As I sit alone, in the candlelight..

Its a big house and you might think it is almost quiet and empty. I am looking across at the window and I can see the reflection of the candle flickering. Tonight seems to have changed so much from the years before. How christmas has evolved over time?! When I was little, christmas came at a time when we were relieved of our half term exams and having a two week break before the routine begins along with the new year. Our christian neighbours share festive food with us, as we do with them during diwali. As always, the TV gives unlimited choice of entertainment throughout the day, only this time the advert says it is 'extra' special. Mum prepares something nice as she gets a break from worldly work, but never a break from the house, from the kitchen so to speak.

 From my memory, I remember christmas to be simple, yet festive and whether you are christian or non-christian, it is certainly a happy way to bid goodbye to the year that has gone by. But now, christmas has changed so much. Certainly being in a different country adds up to the feeling, yet somehow the focus of the season is seemingly different. I saw christmas decorations being put up in the shop several weeks before the festive season began and oddly enough this only lead to irritation. Is it actually nothing more than a vast commercial enterprise? It seems the more expensive the gift is, the more love you give someone. Certainly there is nothing wrong in giving or exchanging gifts, but what matters is who you share it with and the intention behind it. 

For me, this christmas has been the quietest of all. It is not white or snowing outside and it is unusually warm to be 12C at this time of the year. I can hear faint sounds from the TV running below and the candle light keeps me company. As I sit here, I am wondering if I can begin to make my wish list for the new year. The prospect of making one is almost too tempting but the cons seem to outweigh the pros. I was the kind of person who plans everything in the head ahead of time and almost always, I firmly believed that everything will fall into place according to the 'plan'. I only lately realized whether I like it or not, life throws unplanned situations all the time. My sub-conscious self probably would have handled all the then 'unplanned-ness' along the years and queer enough I never truly believed in it. So does this actually mean that I should keep away from making my wish-list for the new year? And in doing so, I keep away from working towards it, or in other words, planning ahead of time to make it come true. 

Somehow........my heart says no.

As I sit alone in the candlelight, I silently make my wish list . I have been told that this is the season of love and forgiveness and the best gift one can give at christmas are the ones that money cant buy. And if love really is the greatest gift of all, I wish for it to be patient and kind and rejoice in the truth. I wish for it to bear all things, believe all things, hope all things and endure all things. The clock is ticking, the candle has almost burnt out and it is christmas day and I hope the spirit of christmas is never truly forgotten. I wish........ faith, hope, forgiveness, compassion and most of all love always lives in our hearts and is remembered. 

Merry Christmas ! (..and dont stop wishing)

Empty box

The story goes that some time ago a man punished his 5-year-old daughter for wasting a roll of expensive gold wrapping paper. Money was tight and he became even more upset when the child pasted the gold paper so as to decorate a box to put under the Christmas tree.

Nevertheless, the little girl brought the gift box to her father the next morning and said, "This is for you, Daddy." The father was embarrassed by his earlier overreaction, but his anger flared again when he found the box was empty.

He spoke to her in a harsh manner, "Don't you know, young lady, when you give someone a present there’s supposed to be something inside the package?" The little girl looked up at him with tears in her eyes and said, "Oh, Daddy, it's not empty. I blew kisses into it until it was full." The father was crushed. He fell on his knees and put his arm around his little girl, and he begged her to forgive him for his unnecessary anger.

An accident took the life of the child only a short time later and it is told that the father kept that gold box by his bed for all the years of his life. And whenever he was discouraged or faced difficult problems he would open the box and take out an imaginary kiss and remember the love of the child who had put it there.

Balancing effort and patience

I was rushed this morning to get to work and finish a few things before I go on for a scheduled meeting with my boss. Now that I am more than half way up to the finish line, I realize I needn't have had the pang of anxiety as I got up. I needn't have woken up many times reminding myself what I needed to do when its light outside.  Who knows, I could have even managed a few moments of peaceful saunter with a loved one! This isn't the first time this has happened and I often find that I do this in such situations and get worked up unnecessarily, when in actual fact I can manage to do the task very well without ever getting worried !  I remember when I was a child, I had the same problem and invariably it was my mother who used to spare some soothing words like, 'slow down', you will get it done but first, you need to 'calm down'. Whether I believed in it or not at that point of time, end result has always been fruitful. I calm down, think clearly, plan well and finish the job. Fullstop. The outcome may or may not be what I had hoped for, but that isn't my focus in this article. I came across this nice story about balancing effort and patience and I hope you find some calmness in it as I did a few minutes ago... :)

There is a story about a young man in Japan who wanted to be the greatest martial artist of the land. He thought that to reach this goal, he must study with the best instructor, who lived many miles away. 

One day he left home to go study with this great Zen teacher. After travelling for several days, he arrived at the school and was given an audience with the teacher. "What do you wish to learn from me?" the master asked. 

"I want you to teach me your art and help me become one of the best martial artists in the country," the young man replied. "How long must I study?" 

"Ten years at least," the master answered. 

The guy thought, ten years is a lot of time. I want to get his done sooner than that. I don't have that much time. Certainly if I try harder I can complete this task quicker. So he asked the master, "What if I studied twice as hard as everyone else? How long would it take then?" 

"Then it would take twenty years," replied the master. 

The guy thought, 'That's even longer! I don't want to spend twenty years learning something. I've got other things to do with my life. Certainly if I tried really hard I could learn it much quicker'. 

So the student asked again, "What if I practised day and night with all my effort, then how long would it take?" 

"Thirty years," was the master's response. 

The young student became confused and wondered why the master kept telling him it would take longer. 

He asked the master "How is it that each time I say I will work harder, you tell me that it will take longer?" 

"The answer is simple. With one eye focused on your destination, there is only one eye left with which to find the way," the master said.

(Another way of saying this is, "With half your attention on your goal, you only have the other half to focus on the work." Any endeavor takes effort, but it also takes patience. If we have one without the other, we get off balance. with only effort, we try and try but get frustrated when we do not see results as fast as we would like. Or we get burned out and tired very quickly. With only patience and no effort, we never really put our full attention to a task. We never give it the commitment we need. This is as true with school work as it is with a meditation practice as it is with sports. In the story, the master knew that the student had enough effort; what he needed was to balance that effort with patience.)

A Pinch of Grannyism (5)

Be Content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you. ~Lao Tzu

Finding your inner peas :)

Greetings on a winter noon! First of all, did you re-read the post title again? If you did- well done !

Finding the humorous side of everything is something I have been trying to do recently more often than not. Sometimes when you are too busy growing up, too busy planning for life, you tend not to notice the little things that would make you smile, the little things that usually didnt matter at all.

Its has only been couple of months of blogging and I am already finding the simple pleasures in it. Surprising, yet true. I find this is a simple way of exploring my thoughts and sharing it with everyone. Despite not being worried about people reading it or not, I certainly seem to be fueling something that interests me. And in this process, I hope to find my own inner peace (!) 

A certain Hardy D. Jackson said, 
“Above all, be true to yourself, and if you cannot put your heart in it, 
take yourself out of it.”

How many of us manage to do this? - I dont know. When you are tied up in knots, you stop breathing, you stop listening, you stop connecting. To learn to hear yourself, to find out what feels true, to be able to remove the noise and find clarity and to be able to use your own voice is like a massive treasure hunt. Unearthing these inner experiences can bring conflict, confusion, suffering. At the same time, having decided to deal with the tied up knots, having decided to acknowledge and be aware of these aspects, I believe I can also find freedom, wonder, enjoyment, creativity and above all, happiness. As they say, inner peace is revealed 'only' when the inner war ends. 

I take inspiration from words and in many ways my world is created by my words. They give voice to my thoughts. They give reality to my existence, they create my own dictionary by replacing that which is limiting with that which is resourceful, fruitful and pours life into me.

When you can simplify life, I feel you can savour the goodness in it. And I suppose the same idea can be applied to various aspects of life - including human relationships, which in most cases are merely made complicated for the sake of making it complicated. After all, arent relationships supposed to lighten up our load and not add to our burden? If it is the latter, why in the world will anyone willingly sign up for it? The trouble is we all get caught up in the knots and never willingly face it or worse be aware of it. This reminds me of a quote I read a while ago, a quote very similar to the famous Einstein shedding his opinion on 'action & reaction', let me see if I can dig it up for you.....

Here you go, Victor Frankl said:

‘Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.’ 

Whether one accepts it or not, what you can choose is always within your control. 

Only when you begin to focus on what you can control, you realise - it always, always, always begins and ends with you !

 So here I am, opening up to why I have started to blog and I believe in this journey I can find my inner peace, I can find the most loving place inside me, the soft spot that melts me down and above all -- smile, breathe and move forward slowly.

The Silliness of Busyness

If you happen to find yourself in the first half of the article, I suggest you read till the end of it. 
This is a guest post from Courtney Carver of Be More with Less.

I never thought I would laugh at how busy I used to be. I was serious about my ability to be superwoman. I could work 40+ hours a week, raise a child, volunteer when anyone asked, exercise, travel, cook, and clean. I could do it all, and then some.

Everyone was doing it all, so I did too. I didn’t want to do it all. Doing it all made me exhausted. Doing it all cost me friendships. Doing it all cost me my health. My busyness wasn’t even a little bit silly.

Becoming less busy was not an accident, but a decision I made on purpose. I made the decision that a busy life wasn’t a life for me. Being a good person, loving wife, mother and friend…that was the life I wanted. Next to that, I wanted the freedom to do things that made my heart sing instead of things that weighed me down.

Until I intentionally left a life of chronic busyness, I couldn’t see how silly it really was. The silliness of busyness is that sometimes you are so busy, you can’t recognize you are in trouble. You are so overwhelmed that you can’t figure out how to change. You are so used to being busy that you create more work to make your life even busier.

You may be lost in the silliness of busyness if…

• Your usual response to “how are you?” is “so busy”, “crazy busy” or “busy but good”
• You spend time worrying about how busy you are going to be tomorrow
• You get angry when your spouse or friends aren’t as busy as you
• Your busy life keeps you up at night thinking about everything you didn’t get done
• You make a point of letting people know that you stay at the office after hours
• You check email several times a day
• You zone out during conversations thinking about everything you have to do
• You volunteer for things you don’t care about
• You spend time complaining about how busy you are
• You make list after list to make sure you don’t forget anything during your busy day
• You allocate time each day to clean your desk or organize your stuff
• You regularly eat in your car
• You use a phone in the car because “it’s the only time you have to talk”

If you are anything like me, you are busy because you want to be or because you don’t know how to be un-busy. You are busy out of misdirected guilt because you think if you do enough, you will be enough. When you decide that it is ok to live life your way, you can stop being busy and start doing things that matter. You can talk about your meaningful day instead of ranting about your busy schedule. Decide today that you are enough, even if you never do anything, accomplish anything or produce anything ever again. You are enough.

How to be less busy

• be unproductive on purpose
• only check email 2X per day
• delete email and toss mail that you don’t need to read
• turn your phone and computer off when you aren’t working
• turn everything off in the car (except the car)
• put your ipad down
• read The Power of Less
• help someone
• do less, be more
• stop trying to keep up, measure up or catch up

While you may think that you are making sacrifices for others by being busy, you are likely sacrificing the same relationships you think you are saving. Get real, make time and consider what is most important to you. Then do that first. The rest can wait.

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, where is my home (India) heading to?
I was nibbling away a quick lunch at work today whilst propped in front of a computer to see what is happening around the world and I was disheartened to read this on BBC news website...

India income inequality doubles in 20 years, says OECD

India has also not fared well in poverty reduction, the report says

Continue reading the main story

Related Stories

• Rural reality of India's 26 rupee a day poverty line
• Is India's urban poverty line of 65 US cents a day fair?
• India census shows poverty gap‎

Inequality in earnings has doubled in India over the past two decades, a new report says, making it one of the worst performers among emerging economies.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says the top 10% of wage-earners make 12 times more than the bottom 10%, compared to six times 20 years ago.

The OECD says India has the highest number of poor in the world.

Some 42% of its 1.21 billion people live on less than $1.25 a day.

Poverty line

"Brazil, Indonesia and, on some indicators, Argentina have recorded significant progress in reducing inequality over the past 20 years," the report, entitled Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Rising, says.

"By contrast, China, India, the Russian Federation and South Africa have all become less equal over time."

In India, the report says, the ratio between the top and the bottom wage-earners has doubled since the early 1990s.

India has also not fared well in poverty reduction, the report says.

It says 42% of Indians live below the poverty line, as against the official Indian figure of 37%.

The Paris-based OECD is a grouping of 34 advanced and emerging economies.

Recently, the Indian government was criticised for saying that an individual income of 25 rupees (52 US cents) a day would help provide for adequate "private expenditure on food, education and health" in villages.

In cities, it said, individual earnings of 32 rupees a day (66 US cents) were adequate.

Many experts said the income limit to define the poor was too low and aimed at artificially reducing the number of people below the poverty line.

A World Bank report in May said attempts by the Indian government to combat poverty were not working.

It said aid programmes were beset by corruption, bad administration and under-payments.

I feel a great proportion of the Indian population is victimised to sheer atrocities and greediness. So who are the culprits behind India s income inequalities? Globalization? Economic policies? The depression? 

At this rate, there will be no more room for middle-class society. Either you get richer or you get poorer. But the most dramatic question on my mind at the moment is, is there a solution to this problem? Unfortunately is this one of those questions which only time can answer?

A Pinch of Grannyism (4)

Sometimes the heart sees, what the eye fails to.

My teenage dream comes true - Live with Bryan Adams !

Whoooaaaa...finally I get to write about the evening that was crazy !!! My teenage dreams comes true when I am only a few months away from turning 25. I have always wanted to see Bryan Adams perform live and so I did recently at the SECC in Glasgow (you should see the smile on my face just now- wide open).

If you are scratching your head and wondering who the heck is Bryan ???! (although this is rare), Bryan has spent the last 3 decades making music history and has sold over 75 million albums worldwide. Best known for some of his songs like, 'Everything I do , I do it for you' , 'Summer of '69', his acoustic tour to the UK was certainly one of those gigs not to be missed !

Only less than a week before his performance in Glasgow, I managed to get hold of standing tickets which meant, that I could stand as close to the stage as I could possibly manage. The evening on the day of the concert was breezy and cold here, but in-spite of the biting weather, I managed to wear my nice black dress for the concert (just in case Bryan catches my eyes :P).

Arriving, in what I thought, was plenty in advance for the concert - I was a little disappointed to see that a long snake like 'Q had already crept up along the floor leading to the concert hall. The crowd was mostly mixed I would say, certainly not the youngster crowd that one would find for boy bands and rock concerts !  Finding my way to the very back of the Q, I knew I am never going to be close enough to the stage to see Bryan. Apparently not ! Did manage to find a spot at the side of the stage if not towards the centre and I held on to a mic stand propped on the stage for keeping my sense of direction. I didnt want to move an inch from there although there were some party spoilers who came late and were trying to inch forward through the crowd.

The lights were on and the concert hall was slowly becoming full. A big screen right in front of us on the stage was flashing some tweets posted about his concert in other places in the UK. Wanting to find myself on the big screen, I signed up on twitter as I have never used it before and dont intend to- I tweeted my very first tweet to Bryan to shout out loud how I excited I was to be there and believe that my teenage dream was so close to coming true ! Only a few minutes later, I realized the tweets were not live feed from the web, there were chosen before and were running in a loop on the screen. Ahhhhhhhhhhh, exasperated a wee bit ........ I supposed that I would be on another big screen in another big city in the UK before his performance.

Clock ticking and I could feel the concert hall was almost full as it was getting warmer and noisier and the show time was 7.30pm. But 30minutes later, no signs of Bryan yet. I imagined there would be some side kicks performing before the main event- but there was none of those either. And there, like a lightning bolt (!), a few minutes past 8pm, the crowd screamed as the man came sprinting towards the mic and started off with 'Housearrest' from 'Waking up the neighbours'.  What a fantastic opener and it got the crowd going on high spirits !

His next few songs from the setlist for the concert was Somebody, Here I am, All I want is you...and the crowd clapping provided drums for some of the songs. I, for one, was hopping non-stop with sheer excitement. I know Bryan sounds fantastic on CDs, but trust me when I say this, the guy sounds amazing in person !!!!

Later down the road came Summer of '69. This song certainly turned the crowd wild and I think it never fails to. I could feel the energy in the room and it sounded fantastic on the big speakers!

And whats more, Bryan had a good sense of humor too, like when he said, ''It is great to be in Glasgow, but- hey! at my age (which is 52), it is great to be anywhere!''. The concert hall was lit with laser lights and the whole set changed for every song he sung and the setting was superb. Some more rocking songs followed like, 18 Till I Die, Back to you, Depend on me, The only thing that looks good on me is you...

Whilst still hopping to the beats in high spirit, I must say that the stage was set on fire along with Keith Scott (lead guitarist) and bloody hell (sorry for the swear word-but...) I have no clue how he manages to play guitar like that !! Those were some jaw dropping moments. There was also a medley performance on stage and I later found out the name of the song- Is your mama gonna miss ya. For this, Mickey Curry played drums on pots & pans and plastic bucket and Norm Fisher joined in playing bass on another bucket. Keith and Bryan chimed in at various points and you could see it on their faces- what a whale of a time they were having !

Cuts like a knife was a classic song and I loved the part where the crowd says 'na na na.......' (if only the fun didnt have to end).

Next came the exciting bit where he picks out a girl from the audience for a duet. My hand went up in the air before I realized it- but I got the jitters after he said he is looking for someone who knows the full song by heart. Crushed at this point for I only knew the chorus well, a bright looking lassie was the lucky one to get on to the stage and duet with the legend. I was certainly not a happy bunny but it soon changed for what was to come.....

The last but one song was 'The way you make me feel' and I went completely nuts for this one! The lighting was pure divine and his soulful voice resonated throughout the hall. I was in bliss. And he ended it with 'Straight from the heart' and my oh my, what a fabulous night I have had listening to my teenage fantasy !

....Sore feet after a long concert, but my heart was full of music & spirit- way to go Bryan Adams !!!!!

Watch out this space for more pictures and videos...the videos esp have come out very well in HD :)