Festive look – the SHOPPERS STOP way!

Let me clarify – this is an entry for a contest hosted on Indiblogger.in for Shoppers Stop and I just couldn’t resist putting up a post for this ;)

My Festival Ensemble

Festivals are always a reason for the families to get together, pray the lord, sweets and savories, new clothes and gifts and winter is always a peak festive season here with a line up of festivals, weddings, peak holiday season and culmination with the farewell of the year.

Creating an ensemble is a rather difficult assignment for me as I’m one impatient guy and satisfying my needs and choices (for colors & designs specifically) are a little difficult for any brand or store.

Browsing through the shoppersstop online portal, I’ve listed out the below combination that works just well for the entire festive season, be it a festival, wedding, get together or for the ethnic days at office/college.


I. Manyavar Kurta Pyjama set

II. Manyavar ethnic Jutis

III. Manyavar ethnicwear Stoles

IV. Revv Ring

V. Watch from the Titan-Classique collection

Hope the ensemble does justice when flaunted during the festive season!

Love after marriage or marriage after love!

Love after marriage or marriage after love!

Scene1: Shyla woke up in a jolt all tensed and sweating profusely. Anxiety was clear on her face and she had all reasons to be so, her marriage was just a couple of days away. She was getting married to Anush, a person she knew nothing about, a person with whom she would be spending her entire life with!

Was Anush a right match for Shyla? Will she be happy? Will her marriage life be all bliss?

Scene2: Krish is busy shopping for a wedding suit along with Piya with whom he is getting married to in a few days time. He knows Piya for more than a couple of years and yes they fell in love and have now decided to enter wedlock. Both look happy at the moment and everything seems rosy!

Are they a perfect match for each other? How long will the happiness last? Will his life after marriage be the same?

Well, this debate can go on and on and there is no end to it… let me pen my thoughts:

All love does not end in marriage and any marriage without love will not survive.

You marry the person you love in a love marriage and you love the person you marry in an arranged marriage – What’s your preference?

i) You get to know a person, start to understand him/her, share with him/her and by the time you get over this phase, a strong bond would have developed between the couple (or you can say love would have blossomed) that acts as a foundation for the rest of your wedded life. This takes time and is a slow process.

In a love marriage, you know the person very well, so there is nothing new to know after marriage, you have to put up to all those positive /negative things that you are well aware of. The understanding levels are high and you are aware of what to expect from your partner.

ii) You marry an individual in a love marriage with / without anybody’s consent. Just the 2 individuals matter here.

An arranged marriage is a bond between two families not only the individuals. 2 Families are under the scanner here, the family background, reputation, living, affordability etc.

iii) Parents may support / may not support love marriages, it’s more of an individual choice and decision for the couple, you chart out your own path more or less.

Parents are the key in arranged marriages – right from the hunt to horoscope matching to discussions to marriage – the path is laid, you just walk on it.

iv) Individual expect more from their partner as they are already know each other and make very few compromises after marriage – expectation levels are very high and ‘may’ lead to altercations.

Knowing nothing about each other, compromises and adjustments are an integral part of an arranged marriage and the compromises / adjustments extend the longevity of the arranged marriages.

v) Parental guidance or family support is absent in the case of a love marriage held without their consent. You are on your own in times of crisis (domestic / financial / nuptial / family) that could lead to more ego clashes and altercations.

Parental guidance / family support are always omnipresent in arranged marriages and they aid the couple in times of any type of crisis.

vi) A small change in behavior can lead to explosive situations in an love marriage (the most common statement being – You weren’t like this before marriage).

Compromises are integral for an arranged marriage to survive.

Scene3: Anush and Shyla are married for more than 8 months now. The initial discords and uncomfortable factor has now vanished and slowly they are seeing the positives and negatives of each other, love is surely blossoming!

Scene4: 8 months into their love wedding, slowly but surely the bliss has reduced and the realities of life are staring them in the face. What seemed to be all good and sundry before marriage is slowly turning out to be irritation!

The above two scenario’s are not the case in every marriage as it can just be the opposite too. A wrong match from the family and the couple suffer to the extreme and supportive parents can bless a love marriage too albeit at a later stage in life.

Wiki says most of the marriages in India are arranged marriages and the divorce rate is just 1.1% compared to the rest of the world.

We often hear the below statements:

You were so caring before marriage, what happened now? (In a love marriage)

You had an affair with another woman? (In an arranged marriage)

You don’t love me as much as you did before our marriage! (In a love marriage)

Your Parents find fault with everything I do! (In an arranged marriage)

…

I’m hugely in favor of an arranged marriage but of late, changing lifestyles, changing trends, globalization, slow and steady increase in divorce rates and a lot of factors are making me think otherwise. Still, for the present I do nod in favor albeit slightly towards an arranged marriage or a self-arranged marriage!

What’s your pick?

Everything expressed above is my individual opinion and every individual have their own in this regard – the debate rages on in the new show on Sony entertainment television – Love marriage ya Arranged marriage, follow their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/LoveYaArrange

This unusual post is written be me as a part of a entry for the contest on Indiblogger seen here...

A lean, mean biker and his bikes

Me: I have biked on a Java and a Yezdi, the cult bikes!

Audience: Don’t joke buddy, you rode it or it rode you!

Audience2: (to Audience1) Simple maga, he would have just sat on it and the wind would have carried him forward (both laughing loud)!

Me (to myself): Wait people, my day will come (and I stamp out of the place)!

Well, this is no fiction but my actual story :) Looking at my physical fit and size, I’ve always been on the receiving end of the taunts and jokes but that never bothered me as I always took it sportingly and with each such incident my resolve to prove them wrong got all the more stronger and stronger in my heart and mind. I still lack the physical strength but lack no dearth of skill or confidence to maneuver any bike I ride.

Dad’s LML scooter was the bike that I grew up with during my school days and he would often let me once in a while to handle it. His policy was simple, first learn to remove the scooter from the stand, push it for a distance and come back and put it back on the stand and then only he would let me ride it. (Scooters didn’t have side stands then and bikes were very few and far).

College days saw me looking with envy at each bike/scooter on the road and secretly wishing I would get a chance to ride it! Brother’s TVS XL was my next buddy for some months and each time I rode it, I would go zip, zap, zoom leaving others dumbfounded and some yelling at me :) Friend’s bikes were my next target and often I would request/plead to get a ride on it and one such bike was the cult bike the Yezdi. I still remember the day I took the Yezdi for a round around my college and I still remember even harder, the few people who were laughing at that. The sound, the power, the ride left me drooling over the bike and that bike left a lasting impression on me that I still remember and thanks to my friend for having confidence in me and letting me ride it :)

Again my brothers’ Samurai (the No problem bike), Victor and the Splendor were often taken away by me for a ride and I would wait for every opportunity to go to the market or the grocery shop just to go on a ride on the bike. Early job days when I used to commute by bus, my colleagues bikes enthused and often I would be riding a Fiero or an Rx or an Caliber whenever I could get an opportunity and sometimes I would create opportunities for such rides!

Finally after a couple of years later, I was a proud owner of the Bajaj Discover bike that fit into my modest budget delivering high performance and being good on my wallet too. I still remember the long rides I have been on it and sometimes those hair raising rushes through blink miss gaps and also those pleasant drives and how to forget those scratches and bruises when you are either knocked off or fall in the stupid of fashions. As years passed by, I always nurtured a zeal for those heavy racing bikes but right on top of the wish list were the cult Harley-Davidson cruiser bikes. Owning one of them is like a dream seeing their prices in India, but I still hope to ride one of them. A couple of rides on my friends Royal Enfield (the Indian Harley Davidson I would say) changed my perception that I did not deemed myself fit to ride a bullet.

A seed with the secret desire to own one such bike took more than an year to germinate and overpower my negative thoughts and after a lot of infighting for months as to buy or not, a final decision was made and I just walked into the showroom and booked a Royal Enfield Thunderbird all for myself (probably one of those situations when I listened to my heart rather than my head that is still busy calculating ways to sort out the finances). After six months of a long tedious wait, finally the day came when the bike became a part of me and my life.

I sat on the bike, turned the ignition to on and as soon as the electric starter was depressed, the RE came into life growling dub…dub…dub…dub that still echoes and I hope it remains the same throughout… It’s often said a bullet is just not a bike; it’s a part of your life and this you would realize only when you own one and importantly ride one :)

Lastly, ride safe and ride with the conscious that there are others riders too and all of you have the right of way! Speed but do not over speed, Speed thrills but Kills!

and this to all those who taunt me:

Kuch Toh Log Kahenge

Logon Ka Kaam Hain Kehna

Chhodo Bekaar Ki Baaton Mein

Kahin Beet Na Jaaye Raina

Kuch Toh Log Kahenge

Logon Ka Kaam Hain Kehna! :)

This post is for a contest 'What Motorcycling means to the Indian Motorcyclist' sponsored by Castrol. You can find their FB page here.