The Martyrs

It must’ve been brutal. There were slashes all over their body. Three of them, all recent recruits. Their white colored skin were all covered red now, with the obvious. A quite promising career ended in the hands of seasoned criminals. Two of them were identified as key suspects, though yet to zero in on the actual murderer.

Their cries must’ve gone unheard with the machinery in operation. It was quite evident that the victims went through extreme torture that’s unwarranted. They were literally holed up in a cylindrical shaped room and were tossed violently all around before they breathed the last.

Everything stopped with the siren going off indicating that its time. Rest of them in the room were quite safe except for minor cuts and bruises. Soon the body of these three were found completely drenched in deep red. They were like withered flowers.  Droopy and dead.

The investigation is still on to figure out the killer. Who will it be? Who will be so heartless to make a pure white kerchief turn blood red while in the washing machine?

Is it the new red leggings of my wife or the bright red shorts of my son?

The mystery remains...

The Bridge of Happiness

Article for Bethlehem Matrimonial - Jul 2017 

It has been a few years since Alex and Nisha got married. They distinctly remember the big day when they got into a car right after the wedding ceremony which had a board that said ‘Just Married’. The journey had a smooth start but soon they hit some bumpy roads. Nevertheless they decided to continue their travel. Soon enough they got into better roads and as it progressed, they could see some sort of a construction far ahead which was closer to the beach.

It didn’t take too long before they reached the construction site. It was a pretty long bridge that was getting constructed across the sea and was named, ‘Bridge of Happiness’. The most interesting fact about the bridge was that they were allowed to get on to it even when the construction was not complete!

Nisha and Alex went ahead and progressed quite well on the bridge. It was quite a long one indeed and seemed to be never ending. While they progressed on the bridge, they were joined by two kids. After a while on the bridge, the couple got into some sort of an argument. Soon they were into a bitter war of words. Strange enough they both sensed that their fight was affecting the bridge as well since they both thought the bridge was shaking a bit!

As the fight between them got severe they noticed something even more mysterious. It was no longer a feeling, Alex and Nisha both could see the bridge rattling and it only got worse with the intensity of their fight. At the pinnacle of their fight the bridge started to crumble! They realized with gripping fear that the bridge which was built across the sea was soon disappearing under their car!

The moment when Alex felt that he was losing all hope of life, he felt a hand reach out and touch him. It was Nisha who took his palm and said, “Together we live, together we die, either which ways love you lots”. Those words seem to have done some magic around them! The bridge that almost collapsed stopped shaking and they could see the construction getting restarted almost immediately. The Bridge of Happiness was back in action.

What you read till now was obviously a work of fiction. The fact is, reality isn’t that different in our lives. The moment we step into a married life, it is a journey in itself. You’ll have a bag of emotions that you’ll always carry with you. There will be a whole lot of experience that await you in your journey ahead. You’ll have smooth sails as well as bumpy rides. Without even you realizing it, you are investing all of these experiences to form a bridge of happiness in your life. It is on this bridge that you continue your voyage of life.

Each time you have an argument, each time you make your family go through a pain; the bridge shakes. You’ll feel the world around you losing its charm and experience the negative forces rattling the bridge of happiness which you built together with your partner. It is important to be aware that there is no need to lose hope even in the worst of situations you may face in life. It is equally important to know the power of healing you could bring to your life especially to your partner with a simple act of reaching out.

Most of the times when couples have their arguments, one will be more hurt than the other. The same applies when there are challenges in life where one may remain stronger compared to the other. It is obvious that the one that is more hurt or weaker will have to put up with the intense experience similar to a bridge collapsing under the car. The best person in the world to help them come out of that situation is none other than the partner. A simple touch, a comforting word or an understanding look may all be required for them to bounce back and get your life back on track!

Ask this yourself. Can you be that stronger one in your life to get the collapsing bridge back to construction so that life is back on the happiness track? Can you be the hand that extends the healing touch to your partner so that you reclaim your life?

Let the Bridge of Happiness remain under construction for ever in your life! God bless! 

Hot & Spicy!

A few months after I started with my Post Graduation course outside Kerala we got our first holidays. It was my first experience of staying away from my family and I was super excited to head back home! Nothing during that age was better than having the lovely food prepared by my mom. Needless to say, she had prepared those stuff which I loved the most.

Quite a few dishes awaited me at the dining table and was anticipating an attack any moment. The saliva was creating Mexican waves in my mouth and soon enough I started with my most favourite dish. As soon as I took the first bite I could sense something wrong! My taste buds were on fire and the entire food pipe experienced an intense burning sensation. That’s when I truly realized how spicy the food back home was!

The few months I was away being deprived of mom’s food and my taste buds experiencing an almost bland food from the college hostel, the spices back home became unbearable. That’s when my dad told me this story about one of the boldest grandmothers we’d in the family who was a connoisseur of spicy food! Kunjammachy was her name.

Kunjammachy was far beyond her senior citizen age at that time and it had been a few years since her eye sight failed her. But her taste buds still rocked big time! She loved spices and wanted everything served to her really spicy. One day she got a chutney made by one of her granddaughters. The chutney made for Kunjammachy was already extra hot that usually the rest of the family wouldn’t even attempt to try that.

The chutney was served to Kunjammachy and she had a spoonful. What followed next was a rhetoric of blasting to her granddaughter citing that the chutney is nowhere near being spicy. A lecture followed as well on how to make real spicy chutney. The granddaughter was quite taken aback with the lashings and she went back to the kitchen, doubled the spice quotient and served the dish again.

A quick tasting of the chutney by Kunjammachy and what happened next was unprecedented. The granddaughter saw a ‘flying saucer’ coming right at her and sure enough it didn’t miss the target. Her forehead received a massive blow with the saucer in which she served the chutney. Just like thunder following lightning, promptly came the avalanche of yelling and screaming!

“That’s it!” The granddaughter said. She went out, right into the backyard and searched for a specific genre of chilli the name of which literally translates as ‘Cheek Buster’. You touch it with your bare hand and you’re done for a few days with extreme burning sensation from the chilli. The granddaughter was so miffed that she got a couple of those deadly chillies and grinded them along with the chutney and promptly placed it in front of Kunjammachy.

The eyes that couldn’t see twinkled! Kunjammachy’s senses became all alert. She took a spoonful and tasted a little bit of that fiercely spicy chutney. All what it took was a few moments before tears started rolling down those cheeks. Blood rushed to her face. Her whole body was heated up like crazy. The entire food pipe and the internal organs must’ve got a flash fire shower! She was absolutely shaken.

Surprisingly she didn’t stop there and in fact had a few more spoons of the chutney. Then came the statement, which from that day, became a folklore in the family.

She told her granddaughter these words, “Good one dear, now it is a little bit spicy at least!” 

Two minutes of silence!

Article for Bethlehem Matrimonial - June 2017

A while ago in one of the articles, I’d mentioned about an advice my boss gave me about life after marriage. When I shared my apprehensions about getting married, he said, “Jerry, getting married is nothing! The moment you become a dad or mom; that is what I’ll call a game changer! Rest everything is pretty simple!”

His advice definitely took shape when we became parents for the first time. It didn’t stop there. We hardly knew what we were signing up for when we became parents again! If having a child was a game changer, having two kids is a whole different game altogether!

The two little brats, a five year old boy and a little girl who is yet to turn two, make our home buzzing with activities that seem to be going on for almost 24/7. There is something or other happening around us all the time. The house is filled with the noises of their fights, their cries, their toys and what not. It is a war zone daily out there and many of the days, my wife and I have reached our heights of patience and it is indeed a wonder that our sanity still clings to its dear life!

While things were going on like this, one weekend I was about to have my breakfast. It was corn flakes that day and our little girl came running to me for her share. As usual I gave her a spoonful of the cereal. I usually mix my cereal with some healthy nuts and dry fruits to make it richer. After a few more spoons she stopped asking me for more. Instead she suddenly appeared to be tired and showed signs of being sleepy. It looked so strange since she just woke up only a few minutes back from a very sound sleep. Little did we know that a spine-chilling drama was about to unfold!

She soon started yawning and we continued to wonder what’s wrong. A few more minutes went by before we realized that there could be a portion of nuts or so stuck in her throat. We tried our basic understanding of how to deal with such situation, but with no results. The baby started showing signs of weariness.

Soon enough her eyes started rolling up which definitely is a sign of danger. We tried our best, to check if she can spit out anything at all that may be stuck in her throat. Finally we decided that keeping her at home will make things worse and quickly got ready to drive her down to the nearby hospital. That very moment she started coughing very badly and it was soon followed by her throwing up what she had including half a piece of a walnut!

Immediately after this, our little girl was back in action. All her tiredness and sleepiness seem to have disappeared into thin air. The yawning and rolling of eyes gave way to non-stop activities and lighting speed tactics. Having said that, the two minutes when she was almost near the bridge that connects this world with the other, was a defining moment for us. It was indeed an eye-opener.

We realized that our house was unusually quite during those two minutes. The usual hustle and bustle was suddenly missing. There were no longer cries of happiness, instead was only cursed with an eerie silence! The running behind the kids was replaced with a frantic run for saving a precious life. We longed for her to do something mischievous so that we can see her naughty smile when scolded, instead we only saw a pair of eyes that was soon losing its brightness. We saw doom coming!

What happened next was something we strongly believe as the intervention from a super-natural being. The cough she started having was God send which resulted in her throwing up the piece of walnut that was stuck deep down in her throat. We were so fortunate to have our little one back to her normal life soon!

It was a lesson learned, a very painful one indeed. The incident taught us not to wait for the silence from our dear ones to realize how important they are. What we many a times perceive as noise is in fact the sweetest of music from them, provided we learn to train ourselves to listen to it. 

May the good God bless us with the providence to realize such music in life and appreciate every note of it! 

Thank You!

Article for Bethlehem Matrimonial - May 2017

Alex and Nisha were on the last day of their beautiful vacation. They prepared to vacate the resort and reached the reception to settle the bill. It was quite a hefty amount, but were more than happy to part with it since they were quite delighted with the service provided by the resort folks. The rooms were always neat and tidy. The food was delicious. Laundry was done on time and had an alluring fragrance always. Overall the stay was absolutely a beautiful experience that they both felt pretty much at home!

On their way to airport to catch their return flight, the couple recollected the warmth of service provided by the team at the resort. That’s when it struck them! Everything what they experienced at the resort came with a price tag. Whereas when the same things happen back home without even having to pay a single penny, they never even bothered to acknowledge each other.

Alex and Nisha had taken a decision not to hire a maid at their home and planned their schedules to manage the house-hold chores themselves. Just like what they experienced at the resort, their house was always neat and tidy. Nisha creates magic with her culinary skills. Alex ensure that there was hardly a day when they had a situation of not having washed clothes and almost has a passion to do the dishes. All of these and many more were happening as a well-oiled machinery at their home, but neither of them ever said a thank you for any of these.

Many of us who are married are not different from Alex and Nisha. For us, the responsibilities we take up or what our partners handle are all part of life. It is a natural activity in our daily life and we all conveniently take them for granted. Having said this, it doesn’t mean that we need to start paying each other and say thank you when each and every task gets completed. On the other hand, being thankful need to be reflected in our daily behaviour to one other.

Realize that being a family means, going through all these activities every other day. At the same time ensure that each one of them get their roles acknowledged. Thanking your better half need not necessarily be expressed in kind all the time. It could be a simple gesture of giving a kiss or a hug at the least expected time and tell them what that was for. It could also be in the form of doing an activity for your partner which is usually done by him/her. The whole idea is to bring in a surprise element which by itself talks out loud about being thankful.

There is a huge challenge about taking things for granted. We don’t invest in thinking how to bring difference in our life since these happen naturally and we don’t even realize that we could do differently. You need to willingly put an effort in doing things out of the way. Else it’ll lead you to one of the biggest mistakes in life, which is monotony! Look around and look within yourself. You’ll see quite a lot of families that lead a carbon copy life. One day is exactly the replica of the other. Nothing changes ever.

The only way to get out of this maze of monotony is to think either together or individually on how to bring in those differences in your life. It can be subtle changes like the examples I gave earlier or can be larger ones where it may involve a bit of investment in the form or gifts or planned trips etc. Either which ways all these will lead to breaking of monotony which in itself is a way of thanking each other for the wonderful life you are gifting each other for your family!

Lastly, if you’ve not been doing it, you could also start a practice of gifting yourself. You have done very well and you deserve to be thanked by a gift for yourself. The magnitude of the gift is what you need to consider. It could range from as simple an activity as gifting yourself an ice cream or a chocolate to a more expensive gift that such as a piece of jewellery on which you had your eyes for a long time. All what you need to ensure is take care of the family budget and the confidence of your partner.

Let us learn to be more thankful to our sweethearts. Just because you are married doesn’t mean that you take your partner for granted. Give them the credit for the part they play because they simply deserve it.  

God bless you!

Where’s my budget?

Article for Bethlehem Matrimonial - Apr 2017

Imagine this. You are nearing the end of a month. Suddenly you need a sizable amount of money for something which you didn’t anticipate. What condition will you be in, considering your current way of life? Will you be able to manage the additional funds required or will you be totally at a loss on how to manage this need for extra amount?

Most well-known companies and governments across the world, plan for their expenses a year in advance in the form of a budgeting exercise. Needless to say how effective this activity is for them to manage their finances better. Families around the world do a similar activity though usually not that systematic as established companies.

It is extremely important to have a plan put in place both for short term and long term. Short term includes planning for a month and up to a year whereas long term plans are usually for many years into the future. The former is where we usually plan for daily expenses, equal monthly installments (EMI), family trips etc. The latter usually refers to long term plans such as investing in assets, securing the future of your family, insurance policies etc.

I was very skeptical about using credit cards till a few years back. This was partly due to being ill-informed and rest due to resistance to change from a debit-driven life. I got to know that the horror stories associated with credit cards are induced by the users themselves abusing the facility. As long as you balance your income and expenses and learn to stay well within the self-defined limits, credit card is not really a monster. In fact it helps you to plan your life better by ensuring that you don’t exceed certain cut off limits for your expenses.

For our family, my wife and I’ve defined a monthly limit for our expenses on credit card. We ensure that the spending on credit card stays within the limit. If an expense can be postponed for the next month so that it doesn’t affect the limits, we do that. Else we plan to spend the additional amount this month and adjust it against the next. We looked at our monthly income and considered our regular monthly expenses before deciding on the amount for this limit.

A very important aspect of a family budget is planning for contingencies or eventualities similar to the situation we pictured in the beginning. A good way of tackling such a situation is to have an amount stashed away as an ‘emergency fund’. It is extremely critical to ensure that this amount is not diluted with any other funds kept aside for planned expenses. Hence it is advisable to keep this amount if possible in a separate account or in some form that can be liquidated easily.

A lot of us now live in a world of EMIs or regular fixed periodical expenses. Some of these amounts linked to a bank get directly deducted from our accounts at a fixed date and we won’t even be able to touch that amount since the bank puts a lock on it. There are others for which we need to ensure that enough money is there in the account so that a cheque when presented is honoured. This again requires diligent financial planning backed by effective reminder mechanisms such as creating a calendar event on your phone which reminds you well in advance that you need to plan for the payment.

EMIs can be relatively easy since you tend to remember your payments on a monthly basis. The other regular fixed periodical expenses can get tricky since these won’t be on a monthly basis. You need to ensure that you don’t forget to plan well in advance and get reminded as well about such payments. Else you’ll end up with lots of fines and charges which become an unnecessary burden on your budgetary plan.

There are many more financial planning tips that we all follow in our lives. The ideal approach is to find what suits us the best to balance our income and expenses so that we will always be able to manage the funds effectively. Having said that, it is equally important to have our families and friends along-side so that there is always someone to lend a helping hand in case of emergency!

May you be blessed with the acumen to plan your family budgets so that you’ll always be on the right track! 

God bless. 

Yes! It is my business!

Article for Bethlehem Matrimonial - Mar 2017

A few years back during my higher studies in a city outside Kerala, a bunch of friends including a few boys and girls, paid a visit to a classmate’s home. We all had a good time there and soon it was time for lunch. Needless to say it was a sumptuous treat and at the end of it we got up and was about to take the plates to the kitchen. The host was literally shocked to see us do that and asked us boys not to do that whereas there was no objection for the girls to take the plates to the kitchen. I for a moment thought about my home where my mom ensured that, my brother and I were given the tasks to do everything possible at home to the extent that we almost had a roster for doing the chores!

We see a lot of families around us sharing responsibilities. Some even have a practice of dividing the responsibilities between the husband and wife. While this definitely helps in getting the work done there is a bit of risk with this approach. The division of responsibilities make a family institutionalised. It simply means that tasks A, B and C are yours whereas tasks X, Y and Z are mine. Hence there is a possibility for each other to think that if the other one’s tasks do not get done, it is their problem. A typical ‘None-of-my-business’ attitude!

There are also very regular cases similar to my experience I shared in the beginning. There are quite a few people who strongly believe that certain tasks in a family are exclusive for the man whereas certain others are only for the woman. This is probably only a natural continuation of cave-man-thinking. Those were the times when men of a tribe was entrusted with hunting and finding food for the family whereas the women used to cook and take care of kids. We came out of the caves long ago, but quite a few left the mind-set still there!

The modern day world where the cave man has become a chapter in history lessons, it is quite necessary to think differently on how to run a family. A participative approach in everything that you do may work out better than the division of labour approach. If we make a list of every activity required to be done in a family there is hardly anything that can’t be done by both husband and wife. Probably with the exception of delivering babies that still is a woman’s forte for which medical science is yet to find an alternate solution!

Responsibilities are quite smaller when you start your family and obviously gets bigger and bigger with every addition to the family. More the responsibilities, a better management of these become imperative. There are usually three types of responsibilities in every family. Daily chores, short term plans and long term initiatives. It is a great feeling when you and your partner is involved in the planning for all three phases. Each one then executes the tasks with able assistance from the other if required. This also has an added advantage that you can be quite proud to say that you own the family together rather than running it like a ‘partnership-business’.

It is extremely important to instil the spirit of involvement in everything a family does, right from the childhood. This will hopefully make them grow up as more responsible adults and involve themselves in every tasks when they start their own family. It is equally important to make boys and girls in the family to appreciate and respect each other so that when they take up the roles as husbands and wives in future, they apply this learning to support each other throughout the phases in life.

Let us unlearn some of the misconceptions if any we have about the perceived responsibilities in a family. When it comes to planning and executing a task in your family let us tell each other this: Yes! It is my business!

May you have the ability to run your respective families through effective participation and own every task with love and respect to each other!

God bless.