I don’t know if I am the only one, but I find this question offending.
How can an acquaintance, a friend or a colleague be impacted by someone’s marital status? And how does something as personal as relationship become an acceptable introductory or lets-catch-up question?
Marriages or relationships are not an achievement or symbol of progression in life….Also if you are involved with someone’s life you will be aware of such status, if the individual finds it important for you to know you will be informed of the same… but why ask…
By the way questions do not stop at marriage....there is a sinister series… if you confirm you are married you are asked if you have kids; if you confirm you have a kid, you are asked when you will complete the family … and then people wonder why India has a population problem.
There seems to be masked intolerance to anomalies of the established norm of matrimony and procreation. And more then that, a right to provide unsolicited advice on the matter.
I know I sound weird. But in my humble opinion individuality and privacy needs to be respected. Regular probing is irritating. The offensive part comes from the recognition that its not only idle relatives and nosy neighbors but contemporaries; people who have a life to live, world to discover, truth to find and answers to seek … answers to questions bigger then “Are you married?”.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Self Help Books are Effective
My second speech at Toastmaster's, Another best speaker ribbon :)
How many of you believe in the effectiveness of self help books???
So do i.
I was exposed to the world of self help books by my brother in law when I was in college. He handed me one on anger management because of my then infamous temper. Before I started reading the book I assumed it will right away tell me the solution for my problem
A well researched, effective but elusive solution like counting 1 to 100 backwards including the decimals or breath in and out six hundred and thirty seven times. But it was nothing as per my expectation.
It generally described the general demerits of short temper. It did not assume that the seeker of anger management book was already aware of them.
For any one who knows a short tempered person you would know they are short of patience too. By the end of the first page I was disappointment, end of second page agitated and furious by the end of third page.
I never went beyond the third page but I experienced my lack of patience first hand and realized what it meant. Yes the book helped me.
Probably because book helped me in a subtle and unexpected way, it took me many years and a rather desperate situation to seek help again from books
My first job was not going very well. The fact that I lived away from family added to the stress. I bought the best selling motivational and self help book of those times "you can win"
I read the book this time with the determination to finish it.
I was so determined not to miss the point, that I read with a pencil, ready to mark and underline the solution as soon as I found it.
I completed the book though without a single pencil mark. When I looked at the unmarked book, my first reaction was ‘wow!! I can reuse it by gifting it to someone’.
But then it dawned upon me that when I can come from work and read a self help book, which did not even seems to help me… I should rather show similar dedication to prepare for interview to get a new job.It worked.
In my humble opinion this is how the self help books help.
When someone identifies a need for them and decides to read them. This proves that there is an awareness with the problems
And solutions are easy … difficult to implement but in themselves very easy. To reduce weight “eat right and exercise”, for time management “prioritize” even the mantra for something as big as world peace is extremely straightforward “to live and let live” ….
So these books tease the readers by staying at the brim of the solution while again and again referencing the problem, so that the reader can find their shade of solution
May be that is why they call them self help. whichever way, but Self help books do help
How many of you believe in the effectiveness of self help books???
So do i.
I was exposed to the world of self help books by my brother in law when I was in college. He handed me one on anger management because of my then infamous temper. Before I started reading the book I assumed it will right away tell me the solution for my problem
A well researched, effective but elusive solution like counting 1 to 100 backwards including the decimals or breath in and out six hundred and thirty seven times. But it was nothing as per my expectation.
It generally described the general demerits of short temper. It did not assume that the seeker of anger management book was already aware of them.
For any one who knows a short tempered person you would know they are short of patience too. By the end of the first page I was disappointment, end of second page agitated and furious by the end of third page.
I never went beyond the third page but I experienced my lack of patience first hand and realized what it meant. Yes the book helped me.
Probably because book helped me in a subtle and unexpected way, it took me many years and a rather desperate situation to seek help again from books
My first job was not going very well. The fact that I lived away from family added to the stress. I bought the best selling motivational and self help book of those times "you can win"
I read the book this time with the determination to finish it.
I was so determined not to miss the point, that I read with a pencil, ready to mark and underline the solution as soon as I found it.
I completed the book though without a single pencil mark. When I looked at the unmarked book, my first reaction was ‘wow!! I can reuse it by gifting it to someone’.
But then it dawned upon me that when I can come from work and read a self help book, which did not even seems to help me… I should rather show similar dedication to prepare for interview to get a new job.It worked.
In my humble opinion this is how the self help books help.
When someone identifies a need for them and decides to read them. This proves that there is an awareness with the problems
And solutions are easy … difficult to implement but in themselves very easy. To reduce weight “eat right and exercise”, for time management “prioritize” even the mantra for something as big as world peace is extremely straightforward “to live and let live” ….
So these books tease the readers by staying at the brim of the solution while again and again referencing the problem, so that the reader can find their shade of solution
May be that is why they call them self help. whichever way, but Self help books do help
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Fundamentally against Fundamentalism
Intolerance breeds in many ways….literally …
The uniqueness of my country is in its diversity. Regions, religions, languages, traditions, customs and many such features create enormous beauty, obvious complexities, evident friction and immense pain.
I feel blessed to be born to a Christian mother and Hindu father as secularism comes naturally to me. Caste has no significance once the omnipresence and omnipotence of one single abstract god is established. Regular visits in temple and church reveal that rituals are there only to create a divine atmosphere in an attempt to define the undefined power.
What perplex me is how beliefs which are personal by definition, are used to build strong enough prejudices to take lives and hurt people
I also believe the boundaries of my country are sacred and are already under attacked from all sides, in this climate fighting over region, new states and languages is a foolish proposition.
In fact any viewpoint which does not go by the principal of “live and let live” is sacrilege for my diverse country.
So I detest when some of my countryman say “I hate Hindi”, “Biharies should not study in Dehli and work in Mumbai”, “Homosexuals have polluted blood”, “Valentine day celebration pollutes the culture”, “Unmarried girls a liability for their parents”, “AIDS is a social stigma”, “Same Gotra marriages are not accepted” …
I am cringe when the leadership of my country use Lord Ram, castes, sympathy with Hindu and Tamil extremists, indecision on border disputes, inaction on naxalites … to get and then stay in power
I get depressed when I see the future generation not questioning the irrationalism … and I can never understand that though incredibly populated, how can human life be so cheap in my country?…
By the way I am also guilty of intolerance … at times I question my own fiercely radical thoughts, my idealism, my own inflexibility, my inability to fake the acceptance of reality, my oversimplification of problems and their solutions, my arrogance at my good intent, my lack of circuitous approach and my obsession with harmony …
I guess I am nothing but a fundamentalist against fundamentalism …
The uniqueness of my country is in its diversity. Regions, religions, languages, traditions, customs and many such features create enormous beauty, obvious complexities, evident friction and immense pain.
I feel blessed to be born to a Christian mother and Hindu father as secularism comes naturally to me. Caste has no significance once the omnipresence and omnipotence of one single abstract god is established. Regular visits in temple and church reveal that rituals are there only to create a divine atmosphere in an attempt to define the undefined power.
What perplex me is how beliefs which are personal by definition, are used to build strong enough prejudices to take lives and hurt people
I also believe the boundaries of my country are sacred and are already under attacked from all sides, in this climate fighting over region, new states and languages is a foolish proposition.
In fact any viewpoint which does not go by the principal of “live and let live” is sacrilege for my diverse country.
So I detest when some of my countryman say “I hate Hindi”, “Biharies should not study in Dehli and work in Mumbai”, “Homosexuals have polluted blood”, “Valentine day celebration pollutes the culture”, “Unmarried girls a liability for their parents”, “AIDS is a social stigma”, “Same Gotra marriages are not accepted” …
I am cringe when the leadership of my country use Lord Ram, castes, sympathy with Hindu and Tamil extremists, indecision on border disputes, inaction on naxalites … to get and then stay in power
I get depressed when I see the future generation not questioning the irrationalism … and I can never understand that though incredibly populated, how can human life be so cheap in my country?…
By the way I am also guilty of intolerance … at times I question my own fiercely radical thoughts, my idealism, my own inflexibility, my inability to fake the acceptance of reality, my oversimplification of problems and their solutions, my arrogance at my good intent, my lack of circuitous approach and my obsession with harmony …
I guess I am nothing but a fundamentalist against fundamentalism …
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