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Dated : Saturday, September 01, 2012 |
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A walk in the clouds and glimpses of reality in Meghalaya
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Their destination was Cherrapunji or Sohra, as it is now called. But as they made their way to what was once described as the wettest place in the world, they stopped at a remote anganwadi centre where they were greeted by the sight of bawling children, who mistook them for the doctors who periodically visited for immunization; they went to a Khasi village where nearly 200 families are engaged in creating beautifully carved bows and arrows for archery, a sport that is larger than football and cricket in the Northeastern State of Meghalaya. In this excerpt Syeda Hameed and Gunjan Veda share the “pure magic” they experienced as they traversed long distances in the pristine Khasi hills
The next day, we headed to Cherrapunji, which we knew from school days as the wettest place in the world. Nothing ever dries here; ‘dampness,’ to misquote Shakespeare, ‘is all.’ On the way, we stopped at an anganwadi in the village of Mylliem. The centre was built next to a school. It had a neat toilet and a few swings. As soon as we entered, to our great embarrassment, all the children started crying. We were shocked. ‘What happened?’ we asked the young ICDS worker who was trying very hard to quieten a three-year-old boy. She gave us an embarrassed smile, picked up the child whose nose had started running, and took him out. Meanwhile, her helper took a few other children outside but the collective crying only got louder and hoarser.
‘Will someone tell us what is happening? What have they done to the kids?’ We said to the accompanying officials in a whisper, afraid of scaring the children any further.
‘They are afraid of strangers,’ an official explained.
‘We have visited anganwadi centres in every state. Never before did the kids start crying like this.’
By now, the young woman had come back after herding the kids outside. ‘Just a couple of days ago, we have an immunization drive. When the children saw you come in, they were afraid of being poked,’ she said simply. ‘Just look outside.’ We looked out of the window, the children were indeed laughing and playing on the swings. It was a happy sight. …
Our next destination was the village of Nongkynrih. This place is known all over the State for its beautifully carved bows and arrows. We had heard that it wasn’t football or cricket that caught the imagination of the Khasi; their favourite sport is still archery. In fact, Rong Biria, as the game is known, is also a religious tradition. When a person dies, arrows are shot in three directions. According to Khasi lore, Eve (Ka-mei-ka-nong-hukum) gave birth to two sons. She taught them to shoot arrows but warned them against fighting over the game. Since then, the hills and valleys of the area have echoed with the twang of bows. Between January and May, in many Khasi villages, weekly competitions are held where men – young and old – line up to display their shooting skills. The bows and arrows for this sport are made in this village – Nongkynrih – where we stood on a crisp August morning.
Climbing the rickety flight of wooden stairs, we entered a home where bows and arrows were being made. Feathers were scattered everywhere. An elderly man was busy slicing bamboo shafts. He got up to greet and talk to us about his work. ‘There are 200 families here that make bows and arrows. We buy vulture and eagle feathers from hunters, it costs as much as Rs 1,200 for a pair of wings from which we can get 200 arrows. The women make the arrows and the men, the bamboo shafts,’ he said. His hands continued to slice the bamboo deftly. ‘My family manages to make one hundred arrows and seven bows in a week. Each arrow sells for Rs 15 and a bow for Rs 60; our weekly income is Rs 1,400.’ As he spoke and sliced, his wife cleaned the feathers and glued them onto the arrows. By the time we left the house, our hair and shawl had tiny black-and-white flecks of feather. …
It was pure magic; on one side of the road was a lush green growth, on the other billowing powder-white clouds. The road ahead was invisible. This journey into the unknown was nothing short of mystical. As we turned back to look, we noticed that even our tyre marks had disappeared. We were moving from nothing to nothing.
Finally, we reached Cherrapunji or Sohra, as it is now called. Besides its rainfall, this town is famous for its limestone caves and orange honey. Here we learnt that though 90 per cent of the tourist traffic to Meghalaya visits Cherra, it hardly benefits the local economy. …
Traversing large distances on foot and carrying heavy loads is a necessity here and the Khasi have perfected the skill. The villagers told us that they do not enjoy living under such difficult circumstances but are unable to shift to more accessible places as local durbars do not give them land or allow them in. in Meghalaya, most property is community owned and so the writ of the durbar runs everywhere. Ironically, while the Khasi are matrilineal, their traditional institutions like the durbar still do not include women.
As we were getting back into the car, an elderly Khasi woman stopped us. ‘The weather is clearing. Look there,’ she pointed towards mountains in a distance. ‘That is Bangladesh. Our limestone and boulders go there over a conveyor belt. They have set up a big cement factory that side, but what about us?’ She was talking about the $255 million Lafarge Surma cement factory that had been started in Chattak in Bangladesh. At the time of our visit, large amounts of limestone were being transported to the plant from a mine near the village of Nongtrai in the Khasi hills across a seventeen-km-long conveyor belt. However, in early 2007, the Ministry of Environment & Forests put a ban on this in wake of the environmental degradation and damage to surrounding forests. Later, the Supreme Court allowed operations by the company, but NGOs and local bodies continue to demand the ban. It is a tough decision to take, for the factory has provided livelihood to many in Bangladesh. For the people of Meghalaya, however, it has brought nothing.
( Women’s Feature Service) |
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Workouts you can do at your desk
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Is there a way to give your body a little exercise without causing much disruption to your work life? All that you are going to need is a sturdy desk and a stable chair.
It may not be surprising that the nemesis for the health of most people is their office chair, which confines them for the better part of the day.
The quotidian lifestyle of today does not leave much time to devote towards the fitness of the body. The fast food and long hours further add up to exacerbation of the body. So, what if there was some way to give your body a little exercise without causing much disruption to your work life? All that you are going to need is a sturdy desk and a stable chair.Following are the ways one may exercise and stretch at one’s desk.
1. Stretch
Stretching is one of the most basic and effective workouts that can pump new life into your muscles. Start by flexing your neck sideways and then continue by rolling your shoulders fifteen times forward and then backwards. You can also roll your wrists clockwise and then counterclockwise. To stretch your chest, intertwine your fingers behind your back with your palm facing inwards. Now bring your shoulder blades together by stretching and raising your hands with the fingers intertwined. Hold this position for a few seconds.
2. Squats
You can do a variety of squats while sitting at your desk. While sitting, stretch out your arms while keeping them on a shoulder level and lift up your hips until they are just a few inches apart from the chair. Hold this position for a few seconds and repeat at least ten times.
3. Football foot drill
To execute the football foot drill all you need to do is tap your feet rapidly for a minute while remaining seated. You can also pair this drill with hand raises, which can be done by simply raising your hand up in a pumping motion as if you are trying to lift the roof.
4. Chair Push-ups
Start by sitting in an upright position and placing your hands on the arm rest or the seat pad. Now lift up your body with your hands so that your feet do not touch the ground. Repeat this several times at regular intervals.
5. Accessorize
You can use a variety of simple things like water bottle, rubber band, stability ball etc. to accentuate your workout. Stretching out your hands with the help of a rubber band helps to make your workout a bit more challenging. You can also use a large water bottle as a dumbbell as an aid in your workouts.
These simple workouts would not make you the athlete you always aspired to be, but nevertheless they can help you eliminate the fatigue and stress from your lifestyle. There are numerous syndromes and disorders one may acquire from a sedentary lifestyle. Simple desk workouts are not just invigorating for the body but they are pretty fun too. (Agencies) |
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The Olympic moment for Indian women sportspersons
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Follow the line of time and you will arrive at a continent marked change
When the first Olympics were held in 1890, its founder, Pierrre de Coubertin believed the primary role of women should be to crown the victors, not take part in the games themselves. One century and two decades later, the London Olympics saw the highest number of women competing in the Olympics – and they competed in all the 26 sports that were showcased this time. Women constituted almost the number of participants for the first time in Olympic history – considerably greater than the 42 per cent representation achieved at Beijing in 2008. There were other notable developments this time too, like the US including more women and men in its team, and Saudi Arabia breaking its own unstated taboo of not sending women as participants – although commentators have remarked that this was only because of the threat of being banned by the International Olympics Committee, rather than any structural change in gender relations in that country.
So where does India figure on the line of time? India has the distinction of being the first country in Asia to send women to the Olympics: Four women athletes were part of the national squad at the Helsinki 1952 Olympics, which lingers in national memory not because of their participation but the fact that India won its fifth consecutive gold for hockey in those Games. It took another 32 years for an Indian woman to reach the Olympic finals, with PT Usha missing the bronze by a whisker in the 400 m hurdles in 1984. Finally, 16 years later, Karnam Malleswari became the first Indian woman to actually land a medal – a bronze in the 69 kg weightlifting segment in Sydney 2000. Today, 12 years on, in London, we have two Indian women – Saina Nehwal and Mary Kom – winning bronzes.
The 30th edition of the Games proved particularly special for India in terms of gender participation. Comprising just a fourth of the squad, women accounted for a third of the medals the country won, thanks to the great victories notched by Saina Nehwal and Mary Kom. And even those women who didn’t come home with the coveted metal disks had extraordinary achievements to their name. There was Tintu Luka, daughter of a mason, running shoulder to shoulder with the big guns of the world. Floods had forced her mother and sister to leave their home in the village of Valamthode-Karikottakari, near Kannur, Kerala. They had to watch her run on television while in a relief camp. Or take Geeta Phogat coming from Haryana, the State with the most unequal sex ratio in the country, and making it to the freestyle wrestling finals in the 55 kg category. Krishna Poonia joined the select band of six Indians who have made it to the final Olympic round in the track and field events – the third woman, after PT Usha and Anju Bobby George, to have done so.
All the media superlatives that were showered like confetti on Nehwal and Kom - including an ad for a brand of butter that had the legend “Hum kisise Kom nahi” - could not capture their most notable achievement: To succeed in an arena where there are no expectations of sportswomen. It was only after they have hung on long enough in a scenario that was far from encouraging, if not downright obstructive, did they catch the eye of the authorities and coaches prepared to take them to the next level.
There are many young women in India who had tried to hang on like them but have fallen by the wayside for various reasons, whether it is institutionalized gender bias, sexual harassment, notions of family honour or just plain apathy. When Sania Mirza complained that she is being used as a bait to get Leander Paes to play in the Olympics after his standoff with Mahesh Bhupathi, she was making a tangential reference to the structured gender biases that marks sports administration in the country. Jwala Gutta, badminton champion, has remarked that gender discrimination is one of Indian sports worst kept secrets. When it comes to sexual assault that sportswomen have faced, there are innumerable examples that can be cited, but who can forget Chandigarh’s bright faced Ruchika Girhotra, a budding tennis star? Her complaint of being sexually molested by the head of the Haryana Lawn Tennis Association, Shambhu Pratap Singh Rathore, led to systematic and unrelenting harassment meted out to both the teenager and her family, which finally led to her committing suicide.
Sports is all about the body, which is what makes sportswomen particularly vulnerable to sexual harassment. Fighting back is tough, given the socialisation that marks female as the inferior gender very early in women’s lives. That is why British woman clean-and-jerk weightlifter Zoe Smith, delighted so many – and not just those watching her lift weights. When bombarded with sexist comments on her Twitter account, calling her unattractive and muscular, she hit back with this blog:
“We don’t lift weights in order to look hot, especially for the likes of men like that. What makes them think that we even want them to find us attractive? If you do, thanks very much, we’re flattered. But if you don’t, why do you really need to voice this opinion in the first place, and what makes you think we actually give a toss that you, personally, do not find us attractive? What do you want us to do? Shall we stop weightlifting, amend our diet in order to completely get rid of our ‘manly’ muscles, and become housewives in the sheer hope that one day you will look more favourably upon us and we might actually have a shot with you?! Cause you are clearly the kindest, most attractive type of man to grace the earth with your presence.
Oh but wait, you aren’t. This may be shocking to you, but we actually would rather be attractive to people who aren’t closed-minded and ignorant. Crazy, eh?! We, as any women with an ounce of self-confidence would, prefer our men to be confident enough in themselves to not feel emasculated by the fact that we aren’t weak and feeble.”
Zoe Smith should be the “pin-up girl” for Indian sportswomen, as they negotiate their way through a playing field that is often a minefield.
( Women’s Feature Service)
Pamela Philipose |
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Shy people recognize facial expressions better
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Shy people have a superior ability to recognize certain facial expressions, even though they may be hesitant to look you in the eye, a new study has revealed.
In the study, college-age adults who were shy were better able to recognize expressions of sadness and fear compared with those who were not shy.
The findings were surprising, said study researcher Laura Graves O’Haver, a doctoral student at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, given that previous work has found shy people tend to misinterpret facial expressions. However, this earlier work was typically performed on children, and the ability to recognize facial expressions may change with age, Graves O’Haver said.
The new results put a positive twist on a trait that is usually considered unfavorable, she said.
“We tend to give shy people a bad rap,” but the new study suggests there are some strengths to being shy, Graves O’Haver said. “It might be nice to focus on those strengths.” Graves O’Haver presented her findings this month at the American Psychological Association meeting in Orlando, Florida.
Graves O’Haver analyzed information from 241 college students (average age of 19) who took an online survey.
Participants were shown 110 pictures of faces and asked to identify the facial expression represented by each picture (happy, sad, anger, fear, surprise, disgust and a neutral expression).
To determine their level of shyness, participants were also asked whether certain statements were true for them, such as “I feel tense with people I don’t know well,” “I find it difficult to ask for information,” and “I’m uncomfortable at parties.” [Life’s Extremes: Outgoing vs. Shy]
Overall, people were able to identify the facial expressions quite well, with an 81 per ent accuracy rate.
People with high levels of shyness were more accurate at identifying facial expressions of sadness and fear than those with low levels of shyness.
When asked how they were feeling during the study, shy people were more likely to be in a negative mood. This could, in part, explain the results, because studies have found that people in a bad mood tend to see other things in a negative light, “kind of like the opposite of rose-colored glasses,” Graves O’Haver said.
It’s also possible the superior ability to recognize sad and fearful facial expressions can contribute to people’s shyness, Graves O’Haver said.
“If shy people see negative emotions on people’s faces to a greater degree, “that could make you feel shy. You might want to limit how much you look at faces,” she said. (Agencies) |
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