New year resolutions

Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man.
Benjamin Franklin

WISHING YOU ALL A VERY HAPPY 2010 !!

Last year I took some resolutions here..now I am going to introspect did I follow them

Firsts was never to complain..I couldn't do it so well...some people tried my patience and won .I tried my best to take the worst in my stride, but couldnt and failed myself.

Acceptance and acknowledgement... Here I have progressed a little, Except rudeness , I have got enough acceptance, for everything else. And yes I acknowledge everything and everybody in life, thinking that it will bring some good, but sometimes it happens that if you acknowledge some mandatory things, people may think that they are too good and not the person who is feeling grateful for small things , so it may backfire...now i will have to be careful in my praise also:)

genuine..that I am always , everywhere, could never be a hypocrite..to me speaking sweetly and then stabbing a person is much worse than not speaking sweetly..its better to show everybody your real self, so that none expects anything otherwise.

Happy....here I am trying to be happy with myself. Slowly slowly I am trying to detach myself with everything and everyone who brings negativity in my life.

not hurting anybody..I always try never to hurt anybody, but sometimes speaking the truth also hurts someone, like if you call a fat and lazy person..fat and lazy, he would feel hurt, though its true...so now my effort would be not to speak at such times:)

Care for you environment..that I am born with..I cant see anyone wasting water, or using too much of plastic..rather I cant waste anything.

Consume less....here I come at the top:)..I buy only what and when I need..no hoardings at all..though I understood the meaning of hoarding very late:)..our indulgence deprives somebody.

Every year I think of taking a resolution of not accepting any gift of money or things from anybody except my husband, but dont because some people might not take it in right perspective,and I never go back on my promises even to myself, from my side, its my long lived desire, that I must live on my own, and the last decade(or some more years) of my life, I just want to live free of everything..responsibilities, restrictions and any obligations, there must be a time in your life when you can live in peace.....I love doing things for everybody but hate this fear gnawing at my heart..if I dont do this..he/she will feel bad..I want to be free of this heart and want to live bindaas( not that i am interested in doing something out of the boundaries)..just living free of any bindings and fears. Giving me freedom from all obligations is the biggest gift i may get...sometimes it makes me feel like a bird in a golden cage...from the elders to the youngsters, everybody has always had umpteen expectations from me.and i fulfilled most of them, but now I think the time has come for a change...the way everybody wants me to be cool and comfortable with them, let me be me too....all of us should be happy with what we get...no complaints, no suggestions.


No more ambitions for me, except to see happiness all around me.Now only desire I have left is if I could touch a single person's life in a good way, I will think of my life as well lived

AFTER THE BREAK

After a long time, this was another long break I took from blogging, due to my daughter's visit. She has gone back, and I am back here to do stock taking:)......

Last week was so hectic what with alt the cooking, going out a, shopping etc...I always go out of the way for everything..almost always beyond my capacity ..and still feel that I couldnt do much or anything..There is always that dish I couldnt cook, or that particular dress or gift i couldnt buy for her/him...why it happens? sometimes I feel like complaining to god, why he has made the parents all from heart, no mind?.....They need more of a mind than heart to live peacefully.

We went to GRT Rangnathan street, and all of us were amazed to see a shop selling jwellery and crowded like a vegetable market...people jostling with each other, though its a multi storey large building..this one store must be having a bigger turnover than some companies even.

Big boss also ended with a whimper....one thing i dont understand about these reality shows...the singer you hear being praised about is eliminated first in music shows.....here the actor everybody liked was Bakhtiar and Vindu was disliked and he won..He got the car for being..BOLD AND STYLISH...I think we will have to define the meaning of bold again..is being rash, rude and abusive is being bold?...Bakhtiar was bold as he said.....he cant live without the conscience..he cant see his wife being called names and he cant keep quiet. for the sake of winning the show....
Wherever I talked I heard people liking Bakhtiar and then Poonam for being so rational, calm and dignified...this total manipulation of the show leaves you feeling cheated.

HAPPY TIMES

Last week my daughter and SIL came, my nephew also came from VIT and we had a good time talking , eating and going out. We took them to Mahabalipuram ,and to Muttukadu also for boating. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Muttukadu...everything has changed, earlier here I wrote about it, and today they had a nice restaurant and all tourists were given life jacket while boating.I was laughing also that see this happens when I write:).

Last week I met Jayshree also at Tapas Bar, and really enjoyed our tete a tete, her little daughter is very cute. 2 weeks back Smriti also came to my house, I met her earlier also in Hyderabad, and now she has become a family to me, So far I have met three people thru my blog and it has been a very enriching experience to me. Thanks to blogging I got few friends.

And now I have praised Cafe Tapas so much that my daughter is waiting to go there:) and have cheese toast. and the advantage is its very near to our place.

Whenever my children come they take me back to their childhood. Sometimes I think that why do we crave for children so much, as someone wrote in the comment to my last post, that the amount of time and money and we invest in them and specially we put our hearts at stake, its not worth it, because the hurts we get are much more than the care we get...and then I think of their childhood..the pleasure I got when they were toddlers, and when they were studying and showing me the dreams and then the pride I feel when I see them well established grown ups,nothing can ever beat that. If we think of it as as a business proposition..then its a total loss investment..with the time and money spent on them, we could always fulfil all our dreams and save for our old age quite well, but if we think emotionally....its different,bringing a new life into this world and watching them growing up is an experience of a life time , unsurpassable by anything,But once they grow up, its better to detach ourselves from them to save ourselves from all the hurt...because today's world is becoming self centred, they do everything for their own good and their own convenience.... and I dont like to see the parents being taken for granted..whenever they are needed they are called, visited and even respected and then left to fend for themselves.
Yesterday my husband talked to one of his colleague and his both the sons have settled abroad and none has the visa status to keep the parents there permanently, so they visit only, rest of the time they have to live alone....The couple is over 60, and in India getting a medical help is also not so instant and in easy approach, so they are dependent on distant relatives or neighbours. I feel really sad when I see someone like this because I can identify so easily with them, the same will happen to me in the next 10 years or so. And I think and think but unable to find any solution..may be some organisations may come forward and make senior citizen friendly communities in all the cities..the modern old age homes....and I dont bother even about the stigma attached to them.....This is one fact of life, sooner we accept it would be better that children cant bear the responsibility of their parents.

When to have kids?

In my last post I wrote about so many things, but nobody read or reacted about anything other than gender bias,and it shows that relationships are the most popular topic for everyone. I got an anonymous reaction also and a strong one, but I didnt publish that, because I feel if someone has something strong to say ,be brave to put your name to it. But still I will clarify my stand, I would like to state categorically that in my post...
I never ever undermined boys, on the contrary i always say that today boys are getting short changed, and personally my son is the best, gem of a person, and to me both daughters and son are equal, I rather wanted to say that to prove their equality I couldnt undermine the son...
My son always stands up for the right thing and person and I have always respected and valued his opinion and still do.and those who have been reading my blog for some time will know how precious he is to me.
As for equality in Pooja...somebody has to do it first, if the girls do, then boys will say why?....and the people who go for this type of equality, I feel doubtful that they will ever make a happy family.A cohesive family comes only after every member aspires for it, but if some of them are always balancing the scales, then sorry....it becomes a game only.If its a patriarchal system then girls crib, if tomorrow there is a matriarchal then boys will crib..so to me it is like this that if you want to crib, do it but you wont benefit anyone, not even yourself.Even if a mother gives food to two children, she will give first to one and then to second, giving second is not undermining her love for the child.One should learn the definition of family first..family is a group of people bound together by love, will do everything for each other, and keep others before self.

And I know that sometimes inlaws are quite bad,but I will write only what I see around me..this is my blog, my personal experiences....and today i see that majority of parents are adjusting, and the girls are becoming haughty and arrogant, so that comes out in my posts. and so a girls, who is working and still not haughty, looks after the house and is polite and respectful to elders will always get my respect whosoever she may be..my daughter or my DIL or my blogger friends.I have never liked..I ,me, myself attitude, I told my daughter also when she got married....
कोई भी कितने अरमान से बेटे की शादी कर के दुल्हन लाता हा, तुम्हारी किसी भी बात से माँ का मन नहीं दुखना चाहिए ( everybody gets her/his son married with so much of love, that you should never hurt your MIL in any way.)..she will vouch for that.Its not that I say something else and teach and behave with my daughter differently. When you enter a family, dont go there with the attitude..what they are doing for you..see what you will do for them, try to please them..and Inlaws should also look after the new girl well.No girl can get the love of her husband unless she respects his parents and since girl goes to sasural..she has to deal with inlaws on day.to.day basis, not the boys, certain equations are different.

And anybody who reads my blog will know that I am a a very judicious mother to my daughter also, I never support or hide her mistakes, I dont believe in hiding mistakes, I rather try to rectify them..may be I come out as a harsh mother to others, but strictness at certain label, some discipline in life and pampering at different times only can bring up a good personality..this is my personal belief.

Now-a-days whosoever meets me keep asking whether my children have any issue?( as they have been married for few years, quite a lot if you consider Indian thinking:)
and when I say..NO, they advise me that I am being too careless, and its not right and all that and yesterday I was thinking about all this and came to the conclusion that...
children are lifelong responsibility, once they arrive, parents will be forever looking for something..bringing them up, education , marriage etc etc.
So its only before that they can enjoy their life fully and fulfill their dreams and can have some METIME.
Secondly what happens that with life expectancy increasing, with early children , a situation comes in life when parents are in late 80's and children in late 60's. and for those children its not an easy time to look after parents when they themselves need some help..so having children late will have many pluses..
first one gets enough time to oneself
and when you grow old, your children will be young enough to look after you ( of course only if they want to:)
and one is always able to provide better to the children,
So I thought that i will never ever ask my children to hurry up and have kids(as if they will listen to me:)....enjoy life, fulfil your dreams and then plan family whenever you need them.,really want them.
This weekend my daughter is coming for two weeks..so its going to be fun time to me, waiting for her.. I miss her so much, but marriage changes a person so much..I miss those times.. I wish that for sometime at least she becomes that little girl of mine.

There is this NGO. they had this exhibition of articles manufactured by unprivileged children from recycled goods. I went there to see and thought of buying something to encourage them. One thing I have noticed that most of the time the prices of the products are kept very high, to me its like killing the golden goose. why cant they keep the competitve prices, then their products can be marketed easily and will have more demand. And whoever organises it,must give their space either free or very low cost, because if they also want to make profit then it totally backfires, as there wont be much sale. I saw that few products were good but prices were very high..it was like going to a designer place. My H being a practical person asked my why do you want to buy this product at a multiplied cost, why not give that money directly to charity, but I think its better to encourage work..its like teaching fishing. I always buy something whenever I see any exhibition or sale directly from handicraftsman or any such NGO.Earlier there was this shop in Shilparaman Hyderabad which used to sell some spices soap etc made by adivasis and I bought so many things and believe me they were very good quality, even soaps very better than those branded ones, and spices were very fresh.Now they dont have that shop anymore and I couldnt find their where abouts even.

here is my talk with webneetech.....

http://webneetech.com/2009/12/10/interview-with-blogger-renu-rastogi/

OH MY GOD!

This Saturday we went to my H's alumni meet..I just go for good food and good music, as I dont get to meet and talk many people..because I know none and people here are sort of reserved...that way I miss my last apartments crowd, people there had a class of their own, They always made me feel sop welcome and one of their own..Since this time the venue was Accord Metropolitan,it was also an incentive to see a new place. The hotel is good in ambiance but food was bad..not a single dish was worth it..One thing I have seen that here north Indian food preparations are rarely good anywhere, so why not keep it traditionally south only, I prefer that instead of eating rubber like paneer and watery gravy, and special dinner without dahi bhalla or raita is unimaginable to me . But we had good DJ :)..so I enjoyed the music and felt sad to see that so many foot tapping numbers he played but none of the young crowd came on the floor..when he played..kajraare, I remembered how in Delhi, we couldnt stop anybody from dancing, people were so much in love with this song:).If there is a game or quiz, its imperative that my H will win something, he is a sure shot winner, last time in our apartment building we had TT matches and when I gave his name people were a little skeptical that he could beat them..I mean young crowd..but he demolished them all.So here also there was a quiz on corporate people, and in business knowledge , he is a pro..after all he reads BL thoroughly and watches only CNBC, so we got a gift voucher for AVM sound zone.
Then i the evening I watched a little of..TERE MERE BEECH ME..a show by Farah khan the director and choreographer...here are a few of her statements and questions to the guest .....

1--Now I am going to present two girls who are like SONS to their families......

Notice the saying sons..it shows our prejudice, why be like sons, why not good responsible girls?..I hear many families saying..for us our girls are like sons,..hello what do you mean by that, why cant girls be like girls only? it shows that whatever we say we still consider the boys better.whereas we keep denying any credit to boys even by saying that girls are more caring.

2--You have done for your families what normally the boys do.....
with this statement we say two things...like boys do a lot for their family again a contradiction because you must have heard many people say that girls are more caring, though i dont understand the meaning of their caring and we are showing our gender bias.

I have forgotten the other questions, but this show was full of such things. My opinion is that to bring equality in this world we will have to change our thinking..

Girls need not not to be like boys, they just need to be good in everything.We need both in our lives..boys and girls.

Girls need to be independent in everything in life...that way I like what John Abraham said about Bipasha...he admired her for being totally independent, never asking him for any work to be done or any maintenance of house or anything else.She can take care of ANYTHING... thats what is independence all about.

And to bring a change we need to have a righteous thinking....

today what I see is that girls like want a husband who

1...earns more ,
2---respects their parents and looks after them well,but should have some self respect and not stay with inlaws
3...is a metro sexual men..well groomed and helps in the house., soft hearted,but shouldnt be a sissy.
4--if possible with eight packs abs.but shoulnt look for beauty in a wife, as beauty is not important as the virtues.
5..strong enough to protect them,
6-pamper them silly,
7-be chivalrous,
8-shouldnt take or expect anything from inlaws

so you will see that most of the points are a contradiction ....

1....why earn more..there will be always one partner who will earn more and it could be either wife or husband..if wives can live with the husband's earnings, so can the husband with wife's

2-Why the boys living with inlaws are looked down upon..why?.if he has the duty to look after them , then he can stay also with them, secondly if you want him to take care and respect your parents, then you better do that to his parents..you just cant discard them from his life.

3--its humanly quite difficult.

8...is very gender biased, when girls always want their inlaws to DO EVERYTHING for them, then so should their parents..if the boys get the share in their parents property, so should the girls bring it in their marriage..to make it equal.

Why is this that whatever a girl brings to the marriage is DOWRY and what boys get is INHERITANCE.

Till we get a clarity of thoughts, we will have all these muddled up minds and sometimes girls and sometimes boys will keep getting exploited. To me everything boils down to one thing....Just be a good human being !

In Big Boss Raju Srivastava got evicted..it was Ok also, otherwise he would have lost his fans. Now I think its totally a manipulated game, though I would love to see Bakhtiar winnnig, but thats not going to happen, either Poonam or Vindu will win.

I saw..OH MY GOD..this movie is about a common man (Vinay Pathak) who promotes a scheme to get rich, one day his wife cries a lot in front of God to help him, now god comes in the form of lottery seller and insists Vinay to buy lottery and then a particular ticket, he doesnt listen to him, the he comes to him in the form of a gambler and let him wins 10 crores, he doesnt take as he doesnt want to take the gambling money, and then he changes the pamphlets of his scheme to currency notes and then the mayhem starts:)..very funny movie, though the message it gives doesnt sound good, because he faces all the difficulties becuse he wants honest money. Divya dutta plays his wife. And Saurabh Shukla as God is just fabulous and best dialogues are given to him..it was fun watching what God thinks when his different type of devotees come to him and cry.

MY heart is beating......

I was reading those one words tag and noticed one thing that whenever anybody is asked about mother everybody says..an angel...and I thought that with so many angels in the world why its so full of hurts, miseries, deceit and painful things....so what is it?

Is it like my mother is an angel and yours..........

or the mothers are angel to their children only,not for the rest of the world ......

Why a women cant be an angel, why only mother?

why cant we behave well in general?

why ? why? why?

I for one would feel very proud if people unrelated to me find me good and my children, instead of giving me a high pedestal( may be its a case of sour grapes:), would themselves behave in a way where everyone will say what a good upbringing they had, to make me feel proud. A company is always known for its products:) why not we broaden our horizon, where we just try to be a good human being and with that we can cover all our relationships also and make the world beautiful to live in.
Most of the problems come because of our perspectives only, if we condition ourselves that the way we see only good things in our mother, we must adopt the same about all other relationships also. It doesnt happen that way, because most of the human beings are self centred , they want to enjoy the best of everything, ignoring the rest, we adopt those things only which benefit us only..
I feel really sad when I see the partisan behaviour of women..women because normally I have seen that men are not so conditioned to ..mera tera. I am considered a strong person in my family and then I feel strong and behave with courage, even if someone dear to me is sick, not like I see that many people say they are very strong, but their strength is only because they dont care for that person , but when some one dear to them falls sick, then they are totally down even in a simple fever, the same people who were claiming to have lot of strength even at the time of someone's life threatening condition, reason is very simple, their heart beats only for certain people.But then you cant claim to be strong.
Now-a-days my mother is not well, and I am disturbed, as I cant even go now, with so many other family responsibilites and problems..but then that is life and one's test of strength only comes at such times how you conduct yourself.