The Elephant In The Room

All of us at one point or the other have been confronted with this situation: When there is a huge elephant in the room but nobody wants to talk about it. I’m talking about those awkward moments when you either are with a group of people or just one other person, there is something weighing heavily on all your minds, which for some reason you just cannot talk about. This ‘elephant’ wont fade to the back of your head, it will block all your other thought processes and make conversation difficult, because it’s hard to think of anything else to talk about.

The elephant might be something you are extremely curious about, but the person/people in question are just not open to discuss it and you know it. What’s worse, they know that you want to know. Or it might be the other way around. It might be something that pertains to you that you prefer not to discuss but the look on the other person’s face makes you remember it every few minutes. There’s yet another one when together as a group you get caught up in something very embarrassing which nobody wants to talk about after, but nobody can think of anything else to say. I like to call them ‘my elephant’, ‘your elephant’ and ‘our elephant’ respectively.

I don’t know if it’s just me, or in general the older you get, or the more people you meet, you only have more and more elephants in life to deal with! On my part if the elephant is ‘mine’ or ‘ours’, I break the ice and talk about it. I find that it saves me a lot of energy wasted being awkward. But if the elephant is someone else’s there’s nothing I can do about it, is there?

One example I can think of is a conversation with a not-so-close-but-more-than-just-an-acquaintance friend who’d broken up from a very serious relationship. Well I know the person had broken up, heck the noise made the whole world know, but when you talk to them it’s like nothing happened! I’m not saying tell me all the gory details, all I say is- when you once publicly displayed your affection for each other with me among the uncomfortable spectators it’s just kind, to let me know that, ‘Oh by the way we broke up’. That’s all I ask! Please do not leave that big red with yellow polka dotted elephant hanging in the air.

Well, until the whole world shares my opinion on addressing elephants, I just have to find a lot of conversation topics! Here’s one thing that doesn’t work: Running away to a different continent. Nope, the multi-coloured elephants will follow you.

The husfriend

This post is dedicated to my biggest fan and my worst critic. My very own husfriend. Happy anniversary darling :)

The husfriend, as I've recently discovered is this delightful creature. The term was coined many years ago. My aunt had a house maid who dint know English but picked up a few words from people around. She referred to a husband as a 'Husfriend' and I thought that the term was really what it ought to be!

The husfriend even after being married to the woman he loves, one who he no longer needs to impress, he continues to dote on her. There are a lot of husbands who once married begin to take their wife for granted and start showing their 'true' colours. A husfriend's true colour is what it used to be before being married.

He is first and foremost her best friend. He is someone who knows her better than she knows herself. Now, this can be mistaken for flattery but its actually far from it. He truly appreciates every little thing she does for him and gently reprimands her when her crazy self comes to the surface. He is also the only one who can really annoy her because he knows exactly what affects her and what doesn't. But he'll just annoy her purely for fun with no other bad intent. He also is the only person capable of making her smile through the worst of times.

I've heard many women complain that though they also work full time jobs the husband hardly helps around the house. Before I was married people told me, 'He'll probably help out a lot initially, maybe for the first couple of months. But routine will kick in and you'll be doing most of the domestic chores by yourself. Don't be angry, it's how all men are. You cant change something very basic.' With a husfriend however, there is no concept of 'help'. Helping is one is doing most of the work and the other makes things a little easier. Its not 'help' when both are equal partners in everything. Its exactly like sharing your space with your best friend.

The term 'through sickness and in health' takes on a painful reality once the glitz of being newly married wears off. A husfriend will drop everything that matters a lot to him and dedicate every minute to the wife when she's sick or feels low, and never once complain.

These are but a few traits, but I think its enough to describe the husfriend in brief. I've seen that a husfriend is most agreeable when the favours are returned. I can only hope that I've been half as good a 'wifriend'.

Goodbye 2011 hello quarter life crisis

This one's been long overdue.

Another year came and went in the blink of an eye. They say time moves faster when you're having fun and it couldn't be more true for me!

Highly chaotic as it was there's just one fair way to describe it, a bunch of chaotic lines

Marriage

New family

Missing both old and new families

Part time Singapore tour guide

Loads of new friends

But missing the old

Partyyyyyy

Loads n loads of love

Job hunt

More part time Singapore tour guide

New job

New stresses

Indian wins the cricket world cup!

Eating a lot of husband's cooking

Travel travel travel

Quarter life crisis trailer

Happy happy happy inspite of being stressed

Sharing a hospital with Rajini Kanth :)

Partyyyy

Lots more of love

Onset of chronic quarter life crisis

More good times than bad. Quite easily the best year of my life.