Happy memories and celebrations!

As we are at the end of the year, its the duty of every writer to thank everyone.

Memories and other things

No matter what we did or didn’t, we create some memories to get stored in our secondary memory and some in our primary memory every year. In case, you did not get whats the difference between these two memories, secondary memories are like hard disks. They store data forever unconsciously and cause so much problem in forgetting certain things by showing them in dreams. If you are lucky, it will be a good thing and you won’t complain a lot regarding that, at the end of the year. Most people are not that lucky and thanks to the speed of the technology that connects us to everyone and the big data analytics behind all the social media sites, that makes us so much depressed about what we should have done to ourselves and to the people we love, more than what good we have done this year.

Memories!

And to our disappointment, the primary memory, like the RAM of the PC, stores only what happens that moment and “that moment” is the one we would have enjoyed the most.

So, this year, you can ask me what has stayed in my primary and secondary memory. May be, you are not asking and I am just assuming that, because I am just a random stranger and why would you have to worry about my memory anyways. Still, I will tell you. Because, I like talking to people like this. Never seeing their face and still talking like they are listening. Physics is nothing without assumptions and so does my life and yours too if you are an introvert. Again, if you want to know what does that introvert word means, you can always go and search google. I am not letting you get away taking nothing from this article about my life.

Training and my bench days!

Well, I had so much good things happening this year. One of that is my training and bench (where we are not given even a bench to sit upon) , which got extended because of the flood last year, 2015, in Chennai. I was happily reading and executing test cases manually and writing  my blog as far as I can. And there were these batch mates, 23 of them, who became so close in a short period of time and I don’t think that would be the same next year, except for few or two. I have read somewhere that you meet a lot of temporary people between 20 to 30. And this remains true with these people. While I really admire few people for their straight forward nature, few for their talent and few for their care towards me and my life, I am missing them all now. The few days where everyone remains good to you, and then suddenly few people show their face at some point, hurts you a lot, but then you have to learn life that way. Life is not full of what you wish you want it to be. The fun part of this training and bench period will remain forever in my life as it never happened before and I hope/I am sure it will never happen again. Thanks to these people for making my 2016 beautiful with so much fun and weekly trips. I lived my unlived college days with these people in a short span.

My job and other stuffs!

I don’t really enjoy my testing life, as I love it here in blogs. It’s boring and repetitive at some point. And the down times in the application and the testing environment I test, makes it tough for me to love it any further. But, I love the time it gives for myself to figure out my life and making me economically independent.

I also like to carry on with testing boredom, coz, I like the people I work under. When your bosses are good and understanding and believe that you can do things, you can work for them. And even better, when they like your blog and spend some time to read that between their burdened schedule. Thanks to my job for providing me food and independence, that every girl of this century needs and thanks to the people above me, who encourage and believe me beyond what I think I am capable of.

My marriage and my family!

Okay! The best of all things that happened to me this year is my marriage. I did not make it easy for anyone in my family, when it was planned. I was the toughest person I know, asking (nagging would be the right word) my mom, dad and my ‘younger’ sister, why should I marry? There were many reasons why I married this year, which is/was considered so early by many people and even by me at some point. But, to my surprise, I now feel that it is one of the right decisions, I have ever taken in my life. I need a lot of support in every walk of life and I am sure I am getting it from two families now. When I said yes to my husband on the day we met, I was not serious about life and the next thing I got into my mind was, where to go next week with my friends.

But, now, I am planning my life with so much accuracy and he is there behind my every efforts, to make sure I am safe in my path, loving me beyond my imperfections and correcting me whenever I make a mistake. I am closer to my dream of becoming a writer than the previous year, and I would have not thought of this step, if he had never come into my life. Thanks to my mom, dad, my sister and every person, who broke their nerves to make this marriage happen and thanks to Praveen, my hubby, for coming in to my life and his family for taking care of me like their own child.

This year is one of the best years of my life.

Thanks to every one of my readers, in case you are reading till this line. Without you, I am just a black and white impression.

This time, I am making sure that all these things are going to my secondary memory, so I can throw away those ghosts in my dream from the previous year. Wishing you all a merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Finding. Mr Right

I should say, I am happily married to a guy, I would have never met, if hadn't my mother set it up for me. Yes, it's an arranged marriage.
I would like to share with you the way I met him, for the first time in my life. Well, I have never met anyone in such a situation. May be, god wanted to keep it special for me or may be he wanted to indicate that, "Hey! My baby girl, you are already caught!" Am I confusing you? Just read the below paragraph and you will know why!😂
It was a Monday. Oh! I remember the date too, because I cross checked in Facebook to mention it here! 28th February, 2016. That was the day, which was destained to change my life forever! For many people, arranged marriages are just so stupid or boring because, you hold no control over things happening around you. But for me it's one of the craziest ideas a man/woman can try in their life and here I am writing about my first encounter with the man I love the most equally to my father. I promise it will be no less than the love at first sight incident.
I was in Chennai, when I got the news that I am going to see someone for marriage! Okay! I thought to myself! No problem! I can go meet and reject him. Because, I was of the idea that I will meet my Mr. Right one day and it should not be something pre arranged! But God had other ideas 😉! I went from Chennai for the expedition with all my courage and intense feeling that it will all be fine! I should admit, I have seen him in pics that was sent to my father's mail Id for the proposal. I liked him. But, looks are deceptive. Especially in photos, you can make anything from anything these days. So, I had to confirm that the face in the photographs and the real face matches. I had a lot in my mind. And when I went into the bathroom for a home facial 2 hours before his arrival, I didn't notice the door knob that got stuck. I was so busy after all to make my skin glow 😜! When I tried to open the door, it wouldn't budge to open! The red door, laughed at me. With all my strength, I tried to remove the lock. But the lock was too hard on me that day. I found out that I was stuck. Inside the bath room! I had only 1 hour before the arrival of my guests, and the idea of saying "Hey! Hi", from the bathroom sickened me! The only help I could find was my old aunty, whose fingers were too fragile because of her lifetime's cooking and home aids. She's 68. I can't make her panic too. So I asked her to try to open the red door from the other side, cooly. She wasn't able to open the door, even with the right key. So, I figured out that I need some strong help. May be, the man who was coming to see me can help. But, I can't wait in bathroom for 1 hour. So, I asked my aunty to slip my phone through the bathroom window. She did. I called my mom. She is the principal of the school I studied. You don't want to mess with a principal at a critical times, atleast not with moms who are princis. I did not give her details. I just said I need some help with a bathroom door as my aunt got stuck in there (a lie it was. But, I had to say that. Come on! It's okay to lie for good reasons )
She sent a security guy from the school. I asked him to open the red door from the front. But, there was no use again. We had only one choice, to break the door lock or I would remain in bathroom forever. The security guy and me put a joint effort on either side of the door, breaking the lock, with whatever we can find in our hand. And finally, after hurting it will all the things, we broke it's wood. The metal part of the lock came to my hand. It was 3.45 PM and the guests would arrive at 4PM. I had nothing on my face except a bindhi. I urgently applied some powder and a lip gloss between thanking the security guy. I was as blank as a white paper. I was terrified and relieved at the same time. Terrified because, the door looked like it lost its nose , but I thought it deserved that and relieved because I was finally out and was breathing fresh air. But, there was no time to get away from the shock. And then when the guests arrived, I ran to my room and then they called me out after sometime to talk with my man.
I really was a angry with my uncle and father because they left me during that critical time to the temple to pray to God for his blessings and now I saw them sitting comfortably in the sofa,with a smiling face welcoming the guests. They had no idea why my face was pale. I saw him. The man, I planned to reject a day before. I found a smile in him, I had never seen before. It soothed me somehow. When were were allowed to talk alone, the things he said made me like him again. He was not as good as in the photographs. But, even I don't look the same way as in my FB or WhatsApp profile photos. And he was handsome in his own ways in both thoughts and deeds. He had a baby smile, that I never wanted to fade away from his face for any reason. He implied that he came all the way from Cochin, because he liked me in photographs I sent (To my knowledge, I am not that beautiful to seduce people in a photograph. But, I know I am beautiful inside my heart. So that added a extra mark to him. Girls like to be complemented after all😉)
When he left the house after our chit chatting, he said one thing, "See you later! Have a nice time!", which my mother noticed and got the clue. I did not know him as deep as I know my fellow colleagues working in my office when I said yes to him, but his smile made me fall and which I thought should never go out. I had my own confusions before marriage, whether we can marry a man after a single meet. But, we have to take risks to see how it goes, especially in Love and today, as I bear his love inside my heart, I would say, "He is worth my life!"

“This blogathon is supported by Woo, The most popular match making app in India with a base of over 3.5 million users.”

When the sky falls!

I don’t know if this would be a long or short article. I wish, I keep my limits.

What difference a dead political leader can bring to your life?

Well, a bandh? Another one, puff. More violence. Normal life lost for another few days in a state?

Yea!

But, when we lose someone, we really get to know the value they held to their position and the society. Did we not celebrate Kalam after his death, who was forgotten for some time after his retirement as a President, except those who met him as a part of their work? The power of reviving a person, is so good for humans, after that fellow’s struggle/death. That is the truth we draw from this. Don’t we?

Coming to the news that is affecting me for the past few days, I wish I were in TN to get into those emotions personally. But, God had other ideas and I am here in Kerala, writing about the legendary politician of this time and another Iron lady India lost to illness (or cunning people, which is yet to be discovered/invented).

I will be polarized by people to a party now. Or at least I believe so. Whatever it is, I have to talk about Amma now! The Amma of millions. She has already marketed herself to be the mother of all through her schemes. While she was scrutinized for controlling her party to that extent of having them fall on her legs and showing their backs in front of the camera, every woman in TN and even in India would have awed her for the attitude shown by her to men. This, you would have heard in many channels and read in many newspapers (offline and online).

To all the woman reading this…

How do you feel when a man falls on your leg? Embarrassed? Proud?

To all the men reading this…

How do you feel when your instincts force you to fall on a woman’s leg because she in power and in control, under conditions that she is not your mom or not an elder woman!? Embarrassed? Proud?

You can’t explain that right. While it is so wrong in Indian tradition because of no good reason, you have Amma, who have made everyone fall on her feet. Not just normal men. But, big politicians and industrialists, who according to data, has a lot of crime records and civil cases filed against them and have no intention of budging to anyone they know. Do you hear my mind? You will see me jumping in joy, if you are really able to look into that. In a male dominating society (which we say is changing in many ways, but still consider men only with higher pay than us as eligible men for marriage, because he shouldn’t feel insecure and expect them to pay after every dinner or party and woman studying/forced to study less degrees because we cannot find a suitable matching men in our community) she has done that and I have no fear in admitting that she is the best woman I have ever heard about.

For me, she is the woman of power, of courage and rage. She lifted womanhood with her arrogance (so did they call in media, which is replaced by the word braveness, after her death). She lived and loved many people. Betrayed by many whom she trusted the most, her way of defense from the creepy people were with her decisions of removing them permanently from the position of power and party and her life. She spared no one who showed face to her. As innocent she was, when her mother left her at the age of 22, with no knowledge of what her salary was, how many servants worked in her house and how to fill a cheque and withdraw money, what we see today is a Chief Minister with millions to cry for her after death. She does not own the entire Tamil Nadu. But, that day Dec-5, when she died, even the all-time haters were shedding tears, exclaiming, when will we find an iron lady like her again in TN.

She has left a legacy and a thrown, with no successor, which cannot be created again or will take so many years to get recreated. She has left and there is no one I see, with so much power and self-respect to run the land. There is CM now, but no leader. There is a party secretary and an opposition party too, but no leader! There is no death. There is a loss, which can never be compromised and filled by anyone as of now. Let us hope, we find the leader in someone, just like the one showed up from a small girl, who was forced to film industry for food and who was not allowed to attend the last rights of the one she loved.  The shame they did to her on that day created a massive legend. Let her death create another leader, legend!

The world called IT!

There you are. On my next article. I promised it would be about Kerala. may be I would take some time to grasp more of this complex human behaviors, which vary from one state to another and one culture to another.

What does IT mean to the outside world?

For my parents, all my IT job means nothing. Really nothing I do . They are happy that I have a good cab facility from home to office and a better toilet facility compared to any of the government offices and a salary at the end of the month. (Yeah when I run out of whatever I have, its already month end and so, they will not have their daughter nagging behind them for pocket money anymore. Now, its my husband, as he will not be separated from his ATM card)

To my sister, all my job is about anti-nationalism. Yes, when I say I work for a foreign client, every relative of mine envy me, while she always looks with disgust. you work for some other country!? Really?! Why can’t you do that for India? Why can’t you do it for your own company?! This is so anti-nationalism. And I answer that with a sheepish smile! She has finished her Journalism between all these comments. So, the next time I hear these set of sentences, I would say to her, “You are so journalist” ;-p!

And to my friends, I am just sitting in front of this white screen and writing lots and lots of blogs without any job! When they get a message or mail about my post, some really sweet friends reply in the comment that the article is so good. Some good friends say that, they do not have time and they would read it later and some unreading friends ask me if I have no work and ask to share theirs for heavens sake.

Great!

Everybody has a good opinion on me till now!

Then coming to my actual work!

So, there are days!

I feel like I never belong to the place. All I will do is, come to office, work, then work, then work, then work and then work and go home and kill myself in bed, which my family would think as the greatest offence done to the family (Previously my dad and my sister while staying with me (PS: I regret spending more time on my phone tha with both of them after office now) and now my husband's family), because, they were waiting for me at home all day, and I am not paying attention to any of thier talks.

And the day will come, when I will not feel like working. Will go eat drink water, eat whatever I feel like eating, then drink water, go to rest room between to kill the boring time, then go to library to sleep, then eat, then drink water, then go home. Don’t underestimate the power of sitting idle. It is the most difficult of all the things, especially when you do not have the right to step out of office, without saying what have you done today and what you will do tomorrow. This would be the most stressing job, when you are near you appraisal date! God save me!

And the day will come, when I feel like balancing home and work. Will get to office on time. Complete all the tasks in 9 hours and do help my home with whatever I have to help with! An I would promise at the end of the day that, this should be done everyday and the next day would be the day mentioned first or the second!

Some days, I will feel that I have lost all the passion in my life, so will push myself hard to pursue my passion, after being a good person in both office and home. That would be the day, I would read till the next day morning, or write till my fingers pain or paint until all the colors in the watercolor tube gets drained. And I would lose all the good names I got yesterday because, usually my brain becomes nerdy and jerky after a sleepless night.

There are lots of perspectives of IT world! We become excited even for a movie, we purchase online all the time. We become socially active at Facebook and twitter level and try to be nice to everyone we meet, because these days, Managers, directors and CEOs are too young to be considered for their position and messing up with them can lead you on creating your own company or begging to someone else for money.

So, having said that, I should finish this here and return back to my work-home life. That is what makes me more human than the dreams that carry my life to the next level. Celebrating 1 year at Cognizant tomorrow, I dedicate this article to all my batch mates who were with me and still trying to get along  with me somehow. To all those managers and team leads and buddies, who have helped me all along this journey and got the jobs done from me between these blogging times.

Decoding the myth word mother-in-law!

Well, what pops up in your head, when hear the word, mother-in-law?

The inherent Indian will opt to those never ending Sass-Bahu soaps in Televisions. The word unquestionably runs a shiver through the spine of both men and women. Men, because, they don’t understand how the hell something goes wrong between his wife and Maa, when everything is going fine in the entire house. And women because, they are “well educated” (That’s sarcasm, for your information) with these soaps in all the languages.

When there is a relationship, there are going to be problems, no matter what! Don’t we see our Mom and Dad fight like India and Pakistan and then find them the next day, praising each other like nothing has ever happened in their life. The issue goes viral, when it is between a Daughter-in-Law and a Mother-in-Law.

When mom and dad fight, it’s their children, who are going to be the Panchayat presidents, and obviously, no power is given to them. They just stand supporting one group and the next day, they are handled like fools. But, when there is a mismatch in frequency between the In-laws, it’s going to be two different families. The Saas and the Bahu family! Which is kinda dangerous! The mother-in-law position is the most delicate position in this entire universe. They want their son to be happy and they cannot accept that there is someone other than them, who is going to give that to their son. Possessiveness and obsession are common in love! Especially in too much love!

When there is going to be a power struggle in the house, the best way to deal with it is staying calm, for both the parties. If it’s going to go beyond the walls of the house, it would be difficult to settle the issue as someone would remember something else that happened in the past and it would become “I-Don’t-Know-What-I-Am-Fighting-For” problem. A reasonable talk after few hours or a few days of the misunderstanding will do. So, if you ask me where to vent out all the resentment till that time, don’t act like a child. You are married (Or you will be). You have a partner to torture!   :-p

This would reduce the friction and if you really love your partner, you are not going to make him feel bad for what their mom did and waste time over that. If the mistake is on your side, taking time will help in accepting that. Acting mature is equally frustrating as giving a speech to the “I-Don’t-care-What-You-Are-Talking” crowd. But, don’t think of escaping it. If you are the bad one, accept and don’t do it again.

Most Mothers-in-law, these days, are well educated and office going or well informed of the job difficulties that every woman undergoes. Because, you know what? All people work late night and some just at night which includes her son and daughter and in some good cases, themselves. This has made them soften their move towards the office going Bahu! And sometimes, the most suffered in-laws, never disturb you with obsession or other silly problems, because they know how childish it is to think of grabbing a place that would never be caught, no matter how hard she fights. Yes, being a wife is a promise you give to some one saying “I will endure you until death do that part for me” and that is the greatest promise you can give someone. And these days, In-laws too understand that! Good sign!

How do you feel when your sister/friend takes your “forever-favorite” dress and at the end of the day you find that she has poured the “Never-will-go-sauce” in it? Horrible, right? If you could develop this much attachment to a dress, how could you expect you mother-in-law, not to get agitated at your silly mistakes you do to your husband? She would think that you are ruining the most beautiful thing she has ever brought to this world with your cooking and every stuff you do to him. If you see it this way, it would be so funny. Isn’t it? As long as your husband can endure your everything, you are good to go. It is not that difficult.

As long as you are good, nothing bad can happen to you! One day, you will find out, you are not loving your husband enough. That day, you will remember your mother-in-law. That day will be the day, when you get your baby in your hand.

Take a deep breath! You are not alone in this big world! Be happy! That there is someone to compensate the love you are not going to give your husband! The man who would be your forever person, created by a woman’s love. And you know what? Thank your mother-in-law for creating the man of your dreams. If not her, your dream man would have been in your dream alone.

The neuroscience behind everything!

Part 1

Why we get more angry as a community than as an individual?

Brain is a crazy organ! Everything you presume about this world is nothing but those electrical signals and chemical reactions in the brain. Not only love, but also, each and every action of ours depends on the brain and the neurons inside it.

For example, every time you lift your hand, a set of neurons get activated, which brings about the memory of last time you lifted your hand, the things that happened when you lifted it, like whether you are going to just catch and throw something or that you are going to hold it for some more time and so on and so forth. It seems that this is one of the easiest thing you are doing in your life and still it takes a lots of effort by your brain to coordinate such actions, as it is going to connect different thousands of neurons in the process at the different regions of it. Well, only for the fist time. That is why the babies drop things, as their neurons are not soft-wired to the memory of lifting things. And with time, you are getting used to it making it an usual ritual, without even the conscience that you are doing the action.

So, coming to the question, when you take the refugee crisis and the Iraq and Iran problems and if you want a close look at it in India, the latest reaction of Kannada people towards the Tamil people (I am sorry to polarise, but this is what has happened in their mind. That they are something and we are something) for the cauvery water sharing issue. A lot of them, who have attacked the other group of people, has had their brain, hard wired to the fact that the other group is an enemy of some kind. 

The media plays the foul game by broadcasting some videos from unknown sources. The politicians play politics and the people become the slave of their brain. As anger unveils itself in a mass, the stronger the feeling of disgust grows against the other group. This leads to the greater disasters to human kind, like the mass killings against Jews in Germany by the Nazis. No matter how much you get repulsed by the idea of attacking some one as an individual, the repeated sentences of "them attacking your community of people", "the videos of violence by their religion against your religious people" can pass that epidemic infection into your mind. And when your community or religion gets together at some place nearer to the opposite community or religion, no matter how close you are to that set of people, your brain becomes shadowed by the fact that someone of who belongs to your group has been hurt by someone of their group and the clash starts firing to unimaginable levels.

That is why governments stop broadcasting certain TV channels and newspapers during sensitive times. As the technology has grown in multitudes in a short span of time, it has become mandatory for the government to curtail them too.

To prove this theory of mine, I will take the help of an proved theory by a school teacher. To stop violence against black people in America, she wanted to teach her students, how it would feel like being humiliated by certain group and how rage grows so fast in a mob. She divided to students in her class to two groups with their eye color, the blue ones and the brown ones. She said on the first day that the blues ones were superior to the brown ones. And to differentiate the groups, she asked the blues ones to wear a shirt with collar and the brown ones to wear without collar. And she continued to do the same the next day, but changed her sentence and said today the brown ones are superior.

After that experience, what happened inside those children were a tremendous change. While the blue eye students were so rude the first day by humiliating the brown ones, one fellow even recollects how rude he was to the brown eyed people and how he bullied them. He is a old man now, of course. And that experiment in her class has changed his view towards the black people. He or every student in the class never ever have disregarded people based on their appearance or religion so far. So good!

Dividing people into groups with names based on religion, community, color, caste or creed, activate certain regions of brain inflicting inferiority complex and intolerance. This creates an unhealable scar, that activates the pain sensitive region in brain. And when the situation becomes so vulnerable, like the recent cauvery issue or the always on-going border issue in Kashmir or the one between Iraq and Iran, people get violent without even knowing the real facts. This might result in even killing the best friend of the other state or community or region just because he/ she is not of his/her group.

And the media tries to fuel it for its TRP and the politicians repeat that they are a part of that inferior people and that they are being attacked everytime- the so called dirty politics.

So, it's all in the brain. It can create or destroy things and even people. And if you are so clever, never allow someone's opinion to shadow yours. Be a human, before being tagged to some religion or community or caste or creed or color!

Dependency

Dependent people are so clever!
They are not fools!
Especially the ones who know that they are dependent!
They show to the world that they are dependent!
They admit that they cannot live alone!
And then they find a right person to depend on!!

And one day,
When they are gone!
Gone might be "gone forever" or just that they stop to be dependent!
The world feels the pressure!
The pressure of their absence!
The abyss of nothing worth to live for!

The world will realise that the admittance was just an excuse!
They make the world fall in love!
In love with their weaknesses!
Yes, it's true that the world always falls for tenderness!
Yes, that's the exact word.
Not weakness, but the tenderness and vulnerability of their words and deeds!
That vulnerable elegance makes them ambient!
Attractive and vulnerable!

But the so called dependant people never give up on them!
And on this world!
And hence their confidence makes the world fall head over heels for them!

And then they make the world reciprocate it!
And the world will always come to a conclusion that, "Everyone is dependent on someone somehow!", after they leave!
But, you know, it's so complicated!

That the world will always come to square zero!
To where it started!
To the belief that it's independent!
And it would meet a person who calls them dependent!
And unconsciously will become dependent!
And the vicious circle will go on and on!