Month: April 2012
Have you met these people today?
Well, almost everyone feels stressed at the end of the day. Crazy commutes, Pressure to meet deadlines, Family commitment, – but nothing saps your energy like people, their ability to push your buttons, and ‘politics’. Many a person has quit their job because they could not handle the politics, or because someone else’s psyche was far stronger than their own. Or stayed quiet at school or at home – because you just did not want to get into an argument with them. I’ve met a few annoying types – tell me if you’ve met them too!
1. The Do-gooder (DG) : Do not take this term at face value for the do-gooder is not the person who does good things for people. In fact this person has done everything much better than you have! Excerpts from a dialogue between DG and Me:
Me : Sniff! Sniff! I seem to have caught a cold.
DG:You have a cold? Make way, I think I have pneumonia.
Me: I guess its an allergy.. It will go away soon
DG: A wonderful immune system has been genetically handed down by my extremely healthy parents – I will get over my pneumonia faster than you get over your cold.
Me: Okayyy…That’s great! I guess I’m sensitive to pollution – Aaachooo! Must be the dust…
DG: Oh yeah! I’m extremely sensitive too. I have to be extremely careful when I step outside. (what happened to the genes,huh?) My dermatologist says I should not get too much sun, because of my sensitive skin. But I do not get a tan, I just become pink…blah,blah,blah…
Me: @#$%%! …Phew!
The DG is aggressive and annoying, friendly yet competitive and is humble as long as you let them take top-spot. Push them to spot 2 – and…well, why don’t you try it for yourself?
ENERGY DEPLETION – 25 %
2. The No-Helpers (NH) : The no-helpers are not people who do not help you. In fact it is the exact opposite. They are people who do not let you help them. They are people with a gazillion problems, and are NOT (mind you – this is something I’ve learnt out of experience) … NOT looking for a solution. All they want to do is whine, and all they want you to do is make that clucking sound with your tongue and show them some droopy eyes, while at the exact same time – acknowledging their Herculean efforts at battling all of life’s problems.
Excerpts from a dialogue between NH and Me:
NH: Oh! There you are! Did you know my child is flunking Chemistry? And I just do not have the time to help him/her. I am such a bad mother/father.
Me : Oh…do not worry. I’m sure you are a great mom/dad. Just spend a little time over the weekends with your child (Solution 1). I’m sure she will do well.
NH: Over the weekend? Weekend is strictly family time. We try our best to keep it casual and fun! I do not want to be a parent who robs them of their childhood.
Me: Why not stay up longer on a weekday and finish it off (Solution 2) ?
NH: The children need their sleep. And it is so tiring after a day at work. I never get some time for myself!
Me: Why don’t you arrange a tutor for your child? (Solution 3)
NH: Our family does not believe is spoon-feeding the kids. They have to be self-reliant. The right values have to be instilled.
Me: Maybe you should have some kids over and let them study together? (Solution 4)
NH: And clean up after them? No way! Do you think children would ever study anything when they get together?
Me: Why don’t you get off a little early from work twice a week and help your kid? (Solution 5)
NH: With all the projects I’m in charge of? Not easy man…
Me (Having learnt my lesson) : [Clucking sounds with my tongue and drooping myeyes ] – Oh do not worry! You are a great mom/dad. You will figure what is best for your child.
NH: Thank you! You always come up with a solution! Thanks again!
Me: &**^^$@! Phew!
ENERGY DEPLETION – 50%
3. The Rule Follower (RF):
The rule follower is someone who insists on dotting every I and crossing every T, at the worst possible situation for you. Family emergency? The RF insists that you have to fill up every form that you have to, and then will point out that your signatures do not match in the 5 forms you filled out in front of them 5 minutes ago. Accident at office? The RF insists that you send them an e-mail with all the gory details, following which they will ‘forward it to authorities’, ‘follow it up’, ‘will let you know’ and ‘keep you in the loop’! I’m not going to give you a model dialogue for this. I am quite sure we’ve met these ‘smart’ people within whatever minimum time frame we have lived on this planet.
ENERGY DEPLETION – 75 %
4. The Silent Instigator (SI):
The silent instigator is one who keeps making digs at your progress, your dressing , your performance and your problems. They always get away with their statements because they never ‘mentioned’ you! The SI usually gets a load of their chest thanks to their snide remarks, and usually have their band of ‘Silent Suporters (The SS)’ who laugh and jeer at the remarks, and at all the right places. A creative dialogue to explain my point.
Situation for Harried Me: Reached office late, fight with the elders at home, nagging spouse, non-compliant children, dysfunctional wardrobe, and awful commute. Sounds familiar? This might well be you!
HM: Hey, can you grab me a glass of water?
SI : Some people walk in late and start bossing people around.
SS: [All smiling] 🙂 :):)
HM to another colleague: Could you cover for me this Wednesday? I might have to take my sister-in-law to the hospital?
SI: Walked in late and planning a day off already? Tsk.. tsk . Maybe people should work before they start going on a vacation.
SS: [All smiling] 🙂 :):)
HM : Hey! Would you mind? I’m having a difficult day here!
SI: Did I even talk to you ?I was just minding my own business. Wasn’t I?
SS: Yea.. yes.. you were just doing your own thing!
HM: @$@@^! Aaargh!
ENERGY DEPLETION – 100% (Beep..beep..beep)
There are many more – the Road Rager (RR), The Back-Biter (BB), The Erratic Reactors (ER),The Sycophant Sucker (Ss), Wannabe Loser (WL), and Egomaniaco Inseguro (EI). They are – and I quote a term used by a fellow blogger – ‘Energy Vampires’. Dementors. They suck out the energy and happiness from you constantly. We need to figure out our own Patronus (for the HP followers here) to battle them relentlessly. And it may be in the form of a WorthWhiler (WW) – An expectant child, a committed cause, a dependent grandparent, genuine pet, or just some Inner Peace!
Find your own Patronus and do it soon!
Parents and Children, Life and Death – III
I keep hoping I never find events to give me material for a sequel, but yet it happens…
1. Baby Afreen – Everyone has been talking about battered baby Afreen, whose only fault was that she was born a ‘girl’ – something that was the fault of her chauvinistic father (scientifically/ chromosomo-logically speaking). While her teenaged mother (19 yearsof age) has to undergo the trauma of getting over the incident – I wonder why her parents agreed to marry her to a much older alcoholic, abusive and drug addict husband. Moreover – why did they not bring her back after her abortion? You see, baby Afreen was a twin baby who survived the term of pregnancy only to lose her life 3 months later.
What possesses a man to abuse his own child, put out cigarette stubs on her head and dislocate her neck, poison and smother the child? I am filled with disgust at this person.
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/afreen-death-reveals-ugly-face-of-urban-india/247874-3.html
2. Girls let off for killing father – While the first bit of the post dealt with father killing daughter. The second half of the post is about daughters killing their father, who sexually molested them for a long period of time. Finally the girls killed their dad in the presence of their mother (who probably thought it was best for her children) as an act of self defense. The three women did surrender to the law but have been let off under self-defense, even though termed a homicide.
http://expressbuzz.com/topnews/girls-booked-for-killing-molester-dad-let-off/381391.html
I feel sad that the place we call home is no longer safe, the people we hope will protect us from external dangers, are people we have to defend ourselves against, and that gender discrimination still continues to exist. We need to grow up – not intellectually alone, but emotionally and spiritually as well.
World beauties turn desperate housewives ?
I could not help noticing the similarities here. Uncanny coincidence? Or just a tad too much cosmetic surgery? 😉 I leave it to you to decide…
1. Aishwarya Rai & Marcia Cross
2. Sushmita Sen and Teri Hatcher
And to wind up – another Observation of mine…
and ….
Since both were neither world beauties nor desperate housewives -I am going to save that for another post. Ciao! 🙂
Joys of the Earthquake – from India…
A short post after the huge event of the day. The huge earthquake at Aceh, Indonesia – made its presence felt all over the world. While the press and media will have some fodder to feed upon for the next week – I shudder to think of the physical, mental and emotional trauma that the affected people are going through at this time. My prayers and genuine thoughts for people whose lives have turned upside down in an instant. May their lives and mental strength bounce back to normal soon.
That being said – the choice of my title might be rather surprising for many, or even cynical. I am neither advocating it to be a welcome change of scenario from our otherwise monotonous existence nor feigning superficial courage over an event that some term as ‘exciting’, unmindful of the actual destruction caused.
The tremors were felt in Madras at 2.14 pm. What the earthquake warning taught me were some lessons. As I heard many people with their versions of the experience it was quite obvious that the earthquake set things in perspective for many people. When the tremors were first felt – most people encountered :
Self -doubt – They thought they felt giddy, some thought their blood pressure had dropped, some attributed it to low blood sugar levels, some thought their lunch had gone bad, some spoke about bad eyesight as their computer monitors were going crazy, and some thought that another person was pushing them around.
Priority check – Despite everyone running after money, fame, work, politics, gossip – when faced with an event that nature throws at you a.k.a Earthquake / Tsunami, one aspect took precedence over all others – LIFE! People were frantic to save their own lives and check on the status of their loved ones too (which was a little difficult – thanks to congestion and mobile connectivity issues.) People wanted to flee to get to the safety of their families – Work, office, career all took a backseat as each person wanted to safeguard their children, parents, grandparents, pets. The usually uncrowded streets ( between 4-6 pm) , were choked with bumper to bumper traffic with each person trying to outdo the other in their efforts to reach home.
People over materials – Another refreshing point that the tremors uncovered was the lack of importance one gave for their expensive material possessions when actually confronted with a serious issue. When asked to evacuate immediately – most people ran to get out first, leaving behind wallets, expensive cell phones, and other valuable items. Money and material possessions – were actually forgotten for awhile. An instant bond was created as strangers were willing to share phones – so that one may cross check on the safety of family and friends, with others volunteering to post messages on Facebook / Twitter, and some willing to lend some emergency funds to get to a child’s school and pick them up.
These were the joys that the earthquake brought to me. That there is still hope. That there still is a friendly neighbour or colleague. That there is someone who would lend us a helping hand. How good it is to trust. To feel one with the society. And not having to play the self-defense game forever.It is heartening to note that some small joys are still not forgotten and that people still have not yet fully been sucked into the vortex of greed and apathy. I only wish it did not have to be an event of such magnitude to force us face our choices. Here’s to a new life and new thoughts…
Junk food for Junior?
Baby Hippo : Hey mom, what is that? Look at it – I’m sure it tastes good. Maybe we will become light and fast if we drink it. They did talk about it on the underwater TV.
Mom Hippo : Let me smell it first. I do not want you going near it, until I tell you its safe. Move over! And who is letting you watch underwater TV?
(Sniffs long and hard)
Mom :We have ivory canine teeth, we can outrun humans, hold our breath underwater for about 6 minutes, eat about 70 kgs of grass a day, we have eyes on top of our head -and all we have to do is relax and keep ourselves cool the whole day. So tell me Jr. , why do you need this bottle to make you ‘lighter and faster’ ?
Jr : I heard the kids call us pigs mom. It hurts. I want to be lighter, faster and more stylish!
Mom : Jr, the ancient Egyptian civilization revered us. We were the gods of fertility. So you do not need this orange bottle to make you feel better!
Jr: Really? Not even a tiny bit?
Mom : See what it has done to the human kids. They drink these toxic drinks and just become stupid. How could an intelligent person call us pigs? We are actually called “Riverhorses”
Jr : Really? Then cool…
Mom: (thinks to herself) Damn the tourists!&*@$^
Death of a good Friendship
I consciously am avoiding the word relationship in this post. I use friendship here as a blanket term for any good relationship – parents and children, colleagues at work, siblings, cousins, neighbours, granparents and grandchildren, pets and people.
Over a period of time, I have watched and observed a lot of such friendships wither away. Parents and children have nothing to say to each other, friends from school do not feel comfortable with each other, cousins and siblings have grown apart, and grandparents face a generation gap. But the base line is – everyone reminisces about those past times, when things were good, and your heart did not feel so heavy with uncomfortable baggage. So what happened in between?
1. Growing apart – The most common excuse a person will give is – “we have grown apart”. Life is just too busy and with the family and the job – there is just no time to keep in touch. This might be true in many cases (I agree) with people you categorize as acquaintances, colleagues, or those who did not really strike that vibe with you. But it cannot happen, to people you have considered friends, spent time listening to their feelings (happy or sad) and maybe sharing some of yours. Keeping in touch? That’s the next point we will be talking about.
2. Keeping in touch – Well, the truth is ‘keeping in touch’ has become simpler than ever before. With Facebook, Skype, the infinite messenger apps that are compatible on both your laptop and phone, Whatsapp, e-mail, and e-mail alerts on the go – are you kidding me? How can keeping in touch be a problem? You do not have to write letters that showcase your bad handwriting, and reflect your crooked trails of thought – or wait at the mercy of the postal department to bring you some of that human touch?
Ever observed that of your 1097 listed under friends on Facebook – you actually communicate with about 12? Or with the 780 contacts on your mobile memory – you send about 200 messages to about 3 people in a week and about the same number being distributed among the other contacts in a year (at least birthday wishes to some). Well, that’s because that is what they have become – contacts. So when did they shift from being ‘Friends’ to becoming a ‘contact’ – people you rely on for help, to call in a favour?
Well – for a friend to become ‘just a contact’ something has to have happened. Why do we stop becoming comfortable with our own children, cousins? People who shared important phases of our lives. Why do we sub-consciously shut them out?
Because we have silently over looked the fact that something has happened. Did you support your wife over your father on an issue? Did your cousin make a dig at your parenting skills through your daughter? Do you feel your best friend is subtly trying to oust you at whatever you do? Did your son tell you to mind your own business? ‘Small things ‘ like the above, that puncture your ego are the trigger points that change the equation.
The Ego is hurt, and shields the Self from bouncing back to normal. Next time you see your cousin – you do not communicate half as well as you used to – thanks to the dig she made at you last time. Sensing your change, your cousin also builds up her wall of defense taking you to point 1 (Growing apart) and subsequently to point 2 (Not keeping in touch). And the vicious circle continues…
Fear.These petty incidents stem from fear and tend to snowball into friendship-threatening scenarios, which can be avoided with a bit of detachment. Do not take anything or anyone to heart. You are your own best friend – do not give others the power to affect you emotionally. Instead reach out to them. Snide remark from a gal pal, ignore the comment, give it some space and go for a neutral outing. Nagging but adorable grandmother? Repel the aspect in her behaviour that irritates you and change the topic to a neutral zone. It helps to safeguard such friendships, that are actually useful, secure zones. They are wonderful if they do last, rather than give in to a momentary impulse of insanity and rue about it later.
Think about it – it would be good to have a big brother who temporarily could make you feel like a kid sister and protect you. It would be great to lean on your grandmother for some home-remedies for acne scars. And wouldn’t it be great to have a colleague to whom you could actually share your thoughts about your boss’ lack of finesse in handling a problem? Or your friend who steps in to take care of your kid so that you could have some space for yourself? These friendships have to be nurtured.
Nurse your friendship back to health, Death is too strong a penalty to pay. Push aside your fragile ego, put on a smile and reach out a bit. If the other person does not want to take it – then its just too bad. You may have to watch yourselves grow apart – hopefully with less regrets though.
P.S. The above post was meant for friendships that wither away due to petty reasons. Serious cases like infidelity, betrayal, and serious insecurity issues obviously have to be dealt with in a whole other fashion!
Una vida sin hombres!
Una vida sin hombres
Debe tener un fresco nombre
Una vida sin restricciones
Solas las celebraciones
Con Libertad
Y tantas differentes actividades
Una vida sin hermano
Pienso que sera una vida más humano
Libre como un pájaro
Mi niñez el mismo habría sido más claro
La vida sin amante
Será una idea briliante
No más disputes militants
Con esta persona dominante
Un vida sin marido
Después la ceremonia ¿ es él un conocido?
No más barreras
Podemos seguir libremente nuestras carreras
Pero stop! Yo me digo
¿Una vida sin hombres?
!Es sin un entero pronombre!
¿Una vida sin padre?
¿Una vida sin compadre?
¿Una vida sin hermano?
! Y mi niñez habría sido un poco secano!
¿Una vida sin amigo?
! No puede decir “ me importe un higo” !
¿Una vida sin amante?
! Será verdaderamente agonizante!
¿Una vida sin esposo?
!Es nada de estar orgulloso!
¿Qué pienso yo?
¿ Es possible tal vida?
¿Vivir como una huida?
Debemos aprender a coexistir
! O felizidad nos irá eludir!
P.s Perdóneme por errores gramaticales !
