What can we do?

Though I'm anyway not a great newspaper reader (get most of my news on FB ;)), in the last few days I just pick up the newspaper and read the first page and then wonder why I even bothered. I know the TOI thrives on sensation, but seriously there seems to be a dearth of "good" sensational news :(.

And the mind of course goes back to the recent rape case in the capital, how could it not? Not the first, and definitely not the last, how much ever of a hue and cry we are all doing to make about it on FB or on the streets. When there exist minds that feel that raping or molesting a woman is an acceptable way of proving power or superiority, how could this situation ever change?

I badly want my children to grow up strong, and being able to face any situation. So what can I do as a parent?

• Teach them about having a sense of respect, so that they grow up to be good human beings.
• Talk to them about the perils of interacting with strangers, not just strangers but any adult other than a parent and maybe a teacher (even that only in a classroom environment).
• Educate them about good touch/bad touch using videos like this one.
• Send our children to martial arts and self defense classes.
• Figure out how to keep that channel of communication open so that they'll always feel able to talk to us.
• And hope, hope, hope!

Posted for Day 20 of the Marathon Bloggers challenge.

The Kindness of Strangers...

.. is a term I have heard around the place, but never actually experienced much. After all, kindness is not easily found nowadays, and especially from strangers!! We also seem to get into the habit of looking at unknown people suspiciously and teach our kids to be wary of "strange" uncles and aunties too.

This post is part of the Marathon Bloggers initiative, one post every day in December. Too lazy right now to update with the stamp and all, will do that tomorrow, but if in case anyone reading is not a part of it and wants to join, do check out the FB group Marathon Bloggers.

Just drove back from Chennai, which is a relaxed 5-6 hour drive for us usually. But today was the day S decided to throw up all the contents of his stomach all along the way :(. Nearly every half hour after we started from Chennai, there were some mini explosions in the car, that even the experienced with car-sickness ol' me was unable to contain.. End result: splatters all over the car, including our clothes (Mine and S) and needing to wash and change 4 times. For S, we could just stand on the roadside and do that, but me obviously needed a nook somewhere.

Scene 1: Roadside thatch roof veggie shop, where the ladies very accommodatingly came out and let me go sit inside and change.

Scene 2: An auto garage that had some sort of toilet, where I could do a quick change.

Scene 3: Our water was also done by then, and I just stopped at a house (small one) on the side and asked for water. A young boy - actually got me a 2 litre bottle of cold water to drink! How very sweet!! I gave it back and asked for water for washing, for which he unhesitatingly gave me a vessel/lota with water in it to use. I also managed to evict an entire family from their one room house where they were watching TV for changing into what was my last set of clothes (It was a 2 day trip after all, and I kept my fingers crossed that it wouldn't happen again!).

I was just amazed and touched at the willingness of people to help. After the first incident, I was on the verge of turning back towards my parents-in-law's home thinking we would just stay the night and leave again the next morning, but each experience taught me that the world is not too bad after all :). Reached home finally post 8, and S is doing ok as of now, fingers crossed!