Revelation #2

"Trauma: Any injury, whether physically or emotionally inflicted. "Trauma" has both a medical and a psychiatric definition. Medically, "trauma" refers to a serious or critical bodily injury, wound, or shock. This definition is often associated with trauma medicine practiced in emergency rooms and represents a popular view of the term. In Psychiatry, "trauma" has assumed a different meaning and refers to an experience that is emotionally painful, distressful, or shocking, which often results in lasting mental and physical effects.*"

On January 14th of 2012 my head hit the garage door and for the next thirty seconds or more I blacked out. The first thought that came to my head was,"Oh! I think I broke my neck or back!" Then it was,"Oh! no! I might end up quadriplegic or who knows paraplegic! How am I going to live? What about my little one? Will my husband bear with me or find someone else?Again what about my little girl? Maybe I will die or demand death like Hrithik Roshan did in whatever that boring movie was!-------------------------"

Blank blank some more blank and then it call came back!


I woke up my head on my mother's lap with faces glaring at me as if I were already dead. I saw tears of devastation in my mother's eyes which, I still feel were more of fear than sense of loss and then there was the classic annoyance on my dear spouse's face. Slowly my hearing picked up and I heard constant utterance and moaning. My mother of course mentally prepared herself for I still have no idea what? Per her she wondered if I would suffer slip disc! Okayy! On the other hand my husband growled at me like a rabied dog for not being careful enough. 

Other days I would have put up a fight but at that minute I was just happy to see and hear things. Whatever that maybe!

And in it is at that instance I had a reveltion. Life opened up a whole new lesson for me. For once I hugged my annoying relatives and pinched my sleeping daughter which was followed with a crying episode. Then and right there I saw what was revealed and promised to never give up on hope, myself or people I beleive in!

Source: *http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=8171

Revelation #1

"Hypocrisy is the state of pretending to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that one does not actually have.^[1] Hypocrisy involves the deception of others and is thus a kind of lie." This is the Wikipedia definition for those who do not respect Wikipedia well you can double check the definition with Websters or Oxford Dictionary. For now I want to build on this.


I am trying to understand human perspective on this one issue for a very long time. As a child I was always told to not do so many things by my parents which personally they did with absolutely no remorse. And I always thought that it just was not fair till I found a word for it which, I think offends people. But it is the right word nevertheless.


Hypocrisy is such a strong judge of one's personality. I mean think about it how do we judge a person? Based on their character, way of life, family, friends and so on. But for me I guess hypocrisy is the best test. Almost all the time we as adults fail this test and that too miserably. Why? One we never practise what we preach. For instance, I have my mother in law who constantly criticises the US. But according to both her children she was the one who taught them about the US and made them pursue it. So who is to be blamed? As adults we have the right to make conscious choice but apparently we choose to be shams!


Then there are the Feds who drum about capitalism and then try to micro manage the economy. This I find to be the heights of mockery. I know that there has to be some guidance or a nudge but controlling the economy is not the way! I guess Ayn Rand was way ahead of her time because she gave such good instances of chauvinism in her books that it makes me wonder if she had a crystal ball in her home. 


Personally I have lot many vices and proclivities but come to think of hypocrisy yes, I too have been sucked into its tentacles. So for now I need to know how to trail on the path that frees me from such swamps that are terribly unproductive. I begin my first lesson in my chapter of self-awareness. Avoid hypocrisy and hypocrites!

To call or not to call!!

I have very little memory of the time when I argued incessantly with Prof.B about his style of teaching. Per him it was ugly and higly intolerable. That of course did not stop me from providing my honest opinion. Our bickering that began in 2003 went from one topic to the other and soon we could not stand each other.

We were always at each others necks until one fine day when I heard from other students at college that he had met with an accident. Something in me made me pay him a visit at the hospital. Confident that I would shock his ardent followers I walked into his room only to find him sedated and stuck to numerous wires. Turns out the brown nosers had bailed out on him.

According to his doctor, Prof.B have had absolutely no visitor through out his four day stay at the hospital. When nurses asked him about friends or family Prof.B would turn his face and choose to remain silent. Seeing me the doctor had some hope for Prof.B. Apparently Prof.B was highly diabetic and this accident had only scratched the scab deeper. Prof.B's injured leg was reeking pungent odor and pus. No amount of antibiotics would provide relief. They had to perform surgery and needed someone to sign the consent form.

Now here I was in a conundrum wondering what to make out of the situation. Reluctantly I signed the forms and the doctor at once took charge of the operation. I guess it was my star to thank for the successful operation of Prof.B. Eventually, I paid him regular visit till he fully recovered and took him back to his rental room. I tried my best to get him a maid and a cook and made sure he was fitting in well. Once fully recovered he resumed to his duties and I went back to my life. Our squabbles continued and neither discounted the fact that we had in a way connected. Our mutual respect for each other had gone up a notch and I now considered him more than a teacher, a father figure. He became that one crying shoulder I always counted on. Obviously when you have parents who constantly blamed you for their misfortunes in life you do need an outsiders perspective that can guide you well. (So readers do not judge. You know not the beginning of it!!!)

Well time moved and I graduated from college, got a job, and then got married. Marriage was a catalyst in the sense it deeply moved Prof.B to loose one person he had known past three years in his life. It was hard on the both of us but we both promised to stay in touch with each other. We called each other on a constant basis and I met him every time I went home. On one such visit home when I met Prof.B I out of the blues asked him about his past life. For a minute Prof.B was taken aback but then for some reason or the other he opened up to me in a way I guess he never did or never would again!

It so happens Prof.B is a XLRI alumni. In fact he was the gold medalist of his batch and his first job was as CFO of a very famous company (I choose not to name it). He married an IIM graduate of his time who is still in a very top position for a renowned bank. As he said he had it all. A beautiful and qualified trophy wife and a wonderful son whom he adored but then there was also EGO which, put an end to twenty years of marriage and made the relationship feel petty. Overnight, Prof.B signed on the divorce papers, gave up his job, and left his home penniless. He decided to start all over again at a place where no one knew who he was.

As fate had it he landed a job in our college. Just when he made up his mind to inform about his whereabouts to his wife and son he realized that even they had exiled themselves from their home town. Without any knowledge of their whereabouts Prof.B was lost. He searched them for a long time and then found them in Pune. When he called his wife and son they refused to talk to him. His wife had a valid argument. She had found someone and did not want him breezing into their lives when she was still in the process of working on a new relationship. Broken hearted Prof.B took up a life of a monk.

His pent up anger and frustration on women made him remove it all on us female students which gave rise to our fights. He later did admit that I changed his perspective and gave him hope. Over the years I have always made a point to keep him in the loop and treat him like family but a ugly episode makes me wonder should I?

Last year I called him to tell him about my baby on the way and instead of being happy he kept commenting on how I should find a job and not be a burden on my husband, and not gain weight, and then he started digging graves about my ex-classmates whom I do not give rats ass about. This kept repeating to the point of disgust. It angered me and in rage I asked him as to why was he talking rubbish? For which he blamed me for not being polite and being melancholy.

With pregnancy hormones in crazy range I was offended and decided to not call him ever.

And thats what I have done. Today it will be almost an year and I still wonder whether I should call him or not? I wonder whether he behaved the same way with his family and maybe that is the reason why they would not have any of him?

So far I do not know the answer and with a four month old my hands are full. Sometime soon I will ponder and make a decision so as to call or not to call this lonely and so lost a man!! For now I pray for him!

Thou shall not watch....!!!

Couple of days ago my good friend strongly suggested that I watch the popular HBO series "Big Love." From the time I have had Anisha such suggestions fall onto deaf ears but after listening to part of the story I decided to watch it whenever I would find time (that's never)! Anyways the first few episodes made no mark in my memory or boost my interest. The reason was obvious! Polygamy! A subject I have blogged about before and am blogging about again. No matter how rosy a picture people paint or relate the topic to faith and such I fail to comprehend the idea behind polygamy. For me one man can only be with one man or one woman. Sleeping with more than one at any given point in time is adultery and I for one think its sin! Well thats my school of thought! Now drifting away from my opinion let me mention that this one series does not take any side that is, monogamy or polygamy. Seems like it just shows basic struggle that any marriage goes through. What sets this series apart is how in polygamy sister wives pitch in to watch each others back which is ironic to the fact that half the time sister wives put up a facade on jealousy and animosity they suffer among each other. I am sure majority of the sister wives are either alcoholic or suffer from high blood pressure or diabetes. I mean I cannot contemplate living with so much stress. Guess that is one reason why I am a monogamist!

The drama among the sister wives is fascinating and it encouraged me to do some research on polygamy which led me to read stuff about Mormonism and its two school of thoughts that is mainline and fundamentalism. Mainline LDS seems to have banished polygamy 200 years ago where as the fundamentalists seem to have been following polygamy even to this day of course in secret since the USA is not ready for such wild school of thought. As I continued reading I was surprised by how people blindly beleived and followed Joseph Smith's teachings. I mean if I were a man would plurality of wives appeal to me? Would the idea of becoming God and promise of eternal life instigate me to become a fundamentalist? As a man maybe yes? But as a woman NO! Never!

Then why do women in such large number enter polygamy? Answer is plain and simple. When one is born to a given religion and brought up with certain values and made to believe that it is the norm, there is a guarantee that there will be no deviation since any indifference will lead to eternal damnation and that can be heavy on soul of innocent women who have known nothing outside their one religion. I mean people in Warren Jeffs community had no idea that Europe existed or that US had a president called George Bush. 

My intention is not to pick on the Book of Mormon because I am sure like every religion, Mormonism must have begun with a noble cause and was eventually tweaked by men for their own selfish reasons. For instance, the Book of Mormon talks about the principles, most of which is hard to follow but when followed assures salvation and a permanent place in the celestial kingdom. Most of the principles are prevalent in many of the holy books except plurality of wives. I wonder where that came from? A bit of reading revealed that Joseph Smith had a revelation that pluarity of wives should be followed in order to attain eternal place in heaven. The angel that told this to Joseph Smith asked him to follow Abraham's and Jesus's path. Yep! According to the angel Jesus had more than one wife and they live with him forever in peace in heaven. Shocking is not it! Because I thought Jesus was a bachelor and other than the Mary Magdalene fame he was supposed to be clean like a slate. 

It so happens that I am wrong per the Book of Mormon. So when I continued watching Big Love something did not feel right when the second wife told her first wife that she married for the principle and not love! Really! so you have sex for principle and not love! Plus she said that it was her job to populate her husband's world with children so that she could release those spirits from their bonding by giving them birth and help them acheive salvation. This is where I rewind the tape again and then again. 

So you mean to say that these kids are waiting to be born to achieve salvation and salvation comes through polygamy which binds you with your spouse and kids eternally. That means that husbands and sister wives die of old age and then you have to wait in heaven till your kids die and then they wait till their spouses, kids, or sister wives die. Oh now I get the idea of eternal salvation. If you wait so long obviously you will never get a chance to be reborn! Bingo! There now I get it!

From there I moved on to watch it some more and then some more till I read something that said,"Thou shall forgive yourself and others!" Guess what Big Love is all about revenge. There is no forgiveness in there! Yes, That's right! Bill's vendetta with Roman Grant! Never ending that too I should say.

Then where on earth does the principle kick in or is lived fully? Sometimes I wonder if I am getting this alright or am I all wrong or are these people wrong? Well who am I to say when I realize that Mormons loathe anyone who is not a Mormon. Is not tolerance an integral part of any religion? If a religion refuses to put up with the so called infidels, show patience, virute, forgiveness, then how can just living polygamy help in any way?

Beyond me! So what do? I finally decide to call my quits. Stop watching the series and find something else and better to do and decide to follow my own principle---that is,"Thou shall not watch...you know what!!!"