Emotions

Few weeks back, I remember saying to one of my FoF(Friend on Facebook), that I'm gonna write a blog post on Emotions. Very interesting to see how I was taken on an emotional ride with my father being in emergency care. By God's grace, my emotional meter is back to normal now.

E-M-O-T-I-O-N ...the word itself is so complex, it bites every heart once in a while. If you don't have emotions, you are not a human being in good health for sure...or PATHAR DILWALE ;-). Emotions are like pillars that bond family and friends together. Emotions in cats, dogs and other animals show up until their offspings are well trained to feed themselves. But we, being the sophisticated animals, extend our emotional bonding beyond that circle and look back to see what we can do to our parents or people who took care of us and loved us unconditionally.

There are some emotions that make us feel good and some that make us feel bad. Wikipedia lists more than 50 emotions. But the one that tops the list for most of us is the emotion of LOVE. Want to know why?...coz it has emotions engraved in it... Lots Of Variety Emotions. Often the word LOVE is associated with broken hearts, no wonder it has links to so many other emotions, so use it cautiously. On the contrary, too much LOVE may lead to heart enlargements... good that there are heart enlargement treatments, but never heard of heart shrinkage treatments. 

We are all blessed with in-built emotional intelligence. But, what if we are drowning in emotional unintelligence? For few moments, its gravity pulls us down completely. Is there a way out? It's hard, but yes, just forget about it or avoid thinking about it... as if nothing happened. When our emotional intelligence wakes up, it will find its way out. Or share it with loved ones or close friends who can tap our emotional intelligence.

OK. Emotions make things even more complicated for women than men. It is Lord Brahma to blame for blowing everblooming emotions into woman's brain. See the video to know the difference between women's and men's brains ;-)

Woman's brain is not just super highway of interconnected emotions, also an expressway that needs the other person to be more expressive. Hope you got what I mean ;-). If you love a woman... especially your mom, don't just keep it in your heart, express it and you'll get a big smile for sure. Belated HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to all the mothers who are not subset of my FoF.

btw, sometimes don't forget to listen to music to uplift your emotions and enjoy your time with family. In that line, enjoy the song that's on the top list for me this week......melodious voice, heart touching lyrics, mesmerizing flute, soothing violin....what a beautiful song......

Label it

"Label me...otherwise I'm gonna spoil your taste", those were the words spoken by the crazy containers in my kitchen closet. Life becomes easy when the unlabeled food containers are under ONE (wo)MAN ARMY control. They confuse us with their talents(tastes) when more people enter their territory.

Now you know what I'm talking ;-). Yes...it's the problem with unlabeled Masala and other powders in the kitchen closet. When it comes to storing grains and powders, I prefer transparent containers, and one of my favorite brand is PearlPet. Thanks to my sister-in-law for introducing me to PearlPet.

These containers are much better than Steel dabbas that make me google around until I find the target. But still there is another problem..how about the unlabeled powders that deceive your eyes? And YES...it happened to us once when my parents visited few years back. 

With BP patients at home, we reduced our salt intake. But didn't relalize why our food was bland even after pouring so much salt. This mystery continued for four days. First day, we blamed the tomatoes, Second & Third days, blamed the poor onions. Fourth day, I got a call from my dear husband who was WFH on Ganesh Chaturthi. He called me to share the most exciting moments of his life "you know what, today Ganesh is so happy, even butter milk is tasting sweet". OMG, I couldn't stop laughing and immediately asked my mother to taste the salt powder. Voila...that was not salt...but Sugar. All happened when my mother poured Sugar into Masala Dabba. Big lesson learned and will never forget in my life ;-).

That makes all the confusing powders in my kitchen closet to display their identity. Good exercise..but worth spending time in labeling them. Can't imagine all these white powders without labels...

 

Not just white powders, those spicy indian masala powders are siblings to the confusing category.

Small tip before I end this post...if you have printer, use it to print the labels. If not, just cut and use the labels on the covers to label the containers.

All you need is scissor, cellotape and few minutes of your time. Enjoy..

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