Disputes BETWEEN RELATIVES are rarely for money or property or materialistic things.
1) A friend gave birth to 2 babies back to back via c section. The younger one is 2 years old now Her mom in law is pestering her for sometime to get a tubectomy done. She heard it 10 times and the 11th time she asked her mom in law why can’t your son get some procedure done on himself as I already underwent 2 surgeries .
The mom in law said he is a man you know and it is not right for men, they should always have open options, this irritated my friend so she gave a curt reply what if I want to marry again and have a third child with someone else , you know even I want to keep my options open so I don’t want to undergo any family planning operation.
And mother please allow us husband and wife to decide where and when and how many kids we want to have, please stop giving us free advices.
She had to do this to buy some peace for herself. This does not amount to hurting or ill-treating your elders.
2) This is a second friend of mine from Hyderabad who lives with her husband in delhi . she has set up a nice thai fast food centre there which is doing well. Her husband works for some MNC.
Her sister in law who lives in Chennai is running a high end boutique catering to celebrities . she calls my friend very often and advices her to shut that small eatery and relocate to Hyderabad to take care of her ageing parents.
As my frends sister in law is making more money in her business than my friend , she considers it as her prerogative to give muft ka gyan, according to her, old ageing in laws shouldn’t be neglected, it is bad karma , unethical etc etc, my friend got so pissed off with the muft ka gyan that she told her nanand, dear sister in law why don’t you shut your boutique and go back to your in laws in hyderbad to take care of them, as they are ageing too, you can also take care of your parents along with your in laws by shifting the base.
You do not get the power to dominate me just by the virtue of your riches or rich clients. My business to me is as precious as yours is to you. we will handle our responsibilities, our in law's very well, you take care of yours, don’t go around giving mufti ka gyan!
I think this muft gyan giving, taunting, encroaching into others personal space, interference in personal matters, dominating people just by the power of being elders,
dictating terms,
keeping BIG EGOS ,
EXPLOITING ,
PREACHING WITHOUT PRACTICING , GANGING UP AGAINST ONE PERSON , indifferent behavior etc etc are causing more stress in relations than anything else.
We often drive away people,
OUR OWN PEOPLE from us to far away places , both physically and emotionally. due to the above reasons.
The day we start respecting every person as an individual with his own specific needs we will see less stress and more love in the relations.
STOP HANGING ON TO THE OBLIGATION or LIABILITY IN A RELATION WHEN YOU ARE DEALING WITH YOUR OWN PEOPLE.
GIVE YOUR BEST , MANY TIMES WE DON’T GET WHAT WE GIVE BUT REMEMBER IT IS A DEFICIENCY IN THE RECEIVER THAT HE IS NOT ABLE TO RECIPROCATE WITH THE SAME LOVE..LEAVE IT , AND HOPE THAT HE WILL EVOLVE ONE DAY TO BECOME AS GIVING AS YOU ARE !

learning should be a life long process!

While watching Prime ministers speech yesterday evening I told my husband I wish you too sold chai , why did you become a doctor , see the prince of India would have walked half the way of the house to hug you. A chai wala is so powerful in comparison to the foreign educated opposition leader.
The daughter asked slowly from behind so mom will you allow me to study a little less from tomorrow, I too will grow up and open a coffee shop, instead of becoming a doctor or an engineer!
She turned towards her dad and winked at him.
I said yes provided you read the newspaper daily , manorama year book every weekend , and finish reading one great biography every month, choice is yours now, either school books or other good books but the reading should go on . my fear is if I let you lose without any conditions , all you will do is watch those silly stupid episodes on Netflix .
More than her scores, we keep an eye on her thought process and try to make an assessment of her core strengths. Academic scores take a back seat when it comes to participation in sports, co-curricular and extracurricular activities. She has her own set of weaknesses and teenage distractions which we together try to help her overcome. Many times it is even difficult to extract what is going on in a teenager’s mind, who is playing the devil and hero in their minds. She doesn’t even give us access we have to do a lot of goading to make her open up and share, above all it isn’t easy for a full time working mother to keep an eye on the child round the clock.
Last couple of months I have been mentally recording the fascinating discussions between parents about their children of all ages at various gatherings …
At one table There is a mother who Often mentions about her colleagues very sarcastically, according to her , her colleagues send their daughter to too many tuitions, in spite of the effort of multiple tuitions and teachers the child did not score any great percentage. She would go on asking every child she meets at the party about how many tuitions they are attending. She would know the exact number of tuitions every child is going to, in their colony. All the statistics are permanently recorded in her brain. And she will not fail to quote them at every possible opportunity. Whoever she meets at the party she will try to bring up the tuitions topic and use the opportunity to share about her child doing it on his own without the help of any tuition teacher and scoring full marks in all subjects except languages.
At the next table a mother is giving sermons that they will not pay any donation /management fees or use any recommendation to get their child into a good school/college , she says our ethics doesn’t permit us to do so, But after the results came out she was the first one to get her child admitted into a college under the management fees category.
At the third table there is another lady who is never happy even when her child scored 100/100. She is always cribbing; it is not out of humility but out of the greed of wanting 101/100
At the next table is a mother of a toddler, who, while checking the diaper of her daughter was sharing her concern if ever her daughter will make it to aiims, given the disturbance and chaos her in laws create in her house.
At the next table is a mother who is feeding her son in a hurry as she does not want her 5 year old son to miss the school next day. she created a situation of panic a scene of something like the child is going to miss IAS entrance tomorrow if he does not go home and sleep before 8 pm . She summoned her husband and warned him to wind it up as fast as possible to go home early.
You meet anyone, go anywhere, relatives, friends neighbours, colleague are all engulfed by the fear of their child not making it to the right college on time. Education is our concern, our weakness and our strength too.
We have to accept the fact that every child will grow in his own timeline. Tuitions or no tuitions it is the child’s effort which will bring him the marks.
Stop using your child’s success to look down upon other children. Every individual will shine and rise at some point in his career. Success does not come to everyone at the same age. Some shine in school , some others in college, few among the rest will open businesses to hire the above school and college toppers , and the left out will outshine everyone in assembly and parliament.
While my mind raced back and forth collecting all the data about mothers and their obsession with marks, the PM was going on and on , on the TV. I shuffled between various channels to listen to expert opinion on his speech , As All of them individually and collectively couldn’t find any fault in his intent and content so they directed their ire and criticism towards the length and duration of his speech.
They found it boring, where as I found it interesting , the rebuttal to the hug, and the lengthy but beautiful chronological explanation on why he cant do the ankh milana , the taunt by quoting Chidambaram, the answer as kaamdaar to the naamdaar bagidar allegation…. He covered everything….though he couldn’nt give enough explanation on the lynching, the raphel deal...
The motion was moved by the prince, the intelligentsia and their allies but it was won by the chai waala, the masses and the ordinary bhaktas aka patriots!
So do not underestimate your child even if he does not come in top 10, do not get carried away by taunting aunties venom spitting dialogues….
If you give him enough space one day he will become capable of hiring all the toppers of his class.
Let us teach the kids that there is a lot of learning outside the school books, and that learning should be a life long process!

Dear men
I often hear you throwing tantrums
That you work hard the entire day
That you did not go out to have fun
That your labour has to be respected
That you are doing everything for the family…
Please stop this nonsense emotional sentimental game
You go out and work because it is very inconvenient and shameful for you to stay at home and do the household work, yes you don’t go out to have fun, a woman who stays at home is not doing it for fun either, you are doing everything for the family , so is she doing it for the family, yes your labour has to be respected and it will be respected provided you respect the labour which the lady puts into cooking your meals, making your beds, doing your laundry , cleaning your wash rooms , arranging your wardrobes etc. you work hard the entire day ? stay at home for a week and do all the household chores and tell me who is working hard for unpaid services.
Stop throwing tantrums on women whose services cannot be brought with money, for she does everything with love and out of love for the family.

Dear women
Stop taunting your men
When they come home late, because incentives and increments will come only when one puts extra labour
Stop taunting them if they socialise, for networking and good social contacts are essential to thrive in today’s market.
Stop harassing them if they do not share your work at home, family is a team work, 1 earns and the other manages with the earnings.
Stop comparing your men with other successful men, remember it hurts you when you are compared to a Karishma Kapoor or Aishwarya rai.
Stop taunting him for his mother’s mistakes, the man who will respect and take care of his mother and sister is trust worthy, believe me such men will have respect for their wives and daughters too
UNNECESSARY AND UNWANTED GYAN FROM ME ON A WORK DAY

POLITICAL SATTIRE

POLITICAL SATTIRE
______________
My house has become a small political akhada these days
The teenage daughter brought a street cat from somewhere near her tennis ground. She wanted to give the cat shelter and feed her. But the cat and dog weren’t getting along well so she chose dog over the cat and abandoned the cat. (Nitish kumar abandoned lalu for bjp)
When I asked one of our friends who has fish pond on how they are able to keep the frogs at bay from the pond. They said that the ducks were taking care of the frogs. They invited me to see the ducks, and I really liked their pond as it was free of tadpoles. To kill the tadpoles I decided to adopt ducks. All politics you know!
So I went home and told our mujibur to buy 2 ducks. The ducks
started vying for my attention with their gentle, feminine graceful movements. (The JNU GANG) they are a Very cute pair. But the dog got restless looking at the ducks. So I did batwara of the garden and earmarked their boundaries by erecting a bamboo fence. The ducks never bothered but the dog tried its best to intrude, (like the Chinese) to attack, to capture, to kill, to establish its supremacy
And he succeeded in breaching the chakravyuh, he almost caught one duck but the timely intervention by our mujibur saved the ducks. (the voilence by various fringe groups from either side)
The family too got vertically split like the country.
I took the ducks side, but the dad and daughter took the dogs side. Mujibur and one maid who is docile and unwilling to play ruthless politics took my side.
The other power hungry dominating maid took to the team of dad daughter and dog.
One fellow was neutral, not taking any side weighing the benefits on going with either of them like hd kumaraswamy, cbn, kcr, jagan pawan, patnaik etc
The third front parties will decide on who gets the power the bjp or the congress
,
I started avoiding the dog and the dad and daughter did not give one look at my ducks.
I lost the battle and had to see off the ducks as the husband brought in emotional appeal of sibling rivalry and how it is affecting the dog psychologically. These days everyone is emotionally blackmailed in the country in the name of religious sentiment and made to shut their mouth on the emotion of patriotism.
The dog too started playing mind games and started acting as if it is very hurt because of the ducks getting their space which legitimately is his own because he has been residing there much before them.
I told them that their dog has to learn to live peacefully and coexist with others and respect others existence too as everyone has a right to live in the house and garden however less mighty they are.
Meanwhile mujibur came and said madam I want some cash advance , as we have to give a bali (sacrifice) of 1 gai (cow) in the village, all my brothers are pooling money, there is a small festival called as qurbani in the days to come.
I said mujibur how much ever I might be a congressi at heart but I will not support gou hatya with my money. So no advance, instead I will give you money go and buy a cow, only the mighty cow can teach this dog a lesson. Let us play their game with them now, like rahul Gandhi did by temple hopping.
Meanwhile the very hardworking dudh wali aunty came with milk. I requested her to buy a desi cow for us from the Tuesday bazaar next week. She said cow vigilantism is on the rise so the vendors are not able to load their cows en masse in a truck and bring them to bazaar; hence there is shortage of cows on sale.
By supporting cow vigilantism we are hurting the cows and gwalas business more than anyone elses.
The situation in my house is reflecting the confusion and chaos in this countries polity, thought process and strategy at this stage. The dogs, cats and pigs are holding the citizens at ransom.
We don’t know who is a liberal, who is communal or secular and what defines whom and who is right.
Shekhar gupta has rightly said LIBERALS ARE THE MOST RIGID GROUP OF PEOPLE THESE DAYS. MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY , is their attitude.
In his own words , I quote ”I might ask though how can you be liberal and yet have a vacuum-packed book of rules, behavior and speech? “

I am the cm of the house, man is the LG, the helps in the house are officers.
I had a scuffle with the helps, I abused them so they refused to work.
I am helpless. I should have apologised and made a truce with them and taken them back to work mode. That’s how conflicts should be addressed.

My house is in a mess now as no one is working, they have gone into total silence. I throw the blame on the husband. The husband shrugged it off as an issue between me and the helps, so I should handle it.
I then blamed his mother, saying that he is working at her behest, she is not allowing him to help me convince my helps to work.
The neighbours pitch in to help me, they demand the husbands time.
But the man refuses to entertain them as he thinks it is an internal matter of the house and others shouldn’t be allowed to interfere or intervene. He is not willing to give them any mileage.
I refuse to eat, drink and sit on dharna.
In telugu we call it alugudu, in Hindi roothna
Husband ,mom in law and his relatives stamp me off as a drama queen, they say that it is my habit to sulk for every small reason.
I think the mom in law is definitely involved in this though not directly but the husband and she are in touch and his entire family Is guiding him on handling me.
I turn to my elder sister for help. She is envious of me because I defeated her in few games. So, she is having fun sitting on the side-lines.
Now I have few friends in the media, here and there. These are my friends, because for both of us it is the same formula of dushman ka dushman dost.
They make noise here and there, but they are outnumbered by people who really, honestly, truly endorse my acting and melodramatic skills.
Someone called as Prakash naraz is going on asking and asking and calling it just asking. I don’t how he asking is going to solve the problems
I will not apologize until I am not hospitalized and I get attention of entire colony town etc.
Watch for my skills in the days to come, I will not disappoint you !
And watch for my husband and his relatives shrewdness in writing me off as drama queen
…..

THANKS TO THE DOCTORS

I am having palpitations for some time now, so I decided to meet the cardiologist who visits our place 3 days in a week and get an echocardiography done by him.
Everyday there is a news, of a friend, a relative, a social media contact, a celebrity getting diagnosed with a terminal illness. Listening to all this regularly made me a little sceptical about my health and the panic button got triggered in my head. I fixed an appointment with the cardiologist though the reception desk and paid the doctor consultation charges.
At the scan table the cardiologist asked me why are you  getting an echo done all of a sudden that too on a self-prescription. I said sir I guess my heart isn’t working properly these days, I become restless and the pulse goes up frequently, just check and let me know if it is ok?
After a couple of minutes of scanning he replied it is ok, it is not just a good heart but it is also a kind heart.
Those good words took away half of my ailments and I had a hearty laugh sleeping on that table.
But again, I persisted with the same question but sir why am i having these palpitations?

he said we Have palpitations because we are active, we work, we are agile nothing much to worry about it.
Anything which comes out of doctor’s mouth sound like a divine gospel, He gave me the confidence of being a normal healthy person within 10 minutes of meeting him, more power to our doctors who many times heal us psychologically with their positive reassurances.

I shared that before meeting him I was dreading a diagnosis of some major disease with a big complicated fashionable, difficult sounding name. these days every morning we wake up to some celebrity falling prey to a new rare kind of cancer, the recent being Irfan khan and Somali bendre. God heal them soon and help human race defeat the rebel cells called as cancer. I know god, you did not design these rebel cells, it is our lifestyle which is responsible for few cells in our body turning rebel and, its we who empower them to defeat us.

I shared with the doctor that anticipating some difficult uncurable disease I prepared 3 goodbye letters for the man, the teenage daughter and the son before just before entering his room. the doctor started giggling as we continued our chat. suddenly my doctor husband walked into the cubicle and asked how long will she  survive sir because I found a goodbye mail in my inbox just now, so I rushed in to check the seriousness of the disease!
I said sir look at the criosity, as soon as he received the mail he rushed into confirm my death date because in the mail I gave him permission to marry again after my death.
Now that the cat is belled, in your presence too I give him the permission to remarry on one precondition that his future wife will not touch my sarees and jewellery, he will have to preserve them for my bahu and beta.
The doctor said with a serious expression Mrs Reddy please come out of the illusion that after you are gone he will wait for your written or verbal permission to remarry. We all laughed at his serious comment.
The man said sir she writes us long mails even if she has a mild flu so we stopped taking her letters, mails and permissions seriously.
I said sir let me also tell you that god forbid I die and he marries again I assure you that his new wife cannot withstand few of his habits. She will divorce him within a week for his snoring … I can give this in writing. Maybe to defeat me she will tolerate it for a week, but on the 8th day she will walk out leaving behind her bag and baggage never to return.
Let us hypothetically assume that she survives the snoring episode too but how will she tolerate the noise in her bedroom up to 2 am every night. He with his dog and daughter will eat, talk and walk in and out of the room with all the lights on till 1 am.
You can check it yourself by giving us a surprise visit on any day at 1 am.
When we started making the new house I wanted to make separate bedrooms for both of us but dunia walon ke darr se I did not do that, so I allowed him in to my room but he brought with him his daughter his dog and whenever his son is in town he too will squeeze himself into the same space. every time they watch tv as if they have come from Somalia, as if they are seeing it for the first time in their life.
They act so starved that they will watch that disgusting Tribago add too with the same seriousness whereas the world cannot stand that fellow even for a single second.
My bedroom is like a mela till midnight every night, I guarantee you that this 3 people and their 1 dog is responsible for all my health problems.
You know last week he woke me up from sleep at midnight and said dekho dekho goal hua…Croatia or Russia have to win through penalty shootouts only now…. they sat tensed biting nails …after watching the penalty shootouts and the match was over I asked him which team Croatia was, the red or black, he angrily said ab tum so hi jao pls. I drifted back to sleep guessing which one might have been Croatia!
The doctor said not just your husband Mrs Reddy, even I sleep at 2 am every night, and FIFA happens once in 4 years so you should be liberal with the tv watching schedule and you too should enjoy the sport it is good for health.
I asked him seriously, sir is your wife too having tachycardia, he said yes yes, I am going to give you the same medicine which I gave her and she is perfectly ok now and allows me to stay awake till late in the night and watch the sport.
The man said sir please do that and thank you for counseling her that she has no major illness and it is normal to watch tv till late in the night.
I walked out of the room with the prescription thanking god that it wasn’t anything serious.
My heart goes out to the young mothers, wives, girls who are fighting terminal illnesses every day, using every breath with a lot of optimism.
I guess we all should be more thankful to everything we have today right now, because we actually don’t know how tomorrow is going to unravel itself. Which test is going to reveal what disease and cut short our journey with our beautiful families.
My prayers to sonali bendre and Irfan khans speed recovery.
Thanks to all the doctors who help us get back to good health with their knowledge, care, concern, wit and humour.

ROCKS EVERYWHERE

ROCK'S EVERYWHERE

Rocks on the ears
Rocks on the fingers
Rocks on the neck
Sometimes on the tongue
And on the umbilicus too

We fight wars with husbands
With in-laws with employers
With every shopkeeper
To accumulate the bucks
Which will help us buy few rocks

We dream of them
Sitting sleeping walking
We fantasize receiving
Then as surprise gifts
From lovers and husbands

Are we thoughtless
To spend a lifetime
Doing something which
Can never add
Any beauty to our soul?

I often

Laugh at women who do not buy
a gram of gold or a piece of rock
But happily spend the reserves
On enriching their inner cosmos

They love to Sit on a beach and watch
the sun rise, or go down
They dare to Stand on a cliff and flirt
With a breeze of fresh air
They treasure to Sleep under the sky
and watch stars and moon in solitude

I often

Laugh at women who
overlook metals and rocks
perfumes ,cosmetics and colours
To indulge in reading , writing
painting cooking or gardening
to create , sow, reap ,Cook
serve, feed, donate or pray

but

I inundated my world with avarice
So what if petite is life
I just look the other way,
And succumb to the illusion of
Wealth induced luxury
Day after day endlessly
wanting more and more
rocks everywhere maybe
one, even on the pyre too
you know
my grave too should be well adorned !