Award! For me!

Thanks very much Anu (as Iam not able to link for some reason, here is the link http://www.anu-recipediary.blogspot.com/) for this wonderful award :-)
I am not sure that I am very derserving of it, or if I can keep up the chain, coz I've been breaking my head for 7 other bloggers whom I can bother, and I am pretty sure they are all going to beat me up for this! Well, lets do this, whoever is reading this consider yourself tagged.....howz that? ;-)

Now 7 things about myself that might be interesting to others:

1) I am pretty full of contradictions......I am a cleanliness freak, but at times would let things sit, just coz I dont feel like it; I am a fitness freak too, but could not care less at times....so you get the idea

2) I have too many modern ideologies and feel very trapped in our society at many points in life

3) I love to talk, but when I am angry & hurt I shut up; When I am fuming, I won't stop shouting and God save the target!

4) I am a very strict disciplinarian when it comes to kids; I am going to be such a parent for sure!

5) I love animals.....will do anything for them...hate watching movies using animals, or TV shows which are not fair to them; one day I hope to do my part in a big way for them in this world

6) I am not at all religious; but I believe in God. I wish people will drop religion and just trust in one God, with no name preferably.....saves everybody trouble!

7) I hate it when someone tells me what to do.....I take advice only when I ask for it (which I do) ....else please don't bother

Well there are seven trivia about me, which you may or may not have known.....thanks Anu, was fun :-)

Solution to control India’s growing population

Can you believe our Indian Health and Family Welfare Minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad, actually commented that population increase is to be controlled by bringing electricity to our villages? His reason? “When there is no electricity, there is nothing else to do except produce babies; if there is electricity, then people will watch TV till late at night and then fall asleep. They won’t get a chance to produce children”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This has also been published in international newspapers and online! I am dying of shame! Why do we really have such people as our decision making chief officials? Apparently he has told the press that he is deadly serious too and not even being flippant! Great!

And sex is now entertainment rather than an expression of love! What to say....

Politics

I just came across an article about Kashmiri chief minister Omar Abdulla’s resignation over an alleged sex scandal, in Gulf Times, and caused me to reflect on the political scene in my own state- Tamil Nadu……what scandals have we not had?!!!

We have repeatedly elected either Dr. J. Jayalalitha or Dr. Karunanidhi and I am not a big fan of either one for obvious reasons. The current chief minister has many wives (and is not a Muslim to be allowed to do so by religion) and has you wondering why the law has done nothing about it! This has led to numerous children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren too (he has been independently responsible for increasing India’s population by a good percentage!)

Let’s talk about one in particular, shall we? Yes, we need a separate paragraph to deal with his son M.K. Stalin…….you name a child after Stalin what do you expect, huh? What kind of scandals has he not been involved with? Political to sex scandals, you name it and he would say “been there, done that”! I have heard of women who were kidnapped by him, women in the cine field disappearing suddenly and then quietly appearing again after weeks or months; real estate scandals due to which this family owns most of Chennai now; bribery scandals of which all are aware, but none dare to talk or dispute and what not. Is he deterred? Is his father deterred? Oh no, he just recently announced that he intends to make this prodigal son his successor and we are going to have more CMs from this same family! Who can’t be proud of our politics?

So, Omar Abdulla, take some lessons….. If you are indeed innocent and are really embarrassed and want your name to be cleared, I appreciate the sentiment. If this is just a political stance, you have learnt well from your geographically southern most contemporaries!

Update

Well, obviously there is a long gap in my writing; if anyone lived with me they will know there has been a gap with everything! Been lazy…not cooked regularly…not been in my usual form in keeping up with friends…let me think, what can I blame it all on?

To give some benefit of doubt to myself, yes, I have had a lot on my mind….but maybe it is beyond all that. I read an article on Yahoo (?) recently and it called ‘Wedding’ as ‘one of the top five most stressful times in any person’s life” Hear hear! I totally concur! Not that I am even in the country where the wedding is to take place, not that I am running around on an everyday basis to get things organized, but oh my God, it is a bit much.

Murphy’s Law seems to be proving itself right every single minute of the day too, and here I am waiting for things to go wrong not only with respect to the main “event” but with respect to everything including appliances at home, health, and what not! The last two weeks, I have had problems with parts of my body and with everything in my house; to give you an example, one evening last week the water dispenser suddenly started leaking, just when I came for a drink after sweating it out in the gym (after a whole day at work) - I had just lifted the heavy bottle on top of it the previous evening and hence had to move the full container down again! The bathroom shower curtain decided to fall down as soon as I got into the shower and no matter what I did just refused to stand in its place again. I dropped my original plans, got into the guest bath and had a quick shower. I then considered a drive to cool me and of course I don’t mean that literally, coz it’s a boiling upper 50s degree Celsius outside at all times of the day!!! Then many more small things happened the same evening driving me very crazy…..but well, let’s move on. More recently, my DVD player is acting very strange, refusing to recognize DVDs that it bonded pretty well with in the past! Worse yet, it recognizes, starts playing, and then decides it is no longer interested in what I have decided to watch and stops! See what I mean? Drives me insane!

But on the other hand, I am slowly getting more excited about the upcoming event; booking tickets, counting number of people, food arrangements, and SHOPPING :-) No, I am not doing the actual shopping at this point but the planning and directing people is fun too…you get to do that sitting on your couch, in front of the laptop. Of course, sometimes my fiancé and I are the middlemen and it’s not so much fun when we start fighting with each other, and trust me it happens more often than anyone can imagine. Everyone gets very touchy at times, it’s like the world is having its PMS! Those are the days I rue, but have now come to anticipate. My patience level has gone up dramatically, or so I like to think ;-)

Certain good things are happening….my little bro is visiting me, and we expect to spend some quality time together and I get to be the host for the first time in this new country…everyone in Doha seems to be on vacation, which implies bosses missing at work, roads relatively empty, desperate sales at malls, trying to woo the people left in the city, etc!

Just a quick update on last few weeks…..turned out to be a rant for the most part! But hey, I am writing again and hope I become more disciplined and do it almost everyday (dare I hope?). Maybe one day I can make these pre-wedding rants as a collection and give it to my children, titled “Now you know why your mom is the way she is!”?!!!

Happy Father's day!

Happy Father’s day, to the best father in the whole world!

Just a few words about the man of few words………..

He has been and is a wonderful dad….kind, trusting, loving, generous, encouraging, devoted, and courageous. A man of principles, he led by example; our family’s role model! I hope we have caught on at least a small percentage of his qualities!

As a child, I loved being given baths by him, food tasted extra delicious when it came from his plate…..it never mattered that I already finished lunch/dinner, I would always be ready when he started eating, for few more mouthfuls from him :-)

Memories I have of him are more of the subtle kind; many many of his words have stuck with me and I like to think I always act by them. Hope he feels the same and is proud of whatever my brother and I do.

One incident very close to my heart- I had participated in my first college level elections and was a nervous wreck the whole week and more so the final days before results were announced. Finally after we had the results, I called home excitedly and told my father I had won! He, in his signature calm voice told me, “We always knew you would win da, only you were tensed. Come home soon, we have reserved tickets to go for a movie tonight, to celebrate”!!! Could I have asked for a better father with any more trust?

Thank you for being you appa, love you very very much. You are our pillar of strength!
Happy Father’s day!

www.my-mother.net

My post about my mom for Mother’s day is now on http://www.my-mother.net/ --> Featured stories! This is a great website and I think a lovely tribute to mothers. They are finally going to put all the stories/tributes together as a book...what better way to appreciate our mothers right? Do send your own articles to stories@firstcounselors.com, or submit online at the site. See below email from the webmaster for calls for the same.

Dear Sunitha
Thank you for your story about your mother. It is now available online at www.my-mother.net where you can access and read it.
Please also let your friends and relatives read your story online and perhaps they too will write and submit stories about their mothers. Together we can make this the greatest tribute to mothers. Hope you will blog about this too.
With best regards

Message to my teen-aged self? ;-)

Ammani (http://jikku.blogspot.com/) is a writer I admire so very much. She had asked her readers to write a letter to their own teenaged self for "If I knew then what I know now".

This is what I would tell my own self: You never regret the things you did, but will always regret things you did not do.

It is here in Ammani's blogspot too: http://lettersforall.blogspot.com/

:-) Thanks for the opportunity Ammani....keep rocking!