Reflections

When one googles friendship examples from the Mahabharatha the top answers are that of Karna and Duryodhana, Duryodhana and Ashwathama, Drona and Drupad, Krishna and Arjuna. Rarely there is reference of Draupadi and Krishna. But, in my opinion the friendship between Draupadi and Krishna is such a beautiful bond that it should be top on the list. The friendship between Duryodhana and Karna or Ashwathama cannot be considered as friendship at all because, it had only the greed and authoritative trait of Duryodhana as the base of the relationship. He fooled both these people by showing false generosity but at the core was his selfishness  and he 'used' both these people to try to fulfil his ambition. Drona and Drupad did not melt their differences till the end and friends can never be angry at each other for so long and pride is an emotion that has no place between friends. The relationship between Krishna and Arjuna was more of a mentor and mentee and less of friends. I shall writ...

How often have you spent hours shopping to find that perfect dress but were disappointed? How often have you procrastinated over a report to submit it perfectly but you missed the deadline? How often have you looked at your family pictures and criticized it for not being perfect?  On 21st August 2020 a news that caught the eyes of many and that began to be circulated in social media was about a lady who sought divorce from her 'perfect' husband....... Can a person be perfect? Can a relationship be perfect? Can an organization be perfect?Can a house be maintained perfectly? Can an event be conducted perfectly? The answer to all the above is NO. When the earth itself does not have a perfect shape and is of an unusual shape called oblate spheroid, how and why should anything else be perfect??  The effort taken by any person before uploading a picture on social media is the best sign to watch out for to determine where one is on the perfectionist scale. Perfectionism is a cognitiv...

 My maternal uncle writes descriptive stories based on his personal life experiences and we all enjoy reading the same for the sheer joy of living through the experience he shares. Though most readers appreciate his narrative excellence, one particular reader requested him not to write descriptive stories because, according to him such style of writing is time consuming to the reader and gives unnecessary detailing. Apart from this comment, in the last few months I have experienced similar conversations from many others too. One friend casually told me that she is unable to read long text messages leave alone reading a novel that I had suggested, my son's teacher requested me to tell him to write shorter creative passages in the exam as the examiner would not have the time nor the patience to read through a long passage however engaging it may be; and a few other such incidents made me ponder as to why we as human beings are not able to process longer texts in recent times, though ...

  When my son was a toddler I used to read to him stories about the cute little monkey Bubbles. Each story would have an important value for children to learn and imbibe. “Bubbles owns up” was a favorite story which my son would tell me to read morning, noon and night every day. What fascinated him about the story was how bubbles broke a jar of chocolate chip cookies and bravely owned up his mistake when his mother asks him. My son certainly was influenced by this value and would never hide any mischief from me because for him owning up was a part of life and I had always told him that making mistakes was the first step to learning provided one accepts that one has made a mistake. Today, more than one and half decades later we have moved from the days of bubbles stories to Dan Brown series and my son in his teenage gives me the typical teen challenges to handle, one of them being his argumentative nature. Often he does not admit he has made a mistake and will argue how what he sa...