My greatest blessing, my Mother.

This blog is something that I have been meaning to write for a long time now; something from the heart.
It always seemed to me that most people knew what they wanted to do in life at a very young age. I used to wonder if it was something that came from within or if it was that they saw others and knew that that was what they wanted to become in life. I thrived to have what they did, an inspiration. It was when I became a teenager that it dawned upon me that for most it’s not the inner voice that they are inspired by. Inspiration is perhaps an incorrect term here. Most people are driven by their desire to be at the top of the ladder.
As for myself, it took me a long time to realize my fear of cockroaches (pretty much any of those creepy crawlies actually), ghosts (anything from Conjuring to the sound of a door opening in the middle of the night scares the bejesus out of me), my love of the color black, surprising hatred of the color pink (surprising as I am a girl) and those innumerable things that constitute who I am today. I would like to mention here that it took me falling into a water tank to realize that I am scared of dying as well.  On a serious note, finding who I am and who I would like to be is not something that happened overnight.
As we were growing up, I saw my mother grow each day as an individual. Her transition from a girl to a women and then to a mother is something that I didn’t witness and yet from what I saw in the latter years of her life, I knew her priorities and ambitions changed just as she did. She did more than just compromise for us; she comfort us in moments when she herself was in despair, found the strength to feed us while struggling to sit and ALWAYS put our happiness above hers. Some would say that we all transform as we grow up and mothers have always been known to care for their children. Perchance it is true.


 All I wish to say is
“Mother, all my life I have been told that if I don’t have an ambition, I will not become anything in life. I am not ashamed of admitting that I don’t have it all figured out but I want you to know that you have been my inspiration all this while, even if I didn’t know it and someday if I can become even half of what you are I know I will be the luckiest person on earth. You are, and have always been, my greatest blessing.”

Why so tech-savvy mate?

With the world progressing and expanding in all the possible dimensions, the new technology inventions swiftly manage to find themselves a space in our day to day lives. Since technology is in itself a vast subject to discuss about in one blog, let’s talk about communication, more specifically communication through texting.

Locations, pictures, videos, audio notes, documents and pretty much everything you can think of can be shared. As far as simply texting is concerned I cannot possibly tally how many applications are available for that. “Hey, are you on Whatsapp?” is the new and less hazardous way of saying “Can I have your number?”. Yes sweetheart, you weren’t fooling anyone. Looks like the time isn’t far when there would be apps to keep track of your bowel movements and of the places you have pooped in! ("Whaaaaat? There’s an app for that already? Seriously what were they thinking!”)

Stand pretty much anywhere in the world and throw a stone and it is more than likely that it will hit one texting his significant other, his friends or in some cases his colleagues. This is a trend that has caught on with people irrespective of age or social stratum.

Are they making our lives better?  Of course they are! Okay humor me and let us assume they aren’t. Our addiction to texting has started making us miss out on the bigger picture. Remember the time when you used to send postcards and greetings on special occasions? No? Well, there was a time (not long ago) when people used to write heart warming letters,  have a proper conversation with the PERSON SITTING IN FRONT OF THEM  and their ‘cool quotient’ was not measured by their virtual world popularity. Not just that, this new on going trend has made it so much easier for people to find new ways to deceive others.

Why are we letting our virtual life get the better of us? I mean seriously people get a life! Go outside and ...... I will get back to you on that. Just got a ping on Whatsapp.

                                

A.T.T.E.N.D.A.N.C.E.

While leaving our homes to start our college lives what were our expectations? To live the best years of our life there with our new found freedom, perhaps date the hottest girl/guy of our college, have a cool quotient higher than our IQ’s and yes of course grab a job that would put our I-doubt-you-will-become-anything-in-life relatives to shame. They promised us that our life of hardship was over when we worked our asses off to get into good colleges and all we have to do now is enjoy life. Our lives were supposed to be like those Hollywood flicks where people go on cruises, fall in love, eat, drink, sleep and in the end discover another side of themselves and go on to lead a life of happily ever after.

Reality check – Two and a half years of college life later I have managed to somehow drag myself through the semesters and out of bed (only because I couldn’t persuade anyone to give my proxy) and yes most of the times I end up going to class looking like a homeless drug addict because it turns out the hottest guy of the college is dumb as a potato and the others are... well never mind. 

College life is undoubtedly fun. Night outs, parties, hanging out at new places everything is picture perfect. But that’s not what it is supposed to be all about right?  Forget the seminars they organize for us to attain a ‘deeper understanding’ of the subjects, we don’t even want to attend classes. How are we supposed to land good jobs when we end up mugging most of the subjects and the rest are left to the grace of the almighty?

“There is no substitute for hard work.”- Thomas Edison

We have been taught time and time again that to accomplish anything in life we have to work hard. Not that we aren’t willing to do so, but perhaps a little bit of encouragement coming our way will help us go the extra mile.  Professors, how about improving your teaching skills and motivating us to attend your classes in ways other than deliberately scaring us with “You will be debarred!”. Not saying you teachers aren’t knowledgeable but perhaps scaring us isn’t the best way to make us study. Some might say that we would end up not attending classes at all if we aren’t made to do so. Well, your statement is self explanatory about why things need to change. College life would be so much more fun if we didn’t have to dread classes and actually learned a thing or two there. Not to mention we wouldn’t be praying for you teachers to come down with diarrhea. Just kidding! And parents, seriously stop with the hypocrisy of just study for # years! This is a goddamn never ending circle! “We won’t pay your bills if you don’t study!” isn’t helping either.

Why do classes and attendance go hand in hand? Hoping someone out there will listen to our pleas and justice will be delivered.