India's national language

Being an Indian residing in a foreign country, I am sick and tired of being asked why I don't speak Hindi. I am not really annoyed with non-Indians asking me this question, but mostly with 'North Indians' who go on and on about why everyone in India needs to learn Hindi. And their ill-informed reason that Hindi is our national language drives me crazy. Now, lets set the record straight once and for all. Hindi is NOT our national language and if that is your argument then tell me, should we all be learning all the 22 or so official languages? Utter bull crap. Oh, and "life will be a lot easier if you learn Hindi, you can communicate with people from other states." Oh really? Why don't you travel to the south for a change and try to converse in Hindi, lets see how far that takes you. If these people are half as patriotic as they claim, they should all learn one South Indian language (like someone suggested). Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are also part of India, just in case you didn't know. Those of you who still are in this dream world where everything Indian is Bollywood, please read this .

Hike at Jemez

It's been a while since I blogged, but here I am after a LONG break. Some of us hiked at the Jemez Springs this morning, near the East fork river, it was FUN. One of those hikes where you get to walk in water and on logs across streams. While today we just went half-way, a couple of weeks later, we plan to do the entire trail in which we will have to swim a bit too. Sounds like it is going to be fun and I am eagerly looking forward to it.

Women should work

I, like many of my friends, firmly believe that it is extremely important for a woman to be independent, she should contribute financially to a family. Some women choose to stay at home to take care of children and elders, I totally respect that but also think that at any given time, she should be prepared to go find a job if need be, she should have worked at some point in her life. Women are extremely talented and it is such a shame to let all that talent go waste. I have some friends who are smart and talented but are forced to stay home because their husbands don't find the necessity to send their wives to work. If the decision is jointly made by the couple there is no point of contention, but if it is the husband or the parents-in-law making the decision, it a totally different situation altogether and should be strongly opposed. We have but one life, and should try to achieve as much as possible in this short time. One thing I have noticed is that working mothers are able to instill a higher level of confidence in their female children. I definitely do not have any kind of research backing my statement, it is just a mere observation.