Raising A Boy - A Mother Speaks

“I saw you look at her the way you did. And it’s okay. I get why you did it. I am not shaming you, nor am I judging you. But we will have to talk about it because this very look will matter. It will soon become your character.

Raising a boy in today’s world is beyond difficult. A boy…a man is now come to be seen only as a potential rapist or murderer. In a train, girls would prefer to stand than to sit on an empty seat next to a strange man. It is sad. Very sad. But also true. I am sorry that you have to live with the burden of the ghastly acts of other men. However, it is now up to you to change that image. Please do not react like other men when if in life a random person on the street snubs you. Please do not do the most obvious when your girlfriend ends the relationship and leaves your heart wounded.

Please, my son. Because it’s not just you who will have to bear the consequences. Fingers will point at your mother too.

Don’t believe people when they say that it was that woman who was dressed up inappropriately. That the woman was suggestive in her behavior. That she wants your wrong attention. That she is, in fact, tempting you to look at her with that lustful look.

Believe only this - She can do whatever she wants to. But it is your responsibility to treat her well. Regardless of what she is wearing, have the audacity to look her in the eyes. Don’t blame her for your wandering eyes. Don’t be the victim. Don’t say you are helpless when it comes to your eyes and thoughts. They are yours. Have full control over them. Train them. Discipline yourself to look at her...not her clothes or her body. The moment you play the victim card, you will be lying about your upbringing, about all your values, about what I have taught you.

You may argue, why didn’t she choose to wear proper clothes or choose to not act suggestively. To that, I will say it’s for her parents to answer. Maybe she didn’t have someone to tell her that. Or maybe she simply chose to not pay heed to any of that. Either way, that’s not our concern. Your concern should not be others.

Your concern should be you.

Don’t believe people also when they say that a woman’s body will cause a man to sin.

That is nothing but convenient crap. And you are better than that. Nobody makes you want to rape. If you do stupid things, it is because you chose to do that. It’s not like you do not have a decision making power. You are pretty clear about what you want to do about things that really bother you. Because if you didn’t, then you wouldn’t have forced your way into going for that Friday night party. And you wouldn’t have stayed up watching the football match all night despite all our shouting. And you wouldn’t make a fuss at the dinner table about ‘healthy food’.

Don’t do stupid things. Period.

Your father and I are not going to be around forever. So this moral conduct, this social conduct has to come from within you. Do not look at another girl in a way that she feels the need to protect herself not just from your hands but also from your thoughts. Do not say that you didn’t have a guiding light and hence, you strayed. And please, oh please do not expect sympathy after doing wrong.

Respect all women. Let her be confident. Let her explore the world in her own way. Encourage that confidence. She is not the weaker sex. She is simply the other sex. Look at her. Admire her. Don’t look at her as something that titillates your senses. There is a lot more to her than her body.

She too is intelligent. She too has a sense of humor. She will bring strength to you as a mother, loyalty as a sister, love as a wife and pure bliss as a daughter. Be with her. Enjoy with her.

Because she too wants to be with you. Without the fear of being ridiculed, condemned, judged or objectified.”

"Genius is a curse. Some think that the brilliant comprehend the universe in a way the rest of us can't. No. They see the world how it truly is—and that reality is so horrible they lose their minds.

Clarity leads to insanity."

-Harlan Coben

Caught

"So basically that whole theory is blown to hell," said Myron.
"Not basically", Win corrected. "Entirely."

Book Review. Gone for Good by Harlan Coben.

Just when you think that there can no longer be books that can really really keep you awake at nights, you stumble upon a masterpiece like 'Gone for Good'. What amazingness!

It's primarily a story of two brothers. All Coben books start like that and then within no time, there are a series of characters introduced making it difficult to single out one main hero (or villain).

Will looks up to his elder brother Ken for everything..he looks up to Ken as his protector. And one day, Ken is accused of raping and murdering Julie, their neighbor and Will's ex-girlfriend. Ken disappears and is never to be seen. He is gone for good - so everybody assumes because it's been eleven long years since that incident. And then, after all these years, their mother, while on the death bed, whispers to Will, "Your brother is alive".

And Will's seemingly uninteresting world takes a 360 degree turn. Because surprisingly, the next day, the love of Will's life, Sheila, disappears without a trace.

Believe it or not - none of what I said counts as spoilers. Because all of this happens in the first ten pages of the book! Now you tell me, how can one put down a book like this?! I finished the book in two straight days..I had to cut down on sleep because it eluded me. The twists and turns are by the page. All the characters are equally important though they may not seem so on the outside. The ending is amazing. All the loose ends are so wonderfully covered up. Now unless, you really want to just find mistakes with the story, you can go ahead and do that, but Coben has mesmerized me with his imagination.

It is engrossing. The characters are well-sketched - Ken, Will, Sunny (their mother), Squares (Will's best friend and personally my favorite), Sheila and the Ghost (again, my favorite). The relationships are wonderfully defined. You actually feel for the characters, the ones who have disappeared, the ones who have spent a good time of their life threatening and murdering others, and the ones who have been betrayed.

Coben's favorite, Hester Crimstein makes a brief appearance in the book. She is such a delight!

Harlan Coben never disappoints! Mark this as one of the must-reads before you die!

Delusions of Life

What happened is sad. 25 years is not an age to die, and it is certainly not an age to end your own  life willingly. Life can get tough, everybody's is. Not just her; look around and you see almost every person struggling with their lives - be it in love or career or family.

Mothers have problems dealing with their teenage children, some women have problem conceiving altogether, fathers are struggling for that better job, that better pay because they have to support their family, kids are having a hard time performing well in all areas be it academic or play.

I am not a cold and cruel person to judge Jiah Khan's problems. I am not saying her problems are very trivial and not a big deal. Her problems must be really troubling. But so troubling that you took your own life? So troubling that you got free by killing yourself and leaving your loving mother to deal with the consequences? So troubling that you hold a fellow that you are supposedly in love with, responsible for your life-ending action?

Am no fan of this Suraj Pancholi. Hell, I hadn't even heard his name till now. So, I am not supporting him. But what was his fault? That he spoke to her rudely? That he maybe fell in love with her? That he maybe advanced his relationship with her under the false pretext of marriage? That he maybe even had an affair with another girl while dating Jiah also?

I agree all of the above deeds are morally wrong. No guy or girl should do this to another. It is the wrongest thing to do and raises fingers on his character and upbringing. But that doesn't mean he is a murderer! He can be the biggest scum on the face of earth. But not a killer.

He was 22 years old. He didn't know better. I don't think, people know what is right and what is wrong even when they reach a mature age. Who's to say that 50 year-old married men with two children do not indulge in infidelity every now and then?

My point is not to support Suraj or to simply accept infidelity as a way of life. My point is that girls need to be stronger. I say, we need to stop showcasing ourselves as the 'poor fragile lot'. That anybody will say a bad word to us and we will jump off the balcony.

After the Jiah Khan debacle, I am sure boys will be scared to commit to girls, fearing what the girl might do, God forbid, something went wrong.

We cannot live all our lives fantasizing about that perfect man and that perfect love story. It happens only in movies. Reality is way different. You cannot step into a relationship (not just love but even friendship) without considering the tiniest possibility that if not now but maybe after a decade, it just might not work.

Now tomorrow, if someone kills himself, saying that his employer chose someone else over him, or because he is troubling him at work, does that mean that the employer should be arrested? Well, if that's the case, then all the directors and producers in Bollywood should be arrested because Jiah also stated her failing career as a reason for her depression.

Who hasn't had a heartbreak? Who hasn't been given false promises? Or wait, who hasn't given another person a heartbreak? We all have been on the giving and receiving side of victimization.

Romance is delusional. A dangerous delusion. In fact, everything is a delusion when compared to the only reality looking at us in the eye - LIFE. Life is too precious to be sacrificed over things such as love and money.

There's a lot more to your being.

Book Review. Miracle Cure by Harlan Coben.

I want to read all of Harlan Coben books...aiming to be like the biggest fan ever ! Because seriously, his books are simply amazing. They take me to a totally different world, a world of lies and deception - with justification! Coben's characters never deceive without reason, they always have an excellent reason for lying...for deceiving..for disappearing...and even for murdering!

'Miracle Cure' is Coben's second book after 'Play Dead' but it is my 8th or something...and to be fair, I have read this after books like 'Tell No One' and 'Gone For Good' so my review for the book may be a little biased. Nonetheless, it is an amazing book dealing with an excellent topic. This book is about a subject that was hot in its times, 1990s..it is a story about AIDS.

The basic plot - There's a group of doctors who are striving hard towards the treatment of AIDS, and now they are this close to finding the cure. What they need is funds towards this cause. The biggies and politicians are unwilling to direct money towards AIDS for reasons well-explained. There's a couple involved - a journalist and a basketball player - and now people are getting killed one after the other.

Controversies...lies...deception..murders..they just follow as the pages keep turning. What I really liked in the book besides the plot of course, are the dialogues that the two sides exchange. The group that wants to cure AIDS explains very nicely why it is necessary to remove this evil from the society. On the other hand, the politicians who look down upon AIDS and the people who suffer from them provide an excellent counter argument. I do not agree with the argument, but I definitely appreciate Coben's writing style which makes the reader empathize with both parties.

Amidst all my work, I finished this book in three days. To be honest, I would give this book 4/5 stars and not a complete 5 because I have read other Harlan Coben books and they are far far better. But for someone who has no other Coben book for comparison, he will enjoy this book for sure!

Date a Girl who Reads

Date a girl who reads.

Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with her closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, one who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she is the one because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants.

You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Let her know that you understand that words are love.

Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by God, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read, understand that all things will come to end.

Or that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recount her favorite novel under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable.

If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

-Rosemarie Urquico