Oh girl! Be yourself!

I had earlier written about Oh boy!

Being a girl and a woman now.. I hated to be one!
Anytime any woman blamed a man for whatever happened to her, I would defend the man!
I believed that men were much better than any woman. I still do!
Men braved the outside world and worked hard, what does a woman know about hard work when all she does is bask in the glory of her husband!

What I didnt know or understand, was that all this looks so nice from the outside

From the time I had a male gynaecologist to deliver my baby, I have been a man's woman.
I have seen men to be more sensitive to a woman.
The second and third baby I had, was delivered by a woman, and she, believe me was quite rough with me!

I used to think that I am the only one amongst many woman who are female bashers. But I recently realised that its not just me, there are tonnes of women out there who seek approval and they merit the approval so much that they are willing to let go of themselves to the extent that they let themselves be misused and misunderstood, all for the sake of a good name!
I was running away from myself till now.

The women who cry foul are called feminist, and looked down upon. For the first time in my life I am feeling yucky about myself and the treatment I give to half the world of which I belong myself.
WHY are women their own worst enemy?

I remember the first time I defended a woman, when I watched a movie called Kramer versus Kramer. I had a discussion about this movie with a friend of mine who pronounced that leaving the child by the mother was a very unacceptable behaviour. Women who take the child away with her after separation is yet another unacceptable thing to do. After all the child belongs to the father as well! How ruthless women can be!!
I was befuddled! Oh Heck what is the woman supposed to do? I always thought if I had to leave my marriage and step out I would never take the kid along with me.
Two reasons
1. The child is not only mine, more than mine, its least mine. Its like I am just the factory who produced the product but the ownership of the child is the man who has paid for the upkeep and supplied the raw material maybe. It was my own way of numbing my own emotion and saying NO before somebody else did that to me!
2. As a woman, stepping out also means that I have to start to fend for myself without a proper home and shelter, and when I am so unsure where I will land up, I cannot take the risk of taking another soul and putting it at risk!
I came to realise that whatever I will do, it is always going to be looked down upon.

Recently I told my sil about how many times in life I have been molested by men since the beginning of childhood, be it people in the house or people outside. I never raised any alarm and when I told my sil about it, she rightly said, its your eyes bhabi, they dance when you talk so you attract people!! Whoa!

Then again, my mil called and she was complaining of a certain relative who was cruel to his wife who's mother had died recently and he didnt leave her to stay for some days with her father for consolation, and when I retaliated by saying, that its not entirely the man's fault, its the woman who has no bones to speak for herself and hence the man takes advantage of her. My mil was quick to say, the girl is a nice girl!

So all for the sake of being nice and merit? Why does a woman do this?
I saw a movie today, it is an old movie called Dor, two women of different backgrounds meet because of certain circumstances. The stronger one makes her own decisions and stands by her decisions and comes across as very fair and almost like a man. The beginning of the story shows that the in laws of the stronger woman is not willing to accept her as a daughter in law. The son goes away to foreign country for work and tells his parents that if they do not accept the daughter in law, he will cut all correspondence with them and they will hear about him only when he returns. Meanwhile He keeps sending his salary to his wife, The wife who is an independent woman and earns her own living gives the entire amount to his parents who admit later that they were wrong in judging her! They tell her that she has a right to her husband's money to which she replies, "I may deserve this money but I am not needy of it and my salary is enough for me." WOW
I am digressing a little by saying the above. The reason I mentioned this movie was that there was a small scene in this movie where a widow empathises with another widow and says, "when a woman does not understand another woman, then how can we expect a man to understand us?"

Then I saw another movie called Fihaal, where there are two best friends. One friend is very focussed, independent and never wants to marry or settle down because as per her, "A woman in any relationship has to compromise sooner or later!"  The other just wants to love a man and have a family with him. What happens in the movie is another story. But I want to focus on being able to make your own decisions and then be blamed for what happened to your life. In this movie also, due to circumstances of the plot of the movie, the two women friends fight and fail to understand each other!

I see that any woman who is strong and independent comes out a winner in the end. These independent women look like feminists who don't want to settle down and who doesn't want to compromise. They are their own friends, they have self respect, they don't want any approval from anyone, they are responsible and fair. They hardly cry foul and most importantly, they are the ones in both the movies who are the true friends to their female counterparts!
Most importantly I have learnt that the stronger woman is NOT a woman hater!!

All this makes me feel that while I thought I was strong, I wasn't, I was just a confused idiot till now! I was only one of those men pleasers who in the end because of the sacrifices she makes to please a father or a husband or a son or a brother is spurned and treated like a doormat because she held no self respect for herself and expected someone to fill her shoes!

Great Expectations

I have seen so many times, that a rich man is very quick to announce his alliance with another rich(er) man, and will also go to lengths explaining that he is also a distant cousin (and how?) Seldom do we see them banging the church bell and acknowledging a poor man even if he is his closest cousin (or maybe brother). 

Its as if a girl cannot be just friends with a boy.

And why would a boy want to befriend a girl only for friendship? There is always an expectation of returns.. a just friendship and nothing else with the opposite gender just doesn't work.. Naah not possible!

Likewise a rich man cannot have poor relatives. Even if he has, he makes no bones about it for sure!
And why would the rich want to play relative relative to poor relatives? That poor relative will probably suck him out of all his riches, and where there is no return, the rich never invest! You can call it a trade secret!

And when its the matter of rich girl and poor boy or vice versa... no match at all!! noways especially in the current scenario where expectations has to match all the time! Bring in a poor girl and you get tied to poor relatives, so get yourself a rich girl (ugly will do) with a rich(er) father. duh! duh!

I know a hell lot of people who do the same, and seldom meet people who dont!

The moment a newbee (read richie rich) enters the social ladder, almost everyone is out to prove how he or his wife (or even his servant) is related to him in so and so (many long curvy) ways!

Pissed off!

Picture from here

Why pity your love?

What is love?
What is pity?
Are we tempted to love or like the ones whom we pity, or who in some way or the other looks like a suffering victim in the hands of fate or otherwise.
Ever noticed the most likeable character from any story, is the one who is most deprived and sad?
Why do we love the sad stories of others?

The protagonist of any story is seldom a very happy go lucky (read happier than us) kind of a person.
From the fairy tales to novels and movies, the sad ones are the most lovable ones. Take the example of Cindrella, our heart went out for her and we were so happy when she got the prince finally!

Why do they attract us? Do we like the fact that we are in a better position than them?
Does their apparent bad condition make us feel good by comparison?

Seen Tom and Jerry? Our heart is in Jerry, he is tiny and cute and is forever escaping Tom much to our relief! But, when Tom is being chased by the bulldog, we dont feel a thing for Tom!

Most often than not, we find ourselves falling in love with these characters. My question is, is it love or is it pity? Can we love without pity? Pity without love?

Do I hear a, " I love you," actually meaning, "I pity you?" :-/

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Child or children?

Are children the cause of being rich or poor?
When I had my 3rd baby,  some people looked at me as if i had committed some sin!
Will my baby be the cause of my wealth dwindling?
IS that why the rich have only one or maximum 2 kids?

My maid has 10 kids.
I was thinking if she can raise 10? why do people 100 times richer than her raise even half her number?
what is it that we will have to forgo? If we have 2 kids, it is ok. the moment the 3rd arrives, the problem arises.
will we have to go out less? less trips and holidays?
less parties and less diamonds?

A friend said very emphatically that one child doesn't divide the property and hence the family remains rich!
I think a rich family instead of overindulging with their kids should have more kids so that their expenses remain at a level where they are not able to indulge the child, and make him or her a spoil't rich brat!
How the hell would the child know the importance of owning without depravity?

Supposing I have 1 lakh to buy techstuff for kids.. I would surely buy a macbook if I had one child, a laptop if I had 2 and a notebook if I had 3? Does giving the child a macbook more imp?
Regular expenses is a little bit of a problem, where in you have to give the needs of food and clothing, still if one is rich enough, that can be done without much of a problem!

It would do some good to the kid to be left in wanting. Thats a good thing.. to remain in want! Its the force of want which keeps you going and striving and having hope!

There are some who would say that we can have one and still not indulge, but I think the majority of us don't know where to draw the line, and as I said in an earlier post, its very hard to say NO to your kid, especially if he is going to be the only breadwinner in the family in future, so you got to treat him good so that he treats you OK when you grow old!

Apart from all this, the child grows up knowing how to share and care and fight and forgive.. ( I could go on) with their brothers and sisters. Overall I think, very good for the psyche.

PS. Sorry, one child is a NO NO for me and China may not agree. Thats ok, as long as India keeps the mantra "hum do hamare do"(we 2 and our kids 2), even 2 is better than 1. :)

Apart from doing the child good, its a very good lesson for the parent too. The parent has to be nuetral and understand the shades of characters each of her child possesses and be more reciprocal with each one of them.
Let me explain via an example.. My elder SIL (sister in law) had her first child after I had had 2 kids. Once while I was in the same city as she was, and she was going to travel (by flight) to our in laws, where I would also join some time later. I wanted to send my elder daughter with her so that her school wouldn't be missed and I could have an extended holiday. She was so reluctant to take my daughter with her, she said she wouldn't be able to keep a watch at 2 kids at the same time and her hands would be full with her kid (my daughter was 2 and a half years old). I didn't say anything because probably she was anxious for her only child and maybe didn't know how to take care of 2 kids together. My second kid was just a few months older to her first kid. Anyways, such is destiny, that she now has 4 kids and she still remembers the day when she was so fussy about taking my kid with her, and now she did confess to me, that she felt bad about it and that now with her 4 kids, wouldn't I think how was she travelling now?

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Why do joint families break?

This is a question which has been haunting me for a while!

Reason, there are too many of them opting for Splitsville in recent times..

I have always seen that it is the younger brother amongst the lot who is in a hurry to separate..

Recently just too many families have gone the same way and the story is more or less the same, i.e that younger wants a separation asap!

Dwelling deeply on this and a discussion with a friend.. I have concluded on two main issues..

1. One of them (usually the younger or the youngest) starts thinking that the others are spending more, again because he has a bigger family or his kids are bigger or maybe of marriageable age and hence have more expenses..in short, this is an expense issue. So, this issue is still solvable by having a more transparent accounting system in which the expenses of each brother has to be paid out of his own pocket.

This has an added advantage of being more responsible of the individual expenses and reduces extravaganza.

2. This brother/partner (younger) might also think,despite him putting in more effort than the others, his profits/income is equally divided which is totally unacceptable to him. He feels that he cannot go on subsidizing for his elder brother and his family and sees them as a threat to his prosperity. Probably he believes he is much better off without the elder!

I have seen this not to be an issue when the roles are reversed, i.e the eldest while putting in more effort will almost never think like this of his brother, and will continue to support him even if the parents are not able to!

Usually in a joint family there is a joint business in which the partners are brothers as well.. Since it is a partnership business, the profits are divided equally. BUT, the dispute arises when there is a difference in the capability of the brothers, which may not be in equal proportions. In families where there are more than two brothers, then also the onus of keeping the family together is always on the eldest. Sometimes, one (mostly younger) of the brothers may also think that he is more capable (perhaps even puts in more effort) but his earnings are being divided equally because of the joint family business. Then this brother doesn't want to stay together and keep subsidizing or providing for others, whom he thinks he can do without..

Elders have said," each of us are like the fingers of a hand, the thumb being the most important finger, but when you close and make a fist, you need the other fingers."

one of the biggest family feud in one of the biggest industry ..!

What perplexes me is that Why is it always the younger who thinks that way?

I have come across families where I have seen the eldest being more capable yet he never or seldom wants to split. I have come across families where the eldest is not at all spendthrift, yet the younger brother is in a hurry to leave.

Perhaps, it might be suppression and the urge to carve a niche out for one self instead of being called a half ticket or chotu as my friend put it..

What angers me is Why do the elder brother wants to keep them all together.. Why does he waste his "golden time" and energy on trying to do the impossible? Why doesn't he look back at history and learn from it, instead of hoping that this time it will be different?

I hope I am born as an eldest brother in the next birth and I swear I will not try to make history, but only learn from it! :@

Picture from here

Divorces galore!

Nowadays I see so much strife between a husband and wife.
Reason is simple.. the roles have reversed. earlier it was the husbands who wanted a meek and docile wife, nowadays its the women who want a meek and docile husband. If the husband isn't understanding (read meek enough) he is out.
I don't know how many would agree to what I am observing.. I am a woman and maybe I am one of them, or maybe my husband is too good to be true!

I have been wondering about the bygone days when women were not allowed to go to school or have any formal education. There was a perfect balance and harmony maintained in the society. The girls were taught from the beginning to look after the house, to cook, clean and serve.

Its isn't entirely the fault of women. Now, they are treated as equals as long as they are in their parents house, equal amount of money is spent on both girls and boys for their upbringing and education. But, as soon as a girl enters matrimony, she senses the differences soon, and sure enough she cant stand it!
More over women want to do the neat work, go to the office and bring in the money and earn equal respect in the family.

When I see the matrimony ads, most demand for a nice fair and "educated or graduate" girl. I was wondering how long would this go on? It might happen that the menfolk realises that the less educated the better.. A sad thing for women though, but like money goes into the head of people and clouds reason, education seems to have done the same to women.

All this woman power and woman equality is anyways not my cup of tea. This only validates that a woman is powerless and not equal at all. If a woman proclaims she is an equal why does she demand that a man leave his seat for her in the bus or expect him to do all the heavy work?

So, finally I am seriously contemplating, whether to send my daughter (currently 5 months old) to school or to teach her some essentials, so that she is able to get around in the world herself, and more about homework! She would be someone rare then, and less educated would be in high demand and low supply.. no?

Picture from here

Child :)

I just saw in a news on TV that a child was found abandoned in a bag. A couple found it and reported to the police station. The child was being given to an NGO for support but the couple who found the child is ready to keep it.
I was wondering what made the child's parents leave it just like that!
If it was a girl child, then we all know the reasons for disowning it.
But what reasons there could be for a male child?
I thought perhaps, that perhaps it was a bastard..

Now our society is such that it doesn't accept a bastard, so the mother probably has to discard the child for fear of dishonor. But the same society wont mind if a child is picked up from anywhere and then adopted.
Why this difference? The child in an orphanage could be an orphan or a bastard, but society would be OK with it, if the child is raised by foster adopted parents.

A child is so lovable and it must really hurt to be separated from it, but some people are so courageous, or are they more a coward, who give up their child for fear of society. Is society so ruthless, to separate mother from child? Why punish the child for no fault of it?

A famous poet said for Kashmir, "if there is heaven on earth, it is here."
I beg to differ, "if there is heaven on earth, its on the smile of your child's face." Blissful indeed and I am blessed and blissed.

my angel

why enough is never enough?

When do we decide how much is enough?
How do we measure "enough"?
Is enough ever enough?
Is sky the limit?
Why are we like Pepsi? Yeh dill maange more..!! (Give me more!)

Just when one thing is over, one want is over, another crops up.
There is exhilaration, celebration of something done or achieved, but again the limit doesnt limit itself and sets for itself a higher limit.

For a poor man a fan is enough
For a middle class man a cooler is enough
For a rich man an AC is enough
In all above examples, heat is constant and same for everyone, but a fan or a cooler is not enough for a rich man? Poor man's leisure is rich man's pain!

What is it that is heating the rich man? Is it the heat of money?
It is said in an hindi proverb when a person is arrogant of his money, " paison ki garmi hai." ( heat of money in him) so this heat has to be cooled with the respective coolant. the more the money the more coolant it requires. While it is harder on the way up, there are nice things added to the life style, more comfort more luxury, easy to adopt.. and on the way down, these nice things makes life worse, all these luxuries hard to give up. Can a rich man accustomed to an AC sleep under a fan? One who relies on others for his work to be done, can he work for others?

Talking about "enough", I am always reminded of my nephew. Once my sister was annoyed with her husband and she asked my nephew (her 6 years old son), "lets go to the market and get you another father." Pat came his reply, " no mummy, one is enough." Goes to show that a child knows when enough is enough! :D

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Opposites- strike the right balance.

When I was very small, I was always troubled to see so much poverty around me. I used to think why is it that some people are so poor and some so rich? I couldn't seem to find any answers.

One day I asked my uncle and he explained that if there were no poor people then nobody would ever work. There would be no plumber, no gardener, the whole world could come to a standstill!

This sounded quite logical to me and I was quite satisfied.

Now I feel that .. some people need to be poor for some people to be rich and vice versa.

they might be opposites but they have to co exist.

A friend always insisted that opposites never attract and we have had a never ending debate on this for sometime now. We recently reached a conclusion that opposites may not attract but complement each other.

For example, we have the land and water, male and female, day and night, big and small. The existence of one heavily depends on the existence of the other. That is why there is always two genders, two sides of a coin, two of everything.

Everything has to co exist , the good and the evil, the beautiful and the ugly, the gods and ghosts, rich and the poor, etc.

Once I was visiting a relative, she keeps her windows always shut for fear of lizards entering the house. My father opened the windows to let the fresh air come in and said, " let the lizards come, they will eat up the smaller insects and the smaller will eat up the smallest." he said that all things on the earth were made to coexist.

I am reminded of a recent movie called “My name is Khan.” The protagonist Khan is an autistic person who condemns cellphones, and also tells everyone to stop using them because the waves emitted by the cellphones are distracting the honeybees who lose their way to their hives, which results in the lower egg production of the queen bees and if the bees disappeared then the human race would come to an end approximately 4 years later, as calculated by Albert Einstein.

To strike the right balance, the other has to be there, the bad has to be present for the good to be good .. in fact the good is also very heavily indebted to the bad. The most important thing in life are the bad things which happen to us, for if they didn't happen, would we know or appreciate the finer things in life? Would we pray to God, if all was well?

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Why hold the "old"?

Why do we expect our elders to wait on us, look after our house when we are out, when its they who have the first right to enjoy life, go out whenever they feel like. I say, they should be given privilege over anything and everything, because now, they are at the end of their road, let them be free, let them fly away, don't scorn them when they have fun, when they want to sing, let them sing and don't frown and say things like " budhi ghori laal lagaam" literally means an old horse with red harness, simply meaning an aged woman who tries to behave like young girls by being flashy or with regards to behavior. Why has society built a wall around their emotions? Don't they feel caged when they want to do something on an impulse? For God's sake they are old and the more wiser, they wouldn't do anything foolish, and even if they did, they have earned to be foolish more than the foolish youngsters!

Most Indians cringe at the sight of their parents go on for a holiday, spend some time together, that they could also be in love with each other, and had maybe shelved all their honeymooning plans because kids were small, have to study,etc, can want to have sex, in short can want to be happy which is independent of children's happiness.
The good thing about the west is that, they don't squirm when they see their parents as a couple. In some cases, when there is only one parent, the adult kid doesn't object and in fact rejoices if the single parent is able to find him/herself a partner for the rest of their lives. They might be having ulterior motives of their own, and think that it was a good thing, because now they wouldn't have to babysit their single parent anymore. Thats a bad thing about the west, the kids don't want to have parents around much longer than required.

How nice it would be, if we could ape the west in being liberal with our parents and let them LIVE. Of course I don't mean blindly ape them and keep them away from us when they need us the most. Cant we do that? Is it so hard to see through them and their anguish? Is it right for them to keep waiting for the right time? Don't we realize that they are too OLD to hOLD on?

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Why not joint families?

Today I went out and met a cousin after a long time. Her mother in law recently expired and she was saying that the environment of the house isnt the same anymore. Another cousin asked, "why? the brothers should get more close now that their mother isnt there anymore," but she said that wasnt the case and that they were more aloof and self oriented now.

I thought and voiced aloud that this might be happening because men spend more time with their wives and kids nowadays, maybe more than they should.. giving ample time for the wives to fill their ears with poison and cause aloofness in the house amongst blood relations...This has caused so many joint families to split and become nuclear now..There are other reasons too.. tolerance and patience are no longer there.. EGO is a BEEG and very hungry too!!

I was born in a joint family, being the first born of a first born, gave me a lot of time to spend with my uncles and aunt, and they all loved me, I like to think that they still do..It was so nice being together, everything shared, the house full of people, not a moment to get lonely or bored.. what a life! I thought I had the best joint family in the world.

"a picture of a beeg joint family at a wedding" Do we stand together only for the camera now?

One fine day it was all over, just like the stock market crash.. I still remember, I was in class 9 and I was appalled and grief stricken. This affected me a great deal, my ranks dropped, I became lazy and sloppy.
What happened really and WHY? I kept thinking how stupid it was to live separately! How uneconomical too! What purpose did it serve really? I live in a joint family, and I had vowed in the beginning of my marriage that I would never be a cause for it to disseminate..Of course there are conflicts and discomforts and less freedom, but if we make a list of advantages and disadvantages.. clearly joint families have always outnumbered disadvantages..well, this is my belief.. Whats yours?

Why do we contradict?

I got a promotional call from Vodafone. They said I had an offer of sending free joke sms for a fee of Rs 10.
This cracked me up.. free with a fee!

Haven't we lived a life saying something and doing something, so now its the new way of marketing too.
Do they really think people to be so naive to actually fall for this, or maybe they do, cause its happening all around. Even the banks sell policies by saying that its for free and then they charge a fee!!

I contradicted myself when I wrote a blog on Why is silence golden? in this blog. I shouldn't have written it, and as per the person who commented, shouldn't have commented on it, had he understood it! confused? Read again. If confused again, keep reading, because even though I said silence is golden, I wont shut up.

More on this later...

Why do we start living in the face of death!

Recently I saw "Anjaana Anjaani."
It was an ok flick.. just a time pass..
The plot revolved around 2 people who wanted to die because of their personal failures in life.
Both couldnt succeed and they took that as a sign that they needed some more time.. Maybe the time wasnt right to die. So they both decided on a date to die.. That date was a good 20 days away and then they began to LIVE...
Amazing no?

Seen Anand?  How could Rajesh Khanna (Anand) who knew he was dying, LIVE.
By LIVE I mean to live life to the fullest, do what you want. enjoy life thoroughly!
Dont care what the world thinks.. Dont put off things because you have extra days..
Dont we all love putting off most things.. especially those which we always wanted to do?
I have read so many inspirational blogs and write ups urging us to do whatever we want straightaway..
But, who cares a damn, we all like to think we are going to live for like forever!!

Kabir's famous dohas (couplets) say
"Kaal kare so aaj kar, aaj kare so ab.
Pal mein pralaya hogi, bahuri karoge kab?"
meaning the human tendency of being lazy and procrastination and of putting off things for later..
Its like we are so sure of the future but not at all sure of our present.. we say we will do it, thereby establishing of a future which we cannot be sure of at all!!

So, we need the help of our friend that is death.. (maybe its a fiend to many)
But, what if we all knew when we were going to die? the exact date? would it really be too bad?
naah I think it would be better and more so for the procrastinators!! no?

Why arent there real men anymore?

What is a Man? Just a gender who has a different set of organs as compared to women.
A Man in the real sense of the word was one who was the master of the world.
He commanded respect and had the controls of his life and of his family.
Men who hunted with the wild animals and secured the life of his family.
A Man who had undaunted courage.
A Man who respected the women as one of his mother, sister, daughter or wife and not looked down upon the fairer sex.
To give respect or to be humble are the traits of great men.
Alas! Nowadays if one is humble it is regarded as being a coward and not having enough guts.

I thought a lot about this.. where have this species vanished??
My sister says .. all men are female trapped in a male's body and thus,women folk of today face crisis!

An article I found really interesting on SAVE MEN!
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_extracts/article4448371.ece

I dont know how much of this is true, for I believe that there arent any more real women left than any real men . Real women were soft, gentle docile creatures but a strong willed and pious woman who shouldered all her household responsibilities without as much as a whimper!
Now women have become bolder, independent and more manly,so is it not proper for nature to balance the act by a softer more docile man? Who are we (women) to ask where the men are? Ask yourself, "am I a real woman?"
After all I believe its a free world and a free market.. and all this real men and women are market driven really.. no?

Why is silence golden?

If silence is golden? Why do we say it?

A lot of times I have noticed that we speak to hear ourselves.
Is it because we need to convince ourselves and hence the need to say it aloud!
Look into the mirror and say (maybe lie) "hey you are good!" and you feel good instantly, thats the power of words!

I have noticed young girls and boys need to say they love each other all the time. Parents love their kids too, and unconditionally , but parents dont need to express it in words all the time..a child is always secured about the love of their parents!
Saying is like "advertising" and when said, it brings down the sincerity of whatever is said and expressed!
Why do we need to say it? When you love somebody show it..(actions speak louder than words) be by them when they need you the most. Saying is the most easiest and perhaps the most popular way of expression!

Men and women have different constitutions, men being more practical and women being more emotional. this is the reason why men dont express their love as often as women. But aint the men doing it everyday .. earning and working hard for their family is equivalent to loving their family.. But all women want are the three words.. I love you!

"What you do speaks so loudly that I can hardly hear what you say" by Ralph Waldo Stevenson
A friend (who calls himself dull) said that he prefers to be considered dumb rather than opening his mouth and confirming it!
I read somewhere that we should try to say sweet words because we might have to eat them in the future.. would anyone like to eat bitter?
Its simply saying that we should say as much as we can hear!

I feel that words are said when actions just fail!
Would you say it if you meant it?

A line/phrase has more impact than a paragraph/page,
A word much more than a line/phrase,
can you imagine the impact of silence!!

A lot is said rather than done!
What would you like, saying it or doing it?

Why do we blame?

A "bad" carpenter always blames his tools!!
No?
A "believer" says "All happens with the will of God!"
An "estranged" couple says "Its all because of our parents that we married even though we werent compatible."
A "failed" student says "I wanted to do something else, but was forced to study!"
The list can be endless.....
We rarely see anyone admitting his/her faults..
When we blame we shrug off our responsibility and are reluctant to accept our weaknesses!!
What happens is we seldom or never learn from our own mistakes..
Everybody loves to point a finger at others...

My mummy told me when I was young,"When you point a finger towards others, three fingers point back at you." One of the few lessons of life I try not to forget!!
My faults/mistakes are 3 times more than others!!
From now onwards I point the finger at myself and the rest 3 point at the world!! cool!

Although just passing the buck, sometimes does solve the pressure of the problem..
One gains a kind of self empathy and accepts whatever has happened quite easily...
But this passing the buck is like a pain killer.. all it does is numb the after effects! but the pain/loss is still there , one only overlooks it!!

Like my mom says.. " hum acche tho sab acche" meaning when I am good everybody else is good too.

Why do we FALL in love?

I have been hearing the phrase fall in love ever since I can remember.
Why is it that a nice word like love has a nasty word like fall preluding it?
Its like we say " I fell sick/ill!"
If I just replace the words with their proper antonyms it would be "rise in hate."
Fall in Love and Rise in hate?
Getting the meaning?
I am going to try and explain it in ways I understood it.
The more I thought about it the more I felt that there is supposed to be a meaning for the placement of the words in this context.
When we are born we know less of the world around us and more and more as we grow up.
Do we then start loving the world more or hating it?
When we meet somebody and it is love at first sight apparently, do we know or do we think we know more about that person in just one day of acquaintance.
The point I am trying to make is that when we know less of something or somebody we are in love with it. The more we start to know or understand the same our love for it diminishes and hate starts to take its place. The adage "familiarity breeds contempt" holds very true here.
Now the words rise and hate, we fall because of less knowledge and we rise because of more knowledge.
So, when we fall in love, it is said that fools fall in love generally as fools apparently are fools because they just don't know anything. When they rise in hate, aren't they a lot wiser than earlier?
Imagine you are on a roller coaster ride and the feelings you have on rising and falling, while falling, due to the speed of falling we are at risk but we feel euphoria and love the rumbling feeling of it in the pit of our stomach. The moment we start to rise again the speed slows and so does the excitement.
While falling can be euphoric and offer a kind of sensation in one's life the ride back up is not at all quite appealing to my senses..

But all said and done one cannot rise without falling!! Can one?

Why do we like closed doors?

What a funny question!
Who doesnt want closed doors?
Would anyone sleep keeping the doors of the house open? After all, a closed door gives us security and not to mention a sound sleep.
Strange enough, I think the curiosity to open them is also more.
Would a thief try to get into a house whose doors are wide open for him to enter? He would most probably smell a rat there.

Now my parents live in Kolkata, considered to be one of the big cities of India. And guess what! we dont have a lock, er.. well, we do have a latch but no lock for sure and that latch is also forgotten to be put in place at times. Such negligence!! I see all other apartments have a GODREJ lock at least on its doors and sometimes an extra lock or two.
I was quite upset and asked my father why he did not put a lock there.
He had 2 answers;
1. The thief wont look in an open house.
2. Even if he does he can take away only wealth which is just a material thing, nothing important that he should lose his sleep over.(Now its not that we are under the poverty line but our living standards are very modest to say the least.) One of the merits of modest living is sound sleep, though I doubt if there are any takers to this theory here.

Talking about closed doors, some people even keep their windows locked to an extent that they are opened only for cleaning and closed again. They are so so petrified of natural air, that they prefer to sleep in AC!!
I am not ending my answer to locked doors here, I thought a little more about it and its metaphorical meaning.

Recently I was in kolkata and in a mall there, my aunt was with me and she has an aversion to escalators so we thought to try the lift, but alas! it was jam packed. I asked if she minded the stairs and that a little exercise up the stairs would be good for us. While taking the stairs I wondered about the people in the lift, it was full of youngsters and I thought what a way to conserve energy!! They have closed the doors too, from inside, little do they know that in time the doors are going to get closed eventually albeit from outside and they will have no option but to take the lift only. I dont think the younger generation realises that, its a pity really.

Indians are a fan of closed doors, in the name of traditions/society/religion and loyalty towards parents, we tend to close the doors to the future of our children..
If a child wants to go abroad, we are dead against it, particularly the mothers, we think if they go they will never return. We tie them down, close the doors for them and expect them to be by our side as our support and companion for our old age, we strangle their ability and give them tall lectures of how much we sacrificed in raising them up!! What idiocrasy!!!

Here I'd like to add the proverb
"If you love a person set it free, if it comes back it is yours, if it doesnt it ever was!!"
Guess nobody really loves enough (without a doubt) to set the loved one (child) free.
Closed doors offer security (read convenience) like nothing else, guard from theft, in the lift, use the TV sets as baby sitters ( parents do that to children as they have a million other things to do than to talk or be with their children), get your son to stay with you (indian attitude), to name some...

I came across a couplet (written by a muslim poet) in a novel which is;
"You were looking for the key for years,
But the door was always open!"

A closed door is like a closed mind! Is it not?

Closed doors!! I was wondering do they serve any purpose in the end?

Why all that glitters isnt gold?

What is gold?
Pure gold is a bright yellow metal which shines right through its core and doesnt even oxidies.
A lot of things glitter like gold, but it maybe some piece of cheap metal having a golden colour, which wears off eventually.
Apparently the cover outshines the content because the eye is the first and foremost judge to almost everything. As long as it is shining ( or rather as long as light falls on it) one can pass anything as gold, even human beings.
As such the colour and cover of any metal can be coloured yellow and so look like gold, which is why there are so many fake jewellery in the market and they sell like hot cakes !!!
Fake jewellery, fake people, fake businesses.. the list is endless but the light is on them, so they seem to be incandescent.
Whats more, most of us want to be in their shoes, emulate them, try to outshine others, doesnt matter if our insides are as dull as rusty iron, we want to shine shine and shine and be the center of attraction!

The point to ponder on is , does it by any way make us gold? Sure we glitter on the outside, so much light and focus on us and why not? We are working so much for the outer shine even letting go of our sense of right and wrong, letting go of our morals, but if we are rubbed against stone wouldnt the outer shine wear off after a few rubs?


Ha! who cares? Who wants to see within? As long as the eye is the lawyer and the heart the judge.
I used to wonder why is it that blind men generally have better judgement, now i know the answer, the fact that they cant see is perhaps the reason behind it.

Just like the shine is temporary, everything around is too, even the happiness that comes along with it.
Anything fake has fake returns is all I can say.

Why does the opinion of others matter?

Why is it that what the others think of us is more important than what we think of ourselves?
Why dont we recognise our capabilities for ourselves?
Do we need others to tell us what we can do and what we cant?
Of course parents are there to guide us and tell us whats wrong and whats right for us, but that is the childhood part of life.
When we grow up we stop bothering about opinion of our parents too and are more bothered as to what the world thinks of us!!
Why is there an urgent need for recognition and the feel to be acknowledged by people whom we dont even know?
We think that if I am recognised then I am someone important and feel good about it.
What is right? What others think or what we ourselves know about ourselves?

So what do we do, to get a high opinion, we start by complimenting others and say sweet nothings to them and fish for a compliment in return.
I have met a lot of people and after talking for some time, they are very anxious to know what I may think of them. I wonder if they do not know themselves and how can I say anything about them.. I wouldnt know them as much as they should be knowing about themselves. If at all, I do have an opinion then I wouldnt go beyond the apparent appearance which would just be the cover or the impression one gets by ones looks or apparel.. Its much easy to judge the cover and price them accordingly.
In the process we try to outshine others by layers of cover over us because instead of knowing what we are by ourselves and looking inwards we look for it outside us.

All the time thinking what others think, is to me a perfect waste of time and energy. For all I know there are a wide variety of people and one cannot please all and sundry. I dont even think it is worth the effort!!
I often wonder that when women dress up and wear lots of jewellery and make up trying to look the best, what is it they exactly want? Many would probably answer " I like to dress up and look good."
Its just as well because we want opinion of others and would go to any length to make a good impression. Come to think of it, if everyone is dressing up in style and looking good, then I wonder who looks at whom, since all think they are looking the best and in the end probably look at none.

All I can conclude is that what the content lacks, the cover makes up for it. Hence a person weak in character/virtues(content)probably has to take that extra effort to camouflage his shortcomings. In short to get others to have a high opinion of us we begin by giving more importance to the cover and then all that is actually left is the cover which gains more prominence while the content loses all importance.
Ultimately we lose all that we ever had. Loosing our own self confidence and sense of judgement in the blind pursuit of the opinion of others.

After all, you wouldnt worry about what people think of you, if you could know that they seldom do.........