Reflection

Hello, dear sunlight,

it’s been a long time

I didn’t write

a beautiful story

in your glory.

I was in a deep slumber,

hoping to wake up with a smile.

It’s been a while,

I miss your radiant glow

on my face.

I’ve rather been slow

soaking in some grace.

It was dark.

I was waiting to see my reflection

in the abyss.

Something felt amiss,

and it was me

who couldn’t see,

how brute

I had become,

cursing my own roots.

My patience quivered,

my emotions shivered.

I wasn’t who I saw

in the rattled river.

It was my wrath

that eventually conquered.

Surfacing my innermost demons.

An inhuman emerged amongst humans.

I’m sorry dear sunlight,

In the quest for the ultimate joy,

I lynched a pure, passionate boy.

The brightest smile, and the starry eyes

have now mastered

the art to despise.

I’m sorry dear sunlight,

I somehow mustered

some courage to invite

candor into the party of chaos.

Emptiness mirrored

in the storm.

And all I hoped for,

was to bring back my lost self

into my true form.

Who is a corporate zombie?

Zombie (n): A dead body that has been brought back to life by a supernatural force.

The essence of any life on this earth is the purpose. Take that away from any living being, you get a fully-functional zombie. Even an ant lives a disciplined life if you closely look at their impeccable line and the masterpiece architecture of the molehills. No matter how minuscule they seem to appear, the do not give away the purpose for what they were created. But, that’s not the case with human beings. We were created to destroy The Creation itself.

“We are our own devils; we drive ourselves out of our Edens.”

- Wolfgang Goethe, 1749-1832, German poet & philosopher

Even the philosophers in the 17^th century foretold about the fact that human beings could wreak apocalyptic havoc on this planet. Though we were created as a unique breed meant to bring about a phenomenal change to this world, all we could do is mindlessly trash our earth and use our superior intelligence in finding new planets to continue doing what we’d abruptly end here. That’s not called progress or scientific advancement. That is simply insulting our nature’s blessings. Nevertheless, this article isn’t pro-environmentalist or anti-environmentalist. This is purely about destroying oneself from within and living with it until we officially draw our last breath.

As entrepreneurs, employees or servants, we all believe that chaos is the root of all kinds of destruction. Also, there’s greed that drives us all towards the end of us. But, that’s not the sole culprit. The story about a catastrophic professional life begins with a person with ethics in an unethical organization. Either the person destroys the company and rebuilds it in a new light, or the person is consumed by the dark forces that overpower his optimism. Nevertheless, chaos prevails. The corporate can make a corpse out of a charismatic leader, and also a charlatan. It all depends on where you would like to root yourself.

"Relativity applies to physics, not ethics."

- Albert Einstein (1879-1955), Physicist and Nobel Laureate

When it comes to brutally murdering ethics in an organization, it starts from the top. No human being is born unethical. It is only the determination to succeed, that gets swarmed by a ravenous appetite for the apocalypse. Science can allow you to explore galaxies light years away from our Milky Way, but no amount of scientific research can bring back ethics into a corrupted organization. The virus of self-destruction is already infected deeply into all levels of management and the host is the person sitting on top of the pyramid, or in this case, the food chain. Working with utmost integrity is a trait that only a chosen few possess. Being part of a system that cannot be changed is what frustrates the living hell out of any individual. Trying to be that change the organization needs, is truly a nerve-wracking extreme sport. Slowly, when that integrity within an individual begins to fade away, the corporate zombie begins to take over the host body and transforms into “Employee”. It doesn’t matter if the host was a bibliophile, ailurophile, dendrophile, or even a logophile. If the person within has been left with no purpose to serve his inner-self, the reason to breathe and the reason to work would never complement one another. As long as the passion to perform is kindled by a spark of inspiration, there’s hope for the corporate zombie to be human again.

“When people are financially invested, they want a return. When people are emotionally invested, they want to contribute.”

- Simon Sinek, Author of “Start with WHY”

Today’s corporate world doesn’t require employees with emotions. They only need machines with unlimited capacity to deliver without complaining. If the company pays a little attention to their needs along with the salary, employees will definitely deliver beyond expectations. Nobody in the world deserves to be disrespected in any manner. Be it by underpaying an employee, or underestimating their capabilities, or just by ignoring the hard work they put in every single day. Human beings aren’t that complicated as the world has made it seem. People simply need to be recognized for what they’ve done. When the management starts respecting the work and pays the due credits wherever the employees deserve it, the work environment will change drastically. Few managers have the habit to become friendly with employees to take advantage of their good behaviour and extract work out of them. Some genuinely treat employees as friends and help them out in difficult situations. While there are some breed of managers who sincerely hope for their employees to grow and outrank them. Many managers are under the impression that emotions and performance are inversely proportional. Do your work and go home. This is what they truly believe. But, they tend to forget one crucial part of the whole story. They work so that they can go home. Take that luxury away from an employee, and all you will get is a corporate zombie that belongs to a dark abysmal nothingness of an organization.

You either break-free from such shackles or accept slavery. You do not belong in a cemetery if you’re still breathing. You do not complain and continue doing the mundane. You do not deserve any limelight if you keep serving the darkness. You go with the flow like dead fish or swim out of the storm. That’s the moral of the story. You are either a human being making mistakes or you are a corporate zombie that feels nothing.

Family or family functions! What’s more important?

As children, we all loved to wear new clothes, get all dolled up and go to family functions because we got to be on our own, play with new kids and even eat to our heart’s content. We loved to break from the mundane school uniforms, classwork, homework, tuitions and whatnot. We just wanted to skip school for days and be free.

Cut to – adulthood!

We just wish to stay home, sleep all day and do nothing - breaking from the routine work, daily commute, office meetings and whatnot. We are not a generation that despises family. We are a generation that just wants to live a happy life without any drama. As a family, we want our mothers to not worry sick if their sons ate or not. We do not want our fathers to remind us about the bank balance. We know we are spendthrifts. Our saving skills aren’t as elaborate and accurate as theirs. The millennial generation is like that. They just want to spend some time with their family and friends. It doesn’t matter to them how much it would cost. While the entire generation of our parents had it all upside down. They calculated where every penny went and sacrificed their entire life to ensure we got what we wanted. Isn’t that our moral responsibility to return the favour? The question still hangs by the thread.

NO! We are not obligated to return the favour the same way they did - because, the situations then versus now are not at all same. We don’t pay 30 bucks a litre for petrol. We don’t own a 30X40 house that cost 5000 rupees. We are not married at the age of 14. The school fee is not 10,000 a year. YES! Money is what this generation is trying to save but is failing dreadfully. Why not save the time we’ve got left instead? This generation believes in the present and lives at the moment. Is this day going to be memorable? Will I remember this day for years? Will this experience last forever? These questions haunt us more than, who are getting married, what should I wear for the wedding, who all will be present, what shall I get for the bride and groom.

This brings us to the next boiling topic – family or family functions: what’s more important? I don’t even think that this question even needs any answer. Obviously, everyone will choose FAMILY by default. So, why worry about family functions so much? Let’s break the argument down, point by point –

If we don’t attend any family functions then who will attend ours?

Is it really necessary that we need other people to validate our happiness? Or is it really necessary to spend that much of money on making those people happy whom we don’t even know or haven’t even seen our entire life? Let’s look from another perspective. Maybe they are our blood relation; close family rather. We’ve been living next door since before I was born. They have always helped us in our bad times. YES! They are important people. They deserve to be a part of our lives. How many of them would we have? A handful of them whom we can count with fingers? Or do we need a super-computer to calculate the number of relatives related to every single one of them?

Another scenario is where our “family” chooses the prospective relative. They used to be our neighbour. Now they are close friends. More like family. So, they are important. Hence, the neighbour becomes our relative too, and their family too; and their family too, and so on. Our family tree is now bigger than the house that we stay in. So, we rent out a bigger hall to accommodate every single one of them. We couldn’t afford such an expensive hall that big, so we take a loan. Later, we are so stressed physically, emotionally and financially, we are unable to cope up with it all fall sick. So, we have to crack open the fixed deposits to pay the hospital bills and the whole health insurance scheme starts playing with us. DO WE REALLY NEED ALL THIS? If you ask me, I’d rather want my parents to attend my wedding, than me attending their funeral. Do I have to call the relatives then? And start this drama all over again? Let them write about this specifically in their will.

You are anti-social. That’s why you hate family functions.

That might be true. But, if it were true, I’d not have any friends either. I once invited a couple of friends to my home and they all ditched me. Does that make me hate people in general? NO! I just hate family functions where my parents are unable to explain my relationship with them. If I do not understand the relationship in 5 seconds, I do not stay. That’s the attention span of any human being of my generation. While our parents were busy adding more names in the invitation list, they forgot that our opinions mattered. We were, and we will always remain their sweet-little-cupcake child for as long as we live. But, when we begin to form opinions of our own, we are labelled as rebels who do not care about family. Well, we hate to break it to you. All we cared was about family and not family functions. As doctors, the parents were busy treating patients all day, but forgot to treat his children well enough with a kind ‘hello’. As a government servant, the parent had all the time in the world to attend court proceedings, to solve citizens’ issues, and be a decorated officer in the whole department. But, wishing one simple ‘Happy Birthday’ to his son was not as important as sealing a land acquisition deal.

Speaking generally, all parents have made a tremendous amount of sacrifices for us to even be at what stage we are right now. But, that makes us accountable and deeply in debt of our family, not relatives. I owe all that I am to my parents, not to my relatives. If I am supposed to honour my parents, I’ll do it so the way I feel. It’s again, not the parent’s choice to make it for me by forcing me to attend family functions. It is as simple as offering prayers. God will never ask us to face the North, bow down to North-East, stretch one hand to South and the other towards West. Though religion is yet another debatable topic which we always avoid during family conversations, family functions are on another level of crazy. Being anti-social is not the issue primarily. Being allergic to bullshit is the actual reason why most of us despise such gatherings. Lock us in a room with people our age; we won’t have problems talking to each other because we have all gone through similar bullshit at some point in life. Though many relatives claim to be cool and more intelligent than us, they do not seem very convincing when it comes to understanding us. For instance, one of my relative talks to me about valuing relationships, respecting elders, being kind and all that elderly jazz. But, when it comes to his own family, it is totally ripped. His sons don’t respect him because he’s a foul-mouth. He doesn’t respect anyone’s privacy. He doesn’t value other’s time, and overall, he is lazy as fuck. Does that justify me being anti-social? NO! Because not everyone is like him. But, do I look like I care about everyone? I just wish my parents can understand the person I’ve become rather than being ignorant about what’s happening in my life. I hate family functions because no matter where you go, whom you meet, everyone has the same question. When are you giving us the good news? NEVER! I say in my mind and smile and walk out of the conversation. Why is that every single relative in my family function list is worried about how soon am I making my wife pregnant? How and when did this become a global issue? I so much feel like saying, “As soon as I am done attending your funeral.” That’d be fun.

Your wife should also know our side of the family. Send her over if you can’t come.

I don’t know my side of the family yet, and I do not intend to know either. 600 people at my wedding and I do not know half of them. Who are they? Where did they come from? Who invited them? Who’s paying for all that food? It was my parents who decided the invitation list. They paid for it. We just stood there smiling at everyone till our jaws hurt. We stood starving on the stage while those whom we didn’t even know, were gorging on the food that we didn’t even get to remember the taste.

Cut to – 2 years later.

My wife has given up the job search because she took the time to adjust with my side of the family. She’s a housewife now, looking after the house – a bigger job than mine, I admit. But, does that count as she’s jobless and idle? Does it mean she is sitting like a statue in front of her phone, waiting for someone from my family to call and invite her to some family function? Well, I did not marry a cat. She might not be at work professionally, but personally, she puts her blood and sweat to make my messy home look like a home that welcomes families, and not the mosquitoes. She should know our side of the family? My parents have been married for more than 35 years now and my mother still struggles to recognize my father’s side of family members. Looking at the magnitude of my (father’s) family size, nobody would even dare to call themselves strangers. As I said earlier, I love and respect my family. But, I cannot say that about my relatives. If my family wants me and my wife to force love on those whom we don’t even know, we will always fall short of their hopes. Ours is a pretty simple generation that wants relationships to be as real as possible. If this reality cannot be accepted by parents, then expecting more from us is futile. I’ve never forced any decisions on my wife and neither has she. If she feels like flaunting her new dress and jewellery, or meeting new people, or going to new places, she is always free to do that. But, how often does one get to marry, right? Family functions are not UN Council meetings that it needs a representative from every state, every country and every home.

To all those obsessed with being the centre of the universe, the world is changing. Karma has its way of catching up and resetting the world. Some legendary ideologies may stay to create a league of extraordinary family members (I may be dreaming about this, but why not?) and some might fade away into the oblivion. We all are still part of our family. WE ARE FAMILY. But, are we functioning well as family? Food for thought!

The concept of control

“Control” has been a very subjective term over the years. The term has been used, misused, abused to its maximum potential by plutocrats and monarchs alike. But, how differently does this word play out in a family setting? It’s yet another convoluted perspective to look from.

Control, by definition itself, means a relation of constraint of one entity. From our childhood, we’ve been “taught” that we should be powerful enough to “control” all the negative emotions that turbulently gush in our minds (as if it is some disease). For instance, we should control our anger. For ages, we have come to learn that anger destroys relationships, personally and professionally. And, it is quite true. Our parents or teachers aren’t wrong about that. There are infinite examples proving that fact across all streams in science, philosophy, art & literature. Also, when we speak of families, the whole concept of control is born out of hierarchy (family tree). Why should a family need control in the first place?

There are a couple of reasons why it is the strongest choice. When the family has a “Head” (whom we unanimously call, father), he runs the business. He takes care of the financial needs, he looks after everyone in such a way that nobody has to ask for anybody else’s help. He guides you towards the right path whenever you are heading in the wrong direction. He is there as silent support without making a “Hero” out of himself. If he’s open-minded enough, he passes on the control to his “sane” family members who know what are the right things to do as a family.

Sanskrit has etched it in the ancient historic books (Vedas) that “Mother & Father” are equivalent to God. And who dare question that sempiternal truth? Respect for parents becomes a default setting of ours when we all take birth. But, how far can the children go to defy that? To what extent can control annihilate relationships? Well, there is one simple analogy. Human beings are like sand at the beach. Keep them close to the ocean; they all stay together, mix well with each other. There are some occasional seashells and crabs joining the party. The darkest truth about staying together is, “there are no footprints left to follow”, because the waves wash away everything at the shore. As kids, we all wish to be let free, walk our own paths, make our own mistakes. And when that part of our life is taken away, we wouldn’t have an identity left of our own. We may have been a pain in the ass for our parents because of our obnoxious behaviour. But, that’s the whole essence of being “children”. We have no bias about anything in life. We see everything equally as we want. Our imaginations have no limits. Clip our wings, and you would see a bunch of spiritually dissatisfied millennials wanting to break free from the “traditional” cage. In simple terms, our parents are the ocean – full of knowledge, emotions, virtue, love, and magnanimity. They have control over the sand (the children) only when they are within and around them. The sand that’s drenched in the ocean’s love, knowledge, virtue, etc. It is unaffected by the wind. It is unmoved, unchanged for centuries. If the sand travels a bit further, away from the ocean, children would build sand castles, play ball, take a romantic stroll and that’s how they become useful to the society outside. If the sand travels even farther, it becomes a commodity. Capitalists trade sand and gravel to build homes, skyscrapers, multinational corporations. The sand becomes a celebrity. While there’s the sand that still embraces the ocean tightly, has a very high probability of turning itself into quicksand. It might swallow everything coming in its way, except the pride. There can be a strong argument that global warming is the result of the sand that stayed too far from the ocean. In other words, the world can come to an end, if we stop loving our parents and forsake them in their old age. Let’s bring “Control” into the picture, shall we?

“Control” in any condition, in any context, when exercised beyond the threshold, is lethal. There is a stark contrast between Buddha and Hitler for that very reason. While the former let go of control, the latter didn’t. The former became the epitome of peace, and the latter turned synonymous to extinction. It isn’t fair to compare our parents to either of them. They are mere human beings. And like everyone, they too are entitled to commit a few mistakes of their own. But, should they be punished for it? Treated badly? NEVER! As a family, we should all be crystal clear with our emotions. Any doubt, misconceptions, anger, an indifference that fogs our minds, should be immediately cleared away. There can be disagreements as long as it doesn’t end relationships. A disagreement that leads to hatred is the evil job of “Control”. Parents do not have that strength to develop hatred against their own children. Instead, that hatred turns into apathy. They embrace the fact that some things are out of control. As days pass by, the thin line between controlling children and shaping children begins to fade away. They tend to believe both to be one and the same thing. Embracing change is something not all parents are good at. They love vintage stuff the most even if they pretend to like technology more. Vintage, according to them is something that’s old, unharmed by modernity, and unquestioned by critics. That includes traditional values and cultures too.

Speaking of values and cultures, parents have imbibed them all in us from our childhood. As said earlier; we were taught many things in life - controlling our emotions being the major part of that learning. Boys were not supposed to cry, girls were not supposed to stay out late, husbands have no business in kitchen and wives have nothing else to do other than watching daily soaps. These were the norms set by society. Then there emerged a set of rebels, glass-ceiling breakers, and misfits who defied them all. They questioned authorities, asked more whys and whats than our parents ever did. When the parents couldn’t answer their questions anymore, they began to ignore us, silence us or teach us that questioning elders are wrong. We should respect them. Typical, isn’t it? From childhood till our adolescence, we learned to respect elders without questioning authorities. And here we have a set of the population that’s kept as “Reserve Forces” to demolish those who question higher authorities in religious, political and organizational levels. Independent ideologies have to place where control is exercised by insensitive leaders. If this religion is right, there is no other religion that can be right too. If this government has done something good, there is no other political party that can do better. If this organizational structure has brought in good revenues, there is no other way we can let some outsider be CEO. Similarly, if the parent has said something to their children, they have no right to question them or their way of upbringing. There are some elite groups that cannot fathom the concept of resistance. To them, it means war. To others, it means a collective disagreement on an archaic ideology. To a generation whose likings range from Game of Thrones to FRIENDS, know that friendship, sex, and violence is a reality. But, to the generation that grew up underplaying every possible nuance of sex, violence and even reality, feels that they should never learn it or know about it. The gross mentality remains the same. The younger generation has the ability to unlearn real quick, unlike the older generation. The younger generation believes in instant gratification. It is the technology that’s evolved from magazines to smartphones. The millennials get whatever they need at the click of a button. They need no parental validation to prove their standpoint. The millennials are cool living with LGBTs, working with low salaries or no salaries with no job security at their dream company. They wish to marry whenever they seem to be mentally, physically and financially fit. These terms can no longer be dictated by parents anymore. But, parents have their own way to define their style of control. They call it “Cultural Teachings”. If an outsider does the same to their children, it is called “Brainwashing”. If a woman changes (or intrigues change in) a man, it’s called “Manipulation”. There is no single instance where the parents have accepted change positively and immediately, sometimes both. How can this change? The answer is – NEVER!

The children are not at fault for not living up to their parents’ expectations. The parents are not at fault to expect their children to obey their every command. The society is not at fault to blatantly remain unabashed by any global catastrophe. The world is not at fault for existing so long without being reset. Because the concept of control is beyond comprehension. Oceans that lose control, cause a tsunami and consume the whole world. Sand dunes that are oceans away can easily turn any gentle breeze into sandstorms. This, both, the ocean and the sand, should understand.

Cancer

The tumour

has spread the rumour

that humour is dead.

The cells shells

the truth like a mistress

on duty.

The blood

is the flash flood

consuming life

out of your soul.

Under the skin,

pain is akin

to terror.

The nerves serve

no purpose

in the grave.

When the brain

is set to drain

your emotions out,

you can only sit & shout.

When the air turns rare,

and every breath

turns into death,

you stop to care.

When cancer needs a cure,

and your intentions are pure,

you can and you will,

survive.

Unlearning & Ignorance

“Don’t let schooling interfere with your education”

Mark Twain

 Many entrepreneurs today who have accomplished phenomenal feats have risen from humble families, with less or no formal education and with innumerable struggles due to the lack of proper financial aid. But, it didn’t stop them from achieving their dreams. Life taught them valuable lessons. When they were left to bite the dust, they kissed the ground where they stood. They started afresh, ready to learn every lesson. They turned darkness into their blackboard and wrote their own destiny. On the other hand, there are people who have fallen from glory because success had infected their minds. They shut themselves down from every possible aspect of life. They had become scholars on the matters of life and there was nothing on this earth that would possibly teach them anything more. Well, they are the ones back to square one learning rhymes of bad times. Getting a Doctorate in Sales & Marketing would never justify being a dick. Being the most decorated officer in your battalion is not enough when you are not even able to respect women. People have come to a realisation that education today would take us nowhere if we do not learn to unlearn.

“Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school”

Albert Einstein

When you figure out that the algebraic equations and geometrical theorems wouldn’t really help you achieve your dreams, you will truly discover the true meaning and purpose of education. Unlearning is the hardest part because we have been injected with so much of educational jargons and narcissism that we begin to love who we are, and that’s the most dangerous place to be. Living under an impression that we are “perfect” is the worst kind of an illusion. Not everyone would love to accept their flaws because we are designed to expect more. We would never want an average body; so we hit the gym. We would never want an average motorcycle; so we own a Royal Enfield (on EMI). We would never want to marry an ugly, fat, skinny, hairy, short, tall person. We never wish to settle for the average. We have been programmed to expect perfection and nobody has ever been able to offer a universal definition and work towards it. Perfection forever has been a subjective term and has been coloured differently by those wearing different lenses. Perfection has always been a matter of perspective and it is the most turbulent element of life. While one part of the capitalist world is inclined towards inflicting self-hatred and making you buy things you don’t need, some people have accepted their flaws and have learned from their mistakes – the mistake that they knew the world enough to live a perfect life. They felt that unlearning and ignorance is one and the same. If you ignore what you cannot unlearn, you will eventually unlearn automatically.

“Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace”

Dalai Lama

 The corporate world should know that every person working in companies is a human being and they all come with emotional baggage. It is important to “Know” about their likes and dislikes, pet peeves and OCDs. But it is really necessary to know the source of their inspiration. Why is it they wake up every day and feel like coming to work a mundane nine-to-five job? Money is not always the sole motivator. People quit jobs because of people and not because of jobs. People always love to work where they are understood. When the top management becomes ignorant of their team’s capabilities, it is the top management that would topple, and not the team. The team will always find a way to meet each other, either at work premises or outside. To them, working peacefully together is of primary importance than achieving their daily targets. The team can blindly cross every target if they are confident about their knowledge and expertise. If the team doesn’t feel appreciated enough; if the team feel ignored, it is all because the company is just looking at them as slot machines and not human beings.

In short, if you wish to make it big and never fail, you have already failed. If you want to learn and be more knowledgeable, you should possess a strong will to unlearn first. And to conclude, ignoring the emotions would be a cardinal blunder.

The Great Dying

The darkness has begun,

the light is slowly dying.

There’s no escape from truth,

my dear friend.

Please stop lying

to yourself.

Life & love is just an illusion

I suppose.

There’s no end to the ocean of tears,

pouring from your heart.

The blood and sorrow,

are the truths of tomorrow.

Just accept the pain, as it comes.

Just believe the lies,

and let madness prevail.

Honesty is a myth,

and compassion in abyss.

Do not be brave

to fight darkness.

It’s got no shame.

It consumes you whole,

and ends your game.

Believe me, my friend.

There’s no greatness in living,

or in believing.

There’s no joy in love,

or the kindness you have.

There’s only betrayal,

and melancholy,

that leads you to apocalypse,

with just a pair of scarlet red lips.

Darkness is a seductress.

That’s The Great Dying.

It’s not the Mother’s Fault!

In the primordial battle of choosing the best between a daughter and a daughter-in-law, a mother will always choose her daughter, by default. The credentials won’t matter in any condition because mothers love their children unconditionally, especially their daughters; after they get married. The whole world has generalized the sons and daughters in one phrase – Daughters love the parents till the end, but sons love their parents only till the day they get married. Even if it’s not true, or the other way round, the world will refuse to believe it. The comparison is unnecessary in most cases, but mothers tend to do that as they were always compared with their sisters-in-law by their mothers-in-law.

Every mother, no matter how modern and open-minded, will never accept the fact that a daughter-in-law can be better than a daughter. It’s not the heirloom that the daughter-in-law is after. It never will be (in most of the middle-class cases). Every daughter-in-law has only one expectation – to be treated fairly in the new family. No mother will ever want her daughter to be mistreated after she gets married and moves into a new home. But, when a son brings home a daughter-in-law, the law suddenly changes. The relationship dynamics change and everything changes. All of a sudden, the son falls a million trillion ranks below the daughter. It’s always the sons who become scapegoats in such cold war. Be it on the battlefield, or within the four walls of a home, the lives and souls of sons are sacrificed because of women who do not wish to speak openly about their true feelings. Generic statement! Hurts your feelings, right?

It is true that every new relationship takes time to gel. Everyone thinks more than twice to even utter a word in front of each other in a family gathering. The first impression is the last impression, you know? Sometimes it takes days, months or even years. The daughter-in-law might find it difficult in the beginning to adjust to everything – new people, new relationships, new rituals, new life and new lifestyle. It is the mother’s duty to make her feel at home.

It’s hurtful to a mother to accept that the daughter-in-law has a better understanding of the sensitivities in a relationship, or knows to cook tastier recipes, or has more fashion accessories than her daughter, so on and so forth. They teach their daughters everything - every trick of the trade, every little secret there is. They have the superpower to even describe the smell of their farts. But, on the other hand, they never teach anything to their daughter-in-law in such godly detail. They either assume she knows everything, so there’s no need to teach her anything, or she knows nothing, and there’s no use teaching her anything.

Didn’t your mother teach you?

How many times a daughter-in-law has to face this atrocious question, is still a question. Of course, mothers get old by the time their sons get married. It’s not the mother’s fault if the sons get married in their 30s, right? All they want is - their sons to become capable enough of handling their own responsibilities and that of the wife. On one hand, they pamper their sons and daughters to live like kings and queens. As children, they never taught the sons, the essential life lessons – like bargaining at a shop, handling relationships, SEX EDUCATION... all these were a taboo and not to be discussed as children, with children! Adulting was still a far-fetched dream. We all learnt it the hard way (pun, accidentally intended) and covertly as if it was a stealth operation.

There’s another double standard mothers have. They want their daughters to dominate their husbands, but they want their sons to dominate the wife. Mothers always train the daughters to be strong because they already know the daughters will have a tough time adjusting with the mother-in-law and try to become one later to avenge what they and their daughters have faced.

Finding a middle ground is not what mothers are good at. Expecting a mother to be a good mother-in-law is a lost cause. She will be a great mother – the greatest in the whole world. But, no woman is ever prepared to become a mother-in-law. In fact, they are fully prepared to become grandmothers. They are on their toes from the day the son gets married. But, that kind of urgency is never ever seen when it’s their daughter’s turn. Well, it’s not the mother’s fault. A mother can never be wrong. A mother can never take sides. A mother can never wish bad for their sons or daughters. But, a mother can also never love their daughter-in-law like their own daughters. It’s not their fault. They are wired to be biased. When it comes to accepting it, mothers never will. As soon as we accept it, we will be at peace.

Gates

You are all you have left

to fear.

Break free, and you will see.

How the wind feels,

beneath your wings.

How the breeze sounds

when it sings,

the song of liberation

in your ears.

You will become the reflection

of the sky.

You will be perfection,

in disguise.

Open your mind, to a greater world.

Emotions will flood,

with tears and no blood.

Don’t look back

on what you lost.

The journey will cost you

the time of your life.

fear no time,

because time is not still.

Fear no darkness,

because it doesn’t kill.

Fear no height,

because you are up there already.

You are all you have left

to fear.

Let go of your doubts.

Let go of your chaos within.

Fear will wear thin,

and escape your mind,

leaving behind,

just you,

all for yourself,

to unwind.

Where’s the Middle Ground?

If you are a middle-class man and married recently, there must be an incessant turmoil going on in your mind. You must be thinking, “why me?” There were times when nobody cared what you did, or said. But now, after you are married, everyone questions your decisions and actions (even inactions). You are blamed for posing a “changed” (read, spoilt) behaviour and it is basically not you – it's because of YOUR WIFE, who has drastically changed you as per her convenience and necessities, just because you are like clay in your thirties. Anybody can manipulate you and make you their slave, right? That’s the intention of every marriage – to enslave all of “Man” kind. The mother-sister combo tries that for a particular period with all their love. To some extent they succeed without any resistance from you. Because, you too love them back equally for everything they did to you, right from your birth till your marriage. Now that you have become their most prized possession, it is nearly impossible for them to let you get taken over by some woman who hardly knows you, but claims to love you more than anyone. They probably want to put that to test. There was nobody to question their ways as they had a monopoly on you. Now that your wife is in the picture, they are seeing her as a competition and not a partner. She’s anyway your partner for life. She will take over your life, like a parasite. She will infect you with a plague that your parents always tried to prevent. Well, all these are good thought-starters.

For a middle-class man like you, the time is stuck in between generations. “Middle” is your destination. You can neither go back to how you were before nor can you move on and be happy. Your basic factory setting will force you to choose your family over your wife, by default. But when that begins to change, the combo-ladies begin to smell fear. It is impossible for them to understand that they won’t be forsaken by you. In fact, when your wife is helping you to love them, you should know whose side you should take. There’s nothing wrong in sharing relationships. You were a son and a brother before. And, now you have also become a husband, a son-in-law, and a brother-in-law. There are many relationships yet to come. But, you won’t have to cut yourself into pieces to love each one of them individually. It’s a different story altogether if the relations (read, relatives) begin to cut you. It is your duty to hold yourself in one piece, physically and emotionally. There are times when you have an existential crisis more than a mid-life crisis. That’s when you need to really become selfish, and not think about anyone who loves you. Because, if there is no YOU, they won’t be able to love anything neither will you be able to love anyone back. You do not need approval from anyone to prove how much you love or care about your own family. They do not need to compete against anyone to prove their love for you. The only thing that would tug your heart is that nothing ever seems to work out. No matter what you do, after you get married, every breath you take is a manipulative move by your wife; and this mindset cannot be changed. Everyone turns blind to their own actions and this is truly disheartening. When you are not given enough space as a couple, it doesn’t sound like a serious mistake to them. If they are reluctant to gel with the new member of the family, it is still the wife’s mistake. And most importantly, if you are not sharing everything like you did before, you’re a federal criminal. Every intimate moment you have with your wife; every freaking smile that you both share together; every bloody secret that you both have, should be reported or else your life will be sucked out of you. After marriage, there’s no understanding left in them on the concept of “Personal Space”. They hound you for “blessing” them with a grandchild ASAP. As if we can order them on Amazon Prime and it will be delivered even before we got time to hold hands and feel each other’s heartbeats. That would be quite an efficient and untiring way to make babies, right? They should have tried that (via Speed Post).