Two States- Story of My Marriage by Chetan Bhagat

I am no marketing manager for Rupa & co or do i have special stake in this book selling well.

What i am i going to write in this blog , the subject line could make you think its about the book and maybe you are already thinking i am going to do a review.

Well no , what i would like to focus is the subject of the book. These are my own opinions on the subject of the book.

I read this book in one shot , considering this is a very small book so the completion of the book in one go is not a great achievement by any standards but the book for sure enough was riveting.

The story is about two lovers from different community in India and the hardships that they undergo to get through to their marriage .

What are the hardships portrayed by the author , is it all fictitious ? No, the author has done justice to the subject and i guess it was also his personal story.

When i read the book , emotions ran so high in me , don't ask why but it was so vividly explained that i had no way not to accept what has been written.

The moment i was in the middle of the book, all that flashed in my mind was the dialogue from Chak De India movie,where the new coach Kabir Khan (sharuk) gets to know his new team and asks every one to introduce themselves , everyone states their name and the state but only Vidya Malvade says that she is Vidya and playing for India. Hearing this the coach Kabir is impressed and thundered to every other player that this should be their attitude as well.

Why did this dialogue flash my mind because even now in 21st century,when we want India to shine and do accept that we have the right resources and are resourceful alas only in thoughts but not in action.

Even now , when we want to marry , our parents have a say and one cannot marry a loved one from other caste or creed . What an irony!

No cross pollination , we want India to win world cups , we want India to lead the financial recovery,we need India to do every thing that we individuals dream of but we will frown at a Tamil brahmin marrying a Punjabi or even a Gujarathi marrying a Bengali.

What is wrong in some one marrying another person of their liking , where does caste , language etc come into play.So long as they are able to manage their lives and be a good son, father,daughter,mother,daughter in law , son in law what else should they do and why should they not marry. I am still not able to get my head around this.

The only reason i can come up with is that "What will the society tell?" Well,the society isn't going to do anything if the daughters and son marry some one other than whom they like. It's like doing something when one doesn't like it .

Tamil Superstar in one of the cinema says that "If you don't get what you want be happy with what you get" agreed but in this case , i don't see a reason why a boy and girl who like each other do not deserve to live together happily. Is it their sin to be born a Gujarathi or a Marwari or Bengali etc.

If india is to shine , this attitude has to change. It is changing i do not deny that but more should come .

This emotional black mailing,the nuclear weapon called crying by mom's and dad's just to stop the marriages just because either the son or the daughter is marrying some one outside their community should be a thing of the past.

Let's put India first.

The Joy of Giving

They say share your happiness and it doubles , they say share your sorrow and it halves . I say give things to people who need it and the joy knows no bound.

Yes, i mean it . I went through it personally yesterday. I have a cousin who is twenty eight years elder to me and has two kids. Their family were not doing well financially .

After a very long time ,she had been to my house yesterday. We had a good lunch together. Late in the evening my mom asked me what i wanted to do for them. I said anything but i don't

really know what they want .

It would not be wise to ask them what they want but it would be even worse to buy or give them something which is of no use to them. It was a catch-22 situation.

I just thought for a second and said to my mom how about buying them provisions for a month , it would be quite useful . It worked.

I took my bike and off i went to a super market to buy a months groceries. I had such guts that i easily assumed this was easy to do all by myself.

I had never gone to a super market without a list of what was needed and i had no clues what provisions and groceries would be required to run a family.So here i was in the super market without knowing what to buy.

I was stuck , did not know what i wanted . I stared in disbelief about my inability but trusted my common sense. I started from the basic household needs and went through them in my mind on what all could be required.

When i was finished , i just called my mom and told her what i bought believe me i was not too off the mark.

I bought everything , packed them neatly,billed it and was back home.

Just when my cousin was supposed to leave, i called her and gave all that i bought.

I stood still and smiled at her as tears rolled past her cheek , she gave me a huge hug and a kiss. That embrace said it all and how much my affection meant to her .

It was only a small token of my affection but meant a lot to her . What i learnt in this whole episode is that , it takes a very little effort to make others smile and make them feel special.

My joy was over the roof why because i took the first step in giving something . It was a magical moment for me .

It was a great joy in giving.

Time Off

I was inspired to write this blog by Stefan Sagmeister a famous Austrian born designer.

I watched a video of him speak about the value of taking "Time Off" from one's work i.e. a sabbatical and do something one is interested in. That video sent thinking waves in my mind.

Stefan says that one learns quite a lot during the so called time off aka sabbatical. How true,i cannot agree more with him.

We are all so stereotyped in our daily chores that we forget what we want to do.We are embroiled so much with work that lot of things skip our mind. Mind you i am not talking about holidays which most of us do take,this is specifically focussing on a sabbatical.

Sabbatical as dictionary defines it is a short break that is taken every seventh year . Stefan in his video says that this does lot of wonders. Lot of my friends who are going to read this blog are going to think , is this guy become 'crazy'.

Well not really . Let's understand this in the right sense. How many of us take time daily or even on a monthly basis to think first of all. Our lives are so robotized these days that it is just short of being programmed. It so happens that even some of surprises that nature throws at us on a daily basis are by-passed with precision or near precision.

Life has become so monotonous and how many times in a day we hear people say that life is so dull and has nothing new to offer .

Stefan did have an answer to this. He basically forced himself to close down his design studio for customers for a year and go to different/far off places . He said that when he was back from his break, he made more profits than ever and did things in a different way. The reason is one immerses oneself into what he or she likes during the break.

That could be true to people like us too , although i can imagine that taking a years break from work can be too much of an ask but it should be possible for us to do , if only we do careful planning.

Half way through the video Stefan gave a wonderful view of planning . The first time he took the break, he basically said to himself that he would take a break and do different things but at the end did nothing. The second time , he actually planned what he wanted to do and he stuck to the plan,it worked.He shows the example of what and how he planned.

Even for us it could be possible with a little planning. I do know some people who take a break to go and study , we can do different things all of us are different and possibilities are end less.

So let's think about it and see where and how we want to let the steam off.

If you are interested in the video - http://www.ted.com/talks/stefan_sagmeister_the_power_of_time_off.html