Birthday Post - I'm feeling Lucky

Some 21 years back, a really beautiful lady was 9 months pregnant, and was out with the love of her life, to watch the colourful and musical festival of Navratri on the streets of Ghatkopar, when she started craving for an ice cream. So the obedient husband, his best friend and the lady went to a nearby restaurant to have some ice cream, apparently the ice cream was called 'gadbad ghotala', and suddenly she realised that the baby inside her tummy wanted to desperately come out and dance to the tunes of the garba music! That was 27th September 1992, and the baby was successful in coming in this world on the 28th of September 1992.

 Till date, Navratri has been her favourite festival, and garba her favourite dance form. Unlike most of the families in India, this particular family was looking forward to a girl child, and their happiness knew no bounds today, 21 years back. It is 21 years since that day, and till today they have been proud to have, not one, but 3 beautiful girls in their family.

 Today on my 21st b'day, I feel lucky to be able to pick up my phone, understand, and be able to write about my feelings. I feel lucky to know my Birth Date. I feel lucky that all my 21 birthdays I had a cake to cut, I had an opportunity to celebrate it. In spite of being a girl child, In spite of being a women, In spite of coming from a not-so-modern family. I Feel lucky to have a FAMILY.

Two Different people, Two different perspectives!

He decided to buy it, and she was happy, because she always wanted it, but could never buy it. They researched around it day in and day out. After a lot of research he canned the plan of buying it at all. That made her sad, but never mind, she would convince him someday, she convinced herself.

One afternoon, suddenly he wanted to buy it again. She smiled to herself, she was successful. But she never knew there was a lot to come. The research started again, and this time she had to convince him to buy what she wanted to always buy, and yes yet again, she won.

It was bought, she was happy, he was happy too, finally something they both loved, wanted was theirs. He loved to click and she loved getting clicked. He clicked her with his newly bought camera. She was the first one to get clicked with his brand new camera and the happiness knew no bounds.

Some days back she wanted the camera, just, because she wanted to click, because she wanted to explore, because suddenly she felt like she could click, she asked him for it. He did not refuse, but forgot. He forgets a lot of things that she says, because there are other important things to remember, Or because he has a habit of forgetting things. She ignored.

One fine day, happiness was around the corner, both were busy with their smart phones and then she looked at the screen of his phone. He was talking to his best friend who is one of the most important parts of his life. And she realized that he is selling it off for another one.

He felt bad that he hadn't told her, but he hadn't told her because he wanted to surprise her with the new one. That is so sweet, and that made her happy from the inside, but what distressed her was that she was attached to the old one, she wanted to see it, touch it, yes he owned it, but wasn't she equally a owner, or maybe not. She loved it, it was her first one, their first one, and she wished to see it. But he had a plan, a plan to surprise her, to see that smile on her face, is it right to ask him about this plan, was it right to ask him to get the old one back so that she could bid it a goodbye.

Whose mistake is it? Who has to compromise/understand/adjust? Who should let it go, and embrace the happiness for the other? 

Love is not a sacrifice!

Certain people in life leave a long-lasting impact on you. Some are warm and walk along with you without you knowing at all, and some just leave you as soon as you get into some trouble. Yet you fall in love with those who are the most difficult to get, who you feel are better, smarter than you.

The love is so deep, deaf, blind that all you can see, hear, feel is just that one person. He/she becomes your lifeline; you can look into their eyes forever, and can hear that person till the end of your life. So much so that it frightens you to be so addicted to a person. You, for a matter of fact, know that this is not how it should be, but the love is so dumb and deaf that it never understands. Only your heart works day and night, your brain stops functioning.

Then comes a point when your intense love becomes a habit, it becomes a ritual, you don’t imply to irritate someone, but your constant looking into the eyes, your constant talking, texting, calling frustrates that person, and then comes the understanding part. You slowly and gradually stop losing control on yourself and unknowingly the mood, behaviour  words of that person start controlling you. But still the brain does not respond, the heart keeps getting hurt.

One fine day you wake up to see that your lover has left forever, He/she is still there, because it is difficult for that person too, but there is no love. The love has left both of you for some good, but still the brain refuses to respond, all that works is the heart. You remember all that you guys have done for each other. You cry and cry and cry, people, friends, family, everyone starts talking shit about that person, but you refuse to accept. They ask you to move on, but you just can’t.

This is the time you need each other the most, but no, both of you think about yourself, about your heart. You cross-examine yourself, start finding faults in you. You blame yourself for everything. You feel paralysed  helpless, a part of you is walking away and you can’t do anything about it.

All the good memories linger around you, and all the bad keeps forcing you to leave. You are stuck in between nowhere. You know there is no future, but still you want to give it a chance, in spite of giving it a chance 1000 times before. Everything around reminds you of that one person. Then you start thinking that the person isn't happy with you, so why cling, leave him, and sacrifice your love.

No-one knows what is right and what is wrong. When in love people have their own definitions of love, and when love is lost, you ask yourself what is love, remember Its better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all ~Alfred Lord Tennyson, never regret, cherish your love, because when there are 10 bad things, there are 10 good things happened. You might not be able to ever forget, but you will ultimately forgive. Moving on is a little over-rated, a person, truly in love never moves on, he/she just makes herself believe that there is hope, and lives to get back the love.

Teaching- reduced to a mere profession

Teaching:the noblest profession on this earth, very true. Most of my family is into teaching. From my Grandfather to my Mother, most of them have been teaching all their life. My Grandfather is 75 years old now, and he is still teaching. I have heard a lot of people saying, ‘so nice Mrs. Thakkar you get all the Bank holidays, summer vacations, and you don’t have to work 9-5’, well that is true,but people don’t realize teaching involves a lot of hard work, patience and is one of the most difficult tasks.

When I hear my grandfather talk about his younger days as a teacher, I hear so many interesting stories; some make me laugh, and some make me wonder. And when I hear my mother talk about her experience I notice that there is sharp decline in the respect,the gratitude children have for their teachers. My mother has been working as a teacher since she was 20, it has been 25 years today, and today she isn't happy with her profession.

We often blame the education system for everything. We talk about how boring our teacher was, but there is a lot to it. I have just started my career, and I'm paid what my half of what my mom is paid, in spite of having a 25 years experience. Yes, the professions differ, but do you realize that teaching in a school is the base of what a person becomes in the future.

Youth today don’t want to teach, why, because there is no future, where is the growth.  There is an acute scarcity of teachers today, and the entire load is on the teachers who already exist in the schools. There are certain rules for every school, limited subjects; limited periods are allotted to teachers. My mom is in her 40s, and she takes 2 subjects, Science and Maths. Recently she was trained to take Information Technology. My mom has no idea about computers, she does not even know how type a message, imagine she learning computers, about the softwares I haven’t heard in my life in just a month (twice a week) and teach her students. Of course students will find her stupid, she will be laughed upon.

Lack of teachers, declining quality of education, declining respect for teachers,the level of gratitude for teachers going down, and a lot of other problems,affects the future. Teachers' Day has been reduced to a mere ritual. It is high time that the policy makers of the country paid attention to this vital and neglected sphere.

These are only some things I know, I'm sure there are a lot of other issues which need to be addressed urgently!