Cherishing Neela Paati

An ode to the lady who was my third parent.

Clean, perfectly groomed and the lingering perfume of Afghan snow. That's how I remember my grandma.
My grandparents lived with us so when I think back on the 'parenting' I had its hard to remember something that my grandma was not involved in.

She was the cool grandma who approved of my jeans. Who let me sleep late on weekends. She was so intelligent that if they had girls only schools back in her day I'm sure she'd be a Supreme Court judge or an IAS officer.

She taught me some things that have become a part of me. She taught me to keep a clean kitchen, when i see my kitchen counter dirty, I shudder because I can see her with a disapproving look on her face. She taught me how to crochet and knit, when I finish a baby sweater I can see her smiling proudly. She passed on to me her green thumb, when I see my little pots flower and bloom I can picture her nodding in approval. Most importantly, she taught me that you can be a small person but still stand taller than everyone. She had the will power of 20 people put together.

It's been 4 months since she passed away in her sleep, 90 years of age. Her will power played out till the very end. Her biggest fear was being bed ridden, to have a nurse care for her, to no longer be independent. The very day that they had a nurse come to care for her she decided enough was enough and passed in her sleep. I'd like to think she's happy, pain free watching over us.

I love you Paati and I will miss you forever. But I wont be sad, I will cherish the time we had and celebrate your life every time I'm reminded of you

The last day I spent with Paati

Corporate Choirsters

Why and how I learnt more about team work as part of my office choir than I did from my day job. (And why it pays when companies invest in their people)

I've been interviewing a lot lately. And as a part of this preparation I ask myself all kinds of questions from my CV. My husfriend told me to also look at the 'Extra' section and be ready to talk about it. The 'Extra' bit is the bit we think no one reads or cares about. The bit in the end with your hobbies and extra curricular activities.

I looked there and right on top I'd added a line about being part of the Office Choir and winning runners up in the Office choir of the year contest. What did I learn from here? I wondered. And realised I learnt a lot more about 'team work' than from my regular day job!

A few things that really struck me:

Cliche alert: There is no ME in team.. How many times I've cringed when I heard that. But in the choir it cant be more true! If the audience can hear your voice above the others, it means you are doing something very wrong. Harmony is the keyword here.

Everyone has their place, and unless you give a 100% nothing of value will come out of your effort. A Soprano cannot sing both their and the Alto parts together. Each person has a skill, a strong point and they play on it and trust the others to do their bits. Listen to each other, know exactly where to come in, if not you have one ear shattering mess.

Your ego has no place in a team- or a choir. Especially being an office choir where none of us were professional singers, there were some of us who were trained from a very young age, some of us who could not read music. Some of us were there with an agenda- to win against all odds, some of us were there for the experience, just to have fun. It didn't matter if you were an Alpha personality or a wallflower, you cant shine alone nor can you fade away in the background. You have to swallow your pride and be willing to learn. You have to remind yourself not to be overbearing and demanding of others. There had to be a halfway point, where we all came together, irrespective of our agendas or personalities.

In a group of almost 20 musically inclined people there will be creative differences. Its what we do with these differences that determine whether we sink or swim.

In the end we won, together, as a team and I couldn't be more proud!

Click here for the highlights of our 'teamwork'

The Big Picture

She read softly aloud to herself, for the umpteenth time. As she scanned the screen she spotted one unfamiliar word and the panic started building up again. ‘Oh god I can’t remember what that is now’ she thought  to herself as she quickly opened another window to do a search. She’d spent the last hour or so like this, anxiously flitting about from one page to another, one set of interview questions after another.

She looked at the time on the corner of her screen, 20 mins more. She was still coming to grasps that she was going to be interviewed for a new role. This was going to be a huge step up if she got it. And thus started the days of anxious studying and preparing. She hadn't interviewed in 3 years and she felt rusty.

No amount of studying seemed enough. Her stomach twisted and turned and her mouth went dry as the mins ticked closer to the time. 'Ok enough I'm not going to learn anything new now, I need to calm down' she thought to herself. She was nauseated from the anxiety.

15 mins more. She could see the interview room from where she sat. The manager who was going to interview her sat a few rows away and she could see his head if she stretched. No point in going there too early. She decided to read the news for the next 10 mins and then walk into the interview room.

After all the important headlines, at the bottom a picture of a little boy caught her eye. There was something sickly yet strong about him that drew her attention. 'Terminally ill child declares that he wont continue treatment'. She read about how a 10 year old boy who'd been suffering from cancer for most of his life had decided that he no longer wished to do hospital trips and treatments that were not working. He declared publicly that he wished to spend whatever little time he had doing things he loved. Then came a few lines where the mother expressed her heartbreak but decided that she had to respect his wishes and not let him suffer any more. It was so sad. 10 year old boys making such big decisions, and a mother unselfishly letting her son die rather than suffer some more and then die. He looked so brave in the picture.

Oh my god she thought to herself. She had a wonderful life, and here she was making herself sick with anxiety. So what if she didn't get the job? Nothing! Nothing life altering really. Sometimes in the petty first world problems that we face, we really tend to loose sight of the big picture. She sighed and said a little prayer for the boy.

She then walked into the interview room, calmer than ever. With a confident smile on her face.

For better or for worse..

Three years ago a bright eyed girl smiled a lot as the man she was in love with tied the knot.

The man she'd fallen madly in love with.

For better or for worse they promised each other as they walked round and round a fire.

What she had then was a best friend for whom she had endless love. Endless she thought then. And surely it grew bigger and bigger everyday.

There were days of better and then there were days of worse. So many feelings, some win and some lose.
Of the ones that stayed, a strong feeling endured. Familiarity? She wondered, no it's more than that for sure.

A couple of years came and went pretty quick. Trust? Was that it? Yes trust, an unshakeable trust, she didn't know when it came but it was there now along with the love that always seemed to grow.

But there was more, she couldn't put her finger on it. The couple grew a little older together and wiser by a bit. All around the world they wandered arms knit.

Another year went by, and one day while missing him she realised how big the love had grown. How many storms the trust had borne.

And then suddenly she realised what that other feeling was! It wasn't new, always there but this year, his toil and achievements had made this other feeling win, over all others (maybe sometimes tie for first place with love?)

Respect. That's it! Thats the one, she thought, and smiled, with a lot more reasons to do so, than that day three years ago.

Complainism

There's a new cult that's expanding by the minute. It's one of those cults where people join voluntarily and practice religiously. Its called Complainism. And I'm sick of it.

I don't know if its the fact that I grew up in a developing country or the fact that I don't have too many regrets in life but this way of life doesn't attract me at all.

Here's a list of things that Complainists do that totally kills my buzz

1. Complain about their job/relationship or lack of one/life etc
I'm not talking about the occasional bitching to your friends or your partner about your crazy boss or your horrid day at work. That's ok. We all need to vent sometimes.
I'm talking about people, who sit you down and give you a blow by blow detailed picture of why their job sucks or how they are being victimised in their relationship, or how they just cant seem to find 'the one'. Its those people who's name resonates with depression in your head. Oh, you aren't allowed to ask questions or raise valid points about why they aren't doing anything to get out of their situation.

2. Even worse, the people from point 1 above who add 'But you are lucky..' at the end of the rant.
Its always complain complain and then 'Oh but you are lucky to have this/be here/etc'
Usually I'm too polite to say it to their face but I probably should : 'I am not where I am with what I have because of luck. Its because I worked my backside off to get it. Trust me, If I let luck decide my fate I'd be rotting away in misery like you'.

3. Complaints about society/politics that consume their entire existence.
You cannot have a conversation with these people without them bringing up 'How horrible this world is' or 'How unfairly high cost of living is' or 'How the recession is completely unfair'. I'd like to ask them: Did anyone ever promise you that life was going to be fair? This is our reality, take it or change it.
I'm not sure if these people are really 'affected' by these issues or just like to talk about it to sound philosophical and intelligent.

A very wise person once told me 'Opportunities multiply as they are seized' and this is something I have blind faith in. If you cant be bothered to pro-actively change your situation don't bother wasting my time.

Big question that I ask myself often: Why do I even bother listening to these people if it annoys me so much? Because, these are people I genuinely care about. Who didn't used to be like this. Who used to have hopes and dreams and positive energy. Some people don't wait for an audience. With the magic of Facebook and Twitter they have the power to force in into your attention zone even if you didn't want to be around any negative energy that day.

Am I complaining? Probably, but I'll do it just once and wont let it become my religion.

People days

I'm not a big fan of people days. Mother's day, father's day, Valentine's day, Friendship day, I can just go on all day!

I do not need a day in a year to say "Right, today I'll call my mom and buy her a gift and change my profile picture on Facebook so that the whole world knows that I love my mom". I'm not against or mocking those who do, its just not me. The way I see it, it's almost as if we as a people are so detached and emotionally disconnected from those we care about that we need to mark our calendars and set out 1 day out of 365 to remind our selves of one person that we love. One person a day please we can't be bothered with more than that.

I like to believe that I think of my people, talk to them and meet them(Skype counts) more than once a week at least. So if I have something nice and special to say to my mom, she'll know it.. the whole world wont. 

I'm absolutely not against celebrating people. Rather than made-up days, I prefer celebrating anniversaries, birthdays etc, days that are really special for that person or people who you care about. With anniversaries you get to celebrate two whole people in one day!! 

I'm not sure my 'people' know this but every moment that I talk to them, laugh with them and even fight with them is special. Every day, I thank the universe for putting these people in my life and promise to be a better person to try and deserve having them in it. 

Then comes the matter of commercializing the whole thing. People days might be good for the economy but are the really good for the people? Have you never been a single person on Valentine's day? I remember quite vividly, all the posters and adverts mocking you and making your life miserable for a whole 'month of love'. I'd rather do something special for my husband on our anniversary, something that won't make a whole bunch of single people feel like crap. And what about the kids who didn't get any 'Friendship band' on Friendship day? Do you think they feel special?

Not preaching! Do your own thing, or don't. As long as the 'people' REALLY feel loved and special all year round, nothing else matters.

Dedicated to the person who was the first one to teach me how to love. Happy birthday mom :)

Misogyny- the (not so new) epidemic

The news in the past couple of months has been extremely disturbing for me. Shootouts in schools, gang rapes, more shootouts and what not. One of these the one which I along with millions of other people were closely following was the incident of the gang rape of a 23yrd girl in Delhi.

I am not going into the gory details of the crime, I think google will be a much better source for that. I am an Indian woman and I liked to think that my country has fully embraced the modern era, one where women are treated as equals, for the most part atleast. I am not an idealist, but I had liked to think that if I could achieve what I've done so far any other girl can do the same or even better. This bit of news was a whack on the head that dragged me down, back into the dark reality.

In the aftermath of this heinous crime there were mass protests by hundreds of women and men, this warmed my heart to see not only educated women from the cities but even uneducated women from the rural areas finally brave enough to voice their opinion. What I was not prepared for was what followed. What followed is more disgusting than the crime itself.

It was a series of statements and comments made by prominent political leaders (including the president's son) and religious men who are supposed to be our moral compass. Statements like "The women who are protesting on the streets are dented and painted women..", "The rape was victim was also to blame for the crime, she should have called her attackers brothers and begged for mercy", "Women should be content with minding the affairs of the home and not venture out..". I cannot begin to describe how angry I felt when I read each of those comments (most of them which were retracted after the damage was done).

What I can now see is not just a horrendous crime and its reactions but what is emerging from this is educated people (mostly men) expressing their true chauvinistic and misogynistic opinions. And sadly these opinions are shared by hundreds of men all around the world.

We all want progress and change. The protesters on the streets of Delhi want stricter laws. While that might help a little it wont be any close to solving the problem. We already have many laws that would've helped if only they were implemented. In the case of rapes where 75 to 95% of the incidents are never reported to authorities, bringing in new laws are not going to make an impact. The only thing thats halting our progress is the attitudes of people. Note: not just men, women also.

If the rapists' mothers had instilled in them at a very young age that women are not toys, all people irrespective of women or men have to be respected, and no person has the right to touch another's body without their consent, maybe just maybe they would've thought twice before acting.

If their fathers had treated their mothers and sisters with respect, they would've never had a feeling that they were in some way superior to women and could do what they liked with women.

This state of mind is not going to change overnight. The least we, the people who protest and rage against this injustice can do is this- Look around you at the people in your life.

Women, try to teach your fathers, brothers, husbands, male friends and most importantly your sons that you are not a second class citizen. That a woman can do everything a man can and do it better if she needs to. More importantly, try to believe in it yourself. Do NOT vote for people whom you know have this sickness of misogyny.

Men, you can be the best support for any woman in your life. Do not be insecure of her accomplishments, instead try to be proud of her, be it your daughter, wife or mother. I pity those men who made those statements. They will never know the joy of being proud of the woman in their life. They will never know the satisfaction you get from knowing that your daughter/wife/mother/friend is what she is today because you supported her and helped her along the way.

The reality is that its too late to change the minds of a lot of these sick people. I guess they have to grow old, lead a miserable life spent in deriving cheap thrills from dominating and undermining women, and die out for the general population to be rid of this disease forever.