The other extreme

In my previous post, I mentioned that we should not give up on a relationship when maybe putting in some extra effort can save the relationship. But one needs to know when such effort is useless. In case of some people, it can be the other extreme where they tolerate too much. I can think of one such person.

This girl is an engineer with a nice job in a reputed company in India. She had an arranged marriage. At the time of the wedding, her parents gave 35 lakh rupees, 50 tola of gold jewelery, all kinds of household things plus the other usual stuff. Even after this huge dowry, the guy kept asking for a computer, a car and some family property.

My first thought was "Why did she marry a guy who asked for dowry?"

If asking for dowry was not enough, he and his family wanted a son. The girl gave birth to a daughter. The guy never visited his daughter in the hospital and never took her home. The daughter lives with the grandparents.

At this point you would think that now she should definitely leave him.

No, she didn't. She kept going back and forth between her parents' and in-laws' houses so that she can give time to both her husband and kid.

Ok, even this is not the end of the story. After all this, they had a second baby!!!!

By this point I was sure that she must be dead inside. How else can someone agree to have another baby with such a creep?

And guess what, the second child is also a girl. So last time I heard she was still going back and forth between the two houses. Both the kids live with the grandparents.

I don't personally know her but I know her sister. When I asked the sister why they are tolerating this extreme nonsense. She said "If she gets a divorce, then no one will marry me (the sister)". The sister is a self-dependent grad student in US!!!

In my previous post I said that we need to be more tolerant to make a relationship work but this much tolerance is definitely a sin.

From 'you and me' to 'hum'

It takes lot more work to maintain a relationship than to get into one.
That's the moral of the story of the movie 'U me aur hum'.
So true!

My parents had an arranged marriage, have a huge age difference and are very different from each other. They keep fighting like all couples do. Still they have maintained their relationship quite well for over 30 years.

My friend M married a man of her choice after dating for 5 years. After another 5 years, she confides in her close friends that she seriously regrets her choice. Reason: Certain differences in their nature that she didn't take seriously during the dating phase.

Is financial security and a more accepting society making us less tolerant? Are we giving up much easily when things don't match up with our expectations?

Thanks to 'U me aur hum' for reminding us to put in that extra effort.

Mixed emotions

Got my first postdoc interview call letter last night. Feeling happy, excited, nervous and terrified all at the same time. The battle begins now...

Song assignment

Recently J bought an electric guitar. No he is not at all a musician or singer. He is just trying to fulfill his childhood fantasy of becoming one. He has absolutely no formal training on playing guitar or any musical instrument for that matter. He bought a 'Guitar for Dummies' book too . So far he has succeeded in tuning the guitar!

Seeing his extremely slow progress I decided to motivate him by giving an assignment with a deadline (grad school effect?). The assignment is to sing and play 'Pehli Nazar Mein' (song from 'Race' by Atif Aslam) when we meet next. Yeah, it's not the easiest assignment for a newbie but I just thought I'll try my luck. There is no other way I can make him sing a romantic song for me . Anyways, so I sent him the song. After listening to it few times:

J: "Ok so I know the song now. I can't play it yet but do you want to hear just the song?"
Me (Happily): "Yes, yes."
J: "Pehli nazar mein.....hmm..hmm..la..la.....maybe I love you, maybe I love you, maybe I love you so."

Oh well. I will just play it for myself.

Great minds think alike

P: I have no idea what I am doing with this experiment * *

Albert Einstein: If I knew what I was doing, it wouldn't be called research.

Fortune

My today's fortune on Orkut:
"You are next in line for promotion in your firm."

Promotion...hmm...now that sounds good.
It's a different issue that I don't work in a firm, there's no scope for promotion (at least in the same organization) and obviously there are no lines for it.