Evolution of Indian Marriages

Does one need so much array and solemnity for a jubilant occasion like wedding? It is a shame that Indian marriages that have always been admired by the western people have transformed into an event of cash feet. Of course it is a special day for the bride and the bridegroom but the same special day can be celebrated in a much simpler way which has the capacity of even more happiness without falling into a debt trap. Parents need not burden themselves by gifting their daughters with gold or money as today’s parents have already gifted them with good education which can act as a security in uncertain events that could crop up between the husband and wife.

Most of the people who come to participate in the wedding become the biggest critics. Everything is scrutinized and found faults with, to create a debatable issue. Why does the brain of people work in such a menacing way at times? Marriage is such a pure event which is made of binding promises. The pureness of it is being lost with an intention of making it a pomp and show event. 
People who come to the wedding to bless the couple would not mind having a normal meal instead of a luxury meal. The traditional culture of serving people has long lost its roots. Instead of concentrating on the ways which would bring complacence to the couple, the family is more interested in making their guests happy in every other way possible so that the marriage could be talked about for ages. 

Sketching of complex and catchy arrangement will only add an element of stress among the close relatives who are involved in the marriage. The enjoyment in one’s own marriage cannot be possible in the modern Indian weddings.
For a rich man budgeting a sky limit wedding is not a problem, but for a middle class man it is a matter of concern.

Education I say more...

Today while I was travelling in the Delhi metro, many unanswered questions cropped up in my mind.  I have been studying all through my life about respecting people especially elders, women and children.  But only lately have I realized the other side of the picture.

It was at the peak office time. Like all the others even I was tired and badly needed a seat. There were old people and children in the crowd waiting for the metro. It was an empty metro which stopped at the platform. Just within a fraction of a second people ran into the train to grab their seats without even caring about who they were pushing. At one glance I understood people not only compete for a seat in a good college but they even compete  in their everyday life by exerting pressure on others with even more motivation than in studies.

One can see such a crowd in a market place. But the people I witnessed today were highly educated and qualified. Is this what our education is teaching us? People are so blindfolded that this has become an everyday activity for them. An old man had to fight with a young energetic man for the seat reserved for senior citizens. This is how education is transforming the youth in India. On the other hand a daily labourer sacrificed his seat for a very young woman right in front of me. His legs were broken and muddy. He was in need of the seat much more than her.

All of us are tired but grabbing a seat by hurting others does not give us the contentment to relax. It’s just a matter of an hour travel.  Look around. Do not forget that there are people who follow you. Educated people are always admired and inspired. If we do not follow principles then what would we teach our next generation.

New Life , New People , New Expectations!

Like everybody else, my life also moved to a new phase to uncover challenges and shape it around with new souls. All these days I lived life where I expected things from someone who is really far away from me. My entire day depended on people I had already known; they filled my life with sorrow and happiness. But all of a sudden I opened up to the people around me. I always abstained from establishing an emotional contact with new people around me because I always considered it a limitation to my happiness. Only recently have I found happiness and love around me. With this discovery new expectations and questions started to crop up.  Few incidents which turned out to be a continued relationship with people:-

VERY FEW PEOPLE DESERVE YOUR CARE

He sat next to me in a lecture and we both started solving the problems being done in class that day. He rarely attends college so I had never noticed him before. The next day we started talking .Eventually we started texting each other. I consider him a good friend who is sweet and good at heart.

NO MATTER HOW YOU ARE THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO WILL STILL LOVE YOU

She is my roommate. Pure, immature, lively and beautiful. She is an amazing person who has been with me through my ups and downs. We are more like sisters. After meeting her I realised that there are very few people who we love irrespective of the way they are. My negatives never feel like faults in front of her. Unconditional love cropped up between us. New emotions and new relationship came into existence.

ANOTHER PASSING CRUSH

One cool guy in my life. This guy is handsome, smart, decent, and friendly. We generally do not like getting close with normal crushes because we only like them from afar. But unfortunately he became my friend. We started sharing good times in college. I relived the moments with him after long. Life became cheerful and he became the solution to my worries.

RANDOM PEOPLE WHO COME AND MAKE AN EVERLASTING CHANGE

They are a group of three friends who live in my flat. Intellectual, smart, lazy, emotional, cute. I shared most of my time with these people and they taught me many important lessons in life. No matter what the problem is they are always there to help me. Admiring people was one thing which I learnt from them. Confidence is one thing which they gave me.

AND MANY MORE.....

These are few instances wherein I felt that love and care can be given and felt from anybody who is around us. There is no planned theory for emotions and sentiments. Depending on people who are not with us doesn’t always hold true. Start realising things around you. Life can be made more colorful if we start sharing things with people who are around us, who can actually wipe our tears, who can hug us. We do have important people in our lives where distance doesn’t matter but the same affection can be given to us by new people too.

Benazir Bhutto - an Autobiography

First woman prime minister of an Islamic country. She went to the top schools in the world – Harvard and Oxford. ‘Benazir Bhutto – Daughter of the East’ an autobiography brought tears to my eyes. I thought Indira Gandhi was the woman who faced the most trials-by-fire in Asian politics. But after reading Benazir, I changed my mind. I saw the nation from a feminist point of view.

The story explains us about the cultural beliefs in an Islamic country and especially the restrictions for women in the society. It beautifully narrates the political situations in Pakistan after partition. The dictatorship rule and the brutal killing of her father Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the first prime minister who brought democracy was deeply described. The whole family sacrificed their life to bring democracy to their country. It makes us feel lucky for being born in a democratic nation.

 She followed her father’s path and emerged as a strong and passionate politician who never let her supporters down. The journey of Bhutto from being a prisoner to prime minister has been excellently depicted. Tragedy, political games and the dark political arena never prevented her from achieving her aspirations for people, especially women. Her assassination deprived the world of a great leader.

I admire her ideals and vision for her people. Her writing style and narration is magnificent .Every woman, regardless of her social background should read this book. It is highly motivational and heart touching and fills every heart with a ray of strength.

Two sides of a coin does not hold true always

The mixture of happiness and sadness is always felt by us. It feels good but its hard to comment on what we are actually feeling. Each one of us have a special thing in us but we always feel jealous of others when we think they are better than us. The value of a few things can be felt only when we lose it. It might me a tangible one or an intangible one. Why has god created such a world where people cannot understand the value of things but can understand only when it is snatched away from them?

When we lose something we regret about it later even after knowing that it will never come back to us. Repentance is the deepest void in the heart. Once the void is created, it is very difficult to fill it up. There are people who never regret  things which had made them smile even once in their past.  Some people, on the other hand, lived a certain moment, enjoyed it but later, regret doing it. The variation in people’s insight on things is all about the beauty of life which God has created.

Time and age will never stop for anyone, and then what is the point of regretting for the past? Its good to remember the wrong deeds which one has committed in the past but killing the present for the past makes things even worse. Respect yourself and love yourself for what you are and then life would seem interesting and beautiful with many undiscovered ways waiting to get unfolded by you.

Morning Walk

“When I admire the wonder of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in worship of the creator”  – Mahatma Gandhi.

You do not need to travel to Kerala or Kashmir to enjoy the beauty of nature. People tend to believe that nature’s beauty can be perfectly seen and felt only in these special places and they forget to observe the beauty of nature around them. And sadly I was one of them.

Recently I happened to go for a morning walk in the park opposite to my apartment. I realised many people go for a morning walk in the same park everyday at the same time. I wondered how they could do that for years without getting bored? I found my answers eventually. The next day, again, I went for a morning walk and noticed that majority of the people there, were old but they could walk faster than me. The thought of it made me eager to know how it works. I could feel the difference in me by each passing day. 30 minutes everyday, I started spending  time with myself, feeling the touch of the air around me, the grass under me, the silence around me. The people around me made me forget all the worries in my life. I started connecting myself with this place which I hated for years. This actually works and I am not kidding!

People get busier when the day starts progressing and the only simple way to get stress-free life is by enjoying the first few hours everyday with nature. Many of us try to stay awake the whole night and never get to see the daylight. Night has its own darker silence but experiencing the same silence in the light, is a beauty in itself.

Half an hour walk everyday with music in your ears gives a carefree start to the day. It gives you a positive approach to control your activities by yourself and not let time control your activities.

Gift - A token of Love

Whether it’s a birthday or a normal day, receiving as well as giving gifts is always a delight. In the last few days I happened to gift and receive a gift from my special ones. So I choose to write about the feelings we undergo when we hand over and are on the receiving end of love!

A month spent to design the way to deliver my love

 It was a friend's birthday and I started planning the gift a month in advance. She lives thousands of kilometers away but that did not deter me from wanting to make her day a special one. I sent her a customized gift that she could relate to. Each part of the gift was analysed, examined and changed after consulting many people for their opinion. I also infused the gift with little parts of me hoping that those parts would bring a smile to her face. I crossed my fingers and dispatched it for delivery.

'Gifts are an effort to remind people of the kind of bond we share with them. The happiness we get from hearing the other person's reaction on receiving it makes it worthwhile. Everybody should find time from their busy life to schedule a gift as a token of remembrance.'

When I was on the receiving end of the love

I dedicate this small piece of my writing to my love who
gifted me words that I can flourish forever.

Two days ago while I was still asleep on my bed, a constant ringing of the doorbell woke me up. With an increased temper I decided to blow off the person who disturbed my lazy morning. It was The DTDC courier guy carrying a big envelop from a close friend. At once my anger melted into excitement. I quickly signed and took the packet and hurried off into my room to open it. It was a handmade card and a neat tiny immature handwriting on it which had a cute message. Inside it was a long letter which gave me goosebumps as I read each line of it.

'Even small gifts have an everlasting effect on one’s heart. Lot of time has been spent by the other person to make it more expressive and thoughtful. It is equally important for the person on the receiving end to express their gratitude once they receive it otherwise the whole meaning of the gift would be lost.'

What makes you who you are?

Few people succeed in life while few do not. Life gives same opportunities to all of us. A few see them as opportunities while others do not understand the value behind them. Some people make news even with their most mundane acts while others have to struggle hard before they finally rise to prominence. There is a challenge in everybody's life.

 Most of us think 'Ranbir is a big star because he hails from The Kapoors family'. But would you not agree that even he had to work hard in order to satisfy the expectations of all  in order to become a Rockstar? At the same time we have people like Aishwarya Rai who come from a middle class family but still could become 'The Queen of Bollywood'. These are few examples of differences which exist between people at the beginning but both of them could reach the same point of success with their own individual effort without any backing. Everybody needs encouragement but we should be watchful so as to not let early success dissipate into complacence. Usage of right suggestion at the right time makes you different from others. 

Each one of us is the protagonists of our own life. We need to decide what success means to us. From winning a person's heart to becoming a business tycoon are a few of the success stories that we can choose to pursue. Success does not mean becoming a celebrity to the world but it means becoming a person who can inspire at least some people in the right way. 

Keep inspiring and get inspired!!

Great Happiness in Small Things

A small chocolate brings a great smile on a child's face.One small thing makes their entire day happy. But why does the same chocolate  not bring the same happiness to you once you grow up? It's because we look for bigger things and forget the happiness in smaller things.

Once we start growing up life becomes hectic, more challenging and requires a lot of care while dealing with things . More responsibilities make it even more difficult. A child turns into an adult once he starts losing his purity . All of us feel like being kids again but we leave the thought behind because we think it's impossible. Life gives the same joy and same pressure to everybody but the things differ from person to person according to their mentality.

There are small things in all our lives  which can bring ample amount of happiness but we do not realize them. One good morning message, one flower, one hug, one kiss, one compliment  can make your entire day . People forget the value of these when they concentrate on big things for happiness which is not possible to happen everyday. If owning an i-phone makes you happy then it can make you happy only for a day or a week but when you try to find happiness in small small things then your days will look brighter.

When Life is on the darker side one has to divert his mind from depression and should rather take up a hobby which helps in indulging his mind and forget about the things which make him sad. There are activities which can help people set their mind stronger and can even add lot of happiness in their on going depressing life. Small things like dancing , painting , swimming can just enlighten you  and bring solutions on how to handle things. Hurdles and opportunities are a part of every ones  life. One should start considering hurdles as a small part of  life and should handle them in such a way that it gives them a new opportunity in life without leaving a spot behind.

Life is small then lets search for these small things which can add an everlasting effect on ones heart and make us happy everyday no matter what. 

Promises

'PROMISES' are big things for a few people, who actually write their life based on them and they give up their lives just to keep up these promises. But for some other few people, it is like an everyday lie, they neither trust nor realize its impact on others' lives. Life is about the principles which one sets for themselves, according to which a person's character can be pictured. When things are supposed to happen, they happen - few things leaving a remarkable effect on a person which cannot heal one's heart quickly.

There are few instances where we like a person on the first go and there are instances where we cannot judge a person at all! Most of us find problems in judging people. Life would have been simpler if everybody had the requisite knowledge to judge things easily.

Moments spent once cannot be brought back but the memories remain forever!
Attachment , love , trust , smiles , happiness , sadness - these are a few things which cannot be shared with random people. But, when you start sharing them with somebody it means a lot. If giving and taking were the only things on which the world was based, then all of us would necessarily fall at one point of time or the other. 'Unconditional Things' also exist which very few people are aware of because of which we are standing today. A girl who depended on a guy for everything, is left all alone in the middle of the sea. She is still learning how to swim. "Are you happy being like this?" was a single sentence which changed the entire relationship between a girl and a boy! The girl believed him for what he was and trusted him on everything he told her. She was expressive and pure in her feelings for him. She did not know what was going on in the guy's mind because he never opened up. If distance is all that matters, then it must be impossible for people to hold on to their loved ones!

Everybody should learn how to move on in life. For a few, it takes minutes and for others, it may take their whole life time. Priorities are never constant but attitude is always constant. Tell me who does not have goals or who is not busy with life? When we make people rely on us for something, we should be able to stand up for them. Nobody can hold you liable if you do not honor your words, but, as mentioned already, there is an inner conscience which tells us if what we are doing is right or wrong. Playing around with someone's feelings and trust will never leave you a winner. Finding happiness in others' sorrows, will make you a weaker person.