May Reading Goals

1. Not Without My Daughter- Betty Mahmoody

2. Tuesdays with Morrie- Mitch Albom

3. Princess Sultana's Circle- Jean Sasson

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Are we really educated?

“A son is a son till he gets a wife. A daughter is a daughter all her life.”

We are in the age of the Aquarius which means that we are currently in a period where women will rise. We will come to the awareness of the female strength. Yet people find it an insult to bring daughter(s) into this world. We surely are living in 21^st century and apparently we are the Gen-Y, but I guess these are just words created by us to make us feel happy or whatever. Daughters are still considered an insult to manhood and a baggage on the family. There is a reason why the law of nature says to you, “I will not let you choose. When you become pregnant, you will not know, you shouldn’t, if it is a girl or a boy.” That is law’s nature of keeping balance between the nurturer and the provider. When we kill the nurturer, we create an imbalance, an imbalance that we will be so sorry in generations to come. And god surely has a way to teach a lesson to the people who try to play with the nature’s law. And education- however much we say that it changes the mindset of people- does not help at all in making people aware of the importance of girl child. At the end of the day, it is their upbringing and ego that plays the main role.

This is an incidence which I heard of recently. I was shocked.

A man, who has passed out from the most elite management institute of this country and his wife had a daughter out of their 3 year marriage. So when the wife conceived the child for the second time, the man told her, “Let us get the tests done to find out if it is a boy or a girl; because if it is a boy, it is fine. But if it is a girl, we will abort it.” The wife was shocked and asked for a reason. “Because all my friends have a son and I don’t want to get insulted, in case I don’t get one” replied the man. The wife tried to persuade him a lot not to take this drastic step and that it was ok to have another daughter (just in case). How was it an insult, she did not understand (and neither did I). As women are of this country, she had to do what her husband asked her to do. They got the screening done from a shady place. It showed that it was a girl. Not fully satisfied, they got the screening done from two more places and both those places also showed that it was a girl. The man just could not accept this fact and forced his wife for an abortion. The woman cried, begged, pleaded but her husband just did not lend an ear. Finally, the woman had to go through the process which is the most painful for any woman on this earth- Abortion.

But the man forgot that he was playing with nature. And when you play with nature, you never win. When the child was aborted, the foetus was that of a boy child. This was indeed a tight slap on the man’s face. But he still didn’t learn his lesson. He wanted his wife to conceive again. Because the woman did not want to go through the same painful experience again, she suggested the man that they be sure of the sex of the child. They went to a foreign country to get the IVF done, wherein they would be sure that it was a boy child. They played with nature again. And this time nature gave them a boy or rather boys. It was twins the woman was expecting now. The man did not want twins. His reason- He can’t afford 3 children. He wanted one of the twins to be aborted.

I don’t know what happened further. But if this is what the education does to you- makes you feel insulted on having a daughter, does not find aborting a child a sin etc.- then why get educated? 

October Favorites

Favorite Book- Princess by Jean Sasson

Princess is the first book in the Trilogy (The Princess Trilogy #1). It is a story about Princess Sultana of Saudi Arabia and she narrates the story. A very simple yet strong story telling which is                   bound to move you to tears.
My Rating- 5/5
Goodreads link-  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/613283.Princess?from_search=true

Favorite Song- Mitti di Khushboo by Ayushmann Khurana

I have always been a fan of Ayushmann's singing ever since his first song came out (Paani da rang).
I have had this song on my repeat list ever since i have heard it. A brilliantly pictured, composed and sung song!

Favorite Movie- Khoobsoorat

I am not a fan of Sonam Kapoor and that is the only reason i did not watch "Khoobsoorat" until i heard everyone raving about it. And i must confess, I loved the movie (though i found Sonam Kapoor to be very annoying) but I choose to ignore it.  The movie was a typical Disney movie and instant mood lifter. Fawad Khan was good.

Favorite Food-

Ah! Now comes my favorite question. Hehehehe... It is very difficult for someone like me (who is a foodie to the deepest of core) to choose one dish to be a favorite. But i have still found out the answer. It is Grilled Chicken with Porcini Mushroom Sauce at Mocha. Oh my god! It is one of the most deliciously and juciest grilled chicken i have ever had. I do not like mushrooms, but this mushroom sauce is simply yummy. So if you are in Chandigarh, do visit the Courtyard in Elante Mall. There is seating outside as well as inside, but i always prefer to sit outside.

Favorite Drink-

I am a BIG coffee lover (as if you didn't know). So i like to visit various cafes and try their coffees. This month i came across Dunkin Donuts' Cappuccino. After Cafe Coffee Day's and Starbuck's Cappuccino, this is the best one i have had in a long time. And since the weather is now getting a little cold, it tastes even better when i and my brother go for a coffee after dinner on his bullet. :D

Favorite Quote-

I have always lived by this quote "Everything happens for a reason."

Favorite Game-

Candy Crush Saga is my favorite game. But I am almost at the end of Temple Run 2 and therefore i keep playing it day in and day night to complete its last objective i.e. "Infinirunner- 10,000,000 lifetime meters" and I have covered 8,984,519 meters. Crazy, right?

Midnight Ramblings

It is a beautiful night. The kind of night I have always loved. There is slight chill in the air but you don’t mind sitting out in your balcony just in your night clothes, a mug of hot coffee and a wonderful book. It is just a perfect setting to me. Usually I would pop in the earphones in my ears and listen to some soft and soothing music. But sometimes, the music played by the night is way softer and soothing than any songs can be. I am currently reading “Shantaram” by “Gregory David Roberts” and I am absolutely in love with it and cannot put it down. Tonight though, it is a different story.

It is probably the onset of winters (according to me) and I love winters. Snuggling into your bed and quilt with a hot coffee mug and book is one of my few favorite things in this whole wide world. It rained a little in the evening which makes the weather all the more amazing. My home is far away from the main road, yet I can hear the long journey trucks passing by every now and then. The moon is crescent shaped and in a beautiful shade of orange. A plane just took off. Some dogs are barking continuously from last 2 hours. And there are some people who are bursting crackers at this hour (it is 1:57 a.m.) which are going up in the sky and coloring it into 1000 sparkles. They are celebrating the marriage of their son. It is a breezy night. The trees are swaying and so are the leaves making a rustling noise (one of the most wonderful sound to the ears). The street is filled with the yellow light from the street lamps out of which one is struggling with its bulb going on and off every now and then. And this is all seeming very amusing to the dog sleeping under that lamp. When the lamp goes off, he gets up and looks at the other lamps (maybe wondering why haven’t the rest of lamps turned off, who knows). When the lamp turns on, he goes back to his lying down. He has already done this quite a few times and it is just funny to see him do it every time. I am feeling so happy right now. And if all this was not enough, I can smell the vanilla scent coming from my room (I had lit up a warm vanilla scented candle. I love my room smelling good.).

It is nights like these that make me feel so happy, content and blessed. The people around me are sleeping peacefully; some maybe are almost through half their sleep. And here I am, wide awake, dreaming of a zillion things with open eyes and a smile on my lips. I have been smiling all this while. And it is nights like these that make me go deep into my thinking mode. It is not much that is needed to be happy in life, yet we complicate our lives looking for happiness, wanting to buy it in the form of gadgets, clothes, property etc. If only we knew happiness cannot be travelled to, owned, earned worn or consumed. Happiness is a spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude. (Denis Waitley) This is the happiness I am experiencing right now and experience it quite often in the silence of the musical nights. Amen. 

Forgive: because you deserve it!

"Kuch is tarah se maine apni zindagi ko asaan kar lia;

kisi se maafi maang li aur kisi ko maaf kar dia."

If you know me personally, then you would know that I am terrible when it comes to forgiving someone. I know it is not something to be proud of and I am not! Neither am I ashamed of it. It is just a personality trait that I have. I was not born with it. But I gradually developed it. Why? Because many a times people take your forgiveness for granted. They do not realize the importance of forgiveness. For them it simply means that you have given them another chance to break your trust and play with your feelings. Well, this was just a personal experience(s). I know everyone is not the same. I also know that what happened once might not necessarily happen again. And as I grew up, I have also got to know that everyone deserves a second chance.

We all are humans. We all make mistakes. We learn from them. We swear never to repeat them again. And sometimes we end up repeating them. Because “To err is human”. I have always been very weak in letting go of my past, because I get emotionally attached to people too fast, too deep. And so, when they move away from me, I find it very difficult to detach from them and forgive them for the same. This was me until very recently i.e. until someone made me realize that by forgiving them I am not doing a favor on them, but on myself. I am deeply grateful and thankful to that person.  I think it was the most valuable lesson I learnt in a long time and I must share it with everyone.

Firstly, think of the wonderful things that person has done for you. William Shakespeare said in Julius Caesar, “The evil that men do lives after them, The good is oft interred with their bones,”. Similarly we tend to forget every nice thing a person has done for us and only remember one bad thing things they did to us (and sometimes it is not even done intentionally). We must give them a chance. They deserve it for good time’s sake.

Secondly, think of the things that you have committed wrong in the past and expected forgiveness. I am sure we make so many mistakes daily- some forgivable, some not so forgivable. Keeping those in mind and keeping in mind that sometimes we did not commit mistakes to hurt someone. The consequences though, did hurt them. In spite of that, we have been forgiven so many times. So what makes us so great that we cannot forgive someone else?

Thirdly, forgiving is a very Nobel gesture. Enough said.

Fourthly, what you give, you get many times over and abundantly. In that case, let us love and we will get love many times over and abundantly. As it is our planet needs a lot of love.

And fifthly, you are a nice person. You deserve to forgive and let go of your immense trauma. As Dr. Steve Maraboli says, “Forgiveness: It is not because they deserve it. It is because you do. Sometimes forgiveness is about loving yourself enough to move on.”

Forgiveness is a choice we make. Not for the benefit of the other person. It is not so that they can skip away merrily into the sunset. It is for ourselves, so that we don’t have to carry around hurt, bitterness and anger. They weigh us down, blur our vision and make our journey slow and painful. Forgiveness allows us to drop all of these things, to no longer carry them with us and continue our journey lighter and more at peace.

Amen.