Celebrations

India has been a land of festivities, of colors, of sounds, of love, of joy, of good and the bad and what not. For a person, who belongs to a family, which has essentially been an amalgamation of culture in itself, I have developed my opinions on celebrations, its reasons, its poignance and its consequences.

Just to affirm, here I am not  dealing with "who celebrates without reason" but "who celebrates on almost anything they can". We, the Indians. When you talk about just another reason, you can add in the list anything but it will still be a reason to celebrate.

Cosmetic Therapy

Cosmetology is the ‘the professional, skilled practice of beautifying the Face, Hair and Skin’ and Cosmetologists are professionals who help you enhance your natural endowments- hair, skin and outward appearance. Branches of this science of personal care include hair-care, cosmetics, manicure/pedicure, skin care, laser procedures, etc. 

Whats (Y)apping

   Image source: here

When I decided to write on this topic this week for Half baked beans, I was smiling to myself as anyone and everyone is addicted to what’s app these days. Yes it does save time when you have to share some photo-graph or a video or a file from your mobile with other person who has what’s app downloaded on his mobile but what next? It for sure doesn’t stop there.

Land of celebrations

               

India is a land of festivals. Yes, we Indians love to celebrate. We have a positive outlook towards things and thus we celebrate. We love making people happy and that is the reason we celebrate. We believe in sharing joy with others, so we celebrate. India is blessed with festivals of different types, each having its own significance and importance. We have festivals for different seasons of the year. Festivals that every Indian celebrates with immense gaiety and fervor! We don’t make lame excuses for celebrating. Instead, we have reasons to celebrate. Reason as they say, is the stolid/logical cousin of excuse! Apparently, very few countries have as many festivals as we have. We are always full of zeal and zest when it’s about celebrations. Life is all about enjoying moments, so there is no reason not to celebrate. We often hear people saying that we Indians just need a reason to celebrate. No, we don’t even need that! We already have a lot of reasons to celebrate and life itself is a reason to celebrate.

Black tea or Black coffee

The fight between the coffee lovers and tea lovers regarding which beverage is superior is a never ending one with both sides claiming their drink to be better than the other. However, a very careful and analytical approach to both, comparing the qualities and disadvantages of both would give us a better idea about which drink is ideal for one’s requirements.

A reason to celebrate

Indians juggle with a lot many things on a daily basis (except, of course, the ones who get easy money by means of corruption):

·         Late working hours

·         The inability to spend enough time at home

·         Lack of sleep

·         Ever-increasing traffic

·         Ever-increasing prices of, well, everything

·         Corruption

·         The depressing news of rapes, murders, dirty politics, accidents, building collapeses...

·         The 'chalta hai' attitude

Remember my Name

We all were born with an ethical mind, told not to do wrong to anyone. We have always been like this good and helpful. Always you and I restrain ourselves from breaking bad and then one day the coin of life flip and now we are on the other side of the life. We are bound to provide for our family and for those who are waiting for us to bring their bread. We are bound to be a good citizen. But there are times when one has only one option left—Breaking Bad.

Is there a Walter White in all of us?

A boring Sunday afternoon and the TV remote in my hand. What do I do? I start flipping channels. And I flip channels with no interest I see an advertisement of an upcoming TV Sitcom “Breaking Bad”. The advertisement posed questions about the sins we commit in our lives. These sins may not be seen as major sins but little sins that we commit such as bucking a class or cheating on an exam but what happens when this sin becomes your alter ego?

Broo-ming his way

I have an introduction to make.

Not the one You can retrieve from Google.  I want to introduce a humble man. A man who touched a million lives. Who, churned the very insides of a nation plagued with corruption, patriarchal sadism and idealism. He isn’t a messiah. He isn’t going to make all of our social, political and economical problems go away, with a flick of a wand. He is an inspiration. He seeded the idea that something can be done about them, problems.

Book Review- Ten Shades of Life- Collection of Award Winning Short Stories by Fablery

The book’s cover is a mish mash of animated drawings on a bright orange colored background. I suppose the idea was to highlight the diversity of the contents inside, but it turns out to be a little confusing and chaotic. The back has the names of all the contributors and the genres they wrote in. I personally think the title of the book could have been a little more innovative; the use of the word “shades” has become too clichéd.

 

Source: Google Images

North East

                                              

India is a land of diversified culture and traditions. You get to see people of different religions, beliefs, cultures and traditions living here. This is what makes this nation incredible. India is like a huge family where each family member contributes to the well being and prosperity of the grand family.

Northeast India is the eastern most region of the country. This region comprises of the seven states that are commonly termed as the Seven Sisters- Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura—and the Himalayan state of Sikkim. The states are officially recognized under the North Eastern Council (NEC), constituted in 1971 as the acting agency for the development of the eight states.

Rock a "bye" baby

“(If we) face the fact, for it is a fact, that there is no arm to cling to, but that we go alone and that our relation is to the world of reality and not only to the world of men and women...” ― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

Being Single!

One of these days my Beloved asked me, ‘and how do you know you will have me for ever’? I was stunned! Stunned into silence and a deep understanding. I can’t own you, even if you are the best thing to have happened on the planet! Yes I can’t! I can’t!

Rebound Relationships

You met her at a bar and were instantly enamored by her exquisite features; you made a move and got lucky. World looks magical to you, you find her so caring and understanding. She has an important influence in almost every decision you make. She is the one you have been looking for. 

If you are single its difficult in India

Being single in India is challenging. It is a crime if you turn 25-26 as you are expected to get married before you touch 25 and become a mother at least by 30. Many elders (read morons) here decide the fertility rate of every woman. They start their requests for kids from day 1 of marriage. Some think delivering a kid is as easy as getting a chips packet from vending machine! I know I am getting drifted away from the topic. I can write a lot on the "being single" scenario in India. But for now I want to narrate an incident from my own life.

I used to have lunch with a group of colleagues in the office pantry some 3 years back. Half of them were married and a quarter of them were engaged and another quarter of them were committed to get married (hopefully to the same person). The conversation started something like below.

Ricochet in Love

                                            

Many people equate love to certain objects they hold dear to their hearts but the essence of love is not the one that can be objectified.  One invests a lot of emotions, trust, honesty and their soul in a relationship. It’s like you carefully put one card on another to build the delicate house of cards and just when you’re about to achieve gratification for building such a fragile structure, a fraction of a second of distraction and all your dreams and expectations come crumbling down.

Things to know in School

Memories from school are perhaps our best childhood memories. The innocence and naïveté and the silly things we did can never be brought back. It is also the most crucial phase of a person’s life, the time when they are away from family mingling with various kinds of people of different age, gender, class and religious groups. School is where they interact, learn and imbibe a lot of different things that they cannot possibly learn from being at home and things and values that will help them grow into better human beings in the future. 

Solo Travel

I will not deny that I am a casual escapist. When things gets particularly difficult I like to take some time off to deal with the situation and my emotions before I face it head on. I have found that taking a step back often leaves me with more clarity. And then there are times when I need to self-reflect- to make peace with an unexpected, unwanted outcome before I can move forward or to grieve the loss something I held precious or the end of hope.

Man and Madness Review: You'll love it to pieces, or hate it to the core

Book: Man and Madness
Author: Parna Banerjee Sarkar
Publisher: All About Books Global
Genre: Romance in prose-poetry style
Number of pages: 110
Price: Rs 150

 

Source: Google Images