The Divine Exchange

(i wrote this during november of last year, never got around to posting it, true incident)

EXCHANGE! Your old tv’s for 2 new ones, Exchange your wife for a brand new girlfriend! The bill-boards scream at us with seductive offers. Our society functions using this magic mantra of EXCHANGE! This mad rush to barter usually reaches its peak during the festive season of DIWALI. And this DIWALI I made a different kind of exchange!

My mother and I were walking out of the local Christian book store, with a brand new bible under one of my arms and a few other books in the other, I was feeling particularly self-righteous and holy!

That’s when a little boy with neatly combed hair, and nicely ironed shirt appeared on the scene. With a smile that could melt an icy heart he said

“Hello Aunty,…..Hello uncle”

“Uncle?” I immediately took offence for being called an uncle and greeted him with a frown!

The bright smile never leaving his countenance he went on to hand us a pamphlet that contained the gospel of mark. As we browsed through the pamphlet he ventured to make a request.

The clouds of suspicion gathered in my mind, AHA! He’s going to ask for some money…..Why that sweet talking rascal!

But his request was noble, pure and sincere!

“Can I pray for you aunty?” My mother nodded in agreement. “Is it okay if I pray in Tamil aunty?”

My tamil knowledge consists of a few words like “Baba” “Pasha” “Chandramukhi” and “Kuselan”. Nothing to write home about! But I listened none the less!

Although I did not understand a word, the forthright tone, the honest demeanor and calm aura of the boy overwhelmed me!

But the remenants of suspicion lingered, My cautious half suspected a plea for donation at any moment

My mother asked him about his family and his education…To which he replied…..

“I live with my grandmother aunty and I study at St anthony’s”

As we separated with an awkward unsaid farewell, we were again stopped in our track by that earnest voice.

“Aunty one more thing……..”

The skeptic residing in the anals of my mind, rose again, ready to crucify the boy for all the false pretense the whole while. It was all about the money! Caught him atlast! HA!

But the boy’s request was far different from what I expected,

“Aunty please pray for me too………..”

Having said that he just walked into the darkness, and we nevers saw him again,with my skepticism silenced, my pride and logic humbled,we assured him that we would pray for him.

On my way home, I was bombarded with still many more offers for exchange, But my mind was fixated on the exchange I had promised to carry through, An exchange that involved no bargain, or statement of warranty or any sort of trickery, An Exchange that perhaps enriched my soul………..

I went home and prayed for the boy who sought a divine exchange!

understanding the other kind!

Well i strongly disagree with all those who say that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, because clearly the two are not even from the same galaxy! Its pretty evident that we don’t speak the same language, men talk, women feel, when the man wants to feel, the woman just wants to sleep!;D


With Valentine’s day approaching, there seems to be a temporary truce of sorts, but its like a calm before the storms to come. So while the rest of humanity pondered about the economy and world peace, i decided to find a solution to the war of the sexes!


Well , wikipedia wasn’t too helpful,hindi teleserials... had too many shocking camera zooming moments to really understand anything, femina though interesting was too biased, times of india filled the relationship space with English footballer WAGs. Well after many such failed attempts i decided to look, where i should have looked in the first place! THE BIBLE! And i did find a profound answer! Here it is!


However, let each man of you love his wife as his very own self, and let the wife see that she respects and reverences her husband. Ephesians 5:33



I have read past this statement a hundred times, too simplistic isn’t it? Thats what i thought too, till a preacher pointed out a key facet to this verse that if followed could bring an end to the war in the household!


What is truly amazing is that man is not asked to revere his wife nor is the woman asked to love her husband, somehow our mind goes into auto-correct and misses this significant point, we just assume that it is vice-versa. But no!


Well the reason is women love their husbands anyway, they show it many different ways, they make his favorite food, they notice the little slump in his shoulders, they tell him that they care,they understand and provide a ready ear for his problems, they are sympathetic to his hopes and dreams, they are a balm to his aching bones at the end of a hard day. Women are the epitome of love shown in gestures.


But,


Men dont know this and seldom reciprocate in kind! The imbecile believes that the first time he said “I love you” should last him a lifetime! He actually thinks that women sense whats in his heart and he does not need to voice them. He is also convinced that his physical presence in times of turmoil amounts to caring.


So the bible urges the neanderthal cave men to express their love, show that they care, love his wife!


Female society works on loving, caring and verbally affirming their thoughts, men hardly function on these lines, male society centers on the magic mantra of Respect! In this world your worth is measured by how much your respected. Respect can be earned by a variety of means, the fastest, strongest,biggest, smartest, richest and all the other ‘ests’ win lots of respect, but so will the guy who can gulp down a bottle of liquor in a minute, or the person who can stand up to his boss, men tend to be extra competitive, everything is a race! Women dismiss this as childish ego clashes, but for men, its a way of being!


Men give each other respect, they are natural at identifying and providing for those who deserve this respect! Why is it that the geeky professor who commands the respect of all his peers fails in the dating game? Because women dont respect some guy who has spent years learning the intimate regions of a mainframe than the intricate complexities of a relationship!


What a man wants is this respect, and if a woman wants to make him happy and content, she must give him this respect, identify and appreciate the things he is able to provide, tell him how much better he is at mowing the garden compared to the much better looking neighbour. Tell him that he did a great job fixing the t’v, who cares if he made your colour t’v into a black and white one! Tell him your with him because he’s better than the other men, that will be his moment of glory!



In a nutshell, give them what they want! Women want love, give it to them, men want some respect, give him some! Because we’re wired in such a way that women will always show love toward their husbands and men will always respect his wife, those skills are innate, its the skills that we acquire that will help us in understanding the other kind!

Well most of us are not going to be wise men who's words will be revered through the ages. But even then we try our best to find some immortal analogy or observation that will travel with the times. Very occasionally one might find a gem, but the rest of the time S.H.I.T is created. By S.H.I.T i mean a Simpleton's Hardly Inspiring Thought.

I had one such S.H.I.Ty moment today. I was travelling on my bike as usual, lost in thought, trying my best to avoid the shit(real) on the road. But thats when i was hit with a S.H.I.T, the S.H.I.T just came flying out of nowhere.

The S.H.I.T that consumed me was, “why do they say that traffic flows?” . What led me to this sudden loosely composed S.H.I.T was that, at a bottle-neck traffic seems to stall and slow down, whereas in a real river the water seems to speed up when it encounters a narrow bottle-neck. Hence traffic is certainly not fluid like in nature and therefore does not flow.AHA! i hope the reader understands the depth of my S.H.I.T.

So traffic does not flow, it simply travels. Which makes sense cause everyone involved in a traffic jam is indeed traveling. But this leads us to another great question,what about a waterway? A place like Venice where there are more boats than cars? Doesn't the traffic flow there? Well the answer is, no, because a vehicle without a horn cannot create the deafening irritating noise that is characteristic of a traffic jam. Since most boats don't have a horn, they cannot create traffic.

I have been saving this S.H.I.T in me all day, so that i can blog about it. I have finally managed to share my S.H.I.T with the whole world. Blogging is what makes it possible. So till i have more S.H.I.T to distribute, ADIOS!