Sunday, January 30, 2011

Escape into nature

Most of my blog time this weekend has been taken by my other blog Incredible India. Without further ado, providing links to open the gates to nature's beauty...

Saturday, January 22, 2011

PAST is PAST????

Our lives entered into yet another great year and now it's almost end of first month. Most of us make lots of resolutions for the new year, looking forward for the FUTURE to fulfill our wishes. But how about PAST? Is it completely gone from our life?

Whenever I hear someone saying PAST IS PAST, wonder if that's really true. Past has so many good and bad memories mixed together. What should we do out of it? Good memories set path for success in the future whereas bad memories showcase what went wrong and also set path for success, only if interpreted in a correct way. It's all about the way we think.

Mind accumulates so many memories over time. After a while, feels like we are dreaming into past, vague faces, clear faces with forgotten names etc...etc... But few memories make such great impression on our lives, we never want to forget them, even if we want to, our poor heart doesn't let them go. I still remember my teacher scolding me for not trimming my nails. I was in 3rd grade and really took it to heart...of course who wants to be scolded in front of other kids ;-). But one thing I can never forget is the fact she told "there is so much dirt under your nails, you need to trim them and keep them clean". From that point onwards, even if I want to grow my nails, her words remind me to trim them. Small things, but change the way we live, again depends on how we take it.

Recently I stayed with my friend in Banglore. Almost after 15 years, we still cherish the combined studies, sleep over in each other's place and great meals provided by our parents. These memories have no success or failure tagged to them, but bring a BIG smile on our faces.


And there is this PAST that has memories of innocence and eagerness to compete with others for no reason. Still remember SANKRANTI when my father (not my mother) used to help us in doing Rangoli. The famous Rangoli for us was the beautiful peacock. After I clean and wax the floor with cow dung, my father used to help me in making the designs which were not typical Rangoli patters, but modern art ;-). Then I fill the colors with my brother's help. We used to stay up all night to make it perfect and make sure ours is the best in the colony. We even mixed Upma Rava instead of sand/rangoli to give extra effect to the Peacock, but we had to guard it from ants and other animals ;-). Good lesson learned out of innocence which again brings a BIG smile on our faces.

And there are some memories that inspire us to mimic PAST. One instance is the Bhogi day meals we had at home. Visit my food blog to get a flavor of my PAST. Nevertheless to say, PAST is PAST, but our future is definitely reflection of our PAST. Have a great YEAR ahead and do cherish all those memories you spent with your loves ones.


Saturday, January 15, 2011

Guzaarish

From the moment I saw Guzaarish movie ad on TV, I knew I'll definitely like it. But wanted to watch it with my husband by my side. When I heard the movie did not do well at the box office, I was bit disappointed. When there are hit movies with songs like "Munni badnaam huyi" and "Sheela ki jawani", no wonder why this movie is a flop.

As my husband was away from home, I had no time or interest to watch it alone....instead asked him to watch it in US. We both being creatures with bundle of emotions, felt happy to hear the review from my husband and as usual, he wanted to watch it again with me. Now he is home and the movie is gone from the theaters here in Pune. We tried to watch it in Hyderabad and Banglore during our vacation...but no luck...box office collection didn't let it stay for long.

When we came home, pay-per-view service by Tata sky compelled us to purchase our first pay-per-view movie on TV.  I must say..WHAT A MOVIE....Bengali Dada Sanjay Leela Bansali has done a fabulous job in cleaning our eyes with natural tears. And what to say of Hrithik's action, the person who is good at his dance moves was thrown onto bed with his legs and hands paralyzed....still he proved to be a great actor with his facial moves...and Aishwarya's dance moves were graceful as usual.

While we were watching the movie, it reminded us our father-in-law who suffered from a rare disease called ALS(Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). A person who was perfectly all right and had great zeal to help me in removing our backyard lawn (which was around 3000sqft that made my husband think we were crazy) and prepared it for vegetation. The disease started with his thumb being numb and then slowly crawled to other parts of his body... paralyzing him completely within one year.

If a disease paralyzes mind with body, then no problem...but ALS is horrible..mind works with body pain poking the soul's patience. Remember him saying "I want to die, I can't take this pain anymore". I still remember the moment on the last day of his life...he wanted to convey something ...the only thing he could move was his eye balls....giving all sorts of signs...but I had tough time decoding them. After half an hour of hard work, his eyes settled in peace when I touched his legs. All he wanted to say was to massage his legs which were in great pain. I felt like doing parakaya pravesham to understand what he wanted to say.

Human achieved great success in transplanting kidney, liver and heart...BUT soul transplant can only be done by God.... with the side effect of losing past history :-(. Anyways, we truly enjoyed watching the movie and the climax is beautiful with the message <as I decode it>....it is not lust, but TRUE LOVE that binds two people together... if you LOVE TRULY, happiness overflows out of pain.