Vipassana - The Art of Introspective Calm

Even though I've been out of Silence for a while now, I'm still not quite as out of it as I always was when I didn't know it exists and how. My self-exile was my best gift, and I still do not know who it was from; I don't care to know either.

Mindfulness

Let’s do something different today, shall we? Well, today, I am going to start with taking your class attendance! Yes, you heard me right! Today, I am going to start with taking some class attendance. So, let me start.

(Name?

Present.

Name?

Present.)

Present! Present… of course. Present… are you sure?

Back to Basics

I recently made a power-point presentation with the topic as "Back to Basics" in which I argued, with humour and with help of the pictures below, how we are making a fool of ourselves in the process and how, therefore, we must seriously consider going "back to basics". It was a speech marathon and this one got me a best speaker :D :D !! So, here you go... back to basics!!

Fitoor!

I was sixteen, and in school we were being taken through Great Expectations and Wuthering Heights side by side. For obvious reasons, many of us girls had sided with the frost and fire of the latter. Pip to me had remained the little orphan boy, the lost lover, the ungrateful child... someone who was intriguing, undeniably, but not enough to lose your sleep over.

It was not just that, perhaps, too. Somehow, at some phase in our formative years, you are taught to fear passion in a way so disguised that today you cannot even look back and point your finger. If you have been endlessly in love, something – I don’t know what – teaches you to not be so. They teach you vulnerability is bad, they teach you that putting your entire life, entire happiness on the hinge of one man’s whim is unwise; dangerous, even. 



And you learn! So did I. 



When I read Great Expectations, as I look back now, I suppose I too had learned more from Miss Havisham’s sufferings than from Pip’s incredible, innocent longing. I had since then, many times over, quoted how Miss Havisham spoke of love:

“I'll tell you," said she, in the same hurried passionate whisper, "what real love it. It is blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole world, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter - as I did!” 

Of December and other good things in life!

“How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before its afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness, how the time has flown! How did it get so late so soon?” – had said Dr. Seuss!

A very good morning, dear Toastmasters! Today I am going to talk about the time of the times, the month of the months. I am going to talk about – The Delights of December!

December brings with it sights, sounds and sumptuous tastes that are unique to its nature.

“The Guitar” - A fling that turns into a Lifetime affair, and how!

That she is dying and has something from a month to a two to go, was spelt out to her in a professional, perhaps slightly compassionate and yet disengaged tone. The verdict had been handed out, clearly and unambiguously. She was further explained how she'd first lose her voice, then her sight, and then, decay, not quite slowly.  And yet, as funny as it may sound, this is not but the only verdict she was handed out on the same day. As if she wasn’t yet quite done with! And so, the next two follow: that, she has been "downsized" at her job, and unloved by her lover.

Three verdicts - each unknowing and indifferent to the other two; each, brutal times more due to the other, and yet oblivious; each, each alone, having the power, proved over history, to easily crumble and perish a soul to dust but not before mercilessly tossing it aside into a nothingness safely and surely unknown to one who hasn't walked that road or died those deaths that she was about to, starting that day.

So well, you tell me! What do you do when you’re handed out such a destiny, and you know that they happen, for sure, and all you might do is to accept them and know, tell yourself, in capitals, bold and underlined, that – Very well, girl. This is it!

Know what? Idea!

You… accept.

I wish you a Merry Christmas!

This had also been published in The Huffington Post, Women's Web and MyCity4Kids!!

"How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before its afternoon. December is here before its June. My goodness, how the time has flown! How did it get so late so soon?” – had said Dr. Seuss!

Right! Before you barely get used to the new digits at the end of the date, it’s time to change it again. That time of the year is back. The Time of the times, the Month of the months!

Look! It’s December, again!!

Working Women's Pregnancy - A running thought!

This has also been published in Women's Web and MyCity4Kids!!


I just watched a small video which is being shared widely in social media, which is below:

WATCH THE VIDEO!

And, here's my reaction to the same (I am copy pasting, actually, directly from what I just wrote in the "comment" box of the video, without any edits.) -



I loved, and more loved the fact that somebody thought about it and made it, and yet I cannot but wonder…


Is the only way to prove is to deny your body the changes, the rest it demands, those morning sicknesses and hormonal upheaval... and the only way to women empowerment is just to HAVE TO put up a strong brave face and make sure to be around as if it's all absolutely the same?

A warrior who never killed a fly!

White locks of hair pulled into a tiny bun, often covered with a pallu that is but a vague white extension of the once white but now faded 5 metres stretch of cotton, perhaps with a hole here and there over its entire stretch but carefully tugged inside to not be spotted – that is how Dida has looked ever since I can remember. Dida - the common grandmother – in our small but complete world of the neighbourhood, the place we were born and grown up at.

The Little Light of My Life...

This post has also been published in World of Moms!

Menses - let it just be!

This post has also been published in The Huffington Post and Women's Web

"What is Durga Puja?" - they had asked!

This article has also been published at The Speaking Tree, Youthkiawaaz, WhatsupIndia, Gurgaon Moms and Women's Web!!


Now, strange things happen at times at most habitual moments. Like when they asked you to tell them "something about yourself" at your first job interview, and you looked blank. You did not know, until then, how difficult it could be to be asked to summarise your own self, in precise words and well-formed sentences, conclusively and sufficiently! You do not know where to start, what to carefully keep aside, what is just yours and not for the world to know, and what preciseness of the reply would fit the bill right, that is, to leave your audience engaged and pleased and to still be honest and at it. When confronted with casual curiosity, or even courtesy-calls, on something so damn close to you that you've grown up to belong to it or to be it yourself, it really gets bad. I know I am getting too gibberish for you to keep on reading this piece, especially in a season where you've so much to otherwise, and I duly apologise. Give me a chance to defend.

I'm just back from a very sudden going-total-blank-at-a-most-obvious-question situation at a non-Bong gathering. They casually, only slightly curiously, had just asked me one simple well-meaning question:

"What is Durga Puja?"

Girls Are Not Any Superior To Boys!!

This article has also been published in Women's Web and a magazine.

Girls are not any superior to boys. Please, it’s important to emphasise and re-emphasise this.

Those regular status messages and those frequent Whats-app forwards that paint the town pink – that tearful letter from a father to his married daughter, that list of things woman leaves behind in marriage, surname, home and freedom to not cook food, to why is mother the next best creation, or wait, the best! No, don’t buy them. Don’t buy them at all!

5 Ways To Raise Your Kid Gender Neutral

This article has been cross-published at The Huffington Post, YouthkiAwaaz, Mycity4kids and Women's Web.

1. Don’t buy them blue or pink.

The other day, my four year old asked, yet again:– Mum, are you sure?– Sure of what?– That pink is not the colour for girls, and blue for boys?– Yes, dear.

I took her to the balcony as we talked:
– Look at the sky. What colour do you see?
– Blue. Light blue.
– Now tell me, is the sky there only for boys? Does it shine or rain only for them and not us?
– No!

Another Woman - Woody Allen - random thoughts

(Non-disclaimer: There are hardly any spoilers in this piece of discussion.)

This is common if I have to guess; you see that woman, typically older than you are - on the street, in the television, or at a party – and from the way she dresses, walks, talks and carries herself, you wish fleetingly that when you’re of that age, you’d like to age like her.