Bachchan verses Papa

Papa gave a stern kick on his Rajdoot and without any hesitation it got into action. Me and my brother sat on the back seats and off we went to see my first movie ever on the 70 mm big screen to Premprakash theater. As soon as we reached the theater, I was super excited but I felt so little in front of the big cinema hall, a bit scared, nervous and immensely happy. I was  going to see the first movie of my life in the cinema Hall, It was huge deal. The movie was of the most famous angry young man from Amitabh Bachchan and it was:  "Mukadar ka Sikandar" It went on to become a cult movie from Bachchan. In the beginning there was a small documentary then various advertisements and stuff and I remember asking my brother every other second if the movie started. I couldn't get that. He was the clever one, always kept saying.... abhi nahi (not now), I will tell you when it happens.

Then and now......

My cousin was here for his conference and we got to catch up with each other after many years. I remember he got married while we were in Germany, I think it was most probably 1997 (I hope I am right) I was wrong they got married in 2001. I knew it! I am bad with numbers. I took the girls for his and Monica`s wedding. That's when I got to interact a tiny little bit with Monica (my Sister in law and now I would say more like a sister and a friend) my first impressions were, she was very confident, smart and beautiful...I loved her hair :)

Substitute for a Joint Family

Last week me and my two friends were chatting in the Sauna Room at the Gym. We all were talking about our over 40 health issues, me feeling dizzy, A feeling up and down and S having her hot flushes. I always look forward to go to the Gym because of those conversations. I feel I am not the only one and its OK to feel the way I am feeling because every Women feels some sort of these things at some point or at some phase in her life and its normal. I am the kind of person who just likes to confront any problem and not hide it, I never hide when I am happy or successful then why hide when I am down or sad or when I really need help. I think, that is real life and then only you know know who your real friends and well wishers are and trust me if you want you will get enough opportunities to return the favor. Then I realized no matter what culture, country or place you come from, all the women face the same biological issues at different phases of their lives.

I was telling them how I grew up in a Joint family and how my Grandmas, Aunts and we all cousins used to hang out together. It really feels like yesterday. Ours was and it still is a family of four Grandfathers, my Grandfather was the eldest. We all, around 25 people still live together in this big Haveli in the heart of the City. I am not saying its all good, their are always issues as well but hey, if there are five dishes they make noises too. But if you would calculate the positive list of the Joint family will definitely overcome the negative one and I think we learn a lot of compromise as well. We have four sections in the big Haveli, all the families have different kitchens, so you are sort of together and separate too. After your chores are done you can hang out and there is always someone to give you support in times of need and there are always people to celebrate festivals, functions etc.

Emotional Behavior

This is some behavioral change I am talking about which I observed in a human being. How do people perceive themselves and how do they like to be perceived, its a totally different thing I think!

I started seeing a certain change in A`s behavior for some days. She said she feels that she wants certain people to perceive her in a way she thinks she likes. So she went ahead and started incorporating some changes in her behavior. Slowly people started noticing some change and started asking questions. I had a good talk with A. Finally she opened up to me, not all but partly. I understood what she meant but then I gave her an example which sort of blew me away, yes ME ! Sometimes some things are not clear to me or I have a problem and most of the time I get my answers while talking to people, be it friends, my kids, or R. I don``t know but voicing and speaking about a problem, stirs some things in the mind and what comes out is mostly a solution and you all know I believe in COMMUNICATION! It Works!!! So, confront a problem and see what happens. I have also told my girls from their Kindergarten days on, if you have a problem face it heads on, face it until it becomes a habit or a behavior. Then the course of the problem changes and the Status too, because you have learnt to deal with the problem and you can cross it out as one. It becomes normal. Now they are so used to doing it this way and I am so proud of them. I can give you dozen examples, which they tell me after coming home from the University and school, what they did and it Works! It was very hard for them in the beginning but now they know, this is the best way to deal with any problem.

Types of Intelligence

Until a few months ago I didn't know there are types of Intelligence. I just knew either you are Intelligent or not. Simple! We were having our Koch Klub (cooking club) and when we were talking about the Blog I told a friend of mine that "I am not that Intelligent", needs a bit time to understand technology and then I said that I was anyways an average student in School. That's when she said Ity its not that you are not Intelligent but you have different kinds of Intelligent. Then she explained it to us that there are about 9 different kinds of Intelligence which includes Social

Spiritual

Emotional

Intellectual (which I think I am not on the top),

Linguistic

Musical

Body and movement....so how much we got.......5 OK....let me think !!! the rest is

Personal

Natural (don't we all know that) I think. So there you go. We have about 9 different kinds of Intelligence. When I checked google for this, it showed some complicated non everyday life workds for these, But the above works for me. In today's world if someone is not "so called" "Intellectual" Intelligent then he/she or we all say....this person is an average. But hey !!! now I think no, I cannot judge the person just like that. May be he or she has not got one Intelligence but they could have something from the other 8 left. And trust me they mostly do because God has given all of us something or the other. Knowing this truth felt really good to me and I started seeing myself and also other people differently. Sometimes they say "Ignorance is a bliss but in this case it surely was not.

Concept of a Joint Family

Where do I start here. This topic is really "Joint" as a Joint family, where relations, relatives, cousins and people you know never have an end. Its like a creeper growing by a big tree where you will never figure out where it ends and where it started. Its all very green and Jung lee but beautiful!! That`s how I grew up knowing so many people around me and it felt great, good, safe, protected and loved. We still live that way back home in this old Haveli.

I also had an opportunity to travel just a little bit in the State of West-Bengal (Darjeeling) where my Mamasa and most of my mother`s family lived and worked in the tee gardens. It was a very contrast life from what I was used to in Jaipur (Rajasthan). I must be 7 or 8 years old. We took a train for over 36 hours to Siliguri and from there we were driven to the wonderful Tee garden of Longview. Everything was so different, the air, the people the atmosphere, India is really diverse, I didn't realise that then, that time the feeling was kind of a bit of confusion but you don't really think that much. Kids just go with the flow and when your mom is around you just don't bother. But I still don't have any words to explain that feeling. I still remember the time when we entered in the Bungalow (real beautiful, British styled place) it was like in the movies. I was a very shy kid then. That's where I saw a live piano, a Table Tennis table and a billiards table in my life and that's where I tried to learn to use cutlery while eating. It was a bit too much for this little shy girl of 8 years old. But I survived and I learnt a lot without knowing that I am learning something. The place was done in a very British way but the atmosphere was very Indian, very respectful, humbling, happier

Forgiveness

Last week something unfortunate and totally unnecessary happened, which is called an accident. Why do accidents happen? We really don't know and we always keep looking for answers for them, like what if I had not done this, or what if she would have been a minute late this would have been avoided or gosh it would have been so good if he missed the bus and so on. We keep beating ourselves up with this and many more questions, but never get answers, at least I never got mine.

So, as I was saying about an accident, my mother was hit by an on coming motorcyclist. They both fell on the road. My mother got hurt near the eye and on her foot, she got stitches at both the places. She and my father were stopping by some shop to pick up some stuff, while my father was waiting in the car. When she didn't return after some time, my father got worried and that's when he saw crowd gathering on the road, that's when he sensed something was wrong and went to see what was going on. To his utter shock, panic, stress and utter sadness (I cant even imagine) he saw my Mom :( on the road. They picked her up and ALSO the man who hit my mother and drove both of them to the hospital for treatment. WHY???? HIM???