I tried. It didn't happen. I'm done.

10 things where there is no point wasting time. Just accept and move forward. You save a lot of energy which can then be focused in the right direction.

Convincing your Mom:

There is no need to convince your mom on ANYthing because she knows EVERYthing and she is always right. Just accept that and see how easy life becomes.

Mom: Nitu, Ki gall last week also you didn’t write your blog.

Nitu: Mom, I have so much work at office and then cooking and Viku (my brother who stays with me) has his own demands of lunch and dinner and then crossfit – I seem to get so tired. And lately you know every weekend I was out either shopping or going to friends place – it is so hectic here……

Mom: And then you keep chitchatting with friends and waste so much time on net

Nitu: No Mom, Sachi I haven’t been in touch with so many for so long that they are complaining, I haven’t even done Fb for weeks now.

Mom: Haan waise I understand beta. Look at me, I wake up at 6 then breakfast, laundry, cooking, lunch, handling the maids – by the time its afternoon I am so tired. Then preparing for the upcoming function in the house – everyday Papa and me are off to market for something or another, then one or another relative comes over to the house. At least you and Viku eat outside when you feel like, there are no relatives coming over, no house to maintain- ek chhota jeha apartment haiga………But chalo koi gall ni. Rest karo Beta.

Nitu: OKAY. I got it Mom.

And if I had not convinced her for half an hour that I was so busy I would have published this blog by Morning.

Putting on the car indicator:

Don’t put on the indicator with the expectation that the vehicle behind you will slow down and let you have your way. Nope Nope – big mistake. 

You put on the indicator only because if, God Forbid, there is mishap you can prove that you were doing things the right way. Even then the opposite party will not agree with you but may be couple of people in the crowd will agree with you and it will end up in pretty much the same way had you not put on the indicator but you have ONE extra point in your kitty when debating in the middle of the road as to whose fault it is.

Shouting at the person who overtook you in the wrong way:

I always do this and then get even angrier at myself for doing this because it is literally USELESS. Whether your glasses are up since the AC is on or down and you have a loud voice which could reach the other person please understand they have the skin of a Hippopotamus and it makes no difference to them. “Pagal aa tu? “ , “Bewakoof jeha karda ki firda”, “Hello….O helloo…..what the hell? “, “Uncle Ji……Kiddar nu Ja rahe ho”, “Accident Karn nu Jee karda? Indicator taan on karla…..Stupid fellow” all this and frantically moving my hands in the gesture of “What are you doing? “ and my facial expressions obviously changing to reflect my angry mood with narrow eyes and crunchy nose and the person outside seeing my mouth voicing something which he cannot hear has never helped. It only adds up to my blood pressure. Instead I have now stopped giving driving lessons on road and follow rules hoping someone will see me and get inspired even if I am Ms. Nobody.

Teaching your brother how to throw garbage:

This is a clear act of selfishness from the male species. (Full stop).

My brother will come singing into the kitchen will see the dustbin which is full up to brim and despite telling him so many times about it he will conveniently throw more onto the garbage hill – which will for sure not land into the dustbin and neither balance itself on the hill top but will topple down especially if it is an empty packet of wafers.

101th time…….

Nitu: Viku , the dustbin is full and still you threw stuff into it. It is now lying down on the floor.

Viku: Oh Ok. I didn’t notice.

Repeat.

Explaining your maid how to use Lizol (Scented floor cleaner):

The 1 litre Lizol bottle finishes in a week. I am so tired of explaining to her about how much she needs to use but  total failure on my end. My maid thinks Lizol is a magic liquid and will cover up for her not mopping the floor properly and make it cleaner and pours it too kindly in the water she uses for mopping.

And to top it before she leaves she tells me “Madam, dekhiye chakachak ho gaya”.

Convincing your dad to fix the leaking kitchen tap:

I am sure this is a story in every house. Mom will call up telling how she doesn’t want to stay with dad because he never listens to her and he doesn’t fix a leaking tap.

Nitu: Dad , if you don’t want to do it let us know. Viku can call the plumber he knows he can come and fix it.

OR

Nitu: Dad, is it too expensive. Is the plumber asking for too much money or something?

OR

Nitu: Dad if you are busy I will do it.

OR

Nitu: Dad just reminding you about it. It’s been pending for a while. Mom is also getting impatient.

For all the above options Dad has one answer

Dad: Don’t worry. I will handle it on my own. You carry on with your work.

And it will only get fixed when he wants to work on it. Till then neither will he fix it and not let others also fix it. I have not figured out the reason for this behavior. Strangely, It happens on selective work items only. Some things get resolved instantly and others have the fate as mentioned.

Telling yourself not to waste time on net:

I have tried making promises, putting alarms , setting time table, asking mom to call me at a certain time and remind me to get away from laptop but nothing has worked. If I decide to go out and spend time instead – I will come back and again spend more time on net for no reason so I end up wasting more time. And now it is to the extent that I know all items that sell on amazon and flipkart , I know in which season tickets might be less expensive but I know zilch about India and world news. So Unproductive….but so Enjoyable. Why has babaji made all good things so harmful ?

Making a resolution to eat healthy:

This is my every new year resolution but the moment I see Golgappe, chaat, chicken Tikkas, gullab jamun, kaju barfi, rabri , kheer I can’t control. So No more wasting time on making these useless resolutions.  I just eat and use the energy in thinking what more to eat.

Telling people that there is a queue:

Sometimes it works, otherwise in local restaurants, traffic , changing room, airport – you tell a person politely with a smile “Excuse me there is queue “ the other one gives you a blank reaction. Then you go again – “You might want to stand there (pointing to the end of queue) – because we ALL are in a queue”.  Again Black reaction. And then you both walk some distance playing “kabaddi kabaddi” till there comes a junction where one of you has to give up and generally it’s me. It hurts my ego but I have to give up because other person whether a woman or man doesn’t mind body contact and could even use elbows to push me which is so demeaning.

Asking a Vendor if the veggies and fruits are fresh:

Since I have started ordering online I think this has reduced but if I buy things from a local vendor I still tend to ask him “Bhaiaya ye fresh haina” and he goes “Haan haan bibiji, ekdum fresh” . There has never been a single time when the vendor told me “It is not fresh” so just stop asking.

Yes, despite all this "I think to myself , what a wonderful world" :)

The Butterfly Effect

Have you guys heard about the BUTTERFLY EFFECT? “In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state can result in large differences in a later state.”  

The phrase refers to the idea that a butterfly's wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that may ultimately alter the path of a tornado or delay, accelerate or even prevent the occurrence of a tornado in another location. When we see a butterfly flapping the wings, we rarely see a butterfly , but whenever we see a butterfly flapping wings do you ever think or turn around to your friend and say “OMG the butterfly is flapping the wings , there is a tornado which will hit some place, let us warn the weather department” ?? No….. If I get to see such a thing I would enjoy that moment appreciating the beauty of the wings and its colors and marvel at who could have created such a thing …....

When we eat, dance, drive, party, love, fight – do we realize that we might be impacting someone else in a much bigger way than we can imagine. What would you think if I told you “On 16^th May there was an accident that occurred in Pune because you were honking in Bangalore”. Does that make any sense? No? 

In Bangalore there was a Rahul, on his bike, trying to talk to his fiancée in Pune while he was driving through the busy roads of Indiranagar area. It was not usual for him to talk when he was riding but that day Shelly was very upset and had to urgently talk to Rahul. When the traffic light turned green, Rahul took a while to start his bike and get into full swing. With no sideway to park and talk and the long queue of vehicles behind him, he got fidgety trying to start the bike. The vehicles started honking at him and your car was right behind him. You pinned the horn with your palm and continued to make noise vehemently probably without realizing that you were making Rahul more nervous. While other vehicles behind you started tilting towards the left and right and making their way out, you honked even more as if he had not heard it , as if he was purposely not starting his bike.

He could not focus on the bike or the phone because all he heard was the incessant beeeepppppp from  your car. His phone fell down and with shaky hands he tried to pull the bike to a distance where he could let you have your way.  He ran back to pick up the phone which you had almost crushed under the tyre as you sped by bad mouthing Rahul for his heinous act. When Rahul dialed Shelly some unknown voice picked up the phone saying “Babuji, madam ka accident ho gaya hai, behosh hain, thodi der mei phone kariye.” Shelly who was running up and down the hospital stairs, heard the frantic noise of car honking and phone falling - her heart skipped a beat. Her father was already admitted in the hospital and what she heard on the phone made her feel sudden loss of another man in their family. She blacked out and fell down the stairs. Oh no – you didn’t kill anyone, she didn’t die. But if she did, would you hold yourself responsible for it? Not completely obviously, because her terminally ill father, office pressure, lack of funds were already responsible for her derogatory state of health and mind but would you take the responsibility of pulling the last trigger?

When a boss insults an employee in front of so many other colleagues, when a teacher mocks at a student in the class, when a mother in law makes a mockery of her son’s wife in front of other relatives, when a wife taunts a husband about his menial salary and living standards, a colleague making fun of his peer’s bulging stomach, the lies husband told his wife for coming late, the wife fighting over his coming late………..all these things are done and dusted the next minute. These are butterflies flapping their wings and their monstrous tornado effect will be known to us much later.

But the BUTTERFLY EFFECT says that the flapping “may ultimately alter the path of a tornado or delay, accelerate or even prevent the occurrence of a tornado in another location.” Our wrong actions and deeds will have a bigger wrong impact but if we flap our wings in the right direction we could make it a better world.  Who disagrees with this? None. We are all good and sensible human

beings and want the whole wide world to be a peaceful place to live in. The truth however is different -  although in principle we all agree we want to be good and do good, researchers have found that human species is sadistic by nature. Researchers conducted an experiment where the audience was given two choices:

(1) You and your neighbor enjoy S

AME LUXURIOUS benefits.

(2) You enjoy MEDIOCRE benefits and your neighbor gets NONE

Surprisingly almost 85% of the people chose the second option. Most people don’t want to lead a “good” life – they want to lead a life “better” than their neighbor, friend, cousin, uncle, boyfriend, sister, girlfriend even if this “better” is worse than the “good”. And when they cannot make their lives better – they flap their wings the other way to make other people’s life worse.

ਹਉਮੈ ਬੰਧਨ ਬੰਧਿ ਭਵਾਵੈ ॥ (Egotism binds people in bondage, and causes them to wander around lost)

ਕਾਮ ਕ੍ਰੋਧ ਮਾਇਆ ਮਦ ਮਤਸਰ ਏ ਖੇਲਤ ਸਭਿ ਜੂਐ ਹਾਰੇ ॥ (Kaama, Krodha, Maya, Mada and Matsara — these have combined to plunder the world)

ਮੁ ਕ੍ਰੋਧੁ ਲੋਭੁ ਮੋਹੁ ਨਿਤ ਝਗਰਤੇ ਝਗਰਾਇਆ ॥ (Lust, anger, greed and emotional attachment bring continual conflict and strife)

Gurbaani says that there are 5 vices of which we should get rid – Kaam(Lust), Krodh(Anger), Lobh(Greed), Moh(Emotional Attachment), Ahankaar(Ego). If our butterflies flap their wings devoid of these vices the tornadoes can be prevented.