Do trees have feelings?

Last month my parents visited Kurnool (in Andhra Pradesh, India) to meet friends and relatives. On my request, they paid a visit to the house where I spent 23 years of my life. Whenever I think of my birth place, the first thing that comes to my mind is the big Neem tree (Vepa Chettu in Telugu) that has grown with me and of course, part of my entire childhood.

How can I forget the tree that gave lots of fresh air to breathe....

How can I forget the fresh breeze that took away all my tiredness....

How can I forget the gentle movements of tree branches for the tunes of my mother's Chandamaama Raave lullaby...

How can I forget the smell of spicy food when the tired labors rested and ate under the shade of the tree....

How can I forget the tree that attracted monkeys to show off their naughty tricks....

How can I forget the tree that showered sweet Neem fruits in summer..and of course lots of flies...

How can I forget the labors who collected dry Neem seeds to earn money...
How can I forget the warmth of winter mornings sitting around the campfire of dry leaves....

How can I forget the taste of bitter brush to beat the bacteria...

How can I forget the moments of peeping through the tree branches to get a glimpse of the Moon and shining stars by resting on nulaka mancham(cot made with ropes)....

How can I forget the tunes of Koyal sitting on the tree and asking us to compete with its tunes...

How can I forget the tree that made me sit under its shade to study....

How can I forget the swing hanging from the tree to bring a chuckle on my chins....

How can I forget the taste of the tree's tender leaves to test my tongue....

How can I forget Vepa puvvu (neem flowers), the essential ingredient of Vepa Pachchadi on UGADI, the start of Telugu new Year...

Wish I could go back in time and spend time with the loving tree. For me, it's more than a tree...a friend...a mother and God. I was shocked to learn that the tree is dead dry now. Only one question lingering in my mind, how can such a big and healthy tree die so soon? Was it missing the Carbon dioxide and Oxygen cycle that bonded us together? 

Research has proved that trees grow healthy with music around. So was it missing the music of our voices? Didn't realize that a tree can bring tears to my eyes. Hard to digest the fact that the healthy and young tree is no more. But happy that the tree's bark made my God's list for the last 11 years. It will live its life in my heart forever and ever.... 

To all my Telugu friends, UGADI SHUBHAKAANKSHALU and HAPPY GUDI PADWA to all Maharashtrians. On the start of this new year, give life to a plant or tree if you can.

PRALAY

On March 11^th, world witnessed the most devastating Tsunami in Japan, caused by massive earthquake. It’s really hard to see people, vehicles and even houses moving like toys. Can’t imagine people watching their loved ones floating away from them, finding pieces of clothes with no body inside, even if bodies are found, they are dead or injured to bear the pain.  

Mother nature took its turn causing Tsunami, which is hard to predict even with so much scientific advancement. But species close to mother nature can predict the calamities to some extent.  Many stories explain how dogs bark before an earthquake, and even evidence of animals escaping to higher grounds during 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. As they say, it could be their response to an increase in low-frequency electromagnetic signals. If interested, read more on Unusual Animal Behavior Prior to Earthquakes.

In Hindu mythology, there are terms like Pralay, which causes large amounts of devastation, and there is MahaPralay, which is much bigger than Pralay, with no one left to see the devastation. IMHO, Mahapralay is much better than Pralay. As per Hindu calculations, Mahapralay will come at the end of Kaliyug whose duration is 432,000 years. Read more on Vedic calculations at The Maha Yug SatYug,TretaYug,Dwapar Yug,KalYug. 

Even though I never watched Pralay in person, I experienced it many times in my dreams.... even before I knew what Tsunami is. Until now, I didn’t watch the movie “2012: Doomsday". I know, if I watch it, it’s going to add more fiction to my dreams ;-).  btw, here are some of my experiences of Pralay through my dreams:

• Tsunami with high tides rushing towards me
• Tsunami like fire chasing me with no place to hide or save myself
• And those quiet moments, when everyone knows that the world is going to end, all gathered on a piece of land surrounded by water, with complete darkness, witnessing mother nature’s live show in the sky, which looks something similar to laser show… but on a large scale in the sky. Can’t explain the beauty of that show in words.

Wonder why I get those dreams. Is God preparing me to face the truth? Is he showing me prototypes into future? Whatever it is, I’m blessed to see mother nature’s beauty in my dreams. But when it comes to reality, it's really hard to imagine the truth.

I pray God for the victims of Japan’s Tsunami. Hope there are no more earthquakes as an effect of Supermoon today.

FACE BOOK

You might be wondering why I put an extra space in the title, it's not by mistake, just to emphasize my opinion of facebook, ONLINE BOOK OF FACES. If you don't have FACE aka profile picture, please upload your FACE. No FACE is like a book with no INDEX, hard to find the content, especially if your name is very common and tagged with many FACES and your info is private.

If you don't want to show your FACE, that's a different story, just FACE OFF. Also, if you don't want your friends to catch you, NO FACE is your inner choice. But by human nature, we want to be invited by our friends, so uploading a FACE might help you and your friends.

We being Social animals love to connect with friends. I find Facebook to be a great tool to connect with old pals. Never imagined I'll get back in touch with my friends after 15 years. Also it's there to make new relationships and has the power to break existing relationships if you don't mind your tongue.

Facebook is liked by many, but not by all, heard some companies banning its use at work with the fear of less productivity by employees. Also heard someone saying "If you are on Facebook, it means you have no work". But there are people doing business through Facebook. Many think it consumes lots of time, it might be true if you consider Facebook as the only friend in your life. But for me, it saves lots of time in connecting and conversing with real friends. Can't imagine pulling friend's emails with the fear of missing someone in conveying wishes on any occasion. With Facebook, I just need to share my WISH post. Things can't be easier than that.

Birthday events on Facebook remind friend's Birthdays, this is another great advantage of being connected through Facebook. And if you are bored, there might be some funny post, a good song, an inspirationl speech, an interesting game or friend's album waiting for you to bring a BIG smile on your face. Also helps you share your SMILE instantly with other friends. That said, there are privacy issues too, please go through your account settings and don't accept requests from unknown identifiers. Beware not to become Facebookaholic. If you have time, read the article on Pros and Cons of Facebook.

btw, the inspiration behind this blog is the poster on the way to my kids school. This shows how Facebook is being used as an add-on to mobile ads.

And there is an interesting story of a man who named his daughter after Facebook, Egyptian man names daughter Facebook. For sure Facebook has taken the world by storm.

Social networking and its effect on human relations triggered a great product idea in my mind,

shared it with my husband, but he warned me not to share product ideas publicly <he has a point>. Hope I'll find sometime to patent my idea ;-).

Pocket money

Few weeks back, my elder daughter Harshita came to me and asked “Mommy, I think you should give me some pocket money”. When asked why, her answer was “because my friends get pocket money from their parents”. Didn’t know what to derive out of it, it’s just an effect of PEER PRESSURE. When asked out of curiosity what she’ll do with the pocket money, her answer was “even I dunno”.

When I was a kid, I used to get pocket money, typically to enjoy the snacks outside the school gate. But my kids get snacks in their school itself, if not, mommy prepares whatever they want, if not, mommy gets whatever they want. So literally they don’t need pocket money :-).

So why should I give her pocket money? Then thought, rather than GIVING them pocket money, how about making them EARN their pocket money. So started this funda of EARNING pocket money with a piggy bank and a deal of 2 rupees if they massage my head.

Coming to head massage, it all started with my younger daughter pulling my hair when she was young. With her gentle pulls, I used to feel very relaxed and now I got into the habit of asking them to massage my head whenever I feel stressed out.

OK, let’s get back to pocket money funda. So I made a deal with my kids that for each 5 minutes of head or leg massage, I’ll give them 2 rupees. They instantly agreed and felt happy to put it to work. So far, it’s going great without them saying  “No mommy…not again”. Also it’s good to see kids learning so many things implicitly. Here is the list of things I observed so far:

• Time management: As the deal is for 5 minutes, they make sure they follow the time. They learned the art of looking at time and doing things, in other words learned the value of time.
• Sharing: When I go to shop and tell my kids to buy snacks using their pocket money, I see them sharing the pocket money if the price exceeds their individual contribution and if they both like the same snack.
• Partnership: I saw them making plans together to buy things next in their wish list.
• Accounting: Rather than giving them 2 rupees each time, I give them 10 or 5 rupees. They patiently do the math and give me the correct amount. If I tell them to extend the work for 5 more minutes, they know how much I owe them.
• Auditing: From time to time, they check their piggy bank to see how much they earned and make sure no one is stealing their money ;-).
• Self confidence: When I hand over the money to them, I can see their face glowing with great confidence that they actually earned money by doing some work.
• Bonding with their mommy: More than anything, it is the bonding that makes us feel happy when we talk while they are busy doing their job. And feels great when they tell me “mommy, today you don’t need to give us pocket money, because you are also doing massage to us na..” :-).

At the end of the day, I’m happy that my kids are learning something new.

If you are interested, read more on pocket money at http://www.indiachildren.com/growing/10to15y/pocketmoney.htm

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...

• Greenwoods nature camp
• Doddabetta
• Pykara falls
• Pykara Lake
• Gopalaswamy temple
• Bandipur and Mudumalai national parks 
• Bhannerghatta national park 
• Butterfly park

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.

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.