The Mistakes We Make

When I wrote my boards in the 10th grade, I felt that nothing could be harder and I couldn't wait for it to finish. Then I reached the 12th, and thought, "Okay, this is the hardest thing I've done". Then I reached college; well, you catch my drift, don't you? It's the way life works. We always assume that THIS will be the hardest thing I will do, that THIS is the worst possible way I could screw up and then life surprises you. Rather, you surprise yourself. You can't expect life to be mundane and stagnant. It's filled with mistakes. You make mistakes so that you learn a lesson and are cautious enough to prevent it from happening again. When you make mistakes, major ones that is, you feel like it's the end of the world. Like choosing to trust the wrong person, losing your wallet that contained every single thing you need for identification (this actually happened to me a few days ago. Thank god I found it.), disappointing someone who believes in you. That's the thing about mistakes. They happen. They happen to all of us, no matter how careful we are. Life throws curveballs at us every step of the way. Some things are easy to deal with and some aren't. When I lost my wallet, my mom and I literally lost our minds. She was screaming at me about my irresponsible behaviour and I was ready to pull my hair out at my own stupidity. Had I not found it the very next day, I have no idea what I would have done. But you move on. You have to. If you don't, you haven't learnt much. Because that's what mistakes are for. To shape you into a better, stronger person.
I hope to God, I didn't come across as preachy. I'm so sorry if I did.

The Noose Around The Neck

I've always been very proud that I was brought up as a secular individual, taught not to believe in crap like 'janam kundali' which is basically some silly superstitious thing in India that supposedly determines the way your life will go and how it will affect the person you marry, and the zillion billion rituals and backward beliefs that most Indians possess.
Honestly, I don't understand how, in this day and age, educated professionals somehow still believe in this crap (not all of them, but quite a few). How can a piece of paper, based on no scientific knowledge whatsoever, decide what kind of person you are? Not only can it decide the kind of person you will be, it will also decide the kind of person you will marry. Because "the stars" cannot lie. Stars, my foot. What's the point of getting an education if you want your "life partner for seven births" to be chosen based on your compatibility on some pieces of paper that tell you what planet has a dominating effect on you (given by a fraud of an astrologer who tells you exactly what you want to hear. I can do that. And you wouldn't even have to pay through the nose for me). What absolute rubbish. I'm not the most logical person around and yet, this goes way too far for me. The logic of the janam kundali is that the two people will be married forever and ever (the seven lives- that's actually a vow made during the ceremony). Now how exactly does that work? How does anyone know how the marriage will turn out? What if they can't stand each other? What if they fall in love with someone else? What if they just bore each other to death? To be honest, the reason there weren't many divorces back then was because the couple felt they had no choice. It was better to tolerate each other than face the SHAME of getting divorced. What will society say?!
I find this absolutely despicable. I would rather never marry than have to put up with somebody saying I need to have a kundali. And then following it up with saying that we are not compatible and I may die because our kundalis don't match. Sure, you will die. I'll kill you myself with my bare hands. As a country we've come so far technologically and industrially. We are doctors, lawyers, accountants, pilots, teachers. We're role models. It's an insult to our education, our profession if we succumb to following dumb, pointless rituals. Do we want to teach the future generations to believe in meaningless superstitions and allow them to let it guide their lives? Or do we teach them to believe in themselves?