Change

The Bangalore International Airport shifted 40 Kms away from the city and everyone was up in arms - its too far, we'll have to leave 5 hrs early, keep the current airport running and so on.

Airtel changed their logo and the social space in India went nuts taking it apart - it looks like a squiggle, what - this is called a logo?

Facebook introduced a new way to view photos and the buzz began again - I hate it, I want the earlier way back.

Why is CHANGE such a bad word? Our first involuntary reaction to change is always resistance and negative. We wishes things did not change and that everything remained the same always. Once we know how things work we want them to always be that way. Its easy to do the same job everyday, its easy to take the same route, do the same routine, watch the same programs, have the same relationships and you can extend that to almost any aspect of your life.

But change we do - from the moment we are conceived. We change in physical, mental and emotional status. We grow, we evolve, we learn, we adjust and we change. The fear of change seems to be linked to our growing consiousness. You change the settings for a child and the child seems to adjust easily to the new settings. As a parent have you given a thought on how you 'blame' the fact that you cannot change your house or job or city because your children will not be able to adjust? And have you realised that if you are forced to do that, the children adjust the most easily. They make their surroundings their own and form new relationships with the ecosystem.

As we grow older we seem to get 'set' in our ways. We get comfortable with the way things are and with the fact that we know how the world is supposed to work. We fear that if things are changed then we will lose the semblance of order and be thrust into chaos. We fear that we will be unable to deal with it and most of all we fear the loss of existing knowledge. We tend to become change-resistant with age. But resistance to change brings with it its own problems of stress, frustration and anger.

We sometimes tend to remain in the same job or relationship or city giving up seemingly better options because of this fear of change. I know what is needed of me in this job or I know how to deal with his/her emotions in this relationship or I know this city so well and I have friends etc etc that I am OK to let go of that 'better' alternative. But we also envy those who seem to take up those options and seem to do well compared to us. That gets us thinking if we would have been 'happier' if we had taken up that change option. Remember this is all a perception that could crop up.

For me change is a state of mind at that moment of time. If you are able to adjust to that change, the fact that changed becomes a part of your now daily life. Recall all those times when you resisted change but had to change. Do you recall why you resisted the change? Now it feels stupid that you had to resist it because this is how life is, isn't it? This becomes the current comfort zone and you will go through the same process if the current status quo were to change. No one thinks twice about the time and distance to the new Bangalore airport now. There are no discussions on the Airtel logo and we continue to be on facebook irrespective of how many changes they bring.

While these are trivial things the bigger changes in life too fall under the same process. Its all in the mind. The intelligent thing to do is to analyse what will change, why it will change and build your new world around that because frankly change is the only thing that keeps life exciting. Without things changing life would be so boring that we might as well just sleep through it!

The best way to end would be the quote from 'Forty Rules of Love' - Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come?

Crazy / Cute in Love!

And so its the Love Season again. Valentine's day is around the corner and the world has turned pink with media, shops, websites all inciting people to spend money in pursuit of love. Of course the meaning of love changes with every generation. While in our parents time it was supposed to happen only after marriage, in our times some of us were bold enough to love before marraige and in the next generation 'love' is a commodity to be freely exchanged.....or is that lust? I can never be sure.

But when you are in the throes of love there are so many things you do which in hindsight seem insane. And you wonder what made you do that? I call these the Crazy or Cute (depends which side of the fence you are) things in Love. When you did it, it seemed like the best thing to show her/him the depth of your love. A few years later you wondered if you were in the right senses or you thought that you were so naive and cute.

As I looked back I thought of the things that I have done in love and so here are some of the crazy/cute things that I have done in Love in random order.

• I guess the first woman most men do something for is their mom. I remember collecting money in my piggy bank and then on one of her birthdays going to a shop and buying lipstick for her. I bought a couple of them, gift wrapped them and a gave it to her on her birthday. That was an 'awww' moment.
• As I grew older my focus of course shifted to girls my age although I was a complete introvert. I remember having a massive crush on a girl in my study class in 11th std called Madhu L. She was a Gujju with flowing curvy hair and I would wait at the Santacruz railway station for her to come and (in my stick figure bravado) ensure that she would get into the train at 5.30am when we would go to our classes in Dadar. I wrote her name on pieces of paper and on my clothes!
• Then came Engineering college and I 'fell in love' with a Tam Bram girl with long plaited hair who was one year junior to me - Sripriya G. She said she wanted an engg book that she saw with me. Instead of loaning her mine, I went out and bought her one. For Valentine's I actually put a message for her in the newspaper hoping she would notice it. I wrote a story that got published in Indian Express for Valentine's Day that was around a guy initiating a Rose Day in college for the girl he loved.
• The best was saved for the last, of course. This time I really was in love. I wrote poems for her. I made gifts for her. I wrote stories, learnt to ride a bike and was like a moth drawn to a flame. And when she said that our 'affair' would be over when she shifted from Delhi to Bangalore at the end of our management course, I was distraught. I convinced my parents that Bangalore was a much better option in terms of job even though I had an offer from Delhi as well where they stayed. For her and to convince her that ours was a long term relationship I shifted to Bangalore, stayed in PG acco's where we got worms for brakfast but re-initiated our 'affair' to convince her. This one, thankfully, resulted in a happy ending and we've been married now for 12 years. The crazy/sute things have continued after that as well. I've written or made greeting cards for my wife, bought presents and tried to keep her happy! :)

There have, of course, been girls that I knew I was 'in love with' and I bought multiple gifts and did crazy or cute things for them like gifting books, doing their work, worrying about them, making things for them and so on. The story has been one-sided till I stuck gold with my wife and life has been golden since!

So what's your crazy/cute Love Story?