A small step in breaking the Caste System.

India: Breaking the Caste System.

Peaceful demonstrations against the reservation system. New Delhi, India

That is my latest post at World Moms Blog. Today in India the most burning issue among the educated is the reservation system in educational institutions and government sector, which is based on the caste system.

As a mother, I would want my son to be judged by what he is capable of rather than which community or caste he was born into. What about you?

A massive paradigm shift in the thought process is necessary to get over this social evil.

Take a small step today. Yes, it will make a huge difference in the upliftment of social equality and human rights.

Please leave a comment on World Moms Blog and let your voice heard against this.

Photo credit to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dharnaeithflag.jpg

2012: My blogging predictions!

Mayan Calendar

Now, that the world is going to end on 21st Dec 2012 as per the Mayan Calendar (*I seriously don’t think so! We Homo sapiens, can’t be let off so easily, huh!*), I am going to come up with predictions of my own too, at least my personal blog-post predictions? You want the truth? Check out the things in parentheses… lol!

Jan 1st: I write my first post of the year applauding my handsome DH of staying home all day with me and DS. (*** Huh?! I wish…!! Surely an emergency lung diseased person is going to get admitted and DH is going to rush to the E&R – joys of being a happy homemaker with a physician husband at critical care ***)

Jan 10th: I sign up for something as silly as postaday2012 and write ferociously just about every day and win an award from WordPress to have kept up my resolutions. (*** If only wishes had wings and hopes had brooms. I don’t long to keep up with my writing resolutions, because I don’t long for things I won’t/can’t get anyway. The grapes are sour. ***)

Jan 20th: I start realising that writing every day does not matter, only writing matters and I write a nice longpost about the perils of emptying your creativity in everyday writing (*** see, didn’t I tell you??? You saw it coming after all, didn’t you? ***)

Feb 5th: I write extolling what a wonderful man DH is and get him a wonderful gift for his birthday and write about the joys of being a wife to such a loving person. (*** Did your read this post? I promised myself I would never ever do this kind of thing ever in my/his entire longest life. Want to know why? Huh, who cares? Right! The world is ending on 21st Dec anyway. ***)

March 3rd: 6 years of parental journey! Can it ever get better? Being a mother is joyful. It is bliss. Parenting books help. I bring up the best boy in town. I write all about my fortune of being the best mother to the best child. (*** Seriously, you want to know why I decided I have had my one, and done with parenting? But, well, yes, life is indeed benevolent with everything happening around, so, happy birthday DS :)  ***)

March 25th: Summer is a wonderful time and I am waiting for DS’s holidays to begin so that we sign up for those wonderful interesting classes and fun activities and summer clubs and camps and such. It’s all going to be exciting, trust me! Post about fun and merriment and excitement! (*** All mothers of toddlers and young boys, out there, you know the perils of staying at home with one, all day who expends all your energies and creativity. In having to entertain and keep a young boy happy for 24 hours a day for 2 months what all a mother does!!! I know, I feel your compassion from the opposite side of the word! Trust me, I do! How can the world end when so soon? Come on, we mothers have a lot more karma to expel! ***)

April 27th: That post about life being beautiful, life being benevolent, and a pic about the evening sky with the setting sun from my terrace, roof top pics and such. (*** Look at how the posts are getting wider apart! Oh yes, it is summer holidays and I have no time to check FB or WP, but having a grinding… err loving time with my son full day at home! ***)

May 18th: Happy birthday to me! I am a year younger, not older, post! happy sunshine post! My birthday gives me joy and happiness post! la la la! (*** Who cares, I am beyond it. Seriously, you never find time or interest anyway. You wish for, maybe! But no, you do not get your favourite fuchsia coloured Dell laptop or that sleek solitaire ear drops! I have decided to stop dropping hints like this anyway for DH to read and ‘surprise’ me! Life is beyond sucking too anyway! ***)

June 15th: A post explaining school reopened for DS. How I miss him. How I have nothing to do at home and the place looks empty. (*** Seriously, ‘now I got a breather’ post is more in the way! And DH saying how he never gets to spend time with his darling little boy and I get to hog away all of DS’s attention and time. Seriously, come on, I welcome you to share the work load of bringing up an intelligent, tech-savvy, young boy all by yourself! ***)

July 15th: Art, craft, project work post, learning nowadays is fun at school! Lucky DS! (*** Know something, I hate this kind of work load! On top of cooking, cleaning, home making, tolerating a DH who is hardly at home at all, I have to work late into the night getting up DS’s school project work ready. I have to come up with ideas all by myself from the internet, from my own nook and cranny of the ‘vast’ convolutions of the grey and white matter within the skull and build it up. Ooofff!!! But I write a beautiful post about how interesting it was to make the project, take cute pics and put it up!!! Oh man! Seriously!!! We all need to be a bit more honest writing posts for popularity. hmmpphh! ***)

August 25th: Indian Independence day just went by 10 days ago! ‘We did this and that’ post! (*** translates to nothing to report basically in my dull, drab boring saga called life. ***)

September 30th: Whatever post! I need to satiate my reader list! Really! (*** Notice the posts going wide and apart to each other? Was I the one who signed up for postaday2012 crap and Plinky stuff? You bet!!! I am full of inspirations and motivations!!! And LAZINESS!!! ***)

I hibernate in October. Its official!! I need a break too! And autumn is the best time to vegetate!

November 1st: Home making post of de-cluttering, decorating, rejuvenating the spirit of homeliness! November is Diwali time in india and with it, visitors arrive, hence a cleaning up post! (*** Home makers are seriously the most underpaid, most under appreciated lot of the working community! They sacrifice their whole life for something which has no returns, really!!! Did I quit my high paying, glamorous programming white-collar job to scrub the kitchen tiles twenty times a week? ***)

December whatever: I am way beyond caring! Surely a ‘the world ends now’ post! Was that 21st? Heck! I wish it ends now!!! My ‘desperate times’ post! Desperate not for the world going to the dogs, but well, this thankless life! Oh heck, who ever thought their life was thankful??!!! Oh, I forgot the parentheses and beautiful asterisk. Oh, after all, the world is ending; ‘let me be honest with myself’ post!!! So, when the world ends, surely the server where this WordPress is hosted would get destroyed? Would there be back ups for back ups? Or whatever? Will this post be lost in oblivion like us all? ‘My musings’ post and my ‘philosophical words of awe and wonder and thought’ post!!! Ah, ‘life is strange’ post and the ‘world lives on’ post!

That surely was a long post for December, huh? or perhaps multiple posts! Ia m catching on, you see..!

So, there!!! Maybe if I get to mark all those posts on the above image of the Mayan Calendar, I would still consider my writing blogger life successful in 2012!

Happy New Year guys! Come on, I don’t think it really ends in December 2012. Surely, world would not quit so soon!!!

Have a little hope! And share your hope Let me know what are your blogging predictions for 2012?

THE ALCHEMIST’s BLOG – so goes the name…

The Alchemist's Blog

You know, often the most coveted treasure we seek out, the emotional solace we look for to cushion us, and even the intellectual wealth we seek out from books are all within us.

Each one’s quest, his dreams, his journey, his destination lies deep within himself and it takes time to realize that. So, why am I saying all this? Well, as a regular reader of this blog, you need to know why I have named it this. 

Have you read the book, “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho? “Who has not”, I hear y’all! Well, the protagonist Santiago searches all around the world for his secret treasure, meets his beloved on the way, in his journey, and then, finds his treasure, in his own backyard. I was so fascinated by the climax, rather anti-climax of all this. The first time, I read the book; I was almost imagining the secret treasures from the Pyramids to pop out anytime, the magic carpets and golden lamps and genies of Arabia to fly into the pages, and the mystic oriental east,Indiaand her crowning gloryHimalayasto visit the next chapters. But ah, no, this guy Coelho knows his own heart. 

Yes, if you have not read that book yet, please, go ahead; get your own personal copy. Whenever I need inspiration, whenever I need solace, this book is one those I read, amongst the many other things I do. 

So, why the name, “The Alchemist’s blog?” Ah, come read this blog, find out what your treasure, through the chronicles of my journey, spread the love, learn to live, find the zest for being joyful, bask in the Lord’s grace, and all along, find out the purpose of your existence and take your beloved ones along!

Be your own Alchemist! Seek out the Alchemist within.

Share your own inspiration in the comments section and spread the motivation.

Motherhood and being Cultured!

        

This post is dedicated to the one year Blogiversary of one of the most happening parenting communities, World Moms Blog.

I was asked to write about Motherhood relating to our Indian culture and link up with the World Moms Blog . In India I would say there are at at least 50 different cultures for every aspect. And the same and more apply to motherhood. Having said that, this post has nothing to do with any of the  specific 50 different cultures of India.

For me motherhood simply means worshipping my mother’s motherhood. I should say I have not much vocally appreciated her as much as I should be not only for bringing me up, but doing everything else and more for my son, her grandson.

Sculpture - "Motherhood" at St.Anne convent in northern Kentucky.

This is where it began. When I was pregnant I contacted Hepatitis-A, a viral infection and was down with jaundice. It was not specifically life threatening or problematic for the baby in womb (because of the placental barrier), but we all were so stressed mentally and emotionally. This was approximately during the 22^nd week. I was working 12 hours a day, designing the supposedly love of my life, car electronics. During that period I was living, 350 miles away from home.

The gynecologist and gastroentrologist advised complete bed rest until the day of delivery. I was very upset hearing this. I pleaded, I coaxed, that I work at least after a month’s rest. I was feeling completely fit and fine. But for whatever reasons God chose, I was back at my parents’ home relaxing and enjoying all the remaining 5 to 6 months of pregnancy. I was eating home cooked food by the world’s greatest cook (mom), being pampered and cared and just plain killing time reading books, researching pregnancy and stuff over the internet. The DDH used to visit me over the weekends at my parents’ place. [**I have not really thanked him enough for letting me stay on at my parents’ place indefinitely**]. And life was benevolent indeed.  

And then, one fine day I delivered a healthy happy crying baby boy and all was fine again in this mama’s world.

And I went back to work when DDS was 6 months old.

No day care, said the DDH. No nannies. No nothing. I was devastated. Apparently the DDH was a great fan of attachment parenting, and well, neither did I have the heart to send him to a day care to strangers. I mean, yes, I know there are so many wonderful care centers and I am not being judgmental. Having said that, I just felt I needed my little boy to be with people he knew, he was biologically related to.

So, super woman aka my mom, aka my son’s grand mom stepped in to the rescue. She traveled 350 miles away from her home, stayed with us, away from her husband and her son and took care of DDS while I worked away ‘happily’ at the car electronics typing away software codes for the automatic power steering.

Now, my dad visited us during the weekend to be with his wife, my mom and with all of us, his family. And oh, my brother sacrificed being with his mom too, because he was just entering college, and needed her emotional support. But the neediest was the baby, so my mom devoted her entire time, energy and thoughts to baby. We stayed in this arrangement for at least 5 years when we decided I would quit work because mom had to go back home, for her own personal reasons.

But the point is, my mom put up with a 25-year-old, grown up, pregnant, moody, lazy, physically unwell woman (me) for half a year, an ignorant mom (me) for another half-year and then she stayed away from her family, her husband and her son for 5 full years. I can not really thank my father and brother enough for letting me have her fully. She did all this for her grandson. Her idea of motherhood which can not be defined in any words except by retelling this story is just my idea of motherhood.

Culture is also refinement, culture is also being civilized, culture, my father always says, is doing what is best and correct for the moment and living life the way, God would later say, Ah, I am proud of you, my child. Isnt that how culture must have evolved in any society?

So, I am blessed to have parents who are cultured and who tried their best to imbibe that in my brother and me.

And this post celebrates that woman, who is the best mother in the whole world.

Some day, I hope my son says that too.

 

This article is part of the World Moms Blog Link-up

Go ahead, click the above button and view all posts written by mothers all around the globe participating in the World Moms Blog link up! I encourage the reader to also participate by writing your own post under the topic, “Motherhood, culture and myself” and show your support for the most celebrated feeling, “motherhood” by ‘liking’ and commenting on my and all posts.

Quality, Quantity, Compromise and an Anniversary

I was speaking to my ex-project coordinator yesterday. Well, technically, not speaking, but chatting up on the virtual world! Something he said, stuck out from the conversation and that was, now you are earning quality money, writing.

Well, I actually earn only about less than ten percent of what I used to earn working as a software engineer, designing car electronics. I used to crib the whole day. But I cribbed at work, I cribbed at home, I even cribbed here at the blog.

Now, I quit for various reasons. Maybe if you want to know why, read this post later. So, now the extra income is missing. But we as a family are having a quality life. Quality care for my DDS, Quality care for DDH (though he never admits it), I mean I think of him at least eighteen times more often now, than I used to one year ago. So, isn’t that quality remembrance? And it is with fondness. (Ok, he won’t ever believe it, but anyway, there, I said it!) 

So, the point is, now I earn quality money, enjoying what I do, enjoying my work, admiring the product of my efforts, and actually loving it. I love what I write and I hope the readers do too. So, quality money (but well, less).

And a huge compromise it is! I can not really afford to not have the money. But there, I have gone through one year of existence without my income. I have learnt to be dependant on the DDH. I have learnt to be frugal to some extent(Ah, the DDH wont believe this either ). I have learnt to compromise on things and not feel bad about it.

I have learnt to live the purpose of my existence.

And happy one year anniversary to myself for making it. (Technically it is one year and one month, but you can all wish me anyway, because I am announcing it now… lol )

 And thanks PKAdka, for reminding me of the memories .

P.S: The irony of the image is that I wanted to symbolically say that one (the keyboard which I used as a software engineer) was my earlier cake winner and the other (pen as a writer) is my bread winner. But ah, well, in the digital age, gifted to us by ex-software engineers like me, I sadly use the keyboard now like earlier . Perhaps, later sometime, I would elucidate the joys of writing something using the pen .

Photo credit to http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Keyboard_and_pen.JPG

DeCluttering, A 5 y.o, Visitors and oh, ME!

                 

It all started with visitors. I am not much of a decluettring person, or a great home maker when it comes to keeping the house neat and tidy. Oh, yes, it is clean and does not have much of a dust, I should say. But everything in its own place? Oh, that’s just not me, sorry!

So, it happened, last week! Visitors were expected and it was Diwali and guess what?

Good Housekeeping periodical...

  

The shelves were dusted, the attics were vacuumed, the windows, panes, and doors, door frame polished, furniture arranged and rearranged, the book shelves decluttered, the kitchen cleaned, scrubbed and tidied, and the never-ending possibilities in creating a ‘good housekeeping magazine’s poster page’ discovered. I managed all this with the toddler at my heals. I cajoled him into helping me, sometimes yelled at him to leave the room because of the dust, at times, just accepted the fact that his presence is part of my life!

The home became a museum, a temple and everyone was shocked.

The husband was amazed.

My parents were proud.

The toddler was tip toeing.  

And I was smug! And I was exhausted! And I was happy!

The house felt beautiful. I bet if it had life, it would have admired itself umpteen times in the mirror.

DeCluttering is very therapeutic. It is wonderful. It is a serene feeling to inspect the beautiful product of your effort.

And now, one week later, the house is back a home. Yes, right, it is back to being my home, DDS’S home, DDH’s home. A place where we feel at ease, where we relax, where we find solace within ourself, amidst the things strewn around, and well just our home.

The story had to have a climax, right? So, flight back to reality and loosen up.

Its “life”, after all! And home is where its heart is

                              

Let me BE.

 

 

 

Let me be led from laziness to purposefulness.

Let me be led from being idle to a being of use.

Let me be led from anger and hatred to being detached.

Let me be led from nonchalance to compassion.

 

Let me share and spread the Love.

Let my life be what it ought to be.

Let me just Be what I have to Be!

          

Layman’s perspective of the 7 billionth

Image by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center via Flickr

When I heard Nargis of India was born, and Danica of Philippines was born and Alexander of Russia was born, I felt strange. Oh, 7 billion? Well, ok! 

I felt strange, because it had nothing to do with the overwhelming opinions regarding the huge population of the world. It had nothing to do with the adequacy of resources. It was about the attitude of all the 7 billion.

Heck, Earth was over staffed when it reached the 1 billion mark, I would say. Oh, do you remember this long forgotten statistic of the 1 billionth baby? This will happen with the 7 billionth too.

Who knew, we loved to procreate? My husband says, early earthlings had no other way to pass time. I neither agree nor disagree and vehemently state that is not the object of this post. I just want to voice my tiny little opinion that, this is not the end of the world, err… earth, literally.

Ever read the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov? Asimov created robots in his stories to be helpers of the humans, and then goes on to colonize other worlds –Trantor, Terminus, Solaris, Aurora, the list is endless. If you have happened to read those amazing series, you would feel strangely awesomely delightful about the possibilities. I think now is the time for our very dear NASAites to think about this. No, I am not giving orders, but subtle suggestions like the second foundationersfrom Asimov’s book. Lol!  

Spread love, like the evangelists preach, like the philosophers ruminate, like the spiritualists will, like everyday people (you and me) wish. Stop war abruptly. Eradicate anger, hatred, racism and intolerance, like you press the “Shift+Del” key of your computer. Compassion and Understanding are two huge tasks. This possibility sounds even more difficult than colonizing worlds, huh?! I know, it’s the same for me too. But ah, well, definitely worth a try what do you think? If you have to see those billion faces again and again and again for at least 70 odd years (assuming mother earth decides not to get rid of her burden sooner lol ), then at least learn to tolerate them. Perhaps, eventually, we can understand the billions and learn to ‘pretend’ to love. See, I am again being realistic by only requesting us to pretend (for starters, at least :p ).

Oh, there is another prospect too. Keep cribbing about earth’s burden, ecology, global warming, population per square mile (or whatever else the math works out to), inadequacy of resources, possibilities of future penury, starvation, wastage of food, other statistics, incomprehensible ratios and such. I leave it to the statisticians, economists, mathematicians, planners, and whoever else is responsible of these things. And with all that, welcome the endless blogs, endless newspaper articles, endless debates and discussions on the media. And everyone’s tiny and shrieky voices about population EXPLOSION and all the ‘earthly’ mumbo jumbo. Scary, huh?!!

But, we are all here to stay, all 7 billion of us, unless we resort to civilized, planned man slaughter. And well, I don’t foresee that weird situation. So, let us work towards making a better world for today and tomorrow and evolve into better people. The rest of the statistics, scares, and environmental/ecological trivia will either fall into place or all of us collectively, lovingly, egregorically will out an idea.

And possibly (*wink wink*) discover many many worlds outside of our stellar systems.

Love the Asimov guy! The possibilities never end!

Photo Credit to www.flickr.com/photos/28634332@N05/4038941623. This photo has a creative commons license to it.

CALLING ALL BLOGGERS!: Our “Blogiversary” Link Up Nov. 2, 3, and 4th! (Updated!)

CALLING ALL BLOGGERS!: Our “Blogiversary” Link Up Nov. 2, 3, and 4th! (Updated!).

The World Moms Blog is celebrating its first birthday. Come, be part of the blogiversary, write your own posts about motherhood and culture and link up those posts with us. Click the above link and read the details.

There are surprise gifts to be won too. And more than that, this is your best chance to be featured on the famous World Moms Blog website.

Spread the love; share what it means to be a mother.

Love,

The Alchemist!

A proud mommy blogging today

The Apple Tree

 

India: The Idea of Competition.

My latest post is published up there at WorldMomsBlog today. Please go ahead, read it and congratulate my son for winning a prize in the story telling competition  :)  lol

Oh yea, proud mommy blogging here