Few NEW Things and I am POSITIVE ME

Its been certainly long since I have posted any blog. One can expect it to be an outcome of something like I have been busy to write anything or I have been depressed to share any positive thought or the usual thing that I must have been traveling more than my customary routine. But I guess, a mixture of all the above mentioned reasons should be considered as reality. That is, I have been eventful with a cousin sister’s wedding, also I have been traveling more than my usual humdrum leading to big holes in my pocket & also a flaking money plant at my house and also I have not been so positive in the past few days. But here I am back with the positive me and as always, have a lot many things to share which are making my life little relaxed and agreeable. I have few bullet points to make which differentiate my today from the days in past.

• We have hired a maid to cook for us in the evening, making it easier to spend some quality time with my own self rather than to be wasting the precious time in the demanding kitchen.
• I have adopted a routine to go for walk in the evening when my newly hired maid is cooking.
• I am back to my reading habit which every day brings out the best in me.
• I have stopped complaining about something which I cannot change. Although if not completely, but partially I have succeeded in it.
• I am no more a facebook, or a phone call person (i.e. I do not sit for hours on facebook anymore, and I prefer not to call anyone without work now) as I think this was leading me to nowhere else other than depressing thoughts and comparisons.
• I have started talking less and listening more, especially with those who otherwise seems to be silly and nonsense. As I have accepted the fact that it is really difficult for people to appreciate and tells it on your face that you are an excellent person.

And all this leads to a positive change in me. May be other people would not see it that evidently but I can feel it perfectly. Earlier only the thought of securing my shoe lace and go for walk in the park was enough to make me feel exhausted, but now I am actually taking out half an hour (to start with) to walk. This could happen because I have changed my priorities and decided to take out some time for my own self.

Green tea, which I thought is something only my sister and celebrities can take, I have started consuming it too now. It is not because I want to be like Madhuri or Deepika or any other celeb but it’s only because I want to feel fit and hence positive. This could happen because I took those criticisms (of course from the people who matters to me) seriously.

I have decided it, for sure, that let the world go to hell and I will now on give a dam to what is happening around me till the time it is not affecting me and I am fine & enjoying.

The other day I read and shared also that “THESE DAYS WE DO NOT MAKE FIRENDS RAHTER WE ADD THEM”. Now I have started realizing that too. It is so true that you cannot be friends with everyone you meet so there is no point in wasting your time and energy in giving them or taking from them any sort of GYAAN. Just talk the minimum and concentrate on your own things. That will eventually help in bringing the best out of you.

With a hope that I will continue to be adopting this healthy routine and mind-set I end this blog here only (as already it is too long).

DAYS IN GOA

Day 1: 14^th April’ 2015

Starting from home is not always an exciting feeling because you are sometimes occupied with so many other things (worries or thoughts) and is in no position to think about the coming vacations or good time. That is what happened with me this time. Anyways, we started from home and reached at T3, there only i started to realize that I am on a trip to a city of sand and sea, away from office and homely routine life. VISTARA, a new airlines but with a good & reliable brand name i.e. TATA with SINGAPORE AIRLINES, made it a wonderful start for us. A before time departure, helpful; beautiful & loving airhostesses, delicious food and hospitality of an highest order made it a real kick start for us. Landing and pick up by a government vehicle makes you realize that the time invested over your journey to get a good, reputed and powerful job, did not go waste. Finally landing in the guest house at a premium location but unfortunately in the SOUTH GOA; unfortunate because we wanted it in NORTH GOA to have a good bunch of beaches near to us only, put our minds in double state. But we finally decided to stay there only. In the evening we decided to explore the nearby area in VASCO only. And finally, by taking the help of public transport we reached our destination. There we realized that the waiting time for the public bus was much more that the time taken to reach there. We shopped few things and came back but this time via an auto. At the guest house, the food was waiting for us. Finally after having a not so delicious food, we sealed our day with a hope to have a good time further.

Day 2: 15^th April’ 2015

Time for some work. Went to MPT and learnt many new things about a new concept and never an explored area i.e. PORT. There also the treatment we got from the local officers was an experience in itself. Well enough to make you realize that you are employed at a right work place. After visiting there I reached back to guest house and we had our lunch together. As the sun was setting, our mood to visit the nearby area was rising. So we decided to visit a nearby park along the beach side (not very well explored) and the most funny part was its name i.e. CHILDREN PARK. But believe me it was not as its name. I think we would not have called our journey a complete one without visiting that. We had a bhel puri from an only vendor selling it outside the park. The place is an appropriate one to breath fresh, tension free air. And finally, with a not so good vegie but OK OK non veggie food, we sealed our day 2.

Day 3: 16^th April’ 2015

Finally we decided to see the actual GOA in NORTH and for that we hired a cab for full day. The northern part was actually far off. And the day was really hot, as hot as you are in Dubai. The first destination of the day was Dolphin Safari in which you can see the Central Jail, a bungalow of some diamond merchant worth Rs. 80 crores and a sight of dolphins in the sea depends on your luck of the day. Two sure things I could make out 1.) the owner of the bungalow can never ever sell his property for more than Rs. 80 crores and 2.) the prisoners of the jails must be having fun with such surroundings. On an whole it was not worth the visit but when you are at a mercy of a travel agent, you cannot decide or choose your areas to visit. The following day was fun when we enjoyed the company of each other, had a dip in the sea along with yummy food at the beachside. There comes a feeling of satisfaction and saturation and then you really realize that what else you need from life to give you. Now was a time to pack up from beach and rush towards cruse for which we had already taken the tickets. The one hour on the cruse was a real waste of time, energy and money. And then we gave it a second thought that are we really here for such things? But then we decided to take this as a lesson for our next visit to this place. With this we ended our day’s journey and after taking an halt at Vasco to make a decision as to whether to hire a cab or a bike for the coming day, we took the quotations from the different agents present there. We came back, and mutually agreeing to take a cab for tomorrow also, we had a peaceful (not so yummy) dinner and slept to wake up early the next morning.

Day 4: 17^th April’ 2015

A happening day and a super lovely time was in store for us. We went to Church and prayed. That is the place where you have to believe that miracles actually happens by seeing a body of a saint kept for 432 years and the most astonishing thing is that no chemical or preservative is used to maintain that body. If this is not miracle then what will you call it? After that we had the fun of shopping. We shopped different things for people back home, drank mango shake and then finally moved towards our next destination i.e. beach for the beach lovers and water lovers like us. This is the place where a super hit film of Amir khan was shot but if one has to believe in the beauty of the place, then it does not need any marketing of this sort. It was really beautiful. Staying at a beautiful, clear, clean beach, eating yummy food, watching the tides of the sea and just thinking about nothing else other than enjoying the company of your man is the real essence of life. Finally it was the time to conclude a super amazing memorable day spent with even a wonderful company and that is what we did after reaching back to the guest house.

Day 5: 18^th April’ 2015

On a day on vacation what else you want other than a late wake up call? This is what we decided this day to be like. We booked a cab pick-up at 1 in the afternoon. After having our breakfast we went back in the room and relaxed in the silent company of each other, which otherwise is a rare thing to happen. This day we decided to rush directly to the yesterday’s beach and again started with yummy lunch and chilled drinks. We had a lonely peaceful time there. And while coming back to guest house in the evening we decided to capture the GOA pictures in our mind so as to have a long lasting impact on our memories as this was the last day of our travel in Goa. Although the place full of sea, culture, relaxed attitude of people, slow paced life and comfortably moving traffic on small roads makes Goa a wonderful destination to relax but home is where your soul is. Afterall you sometimes misses the mess of your home, the dust all around as the room not being dusted for days and everyday problem of water, light, selling neighbours etc. etc. And this is exactly what makes you want to go back home.

Day 6: 19^th April’ 2015

A morning wake up call, well served meals, a place full of people who are ready to serve you anytime, a place where you need not to worry about cleaning, washing and preparing meals is now ready to say good bye to us. We are ready to fly back to our city of DILWALLAS'. A vehicle came in to pick us up from the guest house and to drop us to airport came on time and we finally boarded the cab. GOA airport is not huge in size, no matter it is a destination for many international passengers. But still it was a comfortable one to accommodate us for a good 1.5 hours before we fly. 40 degrees in Delhi, a messy room waiting for ms, a place where you have to arrange everything from A to Z on your own, sounds not so comfortable one to go to but believe me, you will be most comfortable at home only, no matters what and how it is.

Landing at home was an end to a beautiful, peaceful and a loving journey.

NOW WE ARE GETTING READY FOR ANOTHER ONE NOW!

Since now I am 30 :)

Since now I am 30, I just thought to seek advises from the older friends, readers and all others around me to suggest me with tips they would give to their 30-years-old selves. The idea was to crowd-source the life experience from the older and experienced ones and to be able to come-up with another blog based on their collective wisdom.

The result was spectacular. I received over 600 responses. It took me a solid three days to read through them all and I was floored by the quality of insight people sent.

So first of all, hearty thank you to all who contributed and helped create the present set of work readable and full of experienced insights.

It seems that there really are a few core pieces of advice that are particularly relevant to this decade of your life.

Below are 10 of the most common themes appearing throughout all of the responses.

1. START SAVING FOR RETIREMENT NOW, NOT LATER

The most common piece of advice — so common that almost every single one said at least something about it — was to start getting your financial house in order and to start saving for retirement… today.

There were a few categories this advice fell into:

Make it your top priority to pay down all of your debt as soon as possible.

Keep an “emergency fund” — there were tons of horror stories about people getting financially ruined by health issues, bad business deals, etc.

Stash away a portion of every pay-check, into some investment option or at the least, a savings account. But don’t invest in anything you don’t understand. Don’t spend frivolously.

The point was clear: save early and save as much as possible. It’s always possible. You just have to do it.

2. START TAKING CARE OF YOUR HEALTH NOW, NOT LATER

Your mind’s acceptance of age is 10 to 15 years behind your body’s aging. Your health will go faster than you think but it will be very hard to notice, not the least because you don’t want it to happen.

We all know to take care of our health. We all know to eat better and sleep better and exercise more and blah, blah, blah. But still we only know and do nothing much about it. So the advice was to get healthy and stay healthy now.

They say that the way you treat your body has a cumulative effect; it’s not that your body suddenly breaks down one year, it’s been breaking down all along without you noticing. This is the decade to slow down that breakage.

And this wasn’t just your typical motherly advice to eat your veggies. All the experienced ones said the same thing: “If I could go back, I would start eating better and exercising and I would not stop. I made excuses then. But I had no idea.”

3. DON’T SPEND TIME WITH PEOPLE WHO DON’T TREAT YOU WELL

Learn how to say “no” to people, activities and obligations that don’t bring value to your life.

Gently let go of those who are not making your life better. All those who have already crossed this decade of their age wants to go back and enforce stronger boundaries in their lives and dedicate their time to better people.

What does that mean specifically?

It means, don’t tolerate people who don’t treat you well. Don’t settle for mediocre friends, jobs, love, relationships and life. Stay away from miserable people… they will consume you, drain you.

People typically struggle with boundaries because they find it difficult to hurt someone else’s feelings, or they get caught up in the desire to change the other person or make them treat them the way they want to be treated. This never works. And in fact, it often makes it worse. As one wisely said, “Selfishness and self-interest are two different things. Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.”

After all there is no shortage of people to meet and friends to be made, and that there’s no reason to waste our time with people who don’t help us on our life’s path.

4. BE GOOD TO THE PEOPLE YOU CARE ABOUT

Show up with and for your friends. You matter, and your presence matters. Conversely, while enforcing stricter boundaries on who we let into our lives, many advised to make the time for those friends and family that we do decide to keep close.

Appreciate those close to you. You can get money back and jobs back, but you can never get time back.

5. YOU CAN’T HAVE EVERYTHING; FOCUS ON DOING A FEW THINGS REALLY WELL

Everything in life is a trade-off. You give up one thing to get another and you can’t have it all. Accept that.

In our 20s we have a lot of dreams. We believe that we have all of the time in the world. And that is the time we lose our focus.

In a word: focus. You can simply get more done in life if you focus on one thing and do it really well. Focus more.

Just focus on one or two goals/aspirations/dreams and really work towards them. Don’t get distracted. You just have to accept that you cannot do everything. It takes a lot of sacrifice to achieve anything special in life.

6. BE KIND TO YOURSELF, RESPECT YOURSELF

Be a little selfish and do something for yourself every day, something different once a month and something spectacular every year. Just treat yourself better. There is no one who cares about or thinks about your life a fraction of what you do, life is hard, so learn to love yourself now, it’s harder to learn later.

This brings me to the last line of my this blog and that is

“Thank you to everyone who contributed.”

On keeping up with the times.......

People are always saying things like ‘You have to keep up with the times’ and ‘This isn’t like the earlier century.’ Even the temples are rolling with the times and have moved away from traditional hymns that only had rusty metal bells for accompaniment, to full blown worship concerts. It’s all very good and I do appreciate a lot of things about the current age but I’m not sure I belong here. Sometimes, I really think I would do very well inside a classic novel, being behind of my time without actually having to suffer the consequences of living in the pre-modern age. 

I mean, take the concept of unlimited download on the internet, for example. I’ve been vegetating before my laptop, knowing full well that I have actually many other works to do. So while I get to watch what I want, when I want it, I have to deal with such things as unmet deadlines, and the worst one yet, the guilt. 

This would have never been the case in the past. Internet presence these days is a continuous distraction and at the end of the day you would realize there is nothing productive you have done the whole day. 

And there’s all this pressure these days – every girl feels the need to look like a cover-girl, we need to sound intelligent, be successful at work as well as relationships and therapy is something we consider a part of urban life. It’s just too much. Back then, people expected so little of women. Only the intelligent ones read or knew something more than domestic hobbies such as knitting and cooking. And although I’m such a domestic disaster but also read and write, I would have been considered ‘well-groomed’ by default. Also, there would have been no Facebook or Photoshop – so there would have been minimal occasions for comparisons and so as the need to look the most beautiful.

But, it’s always the woman who carries the heavy end of the load – changing her hair colour, her choice of clothing, not call when she feels like so as to not suffocate the guy and what not – so she could win the man’s heart. Ridiculous and regressive! I mean, what’s next?

And what sucks the most about the present time is the race between earning money and happiness. With or being in this race, the men are also transforming drastically. With the changing time, increasing needs and growing responsibilities; men are changing too. They are becoming too busy professionally and hence ending up sparing out very little personal/family time. Their priorities are no more their wives, it seems, nor their kids rather to be a best employee of the organization they serve and to earn more than their counter parts. Their changed priorities have taken a first place in their new lists.

Fast paced life with many opportunities of comparisons cropping in, the true essence of happiness has lost somewhere. In the past, playing badminton, ludo, chess or cards with parents, fighting for being the first player in video games with your siblings and going for shopping, from grocery to clothes to jewellery to everything, with your husband was considered to be the best time. But the fastest moving time has left behind the slow and calm moments of happiness somewhere. In the race to earn more, family priorities are lagging behind.

Does keeping up with time means to build the villas full of materialist things, on the grave of small little moments sacrificed for keeping pace with earning more? Is the changing time bringing in any positive change in human life? Do we really have time left to be devoted on our own self or on the things which make our loved ones happy? The question that where are we heading towards with the change, still remains unanswered for me.

Why do I Write?

When I were asked yesterday by a friend of mine, that why I write, surprised me. Of course, writing is not my job, nor it is helping me to earn little extra (at least not at present), neither it appreciates my existing wealth. But then I wonder, why do we always have to measure the benefits of something in monetary terms?

Writing is a therapy for me. It is a way to vent all the pent-up frustrations burdening my mind into a far less volatile form, paper (or screen). I can address my anger, fear, worry and stress without bashing the person who embodies those emotions for me with a paperweight. Writing serves as a form of cathartic stress relief for me where I finally get to say what I can’t say out loud, in real life.

Writing is a perfect way to get away from the constant low-quality input and output systems of day-to-day life, such as meaningless small-talk and weather conversations, text messaging, Facebooking, checking the mailbox, and most email and many websites. You receive and create barrages of useless distractions that don’t help you or the people you know; sitting down to write lets you get away from it all. It’s important to keep the noise to a minimum so you can focus on creating and receiving strong material, things that are really worth doing. And writing helps in doing that.

In this culture, communication is so often hampered because we don’t know how to express ourselves, whether it is verbal or written. Writing regularly hone the skill of self-expression. It further reduces the chances of being misunderstood or misinterpreted.

Writing things down gives me time to think carefully and reflect on what I want to achieve the most, and develop a clearer, achievable image and plan for that result.

The most important reason among all other is “WRITING HELPS ME IN MEETING MYSELF ALL OVER AGAIN”. Letting words flow out of your brain unedited can introduce you to a part of yourself you’d been censoring from yourself to cope with everyday life. The only way to keep a close monitor on your actions and goals is to write about them. The feelings when pen downed at a place, will constantly remind you about the things that happened and how did you react to those things. And that is why I write.

So the real answer to the question of why I write is that telling stories and expressing experience and working things out in words is, for me, the only kind of creative work and where boredom and frustration have never made me want to give up.

“I am grateful to the Lord for granting me just what I needed.”

With the loving weekend that just passed by, I've been thinking a lot about the little things that I am grateful for. Obviously, my husband immediately came to mind and I was overwhelmed with a feeling of sincere gratitude and appreciation towards him. He is the one behind the entire queen like treatment, which I am getting used to now. It is only his company, love, caring attitude and emotional support that give me immense strength to live life with the enthusiasm and positive mind set.

But then I got to thinking, how often do I really tell him how grateful I am?

I think too many times we get caught up in thinking, “Oh well, he knows how I feel about him. He knows I appreciate him.” But does he really?

When is the last time you really thanked your partner for spending time with you? Or listening to you talks about your day? Or helping you around the house or work?

I starting making it a goal to openly thank my husband for all the things he would do for me.

At first, it almost seemed kind of silly and redundant to say thank you over and over again. I mean, he gets it, right? I’m thankful for him? Do I really need to say it a million times?

But towards the end of my challenge, I noticed a big difference in our relationship; my husband and I were way more willing to help one another when we each felt appreciated by the other. We wanted to be there for the other person. And in the end, those feelings of appreciation turned more into deeper feelings of love, love that was frequently expressed through our gratitude.

I don’t share this story to make you think I have the perfect marriage. Or that we are constantly telling the other person how much we appreciate him or her. That doesn’t always work. However, I feel that thanking our spouses, partners, and family members often, makes it easy to pass through when times do get challenging.

And I hope you also remember that “Thank You” often translates into “I Love You.” Which is truly a great feeling, gift, and blessing you can share with one another.

Oh God, I pray that you keep your providence towards me always and give me an appreciating heart so that I will always be thankful to whatever you give me. AMEN!

A Lengthiest Hectic Day.......

Indian democracy is the world’s largest and famous at the same time. This time I happen to be a core part of it, not only because of my voting power and choose the government for the years, but also I played a core role in getting the other people exercising their right to vote.

Since now I am in government setup, so we have an additional job of saying yes to all the works which government wants us to do along with the job for which we are hired. This time it was the election duty i.e. to make the process of election undergo under your supervision and expertise.

The work assigned to me started the previous day only, when I did all the homework with respect to paper work and arranging all the things in systematic manner so that the work will go smooth on the day of election. The Election Day stared at 4AM for me, when I had to do all the preparation in advance and reaching the center around 4:45AM. And then the day was full of experiences and adventures.

On a whole, it was a difficult task because of number of issues like too much of paper work; getting the work done by others (polling officers) and making a complex exercise of voting go smooth and accurate. I had around 1871 voters assigned on my pooling booth. It was a huge number and a very cumbersome task. The whole day, queue of voters, was huge. I had to ask for two more additional members to work with me as the rush in my pooling booth was huge and being the presiding officer, I had to look into all other things including the well-being of my officers too.

I could remember my old banking days when I had no time for me. The day was exactly the similar and we had no time for anything other than getting the voting process done systematically by the people.

The day taught me the true meaning of security, when we were transferred to the place where we had to submit our machines. This is exactly the place where the final counting is to be done. We were accompanied by the police staff, equipped with arms and ammunition for our security. The vehicle was fully guarded by police from all the four sides too. I had a very unique experience.

The day ended with the submission around 11PM and I took a breath of relief. The big task and a responsibility were over.

I would not say, it was a very nice experience and I will look forward to it, but without a shadow of doubt, I would say it was a life time’s experience and I am an experienced one now.

I’ve learned to exercise and exert my authorities and power and now I know how to get the work done by others (even if the other person is not willing to work).

My belief gets stronger that I am God’s favorites to give any new and challenging task to. And whenever it comes to me, it is full of extraordinary things…….And this is the only reason, I am a better version of me every coming day.