Succeeding the Indian Way

Well how difficult it is to succeed the Indian Way? I am just speaking my mind here , trying to keep this article as less sarcastic as possible.

Success is a very subjective term.At a very basic level ,it could be divided into 3 categories. Personal Success,Professional Success and also Social Success.

Succeeding the Indian way is difficult though.

Professional Success is normally in the minds of  Indians starts from a very young age.At a very young age you are gauged based on your ability to speak fluently in English. The world's most powerful women (according to the Forbes list) Angela Merkel chooses to speak most of the time in her mother tongue which is German.
Well, we seldom realize that language you speak has very less to do with Success.You are 12th Std aggregate plays a very important role in people's minds,later your ability to find a corporate job also does .
Finally,it all boils down to the amount of money you have accumulated as bank balance.

Your job taking you to places (international travels) is lauded more.If you have entered the Senior Management to give press conferences that is the ultimate success.

So what about those people who sit down in research institutes to develop a drug(it almost takes 15 years to patent a drug), those professors in colleges who tirelessly coach students batch after batch they don't come to our mind when we define professional success ourselves.

Coming to the definition of succeeding in Personal life.I might sound very raw.But your ability to stay back with your first husband/wife in the same house despite odds is revered by all undisputably.

Those people who choose to be single, divorcees (despite most genuine of reasons) are looked down upon. If you have succeeded in living with your husband and have been able to raise children you are revered.

What about being successful in social life. This is given the least of importance in any Indian family.Doing something for the society ,standing up for a social cause.We don't educate our children to become socialpreneurs rather only educate them to find a job.

Should the Indian definition of success undergo a sea of change with alot of possible clauses?

What it is for a Woman to be Assertive ?

Are assertive career woman termed to be ruthless?

As per the demands of the present day Corporate Scenario where in all the members of a given technical / non-technical team slough it out late in the nights interacting with clients across the globe who literally want to ply them through their seemingly endless requirements,
Is a woman really spared ? NO.

She is expected to juggle effectively between her roles as a wife,mother and also as a manager @ office. She might not be able to cook a proper meal , She might not have been able help the kids with their homework , She might not have been able to clean up the messy floor. Yes, She goes ahead proceeds in pursuit of a good career path . She is termed ruthless.

She might have to travel overseas to cater to the needs of the task at work. She leaves her family behind gives in for the demands of her career. She is termed ruthless.

So to speak, She is not having an easy life. Precisely there are times when a technocrat has to sit through and listen to derisive comments in a multilingual fashion (at a time from various clients). She too pulls through ,trying to keep her calm. After this whole mess of a conference call, She forgets to pick up groceries, She is termed ruthless.

The line between being assertive and aggressive is much thinner for woman than it is for a man.
She can't afford to break ash trays in the name of stress once she is back home.
She can't afford sleep through late in the morning complaining of tiredness incase the kids have to be packed off to school.She will be termed ruthless.

Incase she does not express her feelings of guilt for having not be able to concentrate on her family or her household chores ,She is termed ruthless.

All this aside we still want to look up to women in Corporate World ,tiptoeing into meeting wearing blazers ,speaking impeccable English to close major deals.

Are we all realizing what it has really taken for that women to have made that hard choice which in itself  is a facet of assertion in display???

My Body - My Choice

R V REALLY BELLYACHING?


What it is to be Judged all the time?

Well I dont intent to write this post to assert anything even close to infidelity for cheating on someone is in no way a solution,let alone the debate on morality.

It is more about the choice of being Judgmental or not.
Is it really that difficult to be Non Judgmental?
When you find a woman walking with a few guys on the road.
When you find a woman going with a man in a two wheeler.
When you find a woman talking to another man over the phone.
When you find a woman wearing non-traditional clothes.
I feel we as a nation are so obsessed with our perceived codes of conduct.

But think about this.... There is this young woman who has lost her husband. Her struggle with her overwhelming emotions , her struggle to come to terms with the reality of being a single Parent so on and so forth. This society of ours silently looks on....

Now this young woman musters up a little courage to find  a decent job near by her home more to assert her self worth and specifically not for her finances. This society of ours silently looks on.....

Day in and day out she tries to strike a balance between work and home , her understandably normal expectations and also the hard-faces of reality. This  society of ours silently looks on......

She in the course of time , takes a deep breath , wants to move on with life.She finds this man in her workplace. All he gives her is just this...... He becomes the someone whom she can emotionally ventilate to. This  society of ours silently looks on......

Naturally , over a period she gets intimate with him ..... Now all of a sudden the society with all its perceived codes of conduct jumps into the picture ...... Only because a woman made her own choice..... Her Body ... Her Choice.....

When lives odds do not follow a protocol and could strike any of us at the deadliest hours , why should we seek  rational explanation for our emotions and why should our reaction to such adverse events follow any protocol at all....

My Body - My Choice

HOW CONSERVATIVE R WE?

Well I just finished watching the movie “Chokher Bali” a Bengali movie which is an adoption of Rabindranath Tagore’s novel of the same name. Really I am surprised at the kind of storyline he chose to depict an young widow’s emotions and vulnerabilities; considering the time this novel was actually written (early 1900s ,start of the 20th Century).

In the same lines I am reminded of another movie which exclusively dealt with the subject of Widow remarriage by the name Sagalakala Sammandhini (A Tamil Movie by Visu). In this movie , the story deals with the emotions in a very different way. It actually goes in a way where an young girl gets widowed she tries and comes to terms with the realities of life by fakely suppressing her emotions (in the sense locking herself up in a room , and eating only curd rice etc).

In the course of the latter’s story an old man , who happens to become the Sammandhi of the house recognizes her feelings , tactfully brings her out of her self -created fake world and gets her married to another person.

Well my question here is different. How does a common man view the former ‘s storyline(Chokher Bali) and the latter’s storyline. In the former ,the protagonist who is a widow talks up for her emotional rights. In a very famous dialogue she asks if drinking Tea secretively (Widowed Women in Bengal were prohibited to have Tea and Onions) is correct for the pleasure of your tongue then my urge at this age to seek for a man is in no way wrong.

Well at the outset we might all accept that we all support Widow Remarriage. But the real success would be when we can all open up our minds to accept when woman get really vocal about their emotional needs.

I somehow feel we as a nation are still lacking this aspect of accepting women who really become vocal about what they need and have to be a little more open for issues as obvious as this.