Is the grass really green – any side?

We have all heard our versions of the fact that no one is completely happy…but it still doesn’t stop us from being jealous when we see someone stepping out of his Benz, when we see a handsome hunk on her arm, when we see someone having a great time with family…most of us wonder …he is so happy…why cant I be so? To be honest…I am consistently thinking along these lines – she has an awesome figure, he has wonderful family, they have amazing kids, she has achieved such fast career growth – and keep wondering why I can’t I have that life. So when I got in touch with a friend recently from my post grad days I thought now I will have more things that I think I have missed. Little did I know that I will come back with a completely different perspective.

Let me give you a brief background on her – she is married to a good looking guy, has 2 kids (a daughter & a son), lives in a million dollar house, drives a BMW and has a very secure job – a script fit for a modern-day fairy tale! Wait, here is other side of the coin – she has to cook, look after 2 kids, manage house alone as her husband travels 4 days a week and all this while having a full time job. She has no personal life, she can’t do what she wants, can’t even go out alone as hubby dear doesn’t like to be left alone with kids. He dictates pretty much everything – what she should wear, where she should go, what jobs she should apply for and so on…

So here I was dreading a visit to her place – lest the list of things I feel miserable about gets longer and there she was all green-eyed because I am leading a "free" lifestyle - free of husband, free of kids, free of house mortgage and doing whatever I feel like without having to answer anyone. This visit gave me a completely fresh thing to feel miserable about – is anyone really happy? No..no…I am too selfish to think along those lines – real issue is if no one is really happy…then what are my chances of feeling so?

And while I was writing this post…someone I was on chat with asked me why I don’t look happy in my pictures, why do my posts exude sadness? And my answer was “Happiness is subjective and relative.” (I know someone who will retort – “Peace is absolute…strive for that instead”. Guess I will reserve that conversation for some other time). I know its an old adage but for the first time I believe that it is true - a revelation that I am sure will bring about a big change in my life.

Yes happiness is relative…I was feeling very lonely and sad on Friday…wondering what am I doing here alone in this foreign land…and Sunday night when someone asked me when I am heading back home, I didn’t give my usual response (which was “hope that I will be back soon”). I suddenly wasn’t feeling sad or lonely – I was feeling good that I can afford to live my life the way I want - be away from home, spend $250 on air ticket alone to meet someone for just 2 days, sit at the bar as long as I want, roam around the malls and buy what I want….the list is endless. The fact, that it needed someone else’s perspective to put my "so called" loneliness in this light, makes me say that Happiness is subjective and relative.I sincerely wish that a day will come when we will learn to view our lives from an angle that will make grass green this side of the fence too - Amen!

Feminism Redefined

What’s Feminism? This question has been troubling me since my San Diego trip last weekend. I had 2 couples and their kids for company. Both couples have a few things in common – the husbands work for my company, are in US on an International Rotation and wives are managing the kid (one is 12 months and other is just about 6 months old). But the similarity ends here. This question has its origin in the comment made by one of the two non-working mothers. I was carrying the baby of other couple claiming that it will be good for my biceps…which obviously got me the response from this lady that women need curves, not muscles. I responded that I need to protect myself as now-a-days most husbands cant even run 100 meters without panting. She said…well husbands are not needed for protection, you can buy protection - husbands are needed for their ATM cards! And this coming from a well educated post graduate woman who has held a job in the past!

It made me wonder – whether our feminism has brought us back full circle where we realize that in order to be “equal” to men, we gave up lot of our comforts – designated seats in bus, doors held open, chairs pulled out for seating and so on. I couldn’t stop thinking – isn’t she so smart? She doesn’t have to fight battles at work to prove that she is as good as most men, she doesn’t have to bear the sneers of male drivers on road, doesn’t have to worry who will take care of the baby, can take an afternoon nap and above all be patted on the back for being such a sacrificing wife, mother and daughter-in-law!

You may argue that if its feminism then it must have existed a hundred years back as well because there isn’t enough difference between this lady’s and our greatgrandmothers’ lives. And that’s where I guess I tend to disagree, today’s wife has say in everything – brand of refrigerator, size of the TV screen, clothes he wears, solitaire that she wants, friends that he can have, time he can spend outside home, car that should be bought…the list is endless! Yes…this is the height of feminism – her own life at her own terms maintained by the poor unsuspecting “Man”. Kudos to the new age “housewives”!!!