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.

Home is where the mess is

Special thanks to my dear friend Reynah for coming up with the golden words which shortened my whole post into one sentence.


Home.. Now where is that exactly? Where your parents live? Where you spent all your childhood? The place you live in right now? For most people the answer is simple and even the question might seem a little silly. But for someone like me its a valid question with mixed answers.

I've been at my new married life for 9 months now. A couple of weeks back I returned to India for the first time after getting here. Before leaving both me and my husband were looking forward to meeting family and friends and all the great food. We thought we were going 'home'.

The two weeks in India went by quickly. It was great for both of us to be with our family, get all the VIP attention. Not to forget the great food and the amazing Deepavali celebrations! It felt brilliant to sleep in my old room and eat at my mom's dining table and all that. When it was time to go back we both were dreading the journey back. The thought of the mess we left before we left made me want to cry. The thought of going back to work practically made me want to throw up. But leave we had to..

We came back and opened the door to the colossal mess that was our house. We went ahead just let everything be and dropped onto the couch. I felt a strange familiarity, the feeling of everything you need being exactly where its supposed to be ( strewn on the floor is a valid place). I thought I was crazy, but then I saw my husband smiling too. "We're home" I said.

The last two weeks felt like a well deserved vacation, and the place we once called home was more like a luxury resort now. Things had changed even for my husband, who always considered "home" to be the place in India where the parents live. Sure we were blue and depressed but it was like the end of any holiday, it wasn't "home"sickness anymore. Somewhere along the line, the little matchbox house with 2 messy people living in it had changed from being the "house we live in" to "home". Family was now me and him.

I don't know if home is where the heart is, but its definitely where the beloved mess is :)

Letters to my younger self

Wouldn't you love it if you could send a message back in time and warn your younger self about the things to come. Think about it like this, we're all worried about the uncertain future, wouldn't you love it if you could take a peek just to know if everything turns out ok?

If I could pass messages back to my younger self it would go something like this:

Note to my 10 yr old self:
Don't quit classical music as much as you hate it. It's gonna come in handy when you discover your country music singing abilities. Don't worry about your buck teeth and skinny frame. Your orthodontist is gonna do a great job and loads of women will envy you for eating what you want and still not getting fat. I know your younger brother seems like a baby right now, be patient he'll grow up soon and become your best friend one day.

Note to my 15 year old self:
Don't worry about those bullies, they might tell you now that you're a loser. Wait a few years you'll end up doing way better than any of them in life. Make a little more time to appreciate your parents and your mom's food especially. You're gonna miss the dishes you hate right now. By the way your still really skinny 10 years from now so don't loose sleep, you'll get used to it soon. Stop trying to grow up too soon and enjoy the last remaining moments of childhood.

Note to my 21 year old self:
Life is about to get a lot more real, brace yourself. If you think you have problems now think again. But the good news is you're gonna sail through all the really tough times and come out just right. I know it seems like everyone around you is in love except you, and you're really worried you'll never find someone. Well, just take it easy and enjoy the single life with your friends, a sweet handsome dude is headed your way, who'll be worth every moment of crap you have ever put up with. Oh and right now, you might think getting into the IT industry and becoming a software developer is your true calling in life. There will be a quarter life crisis when you realize that though you're pretty good at it, its not really your "thing". Stop worrying about losing touch with friends after college, those who matter will stay connected even from the other end of the planet.

I'm pretty sure my future self will have tons to say, but just as I have no hope of transmitting these notes to the past, there's no way of knowing whats up ahead. So much for wishful thinking. The only thing I do know is that things will fall into place no matter how screwed up they seem right now.

Friends of friends

When friendship day swung around this year, I took a while to think of all my friends, old and new. I tried to remember how I became friends with each person I could think of...

The past year has been one hell of a friend making year for me. I feel very lucky to be in a position in life where I meet new people almost everyday. And Ive just realized that almost all the people Ive gotten pretty close to, either for years now or just weeks, they almost all came into my life as a friend of a friend.

Friendship and love are the only two relationships in the world which we are in by choice. We don't get to choose our family but we do get to choose whom we are friends with. While we do have the option of being extremely picky about whom we befriend, Ive come to see that the best friendships are born out of going out of your way to be nice to someone.

Thinking back, I can think of a lot of instances which went like this. I'm stuck with a friend of a friend, someone I barely know. I have the option of really trying to get to know the person or just being civil for the short time we are stuck together. Ive always chosen the first option and today I'm sooo glad I did, because these people are among of my closest friends.

I see a lot of people who don't mingle with people they think is below their "league". People who go to a party only for the food and booze and not the company, and I feel sorry for them.

Its easy to just stay in your comfort zone, stereotype people you barely know and decide that you've got enough friends and you dont really need another one. Its harder to make genuine conversation with a friend of a friend, harder to care about what they are saying, but who knows if this person is someone you'l still be talking to 50 years from now? Heck I wouldn't have met my husband if I had decided that I have enough friends and don't need another person to talk to.

Happy friendship day, to all my dear friends who've touched my life and made me smile, and friends of friends who are going to make smile a little more.

Ping?

Yes I am back after a hiatus. After a period of writer's block, new job stresses, and the lack of time to breathe, I am back.

My own struggle with my new job and the general situation of a lot of people I know just got me thinking? Why do almost all of us make a living out of something we cant stand doing?

I loved my new job in the beginning. I actually spent a while where there was absolutely no such thing as Monday blues. But when the stress notched up a lot and the whole reality of the corporate politics sunk in, Mondays make me physically nauseated.

And as it goes, we all start off thinking we are doing something we are going to love. But what happens when you realize its not exactly what you wanted? Well what almost everyone I know does is just swallow the frustration and get on with it. Because at the end of the day its what gets the food on the dinner table.

Its very idealistic to say just quit and find something you are passionate about. Its true though not practical. What I found is a middle path. Do what you are hating ONLY if you can justify the suffering for something worthwhile. And often we don't have to look too far. For most people its found at home (well wherever the heart is).

I saw a guy on TV who cleans public toilets and he said, the days he gets completely disgusted he thinks about his precious little daughter and how he might afford to actually send her to college one day, and that gets him going again.

My inspiration is sitting on the couch as I type. The thought of building a life together (as opposed to him doing all the crap and me just sitting on my backside) just instantly makes me feel like its all worth it. Maybe one day when opportunity knocks and I can actually get a big break (or make a break for myself) I'll definitely do something I truly love.

To all the folks who never have Monday blues, I salute thee. For the rest of us - keep the IM of life open, opportunity pings very rarely but it just might!