Daring to make mistakes

“And what if I make a mistake?”, my colleague asked me, when I delegated something important to her.
“We’ll take care of that”, I replied. “Unless you make a couple of mistakes, how are you going to learn?”

Two days later, she made a mistake that I knew would take me a couple of hours to rectify. My instinct was to yell at her, but I held myself back. After all, wasn’t it I that had told her she shouldn’t be crippled by the fear of making mistakes?

I was right. By making mistakes, she’s learnt faster than I expected.
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A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

And when I signed up for NaBloWriMo, I was sure I was making a huge mistake. For someone who had taken an unintended sabbatical for nearly three months, wasn't it ridiculous to commit to blogging everyday? And yet, I managed, because how can you finish something, unless you first have the courage to start.
Thank you for being with me.

The intrinsic goodness in us all

Running on my normal route yesterday, I took a nasty tumble and bruised my hand. I continued running, but took a longish detour to the only water-tap in the area so I could wash out the wound.

I took nearly 20 minutes longer to return to the starting point. “Where had you gone? I was starting to get worried about you”, said the man at the milk-booth which I normally use as my pit-stop between loops.

I don’t know him, but he was still watching out for me. Did I fall, so my faith in intrinsic goodness could be renewed?
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A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

What price Celebrations?

The last thing you expect at midnight is for someone to set-off a fire-cracker with an ear-shattering bang right under your window. And yet, that is exactly what happened last night. And if that wasn’t bad enough, a second cracker with an equally loud bang was set off just as we were about to drop back to sleep.

It wasn’t that the people doing it didn’t know it was illegal- they just couldn’t care. After all, which of their neighbours would do something as un-neighbourly as summon the police?

What is the purpose of celebrations, if they inconvenience others so?

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A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

One Bride for Three Brothers

One Bride for Three Brothers.

Sounds like the name of a farcical comedy, doesn’t it? But for Munni, it is a harsh reality. Married to a man several years older than her, she is forced to have sex with his unmarried brothers too, and has no idea which of the brothers is the father of her three sons.

When there are less than 9 women to every 10 men, you would expect that women would be valued for the scarce commodity that they are. But apparently not. New ways are found to redress the balance.

How will it all end?
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A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

Still in darkness

When you look down on India from space at night, you find large areas in total darkness. If those areas represented forests or wilderness, it would be reason to celebrate, but most of them are as densely populated as the rest of the country- they just happen to be in darkness.

Sadder still, as this composite picture shows, there are parts of the country which had illumination in 1998, but had lost it by 2003- not coincidentally, those are areas with high insurgency movement.

Can a country call itself “Developed” if it struggles to provide electricity for all its citizens?
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A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

Image from - Science Photo Gallery

Traditions that drive you mad

Is it only in my house that festivals end up becoming so stressful? Whether it is strictly necessary or not, you create your own traditions, and drive yourself crazy trying to maintain them even when you have barely enough time to breathe. You expect people to co-operate, but nobody seems to want to do anything except on their terms. And just when decide you will do everything yourself, instead of staying out of the way, people end up creating new problems. “Never again”, you swear. And at that point of time you mean it.

But come next year, you capitulate.
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A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

I challenge you.....

“I challenge you to prove to me that staying in school = job, … and that by being educated she isn't also ostracized from the social network that can help her survive if she isn't excessively exploited…….Yes, I know "stop prostitution, build schools" is more compelling, but I'm unconvinced …[education]….is a solution.”

Had it been one of my own friends who said this, I would probably have taken her down in a tackle and given her a bloody nose, but since it was a friend of a friend, I took a deep breath…… and realized she was not entirely wrong.

To read on, hop across to my post in Burrowers, Books & Balderdash.
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A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.