Friday, November 25, 2011

Does Life Change After Marriage?

Friday, November 25, 2011 91 Comments

Hell! YES! (I did not mean it changes to hell) I always ask back a rhetorical question. Is there any 'time' in your life which has not changed? 


Here, I consider marriage as living a life with a person under one roof . Some enter marriage with rose-colored glasses and some with yellow-colored glasses. Such colors prevent us appreciating the natural colors of married life. 


No phase of life is a bed of roses. I am not here to paint a beautiful picture. As I understand life, I would vouch for my childhood being the best part of life. But, come to think of it, there were problems, fights, issues which were BIG THEN. If those problems and fights looks small now, don't you think we are doing the mistake of using wrong scale of measurement? I have grown up, so have the problems. Simple. Isn't it funny to expect the problems to remain small as we grow-up into adults?




BH is an aquarian. Highly unpredictable by nature. So, I did not have any expectations from him before or after. But there were certain things which I had to make a mental note of, once I started actually living with him.




1. How many ever times you meet a person before marriage, you do not know the person fully. Because, when you meet your beloved for a few hours, we try make that 'happy-time'. I do not call that pretense. (natural behavior to avoid pre-tensions). After marriage, you get to see the real people. So, there will be many bitter-sweet occasions. 


2. There maybe many irritating habits (irritating to YOU) which you might not have not noticed, like snoring like a bear, wearing not-so-soiled clothes, drinking bed-coffee without brushing teeth etc. etc. You may feel that you cannot tolerate, but slowly mind starts accepting the person along with manufacturing defects.


3. No frequent telephone calls, sms-es, lesser kuchhie-mucchiee conversations DOES NOT mean that "you are taken for granted". It just means now your beloved has the privilege to be himself/herself. And that is a luxury! Accept him or her that way.


4. There WILL be fights and arguments. There has to be. Two different people, different ideas, different thoughts, different way of looking at things will end up having an argument sooner or later. But, as long as you do not get vindictive it is good. Arguing objectively will solve the current problem and deepen the understanding. Let the past ghosts remain in the haunted houses. 


5. If you think you-two will be "two-body-one-soul", I am sorry to disappoint you, it will not be so. It is a fancy idea to think so. But, later at some point in time you will realize you have lost yourself trying to believe this thought. Couple should complement one another. Differ yet prefer. Celebrate the differences.


Change is eternal. Such things make life unpredictable, exciting and challenging. Let us face it rather than cribbing about "How life changed after marriage :("

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Dharma and Karma

Wednesday, November 16, 2011 56 Comments

Two incidents on twitter made me write this post here.


Incident 1


It was 12.37 AM in the night, BH read a tweet and said "Sh*t! Someone is in great pain and trouble. Lets see how we can help out and ran out of the room." He looked concerned. I ensured Bunni is in deep sleep and closed the door behind me to understand what the matter was. BH showed me these tweets.
He looked for highway police-station numbers in Rajkot, many other police stations numbers in Rajkot. None of the numbers on the net were CORRECT! Damn! While there were other tweeples who were skeptical about this incident. There were many tweets going around. Like why is he trying to reach people on twitter instead of calling family and friends? How is he tweeting with that kind-of injury etc. etc.


BH cared about none. He tried reaching out to people who were into media, he thought that would garner some help. While few people on his time-line said, that it is a fake-accident and you  are wasting time, energy and sleep by thinking of helping him. BH said "We should not miss wood for trees. What if he really needs some help? If he is faking, it is his karma. I will do what I can, that is dharma." I nodded. 
By that time, we saw more tweets on the timeline of the victim.
"Ah. Someone helps. I could not have slept on such things. Come lets sleep." 


We slept. Next day, he completely forgot. I kept track of this incident. There was a person who believed this was a fake accident. He worked day and night to find out a few things. And tweets from Ramesh Solanki, Mumbai Secretary, and Gujarat Rajya Sampark Pramukh BVS/SHIVSENA cleared much of the doubts. Here is the snap shot.
I was shocked! Why would someone raise such false alarms?  Just for some attention? Followers? (Ofcourse, his follower count raised from 93 to 270 during that incident.) But, I really wanted to believe that the world is naive. 


Many people including BH had called 100 and 108 to reach out to this "supposed" victim. Complaint has been lodged to the cyber police with some proofs and official reports by a person on Twitter. I told BH the whole story when he came back.


BH: As he sows, so shall he reap. Why bother?
Me: Will you help someone like this again after knowing this? 
BH: Yes. Certainly. There are 100s of requests for blood. I RT (Retweet - Twitter lingo - a form of sharing in twitter.) them faithfully, if mine does not match. I have known people personally who have really wanted help. So, I will do my bit by sharing. What happens next, is left to their destiny.


So, this matter did end. For us at least. 


Incident 2


18 year old high school student Ashley Billasano tweeted 144 times, in the span of 6 hours before commiting suicide. She had 500 followers! NONE took her seriously?! I do not know the handle of the girl, to paste the tweets. I read this article online. You can read it here
Why did nobody help her? If people like Sachin raise false SOS calls. Many would ignore such tweets. Probably. 


In the ending note, world is a curious mixture of people. So, difficult to take a call on social responsibilities.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

See-Yeff-Yell

Thursday, November 03, 2011 72 Comments
We recently moved to Aamchi Pune from Namma Bengaluru. So, setting-up a new home and settling down kept me away from the blogger world for quite a long time. Please excuse me if I have missed reading your posts or commenting. 

I joined BH who was in Pune from a month, on Thursday with Bunni. The task of making a home from a house began immediately. There was a socket near the dining area whose CFL had burnt out. We had a spare CFL. I asked BH to fix that for me. He said "I'll take care of it during the weekend. You don't worry"

Saturday: After many subtle reminders, brazen hints and hard-to-miss cues the job was not done by the procrastinator (read here)
Sunday: I fixed the CFL. 

He is such a calm and composed person, evoking reaction from him would be a real-time achievement for me. I thought, "Let me make this BIG" *wink*


How I changed the CFL? BU.HA.HA.
He remained glued to the laptop. The ladder stood proudly in proximity to the changing point, still I dragged the metallic ladder by its leg till the room he was in, with kRRRRR... screeeeeeech noises and then back to the point.
AND THEN...............
Every other sentence I used that day, I made sure I conveyed the message that I did HIS work. For that, I had to use a mix of creative juices with shots of sarcasm.

2.00 PM - during lunch
BH: (munching away)I'd do anything for a wife who cooks such luscious rasam and curry with hot-soft rice, it is heavenly.
Me: Good. Your wife couldn't have got the appropriate ingredients in the masala if the CFL that "I" (stressed) changed hadn't helped.

4.30 PM - after snacks
BH: I think we should call a plumber soon. The water-pressure in the tap is very low. 
Me: Ah.. Now I know.. That stupid CFL was not lighting up because electricity for that point was not generated due to the low-water pressure?!

5.45 PM - Watching TV
BH: XYZ mutual fund looks a good bet for investment this month. The NAV is expected to rise steeply.
Me: There is another company ABC which manufactures the CFL I changed this afternoon. Stocks of that company are also expected to see a rise in value.

At the end of all these conversations, I looked like a cat that swallowed a canary and he looked like a bird from "angry birds". A silent angry bird I should say. But, I was hungry for more. I had not got any verbal reaction from his side.

Finally at 9.15 PM - Reading newspaper
Talking about some teenagers love story which appeared in the news paper,
BH:  .....and she fell for him..
Me: Whaaat? C F elL for him also?
BH: THAT'S IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

He rolled the news paper to hit me. I ran giggling away as he chased me till I almost closed the door behind me. He caught me, threw the newspaper down and tickled the hell out of me. GOSH!! I was laughing like a jackass!