Do you eat with your hands?

I distinctly recall a friend of mine, who took offense whenever she saw people eating with their hands. According to her, it was primitive of people like me to eat food, especially rice, with their fingers. This baffled me. I was brought up or shall I say "trained" to eat neatly with my fingers, like many of my fellow countrymen. How could a person even look down upon this age-long culinary practice?

Isn't the choice of cutlery solely dependent on the local cuisine? For us Indians, our cuisine mainly comprises of food that is best enjoyed when eaten by hand. How do these "modern-cutlery-obsessed" people intend to eat chapatis or dosas with their forks and spoons?Oprah Winfrey's "Do Indian's still eat with their hands?"comment on her India visit was pretty controversial too. So, tell me Oprah, how do Americans eat their Big Macs, if not with their hands?  The food in the west widely comprises of meat, and that is why their forks and knives come in picture, in the first place. Our food could just simply be devoured by using our fingers, that is why our forefathers never found the necessity for this cutlery.

These people consider eating food with their hands unhygienic, but do not shy away from shaking their hands with a stranger. Isn't shaking a stranger's hand upon meeting them more unhygienic, given the fact,you don't even know where that hand had been a while before? That is a shameful "double-standard".

Why are we even refrained from eating with our hands in public, categorizing it as a "not-so-gauche" table etiquette. Our culture has encouraged us to eat with our hands, then why does this foreign etiquette even define what is more respectable and what is not? I find it really graceful to eat with my hand, and enjoy every bit of that experience. I refuse to let go of my roots, owing to the grievous misconception of some "sophisticated" people.

The thoughts of a disturbed mind

Do you ever feel like you're lost in desperation, in the clutches of depression ? The words of people go over your head and all you feel is like you've been dragged into an abyss, an emptiness. You keep telling yourself you're perfectly fine, but even your everyday chores seem exhilarating. You feel exhausted for no apparent reason. All you wanna do is just hole up in your room, draw the covers over your head and go in a deep slumber and never wake up to face this gruesome world.

If this is how you feel like, then don't worry..These tedious times tend to make us more sensitive to other's perception about us. Yes, we've all been let down in life. We've been humiliated, betrayed and hurt. But should we just let ourselves down, because we're too scared to deal with the pain? Put yourself first. Snap out of it. Easier said, than done. But, work at it one day at a time. It may seem like an impossible task in the beginning, but time heals all wounds. You're the only person who can help yourself. Your mind might seem like a war zone now, but learn to win the battle within yourself first. Don't let your depressed self take the lead.
 
You're young. You still have a lot of fight left in you. You are in this world for a purpose. Let not silly things and the fragments of your disturbed mind erode your life away. Life is beautiful. Live in the present and enjoy every bit of it. So one fine day, at a fine moment when your mind starts realizing the fact that your heart will cease to beat and your time has come, you would embrace death because you'll know that you didn't just survive, but lived your life.  :)

Hero

       A popular Bollywood actor made the headlines in recent times for the shocking analogies he made on rape. But, he is still the "hero" for some  thousands of people in this country who affectionately acknowledge him as "Bhai". Is it even a suitable connotation to be conferred to a person, who has very carelessly made a  statement which is bound to hurt the sentiments of the concerned victims? This same actor had been accused in the past of beating his ex-girlfriends up, hunting down a blackbuck and he has gone as far as running people over with his SUV. Yet, sadly, he is still a darling among the masses, and is also apparently the goodwill ambassador for the Rio Olympics this year.
       
         Why even call such people our heroes? Are we "brain-dead" or something to not differentiate between their reel and real lives? We have thousands of fan clubs dedicated to them, we buy stuffs from their merchandize and literally drool over them. And these people go on living by their own rules. There was a famous incident which took place a few years ago, where a police constable in Mumbai was caught shaking hands with a convicted felon(who also happened to be a popular "hero") while he was been taken to the court . And there are even some Godforsaken temples dedicated to our film stars!
    
          It's about time, we snap out of this idiocracy. If you wanna know who a true hero is, then sometimes look over to the persons who have brought you up through thick and thin-  parents. If that isn't satisfying enough, then get out of your house , and you're going to see a million of heroes. It could be a single mother who is struggling to bring her kids up, a roadside vendor who must be busy counting the money to pay for his kid's education, or an army man who has valiantly fought for our country.

      Yes,there are millions of unsung heroes out there. They don't get any validation or credit for doing something as grand as this. Oh yes, I forgot it's because we're all too busy hailing some phony actors as our role models and ideals....

It's a strange strange world, got to say.