Family is ...

Maa and Papa , who you can fight with , disagree with , live with , cannot live with at times ..cant understand sometimes and then all of a sudden understand ... but they are there when you really need them , irrespective of every other thing in the world ... It is really crazy but there have been times when I have felt like the whole world is conspiring against me to make me unhappy ..and the first thing that happens to me is a call , from Maa ... I mean i cant understand how she knows when i need her the most ..even if we talk about the most mundane things in life ... Imagine, she asks me every time I call , if i make breakfast for K2 i the morning as she knew I always used to sleep late and she knows he goes to work early , and she shud know if we stuck the balance right ...i mean the feminist in me would rebel sometimes , would she ever as k2 if he made breakfast for me if i was going to office early ..NO ...Family is papa , the one person who never sees a wrong in u, even if the whole world believes you are ... ethe one person who would take out money from his retirement fund to see u go where u want to ... in life ... ..Family is the bada bhai , which i believe every girl shud have , who wud fight for u , when u r fighting with him , just cause he knows life isnt about having a love affair when u r in the 8th standard .. even when he knows u wud hate him for that ...atleast till the time u r over that affair and on a new one;-) ... Family is how you can constantly disagree with objectives in life and still cry when ur brother holds u and asks u what do u want ... and says he is there ....Family is having a coolest guy in the universe as u r younger brother , with whom u can share the greys of life without being judged .. family is the same brother u are mad on when he doesnt call for days ...family is yet again the same person who wud be up all night on the train when he is travelling with u ..and checking every few minutes if the kambal is still on u , lest u feel cold in the cruel Delhi november .... Famliy is the sister ,you have fought with all ur life , on every single thing right from food to TV serials .. to getting married or not getting married at the time u think is right ... and when she does get married , feeling that sense of loss ...and the sense of achievement as well when she has had a baby ...you know ...becoming a Maasi .. thats like Mom for the uninformed without making much efforts ...Family is when u get to God and pray for them whereever they are ... and family is what scares u ..cause u cant see them unhappy and realise the world around is not perfect ....Family is the little sister u have , who can be a pest all u r life and still the one person in the world , u wud never doubt .... the one person who makes u feel like the bollywood hero , when she is hurt , cause u cant just wait to go out and trash the person who makes her unhappy ...in style ... family is when u can sit and talk and bitch about the entire world including family;-)) with her and still know u all are in it together .... Family is the friends u get by chance , who wud never send u a friendship day card and let u know they are there but never the less they are ... and thats abot it .as ..simple as that .... last but not the least ...family is that one guy you marry , in this whole big bad world , u can trust to be with u ..all ur life ...who u want to be with all ur life, who u can think of being with , when u leave u r family behind .....One person who can gets into any role , when u need , being a mother when u r sick ....being a brother when u r hurt ..being a sister ... when u need to just discuss the world around ... and being just himself ... for u ....In this day and age of ultra nuclear families , meaning just one kid motto ....i hate to feel what the kid wud miss one day ... having some real people ... Cant help getting sentimental today ...guess rakhi around the corner was a trigger ... guess i missed the extended family - in laws ;-)) but that would take the whole page by itself ..with the kind of reputation , they seem to have all over the world irrespective of cultures .... but i guess i need more time to comment on mine, for me ...... its been 3 days of sheer bliss with them as yet .. .think everyone shud grow up with a huge family , know it is not that great in the beginning when u r a kid and need to constantly share stuff u cud have on ur own ... i mean believe me there was a time when i used to be actually embarrassed about telling people we are a family of 7 ... it sounded huge .. but now it makes me thankful.. i mean it might sound weird but i have played games with my mind ...thinking of all the permutations and combinations , what if we were 4 ..or 3 or 2 ....rather than 5 ...who wud i have and who wud i leave ...( taking for granted i am not the one who wud be left;-)) and every single time, i have realized it takes all of us to make it whole , it just cudnt work any other way .... and i guess thats family ....

Last name ? Should you let go ...

One of the first changes in life when u get married is , is the change in your name ...and when you think of it , i would say it is the most important ... and something that u realise right on the face .. .every single day ...I mean I cant ever forget an incident ... when i had a appointment in Pune , and was waiting ... and the receptionist called Mrs Kumar, cause my last name had changed ...and she called again ..i was sitting right there in front of her and my mind just wudnt register ..who she was calling ..and she kinda knew it was me ...so was looking right at me ... and this was the beginning ...when you start gaining a new identity ..and maybe losing what u were all ur life ... and it takes it time ...Now I can debate on why the women change the name and the men dont ...but this is one feminist discussion that strikes u once in a while ... well , there is a opportunity in here for the females as well ...say for some weird reason , i never liked my surname , i have a perfectly acceptable reason to have a new one ...u have a choice suddenly ...to be what u were , or turn to be someone else ...men dont have this luxury ..u r stuck with one identity all ur life ...wherein i get to to change ..for better or worse ... if i want to ;-) ....If you see it is a big thing ..to be able to have a choice second time in life ... you grow into being urself and now you have a conscious choice ...to be what u wud want ....generally marriage involves moving as well ..so the change can be complete , u have people around u ..who dont even know u , so u can kinda be complete makeover ... name and attitude and everything .. guess enuf for the day..or maybe just this time ...will get back ...

My official birthday today....

Everyone who knows me probably knows I am a Piscean , a proud one at that ....but for some weird reasons , when my dad enrolled me in school , the official birthday was 13th august ...Personally I havent been able to figure out , the good or the bad it has done me , or maybe it just has had no effect ...i believe the most logical reason cud be the lack of a birth certificate when I was born ..the second reason cud be , they just wanted to save me a year - in case i wanted to appear for IAS exams 22 years down the line , now this might sound funny or even far fetched , but believe me , if you are from one particular state in India , namely Bihar (now jharkhand) this would be the most plausible explanation ...cause almost everyone I know has a different birthday on records ...and the lack of birth certificate would not suffice to all cases ...Enuf of a non story ..guess it is time to get to the story of the day ... I wud say it definately is the Paint job ( not the one on my face;-) - , we have a appointment to get the apartment painted ...and i have already called them like 3 times , and they shud be here any moment now .. Now things work differently in US ..I mean there is a appointment for everything damn thing and no human contact so to say ...back in ranchi , if we need a place painted..we call up the guys ..rather ask someone to ask them to come see us ( talk about good old days ) - discuss the color , hoggle about the rates ...and finally end up with something we never expected , things are different over here ...you call u r management office ...they call the painters ...they give the color , specifications and u know they will come over some day and paint..color wud be white ...
so the paint job is underway .and these guys are professionals , to the extremes ...and i kinds like that .i might end up liking US , something that actually scares me ..cause i want to get back to india ..i just feel we r not meant to be here ...and life is fuller in india ...and i say fuller cause ...whatever u do, emptiness creeps up in the us of a ... ..every single thing is routine and u get so used to it that u stop living, and just

why wud u blog at 5 am in the morning ...

I guess the only logical reason is cause u cant sleep , for whatso ever reason in the world ..and not sleeping makes u cranky and ofcourse much more critical of the world around..including urself...
Anyways , as I already mentioned , I cant seem to sleeep today, however hard i have tried and i tried getting into more useful things than blogging , like studying - didnt work for more than 5 min ... even tried watching TV and i used to think things cannot get worse than Indian television and serials , but wait till u watch american television ...there is always someone advertising something fatfree or low calories or some crap weight loss program ... the whole nation is obsessed with weight , cause they dont have much else to worry about ..i mean really , i just cant feel people thinking over here , which i know is a misconception , u cant have the biggest economy in the world without a few sensible people ...and i am amazed as how few and far between u find them ... Anyways, its time for me to say something good about this place , i mean i have been cribbing for so long that i almost hate myself for it now ... The best thing abot this country is that it is predictable , and its the worst thing as welll ..I mean every single place in the US Is the same ...it wud have its walmart , and target and staples and home depot ...so it hardly matters where u r ... i mean the roads are teh same ,the streets are named the same .. i mean talk about not having enuf names , i just think these guys dont ..

Now getting down to more personal levels ,life seems to be settled in the US of A , Newport ( thats the place where I stay) seems to be a miniature version of Asia ... you see either Indians or chinki;s . I cant judge if they are chinese or japanese ..or koreans ...chinki conveys the message right .... so u are in US but dont get the feeling , cause there are no genuine americans around ...at all ... it seems like this place is almost captured by the desis and the chinks .... and beleive me ..New jersey is not the place if you want to see anything thats american ..not that I mind ..just cant figure out why we are here or anywhere else , i mean i cud life as comfortably back in india ...but the time for such debates in gone long by .. I guess not working and sitting at home is not agreeing with me ...

woke up from a strange dream yesterday , was in a strange apmt and the person was not strange , but just cudnt place him when i woke up .,...and i dont remember anything else to give me a reason to mention this here ....got my first credit card in the US , have yet to buy something on my own card but i guess, it does make life easy and u more confident of venturing out on ur own ...

I called up a lot of people today who i generally wudnt ..but i guess this is what america does to u ..it instills a certain amount of loneliness that is dificult to understand and get rid of .. it makes u disown u r country of birth and stops u from being a american leaving u somewhere in between ... and every single person i see on the road . seems to have this loneliness in thier eyes, most wudnt even accept it ..they want to stay here and think this is the best plac ein the universse but it is still definately there somewhere ....it makes u hate what ur country lacks and it makes u want to go back ... in a nutshell , it makes u confused and not sure of what u want in life ...........

enuf ...whatelse is good in life, well there is a river right next to the apmtmnt i stay in and across the river , u can see the financial hub of this world, new york city which is enuf to give u a high sometime .... and that is definately nice, when u stay on the 21st floor..look at the river and the city across it ...it has a tendency to make u more philosophical ...and thats what i m getting into .and as everyone who knows me wud swear by , this is the time to quit ..and whats what i wud do..it almost 6 and time i got some sleep ... now this again is psychological ....getting some sleep is required ........

will l get back sooner than u wud believe ....