Sorry.. Who are you?!

Who are all those people who come rushing and buzzing towards us when we find some happiness in our life, like a honeybee attracted to the fresh flower pollen…?!

… …

There was smile spread across my face, and was probably gonna stretch out of the boundaries of my cheeks. But I didn’t care. I was happy and that was all it. I strode, and strutted, almost hopped and skipped. When I entered and got a glimpse of my new car shinning in the morning sunlight, I stood there admiring its shapes and curves – the only shapes and curves that I admire after you know who’s.

“Ah! You brought a new car…! But you brought it so plain!”

I turned around and found a person from my neighborhood, I didn’t know his name or nothing for that sake. My expressions probably said a big, confused “What?”, so he repeated.

“You brought your car in a very plain, vanilla fashion.”

This time I said out-loud “What?”

“You bought a new car, but brought it in a very non-festive style. No observance, no fete, parade…”

Okay he didn’t use these many synonyms, he just repeated his earlier sentence again, but this time I understood him. By plain he meant that I brought a new car home without “sharing my happiness with others”.

—

So whenever we find a new happiness in our lives, people of this species pop-up out of nowhere and stand before us. Eyes popped-out of their sockets, weary, like a zombie, looking directly at us; their twisted hands, with bones tearing out of their sordid skin, extended towards us, not in attack, but in anticipation, which is almost similar to an attack; their body bent towards us, not in respect, but as their spines have corroded in expecting things from everyone. They come to us dragging their feet, brushing the dirt on the ground, with their saliva-leaking mouth open, trying to say something while spilling all their gluttony for parties all over us, which will emulsify a stink on to your body and soul…

They are like leeches who feed on people’s happiness.

You can’t run away from them. They will hunt you down even with their perverted legs. You have to face them and choose either to be good or bad, in their ever-judging eyes. You choose to be bad, they will not rest till they are able to spread various kinds of rumors about you everywhere. Some of them might even manoeuvre an evil ambush upon your pride possessions or your newly achieved happiness. You choose to be good, they will disappear almost instantly, if you’re lucky.

Some of them are so hard-skinned, they might even keep sucking out of us even after we have been good to them. They will come with questions, inquiries and desires, more expectations, which will take the toll out of you.

It is said that sharing happiness increases it exponentially. But that doesn’t mean we go sharing our happiness with everyone in this world. That’s just a poor implementation of a good thought.

Our immediate family and friends and others, whom we love and like to be around are the people we want our happiness to be shared. We can also share our happiness with people who have silently helped us in various ways. If we want to share our happiness in monetary or material form, we should choose people wisely. And if you aren’t sure about it, share it with people who don’t expect from you this sharing, but will be more than just happy if you share it with them. They will actually wish good luck for you, unlike those other species of parasites who will almost instantly disappear once they have reaped the benefits out of you.

—

He came close enough to me, I almost got scared of him attached his suckers upon me, I backed off.

“Let’s see. We will do some celebration once my parents, my friends come visit me. (And I am definitely not calling you in that!” I snubbed his aghast expressions and moved on to leaving from there. He started giving out his precious advises as to how I can park my car and other details, which I half- no- fully unheard.

Why should I share it with my neighborhood, colleagues or those so-called friends, who don’t care a dime about me? Unless you are gonna help me pay the EMI or clean my car every weekend, why should I give a party to you? My dealers terms didn’t mention anything about you earning a right to free food and drinks upon my car purchase…

While moving out, a kid in his skates went past me looking at my car and then shouted “Nice car, uncle.”

I smiled and yelled thanks. Then I re-heard his statement, noted the “uncle” in it, and frowned. Moving on to the gate, I saw the security old guy who keeps a watch at our possessions. I celebrated with him about my new car and he beamed of happiness, giving his blessings out to me. Yes, they were some people I could share my happiness with, not that scrounger!

To him, I should’ve just said “Sorry.. Who are you?!”

Chronicles of a 25 something Man

An essay on the life of a 25+ boy, who juggles through his changing life between almost similar choices, taking tough decisions, living up to weird and new expectations thrust onto him and trading his dreams for buying time for other things…

… …

He is sitting in his big office chamber. There are clients waiting outside for just 5 minutes of meeting with him, for which he would charge them ample sum of money, while they are willing to pay that as his advice really makes them a great deal. He has found his love of life and is happily married to her. It was life-changing for him to marry her, yet she somehow manages to keep his life as casual and fun-filled as it was before their marriage. Surely, they are great together. His parents are proud of him of achieving so much and settling down happily in his life. They are currently on a world tour, which he gifted them as a surprise for their Silver Jubilee together. He is planning yet another trip to a new country, planning to expand his services beyond borders. But right now, he has to give an inspiring speech to young minds over the web. Surely he loves to pass on his wisdom to young and aspiring students. He couldn’t ask for anything more from God, as he loves his life and his job and his family. A Pigeon comes flying from the balcony and hits hard on his glass window, breaking a crack on it…

He wakes up to find a pigeon making mess in his balcony. He lazily lifts up his leg and falls it hard on the bed again, making a huge thud sound that scares away the bird. He knows it is dawn, and that he should wake up and run the race, but he prefers to dream that dream, so he goes back to sleep. Just when he could recreate that scene again in his mind, the door bell rings. The maid’s here.

He walks to the door, opens it and pays not even a fraction of time to look who’s standing at the door. He comes back, dragging his feet back to his bed. And looks at the wall against his bed for all the time the maid cleans the house. When it is time for the maid to go, he gets up and quality-checks the whole house to find flaws, if any, in maid’s work.

As soon as the maid leaves, his daily routine starts… While brushing his teeth, he thinks of all the decisions he has to make, of all the pending tasks on his plate and of all the big habits that he has to adhere to. It gets more than mouthful, and he has to spit them all out. Both lather and tasks.

While bathing, he thinks about changing his current consuming and growth-free job and choosing something else. But he’s unable to decide onto a particular “something else” on which he can focus. The whole time while bathing, his mind is occupied with various career options available to him and also considers an option to study further, which opens up some more career options…

It’s Friday, but that doesn’t lift up his spirit like it used to a few years back; as he could wear his favorite t-shirts and jeans. Now, formals felt him safer as he had to choose from only a few (one or two) washed and ironed pair of clothes from the wardrobe, or just grab something he had worn earlier and spray it with an ounce of deo. Looking good is no longer his priority, as it doesn’t make him feel good about himself, not any longer.

He goes to the mirror and looks at his messed up hair. If it was a few years back, he would have spent a few minutes, or may be more than a few, to make his hair kempt. But he no longer had anyone to look good for, neither he have that much time now. He had start working on his task list he had prepared in the morning.

He has to choose from several totally similar looking investment opportunities to earn a better returns on his savings. He has to choose between buying a new house or postponing that idea to future. He has to take decisions about his life… big decisions, that required quite an introspection to find out what he wants from his life – something he was no longer sure since a few years now.

He gets a series of notifications from his father. They are all about prospective life partners for him. His father is hasty about getting him married, and he isn’t sure about that manner of marrige. He had always thought he would eventually know whom from his known circle he wants to marry. Choosing from a bunch of strangers haunts him, let alone his disbelief in the concept of marriage. But he has to check those profile anyway, he’s getting older and has no serious friends, no relationship prospects and no life, for that sake. He is already late, like everyday, for his 9 to 7 desk job.

He starts his bike and it gives out a groaning cry, asking for relief from its services. It has been 10 years now. He thinks about buying another bike for him, or a car as his family wants (to show to others and prospective bride’s family, and of course, for his comfort too). Another choice, which invites several series of choices, one after other. He has several brochures and options bookmarked in his wishlist. But choosing one is a task he’s been working on since several months now.

It isn’t easy to drive while your mind is pre-occupied with several things at once and you’re not concentrated on the road. But he has driven on this road for so many years now, that he knows the potholes and even other fellow drivers on the road and makes his way smoothly even without looking around on the road. More so as he couldn’t care much about meeting with an accident. He needed a break anyway, from everything.

He reaches the office and shuffles through his backpack to find that darn ID to prove his belongingness to that building, even when those walls knew him in and out. His bag had never been this messed up before, but now, he didn’t care. He had bigger things to work out in his life. Bigger mess to clean…

His phone started ringing and he woke up from his daydreaming at his desk. It was time for another meeting. He got up and rushed towards the conference room, without anything in his hands, or even mind. He had many years’ worth of experience for those meetings, they yielded nothing. All the while in the meeting, he thought about why he couldn’t remember anything from the point he was searching for ID downstairs at the gate and to the time he was daydreaming at his desk. That was 3 hours worth of time, memory, lost.

He shuffled through different notifications on his phone while sipping that sugerless coffee. There were several overdue reminders, cleaning the cupboard, a blog idea, buying the kindle in the next sale, checking out a website for new ideas… Some of them were overdue for weeks now. He crossed out the reminder about working on a new product for his start-up. No, he hadn’t completed that. He crossed it out as that product was already launched by someone else and ran successfully in the market.

He fixed that last spreadsheet for the day and sent it to his manager, replied to another list of queries from client that made no sense at all, filled up a survey about employee satisfaction conducted by the company in which he chose mostly random options as the options like ‘not aware about it’, ‘do not like it’, ‘dissatisfied’, ‘no career helps available’, or option to write your own answer to a yes/no question weren’t t available to those set of questions.

It was weekend the next day. That was supposed to cheer him up, but he was working on Saturday. Anyway, it didn’t matter as if he had not been working, he still wouldn’t have had any plans anyway. He hardly had people he could call friend, or to better put it, he hardly befriended anyone and gave them opportunity to get closer to him and his life. Sunday went without any smile on his face and he completed a few of the tasks from his long to-do list. But that added several other new to-dos in his list…

Sunset was always beautiful to him. That would give him ideas for his blog. And night was the best time to let his creativity out. And by the time he would wake up, he would have created a masterpiece of a story or a discussion or just an observation narrative. But this time, sunset reminded him of another choice he had to make today – dinner options. He stayed alone and had to eat outside everyday, alone. He skipped the decision and assumed he wasn’t hungry. The real reason was he was just bored of eating the same things everyday without any company. That night he slept bad, empty stomach does feel bad, but he knew that already.

While watching the fan above his head, he thought of a few lines and a poem formed on its own in his mind. He immediately got up and started scribbling it on the piece of paper he kept besides his bed. The start was good, but in the middle, he got lost of his idea and the words that had earlier popped up on their own. And by the time he reached its end, he had already creased up the paper to throw it in the garbage can. His mind hardly supported him nowadays.

He started thinking about the pros and cons of various choices that were available for some big decisions he had to take. The thinking continued for a long time, making an elaborate and detailed list of pros and cons, but not giving out a winner… Soon exhaustion took over him and he was lost again in his dreams, probably the only place he loves being at, but can’t. He has a life to live…

Fear of Tests

Fear of Tests

No matter what test it is, there’s always a fear of test crawling into my confidence, slowly weakening it.
… ….

No matter what kinda test that I’m supposed to give, there will always be a fear of test imbibed into my inner self, crawling over my confidence and slowly weakening it.

The fear of test doesn’t go away as we grow up. It stays, hidden, ready to attack whenever another test or task comes up. It was so dearly implanted and nurtured by parents, teachers and society during my education years that now it is almost impossible for me to ignore it.

Usually, we sense this fear as soon as we get to hear the word – test or any of its synonyms. We feel so dejected by the fact that we are supposed to be giving a test soon. And that is not just the only food to feed this fear.

No matter how meager the value of the test is or how less it’s gonna impact our life, everything around us conspires to make it such a big deal for us in our lives that we also believe in that!

When it comes to giving a test, there’s always a cost of exam attached. Hence, we fear that our expense might not yeild proper return if we don’t clear the exam in the first attempt.

Our family members keep on reminding us about our exams and that we should be working for it, that we should be practicing for it. It keeps on hitting our gut so hard that the test is such a big deal and we won’t be able of clear it is we don’t try hard.

On the day of exam, our mom brings ‘dahi shakkar’, giving us best wishes for the exam. But that too reminds you of the exam, the seriousness, if you have forgotten it.

This all happened with me recently… I had my driving test.

I don’t own a car. I haven’t had driven car ever in my life. I took driving classes, which were pretty bad actually. And I didn’t have any practice for the driving test. And I can go on and on giving excuses for my lack of preparation for the test. But yes, I did have that fear of test even in this case.

All the events that I narrated above happened with me, except ‘dahi shakkar’. But yes, praying before God happened in my case, that’s the way we do it in my family instead of ‘dahi shakkar’.

Then all the fear accumulated and came out while giving the test in various forms like perspiration, heavy breathing, and haste and lack of confidence. My mind went blank and I did miserably at the things I was good at actually. The result was negative. And I came home with my first failure in life.

People say that failures are very important if you want to achieve something big. Well, it certainly didn’t feel anything like that. I let. E while episode pass by and thought it to be just a driving test. Not a big deal. But the fear of tests was not to be defeated so easily.

As soon as I came home, my mom came out running, eagerness on her face… She had already assumed my result to be positive. And it took me great effort to prove it to her that I was saying the truth when I said I failed.

Then her expression turned from eagerness to worrisome bothersome tension. That expression which can give you goosebumps instantly inside your head. The fear of test started to creep into me again.

She asked me several questions about what went wrong. I sincerely answered. Then she gave several advices on how I should have taken up this task and explained to me how poorly I had practiced and what were all the flaws in my methodology.

After an hour of discussion from her side, and listening from my side, I actually started to feel bad about not clearing the test. And that was another food for my fear of tests.

Then I spent the whole day thinking about the whole episode and it bothered me to much to not have cleared it at one go. I was already scared for my next attempt. And that was when I had lost the game… even before playing it.

All the people who knew about my driving test asked me questions for the next whole week. And they never let me conquer over the fear of tests in my mind. All of that made the roots of that fear strong and well established in my guts.

The constant nagging, reminding of the tests, setting of expectations and my good self nature of trying to honor their expectations, all the time, made it worse.
I was on the verge of breakdown… When my friend talked with me about it and laughed. She said what’s the big deal about a driving test! It doesn’t even impact you in anyway serious… I calmed down for a bit.

But people were always trying to bring out the fear from deep inside my heart… For it never dies. It stays, lives with us, feeds on our confidence and helps us in every way possible to fail the test. Brings us all the pain of not meeting the expectations and the mockery & harrasment from society.

So I dedicate this failure to all those who helped me not forget my fear for tests and to all those who have made sure that the fear stays with me forever… Thank you.

A Weird Dream Video

A dream where I was both the first person viewing the dream on my phone as a video, as well as the third person inside the dream video.

… …

I was feeling bored and lonely and depressed. My solitude was killing me. So I took the best anti-depressant medication – Sleep.

I wasn’t sleepy at that time, but I slept as soon as I started trying to sleep. And then a daydream started – as a video I was watching on my phone. The weird things was that I was in the video too.

When I woke up, I didn’t remember much out of it. There were many situations and cut-scenes, which were all hilarious, lovely and entertaining at the same time.

Although, I did remember bits and pieces from the dream. One scene was that there was something about me living with roommates and they giving me surprise over my something. And then someone saying something stupid and we all were laughing on it, while I spoke my usual sarcasm.

Then there was something about me gifting something to my mom. This was emotional which made me cry in the dream and even the me in the video was also crying. I was meeting my mom after a long time.

Then there was something about me watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S series as being a part of it. I mean the characters were from my own life, my own actual friends – having fun like they have in the series.

Then in another scene in continuation as the above one, I was upset about something and my best friend was trying to cheer me up. While other characters of my version of Friends were just – you know. Then Phoebe entered the scene, said something really funny and everyone left the room laughing. She told my best friend that she would help her cheer me up. Then she kissed her for more than a minute and then Phoebe said ‘Wait! Weren’t we cheering him up?’ And my friend said ‘We accidentally did.’

All these while, I tried to rewind the playback from the starting of those scenes. See, I was watching myself, and I was watching myself on my phone with an video playing app.

So I would touch the screen to move the playback slider to the beginning, but whenever I would touch the slider, it would show 00:00:00 – that is the slider would be at the starting point. And I wouldn’t be able rewind back to the point that I want to watch again. (You might very well know the point from where I wanted to watch again in all the above cases :P)

I desperately tried to move the slider back, I even pressed the ‘Previous’ button. But the video would just start from the then point and not the earlier point from where I want it to start.

And that my dear readers, that taught me a very serious lesson – to live in the present. We cannot change the past, not even in my dreams. We cannot relive those moments, no matter how much we love or hate them. They are gone. And all we have is today, now.

… …

When I woke up, I couldn’t get up for a while. Yes, the lesson was quite hard to take in, but I was more affected due to the fact that how did my brain make up such a nice plot, such a nice dream-movie with such a nice message along with the right amount of other things to spice it up a little! 😝

The Look

The bus was silent except for the artificial lady announcing arriving stations and occasional advertisements. People were settled. It was a long route with few stations and majority of the travelers used to travel till the last station of this route. It was the first bus on that route, early in the morning before the crowd of office commuters starts. Hence, there was always a calm in this particular bus.

And she used to love this calm, this serenity. She used to leave early than her time to catch this bus instead of the next which would be filled with noisy crowd, who all are in a rush to run fast towards a dead end called office. She had to bunk her college lectures to catch this bus, and no one knew that she was doing these dancing classes, but she never cared about others. She was a dreamer. And she had to pursue her dream, even if that would make people around her sad. Because, dancing was what made her happy.

She used to take this bus everyday, and almost knew everyone in the bus. Not by name, but by a character description she made for them out of sheer observation. There was a guy who always used to sit near that last seat window reading a book with headphones on his head. She had never seen him look outside his book. He came before her station and probably got down after her destination. So, he was more of a part of the bus for her.

There was one old man who used to sit next to the exit door, quiet and composed. He always used to stare out of the window. He would hardly talk to anyone who sat next to him. Once he saw him talk to a little girl and even smile a bit. But otherwise, he was a lonely man, probably away from his family.

Likewise, there was a whole family of commuters in that bus she knew so well that she could almost feel if anyone was missing someday, without looking through everyone inside the bus.

One day, she was late, and could catch the bus just at the last moment. That day, her regular seat was taken by another person, someone new. She was disappointed to lose her seat. She walked towards the end were there was empty space to stand. That day, she thought about all the things that she lost in her life due to not getting late.

Next day, she was on her usual time. And she got her seat well. But today, that new guy from a day before was sitting in front of her. She sat there without giving any look to him and casually avoided looking at him – her usual behavior with new people she met. A reserved behavior that the so called rich and reputable society had taught her.

While she was observing people around her, her eyes fall upon him sitting right in front of him. He was constantly gazing towards her chest. There was weird smile on his face as if he was daydreaming something. It totally made her uncomfortable. And she got up from there and went to sit somewhere else, where he could not see her directly.

Next day, again, that guy was sitting in front of her regular seat. She felt miffed, but had nowhere else to sit. At first she felt to go and sit somewhere else, but then she recalled her grandma’s advice to her that she should never run away from her problems and face them with brave heart.

So, she sat right in front of him. Today also, he looked towards her. His weird unfocused eyes gazing towards her made her annoyed. She even made an angry face at him, then scorned and stood up.

Next day, the sit in front of her regular seat was empty. She thanked God that that peeved guy hadn’t come. She sat there and started reading her book. While reading a humorous para, she looked up, smiling, when suddenly she saw that guy sitting on a seat two boxes away. From there, the guy was looking constantly at the another girl sitting in front of him.

She felt really miffed upon him and she straight up went to teach him a lesson. When she reached the guy and was about to shout at him, he got up and hit her. Their heads bumped and they both stepped away for a while. What happened next was an eyeopener for her.

The guy had sat down again after he hit her on her head. He clenched the seat tightly and stood up slowly, unsteadily. He was still looking constantly in front of him, while she was standing right next to her. He extended his arm in front of him and said “I am really sorry, I didn’t see you…” and then started laughing “…I couldn’t have seen you anyway you see!”.

He was talking to her but he never looked at her until she spoke “umm…”

He was blind, with proper looking eyes, but lost vision.

She said sorry to him. Her anger had washed away in the abasement she felt for thinking bad for that guy. Well, she misunderstood ‘the look’.

After that day, she never saw him again, but she had made a separate entry of her little encounter with him in her daily diary.

Living alone vs Living with a family

Living Alone vs Living with Family, which one would you prefer?

… …

When you live alone for long enough, you tend to develop mixed feelings for both these types of living habits.

I stayed away from my family for more than 5 years to complete my education. Thereafter, I have a job away from my family. However, mother or father or both do occasional visits to my place. And so do other relatives.

While I stayed with my family, I never had such thought in my mind. But now I am confused whether I like to stay alone more or with my family.

Look at my own-self argue with other regarding which lifestyle is better:

When we stay alone, we are totally free to do whatever we want. We can give our entire time to ourselves. There’s no one to give us any work, there’s no one to interrupt in our personal time.

While at the same time, there’s no one to talk to. There’s no one to take care of us when we are down with sickness or just depressed. There’s no one to look forward to when we are returning home. It feels lonely at times and depressing even.

But when we stay with our family, we can’t watch whatever we want on TV. Sometimes your favorite show coincides with that of someone in your family. (No you don’t have another TV and neither do you have recording facility). What if there’s someone elderly and their views about something are not the same as yours? What if all they talk about is God and your marriage? It’s better to stay alone than to handle this.

But then whom would you tell all the incidents from today? Whom would you play games with? Whom would you show the profile of your crush and ask for some ideas to approach her? Whom do you ask for a warm hug when you need it so dearly?

But then they invade your room without your permission! They keep on asking weird questions and annoy you. They use your things and change their places. They put their views above yours b’cuz they are elder. Their needs become your priority above your own personal pass time. Your free time gets occupied by their activities.

Nevertheless you were not going to do something great in that free time, were you? You were going to watch some stupid movie or waste your time organizing your library. Or you were going to go through all your friends’ updates and feel miserable about your life.

But then you missed that movie with your friends as you had to take your elder shopping. You missed your night out with your best friend as your family won’t allow you to do that. You couldn’t arrange that match at your house as your grandma won’t like it.

Yes, but no one is stopping you from enjoying. Family deserves your time too. And you can have lots of fun moments with your family too! And you can always mix your family and friends to enjoy events.

But you can’t enjoy the same way as you enjoy with your friends alone.

Vice versa applied too…

Yes but then there are lots of restrictions.

You consider them restrictions. They are only guidelines. For your own safety. And when we live with someone we have to take care of their needs to. Don’t your family takes care of you in all circumstances?

They do. But we don’t have to sacrifice our desires with friends.

Oh is it? Don’t you have to go with them even when you don’t want to? Doesn’t deciding a place to hangout makes you sick with all those arguments and discussions? Don’t you miss your brother or sister more when your friend doesn’t help you with something? You sacrifice in case of friendship too. And haven’t family members sacrificed a lot for you? Now don’t get me started on that…

Yes, but then as we grow up, we have our own views about life. We can’t follow someone else’s views. With change in time, we have to change our views. We have to accept new culture and move with it. We can’t live in past. But these elders at home won’t understand this.

True that. But that is generation gap. You have to make them understand. You have to prove it to them that what you think is actually valid and safe. It takes time and effort but remember that will help you too, when you’re on the other side of the table.

Do you think I wouldn’t have tried? I have tried explaining them my point but they always take the discussion to that point where it is question of their respect and seniority. And hence, we cannot speak anything further. Besides, don’t you think you lose your freedom while living with them?

Freedom is a relative word. What you consider freedom might not be freedom for me. While I might just solve all conflicts with a simple discussion with my family. There’s nothing a discussion can’t solve.

Yes, but discussions do not always come to your favour. While if you had been staying alone, there would be no need of these discussions.

But don’t you feel lonely at times while staying alone?

Yes, but I miss my carefree and independent life more…

But…

Their arguments would never end…! And I don’t think they will ever come to a conclusion either.
… …

What about you? Which lifestyle do you prefer – Living alone or Living with a family? Say in comments…

Complicated Relations

Relations… How is one related to someone else? Is it maternal or paternal? Uncle, aunt, brother, sister, cousin, nephew, niece, in laws… English language has words for these relations.

But in Hindi language, the two words uncle and aunt, nephew and niece, and several other relations are given specific names.

Uncle being mother’s brother becomes ‘mama’. Uncle being father’s elder brother becomes ‘bade papa’. Uncle being father’s younger brother becomes ‘kaka’. And their spouses are ‘mami’, ‘badi maa’, ‘kaki’ respectively.

Aunt being father’s sister becomes ‘fayi’. Aunt being mother’s sister becomes ‘mausi’. And their spouses are called ‘fuva’ and ‘mausa’.

Courtesy can be given by adding ‘ji’ to each one of them.

Similarly, nephew being sister’s son becomes ‘bhanja’, brother’s son becomes ‘bhatija’. Niece becomes ‘bhanji’ and ‘bhatiji’ respective. (Don’t confuse ji at the end with the earlier one courtesy ji)

Further, sister-in-law and brother-in-law in Hindi is not that easy to understand. Find out yourself… (I took more than a decade to understand these words :P)

Sister-in-law for a wife is ‘nanand’. Brother-in-law for her, if elder than husband is called ‘jeth’ and if younger, is called ‘dewar’. Whereas, sister-in-law for a husband, if younger, is called ‘saali’ and if elder, then it’s called ‘jiji’. Brother-in-law for husband is called ‘saala’.

Spouse of jeth is called ‘jethani’, dewar is ‘dewarani’, nanand is ‘nanandoyi’, and spouse for both saali and jiji is ‘sadhubhai’.

Further, husband of sister is ‘jija’ and wife of brother is ‘bhabhi’.

And other woman or man is bhabhi or bhai if in formal relation, or else call using name directly.

Phewww…!

For my mind, this chapter of relationship was blurred. Hence, I had simple rules for defining relation name.

If he was elder and young, he was ‘bhaiya’ (brother), if elder and old, then ‘uncle’. Otherwise, his name. Similarly, if she was elder and young, she was ‘didi’ (sister), if elder and old, then ‘aunty’.

Only problem I faced was when elderly people asked me to call a specific one from the above list. For me all of them were either uncle or aunty, but when they required a work from a specific one, say mausi, which aunty would I call?! Stumped! 😀

But I had my ways… I would go to those group and yell whatever or whomever I was supposed to call. Then wait for them to respond. Everyone would turn and look at me, but only the correct one would respond to me by asking what was it. Bravo! I got the one! 😛

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My niece (bhanji) came to my house yesterday. Being a boy (not an uncle), I only see her as my younger sister. But elders in my family want to see me aged so early that they want that little one to call me uncle (mama).

Both she and I make faces when we are required to communicate in that way. But then she forgets to call me that often and calls me bhaiya . That brings a smile on my face, to see her do those crazy things and involving me into it.

I wonder if things were simple like my rules of defining names for relations, how would it be to live in my world. Would it be simpler than now or more complicated?

Wonder is all I can do…

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One more complain that I always have with elderly people here is that they always call my friends as bhai and behen (brother and sister)! Huh! How can they tell what’s in out little minds. Don’t they know there’s a word known as ‘friends’, which is different than she being called as my sister! Please! 😛