Abused Daughter-In-Law

Irrespective of religion, caste or creed, a daughter-in-law is psychologically, physically and financially abused, because of these main reasons.

1. OUTSIDER TAG:
The main reason for evil is the lack of acceptance of a daughter-in-law as part of the family. Families keep daughter-in-law out of discussions pertaining to family matters. Husband and his parents, talk secretly in a room while the daughter-in-law is made to watch TV, because she is an "outsider".
The really ironic part is that, these people can give amazing views on untouchability, and yet they treat their daughter-in-law as one, in their own home!

2. INSECURE PARENTS:
Parents of the Husband are so insecure, that they are often seen lamenting that "that women took away our son". It's time to accept it that parents in general are selfish, so let's keep the "selfless love tag aside". They "invest" time, money, and love on a son, so he can repay by taking care of them in their old-age. The finer print to this is, they expect him to behave like an obedient 5-year old kid till they die! They just get insecure when he starts to take his own decisions. Decisions that will revolve around his "selfishness" for his own family.
Have these parents ever heard of the saying, "What you throw into the universe comes back to you magnified!!"

3. ADJUSTMENT PHASE:
Adjustment phase is the time, it takes the mind to adjust into a new environment.
Adjustment Phase Disorder (or Adjustment Disorder) is very high levels of sadness, fear, depression and anxiety that one suffers, if the adjustment phase fails. In great majority of cases this disorder requires medicines for cure.
The adjustment phase for daughter-in-law, would be anywhere between 1 - 2 years. But contrast to this, so called PROGRESSIVE HOUSEHOLDS give only a month or maximum two to their daughter-in-law. And the hardest part is that, during this time no one guides her, she has to learn on her own.
Statistically speaking, failure of adjustment phase leads the brain of many ladies into clinical levels of depression and anxiety - this is manifested as fear, sadness, anger and irritation.
TO ADD INSULT TO INJURY - the Indian households, the parents of the Husband, take care of this depression and anxiety by seeping in the IDIOTIC idea "HAVE A CHILD, EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE!!" No doubt we have reached 1.3 billion, and mental health illness is growing exponentially every year!!

4. LOVE OF DARK SIDE:
Everyone loves the dark side. It doesn't matter how rich or powerful one is, dark side always attracts them. It takes a lot of inner strength to stand against the Regressive thought process of the society.
In general, mother-in-laws treat their daughter-in-laws like "slaves". They decide on her daily routine, feel pride in giving her "holidays" and hand over a list of things she "demands" her parents to provide.
All this Stupidity is done in the name of "SOCIAL RULES".
Hardly a marginal percentage of people stand against this. Why?
The Dark Side is so very attractive and it is so very easy to like the negative.
Remember in childhood we were taught, "Bad habits come easily and are very difficult to go!"
It is so natural to like the Dark Side, and as a Big Joke, everyone prays to God for more of it!!!

5. STILL A BOY:
Husband is still a boy, not a man. Most men take a lot of time to mature. Maturity isn't related to physical age, but is related to the mental outlook. Most men behave as small boys, who are happy outsourcing their responsibilities to their parents.
A great number of men find marriage a legal way to have sex, someone to talk to and roam around with.
Most don't have the maturity to understand the emotional and social responsibility they have towards their wife.
Most are not ready to accept the changes that life demands once they get married.
Most men cannot stand up to their mother or father and fight for their wife. But they have one great trait, they create amazing "excuses" to run away from their responsibilities.

So Hard To Say 'I'm Sorry'

'I'm sorry', such a small phrase, seemingly easy enough to say, yet in marriage these words have a huge impact, whether said or especially, not said. Every couple has their marital battles, but I am willing to bet that if we all had the time to talk about these specific words there would be too much to say about them.

Couples often admit that in their marriage they want their spouses to say 'I’m sorry' more often.

In marriages couples often have lots of expectations from each other, and more so often due to these expectations they unknowingly hurt each other. But that's not the problem rather the beginning of problem.

Usually, in marriages when hurt, couples don't communicate with each other as to whether they have been hurt by each other or not, and how they have been hurt, instead they isolate themselves from each other, leaving them clues hoping they would see that things between them are not ok.

I suppose this is the “mind game” that people refer to, but I don't think these are the mind games. In all actuality, these are the expectations of husband and wife from each other, that they want to be understood by each other so much so that they want their spouses to notice even the slightest change in their behaviour, they want to be loved by each other, they want to be the centre of attention of each other during these times of emotional distress. Isn't that what love is all about? Isn't that what marriage is all about?

A husband or wife may not be willing to say 'I'm sorry', if they do not feel they were in the wrong, leaving the other person unresolved with their hurt feelings. Some may say them too fast, giving the impression they do not care about what happened, eager to move-on, again missing the point that feelings need to be validated.

Whichever way you typically respond to your spouse in your marital relationship, specifically with “I’m sorry,” the bottom line is that these words do need to be said, sincerely, and most likely often. Despite whose fault it is, the fact remains that feelings get hurt and need validation. The good news is that we have time to work on our approach to saying these words, and hopefully we will be great communicators in those crucially emotional times.

An apology is, and will always be incomplete without forgiveness, and unfortunately our cultures way of thinking is that we wait for an apology and then forgive.

Especially in Marriage, how often do couples wait for their spouses to apologise before giving forgiveness?

Forgiving your spouse even before they have done wrong and hurt you is a powerful depiction of sacrificial love! In marriage, if one can forgive their spouse even before they wrong them, they are then exemplifying the love at it's purest form! That’s powerful and very difficult to do; yet the reward is beyond words! The reward is lifetime of love, happiness and companionship.

Many times one may sit and contemplate whether their spouse deserves forgiveness. Forgiveness is not about what somebody deserves. It is powerful and life changing when given even when someone does not deserve it.

When you are in an argument with your spouse, a fight, or if you are hurting in any way because of your spouse, both of you need to stop and evaluate your love for each other, for above all, you love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of arguments and fights and misunderstandings.

Illogical Choices

The destinies of love and friendship have always been entwined with each other from the time immemorable. Lucky are those, whose friendship blossoms in to love and they live happily ever after. But mostly the fate does a rather sadistic dance on the destiny of love and friendship, making one person fall hopelessly in love and pseudo commanding the other person to break the friendship and the heart of other.

25 May, 2015

Anshika: We can't be friends anymore

Angad: Why can't we be friends?

Anshika: And we won't talk from now on

Angad: What? Why?

Anshika: Because I don't want to hurt you

Angad: What? How?

Anshika: You love me, and I don't feel the same for you. For me, we are just friends and that too not even close ones. And thanks to this weird love feeling of yours, we will never be close friends.

So, it is better for you if we don't talk to each other, it will save you from the pain.

Angad: That's a lame excuse.

Anshika: It's not an excuse. I know the pain of being in love when you don't get it back, and i don't want you to go through that pain, you are a dear friend.

Angad: Thanks for all the care, but your explanation is too naive and immature.

Anshika: How?

Angad: I am in love with you, and I want to spend each waking as well as sleeping moment of my life with you. And not being in touch with you, not being able to talk to you is going to be a living hell for me. You say you don't want to hurt me, but this action of yours is going to inflict tremendous pain on me and will hurt me beyond any measure.

I am not asking you to love me back, I am not that selfish. Also, I am not a fool to mistake love for business, in which profitable returns are necessary. Before I fell in love with you, we were friends, and  I don't want my feelings for you to change that and break our friendship. Let's just forget that I love you and be friends like we were before.

If you will be afraid to love, you will never be happy and will become the reason for pain and misery of people who love you. Accept love, and all the happiness in the world will bow down to you.

Ground Reality Of Love Jihad

The current Jihad against Love - for that is indeed what has gripped the imaginative fervour of the Hindu Right and its luxuriant undergrowths and counterparts - is only the latest and most visible instance of a virulent Indian misogyny. From its beginnings in the south to its tentacular spread in the north, the thick smoke screen of "love jihad" - by which Muslim men are alleged to have designs on Hindu women of an entirely dishonorable kind - disguises a far more familiar face, one that even many Muslims will recognise. It is a deep seated fear among many sections of Indian men that too many Indian women have taken control of their lives at a much faster pace than expected, show little patience for strictures of the past, and therefore need to be taught a quick lesson, and kept in place. What better strategy than to create a fear which will unite a seriously fractured society, and bring it back to its familiar, hierarchical whole?

At the least, two sets of recent developments have stoked the fears of an Indian patriarchy that is firmly entrenched in rich soils of religion, caste, region and class. December 16, 2012 ended the silence of women about sexual violence and harassments in schools, colleges, work places and even households. Angry, voluble Indian women showed no reluctance in taking journalists, slum dwellers, uncles, fathers, judges and teachers to court, or before sexual harassment committees. She talked, she argued, she wrote and she organised against that which had for too long been cloaked in the mysteries of silence.

Even more difficult for not only men but for some women too to accept were the recent signs of men and women breaking free of the stifling binds of the  official kinship. There was much publicised violence with which the Khap Panchayat reinserted women, and some men, into kinship relationships which they had rejected. To take some liberties with Foucault, an older "symbolis of blood" appeared to be giving way, slowly but surely, to a new "analytics of sex". The bloody violence of Khap Panchayat has been a warfare between generations and also between genders - beleaguered older and very Hindu patriarchs versus the young men and women who risked a great deal in dreaming of caring, sharing partners and a less hierarchical life. The ferocity of Khap Panchayat attacks on these men and women, and prevarications of a state which did not doubt the moral authority of these actions, has done a little to deter these daily transgressions.

These kind of developments could not have come at a worse time for those whose generational and gender authority is being challenged. The time was ripe for fostering a new and more threatening fantasy to bring the strays back to the fold. As long as the fantasies of inter-caste or cross-caste relationships were confined to the silver screens, women's 'khushi' was not interrupted. Real women are another matter - they are often "loved" to death by men who, once spurned, wield the axe, knife or acid bottle with deadly skill. Indian cinema has nurtured this version of loving, a unidirectional flow of feelings from man to woman, whose outcomes - eventual female acquiescence - are always predicted.

On the other hand, Indian feminism's very success has produced some contradictory outcomes. An ever eager and sophisticated state has altered its laws, policies and plans to accommodate the language of women's aspirations. The corporate world has found it convenient to borrow the language of feminism to reach a large and ready pool of independent consumers. For some time now, International Women's Day has been another hallmark moment. For a while, even Hindu right wing parties chose to adopt the slogans and battle cries of Indian feminism. Yet, the public life is replete with irresponsible utterances and outrageous actions, no protocols of political correctness are observed by the loose-lipped parliamentarians or legislators, judges or journalists, since there is no accompanying political cost.

Quite simply, many Indian women are no longer the passive bearers of caste, religious, ethnic or other meaning - but the makers of the meaning. That is surely a cause for dismay among those who feel their grip is loosening. Large numbers of women have gained a measure of independence, freedom from domestic tyrannies, and have won some economic and legal liberty. Straw polls, discouraging editorials and sensational headlines notwithstanding, these hard-won gains will not be diminished.

Hence need for a clarion call to place all Hindu women under a protection they did not demand; back to a lock up where they will be safe from the dangers of independent thinking and action. We should therefore take heart in these difficult times from the courage shown by judges of the Delhi High Court in naming a clear and present danger to married women, the matrimonial home. The judges, who have noted the frequency with which husbands are convicted for murder - no less than one in ten murder cases - have declared that even the streets of a dangerous city like Delhi may be safer for women than the private sphere of the home. This is a damning indictment indeed of a space which is constantly being saved from the vividly imagined dangers of "love and companionship".

Letting Go

Heena is getting married to a guy, whom her parents chose for her, but she is madly in love with Angad.

To break this news to him, she decides to meet him at his place.

Heena: I love you, and can't live without you. But...
Angad: Love you too shona baby!

Heena embraces Angad in a tight hug and kept hugging him tighter and tighter. Angad sensed that something has gone awfully wrong, and broke the hug. He made her sit on his lap, took her face in his hands, locked his eyes with hers, and spoke with love, "I am always with you sweetheart, you can tell me what's bothering you?"

She hugged him again, "I am getting married."

Angad's heart stopped beating, and a tear traced itself on his left cheek. For the first time, there was an awkward silence between them, in which Heena's heart was thumping loudly and Angad's was losing its beats.

Finally, with a lot of courage Angad spoke "Then, I guess, this is the last time we are meeting as 'US'."

"No, don't even think of that, I love you and we will meet like we are meeting now."

"What?"

Once again Angad broke the hug, made her stand and steadied himself too, paced along the length of the room a few times, not caring of the tears that were welling from his eyes. Then, he made her sit on the chair, and sat on his knees himself; took her hands in his, and spoke with the confidence of a grown up man who is madly in love.

"Let's tell your parents about us!"

"I can't, they won't understand."

"They will, we will make them understand, we will convince them for our marriage."

"You don't know my parents."

"But, I know how much we love each other."

"I can't tell them." There was a long pause and she spoke again, "I am getting married to the guy of their choice. And I love you and can't live without you. So, we will have to meet like this only. I am yours, and will always be."

"I can't do this. I don't want to be the reason for your infidelity to your husband. Either you are mine or you are not."

"I am yours only, but I can't go against my parents."

"And, I can't share you with anyone. Even that thought kills me. It's like dying thousands and thousands of deaths at a time, and living again, only to die again."

"I l-l-love you" she said, with trembling lips.

"I love you too, and I am ready to face the entire world for you, if only you have the courage to hold my hand."

"My parents will kill you."

"Death will be a piece of cake compared to the pain I am in."

"I am yours, and I will always be with you, He will be my husband for the world, but I am and will always be yours."

"Sorry!"

"You, yourself said that our destinies are entwined with each other. And moreover, we always find each other in the end, even if we don't want to." She said this with a hope to change his decision and make him ignore his principles.

"They were entwined; we used to find each other. But, from this moment on, I am fighting against the fates."

"Are you breaking up with me?" she asked with a disheartened voice.

"I am letting you go." Angad replied with the calmness that precedes the storm.

"Is it breakup?"

"Hold my hand, and I will make it certain that our parents bless us for our marriage. Don't make that effort and I am sure I won't see you again."

"So, this is it. You are breaking up with me." She spoke with anger

"No, it means I am waiting for you to be mine, I am waiting for you to declare our love to your parents and to the world. I am yours and will always be, I am waiting for you to make an effort for us, and when you will do that, you will find me beside you. I will accept you even after you have become a mother to 3 or 4 kids, I will accept you even after you are grandmother to 16 or 17 kids. But, I won't accept you, when you're someone else's life partner."

"I will kill myself; I will commit suicide, if you ever said you will break up with me."

With a heavy heart Angad replied with an uncertain firmness in his voice, "you can't scare me with these blank threats."

"I love you, please don't do this" pleaded Heena.

"Relationships demand time and effort, and you are not willing to invest either, but you want to reap the benefits of the relationship with these threats of killing yourself. You are not scared of losing me; it is just that you have become habitual of sharing everything with me, I am like a diary to you. You are not scared of losing me; you are scared of losing an ear to your colloquy. You are not scared of losing me; you are scared if you will ever find a shoulder to cry on. You are not scared of losing me; you are scared if that guy will treat you like I do. You are just not scared of losing me."

"That's not true." spoke Heena, although she knew herself that she was lying.

"You can't lie to me, so don't lie to yourself too."

There was silence, an uncertain calmness in that silence, and that calmness was indicative of the tears that will be shed not from Angad's eyes, but from his heart. Angad went to the door, gathered his remaining courage, opened the door and spoke, "This is the last time you are seeing me. Don't expect any replies from me. Take care." And he gestured her to leave while his heart bled out tears of blood.


Love isn't about forcefully having someone with whom you feel comfortable. It is about putting lots and lots of effort and time in understanding someone, their needs, their dreams, and make them your own, so that they can be happy, even if they are not with you.

In Love With You

Celebrate the feeling

For the day and evening

Beautiful hearts are beating

For love is in the air

My love, come with me

Become one with me

My heart is all yours

If they ask, what our eyes promised each other

Tell them, we chose each other for life

Tell them, we are each other's for eternity

When I see you, my heart starts beating

Life becomes a song, and I start singing

Your face is a magical spell of renew

I have fallen in love with you

Once again, tried my hand on a sonnet, I hope it will be liked and appreciated.

This one is for the love of my life, to convey my love to her, as to how much I love her and how my life has become hers and hers only.

Hurtful Memories

I was yours, you were mine

We had a very nice time

You were my one and only

On a rainy cloudy day

You had to go your way

And leave me alone in doomsday

Memories are killing me

The price to be alone

Why can't your love be mine?

You threw me away

And it hurts everyday

My heart cries away

It's all over, we have said goodbye

And I am too hurt even to cry

But it is tearing me apart, don't know why

I drink my cares away

Why didn't you stay

Gave us chance to start again

Memories are killing me

The price to be alone

Why can't your love be mine?

Don't worry about me, I feel blue

But I am never ever alone

Your memories are keeping me home

But those memories are hurting me

But those memories are tearing me

But those memories are killing me

This one is dedicated to each and everyone who has been hurt in love and still they haven't gave up on love, with a hope that the memories of their love agitates them to be a better human with every breath they take.

The pleasure of love is in letting the arrow of love pierce through your heart, and letting you enjoy the pain. ENJOY BEING IN LOVE!