A Relationship by Any Other Name

Have you heard a woman saying "..she is not my mother-in-law but she is like my mother..". I have often heard this in movies. I have come across a few women who insist that their daughters-in-law call them mother and not mother-in-law. This saddens me.
I know all the bad rap the mother-in-law tag has. Why not live in a way such that mother-in-law means something good.
Most of us hope to get married once and stay married to that one person. So the chance that you will get to call a woman a mother-in-law will also be only once. So why not call her a mother-in-law and why bring in the tag of mother? Can you imagine calling any other family member by a relationship that they are not?
Improve the relationship, if it has to. But do not change the name of the relationship.

I love Historical Fiction

Yes, I love historical fiction. It has become my favorite genre. I spend hours reading about them. This has been my favourite genre for the past three years.
I picked up rather started listening to Philippa Gregory's White Queen out of curiosity and now historical fiction has become my obsession. I always loved history and I like it when historical fiction portrays the emotions and struggles behind that history.
I realized that there are many people who do not agree with Philippa Gregory's take on history. There are people who do not like her style of writing too. She introduced me to this genre and I find that her writing very engaging. In an interview she said that she spends days imagining what her characters must have gone through. This is very evident in her books.
I accept that as a school girl, I watched old movies for their lovely gowns and dresses. Slowly as I grew up and recognized social injustices, I started noticing how the society evolved. As the feminist in me grew, I was able to recognize the position and treatment meted out to women. But at that point books about history were not labeled historical fiction. At least not that I was aware of.
Yes, I have read more about English history than Indian history because I see less of propaganda and more of history in their books. Have you noticed that these days Indian history discussions revolve around maligning people from the pages of history. It is presented as though the intention is to correct history but it leaves a bitter taste. Yes, I am all for recognizing for their deeds. Yes, Indian history specially the freedom struggle resembled the corporate environment where the most "visible" ones were the most recognized and loved. As a somewhat introvert, I appreciate all those lesser heard names. But to do so we do not have to malign the popular ones. With the exception of Indu Sundaresan, I have rarely come across Indian authors who are fair to all the sections of the Indian society.
An interest in this genre has led me to discover a few fascinating things. I started following many pages about history on Facebook. Going back to English history, it was amusing and surprising that the Britishers feel so strongly about their royalty.  There people who love Tudors and who hate them. There are blogs supporting Richard 3 or Edward 2. People defend and love them with a passion that I have not come across Indians. I wonder if the Indian royals would have continued the way they did in UK, we probably would have felt the same way too. It is interesting to read the discussions anyway. Another fascinating find was this website - http://www.frockflicks.com/ The women in this website discuss the costumes and their podcasts and blogs are quite eye-opening.

Arranged Marriages and The Big Bang Theory

I have been watching reruns of The Big Bang Theory and it struck me that these guys are ideal candidates for the arranged marriage market.

You ask me how?

All four of them are highly educated. All of them hold a phd degree except Howard.

All four of them are scientists.

All four of them are whipped by obedient to their mothers.

They have zero sexual history.

Can’t talk to women even if they wanted to.

No addictions.

God-fearing mother/ Scientist parents/ Rich gynecologist father.

It does read like a matrimonial ad isn't it? Well settled groom, good family background, and clean habits. All they have to do is post an ad saying “Seeking bride who is fair, slim, educated, homely (or should it be home loving?), and a working woman” and matches are going to pour in by the scores.

My bet is Dr. Sheldon Cooper’s profile will be the most sought after one. All four of them would be married in no time irrespective of how dysfunctional they are.

Don’t start talking about the benefits of an arranged marriage because you would be preaching to the choir. I had an arranged marriage. It is not necessarily such a bad thing. Arranged or love boils down to commitment. My question is how long will arranged marriages be relevant? We meet people of the opposite sex everyday. We know the kinds of people out there. Most of us need more than one meeting to find someone mildly attractive. Even love at first sight needs time and intimacy to evolve into a relationship that is ready for marriage.   
Don’t fool yourself in saying that we can find a middle ground between arranged and love marriage. You know there is no such thing as a love cum arranged marriage. If you find your spouse its love marriage and if your parents find your spouse it is called arranged marriage. It is your life. Grow up and take control of it.  

I remember my college lecturer saying “Marriage is like a lottery. Love marriages could give us a chance to tilt the scales in our favour.”

Haven’t our parents done enough for us already? Why burden them with finding our spouses too? Everybody’s profile looks good on paper. So take a good look at your profile, gain confidence, and meet people. Ditch community etc in favour of personality and compatibility. Meet people through your friends and dating/matrimonial sites. Join forums or groups that interest you and meet people who have similar interests as yours. Enjoy getting to know them. Decide when your heart and mind says it is the right thing to do.

To quote Frank Sinatra loosely, you may have a few regrets but you would have done it your way.

Note: This post was written for the Love Marriage ya Arranged Marriage! contest by Sony Entertainment Television and Indiblogger. Head out to www.facebook.com/LoveYaArrange for more information.

Being a Parent

Watch this TED talk-

The couple is right. But in my case it was love at first sight. Yes, I definitely love my son now more than then. But maybe I was very pleasantly surprised when I first saw my son. Because of what the doctors told me, no scared me during my pregnancy, I was expecting this skinny baby. But when I saw my son I was overjoyed. I was overwhelmed with gratitude and thanked God that my son was healthy. Every day since his birth has been a learning experience.

I read many books on post delivery. I thought I understood the various feeding positions. But when it was time to feed I realized I was ill prepared. Then I realized wrong positions add to gas in the baby.

Nobody tells you, atleast nobody told me that you would be feeding your baby almost all day and night. I read we have to feed a new born every two hours. But that they left out a small detail that this feeding pattern is followed only when the baby sleeps throughout those two hours. If the baby is awake, you would be feeding more frequently. So, you end up feeling that you are only feeding your baby and doing nothing else.

The first three months are the toughest with lack of sleep, exhaustion, harmones and so on and then you just get used to it. I heard about post partum depression mainly in the western media. I wondered why we didn’t have any in India. Atleast if we had, it did not seem very common, or not commonly reported. I found the answer post my delivery. It is because of our support system. Your family does not let you feel isolated. You would feel isolated because you just cannot run out of the door and do something spontaneous everytime you feel like it. You need to plan and pack even if you have to go to the Church or a shop close to your home.

You have to hurry up your mealtime. No more long relaxed meals with your family. You have to eat, pee etc before your baby wakes up. Your entire schedule is managed by your baby’s sleep times. My parents and my brother were very supportive at this time. They would give me breaks when I needed them. My brother bought me an IPod. He said I could listen to books, chat, browse all while taking care of the baby. His only condition was that I send pictures of the baby frequently. He set up a wireless network at home so that I could use the IPod anywhere in the house. This was the most thoughtful gift I ever received and I could access the world with it. My parents would keep talking to me and ensured that I was in good spirits.

When you become a parent you worry a lot. You worry about everything possible. I actually had tally marks for the number of times he went potty, had wet diapers, and the number of feeds to ensure that everything was ok with him. I would wake up in the middle of the night to check if his blanket was not covering his face. I panicked and I still do about him meeting his milestones on time.

Your baby will give you a million reasons to grin like a fool. His smiles, his laughs, and all his antics are pure joy.

Just like nobody knows the secret of a successful marriage irrespective of the number years one has been married, you realize that nobody knows the secret of being a good parent. One keeps trying so many things equipped with the little experience and knowledge one has and only a few of these things actually work. What works in one family may not necessarily work in another. So, parenthood is more of a scary, challenging, exciting, and a beautiful journey. Good luck if you have already embarked on that journey or planning to.

Hey Teacher, leave the kids alone

I must be very confused. In the last post I wrote about people opening their minds and letting their children choose non-conventional professions. But in this post I contradict myself.

Everytime I look at school brochures or ads, I remember Pink Floyd’s “We don’t need no education”. Here is one caption of a school that got my attention “Next stop London School of Economics”. There are some schools that claim that they can coach kids in class 6 to choose Engineering, Medicine, or Management branch. But why? These are not the only braches of study. What if I wanted to study History? Where would I fit in? What would I be labelled? The irony is even educated parents choose these schools. Why would you want to pressurize your children?
Summer camps were non-existent when I was in school or college. I understand parents who have no choice of leaving their children with their grandparents and have to send them to summer camps. I can even understand letting them attend camps for about an hour or so. But why send them to camps if you have someone to take care of them at home? I don’t want to be judgemental of these parents. It is possible, though, that the kids want to meet their friends in these camps and possibly do not have much space at home to play. But I would prefer a day filled with unplanned silly games.
From what I see on TV, read in books, and so on, I think this drive to expect over achievement from children is happening everywhere. I read that western parents who typically are lenient with their children are following Amy Chua’s philosphy. In Brain Rules book, the author says that people ask him what they could to do to ensure that their children go to Harvard!
Sure, I would want my son to attend the best of schools and universities. I would do my best to get him there too. But would I want to push him hard? I like what Hillary Clinton’s mother once said in Oprah’s show. She was asked what she hoped her daughter would do when she grew up. Her answer was simple. She said she wanted her daughter to reach her full potential. That is such a well thought and well articulated answer. Now that’s what I want for my son-reach his full potential.
Image courtesy-http://rock_n_literature.webs.com/noeducashion.htm

For Sure

Oprah was once asked what she knew for sure and she went on ask this question to all the people she knew. The answers are listed in her website. Here are a few I am sure of –

• I always was and am worried of many flaws in my looks. I got over a few and I know there will be a few added to that list as I age. But I know that at the end of the day as much as I would love to look like Cindy Crawford, I am not going to look like her and may be that is part of my charm. However, caring about how we look drives us to preserve what we have.


• At every point of my life I always hankered for something. But my quest for tomorrow’s happiness should not stop me from living this moment.


• I should surround myself with people who are positive and who are constantly working on themselves to be better people.


• This was an ‘aha’ moment for me while watching the Oprah show. But I had to relearn this so many times. People treat you the way you want to be treated (may be at a subconscious level) irrespective of how much you care about them or they care about you. If someone behaves badly the first time, it is their fault. But after that each time that they misbehave, it is your fault.


• No matter how much you love your job, it should not be your only definition.

So what do you know for sure?

Lessons From the Past

If one is a Tamil and talks about the Sri Lankan conflict, the person is seen as a LTTE sympathizer. I guess many Tamilians follow the Sri Lankan conflict simply because the brunt of the refugee problem is borne by people in Tamil Nadu. I am not writing this as a Tamilian but as a human being upset with the conflicts in this world. This post is not about the Sri Lankan crisis but this is about hate politics that is present in every part of the world.

Look around and you will find it everywhere. Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tibet, Myanmar, Ghaza, and the list goes on. It is not about taking sides and blaming who is right or wrong. It is about human rights and the lack of respect for human life by the parties involved in the conflict. In Sri Lanka a major sector of the population are not given equal rights only because they speak Tamil even though they have been in the country for centuries. In Pakistan, women are victimized in all possible ways to settle family feuds. Even though this has been happening in various parts of the world including India, it is a very common phenomenon in Pakistan. Talibanism is slowly spreading in Pakistan. One instance of atrocity is girls after the age of four are not allowed to study. . How do these countries plan on developing when 50% of their population are denied their basic rights? Conflicts in places like Myanmar, Tibet, and Middle East have been raging for years. During the Bosnian conflict, it was so heart wrenching to watch people begging to be allowed into other countries. These were people who were doctors, teachers or held other respectable positions in their own country and were suddenly forced to beg for survival. Almost the entire continent of Africa is like a ticking time bomb. The horror stories of such conflicts are shocking, to say the least. I felt ashamed being a human being when I heard such stories.

Why can’t we learn lessons from history? When Afghanistan was beginning to get ‘Talibanized’, we watched and did nothing. That problem continued to fester and spilled over to every part of the world. We should have learnt our lessons after the two world wars. But so many wars and conflicts have erupted since the World War II. How many more lessons do we need?

What makes such situations worst is the rest of the world plays escape politics. After World War II, every nation in the world is supposed to condemn and prevent conflicts whenever there is a case of ‘Ethnic cleansing’. Instead every country plays word games calling such conflicts everything but ethnic cleansing. For instance, the present Indian government has not really issued a statement condemning the attacks in Sri Lanka. There are reports that the government has supplied military power to the Sri Lankan government.

I am not suggesting all countries should go to war whenever there is a conflict. But we should force the parties involved in a conflict to sit down to negotiate.

Speaking of lessons from the past, I am scared of the hate politics that is going on in India. I sometimes see the kind of manipulation that happened during Hitler’s reign in Germany repeating in India. The similarities are just scary. The talks of pride for the country, the cultural guardians, the talk of victimization of Indians by external forces, threat to Indian cultural and so on. I am very much an Indian and I am more Indian than so called “Cultural Guardian”. So please stop all the propaganda for your personal benefits. We don’t need Hitlers ruling this country.

I know none of these parties deserve my vote but I don’t want my vote to be misused by the political parties. The first time I voted, it was easy to cast an invalid vote because it was on a ballot paper. The second time was on the voting machine so I was confused and was forced to vote for a lesser devil. This time I am going to find a way to cast an invalid vote on a voting machine. Any ideas how I can do it?

It’s the budget, STUPID

Its that time of the year again. Its time to submit investment proofs. I missed the deadline and submitted investment proofs late. I don’t know if it is just me or if everybody has this problem. I don’t like admitting this but I do not enjoy dealing with money. I do not plan my investments. Worst of all, I do not make any budgets.
The first three years of my professional life, I was an excellent citizen – I never saved anything on taxes. I know zilch in finance.
My New Year resolution was to be knowledgeable about finances. It was 2006 New Year resolution though. I have not learnt anything until now. Frustrated with my lack of discipline, I was googling for some basics in finances and look what I found – an article on what you should not buy new. The following, they say should never be bought new:

• CDs and DVDs: hey I don’t want to encourage piracy.


• Books: I have allergies. The only time I read a very old book was when I was a teenager. It was in tatters and was very dusty. I was continuously sneezing and my Mom banned all old books from home.


• Electronics: don’t keep me away from technology.


• Designer Clothes: How can a girl live without a few designer clothes? What is the use of all the money if you look like a hag?


• Baby and Maternity Clothes: ahem N/A


• Games and toys: as long as electronics are not included here, I don’t care.


• Home and car: don’t have either.
  

Looks like I will never budget or plan my investments effectively. When will I ever learn?

Perfect Day

So what makes a perfect day? This is my perfect day:

Wake up in the morning to the sound of wind chimes hanging on your window and soft breeze blowing through your room. Wake up, freshen up and have a nice cup of coffee.

Work out for a while. Water plants. Have a good breakfast with your family. Do your regular chores while listening to awesome music. You actually listen to every word in the song because your mind is not clouded with any thoughts. Have a warm super shower. Comb your hair and know that it will stay that way through out the day. Same with lip stick and eye liner.

Drive to work with no traffic jams or crazy drivers on your way. Reach office on time. Go around the office wishing all your friends a good day. Attend meetings and know that everybody is having a great time at work. Peacefully complete composing atleast one topic. Have a quick lunch. Your PM reviews your work and says “AAmmmai-zing work. Its perfect, nothing else has to be added.” – hold your breath - Yep, those comments are for the first iteration. You complete atleast three items on your to-do list for the day. You get through the day without discussing recession, job losses, market crashes, and so on.

Reach home to help your Mom in the kitchen. Have a quite dinner with your family. Yeah, as usual browse the Web after dinner while listening to music. Blog for atleast 15 minutes just as you have been promising yourself forever. Read those technical articles without feeling exhausted. Chat with a few friends and they forget to ask you “that question”. Go to bed after wishing all your friends ‘Gn :)’ by forwarding some stupid sms. Sleep with a good song playing in your head.

Does’nt Love Change Everything??

Trigger for this post is a conversation I had with one of my closest buddies. We were talking about Rab Ne .., the dialog where the heroine says that her hubby is just a plain guy. Don’t remember the dialog but she says something to that effect.
We were wondering if there would be a movie where a guy would say “She is very plain, actually boring too but I love her”. Heheh that would be funny. But do you really want to hear that? Na. I mean if you care about a person would’nt they look attractive. The more you care, the more attractive that person becomes. Boring? Well, if you are attracted to someone, don’t they become interesting?
Movies… so out of touch with reality

My Vacation

I just remembered that I never wrote anything about my vacation. It was more of a pilgrimage than a vacation. I went to Velankanni in Tamil Nadu. This is a very important pilgrim centre for Roman Catholics of South India. It was also one of the worst hit areas of the 2004 tsunami.
I have been there three times since the tsunami. I still cannot believe that this seemingly calm sea can cause so much havoc and destruction. I was on the beach on 26th December 2008 and I saw this curious scene. There was a family on the beach and they were carrying plastic bags full of flowers. They emptied the bags in the water, kissed the water and made the sign of the cross. Family of a victim?? Later they were playing on the beach. So did they come to terms with it or were they just paying respect to all the victims?? Did not have the courage to ask though. I was not sure if they would not like the intrusion.
I never saw something like that and I thought I could share it.

Tell me about you

Back in college, my lecturer asked us one day to write a matrimonial ad. We were to write about us alone and not about the qualities we wanted in the other party. This was kind of disappointing but we started to write anyway. We had a few naughty descriptions. Some of my friends went on to write two or three versions. Each version was for a member of their family and how they would want to portray their daughter or sister. Some of my classmates included their community and religion in their description. I guess because I never associated myself with either, I wrote that I am an independent girl with a good sense of humour.

My lecturer later said that these descriptions were our image of us. That was our identity. Since then I wondered if the ‘matrimonial’ part was intentional. She could have simply asked us to describe ourselves or how we saw us. Do we have a compulsive need to pass-on what ever we believe as our own, to our children? Or may be this was her attempt to spice things up.

I am not sure if my lecturer’s theory was right too. Some of the girls who included community in their list are now married to men from other communities. It is also possible that their thought process has changed over the years though.

As for me, I grew up out of Tamil Nadu and I never had any affinity for it. I tried running away from being a “typical tamilian” or a “Catholic”, whatever that meant. But slowly I began to accept that there is a little of bit of ‘tamilness’ in me. I like tamil movies, songs and at home we eat mostly south Indian food. I do not know what is typical or untypical and above all I do not want to know. It just does not matter.

On a lighter note, there is a community on orkut called ‘Fraud Mallu’ and many of my keralite friends are part of it. It is a community for all keralites who grew up outside Kerala and who cannot speak Malyalam fluently. Guess that makes me a ‘Fraud Tamilian’.

Cynical Me

You know what brings out the best cynic in me? Politics.
If only I had a penny, no paisa, when someone said “he is a very good ” while referring to a politician and I would think “ya right”.
Every time some one talks about Obama and “change”, I think “he is not the president yet!! Wait!!”
Somehow I can’t bring myself to trust them. It is as though they are a different species all together. Today I was watching part “Independence Day” again. Bill Pullman seemed like an intelligent president. I could not help thinking “how come we have intelligent politicians only in movies??”
And then compare the world’s politicians with our politicians.
Arghhhh.At least Obama tries to reach out to his people. He has an account in every social networking site, has his profile on Linkedin and twitter too. He or at least his team is trying to connect with the younger crowd. What about our politicians? They are good at one thing though. They can segregate the country on the basis of community, religion, race and so on. They can poison the minds of citizens for their selfish benefits. All are yuck except few like Chidambaram and Arun Shourie.