Who the hell defined Women are weak?

Sunday, July 27. 9,45 pm , Chennai.

I was waiting for my friend. I left home telling that I have to board the bus at 9.30, two hours earlier than the actual time; simply because I wanted to spend a decent time with him. Exactly opposite to the Koyambedu Moffusill bus stand is the Police station. I was standing in front of its gate and called my friend.

Gowri: Yes macha… How are you?

I: You idiot, I told you that I am waiting in Koyambedu for you. Where the hell are you?

Gowri: Oh ya. Sorry. That should have been ‘Where are you?’ :p I’m on my way. Tell me where you are waiting.

I: I am waiting in front of the Police station.

Gowri : Done. I’ll be there in 15 mins. I crossed Guindy.

It actually takes at least 45 minutes to reach Koyambedu from Guindy , during Weekends. 

Gowri is indeed new to Chennai.

‘Go .. Go and get me the papers. Or let me file the case’, Shouted in anger , a mid aged COP.

Going inside the Police station were 3 men carrying a bike, towed. It was a Black Honda Shine.

I was looking at them, turning my head slowly towards them.

‘Anga paakadha thambi. Vedikka pakradhukku kuda Fine poduvanga’ (Don’t look there, my boy. They would fine you for even staring at them), uttered a lady voice.

I turned and threw a smile at her. She is an Auto driver. In Chennai, it is very rare to find Lady Auto drivers. And finding one, being active after 9 pm is almost impossible.  I got an insight that I have met the impossible J .

‘Yenga poganum thambi?’ , She. (Where do you want to go?)

‘Bangalore’, I. She might not have got impressed with that answer.  I was sure that she was expecting someone who could do justice and help her for why she is there even so late.

She gave a very hopeless reaction. Taking off her Khakhi shirt, which she wore on top of a typical south Indian Saree.

She started counting her day’s income. I saw her face. Not the money. She was so curious, expecting few hundred more than the previous day’s collection.

‘Seems you had a good day. Why would you suffer more? You can leave to your home and sleep peacefully’, I said.

‘Peace? :D haha. Peace, Happy, Luxury .. We people who struggle for survival, cannot imagine of all these, my boy’ She worried.

I personally don’t believe it. I believe every living being in the planet is equally blessed with Happiness and sorrows.  It is just a matter of how weak we are, which makes them sound so complex and complicated.

‘Where are you from?’ I asked her.

She was calling for some people, looking for her next sawari. She didn’t listen to me.

‘Akka, Where are you from?’, I did again.

‘Ayanavaram thambi’ , She.  It is little far from where we were.

Ting!! Blinked my BlackBerry.  Message from my friend, asking whether I have started. I replied No and saw the time.  It was already 10.15.

 I wondered how she could go back to her home at this time. 

‘Family?’ , I.

‘Two boys and a little girl’, She.

‘Husband?’, I.

‘No more’, She.

I wish there exist a minute of silence, for me to take it. But she continued.

‘That mid aged Fu*** COP who was shouting a little while ago, was the one who killed my man.’

I needed a break now. My friend was calling. He would’ve reached. I didn’t mind.

She continued, ‘He was a drunkard. Used to sell vegetables here in this area. He was arrested as a witnessed individual during a local riot here last year. Came back as dead body from this Police station.’

She told it so casually, like narrating a comic to a kid. I was stunned. Completely forgot the luggage I had. It was a CPU cabinet, stuffed inside a big shopper bag by my uncle. I had to hand that over to my cousin who stays in Bangalore. 

‘Take care of your luggage, my boy’, She. ‘You must be careful. Chennai has got some clever thieves’, she smiled.

‘Even my boy wanted a box like this’; (She was pointing the CPU). 

‘Need 3 more thousand to buy that for him. Probably next month, I shall try getting it for him’ she murmured.

I didn’t have any clue why did she tell all this to me. Later I realized she was telling that to herself and not to me. I was just there listening her blabbering.

I wanted to ask about her family. But I hesitated. 

July maadham vandhaal……. Rung my blackberry. My friend from Bangalore.

‘Started macha?’, He.

‘No da. Waiting for the bus’, I.

I cut the call intentionally; only because I wanted continue talking with her.  It was 10.40 then. When I did cut my call she was on another call. Possibly talking with her children. 

She cut the call and started leaving. ‘Akka, your name?’ I queried.

‘Leela’, She replied.

‘Ok akka. See you’, I told. And I couldn’t stop asking her ‘But, Why didn’t you appeal or file a case against the injustice that happened to your husband?’

‘I enquired about all those. I was asked 2500 bucks to file a case. 15000 as Advocate fee, 5500 for registration. I have just started. I am left only with this Auto, for which I have to pay EMI every month.’ She replied.

What could I reply?

I was staring at her. Wondering how could she be so bold enough? How could she feel that confident even after losing his husband for doing nothing?

How a 35 year old lady can accept all these and still starve for a life with so much confidence, when we cannot even digest watching a celebrity crying on a television reality show?

She is so sure that she will fight against her husband’s murder. She didn't get any support from the media who could help her big time. She doesn't even seek for that. And being an auto driver, she cannot help her family, children’s education and also spend money for the court.

Precisely, the point is, Women were called the weaker sex. They are no more as such.

I always use to say, Women are stronger than men. Men adore their mom. They learn braveness and courage from their mom. Fear from father. Men can teach fear. Not courage.

Being courage demands mental toughness. Not physical fitness. 

Men are good in the latter. Women, in the former.  That ideally proves Men are weaker mentally.

From the Stone Age, men go out to hunt. Women remain at home.

It sounds like men are brave. Yes they are. But to remain isolated at home till the man comes back, needs more courage and mental perseverance. 

What if I say you that men never go for hunting all alone? J That is true, by the way.

It was already 11.

‘Auto, Ashok nagar?’ asked a college student.

‘Yes sir. Let’s go’, Leela akka.

Wore that Khaki shirt again and kick started the auto. With the same confidence of getting her son a Computer, and fighting against the Police. She would earn a mere 80 to 100 rupees in that sawari. But I then realized , how crucial that matters for her.

RRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrmmmm… Auto left. I saw the back side of it. TN 04 MK 1948

‘Women have to be brave and bold enough. They must be allowed to be so. The one who shows or uses Physical ability against a woman is considered to be the coward’s king. That is why none of the world’s greatest war has happened with Women and children. 

At the same time, almost all the wars came to an end with an influence of a woman.

The time when a lady can walk on the streets of India without any problem, then comes the actual freedom.’ – M K Gandhi, 1948.

I was still watching the direction by which the auto left, even after it was no more visible.

There was a hand on my shoulder. I turned back.

‘You stupid.. What are you doing here? I was searching you, all around the Post office’, Gowri.

All I could do is smile and said ‘Thanks to your bloody ears’...

Break up?? Wake up !!!

Life is so simple. Give something and Take something. If you fail giving something, you will end up getting nothing.

This theory works everywhere, every time. From a mom feeding her baby, till the last cross on the forehead.

Love is not an exception. Nor, the break up. This is for my friends who were in love. Who enjoyed having Eve’s apple; at least once in their lifetime.

P.S: Please don’t ask me back anything about the post. For the people who know me, I know that I don’t have any sort of experience on whatever I have shared in this post :p .

But it is just an analysis done out of some and re presented here.

The hardest step in the arduous journey of break up recovery is this one painful decision to finally let go.

It’s this single decision that means the difference between learning from this devastating experience and dwelling upon the negative for a long time,risking that this whole process might happen again in your future relationships.

The difficult part about moving on after a break up is that it takes a conscious decision.

It’s so much easier to hold on to the known, the hope that they will come back, rather than to find yourself cut off from your comfort zone.

Moving on, and letting go is exactly that – going out into the unknown, alone, without the one you used to love by your side.

Before you can take this important step, it helps if you are fed up back to the teeth with being powerless, dependent and so helpless about what is happening to you.

This will give you the strength to take action, and this will to get a huge weight lifted off your shoulders.

But, Will it be easy after that?

No. But you will have made a major leap towards independence and healing.

“Watching you walk out of my life does not make me bitter or cynical about love.
But rather makes me realize that if I wanted so much to be with the wrong person how beautiful it will be when the right one comes along.”
-Said, one of my friend who is enjoying the break :p  True indeed.

This addresses one of the biggest dangers of suffering from a break up: not believing in love anymore and shutting down your heart.

This is wrong, because there is always someone out there better than your Ex, someone who will meet your needs perfectly. Whether we believe it or not.

Turning away from love out of fear means saying NO to life.

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving
Passivity means death, activity is living. If you are passive, you allow negative things to come into your life.

Keep riding the bike.

You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore
In order to grow and to experience, one must leave his comfort-zone.

Very often this means that you have to do what you are afraid of in order to find what you didn’t know you were looking for.
This takes a lot of courage.
Ask yourself, who would Columbus be today if he hadn’t had the courage to lose sight of the shore back then?

When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.
This is so true.

We often focus and dwell too long upon negative events in our lives, the whys and what ifs, that we don’t allow new positive things to come into our lives.

We have to open our eyes and say YES to life more often. Even to the worst things we get.

“I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together again and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new.
What is broken is broken, and I’d rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken pieces as long as I lived”
This is from one of my favorite book  Gone With The Wind by Margaret.

What is broken is broken.  This is often so hard to accept and yet so true.

Months, or even years after a relationship break up, you will fully realize the fatal mistakes you made right after it happened.

Especially the panic controlled actions that made you appear as a different person – often you don’t recognize ourselves any more.

It can bring out the worst in you.

It usually happens that you hate yourselves later for the things you’ve done.

This is understandable, but the wrong thing to do.

Not only does it damage your self-esteem, which is urgently needed for the recovery, (what’s left of it).

But it also destroys the new concept of self-love you are trying to build up.

Avoid these feelings by telling yourself that the past is the past, and concentrate on the NOW.

The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past, you can’t go on well in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches.

All experiences, be they positive or negative, define who we are as a person. 

You can’t carry your unfinished past with you if you want to grow.

Especially when entering a new relationship.  

You need to have gotten over past negative experiences.

If you haven’t, then chances are that they will bite you in the lower back eventually.

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.


One of the hardest things to do after a break up is to let go of the bright future that you’ve planned out together.

Letting go has never been easy, but holding on can be as difficult.
Yet strength is measured not by holding on, but by letting go.


What is easier, holding on or letting go?
You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.
You are able to say to yourself.
You have lived through this horror. You can take the next thing that comes along.
You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

This is the only way to overcome fears: first by doing and facing what you fear and then by gaining the confidence that no matter what comes your way, you can handle it!

There is a famous quote where it says that one should learn from the mistakes OTHERS make and thereby avoid them.

On the other hand:

The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.
I believe that there are two kinds of mistakes: the kind that you can learn and evolve from, and the kind that should be avoided.

When it comes to post relationship break up mistakes, there are some which better be avoided.  The following fall into that category.

Here are the main mistakes most of you people make right AFTER a relationship break up and what I found in common among my friends who were in love.

Panic Controlled Actions:

Confronted by what we think is the worst that can happen to you, you do anything to fight it off: you plead, you beg, cry in front of our Exes, harass, stalk, write e-mails, IMs, etc.

All these things will make you cringe when you later think about it.

I think that almost every Dumpee makes these mistakes – I don’t think that they are completely avoidable. These are desperate actions by our animal part of the brain, fighting for survival.

The sad thing is that they are completely useless. I’ve never heard that a Dumper came back after the Dumpee wrote them a billion e-mails begging to have mercy.

If you’ve made these mistakes, don’t beat yourself up over them.   If you’re about to commit them, try to resist.

Reassuring Love:

You are committed to thinking that if they only KNEW how much you loved them, they would come back immediately, so you keep telling them – over and over again.

The only problem is, they KNOW. They’re breaking up anyway.

Breakups happen rarely because the Dumper thinks that they are not being loved. Constant reassurance only leads to humiliation.

Hoping To Stay Friends ;-)

This is a very common mistake that is often made by those having little experience with relationship break ups.

I know that your Ex was your best friend, your intimate partner, the closest person to you.

But it is impossible to maintain this kind of relationship AFTER the breakup. Everything has changed – nothing is as it was before.

You can’t count on your Ex any longer, because they will harm you more than they would help.

The good news is, you CAN find another support system: Look for old friends who used to be close.

Your family should also be of great help. 

Look for new friends who can make you happy.

With whom you feel happy, safe and comfortable.

Use every connection you have for support – you need it.

Maintaining Contact:

The no-contact rule is the number one precondition IF you want to get over your relationship break up fast.

Look at it like a drug addict: you can’t get clean with YOUR drug right in front of you.

Use Your Exes Friends and Family:

Out of the ambition to make sense out of all of it, we use their friends or their family. We interview, manipulate and try to use them for our purposes.

Besides the fact that they rarely know anything about the deeper reasons, it really is inappropriate to involve a third person in your breakup. This is something that’s between you and your Ex.

If you do this, you will regret it later.

Rebound Relationships:

Many people leapfrog into a new affair right after their relationship breaks up.

I absolutely do not recommend that.

It may appear that this is the best thing to do in order to get over your Ex but, believe me, the opposite is the case.

You will be constantly comparing to your Ex, everything will remind you of them and you will be frustrated, because NOBODY is as good as your Ex.  (This is an illusion of course).

It will throw you back and it will mask your pain, hiding you from the issues your breakup needs to resolve.

Don’t deny yourself the opportunity to work these things out.

If you do, you have to face that problem again and again, from relationship to relationship.

For many people, healing will not start until they are alone with themselves, confronting their inner demons.

These are the main mistakes most people make right AFTER their relationship breaks up.

Please don’t beat yourself up if you’ve already made some of them. 

Even if they should be avoided, some of these mistakes are part of the healing and learning process.

So even IF you will look back month/years later and regret a few things you’ve done, they might have been necessary to get you to the point you are today.

Now it’s your turn, tell me, which one of these mistakes have you made? ;-)