Take Time to Smell the Roses ..(In Memorandum)

Whenever I heard or read that statement, I said to myself well sure, roses, I do take the time, I know what they smell like don't I?

The recent tragic loss of a friend however put things into perspective. Amol Chauhan, a friend from high-school, died tragically in a plane crash..he was 28! Given, we were never close friends and had lost touch over time, but the bonds you create in school cannot easily be washed away with time, all 300 of us (yes 300 students in our graduating class of '95) shared 10-13 years of our lives together, we learnt the same things, dreamt the same dreams, shared the same aspirations.

At 28, I figure, Amol, like each of us had plans for his future and was busy working on realizing them, he like each of us, had unfulfilled dreams and unspoken ideas designed to take him and his career places. I can only hope, that unlike me at least, he never got so busy in working towards his goals that he forgot why he set those goals in the first place.

In retrospect, I find that my approach towards life needs tweaking. Here I was so engrossed in the rat-race , in the game of survival of the fittest I was so busy striving to be the fittest of them all, that I never really did take the time to smell the proverbial roses.

I'm not promoting any life-altering changes here, I believe at this point in time and at this age, it is important for us to concentrate on our careers, to achieve all that we set out to achieve and to set ourselves high goals. However, I'm suggesting that one of those goals should now also be to live life to its fullest every single day, and that includes letting our loved ones know we love them and to do the things that we've been putting off to tomorrow today!

For my part, I hugged my surprised husband a little tighter today, I called home and spoke to my parents for hours and hours and finally..on my way home, I stopped by the local flower shop and walked in, taking in the enchanting fragrances that overwhelmed me, I stopped at a bouquet of Roses and took a deep breath..and oh my god! they smelled lovely.

In Memory of Amol - Son, Husband and Friend. May his Soul Rest in Peace

The Fat and Thin of it!

According to Darwin's Theory : it took millions and millions of years of evolution for us to get where we are today. I wonder how much longer will it take for the average Indian mind to advance (sociologically mind you not intellectually).

The average Indian mindset is still bogged down by seemingly inconsequential issues like who's thinking what of me and what will people say if I do or don't do this and that. Married women are still rated in terms of how well/how much they cook or how much they can clean and not how well they may be doing in their careers.Men are still considered to be breadwinners even when their wives might be earning as much or more.

And the funniest observation yet, if a man does not put on weight and gain a pot belly after marriage, it is generally considered the wife's fault for not "taking care" of her husband, while if a woman puts on weight after marriage she's let herself go!

Unbelievable? yet true! Indians obsess about being fat rather than being thin..like they say..it happens only in India! Well, I think its high time we stopped thinking of people in terms of how they look and if we do have to think in those terms let think Fit not Fat !

For my part, my husbands actually lost some fat since we've been married, he's pretty fit if I may say so myself and as for the "what will people say!" syndrome, those people be damned, we're 28 , fit and loving it!