Love is definitely in the air….

There has been a long gap between this post and the last post in spite of readership getting almost doubled from 18 to 36 profile visits. Voila, isn’t that remarkable? Only thing is that out of these 36 visits most of the clicks are done by me.

February is a month of love and love is there all around. Violin and guitar strings playing the right chords, classical romantic songs on the hit list, fragrances embracing the surroundings, cute teddy bears, chocolates and attractive roses, heart shaped balloons and philosophical status messages- all making love more lovable. Hold On!! I am not going to talk about tragic star lovers “Heer Ranjha’s” or “Romeo and Juliet’s” or the cheesy love story of Saif -Kareena! There is much more than that to talk about. You just have to move your neck and eyes to remove the veil of secrecy from the love stories whirling around.

Egyptians are perfectly in love with their hard earned freedom, ready to have a perfect candle light dinner with the ‘beautiful’ ever democracy. Love has become absolutely luscious for Deutsche Boerse. The sparkling wedding ring is all set for its beloved NYSE Euro next. Aah… an exchange with 219 years of rich history, almost for which New York is known for, is ready to sacrifice this for its love!!

Have you ever seen a person searching for love? His condition is exactly like the child, lost somewhere in the crowd, who keeps wandering , asking everyone and runs amok, till he finds his family members. Nokia was exactly in the same situation till it found Microsoft, with its smart phones sales declining, losing ground to the real hotties in the market, viz. , smart phones running on Google’s Android , sexy Apple I-phones and dashing Blackberry. Stephen Elop is trying to ignite the chemistry softly with not -so -soft “Microsoft”. Hopefully, this new valentine of Nokia may bring good fortune to it.

When somebody is in love, he or she truly feels ecstatic and so is Face book experiencing, being absolutely loved by all online advertisers (with 13.6% share of online ad display, as per Wall Street Journal) and being the heartthrob with 600 million users! How can I dare forget not mentioning the World Cup 2011 here! Almost every other Indian is madly in love with the game hoping that the history of 1983 will be repeated this time by 'De Ghuma Ke’.

But Beware!!Love sometimes taste sweet and sometimes bitter. As Robert Frost in his poem “To Earthward” talks about love then and now, evident from the two different stanzas, depicting its sweetness then :

‘Love at the lips was touch, as sweet as I could bear; and once that seemed too much; I lived on air’

And bitterness now:

‘Of tears, the aftermark, of almost too much love, the sweet of bitter bark, and burning clove’.

Therefore only time will tell that how love would taste for Sarkozy’s and Berlusconi’s. Love is saltier for the broken heart “Borders” too. When in love, you may commit mistakes, because love is often blind and so did Borders do. The biggest mistake Borders did was, when it transferred its internet operations to Amazon in 2001, including few finance and management gaffes. The lesson to learn: Play safe!! Hey…. don’t get dishearten, love is beautiful too as I said.

I have put enough of thoughts on boil. I have sufficiently stretched my neck and have almost popped my eyeballs out …and now let me do something for my love …. Oh! I can’t play around the trees like Bollywood actresses and sing songs and therefore, planning something special to bring smile on his face.. Love is definitely in the air… Don’t you think so?

PS: The first reader (or should I say the victim...) of this draft is obviously my husband and his instant comment was: “It is more like the play we just saw” and in sophisticated words he used the term ‘eclectic’ to describe it. And do you want to know what his reaction was after we saw the play 30 minutes before? He found that absolutely assorted, boring, unusual and was eager to move out of the theatre as soon as possible… I still believe love is in air as he read that for me.

Being Housewife and doing nothing...

A restless day…kitchen and room are throwing a cluttered and crumbled look, akin to the looks yielding from the clothes lying in laundry basket. Contrary to my daily routine, I am not even trying to reorganize the stuff. I have almost refreshed the pages of face book and Gmail countless times and just doing aimless surfing. Unsurprising to me, the two hands of clock are continuously at work, without waiting for anyone and are showing the time: an hour past noon. As usual, I have wasted several more minutes out of 34560 minutes from the days offering.

Different thoughts are arresting my mind, making it hard to concentrate on any one; neurons performing at their best. After a while, distilling few thoughts, I realized what is disquieting me. And here I come with the word “Housewife” and doing “nothing”!!!

‘Indian Housewife’ is a rare ‘species’ of its type, who has always seen a tough time (don’t read ‘soap operas’ and ‘melodrama). She is a “special creature” on this earth, who is least bothered about the protest and unrest penetrating in Egypt ,Tunisia and other parts of middle East, Obama’s Union address or US- China relationship or telecom spectrum scam back at home. However, she is always interested in many other things in addition to her family. To make the long list short namely in “Economy”, “gold prices”, “inflation”, “real estate” and “automobiles/ cars”, ‘social structure’, ‘fashion/ clothes’ and most importantly “kaam waali bai” or ‘the maid’. Such is the way she has been stereotyped.

When my friends ask what I am up to these days? I am sure when I say “housewife”, they aren’t much excited and they for a minute come into the state of bewilderment, thinking how I am not doing anything. For them the entire day’s work (even without maid) at home is ‘nothing’. Oh Boy!! I am doing ‘nothing’- a very dangerous and wobbly feeling. After all, just longing for some simple compliments like “oh you have such a neat and organized house” or yearning to hear from your husband that “the food was indeed flavorsome” and suppose if you get one, does not mean that you are doing ‘something’. I am now mastering the art of doing nothing.

A marketing student ( teacher is a very demanding word so better to refer as student, and the logic behind it, is the option to keep telling that you are still learning, if you aren’t aware of something…) has now turned into a person doing nothing. How much has changed since then. Do I put my eyes, analyzing discount voucher strategy and how profitable it is for companies? No, but I am certainly interested in ‘Groupon’ coupons. I may be comparing all smart phones not to find out the product strategies of companies behind it, but to get the best one. The pricing strategies no longer appeal me to discuss that as a case in the classroom. Well, discomforting one, but I am more interested in retailers offering better deals so that I can save few more cents earned by my husband.

As far as Google keep helping me in my search for recipes, I am hardly bothered with its fight with “Bing” or that now ‘Eric Schmidt’ is no more its CEO. I am interested in getting a cup of Starbucks coffee whenever I am tired of shopping and buying groceries. Who cares now… that they have changed the logo and ‘siren’ has got a facelift and how would it affect its branding strategies and it going global. Amazon’s business model may be interesting to learn, but for me, timely delivery of ordered item matters the most, which they have done most of the times.

This corroborates, that either way, I am doing nothing. Next ‘Indian (housewife) Idle’ in making and I may be crowned soon. Only thing which I have to do - is to learn to conceal the blushes, surprises, covering my face in the sea of emotion and blowing few kisses in air just like Ms World and MS Universe do, after grabbing the title.