Listen to your heart

By - Mridula Chaudhari

As a child when my mother told me to behave properly while guests were around, I wasn't too sure what that meant. I wondered if behaving properly was to sit in a particular posture not moving from my place until I was asked to do so. Or was it to strike a very polite conversation with the visitors? Whatever that meant, I knew I was to be silent and nod and agree to each of our guest’s request and thought process.

Keeping these minimum expectations of my mom, I would ‘behave properly’ and not give her any embarrassing moments. Thus I was the well behaved, well groomed girl of the family. My mother would always be complimented on being such a fortunate parent.  She would take pride and expect me to accompany her everywhere she went. To keep her in good mood lest she would get angry with me, I would visit each of my aunts and uncles and umpteen number of relatives. I was never asked whether I enjoyed these trips and on my part I thought it was my duty.

On the contrary my brother would be most impish and would never comply with our mother's wishes. He would talk to the visiting guests to no end, show them all the new things we bought and share all our family secrets. How the neighbouring aunty borrowed our mom's egg beaters never to return back and such stuff.

Such embarrassing moments would make our mom very uncomfortable. She would try to signal him but he would be too busy sharing stuff to even notice anything amiss.

When alone our mom would scold him and our house would be a perfect pandemonium. He always thought that he never did anything wrong and was merely being truthful and trying to entertain the guests. “I try to keep your guests entertained mom”, he would add. I never saw him regret, ever. He would never be available on our visiting sprees to our aunts and uncles. “My studies will suffer mom”, would be his most favourite answer. Our mother would nod her head with concern and march ahead of me, confident that my own studies were never ‘that’ important.

Today my brother is a successful man, heading a billion dollar company and a globe trotter. As a child, I would not put him in the rebellion category but he surely spoke his mind. He was never scared of speaking the truth or exposing something that was not right. He respected our mom but he was not scared of her. He shared a healthy relationship with her and most of the times his arguments were rational. He always stood by his arguments.

Pan camera on me now. I am living a peaceful life as a home maker with little ambitions. Now I behave the way my husband likes it. He is apparently happy with me and we rarely argue. I don't know what exactly I like, since I like everything that he likes and I dislike everything that he dislikes. Whether it is the kind of movies or music, kind of friends we socialize with or the colour of curtains in our house, our choices match exactly to the T.

I realized early that my happiness lied in agreeing and accepting rather than arguing and rebelling. What did I finally want? Peace and happiness, contentment and companionship. I was getting all this in ample amount.

My brother and I, both are happy today. I listened to each of our mother's sermon and he listened to his heart. There is never a totally right or totally wrong approach to one’s behaviour. Some of us accept and agree while others fight and achieve! Good luck to both of us!!!

Mrs Pinkcheeks: Exit Grief Enter Happiness

Mrs Pinkcheeks: Exit Grief Enter Happiness: By - Mridula Chaudhari                                                                                                                  ...

Exit Grief Enter Happiness

By - Mridula Chaudhari                                                                                                                

A happy person is a healthy person. A happy person is a rich person. A happy person is a peaceful person. Bringing health, wealth and peace is the need of every individual. Every day we all strive to achieve only that.

Personal impurities keep entering our mind and body every day. Just as we bathe, we need to clean our mind of impurities that influence our mind and bring negative thoughts inside. Meeting positive minded friends, talking positive things about people and ourselves begets positivism.

One of my friends, Sheena would always come home with innumerable complaints about people. “I am bogged down with household chores and then office work”, she would complain. Sheena could never see anything positive in any situation. Her husband would always be bossing around, her children would never behave and her colleagues would never consider her part of their gatherings. Sheena was otherwise very large hearted and compassionate person, but nothing was working right for her.

In fact everything was working right for Sheena but she could not see the positives in anything. She never allowed any space to her husband or her children. She considered all their problems her own. This was the biggest mistake that she was making. She was trying to bring happiness into their life and in the process ignoring herself completely. Her friends and colleagues also avoided her company since she would air only negative thoughts.

Together we discussed and examined her quandary.  She searched herself thoroughly. Yes, there are times when we need to search ourselves to find the real US. Have you ever done that? It is an amazing experience. Just as we see ourselves in the mirror, while searching we can see our mind in the mirror. Instantaneously we can pin point our own mistakes. Having done that, we get into the correction mode, just as Sheena did.

When she realized that she was trying to don too many caps and making others’ happy at the cost of compromising her own health and peace, she started searching for the undo button inside her. Sheena had a herculean task dished out for her. The responsibility that she was shouldering had to be given back to individual members and her focus was now on herself.

Sheena let go of others' problems from her mind. Once done, she enthused enthusiasm, laughed a lot, cracked lot of jokes, listened to soothing music, got back to her hobbies and engaged herself in positive activities, now her life had changed. She looked happier and peaceful while her family members and friends too would not stop raving about her.

As for others, they all carried on with their routine and were happy that Sheena was not meddling with their life anymore.

Someone has said - Hold the present and exhale the past without regret. That is so true!!!

Mrs Pinkcheeks: Good friends are like stars

Mrs Pinkcheeks: Good friends are like stars: By - Mridula Chaudhari Good friends are like stars - that indeed is true!! What do we expect from a friend? Apart from going sho...

Good friends are like stars

By - Mridula Chaudhari

Good friends are like stars - that indeed is true!! What do we expect from a friend? Apart from going shopping, partying with them or dropping children to school or to watch a movie or some such activities, is there any other need of a friend? Why do friends or friendship make such a lovely relation? Why is it that we feel at ease in their company?

They say if you have crazy friends, you have everything. It’s the crazy friends who never let you down – least of all on your secrets.

Do we really share our deepest feelings with our friends? At least with one friend, do we do that? Do we open up completely to our dearest friend? Don’t you think in the age of emoticons, sharing our specific ‘man ki baat’ has become old fashioned? What could be the reason? Are we ashamed of sharing our real emotions and hence try to be ‘politically correct’ in each of our conversations? Have we become so addicted to sharing stuff on facebook that we have almost forgotten the meaning of sharing emotions with friends.

We jealously guard our feelings from everybody. Privacy is our topmost priority which we watch fiercely. As a result there is no sharing from either side. This gives birth to a friendship that is limited in relationship. If we feel like letting them in any of our secrets, we fear that it may be leaked. Or is it our ego that comes in our way? We love our privacy so much that sharing a secret may affect our very being? But the fact remains that every human being has the need to share their feelings.

Don’t you think that there should be someone with whom we can share our deepest feelings, thoughts and emotions? I remember a training session where the trainer asked a girl to open her friend’s fist and the other girl had to keep the fist tightly closed. Both the friends exerted pressure from either sides resulting in opening of the fist. The trainer congratulated the girl but added, “She is your friend, you could have just said, “Dear please open your fist for me”, don’t you think she would have opened?” What a wonderful thought! Why don’t we think from our hearts anymore, like the children do?

We need a friend who is trustworthy and can remove loneliness from our mind. This is certainly a tall order. The first rule of the game would be to be trustworthy ourselves. We get what we give, and in that measure too. Finally friendship is a give and take. Selfless love in friendship is rare to find, but something everyone desires.

Sharing is a very intricate part of human psychology. Everyone loves to share their joy and sorrow. Sharing makes the heart at ease and gives it certain calmness. Friends are the most beautiful people God has created.