THE DIARY OF A HOUSEWIFE

“He who binds to himself a joy, Does the winged life destroy. He who kisses the joy as it flies, Lives in eternity’s sunrise.” William Blake Or is it? For the last some years, life has been a bitch to me. It feels like nothing is going my way and every moment, every second feels like a struggle.   Why does it feel that I am being deceived, cheated and fooled by life? Why does it feel that I have lost my laughter, the mirth I found that life had to offer? Why am I moaning and grousing about what and how my life is? Or at least that’s my perspective. Is life really a bitch? As I walked back from the gym today as usual complaining to God about how he is so unfair to me, not helping me in my quest to lose weight once again (this would be the third time that I have gained weight to unhealthy levels) calling life a bitch, a small voice in my head spoke up…who is the real bitch here? If you use me and abuse me and have totally unreal expectations from me, and can...

There’s a very clichéd saying that computer engineers are all Geeks and perhaps that was always true in my case. I left a lucrative career in IT to become a full time mom and along the way I wrote a book. My name is Sapna Bhog and this is a slice of my journey. My love for books started when I was introduced to Enid Blyton at age 9. And since then there has been no turning back. Be it racy thrillers to urban fantasy to super natural to simple romances and many young adult books, I read them all. But I think my ‘all time go to’ books have been romances. They are my happy books. I totally enjoy the happy ever after at the end of such books. They are my stress busters. I was always the type of girl in college who had M&B’s in her bag at any given time. Most of the time I used to face so much flak from friends when they heard that I read romances. “Oh you read those M&B types”, “It’s all fantasy, how can you tolerate them?”, etc, etc. So you can imagine my apprehension whe...

Knowing that I was in the publishing industry a friend approached me with her novel. It had been three years since she had written the book but didn’t know what to do as far as getting it published was concerned. She asked me to first read and give my opinion as a professional. I did that and I loved her proof. I decided to help her get it published but all my contacts failed and none of the publishers wanted to come forward with a new author. They needed established authors who could bring in the money for them. Not to give up on good talent, I then decided to publish it myself. A tough task indeed. I had no idea about what it takes to become an entrepreneur.  I was also worried if I had what it takes to be an entrepreneur. But I read somewhere that all it takes to begin is the desire and the initiative. And whoever wrote it was right. I had two goals, one to ensure that my friend Sapna Bhog’s words and story was read and the other was to do it myself.   ...

My friend an investment specialist bowing to my entreaties has become a guest blogger on my blog to give some special investment advice... Just the other day I was trying to help a friend with a serious medical condition he was diagnosed with. I was entrusted the job of finding a good but “decently priced” hospital for him. Just to get things cleared up, I asked his wife if he was medically insured. Being self employed, obviously, he had no company paid medical benefits to fall back upon. Fortunately, his wife knew that he had taken a medical insurance policy. When I asked how much medical insurance cover he had, she said he had a cover of Rs.2 lakhs. Seeing the look on my face, she thought maybe she was wrong and then corrected herself and said, “No, sorry, it’s 5 lakhs.” Clearly, she didn’t know how much it was. I asked her to show me the policy and she didn’t know where it was kept. With a figure between Rs.2 and 5 lakhs to work on, I was confused which hospital I should cho...

"What other people think of me is none of my business." "Life is too short to waste time on speculating what other people think about you. "If they had better things going on in their lives, they wouldn't have the time to sit around and talk about you." "What's important to me is not others' opinions of me, but what's important to me is my opinion of myself." Heard these before? All the time right! Yes, living life on your own terms is what all of us should aim for. After all true happiness lies within us and not outside. Happiness dependent on the approval of others, being a people pleaser at the cost of your own peace of mind is surely not the way to go. However, what strikes me as a little selfish and egocentric is the fact that all these quotes say that your bliss may just be at the cost of someone else and their happiness. Time and time again I read about not caring about what other people think of you or I’v...

There are many men in my life. My two boys, my husband and my father are the most favourite of them all. However, there are some others who have stolen my heart.                               Just the other day I came across an article about the very debonair and suave Prime Minister of Canada.   I said to myself now this is a man I would love to know more about. The Canadian Prime Minister has held office for less than a year and he is dominating headlines across the globe. Justin Trudeau may have been born with a silver spoon but he sure knows how to hold his own and make a statement. His popularity increases each day. He doesn’t shy away from taking a stand on controversial issues, shaking a leg on the floor doing a bhangra wearing a kurta pyjama, or striking impressive yoga poses and even flirting with the Queen on Twitter and most importantly being a family man.  There are webs...

Very very confused and muddled I have attempted a write up about being nice vs being a pushover... A pushover as per the dictionary is a person who's easy to fool or influence. Someone who is easily taken advantage of and is easily defeated. A pushover in other words is a person who is pushed to do stuff he really doesn’t want to do and is actually uncomfortable doing. Why then are pushovers so common? A young mom I was speaking to yesterday told me how frustrated she was because being in a joint family was not as easy as she had thought it was. She had had to quit her job, look after all the other members of the family with no support from her other family members especially her younger sister in law who wouldn’t lift a hand to help her. She had to even shop for her most intimate needs because she was too lazy to step out of the house. While I stared at her with my mouth agape wondering what I would have done in a similar situation she continued, “Yes, I am a pushov...