N.R.I. Blues!

Waking up to alarm and not mother calling,grabbing a beagle or sandwich along with espresso or cafe Americana from a Star bucks joint instead of idli,sambar & tea in an Udipi hotel.Calling a taxi and just taking it instead of bargaining the price over meter.Then you definitely are an N.R.I.!Away from India!A non Residential Indian!

Where Satyadev becomes Steve and Padma becomes Paddy.Life is all changed once you move out of India an become a N.R.I. There is a panache to your style and accent,your life is too disciplined and your proudly portray your N.R.I. tag!

However the initial N.R.I. days are most interesting ones trying to understand the place and culture.You are stuck in between the Desi & Videshi customs.
The travelling & exploring around is the fun part.Its always exciting to know a new city.

The best part of shifting to a new city is to see around the place & meet new people of different nationalities.And the worst part being the long & boring days spent either searching for jobs or waiting  for  that  admission in University for higher education.
A limited budget,travelling with little knowledge of the city and the impromptu process of meeting new people.

Making new friends is the best part of moving to a new city,you get to meet so many different type of people,the gossiping the shopping sprees the varied fashion,the crazy outfits,the new slang,the sudden exposure to a free culture.Where all genders and sexes are treated as equal. Where there is no domination or discrimination of one sex or race over the other.There isn't a caste system and people of all race work in an environment where they aren't judged based on their background.
There are women with more male friends than female ones and aren't considered as sluts and yet  when two male friends bond they are surprisingly considered as Gay!
A hilariously true fact! 

The West has always inspired us Indians.Tough there are many positive factors of the western culture,but how much is good? We Indians seem to love to ape the west.
The anti caste system,The equality of genders the preference based on one's potentiality are the pro's,But there are also high divorce rates,Teen pregnancies,Late marriages,High stress rates & serious Health issues,Low reproduction rates etc. 
People are more attached to their cell phones than Family.The deploying faith in marriages & making families.

The cons of the developed culture is to such an extent that the West is starting to take a U- turn into vernacular ways.They have started going back to Yoga,Believing in marriages & having families,We Indians on the other hand are repeating the mistakes despite knowing the fact where it will lead to.

There are so many good things that could be incorporated from the other cultures into our system.Like the hard working Nature,the individuality Being self dependent in an early age.Gender and race inequalities.Strict punishments for sexual harassment,Rapes,murders & other hideous crimes.

Often the culture differences seem to shock many leading to a dilemma.But in such cases standing strong to your roots often proves better.
From what I've experienced the Non Indians are more interested in our culture than in someone aping them.
They seem to have keen interest in Indian food,History & mythology,culture, the rituals,the beautiful weddings,& the celebrations .
They seem to enjoy it and hold high regard for  the Indians as well as the Culture. We on the other hand are ruining it by aping almost everything right from the lifestyle to the movies.
Everything seems to have been inspired by the west.It may seem wonderful in a modern scenario but Are we not losing originality?

  

 When People of different nationalities come together for work They seem to create
 a picture of a Nation from an individual of that Nation.They believe A Nation is what 
 the Individual represents to them. 

And In this scenario We as N.R.I.'s have even bigger responsibility towards our Country to represent our Nation in whichever Country we reside. 

Because together we all are doing a small part in spreading the colors of our culture which is so great!

Over a Cuppa Tea!

Over A Cuppa Tea!

A lazy weekend after all household chores, A few Episodes of Sex & the city later Over a Cuppa tea you don't yet know how to pass the time.
This is a story of so many of us young working professionals away from home.

Splurging in sin full shopping seems such a wonderful idea for us ladies.But if you are on saving mode for you've spent a lot recently over something,then involving in some window shopping also seems threatening.

The fact remains that you go out for window shopping and end up buying more than you would normally splurge in,boredom is such a fuel to such splurging. Especially with so many wonderful stores around offering so many options.The brands and the tempting sale season!

Sometimes draggy and depressing days become wonderful just at the sight of sale in the 
Tangs outlet or a Zara Store.

But if you have planned to stay house arrested for the fear of spending more than you could afford,weekend may get so boring.And Over a cup of Tea begin to get nostalgic about the times when the pocket money was limited and shopping was just limited to the festivals & birthdays,boredom hardly had time in our life.

The high school and university days  are so wonderful,We were often short of money & yet had so much fun.
Ad mist the monthly targets,Submissions,assignments,Classes,The harmless faculty,we somehow managed to fit in canteen time,skipping classes time for a recent English/Hindi/Telugu flick,raging juniors,impromptu karaoke,badminton games &sketching trips.

Having fun and making Friends is a cakewalk in the teens & early twenties.Long Conversations sharing crap,gossips,non stop bragging,the activities so common in our early twenties seems too difficult later.Does time change us all?

We all often  go through many friendship break ups in our lives,Some are short lived others just end-up on a cordial note with lets hope we never meet each other,You don't bump into some of those Friends or sometimes just ignore the ones you bump into.And only few of those close ones make it for your "Forever Friends" List.

Its a wonderful thing to be 'Friends forever",Its so comforting in situations when you have hard times with family.The "Friends Forever" become a backup family & you can run over to and lean your head into their shoulders.
We are often very happy in the comfort zone and never think about making new ones,And end up feeling these friends are enough for a Life time.

But often we face difficult challenges,when we move away from our cities for higher studies,that dream job or to accompany our spouse to other city."Friends Forever" become "Friends not so often!"

We depart with thoughts & promises to keep in touch through emails,texts,social networking sites & phone calls. 

The technology is so advanced,makes it pretty easy for Friends overseas to stay in touch!!In fact so Easy that we are so glued to the technology & old friends that we don't realize about the people around us!!With so many options with high end applications available,we hardly realize the need for real Human friends!

Texts replace conversations,Games & social networking replace people.

A very sad truth  but it is what we are up to,The latest technology is advancing but making us all so lame...

We have latest phone models with latest applications all updated so we don't feel the boredom but are forgetting people around.We are often so engrossed in staying in touch with old friends that we forget to make new ones around!

We are so engrossed in taking selfies & photographs  of a wonderful place we have visited that we actually forgot to enjoy the trip worst even we forget the name of the place.

We all have a friends list exceeding 1000 on our social networking sites..and still we are spending lonely weekends wondering Over A Cuppa Tea...

Life still existed without technology,And we had Real Friends back then!!