Heather Mills and Dana Reeve

Hey jude, don't make it bad.
Take a sad song and make it better
Remember to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better---Beatles


People amaze me always . Not all people but some people .  I go through the biographies of celebrities and famous people whom i like.  Recently i  picked up the Readers Digest book with the personal life of Sir Paul McCartney the famous Beatles singer . And there was an article    about one of his marriages with Heather Mills who by herself is a worth read ( wikipedia for details )  . Not because of her past which will make you think why the famous Beatle made that choice but about that individual who shows being famous is only part of the human condition .  How many of you know that this beautiful model had an accident and an amputation of her lower leg and modelled even after that (even skied after that )  .  She met the Beatles singer many years after this accident and they got married . If you think he saw her beauty and married her time for a self check how many of us are ready to marry an amputee however beautiful she is and especially if she has a reputation .  They married and divorced years later but more importantly  when tabloids which represent the judgemental general public raved that she married him for his money  ... She replied that that comment was more hurting than the loss of her leg in the accident .  Whenever we feel like judging others it would be better if we read about famous people and their lives and beyond the drunkenness , the cannabis , the "bad " life they lead we find more beautiful people than ourselves

Now  there are even amazing examples . One of them is Dana Reeves . Not familiar ? . Most of us know superman and the actor Christopher Reeves who played the character .  She was the wife of the superman actor Christopher Reeves. Being the wife of a superman is a coveted position .. Now think three years down the line he has an accident while horse riding and permanently became paralyzed from neck down .  Though  a romantic thought not everyone can continue the relationship after such an accident . But she stayed on till his death many years later and they both together had a worldfamous foundation .  (wikipedia for details )  .
Now for argument sake we will say whats the big deal. But remember these are all celebrities (she herself was an actress )  who knows hedonism more than we lesser mortals  .  But they went beyond what most of us will do in similar circumstances  .  If you think she stayed on because of his money  ... its possible  .. but  reading about celebrities and famous people i find them more in touch with their humanness than we the judgemental people  ..

Take home message  :  Hear  the Beatles song  enjoy it ... then .. Read about the people behind  . Similarly see Superman  and  read about the people behind  ... And in addition stop being judgemental  for we always see only the tip of the iceberg unless we take the effort  ...

Priorities in life

Priorities in life  ……

It was long ago  .  Just after my ninth standard exams the summer vacation . That was when a dilemma struck me . As usual all my cousins had come to the ancestral home for the vacation and I too was keen to go  .  But that particular summer vacation there was a course in hobby electronics which I was very keen to attend for a long time .  I still remember the decision I took of leaving behind the handson hobby electronics summer course and going to the ancestral home to play with my cousins ..If you met me that time you would have realized the dilemma I faced as science and family went hand in hand in my top priorities in life   .. But even at that time my top priority was only one … family and relationships  . A close second only came the academics which came as a surprise even to me as I was the class topper.

Fast forward many years .. life experiences taught me the place of each thing in life be it career , friendships , love etc  and also that personality differences also affect the priorities for each person  . 

And especially these days when people even forego relationships telling “ I have to concentrate on career “  I  wonder leave alone dreamers like me what is the end objective of career .  And my sympathy for the career oriented increases when I see a sizeable proportion of workaholics who do so much overtime that I wonder what is the purpose of their life .  I have heard even the die hard career fan at his deathbed doesn’t think about excel sheets or his achieved targets instead about the relationships he/ she had or lost  .. 

When I think of one of the most focused persons on earth I would think of Adolf Hitler  . I wouldn’t  elaborate on his “career equivalent focus “ of killing the jews and expanding his country  .  But even for him after the first shot rang in his suicide when he was about to be caught there was a closely placed gunshot  following of his beloved Eva  Brown  his lady love . 

Sometime back I had blogged on 101 things to do before you die .  Since hopefully there is time for that  still it would be worthwhile if each of us think what is the priority in our life and try to align our actual life accordingly . Maybe that may bring us more closer to happiness .  And that can be done from today  ..

PS  :  Like many people think if food was the top priority in my life I wouldn’t have blogged J  ..though it is in my top 5  …Afterall we all work to eat right ? At least I do …

a girl and a house ...

Long ago I was going on an arranged date with a girl in Mumbai  .  Arranged date meaning a potential arranged marriage  but date in the sense that we could go out for a one to one meeting so that  we could know each other better .  Though a malayali by origin this girl was born and brought up in Mumbai .Each time  when the topic of settling in kerala was brought up she stared at me as if I asked her to settle in sahara desert . Being used to the beautiful gods own country  I was surprised why she was staring like that  .. I asked her  why  she didn’t like settling in the paradise on earth  . Then she told me something about my beloved malayalis which  is true even to this day  though it’s a generalization .  They  interfere in other peoples affairs , pass negative comments on your face and also behind your back  and even decide when your child should  be born  ..Usually quick to defend anything ( I should have been a lawyerJ  )  in this aspect  even to this day  I cannot argue for the people of my state  as what she told is very true .  And this is not a random observation by a random girl but the same has been told by countless people to me as well as by my personal observation and experience . 

Recently one of my friend of friends put up his houses picture a beautiful house which he constructed with his hard earned money  . He came from a background where he built up his wealth by hardwork and was very proud of this achievement  .  The first comment on the social network forum when he put up his houses picture was a negative comment saying he has false vanity in putting up the picture .  Unfortunately the commenter discounted his intelligence which gave a fitting reply to this negative comment  . He replied to her (who happened to be a beautiful woman ) that  the house which he built by his hardwork is something he can be always proud of  while beauty which she had is something not to be proud of since she just inherited it from parents genes . And a detailed explanation of how such negative remarks is not civil  especially in social forums  .  And you guessed it right  .. both are from Gods own country  ..

I have  stayed extensively  outside the  state  and even the country  and  has been approached occasionally by single women ..  But  only twice I  was approached by  married women   and both of the approaches happened in this highly moral state of all the places on earth  .  Luckily  my  sense of morality  is very clear  that  I  find it  immoral  to have an extramarital affair  because that amounts to cheating  .Maybe it was random but i think why these approaches happened mainly in kerala where compared to other states we are supposed to be extremely moral  .

  I  can go on and on about  many kerala experiences . Some unemployed people asking about  the finer aspects of my career in a negative sense(when they have no career on their own)   ,  about why I  walk this way  , why I smile or do not smile  all  these things happen much more commonly  in kerala than any place  I have visited  .  Years  of experience in dealing has made me  really tough  and even amused by these half intelligent remarks  . 

But  still  I  wonder  why  our  people  peep into others houses when their house is on fire (  which often is )  …. Am I irritating by this blog  ?  Sorry , that’s also a malayali trait  . 

Afterword :  Most of the internet savvy  people of kerala  do not  represent the above people  .  Also its not about everyone  in kerala . But I find  kerala has above average share of the above traits  compared to people of other states.  And lastly  I do not  expect a miraculous change by my blogging .  But  I think  it  will help at least some people  in the receiving end  that  theres nothing wrong with them  and  also for the  bold ones  to  talk back  to the  perpetrators of this crime of putting down other people and  judging others  .