NEVER BEEN IN THIS MUCH LOVE WITH ANYONE

Important Disclaimer: This is original work (not a copy, Geet I am sorry but we have some common interests 😉)

There are two places in my home where you will generally find me – Kitchen and Bedroom, depending on what day of the week and time of the day it is.  From Tuesday to Sunday I am predominantly in or around the kitchen.  Chores in the kitchen are of the visicious circle in nature especially when kids and hubby are around. I think I need not go into details of how and why. Ladies will get that easily and for gentlemen, ladies please do me a favour and explain this to your counterparts 😁. My relationship with my kitchen is ambiguous for I love to be there when a new dish or desserts are on my mind and I want the resulting dish to be savoured and relished with utmost praise (ambitious I am).  I don’t mind to be in the kitchen when I have a clear cut menu etched out in my mind, I cook with my heart and brain at the right place 😁.  But I loathe it when I am unable to decide “Khaane Mein Kya Hai” (what’s there for the meal).  Then you can hear some mild crashes coming from the kitchen (pun intended).

And now I will take you to that place where you will find me when I am not cooking and doing up other chores and of course during a major part of Mondays (Monday is my week off, self-declared and an unwritten pact in my family.  I really let my hair down and cool off my feet on Monday, I love Mondays 😂😂) – welcome to my cosy nest – my Bedroom.  There lies the biggest magnet, love of my life – my bed. I remember scribbling down in one of my friend’s slam book “Favourite pastime- 😴”, you know what I mean.  I am literally a person who can doze off at any given time of the day.  For me, it’s not only a way to physical relaxation but whenever I am emotionally down and drained, a nap helps me rejuvenate myself, get over things, get going more strongly.   It really helps me clear the clutter in my mind.  And not just nap, my bed is a lap sitting where I chat with my bestie for hours, learn new things (read surfing YouTube for videos of various genres),  I imagine and weave various stories in my mind, experiment by bedside – be it painting or hairstyles and of course my ideas to write take a flight from that corner only.  Lying on the bed with no haste gives me an opportunity to ponder over various questions, permutations and combinations in life and relationships – much-needed introspection.  Along with me in my bedroom, you will find my colours (I am damn possessive about them), my paintings, many toys here and there that made their way from adjacent room and television that usually plays cartoons 😂😂.  In short, you can find “The Creative Me“, “Thinking Me” there only.

To emphasize my love for my Cozy Corner I would put it this way: if a choice has to be made between a free makeover to be given on a cloudy gloomy day and my sleep, I would rate my slumber over makeup as the later can wait for some other day 😉. Who could say no to a makeover, isn’t it?

A ROOM IS WHERE THE HEART IS!

“My room” is my favourite place in our house. As you just read, I didn’t specify whether its bedroom or study room or any other specific room. That’s because it’s an all-in-one room for me. It’s my bedroom, my study room, and my secret activities’ room. And I lovingly call it “My Room”. This is the place I feel most comfortable and this is the place I come home to.

My room has some basic characteristics. It has a very simple decor and the only luxury item in my room is an AC, actually, it has become a necessity nowadays. My room is not loaded with pictures, but there is a wall calendar which has my photo. It was gifted by my sister a few years back. So it’s kind of a seal which signifies that the place belongs to me.

My room is white in colour, but let me tell you, I secretly wish to paint it red or any neon colour. Never mind if not now, in future I will paint it red or neon. Are you guys, smiling to yourself after reading this? Well, I get similar reactions from my mother and sister when they hear my ideas!!

The bed in my room is older than me. It is a very simple wooden bed with my two pillows. I study on my bed. From 10th Board exams to the present LLB exams, it’s been the same bed! Now, some must be wondering whether I use study tables or not or how do I manage to study on the bed. Well, it’s very simple. I do use a study table. I just drag it near my bed and it’s done. So, basically, I use the bed instead of a chair. Another reason for doing so is, I can take a nap whenever I want in between studies. At present, the study table is loaded with law books, so I bought myself a laptop table. Now its a  laptop-cum-study table. I have prepared for all sorts of exams, made different art and crafts, wrote stories, played my favourite video games and also play the guitar on my bed. It is very dear to me! Now some must be thinking, if I do all these stuffs on my bed then where do I sleep? Well, I sleep on my bed too. But these days I seldom get up from it, because since my sister is home she pulls and drags and does whatever it takes to get me out of bed! Yeah, maybe it sounds funny, but for me, it’s nothing but bullying. Poor me, Right to sleep is not mentioned in the Indian Constitution!

My room also has a blackboard. It is a 30 cm blackboard sheet that I had purchased online. I note down all important stuffs there, starting from exam dates, to-do lists, any important days or celebrating quotes after exams are over. No matter how hard I try to hide the chalks, my sister manages to scribble something funny on the blackboard.

My room is the most visited of all places in our house. It is often crowded by my uncles or aunts or cousins. All stationery items, medicines, secret snacks are found in my room. So my family members happily hop into my room to pick up the things that they require. They keep telling me I have a shop full of stationery stuffs and other goodies!

My room has seen my best and my worst moods, and in return, it gives me the space I need. I never shut myself or cut off from the outside world after entering my room. It’s just that me-time in my room re-energizes me.

There are times when the study table or shelf is in a mess. But still, I can close my eyes and pick out the stuffs I need from the so-called mess. Actually, it’s not a mess for me.

So that’s all about my room. It’s very special and very dear to me. I can never trade my room for anything else in this world because it means the world to me. For me “Room is where heart is!”

Last but not the least Thank you, Bhai for coming up with this topic.

IT’S RELAXING AND REJUVENATING …

Trust me when I say this, each and every one of us need that spot in our home where we can be ourselves. Not bothered about what others are thinking or what’s happening in the world around us, that sweet little spot has helped us to be us. It is not a hiding place or our secret corner. Everyone can see us, yet they try not to disturb us when we are in that spot :-). Are you wondering what it is? That is our favourite spot in the house, where we find solitude and the much needed me-time. 

I would have been around 10 when we moved to that house and it is that place where I lived until I moved out for my job. We lived in a colony, and that building in which our house was is a 3 storey building. It was a corner lot, and if I go to the terrace, I could see almost all of the colony. I could see the park, the badminton courts, the playground, the cycling track and the skating rink too. If I was too stressed or needed a break from playing with my friends, often I used to go on to the terrace.

It was that place from where I could watch the flaming sky, watch flocks of birds return to their nests, moving clouds during the rainy season, oh. that reminds me – have a warm cup of hot chocolate on a rainy day. It used to calm me down when I felt so close to nature. 

I also used to have deep introspection with myself on the terrace. I had the freedom and time to think from all perspectives of a problem without being interrupted. There is yet another favourite thing I did,  watching our garden from the terrace. There were a variety of plants and trees, planted usually in groups by their type. I used to design the landscape of our garden from the terrace because I had a very clear view from the top. We had a big mango tree and during summer time, I and my sister used to count mangoes from the terrace. It was like counting stars and we would debate if we have already counted a particular mango 😛

Our terrace was the place where most of my science projects were conceptualised. From drawing to making a list of required materials to building the project, our terrace served like my own lab :D. That was the same place where I would start reading a book, and forget to return home even when it’s late in the evening. My sister was the one, poor girl, who used to climb all the stairs in search of me. She knew if I wasn’t at the playground, that’s the only place she could find me. 

Coming to the present, the apartment I live in also has a terrace. In a city like Bangalore, my apartment is surrounded by huge trees. It gives me so much pleasure to see the trees and also a variety of birds on the trees. Still, I find myself go to the terrace to find the me-time. Some times it surprises me because I live alone, and I should have found that me-time anywhere in the house but it is the terrace. 

My favourite spot is thus terrace. What is your favourite spot? What do you do there?? 

I WISH MARRIAGES ARE MAINTAINED IN HEAVEN AS WELL!

I have always loved watching man and the wife spending quality time together. It gives me joy when a couple displays their affection for each other in public. No, I am not talking about public indecency. I am talking about holding hands in a gathering as they walk, entwining their fingers as they sit side by side, looking into each other’s eyes as they sit across the table at a coffee shop. When I see a couple happy together, it feels like their world is filled with love. The number of these true love birds are very less or negligible I can say, in today’s world. There are more broken families that I find than witnessing some awesome companionship when I look around. And I feel really very sorry and sad about it.

The world divorce rates reveal, Luxembourg is number one with 87% whereas India is 1%. India’s stat looks better but 1 in 100 is so much. In one lakh marriages, the number grows to 1000 divorces. 1% divorce rate in India doesn’t validate that the marriages are without any hassles. There are many in India who forced stay in their marriages either for the sake of their family, society, children or survival. The brokenness still remains if not divorces. Horrible it is!

Trust me, this intensity is growing daily. The Divorce rate was 12% in 1960 whereas it is 44% worldwide now.

https://www.unifiedlawyers.com.au

The divorce not only breaks down the couple it affects their families especially their own children. A child’s trust and dependability get shaken up when his or her parents split ways. 

I have a few friends who go through such brokenness even if they are still in their marriages. And both of them are silent and managing because of their children. They don’t want to part ways even if they struggle in their lives because they are more concerned about their child’s future than their own. I have a few more who struggle even after they got out of the wedlock. For all of them, brokenness has never come to an end until today. 

Image Credit: Google Inc.

In the beginning, God created family in so much care and love. But it hurts me and I feel pain in my heart when I see families broken, whether divorced or forcing themselves in a bond along with their children suffering with them.

Since many years, I have been bearing that burden for all those broken families and I keep praying for all of them who go through that brokenness. And when I got married, God let me encounter a few challenges for myself too to deal with; probably, to train me and to equip me more, so that I can be a help to others.

It is true, “marriages are made in heaven“, but if I have to add further looking at the world around me, then I would say, “yet they are maintained on earth“. If they would have been managed and maintained in heaven as well then there would not have been any brokenness at all. 

I feel really sorry, worried for those broken people out of a marriage – a spouse or a child. I literally cry for them and also pray for them so that they reunite or reconcile with their loved ones. 

Stay Blessed! 

I FEEL SORRY – IT’S A CALL

One of my favourite speakers Ravi Zacharias quoted someone –

“The 21^st century is the bloodiest century in human history. We have spilt more blood on the soil than the previous centuries put together”.

As I ponder on his statement, it is quite evident, there are more than 40 active conflicts around the world at the moment. Bangalore one of the smallest Tech cities in the world records 25 plus divorce cases filed every day, over one and half a million people are violently murdered each year throughout the world, 800,000 people commit suicide every year and 17% out of them are Indian residents. 2018 records 34,600 rape cases in India which are reported, there still lies thousands unreported. NCRB report says, 22,955 human traffic victims are found in 2016 alone.

I feel very sorry for such states of my country,

but is my being sympathetic enough to do!

Irrespective of our financial and social stature one common platform from where we deal our life is – “Problem and Struggle”. A pauper has problems and struggles to meet his daily needs, alongside an affluent has problems and struggles to maintain his flamboyant social stature, for the sake of which often each of them compromises with the ethics and morals which causes grievous inner wounds – some of them are visible and some of them go invisible in the bright spotlights and grandeur.

Some of the beautiful souls whom I met in Candles Online fraternity is Kalpana, Preeta, Payal, Vipra and of course Chiradeep. Each of them is from different background and struggles every now and then to meet their own life requirements but whenever I am down in emotion at least one of them will surely pop-up to enquire. A couple of weeks back, both Vipra and Payal were on chat and they emphatically asked me one question – How are you Bhaiya? Even after my reply, Payal counter questioned “Pakka (Are you sure?)” and that was something truly meaningful. Often it is hard enough to express the inner pain but being empathetic and aiding with little affection and care is enough for a blissful touch. About feeding the poor, aiding the physically wounded and supporting the financially downtrodden, they are somehow managed to push up from their sorrowful state but how about the one who goes through with inner struggles and is unable to express it to anyone!

I feel very sorry for that state of life of a person, I think I can take a step to be empathetic…

According to the Bible, the two greatest commandments for humans are – “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ And the second is, Love your neighbour as yourself.” All the other laws hang around these two commandments. Taking the second law, the intensity of the love towards our neighbour is the way we love and take care of ourselves. When I am in a problem, I always do my best to resolve it, and if I have to be empathetic for my neighbour who is going through the problem I will have to do the best to resolve his problem. It is my deepest love towards my neighbour or friend that compels me to go beyond than just feeling sorry and mind my own business.

The Bible says,

“Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ. If you think you are too important to help someone, you are only fooling yourself. You are not that important.”

Feeling sorry is not just an emotion that sprouts in our hearts as we find someone in difficulty. Rather it is far greater than that, as a matter of fact, it is the call of God for us to empathize and go beyond our limitations to enquire and care for people.

Theodore Roosevelt rightly said,

“Nobody cares how much you know,

until they know how much you care.”

RESPECT HUNGER

This is one of my favourite dialogue from an old Telugu movie “I respect hunger very much“.  That was touching.  Just as sunlight shines upon everyone, water quenches the thirst of every soul, air is life to everyone, hunger knows no distinguish.  It is the same for rich, for the poor; for human beings and for animals.   And hunger is one of the driving force that could make people choose extremes. A highly qualified graduate takes up the job of an ordinary salesperson wandering from door to door in the scorching heat because he has mouths to feed at home and he simply can’t afford to let them go hungry.  A woman (not referring to the well-educated ones who want to lead a life of luxury) forays into flesh trade because hunger is hounding her and her kin.  A farmer commits suicide because he found death to be an easy way out than suffering from hunger.  Millions of infants dying across the globe every year because of hunger.  I can go on with such moving incidents and examples where hunger pushes them, corners them to the unimaginable.

Hunger moves me immensely.  I have witnessed my own father who died suffering from cancer so badly wanted to eat something as he was unable to gulp down anything from his throat.  That was sheer pain. I felt so sorry for him. In fact, everyone in the family – my brother, mother, uncle, aunt – refrained from talking or discussing food in front of him.  If cancer was an apparent reason that took him down his pain was aggravated by even more painful hunger.  We too experienced his pain.

That was a page from my life.  There are more intercepts in those pages that have not only made me respect hunger even more but hungry people makes me feel sorry for them.  I make it a point that whenever any poor – homeless-helpless seeks some help (using “begging” would be too degrading) I try to give something to eat in my capacity.  After all the money that we donate serves this purpose only, isn’t it?

Innumerable incidents, so much pain all around that I have seen and experienced makes me ponder over a few questions or rather issues:

• How could fortunate ones waste food? Do they realise the magnitude of pain a hungry person undergoes?
• Why do people intentionally want to remain hungry while chasing their “dream figure”.  More and more people from this generation are becoming anorexics? NOTE: Healthy eating and dieting have nothing to do with abstaining from food.
• When would governments of agriculture prime countries have a better mechanism to store food grains for longer periods, in healthy conditions?  Just an example:  The paradox of millions going hungry in India while food goes to waste is receiving increasing amounts of attention as the FAO stresses that one-third of food produced globally for human consumption is wasted every year. (Source Google)
• What can we actually do to help?

We have a saying in India (which is a global truth) – Roti, Kapda aur Makaan – which literally means Bread(food), cloth and shelter.  These are the basic requirements of any human being and food takes the prime spot. That is self-explanatory what it means to be hungry.  Talking about food, hunger and how sorry I feel about people going hungry every day I came across few interesting things t that good Samaritans are doing across the world: Langars (community kitchens)  in Gurudwaras (sacred place of worship for Sikh community) serve everyone without any bias of class, colour and creed. A hungry person is always welcomed there.  Food facility centres are being run who urge people to donate instead of throwing away the food so that that food can be used to pacify at least one hungry stomach.  Just like charitable hospitals, there are people who cook and serve at no to very low prices making food affordable for everyone.

Picture Credit – Google Inc.

Perfect and Inspiring example: “Narayanan Krishnan was a bright, young, award-winning chef with a five-star hotel group, short-listed for an elite job in Switzerland. But a quick family visit home before heading to Europe changed everything.

“I saw a very old man eating his own human waste for food,” Krishnan said. “It really hurt me so much. I was literally shocked for a second. After that, I started feeding that man and decided this is what I should do the rest of my lifetime.”

Picture Credit – Google Inc.

I can go on about this but I must respect your time as well just as I respect hunger 😊.  Remember this: always thank God as our hands reach our mouth for there are many whose tears are reaching their lips to satiate the fire burgling in their stomachs.

IF ONLY WE COULD HOLD A CONVERSATION…

How often do we actually take out time to exchange just a few words with the people who don’t hold much importance in our life? Rarely or maybe sometimes. Recalling one of such acquaintances, I cannot forget my childhood memory associated with the purchase of junkies from a nearby colony provision store. No sooner was I able to collect a few coins than I used to rush to the shop to purchase either a pack of chips or my favorite cola! However, the owner of the shop had such disposition that all my excitement always cooled down on seeing his grumpy face. Since it was the only shop in my area, it seemed more of the kind of a monopoly store. His irritation level would rise to heights if I would ask him to display his collection of candies or if even I just had to add one extra item in the billing list. A smile was the last thing one could expect from this shopkeeper. Whenever I returned home after my purchase, I always complained to my mom about the rude and ignorant behavior of this man. But then again, I had no option than to go again to this merchant for purchases as it was the only store that existed in my colony at that time. Moreover, if anything went wrong or if I ever had to return an expired item, he took it back with so much of sternness as if he was doing a favor on me. His nags and my complaints went on endlessly until a piece of shocking news broke out one day.

I had risen from my morning sleep when I saw my parents leaving home early that day. When I asked my maid about it, she told me that they were going to attend the funeral of Mr. Jaiswal. It was as if the ground below my feet had shaken for how could a man who seemed so fit could pass away. I couldn’t help remembering how often I used to engage in a fight with this man at his shop even for his fuzzy attitude. All of a sudden, I just felt as if I had so many unsettled accounts with this person, left to finish. When my mom returned, she told me that this shop owner was suffering from mouth cancer and he committed suicide.

For a moment, I couldn’t believe if it was really true and when this reality seeped in me, I could somehow relate to the reactions of this shopkeeper in the past. Mr. Jaiswal was not bad, it was his circumstances that had turned him sour and bitter. Now it clicked to me that why he didn’t respond to my anger as uttering a word from the rotten mouth was so difficult for him. Moreover, the pain of those blisters in his mouth was the reason for the constant frown on his face. I really felt sorry for a dead soul that day and more than that I was agitated by my own self that how I could hold so many grudges against a diseased person for petty issues. It really struck me that why I didn’t even try for once to gauge the depth of his situation. I really wondered if I had just even tried getting into his shoes, I would have never held any complaints against him. I cursed myself endlessly for not making any efforts to discover the reason for his sternness. Why for God’s sake, I didn’t even hold a conversation with him? Sympathy filled my heart when I came to know from the neighbours in my colony that how lonely he felt as he had no one to look after him. It was not only the disease but solitude as well that was killing him. He certainly might have felt very low which led him to commit suicide and there might be no one around to even console him. Connecting the dots seemed very easy at that moment for one could then sense that his frustration was definitely the outcome of his sufferings. I couldn’t help questioning myself that how I could frame so strong and wrong perceptions about this person just because his behaviour was bad with me.

Mother Teresa has rightly said:- “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.’’ These words were somewhere resonating in my ears for I had turned so nasty in judging the shopkeeper that I had no time to empathize with his problems that were probably greatest than all of our rants. I felt very sorry for him and at the same time, I really felt that I just could not forgive myself for passing angry comments on him. I learned a lesson that day to not judge a person without knowing his struggle story. Moreover, it does not take much time to know the sorrows of a person only if we understand the real meaning of tolerance and patience. Even if it takes time, isn’t it worth it, if it can save someone’s life and make him feel worthy enough to live on this planet; making someone feel a little less lonely?

This incident really questioned my indifferent conscience that day and struck such chords in me striving me to live a life of awareness and kindness with empathy and compassion filled in the heart.