Inner workings of an (in)sane mind

How important is money   for you??? I never had much regard for money all my life. From pocket money to pocket money, and now, paycheck to paycheck, my life has passed by. Now that I am a mum, and going by the tradition, I am supposed to teach my child the importance of money. For the first and only time in my life, I feel like an inadequate parent.  My mom, unlike me, was excellent with money. She would meticulously divide her money into expenses, investments, and savings.  Every year, I tried, I swear I did, to walk in her footsteps, and every year, I failed miserably. When I was young, 1st of every month, we (my sisters and I) would get Rs. 500 as pocket money. My friends and I weren't party-animal kinds of people, but we did share a love for books and music, and that's where our money went into. In my defence, I walked a lot and read second-hand books to save whatever measly sum was left. CDs were expensive, though. By the middle of the month, I would be heading to m...

IS IT OKAY TO LIE IN A RELATIONSHIP? A week ago, I read a magazine that said 73% of people lie to their partners. I don't know how much of it is true, but that's what the publication claimed. If you asked me, I think 100% of the couples do. I lie all the time. Imagine, If I told my husband the actual cost of the pair of jeans I bought? or that I ruined his favourite shirt because I forgot to separate the whites from the colours. Now his formal white shirt has green patches all over it. I love my life and my happiness; needless to say, I will lie. I will say I bought those jeans in a 50% off sale and can't find his white shirt.  Having said that, I do not condone lying in a relationship. If I lust over a Korean/ Hollywood/Bollywood actor, my partner will be the first to know. On another thought, I think I would keep that information to myself. In my defence, I am not lying here. Hiding information is not lying.  Every evening, we tell each other what we did and whom we met. ...

  Any parent who says they understand their child and can predict their next move is either a superhuman or is just lying. No matter what age, children are like PMSing women - their moods, taste, and words change even before they can bat their eyes, and they are always cranky.  1. You go to a relative's place and tell them your child hates sweets. That day your child will have sweets and ask for a second serving, and if you haven't died of shame already, maybe the third serving too.  2. Your child is after you for guitar classes, and you buy him a pretty expensive guitar and enrol him in an equally expensive guitar class. Day and night, you keep hearing tuneless guitar noise and yet clap and say, " oh, what amazing music ." But still, despite ruining your eardrums and living with a perpetual headache, you get to hear that the guitar is a dull instrument and how his fingers ache and if only he could enrol in drum classes instead. I wish I was strong and cruel enough to...

You know what has saved more lives than the medicines... the phrase JUST JOKING. It has averted major fights, saved friendships and even brought about laughter. This phrase should/would have easily won a Nobel Peace Prize if it was a person. All through my life, I have been an on-the-face person. I am not diplomatic, and my parents have often complained about my poor people skills, which has put me in a lot of trouble. For instance, when I was groom hunting (yes, your's truly was indeed a hopeless person and couldn't find herself a guy and had to go for her parent's help to get hitched), I met a man, and our conversation went as follows: I - So, what kind of a life partner are you looking for? Him - Somebody who takes care of my parents, my home and me. (Well, his people-pleasing skills were as questionable as mine) I (being who I am) - You don't have to marry for that. Servants are going to be a lot cheaper.  Him - But there are other things that a servant cannot do. (...

All through my life I always believed that you need to be with someone who makes you happy, who soothes away all troubles. Because this is what was fed to most of us since childhood that our happiness depends upon our partner, it is his job to make me happy. Be it Fairy tales where Knight in shining armour saves the damsel in distress or Mills and Boon or Harlequinn romances where a rich dude saves a down on luck girl. This is how it is supposed to be. Well, NO. And nobody could have explained this better than Katrina Kaif. She, in one of the episodes of Koffee with Karan said something that blew me away. Yes, the most superficial talk show had this gem and the respect for this lady has grown 10 folds.  She said, " My biggest learning in relationships is nobody is responsible for your happiness. And you cannot give them that power, because you cannot burden another person with that responsibility. " and it made complete sense to me. Making one person responsible for my happin...

Raising a husband can be an exhausting task. Nevertheless, Husbands are amazing creatures. They are generally great guys. I love when small house chores that they do, and like a child, they would come to you pretending to have moved a couple of mountains; that's absolutely adorable.   So, Janhit mein jaari (Issued in the public interest)10 things every husband should know that we know: 1. We know when you are looking at women. So when we ask you if you were, just say yes. "Oh, are you talking about the girl in the white top? No, I wasn't looking at her." this is not the reply we want to hear.  2. We know what you mean when you say, "You always look good, fat or thin." when we ask you if we look fat. Trust me, please lie. We have eyes; we know we look fat, we just don't want to hear it from you - directly or indirectly. 3. We know why you have a bored expression on your face when we cook in compared to when you have your mom's cooked food and act as i...

Today, I chanced upon my relative's before and after the weight loss picture, and honestly, I was amazed by the transformation. She lost a massive 20 kilos. I heard she had been gymming a lot.  Well, my relationship with my Gym can be best described as Complicated. Either I am completely into it, or I am just avoiding it like the plague. The change of attitude, just like any relationship, is pretty gradual : Night Before Day 1:   Gym Clothes neatly folded, Shoes wrapped and kept in gym bags.  Day 1 :  At 5 in the morning, I thoroughly wash my face, brush my hair, and reach the Gym on time.  Run-on treadmill Cycle Row Lift weights By the time I am done, I feel like a cartoon character whose bones will break into million pieces with just the slightest touch. Day 2:   Almost the same as Day 1. Only a slight difference - my body aches. I can feel every muscle and bone in my body and even those I didn't know existed. And yes, I forgot to ready my gym bag the pre...

Attention: Before you start reading it, I apologize to whosoever finds this word offensive. And if you have a great distaste for this word, I suggest you stop reading it right away because I have used it extensively in my post.  Yesterday, my friends were discussing what we could write on F in the ongoing A- Z blogging challenge. Some group members said something about F-word, and we all joked about it, and the topic ended.  I since childhood have been told, and that too pretty strictly, that we were not supposed to use expletives in the house or outside. Just the usage of stupid, idiot or donkey was enough to get us royally punished. But lately, I have found a great liking for the word FUCK.  Just say the word aloud, and you will realize how liberating the word is. I have given great thought to it. I personally don't find the word the least bit offensive. Most probably, it has a lot to do with the context. I never use the word as an offence or an abuse like Fuck you! Who...

Who am I, and what am I doing in this world? These questions keep haunting me, and I have no answer to them. It seems that I suffer from a perpetual existential crisis, covering most part of my adult life. This keeps me in a constant condition of boredom and inadequacy. No matter how big the event is or how great the happiness is, there is always something lacking. It gets even more difficult if you are surrounded by highly happy-go-lucky people. For them, a piece of small good news seems enough to keep them happy for a whole week or even a month. In all honesty, I was/am jealous of them. I am forty and yet do not know what I really want in my life. Maybe that's why I keep reinventing myself from a housewife to a blogger to an author to a scriptwriter and now a full-time corporate employee (and I was doing pretty well). Yet the happiness that I seek eludes me. Despite seeing my name in print or Cannes film festival or even getting a job, I still can't seem to feel contended.  I...

 Since childhood, dancing has been an integral part of sister/friend bonding. Though none of us (My 3 sisters and I) are trained dancers, what online gaming is for this generation, dance was for us. If there was a Power cut, we danced; if we had nothing to do, dance; Festival coming up - we gotta dance. We made sure we never missed an opportunity to showcase our dancing talent. Be it school functions, our complex festivities or family marriages.  My elder sisters often told me that when I was just a toddler, they, along with our dad, used to dance to Boney M and Abba songs, especially Brown girl in the ring. So, I guess apples don't fall too far from the tree.  But then I grew up, and I started taking life too seriously. Suddenly, dancing seemed like a pretty frivolous thing to do. Though behind closed doors and in showers, I would still dance and sing aloud, I tried to keep myself in control when out in the world. The more I pretended to be mature, the more lost and uns...

  People who know me know that I am a classic Introvert. Well, for me making friends is challenging, but luckily I have managed to retain whatever little friends I have. If you are an introvert or know an introvert, you'll agree that conversation is not our strongest suit. We have problems even with basic stuff like saying hello. A lot of people mistake our inability to converse as a sign of arrogance. We might look like that but we are good people 😁😁😁   Let me tell you about an incident. When my eldest sister got engaged, after a lot of self-talk mustered up enough courage to walk up to my brother-in-law and congratulate him. I went there, smiled, put my hand forward, and forgot the word I needed to utter, my mind went blank, and I couldn't remember the word "Congratulations." I am not exaggerating here, but I broke into a cold sweat. I think twice or thrice before calling a waiter and do without internet when wi-fi goes off because that would require me to contac...

We often look down on the entire concept of making mistakes. If you ask me, it is one of the most underrated and underutilized forms of learning. Mistakes happen when you dare to do something you had never done before or step into an absolutely new area that is out of your comfort zone. In short, when you are BOLD. I do not mean being rude, aggressive, or foolhardy is Bold. Bold, in my opinion, is all about being confident, living life on one’s terms and being unapologetic. So, take my advice- be bold, adventurous, and brave when making decisions – good or bad – you will come out as a winner. If good, you get to flaunt it. If bad, you will learn from it.  Personally speaking, I am a mistress of the so-called- bold-mistakes, from changing my bag on the morning of an exam resulting in forgetting my admission card on the first day of my XIIth  Boards to choosing Political Science as my honours subject and proposing to my husband on the first day we met and that too just after 5 m...

  I wonder how "AGE" managed to get so much importance in our lives and that, too, to such an extent that everything we do gets immediately compared if it is in accordance with the time we've spent alive. But if you see fish. I don't think they ever wonder if they need to stop swimming or hunting or whatever they do to fill their stomach at a certain age. Age does not restrict animals; why does it restrict us? I can't help but think about who made AGE such a life-changing event for us and how that person or a group of people managed to brainwash the entire world. According to me... 1.        Maturity doesn't come with age For instance, Will Smith smacked Chris Rock ( no, I do not condone violence) for a poor joke at this year's Oscar ceremony. I jumped off a three-foot wall despite knowing I was wearing slippers, and it was a pretty idiotic thing to do, yet still, I went ahead and fractured my foot. We three ( Chris, Will Smith and I), when com...