Representation matters, without that gender equality is a distant dream

Gender equality is still a hot topic, many people have written about it and many more will write. I have also written extensively about the issue of gender quality. Even after all the progress and barrier-breaking, gender equality is a distant dream. I know, many men and maybe women may disagree with me and argue that there is already gender equality as women are free to do whatever they want in many societies, especially in developed countries like the USA. However, this is far from reality. People who make this argument have no idea about the prejudices and challenges women need to face every day and at every step of their life for things that are granted to men just because of their gender. For example, women still get harassed in public places; they still need to be conscious about the way they dress as many judge their character based on the dress they wear; there are specific beauty standards set for women; they need to perform better than men just to show that they deserve that job; and in most households even when both partners work, it is the woman who is expected to cook and bear childcare related workload. I have cited just a few most common challenges faced by women, the list can grow depending on which country, religion, and socio-economic background they come from. All these hurdles that hinder their path make their journey incredibly difficult and unpredictable. This is why I have tremendous respect for all women who fight against all these odds and still chase their professional and personal goals. Women are still fighting for representation forget about gender equality, and that's still a distant dream. Representation matters. It not only provides opportunities but also provides hope for all those who are struggling and trying to maneuver through different obstacles. One can look at the data and see that women are missing from many key domains of decision-making. This needs to change. Be it by affirmative action, reservation, or by any other means, this needs to change. Also, there is nothing against men in the process of improving women's representation, men need to work on improving their representation in all domains where women were forced to cordon themselves. One of the problems why we are still struggling is that people who have no clue about the real difficulties faced by women are sitting in policy development. These people are either ignorant or full of prejudices and they propose solutions or policies that hardly produce any desired results. We aimed for gender equality but we are still struggling with representation, gender equality is not possible without proper representation. Unless we improve women's representation all our talk about gender equality is just a talk, nothing else. Therefore, focus on representation first, once we reach there, we will work towards equality. 

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

© Vinay Thakur, All rights reserved, Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com 

Finding your passion is not easy

"Chase your dreams" or "pursue your passion" are cliches that are used quite routinely. They are based on an important assumption that people already know what is their passion or that people have only one dream to chase. However, the situation is not that simple for most people. Often, it is not easy for most people to decide what is their real passion or which dream they should chase. This is the reason we see many people enrolled in courses and chasing degrees for which they have to study subjects they utterly dislike or hate just because someone told them that it would provide them a well-paying stable job. We see many people doing the job they dislike just because they think they don't have any other choice or they believe that it is too late to change. So, what is the solution to this dilemma? Is there any easy way where a person can figure out what is their real passion or which dream is worth chasing? The simple answer is, NO.

For most people, there is no easy way to find out what is our real passion or which dream we really want to chase. Some people figure out very early in their lives what they want to become and dedicate all their attention and efforts towards that pursuit. They do not care about success or failure as the journey to chase that target itself is fulfilling for them. This is great if it happens. If the journey itself is rewarding and enjoyable then who cares what is the ultimate result. Success is a bonus but not a reward in itself for them. But what if we do not know? Then, we need to take a more analytical approach. First, look carefully at your skillset, things at which you are good, things which you can learn easily and perform well. This is important to know because everybody might want to become an actor or a  football or basketball player, but everybody is not good at it. If we do not have the skills to perform a task or are not willing to put enough effort into learning it then there is no point in dreaming about it. Another important thing to remember is, that just dreams or passion is not enough, it requires tremendous hard work and commitment to achieve something great no matter how passionate you are about that thing. There is no substitute for hard work.

Another thing one can do is to ask for advice. Talk with people who you think understand you and care about you. Ask them what they think might be a good profession for you, seek opinions from multiple reliable sources to get a diverse opinion, and then try to decide. Keep in mind that all this does not guarantee that you will find a cause to which you will stick for the rest of your life. Sometimes we like something but over time lose interest. We might feel that the field which we chose is not interesting anymore or we are interested in something else. If this happens, we should not hesitate to make efforts to change. It might be tough or require a significant amount of effort and involve many challenges but as I said before, such a rewarding journey might be a worthy endeavor. No matter what we decide to do, we should be able to enjoy it, and we should feel excited about it. Of course, there are going to be days where we will feel lazy, bored, and frustrated, it is a part of every profession, but in general, we should feel good about our profession. We should feel excited about going to work. We should not be dragging ourselves to work every day. We spend quite a significant portion of our lives performing in our profession, so why not have fun while working. This will not only add happiness to our personal lives but also improve our professional lives. It is true that finding our passion and sticking to it is not easy, but it is not as difficult as it sounds, just give it a try.

Thanks for reading and please share your opinion about this topic. 

Clean India - still a distant dream

It has been almost 10 months since the "Swachh Bharat Abhiyan" (clean India movement) was announced by Indian Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi with a lot of fanfare and media coverage. I visited India in October 2014 immediately after the announcement of this ambitious project by the PM, the previous governments also tried similar projects but with very limited success. I loved this idea because I also think that India needs to take this type of movement very seriously. Clean surroundings are one of the basic things that any country aspiring to be a superpower must try to achieve. This is my second India visit after the announcement of this program, but I fail to see any appreciable difference. Now before any Modi bhakts attack me for being unfair to the central government without giving them sufficient time to implement this idea, let me clarify that I didn't expect to see a super clean India during this visit which is within the first year of the announcement of this scheme. I understand that convincing Indians to keep public places clean is not that easy and will take some time and effort, but I am talking about "some noticeable differences," like trash cans on roadsides or more toilets, etc. I visited the PM's own constituency, Varanasi, while in the past few years, there has been a lot of good work done in this city by an IAS officer called Pranjal Yadav, who is now transferred to some different post by the state government, I failed to see any noticeable difference this time. I really felt bad that the state govt transferred this efficient officer without allowing him to transform this city with the help of a very powerful MP who happens to be the Indian prime minister, but this is part of Indian politics where efficient officers always get transferred. I should also mention that I didn't travel to Ganga Ghats this time because of the crowd and traffic congestion, so, I don't know what is the situation over there. According to the Hindu calendar, this is the month of 'Shravan,' many festivals come during this month and a lot of devotees gather in these so-called holy cities which puts a lot of strain on its infrastructure. Very few cities are equipped to handle such a huge inflow of humans and vehicles. Very often their infrastructure crumbles and there is a lot of inconvenience to residents. I experienced this personally this time, I was shocked to see that the entire half of a major highway like GT road was reserved for 'kawarias' (people who walk from Allahabad to Varanasi barefoot carrying Ganga water on their shoulders). Let me tell you that GT road is not some ordinary road, but it is a national highway (interstate), and the only major road connecting these two major cities. So, for this entire month on this interstate highway both sides have to use only one side, that too without any divider, one can only imagine the risk factor of traveling on GT road during this month. I saw some damaged vehicles because of accidents lying on the road side which is expected in such risky driving conditions. This is not for a day or two, but it will be like this for more than a month! I couldn't believe that the state government and other lawmakers couldn't come up with some viable alternative other than blocking the entire side of a busy highway for almost a month.

Actually, clean India cannot be the government's responsibility alone, no doubt that they have to provide the required infrastructure for which they are not doing a very good job, but this movement should be pushed by residents of India, after all, they will be the ultimate beneficiaries of clean India. Their quality of life will be improved tremendously if this project is a success. I noticed that very few people are really bothered about making this movement a real success. Most of them show a very casual and careless attitude towards it, they are not willing to contribute anything positive towards this task and then complain that "nothing can be changed in this country." I always try to question this attitude but with very limited success, my question to them was, "If you are not willing to change who do you expect to change things for you?" I agree that the government is not doing its job properly, but people are also not making it easy for the government by not cooperating. On Varanasi station, I saw a cleaning person cleaning the platform and people immediately spitting or throwing wrappers behind his back. Because of this, the platforms still stink, plus animals like bulls, cows, or dogs freely roam not only on roads but also on train platforms of Varanasi! This needs to change if Indians are at all serious about making India clean. My first impression about how this program is progressing almost a year after its launch is not that good, I hope this changes in the near future. I hope the government works aggressively to develop proper infrastructure that makes it easy for people to dispose of all types of waste properly. I hope people also cooperate with the government with hygienic and responsible public behavior. Currently, clean India looks like a distant dream, but I don't think it is an impossible dream. The present government is claiming to work very aggressively and sincerely on many important projects, so, I hope this is on top of their priority list. Clean India is a necessity for all Indians, and unless all of us collectively work towards it, it will remain a distant dream. Let's change India, let's create a clean India.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

Follow your dream

The title of this blog is a very lovely line to read, I don't know who said it, but we all must have come across it many times. We especially hear it during motivational talks or can find it in any motivational material. No doubt its meaning is very beautiful and it's one of the very inspiring quotes. But how easy it is to practice this thing in real life? How many people are lucky to have just one dream in their life that they can chase? What to do if one has more than one dream, how can one follow or chase all of them? There are many questions like this and this is my attempt to find some practical answers for some of these questions and also try to explain what I take from this quote. This is by no means my recommendation for others but just my point of view about following one's dreams, everyone needs to derive their own meanings from these types of lines.

At least in my case, my dreams kept on changing many times in my life till now. During various phases of my childhood and teenage, I wanted to become someone based on who influenced me during that phase of my life. I didn't even consciously choose my current career path, actually, this was not possible at least for me for various reasons. I never had the luxury of choosing what I wanted to study, my marksheet decided it for me. I am sure very few at that time or even today do this in India (choose a career path of their own interest). There can be various reasons for this like market demand and scope for that particular field, fierce competition, lack of awareness or options, and parent's pressure and expectations. I just walked in the direction in which life took me, gave my best possible efforts, expected good results, and landed where I am today. I have no major regrets for that and I am very happy with my overall journey. So far it has been an exciting and very rewarding experience for me. Eventually, I started liking the field that I chose and today I love it (chemistry, drug discovery), but honestly, it was not my dream or conscious choice to work in this field. I am sure many like me must have traveled a similar path in their life as far as their career choice is concerned. Now I dream of discovering a drug that can cure some major illness, want to work towards making people understand the usefulness and limitations of drugs, want to explain to them how and why drugs work or fail and what they can do to remain healthy. But honestly, none of these was my passion or dream when I entered this field as I had no clue about any of these things at that time.

Follow or chase your dream is easy advice to offer but can be very confusing to follow. No doubt, it sounds very romantic and inspirational and can motivate many people to pursue their own interests. This advice helped me many times in my life and this blog itself is the result of my dream to share my thoughts with others on a larger platform. But sometimes situations or our own limitations stop us from doing what we want to do, then depending on the situation it's better to take a pause and think about our next step and if required keep our dream on hold (but this doesn't mean to forget or to squash or kill it completely). This detour may help us to get to the situation where we can give it a try to bring it into reality. This is a practical way of pursuing our passions without getting too much in trouble because very few of us have the courage to put it all on the line to chase our passion. Many times things done purely with emotional instincts without much serious thinking may not produce the desired result. By this, I don't mean emotions are not important, but we need to strike a proper balance. It's also true that people learn from mistakes so one needs to make mistakes first to learn from them, at the same time, we can learn from others' mistakes also. We should not be scared to take risks or make mistakes for things we really care about and really want. After all, we live only once and we need to make the most out of it.

I chase my dreams as much as possible, and I take some calculated risks. So far this approach has suited me and produced the desired results for me. I see some people take enormous risks to chase their dreams, I admire them and respect them but I am not one of them (but you never know). I hope everyone finds their dream and figures out their own way to chase them because dreams are important, they give us new aims and new goals, give us a reason to wake up and work hard and we all need at least one such reason.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]