Evening Out...

Life is a Bargain .... you never get what you want in its entirety...

Perhaps prior to your birth there was an auction held by God of all the good things on earth .... so up for bid was good looks, intelligence, personality, good health, lovely family, spouse, siblings, kids, friends, wealth, property, excellent work etc etc... and God laid down certain rules of which I am certain the following were critical - "thou shall not bid for more than 3 good things" and "Notwithstanding the above, the optimum mixture of the good things that a person will get will be decided by God and His decision is final "....

So if you bid for good looks, personality and wealth - the chances are that God gave you only good looks with no personality (there are exceptions ofcourse) and instead of personality you would probably end up with excellent work (after all you are goodlooking!) and needless to say wealth follows.... or if you bid for intelligence, good health and family, the chances that you got personality instead of good health but your family is there to support you through your bad health..... or you may have been the emotional fool who asked only for family, friends and kids... and you might end up getting wealth, friends and kids..... afterall who can ignore a rich friend and a rich dad/mom?.... or if you wished for family, good health and intelligence you probably ended up with a good spouse, intelligence and good health and a really screwed up family ....

Hmmmm.... Everything in life evens out, dont you think? So next time you have a problem in life you might as well think - this is not a bad bargain - at least I am goodlooking or at least I am wealthy or at least I have a good family or at least I have a good spouse...... Cos that is the truth....

If you think about it - you didnt choose life but life chose you... you were born into this world and then made to live this life...be it the life of a pauper, a prince, a jetsetter, a gorgeous woman, an ambitious woman...whatever life deals out you are forced to tackle... you have no choice but to live this life ... ofcourse you can choose to end it but if you are one of those die hard optimistic people you dont want to exercise that option anyways.....

This post almost feels like a sermon .....

Book a Face

Finally I joined the bandwagon of the "facebook" culture.... I mean it was like a war zone with every e-mail requesting for a friend confirmation or the other... and I would watch people talk about "finding" long lost friends and it stroked my curiousity immensely... and then all it took was a Saturday evening at home for me to finally succumb to its lure ....

The attractiveness of Face Book is that you get to meet long lost friends and can easily get in touch with your friends... I found nearly 10 friends who I had lost touch with .... all good... but I realised that after a point of time there is nothing else to do on face book... other than going and seeing what your friends are upto - who is doing what where and with whom seems to be paramount guiding factor.... and it is also an excellent way of informing your friends about how fantastic your life is... net net Face Book should be rechristened LOOK AT ME - I AM A SUPERSTAR. COM ....

Okkk this is my personal opinion and one that is after two days of surfing.... so please dont murder me yet on this blog - I will give Face Book a chance... and book my face for scrutiny by all my lost lost enemies and friends in cyberspace.... haahahahahahahh

Domestic Help

I know people would think I am crazy for saying this.... I didnt particularly like living in London.... yes yes it was a really lovely city, broad roads, clean streets, lots of history, lots of cold, lots of white people, lots of international students, variety of cuisines etc etc etc.... but for some strange reason I just didnt feel at home..... this was not my home and I was not a fit there ... No dont get me wrong I was not abused or illtreated but for me everything back home made more sense....

I have often been given sympathy by people for having come back to mumbai.... after all I had left the better lifestyle that whites have to come back to the "non exciting regional" life of brown people... Are you crazy?? Some were even mean about it - making snide remarks about how I had come back to the same life and didnt "improve" on it by jumping on to the bandwagon of white people and their brown slaves..... and to be honest - I fell for this tirade... I remember landing in Mumbai and feeling lost and disoriented in the city.... and I remember feeling sad that I had left London.... going to my sisters place lessened the pain a bit but the overwhelming feeling in my mind was WHY DID I COME BACK?

The reasons why I came back were many and too detailed to set out over here.... but if I had indeed stayed back I would have been doing it only to conform to the societal norm of being in London rather than being there because I wanted to stay in London... Now dont get me wrong - I would not have turned down a top law firm to come back but let me put it this way I didnt make much of an effort to stay back.....

Why you ask? Again the primary reason for this was the sense of "not belonging"... I was always going to be an outsider, a brown amongst whites, an Indian immigrant whose mere presence was somehow indicative of the backwardness of my country..... and I would miss all the events in my family ....

But as curious as it sounds the one single thing I missed in my life in London was .. hold your breath.... My loyal Bai!!! Yes the lady who comes to my house, cleans my house, washes my clothes, washes my plates, cooks for me - all for the grand price of about 10 pounds a month!.... I cant survive without my Bai coming to my house everyday.... IT IS ABOSLUTELY CRITICAL FOR MY EXISTENCE .... I am too busy to clean my house everyday so someone who does it for me is akin to a life saver.....

Okkk stop judging me and my life style .... you know it as much as I do that it is not easy to be working and maintaining a clean house ..... and those who can do this - please tell me the steroids you are using...

Speaking of help around the house Baby George has started helping around the house.... one of the persistent problems faced by any Mumbaikar is the curious pigeon who comes into your house... and my sisters house is infested with pigeons ... and everytime one enters the house my sister runs and starts hitting the cupboard trying to scare off the pesky birds.... and her assistant in this is Baby George .... however he has taken his job so seriously that anytime he hears the word "pigeon" he starts hitting the cupboard and gets very angry when there is no pigeon flying out.........

Pigeons better beware!..... One year olds are the latest terrors in town...

Sometimes the world is so crazy.... I have difficulties figuring it out.... the most perplexing questions that keep coming back to me are:

a. Why do bad things happen to reallllly realllyyy nice people?

b. Why do the rich get richer and the poor get poorer?

c. Why are the yummiest things in life fattening?

d. Why do thin people eat anything and not put on weight?

e. Why is there no cure for common cold and flu?

f. Why are we all asked to fear old age?

g. Why do parents have to die?

h. Why do people make sacrifices for their children only to watch them to go away?

There are many things in life that you long for ... and then there are things in life that you realllllllllllllllllllly reallllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllly longgggggggggggggggggg for...... infact the entire mission of your life is getting that one elusive goal.... you adjust your life around with a view to achieve your goal, you make compriomises, you change for that one thing, you sacrifice time with your loved one with the single minded goal to achieve that goal....

But do you find that sometimes when you have worked so hard to get some goal and when you finally achieve that goal the taste of success is not really that sweet?..... you are just relieved that all the sleepless nights are over and you can finally move on to better things in life.....

Changing Times

When I had just come back to India I was most excited about the advertisements - the advertisements were all so different from the ones I had seen and full of life... there was Sangeeta Bijlani (of the Azhar fame) telling me to use only Nirma, Kapil Dev endorsing a shaving cream and sprouting someting in punjabi, Only Vimal ads and ofcourse the famous "Vicco Turmeric, Nahi Cosmetic"... Vicco Industries is on the way to my sisters house and everytime I see the Vicco I find myself singing "Vicco Turmeric, Nahi Cosmetic....

Just yday I saw an advertisement which showed a girl buying her dad a car.... and the dad being so proud of her.... now daughters buying their dads a car is a common occurence in India ( I would think so at least) but this is the first time I have seen an ad actually showing women as being responsible .... women as being capable or actually in need of financial planning... I was very very impressed....

ofcourse needless to say that there are very very regressive ads still prevailing.... the most irritating ones are the ICICI ads which show the sindoor that is put on a woman at her marriage as being the sign of protection.... with catchy lines like "make sure that she is protected after you are no more" .... What in the world!!.... and to think ICICI is dominated by women and they still manage to maintain such a regressive position in the air waves - Kamat, if you are by any chance reading my blog - please walk with the times or at least change your advertisement agency....