Stop worrying about sounding less than brilliant

Social media has transformed the way we communicate with each other. Nowadays, a major part of our communication happens through written or visual (video or photo) mediums rather than spoken communication. We have many platforms available for us where we can read other's opinions and share our own. However, this abundance of platforms has also made many of us worry about sounding less than brilliant or getting criticized for our views. However, we all must remember that just because someone criticizes or ridicules us our opinions don't become any less important or irrelevant. Also, worrying about sounding less than brilliant just makes us hold on to our thoughts at places where we should speak up. 

First, it takes courage to speak up, we may or may not be affected by certain things because of our social and economic status. But this does not mean we should not speak about issues that are affecting others. Raising awareness about important and sensitive issues is important because many times people who get affected by these issues do not have proper platforms or resources to raise these issues. That is why people who have these resources must take responsibility and use their resources for the benefit of the ones who can't raise their concerns. It is normal to be conscious about our presence and take some precautions so that we don't become targets of online bullying but self-censoring is not a good option. 

Second, if we wait for a day when we will sound brilliant and flawless to voice our views, such a day may never come as there will be always someone who can articulate the same thing better than us. Also, there will be always someone who will find some flaw in whatever we say or do. So, stop worrying about sounding less than brilliant, share your opinion or views freely and fearlessly. Of course, we need to be respectful of others and follow some basic etiquettes that we follow in our everyday lives, but apart from this nothing should stop us.

Finally, perfection is an illusion, it's a relative thing, if we are sincere about what we do or say, it doesn't matter if others like it or not. Therefore, enjoy the social media platforms that are available to you, and use them to connect with people and raise awareness about the issues you care about. Stop worrying about sounding less than brilliant, be a free thinker, and behave like a free thinker.

Thank you for reading and please share your opinion about this topic. 

Faith and belief, similarities and differences

We use the words "faith" and "belief" interchangeably as if they mean the same, they do have similar meanings but I think there are subtle differences. Whenever we these words, we imply that we trust something without knowing everything or even anything about that thing. Trust is a very valuable emotion to confer, when we trust something we not only offer our allegiance and stand by it, but also try to convince others that the thing we trust is good for them also. So, what are the subtle differences between faith and belief?

The major difference between faith and belief is that faith is inherently blind, we don't need any information or rational logic to have faith in anything. For example, most of us inherit the religion of our parents and we have full faith in it, we grow up watching love stories and have faith in relationships and love. Mostly, this faith remains unshaken unless something dramatic and pivotal happens in our lives. It's hard if not impossible to explain why we have faith in anything without sounding illogical. One of the important characteristics of faith is that it's unmovable, no matter what happens, or what data you produce, people who have faith in something do not change it, rather they find reasons to defend their faith and question the evidence or even deny the legitimacy of the data that challenges their faith without providing any evidence for their statements.

However, belief needs to have some basis and rationale, not direct evidence, but some circumstantial evidence, there is something beyond plain conviction. Also, beliefs are subject to change as new evidence or data may prove them wrong, but as I mentioned, faith seldom changes no matter what evidence or what data is produced. We have not seen atoms or electrons with our own eyes but we believe that they exist, the same way many of us have not seen the south pole or north pole but believe that they exist, but we don't have faith in these things. We don't feel hurt or angry if anyone challenges or proposes alternatives to these things with equally compelling data or other evidence. Beliefs do change, our understanding of our solar system is a very good example of this, it has changed over time as telescopes and satellites have become more powerful. 

Faith and belief demand our trust based on some or no evidence, be careful when you defend them, don't confuse faith and belief. There is no shame in accepting faith as it is, many of us need to have faith in something, that's a psychological need that can be fulfilled by religion or something else, just be clear about it, that's all.

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You can't drive forward by continuously looking in a rearview mirror

Traditions, culture, history, and legacy all connect us with our past. Any country or civilization that is old enough will have enough incidents and achievements to celebrate and feel good about it, at the same time, there will be incidents about which they owe an apology to a certain section of their society. Old civilizations like the Chinese, Indians, or Romans are no exceptions to it. History is not only about glorious triumphs or grand wars or golden eras, but it is also about racism, casteism, gender discrimination, massacres, and exploitation of certain sections of society at the hands of a few privileged ones. It won't be an exaggeration to say that each golden era of any civilization is associated with some sort of travesty inflicted on some section of society. This is true irrespective of which country or civilization we are talking about. However, there will be very few from that corresponding country or civilization to acknowledge this fact, rather, we can find many who either deny or try to justify even the ugliest or most cruel historical incidents.

Learning lessons from history is important, that is why we study history, it is not just important to know what happened, but also important to know why happened. Also, if we don't feel sorry, bad, disgusted, apologetic, or angry while studying history, then we may be studying something but not real history. There is no country or civilization that does not have skeletons buried in their closet. As I mentioned, there are some bright spots in every civilization, and it is important to know about them. But the problem arises when in the mode of hyper-nationalism, people highlight only bright spots and cover up or worse, blatantly deny some inconvenient truths. The result of this is that the most vocal class of such societies keeps on indulging in past glories. They fall in love with their past so much, that they do not even recognize that their current situation is not even close to the so-called golden era about which they are harping. It is like trying to drive a vehicle on a highway by continuously looking in a rear-view mirror.

The rear-view mirror has its utility, one has to look at it occasionally while driving to check on the surroundings. One cannot look in the rear-view mirror and drive forward, if we do that we are bound to crash. Check your present situation and think about how to move forward, know about your competition today, and design a strategy to compete based on what you have today. If I want to win a gold medal in the Olympics, then I need to train hard and compete with my fellow contestants, not brag about my grandfather winning Olympic gold, such bragging is not going to help me a bit to win any medal or even get qualified for that event, rather, others might feel pity for my situation. This is what is happening in countries where hyper-nationalism is on the rise, they are forgetting that their competitors are getting better day by day, by thumping their chest about their past glories they are not doing any good to their current situation but helping their competitors to get better and better. Hopefully, these people realize their mistakes and shift their gaze from the rear-view mirror. Because if they don't, all they can go is in the reverse direction. The more one indulges in the past, the more one loses connection with the present, this is true for an individual, group, or country.  Learn from the past to create a better future for everyone, for things from the past apologize or salute and move on, don't get stuck.

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Drug development is a science, not politics

First, a disclaimer, I worked as a drug discovery scientist for more than a decade working on different projects including anti-HIV and antibacterial. I was fortunate enough to work in such a creative enterprise with some of the best talents in the world in academia as well as in the pharma industry. So, this blog post is based on my training and experience as a drug discovery scientist.

Drug development is not an easy endeavor. It is a risky, expensive, and prolonged process with absolutely no guarantee of success. Many countries in the world where protection for intellectual property for drug development is non-existent or pathetically inadequate don't even engage in this endeavor even though their population needs new drugs for almost every lethal disease that exists in this world. These countries depend entirely on developed countries for drug discovery, even for the drugs for diseases like malaria and tuberculosis that are eradicated from most developed countries but are very much a public health concern in most other countries. Drug development is a scientific endeavor, a very challenging and complex problem, it's not politics and the two should not be mixed.

There are arguments on various social media platforms in India about different types of medicines like allopathy, homeopathy, Ayurveda, home remedies, alternative medicine, or whatever. This argument is more emotional or political than a scientific argument. There is no data, no experiments, or any scientific principles that are debated, there are just accusations and counter-accusations, just like most political discussions. The debate is devoid of any scientific spirit and temper. People engaging in the debate are not even interested in knowing how a drug is developed or approved, they only want to prove the other side wrong, by hook or crook. Once politics enters any argument the first two causalities are rationality and common sense.

Either something is a medicine (drug), or it's not. Over the period of time, the scientific community and governments have developed a reliable, reproducible, and verifiable mechanism to evaluate the approval of a drug. It is called clinical trials, and the data submitted for this purpose is publicly available, almost every country has a competent body to evaluate such data, for example, the US has Food and Drug Administration (FDA). If there is no such data, it cannot be called medicine, it is that simple, it can be anything else but not medicine or an approved drug. So, there is no secret sauce to develop any drug or medicine, there is no need for a statement of an expert, you just need clinical data that can be verified by an independent body. So, anyone or any company claiming anything as a drug doesn't need any celebrity, govt backing, or opinions, just producing clinical data, proving the drug's safety and efficacy, and getting the approval. You just need one reproducible experiment with verifiable data to prove or disapprove any scientific hypothesis right or wrong, it's that simple, but it's not at all easy as collecting such data may not be easy in some cases. Drug development is science, not politics.

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India's self-inflicted Covid disaster

India's struggle in dealing with the second wave of COVID-19 infections has made it into almost every major news portal in the world. Covid-19 is a pandemic. The entire world is battling with it. Many countries are struggling to deal with the unprecedented burden on their public health system. There are concerted efforts on every level and at on never seen before levels to revamp even well-functioning public health systems. In light of all this, India's struggle is a self-inflicted disaster. Many countries in South Asia, including India, got lucky during the first wave of COVID-19 infection. Countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Shri Lanka didn't get hit that bad or didn't feel any pressure on their already struggling public health systems. This should have given them an advantage and some extra time to prepare for a possible second wave. History (Spanish flu) suggests that most viral infections don't just come once, many of them come in multiple waves and some reoccur every year that too with the mutated virus. Somehow, this thought didn't cross the mind of policy and decision-makers in India, they declared victory over Corona and started as if the pandemic was over, at least for them. The biggest mistake one can make against a highly infectious virus is to allow large public gatherings and India did exactly this. Large religious congregations, state elections, local elections, massive election rallies, everything was allowed without any COVID protocols. How did an opportunistic virus, like COVID-19 miss such a golden opportunity, it did exactly what it is good at, it spread like wildfire across India. The second wave not only caught Indians unprepared but it also created a policy paralysis where the lack of coordination of the governments at the state and national level was exposed. The government did not even try to show that it was capable of handling the crisis. People turned to social media to get help from whatever sources they can. Most of the relief work was done on an individual level, help seekers turned to social media more than the government portals. Many people got infected even after taking precautions as it was impossible to stay away from infected people. Many lives that could have been saved were lost, due to lack of proper and timely medical care.

It is still a great puzzle why a country with the world's largest vaccine manufacturer and largest generic drug industry didn't stock enough vaccines and drugs for its own people. When the entire world was procuring vaccines and drugs from these manufacturers by investing money, collaborating with them, and placing advance orders with almost every vaccine inventor and maker, what the Indian government was doing? What is their rationale behind not going for aggressive vaccination even after knowing that the country's public health system is utterly not capable of taking the load from any pandemic? I don't know if Indians will bother to ask these questions to their respective public representative, somehow in India, such issues don't make a good topic for a political discussion. Politics is unusually focused on caste, religion, and national security. In India, Pakistan can be a bigger election topic than the deaths of thousands of Indians due to the government's mistake, sad but a reality. 

What's the lesson? First, listen to scientists, don't try to underscore the damage by shutting up voices that ask questions, no matter how uncomfortable to difficult those questions are. Second, provide public health institutions reliable data, freedom to share information, and some platform to discuss and communicate this information with world experts. By sharing and analyzing such data only one can come up with the best policy decision in any pandemic. No country is risk-free in a world pandemic, all need to fight it and help each other when needed. This is why when India needed help arrived from all over the world. Finally, ask for accountability. A disaster of such a magnitude cannot happen without failures at every level starting from the top. If Indians don't ask these questions, demand honest answers from respective authorities, and fix the accountability they are going to face the same problems and wonder what went wrong from one disaster to another.

Thanks for reading and please share your opinion about this topic. 

Vidai- a cringe worthy ritual which is still practiced

Vidai (or Bidai) is a ritual performed in Indian marriages where a bride is supposed to say a final goodbye to her parental home and leave for her husband's house. The ceremony might be called with different names in different parts of India, but the intention behind the ritual is the same, to do a farewell to your father's home and announce your entry to your husband's home. It seems that it is assumed that no home is the bride's own home, she just gets passed on from one patriarch to another. It's an emotional moment with everyone crying as if someone has died, there are many hit Bollywood songs specially dedicated to this ritual. No doubt, this is a very emotional moment of life for many Indian women. I always found it odd to see people crying in the middle of a marriage ceremony that was full of joy and color until this ritual took place. I am glad to see that many brides are now questioning this ritual and going to the extent of getting rid of it, I commend their courage and support their movement to get rid of such a cringeworthy ritual.

The question is why has this ritual not been questioned so far? One of the reasons is it is so glamorized by society and the movie industry that it has become mandatory to have this ritual in every marriage video recording, even brides who don't feel like crying are made aware that they should at least display some sorrow otherwise what people will think. As I already mentioned there are hit movie songs memorizing this ritual and making it an integral part of their memory and culture, this is how it managed to survive so long. 

What's wrong with it? Almost everything. If you look at marriage, the bride and groom are getting married to each other, at least now, legally, both of them have ancestral rights to the property of their ancestors. Then why only the bride has to go through this ritual? The bride and groom, both are starting their new life together, probably, on their own with minimum or no support from their parents. Then why this ritual is applied only to the bride? The time when brides started asking this question, this ritual is standing on shaky ground and its disappearance is just a matter of time. No doubt, as it does always, patriarchy and its overt and covert supporters will argue about how this is a part of our glorious past and culture, how it has some emotional or rational or even some scientific rationale behind it. They make this style of argument almost about every ritual or tradition that gets questioned, many of these arguments are either ridiculous or laughable, but it does not stop them from making it. Hopefully, girls will see through this ploy of keeping patriarchy alive through some rituals and get rid of this ritual or at least force it to become gender-neutral.

Every society and culture undergoes transformations from time to time, this is not only natural but also essential for its survival. However, such transformations are not easy, especially when they question long-standing traditions or rituals that people have followed without question for centuries. Many marriage rituals from various parts of the world have passed their expiry date and need a major overhaul. I am glad to see that change is happening and women are leading this movement of change.

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Nine years

Today is the ninth anniversary of this blog. I can't believe that nine years have passed since I started this amazing journey. I enjoyed every bit of it, sharing my views with readers and receiving their feedback has helped me to grow as a person and learn from others' experiences. I always encourage others to share their stories, we all have unique stories and if we share them others can benefit by reading and relating to them. If you are someone who is still debating about starting a blog or writing a social media post about your story, please do it, you will be surprised to find support from some of the most unexpected quarters. My own journey on this blog is full of amazing experiences. I do not write for the sake of writing, only when I feel that there is something worth sharing, then I write a post. Also, some life changes affect our availability and time management, but this is natural, and as life gets busy it teaches us how to prioritize our tasks to utilize our time more efficiently. 

Recently, I started to reread my old posts to see if I need to update any of them and write an updated version. Many times situations change, new information emerges and our views might change or get modified based on that new information. This is a natural progression and we must be flexible enough to accept that we were wrong or some better options have emerged for our consideration. We get bombarded with so much information almost every second, and thanks to ever-updating social media content, it's not easy to process it. The way social media is designed almost every update prompts us to react to it, and it's hard not to react. This means we are expressing ourselves each time we press like or share the post, photo, tweet, or whatever. The internet is flooded with human expressions, this unique overflow of expressions is a significant cultural phenomenon and we started witnessing some social, cultural, and political repercussions of it. 

Thanks a lot to all my readers, here as well as on various social media platforms like Facebook where this blog is shared. Your comments and feedback help me a lot, all comments and feedback are welcome, keep sharing them, and don't hesitate to share even if they are critical of my post. 

Stay safe, stay healthy, and yes, keep reading. Love you all and thank you all.

Embracing our imperfections and vulnerabilities

Humans are the dominant species on this planet. Our dominance is evident in the way we control things and dictate terms on our planet. Our complex brain and ability to imagine and innovate are a few of the main reasons for our dominance. Despite all this, we have our own imperfections and vulnerabilities. One might ask how our dominance fits with our imperfections and vulnerabilities? How did we survive despite being imperfect and vulnerable? The fact is, our imperfections and vulnerabilities make us human and are the very reason for our success and dominance. However, many of us spend our entire lives worrying about our imperfections and vulnerabilities, feeling bad about them, trying to hide them from others, and assuming that expressing them might make us look weak and timid. Many leaders in various fields also try to project a rough and tough image of a leader, whereas a true leader is also imperfect and vulnerable like all of us they just know how to use them as their strength rather than considering them as a weakness.

Our society has always used difficult feelings like shame and guilt in a negative light. This is why most people hesitate or even worry when they feel these things, they hesitate to ask for any kind of help, and they prefer to keep these things to themselves which makes things worse.  We are taught to disown these feelings rather than embracing them or embracing anyone who displays these feelings. American writer and professor Brene Brown has done splendid research on this subject, her TED talk, The Power of Vulnerability is one of the most viewed TED talks. My own struggles with my vulnerabilities and imperfections have taught me many lessons that I use in my day-to-day life, this is why I don't hesitate to share stories of my own struggles. We are taught imperfect and vulnerable people cannot be good leaders, but these are just incorrect perceptions, and myths without any data to support them. On the contrary, embracing our vulnerabilities is a courageous act, and only a person with good leadership qualities can do this. Also, our struggle with these emotions is a continuous and ongoing process, we discover new vulnerabilities and imperfections as we progress in our lives, our vulnerabilities at the age of five are not the same at the age of forty. This is why embracing our vulnerabilities and imperfections is not a one-time act, but is a process that we learn and relearn every day. 

One of the reasons why people hesitate to display the courage to embrace their vulnerabilities is they lack an empathetic support system; they don't find anyone trustworthy enough to share these feelings. Even in the era of social networks where we are more connected than at any other time in human history, we struggle to find trusted people to whom we can express our difficult emotions and struggles without having a feeling of not being judged or exposed. This is a challenge for all of us, help seekers as well as help offerers, we need to step up to embrace our own vulnerabilities so that we can create an environment where others are encouraged to embrace their own. This is a challenging task, that's why it requires courage and leadership, and this is important for our mental hygiene. Once we learn to deal with fear, shame, or guilt about our imperfections and vulnerabilities many other challenges also become manageable. These feelings come to us regularly as long as we are conscious that is why it's important to learn how to deal with them and the sooner we start the better it is. Let's help each other as much as we can to spread this courage.  

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How to deal with a busy and chaotic mind?

Our brain is one of the most complex organs developed by nature. We are still trying to explore various ways through which our brain functions, with the help of incredible work from many scientists and other experts we could solve some mysteries about the way our mind works and we are still working to solve many others. One unique feature of our brains is that at any given moment countless thoughts compete to flood our brains. It's like an ocean of thoughts with countless waves rising and falling every second. Some of them become big storms and overwhelm us, the more we try to resist, the more they persist. Many times, it's not easy to deal with our busy mind, especially when it starts dishing out difficult emotions like fear, shame, guilt, inferiority, and anger, just to name a few. Some of us turn to medications and some to various techniques like meditation with the hope that it may help us to control our minds. Sometimes we are successful but many times we don't get any respite. How to deal with a busy and chaotic mind? Is it possible to control our thoughts? Can meditation help and is that the only or best option? If yes, how much? There are many questions like these that come to our mind whenever we get overwhelmed due to its overactivity.

Meditation can be one of the ways to deal with a busy and chaotic mind. One common perception people have about meditation is that it's all about controlling our minds and thoughts. While meditating people try really hard to resist their thoughts. We think mental peace means a thoughtless and clear mind. However, as per my experience meditation is not about controlling your flow of thoughts but about learning the skill of observing them objectively. Most of our problems are not because of the nature of thoughts that come to our mind but because of the way we react to them. We need to learn to control our reactions, thoughts are bound to come to our mind, many times, randomly, and we may or may not have any control over them. Remember, the more we resist, the more it persists. However, we can control our reactions to our thoughts, this is how I approach meditation and it helps. I suggest whoever is struggling to see any positive results from their meditation practice try this approach. I hope meditation trainers and practitioners also take into consideration the idea that one does not have to control their mind while meditating. Controlling our flow of thoughts is like trying to capture air or water in our fists, we might be able to do it for a while but it's going to slip away eventually. Our brain never stops thinking, as long as we are alive. 

The benefit of this approach is that slowly we train our minds to be objective about our own thoughts and learn to pause before taking any action based on the uncontrollable flow of thoughts. This training of the mind is the key because we cannot be in a continuous state of meditation, therefore, if we do not train our mind how to react (or not to react) then we may face the same issues once we finish our meditation session. Meditation is supposed to provide benefits beyond our meditation sessions not just during those sessions. The aim is not just to have mental peace and calmness during the meditation session but to extend that calmness to the rest of our day, therefore, during the meditation our mind needs to be engaged and not disengaged. The engagement should be passive because the aim is not to react but to observe the thought process. A peaceful mind is not a thoughtless mind, but it is a mind that is at peace in spite of many thoughts in it as it has learned how to observe them and allow these thoughts to flow without getting affected by it. It is not easy, but that's why not everyone succeeds in getting benefits from meditation, the reasons for success or failure may lie in the approach they take. Also, there are many ways and methods of meditation, we should try as many as we can and choose whichever suits our lifestyle and needs.    

Remember, meditation is not medication, it's not a pill that will show an instant effect and offer immediate relief. Meditation is like a game, you win some and lose some, but to win the game you need to play it first, if you don't play you don't win. It is also important to give our 100% and enjoy the play, then only our chances of winning increase. If we play any game for the sake of winning without enjoying the game, it won't benefit us whether we win or lose, the same is true for meditation, jump into it only when you are ready to enjoy the process, and the results will follow eventually. Also, keep in mind that medication and meditation are not mutually exclusive, they are not either-or options, one can select both and benefit from both options. Many people commit this mistake and reject the other path thinking they cannot go together. Medication is an important option, it should be on the top of our list and must be given the respect it deserves, it can do wonders and change lives, but we can ignore it only at our own peril. 

There are many ways available to deal with a busy and chaotic mind, consider all options, and choose whichever suits you best, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for our mental health. Find your path and follow it sincerely. Good mental health is not a destination but a lifelong journey, enjoy the journey without worrying about the destination because there is no destination, all the very best. 

Thanks for reading and please share your opinion about this topic.  

My marriage - A love story

Reena and I got married almost 23 years back. It was a classic arranged marriage and a non-classic love story. I call it a nonclassic love story because there was no love at first sight, there was no dating, we did not go to the same school or college, we did not even live in the same state of India. Our marriage was fixed before we even knew each other as a person. The story began when a marriage proposal was brought by an acquaintance, when my parents found that the proposal made sense to them, the information was shared with me, and when I approved, things were finalized. There was just one deviation from the standard protocol of arranged marriage, I put one condition that I wanted to meet the girl before we finalized the date. I wanted to make sure that she was OK with all this as I knew that if she was not then she wouldn't say so under the pressure of hurting her parents, whereas I had the male privilege to say no and I was willing to use that privilege if there was anything which she didn't like in this proposed relationship, and meeting her was the only way to find this. I also wanted to give her an idea about what is she signing up for. I was not a typical groom which she would have expected with a stable job and set career path. I was still doing my Ph.D. and there was no way to predict which way my career might go, I wanted her to know all these things. Our meeting went very well, mostly I talked, but I was convinced that there was no pressure on her to marry me. It might be shocking to some readers to know that in India people divide marriage between love and arranged marriage, this means that they really believe that there can be a marriage without any love between the two individuals who are getting married. Love is not a precondition for an arranged marriage in India, it's hard to believe, but that's how it is.

We got married after almost a year since we first met. During that year, we did talk with each other on the phone (those were days of long-distance STD calls from a phone booth) and exchanged a few or maybe just one letter. This didn't help much to move our relationship further in any meaningful way. There was no face-to-face interaction with each other until we saw each other on the day of our marriage. Our marriage was held in Varanasi, it was a routine affair, like any other arranged marriage with all the rituals and extravaganza. A couple of days after our marriage, Reena moved with me to Pune, my birthplace in the state of Maharashtra in India. When I met with Reena and during our phone conversations I realized that we were different from each other, we did not even speak the same language. I spoke Marathi at home and English/Marathi at my lab. I knew Hindi because of Bollywood and the basics of Bhojpuri which I picked up so that I can communicate with my grandmothers, and other relatives whenever I visited my ancestral village in Uttar Pradesh. Reena and I began our conversations in Hindi. When we started living with each other we really realized how different we were from each other. We almost had nothing in common, two lost individuals brought together by the randomness of life. 

Our journey together began in a joint family where we lived with my parents and two brothers. Reena needed to adjust to a much smaller house, a much-crowded place, and with a husband who was mostly away from home working in a lab for his Ph.D. It was not easy for both of us. For her to move hundreds of miles away from her hometown and live in a completely new place with strangers with a different culture and language. For me to deal with the pressures of Ph.D. work and the ups and downs of a graduate student's life along with dealing with this new person in my life. In the beginning, we both were confused, and not sure how this thing would work. Maybe living in a joint family helped a little bit. Slowly we started understanding each other, we recognized our differences, they were huge, but we found a way to deal with them. We decided that we were not going to try to change each other against the other's will, this helped a lot. Our differences, no matter how big, never came in between us and I think that's the biggest reason why our marriage worked. We never forced each other to follow each other's beliefs and convictions. When I moved away from religion Reena didn't make a big deal about it, she continued on with her journey following her religion and beliefs without me being an active participant with her. Her patience and determination to deal with some unpleasant situations, especially, to manage confrontations within my own family due to my confrontational behavior is very impressive. Most importantly, we both became the biggest cheerleaders for each other. It's not that we succeeded in whatever we tried, but we did not discourage each other from taking risks or following an unchartered path. The arrival of our kids added another dimension to our relationship. Reena and the kids joined me in the USA when my daughter, Sara was 4, and my son, Yash was 1. Parenting our kids in a new country and embarking on an unknown journey brought us closer than ever before. Our appreciation for each other's role, and ability to offer emotional and moral support, increased day by day since then. In the US I saw a completely new personality of Reena, more independent, more forthcoming, and much more vocal. In Pune her identity was Vinay's wife or so and so's daughter-in-law, however, in the US in most social circles I am known as Reena's husband and I am extremely proud of this identity. We genuinely have mutual admiration for each other's abilities and qualities. Also, we do not hesitate to point out where each of us needs to improve. The frankness of our relationship allows us to be open and comfortable while praising or criticizing each other. It's not that we didn't have any arguments or ups and downs in our journey, we had and still have our own share of challenges. However, none of it made us drift apart from each other, rather, every such occasion helped both of us to understand each other better and brought us closer.

Our love story is not a conventional love story where a boy meets a girl and they fall in love. We randomly met with each other via this crazy system of arranged marriage and gradually realized that even though we have very little in common we complement each other very well and love blossomed. Our ability to give each other space, our ability to understand the fact that we do not have to agree on each and every issue, and do not have to share the same political and religious beliefs to love each other has been a major reason why our love and relationship survived each and every challenge that we faced. We do make our own mistakes and learn from them, some mistakes we realized on our own, and some our kids made us realize, no matter when and how we realize our mistakes we always try to learn and correct our course. There is no blame game, we both get the credit as well as the blame. Our ability to adapt to new information and accommodate it in our lives helped us a lot. Whenever we learn something new we tell each other and talk about it. We discuss with each other a lot, sometimes we talk for hours on some subject, this helps us to understand what both of us are thinking. 

Our journey has been amazing so far, every day is exciting, our discussions are animated and rewarding, and we spend so much time together and still don't get bored of each other. We cherish each other's company and at the same time realize we need to give space to each other. Fortunately, we do not feel the need to hide anything from each other, we are not scared of each other. Neither do I have to make an excuse to go out and spend time with my friends, nor does she have to justify why she is going out alone, what else one can ask for in a marriage. My marriage is a love story that I love to tell. I hope this journey continues like this with the same excitement and foolishness.

Thanks for reading and please share your opinion about this topic.