I will pass through this, O Lord

I will pass through this, O Lord, 

I will play along all through.

I will stay strong and smile,

Never surrender, repent or rue.

I will pass through this, O Lord,

For I look forward to what this will lead to.

I will stand through the storm,

For I know there’s a lot still left to do.

I will pass through this, O Lord,

For I trust in your game plan.

I will stay determined and focused,

As I know I will and I can.

I will pass through this, O Lord,

I know I am your favorite child.

Seldom would you let your fans down,

let alone testing a Godchild.

I will pass through this, O Lord,

for while you look at the bigger picture,

I get anxious, jittery and what not,

Narrowing my vision to pixels.

I will pass through this, O Lord,

For patience and perseverance are my virtues to possess,

And I know I am in safe hands,

while you carry me through stress,

I will pass through this, O Lord,

For I’ve heard your best warriors last the longest,

Diamonds are a result of tough times,

Turmoil, pressure and pain at their best.

I will pass through this, O Lord,

Because I know I am made for big things,

And while ordinary living is easy,

Your love for me will be the wind beneath my wings!

Five Tantrums He's Sure to Throw at Home if He's an Entrepreneur

Hola to you all who'd read this article first on Techstory!

To a wife, nothing would come across as bad a nightmare as her well-settled, ambitious professional husband’s plan to kick his stable job right in the bum and start working for himself. While this might sound tad too grand on the face of it, especially when he will narrate his future plans to you, but things would, by all odds, get way too graver, deeper and tasking as you’d get neck-deep into them. 

Being a wife to any from the genre of husbands in question here, you really have no option other than facing him head-on almost all the times and learning to glide off all the tantrums he would, knowingly or in a fit, throw at you. Some of them are surely interesting enough to talk about in detail. 

1. The days when all he’d want is to be sentenced to solitude
This is the time when he’d showcase ‘the no mood’ channel on the television of his face. Since his life and, to a part, his mind would shy a classic pressure cooker, thanks to the lots of decision-making he’s committed to himself, all that you’d listen from him is the ‘leave me alone’ whistle he would occasionally blow. Well, get set to face doors being banged on to your face, because your dear hubby is thinking out loud on the other side of them. 

2.  And the ones when you’re his guiding star

You’re a modern professional, who knows her ways with work and home, and you have the finances in your hands; bud, you have got to have your halo up all the time! You’re his knight in the shining armor, the person who is playing it live in the corporate world and who is abreast of the times in her industry and can vaguely foresee the near future and who has money clinking in her pocket, all available at her disposal. You surely would have been the most loved person in the family had you been the groom; umm, being a bride might, too, bring occasional days of happy realization to him and to you, this would only bring episodic bouts of ‘momma’ love.

3. And those when he’s nervous and doesn’t want to admit
On a lot of days, you are just going to see him glued to the bed and he won’t say a word why he’s religiously meditating in his dreams. Well, by now, you know that he has shedload of tensions running a marathon in his mind and the simplest way he has chosen to defeat them all is by switching off his mind from the race. He would simply sleep away all his troubles, and expect you to better not judge his way of living by his weird habits. Gah!

4. The talk-less, do-more trash
You would see a massive behavior change in him the moment he would step into the world of entrepreneurship; he would want an atmosphere at home resembling that in the house of a kid who’s appearing for boards. Soon, you would want to break the deafening silence by blabbering since you would, obviously, not want to talk rocket science with him and that’s when he would want to extend the already-mindboggling silence to extend indefinitely, plainly because he thinks he has so much to plan right at that moment that he wouldn’t want to simply waste his time yattering with you. On the contrary, you’d be tad too surprised when you would get to know how much he talks to every person he meets when he puts his entrepreneurial cape on! Well, God made friends, anyway, and we made internet!

5. He doesn’t want it but he wants it
Sooner enough or until his venture would break the back of the breakeven point, he’d run out of the means to run his ‘supercool’ lifestyle and, then, he has you. On one hand, where he will never say that he wants to buy that pair of jogger jeans he had seen his ‘some’ idol wearing, on the other hand he would still want you to understand he wants it. No, you are not bringing up an extremely cranky, moody and overgrown baby, you are just trying to put up with this guy you love with all your heart and soul, and his ways? Well, good luck with them, until you need some expert psychiatric counselling on how to calm your mind when all that you see in your husband is a sweet-looking, giant punch bag!

The Backstage Life

Casually browsing my television, I came across something which did not let my brain move on to other things. It was about the women who never came to the front and who were totally fine living a common man’s life when they could have easily reveled in celebrityhood, while their husbands actively scored hits over hits on Wikipedia searches. This was a random cookery show I was kind of stuck at till the credits set rolling and I noticed how a show being hosted by Sanjeev Kapoor was produced by his wife, Alyona Kapoor. I was amazed at how despite being equally well-read and talented, she was never really attracted to the ever-pulling limelight. And, then, I was reminded of so many such, who had delighted in their spouse’s success without creating noise about their own presence.

I have, for a very long time, emulated my idol, Sudha Murty. Reading more about her revealed to me how she, despite being from a service-class family, happily gave away her savings to fund her husband’s idea to start his own venture. All her life she believed in the power of her good thoughts and karma and stayed backstage, cheering him, a stalwart who is now an IT sensation in the entire world. She had her own area of expertise and interest, which she never lost hold of. No wonder her simplicity speaks for itself, even today.

Before I get carried away expressing my love for her, I should better come back to what I am trying to put forth. These women of substance seem to me not only an effective propelling force behind the successes of their spouses, but also a strong pillar of support who was always busy cushioning the grounds for their husbands just in case they fall bad. No wonder they meant business all the time they were being sensible while letting their husbands happily build castles in the air of the empire they would build sometime in future. I am sure trusting these weird, creative species requires whole lot of belief, patience and fingers crossed behind backs.

Speaking of whatever little experience I have, I am sure these ladies, after years of enduring an entrepreneurial husband, when finally get to see their nights turn into day, have very little left in them to claim their share of fame in the work space which never really belonged to them. I am sure there are enough reasons behind living the backstage life, the strongest one being the fact that they have been wanting, praying, begging for that one stroke, one shot, one right move in the play that would strike the chords for the idea to work right so much that they finally do not want to adulterate the taste of victory by giving it their personal flavor. 

Waiting for the first success, the first right move, first good news is nowhere a small task and having invested so much in wanting to see it real doesn’t command any more of their participation, other than them watching everything from the backstage. It is like you assist in cooking a dish and stand all the while in the kitchen watching it prepare, only to savor it way later after it was ready when the flavors are finally off your head, right?

This post has been chosen as the Spicy Saturday Pick by BlogAdda 

Book Review: #GIRLBOSS

My rating: ●●●●○

Sophia Amoruso

#GIRLBOSS

India: Penguin Books Ltd., 2014

256 pp. ₹699

ISBN: 9780241971680

Summary: How often do you come across female entrepreneurs who are as excited and boastful about their achievements in life as they are about the fact that they did it all themselves despite their lack of any required skills or knowledge? In India, this rarely happens for real and that’s the reason why I liked this book and the truth that it has instigated in me a feeling that is only going to fuel my passion for thinking out of the box.

My take: The title: a hashtag! I am sure this one would be a first you would have come across. The cover page looks simple, with a single-tone, light-colored background and the protagonist, author standing with arms akimbo, occupying almost 70% of the cover page clearly conveying the message that this book is all about her. For some it would look like a memoir, for some a business reference book, for others a self-help and for a few like me, a perfect blend of feminism, personal development and self-help, which fills the readers up with a few useful tips they should always keep in mind and a lot of enthusiasm to face things head-on.

The writing style has been deliberately kept as colloquial, as the author wants to stay as basic and connected to everyone as possible. This is a perfect rags-to-riches story of a young girl who just kept walking on a path that seemed right to her and eventually, explored her way to success. The author has never been to college and is, also, a high school dropout, but thanks to her being street-smart that she got this far. She has a lot of tips to share with the fellow entrepreneurs which might just sound familiar, but yes, we all do need reminders!

If you are looking for a serious business book, which might just walk you down the path of entrepreneurship, this is simply NOT the one you should pick. This one is a nice, brief autobiography cum self-help book which touches base on the general values one should hold while walking on the road to being big; for instance, success is all about trusting your instincts and following your gut, or life is short; don’t be lazy or this one, true success lies in knowing your weaknesses and playing to your strengths.

In fact, it should prove to be really helpful to those who are going through a tough phase and want to see some light at the end of the tunnel. It would definitely instigate loads of enthusiasm and #badgirl attitude in you, pushing you hard to take things more seriously. In fact, by the end of the book, you would want to tap the immense energy this #badass attitude might hold for you. What’s better? Along the way, you would also laugh out loud on the author’s narration of her outlook on things and fuckups she did. A great read if all you are looking for is a light, hilarious and thought-provoking book which might also leave you with a handful of great tips to keep safe in your pocket. I really loved the illustrations depicted at the beginning of each chapter for they are equally bitchy and sassy!

Final word: A funny, entertaining, sassy and incredibly smart book, which does not give away incomprehensible preaching, but easy street-smart lessons which that Marketing course might never teach you.

Unexpected Perks of Being Married to an Entrepreneur

Having recently been married to an entrepreneur, I am coming to terms with a lot of serious behavioral revelations, which are, rightly, taking their own sweet time to sink in. The best part about my life right now is that these shocks are being accompanied by loads of pleasant surprises which would seldom have found their way in to my life had I been married to a nine-to-five employee. I would love to quote something I read while randomly surfing the Internet and loved to the core:

Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t, so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t. 

Considering the startup environment in India today, I am sure many a girls would be sailing in the same boat as I. Hola to all those! Now that we have all decided that we will help our man build his dream empire, let us all embrace the struggle which is a sure thing bound to accompany us during our journey. 

And now that you have sneaked a few moments to read this post, let us quickly jump to reading about my array of experiences, which I am sure a lot of you will relate to and laugh at, thinking how being wives to these crazy techies has made us all a lot more patient and tolerant :)

1. He stays humble and isn’t much of a nag

This lot does not like to complain. Though, he has his own, small wishes, which do not cross a certain self-assumed limit, he would never nag you about your errors, forgetfulness, attitude or style of working. Instead, he would take a rather noiseless way of solving problems and getting things done his way. 

2. He is a multitasker

He knows the value of getting tasks done on time and, in the process, he would himself take up a lot of tasks he deems as doable. This applies at home, too. Don’t be surprised if he makes the bed, washes the dishes, brings home the groceries or takes care of you – he’s acquired this habit of multitasking, which was totally a prerequisite for being an entrepreneur. 

3. He believes in teamwork

Surprise! He’s not the conventional husband you have ever heard about. He believes in getting work done, giving the work the utmost priority. If eating food on time is one of his priorities, I bet he will be working in kitchen with you, getting the pending tasks completed instead of being a couch potato and showing you the watch. 

4. He gets work done exactly his way in the most conducive manner

He knows it’s a startup that he runs and the team, too, is getting accustomed to the environment. He realizes how important it is for everyone to be happy and positive about the work at hand and, thus, he knows how to correct everyone’s (and your!) mistakes in the most pleasing manner. At times, you wouldn’t even get to know that after all that time you spent sweating in the kitchen preparing chicken curry, he would give you a nice recipe for the next attempt you make at it. 

5. Everyone knows him; he’s everybody’s favorite

With time, you realize everyone knows you and you would not be able to find a reason why unless, of course, your husband would tell you that they are all his acquaintances. Thanks to his wonderful PR skills, he is friends with almost everyone he meets and his contacts list would have new numbers flashing every day.

6. He foresees a business opportunity in almost all the circumstances he comes across

Don’t be surprised if he starts building castle in Spain about setting up an automated, man-less, credit-based, online veggie store, which would have the peasants who are selling their products present on the live chat, while you are still bargaining with the vegetable vendor for giving off five rupees on the entire bill amount. 

7. He already knows the freshest piece of news you might have

Blame it on his habit of being acquainted with the burning trends and topics, he would always be abreast with any freshest piece of news you might have to discuss with him, unless, of course, it is about his grandparents, to which he will show an alien face reflecting zero instigated interest.

8. He’s extremely judgmental about almost everything on Earth

He bears an opinion, which you have to agree, makes sense almost all the times. So, if he explains to you why the move of Myntra to go app-only was the most unwise one, you would want to take up a notepad and jot down all that what he’s casually blabbing about.

9. He would, most definitely, put you to some use for his work

Be it social media optimization, social media management, content writing, content management, handling finances, maintaining inventories, trimming Excels or administrative tasks, he would, certainly, put some of your skills to use for his work. Charity begins at home, after all, and the fact that you love him is a tool that would come handy to him almost all the time! 

10. He totally appreciates that you earn

Unlike many other men, who get their egos inflated to the brim when they see their female spouses earning/spending more, the entrepreneurial husbands would appreciate you earning and would, if it’s a startup, handover the responsibility of running the house on you, the way you wish to. One thing that's a dead cert is he'll always be thankful to you, the most, for believing in him :)