The Ten... Commandments?

For those friends and readers who have been seeing my posts every other day with certain letters and codes that you’re probably not making much out of, let me stop at this and tell you what it is all about. Well, they're about "Toastmasters"!! Toastmasters is a club, decentralized with branches everywhere in nooks and corners across the globe, in which people get together and hone their public speaking skills. They have the Communications and the Leadership tracks that people follow as they either deliver speeches or play others roles in the meetings and behind the scenes.  

But then, that’s just on the surface. From my journey over the past a little less than six months with the club, it’d be rather ungrateful if I do not say how it opens a new door to your way of life. Every other week I’d be thinking of what to speak on next, how and why. The sheer opportunity to be talking to a room full of people, twenty odd to thirty plus of certain fortunate days, to be able to appeal and influence to their sensibilities over what I choose to talk upon, well, got me!

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!!

Guest Post: A never-ending journey!

This is by a Toastmasters friend, Faizan. Not only did he bag the best speaker, he left behind many a teary eyes by the time he had ended. So, without much ado, here we go!

I was on my knees, with a ring in my hand and she was preparing breakfast. My 27^th Birthday. “I love you”, “I am sorry for troubling you all the time but I promise to keep this smile on your face till the day I am alive”. It was just happy tears trickling down her beautiful face. A tight hug. Oh! I wish I could just pause that moment forever. Just to make her happy made my day. My only mission was to make my only day of the year a day for her to remember forever. That is the best gift I could give her at that time. Even then it feels like I want to do much more for her.

Love: A myth and a mystery!

I wish you lovely morning, dear Toastmasters.

Today, I am going to talk about love. And no, I am not going to talk about love. I am not going to talk about how we should also love our parents and our families, I am not going to talk about how we much love nature and how we love our pets. Do the students of JNU love the country… no, I am not going to talk about that either! And I am not going to talk about how we must first love ourselves. Come on! This is February, a beautiful February, and I am going to talk about unabashed, unapologetic romantic love.

What is love? Surely, it is not about the red balloons at the traffic signals or about the Archie’s greeting cards. It is profound, much more profound than that, of course. It is perhaps the strongest emotion we human beings are capable of. It is often larger than life itself. It can change the life that you lead, and it can change the person that you are. It is important to know how every love stories is immortal in its own way even if it does not result into a forever. You are never the same person before and after it. Think of it - shall we ever be able to love as innocently, as entirely as we had loved in our first crush?

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!” 

Just a joke, you'd say!

Below is a picture that I just received, as I tapped on the Wi-Fi icon on my handheld and the Whatsapp messages flooded in. 

The photo is labeled as: “ladies enjoying cappuccino, policeman relishing latte” and has been enthusiastically been followed up with emoticons that shed tears of laughter and rolled on the floor, in ecstasy.

Of Birds and Bees... well, literally!

It was my mum’s idea! My daughter's first birthday was, well, not exactly around the corner… there were whole three months left to it. And yet, our daily hone bills were soaring sky high with every passing day over the same discussion in a constant loop – as to, what they’d give her for a gift!

-         Dress?

-         Well, then give me a wardrobe too!

-         Toys?

-         Do you have any idea how many of those are still unwrapped?

-         Something in gold?

-         Eww… Don't even think of that, not for me and my daughter (*roar*)

-         Then?

-         Well, let me think some more…

Can you see me?

Today was otherwise just a normal day, you see! I woke up in the morning as usual. I went to the wash-basin right after I woke up, picked my toothbrush and laid a layer of paste on the bristles. I must have looked up at the mirror expecting my puffy eyes to show up. Did they? I hardly noticed. If I did, it should have struck me right then.

But it was later, much later. It was when I was out of the shower, and that was when I generally don't dare even glancing at the clock as I would always run too late everyday around that time. I made my way to my dressing space and faced the life-size mirror on the wall as I combed my hair furiously so that strands tore out. And then, suddenly, my hand froze.

I could not see myself in the mirror.