Being smart the right way!!!

At least more than once in life, we all become greedy to save money, don’t we? Of course, the heights to be a miser differs from person to person. Money is such an important asset that we tend to give it the highest priority in life. A miser is concealed in each of us which comes out at unsure times. Each time we are asked to spend money, we are like oh-god-I-am-going-to-be-broke-soon.

Phew! Sometimes I feel why did there have to be something called currency followed by the mad race to absorb more of it which never seems to stop. The word m-o-n-e-y can actually make you do some of the most craziest things which made you wish you never had to do them.

Well, one day when destiny thought it was smart enough to teach me a lesson to stop being a miser, the very day also happened to be the most embarrassing one for me. It was a lesson which also taught me the dangers of skating on thin ice which can be avoided with the use of little brains.

I was new to Chennai, a city in southern India which welcomed me with a huge culture shock with regard to food and climate. As they say time changes everything, I somehow got the habitual bug inside me and I was in sync with the city. Weekends were usually spent with few of my new pals whom I had befriended in a short while.

One evening it so happened that I was travelling in a local train after the meet out with friends. I knew I had enough brains but on that particular day, I think I had too much of it. I purposely boarded the train without a ticket thinking it was fun to be a little mischievous at times.

Happily, I hopped out of the train at my destination feeling proud of my naughty achievement for the day. As I walked, I got the shock of my life when I spotted a man checking the tickets of the passengers who were making their way outside the station. I froze unsure of how to react. I fumbled in my bag pretending to look for the ticket with fear gripping the insides of my ribs.

I visualized me being harassed by the man if he found out that I had been travelling ticket less. This was the worst thing a girl should face in a station, I thought depressingly.
“Oh yeah, it is because of your stupidity”, a voice inside my head told me and I realized it was true. For the millionth time, that minute I told myself I should have bought the ticket. Over smartness really pays off.

With a teary eye, I approached the ticket checker and told him stories of how I lost my ticket and that I was a loner in the city. To my utter surprise, he fell for my bare lies. I rushed to the entrance feeling like a free bird after the trauma. That was it. Since then, never ever have I tried travelling without a ticket because I realized it is really not worth being greedy at times. Being smart is good, over smartness is being silly.

The importance of PRAYER

On a sultry august morning, Rani landed in Chennai to venture into her new job, the door of her dreams. Reluctantly she bid her family goodbye to step into the unknown. The start for a new life had not been that easy as anticipated.

Hailing from north, it was difficult to get used to rice, the main food course in south. Language also stood as a major obstacle in making friends.
The first two months posed to be a disaster in Rani’s life. She fell into depression as she did not have a single friend to share her feelings with. At work, people minded their own business and moved on to their ways. This left Rani wondering if she would ever get any solace in the new city.
At one point, she gave up finding new friends and so her routine included a very materialistic life style comprising of work and tasks to be done.

One evening as Rani retuned from work, she heard a commotion in the neighborhood. Peering outside the window, she noticed that a family was moving in with their luggage. Probably, new tenants, though Rani with a sigh. Closing the window, Rani went of to bed thinking what an awful life she was living without her family.

The next morning Rani noticed that a crippled boy of around eleven was sitting on the porch and praying. She recalled that the boy belonged to the new family and felt sorry for him. As she passed his house, they exchanged a warm smile. The day turned out to be bad at work. Rani’s boss had dumped a hell lot of workload on her which absorbed every ounce of her energy. Her instincts told her that the future was going to be hectic.

On reaching home, the weariness of the day took on her. She felt utterly alone and helpless. Sitting on the terrace, she cried her heart out. All the suppressed feelings over the past few months came tumbling over.

Suddenly, she felt a hand on her shoulder. It was the crippled boy. He looked at Rani with the most innocent expression on his face. Rani wiped her tears as he sat beside her.
“Daddy says if you pray all your problems will be solved,” spoke up the little boy.
“No, it doesn’t. God just gives more and more problems,’ snapped back Rani irritated by the God talk.

“Daddy also says that if God gives you problems he gives you the strength to bear them,’ said the little boy.

Rani blinked at his statement wondering if it could be true. She never really thought much about god.
That night as Rani sat in her bed, she prayed. She prayed to god to give her strength to solve her problems. Things started falling into place. Rani somehow felt good about the life she was living. She made few friends who were very thoughtful.
After about two months, Rani knocked on the neighbor’s door.

She looked around for the little boy until a lady with a wrinkled face emerged. Rani asked about the guy. In return the lady answered, ‘The little boy was suffering from cancer due to which he died two weeks earlier. The family has shifted back to their hometown’. Rani felt numb on hearing this.

Later that night, Rani felt thankful for having met that guy though it had been for a short while. He has taught her the importance of prayer which changed her life. She prayed for his soul to rest in peace.

“God always gives the strength to bear our troubles”

On being "GAY"

When I first heard something called “Gay” being into existence, I was like yuk, yuk, yuk. It sounded filthy to even imagine homosexual relationships. I was like, what??? A guy in love with a guy!!! The first question that popped into my head was how do they have kids??? Ain’t something going against the practice of man and woman taking forward the human race for generations to come?

It was the time when homosexual couples were kinda OK in the west but a complete no-this-isn’t-happening-in-India-ever attitude publicized by the Indians. Gays were not given equal rights and were looked upon with contempt. Looking at this, I was convinced that this Gay thing will surely drive humans to extinction. I decided that Gays were disrupting the natural course of human existence and that they should be given treatment to think straight.

Think straight!!! Whoa, it was us who were not thinking straight. On pondering over the thought, I felt who are we to decide the choice of sexual orientation of any human being on earth. Just because, somebody ages ago came up with a rule that man and women are supposed to have sex, where was it written that a man could not and should not love another man? Nowhere, but it is written in our minds that being Gay is a sin.

The saying holds true for almost anything “Nothing is permanent”. So, when I say nothing, I mean the hatred towards the whole Gay issue is not going to last forever. Down the line, ten years later, Gays will already have found a place to survive in the human race. Count me on that.

When we know that we are not the decision makers for ones’ choice of sexual partner, why not let them live in peace than making it any worser? Get the point that nobody chooses to be a Gay by purpose but it is just the way they are, the way we are straight.

Let’s not make it any tougher for them by giving a hard time. We are already in a stage where interference in another’s life is not even a thinkable option so let us allow things to rest.

THE ‘EX’ FACTOR

Has anybody realized the importance of having the word “ex” in our lives? Of course, the word is used in English vocabulary, as is the norm. Nevertheless, the Y- generation would apply it probably in almost everyday lives. The word “ex” plays a very important role in our day-to-day activities.

We do not know who invented it but the word “ex” found its way to mean something that is previous or occurred previously in our life. We can see people talking about their EX’es even in their present life. Everybody seems to have had an “ex” in his or her life before settling for a permanent one. People constantly seem to be in discussions about their ex-girlfriends, ex-boyfriends, ex-wives, ex-friends, ex-husbands, ex-affairs, ex-relationships, ex-bosses, ex-families and so much of “ex” seems to be in their lives.

Do people get tired so easily that they replace each other as if they would change mobile phones or the color of the walls to be painted or change jobs?
People have become so intolerable to accept the indifferences that lie in the other person. Are we in the search of perfection? Though we know that nobody is perfect, how can we possibly seek for a perfect person or a perfect job or a perfect relationship?

One can detect two problems here with the present generation, which is showing a dramatic advancement in technology and also relationships. Firstly, we do not seem to be satisfied with what life offers us and are in the constant urge of getting more and better which is why we end up skipping for people and relationships. Secondly, we get tired of routine that forces us to see the same people everyday. Instead of making oneself interesting, we tend to change people to suit ourselves so that life can be interesting.

Things can work in the order of being worn out and could be replaced but it does not and should not apply with people. The rules, which were laid down by our ancestors of having only one companion for a whole life, seems to be losing out. It is not that difficult to stay with one person unless of course they start treating each other like human beings instead of things that need to be replaced.

The “ex” factor should be ruled out from relationships and it is time people stop accumulating a list of Ex’es. Being bugged with gadgets or the same costume can be acceptable but lives would be better if people, instead of being bugged from each other, would spend their time in understanding each other.

I hope that people would rather talk about the present lives than talking about the “‘ex’ es” as it is not going to lead us anywhere. Changing ourselves would help us in a great deal instead of running around for the right one and having an ‘ex’ beside us.