F.R.I.E.N.D.S

6 young people, sharing their life and experience with each other for 10 long years, in the city of New York. Yeah, that’s the basic plot of my most favorite TV Show- F.R.I.E.N.D.S …..



I sometimes feel that I too want friends like Ross, Chandler, Joey, Phoebe… & sometimes I unconsciously compare my friends with the characters of the series. I love the way they share their life, happiness and sadness of each-other, with each-other. Actually that’s what friends-best friends- are for.



Right now my life is at such junction, where I don’t know what’s going to be in near future, where I’ll be land up after 2 months, who will be there with me- from my current friend circle. 2 yrs back when I’d joined SICSR, I might be the most nervous student from my batch. I was afraid if I could make any lifelong friends over here as I did in my last college. Will there be someone to whom I could turn for solace on every sad moment?



And today after 2 years, I am thinking, will I be able to meet them again and again, as I used to in these 2 years?? Some of them are already out of contact, due to this Industrial Training, yet in touch with many of them. I don’t know what I am feeling… I’m happy that I’ll be free from all these “tiffin ka khana” and all, but at the same time I’m sad coz I’ll miss coffee-stop and all those thelas out there.



Thanx a lott people… To allow me to be a part of your life… will miss u all a lotttt…..



And this is not like I’ll just miss my college friends. At this point I’m also thinking about my roomies… Had 7 room-mates in the duration of 2 years… They all are special to me- in one way or the other…



And that’s not all… I don’t know if my life gonna be the same in the near future… I made so many virtual friends in this duration of 2 years. I love them all… they all are a major part of my life and thanx to social networking sites, they r almost like my family member. I think I have a li’l family over there, I’ve a kid sis, an elder sis, a big brother, a mausi (sorry prits) and so many friends who are permanent part of my heart. I Love u all people….



Just stay in touch ( I promise I will)….

Love yaa all…




(P.S.: dedicated to whole Uniqs, Devi, Kalyani, Shikha, Sarita and also to VK, Baby, Bhums, Pri, Doc, Kush, Nimz, Dev, Dharu, KP, Bhushanbhai, HP n all of u)

Gujarati Bachao Sanskriti Bachao

Just saw a page on Facebook, named “Gujarati Bachao Sanskriti Bachao”




Now a question came in my mind, “When one needs to save a language or civilization? Simple… When the language or civilization is dying. Now when does a language die… when the language is not getting changed with the time… right??



Why English is so popular today??? Reason is simple; the language has never been imposed upon anyone. You can speak English the way you want; it has so many versions and accents and it keep changing from generation to generation. Today we are not speaking the English which our forefathers were speaking like 20-30-40-50 years back. Apart from that, we use some words which are taken from some Indian language, without any hesitation. Seeing all these, did we hear any Britisher complaining about this??? No… Does it mean that he doesn’t love his mother tongue? Ofcourse he does… but he’s not worried about the changes just because he thinks that his language is not stagnant like ours. They know how to change with the time



And we?????? Today we do use words from other languages, but famous names of literature do not like this. They just don’t want to change with the time and want to pause themselves in that 5th decade of 20th century, which was Golden Period of Gujarati Literature. After listening to the dialogues of today’s Gujarati daily soaps, if you want us, the younger generation to “love” Gujarati, then sorry, we can’t do that. Just because we don’t like that extremely pure Gujarati language, full of jargons which we have not ever heard in our life. By the way, that’s why we hate Shakespeare, for his extremely pure language. Because, it’s not our language, it’s not simple to understand. That language is for CLASS and not for MASS.



Today youth of other states follow their regional language, just because, the literature of that language has changed with the time. Today they have movies and literature, which is the choice of today’s youth, where in Gujarati we have very few writers whose pen speaks language of youth and the rest of them are just opposing them. How can you accept the youth to respect the mother tongue, when the elders do not believe in the growth????




Same is the case with civilization. We keep saying how great our civilization was like 5000 yrs back, but what about now??? Whatever was there 5000 yrs back was perfect and good for that time and not for today. We need to change with time and then only we can be proud of our civilization, not by opposing the changes.
I guess that’s enough for any intelligent person, otherwise both the language & civilization will die…soon….

ગુજરાતી બચાવો સંસ્કૃતિ બચાવો : ખરેખર?????

હમણાં ફેસબુક ઉપર એક પેજ જોયું. જેનું નામ હતું “ગુજરાતી બચાવો સંસ્કૃતિ બચાવો”



સૌ પ્રથમ તો એક સવાલ... કોઈ સંસ્કૃતિ કે કોઈ ભાષા ને બચાવવાની જરૂર ક્યારે પડે? જયારે એ મરી રહી હોય ત્યારે.... ખરું? અને ભાષા મરે ક્યારે? જયારે એ ભાષા નવી પેઢી ને અનુસાર પોતાને બદલવા તૈયાર ના હોય ત્યારે....



આજે દુનિયાભરમાં ઈંગ્લીશની આટલી બોલબાલ છે...શા માટે? કારણ એક્દમ સિમ્પલ છે, એ ભાષા એ પોતાને માનવ સમાજ પર ભારે થવા દીધી નથી, તમે ગમે તે રીતે, ગમે તે સ્ટાઈલમાં આ ભાષા બોલી શકો છો અને પેઢી દર પેઢી એમાં જરૂર પ્રમાણે ફેરફાર થતા જાય છે.. આજે આપણે જે ઈંગ્લીશ બોલીએ છીએ એ આજ થી ૨૦-૩૦-૪૦-૫૦ વર્ષ પહેલા નહોતી બોલાતી, ઉપરાંત આજે જે શબ્દો જે મૂળ ભારતીય ભાષા નાં છે એ પણ આપણે બિન્દાસ વાપરીએ છીએ. આ બધું જોઈને શું કોઈ બ્રિટિશરએ આનો વિરોધ કર્યો? ના... શા માટે? શું એમને એમની ભાષા પ્રત્યે પ્રેમ નથી? ગર્વ નથી? ઓફકોર્સ એમને છે... તો શું એમને એમની સંસ્કૃતિ લુંટાઈ જવાનો ભય છે? ના એમને એ ભય નથી, કારણ સરળ છે: એમની સંસ્કૃતિને સમયની સાથે બદલાતા આવડે છે.



જયારે આપણે??? આપણને સમય ની સાથે બદલાવું ગમતું નથી. એના સૌથી સરળ ઉદાહરણ તરીકે કોઈ પણ ગુજરાતી ડીક્શનેરી લઇ જુઓ. ઈ.સ. ૧૯૪૦ પછી એમાં કોઈ નવી આવૃત્તિ બહાર આવી નથી,કારણ? આપણો શબ્દભંડોળ ત્યાં જ અટકી ગયો છે, અને એ કોઈ ને બદલવામાં રસ પણ નથી. કારણકે આપણા સાહિત્યના સભ્યો: લેખકો,કવિઓ વગેરે ભદ્રંભદ્રનાં સીધા વારસદાર છે. આજની ગુજરાતી સીરીઅલોમાં જે ડાયલોગ હોય છે એ સાંભળીને તમે જો આજની પેઢી પાસેથી ગુજરાતીની કદર કરવાની આશા રાખશો તો સોરી,અમે એ નહિ કરી શકીએ, કારણકે અમને શેક્સપીયરનાં ઈંગ્લીશથી પણ નફરત છે અને ભદ્રંભદ્રના ગુજરાતીથી પણ નફરત છે. કારણકે એ અમારી ભાષા નથી,એ સામાન્ય લોકો ની ભાષા નથી. It’s for class and not mass.



આજે દક્ષિણ ભારતમાં, ત્યાંની યુવા પેઢી તેમની માતૃભાષાને લઈને જાગૃત છે કારણકે એ ભાષાઓએ, તેમનાં સાહિત્યે યુવા પેઢીને અનુરૂપ લખ્યું છે, અને એ પેઢીને રસ પડે એ ભાષામાં,નહિ કે ભદ્રંભદ્ર કે શેક્સપિયરની ભાષામાં. જયારે ગુજરાતીમાં માંડ આંગળીના વેઢે ગણાય એટલા લેખકો યુવાપેઢીની ભાષા બોલે છે,અને બાકીના સાહિત્યકારો એમનો વિરોધ કરે છે. આ કરચલાવૃત્તિનાં રહેતા તમે આજની પેઢીને ભાષાનું ગૌરવ લેવાનું કઈ રીતે કહી શકો?



અને જો ગુજરાતીને બચાવવાની જરૂર આવી પડી હોય એવી કટોકટી સર્જાય તો પછી એવી ભાષાને સાચવીને કામ શું છે???



આવું જ સંસ્કૃતિનું છે, આપણે આપની ૫૦૦૦ વર્ષ જૂની સંસ્કૃતિની યશોગાથા ગાતાં બેસી રહીશું તો સંસ્કૃતિનો કંઈપણ ઉદ્ધાર નથી થવાનો, અને એમ જ સંસ્કૃતિ મરી પરવારશે. ૫૦૦૦ વર્ષ પહેલા જે પણ હતું તે એ સમયને અનુરૂપ હતું અને સમય સાથે તાલ મેળવીને ચાલવાથી જ સંસ્કૃતિની ગરિમા જળવાશે નહિ કે નવીનતાનો વિરોધ કરવાથી.



આનાથી વધારે તો શું કહું?? સમજદાર કો ઈશારા હી કાફી હૈ...

Woman Education

“Yaar I wanna earn good money and wanna support my husband and family, so that economical burden of the family can be shared, but my in-laws are not allowing me to do so” a told her friend b
In reply b said, “same is with me, I was earning handsome money before marriage, and even if given an opportunity I can support my family but my in-laws are not allowing me”
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Well this above cited dialogues can be hypothetical but so real in India. Well, maybe we r changing our life style and thinking, maybe we have accepted “woman independence” at some or the other level in life, but still there are families and social groups that are still conservative regarding their “bahus” leaving the house to earn money.



Some of the reader would think why I am writing about this even after “seeing” woman of my granny’s generation working and earning money. But the thing is, I belong to one of those very few social groups/societies where women are given all kind of freedom right from the beginning of their life. What about the others?



I did my graduation in Arts, I saw soooo many girls, having real capability and intention of making career, so brilliant that they can easily get through any good professional course, doing their specialization in some such kinda subject which hardly can be helpful in future. I asked some of them for their this decision, they said if they’d study more they would not get “good” grooms from their circle, some said their parents were not ready even for this, they had fought with their parents for their education.



I can’t understand why marriage is so important thing for a gal/woman and also when she has spent her 1/4th life educating herself & she can’t even use her knowledge to help her “family”?????? (In fact, sometimes they ignore her knowledge by saying “what would you know?”)



Girls, we have our own life. We can’t be dependent on our husband or in-laws or parents for each and every little thing. I know woman always has been a “second sex” and no one has ever taken her thoughts seriously, that is also just because we allow people to take decisions of life on our behalf. World is equal ours as much as theirs. We always think that he’s earning good money; hence he would be proven as a nice husband (just for economical reason?????). But nothing is constant in world, you don’t know what is there in future or how safe are you gonna be with that person. Just be yourself, any every stage of life…




(P.S.: dedicated to a real good friend of mine, who “left” her career after marriage and also to another great friend, who did not leave her career, in fact continued pursuing higher studies after marriage)

Live-in Relationship- Curse or Boon:

Indian Supreme Court gave its “ultimate” decision last week, i.e., Live-in Relationships are legal in India now. This made many young people like me to have a healthy discussion over it and we did at a group on a social networking site.



This discussion is still going on (I think now the “flame” of argument has slowed down a bit). I saw one thing in this discussion; the whole group was divided in to 2 parts: supporters and opponents. Supporters were constantly trying to show the IMPORTANCE and positive side of Live-In where opponents were showing their tension for “Bharatiya Sanskriti” and “Bharatiya Rit-Rasm”.



But suddenly from all these people, a few of them created a new group: Neutral… They were ready to accept this “change” in society, but at the same time wanted to follow that typical Indian Mindset…



Well, this is just what I read on that group (of course, I too was a part of this discussion); now let me put my views on Live-In over here.



Before beginning, let me tell u about the culture from where this type of relationship has come, that is American Culture. Their society has quite free mind set. Free doesn’t mean that they allow their children to wear whatever they like, but free in the sense that they encourage their children to be independent. They respect independence of their children and allow them to do whatever they like, because they believe in them. Now again people will say that because of this independence the youth is this level’s worst, but while saying this they won’t think that not all of them are of this type, just like not whole India is made up of Slums or Basti…



Other thing, Live-In came in their life is because children in USA are not assets of their parents, hence as soon as a kid enters in his teen age or in some worse cases as soon as s/he becomes an adult his/her parents allow him/her to live the life in their own way & that’s why there are so many nuclear family in USA. Now being a social animal, living alone is not possible, hence they look for companion. Obviously if u love someone or u r committed to someone u like to be with that person, as we all do after that big big weddings and marriage. So, before getting married this is their way to decide whether they would be comfortable with the partner, because they don’t have their parents to decide their life. That’s why Living-In is so popular with them.



By now u must have understood that I’m in support side of Live-In relationship, but again let me tell u I am not, because Kahani main Twist is:

Live-In is a bit odd for Indian couple, not because of some “Bharatiya Sanskriti” bakwas, but just because even in 21st century children are assets of their parents in India, even though they are old enough to take care of themselves and we youth enjoy this. That’s why we believe that the partner they choose for us is the best for us as they know what is good for us. And that’s why India can never be a super power, because for being a super power we, young people of India have to take initiative to change the society, because having a better economy or a good GDP or annual growth rate is not enough. And where you can’t have same idea even after 5 years then culture having 5000+ yrs old history is not something to be proud of because to make this culture 10000 yr old, we have to make changes in that…. So either forget Live-in relationship or take initiative to change the mindset

The difference between Venus and Mars

Today I came across an amazing thought/one liner by a friend of mine. It said, Stri no Prem Ghughavta Mahasagar jevo hoy chhe jyare purush no prem Naigara Falls jevo hoy chhe( Translation, woman loves with all emotions in her, like an ocean where man loves with showing his emotions after a real long time). That remind me of Chandrakant Baxi, one of my favorite authors, he once said that for woman Love is something that starts from her heart and ends at her body, where for man it starts from his body and ends at heart.



That is how totally different Man and Woman are. Man or Male is a logical gender, they always think think & think… Even for loving someone of opposite sex, they’d like (I guess, u all r always welcome to correct me) “Why I like her?”, “Does she like me too?”, “Why is she so mad for me?”, “What is love?”, “How is that possible with me?” etc



We gals don’t understand all these 1s & 0s when it comes about feelings, for us it’s all illogical, we never ever think about such things like “whether that guy would be equally crazy for me” or “Why I love this ‘jerk’”. We just follow our heart in some matters. & that’s y it hurts us most when someone doesn’t stand true on our expectations.



Saw this in ‘F.R.I.E.N.D.S’, that a guy has three stages for recovery after a break up:

1) sweat pants stage, 2) Going to Strip club stage and 3) Imagine one’s self with other gal/s.



For us there is no such stage, we try to hide our tears from world & open up with close friends, she-friends. This is it, because guys have kept hurting us all the time during the relationship, by not understanding us and by not being mental support for us. Just read a real nice poem by Aesha Dadawala, suggesting same meaning, though it goes for both gender sometimes.



Just a request to all guys out there…. Please try to understand us, we use heart as thinking organ, we do things “direct dil se” & even ur small like atom mistake hurts us real bad.



& yea, don’t give false promise or false hope to any gal, coz she has dreams for her “life”, since she becomes “woman” and it feels too bad when dreams shattered….



No hard feelings for anyone….. Love ya all….





(P.S.: this doesn’t mean that Man doesn’t have feelings)

Women Freedom and Brahmkshatriya Mentality

Yesterday it was "International Women's Day", people celebrated it with all sorta "joy" (yea it includes pun & sarcasm). Some statements on Facebook/Orkut make me think that being Indian do they really respect women????????



Talking about women freedom, I never had any problem such as being career oriented or selecting course of my choice etc, which gals of my age are generally just "dream". I knew at somewhat level why I have such privileges, but yesterday I got confirmation from my father himself. He'd written on his Facebook status, something like this:

"Proud to be from a community which has incomparable women freedom since last 200yrs +"
Now u'd think what so great in this status message..well it's these 3 words what makes this status message special, "incomparable women freedom"



People who know me well, know that I'm bold enough to make people discuss on just 1 matter ,i.e. "Dress code for Women/gals @ pilgrim places" for like days & even participating in that so aggressively that people literally asked me if that thing happened to me in real.



Well,that's what I am,or should I say a Brahmkshatriya lady. Yeah, my relatives would understand the meaning of this phrase.



First of all, what are the basic attributes of Brahmkshatriya...
A Brahmkshatriya is generally calm, witty, having large appetite(in short foodie), having good administrative sense, Brahmkshatriya men generally do just two things, earn money & give the responsibility of that earned money to the respective head lady of the house(yes we have "head lady”, not "head man"). About his social liability, first of all, he's generally the most confused person regarding all kinda relations, special blood relations, & becoz of that he can't take any major social decisions like what he is supposed to do at some social function like marriage. In my dad’s words, “ ame loko lagan prasange khali 2 kaam karie, khavanu khaie ane varghodo/procession ma aagal chalie” (translation: we do only 2 things during a wedding, eating and being in front row during procession)



Well, I said, we r generally calm, but this generally has a very big hidden meaning. We can get angry even on a very small matter, arre, we can even get angry when two totally unknown for us persons are fighting. That’s y we claim, Hanuman was Brahmkshatriya (LOL).



Now about Brahmkshatriya Lady…
Well, she is well-read, usually career oriented, habituated of freedom & that’s why can’t tolerate a guy having “Bossing” attitude or in simple words (people who know me) someone exactly like me.



That’s why I had that debate regarding dress code @ pilgrim places, even though I’ve never faced that problem (rem Hanuman thing??? :D)



Oops… In whole this loooooong writing, I forgot to tell u what is Brahmkshatriya? Who are we? Don’t worry, I won’t bore u with that today, I’ll tell that in my next post soon… till then…bbye… 