Ripples of my Reflections

I think, therefore I write

Tag: Life (Page 7 of 15)

Are you suffering from a boring marriage?

June 16, 2015 / / 7 Comments

Not all marriages are exciting and romantic, does that mean we dismiss them as a failed marriage? I don’t think so. Such marriages maybe a boring one that had lost its glory in the mad race which follows a set milestone path – Get married, Excel in work, Earn loads of money, Buy a house, Procreate, Live for the children and so on. It never ends really. We have seen so many of our previous generation marriages that follow this path without flinching or so much as a care for why they are doing the routine so meticulously. We could have seen this with our parents too. But somewhere in the looking out for each other and striving to build a strong foundation for their off springs, they found their romance and the purpose of their relationship. I still cannot fathom how they did this, but more on that in another post.

However, what ticked me off to write this post is the attitude with which some of us from this generation take marriage. The married couples now, anywhere from 1-5 years of being married, they made me wonder. I am generalizing here, pardon me for that, but I have seen many people, men and women alike, think of the relationship journey to be complete once the marriage is over. They fight, cry and put their lives at stake for getting married to the one they love. But once that sacred knot is tied and the honeymoon period is over, everything is set and the accomplishment gets its closure. They fall back into this routine of working for 5 days, chilling out for 2 days a week and then the same thing all over again. The little surprises, the sweet nothings, the crazy love messages all fade slowly over time. To have a real conversation that didn’t involve paying bills, buying groceries and financial planning for the future becomes a challenge that is more daunting with each passing day.

Both men and women are to blame for this, for it takes two to make or break a relationship – be it marriage or any other relation for that matter. I have seen some crazily love struck men turn into someone who has a relationship only with their mobiles or laptops after marriage. They don’t bother to help the wife with the household work, even when they can. That’s purely out of habit. Eventually, the same woman who had spent so much time dressing for her guy and planning the biggest surprise for his birthday now does not have time for him. She gets neck deep in the routine of running the household and balancing her career at the same time. She does not let go of certain things to prioritize the time spent with her husband.

While life is always a rat race, this time lost will never come back. 10-20 years into marriage, we would have become so comfortable with the monotony that things would go about the same way without a blink. But where and when the stars vanished, one would wonder! We are the generation who have come leaps and bounds from where our parents were. We are the ones who explored love as an individual emotion and not just a mandatory feeling that we must feel towards the person our parents married us to. Be it arranged or love marriage, the term relationship got redefined more with our generation’s attitude and thinking. Then why is this still happening?

Small things – A hug and a I love you every day without one eye on the TV/laptop, even a hurried kiss as we rush off to work, a phone call from the midst of nowhere just to say sweet nothings, a little birthday surprise, a sudden shopping spree, a quiet holiday without checking the mail every other minute, a little time entirely devoted to the spouse – even if it is just 10 mins, having meals together at the dining table and not in front of the TV, listening to the rants of the other, taking time to help the other with their work – be it household chore or something else, cleaning up without being told, listening to favorite songs together, a simple candle lit dinner when there’s a blackout… There are so many things that one can do, to say I love you.

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Even the simplest of the things can transform into some of the most romantic moments we have ever had, if only we take the time to notice. For example, I take it upon myself to find something to make from scratch and gift it to my husband. Not just for birthdays, but for every occasion. He has umpteen gadgets and I know he will hoard that a little more, but he can buy that for himself. But the birthday cards, the 365 jar filled with love notes, the key ring with those dangling little hearts – those he cannot buy anywhere, for they are filled with my love.

Love manifests in a million ways and more. There is no need to stick to a routine and forget ourselves. Just being there, ticking our minutes and hours away is not the job of a human being, but of an inanimate clock. We have so much love within, but very few take the time to express and explore. Others just let it gather dust and rust away in time.

In spite of all this, I find that the foundation is mutual respect on each other. The day the respect is lost is the day the marriage/relationship fails. So build on that respect, find that love which we clung to once upon a time. In fact, if we reminisce, we will find that it was not that long ago we felt that the purpose of our life is that single person and that the world revolved around him/her.

It’s time to change and to notice, all that we have been neglecting. Dust ourselves up and live a little more with our loved ones and not just with the gadgets lying around. Let’s be smart instead of our phones being so! Everyone can have a great wedding – you just need money for that, but what really counts is a great marriage.

And a successful marriage requires falling in love many times over, with the same person!

Until later 🙂

Images Courtesy: geniusquotes.org

10 Things You Really Don’t Need To Know About Me

June 10, 2015 / / 7 Comments

Saw this tag at Cookie Crumbs Inc. way back in April and ever since, the thought of taking it up stuck with me. So here goes:

~ I obsessively need a fan when I sleep. I need that feeling of moving air, however low the speed of the fan maybe, when I sleep. Else I feel like suffocating. Yes, even during winters. ~

~ Often, I find me talking to myself about what to do next and how to do it. All the planning happens as a monologue and this is a Shaadi ke side effect for me. Not to mention, before marriage I led a very lazy life which needed minimal planning. ~

~ I want to love cooking. Yes, you read it right. Having seen mom cook with so much passion and dish out delicacies that make heaven on earth possible, I want to love cooking. But the interest comes only once a while and doesn’t last long. I try a new item now and then which is simple enough to keep me involved, but that’s about it. ~

~ I cannot let bad photos be, not even for the sake of a laugh. Let alone bad photos, if it doesn’t qualify as a good profile pic or a great click, trash is the place. Many normal pics have been dumped unceremoniously. ~

~ I can only sing along with songs. Not alone. If you insist, I suggest you cover your ears. ~

~ I can’t dance for the life of me. No, not even one move. Tried once and embarrassed the hell out of myself. Never again. ~

~ I am as clumsy as they come and hence will constantly subject myself to spills, falls, cuts, burns and bruises. Stains, scars and healing wounds are a way of life to me. ~

~ I hate Maths with a vengeance. Always have and always will. I figured a pocket calculator can do the job since I take a few minutes to figure out simple calculations like the proportions of rice and water while cooking. Most times, I yell 1.75 times 2.5 from the kitchen and my husband yells back the answer from the living room. (He plays many such roles – a calculator, google, online ticket booking agent, financial advisor etc.) ~

~ I hoard artificial jewelry endlessly. Strictly street shopping stuff. ~

~ I have never been out of my country and never really bothered about it too. I will go when I want. I don’t do obsession on this one like many others who seem to deem at least 1 foreign trip as a lifetime goal. ~

Until later 🙂

Action Replay – March, April & May 2015

June 6, 2015 / / 4 Comments

I cannot believe that I missed 2 months of action replay. Anyway better late than never. Moreover, the past 3 months have been in the same dimension for me.

March, April and May saw me working with new challenges at work. I was scared silly when I was given a very critical project to complete, 6 months into my new career path, but I am glad it happened. I learnt a lot in the process, tried the tips and tricks of the book, discovered some on my own and finally finished the task successfully. It was just an interim task but I was so happy to have done it seamlessly. And it got recognized and now I have been assigned to handle the same task full time. This requires a lot more patience, knowledge and niche skill. I am happy that I have a challenge that I love to confront and hope this it turns out for the good.

Apart from taking on work related challenges, furnishing our new flat has been eating into my time more with each passing day. Man, buying a new home and setting it up for living is no mean task. I can’t even imagine how people construct houses from scratch and set it up. Looking into every detail right from the wood to be used to the hinges and handles, going over the design time and again, supervising the work almost every day to make sure things are done the right way – it’s tiring but when it takes shape, it’s oddly satisfying. After all that hard work, it’s heartening to see the house take shape into our dream home. The bad thing in handling things by ourselves is that we get a lot of free advice, when to move in, what to do, how to do. While some of it are good suggestions, a lot of them are just, well, free advice with no logic whatsoever. So, I have made my mind to take in only the sensible ones and learn by experience. No matter what others say, I have decided that I will set up the house into a home – ready to live in and then move in. Going there and handling patch works is not something I have time for. I will rather take more time to finish all the works before I move in. So whatever others say, I am going to do this my way. Whether it works for me or not is something I am willing to learn by experience. So all the people who offer expert opinions on the entire process of buying a new home and moving in (some without even experiencing it themselves), please don’t. Just don’t.

There’s a lot you learn in life when you do things yourself and I have learnt that big time. That’s the most valuable lesson of my life in these 3 months. True indeed that sometimes, the monotony of handling a household, a hectic job and working for a new home gets to me. There have been times when I felt like I needed a break from everything. At such times, the inspiration and motivation that pushes me to get over this is my loving husband. Venting out to him and analyzing how I can prioritize my tasks helps a lot. Thanks to such wonderful husbands that women of this day are able to breathe a little easier in spite of our hectic schedules.

June’s here already and I can’t believe half of 2015 is gone. I am looking forward to a healthy and challenging part of the year where I get to fit my pieces of the puzzle. So far, the year’s been good and I am grateful for that. All I pray for going forward is the strength to handle anything and good health for us. The rest, I think I can handle. How was your half year? What do you expect this June?

Until later 🙂

Image Courtesy: quotesideas.com

Bittersweet

April 20, 2015 / / 2 Comments

I didn’t think that I would be able to do 2 consecutive posts for the AtoZChallenge going on, without compromising on what I want to write rather than what I should write for the letter of the day. And that is the exact reason why I created my own AtoZ series of posts over a year. Yet, here I am writing the second consecutive post. Blame it on the gap between my posts or on my heart’s persistent urge to title the post on this particular topic as ‘Bittersweet’. Any which way, here goes:

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Have you ever loved anyone? Or has anyone ever loved you enough to make you feel like you were the only person in the world? And did you succeed in that love or fail, pick yourself up and move on? Yes, love is my focus here. But it is not above how elating or crazy or blind love is. I am here to write about how bittersweet love is. Yes, of all the adjectives the English language provides us, I feel this one does justice to the feeling. Allow me to recount the experience that inspired this post. A very good friend of mine was in a relationship with a girl from a different religion. They always knew that the religion thing will get in the way from the start but something kept them going. We were all very intrigued as to how they are going to face such a stark difference in this society and make their love a success. They both had very charming personalities and were such a lovely couple too.

In a few months, we had become friends with the girl even though we didn’t share workplaces and started addressing her as though she was his wife. They were confident in their love and we were too. Time passed and the usual pressure at the girl’s house started. She had a younger sister too which didn’t make things easier. The same way, the guy had a younger sister whom he had to marry off before he could even think of his marriage. Well, things happened and needless to say, the only way out was that of a mutual break-up. They opted for that and parted ways with no hard feelings. They tried, cried and somehow managed to move on. As days passed ,I lost touch with them both except for the occasional call or two from my friend. I could never get in touch with her because believe it or not, it gets awkward. Obviously, I got to know her only because I was his friend and so talking to me would invariably loop around him. And many such reasons happened and we lost touch for no good reason. However, I could never delete her from my contacts. Every time I looked at her name, I didn’t just remember her or him. I remembered them and what could have been, a really beautiful life for 2 of my friends filled with overwhelming love.

Recently, I happened to look at her name as I was scrolling through my contacts and saw her profile pic. It was a pic of her with her husband on her wedding day. I paused for a moment and tried to swallow. I couldn’t. My heart felt so heavy. I was wondering why I was feeling so bad about this when they themselves have moved on and started a new phase of their lives. And it’s been like a couple of years since they broke up. Still I was not consoled. I continued to stare at her profile pic and her smiling pose. A 1000 questions raced through my mind – Is she happy? Can you move on completely from such a wonderful love and that too the first one at that? Does she remember the happy times with him and us? It would be very judgmental on my part if I expected her not to move on and marry someone else and I understood that perfectly. I never judged either of them for one moment. They had their reasons and even more who am I to judge them for deciding that what they thought would work out was a mistake? They were very mature about it and parted without hurting anyone except themselves. No, that is not my problem. My problem is the what-could-have-been. My problem is because of religion, the concept of love took a hit here. Ironically religion claims that the basis is love when it is taught to all of us. What we miss out is that love comes with conditions – love another of the same religion. same community, same caste, same status. But that love which was crushed didn’t come with  conditions, it was just simply beautiful and bittersweet.

Until later 🙂

P.S: I know I missed out on the Action Replay for March but there was nothing eventful except work during March and I didn’t think it would as interesting to you as it was to me. So the post for that series will visit you at the dawn of May.

An alternate angle

April 15, 2015 / / 12 Comments

Everyone in the blogging world knows about The April AtoZ challenge, it’s been doing the rounds for quite a while and a lot of people take part in it. All the while, I watched as a mute spectator. I spent a lot of minutes wondering whether I should take part in it. But then who am I kidding? I honestly don’t have the time and I don’t want force myself to write some random post and title it even more randomly so that the title starts with the letter of the day. No offense to the challenge and the bloggers who are participating (who by the way are dishing out amazing fiction for this challenge) but such challenges are not for me. Yet.

As I was mulling over this, another idea struck me and I tweeted about it. Obviously, the AtoZ post concept is appealing but the challenge of posting one every day is what takes the fun out of it for me. Why stuff so many posts in that 1 month just for the sake of it? I will do AtoZ posts on my terms. I have a lot of things to write about and as and when the idea for a letter strikes me, I will tag it under this category and write on it. This will be in the span of a year, that way I can repeat this multiple times and have fun with it. So here I am, writing the first post of AtoZ2015.

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“Decide on one soon na?” I begged hubby who was flitting between Domino’s and South Indies for lunch. Hunger makes me cranky and I lose all reasoning as time goes by. Knowing this well, hubby blindly decided on Domino’s. As we were entering the outlet, we saw a boy, in 12-14 yrs age range begging the customers for some food. His face and mannerisms rang a bell. I have seen him often in front of this Domino’s outlet begging for food and I remembered feeling disturbed by the irony of a child begging for food outside a restaurant. It’s a common thing that restaurants will have a lot of edible left overs but still the boy’s hunger was not met by any kind soul. At the same time, my hubby pointed out that a lot of people beg stating that they are hungry but refuse to take food when provided and insist on money. I had experienced such stuff too. This caused a dilemma in me. I couldn’t think straight because of my hunger and decided to be selfish and satiate my hunger first.

Soon we ordered a variety of dishes in no time. On second thoughts, I felt that we might have ordered more than we could eat. I shrugged the feeling with a “Who cares? We can always take home if there’s much left over.” As I was eating through the delicacies on my table, I couldn’t help but glance at the boy through the glass doors. And I kept wondering why life is so two-faced. On the inside of the glass door sat people like me, relishing the food and A/C that they could easily afford and outside was a poor boy in the scorching heat begging for food. I couldn’t bear it. I quickly took the box of Taco Mexicana I had ordered and poured out a glass of diet coke I had ordered and went out to the boy. I was skeptical if he would accept food instead of money but was relieved when he did.

Having relieved my guilty conscience, I ate my lunch happily, paid up and left. As I came out of the restaurant, I found the same boy begging again. I was wondering if what I gave him was not enough but I could see that he had not finished eating whatever I had given him in the first place. I got angered that my act couldn’t stop him from begging and maybe I couldn’t even if I give him more food. I left the place in a huff in a helpless state. But my mind kept going back and as my mind calmed down, I could see the rationale behind the boy’s act.

I provided him one meal. He might have a family with many mouths to feed. Even if that’s not the case, who guarantees his next meal? Who ensures that he doesn’t get beaten up by the mafia whose business is making children beg and take the money for themselves? Without knowing anything about him, what makes me qualified to judge him? The fact that I have provided him a single meal? No!

The situation looks entirely different from the boy’s angle. That alternate dimension or perspective is something that we often forget. What does it look like when you are the one getting the raw end of the deal? That angle is something that will make us shudder and thank our stars that we are not there. Yes, I can do an act of kindness but that single act might not change someone’s life altogether. Such people are fighting the battle of survival.

I resolved that I will never judge anyone like this again. Yes, there is a possibility that the boy falls into the category of greedy beggars insisting on money when offered good food or those people who beg to make enough money to get drunk or high or things like that. But there is also the alternate possibility of him having a family that depends on him, him being an orphan who has to take care of himself at an age when children should be pampered and protected. And I will respect that possibility, however low it is.

Until later 🙂

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