Where does the love go?

What keeps relationships going? Is it that warm sensation you get when you see the one you love or is it all the trails and test of time that the couple go through and if it is all these wonderful things that keeps relationships going why is that it seems very less reflected among the married couples in India?

I am not trying to be judgmental here but it always puzzles me that couples have been together for 25-30 years only to have ceased any kind of civil conversation between them and their relationship has graduated to such a level that they don’t even sleep together. It is the insights with all the small observations that you make when you visit your relatives or your friends parents, how many of them can you truly tell are together because they want to be together? All those wanting eyes, loving words that you hear and see in umpteen number of romantic movie flicks does it really translate into happenings in real life? Doubting husbands, frustrated wives I guess that is what you look forward to when it comes to being in a relationship for ‘too long’ so much so that anyone who survives the ‘I hate being in this relationship’ syndrome is actually considered one of a kind.

It’s a pity that your honeymoon period just ends with those one or two months that couples are gifted with prolonging that feeling becomes nearly impossible. Kids, In-laws, irking relatives from both ends seem to play quite a role in wrecking otherwise delicate bond.

We don’t have the drive to express..express our love to the one we love. Your wife cooks a good meal for you, do you acknowledge it and say it really tastes good? Your husband comes back home all tired does the wife take the time to massage his back once in a while. Small acts of love goes a long way in keeping the love alive it does not have be backed up with big diamond rings or expensive vacations, small day to day acts of love goes a long way in building lives.

A new start

I see everybody leaving and I feel a new life beginning. I feel as if I have come a long way from where I was. No more of the kiddish stunts no more of the girlie night outs. I seemed to have stepped into someone else shoes and I am not feeling comfortable at all.

But that is not the only thing bothering me. Today I saw so many leave and I am used to tearful farewell’s where each one wishes that if only they were together one more day, one more hour.. one more moment. The scene I saw was very different everybody seemed to be beaming ear to ear and I was taken aback because I know I would be doing the same too glad that I am out of this dreadful college.

So sad though that in these two years there were no bonds nurtured no feelings exchanged just a quiet acceptance that we were bought together by some cruel fate and for two years we might as well get ahead with it. And we did get ahead with it each one guarded themselves and never let anyone know they were vulnerable. The scene when I was a kid all through my teenage years was very different. Back then it was so easy to trust, so easy to make friends, so easy to enjoy life. In post graduation relationship were built with caution and out of necessity. Friendship had given way to diplomacy. Plain fun was replaced with cautious laughter. Everyone was so scared to expose themselves, be themselves trust somebody. Everything was so…fake.

I can’t blame anyone because as we grow older our stakes become higher. Before I could pass some comment and get away with it now any gossip I create or someone creates about me would nail my progress upward in the ‘corporate world’. As we grow older responsibility sneaks in and obviously after successfully facing many betrayals, many falls and many hardships the mind becomes conditioned to the surroundings.

After these two years I can say that we all have become much stronger to face the world. The mini ‘corporate world’ that we were exposed too gave us an idea that the world outside is nothing less. But its with a sign that I let go of this final leg of my education life. I gained a lot but lost much more than that.

Of bondages and relationships

My advertising teacher was going on and on about sex, condoms, Viagra and everything that was actually taboo to discuss and that too in a class of seventy students. While the girls all squirmed in disgust and embarrassment the guys were all having the time of their life. That is when I wondered is it really ok for teachers to get that ‘free’ with students. For that matter should this kind of free talk be encouraged among parents or others more aged than us.

I cringe when someone I respect or someone I hold high regard for talks to me about topics not normally discussed. According to me I feel it breaks that bondage of respect and brings in a sort of carelessness to the relationship. The carelessness to speak anything and everything without regard for age or relationship. I am not saying that parents should be strict with their kids or teachers should have a military attitude all I am saying is there should be a line. That line that borders between decency and vulgarity.

Talking incessantly about perverted topics is not closeness nor is it bridging the communication gap. I feel any discussion should be constructive and not spoken to have cheap pleasure. As long as the conversation is to communicate a message its fine but if it for any other reasons it should not be encouraged.

Let every relation have its sanctity. Let a father daughter relationship be that bond of parenthood and not a relationship wherein the father asks you “So how is your sex life doing?”. Let the student teacher relationship be one of respect and not one wherein your professor asks you out on a date. I might be sounding very outdated and very much orthodox but what I feel is when you’re ‘cool’ about everything in life. Life and bonds cease to have meaning to it.

Guru - The Movie

Who has not seen ‘Guru’ by now? Well at least all the MBA students have. I have watched the movie too and to put it in plain words it was ‘Great!. Aishwarya in her traditional ‘half-saree’ and Abhishek in his 70’s style clothing was a sight to watch. What I found different in this movie was that there were no product placements in the movie and there were no outside locations like Switzerland or Hong Kong to push the movie forward. The purpose of the movie was simply….to entertain.

In this mad race today movies have become a media for advertising and also commercialization but Mani Ratnam so beautifully shows that it’s not the sparsely clothed actresses, exotic locations, macho heroes or vulgar scenes that are sure shot for a ‘hit’ movie, it can very simply be the script itself and the message it conveys.

The movie glorifies the need of an emerging country like ours to have more entrepreneurs who can challenge not only the established companies within the country but the world. Mani Ratnam has made very good choice on his character, Mr.Dhirubhai Ambani who learned to dream big and fulfilled it. The director has easily molded Mr.Dhirubhai Ambani’s life into an inspirational one. It gives us an inside view on how business actually works and its not always hard work but smart work which pays. While most of the movies overemphasize either the hero or heroine’s role this movie has given equal weightage to both. Though Aishwarya does not picture too often but her role has been portrayed in a very powerful way. In the sense his vision, confidence and sheer grit of Guru was not his alone but backed up by his ever loving and supporting wife.

Packed with powerful dialogues and foot tapping numbers by A.R.Rahman the movie is a must see.

Rejection

I got rejected for another interview today. ‘Rejected’ its surprising how easily that thought sunk into me to bring out all those weird facial changes. Suddenly my eyes dint feel as dry as before and my breath was coming out in gasps and being surrounded by thousands of people some giving those sympathetic looks some jeering at your failure you realize at that moment that your so alone… no one at that moment can feel the pain that your feeling.

Feeling of rejection is all too familiar a ground for me and it always takes me ages to pacify myself and get back into action. Once you reach the dark dungeons of rejection suddenly you seem to be the most worthless person to be alive. All the so called smartness, intelligence, tufness everything vanishes and sheer hopelessness sets in. I have battled through these thoughts all too many times and maybe not victorious always but I have learnt to BELIEVE.

I have learnt to believe that there is someone up there who is watching over you and testing your faith in him. Testing if you would get through the test of time but watching over you all the same. It’s like when your dad once taught you to ride your bike. He only held on as long as it was required, pampering you, encouraging you and being by your side but he let you go to be on your own, to brave your way through the world. It was difficult for me to get my footing firmly on the ground but I have done it now, I can now proudly proclaim. I don’t weep months on end thinking about my failures nor do I feel that I am any less better than anyone else. The wound heals much faster…the smile comes back to my face much faster….my heart becomes much lighter now.

For all those who feel that they are no good all I have to say is BELIEVE…

Beware MBA's !!!

I know how it feels to imagine yourself in an air-conditioned office with a slick lap-top and staring at your latest Nokia N-series mobile phone obviously all at the expense of your company. Now how would you get there? Obviously it has to be with a MBA.

I nurtured that dream for quite sometime and enrolled myself for an MBA program. Being a person with average intelligence and even lesser IQ I couldn’t qualify for one of those premier colleges. As I trudged my way through those all too eager money eating MBA colleges I did stumble more than once and now that I am nearing the end of the course and see the next generation budding managers I have some word of advice (it all comes with learning it the hard way!). These are for those students who for one reason or the other could not ‘make it’ to those top rung colleges. But don’t feel lost even the other colleges have bountiful to offer provided you pick em up with care.

Few things you absolutely have to do before landing into the hard spot are as below (not given in any order):

1.Find out if the area in which the college has good industrial exposure this would help as you can take up some part time job to get a hands on experience on how the ‘corporate world’ works or you could just walk into these offices and get a feel of a work culture.

2.Find out how many batches have passed out from the college and my strong recommendation would be not to join a college where you would be the first experimentation batch one reason is it would be risky in terms of the companies coming in for placements, lack of proper faculty and chaotic schedules.

3.Check out the library, not if there are any babes in the form of a librarian but in terms of the kind of books they stock. There must a healthy mix of marketing, advertising, human resource, IT books and good journals like Harvard Business Review etc. I know there might be some who won’t even enter the library but at least you can say that you saw how the book looks!

4.Opt for a college which has good internet facilities it would help in your project work and the tones of assignment you would otherwise have to copy and write. Check out if they have broadband connection so you don’t have to break your head waiting for the page to load.

5.Check out the kind of faculty they have both in terms of the permanent and the guest lecturers. Beware! Some colleges actually fool you by cleverly putting the name of guest lecturers as permanent faculty.

6.Find out the student to teacher ratio, ideally 50 students in a class is ok. Any thing lesser than that would be great but usually does not happen. The reason being that it would be really difficult for the teacher to handle the class and help the students out if they really need individual attention.

7.Find out the kind of companies coming to the college and most important find out for which specialization they are coming for, why I say this is because in my college mostly banks come for placement and they offer mainly finance or marketing job so a lot of students who want otherwise are left out. So check out the openings most of the companies are coming for.

8.For all those ultra rich people this suggestion wont matter but for those whose pockets are not too full don’t go by the fees quoted by the college find out the hidden costs which they cleverly window dress.

P.S: Most of this information can be obtained from the seniors who are in the college. It is a must to talk to the seniors or you would be just landing into another mistake and an expensive one at that!

These are just few of the things I felt I should have looked into more closely those who have more to add please feel free to do so.

Think again

Do you remember being a toddler? Do you remember the first thing you broke? The first lie you told? You may think that you don’t remember but its all there…lost in some part of our memory and it all comes alive when you take the time to cut your self off from the hectic schedule of your life and decide to spend a few moments reminiscing your past and that’s exactly what my friend did.

I didn’t realize that all those little things that you do like hiding something or whacking your kid brother or stealing fruits from your neighbors tree all becomes so etched in your memory that they linger on all your life.

I took this trip with my best friend. He was all excited to travel down this memory lane and the excitement grew as we were fast approaching destination. When we reached the place he momentarily forgot my presence and got lost in what he saw before his eyes..the same old place where he troubled his parents, the same tree which he climbed a hundred times, the same goose he chased around the garden, everything is the same..he told me with excitement in his eyes.

He went to each room, every lane every place that was so close to his heart. He led me to a chair and told me that years ago when he and his kid brother were playing he almost shot his kid brother and he wanted to find out if that mark was still on the chair and his joy found no bounds when he saw the same mark, the play bullet which should have actually hit his brother. Then he showed me the place he ate his food the place he and his granduncle played chess, the room their family slept in. The day went on exciting him with every step that he took.

I was in no way part of this memory that he cherished so much but I was equally fascinated because for those few hours he relived his childhood, he found all those small lost links in his life. I also learnt that as we all progress in life we feel that we have forgotten all those small moments in life all those trivial things which you might just oversee but no matter how young you are or old how old you are each moment of your life is a memory so if you think that you have forgotten the last time you might have lied to get away from something…think again.