Monday, March 24, 2008

Nothing is serious!!!!

Life a bed of roses. Having read a post by Ellen today morning, I have been wondering that Life is a bed of roses.
Did you say - not always??? Well it is indeed.
I liked saying that, as it leave me with a positive note. And otherwise also I hate myself for being negative at times when Life pushes me too much.
Life is a bed of roses. Only the color of roses keep changing. Remember, Roses are in white, pink, yellow, orange and red color. But don’t you miss the Black Rose. Similarly, life has got different colors and the situations & circumstances keep on giving it one and another shade thereafter. And then roses have horns too. That could be taken as a life’s decision to push one so hard that ultimately one bleeds.
I remember a brief conversation here, when I had asked about the well being of a friend and since its so recent, that my thoughts flew in that very direction when I pondered about Life & Roses.
Me: Hey how are you? You look sad. Is everything fine. I hope nothing is serious.
Friend: nothing serious......its just a change which is sometimes undesirable, expectations unmet and some general things giving a feeling of disrespect to myself, sometimes a little guilt and sometimes too many tears in my eyes confuse me about my existence.
But don’t you worry. Nothing is serious.
Now I am not worried, its just that I could not reach to an answer as to, how a rock solid person like my friend could end up fighting tears. A person so strong, tough headed, so learnt from life not to get welled up easily and now struggling to fight her own tears. This raises a question to me. Even though, I am told that she is determined to be happy (she says determined, not destined) I still feel some loss for this. Because some loss has happened to a person, to a soul, to someone’s respect and to someone’s trust. Also I have a feeling that may be she is taking it just too seriously and she doesn’t needs to. May be its because almost everybody feels that way.
People tend to take it so normally as nothing has happened. People don’t feel bad because they are used to of changes, yes I mean the undesired changes. They do not know the words dreams and expectations for their own self, they believe that its their duty to live up to the expectations & dreams of their surroundings and they are fine spending (did you read wasting) a life for this. Now still what is itching me here is, a strong headed, self-motivated, almost self-earned person is telling me that I pray to god for peace or to rest in peace. I did see tears in her eyes!
People who are change averse face this kind of a situation. I will be wrong to say this. I guess it happens when a self-driven person who has learned this art after too much of effort is been told to hand over the steering of life in someone else’s hands. And even then, is required to be a silent observer all through the ride.

I don’t know. I am myself trying to find out all these answers for my friend. I want her to be happy as always. She is my best friend who I always relied. I want her to be a free-spirit again.
I wish her more smiles. Amen!

Monday, March 17, 2008

Tag of Eight....:-)

Tagged by Kaua.....Thanks to her for so sweetly she left a sweet reminder on the review panel....

Eight things I am passionate about

1. Writing....I wish to improve myself each day
2. Movies....
3. Fun-outings.....even if it is window shopping I am fine...
4. My home.....has to be organised (I dint say my room ;-))
5. Travelling... I truly enjoyed exploring new places whichever I have till date
6. Pranks.........I love teasing 'few' friends till they say please.... to me
7. Long Drives - Be it a bike ride or a car......
8. Music & Dancing (Though I am not gr8 at it....)

Eight things I want to do before I die


1. Learn Salsa...
2. Go for a world tour with my hubby.....even if its @ d age of 60
3. To be successful in the world of brands & marcomm
4. To join an NGO and to take charge of an unprivileged child (a girl child)

5. To be an established writer....
6. Buy my own car and to gift one to my hubby
7. To see my l'll brother taking my Dad's business to gr8ter heights
8. Have a coffee with Madhuri, Kajol, Barkha Dutt, Prasoon Joshi.......arey it can be a get together also.....

Eight things I say often

1. Too much
2. O really
3. Shut-up
4. Not fair
5. You never know!
6. Keep Smiling
7. Gawwd...
8. Hello...

Eight books I've read recently

Have been irregular from quite some time but anyways....
1. Doctor Zhivago
2. A book on Advertising
3. Somewhat read, The Golden Gate

4. I think it was, Screw it - Lets do it!! Lessons of Life from Richard Branson
5. The Class
6. Blue Ocean Strategy
Now I dont remember the sequence, currently reading The Fountain Head!!! Did try Robin Sharma in between ........seems like I am more of a self-motivated soul..

Eight songs I could listen to, over and over

1. Nahi Saamne .............from Taal
2. Na tum hamein jano......
3. Boulevard of Broken Dreams.......Greenday

4. Jaane kya chahe man banwara.....Pyar ke side effects
5. In dino ...............Life in a metro
6. Tum pukar lo ...........Khamoshi (the B/W one)
7. You are beautiful.....James Blunt
8. If you really......Bryan Adams
Guess we could have an 80 tag for this....


Eight things that attracts me to my best friends

1. Same mental pedestal
2. Jovial
3. Good listening skills......my best friends say so!!!
4. No gender biased attitude
5. Caring
6. Honesty...could be read Straightforward
7. No double standards

8. Respect humanity, before any class, religion etc.

People I think should do this tag

1. Lusty aka Lust4Life
2. Suddentwilight aka Paro
3. Shoooonya
4. Manoj
5. Ellen

Keep Smiling!!!

Friday, March 14, 2008

Lessons Life taught...




1. I have learnt that running from life isn’t a solution, it only makes you breathe heavy in the long run.

2. I have learnt that life is just too complicated, even at times when I think its not.

3. I have learnt life is so simple, mostly on the celluloid.

4. I have learnt money & not life becomes the sole motive for everything we do.

5. I have learnt dreams are good only if they are realistic.

6. I have learnt sometimes it’s a stranger we need for help then a friend or relative.

7. I have learnt ‘words of wisdom’ could be reached anytime, anywhere from anyone.

8. I have learnt books are actually the best friends, for they are always in our reach. And they never leave us too.

9. I have learnt education grooms us into a better person, but it has got too many side effects.

10. I have learnt not everything could be left on others, just to make them happy. You have got to think for yourself.

11. I have learnt that at the end of the day, I am myself is my best friend.

12. I have learnt that sometimes you have got to trust your instinct. Only thing is you should not ignore the doubts.

13. I have learnt one should have priorities but don’t let a person become your priority.

14. I have learnt all I need at times is ‘Solitude’, to get the peace of mind.

15. I have learnt if I smile at myself in the morning it becomes easy to smile during the long day.

Life goes on….and so does its lessons!!!

Keep Faith - Keep Smiling :-)


Monday, March 10, 2008

Obsession called NRI

Alas, I am here for writing about this phenomenon or anomaly which I found highly irritating at times. Recently, life brought me to one of the most developed and advanced (read pompous) state of our country, popularly known as Punjab. And this is what I see here, Mr. A’s daughter is not very well educated, she cannot frame general English, she isn’t aware what fluency is? But her long cherished dream is to fly abroad even if it’s through her marriage. The children are brought up with a dream to fly abroad to be rich and if they couldn’t manage to get a visa, marriage is the visa fro them.

People have only one dream for their children, i.e. to fly abroad and to get settled over there, no matter its education or a bribe, the ultimate goal is to settle in a foreign nation. But, but they never skip from making it clear that there spices in the kitchen, utensils, clothes, slippers, oil, toothbrush etc blah-blah and even wives have to be Indian. With some is the cost factor involved and with others the culture. There are rules devised for the family members which could be loosened or broken when an NRI relative visits them. Surprised! O man, understand he/she is from Canada/US, New Zealand or whatever…

The show & pompous which this status brings in is again magnificent. There has to be a Limousine arranged to pick up the NRI from airport. No less then that, a car will work. You can easily see the difference in a Indian –dressed casually depicting the westernized impact on our population and a Non-Resident Indian dressed in a ………..oh m wordless…ok lets say, dressed in a way depicting a fine (no that’s too good a word) fusion of desi (local) and pardesi (foreign resident) culture.

Though I am glad that the educated lot did realized the upswing in Indian economy and has now started considering Hyderabad, New Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, Chandigarh etc in place of Canada, US, New Zealand. Having been stayed in metro’s and cosmopolitan cities around the nation, I have seen the development happening in terms of jobs, careers and education and also the reverse brain drain but after coming here it seems like many in the state are still unaware of all this. For them it’s only abroad where they will find a rich, classy (they have a different definition of class) life. And to that also, I got to learn a sad fact that many of these, who parade their richness and NRI status in the home country are actually doing the laborious jobs there. And then I felt sad and also helpless about the misconceptions people are getting carried away with. Its purely illiteracy, ignorance and lust to get a status (rather) tag of NRI.

What’s disheartening is people do this just for the sake of tag, class and quick money. Its disgusting that this also fetches a bad name to those who reach there out of education, qualification and quality. Those who still let the dream of coming back to home country flourish deep inside their heart. Those who believe in doing good for the nation despite being staying far away. And those who just want to earn a status tag called NRI.