On finding THE ONE and keeping him there

No this is not a Valentine's Day post. This is about one of my closest friend who is getting married next month.

Among all my girl friends, K would definitely score the highest in any 'good wife, daughter/sister-in-law' test. She would also score the highest in being girly, romantic, caring, motherly and all such things. In short, she is the Charlotte York of our group. She has been looking for the perfect ONE since high school days, but unfortunately she has only met with severe heartbreaks.

Her high school sweetheart cut all communications with her one fine day..the day after she did not qualify for med school. She didn't even know what happened until she met a common friend who informed her of her own break-up. The guy apparently can only have a doctor wife..hence, the unannounced break-up!! (Even if I can somehow understand the shallowness..he was very young after all..I do not understand how can someone be so coward to just disappear from a relationship?). She kept hoping that he will come back to her one day, but he didn't. He married his med-school classmate after becoming doctors.

K finally started living normally after 6 years of mourning. Then she fell for another guy in her grad school. Their relationship was all nice and good, but this guy could not stand up against his mother's unfair hatred against love marriage of any kind (why does a guy get into a relationship in the first place if he knows his mother will never approve and he knows he cannot go against her? His mother had cut all contact with her own daughter because she married a man of her own choice..so he should DEFINITELY KNOW what his mother is like..but he must be in denial). He just wanted to keep waiting silently until his mother agrees to their relationship. K very graciously removed herself from the relationship saying that she does not want to be the reason for mother-son split, but she kept hoping for him to grow a backbone so that they can be together again....until he sent her his wedding invitation (they decided to remain friends, you see!).

She says she knew the first guy was academically over-ambitious and the second guy couldn't stand up for himself in any circumstances. She never thought these can end the relationships. We, her close friends, fear that she knowingly falls for guys with weak personalities. Somehow she wants to protect and take care of these people and thinks she could make them better people. In the end, they take care of themselves and leave her hanging high and dry.

After about another 5 years of mourning, K met her current fiance. They had a pretty dramatic relationship over the last 3 years including one major break-up. We friends were (to be honest, still are) very skeptical about this guy too. He broke up with her abruptly over some fight, which is not that uncommon in relationships. The thing that bugged us most was that immediately after their split, he went and asked his family to look for a girl for him to marry, and even got engaged to some girl he barely knows. Then after few months he broke that engagement, came back to K and said he was just very angry and doing those things in anger. He said that he still loves K and wants to be with her again. I don't doubt his love, but for a 30+ year old guy he surely sounds scarily impulsive to me! We cautioned K strongly when she got back with him. She assured us that there's nothing to worry about. We certainly hope she is right this time.

The wedding is next month. She is all giddy and happy, posting annoyingly mushy stuff on Facebook :) I can't help but be extremely happy for her. I just hope only good things happen for her from now on. She definitely got her share and more of tears and pain already. She deserves some uncomplicated happiness now. I have more hope in the guy's family than him actually. His sister and mother strongly supported K throughout the break-up phase and also helped in bringing them back together. So hopefully they will help in keeping him in right place for rest of the life too.

I was hoping I would be able to go home next month and attend the festivities, but good old immigration issues make it impossible..again! Anyways, she should be in US soon after the wedding. So I guess I can celebrate then.

Sending all the best wishes your way darling K....

Kahani kaafi filmy hai

Oct 1999
My papa bought me my first computer as graduation gift.

Sometime in 2001
Initial excitement of new computer dies. I started looking for new things to try. I signed up for something called e-mail buddy (first transition from pen-friend, precursor of networking as well as matrimony sites). I received lots of 'wannabe friends' type mails from frustrated guys, but I also got a handful of nice real pen-friend style mails from guys and girls from different parts of India and even other countries (I am still friends with 5 of them and have met 2 till date).

March 2002:
I got the first e-mail from one of the above mentioned '2'. It was a simple mail showing interest in 'talking' and not dating. For some reason I found the simplicity interesting and honest and I replied. My reply was still full of sarcasm. The response was a one liner but a complete check-mate one liner. I was super impressed. Regular exchange of e-mail starts, then starts chatting (ah, old yim days!). Within few months we were fast friends. We still didn't know each others' real name.

August 2003
I moved to US. I had very few friends and no family in US at that time. My friendship with my anonymous e-mail buddy (AEB) became even stronger as he was also in another part of US. AEB helped me with buying calling cards, laptop and many such things that fresh-of-the-boat Indian students need help with. One day I gave my phone number to AEB because I desperately needed some advice (again to buy something online). AEB called. It was weird to talk for the first time. But then gradually we started calling regularly. It was fun to discover how much we had in common. By now we also knew each others' first name.

December 2003
It was winter vacation and I had nowhere to go. AEB had forced vacation and was planning a Florida trip with friends. His friends canceled last minute and somehow jokingly it was decided that AEB will come and meet me in snowing Ohio!! For the first time we asked each others' full real names.
I thought my parents will kill me. But surprisingly they said ok [I guess they trust me more than I think they should :) ]. I was prepared with knives in my cupboards in case a weirdo turns up.
AEB showed up. After a few awkward minutes it seemed like we were meeting some old-time friend. He stayed in a hotel in town for few days and kept visiting me everyday. Before he left for home, we more or less confessed how much we like each others' company :)

Jan 2004-July 2005
'Confession of likeness' turned into 'let's give this relationship a try' that then turned into 'looks like this might work, we need to tell parents'. All this while living 2000 miles apart, with occasional weekend trips across the country.

July 2005
Parents were notified and luckily they seemed more than happy. However, long-distance relationship continued.

August 2008
I finally finished grad school and moved to the other side of the country. Parents were really excited and demanded instant wedding. I still needed a new visa to visit India. So parents' were snubbed every time marriage was mentioned.

July 2009
My petition for new visa gets approved.

December 25th, 2009, 12.20am (Indian-Standard Time)
I am sitting in my parents' house in India, in front of the same very first computer, blogging with hands full of mehendi. In 5 hours, I leave for another part of India. In 2 days, I get married to my anonymous e-mail buddy, my best friend, my boyfriend, my fiance and my soon-to-be husband........J.


Note: This is the 100% honest version of this story and only J and I knew this version, until right now. :)

Reasons for not wanting to be married

According to 'The good wife's guide', I will have to follow these:

• Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal ready on time for his return. This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they get home and the prospect of a good meal is part of the warm welcome needed.
• Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so you'll be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh-looking. He has just been with a lot of work-weary people.
• Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him. His boring day may need a lift and one of your duties is to provide it.
• Clear away the clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives. Run a dust-cloth over the tables.
• During the cooler months of the year you should prepare and light a fire for him to unwind by. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift too. After all, catering to his comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction.
• Minimize all noise. At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of the washer, dryer or vacuum. Encourage the children to be quiet.
• Be happy to see him.
• Greet him with a warm smile and show sincerity in your desire to please him.
• Listen to him. You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first - remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours.
• Don't greet him with complaints and problems.
• Don't complain if he's late for dinner or even if he stays out all night. Count this as minor compared to what he might have gone through at work.
• Make him comfortable. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or lie him down in the bedroom. Have a cool or warm drink ready for him.
• Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low, soothing and pleasant voice.
• Don't ask him questions about his actions or question his judgment or integrity. Remember, he is the master of the house and as such will always exercise his will with fairness and truthfulness. You have no right to question him.
• A good wife always knows her place.

I surely cannot be one ever..or even close :)

Demands and Expectations

A friend of mine broke-up with her bf couple of weeks ago. Another friend and I were talking about this sad situation today and this other friend said about the first girl "She was too demanding and expected too much from him. They were dating only for a year. One can't be demanding and expect their partner to give their 100% (will do anything and everything for you type of commitment) in such early stage of a relationship."

Does that mean one can be demanding and have higher expectations after few years of relationship? 

I personally think one cannot. We do so just because we get more comfortable 'demanding' and 'expecting' things but I'm sure the effect is never good.

What do more experienced people say? In few years can I expect J to really stop reading slashdot when I am telling him about some very interesting piece of gossip?

Physics

"Distance makes the heart grow fonder."

What happens when the distance decreases?

Secret life of P

Ok finally I could make myself type again!
After typing 30,000+ words, I didn't think I would ever again
Yessss..I submitted my dissertation 3 days ago :)
Final defense is in two weeks and I should be dead scared right now, but I guess my brain is still numb to feel anything.

So while I'm in this numb state of mind, I think I will do the 'Secrets' tag for Poo. I am very secretive and might not be able to confess my deep dark secrets in a normal state of mind .

Ok, so I am supposed to tell 10 secrets about me. Since no one in the blog world knows me personally, pretty much anything I write will be new. But I will try to think of some "true" secrets. After all, the whole purpose of my blogging is to write down things that I can't say out loud. So here it goes:

1. People around me know that I am very close to my parents, but no one knows that how possessive I am about them. I am the only child and used to getting all their attention. So anytime my cousins or any other kid came to visit us, I used to be very, very jealous. I would pray that they leave soon and do all kind of tantrums (like faking sickness) to get attention . To be honest, I still feel little jealous when they keep talking about their 6 year old neighbor.

2. When I was 6-7 years old, I stole (as in took without asking) a Strepsils from my neighbor's desk. I thought it was a biiiig Poppins and was kind of angry at my neighbor for not sharing it with me. So I decided to help myself. If you ever had a Strepsils in your life, you probably can imagine how I was punished for my bad deed.

3. I am very adventurous with food. I can eat (may not always like it) anything that doesn't appear gross and that another human being next to me is eating. Some of the weird things I ate when none of my friends wanted to try are bheja fry (fried goat brain), frog legs and chicken gizzard. I must say they tasted pretty good :)

4. Talking of eating, one of my regular nightmares is that I have lost some of my teeth!! I have no idea why I get this nightmare all the time. Anyone knows dream analysis?
The other nightmare that I get often is being unimaginably late for something (class, train, plane, etc.). I think subconsciously I hate my habit of doing all things on the eleventh hour.

5. I don't remember any of my good dreams after I wake up, but I remember all my daydreams. As my profile says, I am a compulsive daydreamer. I think about future a lot and to the finest details. The fun part is that a lot of my daydreams have come true to the minutest details :) For example, long before I decided about my career I simply dreamt of working in US. I would imagine different professions at different times, but every time I will imagine living in an apartment in some place of US with a roommate, doing all chores myself etc. It was like deja vu when I first arrived in US and started living with my first roomie :)

6. Currently I live alone. Some of my friends think I must be very unhappy to be living by myself. But actually I love, love, love living alone. I always did. Anytime my parents went out for the day, I used to feel like the king (ok queen). The last two years have been the happiest time of my life. And to tell you a bigger secret, I am really scared to move to CA because very soon I might be living with J and won't have the whole house to myself :(

7. My friends were very surprised when they heard about J for the first time because I never showed interest in dating. They thought of me as the most unromantic person. What they don't know is I have been a hopeless romantic since ever and always believed in the 'someone somewhere' philosophy :) I just don't believe in casual dating or kissing every frog coming my way.

8. My first major crush was on a neighbor. He was the heart-throb of all girls in my school and he was quite a casanova too. To him I was just the ugly kid whom he has to (against his wishes) escort to school everyday :) Now we are friends though and he even calls himself my 'fan' on orkut. I don't have any romantic feelings for him anymore, but I still feel happy whenever he writes to me.

9. I always loved going to school (duh..that's why I am still in school). But, I hated going to my music school. I love music and singing, but the problem was that my mom sent me to an Indian classical music class and I totally hated it. So every Sunday I will have fake stomach aches, cough and one time I even tried getting a fever by putting an onion under my arms (got the idea from some brilliant bollywood movie ). Sometimes my tricks worked too! The other times, I would go to the class and lie to the teacher that we had guests at home and that is why I couldn't do my homework (i.e. practice the aa-aa-aas). I never had to lie about my school homework though :)

10. My profile says that I am ambitious. The secret here is that I have some crazy ambitions, such as being part of research projects that will take me to space or Antarctica or get me a Nobel Prize!! For now, I feel happy knowing profs who have achieved these or hold a cardboard cutout of the Nobel Prize.


Pheeww....thinking of 10 secrets is more difficult than I thought!

I think everyone I know has already done this tag. If not, please consider yourself tagged and share your deep dark secrets too. :)

What goes around comes around

Conversation between me and J sometime in 2005-06:

Me: I love the song 'Koi faryad' from 'Tum bin'. Have you heard of it?

J: Yeah. Nice song but don't remember the details. What is special about it?

Me: Well, other than the fact that it is a Jagjit Singh song and picturized on Priyanshu Chatterjee, I like the subtle romance in it. Even the dialogues in between are so nice. There is a scene in the hospital where Priyanshu says to Sandali "Janta hun apko saharey ki zarurat nahi, main sirf saath dene aaya hun (I know you do not need any support, I just came here to give you company)". I love his sensitivity and respect for the girl's independent nature!

J: Hmm.


FAST FORWARD....

Conversation between me and J last night:

Me: I am fed up with so much nonsense work (was referring to all the official work related to graduation, OPT application, job application and things that I will need to do when I move after graduation). You are happily sitting 2000 miles away. Why don't you come here and do at least some of the 'manly' work for me? I will need to get rid of some heavy furniture, get my car serviced etc. etc.

J: Hmm. But I thought you want to be independent and don't want anyone to support you. Remember you told me about that song! I call you everyday. See, I'm being so sensitive and respectful.


How does he remember only the things that he can use against me??
But yes, considering he calls his parents once a week and his friends twice a year, one call EVERYDAY is quite sensitive :p

To tell or not to?

Me and some of my friends are in a big dilemma. All of us think that one of our friends is with a wrong guy and her decision to marry him is the biggest mistake of her life. But none of us know how to or even whether to tell her.

I have heard it from couple of elderly people that they did not comment on their children's choice of partner in spite of having a bad feeling (which eventually proved to be true) because "everyone has to learn from their own mistakes".

But then I'm thinking if we see a loved one walking blindly towards a speeding car, we scream and warn them because we do not want them to get hurt.

Is it only physical injury about which we can warn against, but we have to let them suffer and learn when it comes to emotional injury?

If you think that a loved one is choosing a wrong life partner, do you/will you tell them?
If your friends tell you that you are choosing a wrong life partner, will you appreciate that?

How important are brand names?

My friend N and I have these long 'nonsense' conversations every now and then. Last night during one such session, she offered me to take her boyfriend because it seemed like I have more things in common with T than she has.

Of course I said "No thanks" and to that she said "You are saying no to an ex-IITian!!! Poor T, he will be crushed."

Now I can understand if T feels crushed because a girl said no to a 'nice guy' like him but what's with the brand names? How does getting a degree from a good school makes someone irresistible as a companion?

I know a good education can mean that there are better chances of having financial security and intelligent conversations, but my personal experience says that a great professional resume is no guarantee of a great human being. And I know a few 'famous school' graduates who liked 'Welcome' more than 'Taare Zameen Par'. So there goes the intellectual conversation.

I hope N didn't say 'yes' to T because of the IIT tag!

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.

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.

How much sharing is caring?

This question is regarding sharing of private information, such as passwords of your e-mail accounts and such, with your significant other.

I guess according to the rules of 'love and trust' you are not supposed to keep any secrets from your partner. I agree about that mostly but what if you want to surprise the other person and you need to order the gift online? Definitely it won't be fun if the person comes across that confirmation letter in your mailbox!

The reason I thought about this topic today is a funny incidence (for any third person):
A guy I know got married recently. It was an arranged marriage. He has been in a relationship in the past but he didn't tell his wife about it yet. Totally understandable. It takes time to be comfortable enough to share everything about yourself, but I guess it takes less time to be comfortable enough to share 'the password'. Without thinking much this guy gave his wife access to his mail account and guess what...the wife discovered a bunch of letters from the ex! The past relationship was over some 3 years ago. The poor guy probably didn't even remember that those letters still exist, but you can imagine the scene in his house after that.

Moral of the story: Think twice before you decide to show your 'love and trust' :)

Labels

A is a man who chooses to go faraway from his loved ones for a better career option.
B is a man who chooses to leave a nice job to be with his partner, who has got a great job offer in a new place.
C is a woman who chooses to go faraway from her loved ones for a better career option.
D is a woman who chooses to leave a nice job to be with her partner, who has got a great job offer in a new place.

A is called a serious, career-driven, successful man.
B is called a spineless, joru ka ghulam (slave of wife).
C is called self-centered, heartless woman.
D is called caring, sacrificing woman.

Why these discriminations?

My friend has been kidnapped by an alien!

No, of course not literally but I feel the same.

My close friend (let's call her N) and I always made fun of people who are mushy, gushy about their love life/partners. We bitched about these people for hours and took pride in the fact that we were cold and heartless. Then she fell in love last year and suddenly she is doing the same irritating things and much more!!! Was it all an act of 'sour grapes' then? I feel betrayed.

Talking about my being cold and heartless, my boyfriend (let's call him J) had a dream last night that I have dumped him for someone else and he is very sad (he amazed himself with this feeling) and then what made him more miserable than actually being dumped was that I was telling him very casually "What's the big deal? Don't be a sissy. Get over it." ha ha...now that sounds more real to me than N's new Orkut photo (I wish I could post it here to prove my case).

Coming to analysis of the dream: I blame it on the big hype called Valentine's day. Everyone in J's office (including his 50+ boss) left early to celebrate V-day and his girlfriend didn't even call him all day to wish him and was almost falling asleep when he made his usual 'how was your day' call (I live 3 time zones ahead of him and it was much past mid-night my time..can you really blame me?). J is usually as romantically-challenged as me, if not more but I guess all the pressure created by this specially designated romance day can affect such people too. I am just thankful that the effect on him is not as drastic as on N.