Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Puzzling Thoughts

Whoever said that Variety is the spice of life should be made to shop in a supermarket. Having to choose from an aisle-long range of products will send him scurrying to erase those misleading words. Spice of life, indeed!

Gone are the days when you could pick up the favourite moisturizer or tried and tested toothpaste or familiar cereal. Now you stand in front of the shelves agonizing over Dove Fresh, Dove Body Silk, Dove Extra Dry, Dove Deep moisturizer, Dove Energy Glow, Dove Pro Age… When all I want is my ordinary Dove moisturizer, which has apparently become extinct. Choosing a cereal is pure torture for you’ve got to calculate the ratio and proportion of ingredients, price, weight, nutrients, in Low Fat, Low Cal, No fat, No Cal, Hi Fibre, Bran, Fruit and Nut avatars. Mental sums were never my forte.

Indecision is me when faced with a choice. And invariably, I regret it once the decision is made. Like the other day at a coffee outlet, the Philipino waitress at the counter gave a string of options in an accent I couldn’t comprehend and even if I did, wouldn’t have known what they were. So when she stopped to take a breath at the third recitation, I said that I wanted that. ‘That’ turned out to be Latte Vanilla something and it turned out to be milk with vanilla flavour yyyukkk! It wasn’t even cold and I HATE MILK.

I wonder how people choose mobiles from the sea of brands and varieties. Fortunately I don’t need to choose mine. Aamir Khan sells only Samsung. Besides my mobile needs to telephone or message people. It doesn’t have to sing or calculate for me. Youngsters, I find know every feature, price, pixel and byte of every gadget. One can only imagine their dilemma.

If the market muddles one so, think what life has to offer. Choose your destiny, Your decision today decides your life tomorrow these are the mantras one hears often. No flowing along where life takes you. Every turning point adds to the burden of choosing, always leaving regret of what might have been. Frost wrote a poem on it.

For my mother education was an escape from an early marriage – she could study till she failed. Her parents, I suspect, were eager for that so they could get her married. My mother studied desperately for obvious reasons. In my time too a girl was expected to graduate and then marry. Post graduation and a career were post marriage; provided all agreed. A marriage to a suitable boy found by the elders. Their criteria were family background, job and tolerable looks. The couple were then left to discover differences or similarity in tastes, interests, opinions, attitudes etc. And if one got a Latte Vanilla the girl simply got accustomed to the flavour, added some ice and even cherished the richness of the milk and the texture of the cream.

Today’s girls have so many options that seem more attractive than (drab) matrimony.
So when they do settle down, do they have to choose among all the features available on the candidates and zero in on the ‘right’ one. And then do they expect the person to function faultlessly? (It could be a Latte Vanilla situation) Is it as practical as that or is there something more romantic like chemistry or physics? I presume that men have a worse time making a choice (considering the range of lovely girls that is wider than the range of boys – men are all the same, aren’t they?). But in terms of happiness with their choice they must have more satisfaction – because females are so good …….or is it because males are easy to please?

I can't decide

12 comments:

ThalassicReverie said...

(1) Utter Disaster
You forgot us ! 'The middle Indians' ( or Deccan Indians ?! ) who have to speak Konkani , Marathi , English , Urdu , Hindi.. !

:D Just wanted to bring in the middle Indian too !!

(2) Tears - 1
Is the poem talking about a parent's attitude to his child ?

'..wildness holds beauty'
In nature yes.
But do you mean it in a child ?
Or rather a 'grown-up' child ? :D

(3) I agree with your puzzling thoughts.
Too many choices make me giddy.

The variety God has given (in every natural aspect) is excellent for all our needs. It is our 'excessive' materialism that makes a mess of our real requirements.

'..she could study till she failed.'

..my mother used to tell me that! (for my 'worldly education in the anti-Islamic manner' only) :)

And about girls having many options other than matrimony is true. But , does it make one's life truly content ?

Too many options. Too many advises. Too many friends. Too many suitors.

Too much of everything is too close to NOTHING :D

Jay said...

On the contrary, I actually enjoy a wide range. Sure, half the things are made up, but it gives me a bit of control over exactly what I want.

Lol, the Indian matrimony system is a joke in my opinion. I mean, how on earth can the parents decide who your gonna spend the rest of your life with? They order of prefernce : Equivalent educational degree, fair (Indains are racists. No joke. No other country in the world would buy these fairness creams as much as a small indian town would) and bride about 6-10 years younger than the groom. I dont understand why there has to be such an age difference. Thats no communication gap, thats a generation gap. I mean wouldnt you be wondering how when your dad was in 12th grade, your mom might be in primary school?

Materialmom said...

Reverie
A thousand apologies. I didn't think of the middle Indians :(
About Tears, What a parent considers wild may seem tame to an offspring. Besides, each person is different. Some kids blindly obey, while others question, explore and come to their own conclusions. A parent need not regard the latter as arrogance.In fact it is a more reasonable approach. The child may not be right but forcing the truth down his throat is not fair.

Jay
Control? I'm forced to have stuff that i could do without. And the things I really want are yet to be invented :)
The age difference was a convenience in a male dominated society.
1) A young bride could be moulded to behave in a way that suited her husband and his family. She could be easily dominated.
2)After child bearing and never ending chores and worries, a woman in her 40s would look a hag while men who had more comforts seemed young at that age.
3)A younger wife would be able to look after a husband in his old age.
Things have changed and now many women are older than their husbands
Just as this gen finds past trends ugly, the future gen will laugh at what is acceptable in the present.
Have you read The Brave New World by Aldous Huxley? If not, I suggest you do. Quite powerful.

AtomicGitten said...

I get indecision, but- Why the hell did you take vanilla latte??!!! Always read the description, that way there is less chance of going wrong: with drinks or guys. Either that or grab the first thing you see and blame it on fate :P

Anush said...

interesting comments and replies. Made me realise that i hadn't understood tat poem (tears) after all. Not even close :)

anyway, i feel tat we have wider choice today because ppl's preferences have become more and more defined over the years. So if i like power shoes for their endurance, my bro may like reebok for style. I dnt kno how the moisturizer market exactly works, but am guessing its similar...

I read frost's poem. Lost track midway. I just am UNABLE to decipher poems... how do i solve this? i gess am missing out on a lot of beauty...

Besides my mobile needs to telephone or message peopleare u somehow telepathically linked to me? :P

men are not easy to please... maybe men are prone to immediate physical attraction... but takes a lot to capture his heart truly... just like a gal... :)

oh and hrithik is waaaaaaaaaay better than AK :)

Ay Jay said...

I agree with Jay 100% especially the Indian matrimony and racist thing. Point is, isn't the whole dominating thing, like, discrimination?? And the R.Frost poem applies in every situation I experience now (Careers, What to take in 11th, so on and so forth). Diversity and choice are all fine, but then some things should not be this diverse.......

Materialmom said...

Atomica
The description is usually an adjectiveridden 100 word composition that can make anything sound delicious, and with a queue behind I had to resort to fate and blame it :)
Do guys come with a description?

Anush
Reading poems? Keep doing it till you get it right.

About definite preferences, I may be wrong, but I feel they are forced on the consumer by advertising/marketing that set trends to promote products. Do you trek or climb rocks?

I use my mobile phone to send sms & call ppl, a calculator to calculate, a music system to play music, a tv screen to watch movies and a computer to write this to you. So I don't need a cell fone with one hundred capabilities. Telepathy seems fascinating, tho I have yet to acquire the skill :)

About men's heart, that is a revelation!... and I thought I had them all figured out... chhe

I was joking about AK, but I have a weathered Samsung that suits me fine. And yes, HR LOOKS better in ads....now :)

AJ
It sounds unfair. But a husband could turn out to be considerate and good person. That was the status quo (it still is in some cases) and so was/is accepted without much ado. A question that bothers me is whether change will improve marriages? will couples be happier?
Hope you will make the right choices; be well informed and get to know yourself. [sory for sounding like an agony aunt :)]

Jay said...

I couldnt help myself, but the occasion is perfect:

How to Impress a Woman:
compliment her,
kiss her,
caress her,
love her,
comfort her,
protect her,
hold her,
spend money on her,
wine & dine her,
listen to her,
stand by her,
support her,
go to the ends of the earth for her.

How to Impress a Man:
show up naked,
bring beer.

Materialmom said...

ha ha v funny, i suspected as much all along, despite anush's claim :)

ajmal said...

to Jay.... I WONT BE impressed with both the options.... May be
1) dress up modestly.
2) bring water to drink when needed.

Jay said...

@ajmal

Two words: Yeah right!

AtomicGitten said...

UPDATE!