Paisa paisa paisa

Aao sab mile bhed bhao mitakar,
Purani ranjhisho mein aakhir rakkha kya
Kuchh tum apni sunao, kuchh hum sunaye
Kyunki zindagi na milegi dobara!

Kehta hai mera dil mujhse ki tum achchhe ho,
Duniya ke bhatkaye raste par bhatak gaye ho,
Paise ki lalach chhodo, paisa to maya hai
Jeewan mein khush rehna hai to milkar jiyo.

Mujhe nahi woh din yaad jab tum pehle aise the,
Kya hua aisa ki tumhe sabka pyar dhikhta nahi ab
Baki sab jaise the waise hi hai, par tum badal gaye
Pehle wale tum bankar laut aaoge kab?

Jeewan ke har padao ko samaan roop se jiyo,
Apno ko dookh dene wala sookhi rehta hai kya,
Jaise karoge aaj waisa aage khud bhi to bharoge
Itni saral baat samajhna itna kathin hai kya?

Samajhdar ho tum padhe likhe bhi ho,
Dikhta nahi kya tumhe kaisi galtiyan kar rahe ho?
Apno ka saath to kismat walo ko milta hai
Uski paise ke naam par aahuti chada rahe ho?

Paisa paisa, hai paisa, kaisi banayi insaan ne aapda,
Na ho to dookh, jyada ho to pareshani,
Sari samasyaon ki jad hai aaj paisa
Jiske peechhe bhaag rahi yeh duniya bani diwani!!!

And once again

Every year around the time of my birthday I make it a point to write a new post. The whole idea is to document how I am feeling around this time. I believe that life is only as exciting as we make it for ourselves and one would expect that birthdays are a good time to take stock of how exciting I made my life for myself in the last year. I have never felt too upbeat around my birthdays, all my previous posts are an evidence of it. Does it mean that my life is not exciting or I am not enjoying my life? No. I love every day and every moment and thank God for all I have today - great family, good colleagues and caring friends. Though I may not have said enough to these guys as to how much they mean to me. I love everybody I know and want everybody to do well in life. I believe in collective growth... If all of us are doing well, there is only more scope that we all will do even better. A person is great when he has a great company. Some people only want to see others not doing very well, but this way are they not just making their company unsuccessful? Try to stay away from such people, they are in the southwards path and will only pull you downwards.

Being a person not too driven by achieving material goals, for me success is more defined around how I have been able to contribute to the long term purpose of my life. And with every birthday gone, I feel pressured as I get closer to what I define as long term goals. Material goals can be short term and easier to define as accomplished... Long term qualitative goals defined to achieve purpose of life are more difficult to assess for accomplishment. This is what causes the not too great feeling during birthdays.

It has been just over 3 years running the charity Friends of Salaam Baalak Trust (FoSBT) and I feel happy with the regular stream of donations we have been able to generate for street and working children in India. I don't feel satisfied though as I know that there is a lot more we could do. Please help me in spreading the word amongst people in India and abroad who feel for such causes and want to support. Your time spent in talking about such issues can be as useful as raising money. So please spread the word!

I want to live in a world where all of us have equal opportunities. I don't want to wait for it to happen, I want to make it happen. If we all do our bit towards this, there will surely be a birthday when I will truly and deeply feel happy celebrating it!!

Hay Fever and Yoga

Warm Sunday afternoons would normally be the weather one craves for England, however this year's summer has been different for me so far. Some of my friends are telling me that this is a sign of having become purely "british" now as I have managed to catch what is called "hay fever". It has been more than 5 years that I have been living here, but this is the first of its kind experience for me. Constantly running nose, itchy eyes, mild forehead ache, coughing and sneezing - all this comes with being allergic to pollens. During summers when the rest of the country craves for hot weather, people suffering from hay fever crave for cold and wet weather as that reduces the pollen count in the air. Therefore, today (warm Sunday afternoon) whilst the rest of the Britian is out under the sun in the parks playing or getting sun-tanned, I am sitting in the house with windows as closed as possible (don't forget that we would normally not have fans or coolers in England) and typing this blog post. Sigh!!

Most of my work colleagues have either themselves or their spouses suffering from this annoying condition (it is not a disease and therefore not communicable). Last week, a colleague sitting beside me had to rush her husband to the hospital A&E due to him being coughing incessantly. It was then diagonsed as chest infection (caused by stored cough from hay fever which he did not manage to clean out of his body). My routine at home has been that of either cleaning or blowing my nose or sneezing. Poor nose - I have been making it suffer so much! But this way at least I am making sure that all the cough is coming out instead of getting stored inside and jamming other organs.

There are some Indian yogic remedies that can help sooth and to some extent also cure this allergy. Some of them are listed below for those who are able to do them (I should myself follow them instead of preaching, just that they need the discipline which I am currently lacking) -

Pranayam - Pranayam are some breathing yogas which strengthen lungs. They therefore help in reducing coughing and sneezing and keeping your nose clean and clear. I have learnt some of them from the Indian saint Baba Ramdev's shows on TV channel Aastha. A simple Google search will land you to those videos teaching how to do them.

Kunjal Kriya - My husband has been insisting that I perform Kunjal Kriya. In this you are supposed to drink like 2 - 2.5 litres of warm salted water in one go and then forcing yourself to vomit to bring it all out. He says that this vomit of water then brings out all impurities from the stomach and also will help me clean up my cough completely. I agree with him - I have tried it twice and it has helped me a lot. It does need a lot of strength though and I have to relax for some time after I have done this. It is not recommended to be done on a daily basis.

Jal Neti - My brother has been insisting that I perform Jal Neti. This is the yoga in which you take in water from one nostril and take it out from the other nostril. You need a tool to do which my husband can use perfectly to perform the act, however I have miserably failed to get the water out of the other nostril. It needs a lot of practice, and my attempts so far have failed. This will further help to ensure that the passage in my nose is clean and therefore any allergens would not be able to titillate my senses to cause sneezing.

Being a person who prefers natural remedies over allopathic medicines, I intend to religiously start trying the above three yogic remedies. They do not have any side effects (though I urge anybody reading this and attempting to first make sure that they have understood the process from a professional) and can cure multiple ailments.Yoga is a powerful tool which we hardly use to cure ourselves of all ailments. And not just curing physical ailments, but the discipline, patience, calmness and energy that it instills also helps in keeping our mind sound and serene.

Secret admirer

This weekend was about cleaning... destroying items that have not been used for years (as most likely they will not be used in future also) and shredding items from old document folders. I stumbled upon an envelop addressed to me (with slight misspelling of my surname). This was at a time when I used to live in DU post-graduate hostel during 2005 - 2006. I opened the envelope and found a short poem dedicated to me anonymously. I have some vague memories of receiving this when I was in the hostel and discussing about it with my close friends. Don't think I paid much attention to it that time, but reading it after so many years, I am finding the text quite cheeky! I have jotted the content of the note below verbatim:

My words dedicated to you... 

When you get close - I get weak 

Still feels good - still runs deep 

I want to know you deep inside 

Hear every thought and see every dream 

Anyway - I just want to say 

I love the way you looked that day

With your hair hanging down on your shoulders 

The way you do everything but talk

And how you stare at me with those eyes 

And your breath on my body makes me warm inside 

A memory - to ignite me for ever 

I think about you all the time 

Can't you see you drive me out of my mind

Yes I never want this dream to end 

stranger329@hotmail.com

Attraversiamo

Attraversiamo is an Italian word meaning "let's cross over". The title of my blog is "Dynamics of life - change is always welcome". And I do welcome change in life. My close friends and family know me as a person who is never scared of changes. To keep growing in life, change is imperative. But today as I sit down and type this, I feel nervous with changes in life. Changes that bring new commitments with them. On my birthday every year I have moaned about having grown one year older. The happiness of celebrating my achievements of the last year get shadowed by the thoughts of the new committments the new life will bring to me. In my mind I have loved living like a free bird. I love those whom I feel like loving and not love people just for the sake of loving. My way of expressing love is also similar - effortless, should just happen naturally. But with new commitments comes the responsibility of showing love and care. I want everything to be natural, is that always possible?

I was watching the movie "Eat, Pray, Love" starring Julia Roberts. The movie makes you think. It makes you question if you are ready for the big cross over in life. Should I bow down to life and accept new commitments just because I can't stop time? 

Your mind and soul can be ageless, but certainly your body is not. And the thing is that you can go against the will of time, but hardly can it be sustainable. The rational mind is too powerful and will manage to reason with your heart. So then you wonder if at the end you had to come to accept those commitments, why try to escape them at the first place. Why delay them and make things harder for yourself. 

So with a deep breadth accept that as time passes by, you will need to prepare yourself for new commitments, new responsibilities. It is all a part of life and there is only how long you can escape all this. Attraversiamo may be difficult, but is not impossible! Smile with your eyes, heart and liver and you will see that things will happen naturally and become a part of life. "God dwells within me as me", Liz (Julia Roberts) says in the movie. So if you remain connected to the God within you, then any such transition would just look like another day in office - hopefully!

What do we want from life?

I have always dwelled upon this question - what do I want from my life. Actually the picture of the vending machine below will set the scene well of what I am trying to focus on this blog. 

On the head of the machine read "Forgotten Something?" and below that you find pretty much everything you can think of needing while travelling with a price tag. This made me think - can we make such a list of things that we need from our lives? Additionally, we also need to think of at what cost will we achieve it. Because if I simply ask you this question, then I am sure you can jot down a hundred things you desire in your life, but asking to add the price tag to those desires immediately helps you do the reality check.

Sometimes I think we get too carried away by desires - some of those feelings can stem from a genuine concern of securing our future, some may be pure indulgence and some may just be stupid wants with no basis whatsoever. We need to know where the check point is and what defines the fine line between wanting and desiring. Even though dictionary may write them as synonyms, for me "wanting" is more definitive than "desiring". So I may "desire" a lot of things for which the price tag may be beyond my affordability, but I will "want" only those that have a reasonable price tag and are achievable for me. For example, I may "desire" a helipad on the terrace of my house, but I first "want" to own a house.  

Therefore, I want you to create a list of "wants" and not "desires". Have a price tag to your wants - given you have only filtered out those that come with reasonable price tag, this list of your "wants" will end up being reasonable as a result. You may or may not decide to put a time tag against them. The kind of person I am, I like defining timelines to achieve things, else they never happen for me. A relaxed attitude never takes you anywhere, your "want" has to be desperate enough to allow you to achieve it. And a time tag will ensure that desperation all the time. Our mind should be relaxed, but our approach should be desperate. Again there is a very fine difference between these two things, so you need to be careful.

I think this method will help us keep a check on our wants and desires. I am all up for dreaming big, but if you have to become big then you have to have an approach.