I wrote a lot of adages to give this post a kick start but then I struck it all off. I still don’t know how and where to begin with this much debated topic involving the choice between equality and specialty. Often I am referred to as an ardent feminist who is always ready to rant about women equality and empowerment. Yes I am a feminist but in no world it gives me the right to demean the men fraternity. Men and women are different. There is no such criteria which can determine the superiority of one over the other. So if I am asked “do you want to be treated specially or equally?” I would just smile and reply “I wish to be treated equally”. Continue reading
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I am going for ride in Renault Lodgy, wanna tag along ?
Travel often ~ getting lost will help you find yourself.
This is my favorite travel quote. It just says it all. Short and complete in every sense. When I heard about the Renault Lodgy contest I was ecstatic and the idea of traveling in and around Goa in the all new Lodgy left me jumping with excitement. I love travelling whether it is to a place which is few kilometers away or to a land far far away. If I have to pick further, road travels are my most preferred options.
When I am not in my cozy bed, snuggling around I am either in my cubical working or I am out exploring. When I got to know about the #LiveLodgycal Drive deal, I didn’t have to think much about what my first five picks would be. When I am travelling there are certain things which are always my companion.
The first and very important thing that I never forget to carry is my handbag. You might get a little amused by this but it is something that I always carry. I am in shoulder to handle relationship with my bag. My handbag houses a lot of my essentials like wallet, house keys, lip balm, a pen, a mist and many more. I am always assured that I have all the necessary things covered up if I have my bag with me. Just like my bag has a perfect place for everything the new Renault Lodgy comes with creative crafting of the interiors which has made sure that you get space for everything. So much of attention has been given to the detailing that you will always have ample space to keep all your belongings in place.
How I managed to #SHARETHELOAD
I am very late for this post but I have my own reasons for it. You all know what basically needs to be done for this post. Ask your partner, friend, brother to help you share the load and assist you in doing the laundry. Post their fun pictures and blog about the whole experience. I thought I will do the same but destiny had something else in store for me.
One fine day I received this cute packet of Ariel Matic. I was ecstatic to see it as I was expecting it since long time, but my happiness went for a toss when I thought of the next course of the actions. I live far from my parents because of my work so asking my father and brother for helping me in this campaign was out of the options. I am single and thus there is no guy smitten in love enough to do this for me. I pulled myself and thought there are many friends I will ask any of them I am sure they will be happy to help. To my surprise it was not the case. They were ashamed of doing it, some of them even said we will help but we are not okay with our pictures being put up on the blog, I found it disheartening.
I arrived.
I didn’t want to give up on this and I thought of all possible ways through which I could conform to the requirements of this campaign. I thought I will dig out an old picture and do a little editing and photoshoping so that I could fabricate a photo by inserting the photo of Ariel Matic. I even started with it but after sometime I thought do I really have to do this, do I have to lie about it ? I couldn’t do it. I was sitting in my room all disappointed and lost. Seeing me like this my flatmate came to me and she offered her help. She was very well aware of the ordeal that I had gone through. I explained her the campaign and she insisted that I should be writing the truth. I told her how everyone has written such amazing posts for this and mine would not even conform to the standards. She was still firm and after a small discussion I agreed to her. She became my partner in this and she was happy to #SHARETHELOAD with me by taking part in #WASHBUCKETCHALLENGE. You can see how happy she was to do this for me.
I am happy to #SHARETHELOAD
This is probably the first time when I had so much fun washing clothes.
Things I really like about Ariel Matic:
- The smell: The moment I opened the packet a refreshing smell came out of it. I thought it would fade off once the clothes are dried but to my surprise it was just intact. All my clothes have this mild fragrance which makes me smell them again and again.
- The quantity: For a tub full of clothes I just has to use one spoon of Ariel Matic. I thought I would be needing more in order to satiate the high demands of the dirt and stains on my clothes. But again Ariel Matic took me to surprise.
- Easy on hands: As you could clearly make out that I don’t have a washing machine. There are some cons of bachelorhood. I hand washed my clothes. Generally my hands go rough and the texture of the skin changes. Ariel Matic was way different from all the detergents that I have ever used. My hands were soft and moreover they start smelling good. 🙂
- Easy on pocket: Another very important aspect of Ariel Matic is that is doesn’t dig a big hole in your pocket. Considering how efficient the performance is I was expecting it to be a little pricey, but this little packet of joy for my clothes is way in my budget.
My #SHARETHELOAD experience is way out of the order but I had fun doing it. I might have not followed the rules but I enjoyed it.
I am nominating the below five bloggers to take this challenge:
- Regular Indian girl who blogs as aregularindiangirl.
- Moon who blogs at Footloose Forever.
- Bilna Sandeep who blogs at Monsoon Breeze.
- Somali K Chakrabarti who blogs at Scribble and Scrawl
- Shruti Gopinath who blogs at In love with a Twilight Star
This post is part of the #WashBucketChallenge activity at BlogAdda.com in association with Ariel India.
Laundry – Not ONLY my job, so come let us do some LAUNDRY honey !
It is so strange how we talk about gender equality and discover the opposite in every aspect of our lives. While men are still doing what they were doing a decade ago women have evolved way too much. They have developed skills which are cumulative while men are still stagnant at what they do. I can quote hundred good areas and fields where women have made their marks. They are running shoulder to shoulder with men in every industry. But having said that the reality hasn’t changed much at the grass root level.
Just to make it a little on the lighter note, here is a little poem which describes exactly what I feel and what I want to convey to all the men out there.
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let us do some LAUNDRY honey !
Don’t feel shy, that heap consists more of you and less of mine,
what is that smirk all about, did you find it funny ?
Let us do some LAUNDRY honey !
Don’t say you are tired, because I am tired too,
the week was equally hectic for me, so don’t make me call you bunny,
Let us do some LAUNDRY honey !
You get the clothes, I will prep the machine with all it needs,
now move your lazy bum, I don’t want my clothes to miss the weather which is apparently sunny,
Let us do some LAUNDRY honey !
You might think it is my job, I should do it religiously without asking for help,
but aren’t we equal, for you and I earn the same amount of money,
Let us do some LAUNDRY honey !
It seems an uphill task, but it isn’t that cumbersome,
All you have to do is feed the machine with everything and wait for it to act like your dummy,
Let us do some LAUNDRY honey !
Time has changed and so have we, let us strike a deal,
you do it for a week and I do for the next week, don’t expect any mercy because I ain’t your mummy,
Let us do some LAUNDRY honey !
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When I came across this topic I had many realizations and many events and incidents flashed in front of my eyes. Even though you have same working hours as your partner still you are the undisputed house hold responsibility queen. No matter how much we advance in terms of technology, modernity and urbanity but the moment you enter the house the stale ideology of a decade back still prevails. I came across few facts from Ariel survey which shook me, have a look below.
#IsLaundryOnlyAWomansJob
I really don’t have to look around much as I have seen many live examples at my home. Ever since I could understand even a tad bit of household work I have seen my mother worrying about the laundry. It has always been her lookout to keep aside dirty clothes, to reach out to every person in the house asking for clothes so that she can save herself from the pain of doing the laundry again. As I and my sister grew up we shared the pain and hence our lives moved on. My sister got married and she moved to NCR, because of some official work I had to stay with her for a couple of weeks. Just a day or two had passed and one day I heard my brother in law screaming from the bed room “where is my green shirt ?”. To this my sister patiently replied “It is there only, look harder” . Considering the long time since he was digging in the closet he got a little baffled and happened to have a glance at the laundry bag. The shirt was right there lying peacefully. He got a little upset but he held himself and said “You didn’t wash it ?, you should have washed it dear”. “Should have”, I mean really should have.
I felt as if I had a déjà vu. I could see my mother in my sister as she was facing the exact same thing except for the fact that we were in the twenty first century. Until today I also didn’t realize the gravity of this small household activity. Nobody really talks about it, it just functions like this. I would not really blame men for this behavior, maybe they don’t even know that they have been acting like this ever since. Maybe they need a little shaking up so that they think about this hectic and often being ignored task which is laundry. It is the utmost responsibility of women to make sure that they aren’t doing it alone and express their discontent towards it, you never know you might get help.
To sum up I just want to say that except “giving birth to a new life and suffering from the monthly cycles there is nothing which is to be done ONLY by women.” So when asked #IsLaundryOnlyAWomansJob be brave and say a strong NO.
“I am writing for #IsLaundryOnlyAWomansJob activity at BlogAdda.com in association with Ariel.”
Addition of AND, elimination of OR
I am writing this post by accepting the tag of Anoop for #UseYourAnd activity. You can read his post here.
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This topic took me way back in 2001 when I was developing a keen interest in basketball. To take my interest to the next level I joined a stadium near my place and the timings of practices were overlapping my tuition classes. But I had a plan to figure that out.
Needless to mention it came to my teacher’s notice. Apart from being my teacher she was my neighbor too and apparently in very good talking terms with my family. One day when I returned back from the practices I saw her sitting in the drawing room and having a serious discussion with my mother. After few minutes I joined them and got to know what they were discussing. She had issues with my playing as I was not going to become a basketball player professionally in my career. She contested that there is no future in sports and she has to choose either sports OR studies. She has to make her marks in studies not sports. I was taken aback by her comments. I kept quiet and waited for her to leave.
Just when she left I told my mother I can be good in studies AND basketball. I don’t even know what I am going to become after four years but as of now basketball excites me and gives me a lot of happiness. My mother heard me out patiently. I made her understand that I don’t have to choose between the two, I can be good in academics AND I can be good in sports.
With my family’s encouragement and support I took my interest ahead. I later played one Youth Open championship, two Open Junior championships and five consecutive school Regional and National tournaments. I fought for the ANDs of my life and will always do.
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PS: Yes I didn’t become a professional basketball player but those intense practices and several championships have made me a better person. It has taught me a lot made me an all-rounder in school. I passed my secondary and higher secondary with flying colors. My parents were honored in the school and I made them proud. I take a lot of proud in the fact that I fought for my AND and proved the OR supporters wrong.
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“This post is a part of #UseYourAnd activity at BlogAdda in association with Gillette Venus“. My post starts from the top line and ends at the bottom line, hence abiding the posting rules.
I am tagging my fellow bloggers Moon Roy, Srilakshmi, Maniparna, The Life and Times of an Indian Homemaker, chotisibaatein, A shade of pen and PENDOWN.
Thank God the No-Shave November is over…
At times I realize we have crossed the limits of blindly following the west culture. Making a great hullabaloo about the “No Shave November” is the recent one. It has gone viral over the internet and various social networking sites. What really annoys and irritates me is that 90% of men are ignorant of the real reason why this month is celebrated in such grand scale in the west.
No-Shave November is actually a program ran by an American Cancer Society annually in the month of November to spread awareness about Cancer. So basically when you sign up for this program you don’t shave, don’t cut your hair and restrain from grooming yourself and all the money that you would have spent on all of these should be donated for cancer awareness for the whole month. You show your support by growing hair which the cancer patient lose.
The crux of the program is missing and people take pride in posting pictures in full grown beard and mustaches. I haven’t heard of a single man who has actually done it religiously. If you are one of those few ones, you have my respect. Apart from the ignorance about the real issue what irritates me even more is that it has come up as a good excuse for not shaving for an entire month. I see so many men around me looking all messed up and shabby. Thank God the No-Shave November is over.
A colleague of mine was summoned by his supervisor, he asked him the reason behind his shabby look. To his question he responded in a lot of panache saying “it is for the No Shave November, don’t you know about it”. My seat was two cubicles away from his and I could clearly overhear the conversation. The supervisor then asked him back “do you mind telling me what it is”, the naive colleague of mine took no time to spill all of his ignorance in front of him. I couldn’t hear much after that but the last thing that I heard was my colleague saying “I will take care of it from the next time”. I couldn’t stop laughing and that was the moment I decided this incident is worth a post.
This post is a part of #WillYouShave activity at Blogadda, in association with Gillette.
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I tag my blogger friends –
Anoop, who writes at TRANQUIL yet Alive
Nabanita Dhar, who blogs at Random Thoughts—Naba and
Asmitha , who writes at Asmithaaa to share their take on #WillYouShave activity. The word limit is 300 words. When you write, please mention that you picked the tag from me.
Here are the suggested prompts for the write-ups –
For men –
- Missed chances – Stories or instances where you missed out on an opportunity because of a non-shaven face.
- Luck of confidence – Will you leave your fate in the hand of destiny or will you step up and say yes to a well-groomed face to be your best every day.
For ladies –
- An instance when stubble came in the way of a man’s chance to make a good impression.
- An instance when a well-groomed look ensured that they stuck gold on an opportunity given to them.
This post is a part of #WillYouShave activity at Blogadda, in association with Gillette.
Life and Its Experiments 