Road to success

It's not inspiring books or presentations that change people's lives; they simply act as a catalyst. It is what you choose to believe and act upon, that's where the change comes. No one can change the life of any individual except that individual.

Going by this belief, I believe that we have immense potential and strength to accomplish great things in life. At times we just forget to prioritize life. I feel time once we set goals for ourselves the path becomes easy because then we know where we have to head. In case, life decides to challenge our decisions or our acts, we still know we don't have to deviate.

You just have to follow your instincts and be bold enough to tread the path of success which as always is a little tough and often not taken by people who think too much about the consequences. The consequences of taking the right path; apparently the difficult path too, is the fear of getting rejection, phobia of un-acceptance and the terror of difference of opinion with the acquaintances.

But to live life to its fullest, one must not forget that you have to accomplish everything in this very term itself. There would be no second chance given to you. Also, every individual is known for the good things he/she has done for the society. The crap always stays there because without that the importance of the good deeds will not be realized and it won't be acknowledged for. At this time, the words of Swami Vivekananda should be heard for. How rightly he said, "Arise, awake and stop not till the goal is achieved."

So, dear readers think about all the positive things in life. Motivate yourself to take the righteous path and shed off your apprehensions of others' viewpoints. Life is yours, so the decisions have to be yours. Till the time you know that you are in the right direction, success would also budge towards you! 

Empowering women

Empowering the women has been my motto and aim in life. Whenever I see women in distress I really get upset. Probably, because I've always imagined women as a source of strength and courage. In Hindu mythology, Goddess Durga is seen as a source of strength, divine power, courage, strong determination and will power.

With this picture in mind, it is just unbelievable to see any woman in distress. Many a times, we see women acting as the enemy of other women. This gives an opportunity to the men to ill treat women because they do have backing of other powerful ladies for their wrong deeds.

I feel women should equip themselves with education. It is solely the education that gives them strength to face the world with all their strength. At times, many people confuse education with literacy. How literate you are is not that important; but being educated definitely adds to your strengths. Education gives you the edge to differentiate between good and bad, useful and useless, meaningful and meaningless, and so on.

This just does not happen by sending the girl child to the school. It happens when it is told to the girl child what to accept and what not to. It also makes more sense by giving valid reasons for doing something. Reasoning helps to make a difference between the right way and the wrong way. This also refrains each woman from becoming a foe to another woman.

A woman can feel connected to another woman only when both are compassionate about each other's situation. Respect and honor for the other individual has to be inculcated as an individual grows. This happens when the moral values are instilled and inculcated. Someone has rightly said, "Practice what you teach and preach." It is with this attitude that a small child witnesses the beauty of characteristic features of each individual and this is how everyone would start appreciating the individualism of every human being on this earth.

Beauty with brains is the need of the hour. Women should not ever succumb to the pressure and should be bold enough to take stand for what they think is right. Why to let anyone make you a pawn for their benefit? Don't let others use you; Almighty has something planned for you, don't let the external pressure deviate you from your righteous path and always trust the notion that if you cannot change anything just ignore and move on but don't ever succumb to pressures in life. 

How to live life?

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time. Samuel Johnson

I read it on one of the social networking sites. I pondered on it a lot. Then, I realized how true it is as ever. I too feel that it is the value that a man brings to the society which is of utmost importance. No one can deny the fact that as social animals we have some moral responsibilities towards different entities, family, friends, acquaintances, colleagues, and above all society. Society is the super set of all other categories. It is constituted of people like you and me.

So why not build a society that provides a platform for our next generation to respect and honor everyone in their lives. The onus of upliftment lies on all of us who expect something better to be given to the next generation. We need to strive hard to give quality education to them, we need to imbibe in them a culture that mutually benefits all the people around and above all we need to teach them that it is the supreme Almighty who has given us a chance to be on this earth! After all, according to our ancient vedas also, the Gods were here on the earth to accomplish great tasks!

For the Gods also, the path to success was rough, it was tough, the hurdles were many, the supporters were meager but the pleasure of success, the joy of victory, the feeling of triumph and the elation of the accomplishment was beyond an explanation! And it is their accomplishments which are given as a reference to us.

I also feel that getting associated to some under privileged people lets us realize the need of everything. It is then we know how blessed we are and why we should contribute to the society. This also makes you appreciate all the positives in life and there is a special bond that you develop with those people. Probably, there is a secret pledge in your heart to serve them with all the means to the best of your capabilities. 

So, give this a thought! It needs few materialistic inputs in terms of resources but a lot of value education that needs to be penetrated in the young minds to encourage them to take the lead in their lives. It is this act that would truly matter while judging how the person lived his life!

Move ahead with time

People often live with pre-conceived thoughts about a concept, about a person, about a situation. I often wonder how many of such people ever question about why a particular notion is there in their mind. It is seldom a challenge for these people to accept people and the situations with open-mindedness. This also becomes a bottleneck situation for their evolution and development.

No wonder, people who cross their middle-age are not receptive to new thoughts and ideas. It is also a contriving situation for all those who have to bear the consequences of this rote thinking. Rote thinking like rote learning is based and fixed on a particular flow line. There is no deviation or change acceptance.

I remember, how CBSE had to actually struggle to get acceptance for new Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) system. Many senior teachers and professors had actually thrown tantrums to implement this new concept in teaching. But in reality it had brought a breakthrough cutting edge change in the teaching and the evaluation pattern.

After a significant research I feel it has changed the complete scenario of the Indian education system. The teachers are now concerned about the overall development of the children and hence they are regularly evaluating the children through Formative and Summative Assessments (FAs and SAs).

Same is the fundamental driving principle of life. Over a period of time, the traditional ways and means become obsolete. They have to evolve with the changing times and it has to accommodate the current generations capabilities and expectations. We really cannot live with the obsolete technology and hence the obsolete thought process is also a strict no-no. So, let's pledge to be receptive to the changes and adapt to the new upcoming evolutions. After all, these things are bound to make our children happy and they would really be pleased if we do not take them back by 100 years in the time machine!!

Secret anniversaries

How many of you feel blessed to have celebrated anniversaries of heart? I enjoy celebrating each anniversary of heart!! These anniversaries are really different from the usual anniversaries or birthdays you celebrate. Those are the days when the celebration is made very public, those are the days when everyone around you are a part of the celebration, but these silent anniversaries are something which the two of you celebrate.

Life gives us innumerous opportunities to rejoice and relive each cherished moment. It gives us the option to be happy and thank God for blessing us with wonderful people around. Being a social animal, we cannot live in isolation. We need someone to share our joys, someone to offload our tensions and frustrations, someone to celebrate our success with. It is so pleasing to share the secret anniversaries of heart.

Some people might call you crazy for remembering those silly dates but this all tells about your passion for the person with whom you share the date! It is by default that the date gets registered in your mind and stays there for years to come. It is because you feel something nostalgic about the day, about the time spent and about the memories being made. It is one of those pleasurable days when your presence on this earth was acknowledged for and you felt on the seventh heaven!

At times these are the special days when you wanted something to happen, you were looking for something to be eventful and that was something you wished for, you prayed for and by the Almighty's blessings, it finally happened.

You should feel thankful to the God for giving you an opportunity to feel blessed on few special days. These are infact the days when you felt your world is just the other person. Also, this day gives you an opportunity to give credit to the other person for being thoughtful about you. May such anniversaries bring in immense joy and happiness for all of you!

 

Parenthood

I'm back on my writing spree. There are lot of things going on in my mind, but I'm really not sure where to start with it today.

Aaaahhhhh... now that I'm connected to you, I think I'll pick up a topic that is very close to my heart. This is something that I've always wanted to do. This is my real life project, I want to code it, I want to test it, I want to execute it, and then finally implement it. I don't want to shun away from upgrading it nor do I want to get back from providing a life-time support.

To many of you, it might appear as if I'm going to beat Bill Gates, the software giant with some new self created product with an exceptionally bug free code. Well let it be!! For me it is nothing less than that.

Probably this is the something which I'm very passionate about. I'm talking about the project of parenting!! I'm very passionate about this. I simply love doing this. I think, my child completes my status of womanhood. Motherhood is a blissful state that reminds you of your childhood. It also makes you a little judgmental about various things, probably because you believe in experiential learning by then. You know what were the shortcomings in your parents' style, you have witnessed what probably could be the shortcomings in your in-laws parenting style for your husband, and also you have seen considerable number of parenting cases; reasons are im-materialistic at this stage. With these inputs, you gear up to prepare a product with the ideal features, characteristics and you set the rules and protocols to follow.

Scientifically, you are at a stronger position because you would not commit the errors that others did. But what if you get the lesson for repeating the same thing which you know is erroneous??? Without a doubt you need to retaliate. Without a second thought you need to refuse to commit the blunder. It is your baby and by nature's law you would never want anything bad to happen to him. You would always want the best for him. It is for this reason that you need to make your stand clear for all the decisions that you take. You also need to tell the reason behind that. This reasoning probably helps in some odd cases to reiterate what you want to convey or what you want to do.

After all, this stage gives you an opportunity to perform like the others have done, to the best of their capabilities. How could you miss this opportunity? Always make sure, you have well defined ideologies for your child's upbringing. The goals should be clear. You should not over-expect from your child. Nor should you over-burden him. Make sure he is not a spoilt brat and don't give in to all his demands. Never compare and never let him compete for the status. He should not be projected as a product for enhanced status quo nor should you let anyone make him a part of baseless expectations.

He is a God's creation, honor his individuality. Don't hamper his growth by imposing your dreams nor try to fulfill your unaccomplished ambitions through him. Let him grow in an open environment. Discuss things with him, so what if he is younger than you - he would always be; respect his thought process. It is only then he can contribute to the welfare of the society, it is only then he can think about the development and up-gradation of the family, it is only then he can be a responsible family member and hence a valuable citizen of the country. On him the onus lies for traditional evolution!

Last but not the least, the most important fact: fatherhood complements motherhood. Never take single ownership for the child's upbringing. It is a fact that all good things happen in collaboration and this is also a fact that however extensive efforts you as a mother are investing, it would be completely impossible without the father's contribution in terms of giving you the authority to take decisions for your child. The father probably makes the unsaid and unnoticed; but probably the most important contributions to the child's overall growth. Fatherhood too is an equally important and extensive project. The child should not underestimate anyone's efforts!!

 

Traditional pandora's box

As I tore open the metropolitan wrapping sheets package with great excitement I'm surprised to witness some baseless customs and traditions. I would rather take each gift as it pops up from my magical juke box that I got as a gift.

A notion that I got to know was ridiculous. There are many parties and clauses to pay respect. There are few set rules that are prevalent in most of the north-Indian families. I'm now a north-Indian but I cannot accept all the crap given to me at any point of time. There were many such verdicts for which I've never got satisfactory explanations; but I can give innumerous logics for not following it blindly.

Here is some food for thought:

• Girls do not touch her parent's feet: I'm a Maharashtrian by birth and I'm proud to be. I've imbibed the culture to its roots. For me, any one who is elder to me even by a single hour commends respect. There is no one in this entire universe whom I can treat at par with my parents. So how can I not touch the feet of my parents for their blessings. I exist because of them and I'm successful because of them. They are the BEST! I shun this ritual of not touching their feet. If there are innumerous people in a gathering, I would start with them to honor them. I follow this with all my strength and zeal. I got this from Lord Ganesha. Parents are the supreme, they are everything.
• Daughter-in-laws need to touch the younger sister-in-law's feet: Another pop up from the Pandora's box!! I see no logic in it. By imposing this, people are rather stripping off the love, care and affection we might have towards them. I would like to question, will this mere physical act inculcate the respect in someone's heart? I feel even if there was a miniscule particle of respect in the heart that would also eventually diminish by this silly act. I don't follow this.
• Nobody should touch maternal uncle's feet: For me an elder is an elder irrespective of the relation. I need to seek blessings from each and every elder in the family. After all, maternal uncles and their families (apparently our parents' side) do play a major contribution in the upbringing. Then according to the north-Indian culture, the maternal uncles do have to incur heavy expenditure for rituals like bhaat before the marriage. This is the ceremony where the maternal uncles have to buy clothes and expensive gifts for the entire family. What a forced wealth drain...and then a punch line to refer Kans (Lord Krishna's maternal uncle) and Shakuni (evil maternal uncle of Kauravas in Mahabharata) as the creed of maternal uncles where they do not call for any respect but yes they are still eligible to contribute to the child's gift basket during marriage! What an irony?  
• Son-in-law is a highly distinguished member of the family: Why, why and just why? I just can't stop questioning? What exceptional things do the north-Indian son-in-laws do that son-in-laws of other communities do not do? Logically, all have that same extra 7-inch flesh that gives the girls a privilege to be the mothers!! All have the moral obligation to bear the expenditure for a decent livelihood of the girl for the rest of her life after marriage. All do love the girl with all their heart if they truly feel blessed in the relationship. Then why do the girls' side have to worship the son-in-laws in an unrealistic way and give undue leverage and honor to be a part of their family? Are we not over-emphasizing their presence and acknowledging their duties as some unexpected favors? Why?
• Younger brother-in-laws need not be called by their names: The stupid logic that I got for this was: "If you can call a rickshaw puller, a shop-keeper, a pantry boy, an office boy, any male stranger as bhaiya then why not a younger brother-in law?". Can any one of you buy this logic? I will not feel ashamed to call everyone a stupid and an idiot who sees logic in this. For me my younger brother-in-laws are not the strangers, I know them from the bottom of my heart, I relate to them for every naughty prank they play on me, I enjoy teasing them and above all I see no difference in their relation with me as compared to my own younger brothers/cousins. Then why do I move away from them by creating this societal barrier. Even if I call them by their names, I love them, I care for them, and I do respect their presence in my life. They are important to me as they keep the child in me alive! They contribute to my happiness.

All these notions to me are presumably the most weirdest thoughts that any one can give. Why to follow them blindly? There is no point in saying that we are doing this because our parents did this and we follow them blindly.

I ask all the readers, if you are being questioned by your children in future, would you be able to give a sensible logic to this? These are probably the questions that come to my mind. With the traditional evolution, I'm sure our children would move a step ahead of us and ask more intricate questions which you'll have to answer with all the logic and facts. Be prepared as that would be the change over phase for you too for they might ask you a very straight forward question - "What you've been doing all these years with your near and dear culture and tradition?".

I'm gearing up with all my strength to face this! Are you ready too??
 

Traditional evolution

To many of you this title might seem at random. Many of you might think what vague thoughts I'm penning down! But this is something that I've been experiencing for quite some time now.

Here is the plot of the basis. It so happened that I got married in a different culture and in an altogether different family set up by sheer virtue of loving the best competent person in this world. With great pride I can say he was, he is and he will be the best soul mate I could have ever found. He is a perfect embodiment of love, care, affection, honesty, and probably all the good adjectives that constitute the huge 4.5-billion-word corpus of any internationally recognized word plethora; a dictionary! With him I got lovely people to share my joys and offload my sorrows; but the package was a bigger one as there was a bundle of age old thoughts bundled in metropolitan wrapping sheet!

As is said, you cannot change everyone to suit your requirements; the universal law was applicable to me too. I cannot change or modulate the thought process of everyone around me. They exist in perfect accordance with their upbringing, education, moral values and traditions. But the diminishing relationships due to un-evolved thoughts and traditions is something that bothers me, especially now when I'm a part of this family and this has to go to my son as a heritage.

A day came in my life when I decided that I cannot pass on this legacy with flaws to my next generation. It is my moral duty to fine tune it before I hand over the cultural heritage to him. It is then when I thought of changing the society and to do that the change has to begin with my family. I love the fact that we all are together in times of need, we share our joys, we stand by each other in times of sorrow, and we value each other's presence in our life but there are days when this coin tosses the other way round. The tail-end has a gloomy picture. Saddening is the fact, that at those times we forget our past, we forget the company we rejoiced, we underestimate the efforts being put in by our near and dear ones.

The root cause of this is the belief that one comprising entity could not follow the age old tradition. The dictionary meaning of tradition is "a custom or belief that has existed for a long time". But have you ever thought, from where did these originate? I'll be straight forward in writing that these originated when people like you and me thought of following something because we liked it.

Now with the evolution of homo sapiens, the signals radiated from the brain wire also need to be modulated well with the aesthetic changes happening to the modern society because of the presence of rapidly evolved entities like you and me!!

The traditional evolution should accommodate the life style changes, the competitive edge we need to give to the youngsters, the rising inflation that is putting rupee in a real bad position and the rising fair enough demands projected by the next generation which are actually needed to help them evolve with the changing time.

We cannot neglect these facts and I would be really glad to share my experiences and hence the learning in days to come through this wonderful platform of uninterrupted expression. I strongly believe in experiential learning!

Appreciation

How many of you have ever felt the joy of appreciating someone? You might think there is a typographical error in the previous sentence and it should read as "How many of you have ever felt the joy of appreciation?".

But let me confirm, I meant what I had written in the first go itself. For those who have actually appreciated someone might have felt the bliss in doing so. It is such a wonderful feeling! You can actually see the recipient of the compliment jump in joy. It seems as if the person was just dying to hear that from you and you mean the world to that person.

It also lets you grow personally because when you appreciate someone, you are actually recognizing the fact that the other person has that skill set which is of real worth. A time would come when you also would like to imbibe those qualities in yourself and that would help in enhancing your personality manifold.

Appreciation is a tool that helps one to give credit to the other person and allows to acknowledge the fact that for something that you could not put your efforts, the other one has done a considerably commendable job.

In personal and professional life, appreciation would act as a tonic and as an effective management tool that could break the monotony of persistent sluggish feeling of contributor who toils hard, burns the midnight oil, makes endless sacrifices; just to see someone rather the most important person in life happy and accomplish goals that have been set as success parameters.

So, it's a mass appeal, please appreciate and acknowledge the efforts of people around you. The world would definitely be a better place and people would emit that long awaited positive aura!
 

Contribute to the society

All you wonderful ladies out there, how many of you think that a job for a woman is just an additional financial help to the family?

For those of you for whom the answer is in affirmative, I would like to educate them by letting them know that the least considerate fact about a woman's job is her income. Choosing a career is like choosing a lifestyle. It is more than merely an income. It is an opportunity to learn each day, it is an opportunity to contribute to the society, it is something that the next generation will appreciate not because you are getting few additional pennies at home; rather you are creating a learning from your experiences. It is something that we as women should be proud of.

I feel that irrespective of the profession we choose, we equip ourselves in a better way:

• to handle crisis in life
• to impart quality education to our kids
• to manage time efficiently
• to deal with personnel problems effectively  
• to live life competitively

With all these benefits we should never underestimate ourselves. We are actually meant to give back to the society what we are earning through it. The society gives us ample amount of opportunities to learn and teach. It depends on us how we reap the benefits of it.

I would like to appeal to all the ladies to be pro-active in their endeavor to work for the society. This is something that we are going to give to our children. This is our heritage. We need to build upon it with new thoughts. We need to pay back to our wonderful contributors as well and ensure that we take our children atleast a step ahead of us. It is with this aim in life we can strive to be better with each passing day. It is with this goal in mind we can achieve what is more than what is destined for us. We need to surpass the boundaries of our destiny. That is where the achievement lies.

It is with this thought, I am signing off this post to let you all think of beautiful world that lies ahead of hard work. It is a more beautiful and encouraging world that drives you through luxuries of positive thinking and parenting. Love yourself and don't shy off from the hard work for personal and professional growth! Let this be the motto of your life today and ever and let each day be better than yesterday to be sure that tomorrow is a more promising day. Amen!

Competition that goes on forever and ever!

I'm sure all of you had fun last week. Many of you would have got a hole burnt in the pockets after the Diwali dhamaka!!

For many housewives the period of gossiping has actually begun now. They now have given the gifts, received the gifts, invited guests, cooked tasty dishes, and also met all the relatives. Many of their counterparts might have done the same, still; who did better and who did the most would be the competition now.

The older generation is not happy with the new one because the new generation cannot really take too much of the initiatives to handle a big group of 40 odd people. There is ample time, energy and obviously resources going into it. The new generation dislike the older generation's perception of gathering everyone at one place, arranging non-stop supply of tea during the winters and serving lavish tasty royal food to one and all. How ridiculous is the fact that the one who has been on her toes from probably a couple of days prior to the gathering when sits down to have that much awaited meal, gets to hear everything is OK except XYZ :( Then begins the unending era of each oldie taking turns to praise the new comer of her family and suddenly the shift moves to the daughters of the family!!

Just for sitting idle, just for gossiping and passing remarks, they are being appreciated for their countless efforts they put in their families (we don't ever get to see that; for those we see, it is a collaborative effort from the parental side too :); but who will beat the head against the thorny bush!!). The new comers are victimized for not doing anything the oldies' way or doing the daughters' way, presumably the competent way. The ones who were about to have the last few morsels of lavish meal are now demotivated to think of 'Vasudev Kutumbakam' in a positive way inspite of their busy schedules and comparatively less energy than the older lot.

For me it is a learning phase. Ofcourse not for taking the oldies in my stride but for ensuring that I do not form this as my habit when I become the one in the oldie lot. For me, it is the time to realize that everyone has his/her preferences, different opinions to celebrate life and a preferred group to celebrate joys. It is the time to accept and yet ignore the oldie lot for their non-sense thinking and yet move on by explaining our limitations to them. After all, they did everything their own way but then how long would they continue to do the same??? It's the time to take charge and bring about a new revolution - it's time to reform the society and the rigid mindset. It's giving everyone a fair chance to live life their own way.