Tina (Amrita B Sinha)

Tina! Even her name has enough power to bring a smile on my face J

I know Tina for good 4 years now & I am proud of the fact that I have had an opportunity of knowing a person like her in my life. If I have to introduce Tina to someone, the words I would like to use for her are: POSITIVE, Passionate, Caring, Loving, Talkative in a very charming way, always ready to make your day with her jokes and her beautiful dimpled smile.

I didn’t know we are going to be such good friends when I met her the first time. I clearly remember the first thing I noticed about her was that she was an amazing host. I was invited at her house warming party where, there were around 10-15 couples and she ensured that she not just kept all the ladies busy in some or the other conversation; she also ensured that men had their plates full. The ease with which she made everyone comfortable was commendable. She displayed a true Libran characteristic, which, I had only heard about before I witnessed her displaying them.  This was another topic she brought into our conversation that she was a Libran & we realized half the ladies present in the room were too. Including me. When her husband told everyone proudly that Tina did all the cooking for the night I quickly did my math and was shocked to see this lady cooked more than 5 dishes for more than 30 people present there and none tasted like she didn’t put her heart into cooking it. AND to top it she had enough time to dress up so very presentable and looked as fresh as she had just been back from a relaxing holiday. Tina doesn’t know this but when I had guests over to my place for a housewarming party a couple of months later, it was she I remembered and decided to do all the cooking for myself (( The ones who know me can tell how I want to run away from cooking or the kitchen even if cooking involves making just a Maggi :P  )). Though I am aware that I proved myself nowhere even close to being as good a hostess as Tina had been, I did get appreciations for my cooking & people did like what I cooked .

After our first phone call, that I enjoyed immensely, as everything she spoke made me laugh with joy, we kept calling each other and she kept asking me to come over and meet her over tea and snacks. One fine day me & my partner really took her on her words and dropped by for the Tea at a very untimely hour yet Tina being Tina welcomed us and didn’t let us leave without having dinner. She made us so comfortable that it sort of became a habit for us to keep dropping at her place for dinners and teas without prior notice and we were always welcome.

So Tina has been my inspiration and my benchmark ever since to be as good a hostess as she is. She made me start to enjoy entertaining friends over at my place.

My first ever conversation with Tina at personal level had been when I was told she has been diagnosed with stones in her kidney & I called her out of courtesy to show that I care and to tell me if I can help her in any way. Having seen my father suffering with the pain of Kidney stones once, I could just imagine what might Tina be going through with all her household chores and raising a beautiful boy and all. I was least expecting the conversation I had with her when she answered my call. She never spoke about the difficulties she may have to go through due to stones or medications or anything that a normal person diagnosed with kidney stones would talk. What she told me was that she was EXCITED with this news. She said she now has her own rocks to rock through her life…. I have never met a person who could see a difficult situation in such a way.

I have seen her through a difficult pregnancy when she was expecting her twins. She was practically glued to her bed and had been in & out of ICU in her last trimester, the backache that Tina always suffered from simply worsened during her pregnancy, however, despite all that, I do not remember a time when I would have called her to check on her health and heard her being anything but excited and happy about her condition because she now had many people taking care of her and checking on her making her feel like a precious princess and her excitement on the news that she was carrying twins, which she always wanted, was something that you just could not miss. She is so full of positivity and confidence in herself that her mantra in life appears to be “How can one not be happy when our happiness is in our control?”  Yes this is what Tina is. She controls her own happiness.

I have learnt to see a positive side in everything that appears to be negative in our life, It is difficult to sustain this attitude perpetually but I have Tine as my motivator. Even if one day I can become half as positive as Tina is I think I will achieve Nirvana that day J J

Shilpa

I met Shilpa 7 years back at UK 329. I was a very different person back then, very old school, pushy to the extent of choking my dear ones (coz I believed I have their best interests in heart) & always ready to judge people and not even able to see that I was missing out on knowing some wonderful people in my life, just because I was always ready with my checklist that people had to pass through before I even give them an opportunity. I am a very different person from that now and Shilpa is one of those who contributed to this change in me, without even knowing that she did so.

I remember the day I was first introduced to Shilpa, full of my judgmental views, I immediately casted her off to be no good of a trainer. She appeared too casual to be a serious process trainer that I was told she was. And then the next day she did another thing to make my views even stronger that she was no good, she repeatedly cut off my friend mid-sentence!!! I mean, how dare she do that to a friend of mine and that too being a trainer??? Isn't she supposed to be patient enough to listen to all her trainees to be a good trainer? That was it, I decided I DO NOT LIKE  this female & I never will.

With a few more days into our training I realized to my shock that Shilpa indeed was not only good at handling the most notorious of the training batches I have been a part of but she was also good at training such young and restless and she always kept her promise of getting back with the answers if she didn't know something when asked.  But me being the stubborn me, I said to myself “So what if she is a good trainer? She is not a good person. She makes my friend uncomfortable by not allowing her to talk every time the poor soul wants to show off her knowledge. But in a few days the same poor soul turned out to be more forgiving of Shilpa than I was and she was in fact trying to get to know Shilpa better and get friendly to her. But well I had to stand on my judgment so I still did not like her.

A week down the line Shilpa being Shilpa, decided to initiate a more comfortable trainer – trainee relationship, even if I was not ready to do it. She started to talk, tried to get me to open up and earn my trust, which she managed to do in the end with help of my friend conspiring against me (The same one I hated Shilpa for)

Once the ice was broken, I was more open to accept Shilpa as a person and as a friend. I actually started to enjoy her company, our conversations together and pouring our hearts out with each other. We grew so close that we were no more a Trainer & a Trainee but Friends. In true sense. We had been through a couple of weird difficult situations together which only strengthened our friendship better. We became friends who had to catch up every day in person or over the phone and fill in each other with day’s activity.

The way my relationship and comfort levels changed with Shilpa, it made me realize how wrong it was of me to be judging people as it only makes me loose out a few gem of people in my life. From that time in my life I completely stopped judging people basis their first impression on me. In fact I do not have a concept of “First Impressions” in my life any more. I no more decide on a person’s impression on me until I know the person better. I now give chance to myself to get to know people.

The second thing that I learnt from Shilpa is all the more important for me as it made me become a better person and the best part is that she doesn't even know she helped me with it.

It was during one of the most disturbing and tipsy phase in HER life. She had a major shift happening in her life, and made certain decisions basis her situation. I still remember the day she shared with me about this decision she took because it made her happy in that difficult time, I must have cried a bucket full while listening to her and fortunately with all those tears some of my useless conservative thinking also washed out of my system.

Like I said I was very old school back then and Shilpa’s decision wouldn't have gone down well with that old me, yet somehow, feeling her pain and seeing her go through it all made me just realize “Who am I to decide what she does is wrong or right? I may have the best of her interests in heart but I haven’t lived her life. I may have tried to understand her pain but I haven’t suffered it as she did.” And that made me accept her decision with open heart (despite me old school thinking) and made me accept that fact that I am no one to decide what/ how one should do with their life. It has to be their decision as it is their life. If I have their best interests in heart, I need to support them unconditionally. I now give space in my relationships.

Every time I think of these two most important and positive changes Shilpa brought into my life, my lips curve into a smile full of gratitude J J

She’s made my pre-existing belief stronger that “every person I meet in my life has a lesson to teach me”   J