Family - Encompassing life's journey...

Out of the many things that make us Indians very unique and different from the people of the rest of the world, family ties or bonds is right up there. Nowhere in the world (except perhaps some other neighbouring countries in the sub-continent) would this value be found so starkly different than in our place and among our people. Our concept of family is so vast and all-encompassing that what is generally nuclear for the rest of the world could look like an entire atomic structure of Uranium or Plutonium for us !

Even though we too are becoming more and more nuclear now, and breaking away from the traditions of joint family, the field and more so the influence of the extended family members run large among us that it is almost impossible for us to consider ourselves “out of our family” any time. And come any occasion or a festival, they all are there back again together. Marriages are often between families rather than between two individuals. Not only blood is thicker than water in most cases, even skin becomes thicker than leather, to weather many trials and tribulations, thanks to that one odd Bua here or an Uncle there or a few cousins and what have you! The problem gets compounded with the arrival of a bride into the system. Along with the added dimensions of her own kith and kin, she needs to now cope with the new “paltan” of her husband’s family and the equations have to be properly established, not to mention the mother-in-law/daughter-in-law equation that occupies the centre stage of it all. Most often the son (or the husband) is caught in between totally clueless among these dynamics for not “getting it” at all from anyone’s perspective, let alone his own. It is sometimes very funny to see that guys who take multi-million dollar decisions for their companies where they work, can’t take simple decisions on where to go for a vacation on Diwali or which all houses should be visited when you go to some place, without the “necessary blessings” from those who pull the strings. At times even such things as which dress to wear!

It is during such crisis, a job out of India comes as a big welcome relief for the newly-weds or even the much married! But then only for a brief while until we get to know the other side of the story across the seas, where the parents (irrespective of whether they are still together as spouses) maybe even living in the same town as their kids, but hardly spending any time with them. Old age people take recourse to showing affection to pets and live alone in a big house with just a dog to give company. In the movie “What a girl wants”, when Daphne (the American girl) comes to meet her British father in London and when she tries to hug her grandmother, the old lady says – “No hugging dear. I’m British. We show affection to dogs and horses only.” As we saw in the case of the Bengali couple who were arrested in Norway by the Child Police, even force feeding or sleeping with children in the same bed could land you in trouble in many places. So there is a cold distance or what they term as “courteous detachment”, that gets built in relationships there which could be quite suffocating for many Indians. The problem gets worse when one of the spouses die at an old age and the other has to live the rest of the life all alone. That is when we realise the value of our family ties back home here. The joy of seeing our people when we come home for every vacation rather than going to Hawai or Fontainebleau, notwithstanding the heat, humidity, traffic, cows and cow dung back home! Despite all the "other troubles" that we face, it is the sheer pleasure and warmth of meeting our own and the support system they provide specially in the times of difficulties and miseries, that we miss elsewhere in the world. There is an untold sense of security we get being amongst our own family members that becomes so much a part of our identity as much as a value.

We learn many things in that process - the art of adjusting, the skills of negotiating, the joy of sharing, the power of networking, the value of respecting, the support while suffering, and the strength in enduring. We realise how important inter-dependence is as opposed to parasitical dependency which is what made us look out for independence. If only the elderly too realise this and keep the right distance and give a longer rope to the young, the expectational burden that they put would not weaken the younger ones' shoulders. Many a times, the elders in the family simply forget that there is a fine line between what is intervention, which is required and what is interference, which is not required and over step that line. It is in maintaining that "safe distance" yet keeping the warmth of the relationships the balance would be struck.

Yet it is pathetic to see how we are losing our grips on this beautiful value and moving farther away from our dear and near ones many times because of a silly ego issue that is not worth a dime. Often a marriage against a parental wish, or a career choice or sometimes as silly as being nice to someone a particular family member hates, becomes good enough reason to keep us apart. Aged single parents move helplessly between one house to the other, as part of "sharing the burden" and sometimes get offloaded into some "home" where there are other such destitute elders. Worse, they are simply dropped off in Kumbh mela in Allahabad or Haridwar or Kasi. My mother used to say,"one mother can take care of seven children, but seven children together cannot take care of an old mother!"

This is heart rending. Specially for those who have lost their parents or are far away from them and cherish to be with their dear and near. Ask those who are living abroad what happens to them during festival times when they miss their own people, and they will tell us how gut wrenching it could be. While it is good to go nuclear and keep the "safe distance" and be independent, it is also equally important to recognise the uniqueness in these values that make us as true Indians and proud ones at that. Let us not lose them, and in the process lose ourselves. Bonds are meant to strengthen us, and not to get us "bound". That is the true meaning of Raksha bandhan. The bond of security. The bond of love. The bond that makes us whom we are.

You deserve better...

No matter how bad it hurts or how bad you feel, it's time to stop thinking about that person who played with your feelings, who took your love for granted, who never appreciated your care, who wasn't contented with what you could give him or her. 

You can't stay at that hurtful place anymore. You can't keep shedding tears over someone who doesn't deserve the love you gave. You can't keep feeling sorry for yourself and thinking if only you did more. You can't make them want the relationship because if they wanted they wouldn't have let go of you. You deserve better now. You deserve someone who appreciates all the good qualities that you offer. You deserve someone who won’t play with your delicate heart, you deserve someone who won’t be all about knowing your body, you deserve someone who will be serious with you and who will be with the fear of hurting you & losing you. 

Just like a cut on your hand will take time to heal, your broken heart needs time to heal as well. Many people before you, who thought they couldn't make it, have survived and made it. Just like they made it, you will make it too. Be strong and try to move on now. That’s not the end of your life. 

You will get over that pain you’re having right now and one day you’ll be happy again.

Being single...

Are you single? Are you tired and fed up of being alone? Do you feel lonely that your dear ones leave you all alone even though you could do anything to make her smile? Being single is not a bad thing; it's just a hard thing to go through and can play with your emotions and self confidence. But life is not all about a single relationship.

“Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.” ~John Allen Paulos

There are some important truths about being single. Being single gives you time to be by yourself, with yourself (finally some YOU time). The time to reconnect with yourself, a time where you can talk to yourself and debate all the questions that are bouncing in your head.

If you don’t let go of the past, you will never appreciate the present. You will always cherish those chweet memories with your dear ones, but you need to stop clinging to them to live for today and plan for tomorrow. Change can sometimes be good. Your past may be so beautiful to cherish but it is not much helpful to cry over the same thing again and again. You will have to accept your past and turn the pages of your life story to make it a happy one in the present.

Being single does not have to mean being afraid to love. Your heart may have been bashed, bruised and broken. But you don’t want to feel traumatized, as you may love again. Hopefully the next someone will treasure and treat your heart with love and respect. Someone, who will hold your head and look into eyes to see if you are really fine. Even if you’re single, you still have so much to appreciate. Being single is not the end of the world. There are other problems that are more depressing than being single—hunger and homelessness, for instance.

You’re not alone when you’re single; you still have family and good friends. If you are feeling lonely, talk to your family and hang out with your friends. Sitting on your own, in a darken room with the curtains closed will do nothing for your confidence and will make you feel more pessimistic. Get out there and socialize with friends and take your mind off being single!

Don't go searching. Some say that you don't find love, love finds you. What this old saying means is love isn't something you buy, it's something that is earned and discovered. We can't go in search of love as it won't last long if we do. It has to happen by its own. It must hit us, spellbind us, and turn life topsy turvy! It has to be with us always. That's true love. It will happen to you.

Actually you don't choose your love, it will walk through your door someday and make you realize the reason why god made you wait so many days with loneliness and tears. Be Happy and of course Keep Smiling :)

YES or a NO...

Right from your very young days, you are taught to say Yes to most of the things. Say Yes to religion, say Yes to the concept of existence of God, say Yes to what your parents think is right for you, listen to Obama when he says 'Yes we can' and some people even ask you to read that Shiv Khera's piece of shit called 'You can win' and think that it will change your life.

That little Johnny whose rhymes we sang, couldn't he have said 'NO' ?. Why couldn't it be Johnny Johnny 'No Papa' and the rhyme would have just ended there and Johnny wouldn't have had to answer two more questions and then open his mouth like an idiot and we wouldn't have had to recite that at all :)

Well, I don't know what role the upbrining plays specially in defining when a person needs to say 'NO'.

1. In the office, you get a mail at 6:30PM by your Boss. 'Can you please send this out in the next 2 hours, it's really really urgent.' Your office hours are from 9 to 6, you are already half an hour late, but most of us still reply to that mail, saying 'YES, it will be done, will send out asap'
2. Your wife tells you not to socialize with your friends who she thinks are creepy, the ones that you have grown up with and instead of taking a stand, you start avoiding them? Why can't you say 'No, they are my friends and I don't care how creepy they are'
3. Your parents tell you to take computer Science engineering when you are interested in may be an alternate career option, but you listen to them, why don't you say 'NO, I will pursue what I want, may be I will end up in shit, but I think I will be happier'

The main reason of saying 'Yes' is this inherent desperate need that is instilled in most human beings to 'PLEASE OTHERS'. You want others to think you are good, you want others to praise you, look up to you and all that. As they say, 'Duniya ka sabse bada rog, mere baare me kya kahenge log'. It's also the comfort factor that you get when you are a part of the majority and do what most people do. We also have the fear of the unknown, or why would more than half the honeymoons in India end up having the same 'Kulu Manali' destination and not Sarkhundi Pass?

It's not easy to do what you want, you might have to say NO to so many things, you have to say NO to comfort, NO to earning more money in the short run, say NO to routines, say 'NO' to being around with your loved ones, may be, say 'NO' to a better life that most people think and say they have. It might take ages to reach your GOAL, but through the journey you would have said YES to some magnificent things, 'YES' to travel. 'YES' to change, 'YES' to your ambitions and goals and through all this 'YES' to LIFE and that's the most important YES you have to say, EVER.

What should women do when the basic premise is flawed.

A basic premise is how you assume the world works, without even thinking about it. In India, one would assume that irrespective of what women wear, men should behave themselves. Yes, the educated world probably will and ideally should, but you will still find some idiots there who start grinding their asses in pubs when they are drunk. That said and done, most educated people will try and BEHAVE THEMSELVES.

The reason I am writing this article, which I can tell will have a controversial 'take away' is my recent observations. Two things.

1. A school / college girl probably 15 years of age silently walking on the footpath in a metropolitan city(deliberately not naming) wearing school uniform, one could probably say that the skirt she was wearing was more like a mini-skirt. An auto driver stops near her, grabs her ass and disappears

2. A girl walking alone in another metropolitan city(deliberately not naming) wearing a black revealing dress, looks partly stoned with a cigarette in one hand and 3 men walking behind her, just grab whatever they could and run away.

I have realized that we live in a country where the mindset of most people is fucked up. Thanks to the chauvinistic upbringing, lack of education and the big part played by media.

What do you expect kids to understand from songs like 'I want fakht you' and then women wearing revealing dresses and singing 'Mere tan ki pyaas Bujhado' in movies? An un-monitored child will probably think that a woman dressed in mini skirts etc is probably asking for trouble. Add to that the huge vocabulary of abuses that we hear around us doesn't help in gaining any kind of maturity.

I have seen so many, so fucking many people in lifts and crowded areas, even educated I am sure, trying to elbow women's boobs /accidentally touch them and grind their asses against women. Fuck upbringing for God's sake, these are all well placed in their lives with good jobs and some even married.

Coming back to the basic premise, we don't live in a world where we can avoid violence if we close our eyes. Probably the smarter thing to do would be to adhere to the conclusion that revealing clothes can provoke men. I know this doesn't make sense to all the educated women living around educated men. I am talking about the broader sect filled with horny people with absolutely no values. 

It might just be something that women someday would consider living in a country like this with the kind of people we are surrounded by and the media that adds masala to it.

Bachelor days...

"It's a funny thing that when man has nothing to worry about, he goes off and gets married", said Robert Frost. Yes it's funny and it's a fact too. Thinking of which, being single is/was the most precious time of life that is seriously "wasted". Well I am not talking about those who remain single by choice, or those who turned single again, but those singular years before you "get settled" as whatever way that is meant in our social context. The days when you are alone even while being "at home" or in a crowd, no matter how many girlfriends you have been dating.

Bachelor days are mostly aimless, definitely shameless, and also nameless. There is an unabashedness and an unassumingness about it which no other point of time in life can replicate or allow you to be perpetually into such a state, when you are stripped (literally) of everything and yet you feel so cool "hanging around", walking, yapping, sleeping, eating or boozing all together at the same time, or in no time, or all the time. You are not "expected to conform" which in a way is a big let off for most boys, as they are most comfortable if left alone like that. Yet there is a nagging vacuum or a sense of deprivation or unsettlement which keeps working in the back of the mind, that eventually gets "spent" on playboy magazines or porn videos.

For those who are preparing for CAT or GMAT or some other big thing in their lives, that sets their agenda going for a couple of years or more if they indeed get through, so that is a different story altogether. For the less ambitious or dare I say the more "grounded" ones (grounded simply because of the daily grind and nothing else!) who have to settle with some job somewhere to keep earning to pay off the debts or support their families, the challenges are of a different kind.

The disillusionment that sets in some months after the initial euphoria of getting the job, specially when you get to know someone close enough or staying with you has made it big somewhere else or got an admission in a University abroad or a US visa, can be quite sapping. A pall of gloom suddenly descends and one gets a feeling of being rounded up in a rathole while getting up to go back to the same workplace the next Monday morning when the hangover of the weekend settles down, and the midnight flight carrying the friend had already crossed most of the Arabian sea in its pursuit of a promised land, far away.

The future is, in reality, not as bleak as it would seem then. In fact the bachelor days offer you some of the very best times for you to go back to yourself and regroup to take stock of where you are and what all you would want to do in your life. You don't need to make a Bucket List for instance only when more than three-fourths of your legs are kicking the bucket! It can very well be made while carrying the bucket and standing in the line for the toilet in the mornings during your dorm days.

Even if it appears to be a silly dream, don't ignore it. Write it down. Toy with it. Stretch it to a wider canvas. Let some of those creative juices that flow in while fantasising on the bed with a Playboy playmate, help you develop those wild imaginations. It could be as simple a thing as learning a new foreign language, or writing a novel never to be published, or acquiring a different skill in an unknown area or chasing an odd passion hidden in the bottom of the heart which may apparently seem to be of no use at that time. Never mind, but deal with it. Invest in it with your time and energy, even if you may not have the money for it, for there is no dearth of both at that point of time in life which you may find it increasingly difficult to get as the years go by even when the bank balances swell and overflow!

It does not matter if the current reality is far far away from this conceptual framework you are trying to create in mind, for the future is not a grim ridge of impossibility from where you just fall off into a never ending gorge of despair, but always offers a great range of possibilities which is limited only by the scale of your imagination and the scope of your talent to realise it. So use this time to build those - imagination and talent and you never know when they will merge with a beautiful opportunity coming in your way to celebrate yet another victory, a new unknown territory of expertise, for in just the curiosity to know more and explore wider man has surpassed every barrier known to his previous generations while setting new standards in evolution.

Remember the one thing other than your bachelor friend that does not hesitate to come in breaking the doors, even if you don't want or invite, is entropy. Sadly it does not leave even after the friend leaves. So it is entirely upto you on how to deal with it. Booze does not necessarily wash it down through your system that you can piss yourself off with it. Instead it may turn around and piss you off even worse when you wake up! The only way to confuse the shit out of entropy is by bombarding it with a truckload of choices that you would want to pursue and challenge it to accompany you! Just let your imagination run wild to create those choices - for there is no tax levied (yet) for imagining.

Men try to get back to their bachelor days when they grow older. Just throw in a few cans of beer and old mates from college or workplace, and you will see them monkeying around again. It is sheer fun. But only for a few hours. Then we get back to our business. But for those who are indeed bachelors and spending their time in bachelorhood, life can't be just monkeying around as there are lot more things to do as well - without anyone else breathing down your neck. And for the bachelor fun, there are always Friday evenings, as this one today.

Have fun, drink big, and dream even bigger!

Why long distance relationships fail to work....

There is a reason why most of the long distance relationships do not work out eventually. It all starts with lots with promises. People go out of their way to ensure that nothing has changed. Phones become the dearest of all possessions. You live through the day waiting for your phone to ring and her name to appear on the phone. Yes, all the hype regarding seeing-their-name-and-heart-skipping-a-beat is actually true. Once you are on the phone, life becomes a formality dictated by the hands of the clock. Your friends start hating you for what you eventually become; a living piece of meat glued to a cell phone. You don’t hang out any longer and even if you do, people start assuming that you are dating a cell phone. A few around you will even go to the extent of saying that you are hallucinating by hanging out with your imaginary girlfriend. You still watch TV but it is switched on only to make sure that the guy in the adjacent room doesn't listen while you make love on the phone. Or love with the phone, whichever way it is. And that carries through the night till the early morning since it becomes the best time when no one notices you kissing your phone or saying those three words infinite number of times. Sleep, well, the less said the better. 

Crux of the matter is that you become distant with everything else but that one person who is probably suffering the same way you are. That works. Yeah, it indeed works; maybe for a month, maybe for a couple of months, maybe even longer . . . That works, yeah; only till the time you don’t get over it. Like getting bored and getting over it. It all starts with subtle cribbing. You will be out on the street and you will see young couples kissing and dating and you will go on thinking how unfortunate you two have been away from each other . . .  After a while, the libidos stop reacting to the kinky talks on the phone. You talk but you do not make love. Nah, not any more. You crib subtly. Then comes the longing to see each other in which thankfully, the video technology has helped. But it fades away too. You get tired of the faces against the same backgrounds with a bad video quality. Suddenly, you are out of strength to switch on even a laptop. After a while, you can’t just stay awake at night. And sometimes, even pass out while talking. That’s why I believe, sleep is a bitch for a relationship. You are in love, you talk but the monotony of the circumstances gradually changes your priorities.

I never thought it would happen to us. But it did . . . and it was heart wrenching.