When questions about marriage are asked to a teenager…

Belonging to an Indian family, marriage is a huge thing for us. Especially for us girls. I really don’t understand why it is so, but I have no other option than to live with it. So all this really doesn’t bother me. Do what you want, talk what you want. As long as it doesn’t involve me, I’m cool. This attitude of mine seemed to help me escape wedding talks of my cousins, but it din’t when it came to um. me? I know what you’re thinking. A teenager and marriage? How’s that possible? Well obviously I’m not getting married! I’m not even legal. But that doesn’t let me escape!

Now that I’m in India and in the close vicinity of relatives, they talk about weddings. And when they see me, they start having speculations of how MY wedding is gonna be, and whom will I marry! Well obviously they don’t just jump on the topic, where’s the sense in that? It normally starts when they talk about my future. The talk starts very subtly with the first question being, “What profession do you aim to go for?” And after 5 – 10 minutes of talking I won’t even realize how they ended up talking about my wedding day!!

Now these ‘serious’ talks only last till those relatives are at home. But that is not the only ‘marriage talk’ that exists you see? You constantly get teased about it by your parents, especially your mom. To help you understand better, I will now provide some examples.

“You don’t even know how to cook till now! I’m telling you, no one will want to marry you when you grow up. No one!” – How is cooking and marriage related is something I find very difficult to comprehend. And cooking isn’t rocket science! We are just teenagers right now. Its not like we are gonna marry tomorrow!!

“You can’t even clean your own room? What will you do when you get married and will have to clean the entire house? Do you really want to leave a bad first impression on your in-laws?” – Um, haven’t you heard of house servants? I think they will be of great help. And I really don’t think the first thing my in-laws are gonna tell me to do is to clean the house. I don’t think cleaning my room should be associated with my marriage. Again, I’m not getting married tomorrow!

“If you want to marry a good guy in the future, then you have to study very well for that and get excellent grades. If you want to marry a beggar, then you can continue to get these average marks.” – Our class tests also come in this. According to our mothers, we are gonna take our class test paper and show it to the world after 10 years. This an incredibly good logic. I’m surely gonna do this. I might even frame my kindergarten test papers and hang them on my wall…

If one person is incredibly close to their mother like I am, then only will the following example occur.
“Just imagine. 10-12 years from now, we won’t be talking like this. Why? Because you’ll be married to someone and off to his place! I can’t begin think how fast these 10 years will pass by. I wonder how the guy you or us choose will be.” *laughs* – This is the joking part I was talking about. This is what comes up sometimes when we sit to talk. This is why I sometimes feel like running away from the room while talking to my mom. This is when I smoothly change the topic. This is when I drift away to my room and face-palm myself.

So I think the examples have given you enough explanation of how us teenage girls are always taunted about marriage. Thank the Lords that my mom isn’t so strict and not so serious about marriage and because of that I haven’t heard the first 3 examples in my house. Only the last one! 😀 But I pity my fellow friends who go through this on a regular basis.

So to all the great family relatives, the mothers and also the siblings who do this, kindly stop. We aren’t getting married tomorrow. When we are getting married, you can talk your heart out then. Stop assuming what we are going to do after 10 – 12 years. If we don’t get married even after 10 years (that’s my plan) then what will you do? Would you really like to be a matter of joke to us?

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Surprise Surprise!

So on Friday my friends in U.A.E. organised a surprise birthday party for my close friend. When I was talking to Nerd Enchanted about it, the event triggered a lot of memories of mine regarding surprise parties. And so here I am blogging about all my memories.

The series of ‘surprise parties’ started in April 2012, and I was the first um, victim? (I don’t know what to call myself).
So it was a Monday (yes I remember all the details) when a close friend of mine called me up in the afternoon. She asked if I would be able to join her for a trip to a nearby park on Thursday. I said yes, but I was wondering why all of a sudden she wanted to go to the park! We don’t go a lot to parks you see?
Everything was okay till Wednesday. In the evening I was watching TV when the phone rang. I saw that it was a friend of mine who was calling so I picked up. And as soon as I said hello she said, ‘Is your mom there? I want to speak to her.’ Without any questions I gave the phone to my mother but was really surprised. Why would she want to talk to my MOTHER? My mom spoke to her and gave the phone to me again. When I spoke to her she said, ‘Ask your mom.’ I asked my mom and she told me that she asked for permission to give me a send-off party on the next Thursday. This really got me suspicious.
So that night I saw a dream (like I do every single night). In the dream, I saw that I was in the park with my friend. Nothing strange until I saw my whole school bus group seated right next to me! I immediately woke up shocked and wondering why I saw such a dream. You see, I get a lot of prophetic dreams. I’ll tell you about them some other day maybe. 😉
The next day I was walking with my friend to the park and was telling her about my other friend’s phone call. She din’t respond and normally she responds to such stuff. Now I was quite sure that my dream is gonna come true. I went to the park and from behind a tree all my friends jumped up infront and yelled ‘SURPRISE’. Well it wasn’t a surprise, but still I was the happiest person on the planet that day!

So from there on, surprise parties are held for the birthday girl. It is so common that the birthday girl expects a ‘surprise birthday party’ on birthday. It is so unpredictable you see?

After this I was part of my friend’s surprise party on Halloween last year. The most hilarious part was the cake! I have this extremely blonde and childish friend who had taken up the responsibility for the cake. She did get cake, but forgot a knife. Now how will the birthday girl cut her own cake? More importantly how will we eat the cake? Seeing no other way around it, someone suggested that she should cut the cake with a plastic fork and that we eat it using plastic forks. And 5 minutes after, everyone destroying the cake with their respective plastic forks!!

After that I came to India. So all the ‘surprise party’ stories were conveyed to me by my friends via Facebook messaging. One party wasn’t a surprise because she realised it while the other party was a surprise until the other girls came late which made the birthday girl confirm her slowly increasing suspicions!

The party on Friday marked the very first success story of a surprise party, because it really was a surprise. The plan was perfect and it blowed the birthday girl’s mind!

All these events might just be a memory for me, and to know about the other parties I’ll have to rely on the Internet but it still makes me so happy! On Friday when I got to know about the success, even though I wasn’t there I was still so happy. Obviously my friends don’t know how I actually feel because I din’t tell them! Oh wait they might know now if they read this.
Lets hope I make new and wonderful memories here as well!

Being Me

Apologies for being out of the blogging world for quite some time (not like it matters to anyone, but oh well). The most appropriate explanation I can give for my absence would be that my birthday was last Tuesday (24th September) and it was far better than I expected it to be. So I was caught up with the cakes, celebrations, wishes and also severe pain in my body because of the bumper cars I played with my friends.
Lets not get strayed away from the topic now shall we?

So on my birthday I received a lot of amazing wishes. Huge paragraphs dedicated just for me on Facebook and phone calls from across the sea, it was all something that I din’t readily believe. On the day when I read the messages around 10  times, I was just filled with excitement and happiness. On Wednesday when I was going through them again, I noticed something common in almost all of them. (No it wasn’t ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY’ ) Almost everyone wrote in the end that they want to be like me. Let me give you an example : ‘You have numerous  qualities that I desire to have.’

If I was receiving all this only on my birthday then I would have just considered it flattery and ignored it. But the fact is that it isn’t! Almost everytime my friends tell me how they want to be like me and possess all the qualities I have. One friend of mine also called me ‘Perfect’. Me and perfect? When did that happen?

When I read those messages, I couldn’t help but think why they feel so. I was thinking so hard but I couldn’t come up with valid reasons. When I asked a few friends they said some things. Lets go through them together now shall we?

1. ‘The most striking quality of yours is that you are so mature. Because of that you can handle all problems’ : I know that I’m more mature than most of the teens. But that doesn’t make my life simple. Moreover my problems are far more difficult. Everyone has problems in life and the problems that one goes through depends on your capability to handle them. Having my maturity level won’t help you in any way.
2. ‘You’re extremely good in academics’ : Is that even a quality? I just work hard. If you also work hard then even you can excel.
3. ‘You don’t have any typical girl issues. No crushes or boy problems’ : Doesn’t this make me weird actually? I do have celebrity crushes okay? And that counts. (I guess)

If these are the reasons you want to be me, let us now focus on the side-effects of being me :
1. You’ll be extremely emotional
2. You’ll get irritated by anything and everything
3. You’ll love to argue but when you argue for a long time then your eyes get watery and everyone thinks you’re crying.
4. No matter how much you eat, you will forever remain hungry and never put on weight even though its a necessity.
5. You’ll always help others, but when you need help most of them will disappear into thin air.
6. You won’t have many friends as you are socially-awkward.
7. You want a very hi-fi lifestyle.
8. Your expectations in a guy is nearly impossible to actually find in a normal human. You need to embrace the fact that you are gonna live your future with cats.

So you see, everything is not how you think it is. I do have positives but also a lot negatives. And that’s why I always show this expression whenever someone says something like ‘I want to be you’ to me.

Because, you never want to be me. Not even in your worst nightmares!!

So all of you, be yourself and enjoy being so. You should be happy in your own skin. Everyone has their own positives and negatives. No one is perfect, as in the end we all are human beings. As they say, you can’t judge a book by its cover, This saying doesn’t only apply to books you see?

The Good Stuff

My previous posts have been all sad and emotional types. So I thought why not brighten this place up? I did tell you that I’d share with you about all the wonderful and disastrous experiences I’m having here in my native country India, and I know I’ve only been doing justice to the latter part. That’s ’cause nothing good is happening to me. The only thing good here is that I made a friend. Since that’s the only good part, I thought I’d expand on that.

When you step on to a foreign land, everything is obviously new to you. (Notice how I call my own native country foreign land? Because it IS to me. ) For me everything is so new that I feel I am new to myself. Like I don’t know who I am anymore. And in such conditions a friend helps a lot. Especially when she is your first friend in this idiotic place better known as Mumbai. And obviously your first friend will be quite special to you. That too my first friend is so good to me. I mean, she gave me the chocolates that I ate while I was in UAE but wasn’t able to eat here due to their unavailability. I never expected that.

So I thought instead of you hearing me rant about her as I always do about everything else, you can know about her by her ranting about herself! Yes, I conducted an interview with her. Without any further delay, lets get to it now.

Q) So tell us about yourself.

– My name is Sakshi and I’m 17 years old.
I’m a big mess and I’m crazy. I’m a big hogger. That comes as a shock seeing me. I blabber a lot. I love pissing people a lot. The look on their faces is priceless. I love to dance. I would love to sing one day, but I’m afraid. I would also like to try for modelling, but I don’t have the height!

Q) What are your hobbies?

– Dance and reading books. I love to sing, but not infront of people. They’ll go nuts!

Q) Who are your best friends?

– Megha & Sanchita. I thought I’d have more, but nope.

Q) Would you ever start your own blog?

– No. Maybe. I don’t know.

Q) Speaking of music, who are your favourite artists?

– I don’t have a specific favourite. My favourite keeps changing with every song.
The artists I like are Demi Lovato, Kelly Clarkson, Adam Levine, Justin Timberlake and Ed Sheeran.  That’s it I guess.

Q) Do you have a crush on anyone?

– I don’t have a crush on anyone. I’ve never had a crush. Never found a guy with my standards.
If celebrity crushes count then they are Justin Timberlake, Harry Styles and Ashton Kutcher. I have an on and off crush on Jesse McCartney.

Q) Describe your high school life to us.

– Studies, a bit of dancing and loads of craziness with friends. I was a really good student, so I was always favoured by my teachers.

Q) Where do you see yourself in the next 10 years?

– Next 10 years, hmph. That’s a tricky question. Maybe I’ll be doing something where my passion lies, or something which has money in it. But definitely not married.

Q) What’s your passion?

– Dance. I dream of dancing infront of a lot of people. Someday I’ll learn all the styles of dance. I wonder when that day will come.

Q) What is your ideal career choice?

– I’d love to be a choreographer working somewhere in the US or the UK.

Q) Have you ever had a turning point in life? If yes then what was it?

– I did, in 10th grade. When my career choice came up on me, I wanted something else and my dad wanted something else. I din’t listen to him and my relationship with him was quite bitter. From then on I’ve become a rebel. I’ll listen to everyone, but do what I feel like is right. I don’t regret anything I do, its my choice.

Q) If you were given a chance, would you like to change any aspect of your life?

– No. I’m happy the way it is. But I’d love to change my parents mindset regarding performing arts because I’d love to do that someday.

Q) Its time for me to hear some praise. Start talking about me now.

– Let’s just begin with the fact that you’re awesome. You’re the only person who I feel is quite close to my traits. You share the same birthday as mine, which makes you 25% sexier. You’re a good orator. You don’t use tricky ways to get your work done. I can do it by hook or by crook, but you don’t want to.

Q) You’ve lived your entire childhood in our native country – India. Do you see yourself settled in a foreign country anytime soon? If yes then which country?

– Yes I do see myself settled in a foreign country. Which one? That’s tough. I don’t see myself settling in a specific country. Maybe the US or the UK. It depends on my job. Maybe I’ll become a global citizen and roam around everywhere.

Q) What would you like to say to all the people reading this post? Do you have any advice for us?

– All I would say is, listen to everyone but do what you feel is right. Not bad or crappy stuff. If its something harmful to you or your identity, then it isn’t right! Not always what you think is right. For example, you might feel like smoking weed is right but it isn’t. What you do should be sane in every sense of the world.

So that’s the end of the interview. I think I covered everything that one would want to know about a person.
Also I’d like to thank Sakshi for her patience while I was making these questions on the spot and also for the interest and enthusiasm she showed while doing the interview.

The New Teenage Trend : Dieting

I consider myself a silent spectator on Facebook. Since I’m still having my holidays, I have nothing better do. So I log on to Facebook and entertain myself with all the drama that people from my previous school post on a daily basis. Whether they know or not, I have been a part of their daily stories from quite a long time now and I may not know them, but I know everything about them.

Normally I’ll just ignore it, laugh about it or start giving advises to them (I know they can’t hear me, but that is just a habit of mine). But there are some statuses that grab my attention. Not the general grab, the I’ll-drown-you-in-your-philosophical-thoughts-and-now-you-can’t-sleep type of grab (if you know what I mean). And as the title of the blog says, its mostly about dieting.

These statuses did have a certain amount of effect on me, but the biggest effect on my thought process was when one of my best friends told me that she started dieting. And still today I’m in shock.

If you are having weight issues, or have some kind of medical reasons for doing so then I completely understand. But the reason for dieting by teenage girls is, ‘Oh I need to lose weight. I’m not thin enough’. What is wrong with you?

Recently I saw a status that said, ‘I can’t walk in a food store properly anymore. I feel so sad while passing the chocolate section. I want to eat one. But I know I’m only supposed to eat cornflakes on a daily basis’. Again I ask, what is wrong with you?

I understand that this is the phase where we go through a lot of insecurities, be it about our-self or the people around us. Jealousy is at heights and hatred is something common among everyone. But I don’t understand how dieting is the main priority! Isn’t dealing with your problems supposed to be more important than skipping your meals?

I understand the kind of dieting where you moderate your intake and start working out to reduce weight. BUT SKIPPING ALMOST EVERY MEAL OF THE DAY? How is it justified?

My friends say teenagers do it now as we don’t have anything else do to, and food doesn’t play that much of importance. We always sit in the same place and activities aren’t carried out a lot by us. I’m sorry if I may come across being rude, but I’d like to counter your belief if you also think the same.

I agree that we end up sitting in the same position for hours long. In school for nearly 8 hours and at home for endless hours.  But it doesn’t mean that no activity is being carried out! Food is an essential part of our well – being. It provides us with the energy we need. Sitting may not take up a lot of energy, but what about the travelling we do everyday to go to school? Don’t we study? Don’t we participate in extra – curricular activities? Don’t we also handle pressure? And you are telling me that food plays no role? How could you?

Food provides us the energy we need to carry out our daily routine. It provides us the nutrients we require if we need to stay healthy. It also helps in the smooth functioning of the brain. I’m not talking about something that no one knows, everyone learns this in Science class. But somehow I feel I’m the only one who remembers it.

What frustrates me more is when girls who are already so thin do it to become even more ‘slim’. Child, do you want to become invisible?

I have seen students fainting in school because they decided to skip their breakfast and have been doing so from quite a lot of time. I don’t know whether they do this by their own will, or because of social pressure. But seeing them so weak and falling ill so fast really saddens me.

I know you might be thinking why have I not told this to them personally. The fact is that I have, but they don’t listen. They tell me, ‘We know you do it too. Don’t act like you don’t. There’s no way you are so thin without skipping your meals’. They think every thin girl out there is dieting. The fact is most of us don’t!
I absolutely love food. And I can’t even think of going hungry for an hour! My friends very well know how much I eat, and my mom is tired of making food for me every 2 hours as I’m always hungry. I’m not joking, I AM ALWAYS HUNGRY. So it shocks me even more when teenagers start to diet. How could you agree to stay hungry?

It all depends upon your metabolism rate and your daily food intake. My metabolism rate is quite high, and I don’t eat a lot once. Instead I have small amounts in every few hours. I guess that’s why I’m like this?

Just be happy the way you are. You don’t need to start dieting now just because the people around are slimmer than you. You can eat healthier, or start working out but skipping your meals will never give you the answer you want. It might, but you’ll also suffer through immense weakness. Do you really want that?

So all of you out there,

Cartoons

This entire week when I was going through my Facebook news feed, one post was successful in grabbing my attention. I guess mostly because I can relate to what it says, as I also feel the same.

Now when you also saw it, I’m positive that even you are going through the same emotions  that I’m going through.

Growing up, Cartoon Network is the channel that I lived on. I was a very fussy baby and I wouldn’t even eat a bite without watching my cartoon!
I still remember, when I was 5 or 6 years old, I wouldn’t wake up in the evening from my afternoon nap to go to my dance classes, but if my mom would just whisper that my cartoon is gonna start, I’d jump from my bed and run towards the television to watch my cartoon from the very start.

Well, these were the cartoons that I’d watch, and surely all of you would’ve watched too!!

This was one of my favourite cartoons. The boy genius and his daily dairies. I loved every bit of this series. And now I feel I can kind of relate to it. I’m not a genius, but I have a younger brother who annoys me in the same way DeeDee annoyed Dexter.
Looking at this cartoon, I always wanted a secret laboratory of my own. Well, I still want one!

My all-time favourite cartoon. Three girls with superpowers who save their town very cleverly named ‘Townsville’ everyday from villains who had weird yet cute names! What’s not to like about them?
I think the best part of this cartoon series was that every girl had different characteristics. Every kid could relate just a little bit atleast to any one of them. 

Frankly speaking, I couldn’t understand this cartoon most of the time. The story line used to go above my head. But I really used to enjoy their goofiness a lot,.
This cartoon never failed to make me laugh. Looking at their actions I’d just burst out laughing. Especially when they would eat the ‘Jaw breaker’. As far as I remember that was the name.

Well, kids saving their neighbourhood. Do I have to be more specific why I loved this cartoon?
The best part was that the children’s names weren’t always revealed as they were always known by numbers. A weird thing, but that’s what made them apart from the others. I only found out their names towards the end of the show. And my reaction was, ‘They also have names?’

This cartoon’s song, I can still sing it in my sleep. I know it that well. This was a weird cartoon, but I loved it anyway. A purple – pinkish dog living with an old couple who lived in the middle of ‘Nowhere’. I think these details itself make the show weird. But this dog has, according to me, earned a special place in every kid’s heart.
The villains that would target them were really weird. From a vegetable to a duck. Everything was a villain. This dog Courage, had an abilty to transform himself in the shape of the villain while explaining the circumstances to the old lady Muriel.
The thing I loved most about this cartoon was Courage’s computer. That computer is even smarter than Google! I really want a computer like that.

Well, my brother now watches cartoons, and it is really sad to see that he is deprived of these amazing cartoons that made every kid’s day. He does get to watch Tom & Jerry which is just amazing. But he shall always be missing these cartoons which will forever remain in every 90s kids’ heart.

Sometimes these cartoons come late at night, and if I have a holiday the next day and can stay up that late then I make sure I watch them. I might be a 16 year old teenager now but whenever I’m given the opportunity I shall forever watch these cartoons.

Dear Cartoon Network, can you please show these legendary cartoons again? Please?
We all dearly miss these.
And the kids these days, are missing out on all the fun and laughter we shared with every episode of these cartoons.

Missing My Chocolates

You know how teenagers today crib about their ‘relationship’ with a teenager of the opposite gender? This dating stuff is like a deadly virus that has spread to every next teen. Do you also find it weird like how I do? Kids falling in love and all, I really find it silly. Until it happened to me!!

What is it you say? You think I’m in love with a guy? How could you think that?
I’m in love, with my beloved CHOCOLATES!!

Now don’t ask me when and where it started as I can’t force my brain to recollect that. I just know that I’m lucky to have such a love in my life.
We shared the perfect love story.  Almost everyday I’d eat a bar of my favourite chocolate and occasionally the expensive one. Even if I couldn’t buy the most expensive ones on a weekly basis, I’d just watch them glisten on the stalls of the market and whisper to them that I’ll soon be back to buy them.
But every love story needs a villain. And in this case it is my native country!

My native country does not have a rich variety of chocolates. The ones easily available are Ferero Rocher and Toblerone. But it is so expensive that one can’t even think of buying them! For the other chocolates, you need to go on a Scavenger Hunt. But I can’t guarantee you that you’ll find them. You might, but you’ll have to spend your entire month’s salary (or in this case my dad’s salary) just to buy a bar. Shocking isn’t it?

I came here with a pack of Hershey’s and survived with it for a month. And now it has been nearly 5 months that I haven’t eaten a good chocolate. The local chocolates are not suited for my taste. So now I’m left with the only choice of missing them.

Now I’m gonna post some pictures of my all-time favourite chocolates. If you get tempted please realise that it is my intention to do so!

This company is amazing. This is the chocolate I ate the most. And Fruit and Nut is my favourite flavour.

My younger brother’s favourite chocolate. But I’d munch on it most of the time. Don’t tell my brother as he still asks me who used to finish his stack.

Do you know this? Of course you do! Twice in a month I’d buy this and eat it at a snail’s speed.

Do you recognize this world-famous chocolate? Of course you do. Once a month I’d eat this. If not then something is wrong with me.

   

My second favourite chocolate! I can go on and on about it, but right now I’m emotional so I won’t be able to do so.

Well, now is the most-awaited chocolate. I know you want to know which one is my favourite. So here goes………

This chocolate, I have no words. Its like heaven in my mouth. The joy of catching it in my hand and running to my house just to sit comfortably and enjoy every bite of it!

I’m sitting here posting these pictures and I literally have tears in my eyes! I just can’t bear this separation right now.
Well chocolates, if you are reading this, please know that I’m missing you terribly.

I know I missed out on many more chocolates. You know my condition right now, so please pardon me.

Well, this post has made me hungry. Let me go stuff myself with chocolate – chip cookies. My only substitution for chocolates!