Bursting the misconception

Diwali is a festival of lights. In nothern India, it is celebrated to commemorate return of Lord Ram to Ayodhya by lighting rows of clay lamps. Hence the name - Deepavali. 

After I moved to Southern India, I learned that Diwali is celebrated as the day that Lord Krishna defeated the Asura Narakasura. I was surprised because my younger self never realized that festivals may bear different meanings for different parts of India. 

• In western India the festival marks the day that Lord Vishnu, the Preserver (one of the main gods of the Hindu trinity) sent the demon King Bali to rule the nether world.[Source: National Geographic ]

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Well, India is a land of rich and diverse culture. Even though we are unaware of the reasons of celebrations in our neighboring states, these festivals bond us together. Still a question in my mind remains unanswered - When did Diwali become a festival of crackers? 

“The use of fireworks in the celebration of Diwali, which is so common in India now, must have come into existence after about 1400 AD, when gunpowder came to be used in Indian warfare,” stated late historian P K Gode in his account, “History of Fireworks in India between 1400 and 1900,” published in 1950.[Source: Indian Express ]

The use of fireworks has been prominent in north and central India, with southern states slowly adopting this tradition. Wow, so a relatively new adopted tradition has become synonym with the festival in recent times. 

In past few years, Government has tried to ban excessive use of firecrackers on and around Diwali without much success. This year many states atleast imposed some form of ban to reduce pollution which could worsen health of COVID19 patients. Despite of ban, many enthusiast burst crackers to keep their tradition alive. Many messages have been flooding in social media which relates the ban to being "anti-Hindu". To further explain the hurt feelings of these "special" Hindus, they ask Christians to not burn candles on Christmas. I have even come across a message that compares pollution created by burning a candle to that by a firecracker. To such religious people I have to say one thing - before cursing another religion, atleast first do a basic research or atleast google about their festivals. It would have been more appropriate if these social "media" workers would have demanded ban on Christmas carols or Christmas tree or even Christmas cake for a more just argument. There have been attacks on people in churches during their Christmas service in many cities in past years. I'm sure that not many are aware of these injustice as our media fails to put light on such real ground reports. Still the "true" Christians have failed to demand justice on social media by asking their Hindu counterparts to not attend pujas in temples or their home on Diwali. 

I have witnessed 4th of July celebration a few years ago. At first, the thought which crossed my mind was that I have seen these many crackers bursting together in Dussera celebrations in my city. And more in Diwali as the whole city show off their spending capacity on various crackers. But what I learned is that we all can enjoy crackers together than bursting individually which can somewhat reduce the pollution created in a day. Even if we are unable to believe that crackers cause air pollution, noise pollution is real. Remember how our pets react to these celebrations. Cracker noise throughout night is a nuance to infants, some young children, some elderlies and patients. Please be considerate to all. Our celebration should not be a trouble to others. Celebrate this festival by following the other old traditions - cleaning the house thoroughly, lighting clay lamps or decorating house with lights, putting rangoli at house entrance, preparing special sweets and snacks, visiting our friends and family and performing special prayers. 

I celebrated this Diwali by preparing sweet and snacks at home, wishing friends and family over phone and making diyas from flour. 

Happy Diwali! 

For the love of food

I have loved food all my life. The foodie gene comes from my family who enjoy trying new dishes and get satisfaction from every tasty meal. My mother is a great cook. So we always had access to yummy and a wide variety of recipes. But as a child, I never relished the thought of cooking. I have seen my mother mostly busy in kitchen. Though I enjoyed birthdays as we got to eat our favorite food, I used to feel bad for my mother who couldn't take rest even on her own birthday. I could only prepare tea, boil rice and make dal tadka till I left my house for higher studies.

The cooking lessons were rekindled when I started living independently after getting a job. I wished to marry a cook to satisfy my taste buds. 😁 However, I was secretly afraid of the question "what if my spouse also doesn't know how to cook?" In an attempt to become self-reliant, I learned basic cooking skill. Thankfully I did. My husband had only learned basics of using kitchen utensils by the time of our marriage. 

After marriage, cooking was no fun. Along with all the other household chores, it seemed a big deal to cook food for two. Nevertheless I continued it. A breakthrough in this journey came when I moved internationally for a work assignment. Cooking became a means of survival. And cooking only for self brought a sigh of relief. American kitchens are very different from traditional Indian kitchen. I was intrigued by the new tools and began experimenting. I also experimented with different ingredients and tried to prepare colourful meals. These effort paid off. After a few months, I officially started loving cooking. Here are some pictures of my earliest meals. 

After returning home, I tried to maintain the vigour by gifting myself new kitchen gadgets. I also started learning more(essential) Indian recipes. I made few changes to make my meals healthier. I began perfecting my dishes in accordance with the traditional taste n cooking methods. Here is the picture of my first bake in my OTG - biscuits or nankhatai. 

Over the past few years, I have come a long way in my journey of cooking. I love delicious meals and cooking bring me one step closer to it. It gives me pleasure when my daughter relishes a meal. It is soul-satisfying to devour a bite of food that I have been craving for. It is a moment of pride when my family ask for a dish which they saw on TV, for this shows their confidence on my cooking skills. 

Cook for your soul!! 

A new hobby

It is time to learn new hobbies. This pandemic has confined us all indoors. And this gives me a perfect reason to try out new skill. Many people ask me how do I manage time with a toddler and an infant. Being a new mom is tough, I have to juggle my tasks all day long. But some hobby helps me to keep my calm. It gives a good mean to channelize my thoughts and a sense of accomplishment when I finish a piece of work. 

Recently I tried my hands on sewing. I know basic stitching by hand as well on sewing machine. This time I pushed myself to go beyond the basics. Here comes my latest masterpiece. 😜😁

As it looks, it is not perfect, the skirt is not even symmetric. But for a beginner,  this looks quite a decent work. I cannot write a tutorial for this flawed skirt, but I can definitely share the tutorial which inspired me:

https://youtu.be/4hNDA5O-0hU

This skirt is made out of clothes that were already available at home. The shiny cloth has been with me for very long, it came with a saaree for making underskirt. This material is little difficult to stitch and needs another cloth underneath to be stitched along with it. I used one of my old dress for the purpose. Matching ribbon was also available (don't remember from where). The top silver belt is stitched from an old shirt. In short, I can easily call it a "best out of waste" project. 

This is my step towards sewing and has taught me so much. I wish to stitch more dresses in future. The best part of this activity was the smile it brought to my daughter. She absolutely loved it. She had wanted long skirt for some time and was happy to get one. 

Mission accomplished. 😄

Towards a new start

9 years ago I started this blog to pen my thoughts and make it reach larger audience. I believed that my thoughts can be revolutionary, they may inspire many. Back then, earning money through blogs and youtube videos were newer concepts and they definitely inspired me to start my own blog. Little did I realize that a revolution cannot be started with just a few posts. With the poor viewership, I became skeptical about monetary aspects as well. Nevertheless I got busy with my own life and forgot about my writing skills.

After so many years, I took a short break in my life to catch breath. It has been exihilarating to build a life for myself. Marriage, kids, job, home - all took priority and I think it is all good. Now that I get some free time I introspect on what I achieved and what I had left behind. I'm happy with what I have achieved till now. But there's this feeling that still my purpose on this earth is not served yet. I'm still not sure what is my calling. So, I have decided to revive my blog and start writing again. I wish to post regularly, if possible daily. I hope that this writing exercise can bring clarity in my own thoughts. This time I leave behind amateur greed and want to write just for myself. 

In India, we believe to make a start with some sweet. So here is a picture of an Indian sweet, jalebi, which I prepared. This is my favorite sweet. Though I didn't get good shapes, I'm glad that they were crisp and aptly sweet in my second attempt. Yes, I have been learning quite a few recipes recently and jalebi is one of them. Cooking is another hobby where I find solace. I will save the details for another post. :)

Here's to a new start! 

Life is a PCB!!!!!

"Happiness is found along the way, not at the end of the road.."

From ages literary scholars have explained life through the"Journey Theorem". In this theorem, life is compared to a journey, where human's achievements and failures mark the way of the journey covered so far. But where does this journey lead to? There is no absolute answer for it yet. Hence people are advised to concentrate on the "path" and the "happenings of the journey" instead of the destination. So can we say a journey successful without knowing what the correct destination was? If not, then what will define the end point? Despite of all these flaws, the "Journey Theorem" remains the most famous theorems of life...

One fine day, while these thoughts occupied my mind, I felt the need of a new theorem to explain life. While we have come up with several models to explain Higgs Boston particle before it's discovery, we have failed in building successful model for life that we are living. As an engineer, I was obliged to put up my theory. So here we go.

I think life should be compared to a Printed Circuit Board(PCB). For non engineers, i would like to reiterate that PCBs are boards on which electrical connectivity is 'printed' in copper. If you get a chance to see the mother board of your television, you would find that all electronic components are mounted on a board(usually green in color on one side). That board is a PCB.

Well, coming back to our theorem, living can be compared to making a PCB. The "path" that we have covered so far can be seen as trails of PCB. People coming to our life are like different electronic components.  So, the ultimate aim is to build a gadget. There is no common aim for all. It's your life, so decide what gadget you want to make. Afterall, different gadgets have different PCBs. So in our PCB, different components are available. We have to decide which component do we want to 'embed' in our circuit and which we want to keep away. It's quite probable that you put some wrong component at some wrong place. So you can always decide to restructure your PCB in a way that the unwanted component  gets out of the circuit. Or, if you want to 'reposition' any component, just desolder and place it at the correct point. Now compare this to wrong peoples in your life or people whom you gave wrong position in your life. Doesnt this explain that the power of driving your life to correct path is IN YOUR HANDS..!!!! :)

Moving on, a valid thought proposed  by this 'PCB Model of Life' is that you never know what did you make of your life till the end. Isnt it true? People who know what they want from life, keep on building the correct circuit, embedding the correct components. So they are pretty sure what will they make at the end. For others, they just keep on making their circuit. So it is a surprise for them in the end. Later in life when they look back, they realise what could have been done better to make life useful.

And guess what's the best part.... Remember, we hear it many times that we should live our lives in a way that we are useful to our society and others. This is exactly what a gadget do. Can a machine be useful for itself? No. However, it's considered useful when it proves to be useful to others. So Aim of your PCB is to make a gadget for service to society. Now it's upto you in which way you want to be remembered as...

Like all theorems, I'm sure this theorem will also have it's pros and cons. So now, it's your time to give your valuable feedback and suggestions. Juggle your head and come up with your theory of life. So start commenting!! :)

Friends...

Life is full of experience and God takes care that we have both- good as well as bad ones...

Last week has been very adventurous for me. First came my birthday where I learnt that so many people are interested in my happiness. Everyone seemed to be involved in giving me surprises and making me smile. And few days later, when I was admitted to hospital, I realized that my frends are far more good that I had ever realized. They are gems.

I feel that the most important aspect of life experiences are lessons learnt. I would like to share my lessons on my blog and I'll be glad if you find it useful.

This year I had no plans for my birthday. It was a working day, so I had less hope of celebrations. However, it turned out to be full of surprises. I love flowers and cakes on birthday and I got them at midnight. It was my first ever midnight gift. And all these from someone from whom I didnt expect anything (and probably I could expect these from only them). Here I learnt that some relations cannot be kept forever. But this fact doesnt prevent people from thinking of keeping you happy. :)

So many gifts and people  thinking of sparing some time for me...all these made me realize that how much wrong I was. I was never alone. I have kept myself apart from others which made me think that I'm lonely. I guess this is a truth which we all need to accept who think that they are alone. People are always there for you. You just have to seek their company. As the Bible says, 'Ask and u shall be given'. :) :)

Journey from my birthday to my hospitalization is a sheer example of recklessness. Despite of so many warnings from my body, I kept on tiring myself. I pushed myself beyond my limits. I now know that I cannot take good care of myself. People around me kept on warning me. But I behaved like a school going child who loves to play even in sickness, without bothering about health. I feel sorry about it now.
My recklessness ended in hospital. I had taken a day off from office that day to take rest. By afternoon I was so sick that my frends had to rush from office to take me to hospital. I was admitted and I realized my carelessness about my health only then. Hey,one important thing that I learned is to raise alarm when you are not well. Keep your cellphone handy. I was alone in my home when I fell so sick.Thanks to my brain that I called my frends and thanks to them that they took action immediately.

Calamity shows true colours of people. But I was shocked  to see God's angels as humans. I am greatly indebted to people who took so good care of me. When I saw my face in hospital's mirror, I became hopeless. My swollen face made me to pity myself. But my frends never showed up on their face how hopeless I looked. Taking responsibility of an ill person is a great decision. And I know that I'm not an easy patient. Already I'm arrogant by nature and illness made my behaviour more difficult. But people around me were so casual. My accomplice in hospital could not sleep the whole night, but she never made fuss of it. The love and care which I received during this time is difficult to repay. May God bless them.

One more thing which I learned is that Good people are always good to you and difficult times cannot bring out the nature which you do not have. My Angels have always been good. I just got some break to think about and absorb this fact. I tell you, it's not easy to accept people who are far more good to you and being indebted to them is more difficult. I just pray that whenever time calls, I may be there with them. May God bless them all.

Your thoughts about this blog are welcome. If you want to share your story as well, please go ahead. Afterall, sharing is caring.

Seeing World through colorful glass

Beauty lies in eyes of the beholder. Things remain the same. Our perception makes the
difference. I got the chance to realize this when I visited a blind school.  While we, the sighted 
population, remain busy in finding log in others' eyes, these differently abled children try to
discover beauty of their world with their remaining senses.

Devnar is a special school for blinds in Begumpet, Hyderbabad. It was started by Gouds some
twenty years ago, with 5 students enrolled. Today, it has around 500 students. The school has
lived upto expectations of its founder. Many students from Devnar are pursuing higher
education in well known institutions and many are working in MNCs.

During our visit to Devnar school, we had a chance to see how visually challenged children use
Braille for their studies. I was amazed to see children write fast in braille. Thanks to Louis Braille
who simplified their lives. More amazing thing was to see children move with ease in their
school compound. They walked,ran,danced without any support. Sometimes it was difficult to
believe that they could not see.
There I met Nagalaxmi. She is a great singer, comedian and an entertainer. She participated in
Idea Star Singer television programme which was featured on Maa TV. She even acted in telugu
movie Autograph. She is an ensemblance of life. She had accepted what life had to give to her,
but she never let her disability to stop her to enjoy life. Beauty does exists in eyes of the
beholder...

Hours spend with them were full of smiles. They entertained us with songs, dance and
performances. Children came to talk to us with enthusiasm. They were full of hope and energy.
They taught me an important lesson, to be happy with ourselves. God has plans for everyone of
us. We should accept them with smile.

Thanks to TCS-Maitree for making this week of 'Joy of Giving and Sharing' meaningful.