Ritika Ruminates

Image source- Google "A fair skin is attractive and epitome of beauty." "No body hairs, especially on women. Shave/wax them off." "You need make-up to look preety." "Girls and woman should have hourglass figure, looks so hot and attractive".  "Bikini is only for thin girls/women, with no body hair." "Long hairs suits girls better. Be feminine, girl!" "If you wanted to wear boyish clothings, why you were even born as a girl/woman?"  "A perfect jawline is so charming." "A beard makes a man. Grow up a beard, man!"  "Dude, grow 6/8 pack abs. Girls and women will come running behind you." And well, the most popular "Lose weight by this diet, that diet".  The list is endless, I cant even note down all. We all have come across this beauty standards, be it for women or men. This beauty standards has often costed people their sanity, their physical and mental health, and the...

With all this Tanishq ad controversy over inter-faith marriage and 'love jihad', here is my opinions on inter-faith marriages, based on actual facts and practical solutions to make these relationships work too. I know I'm too late (chuck it, procrastination!🤦‍♀️) but let's start anyway. Inter-faith marriages has been and still is taboo in India and not widely unaccepted. Be it on the grounds of religion, caste or language differences (and maybe even nationality altogether!). People do not accept inter-faith marriages as it is 'not our blood', 'blood will get mixed', 'our clan will be polluted' etc. Oh wait, how can I forget the iconic cliché dialogue of parents if their kid proposes for a inter-faith marriage- "log kya kahenge?". Unfortunately, for majority Indian parents (not every parents, but accepting parents are really less in India), what society would say is more important than their child's happiness. ''What if our ...

A fake rape allegation is as traumatizing as a actual rape case. Few days ago, a guy named Aman Baisla committed suicide on the grounds of threatening about fake rape allegations and his money not being returned by two people- Neha Jindal and Sumit Goswami. He had lend money to Neha and Sumit and later they were not returning him his money back, though blackmailed him about fake rape allegation.  This is not the only case of fake allegations. 40-45% of daily cases are fake allegations made and registered against innocent man (source of information- Youth Against Rape). Multiple guys goes into depression, the guy's and their family's reputation is unnecessarily tarnished, and many guys even end up committing suicide. Girls like this use woman card and put allegations on innocent men/guys. Pseudo feminism or fake feminism is as disastrous and traumatizing as patriarchy and misogyny. It's utterly disturbing when some immature selfish woman misuse the rights and put fake allega...

Hathras wnd Balrampur rape cases. Yet girls are getting sacrificed. Almost 18 rape cases in UP within 24hrs. Every day, average of 87 females gets raped (as per 2019 stats). What the hell is going on?  What's the government doing?  UP police, they are just looking at the drama and being 2nd class of criminals. Politicians are beyond the imagination of cruelty.  Rapists (or read monsters) rape a girl, break her bones, cut her tongue, let her fight for her life, police do not file rape FIR for many days, and the day she dies, police KIDNAPS her dead body and 'cremate it according to the rituals and family consent'. How much can you stoop low? How much can you even lie? Police would had taken strictest actions if it would have happened to woman within their own family. Other's sister/daughter/mother/wife, who cares? Not just rape, there are many incidents of police brutality, police raping the citizens, a police officer masterbating infront of some woman, and many more. Yo...

Image source- Google What comes with adolescent age is many hormonal changes and so do crushes, infatuations, love and sexual urges. The first crush in school, high school (11th and 12th) or college. The crush which will stay in memories lifelong.  Teenage relationships and crushes are very common. By some survey, it is said that 60%+ people, by the age of 16, have met people whom they gonna marry in future. I don't exactly remember the source of it, so not sure how reliable this information is. Keeping this aside, it is sure that majority people have had crush and maybe even atleast one relationship till they are in 12th standard. Especially if you live in big towns or metropolitan cities, you will be used to watching couples in your school‌, high school and college. The famously tagged nibba- nibbis, some with too much of PDA (please get a room if you both are 18+💁🙄). But they are not to be blamed, its all hormones playing with minds and hearts. Attractions, infatua...

Toxic parenting is hard to deal with. The pressure it creates on kid is really at a huge level. Dealing with toxic parenting is very hard.  I came across this post on Instagram by IG handle named  @tera._dost and have shared the post slides in the post (Not any paid promotion or any kind of that). I wouldn't be writing much today as those slides are enough.  Do not force things on them related to ANYTHING. Labelling someone isn't just right.  Your child is unique and the only one on this Earth. There will be similar people but no one exactly same to child, not exactly same as yours. Stop the cliché dialogue "Sharmaji ka beta/beti" or whosever child. We kids are not interested in being like them. Talk to them in composed way, have a conversation, make them realize their mistake and how can they correct it and not repeat it again. You can ground them for some time. When you scream, they look at your tone, not...

Image source- IG account writer_sahab I came across this post on Instagram by IG account named writer_sahab and this holds so true. Public Display of Affection (PDA) is very much looked at as a rude thing to do in India (and many other orthodox countries), don't know why. People look at it as its disgusting.  In our country, if any couple, married or unmarried, does PDA, they are looked at with disgusted looks by the public around, like they would be beaten up any moment. LGBT+ couple is far away from getting into PDA in India when even straight couples are looked at with disgusted looks if they get into PDA. There have been so many incidents where the couple were beaten up just because they got themselves involved in PDA. Most known one is the Kolkata metro case where a young couple were badly beaten up by elders just because they hugged or so in the metro. Like seriously!? What's the need to harm someone this bad only because they showed affection for each other i...

'Let me check your phone." "I wanna see your messages, social media, and your gallery." "Do not close and lock your door." "What privacy does a kid even needs?" "Update me everywhere you go or else I'll appoint some detective to look over you." "Do not make friends from people of opposite gender." 'No getting into any relationships and surely not in teenage or younger years." These are more often statement by parents. These statements and this kind of intrusive behaviour often leads to some mental and personality development issues in the kids. I'm gonna write this blog post from both a kid's feelings/ thoughts and psychological reasoning behind it. Intrusive or helicopter parenting often leads to kids not to understand healthy boundaries. They are not able to say no to someone. They don't know when to reveal something personal and when not to. They might not be able to say no and can land up...

Many people change themselves so that other people like them. They are ready to change themselves, just for the sake of people's attention and validation. Why do they do that?  The reason is the deep-rooted culture of 'normalcy'.  Look this way. Dress this way. Behave this way. Have this 'normal' timeline in your life- education by 20, job by 22, marriage by 25, kids by 27 and then wait for your retirement and death. If someone behaves in another way (not any immoral or illegal), they are ridiculed, laughed at, trolled, made fun of, bullied and whatnot.  Films are also responsible for this. In the movie ' Kuch Kuch Hota Hai', the Anjali (Kajol in real life) undergo a full transformation from a bold tomboy to shy typical women to get male attention and for males (more specifically Rahul) to marry her. Why is heroin made to go under such a transformation? It sets an example for the audience that its normal to ask someone to change or they can change themselves...

When I think that nothing more cruel cases of rapes can happen to girls and women, every day a new rape case comes up, crueller than the yesterday's. What has happened to India?! Why so many rapes and assault cases on a daily basis? You may recover from coronavirus (or non-terminal life-threatening diseases for that matter) but not mental trauma or even death caused by assaults and rapes. I have no hope that this mentality gonna change in years. Girls and women need to learn self-defence, no matter what your age is. Learn basic self-defence which can help you, if not advanced martial arts. Carry pepper spray (you can buy it online, sharing link at the end of the blogpost for Indian customers. If you are non-Indian, you can search it online) with you wherever you go outside. Keep emergency numbers in your phone. I don't wish, but if you ever confront such a situation, hit the person enough to immobilize them so that he cannot follow you for some minutes and run away from th...