Older! Wiser? Happier birthday!

So, I am 31 years old and 4 days old. Jessica wished me the happiest of birthdays and Eva called me beautiful and Anand wished a blessed day for me. Out of the 100 odd FB wall posts, these have stuck out in my mind because my birthday was all of these.

It was the happiest. I felt so very beautiful from within, from out, from all around me. I felt at peace. I felt blessed. I was really blessed. My favourite cousin spent half of his day with me. (I am using the word favourite here with a poetic license because it sounds good with the flow of the sentence.. but all my cousins are my favourites)

And the icing on the cake was that my 6-year-old son and his friends made sure that I have a party on my birthday. So they made me cut a beautiful strawberry and vanilla cake, complete with icing and cream and pink flowers with ‘Happy Birthday’ inscribed on it. Nothing and no one can top this icing (pun intended). So, today 4 days later, on my wedding anniversary day, I thank my husband for the most precious gift we gave each other, our son.

Life is benevolent!

Life indeed is benevolent if you choose to look at it with a benevolent perspective. There are people who forget you on your birthday, and there are people who go out all the way to make it memorable and show their love and passion and care for you. I wish to remember the good things. I wish to thank god for the cake… errr… for such a wonderful son and husband. I wish to remember this day with all the lovely things life has bestowed me with.

(**Sniff sniff**) This post is getting mushier and mushier…

Hey guys, rock and roll!!! Life is fun! Ignore things which give you unhappiness. They do not go away. But they do not bother you eventually.

Revel in peace and happiness and fun and togetherness and joy.

Vaccination and me – Yay!! India is polio-free

Child receiving polio vaccine. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 India was once the epicenter of Polio. Polio was carried on from India to even many African nations. In 1985 there were 150,000 polio cases and in 2010 it was at a historic low of 42. But today, as of 2012, India has been declared Polio free with not a single case of Polio having been registered in any of the Health centers. It really is a major task in a nation like India, which boasts of not only the nation with one of highest GDP ratio, but also of the second largest slum in Asia, which is a hotbed of so many known and unknown diseases. 

Immunization, commonly referred to as vaccination is a great wealth we can give our children as parents. Give them good physical health and mental health and they have the capacity to access the greatest wealth in the world. 

When I was asked a year ago by Jennifer Burden of the World Moms Blog if I would be interested in vaccination advocacy as part of Social Good, I said, ‘Why not?’ But ‘how,’ I thought. So, here I am writing about it as one of the first steps. Advocacy is easy. I firmly believe in protecting my son against certain killer diseases. More than a year ago he contacted Dengue fever and little did I know Dengue is life threatening until a fellow blogger’s daughter succumbed to it. It was shocking! I have no words to describe my feelings.

So, for those killer diseases for which there are vaccines protect your child. Give him a future where he is strong, has the capability to fight diseases. Give him that investment where his health is ensured. Vaccination advocacy is easy. The only requirement is your passion, your power to move people.

At GAVI, I was awed to see so many people so enthusiastic about this cause. The success rate in developing nations was stupendous. Check out the new vaccines they have rolled out in many African nations. I am so honored to be part of this passionate cause of securing the future health of a child.

Organizations like GAVI and Shot@Life rock! I urge more people like us with the power to write, with the power to influence people both with their presence in the virtual world/media (Social networking and blogs) and also through their field work to be part of such movements.

Who would have thought one day India would be Polio free? That is the only boost any Indian ever needs to start his pro vaccination campaign.

What are you waiting for? Voice your views

P.S: Ok, my next step in this would be to film a movie with the help of Jennifer Burden, Founder, Chief Editor, World Moms Blog, advocating vaccination . Yay!! Watch this space for more updates on that. If you want to be part of the movie in any way, drop us a note through the Contacts Page.

My passion won’t rest for now!!

 

Related articles

• India removed from WHO list of nations with polio (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Polio in India: How They Defeated the Virus (ibtimes.com)
• India Removed From WHO List of Nations With Polio (abcnews.go.com)
• Nigeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan nations with endemic polio (vanguardngr.com)
• India Celebrates First Year Without Polio (newsy.com)

The Pursuit of Perfection

I am not yet perfect; But I am the best!!!

Well, I just had a dream. I was running on a strip of rainbow. I was trying hard to run on the Green strip, because that is the middle of a rainbow, the ‘perfect’ middle. I wonder why the dream was precise about the middle of the rainbow strip. I was trying so hard to run on exactly the green colour, because my coach was very particular about it. He was trying to get me to win. But I was not interested. I was only scared to not step out of the Green colour because he was a perfectionist. In the end I was not even sure if I won the race or not or if there were other participants or not. I only remembered that I tried not to step out of the Green colour ever. But I was not even sure if I achieved it or not. Strange, I thought later. But not so much either.

So, where does it leave this post with the pursuit of perfection? What did I achieve? Was my coach happy? Does it matter if I was on the Green strip or the red? Does it matter if I won? But my coach was happy. Does that matter at all to me? Or even to him?

I remember my mother’s perfection in folding clothes. It does not need to be ironed at all after she folds them. I remember that none of our school uniforms were ever ironed. Perfection! The certifying authority was the necessity of the clothes to be ironed.

Is perfection achievable? Is it definable? It is explainable? What about excellence? Perhaps excellence is worth pursuing. But then again, who certifies excellence as excellence? The mind caters to all this mumbo-jumbo. Does a happy heart run behind perfection? Are happy people perfect? Happy people are content. Are content people perfect? This is a paradox and hardly a question. I think life has various meanings for various people. And two people with two different minds have different yardsticks about perfection.

Was Buddha perfect? Leaving his family behind to pursue spirituality can hardly be called wise. But can Buddha be blamed? He was definitely an imperfect father and imperfect husband. What standards would we use to judge if he was a perfect man? Attaining nirvana under a bodhi tree leads to perfection? What about Lord Krishna with 16,000 wives and stealing butter everyday? Was he moral? Ethical? Were the greatest scientists of humanity perfect? Did they get perfect results the first time they experimented? Albert Einstein was sent away from school by his teacher because he was not good in mathematics.

Perfection in homemaking chores, perfection in parenting, perfection in dancing, singing, movie making, perfection in grades, perfection in relationship (now this is something worth thinkable for which there is not answer), oh well, the pursuit of perfection for everything in this universe is worth pursuing when the certifying authority understands you, understands your efforts. I think results should be judged by the efforts than standards and measures and rules. Oh, but the rules of the games are made by perfectionists, aren’t they!!! Fruits of your efforts are tasted by only you and the sweetness known only to you. But the world rants on!!!

I wonder what made George Will, the Pulitzer Prize winner say, “The pursuit of perfection impedes improvement”. But I strongly agree.

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.

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

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.

SAHM vs. Working-Mom

INDIA: My Decision: SAHM vs. Working-Mom.

Please click the above link. Oh yes, that is my next post at WMB.

Ok, go ahead, read it and leave your comments there at WMB 

Thanks guys!