The Great Indian Celebrations!!!

 Recently I attended an engagement event of extended family member and was blown away by the scale of it. There were more than 1000 people in a lavish setting. They are a well-off family and can afford the spend, but I was thinking about how this has become an expectation from normal families also. 

I have attended birthday parties of kids with 500+ people. TBH, I did my son's birthday with 250+ people and found it super tiring and no joy for the kid.

The expectation of spending $20k on a simple event which is more than what a Government employee gets as retirement benefits after 30+ yrs of service is just ridiculous. I thought covid time events where we had smaller gatherings for celebrations would prevail for longer but looks like large-scale events are back with a vengeance. 

The problem I have with large gatherings is the lack of connection and attendance is more of a formality. You cannot spend genuine time with the host or anyone else which makes the entire attendance a waste of time. Everyone is overdressed and uncomfortable just to have a couple of good pics. These pics you will probably never go back to as fond memories. There is a huge platter of food with 50+ dishes to choose from and none of them are good. I'd rather have 2 dishes that can make me feel wow.

That's why I prefer to go to someone's house and spend 2 hrs than going to a lavish restaurant and overeating for the sake of it. The experience is much more personal and you will remember it for a long time.

I wish People have these events with their close loved ones and it is fine if I'm excluded rather than just being a part of a big crowd who do not want to be there. Use the leftover money for a better cause for themself or society than splurging it as a show-off.

Cheers to making it personal and memorable!!!

Communication or the lack of it!

 I had a few incidents this week that has shaken me up thanks to the communication or the lack of it! 

One of my very close colleague was low on energy due to a personal situation and I wanted to step in to help out and give them the space to recover well. I boldly put my hand up to sort the issues and get it streamlined. As this person is new, I have done that a couple of times to reduce the stress and let them settle in. Later yesterday I had a discussion with my colleague who literally broke down on the call. I had no idea what was happening and the initial thought was the personal situation/work pressure that has created the stress. Me trying to be a hero said I will sort things out at work and no need for anyone to stress. The person broke down more and said something that was a shock. The person said 'The problem is You!!! Every time I have an issue, you put your hand up to solve it. I start doubting my abilities and think I am not the right person for the role and you do not have trust in me. It makes me feel inferior and not wanted. I can take failure and someone pinpointing the mistakes. What I can't take is you doubting my capability and experience". I just dint know how to respond, all I was doing was helping, and never in a million years I could have guessed, it could be interpreted in this way. Luckily, I have built a rapport with people and this person trusted me. I used to spend hours every day talking about work progress and not once I felt there was a problem. Everyone at work knows that I have their best interest in mind which confused this person even more. After a long discussion, I realized my style of work was different which gave mixed messages. I was trying to shield and take up the responsibility of failure which came across as questioning the other person's capability (inadequate to deal with the situation). We have now agreed on a way forward and spend time changing the style of working until we find common ground. I was glad the person bought it up and we were able to sort things out.

This incident makes me think about what happens when you do not talk about issues much. The lack of communication could make things worse and kill the relationship. I always thought I'm an open book and I was very clear in my comms. Recent incidents have given a completely different story and looks like there are loads to work on (especially on looking from another persons' perspective). I just hope it does not take too long as I could end up hurting people I care for and making them feel bad without my knowledge.

I wish I had telepathy to say what is in my mind which is not very easy in a few situations. An easy way out could be me doing tapasya to gain 'Telepathy'😇

Bad Thoughts!

 Today someone in the office said they are fasting every Tuesday for the whole year for which my boss replied, if fasting, we should fast our brains from bad thoughts!!! That struck me so much. The number of bad thoughts I have off late is insane, specially overthinking about something that does not even exist or happen. Whether it is road rage where I feel like running over some irritating honking chutfatang or some random death scene of myself/someone I love and care for, I end up overthinking a lot.

 Could it be the daemons of the past, an unfulfilled dream or do I lag something interesting to do which is making me ponder such stupid things. In the end, I have no sleep or any good work to show for the day. So much so, that I have lost more hair over the last 6 months than I have done over my entire lifetime, probably it is time to go for the bald look 😈. 

It is time to start working on the thoughts, get to the root cause, and put them to sleep. Face the demons, doesn't matter if the result will be favoring me or not. If it does not, it was not meant to be 😇

TBH, it is scary, not easy to fight things that effects you so much and let go of the thinking. I have so much to think or not think, huh! I Probably will end up overthinking this thought also and won't sleep the whole night 😂😭

Nenedavara Manadalli!

 Have you ever thought of someone and heard from them immediately. Yesterday and today I had a couple of such incidents which bought a big smile on my face. I just wish for more such occurrences, Makes me feel good thinking I'm still in people's thoughts, 'Nenedavara Manadalli'!!

Ignorant or Sad!

 There is one episode 'Aberfan' from The Crown that had big an impact on me than any other series. This was about the mining disaster in the UK where the debris from a mine engulfed a school killing more than 60 school kids. It was national news with everyone visiting the disaster site to provide help. The Queen does not visit in the start as it is not a normal practice and after pressure from the papers, the Queen eventually visits them. She manages to meet some of the parents and shed tears with them. After her return, she confesses that she could not cry even in such a difficult sad situation and pretended to do so. She says something which I could absolutely relate to.

"It is easier to be angry and ignoring than to be sad. It is easy to deal with than show your emotions". How can you not cry when you see these helpless parents losing their young kids, their only hope probably you may ask? Some people are like that, they can't shed tears or show their sadness. They do not know how to deal with it and build a fort around them. I am one such person who just couldn't cry. So much so, I did not shed tears when my grand ma passed away whereas my entire family was an absolute mess. Even if I'm going through tough times, I would never show it fearing that I can't recover from a breakdown. I might not be as bad as the Aberfan episode, but I am not the one who can deal with sadness easily.

I do not know when this transition happened. I do remember crying even in high school times but thinking about it, wasn't for things that effected my emotional status. Probably for something I did not get or some fight I had. I realized that I cannot shed tears or show my emotions when I was 23 and a close friend and my dear uncle passed away within a span of a few days. Tears wouldn't roll my face and I was an absolute mess inside. Everyone saw me being strong and ignorant whereas I was broken, I did not want to go out and show my plain face to others when everyone was grieving. I hated myself for being so cool about it and thought I had no emotions. I chose ignorance over anger as I couldn't be angry about anything for long. I have always seen the good in people than the bad. 

And being a prankster and always laughing gave a good camouflage. So much so, that I was known to be an absolute arrogant happy carefree person in college and almost everyone hated me for the teasing, irritating person I was. Also, my college days were probably one of the worst times of my personal life and none of my closest friends knew what I was going through. I must have been good at suppressing my emotions and would never talk about it to anyone. Letting my guard down wasn't an option for me. 

It doesn't mean I do not care or I don't feel bad. I do manage to be a good helping hand and stick around to give my support, but there are times I just can't help and have to stay away. Off late, I have tried to deal with sadness rather than brushing it under the carpet. I have to be honest, I am not good at it and you can see it on my face. I end up being an absolute disaster and people around me cant handle it. Imagine a happy-go-lucky cheerful guy being miserable for no visible reason. It is also true that the most cheerful guys are also the most emotional but in my case not being able to show it makes it a double whammy 😅 Even now people see me being absolutely cool and think how emotionless, self-centered I am. Not many know I have mastered the act of getting busy (having fun being a part of a big group) and not giving solitude time to myself and letting the emotions take over. 

This is something I need to work on and go through sadness instead of ignoring it. Ignoring does not make it go away but just hides it for a while. It impacts how you see things and stays with you forever. There is a long way ahead of me to embrace sadness and show it in public. At least I am thinking about it and trying it out which is a good start 😆

No one is perfect!! But I always said, I was perfect 👿👿 I'm such an oxymoron 😂😂 (you see what I did there, brushed everything aside and became jovial 😜)

Note: The Queen ends up visiting Aberfan for a long and spends time with the families who lost kids which shows that she did care.