Sunday, April 24, 2016

Communication ke side effects

One day, a mother daughter duo was walking down the road for an evening walk. The daughter looked preoccupied, so the mother asked her the problem.

"Oh nothing, much, just that we friends had an argument at school. Tanya is getting on everybody's nerves. Even the Class 9 girls hate her, make fun of her. Our class also tries to avoid her. But she continues to behave the same way.", said the daughter.

The mother could not understand the gravity of the matter, but her daughter's mood was enough for her to take the matter seriously. "What is the problem ? Why are senior class girls also having problems with Tanya ? Do you really interact with the Class 9 girls so much ? Why ? .... ", the list of questions seemed never to end.

The daughter forgot her main problem and started to think about answering all her mother's queries - what to answer, how to answer and most importantly - where to start etc. Tanya, her classmate, was quite a manipulative person, who cooked up stories about people and made their life complicated.

"So how does this affect you ?" quipped the mother.

"Well not directly, but I don't like her to harass others", replied the daughter.

"Why do you need to poke your nose in others' problems ?", the mother's remark was more of an advice or a question, left me confused.

"Oh ! that is why I don't tell you", the final decision from the daughter was not the first of its kind. Probably, most of us I made the same statement to our parents. The actual problem got totally sidelined and while communicating, the mother daughter actually faced a problem of communication gap.

Isn't this a side effect of communication - that of giving rise to more confusion or never ending discussion. People want to be heard and not listen to others, which possibly causes the communication side effects. Enjoy folks and learn to listen !

Happy Streets @ Kothrud

'Happy Steets' - an event started by Times of India on Sundays for the residents of various parts of Pune city; is some thing that every individual looks forward to. I was no different. I wanted to feel the event on all the 3 Sundays when it was first announced to take place in our area. The first day, I got up all refreshed and raring to go on the street upon hearing the loud music. 

The activities going on as part of the event ie zumba, cycling, football, skating, drawing etc added to the  energy of one and all. I was especially interested in zumba dance as it involved light exercise and dance movements; both. All youngsters were dancing away to glory and so I too joined them for enjoying the moment and coordinating the steps with the stage dancers. Though, I had little experience as a dancer and with two left feet, I enjoyed the jumping and movement. This activity proved to be refreshing for me as  I was required to keep up with the others and at the same time soak in the happiness all around.

Sure, people are happy happy to be part of happy streets as the streets provide for a vehicle free and relaxed sunday morning. 

Thursday, April 14, 2016

The Rodent in Us All



Image result for brown hamster

Our persistent efforts in identifying a perfect pet for our Pune flat, resulted in we bringing home a brown colored hamster; who soon became a family member. The day started with feeding him seeds and vegetables, before actually thinking of a breakfast for us. He brought us joy and excitement and showed us to be caring and careful towards a very small animal. His small size prompted us to keep him confined in a single room so that he would have a large area to roam about and allow us to be vigilante of his presence. 

At night, we would keep a large stock of sunflower seeds for him to take care of his needs for the night. And our hamster would greedily stuff the available eatables in his mouth; which would cause his mouth to actually swell. After finding a comfortable spot, he would dump his food store to see him through the night. No matter how less his requirement, his tendency to accumulate his food was greater. 

In fact, all rodents exhibit this behavior of storing food for the so called rainy day. 'Scrat', the ICE AGE movie squirrel has become quite a hero that comes up with crazy ideas and results while chasing his favorite food. The Mickey Mouse squirrels also are shown to be running after seeds and piling it into their house. In general, the rodent den in fields is full of grains and a nightmare for the farmers. 

The same tendency is present in us humans too. We tide over adverse situations by providing for our future needs. This need varies from person to person. Few people plan for the next meal, few for another month, few others probably plan for generations by having provisions that buy food. So the rodent in us drives us to accumulate, to intelligently store for future consumption. The problem accentuates when we cannot define our wants, but we accumulate more than our need, . The definition of need or want itself is abstract. The news of black money or Panama papers or any form of swindling is hardly a surprise, anymore. Blame it on the rodent in us.