Thursday, August 30, 2007

I’VE GOT WHAT ALL GIRLS WANT

Ok, just thought I’d have a catchy title. But the topic of the post is slightly related.


I’ve been working quite a lot this summer, and I’m going to narrate an event that happened during the lunch break a few weeks ago. There were three of us (me and two female blond colleagues [not that their hair color has anything to do with it]) around the table, and having our lunch. One of my female colleagues mentioned considering from home; but being very confused about it.


The trend here is to move out from home as quickly as possible. This colleague currently lives with her parents, and is considering whether to move to a separate apartment or whether to move in with her boyfriend. (this post is NOT gossip haha)


She was listing the positives and negatives she saw in moving to a separate apartment, and to her boyfriend. To cut a long story short, she wanted her boyfriend to live a lone for a few months before she moved in. She wanted to do this because; she wanted him to ‘learn’ most of the household duties that are typically done by females. Basically she didn’t want to move in with him, because she was fearing she’d become his ‘mother’ (i.e. the person who washes the dishes, does laundry, cooks the food); she wanted him to learn it all, and then when she moved in, they’d share responsibilities, and she wouldn’t have to do everything else.


The other female colleague concurred, that before a female moves in with a man, the man should have lived by himself for a while, so that he’s learnt doing all the chores. She mentioned how her boyfriend would come home (when she was away), and order a pizza instead of cooking food for the daughter, and the house would look like a mess. She complained how she would have to clean up the place, and that she kind of ‘had’ to clean up before settling down (some kind of internal thing she has that doesn’t allow her to rest before the house is clean.) Her explanation was that her boyfriend had been spoiled by his mother who did everything for him.


Then suddenly, all eyes were on me. Now it was my turn to comment on how lazy men who live with their mothers were. Although I could picture myself in some of the cases (such as not being able to cook proper food – by proper I mean Indian :P… I can cook pasta, and make some kind of sauce and do simple stuff… but nothing fancy); there were other things that I couldn’t relate to at all. For example, I do help with chores such as dishes and laundry, but I’ve definitely become more cautious about being lazy now, and I did note that, although I was tired I did wash the dishes that evening =D.


The fact that my parents are divorced has helped me in this way, that I’ve always had to take more responsibility than; if they weren’t; so whereas I personally can’t relate to this completely (but I can in some way), I do think that a lot of people can.


I think this especially is the case with Indian men; who more often than not, live with their parents for quite a long time. Parents spoil their kids by not making them learn chores, and not making them learn cook food and stuff. This is mostly apparent in the cases of immigrant (i.e. my father); who had to learn everything from scratch when they were mommy-less outside India.


Basically point being; I do understand where the female colleagues were coming from, and think that men should start thinking about these things.





Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Updates updates

I’ve been a very bad “blogger” lately. Haven’t managed to update my blog for ages.


There’s simply too much stuff going on in my life.


We’ve bought a new house so we’re getting some modifications done; which means there’s a builder working, which means we need to supply stuff and to check everything is going okay. At the same time I’m having work related issues. I’m reading several courses and programs parallel. And loads of other stuff going on.


Too bad summers over!


Okay enough complaining and ranting.


But on a serious note, I do think all of this stuff happening, and everything “co-incidizing” with everything else (all of these coincidences) are very well planned by God. Although I do not claim to understand Gods will or his command; but it seems like he’s reserved everything for august-September. The reason MIGHT just be for me to not think about certain personal things that have happened me lately; and for me not to get stuck in certain things. He might want me to get on… Get over stuff…


Ok that’s me being very vague.


I’ll make a more elaborative post within a few days =)

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Sikh Student Camp


Recently we (a group of young Sikh Students, age 17-23) went to England for a camp; Sikh Student Camp. The camp is meant to serve as a place where young Sikhs can meet, interact, learn about their faith, and at the same time have loads of fun and laughs; and make new friends and circles!

Most of the people where really nice; and were there eith the intention to really learn more about their faith, tradition, heritage and were really down to earth people. There were all types of people; students, graduates, working people, and sevadars (volunteers who were there just to help stuff going)

The mornings begun with morning prayers (Japji Sahib) [if you woke up late like me; if you woke up earlier - which was voluntary; there was Kirtan (hymn singing) of Asa ki vaar, and Simran (meditation) for you!] followed by yoga and breakfast. After breakfast we had some sort speech or talk about a certain aspect of our religion/heritage/culture, which was followed by us going into groups for discussions. After that we had different workshop and classes. This is where the fun bit came in. We got to choose what we wanted to learn for five days! You could choose; Yoga, Self defence, Punjabi , Kirtan, Traditional Kirtan (hymn singing) with string instruments, Tabla (drums), and Introduction to Sikhi. That was loads of fun. Subsequently, there was the daily activities! That was quite fun, but sometimes a bit too tiring. The activities were so special that I'd have to make one blog post for every activity; so I'm not even going to attempt to. After that there was evening prayers and Kirtan, food followed by the real evening 'divan' (evening hymn singing time!)

That time was probably the best time during the day. The kirtan was unbelievably good and the singing would pierce your heart. OK I don't have any words for the Kirtan, so I'm simply going to put this
LINK up for you to listen to it yourself. Any words put to describe the singing will be doing unjustice to it.

All in all, I think it was a good camp; there were some negative times where I'd pay double my ticket to come back home early, but once the last day came, and I was in the buss about to leave there was this sudden feeling of separation from the rest...and it was all sad, although I was kind of tired of everything (because I did go through quite a lot during the camp...some personal issues).

The thing I loved the most was the concept of; "Unity through diversity" - there were all sorts of people with all sorts of beliefs, but everyone was respected.

I'd definetly recommend anyone interested in the field to go to it as it is a must go :)