Late evening on a Sunday with some time. Some time, it feels good to put a blog post as a stress buster. Have been busy for the past three weeks with work going on a full speed. Tomorrow is a Monday and people want to ask what happened last week....When I think about the fact I will be scampering around tomorrow morning for following schedules and deadlines and reporting what are the NEXT STEPS and all that follow up things, I feel "haaa! How many more days of this ?".

There is this ICICI Retirement ad, in which a guy is shown doing his dream job of apple farming. Mine would be growing grapes and a vineyard and filling a barrel with clean water and filling it with grapes and stomping it. Tasting wine in the Champagne region. Wow sounds cool. Gawd knows how good or bad that is, as a job. Everything on the superior looks nice and interesting. When we get into the details and there is a responsibility tag, you just can't ignore it, thats when the grind of the routine makes a potato mash of your brain.

Apart from job blues, I have been thinking about the concept of Joint Family and what impact it had on me. I stumbled across my Upanayanam video which was from 1988. Half the elderly people featured in the video are no more and they are just memory. But there were so many relatives to my parents and so many joint families back then.
I had been a part of a Joint Family from my birth till almost 1999-2000 till which time there were about 13 people in my house under one roof. There were (and still are) many good memories, heated arguments etc. But I never had something like a "lonely childhood". There were always people around me. ALWAYS. I was specially attached to one of my grandfather (technically he was not my grandfather but my uncle's father-in-law who stayed with us ), but I cherish the conversations I had with him. He is the first person who comes to my mind. He was 68 when I was born and 95+ in 2007 when he breathed his last. I still remember him giving us a lecture on Hamlet-Prince of Denmark. It was like poetry. Hmmm Whatever. What I think is, a joint family brings in a implicit sense of hierarchy. Not sure whether this is applicable in today's India.

And it needs space (both physical space like sufficient infrastructure, financial resources as well as space for love and understanding) among its members. The festivals and other celebrations were ( and even now are) always great. It gives a sense of oneness among siblings. But if there is too much bitter competition, conspiraicies joint family just doesnt work - Like what happened to another jolly joint family which I knew.

But still Joint Families are a hit in Saas Bahu serials and Telegu movies and movies like PreethSod Tappa ?