Ritika Ruminates

Image source- Google What comes with adolescent age is many hormonal changes and so do crushes, infatuations, love and sexual urges. The first crush in school, high school (11th and 12th) or college. The crush which will stay in memories lifelong.  Teenage relationships and crushes are very common. By some survey, it is said that 60%+ people, by the age of 16, have met people whom they gonna marry in future. I don't exactly remember the source of it, so not sure how reliable this information is. Keeping this aside, it is sure that majority people have had crush and maybe even atleast one relationship till they are in 12th standard. Especially if you live in big towns or metropolitan cities, you will be used to watching couples in your school‌, high school and college. The famously tagged nibba- nibbis, some with too much of PDA (please get a room if you both are 18+💁🙄). But they are not to be blamed, its all hormones playing with minds and hearts. Attractions, infatua...

Toxic parenting is hard to deal with. The pressure it creates on kid is really at a huge level. Dealing with toxic parenting is very hard.  I came across this post on Instagram by IG handle named  @tera._dost and have shared the post slides in the post (Not any paid promotion or any kind of that). I wouldn't be writing much today as those slides are enough.  Do not force things on them related to ANYTHING. Labelling someone isn't just right.  Your child is unique and the only one on this Earth. There will be similar people but no one exactly same to child, not exactly same as yours. Stop the cliché dialogue "Sharmaji ka beta/beti" or whosever child. We kids are not interested in being like them. Talk to them in composed way, have a conversation, make them realize their mistake and how can they correct it and not repeat it again. You can ground them for some time. When you scream, they look at your tone, not...

Image source- IG account writer_sahab I came across this post on Instagram by IG account named writer_sahab and this holds so true. Public Display of Affection (PDA) is very much looked at as a rude thing to do in India (and many other orthodox countries), don't know why. People look at it as its disgusting.  In our country, if any couple, married or unmarried, does PDA, they are looked at with disgusted looks by the public around, like they would be beaten up any moment. LGBT+ couple is far away from getting into PDA in India when even straight couples are looked at with disgusted looks if they get into PDA. There have been so many incidents where the couple were beaten up just because they got themselves involved in PDA. Most known one is the Kolkata metro case where a young couple were badly beaten up by elders just because they hugged or so in the metro. Like seriously!? What's the need to harm someone this bad only because they showed affection for each other i...

'Let me check your phone." "I wanna see your messages, social media, and your gallery." "Do not close and lock your door." "What privacy does a kid even needs?" "Update me everywhere you go or else I'll appoint some detective to look over you." "Do not make friends from people of opposite gender." 'No getting into any relationships and surely not in teenage or younger years." These are more often statement by parents. These statements and this kind of intrusive behaviour often leads to some mental and personality development issues in the kids. I'm gonna write this blog post from both a kid's feelings/ thoughts and psychological reasoning behind it. Intrusive or helicopter parenting often leads to kids not to understand healthy boundaries. They are not able to say no to someone. They don't know when to reveal something personal and when not to. They might not be able to say no and can land up...

Many people change themselves so that other people like them. They are ready to change themselves, just for the sake of people's attention and validation. Why do they do that?  The reason is the deep-rooted culture of 'normalcy'.  Look this way. Dress this way. Behave this way. Have this 'normal' timeline in your life- education by 20, job by 22, marriage by 25, kids by 27 and then wait for your retirement and death. If someone behaves in another way (not any immoral or illegal), they are ridiculed, laughed at, trolled, made fun of, bullied and whatnot.  Films are also responsible for this. In the movie ' Kuch Kuch Hota Hai', the Anjali (Kajol in real life) undergo a full transformation from a bold tomboy to shy typical women to get male attention and for males (more specifically Rahul) to marry her. Why is heroin made to go under such a transformation? It sets an example for the audience that its normal to ask someone to change or they can change themselves...

When I think that nothing more cruel cases of rapes can happen to girls and women, every day a new rape case comes up, crueller than the yesterday's. What has happened to India?! Why so many rapes and assault cases on a daily basis? You may recover from coronavirus (or non-terminal life-threatening diseases for that matter) but not mental trauma or even death caused by assaults and rapes. I have no hope that this mentality gonna change in years. Girls and women need to learn self-defence, no matter what your age is. Learn basic self-defence which can help you, if not advanced martial arts. Carry pepper spray (you can buy it online, sharing link at the end of the blogpost for Indian customers. If you are non-Indian, you can search it online) with you wherever you go outside. Keep emergency numbers in your phone. I don't wish, but if you ever confront such a situation, hit the person enough to immobilize them so that he cannot follow you for some minutes and run away from th...

Image source- OurEducation India is one of the most depressed countries in the world. And some of the credit goes to the Indian 'education' system (to be honest, it just a system to give out certificates and degrees). There are many ways how Indian 'education' system harms the mental health of students (and students who have completed their studies too). Here are the few ways (there are so many that can't even name every way of harming mental health to students snd former students)- 1 . Why were we never taught about mental health? :- Mental health is as important as physical health. We were taught about physical health issues, first aid but why were we never taught about mental health, its importance, mental health issues and how to cope with them? I think the system during formulating syllabus be like - "chuck it! Why do we need to teach them about mental health when we have to make them robots in future anyways? Robots need not worry about mental healt...

We have been taught from childhood about hard work, and as we grow up, getting good grades, earning money,  earning 'reputation in the society', etc. But why were we never taught about a sense of fulfilment, about satisfaction, mental peace, and even smart work for that matter? That where do we have to invest our hard work into? Hard work is good if it is in a suitable direction for you which gives you mental peace, fulfilment and satisfaction. Cause if the hard work is invested in a direction which does not give you mental peace, fulfilment and satisfaction are wasted. Hard work in a part of smart work. You should know how much hard work to invest in, in what direction, etc. Mental peace, fulfilment, satisfaction and hard work are not only needed in professional life but in personal life as well. We have to put the right amount of hard work and smart work in our careers and our relationships to make them work and give us a sense of satisfaction and fulfilment. The hard work y...

I have always had short hairs-be it boy cuts, pixie cuts, or bob cuts. My favorite had always been boy cuts as they were classy and were less maintenance, followed by pixie cut and last the bob cut (didn't like it cause they were still the girly type of short hairs). With almost 15-16 years of having short hairs, these are the benefits of short hairs. 1. Less maintenance:- Shorthairs are less maintenance haircuts. They do not need to be maintained a lot and are very easy to look after. You would not need to worry much about your hair. 2. Pocket friendly:- Shorthairs do not need much money to look after them. You will need fewer hair care products, in small quantities, which would save lots of your money. Even your salon visits would be some less expensive as getting any hair care treatment (hair spa, hair color, straightening, curling, split ends treatment, etc) on short hairs requires less hair care products and time when compared to long hairs. Less the hair care products us...

Self-respect. Self-love. Self-care. Self-worth. And many others. Sometimes we humans forget about ourselves while in the company of other humans. Sometimes, we forget to respect ourselves, love ourselves, care for ourselves, and we forget our worth, under-estimate ourselves and whatnot. Many a time, for the sake of saving relationships or for even our social image, we lose our self-respect. We let others treat us as they want. In the process of saving relationships, we end up losing our respect. We need to remember that people who truly love us will not make us choose between love and respect. They will respect us for the person we are and love us at the same time. By having self-respect, I don't mean you need to be egoist about yourself, but just respect yourself for the person you are.  We must learn to respect ourselves as others can't respect us if we cannot respect ourselves. We need to be selfish enough to have our self-respect as it is over everything, even love. R...