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Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Spending enough time with our family???


Its- culturals week in almost all the colleges, MOP, VIT, SRM, UOM. Any one bored in daily routine life or who wants to recollect your college days, give a visit to one of those colleges. By the way are we spending (enough) time at home? I am proceeding further assuming that the majority of the answer is 'No'. Actually I don't mind even if the answer is going to be Yes ;) I guess neither a working professional nor a student is spending enough time at home. A person who is working is busy in making business/completing his projects and a student is more interested in exploring, knowing about the outside world. The only difference is the latter one is not a compulsory task and the first one is a compulsory task. I realised this only when we had a power failure in the recent past.

Few years ago when this power failure was very frequent in our place, my siblings and me had a very nice time. We used to play Anthakshari, shadow games and anna used to tell so many stories like Thenali, Beerbal, Vikadakavi and a story where the prince should climb 7 mountains to reach the princess (Sorry I don't remember the Title). But these days even if there is a power failure we have inverters/generators. Apart from those all of us are busy doing research in our mobile phones, Ipods, Mp3 players, Discman etc. Though these electronic gadgets have made our life simpler and colorful. We should agree that, it is also taking much of our time. Oh, how can I forget the free talk time, free roaming, free messaging services, if you buy one sim you can take another for free etc proposed by the mobile service providers to attract more people.

Why is that we don't have enough time
  • To dine together
  • To watch a nice movie
  • To have family get-togethers
  • To share our daily happenings
  • To talk about some general issues (From Suhasini's to Bin Laden's)

Is that we REALLY don't have time or is that we never gave a thought for it? Spare a minute to answer this, which will let us know if we were missing a greater part of joy in our life.

Have a nice day,

Ponnarasi Kothandaraman.

21 comments:

Ideamani said...

Ponnarasi, there was a great article a few years ago about how the entire family had a great time one day, without watching TV - They had actual converations, went out, cooked dinner together - All because there was no current - And then the next day, things went back to normal ....

Ideamani said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
senthil natarajan said...

cant say that this change is inevitable, but yes it is slowly gripping us...
i agree with dinesh, it is individual's responsibility to have family time and it is not all that difficult

Devilish Angel said...

Very good post...

Ram said...

Thought provoking article, am a working professional and agree with your views completely, if u go to work you cant live a life of your own. There are many dependencies and commitments.

Ponnarasi Kothandaraman said...

@Dinesh, Happy 2 hear that you really find time for family! :)
@Ideamani, It was a good info. (I dont think I had the habit of reading newspaper even a couple of years ago. I know thts bad :-/ )
@senthil, True it is really not tht difficult if we make it a point.
@Vanathi, Thanku for tht nice comment.
@Ram, Yes,I cud get wt u r saying by seeing my brother and dad.

Have a nice day,
Ponnarasi Kothandaraman

diabolus vivo abeo said...

how true ... i make it a point to stay home on sundays but ... me bein away seems to keep ma mom more happy ... u know like ther is less of yellin around ... to make up for this usally we go out some place atleast once in two weeks .. we dont take our mobiles / any other junkies .. jus the car and some wer far away from the city ... i hope this helps

Ponnarasi Kothandaraman said...

Hi Kanniya,
Nice idea. Will pester dad to implement.

Have a nice day,
Ponnarasi Kothandaraman

paurna said...

we really can't fault working professionals but the same cannot be said about students.i think we(college students)have a lot of free time.if not the entire time we could atleast spend an hour or two with our parents.

ps-good blog.will be waiting for more posts

paurna said...

hey u had mentioned u had wanted to study at AU so where r u studying now????

let me guess SRM or Satyabamai am predicting based on ur posts)

lastly i really appreciate the way u right ur entire name.i too have a long name but i never write it completely unless it is my signature

Kartik Kannan said...

Hi Ponnarasi, Can u please put a link on your blog about a blogging competition at saarang.sulekha.com and info that an official saarang blog run is at saarangtalk.sulekha.com on your site ?

Ponnarasi Kothandaraman said...

@Thamizhan
Yeah, U can refer me tht way.

@Paurna
Am curious to know which post of mine gave you this clue.. ;)

@Karthik
Yes, I am happy to do that. If not today, positively will do it 2mrw.

Have a nice day,
Ponnarasi Kothandaraman.

Ponnarasi Kothandaraman said...

@Thamizhan
Yeah, U can refer me tht way.

@Paurna
Am curious to know which post of mine gave you this clue.. ;)

@Karthik
Yes, I am happy to do that. If not today, positively will do it 2mrw.

Have a nice day,
Ponnarasi Kothandaraman.

paurna said...

http://princessofgold.blogspot.com/2005/12/college-is-always-fun.html

i predicted it based on this.as the affliated colleges had exams during this period.i assumed that it had to be an autonomous institution

smiley said...

Too many distractions TV, computers, internet..... eat away the time even when we are at home. I would suggeat the whole family sit together for a game uno,cards,trade... everyday or a couple of days in a week. This will slowly get the family together and some happy moments also

KK said...

Nice thought...but I feel its because of the our mindset...We always think work is more important than anything else..I accept work is important but there are other things that are important too...
Though you can say India is becoming like USA, american's make it point to spend enuf time with family too...

Ponnarasi Kothandaraman said...

@ Paurna
Good guess! Proving to be a AU student.. hm...

@Smiley
Yeah thts a good idea.

@KK
thts very true! Agreed.

Known Stranger said...

after finishing my engineering and while working one year had a friend in vop - nugambakkam - amma - sightee dhan.. with her help able to get into the college on few of their college function... yammadi.. athu matter... athu college yen college irrukkaa... srm once have to come. sarang is one thing i could never forget

Raghavan alias Saravanan M said...

Hi Ponnarasai Kothandaraman,

(appa naanum ungala maadhiriyea ungala address pannitteanaa ;-)),

I would appreciate for having chosen such a topic to blog! Its a very delayed comment by this time but now only i got a chance to read it.

Yeah what you say is very true. Today's MODERNISM everywhere has the power to attract rather divert the people in the way of making themselves improving their strengths than the relations. I meant to say, the relations in an abstract term; not the temporal relations being obtained via email,chat,sms etc, wherein some of them might get converted into a fulltime and a better,stronger relationship!

Best of luck for such newly blossomed relations;but our focus is all about the existing relations without whom we are not here, right!

As some one else said, its inevitable. See, i have also experienced the same being an employed professional, i could not spend time for my exams (which i did it in BITS via Distance Learning). I used to think had i been a regular student, i would have got more time to concentrate and do much - in an ambitious and well appreciable way! huh!...

But what we have done for all the 3 or 4 years during the bachelors... probably the course which we were doing prior to our employment.. was the full time education spent really in an useful manner..? the answercount towards the positive aspects would be negligible..

The same holds good here. We dont realise the ESSENCE or VALUE of things when we are attached with them. Only when we are parted (or out of it), we will get to know.

In tamizh, we used to have a proverb, "நிழலின் அருமை வெயிலில் தெரியும்".

I think this can conclude my post with the note, "it will be wonderful if the individuals make a perfect balance in the things they do"!!!

Good Blog
Keep going..

Raghavan alias Saravanan M.

@paurna,
as you appreciated ponnarasi, i think i do deserve for having typed my name in full. Of course, thats my usual way of doing too!! ;-)

Ponnarasi Kothandaraman said...

@ Known Stranger
Hm.. Athu sari nalla aasay than ;)

Ponnarasi Kothandaraman said...

@ Raghavan
Thanks for visitng and for posting a nice long comment :)

//In tamizh, we used to have a proverb, "நிழலின் அருமை வெயிலில் தெரியும்". //

Awesome sayign..And i have never heard it b4 :)