Divorced not Diseased

There have been a spate of divorces around me off late. I was wondering how the people involved in divorces might feel. Divorce has been pretty common in the west, but its still a dreaded word in India. Its still a taboo. Its like you are condemned into perpetual second grade treatment just because you are divorced. Indians settled in the west are no exception to this kind of senseless and baseless prejudice. After all no matter where you go, an Indian is still an Indian.

Coming to the central theme, why would anyone want a divorce. Marriage is universally accepted as a sacred institution and the single most, life altering event in anyones life. What would prompt someone to renege on such a big decision. I would imagine them to have taken their time and done their due diligence before taking in the plunge and saying yes. We spend more than a few weeks just to find the perfect dress for our big day, you would expect them to spend more time deciding on their partner. But somehow the same over-zealous, afraid-of-the-community-saying parents force the kids to decide on their life partner in around 3 or 4 meetings. Decisions made in a span of around 10 hours of interaction at max will more often than not result in you making a mistake.

I find the west quite advanced in this matter, they normally have love marriages only. The couple gets ample amount of time to spend with each other, testing and checking each other for all sorts of compatibilities including physical relationships, which are a major aspect, but ignored comfortably in the Indian scenarios. The west ironically has more percentage of marriages ending in a divorce. As my mother puts it, "how can kids feel at home when they are staying with the 4th husband of the fifth wife". Well she's right in a way. We provide a better environment for kids to feel at home, but then the same kid grows up and we go all bonkers to get him/her married at the first instance.

Its about time our parents realised that kids these days have a mind of their own and they don’t want to adjust so much to someone else's wishes. This is where the incidents of divorces have risen for our society. But at the same time the concept of accepting someone who is divorced has not seeped in. They are divorced, not infected with an untouchability disease.

 On what grounds are those who get divorced condemned? Does the society get the free will to think that the ones who got divorced didn’t even adjust? Or that they are characterless. Both these assumptions are baseless and not for the society or the world at large to decide. Why should an individual adjust and compromise on his/her happiness for all life. What is the great prize waiting for them at the end of this torturous route of self immolation? In the Indian scenario you cannot even blame them for not knowing what they want. Because how much so ever they know what they want, are our parents ready for that. How long are these so called 25-30 year old "kids" going to accept whatever their parents dish out and decide for them? Indian kids on a general basis have a great character. Divorcing someone doesn’t make them less moral than anybody else.

 Its time we all accepted some major facts.

 1. All religions preach kindness, whether a person is religious or not has little to do with whether they are good human beings or not

2. Food habits should not be a major criteria for you to decide marriage.

3. The person who has gotten divorced was unfortunate to have parents like you, who forced everything down their throats. Please be kind to such kids.

I would think its worthwhile to salute people who get divorced, because they chose to live a life where their happiness mattered too, not only the taunts of their grandfathers second cousins elder sisters aunts fathers granddaughter. How weird it sounds to just read it, or even writing it. Imagine the fate of the several who are bound by these restrictions.

Let kids be. They will find their own way. Force them not to marry someone you like, and they might never have to divorce. If giving your children freedom, seems too big a sacrifice to make, then at least be tolerant towards those who are fighting for their happiness. Divorce is just one more eventuality of life. Yes, personally I would wish no one ever got divorced, but for that to happen, the initial choice and rather all choices related to the life partner need to be ours, not orchestrated by society. Trust me there is nothing wrong with the people who have gotten divorced, mentally or physically. They are just divorced not diseased.

Make it Count

Change is inevitable. Change is good. These are some of the quotes that most of us have been listening to and kind of have grown used to. But when it comes to actual change, how many of us are really good at accepting it. I have recently been going through some life altering changes. It has made me stronger, is to say the least. It has made me wonder what was I getting attached to? Getting so used to?

I have been part of the corporate culture since the last day of my studies. I have been yearning to see some other culture at work. Some other methodology at work. I have now decided to take that plunge. Find out for myself that if I have to run things how I would be different than the well established protocols. This has been metamorphosing.  My way of running things would hugely reflect on what I think of myself. For those who haven’t felt this, let me put this into perspective.. it’s like standing naked in front of the world cos sooner or later your true self is revealed. Coupled with this predicament, is the fact that I have to leave my old job… my almost-first-job.

Like the rest of you, I had grown so used to the comfortable lifestyle and the predictable routine, that it was difficult to free myself of it. Thanks to circumstances, I could find the strength and the motivation. I started in my job when we were just 5 people, more than 5 years ago. Today we are 20 in just our office. During this time we have been part of everything in the office, selecting the courier person, the water supplier, the chairs, the machines, to the actual job for which we were being paid, of designing chips. I have interviewed most of my colleagues here. I have spent nights trying to get the network or the systems up. Months trying to get a product delivered!! All in all, I had started to get pretty attached to my company.

There are so many things that are tied to everything that is pseudo-yours, pseudo because you don’t have the right of a single paisa over it, yet it was yours for so many years. I remember the time when we were fighting as to who would get the cubicle farthest from the managers, or who would get the best system to work on, whose turn was it to shout at the telephone company for cutting our lines, who would be the next to take care of the petty cash account, who would go next into the freezing server room to fix the servers. God!! The list is endless. I spent the first 5 years of my professional growth here. Now I am saying good-bye.

Good-byes are nature’s way of saying “move on” or “GROW”, but it is still sad to part ways.  What hurts more than the parting is the apathy of people around you. Unfortunately for me, the very few good friends I had made aren’t around or are extremely busy in the last few days here. Every day becomes a drag, when you know that you have to go to the office to people who wouldn’t really care whether you were there the next day or not. People who wouldn’t care to talk to you, but are ready to start allocating your system, your chair, to someone else before you have even breathed your last in the office. As I said they are not mine, they are pseudo-mine, but the pain is real and its only mine.

I wonder whether this is the same feeling parents would be getting when their kids fight over the estate after the father has died, instead of actually being with him and talking to him. I always thought that I had trained my juniors well...anyways... I cannot even empathize with a father’s pain, but I now know how it must feel. Today I came back heavy-hearted, with a few questions in my mind…Is this all really worth it? Will my life ever have meaning? Will my going away tomorrow affect a few lives? Will someone miss me tomorrow for who I was? More than that did anyone ever know who I was?

We tend to get lost in the big jungle, try to be small cogs of big giant wheels and assume self importance. The truth is lying naked in front of you. You won’t be missed tomorrow when you are gone. The wheel would still be rolling with newer and better cogs. Truth is that we try so hard to fit in that we lose our identity.

The only way to be memorable is to do something memorable. Lets not try to fit in. Live a life worth living, because after 20 years of sacrificing your happiness, family and love, all for your career, you should be able to answer, even if only to your own self, “what the hell did you do for these many years?” Do something you like. When you do something you like, you are bound to make several people happy along the way, because you are happy.

Be different. Be extraordinary. Ordinary is so boring.

Make your mark. Make it count or die trying!!

Mauritius – The Mirage

Fueled by the several magazine reports and exquisite photographs of Mauritius, the wife and I decided to take a vacation to Mauritius. Such was the anticipation of the sun kissed beaches and the blue waters that the coo chi-coo’s had started a week earlier. We were all set, the shades, the hats, the sunscreens and shorts and spaghetti strap tops all packed.

We embarked on our journey on a Wednesday morning. Hotels booked, itineraries fixed, we thought we were the only smart people. On reaching the airport we discovered that there were at least another 70 couples as smart. Probably every Indian married from Sunday to Tuesday that week seemed to be flying with us. We felt kind of old and our romance was more of a comfort level, missing the initial euphoria. But we ignored it, consoling that even after more than 2 years we had enough romance to go to Mauritius. Our eyes were already waiting to be sun burnt.

Our ordeal started soon enough. The flight supposed to take off at around 4 a.m. took off at 6 a.m. giving us first of our sleepless and uncomfortable nights of the entire journey. What was more demeaning is that the air hostesses treated us with the same disdain that they treated the other honeymooners. I wanted to scream, “I am their senior and demand some respect”, but alas, that was restricted to the second track of my head. My request for a brush and some paste was met with a look that made me wonder if she even knew of it. I was thus more convinced that Mauritius would still be untouched by the extreme commercialization of the western world. I was already happy…

We were to get down at Plaisance International Airport, wow... French, I thought. In general, I have found that Indians have a fetish for anything European or American (mind you not western… even Africa is to our west). Anyways you can imagine my disappointment when I got down at Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam International Airport. I realised that since they couldn’t pronounce Sri Shivasagar Ramgopalam, the name sounded a mix of French and Indian. Anyways we moved ahead and out of the terminal to be greeted by the warm air simmering at 31C. I was happy.

The bargaining started right at the airport, first with the currency exchange guy, who dished out Mauritian rupees against dollars, depending on how much you and your wife were comfortable in asking for. After 2 years of marriage, bargain is pretty much the only thing you are extremely good at. Then came the prepaid sim cards, still so much discrepancy, I shiver to tell. We marched to our van, headed to our hotel. The road reminded us of our honeymoon to Kerala, with similar fields and small row houses lined up on both sides. The hotel was a typical spa cum resort. The room was also nice. We threw our luggage, fired the AC and dropped dead on the beds… The heat had taken its toll for the first time, but after a good nap, I was happy.

The rest of the day was spent just loitering and deciding what to wear. The second day we went to Casela Bird Park. The taxi driver asked for 2000MUR (4000 INR). I was shell shocked to pay as much as a return flight ticket to Ahmedabad, for something that was just 1 hour away, but we went ahead. The only place I found written tariffs was this one. We enjoyed our interaction with Lions and Tigers, feeling happy that we had patted their backs, as if they were old school buddies. The day ended with severe headache from the heat. The AC stopped working in the middle of the night. The hotel repair-man, who was kind enough to pay a visit at 4 in the morning, told me very cheerfully, “Its Mauritius, its ok at 29C in an AC room”. I felt like bashing him up, but kept quite and asked the hotel for a fan. Imagine staying in a 4-star hotel with a table fan to keep you cool. But I was happy.

The next day we had the south island tour. It started with a tour to the ship building factory, which was just a workshop of 4 people making souvenir ships for gullible tourists like us and selling it for a fortune. We skipped buying anything. Then we saw the beautiful temples of the island and the huge statue of lord Shiva. Truly impressive!! Then we saw the seven coloured earth. We returned home, thoroughly exhausted. I was wondering when the Indian government will learn to market our beautiful tourist spots like this. Here we were roaming the whole day in extreme heat to visit a Shiva and Hanuman temple. Back home I don’t even realise how many of these I pass daily. But an eventful day. The AC stopped again at 4 a.m. The fan kept me company. I was happy??!!

The fourth day we did the acclaimed North tour, with a so called fort (smaller than my office premises) regaling us. Then we trudged to the only city in the island, Port Louis. Shopping was on our minds. But when we heard that the same “Original Lee jeans” was available at 3000 MUR and also 300 MUR (which we bargained to a 100 MUR), we had our doubts and escaped the flea market. With sugarcane fields meeting your eyes everywhere you would imagine that its juice would be dirt cheap. But behold, we got a glass of sugarcane juice for 100 MUR!! One fellow traveller told me, “I could have a bath in sugarcane juice of this amount in India.” All I could do was smile and wonder at the travails of international travel. The day ended. I kept on wondering, what did I do today? The smokescreen of those wonderful pictures was fading and I kept on wondering wasn’t Goa or Kerala better? After a fight with the manager, we were given another room for the night. Thank god for his kindness. Was I happy? ....ahem lets move on…

The fifth day was the most exciting, at least on paper. We were to do water sports. We anxiously got onto our speed boat which took us 30 meters into the sea and we did the undersea walk, which was more like a 3 minute sham of a walk in the underwater. The promises of seeing nemo and other coloured fishes, shown in the Disney movies were never fulfilled. The ride got over before we could realise we were breathing through our oxygen masks. Then a speed boat ride to the waterfalls, which I still don’t know why we did. The guy driving the boat was kind enough to give us some thrills while riding. The other “water sports”, like parasailing and bumper ride were a sorry joke as well. The excursion at Mandwa was more fun and actually, water sports. The room AC worked properly tonight...Wow...Miracle... Wasn’t I supposed to be happy?

The sixth day was spent in the pool, in the true blue beaches and just relaxing. This somehow was the best day of the six. I got to know from my hotel that the previous day sports had cost me 2500 MUR more. The AC gave up on us again. I was definitely not happy.

The seventh day, we couldn’t wait to leave the island. With four sleepless nights back to back and an angry sun taking his revenge on us, I couldn’t wait to go back to the air conditioned premises of my office and the sweaty evenings of Mumbai.

I kept questioning, how it was possible to be romantic in this sultry weather? The wife said, “Maybe it just made it easier for couples to be hot and sweaty, without even trying.” All my blue coloured dreams were whitewashed. I wish people spent all that money and time on the pristine beaches down south and did all the water sports, a mere 45 minutes from Mumbai. With a bottle of water costing me more than 300 INR, I wondered what drove more and more people to Mauritius. My mirage had already met reality and the sun had set on my international exotic holiday. We returned back with severely tanned skins and a question, what the hell did we exactly do?

Meaning of Life ?!

"Mamu", says a small voice and my heart melts every time I hear it. Whatever be the mischief, whatever be the loss is all forgotten when I hear that. This is the attachment to my fist cousins daughter that I have met for a total of 25 days in her 2 year old life. There is always a sadness when I realize that I have to leave her tomorrow  or the day after. Kids generally have this effect on you. All of the world's vices tend to dissolve when you see a small kid smile and run towards you. They tend to bind you to everything. You get charged and motivated to face the world just for their sakes. All the philosophical and spiritual talks about detachment and worldly bindings don't make much sense when you have someone to call you mamu or a chachu or a daddy around you. In my limited understanding of the human ties, I figure a mother must find herself even more attached to her kid, than anyone else.

I recently met a woman, rather took her blessings from a distance, whose courage is at least a 100 times mine. Maybe she has understood the meaning of life and detachment beyond what I can accept. The story is about a 50 year old woman. She and her husband have struggled and lived happily for the past 25 years of their married life. Their condition was less than modest. Beginning with sewing clothes for their neighbors to finally managing to put up their own cloth shop, a few year back. Life hadn't been kind on them in a lot of ways. They had been struggling to have a family as well. 21 years after marriage they were blessed with a kid. A cute little baby boy. The mother was recently diagnosed with last stage liver cancer. She was going through hell as nothing she would take in would stay in. After a lot of attempts she decided to take Santharo. Taking a Santharo means that you give up all food and worldly possessions and renouncing the world. After 7 days of fasting the lady took diksha, formally renouncing even the attachment to her kid and husband. She would continue her fasts till she meets death. The day I had met her there were hundreds pouring to take her blessing. In them was a toddler, quite unaware of what he was doing there. Every morning, afternoon and evening he comes to visit his mom, who is clad in a white dress sitting on a wooden bench, which he is not supposed to touch. He very respectfully wishes her "Mummy, Jai Jinendra". All he understands is that his mom is going to Gods house. He might not be able to grasp the event in totality as yet, but my heart cries out every time I think of the mother. Wouldn't she be feeling the same pain every moment of her living life that I feel when I am leaving my niece. Is it that she has understood the real meaning of detachment?

My head bows to her just for her courage. I admire her husband too for allowing this. On her part, she might be correct in renouncing everything, knowing that she will be leaving soon, but will I ever have so much strength?. Will I ever grow to understand life to such an extent, that a 4 your old kid wont be able to distract me, pull me back? The question is self introspective, maybe for all of us. Maybe it is the right thing to do, maybe it is what the sages have been preaching to us since ages. Will I ever rise to that level? The question remains to be answered. For now my prayers rest with the family and my heart reaches out to the kid. God bless them all!!