Let it slide!

 Showing off our lipsticks and nose rings, moustaches and beards. Smiling at friends and strangers alike. Being able to recognize our neighbours by their faces and not their dogs or hats – as we had started doing during these past two years. These were a few things I was really excited about when the government announced that we all could go outdoors sans masks and feel the wind in our teeth.

 

So along comes March 29^th, D Day… I step out without a mask on my face or in my pocket. I was looking forward to greeting the first person I meet with a HUGE GRIN. And grin I did. I will never know if I got a grin back though, because the first person I saw had a mask on.

Ok, so maybe this person had not read the news. But it soon occurred on me that it was just not possible that the number of people in masks I encountered on the streets hadn’t seen the biggest memo impacting our daily lives. It slowly dawned on me that I was the only one on the road without a mask and yes, I did get a few sideway glances!

 

Hmm.. I whipped out my phone and double checked the announcement. I was not wrong… then why did I feel like I was?

 

Instinctively my defences went up and I started rolling my eyes at the nature of people – unable to break free from shackles. “Enjoying” the shackles even? Ah these horses in blinders, the brainwashed sheep! Why don’t they want to enjoy their freedom? Maybe they don’t know how, laughed my friends and I on our whatsapp groups.

 

As an automatic hater of any stereotype, I wanted to dig a little deeper into this phenomena. I spoke to friends and chatted with colleagues and cabbies and asked why? The responses were largely muted, trailing off versions of ‘I know we can, but…’. It has been ten days since ‘freedom’ and I finally see why – so here I am attempting to verbalize what I see and understand:

• It’s the first Asian country to abandon the zero covid policy and this is definitely a bold move. When we hear of other covid variants still coming up and the impact in countries like HK, of course people are going to be wary.
• We were drilled with the message that we need to wear masks – not just for ourselves, but for everyone around us. It tapped into the collective social and civic consciousness of the people. The very consciousness that makes Singapore such a safe country, such a clean place, such a secure nation, the very consciousness that makes the quality of life here higher than its neighbours. Now that the numbers are still so high, maybe milder, but it’s still there and recovered covid patients are still feeling the lasting effects of omicron; the sense of doing a disservice to society and themselves by not wearing a mask is obviously going to be present.
• Do anything for long enough and it becomes a habit, and for those people who don’t get hindered by it, it’s an easy habit to get used to. As anyone trying to follow a diet will know, breaking habits is hard and takes time!
• Lastly, I don’t know about everyone else, but I certainly have felt some benefits of wearing a mask – but that’s for another post!

 

I want to end this essay by saying that when it’s a ‘them and us’ situation (nowadays this is a very common situation to find ourselves in because of how partisan this world is on ALL issues), the best way forward is to slow down a second and try and understand “them” before we jump to conclusions.

Social Media Genius

If you haven’t heard of the “Pyaar Ek Dhoka Hai” movement, you’ve either kept yourself really busy or you are age 40 and above.

It’s no secret that the youth of this nation, and the global nation that exists now thanks to the expanding borders of the internet, are quite lukkha (having a lot of time on their hands that they use un-productively). This and the fact that they also love being a part of any sort of “movement” - this maybe due to a human need to ‘have a purpose’ or just due to the fact that people feel more and more validated by being a part of a larger cause, makes the youth a perfect demographic to experiment with.

This experiment has been perfectly executed by the “Pyaar Ek Dhoka Hai” doula, AIB’s PR people.

They first saw the 14th Feb, Valentine’s Day, eye-rolls that happen every year. They then saw the number of those eye-rolls and their hearts started racing - there has to be a way to capitalise this. Creating an event on Facebook on 1st Feb for the 14th, for the single people to not only embrace ‘self-love’ but to also diss love, they started a snowball. Come oh-single-and-lonely-people, who are never made the front liners on any day, especially on Valentines day, and shout PEDH with us on the 14th of Feb at so-and-so location at so-and-so time. We will combine our energies and have some fun - harmless.

Oh wait. The number of people confirming their attendance is beginning to shock the hosts! Single people, not single people, people who wish they were single, married, divorced, children, spurned, burned and asexual! They all wanted a piece of this pie. Holy s**tballs. 

“The pyaaar ek dhoka hai event is…a thing now. Have to plan this evening. Can’t believe thousands are going to actually gather and yell out pyaaar ek dhoka hai.” Is what Tanmay Bhat (AIB) tweeted on the 3rd of Feb. They were surprised at the response, we were surprised at the growing feeling that this was not just a crummy joke anymore.

Spoiler Alert :  The event was a resounding success. There were 5000 people who attended the event at 7pm on the 14th of Feb and they all had a blast. There was chanting and slogans being yelled out. There was stand up comedy performances by popular people in the circuit - maybe doing AIB a favour or maybe they were being paid for it, I'll never know. But the event was a free event!! Can you believe it?! So AIB made no money from the attending audience.

Ah! But in every ecology there is more than just what the end-users see, ain’t it? Before we knew how big this thing was becoming, we started seeing branding. The PEDH logo was the universal ‘friend-zone’ sign - half a heart and thumbs up. 

There were tee-shirts with various designs relating to the PEDH theme by multiple companies. Of course, social media hashtags and memes, shares, likes and comments were happening already so god knows how much money was made via that alone. Then we saw brand deals - Ola prime play jumped in, zomato had some fun with it as well. A few stories showed up on Terribly Tiny Tales about how singleton is amazeballs with the PEDH hashtag. There is even a freakin’ PEDH Anti Valentines game available to download for free on mobile devices!!!! WHAT!!! 

If all this wasn’t a showcasing of how successful this movement had become, AIB released a mash-up video called “AIB : Pyaar Ek Dhoka Hai - After Movie 2018” which had the various groups across the world who had gathered and organised rallies of this slogan being yelled out. Some slogans were really creative, I have to admit! 

There were two moments during this entire saga that really stood out for me in the realisation that this is pure social media mastery at work. One was when on the 13th of Feb, Tanmay Bhat wrote that there were over 100 million impressions in this campaign! That has to be some record. For those not in the know, a Google search says that an “‘impression’, sometimes called a view or an ad view, is a term that refers to the point in which an ad is viewed once by a visitor, or displayed once on a web page. The number of impressions of a particular advertisement is determined by the number of times the particular page is located and loaded.” 

The second moment was when another member of AIB, Rohan Joshi put up an insta story, which self destructs in 24 hours so there is no evidence of this and I could be totally making this up so deal with it, in which he credited the PR guys at AIB saying something to the effect of ‘please don’t quit AIB to start/ join a political party because the thought of that is scary’ - mainly because they really do understand the pulse of the youth and can you imagine what will happen if they use this superpower for evil?

Dear lukkha youth,

Please get jobs. I now truly understand why unemployment is SUCH an important factor in the growth of the economy.

Humbly,
Not a youth anymore, clearly, coz I didn’t get drawn into this. Plus I don’t fully understand it even after writing this. KTHXBAI. #PEDH

Adulting.

There's living. There's surviving. There's existing. And then there's adulting.

If the stress of having bills to pay and mortgages to end, debts to clear and savings to be made, were not enough, adulting involves a lot more emotional turmoil than you'd imagine.

Keeping up with social commitments becomes a chore, work is most often a chore, workouts an even bigger chore. Hobbies are non-existent and low on priority. Family time is really quartered between phone time, social media time, errands and then maybe eating. Is there really any time to be playful and cheerful?

Oh and amongst all this chaos is ambition, children, retirement planning, aged parents and old friends.

But I'm lucky to have broken free of the mountain on my shoulders that is the list above... not because I don't have them looming over my shoulder, but only because I don't give them the disproportionate attention they unduly get in most cases. Oh no siree!

My biggest fear is much more sinister... the fear of losing myself while I 'adult'. 

My spontaneity, my playfulness, my early morning cheerful personality, my ability to get super excited over the smallest of things and my sense of adventure. These were the things people said about me in my 20s. They're definitely not what people say about me in my 30s. Heck, does anyone even talk about my faceless, adult being in the sea of struggling, anonymous stragglers who all look alike?

Find yourself...or even better, don't loss yourself to begin with. Remember what makes you happy and pursue it with all your heart. Forever.

The final goodbye.

What scares me about death is more than just how final it is. It's scary that after death the persons thoughts, ideas, jokes, quirks and personality cease to exist almost like it was never there...except for those few loved ones they leave behind.

The person's smile which carries a loaded message, that look which conveys more than a thousand words, the advice which masks the worry they feel for you, the laughter that reveals more about them than anything else - all gone...except in the memories of the few people who care enough to remember.

I care. I want to remember.  I will never forget a single detail about you. Every word you said will remain etched in my memory. I promise to always carry you in my heart...till I die.

I will not take anyone I love for granted - you mean the world to me and I need you to know it while I can make it known to you.

Chasing the clock.

I must admit. I just must. I wouldn't feel right if I didn't.

There was a time when I would work through the night and love the rush and the angst and the fuzzy sense of achievement when I'd press that send button. I loved meshing my friends into my colleagues and my life into my office. I felt a sense of misplaced awe when I heard people talk about always being busy. I felt a sense of false pride in saying that I had bitten off more than I could chew. I would then over compensate for it by partying like my right to party had been brutally snatched away and recently been returned.

Then I became unemployed. And I fell in love. With someone who used to work like that too. 

I lived a life of owning my time, of being busy with the things that mattered to me and the people around me, my friends were just that, I didn't have my eyes fixated on my watch or my heart fixated on every new email that came into my inbox... my time was my own. I learnt French and I subtitled movies and I drove my car and I visited my parents and I celebrated every small moment with the people I love and I never had to wonder if I could make it to your wedding six months from now.

But a little part of me craved that life. That life that has a one way window... you can't even tell what the weather is like outside. When you're in, you're in. Everyone is like you. Everyone is racing. There's time only for a courtesy nod. You're lucky if you're a smoker because that's the only time you'll ever breathe real air.

And now I'm back in it. And I can't stop wondering what the answer is. I need money. I need time. If this is the only way to make money, I'm never going to have the time. If I'm not going to make money then I'm not going to enjoy my time. The more money I have, the better I can enjoy my time, which I don't have. If I have medium money, I can mediumly enjoy my adequate time. If I don't.... what, wait!!!.... that's it. Medium money. I'm fine with mediumly enjoying my adequate time!!!

How can I make medium money? I think the answer lies in defining what medium money and adequate time means to me.

Errr...wazzat now?

"Dude, what vegetable is this?" "No bloody idea, man. Must be something unpopular." "Is this even edible?" "Woah, this looks gross!"

 

I paraphrase from common grocery-shopping-talk by the younger generation, innit? How many times do we wonder what half those vegetables granny used to make were; or why a tomato is a fruit; or why the hell are olives good for health? Usually, no idea!

Somehow, with the generation getting more and more adept at technology and science, the science of well being is, ironically, in a vegetative state. I remember my grandmum telling me that whenever the kids at home had an ailment, could be anything – from stomach cramps to a bad personality – her grandmom used to take them to the basement and in classic wizard style mix and concoct portions of cloves and herbs and garlic sticks and everything mysterious into one suspicious looking black ball and shove it down their throats. Surprise of surprises, it works magic and the world is cleared of all its ills. Alas, this suspicious looking black ball recipe never made it as a Dear Diary entry and no one ever knew about it again. Hell, that's exactly what happened to Nalanda. When the Turks destroyed one of the leading universities of the world to massage a false ego, how come it was never rebuilt? All those books in the library that burnt non-stop for months together couldn't really have been the only storehouse of all that information, surely? The professors, students, other academicians, the king; they could have put it back together again. No? Well, clearly not. Same thing is happening to our generation. Just because everything is available so readily and freely on the all-knowing, genius internet, no one bothers to write things down anymore. Says me, as I type this post. Imagine if the internet were to crash to its fatal death tomorrow. No back-ups, no knowledge at the click of a mouse, no answers to Life, the Universe and Everything.

 

Sickening, stupid silence.

 

Knowledge is power. But knowledge without the ability to recall it when it is needed the most – is irrelevant.

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Keep dancing!

Seemingly unimportant things make the most important of differences. Why do Bollywood movies have songs – to make the rest of the movie easier to digest. Why do artists have eccentricities – to make an excuse for freedom of expression. Why are scientists mad – so that they continuously think outside the box. These additions are necessary to maintain equilibrium and propel growth, even if they aren't at the crux of their being. So there might be a higher purpose to the existence of cities, but at the helm is the all important additions of maintaining administrative matters like roads, drainage, transportation, optimal use of taxes, education, eradication of poverty, health care and the mammoth – infrastructure.

The way I look at it – civic amenities are like great morning sex. If it happens like it should, you'll dance your day through. If I wake up in the morning and electricity is not disconnected, water is available, food prices are in check – I'll be on my way in a jiffy. If the roads are pothole-free and not flooded with rain water because of good drainage systems, pedestrians have footpaths to walk on, drivers have lanes to follow – I'll make no bones about getting to wherever I have to go. If city planning is at its pinnacle and one-way roads are actually helping move traffic faster, the metro lines aren't collapsing on me and there are lesser poor people on the streets – I promise to honk less and smile more. If I don't need to be wary of service or quality when I step into a hospital, believe that higher education is not just a scheme and am insured of the fact that the authorities have done their job in due diligence on companies where I'm placing my life's savings –I'll be happy to help with my share of taxes.

And then when I get to work, I will be composed and relaxed and will not aggressively shove my work down my underlings throat…because I don't feel angry and cheated. I will be productive and powerful and responsible. This is the second most important thing for development – hey snob, do your job! If everybody buckles down and performs his assigned task to near perfection, can you imagine what levels of progress this well oiled machine of a country will achieve? Then the only real problems we will have are the foreign policies, home ministries, terrorism, slowing economies and probably judgment day. But hey, I'm cool with that as long as I'm dancing.

Loving the kms.

There's something about being on the road. It just makes sense...everything clears up, jealousy evaporates, anger dissipates, stress disappears....every sense that spurs negativity just dulls completely.

The open road, the rhythm of the wheels, the background score by the engine, constant gushing of the breeze against the half open windows, the lullaby of the forward motion...it's just you, and the road.

On a metaphysical level, road journeys can alter your thinking, bonding, connection with beings - human or otherwise - and it enriches the core of your existence with education richer than many texts.

Road trips have always been about music and laughter and chatter and small dhabas on the highway for food and controlling of overfull bladders and sometimes even compromising modesty for sheer survival :ie peeing behind the closest bush. Heck, for me, the destination may be something I forget, but the journey there will always be an experience to remember.

I can't wait to do road trips and hitch hike and just take off into the horizon....and the best part about being married is that I always got great company :)

For you.

Breathing is a involuntary action is what they taught me when I was a tiny tot in school....unlike motor skills where your brain is in charge and initiates movement to achieve something...but breathing, it's involuntary.

Today I caught myself actually not breathing while lost in thought. I just stopped breathing. My mind wandered off while it left my body standing by the sidelines of it's racetrack. Of course when my lungs suddenly burst out in tears for air, is when I came to and lapped up a pretty big sip of O2. How can someone forget to breathe? Even when someone is panicking, you will see the calmer person telling them to "breathe...just remember to breathe"!

If you have to 'remember' to breathe, how is that involuntary?
Or is there a deeper moral to be learnt here?

No matter how naturally it comes to you, no matter how easily available the resources are, no matter how basic and essential it is to you - don't ever take it for granted!! When you're buried in work, take time out for your family and friends. When you're too preoccupied with the goings on of life's daily stress, take time out to read your favourite book. When you're too unsure or too insecure or too obsessed, don't forget to breathe. and the biggest lesson of all - do it for yourself.

When the time is right.

Timing.

Timing is a beautiful thing... when it works out :) 

I just watched a movie that lent more than just entertainment to my idle mind this Thursday. It's a movie about a mother, a housewife, who is taken for granted by her husband and children but still learns how to live life on her own terms. She thinks openly, loves freely and lives with blissful abandon while she lays out the cobblestones of her preferred path while still never letting go of the hands of her unworthy family. It gave a much needed backing to my own views about people. Regardless of qualification or communication or interests or intent...everyone around you is worthy. Worthy of your respect. Worthy of a kind word. Worthy of a smile. Worthy of a helping hand. Worthy of your attention.

Everyone deserves to be treated as an equal...respect them for who they are, you will not be disappointed.

People will forget what you did for them or what you said. But people will never forget how you made them feel.

True story.

Karma, baby, I love you :)

This is it. I'm a genius.

Think about this:

A universe is a singular thing.
Every singular thing is a universe.

Before you think I'm smoking something, let me explain...I'm sitting at the cornish right now and I'm looking up at the sky. The dull sky showcases none but one star...I think about how far away it is and how big it is. If the lonely star were ever to just lose it, decide to give up and shrug and fall, how everything in it's path would be destroyed...including me, who's sitting here looking at it. That would be star-suicide. No wonder in our world, suicide is more than just frowned upon here...because you see, when someone commits suicide, they kill all the little universes in their path.

An atom is its own universe. A molecule owns the atoms' ass but is still the molecules' own universe. A cell is its own. A limb is its own. A human body, made up of many limbs, is its own little universe. Self sufficient, self reliant, everything you need, is right there!! The seas, the oceans, the deserts, the cities, the world, the Earth, our solar system, our galaxy, our entire existence...each one singularly one, yet collectively one. wow. #mindblown

You cannot mess with one without messing with the other in some minimal manner at least...no matter how far we are, we're still affecting each other...we still touch each other.

Still a part, even apart.

Bad Ads!

For every cultural (or not) fest in college, we had an event called "Mad Ads"...the ginormously talented group of super intelligent 'cool-guys' in these events would come up with uber creative gibberish that the rest of us mere mortals would laugh at and remember for the rest of our lives. Somehow when these species graduate, they dissipate into dark matter. They NEVER evolve into the people making Television Advertisements, or Television Adverts, or TV Adverts, or TV Commercials, or TVCs...wait..."evolve" points at growing into something better...what's the opposite of evolve? Devolve? Anyway, I'm devolving my thoughts here. SO...yeah, where do these people go? I think the corporate monster chewed them up and spat these ads out.

Look at the ads that are on TV now-a-days!! Sometimes I just want to eat my eyes because they see such horrendous television. With Priyanka Chopra cutsie-ing it up in the "I hate the Chip-Chip" ad....or Sonam I-have-no-intonation Kapoor in the most irritating ad of all time while she pukes out the words "I am just like you". Even when you see some healthy brand-eats-brand competition ads with Samsung and Micromax....ALL the ads on TV are annoying!! It's like we're back in the 90's! Devolving. Again.

I loved the 80's...peppy jingles, sprightly tunes, brightly smiling non-actors over shadowed the bad TVCs...but in today's world, we have no overshadowing; because we're in an eclipse of derailed intelligence.

Note to brands : We are not stupid. Give us back our Mad Ad dudes!!

I played the tune of regret.

I was listening to an instrumental....a death metal song about hope and its opposite...and this is the resultant lyrical odyssey, only not so lyrical.

(no resemblance to anyone alive or dead. Ok, maybe dead).

Familiar sounds of your presence

topped my glass with calm

but that was once upon a time

the lullaby has lost its charm.

When I lust for the path not taken,

my angel asks if it's a sin,

my devil looks me in the eye,

turns back to the mirror for conversation.

Madness is not ordinary,

Not a guest in a motel,

Its real is what is fictionary,

Stops at the doorstep of hell.

When what is wanted is what's expected,

When what is expected is not what I get,

At the burial of my spirit,

I played the tune of regret.

Uptight. Very tight.

 

I look at her, trying to catch her eye. Her gaze is fixed firmly on her phone as she walks into the club and over to our table. How am I supposed to make friends with her if she's not ever going to look at me!! Then the second woman walks in and does the exact same thing!!! Then the third lady saunters in…there's a pattern : they're all doing the eyes on the phone, too bored to look at anyone, bitch mode ON drill. I'm either missing out on some really popular telephonic gossip or these women are way too obsessed with their virtual social networking lives!!x

Curiously, I peek into the phone of the chick standing right next to me…thank god for new large screen phones ;D it's in the idle screen…no new notifications…her thumb just swipes across the screen to move into the next. Nope, nothing new there either. Slowly it hits me, there's a third option as well and one that I think is the real reason : self conscious, these lovely ladies don't know what to do with their hands as they walk into a club and assume that all eyes are on them. Slightly counterproductive, I think to myself. How do you expect to "fit in" if you're planning on being your phone's date all night?! x

Pushing past the obvious invisible wall they put up, I strike up a conversation with closest large-screen-phone girl…and guess what, she's really nice!! Immediately the phone goes into the pretty clutch that matches her cute dress perfectly…and it stays there all night.x

How come men don't have this problem or complex or insecurity, if you will? Maybe they haven't been judged and belittled all their carefree lives. AH…gender discrimination still exists a little bit, even if it’s only in our own minds.

i-sea emotions.

Something compelled me to come to the sea today. I literally ran across all the zillion highways dividing my house and the cornish...I wanted to see the sea, and cry.

Which is weird because I had an amazing day! I woke up in a messy room because my room mate isn't around to keep me in check, I didn't eat breakfast and alternatively gouged on some delightful fast food, worked my ass off while listening to a Above&Beyond on loop since I'm going for a concert of theirs in a month, got home with a good amount of time to spare for my life-side of the balance...yet I wanted to see the sea, and cry.

I'm going to miss this place, Bahrain. It's given me so much...most of all, freedom. Not like I felt like a bird with clipped wings before, but along with my wings, Bahrain gave me three crucial things : independence, a family of friends and financial freedom. Home is home...it has my family and my heart. But when I have a home here too, it gets difficult to part.

And now I'm getting poetic...right.

As I sit by the sea and close my eyes, my mind is idyllic, thoughts flowing in tandem with the sound of the waves softly kissing the shore. There's some traffic but it's easy to shut that out. It takes me back to the first time I came to the cornish...I had no friends here, I was just hanging on to the hand that had extended itself from a guy named Arjun...:) dear chap! It's been 18 months, to the day.

I get attached to every place I've lived in...Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Udhampur, Kathmandu, everywhere.

Heck, I'm gonna miss my freedom. Just pick up and leave...no questions asked, no answers necessary.

But the flip side to being in Bahrain is that I don't get to be with my family and my husband! :) "My Husband" :D wow, when am I going to get used to that!!

Oh and I did meditate. And I did cry.

Blah, blah. Bah.

Communication is the first thing we learn when we leave our warm womb-home for the first time. We say it like we feel it, but somehow as we grow older, things around us mold our personalities and teach us that keeping what we feel locked inside is just an easier way to deal with things. Some people feel the less emotions they share, the tougher people they are. It's easier because we don't have to explain why we are feeling what we are feeling to others; and more importantly to ourselves. It truly is just easier to take that emotion and choke it down our throats, through our hearts and into our guts.

Haruki Murakami has written, "Being the kind of people they were, equally imbued with habitual solitude, neither took the initiative to open their hearts to the other."

Doing that is not dealing with it. We aren't addressing the problem, we're smothering it. Cowardice? Laziness? Confusion? Whatever the reason, not letting it out is definitely the wrong way of dealing with it.

I never could swallow it and let it slide...It has taken 27 years but I can finally see why people do it. I still don't think it's a good idea.

Democratic Immunity!

When you hear of a Aseem Trivedi, a cartoonist against corruption, being jailed for being unpatriotic, I cannot but wonder who are the authorities that approve this action? Who approves the arrest warrant? Don't they understand what 'freedom of speech' means?

Local goons who publicly molest a girl for walking outside a pub in a skirt and have been caught on camera walk scot free, but someone who has an opinion about something worthwhile is sent to jail.

Another example of such stupidity is the Governments' reaction to the Washington Post's article on Manmohan Singh...yes, it is insulting. But was any of it false? If the Prime Minister is an insult to the country, then the press (domestic or international) has a right to call a spade a spade!! Focus on the right things, oh mighty leaders!! Punish the corrupt, the liars, the murderers, the scamsters... leave the innocent to our speeches.

If we have chosen democracy, we need to enjoy the holistic advantages of such a government. Like Bill Clinton recently said, "Democracy doesn't have to be a blood sport. It can be an honorable enterprise that advances the public interest". A certain space-age invention called the Internet (yeah, this is a Step-Up 4 reference :D) has empowered us to be a part of the news. Now how about we be a part of the decision making? For the people, BY the people, right??!
Allow votes online to count for decisions made...Or if you argue that maybe the vast population might not have the technical knowledge and expertise to make decisions, at least let the people decide the priority of decisions being made...which bill to be passed first, which criminal case to be heard first. Votes, of course, can be manipulated because it is a numbers game, so have cyber petrol control points!! Things are possible if you want them to be...This is our country and I hate seeing the looting that goes on in guise of politics. I don't think I'd be this enraged if the looting was going on, but so was progress and justice. Two things our politicians opposee the most!

Clean it up, folks. Don't be immune to democracy.

Kyon paisa paisa karti hai?

As idealistic as this might sound, I have always viewed money as a means to an end and never the end in itself. It is the reason why I didn't mind taking my first job that paid me peanuts but gave me a learning that I knew would equip me for the rest of my career; or leaving my first job without another job in hand when it became nothing more than a mere political game that started to feel like I was working for Sonia Gandhi; or starting my own company that gave me the job satisfaction I now envy, even though I counted money for the roadside chai!
Money doesn't satisfy my hunger for living the one (and only) life that has been given to me to make a difference to myself, the people I love and those who are lesser privileged than me.
I also hate the stigma that comes with following your dream if it means giving up a stable, corporate job. Why does that have to be? Does dignity of labour mean nothing? If I choose to give up consulting because I enjoy giving people haircuts more, why is that blasphemous? Or to be a mechanic? Or to design shoes?
I want you to look back at the whole reason why money came into being. It was primarily a replacement for the barter system - it was a mere medium of exchange. If I gave you financial advice and you cooked for me in return, we'd be even. Alternatively, if I gave you financial advice OR you cooked for me and in return we gave the other $100, we'd be even. Because financial advice AND a meal would measure equally in value depending on need! In an ideal economy, that's how it was supposed to work!! But like the concept of god and religion, this too got grossly misinterpreted with time and evolution (!). One profession began to be considered more valuable than the other. Soon people were being engineered to run the rat race and follow the 'more valuable' proposition than follow what they were good at! Of course that began to mean that the fish that were trying to climb trees instead of swim the oceans were getting stressed out and under-performing; and people started working for the jobs that paid better even though they might not actually be "better". How twisted. How unfair. And how stupid.

Cut to Australia : a place where dignity of labour exists. A plumber earns as much as an equity analyst...meaning they are in those respective professions solely because they enjoy being there! No false sense of ambition or need to fill our pockets with as much cash as can be.

I hope I never let go of these ideals... because, honey, I don't care too much for money coz money can't buy me love :D

Amen.

Sab kuch chalta hai...

When our parents said that our generation was the "sab kuch chalta hai" generation, I fought back with the fervour only a teenage-in-denial could have. But now that I have 'seen the big bad world' out there, I completely agree!

It's extremely idealistic to assume that our minds are limitless and we have no restrictions. Wrong. There are some boundaries that exist and that need to be adhered to! Call them what you may - boundaries/ rules/ ethics/ code of conduct/ the-fine-line-between-right-and-wrong...they exist! They are applicable to every aspect of our lives.

We cannot slap our elders.
We will not lie to our diaries.
We shall not tell our best friends' secrets on facebook.
We cannot throw shoes at the president.

We will not sleep with someone while committed to someone else.
Generation-gap issue : sleeping with someone before marriage is now acceptable, but the "affair" is still not!

When "committed", give it your fighting best. Yes, that's a rule!! If you feel you're losing the fight, fight harder.

If you still lose, then move on.
What I hate is that people fail to see this!

I'm not saying be a stage horse when committed (I mean, with the blinders and all!), but don't be a horny mule on heat either. Have the strength of character to make sane decisions.

Don't hurt the people who have given you everything they've got. For courtesy's sake (ummm, for the record, I don't know anyone called Courtesy :P) as well, there is a code of approximately how much time after a break-up can someone get with another person. It's only to ensure that the other half is given enough time to deal with it. For courtesy's sake :).

Really, Sab kuch, nahi chalta hai.




Sent on my BlackBerry® from Vodafone

WOAH!!!

so i just looked at all my previous blog posts from July onwards and they are MOROSE!! A breakup can really mess with the mind, I guess...

So here's a more fun post...

Sean Kingston!

When I heard Sean Kingston was coming to Bangalore on Oct 3rd to perform LIVE in Hard Rock Cafe, I nearly flipped!
1) Coz it was at HRC...I love that place coz of my girls! But also the question of "HOW ON EARTH WILL THEY HOST A CONCERT IN THAT LITTLE SPACE??" needed to be answered!
2) Sean Kingston! ok, i didn't LOVE him...but his all-of-six-songs I'd heard were nice dance-able tunes.
3) A cute boy asked me to go with him :)
4) The ticket was only Rs. 1,500/-...out of which Rs.750 was cover!!

It's safe to assume that I made a wise decision to go...but, as every promise has proven to be - this one too, was a let down! Not the concert...just Sean Kingston!
He was an hour late (its not fashionable anymore to say 'fashionably'), he barely sang anything! There were two of his other homies on stage who kept the show alive..and VERY well, I add. He's just a fat, overgrown 20year old black man who got discovered on MySpace and suddenly shot to fame because of a youtube video that became viral! There is NOTHING legendary about him! The night, on the other hand, was! :)
I made good use of my 750buck cover charge and gulped down 3 "Fire Burning" cocktails. Once plastered, I jumped up on cute boy's shoulders and bounced about for 2 whole songs, he let me down when I threatened to take my top off and flash Sean...he didn't think it was a good idea! :P I acted as wing man (wing woman?) for the boys and helped them get a few facebook id's (yeah, that's the new phone number!) and then went off speeding on a 250cc bike! I rode ;D...was SO much fun zipping past all the cars and cops on a superbike (fine, it was no superbike but what the hell, i felt like superwoman!)

Life's as good as you make it.