Real Marriage...

Heard one sad story of my friend who was with me in Engineering .. His 7 years marriage life ( also having one 6 year small girl) is on  the stage of divorce right now. the reason for divorce is girl's parents want money for their surviving. My friend has already spent 350,000 Canadian Dollars.. He is ready to support for their entire life but they also dont want to stay with Boy's parents and want individual house from boy.. Girl's parents make a case on my friend about mental harassment and want money on that basis.. They are spoiling their girl's and their grand daughter's future. They are not thinking that their lives is only 15 years more, even the wife is not thinking this..

Its getting ridiculous and shameful for a Gujarati educated family.Marriages are becoming very practical and losing their values to live togather for the whole life.

Nyways.. I am praying to god for this family that everything will be settled down and the small girl should get the love from both parents...

Got this wonderful story in email from my colleague and would like to share..

“When I got home that night as my wife served dinner, I held her hand and said, I’ve got something to tell you. She sat down and ate quietly. Again I observed the hurt in her eyes.
Suddenly I didn’t know how to open my mouth. But I had to let her know what I was thinking. I want a divorce. I raised the topic calmly. She didn’t seem to be annoyed by my wor

ds, instead she asked me softly, why?

I avoided her question. This made her angry. She threw away the chopsticks and shouted at me, you are not a man! That night, we didn’t talk to each other. She was weeping. I knew she wanted to find out what had happened to our marriage. But I could hardly give her a satisfactory answer; she had lost my heart to Jane. I didn’t love her anymore. I just pitied her!

With a deep sense of guilt, I drafted a divorce agreement which stated that she could own our house, our car, and 30% stake of my company. She glanced at it and then tore it into pieces. The woman who had spent ten years of her life with me had become a stranger. I felt sorry for her wasted time, resources and energy but I could not take back what I had said for I loved Jane so dearly. Finally she cried loudly in front of me, which was what I had expected to see. To me her cry was actually a kind of release. The idea of divorce which had obsessed me for several weeks seemed to be firmer and clearer now.

The next day, I came back home very late and found her writing something at the table. I didn’t have supper but went straight to sleep and fell asleep very fast because I was tired after an eventful day with Jane. When I woke up, she was still there at the table writing. I just did not care so I turned over and was asleep again.

In the morning she presented her divorce conditions: she didn’t want anything from me, but needed a month’s notice before the divorce. She requested that in that one month we both struggle to live as normal a life as possible. Her reasons were simple: our son had his exams in a month’s time and she didn’t want to disrupt him with our broken marriage.

This was agreeable to me. But she had something more, she asked me to recall how I had carried her into out bridal room on our wedding day. She requested that every day for the month’s duration I carry her out of our bedroom to the front door ever morning. I thought she was going crazy. Just to make our last days together bearable I accepted her odd request.

I told Jane about my wife’s divorce conditions. . She laughed loudly and thought it was absurd. No matter what tricks she applies, she has to face the divorce, she said scornfully.

My wife and I hadn’t had any body contact since my divorce intention was explicitly expressed. So when I carried her out on the first day, we both appeared clumsy. Our son clapped behind us, daddy is holding mommy in his arms. His words brought me a sense of pain. From the bedroom to the sitting room, then to the door, I walked over ten meters with her in my arms. She closed her eyes and said softly; don’t tell our son about the divorce. I nodded, feeling somewhat upset. I put her down outside the door. She went to wait for the bus to work. I drove alone to the office.

On the second day, both of us acted much more easily. She leaned on my chest. I could smell the fragrance of her blouse. I realized that I hadn’t looked at this woman carefully for a long time. I realized she was not young any more. There were fine wrinkles on her face, her hair was graying! Our marriage had taken its toll on her. For a minute I wondered what I had done to her.

On the fourth day, when I lifted her up, I felt a sense of intimacy returning. This was the woman who had given ten years of her life to me. On the fifth and sixth day, I realized that our sense of intimacy was growing again. I didn’t tell Jane about this. It became easier to carry her as the month slipped by. Perhaps the everyday workout made me stronger.

She was choosing what to wear one morning. She tried on quite a few dresses but could not find a suitable one. Then she sighed, all my dresses have grown bigger. I suddenly realized that she had grown so thin, that was the reason why I could carry her more easily.

Suddenly it hit me… she had buried so much pain and bitterness in her heart. Subconsciously I reached out and touched her head.

Our son came in at the moment and said, Dad, it’s time to carry mom out. To him, seeing his father carrying his mother out had become an essential part of his life. My wife gestured to our son to come closer and hugged him tightly. I turned my face away because I was afraid I might change my mind at this last minute. I then held her in my arms, walking from the bedroom, through the sitting room, to the hallway. Her hand surrounded my neck softly and naturally. I held her body tightly; it was just like our wedding day.

But her much lighter weight made me sad. On the last day, when I held her in my arms I could hardly move a step. Our son had gone to school. I held her tightly and said, I hadn’t noticed that our life lacked intimacy. I drove to office…. jumped out of the car swiftly without locking the door. I was afraid any delay would make me change my mind…I walked upstairs. Jane opened the door and I said to her, Sorry, Jane, I do not want the divorce anymore.

She looked at me, astonished, and then touched my forehead. Do you have a fever? She said. I moved her hand off my head. Sorry, Jane, I said, I won’t divorce. My marriage life was boring probably because she and I didn’t value the details of our lives, not because we didn’t love each other anymore. Now I realize that since I carried her into my home on our wedding day I am supposed to hold her until death do us apart. Jane seemed to suddenly wake up. She gave me a loud slap and then slammed the door and burst into tears. I walked downstairs and drove away. At the floral shop on the way, I ordered a bouquet of flowers for my wife. The salesgirl asked me what to write on the card. I smiled and wrote, I’ll carry you out every morning until death do us apart.

That evening I arrived home, flowers in my hands, a smile on my face, I run up stairs, only to find my wife in the bed -dead. My wife had been fighting CANCER for months and I was so busy with Jane to even notice. She knew that she would die soon and she wanted to save me from the whatever negative reaction from our son, in case we push through with the divorce.— At least, in the eyes of our son—- I’m a loving husband….

The small details of your lives are what really matter in a relationship. It is not the mansion, the car, property, the money in the bank. These create an environment conducive for happiness but cannot give happiness in themselves.

So find time to be your spouse’s friend and do those little things for each other that build intimacy. Do have a real happy marriage!

True Story of Miss India 2009

Miss India 2009 - Pooja Chopra

--- Neera Chopra is her mother. This is her story.---

Neera Chopra lived through abuse, poverty and some tough choices to make her once-unwanted girl child, Pooja Chopra,

--- Neera Chopras story:---

"I don’t know where to begin... they were terrible times. My husband was well-placed, but the marriage had begun to sink almost as soon as it began. Like most women do, I tried to work against all the odds .

My in-laws insisted everything would be alright if I had a son. My first child was a daughter, and that didn’t do me any good... but I couldn’t walk out. I had lost my father, my brother was in a not-so-senior position in Bata. I didn’t want to be a burden on my family and continued to live in my marital home in Kolkata.

I looked after my mother-inlaw, who was suffering from cancer, and while bathing her, I would tell myself she would bless me and put things right.

I don’t know how I tolerated it all. The least a man can do, if he must philander, is to not flaunt his women in his wife’s face. Then began the manhandling. I still wanted my marriage to survive. I was a pure vegetarian and learnt to cook non-vegetarian delicacies thinking it would please him.

Then, I was pregnant again. When Pooja was eight months in my womb, my husband brought a girl to the house and announced he would marry her. I thought of killing myself. I hung on the slight hope that if the baby was a boy, my marriage could be saved.

When Pooja was born a girl, for three days, nobody came to the hospital. There was a squadron leader’s wife on the opposite bed, who was kind enough to give me baby clothes for Pooja to wear. When she was 20 days old, I had to make a choice. I left the house with my girls ‘ Pooja and Shubra, who was seven then. I haven’t seen my husband since. I promised myself, even if we had just one roti, we would share it, but together.

I began life in Mumbai with the support of my mother, brother, who was by then married. It wasn’t the ideal situation, especially when he had children - space, money, everything was short. I began work at the Taj Colaba and got my own place. How did I manage? Truth be told, I would put a chatai on the floor, leave two glasses of milk and some food, and bolt the door from outside before going to work. I would leave the key with the neighbours and tell the kids to shout out to them when it was time to leave for school.

Their tiny hands would do homework on their own, feed themselves on days that I worked late. My elder daughter Shubhra would make Pooja do her corrections... This is how they grew up. At a birthday party, Pooja would not eat her piece of cake, but pack it and bring it home to share with her sister. When Shubhra started working, she would skip lunch and pack a chicken sandwich that she would slip in her sister’s lunchbox the next day.

I used to pray, ‘God, punish me for my karma, but not my innocent little kids. Please let me provide them the basics.’ I used to struggle for shoes, socks, uniforms. I was living in Bangur Nagar, Goregaon. Pooja would walk four bus stops down to the St Thomas
Academy . Then, too little to cross the road, she would ask a passerby to help her. I had to save the bus money to be able to put some milk in their bodies.

Life began to change when I got a job for Rs 6,000 at the then Goa Penta. Mr Chhabra, the owner, and his wife, were kind enough to provide a loan for me. I sent my daughters to my sister’s house in Pune, with my mother as support. I spent four years working in Goa while I saved to buy a small one-bedroom house in Pune (where the family still lives). I would work 16-18 hours a day, not even taking weekly offs to accumulate leave and visit my daughters three or four times a year.

Once I bought my house and found a job in Pune, life began to settle. I worked in Hotel Blue Diamond for a year and then finally joined Mainland China ‘ which changed my life. The consideration of the team and management brought me the stability to bring them up, despite late hours and the travelling a hotelier must do.

Shubhra got a job in Hotel Blue Diamond, being the youngest employee there while still in college, and managed to finish her Masters in commerce and her BBM. Today, she is married to a sweet Catholic boy who is in the Merchant Navy and has a sweet daughter.

I continue to finish my day job and come home and take tuitions, as I have done for all these years. I also do all my household chores myself.

Through the years, Shubhra has been my anchor and Pooja, the rock. Pooja’s tiny hands have wiped away my tears when I broke down. She has stood up for me, when I couldn’t speak for myself. Academically brilliant, she participated in all extra-curricular activities. When she needed high heels to model in, she did odd shows and bought them for herself.

When I saw Pooja give her speech on TV, I knew it came from her heart. I could see the twinkle in her eye. And I thought to myself as she won ‘My God, this is my little girl.’ God was trying to tell me something.

Today, I’ve no regrets. I believe every cloud has a silver lining. As a mother, I’ve done nothing great."

Pantaloons Femina Miss India Pooja Chopra’s mother promised, ‘One day, this girl will make me proud’.


Pooja speaks on fulfilling that promise... "When I was 20 days old, my mother was asked to make a choice. It was either me, a girl child, or her husband. She chose me. As she walked out she turned around and told her husband, ‘One day, this girl will make me proud’. That day has come. Her husband went on to marry a woman who gave him two sons. Today, as I stand here a Miss India, I don’t even know if my father knows that it is me, his daughter, who has set out to conquer the world, a crown on my head.


"Our lives have not been easy, least so for my mother. Financially, emotionally, she struggled to stay afloat, to keep her job and yet allow us to be the best that we could be. I was given only one condition when I started modelling ‘ my grades wouldn’t drop.

"All the girls in the pageant worked hard, but my edge was my mother’s sacrifice, her karma. Today, when people call to congratulate me, it’s not me they pay tribute to, but to her life and her struggle. She’s the true Woman of Substance. She is my light, my mentor, my driving force.

Coming Soon...

What could be the worst?

A father passing by his teenage daughter's bedroom was astonished to see the bed was nicely made and everything was neat and tidy.

Then he saw an envelope propped up prominently on the centre of the pillow. It was addressed "Dad". With the worst premonition, he opened the envelope and read the letter with trembling hands:

“Dear Dad,

It is with great regret and sorrow that I'm writing you, but I'm leaving home. I had to elope with my new boyfriend Randy because I wanted to avoid a scene with Mom and you.

I've been finding real passion with Randy and he is so nice to me. I know when you meet him you'll like him too - even with all his piercing, tattoos, and motorcycle clothes. But it's not only the passion Dad, I'm pregnant and Randy said that he wants me to have the kid and that we can be very happy together.

Even though Randy is much older than me (*anyway, 42 isn't so old these days is it?*), and has no money, really these things shouldn't stand in the way of our relationship, don't you agree?

Randy has a great CD collection; he already owns a trailer in the woods and has a stack of firewood for the whole winter. It's true he has other girlfriends as well but I know he'll be faithful to me in his own way. He wants to have many more children with me and that's now one of my dreams too.

Randy taught me that marijuana doesn't really hurt anyone and he'll be growing it for us and we'll trade it with our friends for all the cocaine and ecstasy we want. In the meantime, we'll pray that science will find a cure for AIDS so Randy can get better; he sure deserves it!!

*Don't worry Dad*, I'm 15 years old now and I know how to take care of myself. Someday I'm sure we'll be back to visit so you can get to know your grandchildren.

*Your loving daughter*,
Rosie.

At the bottom of the page were the words, Please Turn Over.

Hands still trembling, her father turned the sheet, and read:

Dad, none of the above is true. I'm over at the neighbour's house. I just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than my report card that's in my desk centre drawer. Please sign it and call when it is safe for me to come home.

*I love you*!

*Your loving daughter*,
Rosie.

J

Just saw this as one of the post in Facebook and that sparked idea in my small but intelligent mind to write on something.

Few days before, I was listening to “Shri Bhagvat Puran.” One story is that , someday One Rushi visited to one very rich seth’s home. Rushi was pleased by seth and his wife’s hospitality and gave him two envelopes and advised him to open one in good time and the other in worst time and he left.

As time passed by, Rushi and his wife completely forgot about these envelopes. Suddenly one day, his wife advised him to open one since the time was running good. The letter in envelope says, “ It would be also gone”. (Meaning, this time will not run more)Seth and his wife both were surprised by reading this but they didn’t get the meaning.

Time flies… Seth’s business was not running good. He had very hard time in his business. Suddenly he had to sell off his assets to survive. His wife left him. His business got caught in fire. No one stood with him in his tough time. His home was auctioned to pay off the borrower’s money. He was broken down. Suddenly he remembered the other envelope that Rushi gave him. He thought nothing could be worst than this. He opened the other envelope. The letter read “It would be also gone.”

Life is like ocean wave and we are the surfers, surfing the life waves. We always have the joy of happiness when it goes high and thrilling experience in tough time. Some people really don’t have the ability to handle both good and tough time.

Famous Gujarati lyricist and singer ManiRaj Barot ( founder of "Sandeo" in Gujarati Garba) died because of heart attack in young age. The reason for heart attack was excessive happiness due to increasing popularity of his song sanedo internationally. While, so many (Famous and celebrity) people have shortened their lives by committing suicide coz they had the obstacles in their life and they were unable to face the tough time.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicides).

I would’ve also committed suicide already if this will resolve my current and future obstacles in the life. But, do they really?? No.

Some people lose their “so called values”,( I’ve met lot of people who usually says big words in front of others to impress but when you actually live with them for few days or try to know more, you actually get to know the reality of those people and at that point, you lose trust from yourself to identify people, these people are called dual or multi personality and considering most dangerous, more on these people in next post). Do the things which they don’t have to and create entertainment for others. J J..

Gandhiji once asked Winston Churchill during independence movement of India, How to face tough time. Churchill replied; “go back to your religion. Your religion has great power and values that you've ever thought of.”  Its known that Gandhiji usually read The Bhagvad Gita and considers Gita as his second mother. 

What I do in my tough time.. I just pray to god. I have ultimate faith in the supremo that whatever he will give me, I'll willingly accept it. he is with me every time. ( As days are passing with my Hanuman Chalisa Sadhna, Every day I get smell of any things associated with Hanuman dada (that would be smell of agarbati, either smell of ghee, lotus flower, sindhur or anything in my car while going to mandir, Its becoming very usual for me.. )

I usually listen/ read stories of Shri Ram bhagwan, Shri Krishna Bhagwan and the other characters from Mahabharta, Ramayan and think that inspite of being god themselves, even if they faced toughest time, then I am nothing. .

Once Shri Krishna Bhagwan told Kunti mata that, Dear Mother, Seems you've forgotten me now since you're having good time. Immediately, Kunti mata apologized and  asked Shri Krishna Bhagwan that please give us tough time so that we could never forget you..   ( I think. Krishna Bhagwan took this very seriously..) :) 

Nyways, the bottom line is not to get distracted in tough time and go and talk to your wellwisher with a open and innocent heart.. you definatlely come up with some solution in hand.