Author: anshujita

Words were my best friends, my soulmates, they never failed me, I could express everything under the roof with them, but that was 15 years ago. Coming back to it. I hope I haven't lost touch.

Relationship Goals

Relationships are so tricky! Been in so many. In fact your life is based on relationships, I don’t just mean the love interests in your life.

Every relationship comes with it’s own set of expectations, acceptances, arguments, differences, agreements and conditions.

No matter what the relationship is, it is commanded by these. Lets start from your first bond. Your parents, well you have to live up to their expectations. Let’s face it, they do have conditions applied status on us. You do well in school, you behave properly, you respect elders, you dont go crazy etc etc. The list actually is endless. It’s your basic understanding and setting expectations for the rest of your life.

You have to do as told so your parents are proud of you, who live to show off their kids? Parents continously look for something great to show off in their kids, a skill, a talent, their scores or something, anything. It doesnt end there, you go to college, you are expected to choose wisely, subjects and stream that will benefit you later. Help you make money basically, not necessarily the thing you love to do. It has to be lucrative.

You start working and god forbid you move away from parents (it is a big deal in India) you have to make that daily morning afternoon phone calls to update them. If not be prepared for a guilt trip. Get married, but it is expected and only natural for them to decide who shall be YOUR life partner. You get married you are expected to have a baby soon. Have one, have another one, cause the first one needs company. Really? There aren’t enough kids in the world already. PHEW!!!!

And then you become your parents because that’s all you know to do.

Friends! The family that is not blood related, now this is one relationship that sometimes I feel is over rated but then again it does play a major part in your life. Again this is not a simple relationship either. The expectations are immense, and they are seriously no different from what your parents have with you, this is a only with a small tweak. You can drink, smoke, do weed etc with them and it’s cool. Your parents on the other side might flip and die.

Friendship really is about never saying NO. You have to just be a part of each others life completely . We disengage a little once we start a family of our own and responsibilities feel like walls closing in on you. But your formative years are all about being together all the time. It definitely feels like the most important bond you share. Again only till you have an affair or get married. Which ever sequence you prefer.

Now comes the BIG relationship that we read read and read about, but still know nothing about. The one that makes you feel the world is so beautiful, when you hum all day long and when you smile for no reason.

But man this is the most taxing relationship of all, thankfully not toxic, then you should get out of it. However, this relationship takes expectations to another level itself. And that’s just how it is. Suddenly everything is about the person who we love and clearly it is expected for them to feel and behave the same way. It is expected for both individuals to feel the same way, have same goals and be ready for next level at the same time. Clearly waiting is for loosers.

The do something nice for me, say something nice to me, send me a nice goodnight message, wake up with a good morning messgae, bring me flowers, cook me dinner and the list is endless. And yes it is easy to say people are together without these expectations as well, but it’s not true. Without these, the result is breakup.

Anyways you cross these hurdles and get married, wow! Congratulations! You think finally we are there. But nope, new and more complicated expectations and arguments and of course there are your sweet nothing moments as well. But we all know between the two what is more.

And between all this madness and maintaining the chi of your life, you’ve just put everything else that mattered to you on the back burner. So many of us give up on hobbies, dreams, aspirations and desires because we made our relationships priority right from the start to the end. You put yourself away to make time to make others happy.

And when that is happening, how is it good for us? Why do we have such unrealistic relationship goals and relationships? Why can’t we live without them. Why do we get lonely when we are doing what we like?

Is it the society and the mindset convincing us that we are not complete without the array of relationships? I dont have answers and maybe someday I will. That day is marked for another blog but today just how RELATIONSHIP GOALS are actually the only priority of our life.

Triple Talaq

Finally a moment of joy and victory for the women of the Muslim community.

The triple talaq , basically means that a man can legally divorce his wife by just saying the word talaq thrice. How easy it is to end a relationship and the fate of a woman.

Sadly there was opposition against passing this bill, how and why and what their logic to not support this bill, shocks me. But I am glad that some people saw the sense in passing this bill and giving women the right to decide how, when and the terms of separation.

It’s no longer whimsical, no longer a man’s world where he has had enough and chooses to move in. The triple talaq made marriage seem like a relationship with no rules. Or should I say only the man’s rule.

It took 19 months for the women of the Muslim community get justice, but better late than never. And best is that if there is violation of the rule, then there are legal consequences, so it’s not as simple as it used to be.

Her rights, her life is no longer dictated by someone else. It’s a choice she will make and how.

It’s a start, there are many unturned stones, but glad that what was the norm is being challenged and shredded to pieces.

Influencers Social Media

Social media and the new found world of influencers. People have started living for the social media, their life as they would like it to be is represented in their images and posts of social media.

What they wish for it to be as against what it is. Projecting the dream because no one wants to see the truth.

The herd mentality, smiling for pictures, going on vacations because others are and posing at every corner but not seeing anything. You are not living your life, you are looking for where you can project your life.

Having been part of a social group and running it for a really long time, I realised everything is about the social media love and reciprocation of appreciation.

I know how I look, graceful and dignified, yes! Sexy and hot, not really. But over a period of time I did get disillusioned, I did loose sight of reality and I started living online in the world of fake concerns and love.

The day I quit the group, the love disappeared and people didn’t even turn around to think of me. I had directed all my energy in the online charade. I didn’t focus on the real world and real people. Once the group was gone, like dry petals of a rose each friend shed away and what I dealt with was loneliness and lack of ability to meet people in flesh and blood.

The latest term to hit our market is media influencers. The new age celebrities, who are followed, stalked and imitated. Is it that easy to make people do things. The herd mentality, is it true that once people someone do something they do ot too? Why aren’t motivational speakers making such an impact? Why idnt the government able to exploit this forum to bring a change.

Is social media and influencers just restricted to TERRORISM nd romance? Are these the only two topics youngsters survive on.

Some celebrities are highly educated, but still a lot of youngsters drop out of schools and colleges to pursue their dreams. Who influenced them? Most of them depend on luck rather than training. So is getting influenced a choice? Is it convenience?

I am not sure of so many questions in my head, and how did we drive change before social media? How come we are not influenced by our parents who fought difficult battles to bring us up and make us more comfortable and happy in life .

Ummmmm….lost in transition…..let me know your views.

Mommy Brain

I haven’t really taken a free breath in years, no one prepared me for what parenting is.

The books, the blogs, the articles and the world convinced me that’s what I need to be so I can feel complete.

It trained my mind to never give up even when from within I was dying so many times.

That one night of peaceful sleep, that one meal minus the potty situation. The dressing up without a damn, even the simplest thing like carrying a bag I like and not because it can fit every little thing she might need.

The first year of sleepless night and endless feeds comes to an end and you think, yes I can move on. But hell no, the battle has just begun with new challenges and development milestones to achieve.

Walk on time, talk time, solid feed time and la di da di da. Terrible twos are no better. Mine would whine whine and whine. Oh how I wanted to cover my ears and run or hide or disappear. But it’s the terrible twos, anything was possible and she could do something that I really didn’t want to deal with later on.

And all this while she was still at home. Once she starts school, you think you can breathe a sigh of relief, but no the stupid mommy brain is wondering if she ate, have I potty trained her well enough, will she wet herself, will someone watch out for her……the list is endless. Your adventurous, intellectual brain is dead and what exists is the mommy brain. The one that only registers, MY BABY.

Playschool was a breeze, the actual school starts and you are wondering, seriously who expects kids to know all this. And come parents teacher meet, and your knowledge of what all your kid doesnt know, I dont even want to go there.

The pressure you feel, the pressure you put. The madness with deadlines, that the little one has to help you achieve, oh how stressful life gets but alas no one tells you this.

My journey has only reached this far, 4 is how old she is. So many battles still to be fought, and dreading what teens will do to me.

The worst is, you can’t crib, you can’t say I hate being a mom and I wanna be just me again. You cant say, I am not me anymore cause people say, “ofcourse you are not, you are a mom now”.

The be all and end all of me, but I do miss the me I was. The one that had fun all night long cause my school days were done and I could sleep in, cause there was no homework to be done. The one who blew up her money, cause future didn’t matter then. Now I am saving for whatever she might wanna do.

No one told me, no one prepared me for the years to come.

Competition

The biggest problem with success is, it’s an addiction. Once u start rising you just can’t accept failure. However, when you fail, you want the opposite and no matter how many times you fail, you dont get addicted to it.

In my opinion the whole idea of ranking, rating and competition takes away from the activity in itself. You are simply in a rat race to outdo someone else.

Your success is someone’s failure and I feel competition makes you a horrible person. Your happiness is based out of someone else’s failure. And this basic concept is engraved in our brains from childhood. You need to succeed, you have to come first, excel because there is no place for failures in this world.

We dont teach anyone to enjoy what they are doing, as a parent the moment we invest money in an activity our child enjoys, we make it a competition. I have invested in you, thus you must show me results. Eventually the child either manages to excel which is the best case scenario or loses interest in the activity because no one seems happy with what he does and clearly there is too much pressure to do it, and do it well.

How we love to show off the things our kids do. Sing a song, break a leg, recite a poem, show your test results and the list is endless. Once we go back home, we shower our own flesh n blood with so much criticism about how the other kids are so awesome and that they should learn from them.

Here goes confidence and self worth. Competition should be banned. Dance competition, singing competition, where one child’s future is built on the crumpled confidence of many others. If it’s about talent and exposure, give them an opportunity to perform in a sans competition environment. But that doesnt generate TRP.

In another world you go for your regular Parent Teacher Meet, and god forbid your kid is unable to do something, the teacher takes your case, “everyone else is able to grasp it, your child is not attentive, he isn’t focusing, you need to give him time….” yet again pit the whole world against that one kid. And as parents we come back home and take that kids trip till he just doesnt want to be educated anymore. Here are your dropouts.

Let competition go, for children, for adults, for animals and who ever breathes. Do things because you enjoy them, sing even if you are not a singer, dance even if you are not a dancer, paint even if you are not a painter, live because you only live once and let live because once a soul is crushed there is no turning back.

When you are down

All the self help books and basic common sense just take a giant leap into the black hole of hopelessness when you are down and waiting for the silver lining.

Sometimes talking helps, but if you are an overthinking individual like me it’s more than likely that more thoughts, ideas and opinions are not such an advantage.

You have hidden in your castle with the blinds tightly shut and as much as you would like, the silver lining is just not visible to the naked eye. As morose as it sounds but that exactly how we all feel.

You need a break through, you need to get away from the problem to find a solution. Take a walk down memory lane of happy times, talk to people who dont know your battles and your stress. It helps because not discussing your problem saves you from over analyzing and over thinking what maybe, could be, hopefully might happen.

Shed a few tears, it does help to let it out but never give in and never give up. Remeber something can always be done and remeber there is always a solution to a problem or a situation, it might not be one that you hoped for, but it’s right there.

Talk less, listen more, judge less and accept more….sometimes the simplest of things make the difference you need.

But dont try to find strength in others, channelise your inner diva/dude cause at the end of the day, no one knows you better than YOU .

Beauty In A Package

The soul is so unrated and the package that will be lost in transition so over rated.

As a brown girl all I ever heard was, wish she was fair and lovely, wish her hair was longer, wish her waist a little smaller. Would that make me a better person? Definitely not! But that always superseded what’s inside. The creative individual, the free spirited bird, the passionate lover, the heart innocent child got lost on the criticism over the wishes of this society.

The who I should be over who am I, a battle eventually I lost the day I bought my first fairness cream and hit the gym to be pretty and curvy and not healthy. The battle we still fight in this day and age with snide comments and remarks passers by feel free to shower upon without realizing I use tears to wash my mascara away instead of water and soap.

The struggle to accept myself took 27 years, the struggle some never overcome and succumb to the rules of the world. You could be oh so pretty but heart so cold it would freeze the ice princess, but that’s alright, I walk around with what a catch.

Who did set the beauty standards in this society? Who decides its acceptable to be a factory product, why is the individual appeal not so appealing and why do the brown girls get friend zoned.

A recent movie had the Male protagonist advise his love interest, a petite, fair girl to befriend the chubby teddy bear looking girl, because they can be trusted and are great friends to be. So now if you are not the right size, you are an animal, a teddy bear?

How much more can we degrade a human being and how fair is it to not be fair and conform to the size of the society

Passion and Cricket

From a time when people would take a victory or a loss personally, times have changed. Appreciation for the hard work the labour of love has grown ten folds and the crowd now cheers and cheers on irrespective of the result.

A few years back, when a loss meant throwing stones at the players houses and burning their dummies, India and Indians have come a long way. They have now learnt to appreciate the efforts and not just the results of a cricket match. Tears still roll down their cheeks when the indian team loses, moments of disbelief still cross everyone’s hearts but we have controlled our expressions.

The sporting spirit has hit a home run and people have matured. There is respect, there is appreciation, there is unprecedented love but it’s not temporary or subject to results.

This world cup was full of surprises for India. From being on top of the charts and being knocked out in the semifinals was Earth shattering for Indian, 28,000 tickets were canceled for the finals. Possibly all the Indians who were sure we were in finals were left in disbelief. But the wait for the next 5 years is on and people are saving up for it, with the hope that many more records will be broken and the cup will find it’s way back home again.