The 'H's of my life

Half - The name is HALF....my better half....my spouse....my life partner....my husband of 13 years this June. Ours was an arranged marriage and I have faced many questions about arranged marriages here in the US where an arranged marriage is an alien concept. In India though arranged marriages are quite common. And whether you go the love route or the arranged route, you end up in the same place....in a marriage....a union of two different individuals from different families, different styles of upbringing....each coming into the marriage with their own set of expectations. And finally, every marriage requires give and take, adjustments from both partners and a deep sense of understanding and maturity. So my husband, my life partner who is also the best father our kids could have is easily the most important H of my life....I cannot imagine my life without him in it.

Happiness - I read somewhere that 'HAPPINESS is a state of mind'...I agree. We all have our life's glass not filled completely at any point of time.....human beings will always have needs, desires and wants that are unfulfilled....so it depends on how you want to look at it.....either you can find the glass half empty or half full. If you find it half empty, it will lead to frustration and sadness because of all the things you don't have. If you perceive it as half full, you can be happy with all the things that you do have....indeed, Happiness is but a state of mind. So does this mean I am happy always? Not at all. I have my days of feeling low and down.....and those are the days I remind myself to look at my half full glass.

Humour - I admire....really really admire people with a sense of HUMOUR. Making others cry can be done easily....but making others laugh is possibly the hardest thing to do. So, I really admire the people who see humour in everything. And I do understand that it is not as if these people don't have their share of the baggage of worries and frustrations....they just choose not to display it and use humour as a shield to tackle it.....a quality that I want to imbibe in my life.

Humility - I am a huge fan of cricketer Sachin Tendulkar (the fact that he is a fellow Taurean makes me proud to be a Taurean too)....but it is not just his cricketing skills that I am a fan of...it is his HUMILITY also. I really admire that....to be so successful in what you do that people call you 'God' and to not let that kind of success go to the head, is by no means an easy feat. Many many years ago, when I worked for LIC (Life Insurance Corporation of India), Sachin Tendulkar's mother worked for the same company in another division. Sachin Tendulkar was already a household name by then. One afternoon, my friends and I went to meet Sachin Tendulkar's mother. She was the most simple and down to earth person I had ever met. And while there was pride when she talked about her famous son, there was no arrogance. It was easy to see where Sachin Tendulkar gets his humility from....it has to be his mother's upbringing. So humility is a quality that I would not only like to imbibe but also pass on to my children when I am raising them.

Hope - Hope...an integral part of everyone's life....mine too. I hope for so many things....I hope good things never come to an end....I hope bad things will pass quickly....I hope my loved ones never get sick....I always hope that things can only get better and sometimes I even hope against hope. Hope....the thing that keeps us going even when faced with the worst situations in life.

Signing off knowing that the 'H's of my life would be incomplete if I did not mention 'Health' (most important...everything else is insignificant if your health is not good), 'Home' (My home...sweet home), 'Hindi' movies (I am completely entertained by mindless Hindi movies with songs, dances, lots of color, drama, romance and emotions) and 'Honda' (the make of the car I drive everyday) and this quote by Helen Keller

'I am only one but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.'