Men are from SLRs, Women are from selfies

I had read about disasters caused with the whims of selfies, but had ignored it as usual social exaggeration. But after looking at the number of people indulging in selfies in so odd ways, I started realizing that it is not an overstatement at all. I don’t think any other social problem has affected the mental health of tech savvy population as severely as Selfie Obsession. I’m not going to argue if men take more selfies or woman. It is much more than just numbers because both men and women do it habitually these days. Of late, I’ve seen lots of female photographers travelling around with their DSLRs clicking stunning pictures. But photography has remained andro-centric to a large extent. On the other side, selfies are becoming gyno-centric and the female population is over dramatizing it.  With selfies, I’ve seen more occasions of narcissism displayed by women than men. Yeah! I said Narcissism because I’ve seen girls craving for selfies. It has become a decree among the group of teenage girls who endorse it. It has become the symbol of vanity for young women.

Add caption

This incident happened in Jaipur’s Jantar Mantar. I was busy trying to capture the best of the monument and beside me was a group of people. The guide, out of pure passion, was explaining the astronomical design principles of Indians in 17^th century and the affluence of ancient Hindu Sanskrit texts used in astronomy.  A lady in the group, out of blues, came to him and said “bhaiya ek minute ruko na please” (which translates to “please give us a minute”) and started searching something in her hand bag. I thought she was about to make notes. But to my surprise, she took out her phone, selfie stick and started taking selfies with other girls. I was shocked! I could not fathom how self obsessed and egocentric could she get. So much sham for just a pic of yours? I could not comprehend the fact that she has travelled thousands of miles to do nothing but take selfies. I just kept thinking; to what extent this selfie craze has rid humans of common sense.

Bipasha Basu with Pout selfie

In the same trip, the perturbation caused to me by my wife to take selfies was so much that my DSLR was just hanging in there for major part of the trip. From then on, I was just trying to keep a tab on things around me. Surprisingly, almost in every tourist attraction of Rajasthan, except the newlyweds and a “couple” of exception, the guys in the groups were trying to experiment with their cameras & mobile phones but the girls were busy taking selfies in whatsoever way. Back at home, when my other friends asked us how the trip was, my wife accused me of not taking enough selfies! By enough, she means posing and clicking until the perfect one is clicked. Her idea of a perfect Selfie is the one which is taken with everyone’s cranky and grumpy expression of utmost annoyance in order to make everyone look sexy and attractive. And if the place of interest is even faintly visible, that is great!

A popular meme on selfie narcissism by women

If you hate posing for selfies, you’d understand this. I don’t know what is more annoying than posing for selfies in public places. Taking a selfie is another thing altogether. At any given point of time, I can either make a face or concentrate. I am still trying to figure out how girls concentrate and smile at the same time easily. Most of the selfies posted on social media according to me is pretence. And the pretence comes with different filters to make it look even more pretence. Selfies by female celebrities with pout has reached all time heights. Damsels posting selfies with taglines like “hating me doesn’t make you pretty” and “phew.. I thought I wasn’t pretty anymore” are pretty common on my Instagram feed.

Posing for selfie isn't easy

I am trying my best not to be gender biased. But just look around and closely observe the female selfie enthusiasts. We all have that one girl in the group who changes whatsapp DP every day. A woman’s make-up time has increased because of selfies, says a survey. Do you know that selfies have sent sale of make-up kits soaring in the UK? Isn’t it is very apparent that selfie obsession can be correlated to all the possible narcissistic qualities in a woman; Vanity, cocky, self admiration and excessively conceited? Trying to be cocky in public places is totally annoying. I’ve seen that they scoff at the notion of Dos and Don’ts and continue taking selfies. The amount of vanity they exhibit… Ugh! Both on social media and real time, too much of vanity is utterly irksome. The internet is full of stories like “people who died tragically taking selfies”, “selfie accidents” and “selfie disasters”.  I truly believe that these are just the consequences of narcissism reaching dangerous levels.

Selfie while driving can be very dangerous!

It doesn’t come as a surprise to me that Russian internal ministry released a “selfie safety guide”. Tourism departments across the world are adding selfie sticks to the “Not allowed” category. I’m not saying that we should stop taking selfies. If you like it, please do it. Occasional selfies are good. Even deviating from the standard social custom and defining your own uber-cool is also acceptable. But please watch out. There are more modest things that you could have done at the moment instead of taking a selfie. Your social media feeds are not for yourself. It is watched by virtuous people too and you need to respect them. Mothers who take selfies everywhere are unknowingly teaching their kids nonsense. Imperfection at times is okay and that also is a way of life. You are not obligated to tell the world, from a restroom, that you look sexy. There are better places to do that. Please be wary and take heed. Because…..

Your self respect is always of a high decorum compared to your Selfie respect. 

Image credits: indiatimes, pinterest and time

A million dollar question

I thought the whole of my mind’s capacity is immense and I always believed that emotionally, I’m a very strong man. But from past couple of weeks, my emotional weakness has intensified within me and I’ve started to know and feel things that I’ve never known or felt before. I’m trying to refuse to venture into the thought that I’ve conceded defeat, but I’m not able to fight it. I’ve never seen deaths in my family/friends circle, I’ve never seen anyone experience hardship and physical agony this hopelessly. My granny is on death bed from a few weeks and this is the source of my disturbance.

Good old days of my Grandma

For the records, she is 93 and is an Alzheimer’s disease patient from past couple of years. She was fit and fine, she used to read The Deccan Herald everyday and with her little insights to what is happening around, she used to tell me how messed up the world is, today. Things changed slowly; she lost control over her memory, she started hallucinating and could recall only things from past. But all that was still fine with us because we, at home, were quite used to her absentmindedness and were pretty much accustomed to her awkward behavior. In fact, at times, when every other person in the family retaliated to her violent behavior (she was really uncontrollable sometimes), I nonchalantly disregarded it. Things have changed so much in the past few months. She is lying there, in the corner of a room, just breathing. She is making an attempt to speak something but none of us are able to make any sense of it. She is not recognizing any of us. Her hands and legs have crumbled being in the same position; her motor functions are reduced by more than 90%. She has bed sores over her back. She’s going through an absolute realm of pain & suffering and she is not even able to express it. Imagine how relentless it is that if a housefly sits on her nose, she has to make peace with it instead of shooing it away!

With grandchildren, on her 90th birthday

In the midst of it, a good number of my grandmother’s kin are visiting my home out of purest form of reverence and compassion, for the sweet and adorable lady that my granny was through her life. Majority of them talk about how active she was during the prime of her life. One of my cousins had nick named her “The Mask” because she was so swift that she used to get coffee from the kitchen like a whirlwind.  Some are making desperate attempts to show that they also care by pretending to sham and offer help. And of course there those one hundred percent pure assholes too who are more interested in watching Kannada soaps than empathizing with us for what happened. I don’t know if she can hear at all; because if she really does, she would regret having met these people in her life for the rest of her life. Very few are compassionate and offering every bit of help they could, in monetary and sensitive terms, to extend her death and keep her alive.

We have hired a caretaker to look after her. A paramedic comes home every week to assess her health. We are all doing our best to keep her alive. But I think this is exactly what is making me very poignant. “Are we extending the duration of her suffering by trying to keep her alive?” I tried to discuss this with senior citizens of the family. Some quoted Gita and talked about “karma” or “soul” and others gave reference to some gradation called “taaratamya”. I don’t have much insight into these. I am trying to convince myself by thinking that what they say may be true. The fact that they have seen more deaths and they don’t seem to get unbalanced by this at all, really surprise me.

A few days before she was bedridden

I’ve always seen people offering prayers for someone to get well. We’ve always been taught to hope for other’s wellbeing. But here I am, standing, praying to god to do exactly the opposite. I don’t know if I am responding more emotionally than is justified or assessing too highly of the scenario; I’ve been pondering over this for some time. The more I think, the more I realize that death is the most complicated thing I’ve ever come across in my life so far.

Every time when I am home, when I sit by her side, feeding her food, when I look at her crumbled legs and hands, this question boggles my brain: Should we continue to take good care of her which will only prolong her suffering or should we stop being so conscientious and put an end to her suffering early and be culpable and guilty for the rest of our lives? This, trust me, is a million dollar question!

I’m badly trying to restore some sanity to my brain!

An open letter to Salman Khan

Dear Salman Khan,

Nope, I’m not calling you BHAI because I don’t want to insult the virtuous association of male fraternity. By now, it might have become a habit for to you to think that you are above the law. It is so natural; thanks to your fiddle-faddle characters in movies and of course the judgment favoring you. Congratulations. Enjoy your rich secular legacy. But please come back to reality and be reminded of the fact that Indian judicial system does not need advice and opinions from a criminal who is set free. Your pointing finger at Yakub Memon’s HANG decision has no face value at all.

It appears to me that you’ve forgotten everything about the Indian Judicial system. Itni Jaldi? Kamaal hai yaar. Let me remind you that it is one of the best in the world which promises a fair trial to everyone. India is one of the few countries in the world which believes in the “innocent until proven guilty” premise. We’ve fed Biriyani to a terrorist for 4 continuous years and have also set free a drunkard bad ass celebrity who killed innocent people and shot some endangered species, just for fun. 

Salman as Cop in a movie

 Also, please educate yourself and your followers that court verdicts by judges are not like writing your movie reviews and punishments are not like those 4 stars you always get for your movies. In other words, judges are not Taran Adarshs’ of the judiciary who can write reviews the way YOU want it. . Please come out of such preconceived notions, if you have. Stop defending the traitors and learn to respect the judiciary, at least for all the good it has done to your career and life.

Just because the prime accused Tiger Memon and Yakub Memon are brothers, you assumed that the latter is innocent? I must say that your love for BHAI ism is a way too filmy.  Even on morality grounds, you should be the last person to talk about court’s decision.  And for god’s sake, please do not bring the Being Human and your wholesome NGO shit everywhere; Keep it to yourself. Other than your follower bhaijaans, there are no takers of your crocodile tears.  

Salman Khan's tweets on Yakub Memon

You’ve tweeted that it involves a man’s family. But where was your extremely concerned Being Human emotion when 300 people who lost their lives because of Yakub’s unpatriotic acts? Why couldn’t your heart feel for the 1400+ people who were injured? What about their family? Let me remind you Mr. Salman that it is the same judiciary that got you bail within 2 hours after your arrest in the hit and run case. And you’re criticizing it and telling it what to do today? Waah!

We respect the court, the law and its decisions. We feel victimized when we see terrorists and perpetrators who killed innocents amongst us are not even tried from past 25 years. Even more so when murderers like you support other murderers by giving open statements like this. For the same reason, you’re nothing more than a criminal in front of our eyes. I just hope that our judiciary will never come to a situation where it would need advices from a felonious citizen like you. PERIOD

Tourist in my own city-5: Naaganatheswara temple

Every day I travel from Bangalore city to electronics city (pun intended). You’ve no idea how exasperating it is to cross silk board junction, if you haven’t experienced it by yourself. I have vented out my frustration on silk board traffic by means of innumerable Facebook status and tweets. But yesterday was different. I had not envisaged that a day will come where I’ll be all excited about crossing silk board. The reason: I was visiting a small village alongside Hosur road called “Begur” which had made it to the headlines. Thanks to the excavation of an old inscription on a piece of rock in the 1000 year old “Naganatheswara” temple. Etched on the inscription is the phrase which caught my attention.

“Bengaluru kalaghadhol buttana setti sattam” (In kannada “ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು ಕಾಳಗಧೊಳ್ ಬುಟ್ಟಣ ಶೆಟ್ಟಿ ಸತ್ತಂ”) ^*1 It translates to English as “In the Battle of Bangalore, Buttana Setti died”.

About the temple

This Shiva temple with two gopuras (monumental towers) is said to be at least 1100 years old. It is constructed during the reign of Cholas. The main sanctum sanctorum has a shivalinga idol inside and a Nandi outside, as it is seen all the other Shiva temples of yesteryears. Localites worship Shiva with the name Nageshwara and/or Naganatheshwara.

Two gopuras - View from east

Interestingly the design and architecture of this thousand year old “Naganatheshwara temple” is entirely synonymous with the architecture of Gangaikonda Cholapuram, a small town in Tamil nadu, the then Capital of Cholas. Apparently, the Cholas ruled south India during 11^th century AD and the inscription found in the Naganatheshwara temple in Begur also dates back to around same time period, according to epigraphists.

Bengaluru war

One of the hero stones found at the temple site, veeragallu, as we call it in the vernacular language has the inscription in which the reference to “Bangalore War” is made in old kannada (haLeGannada). According to epigraphist R Narasimhachar, the inscription dates back to circa 890 AD ^*2. The inscription is also entered into the “Epigraphia Carnatica” a book on epigraphy on old Mysore (now Karnataka) regions written by B L Rice.

What it means to Bangalore

Until now, the evidence of the existence of a place called “Bengaluru” was available only with the onset of ruler Kempegowda II in early 1500s. But with this inscription, the earliest existence of namma Bengaluru dates back to 890 AD. Not only this, this inscription has also raised questions on the authenticity of the theories that describe how Bengaluru got its name. Historians are revisiting the “Benda-Kalooru”, “bengaval-ooru” theories. Although the complete history of Bengaluru city is still nondescript, excavations like this has helped give a new past to namma Bengaluru. Historians and archaeologists are working on extricating the city’s history.

On one hand, with so much of political apathy, bad governance and millions of uninviting civic problems, Bangalore’s future looks dismal. On the other hand, with such excavations, Bangalore’s past is getting more enriching and enthralling. In a classical sense, the past is giving Bangalore its true identity. Let us hope that future will hold on to it.

*1 – Article on Hindu Newspaper http://www.thehindu.com/features/friday-review/history-and-culture/a-citys-secrets-etched-in-stone/article3254183.ece

* 2 – Nagesvara temple in Belur - Wikipedia 

This article originally appeared on Huffingtonpost. Read it here

Tourist in my own city-4: Nagrath Pete

My gastronomical expedition has no bounds. And that is exactly what brings me and thousands of other Bangaloreans to Nagarath Pete. Although I’m slightly inclined towards a healthy and hygienic diet of late, I’ve never really gone very far from it. I’ve always believed that authentic taste of a certain locality can never be mastered by the wannabe intercontinental chefs. Also since it is equally about namma Bengaluru, I’ve kept my acidity apprehension at bay and come here to give my taste buds a royal treat.

Of late, there is streetfood uprising seen in namma Bengaluru. There’s one in Shivajinagar, Rajajinagar and so many other areas. But other than VVpuram Food Street, the one which has managed to remain in the spotlight for ages is the Nagarath pete street food. Some even say that Nagarath pete street food is older than VV Puram.

Anyone who is familiar with Pete area knows that to get there on a car is almost impossible. And I’ve done my route homework properly for it is so easy lose track and get lost in the gullies of Pete area even when you are taking a walk. After many criss cross junctions, we finally arrive at the Nagarath Pete Food Street.

The constellation of people surrounding Mani’s cart is increasing every minute. As I take pictures, Mani smiles, shies away and gets busy with his chores. I take just a couple of pics and realize that I cannot wait anymore to gobble the refreshments on his cart. I quickly keep the camera inside and order “Ond Masale Dose” as it is called. The tawa is filled with dosa batter swiftly and pure ghee from Nandini refill pack is spouted on top of dosa from a distance. With more people waiting to taste the dosas, the cycle repeats with better speed and better accuracy.

Mani - a very busy man

The guy next to me is worried about his Brand new Hyundai Elantra being parked in one of the gullies of Avenue road. His girlfriend is consoling him that right now satisfying your hunger pangs is more important. I chuckle mildly contemplating that a Bangalorean’s love for food is beyond the social stratification dimensions. Surprisingly to me, looking at a diet fanatic lady like my wife gourmanding on Idlies and ghee rich dosas back to back speak volumes about the palate of Nagrath pete Food Street. I start off with spongy soft idly and spicy chutney, repeat it and then move on to Masala Dosa and idly again.

Idly and dosas, mouth watering chutney

My stomach is more than full now but the creamy Badam milk container is attracting me towards Murthy Kashi’s cart. It is too hard to resist. Before I say anything, my wife orders for all of us and the Badam milk with malai, cashew and badam topping is served hot. The creamy flavour of Badam is felt in every sip. Murthy kashi says he has been doing this for living from past 21 years. He also serves other varieties of sweet savouries but my stomach has already thrown “No space left on the disk” error.

Murthy Kashi's Badam milk with Kesar topping

I’m more than contented that this long pending visit has finally worked out. But the other side of me is not satisfied that I couldn’t try the Chitranna (lemon rice), Fafda, Jalebi, Bombay Sandwich, Vada Pav and so many other delicacies. I convince myself that I’ll come back soon again and force myself out of Nagrath Pete. As I take a turn to reach Avenue Road, a famous Spanish Proverb reverberates in my mind.

“A full stomach makes a happy heart”

This article originally appeared on Huffingtonpost. For complete article click here

Tourist in my own city-3: Lal Bagh

The wreckage that has happened to namma Bengaluru’s green cover is a misadventure. The media swapping the city’s tag to “Garbage city” is heartbreaking. Today, it is hard for my friends to believe when I say that just a decade ago summer in Bangalore used to be a warm 30 degree Celsius. It was not out of blues that Bangalore once was called as “garden City”; there were a thousand reasons for it. But the primary reason could be absolutely nothing other than this two century old abode of flora called Lal bagh.

It was after a decade that I walked inside Lalbagh with a camera in hand, clicked pictures and came back home. But I had no idea of its exuberance, its history, its chronicles and great human beings who made Lalbagh happen, until I started exploring its past. I’m sure most of us, just like I did, think of Lalbagh as just a century old huge green park. Here’s my attempt to get to the roots and provide substantiation, which I feel, every true Bangalorean definitely deserve to know.

Origin

Lalbagh is of royal origin. Hyder Ali, having the Moghul taste for gardens, is acknowledged to be the founder of Lalbagh. But very few know that Hyder Ali planned Lalbagh at Bangalore principally on the model of “Khan Bagh”, an impressive garden in Sira (near Tumkur), developed by Dilawar Khan, the Moghul emperor’s south representative. Dr. Francis Buchanan, in his book ^*1 has written that the taste of Hyder Ali accorded more with English. His evening walks alongside the Cypress trees were wider and he enjoyed it. It is also said that before it was named as Lalbagh, it was called as the “Cypress Garden” ^*2

*2 View of LalBagh, painted by Robert Home

Development

Somewhere in 1760s, Hyder Ali chose 34 acres of land on the east of the Kempegowda tower. He procured seeds and plants from varied places like Kabul, Persia, Turkey, Lahore and Multan. Tamil speaking gardeners from the community of “Thigalars” were brought from the neighborhood to look after the gardens. This explains why we find the “Thigalar” community people in abundance in Bangalore today.

After Hyder Ali, Tippu Sultan extended the garden by acquiring more land. Tippu imported Pine and oak plants from Cape of Good Hope^*3 and other exotic plants and seeds from Mauritius and Africa. Two old mango tress said to have been planted during his time is still seen in Lal Bagh. He also appointed Mohammed Ali and Abdul Khader as Daroga (Chief Gardner). Tippu improved the gardens to a greater extent even as late as in 1798; he obtained plants and seeds from the Isle of France. Thus Lal Bagh grew to be a house of rare tropical and sub-tropical plants.

After British invasion, Lal Bagh became a property of East India Company. On 27^th February 1836, Sir. Mark Cubbon transferred its ownership to the Agri horticultural society, Mysore. By August 1856, Lal Bagh became a government botanical garden and in 1881, it was passed into the hands of Maharaja of Mysore. Under the state government, the garden area was more than doubled. 22 acres in 1888, 8 acres in 1890 and again in 1889-90, 30 acres of land were purchased. By the end of the century, Lal Bagh was a whopping 120 acres of mesmerizing Fauna!

Zoo at Lal Bagh

There were also proposals to make Lal Bagh, a combination of Zoo and Garden to increase the number of visitors. In 1862, it had a Black Panther, a couple of bird species, a few tigers and Kangaroos. Few hundreds of deers were also brought into the zoo. It is also said that an Orangutan was quite popular @ the Lal Bagh’s Zoo.  A pigeon house with 100 pair of pigeons was built. The plague of 1899 had a very bad effect on the Menagerie and the aviary. By 1900, the number of animals and birds was reduced to 60 and all these were later transferred to the Mysore Zoo.

The Glass-House

Flower shows were conducted by the Agri-Horticultural society right from the beginning. Flower shows at Lal Bagh dates back to 1867. In 1888, John Cameron, the then superintendent of Government gardens, proposed for the construction of Glass House for the purpose of holding horticultural shows. Designed originally on the lines of Crystal palace in England, it was completed in 1890 at a cost of 75000 Rs. Crystal palace was burnt to ashes in a fire accident, but the “Glass House” has remained a marvelous structure, symbolizing the development of Horticulture and reminding the Englishmen of their lost monumental glory.

Glass House @ Dusk

Lal Bagh rock and Lake

The great plate of south India is called as “Gondwana land”, which is one of the oldest formations on earth. Dating back to about 3000 million years! A rare exposure of this antiquity can be seen at the Lal Bagh, in the form of a rock hill. The geologists term this rock as peninsular gneiss. Perched on top of this rock is one of the four cardinal towers, as border of namma Bengaluru city built by Kempegowda in 1537.

Tower of Bangalore on top of The LalBagh rock

People who made “Garden City”

Today, Bangalore and it’s amazing green cover is what it is because of a numerous gentlemen who nurtured it with love, passion and care. I’ve tried really hard to collect the details of some of the key men who are remembered for their below mentioned deeds, without which this post would’ve been incomplete.

John Cameron – enriched the plant wealth of Lal Bagh by giving it a numerous exotic plant species, many of which later assumed the status of commercial crops. The famous Bangalore Blue Grapes, Gauva, Mulberry are just a few. Glass house is his brain child

G H Krumbiegal – was requested by Krishnaraja Wodeyar, as a successor to John Cameron, to raise the reputation of Lal Bagh, by introducing economic farming, methodic development of horticulture on commercial scale from Lal bagh. It is also noteworthy that Brindavan garden at KRS was established during his time.

H C Javaraya – Rao Bahaddur HC JAvaraya, an able successor to Krumbigal, is credited with the development of Bangalore city as “Garden city”. The full credit of starting a fruit orchard @ Lal Bagh, erecting the eastern wing of the Glass house, Lotus pond, Government Fruit research station at Hessarghatta are some of his achievements

Dr. M H Marigowda – A key man in the horticulture department of Karnataka. A Ph. D in Botany from Harvard, started as many as 380 farms and nurseries in Bangalore. He also set up soil testing and seed testing labs @ Lal Bagh, also introduced exotic species of Flora to Lal Bagh and elevated Karnataka to a “Horticultural” rich state.

Flower show inside the Glass house

For over a century, this elegant garden is standing as a symbol and testimony of floral richness. From 34 acres to a present 240 acres of roaring green cover, every acre has its own story to tell. To me, the fact that it is in the very heart of namma Bengaluru makes it even merrier. I wish that the long cherished legacy of Lal Bagh will continue forever and bring further prosperity and happiness to namma Bengaluru’s feat!

*1 – Book “A Journey from Madras: Through the Countries of Mysore, Canara, and Malabar by Dr. Francis Buchanan

*2 – Painted by Robert Home, British oil portrait painter. Found in British Library website

*3 – The early long history of Lal Bagh – By Dr. Suryanath U Kamath – Former Chief Editor: Karnataka Gazetteer

Above all, special thanks to some of colleagues of Horticultural department, for understanding my inevitabilities and catering to thousands of my inquiries wholeheartedly.

Photo credits: Thamizh Ezhil Murali, Wiki and of course myself J

Pro tips for friends who are getting married

I woke up to a whopping 65 anniversary wishes on WhatsApp. A friend who got married just before me celebrated first anniversary which reminded me that it has been almost a year since I lost my bachelorhood. I’m tensed. The “what to gift wife for the first anniversary” trepidation is slowly pitching in (Please text me if you have ideas that has worked). So I’m taking a transient detour from the Tourist In my own city series and writing this.

Frankly, I was very much apprehensive before marriage. Even the thought of post marriage left me with a wicked onset of social anxiety and a weird, unexplainable exasperation. People in my close circle always said that I’m a responsible man and you’ll be alright. But I couldn’t agree a bit. Today, I’m indeed a very happy man. But the transition from being a happy go lucky, careless bloke to a man of responsibilities has not been a smooth ride! I somehow, have successfully reached a position where I can proudly say that “I’m the boss in this house (And I have my wife’s permission to say so)” ;)

With many of my closest friends getting ready for marriage and I being the senior with almost a year of “marriage” experience, have realized that there’s a funny edge to it too. And I firmly believe that there is no delight in owning anything unshared. So here are some of the pro tips to all my buddy maklus who are getting married.

Never, ever say “I have good news”

I once got a chance to represent my company in one of the conferences abroad. Just like any other husband/son; I naturally said “I have good news”. I wasn’t aware of the fact that definition of “good news” after marriage is the “you know what it is” good news in Indian context. When my mom and granny came to know what the actual (good?) news is, they felt so disheartened (is that all… types), that nobody spoke to me for next couple of days.

Make a point in your mind; after marriage, even if you win a lottery worth million dollars or become the CEO of a company, IT IS NOT GOOD NEWS.

Say “YES” to dowry

This is one of the biggest mistakes I did. I was a gentleman (or I thought so) and didn’t even bring the topic of dowry up. Result was devastating. The amount of time and effort spent by me to get my wife some of the basic necessities to lead a happy life; I can write a book on it titled “My Life.. My wife & My Struggles”. Just because I did not stand up for my rights, I had to take a lot of pain.

So friends, never ever say NO to dowry. Don’t struggle after marriage. After all, dowry is for her own good. Don’t have a second thought in your mind and ASK for these basic necessities as dowry.

•     Passport with at least 8 years of validity.
•       Address proof (YOUR HOME only)
•        Marriage certificate
•       Her Bank account transferred to your nearest branch (This takes priority if she’s from another city)

Say it.. If you love your car

For all of us who didn’t have girl-friends before marriage, we all can’t enamour enough of our own car. Well, that’s before marriage story. After marriage, your wife, with the purest intentions of learning how to drive, will whip it like a bullock-cart, whack it and drives it through the mire. According to her, it is perfectly normal because she is learning how to drive. But that’s different. You’ll feel like driving to a lonely place, hug your car and shed tears to the max. But you can’t do this because you’ll have to accompany her too.

Take a chance. Say that you love your car and make her understand that cars at driving school are exclusively made to take all the hits and bumps from women*.

*Consequences at your own risk

Color skepticism

We could recognize a maximum of 7 colors. But after marriage, you’ll see so many shades of the same color that it is pretty normal that you’ll get skeptical and tackle this question to death. “Do those many shades of the same color (especially the shades of PINK) exist in reality?”

You may argue with Hue, Tint, shade, saturation and other physics and chromatic terminologies, but the actual weightage will be given to 99 colors of TVS Scooty and nail enamels. Prepare to lose arguments on ethical grounds, even though you are technically correct.

The matching paradigm

You remember those good old days in college how we celebrated if two of us wore the same “Man U” tees? It seems we were wrong. That is a taboo. According to girls, if two people are wearing the same attire, then it is as humiliating as your country’s Human Development Index is coming drastically down. Not only that; If her hair band is green, then having her vanity bag, shoe buckle, nail color, watch strap and the mobile flip cover also in green is considered high self-esteem.

For your own good, to avoid clash and confusion, accept the matching rationale.

Find an answer

And lastly, Being in IT, this is probably the most difficult question you will HAVE to answer after Fourier Transformations in college days: “Did you marry me or this computer”? Please let me know if the answer you said was considered satisfactory by your better half.

If you learn to handle these “fundamentally” important things, the smaller things like the need for 20 pair of sandals, the need for chivalry, her mood swings and why she is always right will take care of itself. As a great man once said “…And they lived happily ever after is not a fairytale. It is a choice”.

Welcome to the club and I wish you guys a very happy married life.