THE 'LUXURY' AND THE ELITE- A real fairy tale.

Luxury: pronounced: ˈlʌkʃ(ə)ri/ 

(Noun)

A state of great comfort or elegance, especially when involving great expense.

Example: "He lived a life of luxury!"

Synonyms: Opulence, luxuriousness, sumptuousness, richness, costliness, grandeur, grandness, splendor, magnificence, lavishness, lap of luxury, bed of roses, milk and honey.

Oh no, I’m not giving English lessons, calm down. This is the meaning of luxury on Google. I'm just surprised why the synonyms don't include 'affordable things'. I was in a magazine store today, which is- according to me- one of the best places on earth. For those who do not know this already, I’m extremely choosy. And 3/4th of the times, this works against me. Anyway, I happened to come across this month’s Outlook Business magazine, and there was just one sentence on the cover; The Future of LUXURY. And this was accompanied by one picture; a bow-tie made of diamonds. Obviously, this interested me and I ended up buying this issue. When I went through it, I was like “I can’t believe I wasted my time over this, what the hell!”Because it was nothing but a fashion mag! I’m not kidding! But after a while, I figured Outlook Business does know how to make business out of anything, and none of what I got was a waste. Why? One word: Luxury. My luxury: Ideas.

On going through this book again, I realised that luxury always meant brand, cost and quality. But look around, is that real luxury? When we think about it, don’t we all have our own definition of luxury? For one person, it might be fine dining, a day out in Paris, and some Louis Vuitton bags. For the other, it might be eating Roti and Paneer from a roadside stall, going out with his family to a beach once in 3 years, and bargaining for a bag that costs 300 Rupees in a small shop, and expecting to get it at 150. For a rich kid, luxury might be just another watch from Rolex. For a kid from the lower middle class, or a kid with limited means, a Fastrack watch is something he’d cherish for life. Am I being arrogant and judgemental? Being a kid from the upper middle class myself, I can tell you, this is the harsh reality.

But my question is simple: Why doesn’t a magazine ever show a jute bag from a roadside stall as luxury? Why doesn’t the media ever notice what appeals to the common man the most?

I’m an avid reader of fashion magazines. And I’ve always tried to compare Femina with Vogue India; usually drawing to a conclusion that Femina is for the general folk. But in the recent past, the products mentioned in this magazine too are not very affordable. What I’m trying to say here is that when magazines do not show the people what 3/4th of the country lives on; if these magazines do not show what we can actually afford, what is the point? Is it just another pamphlet showing the rich what they can buy this season, and reminding the poor where they stand? 

What really is luxury?

I don’t want to seem like a hypocrite to the people who know me in reality, so I’m going to admit it; I am a brand freak. But one must never lose perspective of what is a ‘want’ and what is ‘need’. One must never think that luxury and class are equivalent to money and richness. No, that’s not how it works. The concept of ‘luxury’ has been there since the beginning of civilization. The obvious divide between social classes in earlier civilizations brought the concept that luxury was limited to the elite classes. And that shaped and redefined the definition of luxury. Everything the poor couldn’t have and the elite could was labelled as luxury. 

While this word is used in everyday lives to refer to certain lifestyle, the definition is specific to consumers and situations. An ice-cream would be a really big luxury item for you if you earned less than a $ per day. But if you are going to a party in the so called “elite” sector of the society, a $100,000 car may not be a luxury, but something of an embarrassment.

This brings out a multi dimensional perspective towards what luxury really is, and what media and society needs to promote, and what the true idea behind this word is. The attempts always define luxury such as high price, high quality, uniqueness, exclusivity etc. However, even with the obvious staring right at our faces, why is it still unclear; ‘What is Luxury?’ 

So what do you think is luxury? 

SHOULD PROSTITUTION BE MADE COMPLETELY LEGAL IN INDIA, OR SHOULD IT REMAIN WITH LIMITED LEGALITY?

So, I was just going through few articles and statistics, to keep myself from getting bored in the library, and I came across the term ‘Prostitution’, and the biggest question that followed, ‘Should prostitution be made legal in India?’

Before reading this article, you should know that yes, prostitution is legal in India, but the definition is limited to the exchange of money for sex, and does not include pimping, brothel-keeping and soliciting sex in any other way. In other words, prostitution has limited legality in India.

Firstly, for anyone new to this term, prostitution is the practice or occupation of engaging in sexual activity with someone for payment. This is the definition you’ll find on Google. This is probably the only definition you’ll find anywhere. There has been a huge never-ending argument if this profession (point to be noted: it isn't considered a profession in the first place by many in this country) should be made completely legal or not. Even if it is legal, should it be regulated? Should the law be amended where complete liberty is given to the prostitutes? Should it be made illegal again? There are countries where prostitution is completely legal, few of them are Singapore, Argentina, Belgium, New Zealand, UK and Venezuela. In Afghanistan, Cambodia, Angola, Egypt, Iraq, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, UAE and a few other countries, prostitution is illegal. And then, there are few countries similar to India, like Bangladesh, United States, Australia, Iceland and Malaysia, where the laws show limited legality. 

Few argue that it should be made completely legal. When asked why, the answers held reasons like these; 

1. Prostitution has been around since the beginning of mankind. Most anti-prostitution laws were passed over a 100 years ago. It happens every day throughout the world, so why not make money off it and reduce the risk in it? It is simply two consenting adults exchanging a service for money. It should be as legal as a plumber’s profession or as that of a maid. Also like plumbers, sex workers could also form work unions to gain more rights.
2. The number of rapes would decrease, as desperation would find an outlet.
3. STD's are usually contracted from a non-prostitute, because prostitutes keep themselves in check. So, STD’s would decrease.
4. The fight against human trafficking can be fought in a better way, because people’s legal consent would be obtained without fear. (What?) 
5. It could be taxed and the government could benefit out of it. Not exactly a profit for the client, but still, a profit on the whole.
6. Sex is good for your health and it is scientifically proven. If more people in India have sex, maybe we'd be a little less of an obese country and it may lower heart disease. (Of course!)
7. More jobs, which would reduce unemployment. 
8. If abortion is legal, why not prostitution? We always hear the argument "It's my body..." right? Why doesn't it apply to this subject?
9. People are doing it regardless of what the law says. Drugs can have a negative effect on a person, but prostitution has very few minor downsides, so what’s the harm?
10. There would be less crimes regarding sex.
11. The government would not only be able to make money of taxed prostitution, but save on various places where they have to invest, like the police, the prison, etc. It’s beneficial for the country. 
12. If the woman is encouraged to use her mind and make a living, why can’t she be allowed to use her body?

Few, on the other hand, were against prostitution being made legal and wanted the status to change. Reasons are as follows:

1. There is a huge risk that a person might get affected by HIV/AIDS.
2. There are other ways to make a living. There are so many other jobs, then why this?
3. Women have other choices, but it is cheap to find an easy way out.
4. It is wrong to women to sell their bodies, because it is disrespectful.
5. It makes the men look like they are the dominant sector of the society and use women. (Aren't there male prostitutes too?)
6. Real men don’t buy women.
7. As a prostitute get’s older, you really think she’ll be able to continue as a prostitute? What will she do for a living then?
8. High risk of dying.
9. Men can rape these prostitutes, but find an easy way out by stating that it is legal.
10. There are not only women who are prostitutes; there are also children who are prostitutes, who have been forced into this profession. How fair is that?
11. It affects the moral status of the society.
12. The prostitutes might turn into drug addicts and alcoholics or support these illegal activities.
13. Health related issues will emerge, and respect in the society will founder.
14. Prostitutes might not find other jobs, and they would also have no one who could take care of them, causing emotional and psychological damage, depression and loneliness.
15. Have sex, but not on the streets or in a strangers car. Keep it classy and less trashy. It’s called making love for a reason.

After the survey, I decided not to take sides when writing about this issue, but to ask a simple yet complicated question to you readers, “What is your opinion about this issue?” 

(Please comment below.)

A WHITE MAN IS A KIND MAN; A COLORED MAN- A TERRORIST.

Religious wars are basically people killing each other over who has the better imaginary friend.

-Napoleon Bonaparte

It’s Sunday. Like every other Sunday, I woke up and religiously started to go through all the social networking sites I am active in, to see what I missed out on in the entire week; even before I’m out of bed. Once in a while though, I come across posts from different pages that make me stop, not scroll down, and think. And I came across one today.

A Muslim shooter means the entire religion is guilty.

A Black shooter means the entire race is guilty.

A White shooter means he’s a mentally troubled lone wolf.

Now this might seem like just another post to few people, some might even comment LOL on it. But it is so much more than that. We often relate terrorism to Muslims. We relate rage and destruction to the Blacks. But we relate civilization, sane behavior and judgement to the Whites. You might oppose this, but you and I both know that this is true. When I say ‘close your eyes and imagine a terrorist’, I am sure as hell you would never imagine a white man holding a gun and shooting people. Why is it that when you are asked to imagine a terrorist, you never imagine a person whose face you cannot see; that you can just see a figure- just see him holding a gun and shooting innocent people. No, I am not excluding myself from this question; I belong to the same society that includes you in it too. 

Race, religion, and geographical set ups; they are not platforms on which we can judge people. What if none of these existed? What if there was no religion? Who would you blame? On what basis would you blame them? Would you accuse them of being a stone hearted insane inhumane person, or would you simply say “you’re Muslim”? If you do some research on it, you’ll know that most of the terrorist activity in the U.S in recent years has not come from Muslims, but actually from radical Christians, militant groups and White supremacists. After 9/11, every attack had been associated with Islam, and what it preaches. So much, that media gives it a week’s coverage and highlights every possible link and connection, cause and effect; even if the number of casualties ranges from 1 to 1000. But how often is the terrorism by any other religion highlighted so much? When a Sikh man was killed in the Wisconsin Sikh temple massacre on Aug 5th of 2012, by a White supremacist- Wade Michael Page- who mistook him for a Muslim, the media didn’t highlight this much, did it? Not a lot of people know about this, because I was one of them. 

The murder of Dr. George Tiller, May 31, 2009; everybody imagined that a physician had been the victim of an attempted assassination by an Islamic jihadist in 1993, and received numerous death threats from al-Qaeda after that, before being murdered by an al-Qaeda member. Yes, the physician was the victim of a terrorist killing that day, but neither the terrorist nor the people who inflamed the terrorist were Muslims. Dr. George Tiller, who was shot and killed by anti-abortion terrorist Scott Roeder on May 31, 2009, was a victim of Christian Right terrorism, not al-Qaeda. There are a lot of other examples like this, but why does it never come to the limelight? Why are Muslims the first people to be examined; judged? Why the Blacks are considered shooters? Why is it that they all in the same category, just because one man couldn’t think straight and choose between what is right and what isn’t. 

And why is it that a White man’s crime doesn’t lead to his whole race being blamed? 

Whatever the reason is, it is wrong. It is wrong to blame anybody for a mistake they didn’t do. Things like caste, creed, race and religion are not something nature did, it is something we created. We are born into it, and not born with it. Even if you’re a Muslim, Hindu, Sikh or a Christian, think twice before categorizing the an entire religion as bad, because the Holy texts and the religions are the solutions and not creators of the problems, if one truly understands that in the end, no matter which religion or race you belong to, peace is the only thing that’ll keep you going. Wars and judgements based on religion is nothing but useless in the end, because if you didn’t have  religion to follow, who would you truly be? 

Something to think about; make your conversations count.

R.I.P: REST IN PIECES?

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?” 

― Mahatma Gandhi

The only child to survive, standing in the middle of ruins, searching eagerly through the rumbles; dusts, dirt, smoke and blood. She is searching for her brothers, who took care of her. Her mother; where was she? She was supposed to serve lunch. After all, Ma had promised to cook her favourite dish. She doesn’t search for her father; she knows he is in a place she can’t go to. Crying and frightened, she’s going in circles. Searching for anything she can find; aimlessly, madly. She finally finds a hand sticking out in the ruins, and she runs for it. Her mother’s hand; she holds it, she feels safe. But something was wrong. Why wasn’t Ma holding her back? She carefully bends down, to look at Ma’s face, and ask her why. But she doesn’t look at her mother, she looks at a face; eyes open, staring back infinitely, cold… dead. The girl screams. She falls back, stands up, and screams; there is nothing else she can do. This place was her home; now, a graveyard. She turns to run, but she freezes at the sight of a rifle pointing at her. Her killer looks at her, forgets her innocence; forgets his. He aims at her, searching for a blank space. Ah, her forehead.

She breathes her last.

Now, go back to the first sentence. What if that child was you? What if you were the one instead of her? What if it was your child in that place, and you could do nothing about it? How would you feel? 

Trying to think of an answer? Don’t bother, because you are no way near to what it actually must have felt like to the thousands who face such situations every day when their countries go on wars for peace. What you know, is how it feels to be still sitting on your couch, reading this article, a roof above your head, and some food to eat. But not everybody lives a blessed life like yours. 

Perhaps the biggest irony that was ever existed lies in the famous quote, “War for Peace”; none of us truly understand it though. No, I’m not saying the Defence isn’t necessary. After all, to a soldier, what’s standing in front of him doesn’t matter; he’s fighting for what is behind him. And there must be a reason. But funnily enough, nobody can understand what that reason is. No one can see the reason. Thousands of Dollars/Rupees/Euros go into building the army of a country; even quarter of which doesn’t go the poor and starving of the same country. Personally, I don’t understand the point of this. Each country invests millions of Dollars in nuclear weapons. Thousands of weapons lie around; some are not even accounted. There are an estimated total of 20,500 nuclear warheads in the world today. If the average power of these devices is 33,500 Kilotons, there are enough to destroy the total earth landmass." And why do we need so many of these things again? Who is going to stand here and witness the amazing after effect of war, and everything you’ve conquered if there is nobody alive? No, I’m not going to talk about war, and the causes of war, because we know there are many; religion, land, oil, terrorism, ‘combating terrorism’, the list goes on. Name the causes of peace? The one and only cause is war itself. Without rain, there wouldn’t be sunshine. Without dusk, there wouldn’t be dawn. Without war, nobody would ever know what the value of peace is. And today, we’ve had enough wars to show us that now is the time we need to start respecting the place of peace in our lives. I’m not here to talk about war and its effects. I’m here to talk about peace.

It’s not easy as you think it is; peace is harder than war. The day you drop those rifles, the day you give your children flowers instead of guns; that is the day you’ll find peace. But who would make them drop the guns in the first place? Nobody. Everyone wants change today; nobody is ready to change though. We see war on television, we see number of deaths, number of injuries, but not once we do think of what happens after the war has ended? Those who survive war do not see life the way we do; they’re scarred forever. You think terrorists are born? No, terrorists are made! And situations make them that way. Wars make them terrorists. Their parents were innocent people, killed in war for oil, killed due to religion, killed in search of one man, who wasn’t related to them in any way. If you hadn’t invested on war, but instead invested on their education, they’d know what their religion truly meant. They’d have the power to sit and think straight, like you and I. The war for peace is itself a form of terrorism. By killing millions of innocent people every year, how are you restoring peace? By not feeding the poor, the needy and the backward, how are you restoring peace? By not providing education, by not showing what love is, for not letting them live to feel love, how are you restoring peace? 

I wouldn’t say war isn’t necessary; but how long? Do we- the civilized people, the ones who know how to care, nurture and cherish- need war for this long? Is it really victory? In war, the only victory you claim is over a million dead bodies, which will rot eventually. What was the use of war all along, if the result doesn’t last even a few days? But peace; it gives you the power to let a person live. You are gifting a person the most precious thing on earth: life. Peace is not a philosophy. Peace is something that has to be experienced. No matter what you have achieved in life, if you have not experienced peace, then everything feels empty; incomplete. This is not for someone else. This is for you. You need peace, and the person next to you does too. Every human being can fulfil their heart, can fulfil this life. Gift a mother another day with her child. Gift a young girl another day with her brother. Gift a father another day with his family. Gift a lover another day with his reason to live. Gift a baby another reason to smile, to grow up, and to look forward to being a part of this world. It is the most beautiful thing possible in this short life. Why can’t we be a part of it?

DOES NEW YEAR REALLY MEAN A NEW BEGINNING?

“Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.” 

-Oprah Winfrey

Before I begin this article, I just want to wish all my readers a very Happy New Year! I hope we all have the strength to accept everything that happens in 2015- good or bad, and I just hope we can live with it.

I was supposed to talk about dreams in this article, but since it is the 4th day of a ‘new year’, I just thought I’ll talk about what ‘new year’ actually is; because it is the newest thing right now! Look around and you’ll observe that there are 3 ways to approach a ‘new year’. 

1) “OH MY GOD! I’ve no idea how a year just flew by, and it’s already 2015! A new year! A fresh beginning! Let me party and celebrate this amazing gift by nature/god/guy-who-invented-the-calendar and make the most of it! YAY!” (This is 1/4th of how I approach it!)

2) “What’s the big deal man? Just another disappointing year of existence on earth, just another day, just another hour, why give a damn? If we were lost in a desert, and we didn’t know what the date was, would we celebrate New Year? All this is just bullshit invented by the stupid gift stores to loot money!” (Basically, a realistic approach. Or an approach of a skinny lady whose New Year resolution is not to lose weight.) 

3) “New Year huh? You mean, there’s a lot of cake and stuff? Like, I get free food? So, this is an amazing opportunity to eat more food? Hell yeah!” (Now this is 3/4th of what New Year means to me!)

I know each one has a different approach to New Year, but I’m an optimistic person; rarely, and I find New Year to be a really good chance to start over. Often we don’t give importance to the opportunities that come in our way. We take them for granted and shove it aside. I guess that’s what happens when life gives us too many chances, but hey, life isn’t a selfish bit*h. No matter how much you hate it, a New Year signifies that you’re blessed to have lived to witness it. It signifies a new chance. No, I don’t agree that it’s a new beginning. But I believe in chances. A beginning means something new. But let’s face it, there’s not much to begin every day or every year. But maybe you did begin with something a long time ago, and with every passing year, you’re getting a chance to get it right. If you ignore this, you’re just ignoring life. 

We’re humans, we dwell on hope, we dwell on chances, on possibilities and no matter how much we deny it, we all know that if we’re given a chance to write an exam again (even if we’ve failed in it a million times, and we’re sure we’ll fail this time too), we still won’t back out from accepting that opportunity and trying again. Why not New Year then? After all, life is just another exam without any syllabus. 

“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.” -Carl Bard

I love this quote. When we graduate high school they tell us we have our whole lives in front of us. Whether we’re off to college or exploring the world, we begin a whole new chapter. Independence.

A starting point. You can just picture that open highway stretched out to infinity before you, beckoning to a future somewhere out on that horizon that calls you to adventure. All that you will become lies out there. But most of us don’t want to see this highway. Most of us never learn to appreciate where we are at this very moment because we’re so focused on what happened (or didn’t happen) in the past that no longer exists and worried about a future that hasn’t happened yet. We don’t realize that this future is still in our hands and that we have an option to change it. We don’t realize that the past was in our hands too, and we let it slip. If we can’t change our past, why dwell on it? If we can change the future, then why dwell on it?  Just seize every opportunity and treat every day as a new chance. After all, with every chance you ignore, you’re missing out on an opportunity to change your life. Every chance you miss is like the time that just flies by; there’s no getting it back. 

So go out there, believe in yourself, take this chance, and change. Change yourself; you’ll be changing a part of this world. Change yourself, and you’ll be letting go of the past. Change yourself, and you’ll be changing your future. Each of us has a unique story we’re supposed to tell. That’s why we’re here. So go ahead and write history, because you owe it to your chance. You owe it to a New Year. You owe it to every second, every minute, every hour of every day. 

You owe it to yourself.