recently. One is fond of ethnic jewelry, the other revels in junk jewelry and  for the third one all jewelry is just that... "junk"! One has too many friends, the other  is very serious about her friendships and for the third, "Friends? ...ummm...will sisters pass off as friends?" But then, all three are passionate human beings. Very emotional. They share a strong bond to their birth place and home town. They love going back to their roots. Perhaps it reminds them that they faced several odds and still emerged victorious. They always win. You can be almost sure, if they are in the field hollering out for each other, its one of them who is going to win it. And if one of them does not actually win,...