WHAT I WANT MY DAUGHTER TO BE…

 

Garima, right since the day she was born, was distinct from the kids born earlier in the family. Even though I tried very hard to teach her to drink breast milk, she never drank it. She used to drink the powder milk heartily. When she became three years old, she refused to eat rice mixed with dal, curry or tomato-saar. She was adamant about eating just plain boiled rice. Even when she fell sick, she staunchly refused to take medicine of any form. If we forcibly put the medicine in her mouth, she used to immediately spit it out. She outrightly refused to eat vegetables and initially had white patches on her skin due to vitamin-deficiency.

Thus, she does things totally her way and is adamant about not listening to grownups. She is crazy about you tube kids’ videos. But she is good in studies.

She’ll be turning seven this September. Her grandmother makes her eat all the vegetables and fruits by coaxing her in a very polished manner. So now there are no white patches on her skin. Her grandparents, with whom she had been residing since she was four, have taught her to lead a very disciplined life. She respects elders and prays to God once a day without fail.

 She is still a child. Its too early to predict what her career would be when she grows up. She loves to dance, so she participates in Annual day functions in her school. As she reaches college, I’ll teach her the art of grooming. She’ll be wearing the best of clothes, have a beautiful hair-cut, waxed hands, well-shaped eyebrows and with minimal make-up like kajal and eyeliner will look pleasant and presentable. I insist on this because I want her to be a very confident young woman. She should not feel depressed looking at her well-groomed good looking fellow classmates. As and when she reaches ninth grade, I plan to teach her to cook, both veg and non-veg. Its not because she is a girl. Its because it is very important to eat food, and to eat food you should know to cook food.

I want her to be an intelligent and fierce career-woman when she grows up. I believe that common sense is something we do not get by getting degrees. I have myself seen individuals with great degrees, fooled by school dropouts. I want her to have basic common sense and take her decisions by coolly thinking over it. I want her to be emotionally intelligent too, so that people don’t fool her in the name of love. I myself believe, that the right age to get involved with a man is after post-graduation. She can even marry the man then.

We as parents currently, don’t put much pressure on her to outsmart other fellow students. I don’t want her to be jealous when others become successful. But we’ll encourage and guide her to put consistent efforts from her side. We’ll give her love, care, attention and time as parents and grandparents. We’ll protect her from evil intentions of people and encourage her in whatever believable career choice she makes.

Along with a decent and successful career base, we want her to be a good human being too. My blessings are with her, and I pray to God to keep her smiling always. That smile should be infectious, it should make people forget their worries and fall in love with her.

WHAT MEN WANT

Let me take you back in time... I was fourteen then. I was in ninth grade and there was a boy Vikrant in my class. In the back bench there were three girls, who used to keep giggling and sharing their boys-stories the whole day. Out of the three, one girl Ashika introduced him to me as her rakhi-brother. These three musketeers were ready to fight the whole world to protect him. He did have a notorious reputation. I smiled and thinking interfering in others’ matters was against my policy, continued minding my own business. One week later I entered the classroom premises and was definitely not surprised by what I saw- Ashika was crying. She said, “I thought... I thought Vikrant was my brother, but yesterday he... he misbehaved with me. I feel... I feel so bad. He broke my trust”. Well this is:

 Fact no 1: Don’t use the rakhi-brother or rakhi-sister trick to get close to a man. He is smarter than you think.

I had a neighbour, Mithilesh. We studied in the same college and were in the same grade. Once during exams, there was a cool twenty minutes before the bell would ring. As soon as we hear the bell we were supposed to enter the classroom and then the exam would begin. I stood outside the classroom, going through the notes of my coaching class. Suddenly Mithilesh came there and asked, “Can you give me a book to read ? I’ve not finished studying”.  I gave him the plastic cover I was carrying. He took a book from inside that and started going through its pages. Suddenly I saw that the book he was reading was of the previous day’s exam subject. I didn’t disturb him. He continued reading that and I continued reading mine.

Fact no 2: If a man is a fool and out of senses, even God can’t help him.

 There was a childhood friend of mine, Digvijay. I knew him like the back of my hand. I was just eighteen and he was six years older than me. He had recently taken his father’s business to an entirely new league all-together. His mother praised him again and again throughout the party so much that he also started believing that he was ‘Dara Singh’s baap’. He and me met and I could sense that he wanted to tell me something. He was trying but couldn’t speak. Finally I spoke, “Digvijay, tell me clearly what is in your heart”. He immediately blurted out, “I would like to have s** with you”. To which I shot back, “But Radhika is your girlfriend, since God knows how many years. Look I’ll help you”. I caught his palm and took him to his mother and told her, “Aunty, Digvijay is grown up now and he’s an achiever too. He confided in me that he wants to marry Radhika. He also told me that if you don’t arrange for their wedding soon, they’ll elope and get married. So aunty please for the sake of your son...”. She was shocked. I left the party soon after and exactly after three days received the wedding invitation card of Digvijay-Radhika. I smiled and never felt better.

Fact no 3: Men do try to sneak in their deepest desires in front of their most trusted female friend. But if she is intelligent, she can handle the situation tactfully.

I have a relative from my in-laws side. His name is Shivnath. He had only passed twelfth grade and had gone to a kannada medium school. To my horror, he had started dreaming of a beautiful super-rich BE qualified girl. He dreamt of marrying her. All my reality checks fell into deaf ears. Finally she got married to a very rich guy, ending all hopes of him(Shivnath) becoming rich by marrying her.

Fact no 4: Men do have the habit of thinking that the other person is a fool. 

I know of a guy, Srikant who was madly devoted to his girlfriend, Nikita. She was a pompous girl. And used to time and again ask him to prove his loyalty towards her. With the sole intention of fulfilling this weird tantrum of hers, he actually got married to a rich girl, Avantika. He and the later did get physical during the next two months. After this he married Nikita. In front of the whole society, in front of Avantika, he with a beaming proud smile, told Nikita, “Look Niku, I’ve converted Avantika into a prostitute. Now, you know how much I love you”. Then he immediately turned towards Avantika and told her, “I end all relations with you. I won’t even consider YOU as my wife. Leave right now to your father’s place”. Hearing this Avantika called up her brother who was a goon. He came and beat up Srikant to a pulp, even his current wife couldn’t save him.

Fact no 5: Men do have the bad habit of trying to prove, God knows what to the beloved woman in their life. In such a case they are ready to go to any extent. But also, one thing that is true is that they are beaten black and blue as punishment in all such cases, even their beloved is not able to save them.

Men want sex. But that’s no problem because women want it too. Men want love, they do want their girlfriend or wife to be physically present near them. Finally, I conclude that men are not very bad in reality. If you use the right skill to praise them, they actually will go to any lengths. You need to just channelize the idle energy that they have in the right direction.

WHAT WOMEN WANT

There are varieties in women. Some women want their husband/boyfriend to be a:

•          Biscuit khanewala kutta(a biscuit eating dog-an utterly obedient man)
•           Ladies handbag pakadnewala (an over the board spineless hen-pecked man who can be seen holding his lady’s handbag in        public)
•         A brainless fool who just blindly follows orders(He can take wrong decisions, do wrong deeds, but according to the woman in      his life-mother/wife/girlfriend, what matters and what’s important is WHOSE order is he following. Its not important for him      to have a brain of his own.)

There are also some women who spend lakhs on clothes and makeup, work-out in the gym daily, savour diet food, just to keep their man glued to them. They just want him to be crazily in love with them. And of course their men are crazy and glued to them.

Let’s go to the other section of women, yeah the modern liberated women. These women are adequately educated and are career-oriented. They  believe in eating food from their own hard-earned money. According to me, these are the ideal form of women. They are brought up in the right way.

Now, one question that crops up in today’s times is- do women really need a man in their life ? ie it may be to keep them happy, to provide for them, to protect them, to have kids. I fear the answer is no. I can give scores of examples of today’s women who are successful and happily unmarried. There are others who are single mothers, either through surrogacy or adoption. There are women who are married and childless by personal choice. Yes ! education has made all the difference.

I’m happy that today, especially in the city where I belong to, the law and order situation is very good. So a woman can live alone, travel alone, work in their respective work-places without worries. So a big thanks to the society for the gracious acceptance.

I, myself am a working, multitasking woman. I have a child and a husband. I’m financially independent. But I lovingly accept that I’m dependent on my family which includes my parents too for love.

Finally, I conclude that a woman is a nurturer and caring comes naturally to her. A man can be his lady’s teddy bear, punching bag and whatever she wants him to be. So, what women want, is basically nothing, today’s women already have everything.

WHAT IS LOVE AND WHAT IS MARRIAGE ?

Love is eternal and pure. It can be a source of immense joy. It beautifies life. It adds colour to life. It doesn’t get polluted by sex even, whether it is before commitment or after commitment.

Marriage on the other hand is well thought off. The girl should be right, the boy should be right. Is the girl a post-graduate ? How much does the boy earn ? These details matter the most. And auntyjis and dadimaas look into all the miniscule details as if its their own wedding.

The main question is, does love or marriage have a formula ? Like the famous theory goes –the biggest shortcut to become rich is to marry a rich girl. Likeways another theory goes, the shortcut to get settled abroad is to marry a NRI girl. But if I have to truly say, rich and NRI girls are not fools.

Can a marriage well-thought off by the brain, get rejected by the heart ? It can be. You start looking for love or sex outside marriage-it is termed as ‘cheating’. The ‘other woman’ or ‘other man’ can of course break the marriage. So is the third person solely responsible for the mess ? Is it right to call the third person ‘a homebreaker’ ? I don’t agree, because may be you looked at matters of the brain- ie financial status, external beauty etc and came to the utter ‘wrong’ decision.

 Can a marriage decided solely by the heart, fail ? No, that marriage may never break. Because in this case pure love acts as the fevicol holding both the people together. We do know that gay and lesbian marriages do exist. It is pure love there. Even though it looks odd for the ajjis and auntyjis, they have to take it since basically ‘love is blind’.

But the ways of the world are-‘You FALL in love, but marriage is a DECISION.’ It is also said that true love happens only during teenage. The ‘pehla nasha’ kind of feeling, the fluttering heart, its she only forever, then. But as age passes and the truth of the society pulls out the innocence out of your body, you begin thinking from your brain. 

  

My conclusion is that whether its love or marriage, you should do what suits you. I even know of a man who committed suicide because he had a fight with his girlfriend. He, an employee of my past company wrote on his suicide note, “By the time you come back and say sorry to me, I would have gone too far away”. Different people have different mental built up. So accordingly you have to choose a ‘marriage based on love’ or a ‘well thought off financial status friendly marriage’. A ‘well thought off love cum status friendly marriage’ is also possible. But it is rare and only for the few lucky ones.

GAUTAMA BUDDHA FOR MENTAL PEACE

Well, born in today’s times, we are lucky to follow whatever and whoever we want to. There may be some who follow Saibaba, some follow Lord Ganesha-to each his own. I follow Gautama Buddha for mental peace.

It all began when I was eighteen. I was diagnosed with a certain mental illness. My mom, like all Indian mothers panicked. As is with this illness I couldn’t concentrate in studies. I flunked my FYBCom exams. My future looked meek. On the advise of my doctor I changed place. I shifted to Manipal, Karnataka, took admission in a college over there and began life afresh.

I took medical treatment in Mangalore. The treatment was very good, slowly my life which was out of my hands started coming around. I finished my graduation and returned home in Mumbai in 2004.

Life after graduation, meant taking more challenges. I was not successful in my endeavours which brought stress, marriage and the call centre job added upon the already existing stress. And after little bit of soul-searching and pursuit of mental peace, I stumbled upon Gautama Buddha. My search ended then and there. I bought a palm-sized statue of Him from a gift gallery in Vashi and it changed my life completely. Even though I still take medicines, my life changed and changed for the better. The mere presence of the statue brought positive energy in the house. I started to feel that life is beautiful. Initially I used to brood that my friends are doing better than me and that I’m a loser. But the statue made me see the better side of life. It gave me unimaginable strengths. I did my MA in Journalism and mass communications and have taken up writing as a part time occupation. I still work in the call centre but am at peace with myself and my career. I now don’t hate myself because so and so is an engineer, so and so is a MBA and their careers are rocking while mine is down in the dumps.

And all this is only because of the Gautama Buddha statue in my house in Sanpada. Although in Ulwe, my marital home, Mr Poojari worships Shri Shubananda Swamiji, and it is not allowed to worship anyone else, I’ve downloaded a beautiful picture of my Lord in my mobile phone. So whenever I feel stressed or whenever I have an issue, I can glance at him. And yes, He does drive the negatives out of my system and I’m all positive and charged for the next venture. No I don’t say any chants, I just glance the pic for nearly a minute and the blues go choomantar.

Even though Buddhism is a religion in itself, I’ve not converted. I’m still a Hindu and do make a point to show around all the sarvajanik Lord Ganesha idols during Ganeshotsav to my daughter, but for mental peace I resort to Buddha, the enlightened one.           

THE LOCKDOWN EXPERIENCE

 Hi, this is my first serious blog. I mean I plan to continue writing a blog daily and throw insights into my and our contemporary life as parts of the society.

Life under lockdown is comparatively relaxing than my normal busy office-going days when I had to leave home at 8 AM. We do have our ‘work-from-home’ routines, four hours per day ie two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening.  

I did go out during the curfew-relaxation duration to buy essentials today. There was relatively short queue this time outside the departmental store. I was not bored. But I was definitely SHOCKED, on seeing the price of the washing powder: its price was Rs 1080. I think it weighed a good 10 kgs. There was no half-kg or 1 kg washing powder available. And the alternate kirana store was also shut. This has been the state since the past one month. I mean, WHY would anybody buy such a huge packet. I mean, I am a strongly built woman, but I CANNOT lift more than five kgs. So that purchase is still pending. I just pray to Almighty that the other kirana store gets the washing powder of believable quantity and the stock lasts till I buy it and then me braving the hard-sun would be worth it.

I’m not able to get the medicines either. The doctor, a specialist has got his clinic in Vashi. The required medicines are available in the ground floor of the same building. But I currently stay in Ulwe. Here even in the reputed medical stores there is no stock. Even in the medicines-online website, there is no stock available in our particular location ‘Navi Mumbai’. I just pray to God that everything ends well.

However difficult life has been in this lockdown period, I am of the opinion that the Modi government has done its best. This suffering and strange sort of unimagined relaxation period will be remembered. Well, it has been the first in my thirty-seven year life that I’ve faced any sort of curfew. All over the world the situation is bad. But guys, it’ll end soon, we need to follow the guidelines and life will be normal.

My new e-books Apr 2020

Hi !
I'm Priya Gopal, a part-time writer.
I always choose subjects which are interesting and make for a good read.
      So here I'm, with two new e-books,
'horror stories' and 'smiles of the concrete city- part 4 and 5'.
     So in this boring covid19 lockdown  period, you can always read and load your senses with freshness. These e-books are available in amazon.in
      Bye for now...