Happy Women’s Day – A wake-up call for Men

Composite image using images from Google image

Even in the age of equality in the free liberal world, I feel offended when women go out and celebrate women’s day, a deliberate attempt to mock man the inferior gender of the human species. We men know that we are not perfect but please do not subject us to humiliation in every walk of life.

Growing up I was taught that all humans are equal, if that’s the case why women are given special treatment? Every single stage of my life I felt or was made felt inferior to women.

I felt inferior when my Mom convinced my sister to sacrifice choices when there was room for only one to grow. Why do women perceive that only they can be better at that?

I felt ashamed when my sisters (cousins) showered me with compassion even though I was the perpetrator.  Why wasn’t I taught the correct lesson?

I feel discriminated at my work, when my caring equal opportunity employer gives me 20% more pay over my fellow female co-workers. Reason, it’s believed that women more efficient in managing with minimal means. Why can’t the playing field be leveled & give us an equal chance? We may struggle initially but surely we’ll find a way to manage.

I hope one day we will gain enough strength to can re-write the popular phrase “Behind every successful woman, there is a man”

I am looking forward to a time when woman will not mock us by celebrating a day, instead we will be given a chance to celebrate a Men’s day (A day when it will be allowed to leave toilet seat up)

Spousal Pressure

Welcome to the fraternity Pujara!

You know that I have been very vocal about the plight of Indian Husbands in 21^st century. I know some of you see it with skepticism and some even ridicule it outright. Well the issue is not only deep rooted in Indian marital system it’s pervasive even amongst the athletes and celebrities in India. Only a month ago Indian women failed to beat Australian woman (who went on to win the championship) in front of home support, Indian Men scored second successive victory against Australian Men in Cricket Matches. Cheteshwar Pujara, India’s emerging cricket talent played a pivotal role in India’s massive victory and was judged player of the match. In his acceptance speech he inadvertently made an honest confession that the driving factor of his success in the game was in fact the pressure on him due to spousal concerns.

He said “There was a bit of pressure on me. I just got married, and my wife was worried I should perform”. So this is not just a small time blogger crying foul on being an Indian Husband, the testimonial of terror are trickling from all walks of life. Every Indian Husband is pressurized (bullied is not an appropriate word) by their beloved wife. No exception there.

Some perceived a deliberate double entendre in his statement; idle minds are always like a parliament in session – interpreting the unobvious in the obvious. When talking at a Cricket stadium he would only talk about his cricketing performance, why would he even bring his performance around house-hold chores in public? That’s one painful topic Indian Husbands wouldn’t feel comfortable confronting themselves with, leave aside admitting on public television! That’s my biggest concern being Indian Husband. No one takes us seriously. One (mis)statement about your significant other and instantly you are subjected to twitticism (witty tweets), cynicism is pelted upon you by women disguising under phony guy names.

A player of the match, co-incidentally happens to be a newly crowned husband makes an honest confession. Why can’t people take it positively? Even in his open admission he credited his wife as a motivating factor. How often we see it the other way around?  It all boils down to choice of words; had Pujara stayed with the conventional wisdom saying “behind every successful husband is a happy woman (wife)” and he would have been off the hook. But he got bit carried away and chose to say what his heart murmured

Pujara with Motivation behind India’s success!

If I may humbly plead the womenity (humanity minus men) of the world on behalf of Pujara & al husbands; Cheteshwar Pujara is a cricketer, his area of excellence involves around thick blade of cricket bat and not a sharp edged pen. I am sure he will be more careful in future making statements about his better half in public; O dear merciful women – supreme creature on this planet, can you be bit more compassionate and forgive his first offence? I promise to chant 100 more “Hail feminism” in my prayer tonight.

Amidst all the Pujara hullabaloo, my wife complains, it’s my performance that puts her under pressure. Yeah right, blame it on husband!

Image courtesy: Google Images

Survived Sandy

 

Super storm Sandy sizzled through my neighborhood blazing a trail of terror, couple of days ahead of trick or treating. We find ourselves lucky to escape unharmed and survive the shade of nature that was offered in the form of Sandy.  Fallen trees all around but we are lucky to have power on. The closest succumbed tree is just a house away we only had couple of fallen branches. Another tree in front yard squeaked through the wind but luckily didn’t snap. While we may have been lucky this time, others in my city are not. Downtown Manhattan is hard hit and so are the coastal regions of the Island. It’s a resilient and spirited city & will bounce back as it has done in the past. Meanwhile schools are closed and kids are home. Unplanned vacation is the silver lining and kids have plans to capitalize on it fully, Parents of course have other chores in mind, eying mess in the yard. Dad is flexible (may be practical) but the other is half is adamant. We have two boys and their combined tantrum strength can match the fury of Sandy, the storm is already brewing, let’s see if it gets strong enough to shake motherly mind.

Indian Husbands: God to Dog!

“Pati Parmeshwar” – Sanskrit Husband is God.

In traditional Indian marriages, woman will accept her Husband for life and will treat him as God. I swear on happy moments of every husbands out there that I am not making this $#!3 up. This is an age-old tradition followed in sub-continent (up until recent past) and any person from the region can attest to it. You can Google it & will find ample references. Now what I may say in rest of the post is widely open to personal interpretation; fictional or fascinating it’s all subject to your own decree. I feel obligated to bring forward the truth offering enough evidences; if you still prefer to exercise your right to disagree, be my guest. Don’t believe me now & feel free to eat your share of humble pie when your angels convince you later!

Desi = People from Sub-Continent
Sub-Continent = India and neighboring region

About 5000 thousand years ago, Men were granted a boon in form of a commandment “Pati Parmeshwar”.  Men/Women in sub-continent followed it religiously for most of past 5000 years. It turned out that the commandment had an expiry date of year 2000. Women (the dominant species of world) now had that commandment in their hands to amend it; goes without saying their way!  Life would have been simpler if women had just replaced the word Husband with wife. Treat “Wife as God”, and husband would still be happy to be a Man. If you know Desi women, you’d know that are programmed to do things out of the ordinary that often fetches extraordinary consequences(for others). Running out of creativity or in a rush to complete the task they didn’t bother to look for new terminology to amend the commandment. They decided to use the existing infrastructure & modify with minimal efforts. Treat Husbands as God was hurriedly changed to “Treat Husbands as Dog”. They later issued a press release to justify their rationale behind the amendment, Dog is (Wo)man’s best friend and “Dog” here should be deemed as a metaphor!

There’s a train behind the pile of people!

Indian men who were already married before the dooms day got lucky enough to grand-father the old tradition; however the wannabe grooms of new generation were up against a steep challenge posed by the new matrimony pact. Ever wondered what triggered the massive influx of Indians into countries like US, Canada, Australia? The amendment of the commandment was the sole reason that triggered the mass exodus of Indian men at the turn of the century. History taught us that around 17^th century Europeans fled to US to escape religious persecution, continuing the tradition eligible bachelors (from India) fled to US/Canada to escape emotional persecution. Students with current version of intelligence, figured when the mass is moving towards west, going east is the safest bet & fled to Australia.

Don’t have details around how they pulled off mass immigration to Canada & Australia, but I exactly know how we managed to pour into US on an epic scale. Y2K was just a decoy to shield one of biggest immigration scam! Indians with the help of secret service agents cut a deal to influence INS (Immigration and Naturalization service) and increase visa quota for IT professionals. They came up with a catchy name “Silicon Valley” to fancy Secret service agent’s imaginations. Indians said they’ll help develop “Silicon Valley”. No further questions asked and yearly visa numbers were quadrupled.  This happened during the tenure of President Clinton; even he couldn’t resist the offer to develop Silicon Valley!!

Imagination is always better than reality (especially when it’s far off!)
Feral Imagination always impedes prudent interpretation.

Flexing minimum common sense think over this, your refrigerator, appliances, TV & other electronics may have been manufactured elsewhere but when it breaks the serviceman comes to your home! So when it came to IT why did things turned on its heads? Why did we (Americans) invited programmers to build application in US and dial abroad (to call centers) to fix them! Pondering? Let me give you another compelling example. If Rajesh turned Richard siting in his Bangalore office can fix a computer in your US bedroom, why Sri can’t be the Sri and fix the Y2K bug or build applications from his Hyderabad office? Y2K was the biggest scam perpetrated on innocent American people. Following Govt. found out about this and dissolved the INS and in place created a department Homeland security. We all know that INS was replaced by Home Land Security, you may have heard a different version of story behind that replacement, but the reality is what I have just mentioned. Wait until wikileaks reveals this & you’ll believe it then.

One can hardly make sound judgment under stress. All three chosen destinations were developed democracy. A living heaven for women on earth! The problem with Indian men is that they always think far ahead even when the obvious answer lies in near vicinity. Nobody thought of countries at a stone throw distance. Afghanistan, Iran, all of middle-east. At least in these countries they would have lived with some dignity where gender equality prevails as opposed to developed democracy where woman are over-privileged & dominate the society. In developed democracy women can bare their shoulders & knees & it is still considered as formal wear while Men are required to cover completely even for a casual wear. In middle-east there is no such discrimination, everyone covers fully. If you have facial hair, you may flaunt it otherwise face remains covered too. Desi women who followed the trail in pursuit of a potential mate found a female equivalent of “beer & baseball” pleasure in marrying a Desi guy in US. Live in a female dominated world & a pet husband as a bonus! I am married to one such fortunate Desi Gal.

I hear every dog husband has his day. I am optimistically waiting for my day, I am sure there is one.

(all images in this post are re-composed using Microsoft Picture Tool and Google Images)

Happy Mother’s Day (To all working Moms)

Image Credit: MS Clipart

To all the working Moms out there.

It’s your special Day and let me take this opportunity to appreciate your contribution in shaping our lives and our society. You Moms make a big difference, at home and at work.  Kids may not say it in words but they all appreciate your role in their lives. Even playing a dual role (Mom & Professional), you balance your priorities very well.

Image Credit: Google Images

Thanks for being so kind & supportive not only to your kids but also to other kids, whose Mom send them to work with you.

A special thanks from Moms of working (grown-up)kids to all those working Moms out there for looking after their kids at work.  With you Moms around at work, stay home Moms are breathing a sigh of relief; their kids are in safe hands.

 Happy Mothers Day! 

and Happy Mother’s Day to all stay home Moms as well

Living Wisdom

Wisdom.
Webster defines it as – knowledge, insight
a.    accumulated philosophic or scientific learning : knowledge
b.    ability to discern inner qualities and relationships : insight
Free on-line dictionary defines it as – the ability to discern or judge what is true, right, or lasting; insight.

Image Credit: Google Images

There’s a wealth of wisdom accumulated over the years; some captured in books, some passed on from generation to generation. At times we find certain wisdom makes sense only in books and that presumption makes it hard for us to carry it out in life. E.g. we all know that nothing is perfect in this world (except your wife, exceptions are always there). In spite of this fact how many of us actually look at our glass half full? We more often tend to look it as half empty and put ourselves in a chase after futile things. However there are few people who live a life which is wisdom in itself. A life we all would like to live, something not so hard to follow and still we make it a challenge. Here’s a story of a common man and a simple concept that’s quite inspiring!

After graduating from high school & before commencing the college, I had some elaborate plans to spend my well-earned vacation. Whenever I have been over-joyed about my immediate future, Mr. Murphy have hijacked the script & modified it with his very own popular version. In this case it was my father who made plans to better use my vacation. He accounted for almost everything in that plan except my willingness. We (kids in sub-continent) are raised to agree on everything elderly family members have to say. Anyone five years & more than your age is your elder. Not sure where that limit five came from, but I know that my sister five years younger to me had severe challenges agreeing to my talks. So I guess over five is the accepted norm to be privileged as an elder. I am sure my father presumed that he can grandfather my will under that ancient tradition.

We were living in a mid-sized city in western India & he bought a property in the suburb of the city. He realized that serenity of suburbs precedes the comforts of city. I was not in disagreement with that. In fact I had a vested interest in moving to the suburb. The vested interest wasn’t anything great looking back at it now; it was merely driven by teen hormones and not neurons. The house needed some fixing before we can call it our new home. It was about a four years old house but no-one had lived there permanently, the first owner had used it as a vacation home. It needed some basic elements for permanent dwelling. Instead of contracting it out he decided to give a face-lift using day laborers & hourly skilled workers; and of course putting me in-charge to oversee that all. This was his audacious plan to better use my vacation. He assumed that this new challenge filled responsibility would make a good graduation gift!  Anyone can tell that this was nothing more than an unpaid internship. He justified his plan by saying that this would be a great hands-on learning opportunity for me to gain some management skills. I had a long list of things to do during the vacation & learning was not on that list. How much can you eat between two heavy meals? My exact point, how much can you learn between two major learning experiences – High-school & College? My father lacked that critical analytical skills to comprehend my simple logic and somehow I was assigned a learning assignment! I am a kid from sub-continent born in last century who generally lacked persistent disobedience at home. Not claiming I was the best kid who deserved a gold star on compliance but I picked my battle of resistance.

Image Credit: Google Images

My grandfather was a great visionary; he foresaw my fray with Mr. Murphy & advised me at the age of five that, “if you can’t avoid it enjoy it”. He motivated me to drink that third force feeding of daily milk dose by saying, “pretend its molten ice-cream”. A positive attitude helps you come out of the stickiest situation and may even help enjoy going through one. It’s all about attitude, and I was banking on that single ray of hope to brighten so far gloomy looking vacation. I motivated my mind to yield something positive out of this experience and didn’t took me long to find my molten ice-cream in restoration project; access to the restoration budget & opportunity to customize house as per my needs.

 ……… to be continued.

Interrupted (Random) Thoughts

Image credit: Google Images

What initially appeared as a couple of week’s blogging hiatus, eventually turned out to be season long blogging hibernation. It all started with Giants winning the Super Bowl XLVI. The win was great but what’s more awesome was the fact it was against NE Pats. The celebrations lasted for few days. Under euphoria I may have used up all my yearly allocated quota of joy in three days and as a result of that frowned fate may have outsourced the script of my next three months to a frustrated intern or a diehard NE fan. Whoever that person was, he just scooped everything out of that stress jar & smeared it on my weeks to follow.

A mere coincidence or an instigation by fate, around the same time a Global beverage giant head-quartered in NY was undertaking “productivity improvement measures” – a management lingo in street language simply means planned lay-offs. (This was all over the news so this is nothing new that I am disclosing here.) We weren’t fortunate enough to be amongst the chosen ones for the pink slip and so became the natural choice to pick up the slack left behind by the ones who attained work Nirvana (at least for time being). A major application upgrade scheduled for first half of the year was now my so far relaxed shoulders to deliver with resource depleted team.

A simple work formula is — work = hands * hours. Work has to be done no matter what; if value of hands decreases, the only way you can balance the equation is by increasing the value of hours. That’s exactly we ended up doing. In tech world, few emergencies or fire drills during the year are usual norm, so this alone wasn’t a shirt losing situation.  But as they say trouble comes in threes.  While I was copping up with imbalanced work equation, my wife was struggling with fresh challenges at her new work place. She couldn’t have picked better time to switch job. Still not a dire situation, until our bundle of joy decided to put the final straw.

Fortunately we didn't have to resort to this.
(Image credit: Google Images)

Not sure about elsewhere, but in US, babies are called bundle of joy, (delivered by a stork). But the joy is not eternal and you can’t even buy extended warranty on that. The tootsie turns terrible at two and begins to unleash tantrums at her parents, giving them a glimpse of the other side of the parenthood. Not a norm but a general observation shows that girls don’t go all out with their tantrums at the age of two, they save it for later years (esp. post married life). Boys spend it all to deliver a knockout punch at two and hence the term “terrible two” became popular. We have two boys & considered ourselves blessed for the most part. Our elder one almost forgot to turn two. His ambition is to become a President so makes perfect sense he’s saving it for later. Younger one delivered first three quarters of his terrible two like Apple Inc.’s earnings report; better than expectation. But that was just the silence before the storm; he was saving it all for the last quarter. Not yet three and he’s learned to outsmart both of us put together, and we haven’t let him taste soda yet! A simplest task like converting 8oz of milk into a soiled diaper has become a major negotiation on a daily basis. He obliges us by consuming a meal & we have to return him a favor back by entertaining him. If his terrible two lasts two more years we both will be good performing artists. I have started complaining about hair loss & she’s complaining of memory loss.

Friends & relatives tell us that we should be thankful for having only two kids, imagine the life with a third one! Well we don’t have to think or worry about that until the younger one is in charge. Lately by the time our supercharged toddler goes to bed he has already drained out all the energy out of us. We are so exhausted that we don’t even have zest to say “good night”; making it one is a farfetched thing. Yeah there’s a lot to catch up on. I mean catching up with all your posts.  My project is going live tomorrow (fingers crossed), younger one is turning three next week & wife is settling down at her new work. So maybe I might be able to return back to my glory days, of being a good husband and let the world know via the blog how much I love my wife. No plans for the third one though and can’t wait for Super Bowl XLVII!!