Yoga – My life savior

I always had been physically active person. Since childhood I was into sports and dance. Dance had been very integral part of my life which I continued even when I graduated and stepped into corporate life. But there came a time when I had to discontinue my dance classes due to work pressure and deadlines. That is when this sedentary lifestyle took a toll on my health. It is the time when I developed acidity. This was the time when I lost my father which had major impact on my mental health as well. I was depressed and I wasn’t able to let the pain out. After few months I started suffering from severe backache. Initially I ignored it as it was just a backache which I hoped to go away but it continued and it got worse. So much that every night I used to get up at around 3-4 AM as I couldn’t sleep with back paining to extreme. I used to try to sleep in sitting position. Lack of sleep worsen my health. And to top it the stress and depression was acting as catalyst. My face also started having reaction which later when consulted to doctor I learned that it was an eczema. This skin condition is caused majorly due to stress and tension and the back pain did not let me sleep which led to even more stressed days and nights.

I consulted couple of physiotherapist for my back issue but none gave me relief. Finally my friend recommended one physiotherapist (which was apparently was his friend). She examined me. She made me do Bhujangasana for couple of times in her clinic itself and surprisingly I felt little relief right after that. She explained me why it happened. Due to the lifestyle I have, I spend majority of my time sitting in front of computer. The other exercises that I used to do involved forward bending. All this caused my spine to get stiff and there was not enough flexibility. Now I knew I needed to bend myself both ways.

I started searching for other asanas which would help bring more flexibility to my back and spine. I started practicing these asanas. I also took this opportunity to achieve my long standing goal of reducing belly fat now that I had to exercise daily for having good night sleep. Within few months my back pain was gone and buried away. And I also managed to reduce my belly fat. The results were so motivating that I wanted to try more and more asanas. I wanted to increase flexibility of my entire body.

In this journey, yoga not only helped me cure my back pain and reduce belly fat but also helped me become more calm, mentally stable and happier person. Every time I try new asana it gives me a sense of achievement and it keep me going. A part of my heart is taken away with my dad which can never be recovered but now I can live with it in stronger way. My mental and physical health I owe it all to Yoga. It is truly a life savior for me.

Stay fit, stay happy.

Sorry… for being a Girl

While the entire nation is fighting against the heinous crime took place on 16th Dec’12 in the Capital of India and fighting for enforcement of strict law and safety of women, the so called “leaders” in Indian politics are making absurd comments.

First ” Abhijeet Mukherji” ; the Congress MP and son of our very own President Pranab Mukherji, hurt the sentiments of women protesters by addressing them as “dented/painted” indirectly suggesting that those who party late, put on heavy make-up and wear fancy cloths have no rights to protest against anything unfair happening in the society, they also do not have any rights to be socially aware. I seriously don’t understand the logic behind it. If so then even our celebrities don’t have any rights to speak about any social issues. It shows how narrow minded these people are even after being educated well.

Then CMP MLA and former West Bengal minister Anisur Rahman, who went one step ahead by asking CM of West Bengal Mamta Bannerjee her charges for getting raped. If this fellow can have guts to make such comments on the CM of his state then we can only imagine how he would be treating other women in the society.

And now recently (who’s who) a senior BJP leader from Madhya Pradesh, Kailash Vijayvargiya, has asked women to be in their limits else they’ll get punished just as Sita. First of all I personally don’t find any sense why Sita was punished and secondly if there has to be any limit then it should be for both men and women. I like what Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra stated after Delhi incident; “I may be walking naked but you still don’t have rights to rape me”. Absolutely right. Nobody and I mean nobody in this entire world has right to rape any girl/woman, no matter what she’s wearing or doing.

Some are trying to get away by blaming the western culture for such activities. But at the same time people forget that we come to know about such cases because they are reported at the first place. People in cities like Delhi or Mumbai are modern enough to stand up to fight against crime happened with women. If you think about the rural areas or villages, people feel lodging such complaints would only harm their image in society and bring them embarrassment. And even if they show some guts to do so they likely to be threatened.

If it had been the effect of westernization then there should have been more such cases in western countries and none in ancient  India. Also if you study these cases happening in cities you may find many accused are from small villages of India. So I guess by blaming western culture you are indirectly pointing finger at how girls in cities conduct themselves.

Instead of blaming any culture, be it western or eastern, you need to dig deeper to find the root cause, which is according to me is that most of the men in our society don’t treat women as a human being and an entertainment object instead. They might worship the goddesses but they lack respect towards women around them.

While we are discussing the ways to punish the culprits and safety of our women, such comments not only disturb us but also make us think, is this the average mentality of Indian men? Is this what all guys around us think about us? Our colleagues  our friends and for that matter the men in our family? Then from whom we are hiding, running away or protecting ourselves?

The scars are not yet healed and we already started getting news about rape cases in different parts of the country. And not all are illiterate or lower class people. Even the men working in MNCs are involved in such crimes showing their animal instinct and lack of respect towards women. And why to blame only the accused. We too just play the role of spectator. We don’t anything to stop the crime and don’t do anything even when the crime has happened. When the Delhi gang rape victim was thrown out of bus naked, shivering and bleeding no one even cared to cover her with shawl. We have become so numb.

I wonder whether a woman’s body is just for being used and thrown away like litter or do we actually deserve to be treated like a human being?

I read somewhere, “A girl is neither safe inside a womb, nor outside”. And sadly it’s a fact. Right from the female foeticide to sexual harassment they keep reminding us it’s not a good world for a girl to live. I born in a family with good values but they too don’t allow me to stay out late as my brother would, not because they discriminate between a girl and a boy but they know there’s a bad world outside and never know when and how I’ll have to pay a price of being born as a girl.

They tore me apart again

I’m angry, I’m hell angry, beyond your imagination. I’m shivering with anger. Want to cry loud, want to break things and top of everything I want to break their skulls, torture them to death, burn their skin and leave them to live a life they never ever imagined. They’ll want to die but won’t be able to. That will be the right punishment for these bastards for what they have done to an innocent soul and they have been doing it again and again.

I’m sure every single Indian mind is churning with these thoughts after that very unfortunate incident. But this is a time to act not just think. It’s a high time not only for Indian society but for entire world and entire human race, for it is not limited to one particular society, it’s an international issue. I’m not at all feeling good-by highlighting this side of my country but it’s not about country’s image it’s about the safety of women of my country and entire world.

It is a serious offence which unfortunately never have been treated that seriously. Even the death sentence is mild punishment for this crime. It’s not only physical loss but mental torture for the victim. A girl, whether she’s married or unmarried is still held responsible  for it in our society. For the way she’s dressed or her lifestyles or for that matter one wrong decision she made on that   very day of choosing to board in to that bus or cab. But I wonder won’t these psycho rape a woman in Burkha? They will definitely. Coz the problem is not related to how a girl is dressed the problem is how she is treated by the men in society, their mentality which is so sick. These beasts are so desperate and mentally ill that they don’t even spare girls of age 3 or 4. The only reason I can see is they have no fear of law. They don’t even think once before committing such crime as they know even if they get caught they can spend their entire lives in prison with free food at doorstep and shelter. And what the victim is left with? A life which she can either spend in helping other victims and become a social-worker or just give up.

The only way we can stop or minimize this crime is to have torturous punishment, that no one will ever dare to even think about.

Mirage – Break Free

Suddenly I realized I have been living very restricted life. I had my rules and I had been following them, may be just to protect myself from the bad world out there or may be just to keep my image clean. But what’s the use? Right now I’m all alone and I’m certainly not happy about it.

It’s different world here in US than in India. People are open-minded (it can be little debatable), they are more casual about few things and basically they don’t care what you are doing. This is the perfect place for me to live my life the way I want. Hell with the society, hell with the rules and now I’ll not stop myself from loving someone…. someone else.

Mirage – Trying to move on

When you are staying away from your family, in altogether different country, the people around you are the only family. I left my family behind, I left the person I loved so much…sorry I love so much. I have all the reasons to be upset, sit and cry but who’ll listen to my cry, who’ll spend his/her precious time in consoling me or entertain me? No one actually. So I have decided not to do any of this. I sure wanna make friends but don’t wanna open all the chapters of my life in front of any body and get emotionally attached and get hurt. I’ll be the one taking care of myself, so there’s no scope for any sorrow or regret. I’m going to live my life happily, may be at times it’ll need me do stupid things but I’m gonna do all it takes to keep myself happy. No one likes to see frown face, even I won’t like to see that in mirror. So yes, I’m going to be happy.

Love makes me confused

‘Made for each other’ , ‘Deeply in love’, ‘Like Romeo and Juliet‘ , sometimes these phrases seems so stupid and the love-birds starts chirping over my head as if I  have banged my head on something hard.

Love, quite sensitive topic and after reading my post people are gonna almost kill me with their comments. But doesn’t matter, this is my space to express my views.

What is love?…Ahhhh…chuck it. Here I’m not gonna discuss about the love between brothers and sisters, between mom and daughter bla bla. I’m gonna talk about love between a guy and a girl.

Well most of the times I feel there exists no such feeling called love between a boy and a girl. (Grrrrr….here I’m gonna get one big slap). So before you do that let me explain it further.

Let me give you an example. The best friends turned partners. (I really don’t understand this combination). This is a typical scenario where a girl and a boy are friends for many years and finally realize they are in love with each other. (Basic plot of many Indian movies). I find it so immature (here I get another slap).

There is a famous dialog of Hindi movie which goes like ‘a girl and a boy can never be friends’ (WTH).

So what I think in this case that these best friends are so used to of each other, spending time together, roaming around, seeing each other everyday that when they go with someone else or they separate for some reason they feel a void which is misunderstood as LOVE. Whereas it’s mere a habit, you are habitual of being with that person that you start missing him/her. And because of such immature people other best friends have to face such torturous dialog.

Yes, it is absolutely just a habit. Have you ever tried to stay away from your best friend a little longer without thinking that what you feel is love and without making efforts to call frequently? If you do that you will surely realize it yourself and you’ll not miss him/her that badly. Why don’t you feel the same for the friend of same-sex? Their absence is acceptable. You just move ahead by saying you miss them but you won’t accept that it can be love. Why not? Because that will make you sound like a gay or lesbian. Then why do you label your friendship with your best friend of opposite sex as LOVE?

I feel a love can be a feeling which doesn’t fade away with time and distance neither it requires a distance to realize. And without even trying hard to keep it alive if you can still feel the same for your best friend then it is surely the love else I would say stop fooling yourself and your friendship.

If there’s a Will, there are thousand Ways!

I learned that physical distances do not really cause distances in any relationship but the lack of will power and wish that cause it.

People say they are too busy to call back home or to their loved ones but no one on this earth is so busy to do that. Even the busiest person takes out time to change his underwear or for that matter to pee (now I’m sounding disgusting but that’s the truth). So he/she can surely take out time to be in touch with their own people.

People keep complaining about many thing like being very busy or not having enough money. But these are not the real problem.

Real problem lies within people.

When people get into a relationship (GF/BF) or get married they suddenly disappear from the social gatherings. There are many reasons to it. And as every coin has two sides this problem too has two sides.

The first one is people themselves feel out of the league for such event after marriage and also they have tendency to spend all the leisure time with their partners rather than spending it with friends/relatives.

The other side is when people get married their friends think that they are busy  and will not come for a party or a day trip. Which most of the time is true but what’s the harm in inviting? You never know they might join you even if it’s for some time.

So everything comes down to one’s will to make it happen.

Until now I too was in the same league but now I have realised and I have decided to do every bit to keep in touch with my old friends, family and make their special days more special by even making international calls or sending bunch of roses.

As it’s rightly said “There’s a will, There’s a way” and I’ll moderate it a little as “if there’s a will, there are thousand ways”

We think that our life is hell complicated but on the other side the world is coming closer with the grace of technology. It’s just matter of having internet connection and you can chat with many friends at the same time. Online shopping and gifting can do at least a little to spread smile on your loved ones faces in your absence. Calling rates have gone down and even international calling is not expensive as before.

We have plenty of options to connect with our people and do the same as we would have done being with them. It’s just a matter of a will power.

Now that reminds me I have to make a call back home :).

Weekly Photo Challenge – Summer

This week’s theme looks much interesting as it’s summer in India. So there’s a room for lot many ideas and pictures for this week’s theme. But due to some personal commitments I am quite late for posting it.

For Indians, summer is incomplete without delicious and mouth-watering Mangoes. So what else could have been better to interpret summer being an Indian? 🙂

Related Articles:

http://theurgetowander.com/2012/05/26/weekly-photo-challenge-summer/

http://collinesblog.wordpress.com/2012/05/26/weekly-photo-challenge-summer/

http://thisthatandwhateverelseicanthinkof.wordpress.com/2012/05/26/weekly-photo-challenge-summer/

http://thismansjourney.net/2012/05/26/weekly-photo-challenge-summer/

We aren’t aliens…

This is something which is pinching me since the time I started staying in a rented house away from my family in Pune, sharing it with other girls. We all have come from decent families, we have our own moral and principles, we are responsible, we are mature enough to know what is right and what is wrong, bla bla. We were part of a society until someone declared that bachelors/bachelorette are not be given flat on rent in society. Reason, the behavior of bachelors is indecent. WTF!

I still stay in Pune in a rented house but our society is not giving flats on rent anymore. The reason is same.

As I said even we come from decent family then why are we treated like criminals?

If any society secretary comes and denies giving flat on rent to me just because I’m single I have these questions for him/her:

1. What is the definition of decency according to you?

2. You claim that people in your society are decent, can you give me the proof?

3. You say the behavior of bachelors is spoiling your kids. What if your kids are already spoiled or what is the proof that after denying flats to bachelors your kids will behave nicely?

4. We too are sons/daughters of someone like you. Do you indirectly blaming our parents for not raising us properly?

5. You object if a girl visits boys place and vice a versa, saying that we must be doing some objectionable thing. Even the married people have extra-marital affairs. What if a guy visits your place when your wife is alone at home? Now we too have reason to object.

6. What if in future your son/daughter travels to other city and is being denied to stay in a good society just because she’s bachelor? Would you accept that she/he is indecent?

We understand your point as we know how some bachelors behave and misuse the freedom. But generalizing it is your mistake. We want to stay in a good society not just because we are earning good and afford to pay the rent but because we too want to stay in good environment, in a good house and in a society which assures our safety.

You always have an option to kick them out if found guilty than not allowing them to stay. And for that matter you too were one of us. If everyone does that then where we are supposed to stay? Think about it before denying any bachelor to stay in your society.