Jhumka Jhumur

Jhumka Jhumur – Episode 6

Women Empowerment

Episode Background

This has been an oft discussed topic since many years. Gender equality, women in labour force, women representation in Parliament or State assemblies and even their prize money in sports like Tennis, have held centre stage on various platforms.

Wikipedia defines Women’s empowerment as accepting women’s viewpoints or making an effort to seek them and raising the status of women through various means like education and training.

The 1st line in above paragraph is crucial. Seeking women’s viewpoints on the subject and trying to action on them would be a good starting point.

This chapter is a small step in that direction. While we may hear speeches of varying lengths on the topic, what does an average middle income homemaker seek for her empowerment?

Read on below to find out our protagonist Jhumka Jhumur’s thoughts on the topic when asked by her son Ishaan on same 🙂

Dear Reader,

What do you think of Jhumka's answer to her son? What are your views on this subject of Women Empowerment?  

Do share your thoughts and look forward as always to hearing from you 😊

This episode comes to life through the Illustrations by Vartika Bhonsle. She is a student of Fashion Communication and a graduate from NIFT, Bhubaneswar. 

She loves illustrating people and animals in their various moods and you can visit her Instagram page @yellowlittlelamp to follow some awesome art!

This work of fiction, written by Wasim Jawaid is the author’s sole intellectual property. All rights are reserved. No part of this story may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including printing, photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author. For permission requests, send an email to the author wasim.jawaid@gmail.com

Jhumka Jhumur – Episode 5

Changing Times

Episode Background

Sometime in the early 20th Century (in all likelihood 1909) women got together for the first time to celebrate a Day specially dedicated to their causes. It was to highlight the various issues they were facing in society on different fronts – being denied a right to vote primary amongst them.

It may seem a bit surprising today, but until the early 1900’s women faced discrimination as they were barred from exercising their franchise on various matters as men chose to keep them out of the electoral process.

The universal suffrage movement started in New Zealand and gradually gained strength around the world culminating in women being granted this basic right in most of these countries.

March 8 every year became special and came to be recognized as International Women’s Day and now it has been over a century that on this date womanhood is celebrated with gusto and issues continue to be highlighted which affect their gender.

Closer home March 8 may be just like another day for the ordinary woman who continues to work hard all round the year to maintain a sense of semblance around the house for which she is mostly responsible.

In between, she has to take care of her family and fulfil many roles and multi-task. Sometimes this may be a struggle and sometimes fun, but the bottom line is she has to manage day to day situations, be caring and more importantly keep going and not give up.

In this context, our new episode with protagonist Jhumka Jhumur comes today talking about changing values in changing times. Some of us may find some customs outdated, yet they remain entrenched in our daily lives.

Read on to find out what mother-son duo have in store for us this time!

The End

Dear Reader,

What do you think should be Jhumka's answer to her son? How should she handle the query?

Do share your thoughts and look forward as always to hearing from you 😊

This episode comes to life through the Illustrations by Vartika Bhonsle. She is a student of Fashion Communication and a graduate from NIFT, Bhubaneswar. 

She loves illustrating people in their various moods and you can visit her Instagram page @yellowlittlelamp to follow some awesome art!

Jhumka Jhumur -Episode 4

‘Stuck’ Market

Episode Background

A few years ago the number of women investors in the stock markets was minuscule. However the Covid pandemic has brought in a major change in this segment.

With job losses, salary cuts of self/ spouse, dropping FD rates and with time on hand, many women across India (and the world) started tracking stock markets and investing in them especially since most global stock indices have done phenomenally well in the past 18 months.

Today almost 20% of the investors in India are women. More number of them are opening trading accounts as rapid digitalisation of the entire process has simplified investing and helped fuel this trend.

Homemakers who have lagged behind are also now joining the bandwagon of traders/ investors as awareness increases.

One of them is of course the protagonist of our story Jhumka Jhumur. All her life she has believed only in Savings accounts and her primary investments have been Cash, Fixed Deposits and Gold.

However, few years ago Jhumur ventured into the world of Sensex and its myriad constituents. She played it safe and invested in what she considered ‘safe haven’ companies like ITC, Coal India, Maruti Suzuki, NTPC etc.

However such a strategy yielded totally unintended and hilarious consequences as we will find out from this episode!

Dear Reader,

Have you had a similar experience like Jhumka Jhumur where-in you have invested in some stocks and they have more or less remained stagnant in the past few years despite a rally in the market?

For the uninitiated, the stock names mentioned in the Introduction above have not performed very well in the pandemic period and seem to have been stuck at their respective price levels.

Do share your thoughts and look forward as always to hearing from you 😊

This episode comes to life through the Illustrations by Vartika Bhonsle, with whom this is my 2nd episode of JJ. She is a student of Fashion Communication and a graduate from NIFT, Bhubaneswar. 

She loves illustrating people and cute puppies and you can visit her Instagram page @yellowlittlelamp to follow some awesome art!

Jhumka Jhumur -Episode 3

Episode Background

Hello Everyone!

Jhumka Jhumur is back in Episode 3 in a new avatar. It is titled ‘Time Travel’.

Have we not sometimes wondered that maybe we could go back in time? To our childhood, to our youth and maybe do something different!

What if we get an opportunity to do so but just to give advice (borne out of our experiences) to our own younger self? If yes then what would that be…

That is the topic for this episode. Along with her son Ishaan, Jhumka has undergone a make over giving them both a more fluid, contemporary look.

Hope you all like it!

So, read on to find out what light-hearted fun banter takes place between the lovable mother-son duo this time 🙂

Come on everyone, do share your thoughts! Taking the cue from Ishaan what would your 3 words be?

Look forward as always to hearing from you 😊

This episode comes to life through the Illustrations by Vartika Bhonsle, with whom this is my maiden collaboration. She is a student of Fashion Communication and a graduate from NIFT, Bhubaneswar. 

She loves illustrating people and cute puppies and you can visit her Instagram page @yellowlittlelamp to follow some awesome art!

This work of fiction, written by Wasim Jawaid is the author’s sole intellectual property. All rights are reserved. No part of this story may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including printing, photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author. For permission requests, send an email to the author wasim.jawaid@gmail.com

Jhumka Jhumur – Episode 2

The Covid Cook

Hello Everyone!

Jhumka Jhumur is back in this second episode with yet another interaction with her son Ishaan, who seems to be at his witty best as ever.

Episode Background

The pandemic has brought in disruption in umpteen ways, which we didn’t think possible. For example, at home it became even more challenging with the entire family in WFH mode and domestic help becoming scarce due to various reasons.

This situation of course did not spare Jhumka Jhumur either!

So, like millions of homemakers across the world, she too had to learn to manage the additional work that came in when the cook, the maid or the part time help simply could not turn up in their regular routine as earlier.

Episode 2 makes an attempt to highlight this, albeit in a light hearted manner. Read on to find out what the mother-son duo have in store for us this time!

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Scene 7

All Illustrations created in collaboration with Ritwicka Banerjee. Your effort and creativity always impresses! Thank you so much 😊

You can visit her Instagram page phantasmicart for more amazing art.

Dear Reader,

Have you had any such experience as above? Have any of your domestic help, who provide us comfort with their presence in our homes, been unable to re-join work due to the pandemic?

Do share below your thoughts and also what you think of this particular episode.

Look forward as always to hearing from you!

This work of fiction, written by Wasim Jawaid is the author’s sole intellectual property. All rights are reserved. No part of this story may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including printing, photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author. For permission requests, send an email to the author wasim.jawaid@gmail.com

Jhumka Jhumur – Episode 1

Andaz Apna Apna

Episode Background

Welcome to the opening Episode of Jhumka Jhumur series!

The title is of course inspired by the cult Hindi movie of 1994 directed by Rajkumar Santoshi, but this episode’s essence comes from another Bollywood blockbuster of the 70’s – Andaz.

That movie marked the entry of the successful script writing duo of Salim-Javed into Bollywood as a team and also featured the evergreen hit of Kishore da – “Zindagi Ek Safar Hai Suhana.”

This song forms the genesis of Episode 1 as it revolves around one of its’ antaras.

Ironically, the album of this film was one of the last of music directors Shankar- Jaikishan as the latter passed away in the same year at the young age of 42 only.

So, with this background let us move on to the episode!

Jhumur is having an usual day at home, dusting her son Ishaan’s study room. She is humming this above mentioned song which is one of her favourites!

The End

Dear Reader,

Scene 4 holds the crux of this episode. Also request you to kindly read the Introductory chapter ‘Jhumka Jhumur’ (If you haven’t already!) posted here on 19.03.2021 (https://thatodiaboy.com/2021/03/19/jhumka-jhumur/)

This is my maiden foray into the world of digital comics! I would love it if you leave your valued thoughts and feedback on this comic strip in the comment section below.

I look forward to hearing from you 🙂

Comic Illustration by Tulika. You can follow her Instagram page ‘Verfkwast_’ for more amazing art!

Thank You!

Background

Jhumka is a 40-something middle aged homemaker. She defines the quintessential woman we see in our homes – modern yet rooted deep in her customs, aspiring and yet keeping family above self. She could be our mother/ wife, our mausi, an aunt or even our friend.

She stays in typical cosmopolitan surroundings – In a multi storeyed apartment with multiple neighbours around. It is part of a larger housing society which in turn is one of million such societies which comprise the larger urban jungle that we all are part of!

Her 2BHK flat which she calls home, can be in any of the metropolitan cities in India. Along with her husband, her family comprises of 2 kids – an elder son Ishaan who is preparing for his school Boards (IX) and a younger daughter Ishani, who is in class VI.

Inspiration

Though this is a work of fiction, the character is inspired in real life from one of my school classmates. She seems perfect for this adaptation because she espouses exactly what I am looking for – a woman not afraid to speak her mind and never hesitating to take the lead in managing the day to day family affairs.

She does her best to keep a semblance of sanity around her and the house, as this is 365 days a year job!

More importantly she is always ready to take on headlong the problems life throws at her with a brave and sometimes funny face.

Soft at heart, she is ready to sacrifice time and ever willing to compromise on her aspirations/desires for the greater happiness of her family.

Maybe she could have pursued a far more rewarding career at work but she could not.

This could have been due to marriage, motherhood, or martyrdom – we do not know. But what we do know is this is how she regards life – that happiness and being content is more important than materialistic success.

She serves her in-laws, husband, kids (and even her own parents) with dedication and expects only love, respect and attention in return, because these values have been instilled in her ever since childhood.

Yet she hates being taken for granted by anyone in her life!

Presentation

The story will be told in simple narrative style about the day-to-day situations which we all face in our lives. It will be presented in a digital comic format in multiple episodes.

Hence the artist working with me on this, is an equal stakeholder in the story telling.

It gives me immense happiness to mention that Miss Tulika Kumari from NIFT Bhubaneswar, will be collaborating with me on this series. She is a dedicated student and creativity is her soul food.

So folks, presenting the 21^st century woman, Jhumka Jhumur in various avatars– modern yet traditional, bold yet respectful and serious yet funny at the same time!

Episode 1 releasing soon!