Mother - The visible God

At first sight, birds in our balcony made us happy... but soon our happiness turned into a headache with pigeons...they peck at the plants, dig the mud out of pots and dance on the washed clothes with their muddy feet.

They left me no choice, but to scare them to save my plants. Shouting Shu...Shu..Shu.... and chasing them like a live scare-crow seemed like a temporary fix. Planted some twigs around the plants to cover flat surfaces. This idea paid off to some extent. But after few days, they learned the art of pulling out the twigs. And I tried my best to secure the twigs :-).

One of my friend warned me to cover all the flat surfaces around the plants...as pigeons lay eggs and make lots of mess. My next solution was to tie pot plates upside down ....that too in a slanting position.

At last, I was happy to save the plants in the balcony. BUT BUT.....one pigeon outsmarted my plans and laid an egg in the pot next to the window, the place where I spend most of my day. Lesson learned...pigeons are indeed SMART!!

When I saw the mother sitting on the egg, motherhood within me started admiring the hen pigeon. Couldn't believe that the pigeon was sitting just half feet away from me....

My famous quote "oops...my plants" turned into "oops... poor egg". I didn't want the egg to float in the water, so arranged some coconut husk when mother was away for lunch.

Soon realized that father also comes to guard the egg when mother is away for food.

But it is the hen pigeon taking care of the egg throughout the night....father comes once in awhile, giving sometime for the mother to get her food. Amazing to see their understanding to raise a family.

To our surprise, the pigeon laid another egg by next morning. Soon I moved them into a tray....to protect the eggs from the plants ;-).

Hats off to the mother for sitting day and night to keep the eggs warm by spreading her feathers.

Our patience turned into happiness when we saw the baby emerging out of the shell. Some of the beautiful moments to watch.

In few hours, saw a crack in the other egg too...

Again, it was father's visit in the afternoon...

And after sometime, Mamma was back to the baby...

In few hours, one more baby was out to the world...

In no time, they started cooing. It's fun to watch them cooing and playing  :-).

Proud father was happy to see both the babies and sat there for quite sometime. And I was overwhelmed with happiness to see the proud family. Amazing to learn "Human" nature of Pigeons.

And next saw the usual process,  Mother out - Daddy in.....

In no time, babies started drinking mother's milk. It's interesting to learn that father also feeds milk to the babies ...lot learned from these small creatures..

"Pigeon's milk begins to be produced a couple of days before the eggs are due to hatch. The parents may cease to eat at this point in order to be able to provide the squabs (baby pigeons and doves) with milk uncontaminated by seeds, which the very young squabs would be unable to digest. The baby squabs are fed on pure crop milk for the first week or so of life. After this the parents begin to introduce a proportion of adult food, softened by spending time in the moist conditions of the adult crop, into the mix fed to the squabs, until by the end of the second week they are being fed entirely on softened adult food..."

Here is a video clip of their feeding...

After few days, their beak started turning black and so their body color.... 

I noticed a big difference between mother pigeon and father pigeon. Whenever I water the plants, if father is around, he just flies away and watches them from far.

But if mother is around, it just stays with the babies, tries its best to scare me with fluttering feathers, unusual sounds, angry eyes and pointed beak. God's creation is great. A mother is not blessed with big brain and big muscles like a man, but she is blessed with big heart and big emotions that make her BOLD enough to protect her offspring. 

And babies started responding to the surroundings. Each time I made a sound, they stared at me in protective posture.

It was fun to see them growing....

The babies were growing bigger....and so was the mess in the tray. Baby birds also started realizing the same. Couldn't stop laughing to see them sitting on the edge of the tray and pooping outside. 

One fine day, I decided to clean the tray. But on the very same day, I saw both parents sitting in the tray ....seriously thinking something.

When I came back after two hours to clean the mess, I couldn't find the parents and their babies... family relocation I guess  ;-). And now, the pot in the window moved out of its place...as we are shifting our nest from Punyanagari(Pune) to Bangalore....family relocation to give an independent nest to our kids.

By Laws of Nature, parents responsibility is to provide a comfortable and secure nest to their babies. But what if the parents kill their babies before they even enter the nest? It's shocking to see some facts in 'Satyameva Jayate'...wonder how suffixing IN-LAW title changes some mother's behavior :-(.

Puranas say that a woman will never achieve Moksha and get closer to God.... as Purusha(man) is the only qualified gender to achieve the same. But for a Mother, it's God who is coming closer to her as baby in her womb. Wonder why she needs Moksha?

The beautiful journey from pregnancy to motherhood is filled with emotions and pains. But the moment baby is out, holding and hugging the newborn baby close to her chest and feeding the Nectar of Life relieves her from all the pain....some of THE most precious moments of life for a woman.

All of us pray God almost everyday, but still we dedicate a special day called Festival to pay special tribute to that invisible God. Happy to have a special day for Mother - the visible God. For all the proud mothers, I wish you a very HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!! 

And to all the readers of this post, go and hug your mom if she is with you. Forget all the tensions in your life, go and sleep in your mother's lap for few minutes...feels like heaven. Isn't it?

S.......L......O.......W motion

Slow motion refers to an effect resulting from running film through a camera at faster-than-normal speed  and then projecting it at standard speed. When replayed at normal speed, time appears to be moving more slowly. The technical term for slow motion is overcranking which refers to the concept of cranking a handcranked camera at a faster rate than normal.

Never realized that slow motion is a result of faster speed. You might be wondering, what slow motion has to do on my blog?... SLOW MOTION...yes..the same thing happened to me few weeks back. Even though it's a weekend, Saturday is the most busiest day of the week for me, with most of the time spent running around kids classes, and then my own list of tasks to accomplish. Mind had lots of plans to work out, but there was something...something... that was resisting my MIND POWER ...that's none other than MY OWN BODY.

With my husband out of town, sick maid off from work, I was completely exhausted by the end of the day. With so much pain, legs were hard to move...just felt like leaving everything and sit down.....I could feel the effect of slow motion. Thanks to my girls for giving a nice massage..and then cup of tea and crocin to forget the pain. After one hour, pain was gone...but mind was not ready to come out of the comfort zone and tightly tied my body to the sitting sofa.

While mind-body saga continued, eyes were glued to Dance-India-Dance. And to my amusement, there came the slow motion act by croc-roaz....God's sent messenger to lift up my spirit ;-). Truly awesome act...

Hope most of you tried slow motion act at some point in life....if not, try it in front of the mirror before giving a demo to others ;-). And here is Raghav's next and last act on DID (as of Jan 15th 2012...at the time of writing this blog).....

 

Movies add slow motion effects to elongate the acts...the famous Indian act being hero and heroine running towards each other with stretched arms...showing how much effort is required to give a simple hug ;-).  And video umpires in cricket and other sports make people open their mouths until the verdict is out.

Everyone likes slow motion once in awhile.. but not if the entire movie is in slow motion. Slow motion to recharge the body makes wonders..famous examples being Yoga and meditation. But if a healthy body continues slow motion for a longer period of time to avoid work and waste time, it results in laziness. So watch out your slow motions...

Uttarayan is leaving winter behind, to increase day-time by actually slowing down the day light process, to bring more sun light and to bring more consciousness to increase working efficiency, thus speeding up your slow motions. Wish you all a very Happy Makar Sankranti/Pongal!!
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Editing this post on 03/12/2012 to add more links to Raghav's slow motion acts....happy to see him back on DID :-). Shared this video on my Facebook wall "Beautiful song...few moments of flute at the beginning reminds me of Ilayaraja compositions...and this boy turning on a stable platform and his slow motion acts are simply speechless!!".

Just Do It (JDI)

New Year is here, and one thing that comes to mind to almost everyone who wants to succeed in life is the famous phrase "NEW YEAR RESOLUTION" - the phrase that's set for personal commitment to complete certain goals for the year. But do they really work...the urge to fulfill goals is stronger at the beginning...but as days pass by...goals and their strength fades away....only few people can make it to the end of the year and if you are one of them..HATS OFF to you.

To certain extent, we do accept the fact that NEW YEAR resolutions always don't work the way we think. Why not JUST DO IT whatever we have in our mind? But how? Unlike work culture where goals are set to fulfill company needs and have a cross check in terms of personal performance reviews, who will review our own personal goals? YES..it's none other than ME...the inner ME.

Sometimes at work, when my boss says, "we have no solid requirements, but we must complete this work by certain date...so JDI(Just Do It)"....in turn, our team response will be JDI(Just Doing It). Even though it’s used in a witty way, there is certain driving force in it. When dates are set with no final requirements...just start doing it with whatever requirements we've at hand, gives us an opportunity to raise questions, and further understand and discuss the requirements with the team well ahead in time. So why not JDI to get a better understanding of the product and start some ground work? If requirements do change completely, the learning curve stays with us...whether it's a failure or success. If requirements are in-line with the initial set, we are close to achieving the deadlines.

Unlike the goals set for us by others, how about our own personal goals? Everyone dreams of doing something in life. Dreams or thoughts are the stepping stones for our actions and in turn our goals. If you have the goal to turn your dreams into reality, judge yourself whether certain dreams can be met in real. Judging and preparing no-commitment list is another challenge that goes a long way and saves lots of time.

This raises another question, do you always do things with SUCCESS tag in mind? Well, things always won't work for success...and that results in disappointed soul. It's good to dream of success in life...but be ready for the outcome, whether it be success or failure. The laws of action   - "Karma" are very well defined in Bhagavad Gita. Try your best with positive attitude to reach your goals and leave the rest on God.

Still remember the message conveyed in the movie Ashwini Nachappa ..."try your best to be number one....but don't compare with others". There is so much truth in it...when we start comparing with others, that implants a feeling of egoism and selfishness...when the struggle is with self...that raises the bar far from the competing world, close to God and then to self-realization.  If possible, adopt good things that made others achieve their goals and learn lessons from failures to pave the path to success. 

So what should we do to achieve our goals? Is NEW YEAR RESOLUTION the start? In addition to the long-term goals set in mind, you better pen down the goals daily. Don’t leave commitments in your brain. Whether you dream or think of something, putting it on paper gives clarity and sets you for the rest of the day. As the little drops make a mighty ocean, doing a bit everyday helps us achieve our goals. The strategy that's helping me is the mighty TO DO LIST..whether it be POST-IT-NOTES at work or DIARY on my desk. 

With so many electronic gadgets in hand, nobody wants to touch a pen ;-). But penning down the TO-DO-LIST gives so much joy once you are addicted to it:

• If you are a computer geek and never hold a pen, it helps you honor the writing you learnt for ages.
• We tend to forget things with so many distractions in life, writing them down let's your mind free from remembrance.
• Whether it's household work, paying bills, kids activities, attending parties.... writing them down by date alerts you with due dates and lets you plan ahead.
• If you have a list at hand, you know what's more important and what not, and that helps you prioritize tasks for the day.
• When you are feeling low or depressed, the actions written down drive your day. At least, try doing some of the light actions that can divert your mind and give the happiness of completing certain tasks.
• Not just that, when your mind feels cluttered with so many things, writing them down brings clarity in your thinking.
• If you have a goal that spans more than one day, divide the work and do it in chunks... like reading tech books, divide chapters by day. If you can’t get it in one day, postpone it to next day….but keep writing the task…after sometime, finishing off the work makes you feel happier than writing it again….testing your own patience you know ;-)
•  In doing so, you'll get into the habit of DOING the work and be satisfied rather than DOING it for success or failure.
• Also write down things that you don’t want to do for the day. Sometimes, this NOT-TO-DO list fetches more time to target your actual goals.
• And ultimate happiness comes when you start striking out the completed items...one of my favorite :-)

The DIARY sitting on my desk is not a reflection of my past...but stepping stone in to the future. Successfully completed my 2011 diary...my TO-DO-LIST scrapbook. And the new one is ready to be filled with items that will be struck out at the end of the day, to give a smile on my face.

Started implementing the same with my kids, especially when they are off from school, and they love it. They may not know the ultimate goal of this activity...but kids definitely like the idea of striking out the items once done :-)

Feels funny when my younger one strikes out items even before doing them, and then explains me "mamma, don't worry, I'm doing it now..". Whatever it is, it's good to get them into the habit of visualizing the actions for the day. Hope this post inspires someone for the year...and do share your thoughts.

And when it's our turn to spend time with loved ones, all the other goals take backseat and it takes top priority. Something that's written in heart... not on a piece of paper.

Before leaving the post, just want to say one thing..JUST DO IT doesn't mean you'll just do whatever you want and wherever you want... ;-)

DO THE RIGHT THING IN A RIGHT WAY AT THE RIGHT PLACE.

Thanks for reading this post and Wish you all a very Happy and Prosperous well TO-DO New Year!!

FM....FM...FM...Family media

Never thought I'd be so addicted to FM radio. It's a great way to uplift the soul without stressing eyes. And good part is its ability to allow you perform parallel processing and enhance your imagination to never seen songs. Well....if you like a song...you can always go to Youtube to override your creative mind :-).

FM radio was the only media to entertain the boring souls when I was a kid. Waking up to early morning Venkateswara Suprabhatam and then daily news digest at 7am...don't think I'll ever forget those days...and especially the All India radio signature tune...feels like I'm back to my lonely days ;-).

When TV sets entered the market, we entered neighbour's houses with great enthu. And when TV entered our house, we let others share the joy with great pride. Wonder how we survived those days with so many people at home, and even serving them chai paani at times. And those Shivaratri days...watching movies in our front yard among 50 people, with no one paying attention to Lord Shiva, but just there to stay awake all night in the name of Jaagaran... anyways, love those days. And now, it's a treat to listen the trio singing Doordarshan tune in the latest flick ZNMD...

After TV, FM took a backseat to some extent. Over time, with FM installed in cars, it's back to life on roads. With so many soothing songs in the air, got myself one FM radio. And it's the best family media I've at home after games. Unlike TV shows, I don't need to worry about switching channels when kids are around. But still there are songs that can't be avoided on FM too ...after Munni and Sheela, the latest Himesh Reshammiya's flick "no touching, no touching....only seeing, only seeing..". ...kya kare...kids catch those songs pretty fast :-(. Anyways, much better than seeing those songs on TV, and someone better compile FM version of the song "....no seeing, no seeing....only listening, only listening..." :-).

With only one hour TV time for kids, FM radio with its soft musical background makes us feel like someone is home all the time, and our maids don't mind syncing to songs to ease their work. All I can say, FM has the power to paint the mood with surprising songs ranging from old to new, sad to happy and much more....so just tune to FM and enjoy life!!

What's in a name?

Well, to be precise, what's in a last name? That's the exact question popped up in my mind when I applied for my driver license in India few months back.

Like any budding Indian driver, I went to RTO to apply my DL(driver license). Felt relieved when one of my friend told that we don't need to go through written or driving test if we have a valid out-of-country DL. So marched into RTO with the hope to get my identity soon.

As soon as I entered the RTO complex with my husband, we were surrounded by agents in no time. There were more agents than applicants. We disappointed them by applying directly. After some struggle in finding the exact officer and his sitting location, we submitted required documents and got approval. Voila....we were happy to go home with the feeling "after 7 days, we'll have our DL".

With assumed slow process in India, we visited RTO after 10 days. As they couldn't locate our DLs, we had to go there again. Next day, they found my husband's DL...but not mine :-(. When asked "why?",  no one could answer....as the concerned person was on leave. Another trip to RTO revealed that my documents are not complete.

When I questioned the officer sitting there, "how come mine got rejected when we both submitted the same documents for address and age proof?", he verified with other workers and replied that my marriage certificate was missing. With a smile, I asked him "well, you didn't ask that for my husband". All he could reply was a big smile saying "that is the process here ma'm...". My immediate response to his smile "you wasted three days of our valuable time by not saying it before". Well, he replied our concern with another big smile. 

I had that document ready to surprise him. He couldn't resist to ask "so you already knew that you need to submit the marriage certificate?". haha...couldn't control my laugh and told him "just carried in case if I need it for any reason...". 

All this mess was the result of mismatched last name with my husband's last name. When we came out, my husband was happy and raised his collar by saying "see, you don't have an identity without me" :-). Even though he never asked me to change my last name, I could see a big smile on his face. What to say of those husbands whose wives changed their last names forever. Anyways, I was happy to give few moments of happiness to my dear husband.

It's a good way to tag family with one last name. In olden days, with women sitting at home, taking care of household activities, with no facial identity outside, and a man biased by his physical strength, it made complete sense to identify family with man's name.

Including spouse's name is dated back to puranas... Seetharam, Radhakrishna, Parvatiparameswar. But the only difference ....those are the names of men who took their wife's name after marriage or eternal love. And those men are all GODS. And instead of suffixing, they prefixed their better halves in their names. Well, their stories are limited to books, no one follows them in real ;-). Even if they follow, it's in news for sure More men taking wives' last names.

OK I got my driver license. Congrats to me ..:-). But something I learned in my few visits to RTO, people don't even bother to keep their working environment clean. Walls are decorated with betel leaf spit and stairs are filled with shit and no one even bothers to get it cleaned.

Went after 15 days, still the same. Dunno if I need to pity the people working there or praise them for ignoring it. Pathetic...and I could see some new improvement...ants digging mud in the middle of the main entrance :-(.

OK. I'm done with name concern and clean concern :-).

In case if you are an NRI with valid DL and moved to India for some reason, here is the list of documents required to get permanent license:
- Address proof document (index-II/  telephone bill/ electricity bill etc...)
- Age proof document (passport/ birth certificate/ school leaving certificate etc...)
- Document or proof explaining the type of license you had and the vehicle you were allowed to drive
- And girls, if your last name is different from your husband's, do submit your marriage certificate without fail

Awesome weather...

It's raining here in Pune...sky covered with layer of darkness, rhythmic sound of water droplets...dust settling down to earth.... smell of fresh earth...happy me sitting and watching the show...craving for mirchi bajjis and cup of ginger tea...but for now, laptop in my lap to capture these moments....

With no doubt, my mom remembers me a lot when it rains...she knows that her girl enjoys rain and loves it from the core of her heart. At times, I even got curses when it rains...as if I'm the one to pour water from the sky to disturb others work ;-)....anyways, what a good way to connect me with rain.

Rain...rain and rain, it brings back all the old memories....wonder why I enjoyed rain when I was a kid? Back then, there were no past memories to recollect ....then why? Was it the feel of fresh air? Or the innocent mind happy to record all those moments for later recovery?

Whatever it is, love those days...eagerly waiting for the rains...enjoying few drizzles....then go inside the house to watch it from the window...wrap blanket just to feel the chill....make fake huts with mats, umbrella and what not....wait for the pakodas or bajjis to spice up the show....

And as the rain settles down, go out to find friends to play...enjoy the earth's smell...make small paper boats to compete with others...visit small water streams to hunt small fish for fun....and then as years passed, changed the course to go for a walk to find small tomateo and marigold plants on the roadside, bring them home to plant...smile when they stand straight after few days...and then as years passed, save money to buy seeds for vegetation, feel happy when my mom allows cats and dog to stay with me inside the house....

And then those hostel days.... drench without fear of parents, look for peacocks to come out and dance for me...go out with friends for hot and spicy samosa and chai..... 

....simply love those days.......nostalgic moments become stronger when mother nature showers them in the form of rain.....all put beautifully in the song 'Kagaz ki kashti'...

Of course, too much of anything is not good...and when there is thunder in the rhythm, it spoils the mood. Hope this year's monsoon brings good memories in everyone's life. For now, telling my kids not to get wet in the rain :-)

ok...time for me to prepare chai and garam bajjis for everyone at home.....

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......