The power of Love

To feel loved and important is so important to live. We can stay alive even without that, but life seems to be worthless without someone to share it with.


Love is probably the most misused word of its times. Since a very long time now love has been physically equalled with sex, so much so that, it seems one is the other sometimes. There are too many heart breaks, too many misunderstandings. When things don't work out, the first tendency is to declare that love sucks.

I personally believe that whatever this emotion called love is, it has as much power to both hurt and heal a person to any extremes. A mother's hug and downpour of Love heals and protects us beyond our acknowledgement. A father's friendly pat and his bear hug can dissolve all problems in the world no matter how big and bring back our faith on ourselves. A spouse's love can make you feel great and enthusiastic and beautiful from within. A sibling's love allows you to stand tall and acts as beacon of guidance and strength.

Love allows us to cope up and fight and survive and struggle. Love is true. Love when seen positively is beautiful. Love nurtures Life. It cannot be forced. It comes naturally. To all those people I love... "I LOVE YOU and THANK YOU!!!!!"...:)....

Killed enough... STOP at least NOW!!!

‘My girlfriend is unhappy with me’, ’My boyfriend doesn’t pay me enough attention’, ‘My children don’t listen to me’, ‘my boss is a monster’, ‘I’m my husband’s second wife, his first is the newspaper’, ‘My wife’s best friend is the TV’, ‘My job sucks’, ‘My enemy is unfairly lucky’, ‘You have nothing in ur lifr if you don’t hv a boyfriend/girlfriend or you don’t drink or you don’t smoke’, ‘ICC would be better if it listened to my analysis of cricket’, ‘I cannot seem to reduce my waist to 26 (from 28)’, ‘Oh hell! I have a pimple on my face’, ’Damned! Today is a dry day again??’, ‘!@#$%, he scratched my car!!!’……….. on and on the list goes… Too many personal grievances, too much pressure to overcome, too much of bad enough stuffs going on with me myself …..Why should I care about the person next door, let alone an animal about to go extinct.

Lately an ad has showed up on the TV. It depicts a cub, scared to move out of its shelter, Curious and unsure of what to do next, where to go. And suddenly there’s a deafening bang. And then there’s a count… 1411 … I hope that by now you know which ad I am referring to.It’s the ‘Save the Tiger’ ad promoted by aircell.

Sandwiched between an advertisement promising girls to be successful by turning fair complexioned and another describing some eternal bliss of some now-latest-tomorrow-obsolete technology, there’s this small plea to save the tigers. The most common reaction to this is ‘Yeah right! As if we don’t know that even the promoters don’t care’. I’ll be honest, I do care but even then I reacted the same way, more out of disgust and disappointment than anything else.

However my mother surprised me by calling up sometime after 10 in the night and requesting me to blog about the topic. My parents were touched, so was I.

Tiger is the national animal of India. Well shouldn’t we be proud of them? They are big, beautiful, agile, symbols of strength, intelligence and power. But wait a minute! Did HUMANS say tigers are intelligent? Ha Ha… Right! That’s so very humble of them. Even God knows that by gifting them with BRAINS, now humans are capable of outsmarting even Martians (it is a general assumption in movies that the latter are far more intelligent and sophisticated and technically sound than Earthlings). So most definitely humans are far more intelligent and powerful than tigers. So much more, that, the purpose of their existence is solely to serve the needs of the homo sapien species. So we just play upon our lives and braving and daring the odds and difficulties, take an aim and shoot them. We just so desperately need their nails, teeth, skin. After all God unfairly gifted us just some complex limbs and human body and brain but not their fur. So now it’s a burning desire amongst us to earn enough to comfortably purchase a tiger skin, real tiger skin, to make up for the loss. So now we are beautiful, agile, symbols of strength, intelligent, powerful and the supreme of all species even within the human beings themselves simply by wearing their skin or adoring them on the wall or carpet. We are healthier because we can eat medicines made out of their nails and teeth. Probably it makes us feel like we are tigers from outside and within. The buyer is a happier man, the seller is richer. And just because the tiger won’t lend us its skin on its own to adorn our bodies, let’s just prove we are more powerful. Shoot them dead. Tell the other tigers we can and will kill them if they do not offer us their physical possessions. And thereafter, lets place our Goddess of power, Maa Sherawali on a tiger and pray them both showing off our gratefulness an respect to their supreme power and possessioins. How much more ridiculous can WE get?

Why save the tiger? Here’s a scientific cause:

Tigers occupy the pinnacle of the food chain and a healthy tiger population is an indicator of the well-being of the whole forest. Throughout evolution predators have had a regulatory influence on the population sizes of other species; it is thanks to carnivores such as tigers that the number of herbivores is kept in check. In turn the number of predators is constrained by the quantity of prey. The populations can therefore only fluctuate between certain limits because of this feedback mechanism.

With the number of herbivores under control but not depleted the forest vegetation is likely to thrive-provided humans do not over -exploit it. Seeds will be dispersed but new growth will not be prevented by excessive grazing pressure. Healthy vegetation protects and nourishes the soil, preventing erosion. The soil filters and purifies the rainwater and safe-guards the water table. Many forests are important catchments areas for rivers, upon which many species including human beings depend.

Species at the top of the food chain are generally larger and require more space than other animals particularly if they are territorial. Conserving such species in the wild protects the habitat of many other animals as well as safeguarding the essential ecological processes such as water and nutrient cycling. Thus the tiger acts as the guardian of many other creatures.

Courtesy: http://www.tigersofindia.com/why-save-the-tiger.php

Boring? Doesn’t ring any bell in you? Too much science? Not romantic enough? Not your type of topic? Not a spicy piece of news? Or is it that you are too illiterate or too educated to care?

Humans in their pride of their superiority of some sort tend to treat others as inferior. Why save a tiger? Well may be because the way we treat them now is the way British treated us Indians in the pre-independence period? May be because we never signed any treaty saying we are authorized to kill at our will? May be because the humans have been offered plenty of alternate and better medicinal herbs in nature rather than animal extracts? May be because walls can be adorned with many other pieces of art rather than a processed animal skin? May be because there exist plenty of clothes on this planet not made from animal skin and yet they are beautiful, expensive and solve the purpose of clothes themselves? May be because we are the supreme species and therefore we can Also make a POSITIVE difference?

It’s high time we realized that courage and strength and bravery are not shown by displaying a shot lifeless skin of a dead animal. A person struggling to survive against a killing disease, a person fighting against all odds to support the truth, a person daring his/her fears, a person recovering from a drug addiction exhibits an example of true courage. A person hunting unarmed animals for pleasure exhibits an example of vanity and illiteracy. A person hunting a tiger to earn and feed his family represents a nation with desperately hungry and poor and uneducated people.

Can you imagine daytime without the sun? Can you imagine the ocean without its water? Can you imagine a world without cars? Can you imagine a life without music? Can you imagine flowers without any colour in reality, can you imagine a world without computers or newspapers? I believe you can’t.

Now tell me can you imagine a river choked with sewage? Can you imagine a human inhabited colony without any trees? Can you imagine a sky without birds? Can you imagine going to a tiger reserve and spotting no tiger? Can you imagine a world where there are no forests or tigers or any wild animal? Unfortunately this is not an imagination at all. This is a reality. But it does not bother us or spoil our sleep because at the moment we have other and apparently more important vices to deal with first.

It’s not fair on our end to let go off the topic of preserving tigers. They have as much right and need to exist as we do. They are far too innocent to ask us to stop. If the poaching continues at this alarming rate we’d be definitely finding ourselves talking of tigers as an extinct species in another couple of years. Would it sound good to say that India is a country who slept while its national animal ceased to exist in its forests? PLEASE PLEASE, let’s not overlook the situation any more. Please join hands to stop tiger poaching. If the buyers stop, the sellers stop. DO NOT buy products made by brutally killing innocent animals, both adult and children. DO NOT let those with you, buy these products either. Educate people in any way possible to help them realize the value and beauty of tigers and to realize the mistake of killing tigers to earna living. Teach them instead to learn other skills for existence. If you believe in God, then why displease her by wiping off her vahan??

We need tigers. The tigers need us. Disturbing the ecology to this extent would primarily make it impossible for us humans to survive in the coming decades. Let’s not wait for a disastrous famine or flood to come and convince us to wake up and work to prevent this planet,this country from collapsing.

Check out Save Our Tigers | Join the Roar

Title: Save Our Tigers | Join the Roar
Link: http://gotaf.socialtwist.com/redirect?l=221226830505719913411

A dog like no other

Here is a fact, "I LOVE DOGS". am in fact, crazy about dogs. What makes me like them so much??? I can't explain. It's not even like I've had and successfully trained too many dogs. But if youn place Brad Pitt and a puppy before, and ask me to choose one, I'll blindly pick the puppy.

Anyway, what i want to talk about here is about a particular breed of dogs- Labradors. Having a labrador in house is altogether a new life.

A labrador puppy is pretty much like a real human baby himself. The singular difference is in their appearance and origins. A cuddly ball of fur and energy. That is what they are. With a size no more than your palm, these pups can shoot away from your sight in a matter of seconds.

Ever a package of delight, these pups have but four activities (probably like any other puppy but in there extreme forms)- eating, playing, pooping/peeing and sleeping- an ideal childhood.

We were told, there are two places a pup learns to recognize first and foremost when you are housebreaking them- the place where they eat and the place where they sleep.

These puppies crave for their family's FULL-time attention. And trust me, if they are not asleep and not seeking your attention, they are definitely up to something messy. The result could strapless slippers, chewed off furniture legs, empty lotion bottles, dug up flower beds, muddy paw-prints, food missing from the table and if your case is like mine, eaten of mobiles. They have an amazing teething capacity. Almost endless. And while they grow up they know exactly what they should do to be the centre of attraction in the family. They can show immense affection- So lovely- your knees feel weak before it.

It takes tremendous patience, cleverness, plan and love to train a lab pup to perfection. Love is something they'll automatically draw out of you. Th e rest is something you have to vigorously prepare yourself for.

I'm not in the least claiming that other puppies couldn't be this cute! But then these love-balls are empowered with a special sense of getting super pampered . However there's always enough place on this planet for a little more love.

So sit back and relax while stroking your llabrador who is sur to be by your side as and when you want it. :) .

AN HONOUR TO BE A CHILD..

To wake up with the hope of setting everything right

To look all around with curious eyes 

To hop jump and skip at the idea of going out

Ever and always eager to help people about

With so much time in their hands to mould a beautiful future

With so much zeal and energy to prove their worth to everybody near

To see the biggest gesture in the smallest deed

To get excited even at finding the smallest seed 

The world where mothers hug is the sign of the entire earth's love

Where 'getting high' means 'riding high on a swing'

Where 'drinking' means 'sipping apple juice'

Where 'dad' is the only 'hero of all times'

Where the only thing that can hurt is 'skinned knees'

Where the only things that can break are 'toys and window panes'

Where 'Goodbyes' mean 'only till tomorrow'

Where 'qualification' means 'scoring highest at school'

Where friend means anybody u can talk to

Where school means the second home you get to go to

To have unadulterated innocence at heart

To sleep cuddled tight, every night

To smile at your dreams while you sleep

Oh my God! Childhood is such a bliss to keep.

Indeed childhood is a bliss. I remember wondering as a child, how good it would be to be an adult and do things the way you like. Now i feel so amused at my innocence! I look at the children around me and i find myself thinking, "if only they learn to differentiate the right and wrong well their lives could be all so worth while and what a beautiful time of their life they have now." Be SIMPLE Be HAPPY, goes the slogan. the very thought is so relaxing. And as piercing is the thought of seeing children not as children but as adults in the form of labourers or in terms of manipulated up bringing. Childhood once gone cannot be regained or accepted in the same terms as actual childhood is, at some later age of responsibility. It stands much as a moral duty to see to it that childhood of every child is left as sheer childhood and nothing else, although usually situations do not stay that compatible for everyone, never the less we could try. And coming to think of it, its a fact that little bit of child stays in every adult. sometimes peeking into it, is actually a pleasant retreat.... 

A spoonful of sugar...

It is a pretty dull time of our life for myself and my batchmates. It's almost been an year since we passed out from our engineering colleges and since then we have been waiting for our DOJ or making futile attempts to do something about our immediate future. This long a time is practically enough to make you highly dull and remorseful and skeptical about your life, achievements, dreams, etc. But the idea is to stay strong now so that this period just passes off as a part of life.

It is unbelievably easy to give up. to curse every one around you and go about blaming the rain. and it is easiest to sit back and think of as many nonsense stuffs that could exist while desperately waiting for our company to call us soon and give up with any excuse as-soon-as we are urged to think about the next step we should take in our life. But then some people have lived who did not give up just when everything went wrong. they persisted against all odds. They made their life big and their problems oblivious. Lets go through some of them and decide how horrible a state we are in right now to feel hopeless and useless like we have been feeling lately.

THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE

In 1883, a creative engineer named John Roebling was inspired by an idea to build a spectacular bridge connecting New York with the Long Island. However bridge building experts throughout the world thought that this was an impossible feat and told Roebling to forget the idea. It just could not be done. It was not practical. It had never been done before.

Roebling could not ignore the vision he had in his mind of this bridge. He thought about it all the time and he knew deep in his heart that it could be done. He just had to share the dream with someone else. After much discussion and persuasion he managed to convince his son Washington, an up and coming engineer, that the bridge in fact could be built.

Working together for the first time, the father and son developed concepts of how it could be accomplished and how the obstacles could be overcome. With great excitement and inspiration, and the headiness of a wild challenge before them, they hired their crew and began to build their dream bridge.

The project started well, but when it was only a few months underway a tragic accident on the site took the life of John Roebling. Washington was injured and left with a certain amount of brain damage, which resulted in him not being able to walk or talk or even move.
 

"We told them so."
"Crazy men and their crazy dreams."
"It`s foolish to chase wild visions."

Everyone had a negative comment to make and felt that the project should be scrapped since the Roeblings were the only ones who knew how the bridge could be built. In spite of his handicap Washington was never discouraged and still had a burning desire to complete the bridge and his mind was still as sharp as ever.

He tried to inspire and pass on his enthusiasm to some of his friends, but they were too daunted by the task. As he lay on his bed in hishospital room, with the sunlight streaming through the windows, a gentle breeze blew the flimsy white curtains apart and he was able to see the sky and the tops of the trees outside for just a moment.

It seemed that there was a message for him not to give up. Suddenly an idea hit him. All he could do was move one finger and he decided to make the best use of it. By moving this, he slowly developed a code of communication with his wife.

He touched his wife's arm with that finger, indicating to her that he wanted her to call the engineers again. Then he used the same method of tapping her arm to tell the engineers what to do. It seemed foolish but the project was under way again.

For 13 years Washington tapped out his instructions with his finger on his wife's arm, until the bridge was finally completed. Today the spectacular Brooklyn Bridge stands in all its glory as a tribute to the triumph of one man's indomitable spirit and his determination not to be defeated by circumstances. It is also a tribute to the engineers and their team work, and to their faith in a man who was considered mad by half the world. It stands too as a tangible monument to the love and devotion of his wife who for 13 long years patiently decoded the messages of her husband and told the engineers what to do.

Perhaps this is one of the best examples of a never-say-die attitude that overcomes a terrible physical handicap and achieves an impossible goal.

Often when we face obstacles in our day-to-day life, our hurdles seem very small in comparison to what many others have to face. The Brooklyn Bridge shows us that dreams that seem impossible can be realised with determination and persistence, no matter what the odds are.

Even the most distant dream can be realized with determination and persistence. 

BUTTERFLY

A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could, and it could go no further.

So the man decided to help the butterfly. He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon.

The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings.

The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time.

Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.

What the man, in his kindness and haste, did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were God's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our lives. If God allowed us to go through our lives without any obstacles, it would cripple us.

We would not be as strong as what we could have been. We could never fly!

I asked for Strength.........
And God gave me Difficulties to make me strong.

I asked for Wisdom.........
And God gave me Problems to solve.

I asked for Prosperity.........
And God gave me Brain and Brawn to work.

I asked for Courage.........
And God gave me Danger to overcome.

I asked for Love.........
And God gave me Troubled people to help.

I asked for Favors.........
And God gave me Opportunities.

I received nothing I wanted ........
I received everything I needed!

Just to conclude... watch this video. I have no idea of the story behind but I don't need to know that either.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnLVRQCjh8c&eurl=http://www.inspirationpeak.com/forum/viewtopic.php%3Ft%3D905%26sid%3D8fa000578d0e58b46c4d09ac1ef42717&feature=player_embedded

Garam garam ROTI !!!!

You return home from your college or school or office. You dump your bags n baggage and slump down on the sofa or rush to freshen up yourself. In the mean time by some instinct or unconscious habit, you shout, "I'm home", which also means, "I'm hungry". And what appears next is your habitual lunch or dinner. Your attention moves to the menu. You assess what all you would eat and what all you would'nt like to. If the food is good, you are a happier person else a grumbler one. But what goes unnoticed in this huge hassle of occupational stress, food choice, pending jobs and all life routines, is the plight of making "ROTI".                                                

Probably, this sounds funny to you, but food fanatics and amateur cooks may proceed if they wish. I am about to tell you my war with making a single successful roti. 

Once upon a time, when helping mummy with her house hold chores was my hobby, I looked wide-eyed at how my mother was stretching the small ball of flour with her rolling pin that she later put on the tava and then on fire and once it puffed beautifully, she served it to everyone and everyone gorged on their food right away. I watched it everyday until I grew to believe,"that's all it needs to make a roti. No big deal. I could do it!'.

So one fine day, I don't even remember when, I pulled out some pre-mashed dough. I got the rolling pin and some dry flour and set to work. I dipped the dough ball into the flour and patted it on the base of the rolling pin. Then I moved the rolling pin up and down. "Cheerios", I said. First part cleared! My glory however waned by the time I reached the third or fourth round of rolling. The silly thing kept getting stuck, and I had to re dip it in the flour each time I rolled. At one angry movement out of frustration, the roti got punched at a corner. I also observed my roti looked nothing short of an amoeba. Never-the-less, I carried the flailing roti and kept it on the hot tava  like my mother always did.Satisfied that I appeared to do something almost similar, I removed the tava from the stove and placed the roti on fire, almost imagining it would puff like it always did. Lo and behold, something happened. A tiny bubble of some trapped gas, about the radius of 1 mm, puffed up. A little while later, I realized that I should turn over the roti. As I did that, I saw the obvious results of overbaked roti... a black surface that too with potholes in it and the roti was as brittle as papad. Depressed, I rushed to my mother. Amused and happy by my interest in the subject, she taught me the real way of making roti.

She did it so amazingly nicely and easily! Like some magic! She plopped the ball of dough and rolled it on and on showing how the pressure is applied to a single corner of the pin, how the roti rotates automatically that way, how you avoid puncturing the roti while rolling it, how you roll it thin and what not. Within seconds what lay before me, was a perfectly round shaped unbaked roti. She placed it on the hot tava and explained me how long it should be kept there and thereafter, placed it immediately on to fire and puff!!! There lied the mouth watering soft and perfectly baked, staple food of India. 

  
                                                 

What followed was a little more, on-the-spot training and some compliments at whatever slight attempt I made. But the bad thing was, despite all the demos and boost ups, the amoeba would just not bugde. And even if it did, it would turn into a paramoecium or euglena or other such stuffs with amazing structures until I realized that as a student, my job is to study and not bake rotis.

I believe quitting a struggle is bad because that's a virtue after all. And mind you, using all the scientific and artistic skills I know, I have learnt to make a 90% round and an appreciably un-burnt roti. It continues to be of the brittle sort but I would hate to overlook my subtle achievements in this field. However,I have realized that of the hundreds of dishes my mother and most mothers and cooks of our country make, the single one that is singularly, enough to challenge your culinary skills, is 'baking the roti'. 

Meanwhile I continue stand near my mummy in the kitchen and marvel over and over again at the unrecognized skill with which she rolls every roti into a perfect circle of regular thickness and puffs them up perfectly with such a glamorous ease. 

And I take one such Garam garam roti, drop a little ghee and watch it melt, dip it into garam garam dal and sabzi and ummmmm......................................... Yummy...... I just allow myself to feel the heavenly bliss. Thank you dear roti. Thank you, Mummy. :).