Perspectives and perceptions

My friend recently shared a t-shirt design which she thought was very apt for me. Given my penchant for behaving almost as though I have an OCD about orderliness, the line reads, "I have CDO, It's like OCD but with the letters in the right order like they're supposed to be" Funny. And a bit true. I do obsess over stuff like straight lines, and clean desks, and bedsheets tucked in perfectly and eye pencils facing in the right direction and bottles in the shelf being arranged according to size, and books being arranged according to category and then height, clothes being arranged according to type and then maybe by color... and so on. Sometimes it's tiring to keep up. Most times it helps to be like this. I always have something to do! There's always something more to clean, something more to arrange and something to change. :) But apart from all the funny reasons, the real thing is this... Sorting out the mess in my physical surroundings, sorts out the m...

I’ve been born and brought up in Bombay, and I’ve celebrated a lot of birthdays... but the funny thing is that I only remember the gala celebrations from the last few years of my school! When i was 5 – 6, it was so simple, we just brought a cake from the local bakery shop, bought some back presents for all the kids, ate some good home-made snacks along with some local potato wafers in thin paper plates, played musical chairs, and then went home in time for dinner! How different from the scene today! It’s not just the spending that has gone up, the influence of brands, and products, on our day-to-day lives and on our occasional spending has changed drastically too. Today, even if we think of buying a cake from a local bakery, that bakery invariably turns out to be a Monginis, a Croissants or Ribbons & Balloons, the potato wafers are either Lays, or Uncle Chips, or whichever the latest entrant in the market is, the back presents have assumed enormous proportions and somewhere somehow...

Choices “Left Turn or Right Turn?!” Oh! Gosh! I just can’t make up my mind! Maybe it’s left, or no, hang on, it’s not…” Choice One word that makes all the difference in the world, Right from the time we are born, to the moment we breathe our last breath, we are making choices, some conscious and most unconscious. We make choices regarding the friends we have our lunch with, the friends with whom we sit in a lecture, the people we choose to work with, the loved ones we choose to live with, the doctor we choose to treat us, the banker we choose to bank with, the book we choose to read, the movie we choose to see and so on and so forth. So what’s new? We all do this, day in and day out. The point is, why and how do we choose. Typically, every person has their own rationale behind their choices. The rationale could be different for some circumstances and it could be the same for all. Most would agree, and rightly so, that those whose rationale is different for different circumstances are “...

The feeling of the freshly bound book in your hands... ah! it's absolute bliss... It would be so exciting to have a room just for books.. a personal library... wooden flooring, wooden bookshelves, floor cushions and a cup of tea... even if I have only the library and none of the above, it wouldn't matter! I devour my books, madly passionate about them and rightfully so. I don't think there's anything so intensely personal as the words written in a book. In so many ways, I connect to certain traits in various characters, and in so many ways, I learn and begin to understand. Like of the characters, Sidda ( The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood - Rebecca Wells) who loves her books, I too feel, while reading a book, it is as if the author is talking personally to you. You are the audience for whom the play is staged. That realisation, that glory, and that joy is beyond everything else... My mother has been instrumental in evoking this passion for books, she read them o...

Amidst news about the recent killings and deaths, another one stands out. A man dies while trying to save couples from drowning at Bandstand , a popular seafront promenade at Bandra, Mumbai. Why? Because of Love? Or space for love? Is it a crime to want to be with the person you love? Is it a crime to touch, feel or kiss that person? I thoroughly disagree. I would agree if people said is it okay to make love in front of people, nudity and obscenity and not acceptable, but kissing, hugging and holding hands is anything but that! We see it on T.V. everyday, so what's wrong in seeing it happen in front of our eyes? Hypocritical as people are, they shun the couples away from every place... Gardens, Parks, Promenades and any public space you can think of. What's the outcome? Couples are forced to spend time together in dark, lonely paths, go far out in depths where there aren't too many people, sit in dark theaters watching some crap movie, go to lonesome beaches... ...

Stepping into a new place, be it an institution, a workplace, or just another group of people, we all are very receptive about the perceptions that we create in the minds of people. Most often, the perceptions that people have about us are based on what they feel when they’re around us. Through my school life, I never noticed anything awkward or different about people’s perception towards me. In college, things were different. I still remember the moments when I walked into a class, and introduced myself to everyone, and then slowly got around to knowing people and then becoming close friends with a group of them. After the initial months had passed, when we embarked on a casual conversation about what we all had thought of each other at first, I was surprised to hear, that everyone had perceived that I had lots of “attitude.” Back then, having “attitude” was misconstrued by me as being “bad”. I’m sure many still make that mistake. Let’s define what we mean by attitude ...