Is there a season when people break up the most? Hadn’t thought of this before. Just like I had found it amusing when my room mate had mentioned to me that the holiday season was the time people put on weight. I had just arrived from India, scared, nervous, dehydrated, sleep deprived after 50 hours of flight, student into the US. By the time I had gotten to understand the system here and had started to breath freely, it was thanks giving time! I had gotten a couple of invitations from fellow students and had the first taste of what a thanksgiving dinner was like, at my professor’s home.
There wasn’t anything on the table that I had wanted to hog on. Instead, I had found this huge round ball of skinned, stuffed and cooked bird laid out like a decoration, on the table that didn’t seem to set off the enzymes in my tummy flowing. Excuse me for this guys, but, I hadn’t seen something like that before! By the time I had gotten used to it, the evening was over. A very nice and pleasant gathering of people from my department. My dinner had been a tiny serving of boiled peas..as that’s the only vegetarian stuff I had been fortunate enough to find. Still, I had taken my roommates words for more than its face value and thought that somehow by magic, people put on weight after that dinner.
I had made about 15 rounds on foot around the university’s stadium every day for two months in biting cold, wind and snow wanting to prove her wrong that, some people lost weight during the festival season. Right! Lonely people like myself had nothing better to do then. Away from family and friends who lived on the other side of the globe in a warm country where sweating was fun. Where most people had heard the word snow but, hadn’t seen a snow flake in their life.
Not knowing anybody in this new place, the town had looked like a ghost town during the Christmas break when almost all the students had left their dorms and rentals to go and cozy up with their families.
It had been the blizzard of 96’. Not only was that my first experience with such extreme cold and snow but it had continued endlessly, with warm weather no where in sight. We had snow on the streets even at the end of April. Not knowing better, I had let the thermostat stay at 80 so, I could feel the warmth of the tropics and had paid hefty bills to the utility company that year. It had taken me a while to learn to walk on sleet and wet snow without falling on my butt. The situation itself was enough to have drained half of my weight.
Sure, I had succeeded to prove her wrong that year and maybe for the next also..but, today I couldn’t agree with her more. According to a leading daily, an average thanksgiving dinner plate has way more than 4000 calories of food on it. Wow, so much food!! I don’t think I could eat that much although I’m considered a person with a ravenous appetite.
Coming back to breakups…which incidentally had been the topic I had wanted to write about (Amazing, my lack of focus or attention. The rate with which I digress, could beat a child diagnosed with ADD hands down...maybe the result of an undiagnosed condition from childhood..that has now taken this gigantic form).
So, I was reading this article from the Personal Journal of WSJ. According to this article..2 designers, Lee Byron and David McCandless, set out to collect data on break ups, by searching for break up words on face book, and have come to the conclusion that as we are closing in on the holiday season, we are also closing in on one of the 2 peak times of the break up season in the year! Other peak being the time around spring break.
Had never considered that there are periods during a year, when people tend to break up the most. And what better way to do this, than to post your status on face book for all your friends to see, if sending a personal text message was not an option!.. Who cares for the face to face way of breaking up when a few geeks from Harvard have made it possible for people to break up without needing to make eye contact to do it, making the life of so many people unable to communicate with people face to face, so easy.
There’s a graph too!! (Very interesting link!)
Post a status or send a text that your not interested in the relationship anymore, that, it was time to call it quits. Saving tactics?! Surely saves one from buying that extra gift during the holidays! Gets me to think, what are the marketing departments doing to keep such break ups from happening. Its the drops that make the ocean, right?!
In my case, this is the season that brings back fond memories, memories of my husband and me meeting each other for the first time. Thanksgiving was the time we met/saw each other for the first time, we got married during the Christmas holidays the following year. Every year, the arrival of Thanksgiving would start a series of anniversaries for us. But, this year, it totally skipped my mind (not sure about Pavan who claims that he had remembered about it for a few minutes and forgot to wish us both). I totally forgot that it had been the anniversary of 15 wonderful years of knowing Pavan. How could such a thing happen?
I can still remember the day so vividly like it happened yesterday..my impression of this guy who was trying to act so cool wasn’t impressing me. But, it had felt very comfortable and simple too…being with him. I realized it as soon as he left and I had wasted no time in sending an encrypted email..telling him how quite and peaceful the whole place had become. He had been quick at replying back and the rest is history.
(One of our first selfie...!)
Maybe it was the case of 2 people who were trying hard at being “So Cool”. They realized that being cool wasn’t fun after all. Instead they decided to warm each other up with their love for each other, and they did it so well, that they have been blessed with the family WE are now! This season, another member from the family is at it, again! He is on his way to getting hooked for life. Hopefully, everything will work out as expected for him and he will have earned a fiancé by the end of this season..
For other men in the family watching with all their ears and eyes wide open, equipped with the wisdom of marital bliss of a few years now, its fun time. To them, its like watching somebody getting ready to be skinned for life. Nothing is more enjoyable than this. They have been into this marriage thing for a while now and know the baggage it comes with, much wiser than these innocent beings so eager to tie the knot (in their opinion!). But guys, who knows, after a few kids (Yeah! I know I used “FEW”) and the memories of the years passed, to look back at..all this may not be a bad deal after all!
There is a saying in Hindi
“Shadi ke Ladoo, joh khaye woh pachtaye, Joh nahin khaye, woh bhi pachtaye!”
The one who eats the fruits of marriage regrets just as the one who doesn’t. Hopefully, this will be the case of neither.
There wasn’t anything on the table that I had wanted to hog on. Instead, I had found this huge round ball of skinned, stuffed and cooked bird laid out like a decoration, on the table that didn’t seem to set off the enzymes in my tummy flowing. Excuse me for this guys, but, I hadn’t seen something like that before! By the time I had gotten used to it, the evening was over. A very nice and pleasant gathering of people from my department. My dinner had been a tiny serving of boiled peas..as that’s the only vegetarian stuff I had been fortunate enough to find. Still, I had taken my roommates words for more than its face value and thought that somehow by magic, people put on weight after that dinner.
I had made about 15 rounds on foot around the university’s stadium every day for two months in biting cold, wind and snow wanting to prove her wrong that, some people lost weight during the festival season. Right! Lonely people like myself had nothing better to do then. Away from family and friends who lived on the other side of the globe in a warm country where sweating was fun. Where most people had heard the word snow but, hadn’t seen a snow flake in their life.
Not knowing anybody in this new place, the town had looked like a ghost town during the Christmas break when almost all the students had left their dorms and rentals to go and cozy up with their families.
It had been the blizzard of 96’. Not only was that my first experience with such extreme cold and snow but it had continued endlessly, with warm weather no where in sight. We had snow on the streets even at the end of April. Not knowing better, I had let the thermostat stay at 80 so, I could feel the warmth of the tropics and had paid hefty bills to the utility company that year. It had taken me a while to learn to walk on sleet and wet snow without falling on my butt. The situation itself was enough to have drained half of my weight.
Sure, I had succeeded to prove her wrong that year and maybe for the next also..but, today I couldn’t agree with her more. According to a leading daily, an average thanksgiving dinner plate has way more than 4000 calories of food on it. Wow, so much food!! I don’t think I could eat that much although I’m considered a person with a ravenous appetite.
Coming back to breakups…which incidentally had been the topic I had wanted to write about (Amazing, my lack of focus or attention. The rate with which I digress, could beat a child diagnosed with ADD hands down...maybe the result of an undiagnosed condition from childhood..that has now taken this gigantic form).
So, I was reading this article from the Personal Journal of WSJ. According to this article..2 designers, Lee Byron and David McCandless, set out to collect data on break ups, by searching for break up words on face book, and have come to the conclusion that as we are closing in on the holiday season, we are also closing in on one of the 2 peak times of the break up season in the year! Other peak being the time around spring break.
Had never considered that there are periods during a year, when people tend to break up the most. And what better way to do this, than to post your status on face book for all your friends to see, if sending a personal text message was not an option!.. Who cares for the face to face way of breaking up when a few geeks from Harvard have made it possible for people to break up without needing to make eye contact to do it, making the life of so many people unable to communicate with people face to face, so easy.
There’s a graph too!! (Very interesting link!)
Post a status or send a text that your not interested in the relationship anymore, that, it was time to call it quits. Saving tactics?! Surely saves one from buying that extra gift during the holidays! Gets me to think, what are the marketing departments doing to keep such break ups from happening. Its the drops that make the ocean, right?!
In my case, this is the season that brings back fond memories, memories of my husband and me meeting each other for the first time. Thanksgiving was the time we met/saw each other for the first time, we got married during the Christmas holidays the following year. Every year, the arrival of Thanksgiving would start a series of anniversaries for us. But, this year, it totally skipped my mind (not sure about Pavan who claims that he had remembered about it for a few minutes and forgot to wish us both). I totally forgot that it had been the anniversary of 15 wonderful years of knowing Pavan. How could such a thing happen?
I can still remember the day so vividly like it happened yesterday..my impression of this guy who was trying to act so cool wasn’t impressing me. But, it had felt very comfortable and simple too…being with him. I realized it as soon as he left and I had wasted no time in sending an encrypted email..telling him how quite and peaceful the whole place had become. He had been quick at replying back and the rest is history.
%5B5%5D.jpg "Pavan and ME (BG)")
(One of our first selfie...!)Maybe it was the case of 2 people who were trying hard at being “So Cool”. They realized that being cool wasn’t fun after all. Instead they decided to warm each other up with their love for each other, and they did it so well, that they have been blessed with the family WE are now! This season, another member from the family is at it, again! He is on his way to getting hooked for life. Hopefully, everything will work out as expected for him and he will have earned a fiancé by the end of this season..
For other men in the family watching with all their ears and eyes wide open, equipped with the wisdom of marital bliss of a few years now, its fun time. To them, its like watching somebody getting ready to be skinned for life. Nothing is more enjoyable than this. They have been into this marriage thing for a while now and know the baggage it comes with, much wiser than these innocent beings so eager to tie the knot (in their opinion!). But guys, who knows, after a few kids (Yeah! I know I used “FEW”) and the memories of the years passed, to look back at..all this may not be a bad deal after all!
There is a saying in Hindi
“Shadi ke Ladoo, joh khaye woh pachtaye, Joh nahin khaye, woh bhi pachtaye!”
The one who eats the fruits of marriage regrets just as the one who doesn’t. Hopefully, this will be the case of neither.
2 comments:
Absolutely loved reading this post of yours Gayatri. And LOL @ "said yes to him, despite his shirt"
Loved taking this nostalgic trip with you. And a large stuffed Turkey can get a tad intimidating for Indian sensibilities.
Hi Purba, good to know you enjoyed the post.
Right! especially, when you are supposed to cut pieces of it to serve yourself!
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