Love 2 hate U

This is a new show by my favourite model Arjun Rampal and after having watched one and a half episodes I am nowhere near hating it. I think I have begun loving this show. Half the battle is won since I just swoon over Arjun Rampal. I know most of the people out there would want to kick me on my rear for liking Arjun Rampal. Unfortunately he did not turn out to be a good actor, but there is no denying he set the ramps on fire. Also, he came to the limelight with Mr. India's title and that was when I used to be a teenager. I took to liking him immediately and just loved watching him in song albums and advertisements back then. Anyways, more than Arjun Rampal I want to talk about his show.

He calls those people on the show, who hate a particular celeb very badly. He first makes the person vent out his hatred for that celeb on camera and then shows this tape to the celeb. And then comes the most interesting part......a confrontation of the hater and the hated. The episode that I watched had Chetan Bhagat and Farah Khan's haters. What an episode it was! Finally both the celebrities try to convert the haters to non-haters. They are then rated on the hater’s hate-o-meters.

I am becoming a huge fan of Chetan Bhagat these days and I somehow do not like Farah Khan. So these two people in the same episode were good to watch. I liked the simplicity and humility of Chetan Bhagat. He said it is important to come face to face with your hater also since it makes you humble. What a nice attitude. Also, when Farah Khan was shown the video of her hater who strongly condemned her movie Tees MarKhan, Arjun Rampal suggests that they play a prank on her hater. Farah says let us tie him up and make him watch Tees Markhan again. I just loved her sporting attitude. One knows that this aspect of mine is being hated and you go ahead and make fun of it. It all requires guts, courage and a very sporting attitude. Above all it requires being extremely sure of yourself. Right or wrong..... You are sure of yourself.

This could be a remake of some American show or something, but I love this Indian version. Short and sweet it does not drag for long hours and shows a different aspect of the celebs. It is easy to handle praise I guess but very difficult to handle criticism.
Keep watching Arjun Rampal.....oops Love2HateU:-)

Hanged to Death!

Today the morning started with the usual chaos and shouting that goes on every morning, the children have school and both of us have to reach work. I kept on hurling scoldings at my kids for not getting up on time, not preparing their school bags in advance and not getting ready in time. To top it all my domestic help made some foolish mistakes which added fuel to my growing anger. Nothing new till here. When I reached the bus stop to drop my younger one I saw lots of police vehicles and the ever-curious crowd of on-lookers. Not being able to sustain my curiosity any longer I peeped down the lane where people were gathered and was wondering whether there has been a fight or a robbery. To my horror I saw a body hanging limp from a tree with a rope. He must have been a young man of no more than 20 years and looked like he committed suicide. It shook me to my roots and I uttered 'Oh my God!'. It became difficult to cover the distance of 5 minutes to home and on reaching home I broke down in front of my husband. I was shaking with the shock. Those 5 minutes to home made me think that yes, if a person commits suicide he is definitely to be held responsible for not being strong enough to hold-on to life. But what about the words of the person that triggered this step, if that was the reason. That living person probably lives throughout life, regretting and full of guilt. His life becomes much more worse than death of his loved one. I thought about my carelessness in hurling screams and scoldings at my children and thought how I don't even give it a thought, what effect it is having on the children. Even for that matter what effect these high-pitched words have on my domestic help. Watever a person does because of my actions I don't know but my reaction to his action wouldn't be lesser than living hell itself.

That was God's big way of teaching me small things.

Is the transition to being a full-time Mom and wife ever complete?

As in many other cases I have observed that a change triggers my muse and many latent questions once again raise their head up. This time the transition from a small apartment to a big independent house in a new area acts as the wild trigger. This small-for-some transition actually triggers the bigger question which I always keep pushing towards the back benches of my mind. The question is-- have I truly become a house-wife? A house-wife these days as per the Census commission is nothing short of a beggar who contributes nothing to the per capita income of the nation. And if there are more house-wives like me then probably a category will be created who always minus the per capita income of a nation.

It all started some 8 years ago when I too was a promising (at least to me) young IT professional with eyes set on the big comfortable chairs in independent posh cabins of the VP. A surprise visit from the stork and I was handling a bundle of joy--my son. Questions began to arise---choose career or enjoy motherhood full time? Anyhow, strong inclinations and a lot of support from my husband helped me put in my resignation and I was a free bird. The journey to becoming a full time mother and wife was not as easy as I had thought it to be. There were moments when I actually repented my decision. Suddenly I discovered I was left to be good at nothing. Till now my job had covered all the flaws of home caring in the pretext of having less time on hands. But now whatever I did had to be the best and it never was. I never matched the standards of good house wives. All my near and dear ones threw away my education and talent to the bin, the moment I was jobless. I was competing against females who had been trained to become home carers right from childhood whereas I had been trained to become an executive (in those chairs I described above). Still I was never good enough. A few years down the line I decided to be my own judge and put all competition down the drain. But not before I had made life hell for myself, my ever supporting husband and my little children growing up ever so slowly.

I don’t know if it is my education or training or my mental set-up but I could never resign myself to be a full time home carer and yet be content with it. I kept trying to find teeny-weeny challenges for myself within the four walls and competed with myself. Yet this did not satiate my hunger to do something. I went through hordes of options like taking up higher education and starting a career in teaching, once kids began school full time. I considered starting a variety of small businesses so that I could keep one eye reserved for home. All these past 8 years were a struggle of their own without any prodding from anyone and yet I was not content. Now I know that a job like IT/MNC with timeless commitments is not for me. Still the bird is not free. I took up learning Japanese language as a prospective future career and more as a way to pass time, make friends and moreover to challenge my rusting brain. I did pretty well in that too. But this part time activity has again become a full time struggle of trying to maintain a balance between me and home. Also now the question is what next? The jobs that I studied for throughout my life now require so much of time that I can't make my family suffer for the jobs. If I take up anything new it again requires a lot of time to settle in that field and I would be so old byt then.

Now as I sit in a new big house like a watch dog watching over, looking after the high maintenance, looking after the kids; the same questions creep up.I have lot of work at hand but less at mind. I have a daily list of pending jobs to do which will actually beautify my new home but not make me a bit happier. The idea of decorating my new home with passion does not fill me with equal amount of joy. Any other content woman would have felt on top of the world in my situation but not me. Yes, I have heard long lectures of so many spiritual gurus and read many a Robin Sharmas on contentment, yet it seems like a mirage to me.

All these things and more make me question my decision again and again. Was I not born to be and destined to be a house-wife? How long will I sail in two boats? When will the transition get over? When can I become a house-wife and yet be content with it? I wonder if there are more females like me or am I the rarest of all? Sometimes I feel that I am becoming very selfish and sometimes I feel I am doing a great job. I know home-caring is a 24 x 7 job and a tough one, but I also know it is the most thankless one. I don’t know if I have earned any brownie points so far but I always have a list of things which I didn’t do. This list --- courtesy of me and my loved ones, keeps on growing longer day by day.

Can someone tell me if the transition from a dreaming professional to a satisfied housewife is ever complete in anyone's case?

A Grand daughter-in-law's Tribute to a LEGEND!!

On the first day of this new year, my grandfather-in-law passed away. It was a very shocking, traumatic and sad incident. More so because he took his last breath in front of my eyes and there was nothing I could do. Not even his sons who are doctors could do anything more. He lived to be 88. When I look back at my journey I see that I came to this family 11 years ago and with a little bit of negative image about him. I never ever dreamt at that time that this illusion could shattter and be replaced with immense respect and love for him. The passing years held me in awe of him as he gradually became my role model. I have read about so many real life heroes but had the good fortune of witnessing one which was my grandfather-in-law. I never could know when he ceased to be just an 'in-law' and became a guiding post. Every few minutes that I spent with him taught me something new. His passion for his work kept him going till the age of 88. He was a man of iron-will power, extreme self respect and self discipline. He had full control not over himself but also his vast family. He has seen and suffered so much, yet never broken down. In a family of more than 50 members he had full involvement in each one's development and growth. He was a man much ahead of his times. He was the first one to buy a scooter, a television, a satellite cable and even a computer, in his home town. He was the one to never back down. He was not afraid of new ideas and experimentation. This earned him immense respect not only at his native place but also all over the country. He became the founder person of All India Nureserymen Association. In the field of horticulture he is a renowned figure. You name a place in India and he has some or the other contact there.

Once he got an idea to prepare a directory of all the people running nurseries all over India to bring them together. Even the daunting age of 80 could not stop him from travelling in the whole country from state-to-state and village to village, collecting names and details of the nurseries. At the age of 76 he got an idea to start planting gladiola flowers in India. For this he travelled to Netherlands, learnt the technology there and brought those bulbs to India which he went on to plant successfully.

He had a very good reading habit and read on innumerable topics. His collection of books has now been converted into a library. He was very keen on translating a rare alternative medical treatment book of Urdu into Hindi to prevent it from extinction. He was a non-believer yet believed strongly in the theory of Karma. Given the era he was born in, he believed strongly in education, creativity, equality and also the principle of "be your own boss". He tried for every child and grandchild to become an entrepreneur. He was strictly against dowry and valued punctuality highly. Even the wedding party of the grooms of his family never reached late. He wished to donate his eyes and also his body for medical research.

His small tricks of teaching children were incredibly simple. He kept young children engaged by making them read out his newspaper and post to him. He corrected all his children and grandchildren by paying attention to small details of pronunciation and grammar. My husband tells me that as a child he and his cousins helped Grandpa in writing letters related to nursery work which went a long way in improving their communication skills. My husband says that his well appreciated communication skills at work are known to be clear and to-the-point for which his grandpa's contribution is very high. He even went on to make a 33 acre property out of nothing. When that agricultural land was sold, it pained me very much because I thought my cildren will never know the legacy they belong to. Also his passing away has deprived my children of knowing the legend himself and growing under his care.

His closest resemblance lives on in his son who is a doctor and who served him in his last days and a grandson who is my husband. My husband's Doctor uncle was not on very agreeable terms with my grandfather-in-law. But the funniest part and the most beautiful part of it is, that it was because they are so much alike in their attitude and self-confidence;-)

The way he lived his life fearlessly is an inspiration to me and my husband. I hope my children can also learn something from his tales.