The Ties That Bind Us

There are many things that bind a family together. Apart from the usual family things, there are small things that hold together our conversation and help us avoid those awkward moments during dinners. For instances, my Father’s sense of humor made us one of the most envied family when we grew up. It is our shared love for music, especially Southern Gospel/ Country Gospel music that keep my conversation going with my big Brother. On the other hand, Robert Ludlum keep us going with my other Brother.

All of the above are shared interest, so how about personal troubles. Sometimes situations like death, personal tragedy and other unusual situations make us stronger. The troubles one is going through, the problem the other faced, trials and humiliation, etc, can all be the bridge to a much stronger family.

As I often said, my family is far from dysfunctional even thought there are many resemblances. But these past few weeks had turned our world topsy-turvy and I’m no longer sure what is going-on in my family. The most unlikely situations took place, and totally changed our stands.

A few weeks ago, my big brother went through a nightmare, that too publicly. I thought this could be the end and feared he will never recover from it. But I thought it wrong, not only he comes out much stronger, the whole family comes out much stronger.

When it comes to big brother, we always put him in a different category, because he’s a little more adventurous than the rest of us. But when it comes to this ‘nightmare’, we were more outraged than him. We called each other and consoled each other. We talked like we never talked before, and we discussed things like we never discussed things before, and we all realize that he had been our inspiration all along.

I often thought he is the one responsible for breaking my family apart, and putting us in the situation where we are now, and I’m blubbering not without justification. But he’s the central of our universe right now and I pray he will do so in the future as well.

There are other changes, positive changes that are nothing sort of ‘miracles’ happening in my family after that ‘nightmare’, but I’m not going to this easily give-up my ‘pessimism’ tag, so I’m going to ‘wait and watch’ before I holler about them.

Still, I’m happy. We are far from the prefect family, but we all are happy with the way things turn out. It will sound a little ironic or apt to say ‘thank you’ for this ‘nightmare’, but I definitely am thankful for the changes it brought about.

T h a n k Y o u ! ! !

Secondhand Drinking

Secondhand Drinking: n. A negative effect that a drinker has on a non-drinker.

I was so irritated to stumble through this word last night I just wanted to pull-out my few remaining strand of hair. All along there had been a single word that could save me an entire unpleasant decade trying to explain my foul moods and nobody tell me of its existence..?

My irritation was fuelled by the realization that I no longer have a use for this new found word. On the other hand I’m also glad that I have no use for it. But the problem now is, my moody phases which I always attributed to Secondhand drinking still continue and I have to find a new single word that would explain it all, and I haven’t stumble upon it yet.

If you are a little confused by what I wrote about, it is like this. My father is a total teetotaler and I take after my father. But my Brother used to drink and many times he brought home his drinking friends and they would all get drunk. I can’t stand any drunk around me; they can only topple my mood. In fact, I often see drunken people only as a lesser human (i.e. about 50% functioning human).

Now, you want to admit it or not, we all suffer from secondhand drinking knowingly or unknowingly. Be it cleaning after someone’s vomit or being left red-faced by your friend’s drunken stupor in the street, or unknowingly inhaling Class-A Carcinogen emitted by alcohol in the air you breathe. That’s nothing.

For many, secondhand drinking has a lifelong impact. For instance, a friend’s education was interrupted mid-way because of his father’s heavy drinking. His not being able to achieve his optimum capability and the subsequent consequences like not having a job, impregnating a neighboring jobless girl, having more babies, not able to make ends meet and never able to climb the social ladder, etc. can all be traced back to his father’s drinking. That’s second hand drinking…

There are also high chances that secondhand drinking is responsible for your friend being categorized as Physically Handicapped. If your alcoholic neighbor is giving you sleepless night, or you are victims of car accidents, assault, fights, stupid arguments –then chances are high that you too are one in the list. Say, a Bollywood actor ran over some beggar sleeping on the pavement, their plight: secondhand drinking! In one sentence, any negative effect caused by drinking to its environment is called secondhand drinking.

Well, by now, I hope you understand what secondhand drinking is. It indeed is a serious issue that should be taken up by many housewives, and some husbands, of course. But for my poor spirit’s sake, let’s cut-out the serious part as I don’t want to sound like those moral teacher, and let’s put some twist to the above paragraph.

Section A
Q. Why don’t you get a good job?
A. My parents can’t afford to school me, they are alcoholic. (or Secondhand Drinking)
Q. Did you rough-up the neighbor’s girl?
A. No school means I got nothing else to do (or Secondhand Drinking)
Q. Why do you try to commit suicide?
A. My parents drink everything (Secondhand Drinking)

Section B
Q. Why don’t you get a good job?
A. I got kicked out (‘cos he’s alcoholic)
Q. Did you rough-up the neighbor’s girl?
A. I was Drunk (oops!)
Q. Why do you try to commit suicide?
A. I got nothing to drink.

Well, I hope you find the difference –see, the difference is there’s no difference at all. They are the same. The bottom line is -Alcohol not only harms the user, but those surrounding the user, including the unborn child, children, family members, and the sufferers of crime, violence and drink-driving accidents, so it definitely is a serious issues that need to be tackled. If smoking can be banned, why not alcohol… Secondhand drinking wrecks more homes, more marriages, and more lives than smoking.


For More:

http://speakeasyforum.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/518607732/m/8891070791
http://www.purdue.edu/UNS/html3month/2006/060814.T.Chester.drinking.html
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/324/

Pipi & Pupu in Delhi

Nobody liked changes, especially the older generation; it hit them hard and square. They have a notion of things, place, situation and life and don’t want to see that notion derided or banished. Neither would I. But with many of us living outside our native place, many parents are forced to follow along their children and live outside the world that they had spent their life.

It must be hard for them to make so many adjustments and changes so late in their life. It is understandable that most of them are totally handicapped when they moved to a territory unknown to them. We, the children, have to understand and take care of their psychological and mental need as this is the time when they started thinking that they have no purpose and are useless around the new places.

In places like Delhi, there are number of aged population from our community who had come to live with their children. And it is understandable most of them don’t like the place at all. Both my parents still choose to live back home even though all of us, their children, are living outside.

My parents knew what life is like in Delhi as they have visited us more than once. Though my mother, unlike my father, never complained about life in Delhi, I can feel from her look and the little word she spoke that she dreaded the time when she would be left with no choices but to live with us.

When my mother came to visit us recently, I took her around the various departmental stores in Dwarka. I piteously looked at her as she stands there flummoxed by the varieties of toothpastes, and struggling to choose one. Then, she gasped and an awkward grin spread through her face as she saw the ordinary white Colgate that was available back home. As she tightly grasped the toothpaste, she said beneath her breath that she always preferred those.

I looked at my mother –lost; lost for word, lost for what to do next, afraid to take the next step. Late at night when we were alone, she complained bitterly how she had become invalid around here. I told her not to be silly, what else can I say?

It breaks my heart to take away my parents to this foreign land where they will be eternal aliens, incapable of moving around on their own and relying on their busy children for even the smallest of needs which I may not always be able to take care of. The last thing I want to do to my parent is to clip-off their wings and take away their self-worth.

While my Mother was in Delhi, she once told me this is not the world as she knew it. It’s an unfamiliar territory for her. She would definitely miss our little village where she walked up to the shop keeper and asked for a tooth-paste and was given one without being asked the type, variety or flavour.

I once asked my Parents to come and live with us in Delhi. My Father joked if I would be willing to baby-sit both of them at all time. I am not a good babysitter. Rather I am the one whom everyone around me baby-sitted. They, especially my mother, would tell me when to eat, when to sleep and when to visit relatives and whom to visit.

I don’t need to be reminded of these small details, but that’s what she chooses to do. But now, the babies here would be my parents, and they knew better than me that hitting one’s head against the wall will hurt us and not the wall. And here, their emotional needs will be more than their physical, and those needs are available only at home -back home, where they are free.

On the other hand it breaks my heart to think that my aged parents do their own laundry, fetch water and do all sort of household work by themselves. But the bottom line for me is that I would not take away their independence as long as they wish to have, and even if they choose to come and live with us, I would promise them that I would make sure that I would not part them from their loved ones if they choose to, as and when they die because that is one of their biggest fear.

And that definitely would be a sad ending…

"October 1 is International Day of Older Persons (as recognized by the UN), it is also world Vegetarian Day"

The World in Silent Mode...

One of my favourite past-time used to be watching TV in silent mode.  It always transfixed me to see situations unfurl silently and to let the world pass-by without sound.  It is like a dream –it can be nightmarish but mostly harmless.

But these days, I hardly have time to indulge in that favourite past-time of mine.  I have been busy, especially this past week when I got an additional job as an attendant to a sick nephew who was hospitalized.

Last night, I somehow managed some time, so I curled up in the couch and switched on the TV and turned off the sound.  I was an old habit to start browsing the channels starting from the news networks, then move to sports, movies until I stopped at one of the cartoon networks.  Last night was no different. 

The first news network had a commercial running.  There was a man who looked tense and paced up and down the corridor of a building that looked like a hospital.  Then a nurse appeared with a baby which she handed to the man.  The man looked very relieved.  Then a nurse appeared again with a baby and handed to the man.  He looked happy.  Then another nurse appeared with a baby, the hand of the man was full, but he still looked happy.  The product was about insurance from a banking firm.

The next was a Hindi news network and had ‘breaking news’ in big bold letter with big pictures of leopard splashed in the wide screen behind the anchor.  After the anchor babbled for sometime, the camera took me to a big well wherein inside fall a baby leopard.  The camera zoomed in and out with the leopard circled and continued on and on.  After zooming in and out for about 5 minutes, the villagers somehow lowered down a jute cot covered in white sheet.  The poor feline looked petrified and curled up at the corner where it stood.  Then appeared a man who managed to put a rope around the neck of the cat, lifted up (I thought it might choke) and put it on the cot.  The cot was lifted up to safety and the poor animal was shoved to the side.  I don’t know what happened next as the camera didn’t show me and the twitching face of the anchor came back to the screen.  But I can almost hear an applause coming, may be, from the neighbours’ TV.

That piece of ‘breaking news’ was followed by another section called ‘viewers alert’.  It was about an exposed electrical wires around a transmitter in Orissa.  There were some dead rats around.  I’m pretty sure the viewers get the message. And they also have prizes for the viewer who sent the video.  The prizes include jewellery and some other products which I could not figure out.

Then I moved to another Hindi news network and saw a mob beating up a teenager.  The poor boy seemed to be begging for mercy with folded hands while the men around him continued slapping him back and forth, turned around and smiled at the camera.  I moved to another news channel where a segment called ‘viewers alert’ started (not the previous one).  There was a breaded, beaded man in orange coloured shirt and from the image in his back drop, I figured out he must be an astrologer, so I moved.

There was commercial in one of the English news channel I often tuned in.  The commercial had a man and a woman, no, actually a person who is dressed as half-man and half-women.  The man half and the woman half were (was?) arguing.  I don’t know what their argument was about, or the product they endorsed, but it was highly amusing.

The next channel showed flood victims in a certain part of India.  Dead bodies of three cows and a woman were floating in the side of a bush.  I quickly pressed my remote.  There were commercial in most of the network so I continued moving.

Then I stopped at a channel that showed skinny girls with hardly any clothing, walking down the stage with respectable looking ladies and gentlemen watching from the side.  I’m certain I heard the clicking of their heels…

…click, click, clik

It was the alarm in my phone.  It was time to sleep or I won’t be able to wake-up in time for office tomorrow…