Friday, December 11, 2009

How not to react to situations and stay calm

Many times in our day-to-day lives, we come across situations which agitate us, which directly impact us and hence, we react to such situations. Humans are emotional, sensitive creatures. When emotions are affected, we humans react, its but human to react. We lash out in anger or frustration because we are not in our emotional equilibrium. We are emotionally disturbed, vulnerable.


Now none of us are saintly creatures, its natural to react when someone hurts you or speaks offending words. But does reacting or lashing out help or does it make the situation worse?? Do you feel better after venting out your feelings or do you end up feeling miserable?? Does the situation end in a cordial way or does it end in a hostile way??

Let us see how we can handle difficult situations like these which tend to shake us and ruin our pacified self:

-- Monitor your emotions like a watchman Observe yourself like a 3rd person. When someone speaks hurtful words, stirs your emotions, what kind of thoughts come in your mind. What do you experience? hate, disrespect, anger, hurt and see these emotions come and pass through you. Try to analyse yourself as to why you are experiencing these emotions, learn to control and condition yourself to be calm and cool. So that next time when in the same situation, you know how to pacify yourself. Introspection in the very simple of words.

-- Keep your expectation levels low Expectations is the root cause of all unhappiness. When I expect a certain good behaviour from a certain someone, and when I do not see that coming, I feel extremely hurt and offended. Why did I raise my expectations about the other person?? I should keep to my region of influence, why should I try to raise my expectations over something that I do not have control over. As Stephen Covey rightly states in "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People", the Habit 1 which is to be proactive."Proactive people focus their efforts on the things over which they have influence, and in the process often expand their area of influence. Reactive people often focus their efforts on areas of concern over which they have no control. Their complaining and negative energy tend to shrink their circle of influence." Words of such profound meaning and so rightly said.


-- Walk Away No its not cowardice, you are just staging a walkout to get away from your negative emotions. Why do people often say "Leave me alone" when they are upset about something. Isolation from the problematic situation or person does help. That does not mean you cut off yourself from him/her. No it does not mean a communication gap. It just means insulating yourself for a short period of time or the time span you need for cooling down from your pent-up emotions.

-- Write a diary Instead of lashing out verbally, instead of saying harsh words which can never be taken back, write! Write your heart out. Writing provides the necessary vent to your lava of emotions. Its a healthy habit, and if you do not want anyone putting hands on your diary, write and dispose of those writings. After all, you yourself would not want to be reminded of how you felt when you wrote a particular angry note in your diary.

-- Meditate Meditation relaxes your body, mind not to mention the various other benefits it has. The simplest form of meditation is 3 step and can be done for 10 minutes or so a) close your eyes and breathe normally b) concentrate on your breathing c) if your mind wanders and some thoughts pass through your mind, just be mindful of them and return back to concentrate on your breathing. Meditation in my opinion is any activity that you do with single-handed attention and focus.

Do you have any other points that you would like to share on how to remain cool and not react. You are more than welcome to share the same.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Yes she is married now..


Image Credit

Her hennaed hands..mehendi in its true color..
Her clinking bangles..the cream and red chudhe..
Her मंगलसूत्र with the black beads..
Her hair partitioned in the center and with carefully put sindoor...
Her anklets..
Her bichiya..
Her smiling demeanor..
Yes she is married now...
Yes its a new life for her now..

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Waiting..


Is too much anticipation right? Does it keep rekindling the fire of your cravings for a particular event to happen? Or does it leave you anxious and negatively excited as to what will happen when finally the much awaited event occurs.Lets see how we can perceive the word "Waiting"


&& We all are or have been waiting for some event or for some person in our life to turn up. Waiting in turn builds up expectations, and too much expectation is not in the right spirit. I am waiting for my friend to call me and she is waiting for me to call her. Both of us have the expectation that the other will call, thats not right and can lead to ego issues and misunderstandings between people.

&& Waiting can be deemed analogous to procrastinating as well. Am waiting for my friend to arrive so that we can begin studying on a particular topic. This is not right because I in this case am dependent on my friend and I am not taking the initiative to begin studies myself. I am waiting for my manager to call me and assign me a job. I should be proactive enough to go and ask for a task myself if I have nothing on my plate.


&& Yes waiting in the right sense would be to wait for a friend to give him/her support. Lend a hand so that the other doesn't trip over. That waiting would fall under a positive category. But me being the counterpart should not wait for the other to lend a hand, that would be wrong since I would be soaring my expectations for the other. While its easier said than done, keeping your expectations low is very much possible. If I have a petty quarrel with one of my mates, instead of expecting him/her to say sorry, I should analyze my own behavior and go forward and apologize if I am at fault rather than groping for the other persons' mistakes.


Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. - Barrack Obama


I also believe in the power of NOW, everything that is, is in the now as I have mentioned in one of my previous posts Life

&& Waiting can also be an another plus. It would mean being patient, I have worked hard but still not got the much awaited promotion. In that case, I am waiting and being more patient. Yes, but it never pays to be over-patient. One needs to raise a voice against any wrong-doing being done to them.


You can't wait for inspiration.
You have to go after it with a club.
- Jack London



One might wonder, why the post! My answer would be, my musings about how a particular word can be perceived in multiple ways. And how so many words can be used to describe the context of a single word. 

The ability to express oneself is such a gift which everyone should exercise! Hence, my perceptions..

Monday, December 07, 2009

Paa


As one of my friends rightly said, that hasn't Big B been given an ugly face makeup with an egg like shape? Its not really pleasant to look at. But I consented but after watching the movie, also understood that suffering from Progeria ( an extremely rare genetic disease that causes accelerated ageing) did make that look inevitable.

Auro is a 12 year old kid suffering from progeria.His mom is Vidya(Vidya Balan), a gynaecologist and also a single mom. Thankfully for the director, we are not dragged into the flashback for much time. The whole flashback is cleverly shown in just one song(Ittifaak se) and for what turns out to be quite obvious, Abhishek Bachhan(Amol) does not want to marry Vidya(she is carrying his child)
because he wants to help his father in politics and is not ready for so much responsibility.                                                                              

Vidya stages a walkout because she wants to have the kid. In another scene between Vidya and her Mom, its queer how Vidya keeps saying she can't have the kid because of the society, because she still has 3 years of her medical education left and how her mom keeps asking her whether she wants to have the kid. Bollywood normally has torturous scenes where the unmarried girl is forced to abort her child to escape the wrath of the society and lo! here for a change, maybe in a way manifesting the changing mentality of our parents, the scene is moving in quite a contrary direction.

Meantime, Amol has become a budding politician keen to show the masses that politics ain't that dirty as they deem it to be. In one of his political appearances that he makes, he lands up in Auro's school totally unaware that Auro is his own kid, yet totally awed by Auro's thinking. The blank globe, where its not about my country or your country, there are no regional bounderies and we are all one. Its humorous how Auro explains to his mom, how he stole the globe from the staff room and painted it white, not too much effort for the "Visionary of India" prize that he was bestowed upon :D

How Amol meets up with his son Auro and the uncanny attachment between them is shown well. How Vidya explains to her son that they do not want to be a "hichki" in Amol's life is a good scene but again flawed considering the fact that its a 12 year old we are talking about.

The script is flawed in many places, may it be Amol openly getting infuriated at the media or Auro speaking quite maturely like a grown up. The scene where he asks for pickle,not for himself but for his mom, telling her not to sacrifice something that she does not have to. Or the kids at Auro's school, talking about the meaning of Bastard, its very strange how kids are brought upto the level of grown-ups and are shown to think like mature 20 plus something guys or gals.

Big B,Vidya Balan have given their best performance, Vidya being given a befitting role. Abhishek looks convincing as a politician but I wish he was given better dialogues, and please why was he made to say that he was happy "not wearing a condom" :| and that was why he had Auro. That sounded quite stupid. Auro calling his granny "Bum" because she has a big bum :D the obsessive talk about potty :D there are some witty one liners here and there which keep you in the movie thus saving itself. Not to forget Arundhati Naag who plays Vidya's mother. Quite an impressive performance, hers.

Overall, Paa is a good effort by ABCL after a long gap. Amitabh Bachhan in one of his best unconventional roles steals the show followed by Vidya Balan, no other actress could have done this role better than her.


A lot of credit goes to Stephan Dupuis for a very realistic make-up.And hats off to Big B cause it wasnt easy to get the makeup applied either. An article about that here

A Thumbs up and 3 stars to Paa ***