Mirror mirror on the wall...

Mirror mirror on the wall, whose the fairest of them all? I wish there was a truthful mirror!

This has bothered me since A WHILE - been addicted to getting dressed in my own room, I'd be convinced that I look presentable to go out but then a glance into another mirror on the way, in the car, my compact etc would leave me wondering- well I did not look this way at home.

I know the blah scientific reasons behind it- the light merely falling at its own whims in a direction available to it makes me look however it wants! The question remains - which one to believe? Is my dressing room mirror saying the truth about my appearance or just mocking me saying - ahh you think you look good huh? Nevertheless it can also be the other way round (very rarely) that you go somewhere and the mirror there makes you look prettier than the one loyal to you.

It sort off makes me think of how acquaintances are. Acquaintances to be clear are those people in my life who I know as much as I would like to know them. Their behavior is very much like the deceiving mirror theory according to me. At a certain outing/party they might be right next to you gleaming pretending like they were born to be sitting on that table next to you but at another they might be ridiculing you while you're away! So ye, that is the reason I say - which face to believe?

I'm sure most of you reading this would relate to the mirror theory. The funny part was that one of my real close friends once getting ready with me for a party said - I know we look great but maybe only within the vicinity of this mirror! And I was so relieved that someone out there feels the same way as I do. Its very much like the time when in school our teacher's nails would accidentally scratch the blackboard and I would feel really icky but couldn't see others being bothered. Till fairly long I used to believe there is something very wrong in my system to be feeling that way.

So if anyone does have a solution, please share - which mirror to believe or which face to slap ;)

Reward for obedience

 What is the reward for obedience? To be honest - nothing.

Rebellion at least gets you attention, hate or even jealousy but obedience just makes you the foolish little person stuck in the middle.
Since childhood, I can proudly (or maybe not) say that I have been an epitome of abiding to whatsoever I've been told. In 3rd standard, my mum acquired measles during my final exams and she said I wouldn't be able to help you, I sighed and said okay.  I can imagine if a few rebellious friends/cousins reacting to the same situation in somewhat this way - WHAT, how am I going to pass? I think I shouldn't give the exam! Or even I need a tutor now now now. And guess they'd even get it because they're parents would be so scared to take the tantrums.

Honestly my parents never bothered with all the tantrums and hence, me having any was worthless. When mums were running around kids forcing them to eat, my mum said - if you're hungry, you eat. If you're not, you let everyone else eat. What would an ignored child in a situation like that do? Well, eat!

The case has been no different when I had to be taken for formal dinners, unknown shaadis or even children's Birthday parties. My brother would say - don't even think about asking me and I just nodded. Guess who was caught in between aunties and uncles- ME.

I wouldn't stand giving up on and didn't listen to anyone when it came to education and well, love. From forging my dad's signature for funding papers to not telling anybody that Manipal was a twinning program- I think I have left no 'kasar' (as they say in punjabi) in taking advantage of the fact that everybody assumes that I wouldn't go against them! So although you can bend the rules but incessant obedience will take you nowhere close to living your life to the fullest. 

Sulking often?

Do we ever really grow up? The answer according to me is No. We don't grow up, we just start sulking about the things that we didn't want to change over the course of time. 

My mum tells me when I was  about 4 and used to attend a play school close to my house, I would sneakily check what my mum had pulled out to wear for that day and if it was that particular yellow embroidered sweater, I would wake up in seconds and get ready. Else, I could take anything from a few candies to several excuses to head to school. Things don't seem to have changed much, still when I have to rush to work and my favorite top isn't back from dry cleaning, I would just sulk and get going. Of course the bribes have escalated and are offered to self rather than my mum! 

The tastes that I have developed have been due to the kind of childhood I had, the person I am is because of the kind of childhood I had, the colors I like, the fears that I have, the people I adore, the hate list I built - all have something to do with the period when I was a kid. And the things I particularly don't get according to what I have expected all this while, disappoint me. When we are young, we think - I'll be old, I'll be married (or not), I'll have flawless skin, I'll have everything figured out blah blah… Seeing many people close to me, taking a leap of faith with marriage I feel they are still the same! Then what qualifies us to be old, married or in love? Honestly NOTHING! 

I often ponder - when we're older or on our own the freedom is immense! Does that do us apart? Responsibility they say is the unfortunate belonging that is given to us over time. How many of us really embrace it? Not me. Not yet. 

some day some father thought

How far does hierarchy extend its wrath? Heavy yes, but I keep wondering what if hierarchy was a virtue in the non-living. Will they also breathe qualities of vanity and pride just like humans do?

Designations; mere words matter so much to so many. Funny enough; yesterday while I was traveling, I saw this lighting switches advert which read as follows - Lighting India (with Gateway of India being lit by their switches). I started thinking if positions mattered so much then would the switch lighting a monument/ valuable building have superiority over the switches in my house? Or or even the switch lighting the lamps of my house's exterior feel inferior to the ones lighting the master bedroom? After all rules are simple. Your job defines how you are perceived by the society and for some the way you are defined in the society defines how you feel about yourself.

According to me, hierarchy is just yet another attempt of man to bring order to chaos. Humans cannot stand something that is not controlled by them or defined by their rules. Organisation is still a very minute factor, it hasn't taken a lot of effort for man to immediately define constellations, seasons, time etc to curb them to his own advantage. Hierarchy is pretty much the same for my thought process, some day some father thought - if I die as the head of this kingdom, no one would remember me if I don't leave behind an heir and ofcourse the way I have spoiled him he wouldn't at all get a job! Simple and now people talk about their lineages!

You like my page, I love yours!

It has always indeed been about give and take and I have learned this much too soon in the work I have entered.

It is simple: You make your business fb page, invite tons of people to view it (because it is like your baby), some loyal will appreciate it, some snooty will watch the page get appreciation (while being very active on Facebook in other things like farmville blah blah)

I have never felt any sort of detachment from appreciating unless of course you send me something that is hideous/beyond my understanding. But while dealing with what they call social inbound marketing I have seen chameleon-like standards of a lot of people. The best part being, only a few realise that it is actually really obvious.

So being in the new age where start ups are THE thing for obvious reasons like "dude the job market sucks" or "I can't work for someone, DUH" or even " My dad wanted to invest somewhere so I started doing something" or even " the entrepreneur in me was shouting loud!". Whatever the reason might be, the start up scenario is doing so well for so many people and also for the social media which has a prime role in upfront marketing.

An engineer by profession , I had no clue about marketing; forget trying to work in this field for a start up! No brainer being: Start small, try to grow bigger if not come back to small! So started my self-induced tutorials on online social media marketing. Made me realise: OKAY so you have to please others for them to take interest in you. Really? Dubious natures revealed. You have no idea about what I am doing, no clue about the business, absolutely no clear interest in it but you follow my page because 26 days earlier I followed yours. Simple.

It led me to my unopened messages in the inbox. SO MY SO AND SO IS STARTING SO AND SO AND I WOULD LIKE YOU (my best-est of the best-est friends) TO LIKE SO AND SO. Tons of messages like that and to prove my aforesaid point you know what I did and you know what happened right after. Wow in my whole engineering lab work I had never seen results that soon and that too with such a simple procedure. I thought to myself, this was easy. And learned further this is how things are done in REAL life too. So man (more like Mark) created social media, we created businesses on social media, social media taught us how to market our business and all we did was please others. Convenient.

I have come to a little handbook marketing note of mine, if you can convince any random man that what you are selling is equivalent to gold even though you know it is rubber (with the potential of becoming gold of course) then you have won the race my friend. But if you did not work to make it gold, well then you are not my friend!

WikiHow

http://www.wikihow.com/Start-a-Scrapbooking-Club#Steps

New Year Hustle: Worth it? NOT

Yes, its 2012. To be honest, time flew by so fast; I was still getting used to writing 2011 in the date format. I don't know how others feel about our journey around the sun but I believe that its almost become a figure of speech to say that this year flew by so fast. This year, that year, that month, this week.

I keep wondering; why do we need to know that its 2012? To enter it as yet another era we ruined?
Whatever we say, I just think it gives us immense pleasure to find reasons to define everything. I remember the hustle about 11.11.11. My lord, I can't forget what my dad said. He's like why are you guys going crazy about this particular date? I said papa because it'll never come again. He said something that I initially revolted against and eventually thought of myself. He said you live through every date and it never ever comes again, even the most insignificant numbers won't come again. Then why don't we go crazy everyday!

I personally wish this whole time concept wasn't ever discovered. Why couldn't we just live one long journey? Why is that the day is split in two? Why can't we all define how ever long we want our day to be?
Actually at least our generation is working towards this thought of mine. Clear example being, while I am wide awake by 8am and call it morning; my friend wakes up at 3pm and his morning isn't any different (with a lot more taunts of course) .I can totally get it why he gets shocked when someone says: "beta itni late uth re ho?"

As far as he is as productive as any other person is in his own working hours, I find it uncalled for to say that he wakes up at the wrong time of the day! Why stick to conventions? After all the same 9 am task that seems early morning to me is late night for him!

I watched a documentary once that explained how the daily 24hours time period is getting shortened(by infinitely small amounts) day by day. I think if they would have read this piece earlier, they wouldn't have to invest billions of dollars in recording this difference in the length of the day when actually no one is sticking to it. Ofcourse with all due respect to them trying to figure out whatever they were trying to because although I watched the whole damn piece, I did not have a clear view of what they were attempting to prove. Clearly my iq levels were no where close to what they had in mind.

Also, I forgot the endless amount of scary videos/articles I have ventured into especially during exam time about 2012 being the end of the world. I still remember not being able to finish the syllabus for the next day's examination and consoling ourselves that how does it matter even if we score really well, we are all dying anyway! And then randomly a few days earlier, I see Washington post with the article: "Scientists say 2012 will not be the end of the world"

really? REALLY? You think we are so stupid to believe you all the time?

Considering they are called SCIENTISTS and we are called "facebook washington post application users", we are stupid! So stupid that we have spent hours making websites, blogs, even planning doom's day parties because these very SCIENTISTS said the world would end!