2.21.2011

I have a new idol !

Freedom

So Egypt is finally a free country , proving the power of non violence yet again . 18 days , thats all it took for a group of people to free themselves of a 30 yr long rule by a dictator who heard no voices and only believed in imprisoning people who didnt support him . This is surely power of the people , nonviolent but yet so powerful . They didnt need any army or bullets , all the needed was a determination and unity. The belief that what they were doing was right and in the best interests of their country ,no personal gains or motives , just plain simple freedom ,justice does prevail . When people unite for a common goal selflessly the largest dictators have to fall .That is the power a common man has , he doesnt need anything else just a motive and strong will.

I heard the interview by Wael Ghonim , the one who spearheaded these protests . A 30 year old manager at google ,what he said moved me .. ''I have a life , a job , a wife and kids but I am willing to give all of that up and die , because enough is enough ,we want freedom'' It totally reminded me of our freedom struggle so many years back when people did give up their lives for freedom , I take this moment to thank all of them for what we have today , and generations later people in Egypt will thank these people ..

History is made and I have witnessed it ... God bless Egypt.

life indeed is fragile

i am shocked , numbed ... suhas is no more ... i cudnt believe it when sankalp called me .. couldn't make sense of it , but its true .. and as devastating as it may be .. it reminds me yet again that the only one power that runs every single thing on earth is God , and He can pull strings we cannot even imagine .. in wildest of our wildest dreams ..

He was a healthy 33 yr old guy with no medical history whatsoever , thats what makes this all the more unbelievable and unnerving ... a young wife and a 2 yr old daughter , a widowed mother , and a number of ppl who knew him as a pleasant helpful and kind young man .. i hope God gives his family the strength to go through what has befallen them ..

Every time i think of his family a chill runs down my spine .. what do they have left to believe in ?

There is a mix of so many emotions , sadness , helplessness , powerlessness , and then gratefulness towards what we have and the need to appreciate the breaths we take every sigle day .. I ask myself .. how do i go thru everyday without thanking God for keeping me alive and giving me the life that i have ... this reminds me how we do not appreciate our life with whatever burdens it comes with ... it can be taken away without any single reason .... and what we can be left with is just a cold body .. lifeless

Yet again reminded of the worthlessness of it all , i sit here almost numb .. failing to understand how fragile life can be .. how thankless we can be ...

Thank you Lord .. for today , for everyday

r e m e d i a t e

So school is getting serious now , and its time for a pep talk .. why do i suddenly need it , cos i hve to remediate something .. and it obviously makes me feel bad ... its going into zones of ,.. am i that bad ? or jus staying in the zones of .. im getting a second chance and so some extra practice ...which is good ... i just wanna make sure tht i do not end up thinking on the 1st lines .. the am-i-bad lines that is ... lets just start by being non judgemental about our ownselves , there is a thin line to walk when it comes to evaluating urself ,being overly critical , and still being fair ... i just want myself to understand that its ok to hve to repeat something , it does not mean that i dont know what im doing it simply means that i need to take a deep breath and do whats needed and get done wid it !sometimes being mechanical helps ... objective is the right word , but im going to stick to using mechanical .. just do what u gotta do ... all of it is only and only to make u better at what u do ..and its ok to go wrong now when the damage is minimal , than later... this is going to hurt jus a little bit or probably nothing at all ...

As we go in deeper , it gets tougher . It gets extremely difficult to cope , what with the people around who keep planting seeds of doubt in the mind , and you have to fight all the things that u see and only keep trusting your heart .. but the poor heart is already so battered that it doesn't anymore know what to feel , so what to do u do ? when u dont even hve your instinct by ur side anymore ... what is it that u trust in ? .. sometimes i think , if ur left with nothing to trust in jus believe in ur own goodness , thats the least u can do ... atleast u have that .. and ur sure abt that one .. there will always be a ''what if'' ,there will always be a dark part to every good thing , a negative side to every beautiful thing ... every story will have a flip side ... there will always be demons , all u can do is keep the faith , in urself , mebbe when nothing else wrks ,that will !

P.S: The doubts weren't so uncalled for after all .. whoever says i have a crazy gut has no clue wat im talking abt .. my instinct vindicated one more time (5.5.11)

no they wont ..

Ppl will lie , deceive , will be cold ,dishonest, unscrupulous, uncompassionate . For some reason i could never understand how ppl do certain things , lack of conscience , lack of sensitivity towards others , deception ;it would simply be beyond my understanding , maybe cos these things r very important to me and i havent seen them missing in me ever. Some things come naturally to ppl , and these r some values that are naturally inherent in me .. and so i kind of always judged ppl wid the bar i made for my ownself failing to understand that ppl r not like me , they are different , they do not hurt when other r in pain , they do not need to be honest at all times , they do not think of placing others happinesses ahead of their own , they are manipulative , self centered and consider their own benefits always .. that is just the way they are , and for some reason i spent this large amt of time and energy waiting to see if they cud either change or if i cud find ppl who were not like that , the question is .. why do i need them to change ? why do i need to find ppl who r not like that , in a world that is completely filled of fake ppl .. isnt it just time for me to realize and be happy with the fact that i am not like them .. and so there still can be hope !

Thinking of you fondly ..

This one is for my husband , who i miss so very very much and think of more than a million times a day , he is one fantastic human being , really good at heart , patient and kind . Always knows what the right think to do is , and never ever is judgemental about anyone . Sometimes im surprised how he liked someone like me !!! oh well i prollly do have some qualities but the more i think of him i realize im so full of flaws , but gradually can work twards each one of them , prolly cos i have someone around me who sets the benchmark for me in so many regards , undoubtedly im his fan , ive prolly not even told him that myself ..

There r times when i get irritated by his objectivity , and wonder if he even has a heart .. but those r times when im getting super subjective .. he has learnt to build a good balance ...

I miss you :(

Count your blessings

There has been a plane crash with 152 out of 169 people dead.

This makes me shiver and literally so . Tragedy is never going to be anyone's part of life , it strikes and leaves u right there to introspect and know that life is so beautiful while its still there , its as much as magical and miraculous to simply be alive .. and not sometimes but always .We take it for granted so many times and stop appreciating the simple things that make our lives whole and special ... the people , friends ... loved ones.

As much as any tragedy would move anybody .. what it does to me is that it reminds me to appreciate what i have and thank God for it ;always know that i cannot take even one day of my life forward without the blessings of someone up there.

That said .. so the people who died .. didn't have any good blessings remaining ?Id say that was the group karma , and the few who did survive were not part of it.

Thank you Lord ,for all the good blessings ... well there arent any bad ones either ;)

missing ya ..

I probably wouldn't have myself realized what gaurav means to me had i not come to chicago ,now that he is so far away in florida ... i know what missing someone means. The separation is physical but not mental and thats what makes all the difference cos in my mind im always still with all the good times and also one or two bad ones that we had together , its been just 3 months that we have been married but it seems that its been forever that i have been with him .I could never have believed the cliched statement ''distance makes the heart grow fonder'' more , but rather id say ''distance makes the heart realize the fondness ''

its been hardly 3 weeks since i saw him last , and i just cant wait until tuesday when i see him again .. its interesting how love makes someone u hardly knew to someone you literally cannot live without .. we are married but i still wait for his phone call like a girl from high school would , and a simple text message makes me smile .

After being hurt so many times in love i still always believed i'd find it again , what i never believed was that it would still feel the same ... maybe thats what so amazing about love ... it will always feel the same ... u just have to believe in it enuf !

Just the heart ...

Life is not a bed of roses ... thats what i was told today .. and as much as i already know that , these words hurt .. especially cos ...

I would probably try and make someone's life a bed of roses than reminding them that it isnt one.. maybe i think too much from my heart ... will never know otherwise ... would never want to know otherwise either.

So again its just the heart :) ... Silly one i tell u :P !!!!!!

Letting it go was the toughest thing i ever did .I wonder how i derived that much strength to finally cancel every thing and come here ... but a year later .. it duz seem like the best thing i did for myself ... its strange i smile today cos im happy , really happy but somewhere deep down .. going back to india reminds me of all the decisions i made last year .. its just all so ironical , so weird , so difficult ... its been a year , i am getting married in a month , everything has changed .. everything has totally changed ...sab kuch .... and i wonder if these were indeed the right choices .. time alone will tell ... mujhe nahin pata wats right and wats wrong .. kch bhi nahin pata except that i tried my best wid the cards that i was dealt wid ...

Life indeed tests.

One more time !

Living alone prepared me for a lotve things , my family moved to US 7 yrs back when i was in my early 20's , i distinctly remember not wanting to feel anything at all , and let the whole thing be just any other thing .. i didn't want to even say it aloud to myself that from here on it was jus me on my own , mom wud visit a few mths every yr , but the family i had lived wid all my life was suddenly gone , and this is probably even the first time that im saying this to myself , my process of accepting to live on my own was simple .. not make a big deal out of it and take one day at a time , and needless to say it worked .. so why am i writing this down here today .. cos even tho it wrked .. it was still not one of the easiest things to do , somehow thru those years i came across the most fantastic ppl , who helped me every step of the way and gradually became more than family , they loved me as their own and made sure i was never lonely , made me realize at times that blood is not always thicker than water ... they were there for me at any time of d day , and i knew i cud count on them , the bond became greater than even those of any of the relatives , it was based on love , friendship and genuine concern of well being for me ,,,

Just when i started living on my own , sometimes i wud ask .. so why do i have to go thru this , i wud find myself glaring at the four walls on festivals and my birthday and somehow that wud suck to the core , but gradually i learned that it ws totally in my control how to make best of this , i had to just open up to ppl arnd me and let them in .... as was i growing up i simply had given up on frnds and family had become my biggest strength ,but this part of my life kind of changed that and i started believing in people more than ever , that they cud bring in happiness and care for u unconditionally , and i can never thank our satsang enuf for that.

A year back i left from Mumbai for US , it ws obviously going to be hard , i had been wid these ppl for nearly 6 yrs and wid all those strong bonds ... i told myself again ... dont make a big deal out of this , take one day at a time ... i miss them all ...but thats what life is !!

One year on , i have to once again move out of my home .. im leaving tomm , in abt 7 weeks i will start my life wid Gaurav .. a part of me is very scared .. ive been thru a lotve transitions already and ideally i shud be prepared ... but one more time i have the same advice for myself .. dont make a big deal outve it .. take one day at a time ... its going to be diff from d rest ... but good different .. nevertheless i am scared .. this seems like the final transition and for sure the tougest one !

Just do it !

This is a real cliche , and no matter how many times i say this to myself or put it down here .. it is going to be less .. and its a big bold fact which we can ignore , overlook or nullify as mch as we want ... the plain simple truth is and always will be that our happiness is totally in our own control , we r completely and thoroughly slaves of our own mind . No other person can make us happy , noone can take away from us our peace if we do not let them , till the time we do not want to be happy we wont be , our mind will trick us a million times to make us sad and lose hope , it will make us negative over and over again ... that is its job , the trick is to never fall in that trap , everytime it plays that little game , realize and say it out aloud if u have to that ''I am not going to fall prey to ur dirty tricks , I am not going to give my peace and happiness to u .. I simply am not''

As easy as it sounds , it isn't really that easy ... cos everytime we start trusting our mind and fall for the little game ... again and again ..

I wanna put myself thru an exercise , and im going to do dis mebbe jus one day at a time and not have too many huge targets ... im going to be very careful wid my wat my mind duz everyday , and every possible chance that it gets to play that little game ... im going to try and identify it and not let it bog me down .. i want to control my mind in a way that it cant stop me frm bringing in any unhappiness and sadness by its silly games

Lets just do it !!

This one's for ''All that Jazz'' !

Ive realized that the only true connection that i have wid myself is thru my blog , anytime i feel depressed , i come and read the blog and it makes me feel so mch more better , so this little piece is a dedication to my blog page ...

i ws wondering why i feel so peaceful when i read or write stuff here .. probably cos i spill my soul out .. and obviously that has to bring peace .. in the chaos of life , and ppl who r superficial , selfish and completely self centred .. this is where i find the real me ... the me that struggles to understand ppl , that is saddened by mean and deceitful ppl , the me that sometimes feels suffocated in the commotion of life , the me that needs one place where there are no boundaries to honesty , where there are no limits to expressing , where emotions can flow as much as they want to widout fear of being judged , where i know that speaking my mind is not going to turn any one off , where noone is going to walk out on me , where there is no fear but plain simple truth ... where there is purity and complete honesty ....

This blog is my heart in the truest sense of the word ... All That Jazz !

Nothing merry abt Xmas !

This is one of the times when i totally hate myself , or the kind of person i am , i am going to brag a lot so anyone who duznt like conceited ppl needn't read it anyways !!

I am kind and compassionate , i hate to hurt anyone in the slightest possible manner , i will go out of my way to make sure that whatever i am doing is not hurting anyone arnd me , and if it is i will hurt myself but make sure others feelings are kept in mind , and honest to the core today ... i hate being this kind of person .. cos its hard to always keep others happiness ahead of my own , and it duznt happen unless i hurt myself once in a while .. i think my life wud be a 100 times happier if i didnt care so much abt others , yes there are times when being this way brings a kind of peace noone else probably knows of , but those times are rare ,there is no consolation to wanting other people's happiness and placing their needs ahead of ur own ... just that u know in ur heart that u are a good person ... but what do u do of that good person ? after a point u just get tired of being a good person and want to be a regular person who wants to at times not care abt anyone and just place ownself ahead of others ...

Life is hard for a good person ... very hard at that !

Don't give up , ever !!

There is no code to life but , if u give up on it , it gives up on u . Life tests all the time , the trick is in understanding that no matter how hard it makes it for u , always always stay put , know that the longer it tests u the bigger the lessons its going to give u , that it has its reasons , and though u dont see those reasons , u do always stick like glue to ur belief that no matter how hard it looks it will be all right , the minute u give up ur belief u die .

It all starts and ends in the mind .. thats what a dear friend of mine told me once and literally so ... i feel a kind of helplessness sometimes when i see ppl arnd me who wanna give up and not dream anymore .. cos losing is not an option , u have to just go on .. there simply is no choice but that . Life has this tremendous quality of somehow becoming beautiful , rising from the ashes like a phoenix , but it can do all that only when u completely trust in its ability of bouncing back , the minute u give up .. life is over .. just like that ! its a loop , all interconnected .

Losing a dear friend and then still somehow learning to be happy taught me that u can think that this is the worst it gets , maybe it even is , u can think u will never experience more pain than this , maybe u wont , u think u have lost everything , maybe u have , but as long as u can tell urself that i will still find a way to be happy someday ... u surely will .

Till the time u have ur faith in urself and life intact ... no matter how dead u feel ... u will breathe again .. don let that faith die .. ever !

Love is

1. Wanting to wake up and hear his voice first thing in the morning
2. Knowing that he loves u even when he duznt say it
3. Knowing that he thinks of u even when he duznt call u
4. Wanting to cook the best meal for him
5. Crying and whining one moment ,and laughing and smiling the other
6. Placing his happiness above everything else
7. Doing things u don wanna do only cos they make him smile
8. Singing for him once in a while
9. Checking ur messenger n times a day for one offline msg frm him
10.Checking ur phone a million times a day for his missed call
11. Not getting any sleep in d nite when u havent heard his voice throughout the day
12.Laughing at his jokes even when u don understand them
13.Not telling him ever what hurts u most
14.Just wanting him to know .....
15.Knowing in ur heart that his arms are the best place in the world for u
16.Burnt food once in a while
17.Ending up telling each other the same story over and over again
18.Talking to him even when he aint around
19.No ego ever
20.No me only us
21.Kissing and making up
22.Never wanting anything in return
23.Stars in the eyes
24.Smiling to urself
25.Letting him have his way
26.Letting him go when he wants to
27. Just loving.

Stone walls do not a prison make
Nor iron bars a cage
Its mind's peace and quiet
That takes for a Hermitage

Something from Rabindranath Tagore ,our english teaher taught us when we were in 8th , that I remembered today...

26/11

A whole year gone since the guts of Mumbai were challenged yet again , the resilience and endurance of Mumbaikars was tested and needless to say they stood up to it.

I felt sad that day not only cos all of that happened but also cos while it was happening i wasnt there ,to be a part of the pain Mumbai went thru , I remember the riots and every time any calamity struck ,the spirit of the city took up and life went on in the literal sense of the word .Thats what has made the city so special ..the never give up nature and the power to bounce right back.

Yes , its personal.

Salaam mumbai

The Karma Card

What really happens of people who r hurt , deceived and cheated upon in love , they r devastated and they go thru a lot of pain , but the truth is that they get over it , they change , become different ppl , a part of their heart is altered forever , but people who r hurt in love have God on their side , He is always with the broken heart , and the one that breaks it, is the one who needs to worry .

Usually people who r dishonest and cheat must think they r very smart to have gotten their way and fooled someone so smoothly , the honest truth is they r only simply fooling themselves , cos its exactly ppl like these whose names go down in their Karma cards as defaulters and no matter what happens they r dealt with, at some stage or the other , they will be really lucky if they r dealt wid in this lifetime of theirs but if it goes into another lifetime then they have to pay the price for something they don even remember doing , and that is even worse .

The karma card is always open , each time anyone lies , is dishonest and deceives whether that person comes to know of it or not , it goes down in that card and it for sure all comes back ... As i look at it , i want to make sure my karma card is always having gud things abt me , not for the sake of others but for my own sake .. all these things abt trust , faith etc ... oh well , as long as i can be someone who duznt do any of that, and i can be trusted no matter what ... then i know i have a clean karma card and thats what that really matters ..

Ive come to see betrayal and dishonesty in different light lately , its no longer abt wat others do , its abt what I do .. not for others but for my ownself .. makes sense ?