Rakhi

This year Rakshabandhan will be a special one for our family.

My neice, who has turned one and half years now, would be tying rakhi to my nephew. Unfortunately both are in two different corners of India. So we are eagerly waiting for the good old postman to deliver the rakhi. The kids hardly know what is going on. Bhabhi was telling that Kukku, my neice, liked the colorful patterns on the rakhi and wanted to tie it to herself. My nephew is much younger to do even that. He will turn half an year old in the next month. I will post some pictures of the festival later. Here are the photos:

Rakhi

This Rakshabandhan is also special because for the first time we are purchasing rakhi. Every year, this was the time when I would feel myself unlucky since I didn’t have a sister. I would eagerly await the rakhis of cousin sisters. In those days, letters were not delivered to our home address. Everyday I woould pester father if there were any letters. While I liked the colorful rakhis, the small letter was what interested me most. The normal letters hardly had  any content for us other than “give love to Lal, Anupam and Aditya (me)”. But the Rakhi letter had more material for me and I would take special interest in answering them.

With time most cousins forgot that small routine of sending rakhis to us. Except for one. I remember to call her about the Rakhi. It hasn’t arrived until now.

And here is my nephew. Tell me how he looks.

Purdah

Now that it is more than two weeks after this incident happened, I can now safely talk about it in the web. Lately I have disclosed this blog to my network, and I don’t want the person in question to find him being talked about in the public. Actually it is not he that I am going to talk about. Just using his case as a backdrop for today’s post.

Hua ye ki this guy (a colleague) appeared on a TV marrriage show…obviously to showcase his marriageability. But he flunked on two points, or did he?. First he diplomatically answered that if the bride’s side wants to give something to the girl, he won’t object. To this the girls at my office were very furious. How can he talk about dowry? That too on national TV.

Second (and the backdrop of my post) he said that his prospective wife will need to do purdah whenever there are elders at home. His parents lived in a different city and would come once or twice in an year. He had said this and everyone was like…hey he is so conservative.

And I was transferred into flashback when the same purdah or ghunghat had become a issue in my family.

A cousin brother, much elder than me, got married. The girl, a city bred, was never used to purdah. For the first few weeks, she was excused from this tradition on the ground that she was a nayi bahu. But the liberty was not for long.

One day my masi called mother. “Do you know she wouldn’t take ghunghat even before her father-in-law? I don’t know what to do?

Then someone talked sense to the girl. It’s difficult to challenge such age-old traditions. So she took the easy route. She practiced purdah whenever there were people from outside. At home, she continued her old habits. Masi agreed to this adjustment. At least partial victory for her.

By the time my elder brother got married, purdah system had become quite an obsolete custom. Yes, bhabhi had problems with touching every elders feet. How can I, without knowing who the other person is? She had point. But again a tradition was being challenged. So I talked sense to her. Why not touch their feet than enter into a conflict with your mother-in-law; my mother? She agreed, although the reason was a bit different. Each time she touched an elderly woman’s feet, the woman would compare her to her own bahu who didn’t practise the tradition.

My latest bhabhi would have wanted to keep a ghunghat, but cannot. It doesn’t stay on her head. Even during her marriage, it didn’t stay up there and her mother had to finally fasten it with a clip.

Coming back to the present now. Did you know the guy was a big hit on TV? According to a friend of his, his inbox was full of messages from prospective brides. Strange na, that girls are sending proposals to him although he was so conservative in his thoughts. Or because he wanted to find an easy way than challenge age old traditions.

On the lookout for Content Writers

Yes I am on the lookout for Content Writers. This is for my new organisation that I have joined in Gurgaon. So I would be preferably looking for guys who are residing in Gurgaon or closeby. Some other details about the job are given below:

Designation: Content Writer

Experience: 0-1 years

Job duties:

a) Basically your work will be in Social Media Optimisation (SMO) and Online Reputation Management (ORM). Check out the links for wikipedia to know more about these. They are quite new in India, and my organisation is one of the first agencies to work on this.

b) Also you may be required to write and edit content, articles, PR etc.

Qualifications:

BA (English); although I am very sure that good english is not the forte of english graduates. So anyone with good written and oral english may apply.

Salary: Actually best in industry. Take my word for this.

Those interested may leave their resumes at my email ID – ujjual dot aditya at gmail dot com. Or leave your resume with the comments.