Bhavani - To The Rescue

It’s been over 2 years since the gruesome Nirbhaya’s gang rape case is seeking justice at the Indian Court of law. While the family and the whole nation awaits for the verdict, amidst all this, technology gives birth to Bhavani – a portable self-defense device for women. Bhavani is an end result of the collaboration of best engineering minds from India, Japan, Germany and United Kingdom joining hands with the leadership of Indian Martial Arts experts and sports medicine doctors.

Dr-Pavan Kohli, an orthopaedic doctor from Pune is the brain behind Bhavani. He proudly describes this as a “first fully-legal and complete self-defense device for women.” He refrains from using the word weapon as he feels that it defeats the purpose of why the device came into existence and that people don’t like to be associated as someone carrying a weapon in their bag.

The device which looks like a baton, weighs about 1.5kilograms and in its full range is two feet three inches long. The device when contracted, measures nine inches in length and can be easily slipped in a handbag.

The device boasts of combining five engineering technologies – electrical, electronics, chemical, telecommunications and mechanical. In layman terms, the design of Bhavani in its full length resembles a Samurai sword with a stun gun, pepper spray, panic button, pen knife and a sewing kit and mirror. The inbuilt GPS helps in tracing the exact location of the victim and sends five SMS to 5 pre-fed members/numbers. The stun gun sends a high-intensity non-lethal electric shock to the attacker, just enough to throw the attacker one-two feet away. The panic button when pressed sends out a loud buzzer to call for help from passer-by. The baton also has pepper spray to throw the miscreant about 5-6 feet away. The Samurai baton and the pen knife come in handy in protecting the women during physical assault.

Bhavani was unveiled on 9th of March by Nirbhaya’s parents. That being the biggest irony!

The device will be available with all government and private agencies in the next 30days and can be picked for an amount of Rs5000. I urge all the women to invest in the device to be self-protected. To all the men, I would say, this is the best gift of safety to the woman you love in your life.

I hope that justice to the case is giving as swiftly as Bhavani promises to rescue the women in India and worldwide.

Go Girl Go

It's the International Women's Day today. I love everything about this day. Special discounts, lots of wishes from friend's and family. This really makes me feel special. I am sure many echo on these aspects with me.

There's always this pressure on a woman to be able to manage work and life flawlessly. To be able to multitask. But this women's day let's take a moment and ask the men we know, how they would balance work and family? How often they give the woman of the house the most needed break?

To see a woman multitask, balance, be patient with her family and yet dare to be unapologetic is what I feel is a complete phenomenal woman. Being a woman, I feel the need of the hour is not to be resentful, but to be calm and and be multidimensional.

I believe anything in excess gets stressful to cope with. Hence, it's extremely important to be able to set your priorities in place (Ladies, this was the most valuable piece of advice that I have got till date from a very close male friend of mine). With that, the only thing that comes to mind is there is only one person in your life who's of utmost importance - YOURSELF.

Let's for once, stop getting this age old sexist divide in the forefront of what a woman can or has to do versus what a man is meant to do. Rather, focus on understanding that both men and women are equal and deserve to be respected that way. Women have to flaunt their feminism with lot more confidence. It's necessary to retain the feminine sensitivities. Nurturing the masculine side, will only do more harm than any good. Ladies, we are not here to win the battle of the hour with men and indulge ourselves in male bashing. The focus needs to be more on making ourselves better rather than letting the male counterpart do that for us.

Ladies, stop being so hard on yourself. Splurge. Love yourself.