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The big building was done. They had thought of everything - the wooden cabinets, sleek silver chairs, drapes. No more Sarkari shadows for this government office building.
The big building was done. They had thought of everything – the wooden cabinets, sleek silver chairs, drapes. No more Sarkari shadows for this government office building.
The floors shone unlike the regular dull grey tiles that one finds in government buildings. This one was going to be different. It had state of the art security systems in place. Everyone had their own desk made of compressed wood. All so swish na? No more of those big grey dull shelves. Everything would now be digitized you see, we have the computer.
Oh but attendance tho you have to write in the register, no Biometric yet, or the iris/pupil recognition thingy. Also, the noise of the busy traffic did seep in and the lift was a trifle slow, but somethings gotta give, right? Everything else was just theek! It was perfect. There was a small pantry where the employees could walk in to make their own chai, but no one in a government office would ever do that. The office boy or the chai lady would do it. So yeah the building was ready for the steady trickle of employees who would lay claim to this new office.
A friend walked in and said it looked different and had an ajeeb smell. But that could mean ajeeb as in being different right? Different is good. And if it is different then it should be great na. She had her doubts though. It was her workplace, or so she thought. Everything went about a little smoothly. The chai came on time. The office lady dusted and mopped with a smile. The files were dealt with effortlessly. Work went on.
Till one day, she had her periods. She realized that the office that had catered to (al)most all of her needs, had forgotten that she bled once a month and that sanitary napkins had to be disposed of, but they had no idea, how that should happen. You say they said with a grin, we had only men till now. Oh wow! They wondered, how do we deal with this. My friend asked the office lady, what do you do during those four days of the month? With a sigh she answered, we go home and come back. Different rules for you and me, she answered with a dull smile. But it’s wrong, she said. The office lady walked on. Her head nodding away. She had work to do.
Edifices are built brick by brick
Keep up the momentum, that’s the trick
The facade’s all in place
As long as you don’t enter the race
We want you with us
As long as you don’t want a seat on the bus
See how big our hearts are
No matter that our minds are afar.
Image Source – Pexels
Varsha Pillai is a former television journalist who quit the fast lane in media when she moved to the erstwhile 'laid back city' called Bangalore. She earnestly believes that she can ‘write stories that people read more...
This post has published with none or minimal editorial intervention. Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views, individual posts do not necessarily represent the platform's views and opinions at all times.
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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