How did/do you know that he is the one?

This is a question to all married ladies out there ;) I am only talking about arranged marriage here , since the process and thoughts might be totally different in case of a love marriage.

So, when a girl meets a guy , how does she know  whether he is the right person or not? During my pre-marriage days , I was discussing this with Pavan , and we had concluded that when we meet the right person , a bell will ring inside our head/heart ( we were kind of confused as to where exactly it will ring :D) .

So did the bells ring for me when I met Deepu? At least for me , they partially rang even before I met him ;) .I was impressed with the fact that he wanted to speak to me on phone before coming to my place or meeting my parents.And I was double impressed when he said on phone that he wanted to meet me so that we could exchange our thoughts , before he or his parents would come to my place.I really liked that he was not adhering to this stupid process of coming to a girl's place with parents to "see" the girl , where neither the girl nor the guy would get enough time and space to speak to each other.

And when I met him , we got enough time to speak about our expectations and we were comfortable in each other's company.May be it was also pretty comfortable because our parents were not around ;) .

So that was the case with me.But was I sure of of my choice once I said yes? Hm , well up to an extent yes.But , there was this fear that something might go wrong and I might not have made the right decision.I guess all girls will have a little fear in this phase :) .But , after an year and more of married life , I can happily say that I made the right decision :)

But is it as easy as that in all cases? What is the right formula for choosing the right guy? I really do not know even now. Some people prepare a set of questions to ask the guy when they meet him.My ex-roommate had forwarded one such set to me long back. Though I didn't use them when I met Deepu , I did ask him all those questions later :D

General questions

• Are you ready for marriage?
• How would you describe yourself? How do you like to spend your free time?
• How do you feel about smoking and/or drinking?
• What are you looking for in a spouse?
• How much time do you need to decide?
• What are your preferences, in terms of food?
• What are your pet peeves?
• How do you act when you get upset?
• How do you feel about pets?
• What is your family like?

 Professional queries

• What career path do you plan on taking?
• How ambitious are you?
• How much time do you spend at work?
• How do you plan to balance work and family life?

 General questions that could be asked once you get familiar:

• What are your likes and dislikes?
• How do you act when you get upset?
• How often will we visit our extended family (if staying apart from them)?
• Do you believe in sharing housework?

Appropriate questions on the profession front:

• What are your future career plans?
• How much time do you spend at work?
• Are you looking for a working wife, housewife, or is it immaterial to you?
• What would we do in the situation that I get transferred?

 :D Such a big list right? I am not sure if this would help , but it will surely help you know a little more about the person :)

Well , if any of you know more about the right formula for this , do let it know in your comments :D And I wish all the best ( and some luck too ? ;) ) to all those girls who are in this confusing phase of life :)

Death - the ultimate truth?

I was randomly reading some blogs this Saturday evening and came across this blog :
http://indianhomemaker.wordpress.com/. Reading first few posts , I realized that a very sad thing has happened in the life of the author - her 19 year old daughter's death due to Dengue. I was just trying to imagine what this mother must be going through and felt really sad :( Hope god gives her and her family enough strength to cope up with this .. Easier said than facing the real situation.

 And then , in the same blog , I found the link to to her daughter's blog : http://blabberblah.wordpress.com/ . Just went through some of her posts , and my sadness just increased.She was a girl so much full of life. I could not and cannot associate death with such a girl .. Such maturity ,confidence and such a beautiful smile. I just felt that I should have met her and known her when she was alive.Hope I had seen her blog when she was alive , and had exchanged few words with her.

Have been thinking of the same girl from the time I visited her blog. Just not able to take her out of my mind.Why should life be so unfair that a girl who had so many ambitions and who wanted to live her life to full extent had to face death all of a sudden? What is the meaning of all this? Finding no answer to these questions about the mystery called death..

From the posts I see that the Indian home maker is strongly trying to move ahead and overcome her grief. I really appreciate this effort of hers and all my heartfelt wishes with her.

Banur Series - Part 1

Yashu,Atte,Myself,Manju,Varun and Teju

When I think of childhood , the places that first come to my mind are NR mohalla and Udayagiri in Mysore and Banur in Chikmagalur.This series is about all the nice time we had in Banur and all the sweet memories :) . I am already forgetting bits and pieces of that time. So before my memory becomes more hazier , let me start penning down all that I remember of those precious moments :)

To start with , Banur is my Mom's native place. Its a village in Chikmagalur district. All my summer holidays were spent there. I actually don’t remember even a single summer holiday that I spent in Mysore.We(me and Yashu) would pack our bags the day exam got over ( rather my mom packed them for us ;) ) and keep waiting for our parents to take us to Banur.And once we reached there , we would eagerly wait for the arrival of all my Cousins.

Teju,Dodamma,Atte and Dayanna

I remember Thatha ( My mom's Father ) used to keep ready a huge sack of rice during this time for the next 2 months ;)The day we reached there would go off in just having dinner and sleeping. But my eyes would be looking for Ashwini and Raju ( my other cousins whose house is just in front of my grandparents house ) ;) . 

And from the next day , we would all start off :D . We would wait eagerly for breakfast and run out to meet all cousins and friends .We would start off on all games - hide and seek, kunte pille, chowka baara, carom, halli gulli mane, kalla police, pagade etc,etc . Oh my god! What fun it was. We played so many games with those tamarind seeds, small stones, broken bangle pieces, etc.Though I remember the rules of those games now , I don’t remember there names :). May be we were inventing those games and rules then and there:D

And the amazing thing was, while playing hide and seek and such running around games, we used to simply go and hide in anyone's house or backyard of the houses, without even asking them and not thinking much about it :D And even they didn’t ask us not to make noise or as to who we were or anything :D.I remember once I was hiding in some house and they had given me roti and other stuff to eat :D

And during the night , we would all sleep in the hall and in between if any of us felt hot , we would just take a chaape ( small carpet ) and go and sleep outside on the street :D It was not a tar road , but a mud one. And there would be already many people sleeping outside ;)

So many more things to write about! But this is it for the first part of the series :) More to come in future posts of this series ;) .Yashu,Raju,Teju,Dayanna - If you guys happen to read these posts , do put across your memories of those times and any correction/additions to mine :)