My 'Man'ly sins and me! (edited)

I was having the time of my life reading everyone’s sinful confessions, not worried in the least to think of my sins even once. Pinsy tagged me to do this (!) and before everyone claims my sins along with theirs, I’m doing it right away.

IHM has created this interesting tag. It goes like this – The tag is called ‘My Sins against Gender-Stereotypes’. You are to list at least ten things you have ever wanted or done which your gender is not supposed to and tag twelve blogging friends to come out with their sins ;)

1.There seems to be a collective obsession for SUVs amongst girls and I’m no exception! I’ve been in love with Land Cruiser ever since I set my eyes on it few years back. Buying it would imply me robbing a bank or something, so I’m ready to settle for a Tata Safari :)

2.I’m a Mechanical engineer and was the only girl amongst 75 boys in my class. Girls from other branches joked that I blended so well with them that it was impossible to spot me in a group!:P

3.I love speed and have been reprimanded by my parents countless times for it. At times I was threatened with dire consequences if I didn’t keep check on the speedometer. And oh yes, my Kinetic had very loose brakes too :P

4.My beautician always complained that I was her lousiest client. My eyebrows, hands, legs resembled a mini-jungle whenever I went to her. She tried to make me understand the rewards of being well-kept, but finally gave up for good. :/

5.Just let someone say I cannot do something ‘se I’m a girl, and he/she can be sure I’ll prove him/her wrong! There’s a rebel in me who refuses to acknowledge the belief that choices/preferences/opportunities/endurance are gender-dependant.

6.If being a girl means crying at the drop of a hat or being hyper-sensitive and delicate, then I don’t fit the bill for sure. I’ve always been the rugged one, cold and distant. I prefer being on my own and cry in solitude.

7.I swear sometimes when I’m upset, a big no-no for an acche ghar ki ladki. This is too much to comprehend since I’ve never heard A swear in 4 years of our married life. I still remember the incredulous look on his face when he’d heard me swear for the first time. :O

8.For a better part of my childhood I had a boy-cut and loved it. Some people even mistook me for a boy once. Even now, many times I have this sweeping urge to snip my long tresses and get that very comfortable zero maintenance haircut back!:)

9.I do not qualify to be the cover model for the most dutiful bahu! I’ve done things (which I wouldn’t like to confess here) which would give the MIL a heart-attack of sorts if she ever finds out about them. My stance is clear, obeying but non-committal.

10.I love the feeling of love and all that it entails but I can’t stand a lot of mush. I hate reading romantic novels. And more so, I hate sharing personal things with others like most girls do. It seems very tacky to me.

So there…my sins are out in the open. Doesn't feel less of a girl,really!
Need to get back to being a pampering Mom and loving wifey mode anyway ;)

Here are few people who's sins I'd love to know : Garf Rohini   Nu Preeti D Titaxy Analyst Reflections Zephyr G Chatterbox Psych Babbler

And yes, most people I know have been tagged already, so those who haven't done it already consider yourself tagged and drop a comment...would love to read your sins too :D

Another one on Blogging

Nu says she’s a Blogoholic and Pins says she’s addicted. If given a chance we’d all attach many such similar adjectives to our names. Blogging is like that one drug which when administered in our body even once enters our bloodstream in such a way that it makes us crave for it more and more. Right?

We write once and we’ve to write more…we read once and we’ve to read more…we comment on some blog and come back to see ours to check if our gesture has been returned :P…we pick out our favourite ones and follow them…we voice our thoughts and opinions freely…talk about issues bothering us without having to bother about the repercussions…its a virtual world but still so real..

All this is much beyond non-bloggers though. For them such cute little paranoia’s are comparable with temporary insanity and obsessive Blogomania! Don’t agree with me?? I’ll tell you what all I’ve had to endure after being a part of this world.

After returning home from work the first thing A asks me everyday, ‘ So did you write a post today?’ (Hello…what happened to the ‘How was your day’ routine?)

He simply has to see what I’m reading! He reads posts from over my shoulders standing behind me and then says, ‘What’s the big deal behind writing this? So and so happened with so and so, what’s there to write about it?’ (I didn’t call him to read it now, did I?)

I’m commenting on someone’s post. He has to point out atleast once that if its not compulsory why do I have to do it at all. I’ve to think and comment, so why the needless stress on the brain?

This one is funny. I follow a lot of people many of whom don’t follow me back. Nevertheless I visit their blogs and read them regularly. He seems to not like it. He says I must get them to read me! Doesn’t that sound desperate and needy I ask. He doesn’t answer but stands firm on his views :P

If I’m chatting with someone on Gtalk he asks me, ‘So is this person your school friend/college friend/colleague/acquaintance or most likely a blog friend? Don’t you guys talk too much on blogs already?’

Many more such things to add, but you already know what I mean to say right? The concept is completely lost on these people. Smartly judging that such remarks invite only my wrath he’s learnt to hold his tongue on few occasions. Good for him.

Notwithstanding his comments I love to be here and will continue to do so, always :)

Tring Tring....Who's there??

When mobile phones were introduced in the market they were seen more of an improvised and modified version of a cordless phone with certain unseen and unheard of features. From being the ones adhering only to the basic purpose of their conception viz making and receiving calls, an address book for contacts and having an easily operable and usable technology, they’ve surely come a long way.

They now store images, songs and videos and have an ever increasing memory with the help of memory cards. They provide you with cameras, radio and voice recording facility. I can go on and on. But this post is not about the umpteen positive and/or negative effects and after-effects of mobiles. I intend to speak about the time when there was no such concept as a mobile.

The first memory of a telephone I have is that of a heavy black instrument (rotary) we had at our place. It had a dial in front of it, the typical sorts we had back then wherein one had to insert a finger/pen/pencil/spoon in the hollow above the desired number and roll it upto the end point. We kids were warned to be careful with it since the receiver too was not easy for us to handle. I remember the excitement of us kids when it went all trrriiing trrriiing and we ran to answer the phone.

Years went by and the form of the telephone evolved into sophisticated light-weighted sleek models which gave way to press-in buttons and redial, call waiting and address book facility. Not only this, they now give you choices for ringtones too. Answering machines are an added feature. The uses are plenty.

One thing however which has not and will not evolve is the way people talk and answer on phones. Phone etiquette surely has fewer buyers. Even now, at my Mom’s I had to answer to people who were ranging from pathetic to downright rude. Here go some of the conversations:

Tring Tring……. Tring Tring…. Tring Tring…
Me:  Hello
Some Aunty *sounding surprised* (why??): Who is it?
Me: You tell me
Aunty *Very stylishly brazen*: I'm Mrs. XYZ...can I talk to Mrs.ABC (my Mom)?
Me: She can't come to the phone right now. Can I take a message?
Aunty *Uncertainly* : I'm not sure I can tell you. I'll call back.

Aunty hangs up. I’m bewildered. Can’t I take down a message properly or these people are discreet the Osama way??

Tring Tring……. Tring Tring…. Tring Tring…
Me: Hello
Some Aunty : Hello…is this Varsh?
Me *Happily* : Yes Aunty…How are you?
Some more banter on how, when, where about me and her.
Me: Mom’s not at home…is there some message for her?
Aunty: I wanted to invite her at my place for a party. *Accusingly* But you’re at home so probably she won’t come. Just tell her I called.

Aunty hangs up. I’m feeling incredibly insulted. Do I need her permission to come to my place???

And finally….

Tring Tring……. Tring Tring…. Tring Tring… Tring Tring……. Tring Tring…. Tring Tring… (the call gets cut before I can answer it)
Tring Tring……. Tring Tring…. Tring Tring…
Me (running to get to it) *Breathlessly* : Hello
A hoarse voice: Can’t you pick up the phone?
Me: Huh...Who is it?
XYZ: Now you don’t even recognize my voice?
Me *Uncertain* : I’m sorry I’m not getting you, who’s it?
XYZ: I’m the so and so of your so and so who live in Amravati.
Me: What? We don’t have anyone in Amravati…

No points for guessing it was a wrong number and I realized it only after my head had started spinning wildly ‘se of the family tree the man insisted I should consider. Needless to say, this time I hung up!

I know of many people (me included) who prefer mobiles over landlines. They are easy to carry and enable constant contact with anyone at all times. It comes with its baggage though. Its not a rare sight to find people screaming loudly into their phones in public places due to bad network or even going overtly mushy and embarrassing people around them. What more, even wrong numbers on mobiles are common now! Whatever the mode, I’d suggest people conduct themselves well and let others be too.

Happiness per se

Here's one simple question that I'd like to put to my blogger friends. What would make you happier?

1. Your tiny but honest gesture that made someone else happy while you faded from the picture  

2. Something that you did despairingly, but which fetched you recognition and adulation
  

Please do justify your choice :)

The Pain of Perfection

Have you ever come across one of those seemingly perfect people who like to show that they ‘know it all’? You talk about anything under the sun and pat will come the reply, ‘Oh that, ya I’ve seen that long ago’ or ‘Oh you don’t know it, I know it like the back of my hand’ and blah blah blah!!

What makes me wonder is that whether these people are really as smart as they like to pretend or are they are shallow and don’t know a thing of what they say. I mean, it’s not impossible to be well-versed and well-informed, but can one person be a ‘master of all trades’? I doubt that…

I’ve had the misfortune of running into umpteen such people and I insist, talking to or handling such people is tougher than finding water in a desert. These people are surrounded by an impregnable wall of their huge egos and they just won’t take any of your well-meant advice or suggestion. What a pity!

I’m no student of psychology but I do know that every individual has some unique character traits and there can be no argument about their ‘rightness’ or ‘wrongness’. Can we question why mangoes are sweet and lemons are sour? No! They are meant to be that way, how else would the balance of nature be maintained?

There’s a huge difference between them and humans though. You can choose not eating mangoes if you don’t like sweet and ignore the lemon if you don’t like sour. But people cannot be put away like this! Even if a person is nothing but a pain to you, you have to adjust with him, bear him.

Such characters are found everywhere; he can be your colleague who boasts of some lame undeserved and unrewarding expertise to impress your seniors, your relative who’s not achieved anything on his own but was blessed with some ancestral fortune and thinks he’s seen it all, your friend who took tuitions from you until some time back and now advises you on how naïve you are….the list never ends!

My patience wears out sometimes in such cases and to shield myself from the constant bombardment of their unwelcome ‘knowledge’ I have to limitlessly stretch all my tolerance limits. The irritation after it although, refuses to go easily.

What do you do when faced with a similar situation?

How 'fair' is this?

 

I don’t want to write a full length post on this one, since we’ve already done that many times. Sadly, the situation as well as the people responsible for it refuse to change, so yet again we have to witness such ‘sorry’ mass mentality.

My sister-in-law gave us a cutie pie bundle of joy this week, my nephew. All of us were indeed mighty excited about this and decided to go meet the new mom and the kiddo over this weekend. Along with us many of her other relatives had also joined in to celebrate the occasion. Amongst them was a sweet but very naughty girl, around 7-8 years old.

The girl slept well beyond 10 o’clock and took milk only after her mother warned her with dire consequences (whatever they were). I was enjoying this whole exercise, even getting bit nostalgic remembering this scene at our home when I was that age. Suddenly, an elderly lady in the family came out and asked her to go take a shower.  As expected, she refused. The lady got very furious and said: 

नहाएगी नहीं तो काली हो जायेगी...फिर तुझसे शादी कौन करेगा...बैठी रहना घर पे!

I was zapped and didn't know how to react. Worse still, the girl's reaction to this was even more baffling. She seemed hurt, but nonetheless went ahead and took a shower. 

I didn't know what to say and to whom, so I just kept quiet. Good thing we're teaching our daughters. The only intention of our lives is to look 'fair' so we can get married easily, that's all.

Just wanted to get this out of my system.