The Great Indian Wedding!

Today you will be treated to a unique insight into the part of the wedding that I find the most interesting... the wedding guests. Indian weddings tend to be grand affairs, the bigger the better (that goes for everything)! Which means people like me get a lot of opportunity to observe guests with their little eccentricities and tell you stories about them. So here goes…

The first in my list are The Inappropriate Uncles: Alcohol is not served at most Indian weddings and with good reason but some of the older uncles still manage to sneak in drinks which they hide in a room. No one is allowed in that room, as kids we were told that "grown-ups are doing important work there". Yeah, I bet. So that usually ends up with drunk people saying inappropriate things. There was this guy once at a wedding who after a few drinks, came up to another man and described in vivid detail a very hot lady who was standing across the room. After he was done, the man turned to him and said... "I hear you bro, that's my wife".

While the drinkers may get into trouble, this next group never does. They are:

The Eaters: There are a lot of people who come to weddings just to eat. I have friends who attended the wrong wedding because they went straight to the buffet! They sometimes skip lunch to make sure they do not have to turn away the second helping of dessert. That would be a regret you would carry to your grave. Now I know in church marriages, you have the service which everyone attends and then you have the reception. In Indian weddings, you can literally start eating as soon as you enter and getting a seat at the banquet hall is like playing a game of thrones. “All men must die”. And of course, no one watches the actual ceremony... the usual way of doing things is to come late, hand over the gift, click a few selfies and head straight for the food. The only people who are forced to watch are the bride and groom... and the wedding photographer because he is being paid to.

But the group to watch out for are:

The Wedding Mafia: This is the group of ladies that you need to avoid at all costs... If they catch you, they are going to fix your marriage to their neighbor's second sister's nephew's cousin's brother or somebody equally ridiculous. About 50% of arranged marriages in India are fixed at someone else's wedding... A number I just made up to sound impressive. Seriously though, at my elder sister's wedding, I lost count of the number of the number of people who told me "You're next!" *wink wink* I honestly debated whispering the same thing to them at funerals. Anyway, these ladies may look completely harmless in their sarees and their neat hairdos but don't be fooled... They have the power to force even Leonardo DiCaprio to get married... and to a woman of their choice!

This next guest still haunts my dreams:

The Weird Kid: Call me crazy but I have noticed that in every Indian wedding, there will always be this one weird kid in all the wedding photos... right in the middle of the bride and groom. That kid is not impressed by your arrangements, often you don't have a clue who the kid belongs to (which was bound to happen since you don’t know most of the guests) but after that day, you will never forget that kid because he is right there... in the middle of all your photos. And he might as well have held up his middle finger because that my friends, is exactly what he has done to you.

The Over-Enthusiastic Priest: The priest is technically not a guest but he is definitely the person most excited to be at the wedding. During our wedding, the rituals took place at 2 in the morning and our priest was the only person who was remarkably upbeat. He was kind of like a kid who had a sugar rush… only he had a lot to say which we were supposed to listen to.

I don't remember most of what he said but this one gem stands out. It turns out "My husband cannot buy a cow without my permission". Well, permission granted... go buy a cow, eat it for all I care. Wow, I can literally hear religious people fainting all over India. Relax guys, the cow is fine – see that’s why I do not give permission to buy a cow!

So, there you go... Now you are ready to attend your first Indian wedding and in case you're wondering which kind of guest you should be... Be an eater, always be an eater... Oh who am I kidding, most of you are going to be the token “foreigner” who completely stands out and who would be asked to repeat Hindi words while the rest of us go 'Awww'.... Well, you can thank me later for the heads up!

Thanks!

A tale of Courage...

I could never have done many things in my life without being inspired by all of you and by the people around me. Inspiration is what motivates us to push ourselves beyond our comfort zone towards greater things. That is why today, I will tell you the story of a man who has been the biggest inspiration in my life.

This young man was born in a village in Bangladesh.... Well at the time of his birth, it was a part of the Bengal province in India. After the partition of India and the death of Mahatma Gandhi, he was forced to flee his home, leave everything he had behind and come to West Bengal in India to avoid communal riots and police harassment. Living in abject poverty in the city of Calcutta, he still managed to complete his education and started working as a freelance journalist. A lot of struggles followed – both professional and personal but he persevered. By the time I knew him, he was the editor of the largest Bengali newspaper and had established himself as an eminent writer with more than thirty published books. On the personal front, he had a family who loved and admired him. 

I know what you are thinking, it’s a nice story but what has it got to do with us? Well, this young man was my grandfather or “Dadu” as we say in Bengali and he has managed to inspire me in almost every sphere of life. I really tried to condense this down to one learning but then I thought, maybe there is something in each aspect of his life that will inspire some of you.

Courage in adversity: Imagine having to leave behind your home, people you grew up with and everything you have, because you and your family would probably die if you didn’t leave. It takes a lot of courage and perseverance to start from scratch and still achieve your dreams. Dadu started out as a tutor to young kids while he struggled to complete his higher education. For years afterwards he worked as a freelance journalist before finally tasting success. In his personal life too, he faced the immense challenge of losing his only son at a very young age. I never heard him discuss the incident but he honored his son's memory by setting up a charitable foundation to provide monetary support to children who needed it - here he is at a foundation event. Taking life’s challenges and dealing with them is something that he has inspired me to try and do in my life. 

Love conquers all: At a time when love marriages were unheard of (it’s still frowned upon in our country) my grandfather fell in love and eloped with my grandma. They were teenagers, he had no money, she belonged to an affluent family, her family was out to get him, he told us how he had to bring her to an apartment which he shared with his friends... the odds were heavily stacked against them and yet, they spent the rest of their lives together. He wouldn’t have managed to be successful without her support and he made sure everyone knew it. They passed away within five months of each other and I always felt that they never really learned to live without one another. Now that’s the kind of everlasting love that I aspire to have. And here my husband does not even let me change TV channels.

Do what you love: In India, parents see their newborn baby and the first thing they say is “He is going to be an engineer” or “she is going to be a doctor”. And their fate is sealed. But my grandfather believed that you should do what you love and love what you do. He spent his life writing which he loved. He inspired my younger sister to give up science subjects in high school and pursue her love
for literature. Everyone told her not to, they told her “it’s a bad decision and you’re giving up lucrative careers” but she stuck to her guns and said “I want to be a writer like Dadu”. She is
doing very well now and she sucked at Math so it was a great decision all around. More importantly, he inspired her to recognize her strengths and weaknesses and make the right choice.

Read and read more: Every gift that Dadu has given us has been books. Since the time we learned to read, he has never gifted us anything else. He also did not believe in censoring books because he said... “Only when you read everything, that’s when you’ll be able to decide what you like to read”. Once on my thirteenth birthday, he gifted me a couple of Mills and Boon romances. For those of you who don’t know, this is how a typical MB cover looks like. My dad was too embarrassed to even take them away so I went through a phase when I only read these. Thanks Dadu. He was an avid reader himself and slowly built up his personal library. He collected and read a lot of rare, sometimes banned books and reading is something that he has definitely inspired me to do. 

Be curious: My grandfather had a childlike curiosity about everything. Every day he would spend about two hours with his newspapers... reading them cover to cover. In the evening, he would catch hold of us and ask us questions – if we answered correctly he would give us one rupee. I used to be terrified because I could never remember what I read. I used to see my friends go to their grandfathers for love and chocolates and I would say... “What’s his deal? Why is he torturing us?” But I realized later that he was teaching us to be curious about everything. He would watch television with us and tell us tidbits of gossip, we could have political debates one moment and then discuss our crushes the next, he was totally up to date with everything . I try to be curious and eager to learn all the time so if I seem over-enthusiastic at times, you now know whom to blame.

So these were a few of the things that my grandfather has taught me in life. He was not perfect in any way but he took the struggles life handed out and turned them into successes. I miss him, I miss the little things he taught us... making up poems while out on evening walks, laughing at ourselves and always giving our best. He continues to inspire us and I hope he was able to inspire a few of you, he would have loved that!

The Office romances...

I recently binged-watched The Office (US) on Netflix and absolutely fell in love with it. For the uninitiated, the show can be described as "A mockumentary on a group of typical office workers, where the workday consists of ego clashes, inappropriate behavior, and tedium. Based on the hit BBC series." (source: IMDB) It's hilarious, it's something we can relate to (though a boss like Michael Scott would be pretty rare and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or bad) and the best thing is how invested you get in the characters. I have watched many show endings but this was the one and only show till date that had me bawling my eyes out. Not something I'd expect from a comedy but then again, The Office manages that balance between comedy and drama, never letting the comic moments overpower the emotional quotient or letting too much melodrama keep it from being light and funny. And it is funny, I guarantee you!

One of the areas where this show succeeds is the depiction of office romances. There are romances that are crazy, romances that lead to people getting fired, romances that are cute and those that are destructive. And then there is an epic romance that doesn't fall into the usual trappings of television melodrama but is so beautiful and down-to-earth that everyone can hope to have something like it in their lives. Today I will take a look at the relationships on the show and how it relates to real life.

Pam & Jim - There is a reason why this relationship has an immense fan-following even after years of the show ending. This couple gave everyone serious relationship goals without being over-the-top and unbelievable. In fact the best thing about their relationship is that it is so believable that it makes the viewers believe it can happen to them. I love that the show creators never felt the need to make their relationship on again - off again like most TV couples are. They were best friends (with all the cute flirting) right from the start and once they finally got together in an epic (though literally a five second scene) moment, you knew they were always going to be together. Their drama was subtle and their moments were beautiful. To know that your soulmate is sitting five feet away... what could be better than that?

Angela & Dwight - Started off as a super secret relationship because c'mon, who would believe that the cold-as-ice Angela and the socially inept Dwight could ever be in a relationship? But the truth is that even though they broke up mid-show, they both continued to be in love with each other throughout the series. Whether Angela was engaged to Andy or married to the State Senator, she always came back to Dwight and Dwight pining for Angela are some of the most heart-rending scenes especially since Dwight is otherwise mostly seen as a odd, socially challenged man. The fact that the series finale finally brought the two together was satisfying and a great note to end the series on. They are not an example of a typical television couple but the show makes you root for them to end up together.

Jan & Michael - Probably the worst-case scenario of how office romances could turn out. It started off as a drunken kiss which the higher-ranking Jan tried her best to hide from the company but failed to. From Michael inadvertently circulating a almost-naked picture of Jan throughout the office to Jan getting a boob-job in order to win back Michael, this relationship was doomed from the start. I hated to see Jan change.. from a successful, in-control manager to a completely out-of-control, shrieking lunatic who is eventually fired from the company. I genuinely like her more when she was in a power position and their relationship should be a warning for people thinking about starting office relationships.

Kelly & Ryan - This was a very toxic relationship but because of the situations and the actors, it always came across as more funny than painful to watch. Because that is what it would have been if their lines were not funny and Kelly was not such a ditsy character... she is hilarious (and sometimes annoying) to watch. Kelly and Ryan were possibly the two most selfish people in the office and I'm pretty sure that's what keeps attracting them to each other. That relationship is sure headed for self-destruction. It's crazy how they run off together at the end of the series leaving Kelly's fiance and Ryan's baby behind... yes you read that correctly, they left a baby and ran away! Not a good example of how office relationships should be.

Holly & Michael - I actually really like this relationship and I'm happy that they ended up together. Holly was the only one who "got" Michael, who loved his quirkiness and understood his jokes. In fact, she was as big a dork as Michael. And isn't that what you want in life... Someone who loves you just as you are... not in spite of but because of... all your failings, your eccentricities, your craziness and enjoys spending time with you. Holly's character is in stark contrast to Jan who never appreciated Michael but always wanted to control him. Michael's proposal to Holly was one of the most beautiful ones I have seen on television (made my eyes water a little, I was so happy).

Erin & Gabe/Andy/Pete - Erin is one of those characters we see in real life who just can't say no to anyone. That's how she ended up dating Gabe (uggh, I really hated this character) and Andy (who treated her really badly at the end). To understand her relationships, you have to understand that Erin was an orphan who craved love and caring. She didn't like hurting people and that led to her forgiving their many faults and not having the strength to break up with them. I was very happy that she ended up with Pete who genuinely cared for her and made her laugh. Also, it was a nice salesman-receptionist parallel to the Jim-Pam relationship.

There were a lot more relationships happening on The Office but these are the ones that stood out the most for me. Now that I'm seriously missing watching this show, maybe it's time for a quick re-watch?

The next independence...

Today I saw a saying as I was scrolling through Facebook in the morning. I usually ignore ultra-motivational lines... yes they are nice to hear but sarcasm/cynicism works better on me. This one was not - strictly speaking - a saying, it was more of an observation. It said.. "A man's money will never excite an independent woman". I can imagine this line being highly controversial in the Indian society where a lot of people still believe... a man is there to earn and a woman is there to look after the house.

Money is always a sensitive topic, especially in a country like India. Marriages are sometimes solely based on financial situation of the groom and how well he would be able to support his wife and her many longings. I have heard girls, even apparently well-educated ones, declare that they would choose husbands on the basis of his salary. After men choosing brides based on their looks, this is the next menace. Imagine a marriage which is based on a woman's looks and a man's money... what happens when looks fade or you realize that money does not equal happiness? I suppose a lot of people out there would tell me, that is how it has been working for ages so we don't need your opinions, thank you very much! Well, by now you might have guessed that a change in how things have been working (or not working) is exactly what I'm hoping for. Does that mean I believe that people who look for financial security while choosing a partner are shallow? Absolutely not! What I do hope is that more girls would be so financially secure themselves that they would not need to compromise on their other needs while deciding on a partner.

Since the time I contemplated marriage, I never imagined looking for a husband who earns the most, declining prospective candidates based on their salary or feeling excited that I might be married to a really rich guy. What I imagined was love, companionship, both of us contributing to finances and household work, struggling together and sharing successes and failures in life... I suppose I always took it for granted that I would also be having a career that I have worked for and a home that I would be happy to run. Was I asking for too much? Even after fighting and sacrificing a lot so that I can continue to work (in US), people still judge me because I chose career over staying in the same city with my husband. Yes, that is a sacrifice we both have made and yes, there are a lot of struggles. But I would choose that struggle over a life where I don't have my independence (and I know a lot of people equate independence with arrogance and selfishness but well... those people are morons).

I guess what I am trying to say is that there needs to be change in our mindset. There needs to be a scenario where a prospective in-law does not say to a girl... "You don't need to work, our son is earning enough, you can just relax at home" or "sorry, we don't allow girls in our family to work". There needs to be a change in mindset where a girl working and being independent is not an exception, but a rule. Just to reiterate, being independent does not mean partying and leading a wild life, it means that you have the capacity to take care of yourself and your family and being financially stable is a big part of that. So please, first educate your daughters and make them self-reliant... then you wouldn't need to look for a rich groom (or any groom) for her. 

Traveling through India...

This is another one in my speeches for Toastmasters... Through this speech, I aimed to inspire people who may not be aware of all the diverse things that our country has to offer...

How many of you have been to India? Tonight is special because it is a result of me feeling nostalgic about my country and not because I’m trying to promote tourism… we have enough people as it is. Just kidding, I do hope I’m able to inspire some of you to visit India!

Good evening toastmasters and welcome guests, tonight I will traveling through my country, India and taking you all along on the ride with me. Fasten your seat-belts or don’t, actually nobody cares in India.

Now because I am speaking to a quite a lot of non-Indians, I thought this one would be fun to look at. This is supposed to be a map of how India is seen by others around the world. Where do most westerners flock to? You see that tiny little area – that’s the designated vacation spot Goa. And those are the mountain regions… the places people think we go to do Yoga. I like how Gujarat is pointed out as a dry state, it’s so much more though. It’s only funny when we make fun of our country, not others!

Now let’s just forget about how India is perceived and take a look at some of the things you might see if you visit. Beautiful architecture dating back centuries, rich culture and colorful festivals, imposing mountains to gorgeous oceans and of course, delicious food. And I’m grateful that I’ve had the chance to experience most of these things.

My journey started in the eastern part of India, in the city of Calcutta in West Bengal. Calcutta is a city caught in a time-warp. You are standing in a flashy mall, you walk a few steps and suddenly you are in these old, narrow lanes and palatial houses still standing proudly. There are three things people of Calcutta love – fresh Fish every day, an hour of political debate while eating that fish followed by an afternoon nap after eating. Hmmm… rich food and sleep everyday… That explains a lot!

After completing school, I moved to Sikkim, a small mountain state north of Bengal. My campus was surrounded by mountains on one side and a river on the other (you can see it up there) and some of the best years of my life were spent there. We used to take an overnight train from Sikkim to Calcutta and we would often make unplanned trips without buying tickets and hide in the toilets when someone came to check our tickets (yes we can do that, we are quite corrupt).

Then in 2009, at the age of 22, I moved all the way to the south of India to the city of Hyderabad. At first, I hated it. I didn’t understand the language they spoke, I didn’t enjoy the kind of food they ate and every year I would declare… “This is the year I go back to Calcutta”. Well that never happened and five years went by. I discovered the delicious Hyderabadi biriyani and I learned a few words to at least converse with the cleaning lady (she was the most important person in my life). Last week I came to know that most of those words were wrong so I wonder what I had been telling her.

The south of India is also where most of the IT software companies have their offices – especially the city of Bangalore is known as the IT city. It is said that if you throw a stone in Bangalore, 9 out of 10 times it will hit an IT engineer (don’t do it, there are too many of us). 

While working in Hyderabad, I had a chance to visit some places in the West of India. Among them, Mumbai is very memorable for me. It’s said that Indians are crazy about two things – Cricket and Movies. I once tried to run away from home because I wanted to meet an actor who was visiting my city. As it turns out I was not very good at planning and was caught before I reached the bus stop. That is why Mumbai is special because it is where the Hindi film industry (or Bollywood) is located. I actually spent a few hours standing outside an actor’s house hoping he would come out, until the security guard made me leave. Well, I’ll be back!

For now, we move north towards the capital. If Calcutta is where I was born, Delhi is what I am married into because my husband, Ashish is born and brought up here. The specialty of people from Delhi is that they almost completely speak in obscenities. The closer you are, the more you’ll hear. When I first became friends with people from Delhi, I was scared to talk to them, it was all *beep* *beep* *beep*. Later I realized it was because they thought we were friends.  

North of India also has some of the most gorgeous mountains you would ever see, the Himalayan range. Even if we’re not doing yoga there, these are places that bring you close to nature. There is also the desert state of Rajasthan which is the next place in India I want to visit.

If you’re still debating whether to visit India or not, here are some fun facts for you. In spite of its problems, what I love about my country is the diversity in cultures, the rich heritage that we have and the fact that India has the power to stay in your heart forever.

I hope that some of you have been inspired to plan a trip to India because we believe ‘Atithi devo bhava’ … ‘a guest is equal to God’. 

Blank Space...

Have you ever been stuck in the chasm between waking up and sleeping? That space in time when your body is still asleep but your mind is half awake and trying to focus. Only it can't focus completely. So it imagines that it is awake and feels delusional because somewhere it knows that it is still in the realm of dreams but can't drag itself back. It also tries to force itself to awake completely but the body refuses to cooperate. I used to suffer from this phenomena quite frequently and I would either wake up in a sweat or slip back into a disturbed slumber. Either way, the feeling was not pleasant.

Now imagine this feeling in your daily life. Stuck in a space between your dreams and your reality, unable to focus completely, unable to let it go and continue dreaming. Sometimes in our life, we feel trapped in this kind of a situation and it is not a very pleasant one. We have this vague idea of what the reality should look like and feel like but we are unable to reach there. Instead we experience an alternate reality which we have no control over. Sometimes, stuck in that space between sleep and wakefulness, I would sense a negative energy in the room. I would try to escape that negative energy by waking up but because my body would not respond, I would be overcome by a sense of impending doom. That is exactly how we feel in life when we are unable to achieve our dreams and turn them into reality. It is then that the negative energies overcome us and trap us in a web of depression and sense of failure. In that state we feel our dreams slipping away and though we try to break away from our demons, we are frozen in a blank space.

The solution? It is one of the most discussed reaction of any living thing to a threat... flight or fight! In the beginning when I used to be stuck in a state of partial wakefulness, I would give up to the feeling of doom and let sleep take over. It just seemed like the easier thing to do. I would imagine the demons taking over me and tell myself that it would all be over soon. We do that in life too... accept depression, sink deeper into it and tell ourselves that it would be somehow be better. It would be easier than a seemingly useless fight. One day I was reading about the phenomena of this half-awake half-asleep state and I learnt that by trying to jerk our legs, we can break out of that state and wake up. The fascinating thing about our minds is that it just needs that small stimulus of hope. That is sometimes enough to push us out of situations that seem hopeless. The piece of information that I learnt helped me break out of the blank space.Was it a fight? Yes. But here is what I have learnt... always choose the fight.

I have heard a lot of stories of depression, about losing the will to continue... I also have phases when the impending sense of failure threatens to overcome everything. And I know it is easy to talk about it but much more difficult to deal with it. But I have also seen remarkable stories of strength and willpower against great odds. And they all have the same thing in common... they chose to fight. Find that strength, that hope, that small bit of information which will push you out of the space you are trapped in. It won't happen in a moment or maybe even in a long time but it will happen eventually. Don't let your demons win.

The Curse of the Introverts...

Have you noticed the person slinking at the back of parties, clearly uncomfortable with the social situation they have been put in? Trying to engage, to be part of conversations when they would rather be sitting at home curled up with a good book or just chilling to some music away from the madding crowd. Welcome to the world of introverts. It is fascinating and at the same time, difficult to understand by anyone who has never been in that position.

Inside the mind of an introvert: As a lifelong introvert, I feel the need to talk about this subject sometimes. A lot of times, introverts are mistaken as rude, arrogant and aloof. Not unfairly because there are many moments in an introvert's life when she just wants to escape the dullness of mundane conversation into the much more captivating world of her thoughts. Its not because she doesn't like you and its not because she thinks she is better than you. Most of the time its because she needs to be with herself, recharging and just being with her thoughts. Casual conversation does not come easily to her, she would rather share a long, meaningful silence and leave feeling so much has been said. She is in no way anti-social, in fact there are days when she craves company as much as you do. And the right company can fascinate and engage her. But once she has had that bit of social interaction, she just wants to retreat into herself.

Why do I call introverts cursed? In the modern world of networking, they are at an instant disadvantage because they don't understand small talk. Not because they don't have anything meaningful to say (if only you could hear the conversations in their minds) but because it is an act of extreme effort for them. While being quiet can be misconstrued as aloofness, a lot of introverts just don't contribute to the conversation unless they have something meaningful to say. Another trait of introverts, that of wanting to be by themselves, is often perceived as rudeness. But understand, introverts just don't feel the constant need to be in a crowd. In fact the thought exhausts them. Its not rudeness, it is a deep need and if they are deprived of it, they become irritable. And of course, being lost in thoughts is not always seen kindly. But while they might seem lost, they could be building an alternate universe in their minds!

How do you deal with introverts? Its very simple, just let them be. If your partner is an introvert and you are an extrovert, there is no point in insisting that she accompany you to every party that you go to. She'll not enjoy it and neither would you. The best way to deal with situations like this is to realize that it is possible to be a couple and still enjoy different things at times. Of course, sometimes you would need to tread the middle path and so would she. But for the most part, introverts thrive when they have some part of the day alone with their thoughts. They don't need to be entertained, nor to be coaxed to join a conversation. What they need is for you to understand that what you perceive as rudeness, is merely a survival strategy.