I dont know why

Falling in love with an idea of...

2018-12-18T10:37:00.001-08:00

My first #SRK movie that ingrained the idea of boundless love was #Deewana. I was asked this question by foreigners about our craze with SRK. Lets face it, we either love him or hate him, or love to hate him! But he was somewhat of a phenomenon for us 90s women. The way I like to decipher our obsession with SRK is by reasoning that the era before him was in the order of angry young man followed by elopements of QSQT era and basically a void where no character shaped up. The Barjatya brigade was skewed towards family and then walks in an awkward looking man who provided the right balance of romance and great indian family values. #DDLJ was an epitome of crazy, immature hero who pulls pranks and then grows up enough to follow Simran home, who fights a very athletic 6' Parmeet Sethi only pumped on adreline from love for Simran, who stops midway when he notices he is about to hit the girls Dad. Move to #Pardes , SRK is now Rahul which is such a common name that it could be any tom,dick , harry from Indian population. He says, " Agar Ganga ki iffazat karna pyar hai... toh hai . ..( If protecting Ganga is love, then yes, i am in love with her) ... Then there was #Dilse, just the way he looked at Manisha Koirala melted hearts.
But then came the critics, who said he was in a box and had a range beyond which he couldnt perform.He proved with #Swades and #ChakDe.
By now, its evident how big a fan I am of the man. A man I never found handsome btw, and isnt it a criteria when we crush over celebrities?
So what is it about him? And then i realise, I am in love with the idea of that man, of the characters he created. Of the crazy #Mohabbatein fazed nostalgia. Of the virginity of first love. Think of it, it matched me at right age. With this realisation, is also the realisation of the fact that how frequently do we fall in love with an idea of something or someone? And how frequently we suffer when reality fails to match our expectations?
I, a die hard #SRK fan didnt watch #FAN or #RAEES or by the same logic, I wont watch #Zero simply because it doesn't match my idea of SRK. I did watch #Dilwale and #DearZindagi. By experimenting, he is not matching my expectations of him. At 50, he might not be able to play a romantic lead, or maybe bollywood lacks the creativity to come up with scripts for him.( I have two ready) whatever.
By being rigid to my idea of SRK , I am not even giving him a chance.
Sadly, this is well reflected in our lives, we fall in love with an idea of ourselves or our loved ones and forget to be fluid. Sometimes we suffer from undue stress when reality doesnt match up...
How many such ideas have tied you up?

Outcasts rule the world

2018-12-08T20:39:00.001-08:00

Oscar Wilde, Kurt Cobain, Chester Bennington, Freddie Mercury, even Galileo for that matter... whats common between all of them is that they all were people who believed in their raw, unadulterated talent and they were people who never wanted to confirm, who never bowed down to mediocrity. And why should they?
As Oscar Wilde put it, "To live is the rarest thing in the world, most people exist thats all."
I believe that all of us are born with the same spark called life, only that as we grow, we forget to maintain that spark, try to lose ourselves in the crowd, just to fit in. Sadly, history is not created by people who fit in, but those who stand out. Who have the courage to embrace their eccentricity and who are unashamed of their queerness ( both meanings intended)
Ironically, people lose their essence in an effort to fit in, to be loved but the ones that are loved, adored and even worshipped are the ones who dont strive for it!
Finally it comes down to self belief and the courage that comes with it. So really, next time you are afraid to speak up- Just ask, What for?
As Freddie said-I always knew I was a star And now, the rest of the world seems to agree with me.
Its just a matter of time, if we dont lose the spark!

Hypocrisy

2018-12-08T20:36:00.001-08:00

I meant to say this since long, but somehow didnt know how to gather by thoughts around the hypocrisy of the society we live in. Let me first list down the triggers behind this write up in chronological order:
1. Jia Khan suicide case
2. Emma Watson
3. Harvey Weinstein case
4. The whole #metoo movement
5. The extension of it to India.
6. Some observations in day to day life

So where do I start and more importantly why do i start?
I will address the why part first. Humans have a tendency of dealing with everything beyond the comfort zone - Ignore and hope it take cares of itself. Doesnt work.
Ours is a society of juxtapositions, where we have women like sunny leone who managed to maintain her dignity even with her background in adult movie industry and then we have women like rakhi sawant with no credibility.
Lets go west, The people who voted for Obama belonged to the same nation that voted for Trump.
We have decent men maintaining a dignified silence and we have men like singer Abhijit saying bullshit.
Point is to be aware of this juxtaposition.
To be aware that there were victims and there were harassers and there were mute spectators. And there is a media which will portay it in juiciest way possible for TRPs which actually is the saddest part of this whole equation.
When any issue arises, we deal with it to come out on the otherside as a stronger, better society. But in this information age, everything is saleable- emotions, pain and above all harassment. What it finally leads to is diluting the issue at hand.
So what is the issue?
The way I see it, its an issue of dominance. Of one gender over other only because they feel the other gender is weaker- in postion, social status or physically maybe. And the other gender has 'allowed' them to think so, to adhere to the age old norms created by society. A norm which goes into victim shaming.Mind you I am not naming the genders, because somehow in this situation, women atleast joined the #metoo movement because they had a community, men who were harassed may never get to the point of sharing it in open for the fear of being ridiculed. I think thats sadder.
I have to accept here that I am not mature enough to feel the pain of the victims here. What can I do however is to call a spade a spade.
Isnt there something fundamentally wrong with a society that dictates that job safety comes over human safety? Why would someone choose to remain in a unsafe environment only because it can cost them their jobs, careers and integrity?
And the integrity of the harassers remains intact? Society fails here not the victims.
Mind you, we are still talking about showbiz, so we are the ones idol worshipping the so called celebrities.
How many times have we remarked that, "Yes, I have heard of media reports that so and so person is a womaniser... but who cares.. i admire him for his acting talent!!" A person cannot be segregated into fragments to love. One cannot be blind to the grey areas. Hitler had great regard for art, remember!
This brings me to point no.5.
India has two buckets to place women in..and are evident in Bollywood movies- Hero ki maa hoti hai and behen hoti hai... maa wears sarees and behen wears salwar suit with dupatta... low cut blouses are for the heroine. So respect is also distributed based on the yards of clothing on the body.
Love +Respect equation is missing. Its either/ or.
Its pretty simple actually, for men who treat women with respect, the feeling is reciprocated and you would see it in the eyes of women, that they feel safe in your company. Again by science, women are intuitive and can see beyond the facades of pseudo feminists and masochists.
And now I go back to my role of being gender neutral. I have never believed in calling favours as i am more of an individualist. The simple fact it comes down to is to having mutual respect.
None of the relations irrespective of genders can survive if this basic essence is missing.
A snide remark is violating respect.
A sexist comment is violating respect.
Anything that makes the other uncomfortable is violating respect.
Above all, allowing it to happen is the greatest violation.
Irrespective of genders, as a society if only mutual respect is given priority, it wouldn't disintegrate and we leave this world a better, safer place for everyone.

True Beauty

2018-12-06T09:25:00.001-08:00

I have always struggled with my weight, since puberty hit me. I remember after one summer vacation in school, when I entered my class and everyone looked at me differently.
Luckily, I grew up in 90s when the societal pressure of being thin wasnt evident or maybe my parents never made me feel it.
I have spent better part of my 20s gymming, swimming or worse fad dieting...to be slim. Now when I look back to those pics, I was way slimmer than what I am today.
I got married still on the wrong side of the scale according to social standards.
I recently heard from a girl who said she felt much more confident after losing weight. I am thankful that I never derived my confidence from my body shape but from my intellectual abilities.
And the worst conversations for me were when colleagues at work table discussed weight, when clearly malnourished girls cribbed about losing weight.
It took me a lot of growing up to finally realise the concept of true beauty. So here I am at 35 realising that, I may be a few kgs over weight, I may have a few curves but as long as I am fit enough to climb a flight of stairs, to chase my daughter across the playing field, to work 9 hours and come back home and still have the energy to play with my daughter, I need not be worried. I am perfect anyway.
Most importantly, my true beauty lies in my thoughts, my morals and my ability to be courageous and straightforward.
I sum my character in a famous song- "Ik gal maadi jithe ad jaye garari, jind vech ke bhi bol nu poogayida, baba jithe bhi rakhe khush rahiye khede matthe, kisi da bhi hakk nayyo khaida."
I did lose some weight recently when I noticed I wasnt able to perform some of aforementioned tasks, losing my breath on the 4th floor itself.
And I met an amazing doctor who in the first meeting told me," Weight is transient, just a number." Who told me when I was promoted at work that this is real achievement, your efforts to lose weight is just self management. And I knew I had found the right person to help me.

When I did lose a bit a friend commented,
"You look pretty, did you lose weight?"
My response," Darling,I was always pretty. Now I am just thinner and pretty."

I believe every woman has TRUE BEAUTY within her in all the roles she plays. For over 18 years across 650 plus salons across the country, Naturals has been helping the Beautiful Indian Woman get more Beautiful.
Today Naturals Salutes the Beautiful Indian Woman.
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Being woman : Good, Bad &Ugly

2018-10-12T21:08:00.001-07:00

Being woman : Good, Bad &Ugly

I meant to say this since long, but somehow didn’t know how to gather by thoughts around the hypocrisy of the society we live in. Let me first list down the triggers behind this write up in chronological order:
• Jiah Khan suicide case
• Harvey Weinstein case
• The whole #metoo movement
• The extension of it to India.
• Some observations in day to day life
So where do I start and more importantly why do i start?
I will address the why part first. Humans have a tendency of dealing with everything beyond the comfort zone - Ignore and hope it take cares of itself. Doesn’t work.
Ours is a society of juxtapositions, where we have women like #sunnyleone who managed to maintain her dignity even with her background in adult movie industry and then we have women like #rakhisawant with no credibility.
Lets go west, The people who voted for #Obama belonged to the same nation that voted for #Trump.
We have decent men maintaining a dignified silence and we have men like singer Abhijit saying bullshit.
Point is to be aware of this juxtaposition.
To be aware that there were victims and there were harassers and there were mute spectators. And there is a media which will portray it in juiciest way possible for TRPs which actually is the saddest part of this whole equation.
When any issue arises, we deal with it to come out on the other side as a stronger, better society. But in this information age, everything is saleable- emotions, pain and above all harassment. What it finally leads to is diluting the issue at hand.
So what is the issue?
The way I see it, its an issue of dominance. Of one gender over other only because they feel the other gender is weaker- in position, social status or physically maybe. And the other gender has 'allowed' them to think so, to adhere to the age old norms created by society. A norm which goes into victim shaming. Mind you I am not naming the genders, because somehow in this situation, women at least joined the #metoo movement because they had a community, men who were harassed may never get to the point of sharing it in open for the fear of being ridiculed. I think that’s sadder that they won’t get a voice.
I have to accept here that I am not mature enough to feel the pain of the victims here. What can I do however is to call a spade a spade.
Isn’t there something fundamentally wrong with a society that dictates that job safety comes over human safety? Why would someone choose to remain in a unsafe environment only because it can cost them their jobs, careers and integrity?
And the integrity of the harassers remains intact? Society fails here not the victims.
Mind you, we are still talking about showbiz, so we are the ones idol worshipping the so called celebrities.
How many times have we remarked that, "Yes, I have heard of media reports that so and so person is a womaniser... but who cares.. I admire him for his acting talent!!" A person cannot be segregated into fragments to love. One cannot be blind to the grey areas. Hitler had great regard for art, remember!
This brings me to point no.5.
India has two buckets to place women in..and are evident in Bollywood movies- Hero ki maa hoti hai and behen hoti hai... maa wears sarees and behen wears salwar suit with dupatta... low cut blouses are for the heroine. So respect is also distributed based on the yards of clothing on the body.
Love +Respect equation is missing. Its either/ or. Another reason for social evils like gaslighting and emotional abuse in relationships. Remember English Vinglish? How many men truly love and respect their wives at the same time?
Let’s move to our workplaces, statistics says that women are interrupted more often while speaking than men, ridiculed more often for their opinions. And spoken over. The science of it relates it to voice pitches of men vs women.
Then let’s move to the sexism of the society more so in workplaces. There is great study done by Dr. Peter Glick on benevolent sexism, which is exact opposite of hostile sexism. It talks about behaviour by men which appears subjectively positive but is damaging in long run. It’s about reverence of women only in mother and child caring roles. How many does it happen that a woman's dress and skin is rated more than her brain? The question of how you manage kids may seem like caring but is a form of benevolent sexism. Viewing women as more compassionate and gentle and men as more aggressive can penalize women who are assertive, leading people to deem them "bossy" or "too harsh." Its pretty simple actually, for men who treat women with respect, the feeling is reciprocated and you would see it in the eyes of women, that they feel safe in your company. Again by science, women are intuitive and can see beyond the facades of pseudo feminists and masochists. The simple fact it comes down to is to having mutual respect.
None of the relations irrespective of genders can survive if this basic essence is missing.
A snide remark is violating respect.
A sexist comment is violating respect.
An unwanted hug is violating respect
Suggesting a makeover to a woman to grow in organisation is violating respect.
Anything that makes the other uncomfortable is violating respect.
Above all, allowing it to happen is the greatest violation.
Irrespective of genders, as a society if only mutual respect is given priority, it wouldn't disintegrate and we leave this world a better, safer place for everyone.

The dilemma of a working woman

2018-10-01T17:10:00.001-07:00

As you grow older, you realise that certain things or rather certain people don't deserve a response. We create less drama as we grow older and possibly wiser but at the same time we demand the same from people, to be reasonable. So it was easy for me to ignore certain comments made by a celebrity wife inspite of being a working woman. I don't expect a twenty something whose only achievement probably is marriage to a celebrity to have the maturity or realise the struggles. It's probably unfair of me to make this statement too, I am no one to judge someone else's life.

But this also made me do a root cause analysis of the whole scenario. I have certain Observations and I list them as I go ahead

1. Written vs. Verbal :
We live in an Information Age where written and indirect communication has somehow become very important. The ancient Greeks and Indians laid emphasis on verbal communication. Ram-Leela was performed in front of live audiences so the reaction of audiences was instant. All our epics were transferred in form of recitations and there itself is the difference. Today it is easy to hide behind a pseudonym and write nonsense. Just read the comments section of any post on any internet media. It is filled with at least one fool who thinks bullying is okay, using cuss words unnecessarily is okay, judging strangers is okay. It is simpler to write hateful words than to say them. That alone is not the problem. Try saying the same words to a person on face, a little something called basic decorum stops us because the reaction would be instant. You could read the disappointment, fear, hurt on the other persons face. And that is one of the problem of this internet age. We say things we don't mean.
2. Feminism:
It has slowly transformed from being a powerful word to a word with negative connotation. Open any of the Facebook so called humour pages and you will find memes of sexist humour and memes making fun of the idea behind feminism. My favourite being the graph that relates feminism to body weight and ugliness. Question is who is to blame for it? Patriarchy or pseudo feminists? What is worth fighting for? I have my own idea of feminism which may differ from the said celebrity wife and I have the maturity to give her time to mature. I have the maturity to accept that at 20 I had totally different set of beliefs. I am a firm believer that feminism is not only needed for women but if we really want to bring about change it is a gender neutral phenomenon.
3. Responsible media:
I really have been harping about this. There are a thousand news channels who want to run 24 hours and need something to create a hue and cry about. And that's where unimportant people and issues get importance. Why should I care about what a celebrity wife thinks? Why should I care about how the so called top comedians fought mid air? It's the media which ingrains that I need to care to feed their TRPs.
The click bait sites are another story. "Ten reasons why feminism is a hoax.#6 really surprised me" and I am tempted to read what #6 is. It's all a capitalist world feeding on our reactions, our emotions.
4. So now question is which battles do I choose to fight?
I can choose to not react to celebrity drama and media hypes.
I choose to not click the numerous clickbaits.
But
I choose to react to every moron I meet in real life who thinks feminism is a word misused by women for their own good.
I chose to react to every woman who misuses the word.
I chose to react to patriarchal women who judge other women.
I recently overheard a conversation where a school principal was lecturing parents about spending more time with kids in an effort to explain why their school wasn't organising summer camps for two hours a day. The argument was that today's parents need to invest in kids or a kind of new generation will emerge who won't care for the parents back.
I choose to react to such people because the future of the kids is in hands of such people.
I chose to educate them that no parent ever on the face of earth is careless enough to not spend quality time with their kids. Working women are balancing work, home, finances, cooking and million other things but no person has the right to judge and lecture any parent on what their parenting style should be. We grew up with working parents and turned out fine.
And I have only one answer to every person who believes working women are neglecting their kids and will payback when the kids won't be attached to them. And the answer is -that every parent should raise independent kids who don't grow up to be dependent on parents for choosing their shirts for the day. The kid didn't choose to be born to you, we chose to bring them in the world so it's our responsibility to not burden them with the expectations we have of them in regards to our old age. If I am raising my kid right, she will grow up to be a decent human being. That's all I should expect.
In conclusion, to all working women out there and all homemakers and all parents who are raising kids, chose what you react to and chose your battles carefully.

Mental health #2

2018-10-01T17:05:00.001-07:00

#WorldMentalHealthDay

I am not an activist or an article writer to motivate the seemingly normal people to be open to issues of mental health. All I have is my stories. I hope it connects.
1. It’s never the external factors, it’s the inner turmoil and how a person chooses to deal with it. Remember Chester Bennington of #LinkinPark
2. There is no profile. A person can mask it really well, so don’t just go about profiling someone as suicidal or not.
3. It’s the 21st century let’s be inclusive in spirit not because it seems cool. Be it #mentalhealth #LGBTQ or anything that was below the carpet decades back.

#letstalkmentalheath

I have been contacted by people, stating that why did I kill the main lead. That too in a grotesquely manner. I am not an activist or an article writer to explain, or to motivate the seemingly normal people to be open to issues of mental health. All I have is my stories. I hope everyone who wrote to me, get their answers.
1. It’s never the external factors, it’s the inner turmoil and how a person chooses to deal with it. Why else would Chester Bennington do what he did? Or #AnthonyBourdain
2. There is no profile. A person can mask it really well, so don’t just go about profiling someone as suicidal or not.
3. It’s the 21st century let’s be inclusive in spirit not because it seems cool. Be it #mentalhealth #LGBTQ or anything that was below the carpet decades back.

Chapter 12
———————-
Past Closure
———————-
“It’s funny how memory works, “ Abeer continued,lost in thoughts, “I cant remember now what the fight was about.” He pinched his nose trying to remember and then gave up with a sigh. “ I had gone home, which always was a difficult time for me, but I had to.” He paused deciding to continue or not.
“Pakhi did tell me about your relationship with your mother.” I supplied to make him comfortable. He was surprised and said so, “ It wasn’t all too bad,” he justified before continuing, “You ask me about that day and trust me, I don’t remember anything else about that day except how it made me feel. I still shiver at the memory of seeing her in the hospital.”
I chuckled and he noticed.
“That’s not what I heard.” I accused again but he maintained his composure.
“Obviously, you have a different version of the story than me, I can only tell you what really happened and maybe then you can go back and check if Pakhi told you the truth.” He waited for me to respond and when I nodded he went into a reverie
“ I had been out of touch with Pakhi for a month I guess, the reason was that I had gone home. And my home wasn’t a pleasant place to be, it was a place where I was constantly reminded of my failures and I avoided talking to Pakhi when I went home because I didn’t want to take it out on her. It was my way of separating the good in my life from the hell that home was.”
He got up at that and took the framed sketch made by Pakhi down, he caressed the hair of the girl in the sketch as he spoke, “Pakhi told me that this girl was her, always looking out of the window, waiting for me to come back.”
I winced at that, which Abeer didn’t notice as he still was looking at the sketch.
“She wasn’t home when I returned and when I called, her brother picked up and informed me about her being in the hospital. Everything after that is hazy, I just remember I was sitting next to her bed and she was lying there all pale and weak.”
“And then you slapped her.” I was losing my patience.
He didn’t deny. “And then I slapped her.”
He repeated, not regretting it, “ She was everything for me, and I couldn’t understand how could she value her life so little and do such a thing.”
“Because you made her feel unimportant.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be like that, I wasn’t supposed to be this important.” He explained.
“You were to her.” I replied ,”then.”
“I didn’t know that, I wasn’t used to be important to anyone. I didn’t even know how to process my emotions when I saw her like that and so I reacted. I turned into this angry person who took it out on everyone including her and her brother only because I was hurt.”
“That’s your explanation ?” I asked sarcastically and he nodded as if it was the most logical explanation ever.
“Next day I returned to apologise, but by then she had already made her decision and she asked me to leave her forever.”
“Which you did?” I asked and he shrugged.
“Did it ever cross your mind, to check how can a person who did something extreme one day for you, turn the next day to throw you out?”
“It did cross my mind, and I begged her for another chance. Promising that I won’t screw up this time, but she was adamant.”
“And it was easy for you to give it up than do pursue?”
“Trust me nothing was easy, but I am glad I left, clearly we were bad for each other and I am happy that she has a happy life with you.”
I didn’t react.
I was no closer to getting the answers I desired. “ I don’t think I can come around to justify people who give up on their dreams or their life.” I thought out loud and this time Abeer laughed. What I said was an extension of my own struggle to deal with Pakhis departure.
“Is that how you think of her, yugaant?” He asked me and I didn’t reply.
“Or us?” He asked again and I was ashamed of myself for even voicing my thoughts.
“Trust me Doctor, it takes a lot of strength to do what she did. Physically hurting an unknown person is easy, even mobsters and other lowlifes do it with ease because you yourself don’t feel the pain, having the strength to do it to yourself is derived from a lot of pain. Pain which becomes insurmountable.”
“ You are the psychology expert right?” He asked me sarcastically but I sat there with my head hung low. “ it’s easy to say that you dislike certain people, but difficult to go and understand them. All you have seen is the scar and formed an opinion, that day I had seen the seriousness of her actions, and it scared me. It wasn’t an attention seeking gimmick Doctor, it was a serious attempt gone wrong fortunately.” He went on lecturing me not realising the passion with which he was defending Pakhi.
“People don’t commit suicide as a reaction to their external environment, Doctor, people do it because of the battles they fight everyday within.”he pushed his finger at his heart while saying that and his eyes welled up for what he said next, “I have not spend a single day in peace, since I left Pakhi, not because I am hung up on her, I am grown up enough to know that she made a decision to be away from me. But because , I failed her. I failed to understand what went on inside her even after spending so much time with each other.”
I didn’t have the courage to admit that I failed Pakhi too, so I just sat there listening to him taking it out of his system, noticing that he had resorted to calling me Doctor, but I had to rush past these trivial thoughts and concentrate on the task at hand. Pakhi.
“Do You now know?” I asked him directly.
He shrugged. “All I know now is that, we got together very young with a lot of expectations from each other and when they weren’t fulfilled, it messed up with our heads. I was distant as I was dealing with my own problems not realising that she wanted to be a part of it. In trying to protect her, I damaged her. You know how it’s said that a bird struggling it’s way out of the egg is part of its strength buildup? And shouldn’t be helped as we risk crippling it? I tried to handle her with caution and messed up pretty bad. She felt alienated by me.” He went on and on, gathering his thoughts.
“She is better off without me” he repeated conclusively. “Maybe It wasn’t about me at all, it was just who she was then” he smiled to himself, “Well that’s what I tell myself, when I cannot sleep at night.” He concluded and looked up at me.
I was still not able to connect the dots of the whole puzzle this was. I had an image of Abeer when I visited him, I always knew he was important to Pakhi and in meeting him, I was hoping that he would have all the answers, but he didn’t seem to.Even if he did, his answers were sounding superficial to me. or maybe he was just entertaining me.
I decided to play a little to get what I wanted from him.
“Frankly Abeer, the reason I walked into your house the day before after I saw your sculpture was because I was intrigued. Pakhi told me everything about you when we first met, and I was intrigued then too, I had not heard of such passion. And that time I attributed it to the sensitivity of artists. The raw emotional appeal that’s identified with them. Like I have read about the paradoxes of artists,Pakhi was like that- openly brash and bold in public, but still shy and emotional in her own way.” I unknowingly used the past tense but he didn’t notice.
“But she changed with you?” He asked attributing my use of the past to the fact that I was talking about Pakhi as she was then, when I met her.
I nodded,lying again.
She hadn’t changed. She had just learned to mask herself better. A thing I realised after she left me.
“Similarly, I had an image of you. An elusive brat who didn’t care for the world but focused on his art. That’s how Pakhi portrayed you.”
He laughed.
“You are the psychiatrist, you tell me.” He challenged.
I had no answer.
He got up to put the sketch back on the wall, angling it perfectly, moving it by millimetres till he was satisfied that it was perfectly positioned. He then wiped the edges of the sketch for nonexistent dust with his sleeve. And I noticed his movements. Apart from the way he carried himself, the overgrown salt and pepper hair, the stubble growing on his chin and the relaxed way in which he dressed, there was nothing in fact relaxed about him. I looked around the immaculately decorated room.
It wasn’t a room of a man who didn’t care. It was a palace waiting for its queen. Everything was at its rightful place and his relaxed demeanour was in fact him waiting.
I had a short pang of jealousy as this realisation hit me. In the mean time he was back at his place, sitting opposite me and looking at me with a self assured smirk.
“ Why are you so sure that, she will be back?” I asked him and he didn’t flinch, he wasn’t surprised, he just smiled and within seconds the assertiveness of the first day I met him was back. At that moment, he didn’t care that I was Pakhis husband. For him, we both had an understanding, where he finally understood that I had deciphered him.
“Why are you so sure that she won’t be?” He threw back at me. “She asked me to stay away and I am holding my end of the bargain. I won’t ever interfere in her life. If today you call her up and ask me to talk to her, I won’t. I promised her that. I will wait for her permission to invite me back in her life. But that doesn’t mean that she won’t be back on her own.”
I sniggered at the information I had withheld from him. Right that moment, I had two choices, one to keep him waiting forever and second to end his misery. I wasn’t sure that he would be able to handle the reality, still I decided to go with it. He had just minutes back assured me that he was a grown up.
“You told me, your end of the story, Abeer, I said getting up.... “let me tell you my end.”
He folded his hands and looked up at me, waiting.

Mental health #1

2018-10-01T16:58:00.001-07:00

I made a bucket list when I was 23. It's hidden somewhere on a blog I used to maintain. If I remember the list, it had certain things that were important to a 23 year old me and included things like visiting the Effiel Tower and learning French etc. What was not a part of the list and still a dream was to see my favourite band perform live. I have grown up with the heart touching lyrics of linkin park. And I would be honest here, like every middle class Indian I grew from Bryan Adams, Enrique to finally graduate to linkin Park. And I have this habit of always checking their tour schedule in a hope to see them perform live. Even my phone has the songs recorded from live performances. There's a different energy to live performances in my opinion.
But all of this became immaterial a few days back, as the lead singer of #LinkinPark , Chester committed suicide and selfishly I was angry. I was angry because I suddenly felt empty as if a life goal was snatched away from me. With fresh reports pouring in and all sites picking up the news, it's almost there on my feed everyday. And I have just one question why? LinkinPark would reply with "I don't know why". I fucking named my blog after the song. And all my close friends know that there are two things I force on every acquaintance who gets close to me, 1. Linkin Park 2. Fountainhead. So I somehow tried justifying my anger as a fan. Even if they find a new singer and they go on. It's not the same. Now that I have sufficiently taken out my frustrations at the news. Here's the bigger question in front of all of us. A famous, rich man who was loved by many and who had a wife and six children, was lonely enough to commit suicide!
There is a bigger force at play here. And we in India, where mental health isn't even addressed need to think about it more. The cure of depression in our culture is get married. And you are not supposed to be depressed post marriage. If you say it aloud to someone, you are looked at with crazy eyes. Why would someone married with kids be depressed?
Chester's suicide is an indicator of how facades are deceptive enough and how somehow the demons of the past keep haunting you. That's what their official statement said. He was a man who found fame and money by singing about his demons and his battles with his inner demons but never really overcame them.
What I want to say here is that, find compassion to people around you, maybe someone really is silently asking for help and maybe you could be the person to save someone's life.
There's this image around Hollywood celebrities of drugs and self destruction. But deep down aren't we all humans requiring care and love in whatever form possible? There's this image around Indians too, we are too full of life to even understand the implications of words like depression, post natal depression, bipolar syndrome etc. In our mind these are all big words coming from west. Nothing could be wrong with the brain. But in reality we all need to start embracing these definitions, if not for diagnosis then for support system.
The last loss of a person that affected me this much was someone closer to me and it's not very much me to be effected by a stranger whose music I loved. But it did. Because now I have the maturity to understand that a suicide cannot be blamed on the person who took that drastic step. The society that pushed that person to take that step is at loss too.
So here goes my tribute to the person who helped me grow from an idealistic, romantic teenager to a practical woman:
Give me the strength of the rising sun
Give me the truth of words unsung
      So rest your head
      It's time to sleep
     And dream of what's in store
The body bends until it breaks
And sings again no more

Diversity

2018-10-01T16:48:00.001-07:00

We are living in an age where this word is the key to success. Its a key to sound inclusive, to portay equal opportunity.
Diversity is about equal opportunities, It is about appreciating the differences. Diversity is giving voice to all the different opinions on the table.
Management books say that diverse organisations are stronger because they appreciate the diversity. Women in workplace at higher positions are appreciated because they bring a different insight to the business. But if we twist the whole meaning of diversity in order to fit in at a global level, if we say only the right things, if we become followers instead of trailblazers, the whole point is lost. Diversity does not mean I cannot see the race, gender, or other visible traits of a person when I see them. It does not mean that I reject the regional or cultural heritage of people and accept them on the table to act as clones.
What it means though is that I SEE THEM and I APPRECIATE THEM. I GIVE THEM A VOICE. I say to them that " For me the world looks blue, what colour do you see? Maybe together we can agree its purple or red!"
I take the insights from their diverse heritage. That is true diversity on all fronts - be it gender, region, race or sexual orientation. It is to recognise, accept and appreciate. It is about equal opportunity based on merit and not merely being blind to the diverse aspects.
Sadly, the word is reduced to a chapter in Management books, a legislative compliance in companies and a totally flabbergasted middle management and employees at ground level. Diversity is not about accepting substandard talent to fit a quota and it surely doesnt end with hiring.
Dont hire a unicorn and then cut its horn and make it forget how to fly!!
ACCEPT, APPRECIATE & LET IT FLY
Thats the true aspect of diversity!

-----(c) Dixy Gandhi

Smile some more

2018-10-01T16:45:00.001-07:00

I have been a big fan of Marvel since the first ironman movie I guess. So imagine my excitement at the first Captain Marvel movie.The first superhero movie with a female lead by Marvel (Well in my honest opinion, Marvel always has been risk avoider. DC got it perfect with Wonderwoman, but thats for another day).
I would imagine the first solo film to be of the black widow, but guess she still has to pose some more in tights with her rear facing the camera for marvel to trust and invest some money on her.
Even Captain Marvel comes only after the build-up of Infinity War, as collateral 😊
So thats the premise, apparently someone on twitter used a photo app to make Brie smile more in the first-look posters of the movie. Isnt that so nice of the man, to remind her to smile while fighting the bad guys. She in turn replied with an Instagram post of all the Avengers smiling. Apparently, only the men can sulk. Girls should smile more.
Some days I wake up willing to ignore all the stupidity and double standards around me, but some days it just gets too much. The sadddest part is that I know nothing will change. There will always be an justification for patriarchy. No speeches by Chimamanda Ngozi Amichie will be taken in right context, the answer will always be you cannot generalise. Women will always be judged for showing emotion (she is using her tears) or not showing enough emotion( she is being a cold bit**) , for drinking too much (Ahh..thats what these pseudo feminist are like) or not drinking at all (old school) . For how they dress or how their skin looks over their brains. One cannot just have it all. Not to forget the mansplaining!! Seriously! I am a mechanical Engineer with masters in English but please do explain me the functioning of a DC motor or how to pronounce a word right.
And its only so much one can take with write-ups like this termed angry.
Yes, I am angry, but while I cope with this anger, let me smile some more 😊

Shades of Grey

2015-08-31T22:04:00.002-07:00

No this article isn’t about the crappy novel by E.L. James.

But now that I have your attention let’s talk about Shades of Grey.

World isn’t like a piano: All black and white.

Nothing can be labelled angelic or pure evil.

Every sage has his past, Valmiki was a robber once...

However, in the social age, we are always eager to label things as Good or Bad.

The recent example was the #TilakNagar incident.

Prima facie, everyone was quick to react and support the girl. Obviously, she has the guts to stand up against eve-teasing, lets support her. Everyone from media, celebrities shared her posts and the government announced a Rs.5000 prize (Seriously!)

The guy was immediately labelled as the villain! (I don’t say the good guy here, please note!)

Then came the sensible reaction, someone somewhere thought that lets look into the facts and so the media dug up dirt on the girl, came up with on-lookers who reported the so-called truth.

Was it really the truth?

No one cared to find out as again, the charade started with people shifting their stances and now labelling the girl as bad and the guy as good! Celebrities tweeted their apologies.

See how fuzzy, blotchy and hasty our judgement is?

I have few observations to make here-

Obviously, being human I can also label things as good and bad so let me get it done with first. The girl shared the guys pic on social media, making him infamous. Everyone shared his pic openly and he was the culprit. No blurry images here for protection which is the norm legally! That was wrong. We talk about gender equality so let’s be judicious, so she had his bike number, why share his picture? Would she have liked it if her picture was shared like that?

I won’t be surprised if he or she is approached by #Big Boss as contestant or dances in a reality dance show next. How we love to make celebrities out of bad boys!

But guess the final judgement by the social media, while the police is still looking into the matter (A sorry state of Indian legal system) is in favour of the boy.

He is indeed a good boy, and it was the girl who wanted publicity.

Having said this, I think this is how the incident really played out.

The girl was minding traffic and the guy said a few choice words to her.

She decided to act out of vengeance and played her political connections to punish him. She obviously miscalculated the jagrut media. And soon, her 5 mins of fame changed to a nightmare the Vanilla Sky way!

My take comes from my personal experience of visiting an ATM in my home town some years back.

So I go inside the ATM to withdraw cash, and two tall, hefty, middle aged men walk in while I am still withdrawing cash. Obviously, I feel threatened, so I calmly tell them that, "you are supposed to wait outside when the ATM is in use" What follows can best be written out in **** and ### as they told me very impolitely that they aren’t interested in my money and I should mind my own business.

Mind you, they were educated, well dressed MIDDLE AGED men!

My mistake? Not shutting up apparently!

The thing is both could be wrong, the boy in using choice words and the girl in her act of vengeance, but why are we so eager to place the blame on one person and make the other go scot-free? No one’s black and white here.

Obviously the next step is to find out who was more wrong and then the culprit turns out to be the one who tried to strong ones case by covering tracks and lying. Does it change the fact that maybe some words were uttered to outrage her modesty? That she had to walk out of that place red –faced the way I did from that ATM?

The media has moved on, the re-judgement passed. The balance is finally restored. But in future maybe we can learn and concentrate on some things-

1. Think before acting.

2. Avoid pressing that "share" button when it comes to such incidents.

3. Give an equal benefit of doubt irrespective of gender.

4. Stop being judgemental

To end on a positive note, if entertainment for you is really watching Bindras, Sawants and Radhe Maas on reality TV, let’s make celebrities out of such incidents!

What Really Matters?

2015-08-25T02:06:00.001-07:00

I would like to start this note with a disclaimer that I am not an expert on relationships. In fact, I am just the opposite. I am a loner who loves reading, exploring new places and watching Sci-Fi movies. I can count my friends on fingers- of one hand, without using all of them. I have one best friend of the opposite gender and I couldn’t even keep that friend as just a friend and ended up marrying him. Let me tell you, that’s the end of friendship, or maybe a start of something more beautiful.

What I want to emphasize here is you can choose to stay single or get married to your best friend, or get an arranged marriage. The next step is always going to be arguments or fights or to put it lightly for the "pro-claimed classy" you both will disagree on certain issues. And this lesson that I share now is the one I learnt from my husband. I am a reactive person, in the sense that I shout, a lot. And then I go silent. It took me two years of marital bliss to come to the conclusion which ironically for a person who is die-hard Linkin Park fan should have been crystal clear. In the end it doesn’t even matter!

Even as I write this, I am sitting amidst casually thrown T shirt and shorts in the room, not the bedroom mind you, the living room! Because somehow that’s the place my husband chooses to throw all his important things. And I used to shout! Remember the movie Chalte Chalte? Rani Mukherjee always threw a fit when SRK threw his shoes on the floor. It’s the exact same situation, So if I have to describe my living room right now, It has his clothes lying on the sofa. His wet towel on the 3K fabric swing I purchased so lovingly for my home and his socks , 4 pairs of them stuffed in the Shoe rack. This isn’t public shaming, this is living with a man! And now it comes to the reaction part, for first six months I shouted, which resulted in him placing his things on the right place reluctantly, then came his reaction.

Obviously, we are two different people, so I have some habits that disturb him. He started pointing out the charger with the switch on, the glass I casually place on the fabric sofa, instead of the table without a coaster! In my defense, I will pick it up when I get up, but you see there’s always a movie going on and I might not get up for the next three hours, time sufficient to leave a mark on the sofa! I am no saint either.

So after this reactive phase, where we both pointed at each other's irritating habits. we started to live with it! And yup, that’s the most peaceful existence. we often get scolded by elders of the family that we live like Students in a hostel! But we don’t care! Because after the initial disagreements what prevails in my house is peace. I know what some of you might be thinking, as the woman of the house, it’s my job! To clean up, look after the house, make sure its super-clean for guests. But I ask you this, what matters more? I work the same hours as my husband, have a one year old to look after and yup I can pick up all these things in the time I wasted writing this! But try doing it for 7 days a week then multiply it by 30 and then 12... it sure will get to you! The wet towel will always be on the swing!

And so I let it be there, Coz that’s where it belongs!
A happy me in a messy house is better than an irritated me in a clean house.
A smiling, cracking jokes couple in an untidy house is better than a bickering couple in a house that has no clutter!
A clutter free relationship is better than a clutter free house!
In my messy home, all guests are welcome, I sure will find place for you on the sofa where the laundry is lying from Sunday! And the guests, do they matter more than my husband? Surely no!

That’s the master Key! Let things be as they are. Homeostasis (As Sheldon would say)

Also, one thing my husband is great at is transforming the house into a super-clean place 10 mins before the guests arrive. Other times, we let the room name define itself, it’s a living room, we live there, so we leave signs of human existence there!
Lesson learnt is- Always ask yourself what matters more?

So this evening after a hard day at work for both of us, we intend on opening a bottle of Red, watching a movie amidst the wet towel, laundry socks and yes toys, lots of toys!

5 ways Parents scar/e children for life

2015-07-13T06:08:00.000-07:00

There is this universal system of raising children which is based on the lement of fear. It seems all children are brought up the same way. Hollywood children are scared of monsters in the closet. My reference to this being #supernatural again.
And our desi children- well since long, mothers have a unique way of instilling discipline in toddlers. In the process they not-so creative mothers create some monsters that children are scared of, and they remain in that fear zone till a long time. I, for instance have this irrational fear of dogs! Have no idea about the source of this fear but I am sure it must be related to some childhood incident.
So since hitting the child is so old-fashioned, modern mothers have an unique way of handling their naughty brats. By creating monsters! And here I list the five types of monsters every mother/parent creates-
1. The "face-less" monster:
I remember when my 3 year old neice refused to sleep, my mother would say "Go to sleep or watchman will take you away!" The funny part was our building didnt have a watchman, so in the poor child's imagination "watchman" was a scary monster who took away kids if they refused to sleep at night. I bet she would have drawn a sketch like this of the dreaded watchman in her head with his weapon of attack - the stick(danda)

2. The "known" monster:
This one is classic, as Maya Sarabhai will say "typical middle-class" monster every mother creates-
Mom: Stop playing in the mud.
Kid: *Refusing to pay attention, totally ignoring the mother*
Mom: I am warning you! Stop playing in mud, its dirty!
Kid:*Still no reaction, if at all, its a i-dare-you stare to mom*
Mom: Ok dont listen to me! i will tell Papa when he comes home.
Kid:*Immediately brushing his hands clean and running inside*
Papa somehow, becomes a monster in the kid's mind through whom the kid is blackmailed into obidience. This time the monster is a known monster.Loving Papa turning into a fearsome monster- His weapon being "bare hands"

3. The "higher-authority" monster:
Children are funny in a way that once they enter school, the teacher becomes GOd. So everything she says has to be followed by the kid and also his parents. And that kind of authority gives parents the chance to make a monster out of the teacher, so the conversation flows like this-
Mom: "If you dont brush your teeth at night, I will tell your teacher"
And the kid to save himself from the embarrassment of his teacher knowing that he is the kind of kid who doesnt brush teeth at night, meekly follows the command.
In that instant, the sweet teacher turns into a monster with a "chalk" in her hand as a weapon by which she will write "**** is a bad boy" on blackboard for all to see.
4. The "random stranger" monster.
This one is epic again, and as old as time itself. everytime a child misbehaves in a shop or supermarket, the shopkeeper becomes the monster.Or in a supermarket, the meek helper becomes a fearsome Godzilla.
Mom: See, if you dont get up from the floor at once, uncle will beat you
And the kid, fearfully through tearsome eyes, gives up his demand for chocolate and tries assessing how the meek uncle has so much power!
5. "The unbeatable Mom monster"
Every kid knows one thing, MOm is the final authority on everything. If you keep her happy she will pamper you to the world's end. However if by chance you wong her, than hell hath no fury! Even the "hulk Smash!" anger is surpassed by mom's anger. And then the kid has no option but to behave. Anything from the simple rolling pin to a utensil, ladle, ruler can become her weapon as she immediately turns into the Goddess Kali about to attack Maheshasoor.

I have a sweet 10 month old, and she tries me to my wit's end. So much so that every night before her I am on the verge of crying as she refuses to sleep and I am tired at the end of a long days work. Even multiple cups of coffee give up on me. But somehow I am trying to adopt a fearless parenting style. Let me see if I retain this control when she turns a demanding toddler. But for now I imagine this as I grow old with her-

Here's to all parents'- May God give you the strength of raise fearless kids!!

Nerd Girl

2015-06-15T10:21:00.000-07:00

The Merriam- Webster Dictionary defines the word nerd as-

: a person who behaves awkwardly around other people and usually has unstylish clothes, hair, etc.

: a person who is very interested in technical subjects, computers, etc

It was never cool to be a nerd before #Mark Zukerberg, the most difficult time being high school where like Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls girls faked their intellect in non-girl subjects like Mathematics and Physics.

Here's how most of my conversations went when I chose Mechanical Engineering

Aunty1- So beta, what stream you chose?

Me- Aunty, Mechanical

Aunty1- aaye hai ( Oh-My God) Computer IT nahi mila? Percentage toh acche hein tere! (You didn't get Computer/IT, I heard you had good percentage)

Me- No Aunty I wanted to do Mechanical. Don't want to do Programming. (No offence to people who do, it takes lot of patience which I lack)

Aunty 1- Oh really! Its going to be hard work you know, its for boys.

And as soon as I turn my back, the gossip went like this-

" She is crazy, will be difficult for her mother, she is such a tom-boy"

Bottom line is- The very first assumption with girls in Mechanical is, we didn't get enough marks to land in Electronics/ Computer/IT. The next assumption is that we are tom-boys by heart, which I am if we have to go by the strictest meaning of the word. But I am also a fan of Nail colours, and used to meticulously change and match my dress with nail colours every day! Does that make me a non- tom boy?

But still the term "nerd" is stuck to me, right from the time my would-be husband came to see my room and saw all the books I read. I am obsessed with books and can read any damn book! That maybe makes me a nerd. But its not easy to be labelled a "nerd" either. Google "Idiot Nerd Girl" and you will get the gist, It was a meme that peaked in 2010 and is a image of a "fake nerd girl". The idea is that a girl cannot be a "nerd" and if she says she is - she is faking it!

So that's the whole issue- Girls cannot even be labelled nerds! (*not crying sexism, time to prove them wrong*)

And if I want to self-label myself a nerd I have to pass many tests made by self- proclaimed territory protectors (Read Nerd-guys) So I thought let me make a list of things I am obsessed with as obsession with something is a prime requirement of being a nerd.

So as I mentioned already,

1.I am obsessed with books, chick-lits, biographies, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Classics. It could be any genre.

2.Next comes Comics- mainly the Avengers & X- Men. I was obsessed with them before they were made famous by Hugh Jackman.

3. WW2- My obsession started with Anne Frank's Diary back in school and then I had to educate myself with all the documentaries from Discovery Channel and the books.

4. Supernatural- The series and the genre. Plain obsession, nothing else beats it. Yet to find anyone as obsessed as me irrespective of gender.

5. Bikes- Again, being a girl I am supposed to fake my knowledge in it from fear of being ridiculed at or being labelled a wananbe-cool. But I am obsessed. I just cannot not (use of double negatives for emphasis) show interest in a features of a Cruiser /sports Bike. Latest obsession being a Thunderbird 350cc.
6. Linkin Park - I did not suddenly wake up to them but like any average teenage girl graduated from Enrique, Boyzone, Backstreet Boys to MLTR and finally Linkin Park. I have this weird habit of always checking where they are performing next and my bucket list includes wanting to see them perform live once!

7. Football- There was a time in my teenage I never missed a League Match too, Now with a baby and all, its difficult to follow, but I do know Barcelona won this year! That's about it, In my age (I speak as if I am 100) I could name each and every player of each and every club & country with the records the players held, and it wasn't a knowledge acquired for show-off. I was genuinely interested. I would still any day take a 90 min football match over a one-day. And think of it, India is not playing so no emotions, no heart-break!

8. Harry Potter- Can watch it endless times.

I made a mind map of how my thoughts run when I come across anything which pretty much sums up my Gemini thought process.

Here goes-

Then there are things I am not obsessed about that supposedly throw me right out of the nerd category

1. Star Wars/ Star Trek- Never seen, not even interested.

2. Lord of Rings- Not interested again

3. Fast & Furious- Never Seen, only Vin Diesel movie I like is Pacifier :-)

4. Matrix Revolutions- Seen but not obsessed.

5. Game of Thrones- Yet to watch.

And then there are things I like which make me a truly feminine girl

1. SATC- Still watch re-runs

2. Grey's Anatomy- Loved the spoof on Supernatural and got addicted during maternity leave.

3. Crazy about nail colours- guess that puts me in dumb blonde category.

Point is whatever I might be, nerd or not, I take pride in being enthusiastic about things I love. I can hold a conversation and at least have an opinion about things. Not many people ( again regardless of gender) can boast of that.

Its time we all embrace our inner nerds and be openly in love with things that give us pleasure without being afraid of being ridiculed or bullied as the Idiot Nerd Girl.

Letter to Mr. Homi Adjania

2015-06-14T23:23:00.002-07:00

Dear Homi,
you have hurt me terribly by making ‪#‎cocktail‬. A 2 min video will not make amends.
Kindly make a film that changes the message you gave in #cocktail.
Regards,
yes-I-wear-Western-clothes-and-love-to-party

#mychoice

Any publicity is a good publicity and so the video went viral with everyone having an opinion about it. Some good, some bad and finally the director had his say.
(I dont have a say;-) I am just using the video reference to make a point, which is #mychoice )
First of all lemme tell you some facts-

1. Homi Adjania- the video director is also the director of #cocktail. The most regressive movie of all times which tells you that unless you wear your hair long, dress up in salwar-suit( mind you, only till the MIL approves, remember d " main hoon hi nahi is duniya ki" song? so spaghetti and shorts, or was it a jumpsuit??( I have no fashion sense anymore) ) and are soft spoken, no smoking, no drinking.. You will end up being used like a doormat.
In his defense, that is the ground reality in India. But he could've made a progressive film just by changing the ending.

2. The video got shared on Ashton Kutcher's wall!!! OMG! Ashton (*fake excitement as if he is Brad pitt or Eric Bana) but seriously, Ashton?? women empowerment? ‪#‎his‬ choice you know kinda Demi moore, mila kunis, his choice thing. you get the point.

3. The video stars ‪#‎DEEPIKA‬ .The one woman I admire for being who she is. She always wore her heart on her sleeves. Never gave in to fake bollywood standards of "we are just friends". She gave respect and love to every relationship she was in. And that itself takes courage.
In a society that cringes when a girl says she has a boyfriend, Deepika flaunted hers for all to see. That itself gives her full right to star in the video and say #mychoice , because she has infact lived her life on the choices she made. also ending up with a permanent mark for an temporary relation.
Yes, the video says some things which one might take in literal sense. I absolutely oppose infidelity. (so I do have an opinion after all) but its time to rise above it.

#mychoice is for all the choices we make, some we will regret, some will take us far. But stand by it.
That makes me think about a new topic- The Change of surname after Marriage is also #mychoice, but for some husbands like the home possession isn't complete without 7/12, the possession of wife isn't complete without the change of surname, or they compromise with a hyphen (*cringing and pulling a dagger to my heart*)- More on it later.

- Dixy Gandhi (No Hyphen)

The Lemon Tree

2015-04-01T02:46:00.000-07:00

This is a short story I wrote in 2010, but was lying in my secret blog (Yes, I have a secret blog too :-))
Now after all these years, I gave it to a friend and she missed the plot twist!! So now its on public domain, waiting for someone to read and let me know if they got the twist or not!

The first acquaintance Priya made after her marriage was with the tree. As she had walked out of the rented car with downcast eyes and a ‘pallu’ covering her head, following her husband to her new home, she could feel the tree welcoming her. There was no pomp and show. The marriage had been a low affair. As an adolescent, Priya had imagined a different kind of marriage, her imagination which was hugely impacted by movies and books. She wanted a grand affair like in the movies she saw. With her friends dancing to the tunes of the latest songs, an uniformed band to announce her arrival in the new household, a huge hall full of guests who blessed her and sighed at how beautiful she looked and all the while a handsome groom at her side beaming with pride for his prized possession. After the ceremony which was performed a thousand times over in her mind, she would be seated in a nice car and would reach her new home. Over the years, the only thing that changed in this ceremony was the model of the car. At fifteen, she saw herself saying goodbye to her family and sitting in an Opel, at sixteen it was a Skoda and at eighteen a Mercedes. These were her dreams. The reality was quite different.
There was no hall booked; her parents gave her away in a small ceremony in a temple. She did not go in a Mercedes, which was the latest thought of her naive eighteen year old mind because it was at eighteen that she got married. Instead, her in-laws had booked a second-rate Maruti, the rent for which was paid by her father. She did not even have a beaming groom by her side. It was not against her wishes. She had agreed to the marriage, the guy had a steady job, he owned a house inherited after his father died some years back and a two wheeler. He was a catch, as her father explained. Priya would not be nagged by sister-in-law and wives of brother-in-laws only because he was the lone child. And even she had convinced herself that Mercedes, fancy weddings and love at first sight happened in movies. In real world, a job mattered, a steady income mattered, that’s how far one can get in a middle class home.
The decorated Maruti left them at her new home; she had seen that place before when her parents had taken her to see the place she had to pass her life in, a month before the marriage. They were shown the newly built second floor, with bare rooms which needed furniture. It was an unspoken demand but that was the main aim of the meeting. Marriage is a romantic thing, sheer poetry, divine that’s what Priya thought and believed. But before her eyes she saw it turn into mathematics and accounts. The budget was drawn, maintenance was calculated for an eighteen year old beautiful educated girl and it was decided to give her away with the money that would take to include a new member in their family, with new furniture for her.
“The boy is well settled, Priya won’t have any problems.” Her father remarked and the word ‘well settled’ echoed in her mind. How do you define well-settled?
She would have bargained it all for a happy life and that’s what she hoped for, a loving husband and in laws. Her dreams were shattered the first day. She had admired the coarse voice of her husband, it was manly. But it never softened. She had admired the dark brooding eyes, but they never showed happiness. He ran the household with an iron hand. Her mother-in-law was a sweet and meek lady who believed in everything her son said. No change was welcome in that household and Priya was too shy to suggest any. Within months she resigned to the mediocrity of her new home.
Her husband had a constant frown on his face, nothing made him laugh. The only time she saw him smile was when he invited his boss for lunch and that smile was so loathsome that Priya wished she had never seen him that way with no self-esteem, like a slave trying to flatter his master. Priya hated him even more after that. It was not just the fact that he lacked any humor or that he never smiled or that he was greedy, he seemed to be angry, punishing the world for some bad that happened to him. Priya could never even extract a decent sentence out of him; peeping into his heart was just not possible.
Her mother in law was different; she loved Priya like her own daughter and helped her in all household chores. They had an unspoken understanding starting from the day, her mother-in-law first saw Priya. She was about fifty eight and walked with a limp due to arthritis settled in her knees, but even her frail health or her age had failed to wash away the smile from her face. The days were simple, the ladies of the house woke up at 5 am, swept the whole house including the veranda and the compound. The dried leaves were collected and blaze was set, even before the sun was up. Then Priya was in charge of the kitchen, she took care of her husband’s lunch box and breakfast and the house wore a blanket of silence occasionally disturbed only when her husband spoke. It would only be alive after he left for work. The ladies would heave a sigh of relief and resign themselves to their chores till late evening, when the husband returned home.
The afternoons were spent with her mother in-law reading the religious books and Priya catching some sleep or watching her favorite soaps on TV. It was her only escape from the harshness of reality. The ladies on the soap wore enough makeup and beautiful saris to draw her attention and they were loved. They had long conversations with the men in their lives and more often they were the ones making the decisions.Priya desired that kind of life and spent the afternoons dreaming of it all. Sometimes, Priya would sit with her mother in law and listen to her hymns. It was on times like this that she managed to extract some information about her alien husband and her new family.
“Was he like that even before your husband died?” Priya asked her mother in-law one day.
“I don’t know, I never got to know my son, he was with his father always”
“Oh and was your husband like that too.” Priya asked again.
“Yes, he was. He always did the right things but he was a man of few words.” She replied.
“Very much like him” Priya remarked and the old lady nodded. The look of understanding was back in her eyes. She narrated incidents of her life to Priya, a hard life indeed. Priya would massage her arthritic legs and the smile would deepen.
“I always missed a daughter” she said.
By evening, the women got back to the work at home, and there was plenty to do. There was no house help present and everything from sweeping, mopping, washing utensils and clothes was shared between them. There was not enough time to do everything.
At the start of the month, Priya’s husband would draw out a budget and money was handed to both of them for daily use. If the monthly budget went overboard an emergency meeting would be called and means to curb the expenses would be thought over. The reasons for over expenses probed upon and a plan drawn up to recover. It was after the first month of their marriage that the huge electricity bill popped up and the emergency meeting had declared that television time was to be reduced and the refrigerator to be switched off at nights, water for bath to be boiled on LPG instead of the electric geyser. The next afternoon, Priya sat by her mother in law listening to the hymns, she did not dare to switch on the TV.
“Is it not Monday today?” The mother-in-law asked.
“Yes” Priya gave a non committing nod.
“So you’re not watching your daily soap.” She asked again.
“Don’t feel like.” Priya remarked and the old lady smiled.
“Switch it on. Just remember the channel it was on, before he left.” She smiled.
“What?” Priya was surprised.
“Well trust me; I have been doing it for years. He won’t know you switched it on in the first place, Saves the entire grumble.”
Priya was dumbfounded. “And the bill?” she asked
“As if it matters, I have spent 30 long years with a miser so I know.”
Priya knew they were going to get along great. The resemblance of her husband with her father-in-law had made sure of that.
Then came the season of the lemons and the tree blossomed. Priya was given the responsibility that not even a single lemon was wasted.
“Do we like sell it?” Priya asked her mother in law. “I mean there are plenty.”
“I make pickle and that is given to everyone who wants it.”
“At a price?” Priya knew the answer but she asked it anyway.
That season was spent in making sour pickle.
“We make the sweet one at home.” Priya said.
“Well, he likes the sour one.” His mother informed.
Her mother in law made sure that she made some sweet pickle for Priya. Nothing could cheat her son’s keen eye though,
“Are their not enough lemons this year? The pickle quantity seems less.”
“Spoken like his father.” His mother murmured in the kitchen as Priya smiled.
It was a routine; he reached home from office, had his cup of tea and then watched television till sleep defeated him. Dinner was served before him and he ate without any attention to what was in the plate, he managed to pass some comments on the food not being that great though.
The electric bill refused to come down.
“What should we do, at this pace I will soon be bankrupt.” He remarked.
“We take all the care.” Priya replied.
“Why do we need to put the bulb in the veranda on?”
“It’s zero watts”
“Don’t you boil water for bath?”
“We use cold water, we are saving LPG too.”
“The fridge?”
“Switched of every night, you do it yourself”
“How am I supposed to run a house alone?” He complained.
Priya and her mother in-law managed to make some decent money from the pickle sold. That did not satisfy the man of the house though.
“You have Bachelors, why don’t you start tuitions?” he suggested.
“I never have.” Priya replied.
“You can try to supplement the income.”
And from that day, Priya’s day turned more hectic. He got the “tuitions from class I to IX” printout from his office, enquiries came and Priya’s afternoons were engaged. Her mother-in-law adjusted well though.
The next season, things did not change much. The electric bill was still high, the income still low and in his words they were trying to make ends meet with him single handedly struggling.
The tree blossomed again and this time, Priya did not insist on the sweet pickle. One morning as she was sweeping the veranda she heard some noise near the lemon tree, outside their boundary wall. There was a man there and Priya shrieked. He ran.
“Must be stealing the lemons.” he said as he came running, “Why did you scream?” He was angry at being disturbed from his sleep. That afternoon, a man came to meet Priya. She was taking the tuitions and took him for a parent.
“I am sorry to scare you like that in the morning.” He said in perfect, civilized tone.
“That was you?”
“Yes, I was passing by, morning walk; saw some lemons lying on the road. Was just picking up, didn’t know someone would be awake so early.” He explained.
“Why did you run?”
“It was an unearthly hour and you screamed, did not want to be beaten; I stay in the house two blocks from yours.” He went on and on. “I am sorry to steal like that, but I took eight, so I can pay.”
“That’s okay.” Priya replied.
“So you are a teacher?”
The tête-à-tête was making Priya uncomfortable, only because in one year of her marriage she had learned to keep her thoughts to herself. The man did not give up though. He went on talking for about half an hour and when Priya went silent, he targeted her mother-in-law. She was glad to talk to him.
“We make pickle” she informed him.
“Really? Are they for sale?”
“Oh you can have it like that only, let me get you some.” The old lady rose, but the man put his hand on her shoulder.
“Oh no, I won’t” he explained, “I have as it is been a thief, so let me buy it from you. I like sweet lime pickle a lot.”
“Sadly, we just make sour one, but don’t worry I will make it for you.”
“I don’t want to impose. I will buy the sour one.”
“No no... I would make the sweet one for you.” The old lady insisted.
The man left after a long conversation with the both of them.
“I want some money to buy sugar and cinnamon.” the mother asked her son that night.
“Sugar?” he questioned, “we bought the month’s supply.”
“It’s for the pickle.”
“I don’t like sweet lime pickle.”
“It’s for a customer.”
“Customer? We don’t sell pickles, it’s just that we make it for home use and what is left is sold. I am not running a business here.”
She was amazed at the hypocritical nature of his son. She had for years endured her husband and expected some change in her son, but there was none. The genes were fully replicated. Her husband had planted the lemon tree in the tenth year of their marriage when they had bought the land. He had saved every penny to afford the land. She had always admired this much about him and waited. When they got married, she waited for them to own a house to start be less stringent, after they bought the house, it was the education of their son. Then it was like second nature to him, to save money. As a result, she spent her entire life in four saris at any given time. She had plenty of gold though, because it was an investment.
When Priya entered the household, her mother-in-law saw herself in her. A young girl, who wanted a romantic life, what she got was a hard one. After her husband’s death, he had taken the reins of the house in his hands. She was treated by her son the way her husband treated her like a secondary member with no rights to voice her opinion or wishes. It was natural, He had grownup seeing his mother treated that way and that’s how he treated Priya. What his mother failed to understand was the reason. She could not decide the root cause of his attitude.Was it all genes or was it the environment of his growing that had made him callous, a miser, selfish?
“Well I intend to make the sweet one too this time, Priya likes it.”
“Okay, make sure you make less of sweet and more of sour.” He ordered.
That day both Priya and her mother-in-law made the pickle. At night when he returned home, he turned his nose up at the smell.
“It smells nasty, the sugar and the lemons, how can someone eat that combination?”
“I like it.” Priya said.
“Lemons should be sour; pickles are to add spice not sweetness to the food.” He declared.
“Well you detest anything sweet.” Priya murmured and went to sleep.
The next day, the man who wanted the sweet lime pickle came by. He spent a good hour chatting with both Priya and her mother- in -law. They had started to enjoy his company. He was fun and he gave due respect to both of them. Priya packed the pickle for him.
“Make sure you let it rest for some days though, the skin is bitter.” She instructed.
“Well, the lemon skin is always bitter, some days won’t make it sweet but the taste lies at the centre.” He replied. “Thanks anyway.”
He came in for a chat nearly every day after that. He thanked the ladies for the wonderful pickle, spoke a great deal about himself and more importantly laughed a lot. Both the women had substituted their loneliness with his interesting presence.
The next summer, Priya gave birth to a male child. That change also failed to impress her husband. The little kid as he grew up was his solace though. He pampered him a lot. The fridge was left switched on at nights because it was always full of ice creams for the toddler. He doted on his son but nothing changed for Priya. Her life was the same, she worked in the mornings, taught little kids in the afternoon, then the pickle guy came and chatted with both of them and evenings were again spent in serving her husband.
Years passed and the kid grew up to be a nice boy. He brought life back to that household. He absolutely adored him and that made him less of a pain. He smiled freely and laughed freely now but his attitude with the women in the house was unchanged. Their son was different; he treated both his mother and grandmother with a respect they deserved.
“I think you should not waste your time on the pickle this season, concentrate on your son, he has his board exams coming up.” husband announced one day.
“Oh but she should make it.” His son argued.
“You like it so much?”
“Yes, I love sweet lime pickle that mom makes.”
Husband turned his nose up at his son’s taste but smiled anyway, “Alright, Priya just make some for our little son and we can give lemons away to neighbors, there are plenty. I don’t want you to waste time on making the pickle, our son’s education is important.” He ordered.
“And we must make some sweet lime pickle for the man who has been buying it for years from us.” Priya’s mother-in-law murmured in the kitchen. Age had worsened her arthritic knees and taken most of the strength away but the good natured smile prevailed.
“After all he bought sweetness in our life.” She muttered and a knowing smile passed between Priya and her.

This Story was also published here : http://www.womensweb.in/2015/08/lemon-tree-short-story/

The Prince of the Citadel

2015-03-30T23:24:00.000-07:00

This is a short story I wrote in 2010, but was lying in my secret blog (Yes, I have a secret blog too :-))
Now after all these years, it was an interesting read. So here goes...

(Image taken from : http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/artwork/lost-citadel/)

I grew up in a small town where everyone knew everyone. We lived in a bungalow which was situated quite away from the main colony where most of my friends resided and I had to walk about ten minutes to reach their homes, a walk which included a railway bridge and a vacant plot which was full of shrubs and about 2 kms away from the main railway line, there was this big red bungalow which was always in the best of the condition though no one ever saw anyone there. The ‘princess of the town’ owned the vacant plot. The princess herself did not reside in the town but had moved abroad. Everyone talked about her property being maintained by a housekeeper, but no one had seen him.
There was also this legend in the old town that the house was haunted by the ghosts of the ‘princes’. The legend had passed down from generations which said that the royal family had a curse and none of the male members crossed an age of thirty, as a result the blue blood was not so pure anymore and the city had been reigned by female rulers belonging to another royal families brought to the city through marriage. The legend said that all the male members, fathers, brothers, and sons lived in the house after their deaths and overlooked the city. They partied at nights in the open verandah of the bungalow and walked among the common people of the town in the day.
One of the princes, who ruled about 300 years ago, was deeply attached to the city and he had constructed a citadel that was in shambles today located about two kms away from their palace, the red bungalow. A railway line ran near the remains of the citadel now. Nearly all the passengers of the trains that crossed that part of the city at nights closed their windows because many people had claimed to see a well-dressed man scorning at them from the citadel. It was claimed that sometimes that man would peep inside the train windows and look intently at people. As a result, it was a ritual; the windows used to be closed. The more adventurous sometimes left the windows open, but it was said that the prince made it a point to scare the ones who dared. He did not like being disturbed so even the engine driver never let out the siren while in the range of the citadel. The legend said that the prince was forbidden from entering the palace. It was something he had done while living and people claimed to have heard his cries of despair at nights, when he heard the other kings partying while he stayed alone in the citadel.
I usually walked that part of vacant plot to play with my friends and returned before sunset. On some occasions, my mother would invite my friends over. One day it so happened that I was playing with my friends and our topic of discussion strayed to the ‘prince of the citadel’. I was raised in a contemporary family and my parents had made it a point to rationalize my thinking as a result I never believed in the legend or the ghosts. The curfew of not walking through the barren land was still applicable on me but the reasons given by my parents were related to safety as the place was quite isolated. My friends with a more traditional outlook though stood by the story. So a bet was placed and I had to walk into the citadel at night alone. It was not a big deal I could do it. I had imagined it all when the plan was hatched and my logic said that if I could imagine it all until the end I could do it. I just had to calmly walk to the citadel, climb up the stairs, wave at my friends and come back home. Simple. The only problem was that when I tried thinking about it, I saw myself entering the citadel but when I tried picturizing my return the red bungalow popped up in my imagination. Something was wrong, I usually followed that routine of imagining things before I did them and if I could, all was safe. If I could not, there was a problem. That is how I knew my return was going to pose some dangers but under no circumstances, I could back off. The image that an eight year old carries in front of his friends is fragile and has to be maintained under all conditions. I was going to go through this. Period.
The day was fixed, I informed my parents that I was going out to play and then at about 7pm after the sun went down, we walked to the citadel. My friends maintained a safe distance and I was asked to walk down to the citadel. I managed to stride up to the foot of the building. All the while, my friends kept making scary noises, but I was not scared. I knew I could do it. However, the moment I walked up the stairs my courage had diminished greatly. And then I saw it, a pair of black eyes boring through me. When I reached the first floor where the window was located, I saw someone hunched near the window, fighting the cold. That person kept staring at me and I was frozen. We kept looking at each other for a long time, then my nerve cells reacted and I shrieked. The next second, I was running. I had no sense of direction but I sensed that someone was chasing me. I reached the vacant plot still screaming and in my confused state, I misunderstood the red bungalow for my home and ran in that direction. I climbed the stairs at the front and reached the verandah. The lights were on there and a round table was set with chairs around it. But it was vacant. And then I saw four well-dressed men walking to the table. I let out another shriek and was running again.
The next thing I remember is being in my bed. I had a scar, which looked like a whiplash cutting my right eyebrow. I don’t remember much about what happened but my mother filled me in. She said that after I failed to reach home, as it was getting dark, my father was sent on my search. He heard the scary noises from the vacant plot where my friends stood making them (he did not know that, of course) and had returned home to take his service revolver. When he came back, he heard me shriek and started running after the voice and then he had found me unconscious in the verandah with a whiplash wound.
My friends saw me with renewed interest after the episode and a new story circulated the city that I had met ‘the prince of the citadel’ and that I was whip lashed by the partying kings in the verandah. I did not deny any of it, but for the days my father was posted in that city, I embellished the details of that night with new musings from my overactive brain. When I left the town, everyone believed that I had talked to the prince and that he told me how so lonely he was and he wanted to come with me, which I had vehemently refused. After the prince refused to listen and persuaded me, I had left the citadel shrieking at my disapproval and ran straight to the palace to complaint to his forefathers about his stubbornness. I always highlighted the fact that I was brave enough to stand against the prince and had the guts to warn him that I would complaint to his forefathers. This was my version of the story to hide the fact that I was scared. I never mentioned the dark hunched man at the window.
Another version of the story was by my friends, in that version the prince had indeed come out of the citadel with me and I had screamed when the prince entered me to use my body as a host to reach his destination. The fact that I ran towards the red bungalow from the citadel was a further proof, they said that it was to meet my ancestors and to join their party. I should say that my friends’ version was better than mine was. It made sense because my version was tainted with my weak effort to hide the fact that I was scared. The result of their version was that I was looked at with a certain amount of respect after that. Even the parents of my friends made sure that they pleased me lest they would infuriate the prince who lived inside me. Many a times mothers of my friends remarked that I had developed a royal attitude. It was the look in my eyes they said. Everything about me had turned regal. I was not complaining. I was the ‘prince of the citadel.’
I was using the sobriquet to the best of my advantage. Soon, my father was posted in another city and we moved out. I carried my little autograph book was filled up by my every friend and every one wrote the same thing. They were going to miss the prince.
I insisted on keeping the windows open as our train passed from that area of my city. In addition, I am not sure why it happened but a shiver ran down my spine as the train crossed the citadel. I was sitting at the window and staring at the citadel, but I did not see anyone, nor did the other family who shared our compartment with us. They were five people- an old couple, their son and his wife and their eight-year-old daughter. Like my father, even they did not believe in the legend and that is why they allowed me to keep the window open. I was staring intently at the citadel, hoping to see the shabby man I had seen that day, but no one was there. The prince was gone too. And then I wondered if my friends were right, what if the prince was me now? What if he lived inside me now? The thought was scary but romantic. I told the eight year old we were traveling with about my escapade. Her name was Sheeba; she was also traveling to be in the same city I was going to. Her father was in a bank and they frequently changed places. When I told her about my theory, she seemed impressed. I liked her and very soon with some aid from our parents we exchanged addresses and phone numbers. I was to keep her posted about the status of my theory and that I did. I went to an all boys’ school so Sheeba was not in my school but I managed to meet her in the evenings for a game or in a park or when we went for a stroll. She never asked me about the prince and gradually she lost interest in that theory and our topics changed to her grades and hobbies and the extra curricular.
I soon forgot the old connection and was carried away by my new life at the new school. There were some changes in me. Mom attributed those changes to her upbringing and my subconscious mind told me that it was the prince. I could use fork and knife without spilling anything now, a feat mom had invested a lot of her time on but I had refused to learn and then out of nowhere I had the best table manners Things happened at their own pace from then on. I was always great at mathematics, it was genetic, my father had masters in mathematics. I had no interest in history or geography. But suddenly, I was good in that too. My social studies grades shooted up and I was not complaining. The prince was very giving; he was enhancing my capabilities without asking for anything in return. I was enjoying living with him now. Very soon I found myself talking to him. If I saw something new, it was a routine to take his approval before I took a decision. When I cleared my class X exams, my future course of action was to be decided. My parents wanted me to pursue science to enhance my mathematical talent but I decided to go with arts.
“And why arts?” my dad questioned.
“Because I want to study history,” I replied calmly. There was this development in me. Earlier I was a temperamental child but I grew up to be a well-behaved adolescent. I had never lost my cool, growing up, accepted all the curfews imposed by my over watchful parents with grace. In my mind, I had become manipulative and political. I could have my own way usually without throwing a tantrum. That was a good sign, which could be attributed to growing up, I chose the prince.
“What is in history?” dad asked.
“There are many things which happened in the past that I don’t know of.”
“And how are they going to help you?”
“That’s what I want to figure out by actually studying the past. The past is the answer to many present situations; maybe I can change the future by actually studying the past.” I replied.
I had a vertical distance from friends my age; I was too perfect for their lousy taste. So I do not know if sixteen year olds talk to their parents with such articulateness or not. The only friend I had was Sheeba and she had turned religious, for her everything had an ulterior motive decided by God. So we do not decide our path, God does that for us. I refused to accept her theory, the way she had dismissed the prince theory years ago after believing in it for a short while. So I had no chance of finding out about other sixteen year olds. I was perfect in my own world. Even my closest friend of years, Sheeba was not so perfect anymore. She was not even cute now. Sometimes when she got idealistic on me, I wanted to kill her. But I did not. What stopped me? I had no clue; it could be one of the two- my own upbringing or the royalty of the prince. I had never done anything violent.
Something had changed, maybe her attitude had made me distant from her or maybe she grew up to be a different person. I was no longer attracted to her. Other than her, I had very few friends. The guys in my class maintained a distance from me, there was something about me that disturbed them. I never cared to find out. I was happy to be on my own.
Needless to add that I managed to convince my parents and joined arts with a major in history. I was good at it selectively. My classmates were good in modern history that involved the Indian freedom struggle but all that was like news to me. I excelled in ancient history though. The Maurayan dynasty, the Gupta dynasty, Mohenjo-Daro & Harappa civilization were my strong points. It did not seem that ancient. I could visualize it. And the key to understanding and remembering history was to visualize it.
It took me years to find out only because I was not looking for it. It was while I was doing my masters in history. I had begun to spend a lot of time in the library and that is where I found the book that covered the history of my childhood town. It had pictures starting from about a thousand years ago but I flipped through half of the book and landed on the page, which gave a detailed account of the building of the citadel. It felt live. I also read about the prince. The book was written by one of the local historians and it gave me all the answers I needed
I stopped blaming the prince for everything after that. If I was improving, it was me or like my mother felt it was her upbringing. I could never be the prince. I could never be the person who had about three hundred years ago created havoc, who had in his freakiness to survive more than thirty years of age that was given to all male members of his family killed many. A man who had run from pillar to post to uplift the curse. He was abandoned from the palace because he had been cruel to his people, all the other kings before and after him had made peace with the thirty years and they lived happily and lovingly for the years given to them. The prince of the citadel could not do that. Reading it all, made me sense that the prince was a lie. A childhood notion in my head, which made me believe that I was the prince. I could never be.
That night, I went home a changed person, like the curse was lifted from my head. I did not feel weighed down by anything. I reached home and all I wanted was a good night’s sleep, my overworked brain needed that rest. But that was not to be. I had just slept for an hour and there was a knock at my door.
“Happy thirtieth Birthday!” my mom sang

SPEAK UP

2015-03-23T01:36:00.000-07:00

This piece was also published here:
http://www.womensweb.in/2015/04/why-dont-women-speak-up/

I meant to write this since Dec 2012; when the horrific incident came to light and thousands of Indians were on street to protest it.
But I didn't, not because I had no opinion but because I was mentally shut down. I have been raised to be uncomfortable using words like ‘assault’, ‘rape’ even ‘molestation’, that’s not the things that happen to my strata of society, that's for a different class of people. I was raised as a cherished, protected child who still cries if someone talks to me in a louder voice. I just cant take it because I have never been talked to like that. My parents were the sober, educated class who focused just on education and good behavior. We were never forced to fast, observe any religious occasion with zeal. So for us, god exists somewhere, not in temples though. We are not atheists. But we aren't overzealous religious fanatics either. We have our faith in our heart.
But something changed in 2012, I didn't feel protected anymore, and I wished God existed in more real sense.
How could someone condemn someone to such brutality? I had spend sleepless nights after watching the movie “Khatta Meetha” where Akshay Kumar's sister played by “Urvashi Sharma” gets “horrific treatment” (again because I cannot bring myself to use the word rape) from his husband and his friends. So imagine, how many fortnight’s I spent awake after 2012!
I snapped again when recent events of a 3 year old being molested surfaced. I was the kind of person who changed topic when such discussions came up, now I discussed the issue with a vigilant male colleague without any awkwardness because we both were adults concerned for our kids.
And then it stuck me, the whole issue is this very behavior of mine. We as Indians are taught to be docile, we don't discuss these things. When we read the papers, we flip it in case someone sees us reading such news. We change channels when Edward kisses Bella in Twilight. We refuse to embrace our sexuality. Men and women aren’t sexual beings in India and that is the whole problem.
Because men being men have a different society one which berates women in ways they themselves don’t realize. Some are as bashful as to eve tease, some share videos on all-men group in watsapp of naked women, a mellowed down version is sharing vulgar jokes, then there are some who find relief in berating women- be it at work or at home. I once heard a man remark how a certain woman, a recent mother had it easy because she worked only 3 days a week. I bet his tiny brain couldn’t get across the fact that she was the one not having it easy as she balanced home, work and kids only because she needed to work, maybe because they won’t get through financially otherwise or maybe because she had the audacity to demand a career for herself. But I kept mum and yes changed the topic!
And we women, have learnt to be silent about the mistreatment fearing we might come across as strong feminists everybody hates. Face it, the favorite is always the salwar clad, long hair, soft spoken girl who smiles at all. And we try to be her because we don't want to be ridiculed by our male friends as ‘krantikari-kalam waali bai’ ("a feminist"-I got called that when I debated for women rights)
But its high time this attitude changes, we as women need to speak out, as the need for discussion on women’s rights exists because the partiality exists and we need to face it head on.
India's daughter’s was made by a non-Indian woman, because we fail to talk about this issue, and for record I am on the side which opposes this documentary, not because of the content but because of the intent. I also oppose the scared government who banned it. I just wish such an issue was handled a bit more respectfully. And yes, I don’t agree with Javed Akhtar when he says that such films will highlight the issue. How will a film shown to foreign audiences change Indian mentality? (And that’s where I oppose the ban). Also, how will showing the closed mentality of some so-called educated lawyers, make us change ours? The film got made because we Indians lack the courage to touch something so recent in fear of scratching recent wounds, because we believe time heals everything and we don’t talk about such things ever.
I met an European once on a trip to India, and I asked him, how do you like it? His reply was, “Its dirty” What this film does is tell the world about our culture from a restricted point of view. Its like taking all the BBC audience to an Elephant with their eyes shut!
It gives a skewed view to the outside world about India, and I am under no denial here, we do need to bring about a reform in Indian society. I also disagree with the director when she says, the film was made to highlight how all Indians got together to protest against it. Because, the only message that gets through is that such an horrific incident occurred not the subsequent protests.
My stand here is debatable, because I am standing on thin ice balancing real facts, nation pride, the need for reform. But somehow I am convinced that the real solution does not exist in making films for foreign audiences garnering support of Meryl Streep, Frida Pinto, Hillary Clinton etc; but exists in bringing out a change within. Lets face it, Slumdog MIllionaire did not remove slums from India, a foreign director made a film, earned money, made a certain age defying actor a Hollywood celebrity, but over the years things did not change. So will they not change after “India's daughters” and with years to come we will remain the same. Unless…
Unless, we SPEAK UP, learn to not change the topic, learn to assert our rights, learn to not keep mum when closed minds berate women. So that next time we make a film, it would showcase the vibrant India, that respects women, which you just have to love.

Whom do I want to be?

2014-12-19T01:07:00.001-08:00

This piece was also published here:

http://www.womensweb.in/2015/01/dont-deny-chocolate-please/

Let me start by declaring that according to my weight my height should be around 6' but I am not 6', I am a normal 5' 3" and I have spent most of my adult life wishing to be taller or more importantly slimmer. I have also spent most of my teenage life dreaming of a 6' partner, but that's another story for another day :-)
This story is about me and how since globalisation I woke up every single day feeling I am fat which by the way I am; there's no denial here.
Can I blame my body image on globalisation?
Maybe I can, maybe I should blame it on bollywood, maybe on every single issue of Cosmopolitan.
But I choose to blame it on sedentary lifestyle, my genes, hypothyroidism, PCOD etc. I have my excuses ready.

But my acceptance and my excuses do not make bollywood go scott free. Now I am going to use some names.
I recently got a meme forwarded on watsapp of Sonakshi Sinha with the tag " Gayi Bhains Paani Mein". I laughed a lot (hypocrisy, I know). When she appeared in her first movie, I had said, "Wow, what great personality". Slowly she started getting ridiculed for her weight,Ditto Vidya Balan.
Somehow I feel Hollywood is more forgiving than bollywood when it comes to weight, of course Caucasians have a different genetic makeup, but Kate Winslet, Renee Zellweger, Queen Latifa all are praised for their talents.
I totally do admire Chandra Wilson from Greys Anatomy, her personality is so powerful that one does not notice her weight. Wonder when bollywood will be that open minded.
What amazes me is the section of society that dictates the very narrow range of body measurements in which every celebrity should fit and by extension every woman is forced into. And so we struggle, go on crash diets, do yoga, gym, spin classes, zumba, mumba or whatever latest fad it is. Why, I still wonder?

And then there's sexist attitude of society, men are not subjected to the same stringent standards as women. So we kept liking the cute and adorable R Madhvan and we still do.
I remember when my overweight male relative asked me at my sister's wedding what my plans were to reduce weight! My response was, " Same as yours". (This when I was in healthy BMI range and he surely had pot belly, which he somehow felt a tight Tee will press)

Then there was this other older relative who very nicely told me to reduce weight if I had to get married,
My response- Your son is overweight too!
His response- "Ladkon ka chaltaa hai"
(I am out of emoticons for my response)

I do understand that only people who care will say such things for your own good. But please convince me this way-

1. Tell me how being overweight puts me at a higher risk of heart diseases and diabetes.
2. Tell me how my knees will be dead by the time I am 40.
3. Tell me to be fit for myself not because I have to get married.

Fitness is a drug and I discovered this few years back when I joined an awesome gym and became addicted to running. Back then I ran 7 km on a treadmill every alternate day without my lungs giving out. The other days I swam about 25 laps of a 50m pool.
And with all the right happy hormones ( endomorphins I guess) I was a happy person. I never threw tantrums, didnt get depressed if I had to pick the L clothing in a mall of certain brands when M didnt fit. Coz I had a positive body image.

And then life happened, so I gave up, slowly my height criteria started getting bigger, I needed to get a bit more taller for my weight and buying high heels wasn't helping either.
But let me tell you thats perfectly normal, we are humans not robots and some days something else is going to take priority over being totally dedicated to your bodies and on such days you have to realise that the extra kgs is not the only thing that defines you. It is important for sure, TO BE FIT NOT SLIM.
but there are other things that are a better definition to you- your talents, your relationships, your hobbies.
Point is- I have struggled a decade to come at peace with myself, to strut in a room full of people without being conscious of my weight, to believe that my personality is what defines me and not my weight.
I do come across the narrow section, I mentioned earlier who feel its okay to make fun of my weight and I let them do that without being offended, hell, I sometimes joke with them about me- my fav being , " I am very slim below my knees" ( coz I know I have killer calf muscles) But when such people go overboard, I can point blank tell them, "Lets run and see who stops first, the day you beat me at that, you can make fun of me, till then, shut the f*** up"
because let me tell you another of my observation- Fit people dont judge you, such jokes are generally by slim people who remain slim by denying themselves the pleasures of life and then take that frustration out on you!
My sister and my best friend are the slimmest people I know, both blessed with an awesome metabolism and both have never ever made fun of me.

Bottomline- It sure is important to be fit, but not torture yourself to look like a runaway model coz face it, most of them are anorexics. It is also more important to value the people in your life and see people for their talents not weight. No one ever noticed how much sushma swaraj weighs, coz what matters is how much her words weigh! Be like that.

OTOH, here's a conversation I had with my husband-

Me: Have I like become too fat?
Him: No, you're like you were before the baby.
Me: Will you love me if I become too too fat.
Him: Yes obviously ( He's lying, I know)
Me: No, idiot! you will let me know I am letting myself go and that I should do something about it!
Him: oh, that's allowed, is it?
Me: Of course, if not you who will tell me?
Him: Okay!
(Winking and taking away my chocolate bar from my hand)
So, yup I have started running again!

We all are MAD here

2014-12-02T03:15:00.001-08:00

During engineering we inherently learn to rely more on the logical side of the brain than the creative one and we learn to measure everything.

Length in meters.
Mass in kilo grams.
Heat in calories.

SI unit, Imperial units, everything with a definition. Everything explainable.

But there are certain things which cannot be measured,
Like Love (Cheesy), Pain, Hatred, Madness.
It is all relative.
If I ask my partner, How much do you love me? And since having a baby, I do ask him that a lot, blaming it on hormones, but somehow in a day spent in nappies and feeding schedules, I keep needing the validation. The answer, if I get any is always the same and its always unmeasurable. You just have to feel it. But it can be measured in grade point system-
If after my lappy goes kaput, I ask for a new one and I get it the very next day-A
If after my lappy goes kaput, I get new one without asking- A++
If I keep on asking and the answer is soon- B
If I keep asking and the counter question is, Do you really need one now? Its F.
My point is love here is measured on Demand vs Supply curve. If my demands are met, I have a wonderful partner, if not, my partner has a demanding wife!!
That's how it works.

Lets talk about hatred, Can you really measure how much you hate someone?
And does "not loving" equalise hatred?
If I say I hate Poonam Pandey, does that even make sense? She doesn't affect me on a daily basis. So indifference should be the word. I am indifferent to her.
Hatred is such a strong emotion, stronger than love, and hence should be used sparingly. But it isn't measurable either. Comparatively, yes.

Pain is relative too. What pained more, Root canal or Labour? For me, both were spaced apart by some years hence the direct comparison scale was lost or foggy.
Root canal was followed by ice cream
Labour by my sweet Lil kid, so by that logic, relatively labour was less painful than root canal irrespective of the fact that root canal went for measurable 1.5 hours and labour was 12 hours.

Next is madness, how do you decide how mad someone is?
The WHO has guidelines to classify mental disorders. The severity is also classified- measurable.
So anxiety, depression, post natal depression, OCD, phobias all are in one category.
Bipolar disorder, schizoid , mania in another.
Schizophrenia, ADHD in other.
And treatments are decided based on the severity. So the psych decides if someone is able to move in society or needs medication and consultation.
But there are two sides to this classification.
In India, psych consult for something like depression, post natal depression even bipolar disorder is taboo. We have a strong family system and everyone from our aunt to cousin is a professional psychiatrist. So it is frowned upon.

Why would one spend money on consulting when your mom is gonna tell you the same thing?

And I defy this logic, sometimes help is needed and at the right time. An educated, modern , logical mind says- mental illness should be taken seriously and treated the same way as physical.

But then my Indian mind remembers my favourite character from "Alice in wonder land"; the CHESHIRE CAT. And the way it announces, " We all are mad here".
I have a tee with that quote and I am really fighting myself to get that tattoo. How silly is that? (Again immeasurable)

I know it sends the wrong message, but we are all mad to certain degree, relatively, so why bother as long as you are in control and have a strong support system.
I also am reminded of a short story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez where in a spirited young girl takes a lift on highway from a mental institution bus which is transporting inhabitants and ends up being mistaken as one of them. Her partner comes to visit her and believes that something is indeed wrong with her. It's perspective, and like the cat said we all are mad here!
Irrespective of the taboo, the fear, madness should be taken seriously. If anything makes you feel less than capable of being normal ( again immeasurable) help should be seeked. And if you feel you have a coping system, be it shopping ( what you can afford), running, writing crappy blog posts, you are fine.
Bottom line- Life is not measurable and nothing is simple like the engineering units. everything comes with a pinch of salt. What we do know is life is finite and demands a unit system that simplifies things, that makes you get up in the morning with a smile and sleep without nightmares. Not that you can do it everyday, sometimes sh*t happens, but you deal with it, and measure it against the good days and as long as the balance is in the favour of good days- you're fine.
Still don't feel fine- Remind yourself, "we all are MAD here"

Is romance dead?

2014-11-27T02:20:00.001-08:00

Remember the time we swooned over SRK dialogues. He always got the most romantic dialogues.

Remember his monologue in veer-zaara?

Remember the way he looked at Manisha Koirala in Dil se?

Remember him saying "agar Ganga ki iffazat karna Pyaar hai, toh hai"

Remember how as teen agers, the idea of perfect romance was someone, somewhere, who would say the perfect things, look at you the same way.

That was all a decade back.

Today, remember the moment we read some one expressing their feelings on Facebook and cringe?

What happened between then and now to turn us into such cynics?

The thought entered by mind as I got a recent article published and cringed at the editor's change of the title. I literally hid my face and tagged a few less people on Facebook as I felt it was too cheesy.

And then I remembered the mushroom-cut Tomboy of a decade back who daydreamed of the perfect man, blushed at every word SRK uttered, listened to Enrique, watched Notting Hill, When Harry met Sally, Serendipity endless times.

And we played a game, wherein the next song on radio was what our crush thought about us. It was a way to please ourselves. (cheesy I know)

I refuse to believe that this is what growing up is. Being practical isn't being cynical. Somewhere the innocence is lost, but the idea remains. Makes me question is romance really dead?

Agreed that being romantic doesn't necessarily mean being vocal about our feelings. That actions speak louder than words. That not every relationship can be as intense as Heathcliff-Catherine romance in Wuthering Heights.( wish it could)
we live in an age of over-sharing where posting on FB has replaced the private talks we shared with our best friends.
Where clicking that "in a relationship" button on FB is equivalent to commitment. But does this not also mean that we should replace the word cheesy with sweet. Maybe it's ok to express your love on FB. Let the whole friend list know how you feel about your partner. It really is okay. All judgements aside. ( all this coming from a person: Me; whose partner is not even on FB)

What I mean is, agreed that actions speak louder ( I already said that! ) so while on a personal level you feel the love in the cup of tea your partner makes for you every Sunday morning (not forgetting to put the cream of milk in the tea, coz he knows you like it), remembering to order your burger without onions each single time, singing "kaho na kaho" with all the Arabic lyrics for you while alone in car.
Once in a while you also need the intensity, the public display of affection, the right words said by the right person and doing that without calling it cheesy!
So next time someone does that, please say sweet, coz it is sweet, it takes courage to wear your heart on your sleeve. And hearing cute, lovey- dovey stuff really brings one closer and keeps us young. SRK maybe old, the idea isn't!
so here's to keeping romance alive-
-Say what you feel!
-write poetry for your partner.
-tell him/her how important he/she is ( on a social site may be or just sms)
- take a bottle of wine home with a dozen red roses.
- better still cook dinner together.
- rent your favourite romantic movie together (for guys)
or sit through star wars with your partner(for gals)

point is- do something to keep it alive.

Letting go

2014-11-21T11:59:00.001-08:00

It started with Greys Anatomy. I got addicted to watching the tenth season airing on Zee Cafe. I had already seen some episodes from earlier seasons but didn't have a clear idea of the story line.
With too much of free time on my hands, the next step was buying the boxed sets of earlier seasons. So now I am on season 3.

And I know there were some characters that were killed, New characters added and season 10 just has half the cast of the earlier seasons. But the point is its still running. It's still interesting. At some point someone decided that the plot needs to be savoured. Maybe they discussed the possibility of ending it against giving it another shot. And maybe giving another shot worked with all the changes.

Well, Friends ran a decent 10 seasons without being boring. To be honest "How I met your mother" was dead in first few seasons but they pulled till 9. But it died a slow death, it lacked the finesse of Friends.

Another series I have been following since long is "Supernatural" after catching a glimpse of it while switching channels on AXN. Just a glance at Jensen Ackles and I was hooked. Apart from a super hot cast combination of Jensen, Jared and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, what it had was a strong storyline. I mean the whole Michael Vs Lucifer track was awesome. But guess that ended in season 5 and since then it's dragging, and frankly I never quite enjoyed watching it since. They do come up with sporadic good episodes, but it's done with. I don't know why none of the producers see it and end it decently. Why is there this stubbornness to reach the season 10 by just relying on pretty faces?

And that got me thinking about life and relationships, when do you decide if a relationship is worth saving or giving up on? Or in case you decide to drag it, does it deserve the slow death of HIMYM.
And who calls the shots of bringing about some changes to bring it back on track like Grey's anatomy, or let it drag and become boring like supernatural, just relying on pretty faces to see it through or in this case some aspect of relationship.

I know the comparison is bizarre. But it's not that incomparable too. You put your blood and sweat in making a television series, it's teamwork. The same holds true for relationships. You make a mistake in a series which your audience doesn't accept, you retreat and correct yourself. And wait, for acceptance. The idea is to milk the cow dry, till one of your writers say, I'm done. That should be the stopping point. The whole struggle is to give up before the audience gives up on you. Before your TRPs die, so that you go out with your head held high.

Relationships work the same way, you make a mistake, you retreat and try to savour the situation or wait till one of you gives up. The whole point is in knowing when to give up. When to let go. And letting go is the most difficult part. Sometimes you can work past the mistakes and still reach season 10 without it being a drag, or sometimes you just let go with dignity and move on. And when you do move on, it's a one way road, there's no looking back.

Reminds me of an old poem-

"Taarruf rog ho jaaye to usko bhoolnaa behtar

Talluk bojh ban jaaye to usko todnaa achchha

Voh afsaana jise anjaam tak laana na ho mumkin

Use ek khoobsoorat mod dekar chhodna achchha"

So here's a question applicable to all relationships,

Are you Friends and by default perfect.
Are you HIMYM, heading for a disaster
Are you Supernatural, pretty on outside but boring.
Or Are you Grey's anatomy, ready to reinvent yourself ?

Pregnancy and Beyond

2014-11-20T07:01:00.000-08:00

This piece was also published here:

http://www.womensweb.in/2014/11/effects-of-pregnancy/

Motherhood changes you. And it isn't an overnight change but rather a frog -boiling-to-death(not the right analogy, I guess) kinda change which you only notice when you're on the other side of the bridge- a totally different person altogether.
For me, however, the changes were in spurts.
First to go was my appetite, something I initially blamed on bad batch of faasos chicken rolls. What I realised later was that the little girl inside me had decided that she was a vegetarian like her father, so there I was a true bred punjabi, a purely non-veg girl puking at the smell of chicken!!! And that also meant no more weekend trips to Hard Rock Cafe for the chicken burger, and tea just meant tea not the Long Island one! And mind you, that has to remain for more than an year.

Everyone tells you how great the whole experience of giving birth to a child is; no one tells you what all you lose.

Next to go were my favourite pair of heels. That's right! I was wearing flats! Shoes I won't even be caught dead in. And now here I am an year later with exactly 15 pair of shoes that don't fit! No one bothered to tell me that even after having a child, your feet or for that matter you won't suddenly go back to your earlier size. It would again be a slow painful process. So that leaves me with shoes I keep trying every week, hoping to fit in some day. Oh and yes the same is applicable to finger rings.

I am not supposed to talk about this or even feel a tiny bit of remorse as I have to act motherly and take peace in the miracle of life I created. And say profound things like how its all worth it in the end. And I do say it with the right amount of emoting. Maybe I will get there, once my hormones settle down, which by the way are yet another set of things that don't go back to normal very soon. And when they start going astray, you cannot even guess what all can happen to you, right from pigmentation to dry,itchy,flaky skin. You end up hating yourself and doubting if you ever will have the infamous radiant skin.

The hormones also play with your emotions, so till they get back to normal, I am going to be snappy and thankfully , being in India I have an understanding, supportive family.
That's one side of the story, a materialistic girl trying to cope with loss of her things.
Other Side is the ambitious girl who is suddenly on maternity leave with too much free time on her hand. Again, the advice is to cherish these moments, my Lil baby will only be this age once, so my heart should be swelling with pride over her every mile stone, how the first smile and first giggle should make me cry and make me feel how it is all worth it in the end. I did cry at her first attempt to talk to me. And my daughter is a Lil chatterbox who likes singing with me as I sing lullabies for her. And I love it.
But there are 24 hours in a day, and one tends to reminiscence over the carefree old days especially at night when the clock says 1 am and your little bundle of joy refuses to sleep anyway. So you remember the time when u voluntarily stayed awake at night reading, chatting, watching movies, doing projects. When stress meant force/area, not the kind you feel when your Lil one sneezes twice in a row.

What I am trying to say is, no one prepares you for the reality that is having a child. The pregnancy books are full of advices and anecdotes of perfect women who were well just born to give birth. Maybe few years down the line I would pretend to be one of those women, but for now I want to be real.
And in real world, all the confusions, sadness, coping with changes holds, and you live with it. Try to live past each day as it comes, hoping to reach the other end a saner person. And your only ray of hope is the cute little girl you created, whom you decided to bring in the world and whom you love unconditionally and irrevocably in spite of the fact that she is an exact replica of your mother-in-law and every woman knows that speaks volumes for the kind of love you feel.

Yes, I married for love

2014-11-20T06:57:00.001-08:00

This piece was also published here:

http://www.womensweb.in/2014/11/making-a-love-marriage-work/

India- The Land Of great love stories like Shree-Farhaad, Soni- Mahiwal, Laila-Majnu etc and also the land where love marriages are still scorned at by certain section of society. Lately I found out that it's not just the generation before us but some same-age people who also get judgmental over the issue. Here's the conversation I had with a male friend, actually an old school friend I happened to meet again on FB (sigh ! The downside of technology)
Him: So you got married? Bataya nahi.. What does your husband do?
Me: yup. He is an engineer too.
Him: whats his name?
Me: (I provide with d name)
Him: (surprise smiley) Love marriage?
Me: yup
Him: Ok
(Pause for 10 mins)
Me: what about you?
Him: oh! I married in my caste only. Arranged marriage. Its simple and respectful to parents.

Duh-ahh!!!

Here's a person with same education as me, but in his eyes I obviously did the wrong thing. True that no one can make you feel bad without your permission, but the verdict is out, just coz I had a love inter-caste marriage. That's the hypocrisy of India, an eloped couple loses a bit of respect in the eyes of elders. SRK gave a solution to this elopement issue in DDLJ, where proper respect is given to parent's wishes. But even if one did not elope, even if you had a proper marriage, things are assumed and judgement passed.

But it also made me think over the other side of it, how much percentage of marriages survive? And whats the statistics of how many arranged marriages fail over how many love marriages fail?
And by failure I don't mean divorce, I mean failure in the sense where a couple stays together for society, kids or just resigns to fate.
I have nothing against arranged marriages, I think its a beautiful way of union where everyone gets a say, two families come together not just two people and the flip side is you always get someone to blame if things go wrong!!

But then I have nothing against or for love marriages too. If two people are mature enough to feel that they can spend their lives together nothing/no one should stop them. And if the same couple after some time feels that they made a mistake nothing should stop them at doing what is right. Only love and mutual respect should be the reason for two people to be together, not "what will people say" fear, not kids , not finances and not the fear of being a social outcast in case a marriage ends. Sadly in India a divorced man or woman becomes a social outcast. And that makes many unhappy couple's to stay together.
In my opinion as SRK said.." hum ek hi baar jeete hein..." we have one life and we should max out on it. Its not worth spending the one life we get in regrets or worry or sadness.

So, here's a list I formulated for love marriage couple's to stay in love
( Applicable to arranged marriages too, I guess if the couple is in love and not in a compromised ah-that's-my-life stage)

1. Respect each other. One of the reasons you got married was respect for each other, don't let anything or anyone change that.

2. Accept that there will always be people jealous of you or just people like my school friend above who will be judgmental towards your decision, dont let them affect you. True that we get carried away with people trying to instigate you, but let your reaction remain till a certain level. Let a little sacred spot in your relationship untouched. As long as you both have that spot, nothing can break you.

3. Be bold enough to point out when the other one is being an ass. Remember the time before marriage when you were just friends and you rocked your friendship by being brutally honest to each other. Dont let the label of "husband" and "wife" change the honesty. Above all don't let responsibilities ruin your friendship.

4. Have realistic expectations from your partner. You are the best judge of whom you married as a person. If you fell in love with a modern jeans clad colleague, dont suddenly expect her to wear sarees, and when she does once in a while appreciate her. And girls, once in a while wear a sari just to please your friend. Trust me nothing beats the look of awe and happiness in your partner's eyes.

5. Most importantly, let go of the guilt. We have a tendency of feeling guilty thanks to the society which thinks you somehow robbed our parents of something by marrying according to our wishes. And if you yourself feel guilty and at every moment over shadow your marriage with that guilt. You wont survive long. Your partner should not have to suffer for your guilt. Grow up and move on. No one is suffering because of your decision. Only you are.

6. Fight fair. There is no real relationship without fights. But when you do, fight fair. And most importantly dont let the other person feel unwanted. Coz in a love marriage the most important person for your partner is you. Don't ever forget that, try to see the love beneath the anger.

7. Lastly, know when to give up. In spite of all your efforts sometimes people change and if it's not working out , maybe it's not your fault. Learn to give up at the right time. Don't be a 50 year old person regretting a loveless marriage. Have the courage to call it.

There are many more things that might work for people based on their individual experiences but I think the basic thing is to make it work. Like the parent in "just married" tells Ashton, most days you have to work on a marriage. A photo album will not have the days you worked on a marriage, but the album is made of the happy dayz that were there coz of the days you worked.

The Curse of Eve

2014-07-14T06:11:00.000-07:00

I have never considered myself as a Feminist (I still don’t), But recent events vis-a-vis the Buzzfeed article of "Why India needs Feminism" and some personal and public incidents made me study the "Word" a bit more.
Growing up reading Ayn Rand, I was always an individualistic (read: Selfish, according to Indian standards). I have always been labeled selfish by friends, love-interest/husband, sisters etc. and I didn’t mind, because I understood where they came from and somehow knew where I stand. Anyway this note isn’t about justifications of whom and why I am the way I am. This note is just an effort to understand the big shot words used in philosophy/literature like Feminism, Objectivism, Individualism etc.(And a minor effort to get over the Writer's block I have since last two years)
So starting from the title of the note- "The Curse of Eve"
The Bible says that the pain of Childbirth is the curse of Eve for tasting the forbidden fruit.
God tells Eve
"... I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." (Genesis 3:16)
Seems like an Anti-Feminist statement, but then I am no expert on religion and maybe it has some deeper meaning. Maybe it means God is blessing Eve with the joy of multiple children.
But the same phrase "Curse of Eve" can be extrapolated to many other incidents in recent past.
The foremost among them is the Dec-2012 "Nirbhaya case" and the subsequent silly remarks passed on by people who run the country. Agreed, she got the support of millions of people who came on the street to support her, but it also revealed the hypocritical side of us. Its been a long time but the wounds will maybe never heal and the verdict wasn’t satisfactory either, with the juvenile all set to walk free just because he wasn’t considered mature based on age limit, not on his acts. I am aware of the entire hullabaloo about it by Human Rights but considering the Law situation in our country, everyone knows the outcome anyway. I wonder if a country which lives by its rich heritage and epics like "Mahabharata" and "ramayana" knows the following text from Mahabharata in Sambhava Parv which explains why the God of Justice was born as Vidura. It is a conversation between the "God of Justice" and a Rishi called "Ani- Mandavya" who is wrongly implicated in a robbery case and suffers. He asks the "God of Justice" the reason for his suffering and the God replies thus-
"The God of justice, thus questioned, replied, 'O thou of ascetic wealth, a little insect was once pierced by thee on a blade of grass. Thou bearest now the consequence of the act. O Rishi, as a gift, however small, multiplieth in respect of its religious merits, so a sinful act multiplieth in respect of the woe it bringeth in its train.' On hearing this, Ani-Mandavya asked, 'O tell me truly when this act was committed by me. Told in reply by the god of justice that he had committed it, when a child, the Rishi said, 'That shall not be a sin which may be done by a child up to the twelfth year of his age from birth. The scriptures shall not recognise it as sinful. The punishment thou hast inflicted on me for such a venial offence hath been disproportionate in severity. The killing of a Brahmana involves a sin that is heavier than the killing of any other living being. Thou shall, therefore, O god of justice; have to be born among men even in the Sudra order. And from this day I establish this limit in respect of the consequence of acts that an act shall not be sinful when committed by one below the age of fourteen. But when committed by one above that age, it shall be regarded as sin.'
Even the epic decides the age of maturity at 14 and not 18.But sadly; when with the advent of technology children are exposed to all that’s good and bad and hence mature faster, we still stick to an age limit to decide someone’s maturity.
Bottom-line- Justice will remain denied to a woman because of age old laws drafted during British era.
Recently again, Preity Zinta filed a case against her ex-boyfriend for molestation and yet again, our hypocritical society had some jabs to take at her. Just google her name, and we have many insensitive remarks about her on Twitter, Facebook etc. Even women claiming that she doesn’t have a right to raise a voice just coz she was in relationship with him. Only time, a lot of power-play and money will decide who did what, but what I am against is the mentality to judge a woman based on her relationships and status. It’s a bifurcated road, women in villages are killed and hung on trees because they cannot do anything, and when a woman who can do something raises her voice, she is ridiculed at. Preity's case is sufficient evidence against why India as a country will never understand the concept of Marital rape thousands of women will continue to suffer because they are bound by marriage to devils. All this is enough to turn even the most neutral person (me) into a Feminist.
On a lighter note, I still am not sure if I am a Feminist or not, I still don’t like to fall into debates with people over Women's rights, I just fight over Individual rights and subsequently get chastised for my strong sense of right or wrong and inability to mould according to circumstances. A quality everyone around me reminds me to adapt if I have to be happy, but I can’t. I still have many unanswered questions-
1. Does being very aware of my rights make me a feminist? Just because I am a girl?
2. Does refusing to be stereotyped into a role of a wife/daughter and sticking to cooking and taking up all house responsibilities alone, not trying to be superwoman make me a Feminist?
3. Does believing that a husband shares the work equally (which mine does thankfully!) make me a Feminist?
4. Does deciding to not change my name/identity post marriage, make me a Feminist?
5. Does filing my own ITR and managing my own finances (badly I accept) make me a Feminist?

I think not, because these are things any individual will do irrespective of gender. So in my effort to label myself as someone other than "Selfish" I become aware of my surroundings start connecting things and just being aware of the injustice and the hypocritical nature of society makes me a feminist.

That reminds me- The Great Indian Stereotype of things an Indian Women is cast into.
The list goes such-

Women can’t decide which car to buy- I remember an incident where a friend (now husband) remarked that I will buy a car if they market it with a feature of "lipstick box" in glove box additional. It was said in fun, but u know where it comes from. So screw my degree in Mechanical Engineering, my decision making power, I cannot make rational decisions, apparently.
Women cannot be good drivers. A deep rooted stereotype, that needs to go. I know some women who are the safest drivers compared to men I know, but saying so will hurt the Male ego, so I cannot say that I believe my sister is a better driver than You-know-who ;-)
Recently, got cyber-bullied, coz I expressed my opinion about Football and was praised for my "abundance" knowledge of Football (sarcastically of course) by a stranger! Well, I chose to ignore (Did I?) and chose to not remark on bad English, but made me realize the stereotype. Just coz I am a girl, I cannot know Football. Irrespective of the fact that I have followed every world cup since I was ten and every League match, I cannot know enough. And I wasn’t bizarre enough to say that "Oh! Portugal should have won the World Cup! Ronaldo is so handsome!" What I said made sense; Netherlands played really well throughout the world cup and in my opinion deserved a place in finals. But no! I cannot say that Sir, without being rudely laughed at. I would have let go of the incident as just cyber bullying, but deep inside I know it comes down to Feminism. Just like a 12th Pass Smriti Irani cannot be a HRD minister, but an uneducated person can be rail minister or even PM.

Bottom-line-I don’t like the Feminist me, I will definitely like to go back to being the Individualistic me, finding parallels between Howard and I (Fountainhead) but "yeh zaaalim duniya, kya bana diya mujhe!" :-)