I have a right to Choose.....

I have traveled thousands of miles in this life, and met scores of couple of supposed-to-be-happily-bliss-couples, but I still have to meet a perfect couple. The type of emotional support that a person needs changes from one stage of life to another. The type of emotional support that her family provides may not be what she really needs after certain age. True! But as she grows older, she learns to discover and know herself. If she is single, she has already learnt to control her emotions and she knows that she, herself is responsible for her own happiness and there is no body else on whom she should depend. She builds a wall around her, and learns to protect herself against all the bullies. She becomes stronger as she grows older. A married women lives all her life with expectations of being recognized and appreciated by her spouse, children, extended families, eventually losing her own identity, in trying to please others, when she is older, she realizes that all her life she has only lived for others, compromising, tolerating and the cycle goes on and on, the emotional support that she was expecting from others may not be there. Life is just give and take and emotional support always will come from anybody whom you care, they may or may not be your own family. Loneliness is a temporary phase that everybody goes through, married or not. It is phase of boredom. This can be easily replaced by different interests. The conjugal bonhomie between couples may remind her of what she is missing, but when she sees those heated arguments, that sloppiness in men, his vices, his drinking habits, womanizing, his long hours in front of TV (or computer), during the week-ends while the wife helplessly awaits for an outing, it is during those spells of unhappy couple, that she starts blessing her stars. Single woman may become conscious about her single status when she comes across a very happy family of husband, wife, and child/children. This may leave her totally demoralized but only temporarily. And when a married woman, sees her single friend, carefree and liberated, being able to support her-self and live with dignity, while she is chained to life-long-imprisonment of ungrateful and selfish family, it can leave married woman totally demoralized, which her own family may not even know. Absence of commitments (marriage is one great commitment) may make single woman reckless and intemperate during the age, when she is young and wants to explore everything independently but a mature, single woman is not reckless, she knows her responsibility and is in charge of her life. She has been free to do what she likes and she does that with responsibility knowing that she has only her self to please. Married woman has obstructions and rules to follow, (don’t do this, don’t go there, don’t talk to this one, must call him, what will people say, think of family prestige, etc) so she is always craving for independence and she is the one, who destroys her self-esteem in the long run. The sense of security that a marriage brings is priceless to those who have no faith in themselves to make their own life secure. A majority in the society always look down upon single women because they are jealous of her bravery. Societies have their own imaginations and they feel every single woman is unhappy, easy catch, unworthy and an object of pity. High time they realized that woman, sometimes chooses to be single and will be ready for commitment, only if she finda a worthy man. She will not clutter her space with society-must-haves. Her single status may make some men think that she is easily available. Warding off these roving eyes would be a tough task for that woman, who is weak and has not yet mastered the martial art. A man complements a woman and vice versa if there is understandings on both the sides and willingness to respect each other. There is lot more to the life, than a marriage. I think, woman can stay married, but only if she has some space to stretch her emotions and desires, if she has no danger of being stripped off her identity, if she has a companion, who is under-standing, caring and loving. He is the one, who will be tolerated in her old age.

Women don’t gloat, men don’t take offence

Circumstances play a very important role in our life. Being happy, single or married, is our choice. A married woman may be happy but distressed if she is not free to expand her interests due to her priorities towards her families. An unmarried woman can be happy but sometimes lonely if she does not have many interests. Society pressure is there for women to get married and settle down, because she is more capable of shaping a secure home. If she is talented and also earning, then the pressure is more, because men are the weaker sex and they need a talented wife to steer their life. Society has always pampered men, and here too, woman is pressured to get married so that men can have a secure life. Indian society is not used to seeing men cook or sweep at home. The world is changing, true, many men are helping their wife, change the nappies, but those men live in nuclear families. Men in joint families are still pampered. So woman is expected to marry so as to release her mother-in-law off her duties towards her son. What are the advantages to a woman who gets married? She gets a companion, who can accompany her for late night shows, act as a buffer in this bully world, and support her financially if she is not earning herself. She can enjoy these pleasures if she is blessed with husband who is caring, not having any vices and supportive. But alas! Like all normal human beings, we cannot be blessed in all things. Second choice is the endurance. If the woman has the tolerance of overlooking few drawbacks, then she can hang on. If she has enough faith in herself, then she can walk out of the painful marriage. What is life for single woman? It is accepted in today’s world if the woman is financially independent. People envy the strong and independent woman and only the jealous ones will pressurize single woman to fall into a trap. People who are conservative are the ones who cannot accept the changing society. An independent, strong woman is capable of showing the world that getting marriage is her choice and she will take it herself when the time is ripe and nobody else should worry about that.

Walks by the beach? Ugh!

My friend Rhea is fed up of going to jogger’s park everyday. She say, oh same track! Same trees (how do I plant new trees everyday for her?). So boring! So boring? Taking walk in Jogger’s park seems boring to her. She fails to see the beautiful, blooming flowers on the hedges or the soft sea-side breeze that caresses our cheeks. She is bored of same walks and need new scenery every day. “Okay! Where do you want to go?” I ask her. ‘Let’s go to Juhu beach for a change.” She says So we decide to go to Juhu beach for a change in scenery and environment and a different variety of walks! Am I glad I went for a walk to Juhu Beach? Certainly not! Not a good idea at all! Going to a beach, walking on soft sand and enjoying the sea-breeze as the waves flap and roars, is the luxury enjoyed in only western world. The waters in western world are dark blue and are in sharp contrast of light blue sky that can be seen at the horizon where the sky seem to touch the waters. At Juhu beach, the sky is light blue, the waves flap and roar too but the water is grey, yes grey and the sea-breeze stinks! As we trudged by the shores, we had to dodge the dirty-black-end-wave and walk carefully as the whole beach was covered by loosely scattered carpet of soaked-plastic bags, empty bottles, rags, decayed-flowers, etc. I think this dirt and mess does not upset anybody, because children, and adults, happily bathed in these dirty waters, splashing water on each other, playfully and jumping and diving between the waves. There are children playing cricket, happy family and friends soak in dry sand, couples (old and new) refresh their daily news and the hawkers move around, between the crowd selling their unhygenic snacks. The weather is sweltering, even the water is warm and there is too much crowd at the beach. I still prefer my Jogger’s park.

Light low-diet dinner, Indeed!

Today, my friend calls me to join her for evening walk to Jogger’s park. I have already had my dose of walking in the afternoon sun to finish some string of odd errands and I am in no mood to go out, once more, for an extra round of evening walks (I know, my paunch is showing and the walks might help) but I was in no mood to walk. But my friend has brighter ideas, if I am in no mood for walks, could I join her for a diet food of only soup and sandwiches at ‘Just Round the Corner’. Well I am in no mood to cook either, so having just soup and sandwiches is a good idea and I decided to meet her for dinner after her walks. ‘Just Round the Corner’ is the name of restaurant near my house in Bandra. (Yep, once, I had invited my cousins to this restaurant and they kept stopping at every street-corner, thinking that we had arrived at a restaurant, I had told them ‘Lets go to the restaurant just round the corner’). Well, this is the restaurant where you can chill for hours and the management has no issues about you whiling away your time, warming their chairs for endless hours. You can order cups after cups of coffee, or chat for hours over just one cup of coffee. I arrived at the restaurant, after my friend had finished her doze of evening walks and was comfortably stretching her knees at the corner table. (She had called me several times on my route, but there was too much traffic at Linking road, and walking through the crowded traffic is a nightmare) The ambience at the restaurant is very warm, with lots of diet-conscious-youngsters. There are self-service counters, where you take a tray, and self-serve whatever you wish. There are only two pots of soup, veg-asparagus and non-veg chicken hot and sour. Then there is the display of variety of salads, pastas, sauces and dips. You make the combination of your choice and fill your plate of one helping only at the cost of Rs100. (The girl on my right is starving, she fills her plate to a brim, with strands of noodles swinging from the edge of her plate.) Then there is a counter for sandwiches with a display of the variety of fillings that includes beside veggies, a variety of cold meats, and barbequed chicken or spicy fish. You choose the filling and the kind of bread (white or brown), and the chef toasts it for you at the cost of Rs80 per sandwich. the girl on my left makes it very clear that she want no butter, nothing oily, she is dieting, she announces loudly for everyone to hear.Then there is variety of fresh juices that include sweet lime, water-melon, etc. priced at Rs40. I wait for the chef to toast my sandwich, and see that there is also a courtyard outside the restaurants that serves Pizzas on left side and variety of hamburgers on the left side of the restaurant(in the courtyard). There is cobbled-web path and plastic tables and chairs in the courtyard where youngsters enjoys the long smoke-rings as they slowly bite on to their slice of pizza or chomp down on their hamburgers. I self-serve an asparagus soup, a sandwich with the filling of ham, bacon, salad leaves and tomatoes and then gulp down with fresh watermelon juice. At Rs140 for this (too) healthy a meal, I can hardly walk back home. My paunch increases by one centimeter with this healthy meal!.

Swami can move you……!

Although I was late for the show(maybe half an hour or so), I still enjoyed the movie. Ganesh Acharya's debut film, Swami, is a movie of emotion, of love, of caring for the family and respecting the wishes of the families. It is a story of a couple who live a happy life in a remote village, but who have to migrate to a city for the future of their child. (because they don’t have proper schools in the villages) It is the story of the child, who loves his family and grows up to take the responsibility of his father, it is about a husband, who has only one desire to live, that he has to fulfill his promise (of sending his son to America) to his dying wife. The dilemma and the high point of the film is when they are at the cross-road of going to America, the protagonist has to fulfill his mother wishes but has to leave his father all alone in the old-age home. Child actor Siddharth’s acting is worth watching. His expressions and his bond with his mom, played by Juhi Chawla, are parallel to real world and portrayed very well, I was amused by his sweet lisping language and his innocent conversations. Manoj Bajpal is very clear about his role in film industry. He gave his best performance. I was specially moved by the scene in which he breaks his earthen pots (of saving) to count the change, when he needs money for his wife’s treatment. Alas! The movie had no bad people, it was sugary throughout. I was expecting daughter-in-law to show some temper tantrums, or a bad boss, or a bad neighborhood. But Swami lived in a beautiful world which revolved around his wife. His wife's aspirations become his mission in life. BTW, Why do dying people in the films ask their family for a promise that haunts them throughout their life?