Of Marriages and Divorces

Yesterday, I was discussing the age old tradition of marriage with my friend. We were comparing the Indian marriages with those of the western world where on an average, the event would be the 5th wedding for the bride and 6th one for the groom. In India, one looks at marriage as a life-long wedlock. Come rain or shine, they are "supposed" to sail through. If not for anything , atleast for their children's sake. So what happens ? Generation after generation people stop living for themselves and SACRIFICE their life's ambitions. Their sole aim is to ensure the well-being of their kids. Of course, I am not attributing the same to every household. But the Indian society by and large lives by this diktat. But contrast this with the westerners. They live their lives by their own terms. They don't sacrifice/compromise their own freedom for the sake of their children's well-being. I don't mean to say that they don't love their progeny. They do care for them, but they don't think that getting a divorce would have an adverse effect on their child. One explanation for this contrasting behavior in both these societies would be the empowerment of the fairer sex. A woman in India depends on her husband for her livelihood. ( Atleast it used to be that way). So the thought of a divorce would send shivers down her spine. Unfortunately, the same fact has been brutally exploited by the male race for centuries.But her western counterpart was well-educated and had the potential to earn her livelihood. Slowly but surely, the Indian woman is breaking the shackles which bound her for ages. And even though my good friend laments that the Indian society is getting westernised going by the increasing number of divorces, I believe that we can a learn a few lessons from the Western society.

Chennai throws a challenge for MS Word!

I had been to Chennai the day before. Ok, dont panic , I can understand Tamil a bit and know the city to such extent that auto-wallahs can't con me. As soon as one lands in Chennai, he is welcomed with a gush of VERY VERY hot breeze. I cant put it in more pleasant terms.In a hour's time, I started realising how beautiful & pleasant, Hyderbad is! Atleast in Hyderabd, you don't find 3D-writings on every wall in the city. Yes, 3D wall writings are something special to Sambharland. Its very difficult to describe them verbally, but I will try. Basically, you have three colours in every letter. The top half is normally RED then you have WHITE or YELLOW which is usually followed by BLACK at the bottom. Even Micrsoft hasn't been able to come up with such a font in their MS-WORD application. Poor chaps, they are not a match to the indigenous ways of Indian populace. Half the walls in Tamilnadu are covered with Amma's portraits while the other half are grabbed by Karunanidhi/Stalin. Our Star "Vijaykanth" who disproved many age old physics laws , is also a strong contender in this wall-mart. I believe that Tamilians are among the most politically-active groups in India. Thought the state has developed a lot, the elections are still fought on caste equations. Brahmins are ignored since they are a meager 1-2% of the population. Almost all the parties have taken the state voters for a ride. But still they get elected year after year.

China goes the Desi way!

Yahoo News reported that Chinese Govt has banned the American cartoon series on its TV Network for fear of collapse of its own cartoon makers.Wow, finally the Chinese seem to have been infected with our Desi Attitude. Ban anything that poses a threat to your own industry. Lets draw an analogy from this. Suppose your child is studying in a class of 40 and gets a rank of 10. The BEST solution to IMPROVE his performance is to ensure that the first 9 rankers don't continue in the school. Sounds foolish? Ask our politicians.Not long ago , India used to have 'leaders' who proclaimed socialism as the panacea to the age old Indian problems. So they banished all imports and closed our economy. So Indians had to consume home made stuff no matter how poorly they were made and how costly they were priced.( You can read the book INDIA UNBOUND by Gurcharan Das for more information and statistics) The govt protected the Indian industries as they became more and more inefficient. A majority of the industries were setup only for the purpose of creation of jobs. This continued for a looong time and fortunately sense prevailed. The govt. finally opened its doors( actually it was forced to, due to a foreign exchange crisis) to foreign goods and services. And the rest is history or shd I say future? But China is way ahead of India in this regards. Instead of banning imports they encouraged exports. The result- the cheapest goods on the planet are made in China. As the Chinese dragon races ahead, the Indian elephant is still in the first gear. At the dawn of Independence day, as an INDIAN I only wish that out nation learns from its mistakes and surges ahead in the road to development.
~Jai Hind

Time to get Philosophical !

The other day , I was reading an interview of Dr. Devi Shetty, the man behind NARAYANA HRUDAYALAYA. He was giving tips on how to reduce heart attack risk. Among the many useful tips he says this "Change your attitude towards life. Do not look for perfection in everything in life." Well this one struck me the most. Just look around you and think for a while. Right from day one, a person is engrossed in the competition called life. Especially, in the Indian society, we have this knack of comparing ourselves with friends( during childhood), fellow-employees(during work) and neighbours( in your colony). But unfortunately there is only one 1st rank in the class and one managerial position for 20-30 employees.Add to it the common phenomenon of " The grass being greener on the other side". The result- stress, stress and more stress. Ya, I know that its very hard to desist oneself from this comparison matrix. But a little bit of effort should go a long way. Afterall life is not a progress report which is marked as PASS or FAIL. Its your life and you should be the one who derives the maximum contentment out of it. Set your own goals and be your own judge. May the power be with you!
~All the best in ur lives :)