The Distance Between You & Yourself!

The Inner GAP

Every person has two basic lives, the one they enact in front of everyone and the one the enact in their minds. These two different personalities are at a constant tug of war within every person. When we were born, we only had one personality. We act and play out what is in our mind. As we grew with age our parents and society imposed restrictions on us and there started the birth of the twin personalities. These twins start to grow up side by side and they are pity much non differentiable at a tender age.

Pushed in to the Kindergarten and the child is strictly restricted and punished to follow the rules. The child is not allowed to be free and do what they think. Many academicians may tell that this is part of learning, but in reality the child is forced to stop thinking on their own and their thoughts are caged within the four walls of the classroom. The kid is fed information that it has no interest and has to forcefully take it threatened by the whiplashes and haunting stares.

As the age builds up the child's mind constantly wants to relax, go out, play, enjoy and be creative while the physical self is chained to to a desk forcing them to sit and study for the exams. The child has a set of subjects in front of it that they both like and dislike. But there is no option to omit the subject that they do not like. In some cases the parents may be forcing the child to pursue the one stream that they dislike. This constant feeding of dislike rages a war within the child and the child's mind is a time-bomb waiting to explode.

The rising disparity between the inner self and outer self is at a tipping point and the child will do anything at its disposal to bridge the gap between their two personalities. At this point the child is desperate depressed and enraged at himself and his surroundings. They cant show their descent at home so they start bullying their peers and also younger kids making others suffer. They go into guilty pleasures where inflicting pain and suffering becomes an enjoyment to them.

With age boys start to target the girls and try to grab their attention to make them look smart in front of others. This can lead to different complex issues as the girls act helpless to such intrusions shown by boys. The fact that the girls in our society are taught to be distanced from boys rather than teaching them to look straight into the eyes and respond makes it easy for such boys to be even more aggressive and threatening.

This complexity in both boys and girls grow into a big gap within themselves and in college with much more freedom these two folks start to bridge the gap in themselves with the help of each other.

They both forget the fact that the gap within themselves was there from the start and it is them only who can fill it by understanding themselves more. No one can walk into your life and expect to full your void, everyone has deep gorges of their own.

Its important in life to understand yourself and the gap between your inner and outer self. Understand your strengths and weakness, find out what makes you happy and what doesn't. find time to learn more about your interest areas and work on it.

As a grownup you always can look to the younger generation and understand what they are going through. Put yourselves in their place and understand their pulse. Guide them and make them understand what is good in them and convince them to peruse it.

Remember no one is born bad, its the void in everyone that creates the devil. As a person who is going through hell, you know the value of understanding things early in life. So teach others to choose their path at the earliest. Lets us bridge the gap..!

****Stop Think & Act****

What do we need the most in life?

Pursuit of Happiness

      As we move up the ladder of maturity, we understand that no one cares about us the way we do to ourselves. All these years we were living a life trying to impress people. But nothing of those matters. All that matters is how happy you are doing what you do and with the people near you.

     We have jobs but hey that's our responsibility, we have been employed by a firm because they think we are good at doing this job. No matter how much we love our job, our company will push us to that limit that we may end up hating it. Thus, no matter how much money we get we will still remain unhappy.

     We come home to our parents, wife, kids and relatives. They all love you but hey they too are busy with their life struggles and at times you get to take the heat of the argument. No matter how calm we remain, at times our anger spikes and we end up hurting those beautiful relations. Happiness is wiped from our face and we try to find peace in television and alcohol. These things help us forget things for a brief period. When they are over we still are in pain.

     All these time we forgot one section, friends; more specifically friend. No matter where you are and in what stage of life, friends can help you not to forget but to tackle that situation. We are blessed with a lot of friends during our school and college days. We keep dropping off friends as we get more and more busy in life. You will know their value only when you are too old and with no one to talk to.

     Friends are your therapists, your consciousness and your personal diary. People will come and go in your life and most of them will hurt you one way or the other. At those times the only one person who can motivate you and bring you back on your feet are your friends.

     The most important thing in our life is to have at least one good friend who knows us well and can help us out before we fall into depression. Make good friends and keep connected throughout your life. Everything else is immaterial.

Survival of the Wedded

SURVIVAL OF THE WEDDED

      Staying married has become the most difficult thing in today's modern world. No matter what cast, creed or color, divorces are happening at an alarming rate. In the early 80's and 90's this was widely witnessed in the western countries and the so called other culture rich countries blamed the westerners lifestyle for the downfall of families. Jump a decade into the millennium and we find that the effects are global and the rate of divorces are shooting up. Suddenly people here in India who were following the Patriarch family life style find themselves entangled in this web.

      Can we still blame the westerners and their effects on our young generation? Lets see in detail about the marriage setup in India and reach a conclusion. From a mans point of view he has to choose his bride from the three groups of women available. 

They are :

1) The woman he would like to marry

2) The woman he is suppose to marry

3) The woman he should marry

     The first type of woman are those that a man feels is his type. When he sees a woman he suddenly feels 'this is the one' and tires to woo her into his life. But in reality a man chose a woman who has got all the character traits of his mother, the only woman who loved him from birth. The girl on the other hand may not see him as his type and will try to avoid him. after a lot of persuasion gifts and a lot of promises, the girl finally agrees to get married. The marriage if parents allow will be an Arranged one or else a Love Marriage. The chances of divorces are high in this type since both the bride and mother in law are mirror images of each other. People are not much alarmed at these divorces since they are expected as they are not 'blessed' by the patriarchs in the first place. 

     The second type of woman are those that a man is suppose to get married with. These woman are not found by the man but rather the parents and relatives search the nook and corner of the world to find a suit. The Parents look for matching family status and financial backgrounds that can offer a hefty gift at the time of the wedding. The guy doesn't have much role in this other than the fact that he can select from a few photographs the face he wants to see for the rest of his life and to tie the knot when people tell them to. All the arrange marriages happen in this category. The divorces in this category have risen dramatically due to incompatibility of working independent woman and tradition following in-laws including husband. The women in modern era are not willing to suck up all the lessons her in-laws want to teach her and so she opts to raise her kids with her own independent job.

     The third and the most neglected category are regarding the woman that a man should marry. Every person is differently wired and each has a different taste. It is best to marry someone who completes yourselves. If you are an angry person you need a patient wife, if you are lazy ass you need an initiator wife and so on. This type of families are stable to an extend since each are expert on different fields and common differences wont occur that much.

     These are the woman available to a man for marrying and his chances of divorce depends on the category he chooses. But may it be any category, if the husband and wife knows a thing or two about marriage and are willing to sideline their differences and willing to sacrifice for his life partner, we get to see the most beautiful couples. They will fight to the end but knows how to get back together without hurting each other.

     It is sad to see that our educational system boasting high literacy rates, has thus far been unable to guide the young generation of our society to make them ready to handle family life. Our main aim is to fill our young ones with knowledge mostly mugged up and pushed into them. We fail to provide them enough education on how to love one another and care for each other. Day by day kids become more and more selfish and this is getting reflected in their family life as well.

     Western civilization has given us many desirable products and also made us a consumer friendly nation. But when it comes to divorces the making is mostly due to our underdeveloped educational system in our country.

    Thus to survive in a marriage a person need to understand oneself and also the life partner.

The Right to be RAPED..!!!

Is it justice to Rape a woman to teach her a lesson?

     Yes, i have also read that article written by Leslee Udwin regarding the Nirbhaya case. Lot of people including women activists have voiced against the release of the documentary named "Indias Daughter". This event has put even the government into shocked as they are trying hard to save their face by putting a ban on its release in India. 

     Why everyone is shouting to ban this video? Most of the people are agitated by what the culprit has said about the girl through the documentary. Yes his remarks were hurtful and shocking, but you have to see the full story to understand why the documentary was made in the first place.

     Leslee Udwin came to India to document this bizzare incident just because she was baffled by the support Nirbhaya got from the society. Many girls all over the world are getting raped and people are going on with their lives But in Nirbhayas case people poured out into the streets of India and showed support to the girl and demanded the culprits to be caught and prosecuted.

     We all demanded that the culprits should be hanged and the wave subsided after the court handed them death sentence. But what Leslee Udwin found out was that these men are not psychopaths or people with violent backgrounds. They are normal Indian citizen but with a dangerous misconception in their mind. They believe that girls who roam around at night are all bad and its their duty to punish them. The girl must silently oblige and they will drop her off like nothing has happened after the "punishment". 

      Mukesh Singh, one of the culprits voices the mindset of a normal indian. In India we have laws that give equal rights to women. But in reality women are still looked down and stepped on by men. A girls birth is still viewed as the worst thing that can happen in a society. A girl is given much less food, nutrition and education. She has to learn to do washing and cleaning and do all the jobs like a domestic slave. A boy on the other hand grows up being pampered by everyone and he looks up at a girl as a slave. This inequality feeling amplifies as he ages and so men looks for an opportunity to rule over woman. 

     Women thus have the status of a servant and men rule over her. This does not end in a family atmosphere. Men are looking for more opportunities to overpower any women they can find. The most startling thing is that men are brainwashed to that extend by his clan that he feels he is doing justice by destroying a girls life.

     Have our society not grown a bit from the cruel medieval times? Even the advocate, who studied law and practices it in the supreme court of the country has this mentality. Thus we can measure how much deep this Gender inequality is prevailing.

     You cannot teach anyone by torchering them; Everyone is created by God; No one has the right to play Gods role. If people are saying that a woman walking on the streets will be raped, you can understand the level of safety a woman has in this country.

     If rape is the punishment for late night roaming, our country will have many more Nirbhayas in the near future. Its time we educated our men to respect women and protect her. 

    Our educational system has to be reformed and Boys have to be taught to treat women with respect and not to be looked at with lust and as a tool of his fantacy. Let gender equality be taught in schools and practised. 

     This documentary has brought out the evil practices and gender discriminations being followed in our country. I dedicate this blog to all those who worked to make this into a reality.

     And with a broken heart, my prayers to the brave girl Nirbhaya.!!

The Cool Mint

On the right track but on the wrong train..!

Am I happy with the way my childhood spanned out?

    This is a question we must ask ourselves at this point in life. We grew up studying a lot of subjects and listening to hours of lectures. Yet do you feel it helped you in any way? You can sure do basic Mathematics; know who built Taj Mahal and how trees eliminate Carbon Dioxide from our planet.

     But the things like, what are my strong points and in which field i will excel are still unknown to us even after we graduate from college.Even kids who are send to prestigious English medium schools cannot write 500 words about a topic even if their lives depended on it. We simply don't know what we are; we are neither good in our mother tongue nor in English. We try to act like a person that our parents or teachers brands us with.

     You know deep inside that somethings not right. That feeling builds up into frustrations as we grow. We wanna step out but don't know where to go. Everyone is frustrated with the things they do. They try to jump from one place to another, looking for some calmness to that feeling but its too late and they end up in a crater from which they cannot escape.

     The reason for this frustration build up is the fact that we do not follow our call. Every man and woman in this world has a call, to become someone. But in our kinder days no one bothers to make us aware of our skills and so we thought everyone in this world has to follow the same path. We are all scared to explore our talents or rather we are banned from deviation from the mainstream.

     By the time we are off age, we are so trained in this monochromatic society that our skills are almost lost and our soul goes into silence. We then try to make a living based on the very tiny part of our soul which is still awake. We work mechanically and live our lives blaming God for not giving us enough gifts as talents and money.

     This is the story of our childhood where all our dreams and aspirations were cut shorted and streamlined into an ever populated streams of education and portfolios. Due to this we all study the same thing and we all reach the same level. No one is excellent and everyone is fighting for the same piece of bone. Many won't be able to stand this dogfight and fall out into emptiness and some are so depressed that they end their life unable to bare it.

     Looking at the vast majority of job shifters and unemployed lot, we can see a lot of unexplored talents that are coming out in the form of frustration and anger. There are enough jobs in this world, but its the lack of skilled persons thats the issue. Companies will exploit this weakness and employees are trapped in this. Frustration will lead to fights and massive riots that are uncontrollable. The youth of a nation who are suppose to be the nation's strength will be looked upon as terrorists and rioters and people will start fearing them.

     So why are we in this situation?

     God has given each person a set of skills. The skills are not visible in childhood but shades of it can be understood even as the child is in kindergarten. A careful observer can spot these and can help guide the child into his strong areas. The kid can follow the same study path and yet will be able to concentrate on his skills. When the kid has reached the end of his school life his skills also would have developed. Now he can join a stream that can help him grow leaps and bounds and be successful.

     If we all take a bit more concern in raising the next generation, we can avoid a large number of social and medical issues of the next generation. Help them get on the right train so that they will reach their proper destination.

The Cool Mint.

   

Welcome to Slaves own country...!!

Have you ever seen a highly educated slave?

If not come to kerala, here every girl no matter how much educated she is, gets sold.

Its sad to see that such a well educated and high literacy boasting state like kerala is still holding on to this mother of all evil. Girls when are of age has to stand and be viewed as an item in the fancy store. But the star contrast is that the girl unlike a fancy item has to pay to be owned. This is much worse than being a slave. And we call ourselves well educated.

What is education if it cannot teach us what is right and wrong? We blindly follow this evil for centuries and still following. 

Is there any good in paying the bride price?

You may buy a car, give many kilos of Gold or offer part of land or house. But does it really help a girl gettin married? How can a car help her understand the basics of marriage? How many Kilograms will ensure that your girl is treated well in her husband's home? 

In the old times girls had no education and they had only one job, to get married and raise a family. Now the dimensions have changed. You cannot compare an under developed states in North India with Kerala. Here men and women read news and got work together. Moreover woman are working shoulder to shoulder with men. We have woman auto rickshaw drivers, bus drivers conductors, teachers, IT professionals, politicians and CEO's. 

What ever they may be, they still have to pay hefty price to get married and that too to men they hardly have a clue about. She simply sees if everyone around is happy and declares her opinions that her family forces her to.

Any girl who tries to convince her parents and relatives about this evil is seen as a threat to family and society. So she after a while will give up all her hopes and end up like any other unlucky woman.

Woman have dignity and they are also human beings. They are not cockroaches that men can step on. Nor is she a mannequin at any store that you can beat and shout all your frustrations. She is caring and has a beautiful heart. Her heart is deep and it has the power to hold in a lot of pain and suffering. Dont provoke her and then later stamp her as a revolting person. She cant supress her pain like men by going to bar. she can only sit their and weep. Be kind to her.  

The people who can bring a change to this is men. I urge the current generation to stop bargaining for more or worry about how much you received on your wedding day. Lets all work together to wipe this evil from our society. Money has only spoiled relationships. Never has it brought peace to this world and you are not gona take any with you when you die.

So why worry about it. Live a good life.

The Cool Mint.

Its Human to be 26 M, Please be Humane...

Does a boy who turns 26 become a man?

A boy who's blowing the candles on his 26th birthday has no idea that he has become a man. Suddenly the world wants him to be more responsible and serious. No more spending time with friends and going for cinemas. He has to suddenly look all tough and be ready to bear all the hardships  in life.

The boy still has no clue what is happening. He was treated as a kid just yesterday and suddenly the world has turned upside down. Whats happening? Am I in a parallel universe? 

This is the struggle of every boy crossing 26th B'day. He wished to be understood and looked up to like a man in his early 20's. But that time his parents treated him like a kid in the 5th grade and never took him seriously. Suddenly he is being looked upon as a guy in his mid 30's with 2 kids. Why this much change? And why was the boy not informed that he has to grow up suddenly.

Its just because parents always treat their kids like they are still at school. The think that their kids are not mature enough to do things right. So parents always come with an eye that is looking for faults. This really ruins a boys morale. You are not allowing him to grow. After a while the boy also feels that he is doing things wrong and that he is a failure and he stops thinking and taking new steps. Thus he remains a boy.

The moment he turns 26, the whole family suddenly asks him as to why is he not thinking about his life and not taking any steps. At this point of time you are neither ready nor keen to get married. You actually did not think this far. So the parents decide that its their job to find someone for their child.

Little are they considering the fact that they are not the one who is getting married but their kid. But since they never got the freedom to search for their life partner back in their times, they go around looking for a person that they like. 

Little do they know that their kid though sharing the same genes, have a different personality and attitude. Even the boy doesn't know about himself or has any clue about whom to marry. He goes and selects a girl the same way he selected his bike. 

And then suddenly he is engaged and married to the one he chooses. He has no idea about a family life and he thinks he will learn them as he goes on. He still is his parents little boy and this creates issues as now he has to manage both his parents and his wife who most probably are two sides of a coin.

The boy has just joined a new job and this adds to his pressure. The girl has her job and her friends and issues which remain separated from the boy and his family. This will lead to a family life were both live together without much talk and sharing. 

This is the most common style of family routine thats happening around us. So its important for the parents to stop treating their kids as little school kids. Guide them and let them grow. Appreciate them and encourage them to think of their own and take steps of their own. Teach your kids values and ask them to pray and prepare for a life partner who follows those values. Let the kids decide whom to and when to marry. If you have educated them well they will never go wrong. Its the lack of knowledge that makes people fall into traps. 

Do not hold down your kids. Push them so that they will open their wings and fly. Its important to fall and get injured in childhood when parents are around. If the kid falls in a later stage no one will be around him to sooth his wound and it will remain a pain for the entire life.

So communicate and teach kids based on their age and not based on what your neighbour is doing.

- The Cool Mint