Communication Boxes!

Do you sometimes feel that you can box your friends into one mode of communication? There are certain people I can talk on the phone for hours together but when I meet them face to face, I have nothing to share. There are some others whose chats are so witty and quick that you stay amazed, but the minute you make that call, their voice just doesn't have the same oomph you imagined. Some of us might like the shy kinds, who tend to be uninhibited over Orkut and might even put you off, but their 'sharmaana' in person, gets you all tingly!

This can be a very very scary thing in the world that we live in today. We are meeting potential life partners online, many of us maintain long distance relationships. With cell phone minutes getting cheaper, we spend hours on the phone as we drive or shop and spend lesser time face to face. We start forming our own versions of the people we communicate with and the few meets that we manage, we many a times get dissappointed. Actually, the scarier thing might be brushing off that initial disappointment and realizing reality only when it's too late.

Emails, snail mails, phones, instant messengers, blogs, scraps, face2face - Which box are you?

P.S. I had been wanting to post on this forever but finally got down to it when I received this email from a friend:

"I think our medium is email. :)"

Weighing emotions . . .

Again had another inspiring chat with my sis this morning on the way to work. She saw a movie called 'Dor' from which she grasped a very interesting thought and voila, I decide to expand on that and post.

So, we all are going through some phase in our lives. Some of us are trying hard to get a good grade in that Math midterm, some busy getting into college . . . others desperately wanting to get out ... first job, new relationship, marriage, retirement .... you get the point! In each of these phases, we face certain problems and certain pleasures. Problems which can stress us out, which we want to discuss and pleasures we want to celebrate about and share with the world. But the moment we pass one phase and enter a new one with a brand new set of issues, we forget how significant those old ones were to us.

Let me use an example to explain where I am going. My sis and I regularly talk while we drive to and fro work. We discuss things which are important to each of us. She just finished applying to residency programs all over the US and is also on her way of expanding her family of two. Me, on the other hand, can't stop talking about the hottie at work, the folly that made my boss frown, the crush that I have, etc. etc. Those are things on her mind and these on mine. The only thing that has managed to makes our talks so inviting and beautiful is that none of us belittles the others emotions. I am sure there are times she feels like telling me, "Hmm . . . I need to get into med school and here she is going on & on about how this cute guy at work talked to her for 2 mins!" And similarly, she sometimes cribs about how her hubby didn't take out the trash or he didn't take her out for dinner when promised and yes, I do feel like telling her - "helllo, atleast you are happily married with a loving hubby." But the fact is, who are we to quantify the pain or happiness that others experience? Who are we to say that my problem is worse than yours or I should be rejoicing more than you? For each of us, whatever we are going through today, is *the* most important thing.

And so here is another thing I need to add to my syllabus - never devalue what someone else is going through cause to them it's as important as that which you feel important today!

And before I forget, the scene from the movie which generated this post is a conversation between 2 women. One whose husband has just died, consoles the other, whose husband is missing. She starts of saying - "It's not that bad, atleast you have hope to find him again!" but immediately takes it back. She realizes that each of them feels enormous amount of grief in the situation they are in and it's incorrect to quantify or compare one to the other.

Breakfast, workouts and more

So, this morning, I had a mug of hot soy vanilla chai for breakfast and followed it with a granola bar. For the past 2 weeks, I was consistently having a glass of home-made strawberry banana smoothie and before that it was 2 weeks of a bowl of Kellogg's Vanilla Nut crunch with cold soy milk. They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. So I try my best to get something in my system. But as evident, I get bored easy. I am consistent for at most 3 weeks and then I have to hunt Whole Foods or the web for something new to try.

On the other hand, my sister has been having Quakers Oats and Granola with warm Soy milk for the past 2.5 years EVERY single morning and before that it was 3 years of Raisin Bran Crunch! She loves it, she craves it and even if my mom is making the rest of us yummy idli sambar, she will opt for her granola!

This might just look like a breakfast thing, but the more I dig into this, I find that she loves routine, and I love change. There are times that I 'think' I love routine, but I don't really. Her only form of exercise during her 8 years of medical school was 3500 skips every morning. She did that every single day and did just that. I, on the other hand, tried everything . . .weights, swimming, EFX, cycling, treadmill, all in one semester.

Makes me really wonder how much this pattern affects the rest of my life.

So are you a routine lover or change craver?

Happiness: The simple truth

A friend recently discussed a book he was reading. I found the concepts he spoke about extremely interesting and worth sharing.

We, human beings, are very bad at judging what really makes us happy. We imagine an experience will bring us lasting happiness but does it really? As an example, if we were asked, would winning a million dollars make you happy? We would jump up and say yes. Why wouldn't it, right? But if you really think about it, the million dollars would make you extremely happy the day you win it, a little happy a week after winning it and a month later, you come back to the same level of happiness you were before you won it. In other words, we all have a baseline level of happiness. These experiences (a million dollars, a handsome partner, a new car, a new job etc.) which we imagine will bring us happiness, do bring us temporary spurts of joy, but never the happiness that stays. We always fall back to our base level of happiness.

Ofcourse this doesn't mean that if we have a really low base level of happiness today, we are stuck with it. There are definitely ways of improving it and the ones I can think of are exercising, socializing, learning new things, community service, healthy living etc.

The point of my post being, we need to stop *waiting* for these big things to happen to us to experience happiness. We need to be happy today! now! at this very moment!! ... to be happy any other day!

The chase?

How many of you out there get thrilled by the chase? Do you love running behind that which is unattainable? Love wanting that which you can't have? And if by fluke, you do get it, you lose interest the very next second cause you repel availibility. Does that sound familiar or have I just scared you all away? I need to know. I need to know if this is normal and I need to know how anyone ever gets out of this vicious cycle.

Maybe training for a half-marathon was a smart move. Running aimlessly seems to be my thing! :)

I love to blabber!

So the group I mostly hang out with consists of 4 girls and 4 boys. The first thought that crosses anyones mind is "so who is seeing who?" And that's what's weird, right? We are 8 ppl who consistently spend several hours every weekend with each other, enjoying each other's company, pulling each other's leg and yet, are not currently dating each other. And even if any of us are romantically inclined to each other, we kinda know at the back of our mind that 'this just ain't it'.

So the perplexing qn is how did we manage this? We are 8 good looking 20-somethings, from the same country, with similar tastes, at the right age to mingle and date, hormones never in control, alcohol always in our bloodstream and yet, we manage to stay single. Is it the greener grass which is holding us back? Or do we really believe that some unknown that we will get introduced to in the near future is going to be 'much better' than the darlings we hang out with today? He/she might actually be better, but aren't we the risky bunch all willing to take this chance.

On one hand we complain about the arranged marriage system, about how we just can't know the person in one or two meets and so its such a scary thing to get into. But then aren't we rejecting the very ones on who we have invested, time, emotions, energies and feelings?

Maybe our ancestors had it right. They practised the first meet of the boy and the girl to be on the wedding day. Maybe they understood that knowing too much is not a good thing. Each and every one of us have our flaws but maybe the flaws are more lovable or the compromises more tolerable once the knot is tied.

Don't know where I am going with this, but you all know how I love to blabbbaaahh! :D

It's all about you!

That song I can't stop singing
That face I can't stop missing

That act that makes me more giving
That thought that leaves me smiling

Those eyes that never stop twinkling
That book I can't stop reading

That dish that keeps me craving
That person who keeps me praying

The movie that leaves me wondering
That look that keeps me desiring

That friend who keeps me running
That house that is so welcoming

I do have a name for each and every spot
Could it be about you? Maybe yes, maybe not! :P

uh-huh life's like this!

When I was in my teens, I used to think life was so simple. One day I will meet a nice, handsome boy, we'll fall in love, get married and produce our 3 babies!! Sigh! Am I disappointed! Now, I find a brand new route to trek on every day.

1- There are those people that I love, but only as friends, and can't even think of anything more.
2- There are others who I love, and think of as possible marriage material, but of course this category will never love me back - life can't be that easy!
3- Then there is the third kind - the ones I think of as marriage material, but for some vague reason(x-factor, anyone?) just don't feel like marrying them. (what's that even supposed to mean???)
4 - OOh the eye candy batch - those who I love to stare at, think about when I am blue --> just pure CC(chaksu c*&^) mat'l!
5- Of course my fav types - the lust factor group. Those who I crave for, but a relationship - no way. But at the same time, I am not happy just staring at them. Even though I know they are so not good for me, I want something more . . . and at the back of my mind, I know that's just another way to complicate things further - but that doesn't stop me, does it??

Of course with each passing day, the above intertwine and I come up with new combo's. And to add to all of these, being desi doesn't help. We desis are never satisfied, and so go about mastering the art of making the complicated just a little more complicated. We add all the wonderful prerequisites of religion, caste, sub-caste, state, food, class, language, color and what not.

Which all brings me to my subject, the start of a lovely Avril number - "Complicated":

uh-huh
life's like this
uh-huh
that's the way it is
chill out
what you yellin' for
lay back
it's all been done before


*Muah* to all those who put up with me through my PMS days.