Tej Deep Kaur Menon

 I was very happy to meet Tejdeep Kaur Menon, a friend whom I have known for some time. Tejdeep is the  current DGP of the special Protection Force in Telengana. We have had many conversations when I was doing the book on Gender issues in Police back then in the late 1990's.Tejdeep and I had also been part of the many meetings with women police constables and I am not sure if Tejdeep you  remember now but we were in for a shock, when we advocated for paternity leave then in the 1990,and we had got so much opposition from the women themselves and we realised the social reality that the men would take leave and stay at home and it would be a double burden on women to take care of the child and serve the husband too and hence women constables  were not at all in favour and we had to suggest the reduction the period as per their wishes. We had Aruna Bahuguna and many others women police officers whose names I now forget and  who were part of this. In fact I had narrated this experience to Kiran Bedi when we had the first meeting of All India  Police women  at Vigyan Bhawan  in Delhi. Today things are different, I hope but paternity leave is a reality. Tejdeep is a very sensitive police officer and has published four anthologies of her poems, Unfortunately, I have only read the first two, Caught in a Stampede(1995),Five and Seven a half inches(1997).I have yet to read her other two, Minnaminni(2001)and Oyster in pain(2004).After meeting her yesterday, I plan to get these books and read them. This  National Conference being organised by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Oriental Research Institute and Sikh Heritage Foundation, Telangana, was on the 550,years of the revelation of Guru Nanak Devji. I spoke on women in  Medieval times and the views of Nanak and other sants on women and how there is a divergence between theory and practice today. Met many scholars of Sikhism here and discovered many new issues and the relationship between Guru and Islam and their  teachings. Tejdeep has written a lot on  Women's Issues, social evils, Mother earth, violence. She has also come to the University and read some of her poems. Your poem on mensturation really stuck a chord with me. She is very much now involved with conservation issues, creating water bodies and saving the environment besides her invilvenent and commitment to gender issues.  Great  to meet you Tejdeep after so many years and will get back to you after I finish reading your other two volumes. You must now get these poems published in Hindi, Urdu, Gurumukhi and other languages. Thanks Sajjan Singh for inviting us and it was a very fruitful day with many new learnings. It was a real pleasure to  listen to  the childten who had got prizes in the elocution competitions speak aboutGuru Nanak and see the beautiful paintings made by the firs three prize winners. Congratulations to the Sikh heritage foundation. You all are doing wonderful work of binding the present generation to the Philosophies of the past and teaching their relevance, today for these Philosophies are beyond narrow understandings of sectarian differences and religions divisions. The talk by SOCH on connecting  Guru Nank's philosophy with present days issues of climate change, violence, poverty and  hunger and help eradicate them was so beautiful and so relevant in today's world. My congratulations to all the speakers and you all for organising this.