u/MillenialPerson92

My relationship with my own brother is pretty much non-existent. It's not out of any bad feelings or anything, it's just we were never close and we drifted apart ever since he left for college. And now he is married and has a wife and new kid, so I would say our relationship has sort of ceased to "exist" because his focus is on his family which is a great thing. I live far from them so we hardly talk. I haven't spoken to him for over a month and that's okay. I recognize this relationship to be platonic and I am okay with it. Until festivals like "Rakhi" come along and then I am expected to label this as a sweet loving "close" relationship. TBH, it makes me cringe. Especially since symbolically every year I send Rakhi and we act as siblings for a day and then we disappear from each other's lives.

Now I am a woman in my 30s, and I have 4 cousin brothers who care less about my well-being. I have sent Rakhis to them but then never hear back from them as they are all in colleges. No-one has really called and asked how I do. It's always been like this. Silence. But when Rakhi comes, I am forced to perform as an obedient "sister" for this festival. I spend thousands because I don't want to send just a cheap thread. I know they are in college, so I send a mug set, key chain and all. Now I just feel like what's the point when there is no reciprocation? I am not saying I want gifts worth lakhs or something, lol. Honestly, it feels cheap and what's more I am the elder sister to them, yet I have to send Rakhi symbolically meaning they would protect me when I live in a city with my husband, who I consider is the true protector, yet I have to honor this useless tradition of sending Rakhi and acting like a fake nice sister.

I want to let this off my chest. One of my brothers dropped me a message asking when is package arriving, not out of anticipation, but inconvenience because he has to collect it when he is in class. Truth is, I have not even brought myself up to even buy those damn Rakhis. I keep thinking if I am in a serious situation tomorrow, it's just me and my husband who will be handling ourselves and in reality, I have ended up in a lot of sticky situations in my adult life - and guess what? None of my so-caled Rakhi brothers were there for me.

So what do you guys do when you have a very platonic relationship with the "brothers" in your life? Do you believe in Rakhi traditions? Do you send the Rakhi as a sort of fire and forget?

Will Michael have a soundtrack nomination for the Awards season specifically for Golden globes and Oscars? It would essentially be Michael's own song catalogue but, I felt the sound design for the movie was amazing especially during the live performances of MJ. Does anyone have any idea if the movie has chances of being nominated for the sound category?

I have a SIL who has been married to my elder brother for 2 years. She is 5 years younger than me, but because of traditional Indian family dynamics, her position as my brother's wife technically makes her "elder" to me.

Ours has always been a decent relationship one-on-one. Even though my family forces the "elder" dynamic on us, I’ve always treated her like a younger sister because she’s naturally naive and playful.

The problem starts during family rituals and festivals. My family treats her as the "head of the household" for these events, and she immediately lets the power go to her head and starts bossying me around.

For example, during a recent festival, I slept in a bit (which is normal at my own house). I noticed everyone giving me dirty looks, so I hurried to the kitchen. My SIL was already there, visibly pissed, and started barking orders at me. Because I wanted to keep the peace, I said nothing, took on the heavy lifting, and worked in the kitchen the entire day, even telling her to go rest.

Instead of appreciating it, she treated me like I was a "difficult" person for the rest of the festival and kept micromanaging me. Worse, my family—who usually never bothered me during religious functions—found it hilarious to watch my SIL boss me around. They started using her to test my "sanskaar." When I inevitably bought the wrong item for a pooja because I'm not used to these specific rituals, the whole family laughed at me.

I realized my family is intentionally pitting us against each other. What hurts is that my SIL is a willing participant in this power trip, even though she acts completely sweet and naive when it’s just the two of us. Because of this constant disrespect, I refuse to call her "bhabhi."

Now, my mother is furious with me, claiming I have terrible behavior and demanding that I respect my SIL like my own mother just because of family hierarchy.

Because of all this, I have distanced myself from my family entirely. I hate being disrespected over silly traditional power games. My husband found this very toxic and he has completely stopped speaking to SIL as she has multiple times treated us as inferior when we never deserved any of that.

How should I approach this situation moving forward?

There are two swimming pools in our society and both of them are unusable for the most part of the year. The society claims they spend 70K for it's maintenance. I had proposed to use that money to perform deep cleaning and review how we can prevent frogs from getting in the pool. Association is least interested in this. There are tonnes of other problems in our society but why even advertise swimming pool as an amenity when we eventually convert it into a gossip spot and frog sanctuary? How does your society maintain swimming pools and do you use it regularly?

My in-laws are visiting tomorrow. Even though I want to feel neutral about their visit, their last visit has left me thoroughly irritated and angry.

When they come, they clearly cross the line and change the calm energy in the home to a very chaotic one. They already decide what to eat even before coming here. Last time, they brought a week's worth of vegetables and fish curry which we ate till 3 days. They brought it specifically for his son to satiate his palate (of course they never bothered to ask whether I am okay with it). They stuffed my fridge with stuff and regulated the entire weeks menu which I absolutely hated to eat. At the end of the week, the great mother in law says, so is there anything I would like to eat when I just started at her in disbelief. So you remembered I exist?! Lol.

Of course their antics doesn't just end there. They pray loudly in the evening for an hour and wanted to sit on chairs which we didn't have. They bought two ugly looking plastic chairs without bothering to ask me if we need them at my home. The chairs were covered in mud which wasn't cleaned properly. I am allergic to dust, but I didn't say anything because they seemed to be in a good mood about it. When they pray, they close the doors but sing on top of their voices. How do you expect the rest of the house to be quiet if your only effort is to close the door but make sure you are not quiet or discreet about your faith? It irritates the f out of me. I close the door to my room and essentially I am holed up in my home. They just can't resist it. They can't behave as guests even for a week.

The MIL is persuasive one. She wants me to pray and follow her faith and she is very determined about it. She ambushed me when my husband was out for work and suddenly questioned me about her favorite subject, her favorite God and why I should be following her faith. I gave her a death stare at her audacity to step into MY home and TELL ME what to believe and what to do. I never did the same with her when I entered her sorry state of a home after my marriage!

Anyway I told husband about it and he was baffled. Husband and MIL keep fighting about this too. They keep telling him to go to religious place every Sunday and he refuses and they have very petty fights just spoils the whole environment at home. I just keep wishing when they would leave.

This time, my dear husband, invited them to home himself. I don't know what has got into him. I just feel defeated because he apparently called them and forced them to come when he was at work. I have a whole level of disappointment with him right now. I am just bracing myself for their arrival. I just tolerate them now, they are nothing more than just my husband's parents.

I don't even call them, I don't feel the will to. Everything in my mind about them is basically dead and I will just treat them as strangers in my house, nothing more.

This happened in Hosa Road, Parapanna Agrahara. I was walking back to my apartment and I was standing at the intersection of Doddamara road and was attempting to cross the road. I was standing with another elderly man who was attempting to cross the road at the same time. I was wearing black Decathlon cotton tee and brown track pants and covered my face with mask because I am crazy allergic to the dust. An auto guy was speeding and then suddenly slowed down in front of me. I assumed he was asking for a ride for passengers from me or the elderly man (which never happened till date). He was blasting music in top volume. I ignored him and focused on the road to cross. He passed comments with a sleazy expression and looked inebriated. I was shocked but I made a gesture to move but he didn't budge. When more vehicles started coming our way, he sped away. He seemed to be in his mid 20s.

This is the first time I have experienced this in the city and wondered how often does this happen? I could only stare at his number plate as he sped off. If you ever chance at booking this auto, just be aware and careful.

Strangely this was never a problem for me earlier. My hair care routine used to be non-existent as I used to live in a place where we used to get soft water. So, I used to wash my hair post swim with any shampoo and conditioner (normal, not anti-chlorine) and I had good hair days.

Now I have shifted to a place where there is hard water. I dunno if its because of hard water or because of the pool having more chlorine, but whatever it was, the same shampoo + conditioner routine doesn't work anymore.

I suspect it's due to the pool water, because I started getting itchy scalp and a medium hair fall. So I purchased Kera Bond shampoo for swimmers. My routine was like this -

1. Wash hair with normal water then apply oil to hair before entering pool
2. Post swim, Shampoo with Kera Bond
3. Apply Conditioner

This routine strangely increased the hair fall even more. I initially thought it could be due to a new cap I got, so I went back to old cap but hair fall remained same. I noticed my hair was also becoming stringy and "hard".

I googled about it and found a suggestion that after using Kera Bond shampoo, it's good to add another wash using hydrating shampoo that has Hyaluronic acid to introduce moisture back to the hair. This definitely solved my itchy scalp problem and my hair became smooth again but my hair fall remained the same, in fact, more.

One thing I noticed was washing oiled hair was becoming a challenge and I used more product which may be damaging the hair follicle, so I stopped oiling my hair before swim and bought the Earth collective pre-swim hair spray. I felt my hair was protected, but hair fall again made no difference.

I then went ahead and bought the Earth collective co-wash as this is advertised as something that can be used after swim and dumped the Kera Bond shampoo.

After my first use of co-wash

1. I got a bad itch in the middle of the night which actually woke me up
2. I had to rush to the bathroom to wash my scalp thoroughly with Kera Bond shampoo which gave me relief.

I realized the co-wash may have combined with the light oil I had applied a day before on my scalp and would have trapped the chlorine in my scalp which gave me a slight burning sensation. I am thoroughly confused as I thought the Earth collective swimmer hair care duo was supposed to solve the chlorine problem but the hair spray only sits on the hair, doesn't prevent chlorine water from hitting the scalp. My hair on the other hand remains silky, soft just as the product advertises but I have no solution for itchy scalp and the subsequent ever growing hair fall.

So my questions are after going through so much ordeal...

1. Do you use Earth collective swim hair care duo and did you face any issues with your scalp till now?
2. How do you take care of your SCALP post swim in Indian pools?

I have a bus safari booked at 12 PM but it looks like we will be late by 20 minutes due to the traffic. What are our options if we arrive late to the zoo? Can we get on a bus safari for a later slot?

You can see Little Jaafar. In Part 2, you can see him playing golf. 😭

https://youtu.be/isXRVyMwqiE?si=CkOWv2UnxkgMSnj2