It isn’t tough to instil civic sense. We just need political will and responsible people. Namita Bhandare writes. HT Image The regret sank in almost as soon as the Swarn Shatabdi Express began chugging out of New Delhi railway station. At six in the morning, the sights on the rail tracks of India are hardly salubrious. Looking outside my air-conditioned chair car compartment I tried to picture chirping birds. What I saw instead were multitudes doing their business alongside the tracks. But I’m getting ahead of myself. New Delhi railway station, what should be a modern, shiny showcase to a…

From smartphones to cars, GenX has everything but not a hero in sight. Namita Bhandare writes. HT Image Last week, my cousin, a college professor, lamented the fact that his students lacked the idealism of his generation. He had seen the fervour of the 60s and 70s and while the long hair and the beards are gone, he couldn’t understand why his students are so focused on ‘getting rich, getting ahead’. Yes, this generation has access to the things we could only dream of (blue jeans, Bic pens, deodorant!). But what this generation doesn’t have are role models. Smartphones and…

Despite our connectivity, we are isolated in our personal interactions. Namita Bhandare writes. In the tense waiting area outside the hospital’s intensive care unit, I have for 37 hours managed to avoid eye contact. It’s not an easy accomplishment, given that we are the same two dozen or so, given that we’re more or less in the same situation of keeping vigil over a loved one and given that we’re all knitted together in our common suspense. Daughters, friends and sisters join us but conversation is muted as we shift about uneasily, shaking off cramps, apprehension and the sort of…

The attack on an African student underlines our prejudice against ‘outsiders’. Namita Bhandare writes. HT Image Dear Mr Nihangaza, I write to you as a mother and as a citizen of India, a country that has a proud tradition of tolerance; a country where guests are supposed to be treated as gods – atithi devo bhava. HT Image But today it is not with pride but shame that I write to you, a father in faraway Burundi whose son lies in coma in India following a murderous assault on him. Your 23-year-old son, Yannick, came to India to pursue a…

Let the Guwahati molestation case be the tipping point for change. Namita Bhandare writes. Forget for a minute the visuals on television, the faces of those men, the girl in the middle, trying to escape, being grabbed by her hair and dragged back to be groped and slapped some more. Forget for a minute the utter bungling – local media, National Commission for Women, bystanders, the chief minister, the police. Forget everything for just a minute and ask only this: What now? Do we go forward? Can we? How? Guwahati is the latest milestone in India’s map of shame that…

Hosanagara Nagaraje Gowda Girisha is praying for gold in 2016. If you’re asking, ‘Hosanagara who?’ then you’re probably not alone. Namita Bhandare writes. HT Image Hosanagara Nagaraje Gowda Girisha is praying for gold in 2016. If you’re asking, ‘Hosanagara who?’ then you’re probably not alone. India’s only silver medallist at the 2012 Paralympics is used to indifference. But today, finally, he’s conscious of the weight of his achievement. It’s an achievement which is not unsubstantial when you consider that since 1962, India has managed to win only eight medals at the Paralympics. Contrast this with China’s 231, this year in…

Women want rape to be treated as an awful crime, minus the added sting of honour. Namita Bhandare writes. HT Image This we know: On September 9, a 16-year-old Dalit schoolgirl in Dabra village, Hisar was kidnapped, raped and photographed allegedly by a group of upper caste Jat boys. This we know: The girl complains to her father. The photographs are circulated in the village. The father tries to lodge a complaint, fails, and kills himself nine days after his daughter was raped. This we know: It takes media outrage, street processions and the threat of job suspensions by the…

For value education to succeed, the first lessons must begin at home. Namita Bhandare writes. HT Image It’s ok to be dishonest in order to succeed, believe an astounding 70% of kids aged 13-18. I don’t know what’s more shocking: The revelation that our future leaders, in business, in politics, in administration, as parents, are potential crooks (sorry there is no nice way to put this) or the near absence of shock following the publication of the results of a recent survey conducted by this newspaper and commissioned against the backdrop of the Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE) decision…

Manu Ghosh has told her story many times and now she is exhausted. “You will write and go away, but for me, nothing changes,” she says, sitting on her hard wooden bed at the Meera Sahbhagini Mahila Ashray Sadan in Vrindavan. HT Image Manu Ghosh has told her story many times and now she is exhausted. “You will write and go away, but for me, nothing changes,” she says, sitting on her hard wooden bed at the Meera Sahbhagini Mahila Ashray Sadan in Vrindavan. Forty years ago the newly widowed Manu Ghosh, now 92, came here from her village in…

There’s a message for women in the victories of Mary Kom and Saina Nehwal. Namita Bhandare writes. While we hail Mary Kom, spare a thought for the unsung women athletes in India struggling for two minutes of fame. While we shower petals on Saina Nehwal, spare a thought for the girls at sport camps powerless before coaches and officials. And while we celebrate India’s Olympic medal haul, do consider that two of the six were won by the 23 women who made up India’s 81-strong contingent. Yet, India’s women athletes continue to be less than equal, says senior sports writer…

The Sixties were the defining years of the West. But India began its search for self-definition in the Seventies, a decade that is today almost synonymous with the word ‘retro.’ What made it so special? HT Image The toothpaste was Binaca, The Radio A Murphy Miniboy and the detergent Det. Flares were wide, sideburns long and heroes were angry young men. Bangladesh was still East Pakistan, the colour of revolution was green and a gungi gudiya discovered her iron fist. In the first month of the 1970s, house-full boards went up outside theatres showing Aradhana with Rajesh Khanna and Sharmila…

The fuel hike shows that our political leaders are not in touch with us. Namita Bhandare writes. HT Image India’s desperate housewives know a thing or two about austerity. We know how to stretch a rupee: adding potatoes to meat curry, saving leftovers for future meals, storing used textbooks and uniforms for younger children and even recycling gift wrapping paper. We were brought up to be frugal. The first generation of post-Independence India, our parents had seen their parents struggle for the freedoms we now take for granted. We ourselves grew up in pre-liberalised India where goods were scarce and…