I’ve been keeping really busy over the past week. Today’s a little light and so I thought I’d update my blog. I’ve been researching the issue of female foeticide lately and the more I look at the real figures, the more disturbing the picture gets.

There are several places in rural India where the figures for the girl child are dwindling at an alarming rate. Female foeticide is rampant for social and economic reasons. The girl child is viewed as a burden for the family and the male child is given preference in every aspect. It is completely repulsing to see this.

On one of my many trips for covering the female foeticide story, I came across Laadli. Laadli is an organization fighting the cause of saving the female child. It’s launched this nationwide campaign against female foeticide. It was really reassuring to see the people working for the campaign. I interacted with quite a few of them and they seemed to genuinely believe in the cause. It is so important to believe in what one does, for only then can they pass on that zeal and conviction to the others around. I’ve believed in my instincts all my life and something in me tells that this campaign is going to be really successful. This is one cause that I hold very close to my heart and let’s see how I can help Laadli in my own small way to get those million signatures that it’s aiming for.

Hi again, just back from work after a very long day. I’m typing away with just the night lamp on and my dinner plate by my laptop. Called my parents first thing on my way to my apartment – it’s very important to me. I actually start my day with a call from them and always call once I’ve reached home at night. Even when I’m doing night shifts, I call to wish good night. To say the truth, I don’t think I would ever stop doing that.

Btw, something interesting came up at work today. My boss told me that there’s this feature on female foeticide that needs to be done which would include a lot of traveling in different parts of rural India, and I’ve been chosen for it! I have worked on a few assignments related to women's rights before, but it's been mostly based on feedback and surveys of working women in the various metropolitan cities. But this is so different and I'm really looking forward to it.

I love traveling and ever since I’ve moved, I haven’t had much of a chance to use my camera. It’s one gadget that I’m prodigiously proud of. My brother gifted it to me the last time he came home on a holiday. It’s a digiSLR and I’m aching to make good use of it. This trip's going to do just that.

My blog, my space

Hi there… to everyone who chances to go through this page. Everyone’s blogging nowadays and to some it’s become quite clichéd and boring. But I quite like it - like an old t-shirt that's boring, but you cannot throw it away for the life of it. Blogs are your space, where you get to be yourself without people necessarily getting all judgmental about you. You agree? This is probably because the ideas expressed in a blog don’t get associated with a known face. Many people shy away from being themselves just because they have an image to live up to. And blogs do away with this image factor.

Writing this blog was quite a ‘spur of the moment’ thing. I’m sitting alone after a tiring Sunday afternoon of trying to ‘settle down’ in my newly rented 1 room apartment. And I just had this urge to connect to people who I’ve never met, total strangers, who might have been busy all afternoon doing something quite similar to what I have been doing.

I am, to use a very hackneyed expression, very much your girl next door. I’ve just moved to Mumbai a couple of months back with a new job and am still trying to fit in. Must tell you, it’s a sea change from how life is at Dehradun – that’s my hometown. It’s not that I don’t have friends out here, but living alone is quite a deal! Thank god, atleast I have a job in a media house that keeps me insanely busy. It really works to keep boredom away:) Anyway, will chat up later – someone’s just rung the doorbell!