#BarAThon Day 3: The Fragile Life Of A Woman

No matter how big our dreams are we all end up living fragile lives! (photo credit)

She smiled coyly as a new bride. He stole a shy look at her and promised he will always look after her. She bid adieu to her parents and was taken to his. She got the ceremonial welcome. She stepped into her new house as a symbol of prosperity. She proudly took that step into her new house - "our house", she thought.

She was taught how her husband's house was her real house and her in-laws, her new parents. She should take care of them the way she would for her own kin. She was the daughter-in-law of the house and had grand dreams of how her new home was going to be. Soon after she set foot into her new house, she set about making everyone happy, putting her needs after everyone else's. She made plans of how she'd run the household, take care of her husband and everyone else in the house. She would be the darling of the house and respected for the values she brought into the new household with her.

But she soon realised how different reality was from the world she had woven in her mind. To take care of everyone was assumed to be her job. She was clearly told that she had no right to run the house the way she wanted. She just had to follow the rules and do things the way they were always done. She was assigned a room where she saw the man she loved at night. He did not want to meddle in the domestic affairs and asked her to be patient. His parents, he said, were important and so was their happiness. She should try and keep them happy.

It is then that she realised the fragile lives that women live after marriage - and also the kind of fragile lives they would be leading as a couple. With her dreams shattered and her respect taken away from her, she knew her life will never be as she had dreamt it would be. There would never be her household. She was just an outsider who would have follow their way of living and have nothing to call her own - not even her marriage.

This is Day 3 of #BarAThon and the theme for today's post is fragile lives.

#BarAThon Day 2: What You Don't Know About Their Challenges

There is something about neat homes that draws me to them (Photo credit)

I have been a guest in two different homes in two different cities last month. While I envied the super size of one house, the apple pie order of the other made me jealous. The big one was so big that you could work out running back and forth answering the door bell. Numerous wardrobes lined up to hold clothes, a separate room for kids' toys, a huge drawing room. And extra room called the study!! My Mumbai flat truly is a match box in comparison. A huge house with so much space is like a dream since I moved to Mumbai.  

And the other house had me swooning over the orderly fashion in which it was maintained. Every time I visit, the guest bedroom - not used much otherwise- has a neatly made bed by the man of the house. I find towels - hand to bath, in different sizes on the bed with a new bar of soap. The books on a shelf in my room are neatly aligned one on top of the other with not a speck of dust on them.  I open a kitchen closet for a glass and almost fainted! Every thing on every shelf was so neatly lined up as if it had never been touched. 

My mind quickly went back to the war zone my room looks like very night. And how miserably I fail to restore order despite the de-cluttering sprees I go into. This was like living in a dream. And it’s always been like this every time I have visited - and think, this is the kind of neat house I was (always wanted!) As I go green with envy, my thoughts run away on their own guilt trip - why can’t we be this neat! I have tried so much to clear clutter and have things neatly arranged around me but it just doesn’t happen. And soon I move from self-bashing to spouse-bashing - he just doesn’t bother to put things in their place and it is impossible without everyone being on board about it. And if only we had more space for our piling stuff, it would be much neater. 

As I step put of my room with these thoughts swirling in my mind, I find tea for everyone on the dining table on a coaster (coaster! Isn't that only for the guests!) As I sit down to sip my tea, I see the hostess meticulously wiping every plate and spoon which was washed earlier and laid out to dry in a plastic basket. I am astonished and ask her why she was wiping every vessel. And her answer - wet vessels can't be put back in the cupboards. They should be dried first. And what blew my mind was the fact that it was a rule of the man of the house. He had lived on his own for years before he brought a wife home and was used to this routine - and apple pie order in the house. And now the woman of the house just had to follow it!

I could already see my envious green shade fading. I kinda began to get a peek into what goes into keeping the house spic and span. An everyday effort to arrange things into neatness. And when I looked back at my life, I can't even think of a time my spouse bothered about what happened to the plate he finished his meal in - let alone setting a process for dealing with it! And wasting my time on something as inane as wiping vessels dry is unimaginable! Now, it might work for some people, but I think I am too pampered to have these rules imposed on me. 

And staying in the big house, I found the hostess complaining of how she hasn't found the time to clear out and organize her wardrobe for over a year now! Arranging the kids’ room is as much time as she can find in her busy schedule. Over the few days that I was there, I found that the more the space, there more there is available to clutter. I know I have a problem with lack of space in Mumbai homes, but beyond a point, we take space for granted and don't bother about piling clutter. Gradually, it just becomes unmanageable.

So while I noticed the seemingly good parts in their lives that were missing in mine, I forgot to account for the more awesome things in my life. People see the shiny exterior of others' shoes but what you don't know is the blisters they have within. I'd love a big and neat house with fancy wardrobes, expensive curtains and different rooms for every purpose. But with all that also comes with the responsibility of maintaining it. What I failed to notice was the blessing of being able to clutter around and not have to put things back in their place then and there. (Which I have always known is the secret to a forever neat and clean house!). Instead of letting things just accumulate, living in a small house has taught me the importance of 'use or donate' style of living. 

In short, there is nothing called a perfect life. I have heard people living in the best localities and flats also complain about the hefty maintenance they have to pay to be able to live there. I may look at fancy, large homes and neatly lined up books and envy them, what we don't know is the challenge that each situation brings in. It may seem like an utopia you'd like for yourself but what you don't know is the reality behind living there everyday. 

This post is a part of a 7 day blogging challenge by BAR where I'll be writing on a new prompt everyday. The prompt for today was - What you don't know. 

#BarAThon Day 1: Life Is Stranger Than Fiction

From taking up the blogging challenge in November last year, I know that sometimes it takes a challenge to kick us into action. I've had a bad day and there's less than an hour left for the Day 1 deadline of this challenge to be over. But somehow here I am hacking away at the keyboard because I just want to be a part of a challenge. A quick research just now revealed that most people participating in the marathon have already finished their posts and shared them. But there's still time and here I am!

This post will reveal itself as I write it since I have no plan for this post and I think spontaneous ideas work the best at times. Despite being tired, the very act of typing on the keyboard feels soothing. This is strange in itself because we all have gone through the sinking feeling of an empty page staring back at us and our fingers don't know what to type. Stranger than fiction - a phrase that has immense possibilities. Fiction has the power to be anything. Dinosaurs can be purple and 11 year olds can be wizards. Then what can be stranger than fiction? What can be so unpredictable that it can beat the myriad hues fiction can be written in? It is supposed to be 'truth' but to me it's real life.

While we confuse a lot of fiction as truth, life trumps all. A few things that come to my mind are things that I have encountered often in my life. It's as if people expect some piece of fiction to be the truth of everyone's life. One such thing is the concept of "living happily ever after" or a "perfect couple". To me, both these are figments of someone's imagination that popular culture ran away with. Working on relationships or life goals is an ongoing process, one that is full of ups and downs and involves sweat and blood. And though the fiction that everything has a happy ending sounds so inspiring, the strange truth is it won't. And I think that's what keeps the challenge going. Imagine meeting the love of your life and that's the end of your purpose in life. Or being with someone who is exactly like you. Striving to reach new goals and accommodating someone imperfect in your life is what keeps the spice up in life.

I have a couple more but I am asked to keep the posts short. I hope this made some sense to you all. Looking forward to your responses and encouragement to keep this going.

This post is a part of a 7 day blogging challenge by BAR where I will be writing on a new prompt every day.

Thank You, Michelle: Childless People Have No Stake In The Future

I just finished watching the very moving, very passionate and very emotional DNC speech of Michelle Obama - a mother's plea to vote for the right candidate for the sakes of the children of America. I think the speech was poised to make a double impact - a woman AND a mother making the speech. The metaphor of children that runs through her speech appeals to the deepest emotion in us and only the hard hearted can ignore the strong emotions it evoked. 

She learnt well from the exposure to her husband's speeches in the last 8 years and delivered hers with perfection. She put a great speaker's toolbox to the best use with the right intonation, pauses at the right places, powerful adjectives and an end that can galvanise an entire nation to action! 

Although the applause after her speech hasn't yet died down, I think she put the last nail in the coffin for people with no children. I am not even getting into the recent furore about women who have no children. And the collective voices across the world to support Sania Mirza or Jennifer Aniston's decision of not choosing motherhood...yet! While we stand up against bullying Jennifer, we also shame Theresa May, a senior politician with proven track record, for not having children. She too was reminded that she had no stake in the future and hence wasn't capable of running her country. She was forced to speak about a very private and emotional matter of her maternal status. She was compelled to justify why she cannot be defined by, in Jennifer's words, "(her) maternal status"

But Michelle's appeal to parents at large and reference to herself and Hillary as mothers has yet again proven that childless people continue to be excluded. People who aren't contributing to the future of the country and clearly, have no stake in the future. While her image of a bright future for the children is a great rhetorical device, I strongly believe she just added fuel to the whole parenthood debate. That speech is from one mother appealing to vote for another mother. And I refuse to have anything to do with it since I am not a mother - it doesn’t talk to me. She has just reinforced that only being a parent is worth any while and nothing else is as important. 

She seemed to say - actually pretty much said it - that the future belongs to parents who have the divine duty of nurturing the next generation. I feel like the time of childless people on this planet is over. No matter how much the world erupts in support of people’s rights to decide their parenthood status, there will be these reminders to people with no kids by being left out, of not being the majority (apparently) And when something like this goes down the annals of history from the First Lady of the United States of America, we are far, far away from a time where people can be just people. Not 'parents' and 'not parents'. 

I might be over-reacting. But these are some of the thoughts that I strongly feel after watching the speech. And this post is my way of reaching catharsis and making sense of a melee of emotions - indignation, sadness, sense of injustice - that I've been through watching it. You may choose to agree of disagree but I am hoping, you'll respect my right to express what I feel. 

5 Life Lessons I Learnt From Working Out Regularly

Working out regularly changed my attitude towards life in a lot of ways! (Photo credit) 

It all started a couple of years ago when people started pointing out - like they usually are the first ones to - that I had become fat and should do something about it. My gym had shut down a few months ago and I hadn't gone back to working out. And dieting is really not my thing. So I guess I had become fat! *eye roll*. So I walked into this fitness centre - they insist that it's not a gym - on the next street from my house (proximity is always my number one criterion) and got details from them. It didn't seem like a bad place since they claimed to have a mix of workouts like Pilates, Yoga, Kettle bell, cross fit, aerobics etc. Variety and group activity come a close second and third when I choose a work out place. I have endured enough of proper gym with a treadmill kind of boring, monotonous workouts and am never go back to it. 

Once I started working out, I was pleasantly surprised. Astounded, is the right word. My stamina started building and so did my muscles!!! I had never dreamt that would ever happen. One hour of workout is still the best time of my day. And the trainers come up with the most ingenious ways to challenge our fitness levels. A glimpse: 

The black ball here is 6 kilos heavy!

I did not intend to share the story earlier but it just all came tumbling out once I started writing. So coming to the real point - I have not just developed stamina but also learnt a few precious life lessons that have stuck:

1. It’s not easy: Almost nothing in life is. Although a set class time makes it easy for me to set an hour out, it's still not a breeze to make time. I pretty much plan my whole day around it. I leave office/meetings to ensure that I am home 30-45 min before class so that I can rest, change and be there on time. Anything that we want to achieve in life needs meticulous planning. You will see results only when you put in consistent effort. I have been lucky to have great trainers who keep me motivated and drive me towards results. Hence, a great support system matters. Find your own. 

2. Regular efforts will yield results: I am an impulsive person and give up easily. But working out over a period of time - and setting up my own company - has given me the much needed lesson in patience and perseverance. Rome wasn't built in a day. And neither will anything else of substance. Over time, I can see a rise in my fitness levels, boost in my self esteem and I feel great about my body. Anything worth it takes time and a lot of work. Giving up is just an easy escape. 

3. Don't compare yourself to others: This is a philosophy I believe in life too. When I joined my class, there were others with better fitness levels and who worked out 6 days a week. I was stuck working out with minimal weights for months and did it 5 days a week (still do). But I figured that's where I started with my stamina and to compete with people who have already been working out is a futile effort. All of us have our own path to our goals. Each is different for each of us. We need to put our strengths to good use and we will hit the heights that others have eventually. Or maybe push the bar even higher with our efforts.

4. You will fail: Or will you? It all depends on how you look at faltering or taking a break. I have traveled, taken vacations, fallen sick in the last 2 years and all this has taken a toll on my workout routine. Faltering is not bad. Never getting back is. Every time there is an interruption, I just resume like before. Even if it's the 7th of July and it's a Thursday, like it happened this month. We all have times when life takes over and we can't get done all that we planned. Take blogging, for instance. I have been off and on on this blog because my work takes a lot of my time. But I do get back and write sometimes. I haven't given up because of my absence and never will. Just show up - that's the key. 

5. Work in progress is permanent: This is personally a very important lesson for me. My impatient self has always looked for instant gratification. All these months of working out and my shoulders are still not strong enough to do a full push up. So many years of blogging and I still struggle to keep up a routine. And I have become a lot more patient with work in progress as an accepted status for a lot of things in life. Like I mentioned earlier, each of us has different goals and each take his/her own time to get there. Celebrate small victories and keep your eye on the big goals. Enjoy the process.

There's nothing like an intense workout to prove the presence of endorphins - the feel good hormones that kick cortisol - the stress hormone - in the butt. And with the stressful lives that we lead, I am happy to get away from it all and invest an hour a day to take care of myself. And many times, it's hard to work after I'm back from my workout because I am sore and exhausted from it. But endorphins are addictive and I look forward to my dose at the end of each day!

Is there something that you've loved doing over a period of time? Long enough to notice how your world view is shaping because of that? I'd love to hear about it. Do drop in a line about it and let's get the conversation started! :)

Your Mind is Mine: The Ugesh Sarcar Show

Your mind is mine! (Photo credit)

When Blogadda sent me a tweet asking if I wanted to attend the Ugesh Sarcar show, I had no idea what it was. I went online and did a quick search for the name. The results were intriguing. Ugesh Sarcar is a mentalist, psychic and street magician. I think the first two terms are enough to pique anyone’s interest in the show. I am usually curious about new things and I thought this would be something different. In hindsight, I am glad that I agreed to go. I was eligible for couple platinum passes for the show. Since I had no +1 with me, I went on my own. 

The helpful staff of Blogadda helped my find the venue when I was a little unsure. I reached there and found the ticket counter. The line for everyone was the same. When I found people there holding booking codes, I wondered if I had to do the same. But when my turn came, it was all sorted with the seat number and everything. I collected my ticket and went to the waiting area where others were also waiting. There were some interesting things around even when we were waiting. That’s for you to find out when you go to the next Ugesh Sarcar!

I was full of skepticism and wondered how anyone could read someone’s mind. But the show justified the hype. Ugesh Sarcar, the son of renowned magician MC Sarcar, has grown up with magic around him. And when he steps on the stage, it’s like he just walked out of the poster of the show. The mysterious kohl-ed eyes, the black attire and the black hat complete the look. The big difference - this street magician has no rabbits coming out of his hat. The tricks he performed blew our minds. It is a pretty powerful thing to be able to read people’s minds and doing that before a live audience is the mark of a true genius! He found answers to questions people only thought of during the show and guessed numbers that were random. 

Although I am sure there are strong scientific principles behind these ‘tricks', it was a unique experience to witness something like this before our eyes. And it was all the more special for me since it was my first time and I had no expectations. I’d recommend this show to anyone who hasn’t yet been to it. It's hard to do justice to the real thing in blog posts. 

(Disclaimer: This post is not a paid one and the views here are from my own experience of the show)

The Kapil Sharma Show: The Audience Experience

The newly weds arrive in style on The Kapil Sharma Show (Photo credit)

If you are planning to go as an audience on The Kapil Sharma Show, you should be prepared to be stranded on an island you might not get out of any time soon. Well! That's the closest analogy that comes to my mind. I count myself lucky to have gotten out earlier and alive! Or maybe it was a surprise since this was my first time going on a live shoot. And the glitz and glamour we see on screen just turned out to be a dud. Just a painfully orchestrated, unglamorous phenomenon with a lo-hot of people working to get that perfect onscreen image. To clarify right at the start, the shooting itself was fun and I might be seen in a frame or two, but being a live audience is no cake walk! 

When my spouse called me up to say that I could go for the shoot with someone from Amritsar who knew some of the cast during their Amritsar days - the audience is by invitation only - I wasn't really prepared. I mean, literally. I was in the middle of my workout session, hadn't eaten a proper meal and was planning a relaxed saturday at home away from the humid outdoors. Instead I had an hour and a half to shower, get (camera) ready and be at the set location which was an hour away. And the humidity....oh the merciless humidity! Film City is Goregaon is vast and we did some looking around for his set. That was the beginning of a mini ordeal. 

We are supposed to give away all our stuff- bags, phones, purses etc when we land there and get a token. It doesn't matter what time the shoot starts. You surrender stuff right away. And don't get it till the end of the shoot which was rumoured to end at 2 am. (Kapil is known for his odd schedule- shoot starts in the evening and goes till the wee hours of the morning) Some people seemed to have been done this before (voluntarily??) and knew the drill. And then began a 2 hour wait to get into the sets in a make shift space with fans spinning furiously- without much effect- above our heads. There was no knowing when we'd get inside. There were plenty of chairs to sit in. No cafeteria in sight. While waiting, I noticed that most girls/ladies/aunties were dressed in their best with proper make up on and hair neatly done. That's when I realised the big draw for a live audience on his show is - the chance to get on camera! 

After the excruciating wait, we were finally lined up and sent up. To call the line that went all the way up to the first floor set serpentine would be a euphemism. And by then we were all antsy to get into a cool place where we could get away from the heat. The good thing about arriving early (people walked in even at 4 and 5 and were seated since they did not want to turn anyone back) was we got seated on the second row where we could watch things up close. And this is my favourite part.

There are these tons of people involved in getting a show on air. And evidently, Kapil's days of hard work are behind him. He just had to show up knowing his script and delivering it off the teleprompter. There was the content team to find people in the audience with answers to questions related to the theme of the episode. People to control the stage and ensure it's shoot-ready when the camera rolls. People responsible for the seating of the audience - and they kept moving people around depending on the segment being shot. Decorators, electricians - even people who came in and filled tons of water in the decorative urns you see at the edge of the stage with rose petals in them. 

So, our job started with audience auditions! Everyone in the audience had to dance so they could pick the energetic ones for some actual segment of impressing Bipasha. (who, by the way was the guest on the show with her new husband). Then they started picking people for the Q&A that happens with Kapil in the first segment of the show. So, there were questions like - well, I think you should watch the show for that :) They took aside people who had stories/anecdotes related to those topics. I went along for one such question. The content team looks for witty/interesting answers. They also picked up couples for some other segment since it is an episode on a married couple. (And not to forget, they pick women who are well- dressed and will look good on camera. One guy was also asked to change his shirt from their collection for the sake of his cameo. Now you see why being well dressed is a positive on his show! They already had 2 answers for the question I volunteered for so I happily went back to my audience seat. 

(While sorting out the audience they wanted to know if i'd like to sit in the main frame, somewhere around Sidhuji I guess or ask the celebrity a question. But agreeing to that would involve being stuck at the shoot for the whole night and I didn't want to do that. My famished and drained body was more worried about keeping itself alive rather than 2 bits of popularity on the show)

After about another 2 hours of this preparation, the man finally arrived on the show. Absolutely down to earth, he shook hands with people from the audience who were on the stage as part of the dance audition. No airs about him at all. This was the time to start shooting. The stage started clearing out and the stage in-charge made announcements that it was time to start. Also, Sidhuji had already taken his throne and was ready. The shooting itself was seamless. Kapil knows the drill all too well by now. And a couple of times he fumbles, he carries on since he knows that'll be edited out. The Q&A wasn't as elaborate as the prep and not everyone planted with answers got a chance to speak. A couple of people who were not prepped got up answer since they arrived late and did not know the drill. 

While the stars were touching up, Kapil walked on to the stage and I waved at him. He walked up to us and leisurely chatted up! 

There was audience break after this while the celebrities arrived and had a press conference that would go out in the media for show promotions. The sound logic behind taking people's phones away comes handy here. The audience is not in the way snapping away to glory and the press conference goes on smoothly. Meanwhile, it's a hot hell downstairs where we are on a break. There's tea and paav bhaji for us but the line is so long and so many others milling about in the space (imagine all of show's audience in one make shift space) that it's just grab a tea and get back to the AC set. (although, both of us had skipped meals and were like hungry kids from Somalia by the time we got out around 10pm and could do with some food at that time) A woman was having an argument with the security guy, I think, because he rudely refused to give her the phone and she wanted it. Someone from the sets had to be called to calm things down. Boy! Were the tempers short what with the heat and crowd and everything! 

And posed for a picture! 

Once we were back, we were requested to sit exactly where we were before the break. Plus the content team would keep reminding the people who were to ask questions etc about their turn in the segment. Some more shuffling of the audience to accommodate the people who'd ask celebrities questions (11 of them if I heard right). The celebrity section started with a choreographed piece - again, watch the episode for details. And then the conversation/fun gigs of characters began. I'm curious to see how much of that is edited. 

In between the breaks - for the stars to touch up their nose - we caught up with Kapil (we had already met and chatted up with Chandan Prabhakar) We had professional headphones for him since he loves music. He took interest in them and patiently heard us talk about related stuff. He was in no hurry to dismiss us since he knew the stars would take time. We took pictures and left. Thankfully we had our cab waiting for us just outside. And the first thing we did - guess? - was to stop over at a food stall and pick up some vadaa paav, my guest's preference and gobbled them up! 

Overall experience: It was fun to see the shoot of a program I have watched for so ling on TV. Kapil definitely resurrected comedy on screen - although his is a bit jaded now - and will remain the king of comedy. I can say this after being witness to his instant, unscripted quips on audience answers. The staff treated the audience well, got water bottles around - not cold, not enough - but that did make a difference.

A huge draw of Kapil's show is the common man connect where people can walk in and be a part of the show. But having live audience is a huge responsibility. A couple of people were giddy and sick due to the long hours and the humid weather. They should have small bottles of cold water available around the sets. Plus, food boxes would be much better than lines for serving food. I still wonder how people who stayed till the end managed cooped up on the set. People were antsy without their phones and the security had to man our possessions at all times. Though it was hearty to see that there were so many who had come prepared to go the whole hog. 

If you watch the episode on 4th June, you might find me on the right if you look from the stage sitting on the second row. Lemme know if you spot me! :)