幸福

家里把日子定了，父母很兴奋，是他们的一件毕生大事。要了他的生辰八字，找先生定的日子，从印度时间加三个小时换算过来，按北京时间给算的。先生说八字合，大吉，父母心里明显安了很多。估计母亲已着手置办新的床单被单、喜字贴红等物了。


见过两次面后，父母再没和我闹过，只是前阵定日子的时候，母亲反复追问了几句：你们俩是不是真的合得来？回答她：真的。我们还老觉得吧，自己基本是世界上最甜蜜的情侣了。

理论上讲，我们俩早就老油条了，偷偷在旧金山办的时候，一个见证人没有，被证婚人牧师式的讲词新鲜到了，听得半懂不懂，差点笑场，因为平日连教堂都没去过。

“是的，我愿意。”

“啊？到我了啊？我也是，我也蛮愿意！”

之后他问：“那你们有戒指要交换没？”

“啊？还要戒指啊？没钱买，不交换行不？”

“可以。。。（—_—｜）”

到现在我们俩还常拿当时的场景来逗笑。

有一点对母亲明确表示：不穿婚纱。不是教徒，又没有牧师，穿着觉得奇怪。她也觉得无所谓，爱穿啥穿啥呗，没什么特别的规矩。

分享一下几年前的那个仪式之后傻样的小两口合影，虽然那是比较自我而自私的幸福：

Works of French painter Toulouse-Lautrec

I Love this painter's works --


Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901) was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, and illustrator, whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of Paris in the late 1800s yielded a collection of exciting, elegant and provocative images of the modern and sometimes decadent life of those times. Toulouse-Lautrec is known along with Cézanne, Van Gogh, and Gauguin as one of the greatest painters of the Post-Impressionist period.

At the age of 13, Henri fractured his right thigh bone, and at 14, the left. The breaks did not heal properly. After that, his legs ceased to grow, so that as an adult he was only 1.54 m (5 ft 1 in) tall, having developed an adult-sized torso, while retaining his child-sized legs, which were 0.70 m (27.5 in) long.

Deprived of the physical life that a normal body would have permitted, Toulouse-Lautrec lived completely for his art. He dwelt in the Montmartre section of Paris, the center of the cabaret entertainment and bohemian life that he loved to depict in his work. Dance halls and nightclubs, racetracks, prostitutes - all these were memorialized on canvas or made into lithographs. (Source: Wikipedia)

Following are the pieces of works I love the most:

Study of a Nude, 1882

Bouquet of Violets in a Vase, 1882

                                             At Montrouge (Rosa la Rouge), 1886-1887

A l Elysee Montmartre, 1888

At the Cirque Fernando Rider on a White Horse, 1888

Study of a Dancer, 1888

The Goulue and Valentin, The Boneless One, 1891

In bed the kiss, 1892

Jane Avril Dancing, 1891-1892

Two Half Naked Women Seen from Behind in the Rue des Moulins Brothel, 1894

Yvette Guibert singing, 1894

Booth of La Goulue at the Foire du Trone (Dance at the Moulin Rouge), 1895

Marcelle Lender Dancing in the Bolero in Chilperic, 1895

The clownesse Cha u Kao at the Moulin Rouge, 1895

Two Friends, 1895

Alone (Elles), 1896

Woman at Her Toil, 1896

Woman at Her Toilette them, Washing Herself, 1896

Crouching Woman with Red Hair, 1897

Nude Standing before a Mirror, 1897

Dinner at the House of M. and Mme. Nathanson, 1898

Poupoule in chemise by her bed

The Medical Inspection

Woman Putting on Her Stocking                                  

Portrait of Van Gogh and himself:

Portrait of Vincent van Gogh, 1887

Self-Portrait. Caricature, 1885

India & China on dowry/women inequality

‎"India and China are both male-dominated societies (so are most of societies actually). True that in many places in China the male's family gives betrothal gifts to the female's, but in essence, behind both betrothal gifts and dowry, the female is seen as an object being traded between two paternal families.


The only differences are whether her value is set and made explicit by her own family or the male's, and of course, materially, whether it is the female's or the male's family that gains material goods in the transaction."

 -- Quote from Angela about the similarity and difference between India and China on the issue of dowry and women inequality. What brilliant thoughts !!

An Episode which should be able to make you go mad, if you have a bit sympathy on women, OR, you've been walked through similar situations and tried your whole life to forget.

One thing I couldn't understand: why the female in-laws -- mother in-laws, sister in-laws, the women who themselves suffered, instead of giving a helping hand, turning to be the most cruel ones on other women??

Satyameva Jayate Episode 3 (English Subtitle) 

Satyamev Jayate: 6th May 2012 (with English subtitles)

AAMIR KHAN IS MY HERO

"Daughters Are Precious: Female Foeticide. Large-scale killing of girls before birth has led to a serious gender imbalance in the Indian population, and severe social problems as a result."

_____

Surviving from the 8 and half month pregnancy
was my first achievement in life
as a female

Then sexual harassment at age 8
even family never let us grow long hair

Then age 13
a month
which changed my personality and my life

Recovered fully in France, 9 years later, age 22
but almost kept on going in a different direction

Compared to a lot of women
it was all just a scratch

I seldom desire any more achievement in life
surviving is far enough

Just wish
at the day upon my death
I won't question god why he born me as a female

                                                   
@Berkeley

Times they are a Changing -- Bob Dylan

BOB DYLAN IS GOD

Times they are a Changing

by Bob Dylan

Asha Stanford's Holi 2012 (India Festival of Colors)

This is a Momo & Raj Production, enjoy! :) :) :)
Note: make it HD while watching.

What did I do wrong in my past life to be reborn as a woman?

I believe India will rise much faster with women's empowerment, vice versa.

"...women have always been disadvantaged compared to men in almost all spheres of life. They have been discriminated systematically in their access to food, work, education, and healthcare, and in opportunities to participate in development, to lead, think, dream, and realise their dreams. They are, and have remained through millennia, truly the world's largest minority.

...women are not treated by patriarchy as persons who are agents and ends in their own right, individuals complete in themselves.

Instead, they are mere instruments of the ends of others:

reproducers, caregivers, sexual outlets, and agents of a family's general prosperity. Their cultural acceptability is only as appendages of men, as daughters, sisters, wives and mothers, otherwise they are dispensable or ‘fallen'."

From

The Hindu - "Barefoot: Lone warriors"