Monday, August 11, 2008

ये भारत देश है मेरा

कल हम सब बैठ कर गप्पे लगा रहे थे तब मेरी डॉक्टर दोस्त ने अपने कुछ अनुभव सबके साथ बांटे. उनका कहना था की गांव से आई हुई महिला patients कभी कभी बहुत दुखी करती हें. I am quoting some conversations.
Doctor: आप का छोटा बच्चा कब पैदा हुआ था?
Patient: ये रहा मुन्ना और वोह रहा टुन्ना.
Doctor: वोह तो ठीक हैं पर टुन्ना कब पैदा हुआ था?
Patient: टुन्ना पैदा हुआ था जब मेरे छोटे भाई कि शादी हुई थी.
As if the brother's marriage is such an event which Doctor should remember like when Abhinav Bindra won the Gold or when India got indepndence.
Doctor: तुमको क्या हुआ हैं?
Patient: अब वोह तो आप को पता होना चाहिए न ? डॉक्टर आप हैं या मैं?
These all chit chats we were enjoying when she told that when ever a lady patients is asked about the number of kids she has, the answer given counts for only male child the lady has. If the patient has three female child and three male child then she will tell that she has three kids. Number of female children are not accounted for.
I was dumb struck after listening to this. यदि किसी को तीन लड़कियां हैं व कोई लड़का नहीं तो मरीज क्या कहेगा? " मेरा कोई बच्चा नहीं", my Doctor firend said. I was aghast.
One end we talk about Sanya, Soniya and feel proud to be Indian and on the otehr end I am listening to tis conversation which tells me that parts of rural India does not count for female child. The female child is non - existance.
Continuing with the discusion another friend told that in many house hold ' भाटो पैदो हुओ'. ( Stone/पत्थर is born) is told when ever girl child is born.
मेरा मन सोचने के लिए मजबूर हो गया. आजादी के इतने साल बाद भी यदि हमारी ग्रामीण जनता ऐसा सोचती है तो देश का विकास कैसे होगा? ' पढ़ी लिखी लड़की रौशनी है घर कि' केवल नारा बन कर रह गया है.
लक्ष्मी कि पूजा करने वाले हाथ उसी तत्परता से अजन्मे या नए जन्मी बालिका कि हत्या करने से नहीं हिचकिचाते. क्या यही हमारी नियति है?

Saturday, August 2, 2008

क्या नाम हैं?

कई दिनों से आते जाते एक स्कूल का नाम बार बार आँखों के सामने आ रहा था। जब भी नाम पढ़ती तो सोचने पर मजबूर हो जाती कि स्कूल के owner ने स्कूल का यह नाम क्यों रखा? Then I started searching for more school names and I found that most of the times, the school name has no relevance at all. Let me give some examples.
  • One school in Jodhpur has name as 'Doon Woods School'. Now why such name. Are there woods nearby or the school has some branch in Dehradun? No nothing of such sort.
  • Another name is 'ज्ञानोदय public school'. Some one should tell them that ज्ञानोदय is very nice name and there is no need to write public school with that.
  • 'Oxford Public School', will have no relation with Oxfod.
  • 'St Anthony school', Mother Teressa school' are few more examples in the above category where school owner may not even know who St Anthony was or who Mother was.
  • 'Prodigy kids play school' is one more school name I came across.
  • Icing on the cake is ''Mother Kid's school'.
    I am sure there will be many more such examples to share. Do share your views.