:) A Happy Birthday Post!!! :)

Its my birthday today!!!

23 years ago, it was raining cats and dogs (and even elephants 😀 ) and my dad was standing with his friends at a small hospital in a small village, drinking tea and discussing Raj Kapoor and his movies. His face was bright with a great smile. A few moments later, a women, a nurse probably, came out of the operation room and informed him of my birth. 🙂 Birth of a great personality, a boy who will do something that will make him proud. Someday. I was crying and crying and everyone was rejoicing out there. 😀 Poor me, had I known everybody was going to rush IN to *see* me, I would have stopped crying instantly. 😛 😀

Few years later, when I was old enough to kick my elder brother down from the bed (he was 2.5yrs old then), my first birthday was celebrated. And you can see that how troubled I was because of people trying to kiss me, pull my cheeks, trying to make me laugh, trying to lift me 😀 or simply trying to shake my tiny hand!! 😀

Last year, I wrote this post on my birthday.

Equation for life => “Life = Love ± Logic” (Also Celebrating 10,000 hits)

Life Love and Logic recently crossed 10,000 hits. Cheers 😀 I am very glad I hit his milestone!!!

Looking back in to archives, I found very few posts which are good enough to be called memorable. But I always intended this blog to be personal and not dedicated to some special cause.
Why I used this name? Honest answer is “I don’t know myself”. When I thought of this name, it just fitted in my “philosophical” nature and as usual I never looked back once I decided to use this name. The name “Life, Love and Logic” contains three important things for a human being.
If you ask me, love and logic are most important things to form and lead good life.

But I don’t think anyone can form a fixed equation for deriving life.

Logic is way of thinking about things. It is common sense, ability to conclude things, ability to calculate things, ability to take decisions depending on the situations (e.g. deciding dodge in time when someone throws a stone towards your head!!! 😀 ) and many things. Defining Logic is as simple as the process of using logic itself.

Love? Do I need to define it? Love is love and its the second best feeling(or relation or whatever you call it) in Life.

I have derived an equation for Life, and its

Life = Love ± Logic

Why its not simply Love + Logic or Love – Logic?

Let me make myself clear. Lets take an example.
Consider a situation where there is thief armed with Rampuri Knife in one hand and he is trying to rob your best friend. (I assume you love your best friend).

So, we have,
* You love your friend
* Your friend is in danger
*You are the one who can save him if you try
* Thief is dangerous and armed, so he can harm you easily

And now, Logic says
* Rampuri Knifes very harmful!! (If you see Hindi movies then you must have heard about it)
* You have your job, family, life, career at stake if you try to save him.
* There is no need to act as hero, mummy always taught you to keep yourself out of trouble and safe.
*Blah Blah Blah……

But Love says only one thing,
* Go to hell with your Logic, it time to act NOW. Go and throw that thief out of the window!!!!

So we can derive,

Life (of your friend) equals to (your) Love(for him/her) minus (your damn) Logic

But there can be other situations too.
Most common situation is , you have got an opportunity to go abroad for an important work which can give your career a (much needed) boost. But your girlfriend is not happy about leaving you and living without you for so many days. Ok, consider fiancée instead of girlfriend for convenience.

So Love says,
* Don’t you dare to leave her alone, how she will live without you.
* You will be getting married in few days and still you are obsessed with your damn job?
* Flying abroad onsite is not important than her.
* Blah Blah Blah……

And here Logic says,
* Some things need to be done on time, if you go on-site now, your career-horse will be miles ahead of it would be without going there.
* If she loves you then she can understand the importance of this opportunity in your life.
* Afterall whatever progress you will make, it will help both of you in future.
* More Blah Blah real facts…..

Here is the newly derived equation

Life (of you both) equals to (her) Love(and patience for you) plus (your damn) Logic (if you are competent enough to use it)

So finally we end up conflicting our own conclusions. And this leads to simple more convincing derivation for Life and that is

Life equals to Love plus/minus Logic (still its damn, I agree)

Well this is how I see Life. There are many perspectives of life. And please note that this is one of the many ways to percieve life. Sometimes solutions to many difficult and complex problems lie in simple Logic and common sense. And sometimes you never understand what went wrong with things.

So I will end this post with my usual slogan
Life is not as simple as it seems……

Wedding

Wedding of Me? No No!! You got it wrong! I am takling about my cousin’s wedding. Actually I wrote a two pages long post for it and went to dinner. While chewing the delicious leg of chicken I bought two hours ago, I asked mum the details of marriage ceremony. She counted me the various little events that are part of a marriage and I was amazed. Because in marriages, I used to look for girls, sweets and treats from grandpa(he gave treats to keep us from starting trouble). I never quite noticed all these things. So decided to keep my ESSAY as draft.

And here is how TYPICAL marriage in MY VILLAGE happens. (Place: Karad, Maharashtra, India)

(Disclaimer for nuts(from my state) who think what they do is ONLY correct: All things I am gonna explain here, HAPPEN in my village, if in your place, people don’t do ANY thing like this, I don’t care, its not my fault)

My other friends, in some days, you will know why I am pissed off on some of my co-state frnds.

Start: My village is located in Maharashtra, India. Its near Karad town.

Wedding is most famous event in world. At my homeplace, for wedding, nearly all village gets invited. Everyone gives his/her best suit/saree a try and be ready to go. A vehicle (99% a truck) is kept ready to transport all people to wedding place which is MOST commonly GIRLS (bride’s) home.

The events started when we left groom’s home.

0. The groom left his home on a decorated horse. He traveled upto the boundary of village with a BAND and his friends enjoying, dancing in front of crowd. Then we took off for Bride’s home in car followed closely by truck full of people.

1. On reaching on traditional boundary of host village, we were welcomed by group of old and honourable citizens. This event is called as “MEETING”. The groom then sits again on horse and the crowd walks  cheering and dancing on music of BAND leading the way.

2. On reaching the final place, a small event took place in which we were offered sweets as welcome. A Pujari (“Hindu bramhin” person similar to the one who conducts wedding in church) did some traditional sort of things (procedures) after that.

3. The groom then again mounted on the horse and the crowd followed him to all Temples in the village. This is called as “SHREE VANDAN” meaning getting blessings from all the local gods temples. Finally my cousin stopped at temple of lord “Maruti” (who is unmarried as per puranas) where he tried to make a necklase (Mani-Mangal sutra) for bride(as per tradition of course).

4. The groom returned to marriage place where some “married” women did POOJA of horse and grom. Its called “Washing legs of horse” (this honour is for sisters of bride’s father) (Note: names of events can seem weird coz they are literal translations. In my mothertongue, they don’t sound ridiculas). Every woman is presented a gift from the groom this time.  😀

5. Haldi Ceremony: Next event was most IMP. The bride and groom seated side by side where all women applied termeric(Haldi) to both of them. (See photo on left). I don’t know reason behind this event, may be I need to ask some very old grandma. But everyone thinks it as major event.

6. Now here comes a weird tradition. After Haldi, groom and bride take a bath with Haldi clothes on. Honour of pouring first mug of water is of the local barber in village. I never knew it tradition before because whenever I saw, I thought its local barber is our family friend or something thats why he is leading or helping. 😛

7. Marriage:Finally came the time of marriage. The Pujari (on right) announced that brides Mama(mother’s brother) and Grooms Mama should now bring them in. This announcement is so famous that if  Pujari do not say it, we dont feel like being at wedding. And then answer to his announcement came from clouds. Lightning illuminated the place for a second followed by a thunderous sound. The rain was trying few drops when the couple was brought in the tent.

They stood facing each other, only separated by a white cloth held by two persons and some minutes. Two Mama’s stood behind their nephews. They had swords with a Lemon on tip in their hands. The Pujari then started singing lines called “Mangalashtaka”. Word is made from “mangal = good, holy” and “ashtaka = 8 liners”. So it means holy songs of 8 lines each ending with “Shubh Mangallllllllll Saaaawdhaaaaan……”. Rain decided to stay to see the marriage and ceremony continued and no one even tried to run for some cover. Everyone continued.
 At every chorus of ShubhMangalllll…., people threw(?) I mean poured coloured rice beans over the couple. The last song always contain last line as “Go celebrate do some firecrackers”. Earsplitting firecrackers are always blasted on perfect timing. One group of youngsters is dedicated to this.

The couple was united for not just lifetime but for 7 birth-death cycles (as oer puranas).

9. The couple then put “Ful(flowers) Mala” (Somebody suggest english word for this) to each other. The groom put the necklase called “Mangal Sutra” (which is favorite subject of Hindi Movies) around bride’s neck.

10. Then other small traditional procedures continued which contained “Kanyadan” (meaning giving[leterally- donating] daughter to groom) and “Yadnya” (see link).

11. Finally after the feast, people headed back to homes. The crying event 😀 by mother and other women from bride’s side (now wife of my brother) went on for some time. We brought our brother and sister-in-law home with joy. Following night was for celebrating. The new married couple goes around the village sitting in a Horse Cart(with two horses and decorated like hell) in nightlamps carried by some people. The groups of celebrating people dance in front of them on rocking music by accompaining BAND. its called “Varat” in Marathi (language). Varat continues late at night. Women who were unable to attend wedding stop them and meet them. Everybody who meets them give blessings and couple visit every temple and Local God’s places.

The traditions continue next five days.

I guess my brother will be able to go to his first HM after that. 😀 He is not complaining though because he likes these traditions and so do I. May be I am going to do all these things in my wedding just for sake of our great “Sanskruti”.

Priceless words

PRICELESS WORDS

A husband wakes up at home with a huge hangover.
He forces himself to open his eyes, and the first thing he sees
is a couple of aspirins and a glass of water on the side table.
He sits down and sees his clothing in front of him, all clean and
pressed. He looks around the room and sees that
it is in perfect order, spotless, clean. So is the rest of the house.
He takes the aspirins and notices a note on the table.
“Honey, breakfast is on the table, I left early to go grocery shopping.
Love You!”

Totally shocked with the note , he goes to the kitchen and
sure enough there is a hot breakfast and the morning newspaper.
His son is also at the table, eating. He asks, “Son, what happened last night?”
His son says, “Well, you came home around 3 AM, drunk and delirious.
Broke some crockery, puked in the hall, and gave yourself a black eye
when you stumbled into the door”. Confused, the man asks,
“So, why is everything in order and so clean, and
breakfast is on the table waiting for me?
I should expect a big quarrel with her!”
His son replies, “Oh, that! Mom dragged you to the bedroom,
and when she tried to take your clothes n shoes off,
you said,

“LADY LEAVE ME ALONE! I’M MARRIED!”

Moral
Self-induced hangover – $ 400.00
Broken crockery – $ 800.00
Breakfast – $ 10.00
Saying the Right Thing While Drunk – “PRICELESS “

There are truly some things that both money and Mastercard can’t buy

Note: I am not writer of this, this is from a forward mail that I liked.

Cheers
Suda