Chewing the cud....

I read a beautiful quote in this book I'm reading - The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. I'm normally not the first person to remember and harp on about quotes, but something about this quote touched me somewhere deep inside.

It's attributed to Draupadi, from whose eyes this book describes The Mahabharata. She's an extremely strong woman with a point of view. Perhaps what charms me most about her, is that she's very human, very like any of us. Someone with her own grouses and expectations. Self-centred, manipulative, proud and refusing to be treated as an object by the men around her, she's someone we might encounter in our everyday lives. She's bold and she's attractive. That's how I like my women characters!

There's a situation in the book, where she is being told the Nala Damayanti story. And although she doesn't show that she isn't convinced with Damayanti's way of proving her undying love for her husband, she questions herself with:

At what point does forbearance cease to become a virtue and becomes a weakness?

This is something I've asked myself quite a number of times, although not worded so beautifully. Those who know me really well, will know that I'm always in two minds about something. Not because I am afraid what the world will say, but because I know it will affect my loved ones' lives, someway or the other.

Don't most of us prefer to remain silent, so that the people who matter the most can remain happy? Don't we keep mum about certain things when we should have spoken up, preferring to let someone shoot an arrow through our hearts instead? Sometimes it may be for love, sometimes pure weakness.

Why else do we prefer to listen to colleagues sitting on our heads instead of showing them their place?

Why else do we prefer marrying people who we don't want to, if not to keep our parents happy?

Why do we continue working on jobs that we hate, except not to disappoint those around us?

Why do we doing things against our wishes, values, principles, if not for some weakness for someone who may or may not even matter?

If we look back at the times we've put forward someone else before us, we'd come up with a big number. I know I would. I've lived a happy, wholesome life so far...But there are those times that I wish I'd spoken up. The times I wish I'd kept only myself in mind and just my happiness. The times I knew I'd truly be happy had I not given someone else a thought.

I wonder why we bear so much. And seriously, when does that make us virtuous and when does it make us weak?

Quizzical

I feel a rant coming up. But I really really need to vent this out before I burst a vein somewhere in the inner depths of my brain.

I'm going to ask this aloud. ONCE. Clearly.

Why. Do. People. Take. Those. Weird. Facebook. Quizzes?

They pop up on my computer screen, they are in my face when I'm checking Facebook from my mobile AND I CAN'T GO ANYWHERE WITHOUT STUBBING MY EFFIN' TOE ON THEM.

Has this become the new national pastime? Is this what you're supposed to be doing to be an avid Facebooker? Have I become old? Or are people really leaking their brains out of their noses?

Every time I peek into Facebook, there is someone on my friends list (I so need new friends) who has undergone the process of introspection and taken some ridiculous quiz. And just when I begin to think that I've seen the most ludicrous ones there are (for instance, 'So-and-so has taken the 'How good are you as a person, and the result is 'Very Good Person!'), up comes something else more unbelievable (example would be: Ms. Good-for-nothing-couch-potato has just taken the 'how will you die?' quiz and the result is 'By the hands of someone who hates seeing fucking quiz results on her homepage!').

Is this the new fun? How is knowing how you're going to breathe your last or what the first letter of your secret lover's name is make a sodding difference to your life? LOSERS.

I won't be surprised to see the following results on my page soon (not that I'll be sorry to see these):

1) Your dead friend Fartface took the 'How will my husband kill me for dowry?' quiz and the result is 'By tickling her to death!'

2) My-brains-are-a-mangled-mess took the 'How gay am I?' quiz and the result is 'Gay enough to be taking quizzes on social networking sites!'

3) Your friend Worthless took the 'Which car suits me best?' quiz and the result is 'The one that successfully runs me over!'

4) Your friend Dumbfuck recently took the 'Who will you be happiest marrying?' quiz with the result 'Someone who keeps me off social networking sites for general welfare!'

Get out of my face, will you?

Just one word of advice to all ye quiztakers. Someone created the internet so that you could have fun with it. This is not fun. Not for humans anyway. And certainly not for your bloody friends.

And do whatever you will with Facebook. Just... CAN YOU KEEP THE DAMNED RESULTS OFF MY PAGE?