இன்று பாடகர் கிருஷ்ண சந்த்திரனின் பேட்டி தேன் கிண்ணம் (ஜெயா டி வி) நிகழ்ச்சியில் பார்க்கும் போது அவர் சொன்ன ஒரு கருத்து நாம் (-நாற்பது-ஐம்பதுகளில் இருப்பவர்கள்) எல்லோரும் அடிக்கடி தினசரி வாழ்க்கையில் ஒரு சிறிய அதிர்ச்சியுடன் நினைத்துக் கொள்வதுதான்.
அதாவது புதுப்பாடல் ரீமிக்ஸ் செய்ய அங்கிருந்த கலை ஞர்களிடம் ஐடியா கேட்ட போது இருபதுகளில் இருக்கும் ஒருவர் 'ஏதோ மோகம்' பாடலை தேர்ந்தெடுக்கலாமா என்று கூறவும் ஒரு சிறிய அதிர்ச்சி ஏற்பட்டதாம் அவருக்கு-ஏனென்றால் அது அவர் பாடிய முதல் பாடல் 1982-வில்! ஓ நாம் பாடிய பாட்டே பழைய பாடல் ஆகி விட்டது என்றால் நமக்கு வயசாகி விட்டது-அடுத்த தலை முறை நமக்கு சமமாக ஆலோசிக்கும் அளவுக்கு வளர்ந்து விட்டார்கள் என்று உறைக்க ஆரம்பித்த ஒரு தருணம் என்றார்.
இதுபோல் எங்ககள் இருவருக்கும் அடிக்கடி ஏற்படுகிறது. ஏனென்றால் வயதானவர்களைப் பற்றி குறிப்பிடும் போது 'அவருக்கு ஒரு 50-60 வயது இருக்கும்' என்று ரொம்ப சாதாரணமாக சொல்லி விடுகிறோம்! நாங்கள் இருவருமே 50-60 களின் ஆரம்பத்தில் இருக்கிறோம் என்பதே எங்களுக்கு அடிக்கடி மறந்து போய் விடுவது தான் காரணம்!
Monday, July 12, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Missing Friends
I am in my fifties and I have an active blog which all our relatives read. This one is for writing my views about things that I have got to get off my chest under cover of anonymity. Not that I have any revolutionary ideas bubbling within me to change the world. Sometimes you just need to share certain things with friends and not with relatives!
My first grouse is that I have hardly any friends in my age group blogging. I am the only one of my generation who checks mails every day! I learnt to operate computers, emailing, web designing, blogging etc., thanks to my daughters who actively encouraged me to do all these to communicate with them when they were in college. (Of course IIMs and US schools have 24 hours internet connection and I learnt the skills in record time just so that I could chat with my daughters whom I missed like hell! )
Second, all my college friends seem to have vanished into thin air as my repeated registration in Facebook and Twitter hardly turn up any of them. As I have lost touch with all of them I thought the Internet was the easiest place where I could locate them. But, as my daughters pointed out, few in my age group (50s) are tech savvy enough to be blogging and/or tweeting! I haven't given up but keep raking the sites in the hope of locating at least one.
All my walking friends in our locality are well-educated, some holding responsible jobs but not to be seen in the blogosphere, simply because noone has been compelled as yet to move further from reading emails. Of course you need more than the half an hour of puffing and huffing, to hold an intelligent conversation about any topic.
The other day I read this joke in 'Life's like That' in the Readers' Digest where a cute young secretary refers to email as the old-fashioned way of communication! Twitter and Facebook are the 'normal' communication for them! Looks like my friends are left in the stone age as far as this young generation is concerned! So I am following many blogs lurking and sometimes commenting. With my morning cup of coffee I read all the new posts of the ones I have subscribed to, in Google Reader and start the day with a spring in my step. They are in their 20s to their 80s but all have a sense of humour and post regularly. My daughters know I read theirs regularly. The others are my cyber 'friends' whose life stories I follow and who are not even aware of me!
My first grouse is that I have hardly any friends in my age group blogging. I am the only one of my generation who checks mails every day! I learnt to operate computers, emailing, web designing, blogging etc., thanks to my daughters who actively encouraged me to do all these to communicate with them when they were in college. (Of course IIMs and US schools have 24 hours internet connection and I learnt the skills in record time just so that I could chat with my daughters whom I missed like hell! )
Second, all my college friends seem to have vanished into thin air as my repeated registration in Facebook and Twitter hardly turn up any of them. As I have lost touch with all of them I thought the Internet was the easiest place where I could locate them. But, as my daughters pointed out, few in my age group (50s) are tech savvy enough to be blogging and/or tweeting! I haven't given up but keep raking the sites in the hope of locating at least one.
All my walking friends in our locality are well-educated, some holding responsible jobs but not to be seen in the blogosphere, simply because noone has been compelled as yet to move further from reading emails. Of course you need more than the half an hour of puffing and huffing, to hold an intelligent conversation about any topic.
The other day I read this joke in 'Life's like That' in the Readers' Digest where a cute young secretary refers to email as the old-fashioned way of communication! Twitter and Facebook are the 'normal' communication for them! Looks like my friends are left in the stone age as far as this young generation is concerned! So I am following many blogs lurking and sometimes commenting. With my morning cup of coffee I read all the new posts of the ones I have subscribed to, in Google Reader and start the day with a spring in my step. They are in their 20s to their 80s but all have a sense of humour and post regularly. My daughters know I read theirs regularly. The others are my cyber 'friends' whose life stories I follow and who are not even aware of me!
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
First Twitter from the Empty Nest
Now that our two daughters have got married within the year 2009, my husband and I are left to plan and lead our own lives after a very very long time. It is a strange feeling that we could do whatever we want, the plans not involving our daughters always.
Of course, it has been that way ever since our daughters got settled in faraway places, one across the country and the other across the continents, when they started working a few years back. Our fiercely independent daughters hold responsible jobs and belong to the jetset generation. They kept assuring us that they would get married when they met the 'right' guys and urged us to go travelling or do something we like and enjoy our comfortably retired position. As both kids were born before my husband crossed 30 years of age, (only now he has crossed over to the senior citizen club), we both are active to do all the travelling we wanted even though our daughters had taken years to really 'settle down' according to Indian standards. But no, all these years, as true Indian parents we considered the marriages of our offspring our utmost duty and we always felt that there is unfinished business at home.
As a compromise, we travelled to the U.S., in 2005, to be with our younger daughter, with the hidden agenda of making her agree to one of the grooms we had lined up for her in the matrimonial websites. We did the usual sightseeing tours on both the West and East coast but no wedding came off that trip. We had to visit her again in 2008 and finally the match happened. Wonder of wonders our elder daughter followed suit with a choice of her own, within months of our younger daughter's engagement. Whew! they both got married in 2009, within six months of each other, to the collective sigh of relief from our numerous relatives who had despaired of ever attending a wedding of their oldest nieces!
Yesterday the last of the wedding formalities got over with the mandatory temple visit for the couples. The house is empty with the newly weds back in their workplace after the extended holidays. Now we have lined up various jobs around the house which we had set aside until after our kids got married.
My husband, having come out of banking service on VRS ten years before his actual retirement age, is already on a busy routine which he calls semi-retirement. Doing regular online trading in stocks keeps him busy five days a week, with his online research commencing at 4.30 am and trading starting at 9 am. Of course, his 'office' is one of the three bedrooms at home, with his PC and laptop ensconced in very official-looking manner with a computer table and a writing table, a small TV to watch the movement of the scrips on NDTV Profit, a stationery cupboard and a notice board with the printouts of important market news and cues gathered in his research. Quite impressive, huh?
His repeated offers to play his assistant in the SOHO elicit the least interest from me as I have little interest in commerce and the facts and figures bore me to tears. My only interest is reading books and as an offshoot I have started blogging too. This forum provides me an outlet to all the random thoughts that mill around i my head. So, readers (if any!) be warned that the posts may not have any continuity at all!
Of course, it has been that way ever since our daughters got settled in faraway places, one across the country and the other across the continents, when they started working a few years back. Our fiercely independent daughters hold responsible jobs and belong to the jetset generation. They kept assuring us that they would get married when they met the 'right' guys and urged us to go travelling or do something we like and enjoy our comfortably retired position. As both kids were born before my husband crossed 30 years of age, (only now he has crossed over to the senior citizen club), we both are active to do all the travelling we wanted even though our daughters had taken years to really 'settle down' according to Indian standards. But no, all these years, as true Indian parents we considered the marriages of our offspring our utmost duty and we always felt that there is unfinished business at home.
As a compromise, we travelled to the U.S., in 2005, to be with our younger daughter, with the hidden agenda of making her agree to one of the grooms we had lined up for her in the matrimonial websites. We did the usual sightseeing tours on both the West and East coast but no wedding came off that trip. We had to visit her again in 2008 and finally the match happened. Wonder of wonders our elder daughter followed suit with a choice of her own, within months of our younger daughter's engagement. Whew! they both got married in 2009, within six months of each other, to the collective sigh of relief from our numerous relatives who had despaired of ever attending a wedding of their oldest nieces!
Yesterday the last of the wedding formalities got over with the mandatory temple visit for the couples. The house is empty with the newly weds back in their workplace after the extended holidays. Now we have lined up various jobs around the house which we had set aside until after our kids got married.
My husband, having come out of banking service on VRS ten years before his actual retirement age, is already on a busy routine which he calls semi-retirement. Doing regular online trading in stocks keeps him busy five days a week, with his online research commencing at 4.30 am and trading starting at 9 am. Of course, his 'office' is one of the three bedrooms at home, with his PC and laptop ensconced in very official-looking manner with a computer table and a writing table, a small TV to watch the movement of the scrips on NDTV Profit, a stationery cupboard and a notice board with the printouts of important market news and cues gathered in his research. Quite impressive, huh?
His repeated offers to play his assistant in the SOHO elicit the least interest from me as I have little interest in commerce and the facts and figures bore me to tears. My only interest is reading books and as an offshoot I have started blogging too. This forum provides me an outlet to all the random thoughts that mill around i my head. So, readers (if any!) be warned that the posts may not have any continuity at all!
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