ShradhaGiriblogs

Another new year is approaching. Like every year, I have been thinking quietly what I should put down as my new year’s resolution - good or bad, I never owned a new year’s resolution. Somehow, it never occurred to me that I should take a stance on how I should live my life. Even though my life, I must say is somewhat unstable. My actions sometimes do cause me pangs of anxiety for reasons I am not proud to disclose here. I know, not everyone is flawless and this thought has me skipping the resolutions year after year. However, this year I want to take a stand on how I should live my life. This New Year I want to tame my actions and I want to reflect on the past.  When I look back to the past five years of my life, I admit I have come a long way, some path smooth some not so much. Good events have happened too. I married my long time boyfriend, completed my masters’ degree, I am blessed with a beautiful baby girl and had a stable career in the development sector. Both my hus...

How does one balance a work life when one works six days a week? One of my colleagues had sent me a link to watch a motivational speech by Nigel Marsh on ‘how to balance work life.’ I must say Nigel did motivate me to a certain extent but as soon as the speech ended, I was back to reality. The sad part is I had it pretty balanced when I was not working on Sundays.    Nigel has a lot to say about balancing one’s work life. He says ‘it is the simple things that matter.’ For example taking your kid to a pizza place or just hanging out in the park and play ball (sorry Nigel but we do not do parks in Nepal). It is true, small things do make a difference. When I get home six days a week after work battling the monstrous traffic and the blanketing dust the only thing that I manage to do is smile at my little daughter and hug her. But on a Saturday, I and my husband we make sure we take our three year old somewhere she enjoys even if it is just for an hour. She loves the whol...

Men are polygamous by nature – a fact reinstated by my Biology teacher in grade seven has made such an impact in my life; I am usually biased when matrimony ends in divorce. While I was still in school, I remember every other girl in my class had come from a family that still followed the norms of society – both parents in a blissful union. That was back in the eighty’s. Today our society has taken to the western civilization where divorces though still frowned upon happen more in real life than in a western soap.  The saying ‘give women a skill and the whole family is secured’ a development term so true can also be the reason for the westernization of the Nepali matrimony. Give women education and a holy marriage no longer seems holier. Back then, I wondered why so many men and women divorced in the western countries and took pride in the way our families functioned. Had I known the reasons behind a divorce I would have never blamed any culture or influence.  Men...

On a recent trip to India, I analyzed the spending of a Nepali middle-income family to that of India. The result was satisfying – my experience was stress free and my spending power elevated. I had never paid for food while traveling to an Indian city Siliguri close by to my maternal house in Birtamod, Jhapa. Being the youngest has its own advantages. However, this time during a sumptuous lunch in a famous restaurant that specializes in fish, prawn and chicken curry my husband ushered me to pay the bill. We were five of us dining that fateful day. I paid 640 Indian rupees equivalent to 1000 Nepali rupees. My money floated gaily to the counter and I could not stop grinning, as the amount was excessively less. This experience did not stop here, I shopped until I dropped and my wallet withstood the entire spending spree. What is wrong with India I thought? Back to reality. One of my friends and I decided to have a light lunch in Nanglo’s Chinese room last week. Our order...