Indian Men-Tally-Ty

Men. When you are in your mid twenties they become interesting factors of discussion because soon you have to marry one of these. There is broad speculation everywhere. Everyone around you has so many questions. Why aren't you married yet? Do you have someone? Are your parents looking for you? And any answer to these are followed by a next set of questions. 
     So why is the marriage discussion so important? God Knows! So anyway since I have been a part of this discussion time and again I keep hearing this one piece of advice from a lot of people.

Hey you have so many dreams to fulfill.. Why don't you marry a very rich guy?  
Hey so this guy your dad is talking about how much does he earn?  
How many houses do they own? 
Tuhje shaadi ke baad job nehi karni na.. tu ek amir ladke se shaadi kar le.... and so on.
    
     It shocks me to hear this repeatedly. I mean is that the biggest parameter? Why?  Its 2013. We want equal rights for women in everything. We want women to be treated at par with men yet we, the same people, put a big question mark in front of her abilities by asking her to safe guard herself in the wallet of a man. 
     
    I don't believe that's required. Being a women I know I have the competency, the potential to fulfill my aspirations without the shelter of wealth of my husband. What bothers me more is that how can someone's package be the deciding factor for marriage? What happened to likes, dislikes, understanding and most importantly morals. You heard me right. Well Money to an extent is okay but money is not enough to decide who you want to spend the rest of your life with. I mean what is a rich man with no character? 
    
    The aunties, chachis and Mrs XYZeee's are big culprits in this matter. Wo ladka achha hai! they will say..
followed by 15 lakh ka package hai uska..! what an icing on the cake your mom will think. Trust me these aunties are just bored of their own married life and have nothing better to do but shower people with advises here and there.

   I would say find your self someone who has the same morals as you do. Someone who makes you laugh harder than you ever have. Some who understands you, knows your weakness and can handle you in your worst. Someone who matches your frequency. 

Money, you will make ladies, but you cannot make a Man out of a bundle of notes. So choose wisely.

The Power of Dreams

Freedom. Not from others but from ourselves. Freedom from the web of our minds. From that Force which pulls us Back to that Power which pushes us Forward to pursue our dreams. To do our Will. To be faithful to ourselves- to the dreamer inside us. Because that Dreamer believes in you, knows your Strength and that's why it Dreams.

Array of Thoughts

Life --> Time --> Money --> Job --> Laugh --> Love --> Cry --> Happiness --> Satisfaction --> Dissatisfaction --> Could have Beens --> Today --> Future --> Smile --> Age--> Lost Time --> Lost Energy --> Could have Dones --> Body --> Strength --> Weakness --> Will Do's --> Tomorrow --> Week --> Weekend --> Salary.. --> The Array of Life. 

The road on which society pushes us.

The other one we could have taken. 

The Difference, the Decision, the Fear, the Responsibilities, the Jeopardy. ---> The Regret.

Where will the pigs go?

Every time I look out my office window I see a long stretch of barren land in front of me. Not beautiful at all. Rubble here and there, stones big and small lay on the uneven land.  If I look towards the right I can see some trees, the rest has no touch of greenery. Beyond the barren land is a small vasti, further beyond which is the main road. There is a lot of traffic on the busy road.

On the other side of the main road stand large commercial buildings.

To the right beyond the trees is another road which connects to the main road. While on the left is the backside of a big IT park.

This piece of land surprises me. Every time I look at it I wonder why it has no construction. The surrounding is a well developed posh place in Pune, with constructions all around and there is no reason for that land to remain barren. The view is not great but nonetheless I love staring at this empty land. It is not decorated and definitely not nature’s best shot.  It is like a woman without make up or a hairdo. It is real and that is what compels me.

There is one more reason why this land grabs my attention. Pigs. Lots of ugly pigs some big, some little run around and play.

Seeing these pigs I wonder why we were taught to color pigs in ‘pink’ when we were in school. These were brownish black. Nothing cute about them. (Pigs look really cute in the pictures from books).

But again its fun watching them, the way they run around , one behind the other , in one line, the big one leading  and the small one’s following, it makes for a entertaining view.

Pigs are a rare sight these days. You won’t find them in sophisticated clean places rather you will find them in dirty places where dry garbage is dumped. But everything around us is sophisticated. Clean houses, gardens, roads.

I keep wondering, since this land will very soon have some big building growing on it, where will these pigs go?

Unlike humans (who need houses) or birds (who needs nests) these pigs need nothing except a piece of empty land.

Where will they go when all these barren lands are constructed upon? How long will they move their houses for us?

There was a poem I read in school. ‘If Pigs Could Fly’. The first 2 lines were something like this:

‘ If pigs could fly I'd fly a pig.

To foreign countries small and big.’

When I see these pigs I really wish These pigs ‘Could’ fly. At least they would have the sky to themselves. They could play around like the birds and run around without being hit by a bus. They would have their own little world where we humans dont intervene.

Wear Sunscreen

Every time I feel low, when I feel something is not going right I  listen to "Everybody's free to wear sunscreen".

It is the perfect set of advice one can give and somehow u take it. Sometimes words have magical power, they can change your mood and lighten you up.This is exactly what this song (or speech) does to me. I call it my tonic :) I will post the lyrics here and also a link to the video on youtube. Hope you enjoy it as much.

Everybody's free to wear sunscreen

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of ’99

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience…I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh never mind; you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked….You’re not as fat as you imagine. 

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm  on some idle Tuesday. 

Do one thing everyday that scares you 

Sing 

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss 

Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind…the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself. 

Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements. 

Stretch 

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life…the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t. 

Get plenty of calcium. 

Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone. 

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children,maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary…what ever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either – your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s. 

Enjoy your body, use it every way you can…don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own..

Dance…even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room. 

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them. 

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for good. 

Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future. 

Understand that friends come and go,but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young. 

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel. 

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders. 

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out. 

Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85. 

Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen…

While in the bus on the way back from office...

Hinjewadi.

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear that?? I bet you will say, 'the IT hub of Pune' or 'the place with all the big software companies' et cetera et cetera.. and truly speaking you are not wrong. It truly is the IT hub. Almost all the big software companies are based there.

But what comes to my mind when i hear Hinjewadi? TRAFFIC. The traffic in Hinjewadi at wee hours is terrifying. Even terrifying is a small word and not enough to describe the intensity of terror it causes on the roads.

Interestingly most of the commuters caught in this traffic jam are the same people who causes it. They are the 'who's who' of the big software companies who have money enough to buy them-self a shiny fashionable car. They also have the patience to drive their car in that traffic and the most important thing is 90% of them travel alone.

Say,why can't they use the company bus? Is there some sort of disgrace in travelling with people who work with you? or does the disgrace lie in the fact that the-proud-owner-of-a-car would be taking a bus? It is beyond my understanding.

Why can't such educated people (with probably big MBA degrees) understand that petrol is a non renewable source of energy? A car which has the capacity to seat 5 people is used just for 1 person. Why such a waste?

Some people may argue that the bus stop is far from their home. Well going by the 'growth' most IT people have ( generally near the tummy area) , it wouldn't harm much to walk a few blocks. Would it?

So maybe you don't care about the cost of fuel or its wastage but my problem is why should we (the one's who travel by bus) suffer the traffic congestion? Why cannot they take a two wheeler instead to save on the space their vehicle occupies on the road? I mean 4 cars put together is the size of a mini bus. So its just 4 people occupying the road which otherwise can take 20.

Most of these big companies have slogans like "go green","save green" and so on. I think they should highlight this problem to their employees and educate them on it, because the companies are growing, and so are their employees, and so is the number of cars on the road. Its really our time to do our bit to save OUR environment.

Lets ponder over

What is selflessness? I have thought a lot about this and have come to a conclusion. What I have concluded now, had been represented to me as facts, by a teacher of mine few years back. At that time I didn’t believe her but now I am forced to rethink.

Ma’am had said that all human relations are based on selfish love. Be it between lovers, friends, siblings or even between parents and their children. I found it hard to digest.

I wondered how can the affections of a parent towards his/her child be termed as selfish?

Then we were given the reason.

Ma’am told us that we always expect the love we have for someone to be returned to us. We have a tendency to expect it back, and if this expectation fails us we get angry, frustrated etc.. We tend to remind ourselves (or the concerned person) of the last time we had helped them when we want help from them.

While this justification was being explained we raised another question, “then what exactly is selfless love or selflessness?”

We were then told by ma’am that imagine a person X is walking down the stairs and suddenly sees a cockroach upside down struggling hard to turn back itself. X looks at the cockroach and out of kindness(or with some other good emotion in his heart) he turns the poor creature so that it is normal again. The cockroach then goes off (even without a thank you). Did X expect anything from the cockroach?? Or will he expect anything from it in the future? Well no. This is selfless love. The actions of helping the cockroach were done with complete selfless intentions.

This is so true! Isn’t it? It is so often that we get depressed over this selfish love of ours when our expectations are not fulfilled. Ma’am had taught us an important lesson n had tried to tell us that we must try to be selfless in all our deeds.

Maybe at 15 the stark reality dint really sink in but at 21 it has…. and I am still pondering over it.