Striking balance

I have a tendency to go overboard. For me striking balance is neither simple nor easy. Either I will renounce the task or I will become extremely passionate about it. The passion  also brings pain. When things don't go the way I have envisaged I become disappointed, extremely disappointed. Passion is a double edged sword. It can cause agony too. And if you strip passion, how do you remain dedicated to the task in  hand?

For me either I will do it well or I will not do it, I cannot do it half-heartedly.  I  have a tendency to become emotionally attached to actions and many times when I reflect on it later, I realise that it didn't require the fervour that I had invested in it.

Do I learn a lesson? No. I continue with the same passion unabated and give up with the detachment of a Buddhist. 

How do I get to the median path? Does it exist in the real world? I have doubts. This is the most difficult task for me. Now, for folks like me, the ancient scripture Bhagvad Gita recommends to surrender without any qualm, reservation to the divine will. Allow the divine to take charge of affairs. But, if I surrender, to your will, will I still invest my 100 percent. How about my karma? Will I continue with the same fervour that I want to do?

Where lies the solution? The solution is attachment with detachment. Here lies the answer to all my agonies. When I stop being attached to the results, I become an honest observer. I am no longer emotionally strung with the result. My efforts may be genuine, but devoid of passion they are no longer manipulative. I am willing to accept the outcome.

The western wisdom calls it allowing universe to take over. I am learning. However, currently, in my present state of mind I try to reaffirm the outcome. This again is not accepted. As enlightenment will begin to show it's tiniest rays on the darkness in which my soul is plunged since ages, I will begin to disassociate the result with the effort. As a mere mortal, my job is only to do the effort with honesty. Nothing more nothing less. I have no option but to accept the result with equanimity. 

To set the soul free, each and every act that we take in the course of life and everyday living should be dedicated to the Almighty.

How to Manage Anger

Well, this post is not for me entirely. My anger remains usually under control. The rule that I follow is that if I have a fight with someone, I will keep quiet. Two people shouting at the  same time is not a good idea. And later when things go quiet, I will speak my mind. I try to abide by the dictum, where I allow 24 hours to lapse before I give vent to my anger. We all have a different mechanism to manage our anger. The husband takes a smoke trip. The older daughter sulks and the younger daughter throws stuff. I also clear clutter when I am upset. Somehow the physical effort of cleaning distracts. 

My observation on anger and it's management is enlisted below:

1. Deep breathe. When we are angry, our breathing turns shallow. Before you speak, breathe.

2. Drink a glass of water. It works for me. Whenever, my moods turn sour, everyone in the house rushes to fetch me a glass of water.

3. Stay away. When you are angry, move out from the place that's making you upset. A fresh perspective will allow you to re-look at things.

4. Use anger constructively. Rather than getting back with petty tricks, channelise your anger in something constructive. And there can be no shortcut in this. To each his own.

5.  Learn to laugh amidst stress. It is not easy. But it requires practice. Just learn how to do it. A chuckle diffuses stress and anger too.

Like the wise, make your anger expensive and your happiness cheap. 

Receiving the Gift of Grace

The crux of living well is to remain in gratitude. It’s easy to acknowledge and thank God when things are falling in place, when events happen as designed, but to thank God amidst difficulties is not easy, and more so for situations in which He has put you in requires exemplary courage and conviction. It requires humility and faith in the Almighty. The essence of gratitude is to believe that however difficult may the scenarios sound or look, you will stay fine. There is someone who will take care of you. He has put you through a sticky situation in life with a reason and a purpose. 

The reason why difficult people or circumstances choose us is with a purpose.  The soul has a learning. For this to achieve, the soul decides the chart of life on which it will go and the people who will come in it to help it learn the lessons in the lifetime. The difficult people or circumstances who come in our life are pre-decided. They are teachers who have entered the life to enable us learn the lessons desired by our soul.

All good flow to people who are grateful. Grateful for things they have and even grateful for things they wish for even before they receive it. This concept has taken me long to understand. How can I say thank you for something that I have not received? 

Then, one day, things became clear to me. It's like having faith akin to a baby who each time when thrown up in the sky laughs aloud, because he believes that two strong arms are going to hold him. And those arms never fail.

Asking without being grateful for the gifts you have received so far is being brash. It's like the world owes you a living. Honestly, it doesn't. Grace is what keeps the heart humble and gives energy to the soul. Soul's desire is to merge with the light, the divinity. Each time it reincarnates, it aspires to be whole. Complete. What will help it in achieving it's objective? Being grateful. If the only prayer we can do in life is to remain grateful for everything we have, abundance will flow. All masters are eager to give more to a servant who is thankful for all what he has received. Not to those who keep asking. Similar to this scenario, being grateful opens up the doors of of abundance.

Take a moment and think of things you are grateful about. For me those things are:

A wonderful home, amazing kids, loving husband, affectionate parents, and relatives, a great job, good set of staff, cars, awesome friends, loyal dog, balcony full of plants. In nutshell a good and comfortable life. Thank you God. 

Confessions of a Technologically Challenged

Allow me to confess. I am technologically challenged. The feelings between me and technology are mutual. I have never been a big fan of it, though I know the basics to manage my life. Each time I learn new tricks, the technology takes a somersault. It upgrades. And my earlier skills become not-so-good, obsolete, to say the least. Somehow I feel that too err is human but for a catastrophe you need a computer. So, I rely a lot on the age old methods to organise and sort my life that have been thrown to the dustbin by the newer and the younger lot. Believe me, they help and they help a lot

 1. Keep a back up. And by back up I don’t mean, taking back up of your Black Berry. I have issues in doing it. The husband takes care of it for me, but by back up I mean keeping the visiting cards in the folders that were done once upon a time. After all, each time we meet someone for business, we exchange cards. I had once seen a secretary dutifully adding the details of the cards in the Outlook contacts of her boss. Well, I am okay with it, but I will keep those cards in my visiting card holder as well. It is a huge saviour. Ditto for all the important numbers I have. I enter them  in a diary.

 2. Taking prints of memories. In these days and times, very few people do it and I am one of those. I have seen many inconsolable couples who have lost their laptop and along with it went away priceless memories. Everything was in the soft copy. Somehow, the pleasure of watching an album is incomparable to the substitutes that the technology has begun to offer.

 3. Sending greeting cards. Yes, you guessed it right. I still do it. Somehow, the text messages and phone calls to convey New Year wishes don’t work for me. I find them not so apt. After all, how can you pull out a text message when you wish to re-read it. Greeting cards are just perfect for such occasions.

 4. Use Surahi. It is bio-degradable, encourages employment and gentle for your throat. Water from surahi to a parched throat is just like a nectar. The earthen smell envelops the water which is neither chilled nor warm, just the right amount of cold for your throat to bear and thirst to quench.

Go With The Flow

“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” - Lao-Tzu 

 All my life I have worked on the dictum: Go with the flow. Drop resistance and begin to accept events as they are. The wise call it surrender. However, doing it is not as easy as it sounds. When events unfold the way you don't want them to, the first reaction is to resist. Though the mind knows the outcome, still it puts up struggle. How can it allow something to go by without putting up effort. After all, making sincere efforts is ingrained in us. Didn't Krishna also sermonize in Gita to focus on efforts and leave the results in his hands? 

The critical question that baffles me is when to give up and when to put in more efforts. There is something called tipping point too, when you put in an ounce of extra effort and voila results happen. 

Going back to go with the flow, in life, a lot is preordained. Destiny beckons and decides a lot many details for you. In fact, accepting it, is the best thing for such moments. In midst of turmoil, it is difficult to accept events without giving a good fight. And what is the outcome? 
When you resist the flow of life, your efforts are frustrated. The peace is missing and somewhere things don't fall in place.

How to transcend it? Accept. There will be days in life when things will not go as decided. What has to go wrong will go wrong. Does that mean, we stop making an effort to salvage things from not going wrong? No/Yes. 

We may try but the outcome is not going to satisfy us. Accepting it with grace will be the only feasible solution. 

Weight and Watch

Ask any woman if she is happy with her weight and nine out of ten would be not. Like those nine women, as I grew, had barely touched my teens, I became conscious of my weight. And I had been a painfully thin child, a malnourished child of parents who were not-so-thin. My mother had tried every trick in the book to enable me put on weight, but she didn't receive much success. However, as the teen years touched me, my health began to improve and so did my weight. Thanks to women magazines, where the world of women revolves around weight, I became conscious. I dutifully kept a tape and measured myself. My waist was an enviable 25 inches, and I think I was 14, but that was not good enough for me. How could I not have Scarlet-O-Hara's waist? The unachievable, unrealistic 18 inches. I would do aerobics, shun oil and potatoes and my favourite rice too to achieve that. Well, I had a bit of success, the waist shrank, it was 23 inches now. However, it wasn't good enough for me. Soon dieting had its impact. My beautiful tresses began to fall. And, along with multivits I was prescribed healthy diet. 

Weight watching was suspended, it wasn't forgotten though. School years kept  me busy, but college that was a different story altogether. There I was not the only one unhappy with weight. There were many like me, who were not the right weight and each had a weird diet plan. There were days I lived just on daal and veggies without roti or rice. How I managed is a surprise even today for me. I parted ways with rice, my comfort food and began to eat rajama, a good source of protein, but something that I had not eaten before, due to my Bihari upbringing. Naturally, my stomach revolted. Antacids helped but rice was forbidden. I would longingly inhale in the aroma or cooked rice wafting from the mess and struggle with lentils, because it was a source of protein. 

 Then, an innovative idea came. The brainwave occurred during discussion with one of the dieters. The solution was to puke after eating delicacies, particularly desserts. There was no need to watch what went in. Just two fingers on your tongue, with head bent and mouth open on the sink was enough to help you puke. The world is simple. You can have your cake and eat it too. My energy levels had depleted. The skin had lost its glow, still I would weigh my,self everyday before dinner.  Later after dinner too. Like a borderline anorexic, the mission in my life was to watch weight. Anything that went in was not a source of energy, nutrients to nourish me and the soul, rather calories, that would pile on me. Why was I so obsessed with my weight? 

As I write it today, I wonder about it, and the answer eludes me. May be just may be being in shape was the ticket to acceptance. Whether we agree or not, people who weigh on the higher side, have to hear observations, comments or suggestions on their weight. As an erstwhile obsessive weight watcher, I can say that this is what the person struggling with weight welcomes the least. However, coming back to my weight struggle, yoga bailed me out. While I was eating and throwing up and losing my sanity over each morsel, a yoga workshop happened for a month. The asanas learned brought back the lost sanity in me. Even today, whenever, I need to lose weight, strictly for health reason, I choose yoga and meditation. Like they say when your mind is in peace the rest follows.

50 Things That Bring Joy

While we all desire bigger joys of life, read a swanky Merc (my favourite),  mansion  like house/s complete with landscaped garden and fat bank balances, the fact is that joy lies in small things, simple pleasures that warm the heart and make us alive

1. Watching the rising sun. There is something magical about it. Watching the sun rise on the horizon is an affirmation of the hopes that every morning brings with it.

2.      Blossoming of the flowers. Seeing the flowers bloom touches the chord of the heart. It brings infinite joy, more so if you’ve planted the flower on your own.

1. 3.     Sumptuous meal after feeling hungry
   4.     Walking on the grass bare feet in the morning
   5.     The smell of the favourite perfume.
   6.     Laying hands on last  piece of the favourite designer shoes at 70 percent discount
   7.     Holding a newborn’s finger
   8.     Smell of freshly bathed baby smeared in powder
   9.     Excellent grades of your child
   10. The first kiss of your spouse
   11. Seeing off your child to playschool
   12.  Baking a perfect cake
   13. Receiving phone calls wishing happy birthday on your birthday
   14. Listening your favourite song on the radio
   15. Compliments like: You’ve lost weight; You look younger than your age
   16. Chilled lemonade on a sultry summer afternoon
   17. Reading the favourite novel chilling out
   18. Reaching home to a perfectly air conditioned environment
   19. Spending an afternoon with your children playing
   20. Swinging on the swing in the park
   21. Sliding down the slide
   22. Trekking in the forest
   23. Listening to chirping birds in the solitude
   24. A blissful session of meditation
   25. Leafing through the family album
   26. Putting the toddler to bed
   27.  Finding the perfect matching curtains for your home
   28. Seeing lilies blossom
   29.  Aroma of biryani wafting from the kitchen
   30.  Getting drenched in the monsoon shower
   31.  Eating pakodas in the monsoon
   32. Bursting the bubble wrap
   33. Watching the perfect round moon rise in the sky
   34.  Drinking the perfect cuppa with a long lost friend.
   35.  A good night sleep.
   36. Seeing your kids off to  school.
   37.  Shampooing your precious tresses
   38.  The minty taste of the toothpaste on your tongue
   39.  Winning a game
   40. Getting a warm oil champi
   41. Cuddling the baby and sleeping on a rainy afternoon
   42. Finding money at the unexpected locations at your home when you least expected it.
   43. Getting a deal you had been vying for when you least expected it
   44.  A belly laugh
   45.  The handmade cards made by your child
   46.  Talkathons with your closed one
   47.  A funny joke
   48. Getting the  parking spot right outside the mall
   49.  Unpeeling a new bar of soap and bathing with it
   50. Traffic on your side

करवाचौथ

कल व्रत रख रही मैं
कुछ गिफ्ट तो दिलायो
तुम्हारी लम्बी उम्र के लिए
मैं भूखी रहूँ
तुम भी कुछ फ़र्ज़ तो निभायो
कहो तो जावेरीदास पर मिलूं
पर गर बजट हो कम
तो नल्ली पर ही रुकूं
वैसे वो ठीक तो नहीं
पर क्या करूँ
कुछ उपाय भी तो नहीं
कुछ तो कहो,
राज़ दूर करो,
आखिर दोस्तों को बताना है
जिस सोसाइटी में रहते हैं
इज्जत भी तो बचाना है
पति बेचारा सोचा
सौ तक गिना
फिर नाप तोल कर बोला
इस बार करवा चौथ रहने दो
मैं कौन सा दूर हूँ
अगले साल रख लेना
थोडा हिसाब कर लेने दो
गिफ्ट का जुगाड़ कर लेने दो
तुम चाँद मांगती
लाना आसान था
सोना तो सातवें आसमान
पर कबसे है विराजमान
वैसे भी व्रत का कोई
प्रभाव नहीं होने वाला
महंगाई के अनल में
ऑफिस की राजनीती प्रबल में
शारीर रोज घिसता है
जो बचता है मधुमेह
और असंतुष्ट बॉस के भेंट चढ़ता है
अगले साल व्रत कर लेना
इस साल मिल कर जश्न मानते हैं
तुम मुझे खाना खिलाओ
हम तुम्हे खिलाते हैं

Dissolve Anger Now

Most of us are angry. And there are several reasons:

• The government that's just so corrupt
• A boss who is baklol, no moron doesn't qualify for him. Baklol is a Bihari word that expresses stupidity beyond match. 
• A spouse who refuses to empathise with your point of view and the relatives that belong the spouse's side are equally insensitive
• Children who are perennially glued to the TV
• Prices that are hitting the roof including the electricity bill
• Increments that are measly
• Promotions that are nowhere in horizon

All of these are valid reasons. You have a right to stew in anger. After all, life is not so easy. Let's be honest. It is difficult. You have to smart enough to survive in these difficult times, staying angry all the while.

Now, let's flip the coin for a while. Just look at the things through my lens. If you are not convinced, you can pick your perspective written above. I am not going to hold you. But, as you are reading, please play along. I am sure you are going to thrive.

Life was good when you were a child. Happiness was in abundance. Stress was less, just the way it should be. You smiled often for no reason, burst in giggles at any chance and the giggles grew in a belly laugh, where you laughed till it hurt.  You didn't even watch those sitcoms to extract a grimace.  

Now, think about a time, when you laughed last. How can you laugh in such difficult times? I can hear you almost ask. Yes, you are bang on. The world is not to be viewed with rose tinted lens!

But, may I ask you one thing, did your anger become better by not laughing? You are thinking...I know the answer: It is no.

Try my method. 

Tip no. 1: Laugh today. For no reason, just because you are alive. You are breathing. Dead don't laugh. Go to your spouse/ child, tickle her/him and feel the smile in the corner of your lips, allow it to spread to your lips, then see it blossom in a giggle and eventually in a full throated laugh. Laugh till it hurts.

Now revisit all your concerns. They wouldn't melt. They are as they were. But your perspective has changed. You are not going to care so much about them. 

Tip No. 2: Say Thank you. And when you say it, mean it. Say thank you to the office boy who serves you steaming tea. Say thanks to the universe when your favourite song plays on the radio. Say it when you get a clean parking spot, say it when the traffic is a breeze, say it when your wife cooks sumptuous dinner, say it when your husband gets the mogra gajra for it. Say it.

Tip No 3: Bless everyone. You don't need to be a spiritual pandit to bless. You are as divine as them. Bless people. Do it generously. Bless them happiness, love, money, sleep. Play a game. Bless all drivers on the road who are driving with you. Trust me, your travel will be a breeze. 

Tip No. 4: Stay silent for a while everyday. Shut your eyes. Go within. All solutions lie there.

Tip No. 5: Feel blessed. You are the chosen one. He is with you. Trust Him. :)

Dare to Dream

Do you still dream? I do. I dream a lot, usually in vivid  technicolour. Then I also jot my dreams, put them in a magic box. Yes, I even have that home. A chest of decorativte drawers, I bought once from a kabadiwala. My younger one believes that it has magic and she writes all her wishes in it. They do come true. So do mine. The success ratio is usually 90 percent. Quite good. I must say.

Getting back to the subject, do you dream? Or you believe that they belong to the world of children? Begin dreaming. Growing up is not a nice thing after all. Many things we learn during growing up are actually objects of which cynicism are made. 

Begin to dream. Maintain a journal. Cynics are mostly right. But when they are wrong, dreamers are right. For some strange reason, I am still not a pragmatic adult. I do a lot many things that grown ups don't do. One of them is dreaming. And I want my children to inculcate the art to dream. 

In fact, what is dream? A positive intention. A powerful desire. A trait to look beyond the ordinary. A need to transcend the mundane. And they have an extraordinary knack of becoming true.

At times, negativity engulfs me. Sadness envelops me bit by bit. During such moments dreams jolt me out. The belief that they have turned true earlier and will do again.

So folks dream and allow children to dream. 

Happiness Beckons

God made human beings happy, but as we grew happiness diminished. Somewhere, something went wrong and we became frugal with our smiles and generous with our anger. The whole human race is facing stress epidemic, mostly all lifestyle diseases emanate from stress. Despite, all our efforts stress is not getting reined in. After all, how do you segregate work from office and office from work. How can't you think about the future, in such uncertain times? What if your children are not safe at school/ bus/ home? What do you do of the offending boss who just doesn't agree to what you say?

Should this not stress you? What is the solution? Where lies the answer? Right here and right now. Open your mind and be ready to read below:

1. Think about everything that has caused you quality stress so far. Ponder. What is the status of those factors that were once giving you heart attack?

The chances are most of those factors would not exist today or be under control. So, was that enormous stress that you took at that point of time worth it. No.

2. Begin to laugh at yourself as well as at the tricky situations that life throws at you. When you have to face it, drop the glum face and bear it with a grin on your chin. It will hurt less. How to do it? Just begin to laugh and the world will laugh with you. 

3. Do not dwell in the past or the future. The past didn't last. Neither will the present. The future will always remain in future. Today is the future for which you were worried at one point of time. It's not that bad. Bravo. You did good. Pat your back as you read it. You deserve it.

4. Don't read newspapers watch news channels. For an immediate pick me up, stop watching news the last thing in the night and the first thing in the morning. News thrives on unpleasant things happening around the world. Many good things happen too, but they don't make news.

5. Count your blessings. Everyday. This is the shortcut to happiness. 

6. Drop expectations. No one owes you anything. What you did was your karma and what others do is their. Let the universe calculate and you stop it. Life will be simpler.

7. Forget. Forgive and forget is the golden rule. But if it seems difficult, just forget. Forgiveness may or may not accompany it.

8. Accept. Accept rudeness and kindness. Rude people are victims of stress. 

9. Feed your soul. Go quiet once in a while.

10 Feel blessed. You are the chosen one. Trust it. 

When Things Don't Happen As Planned

How do you feel when events go out of control? When things are not happening as desired? Feel at loss, frustrated, angry, upset, go through self analysis, ponder.....Well...I am experiencing all. 

So how do you get out of it? Meditate, think through or just get up and shake it off...

I have tried all. They work. Partially. But, the mind replays the scenario again and again, until it has memorised each detail. You live in the past, and keep rocking in it.

I am doing it.

So how to get out of a sticky situation? The question remains.

The answer is: 

1. Just step out. Do not try to look at the silver lining. Because in the disturbed state of mind you can't see any, you will only see the grey clouds. Like me.
2. Accept the present moment. How? By imagining what could be worse? This will allow you to see the blessings that are close to you.
3. Go with the flow. That's the best thing to. At least you will get a direction.
4. Don't regret your mistakes. Accept. A learning must be hidden in it. Imbibe and move.
5. Shun negativity. It only harms you.