Carefully Spoilt!

It's 2016 and yes,don't we just luuuurve being independent! We love being able to provide for ourselves, sometimes even for others. We love that we don't need anyone to validate our existence or do the banking for us.We love being able to split that cheque and drive ourselves home, where we can do whatever we want, invite him in or close the door on his face (given the poor man doesn't live in the same house of course). 

It is a great feeling, knowing that we can very well take care of ourselves without the help of another, but now and then we all long for a little pampering.Someone to worry a little, throw a bit of a tantrum over what we do and spoil us senseless, to help us unwind and be taken care of, on and off. It's no sin nor betrayal. You would still be the strong, independent woman that you always wanted to be, just a little pampered. After all, we all need a bit of unwinding sometimes, and letting a guy open a door for you and treat yourself to a fancy dinner shouldn't make the gods come running.

Humans are social animals and despite all the individuality we have achieved through years of evolution, our brains are triggered to appreciate being appreciated. Sometimes appreciation, as materialistic as it sounds, not to mention cliche,can come in a fancily wrapped package with a red ribbon tied around it. It doesn't matter if it's a cheesy ornament or an intricate piece of jewellery or even a bouquet of flowers, allow yourself to enjoy that sense of giddiness that surfaces as you open it. Savour it like the first sip of a good wine after a long day in the fields.

Take a day off if someone wants to take you somewhere, be it friends, family or a lover. They probably see someone who deserves to have a good time, someone who deserves to let go, at least occasionally. Let it be on them, and for once know that you don't have to be in control. You will find it as refreshing as a glass of ice cold cucumber water on a sweltering day. Better, if it is a romantic get away, be it a star hotel or somewhere allusive , or the just the two of you at home. Enjoy the quiet (or the noise if you're that's what you are into) and the sense of irresponsibility that only not having to think of how anything  is to be done will bring. He offers to cook? Let him. See what he comes up with. He wants to take you for a movie? Let him. Ask him to pick one. Allow yourself to be surprised. 

Experiment. If you're used to taking care of yourself, you probably have a sense of style that you've developed for yourself and proud of, rightly so. This probably means that everything in your closet screams "you" thus are of a particularly singular in taste. As great as it, wont it be fun just to see the sort of garment someone else would choose for you? Give it a go. Yes you might hate it, but you might also find that you could actually look better in it. Want to hear another pro? It's an automatic insight into how the other person views you.

The occasional letting go will not only help you unwind but also teach you much. You will be surprised at the things you get to discover about your own self,I mean you've got to admit, maintaining a singular image can get you addicted to a certain way of life, which might not allow yourself to fully experience your complete self.You will also be surprised at the discoveries you make of others, their likes and dislikes. When you're used to being in control of your life, you do run the risk of turning into a control freak yourself, and that might not be the best way to discover the likes of the others around you.

So let go. If you really are as confident and independent as you think you are, and have that constant urge to be in charge of things, giving up that control for a few brief moments, to someone who knows exactly what you deserve (pun definitely intended) might just be the two additional ounces of vodka your rather neat cocktail fondly awaits.

Pularae

Life beyond Buttons, Needles and “Jipperes”

  How important is money for life? … Can anyone answer how money changes life? … Changes everything? … Can we do anything about that? …. We live in a world where we come up with answers and clarifications for every single matter but I don’t think it’s possible for anyone to give an exact answer for this question…

I am so very grateful for the person who pinched my mind to write this… since we live in a world where we do not bother to think of how others feel… there is no wonder that most of us fail to notice this freaky part of life… This is a story of people who hunt happiness among coins and notes…. Story of young men and women who scarifice the best time of their lives to earn wealth for their loved ones… story of youth who lost their emotions and ultimately their own selves.

I met him after a long time…. With a blurred scrawled face of emotions… well-built good looking guy with an unreadable face (trying hard, putting an extra effort to ensure that he is not being read).

We are all waging our own battles to live. Some do it on their own lands on which they were born and grew up, but some find themselves at other corners of the world, where they have never smelt the joy of that soil. So this story is about the professionals who work,struggle, live on a strange land,building the futures of their loved ones.

Bangladesh is a country surrounded by two giants: one commercial, another historical. The country is vast in land and rich in water; it’s a country with a mixed hybrid culture.It's highly populated cities,various health issues,child labor, under age marriages and prostitution have created a unique cultural experience that you will hardly experience in any other country in the eastern world.

The backbone of the economy is apparel. They do all types of manufacturing, assembling, packing etc making the foreign labor involvement very popular and strong. Majority of these expats are from Sri Lanka. There are around 13,000 Sri Lankans who work in Dhaka &Chittagong. Most of them are young adults of age roughly between 25 to 40. Even though most of them are  paid in Dollars this is not the USA  or some blossoming country in Europe. Even though they walk around in Tommy Hilfiger and Old Navy these aren't roads of Milan or Barcelona. Despite their regular morning routines of 3 puffs of Bleu De Chanel or Paco Rabanne there's no one to take a wiff let alone a long deep breathe and fill their hearts with the fragrance inviting that sweet sweet coma. These roads are dusty, noisy and busy. People are innocent poor and uneducated. The air is humid, thick and empty. It is in this unknown land that they spend the golden times of their lives, looking for laughter and joy for their dear ones.

Most of the Asian countries still suffer from poverty. It’s the same for us Sri Lankans as well. After 30 years of civil war the economic conditions are still not stable. Simillar to all other developing nations we too suffer from all sorts of life struggles.

Fortunately our knowledge and skills are highly recognized all over the world. So we have big demand for employment. So we come here to hide among buttons, needles and “jippers” (Zippers).

They smell the scent of cotton but forget to inhale the life. They taste the sweetness of coins but never the taste of self-love. They become the victims of circumstance…Suffering from loneliness, sadness fear, hopelessness and anxiety. Life is different and difficult here but fortunately we are not bothered to accept it. As he words it “we get sold every day for the highest price”. Question is “is it worth it?” most of them fear to struggle for happiness and brave themselves to fight against life matters. They have convinced themselves that it is safer to scarifice their today for their tomorrow. 

Sometimes being able to get lost in a large unfamiliar city can be the best thing to happen to an individual. It will give him a chance to discover who he is and what he really needs in his life. But it doesn't exactly happen that way all the time. In the world where we live, thinking of ourselves as the center of the universe can make us question the efforts we put into keeping other people happy, the worth of the many things we believe as essential to lead commendable lives . The environment and the circumstances create a situation where we think that we can buy anything….annnnnny thing if we have enough money. Finally, money becomes the ultimate goal and everything else turn into words without meaning.

It is sad to see how the individual identities of these young professionals are being consumed by the external forces and they have lost the consciousness of self-worth. As far as I believe career should be something that helps someone make their own choices and not something that robs one of his personality. These young people lose their bearings in the middle and lose their own selves forever. In a way they are selfless people who do lifesaving work and expect nothing other than the happiness of their dear ones. So how come I find him selfish or how come I be judgmental? Life is not fair. That’s all I can say. How come we expect them to cry, laugh or love for someone unknown or for something lifeless when all their human interactions have been limited to WhatsApp, Viber and Facebook? Knowingly or unknowingly we recognize the emoji’s but fail to read the lines on the face of the person seated next to us. We listen to soulful music but go deaf to the long sighs of our loved ones. We ask people to be polite, be committed, be honest but never bother to think why people feel to be so sometimes.

Amidst all this, they are still great humans. Who may have gotten lost. but not for their sake. According to Willibald Ruch, a psychology professor at the University of Zurich who conducts research on the effects of character strengths such as gratitude and humor, “gratitude does have a good impact on happiness, that it increases life satisfaction”. So be true to them. Be grateful to them.For them your gratitude is how you connect yourself to them, and their gratitude is seeing themselves in connection with things larger than themselves.

Arundathi

It’s not lonely to be lonely

It wasn’t a really long day or anything, really. I had just walked out of the optician’s with my new pair of spectacles and I suddenly stopped on the pavement and thought for a second, 'Why not a pizza ? '.
While biting in to a slice of it, I recalled the early stages of my last break up : how emotionally unstable I was, how the sense of loss and grief compelled me to lose any joys of living. And then here I was ; alone, yet happy.

The restaurant was just a walk away and as my feet led me upstairs and I ended up at a corner table that gave the view of the street below, I finally unwound and thought about what I had gone through and what I had become. Truth be told, a part of my thoughts kept swirling around the pizza that was to come as well.

I had another look at my pizza. Slice by slice, it was just disappearing. Then it hit me. Among many other comparisons, why isn’t life ever compared to a pizza ? Like literally, we share pizzas, or we eat them alone and it comes to an end to see whether you liked it or not.

Life my friend, is exactly the same. We spend it sharing things with our family, friends, better-halfs and worse ; even our enemies. Then there comes moments / phases in your life that you have for yourself, if correctly said, that you HAVE to have for yourself. It is in these moments that you figure out what you want, what you would like your life to be and most importantly, what you do not want in life or from it.

None of us are Gurus  regarding matters  of life ; not even  sufficiently adult at times. However, I do know one thing now. Being alone is meant to be cherished, it is meant to be used to reinvent yourself, to see new dimensions of you to develop yourself. In my humble opinion, we all should focus on becoming strong, individuals that can actually survive sans the support of a significant other. At the end of the self training, marriage, love or even a simple relationship will purely be a matter of choice and not a matter of vulnerability or survival as it is in most of the cases today.

Love yourself !! Masturdate !! (Take yourself out for dates and have fun. I know obviously that you are already in to the typo ;) ) As you will meet someone who you find finally fit enough to tolerate you for the rest of your life, you will see that you will be a support and a true companion for that person and not a clingy elderly child who obviously needs to be taken care of. You need to pull yourself out of the misery and love yourself first. The only worthy piece of advise my last ex ever gave me : ' Babi, you can’t love anyone else unless you love yourself first '.

With my pizza entirely in my digestive system, I walked out of the restaurant.

Hash

A Well Deserved Celebration, A Very Short Breather, And Move On!

If ever you talk to your parents or grandparents, in a moment of quiet, and ask them, "Amma (or Thaththi or achchi or seeya) what did you do when you were 25?", you will most probably be given an answer that makes you be silent for a moment, and question yourself, "did I hear this right?". I am aware that this might not be the case for all of us, and I do not mean to generalise for effect. However this experience might hold true for most of us.

When I had the same conversation with my mother and realised that she was going for sewing classes and crockery classes , when in turn, today I am running from completing one exam to the other, the initial reaction was one of derision. "We are certainly better than you and you had life the easy way" were my thoughts. My wise mother kept quite until I reached realisation at my own sweet pace.

Times have changed and simultaneously the demand of the time have changed. Thus the pressure on me to score well at exams, and the absence of such pressure on my mother. So if the two of us were put in a balance, with and equaliser of time, none outweigh the other in importance.

To the credit of my hardworking peers, there is much achieved in terms of academic / professional success or otherwise as a result of the effort we put in. But the danger lies in looking at an individual of a completely different time and feeling utterly satisfied with ourselves. Quite simply, qualifying for university in 2016 is not an excuse to stop exerting and to consider it an end in itself. And quoting your grandfather who didn't attend university to justify your academic lethargy is not acceptable either.

The more opportunities you get the more indebted you are to yourself and the more demanding you should be, of yourself to work harder. One success might give you a breather, but don't pause too long as you are obligated to yourself to do better than last time .

So never think that reading for a bachelor's makes you better than one who learnt dressmaking thirty years ago. After all, it is training to earn a living, only one sounds fancier than the other. What you are at the moment,might well deserve a celebration. But don't take a break too long, as you do not live in the last century.