NSE Annual Day 2011

My Dear Blog Reader,


You must be wondering why my frequency of posting blogs here has reduced. But I can’t help it! I have started writing blogs in Gujarati – my mother tongue. And I thoroughly enjoy this experience! Since last two years my Guajarati blogs (many of which are translations of the posts written here) are regularly published in my column called ‘Blog Ne Zarookhe Thee…’ in Gujarati newspaper ‘Janmabhoomi’. There is a good fan following developed for this column and My reader’s responses are overwhelming! That keeps me motivated and encourages me to write more and regularly so due to time crunch I am not able to write much in English here. So pardon me for not writing here very often.

All the blogs published in the ‘Janmabhoomi’ column are published regularly by me at corresponding Gujarati blog website. So those of you who can read Guajarati please follow me at :

http://blognezarookhethee.blogspot.com/


…now one recent update for you all!

On 10th Aug 2011, I was felicitated by my organization for completing a decade long service @ NSE InfoTech Service Ltd. My happiness knew no bounds upon receiving this honour! Moreover I also participated in Prayer song (Ganpati PanchRatna Stotram composed by Adi Shankaracharya) that our annual day functions began with. Our very learned CTO (a thorough gentleman Mr Ravi Apte) had selected this prayer like last many years and me along with the whole group consisting of eight people (including very respected NSE seniors like Mr. Nandkumar and Ms Kamla K.) had a very good time not only while performing on the eve of the event but also while rehearsing for this prayer.(Rehearsal sessions had started a few days before the event). I don’t have any formal training in music but due to my artistic lineage I have a sense of rhythm. I have an ear for music and love listening to good music and singing too!

It was my good fortune that I came to know about this prayer song program from my colleague Dipti and I am grateful to ApteSir for allowing me to be part of the group despite of me joining the practice sessions just four days prior to the final event. Up to two days I was only listening the song to grasp the words, the lyrics and the tune in which the group (consisting of four males including me and four females) was singing. It was not an easy song. There were many high notes and in the same para there were the low notes as well! This song was sung by PadmaVibhushit Ms SubbaLaxmi. So one can imagine the kind of song it would be! For full three four days before the event, I had put this song on my Mobile in Repeat mode and must have heard it more than hundred times! I love it!

…and we sang it beautifully! Hear it here: Ganesh Panch Ratna Stotram sung by NSE group on Annual day 2011

By the way I not only sang but played Manjira (cymbals) also!

Here are the pictures of our group engrossed in singing and worshipping lord Ganesha with whose blessings we could sing such a difficult but wonderful prayer song nicely and got praised for our efforts by our colleagues!

Share your feedback too!

Here are few of my other pics (getting felicitated by our respected JMD Ms Chitra & CEO Mr Muralidaran)

Little kids : Our Teachers!

We can learn a great deal from little kids!


A small child is very simple. If it is beaten by father or mother, it cries for a while and then forgets the episode. It does not take an oath to teach its parent a lesson in future, it does not carry the baggage, it does not decide to take revenge. Why can't we adults learn this behaviour? By forgetting & forgiving in life, many times one gets a lot.

My little sweet angel daughter Namyaa is 11 months old but she daily teaches me a new lesson in life!

Daily whenever I return home after a tiring day at work, even though I am in a completely disheveled state with crumpled clothes due to mad-rush in overcrowded trains, Namyaa welcomes me with such a lovely trademark smile of hers and gets overjoyed that I completely forget everything else and even without removing my shoes and removing backpack from my shoulders, take her in my arms and give her a light peck on her chicks! She is so adorable! Her smile is magical! Here what we can learn from my little beloved is that even though you are lost in some important work, you should keep it aside for a while when somebody close to you arrives home from work & greet him or her with loving & warm smile.

Click here to view Namyaa's Pictures !
Namyaa (like her father) likes vibrant colours & designs, patterns. Whenever her eyes fall on something fancy, with complete focus & all her strength she tries to grab that object of her desire & rests only after picking that object in her tiny hands. And then what does she do? Whatever it is, puts it in her mouth! She does not understand it is not the object that can be eaten but by her this gestures teaches a great lesson. With great determination, focus & patience we shall chase our objectives and we are to achieve success in accomplishing them. All the unsuccessful attempts shall be retried with this strategy and then see how can success elude you.

Also it is as easy to divert Namyaa's attention elsewhere as simple & innocent she is! If some harmful or inappropriate object comes in her hand, give her some harmless colourful toy and she forgets the first harmful object and starts playing with the new toy! Here we can learn two lessons. One is we should not get attached to material things or objects beyond a certain point and two we shall learn to easily detach ourselves from materialistic things & objects. In life if we encounter a trouble, a problem or something negative then we shall not hold it for too long, divert attention on something we like & get fresh & then try to tackle the problem with a new outlook, a fresh perspective. We would get the solution in a short while for sure.

Other very simple but very important lesson children teach us is to express ourselves, our feelings. Many of our problems are due to getting clogged internally. We do not freely express our thoughts, ideas, problems & at times happiness too! A child will laugh when it wants to laugh & also cry when it cry. Have you seen a child dancing with joy or jumping or fluttering like a butterfly in the middle of the road as if nobody is watching it! And even if somebody watches it, it will smile & continue what it is doing! It is free of inhibitions, fears. When we cry, we shed our negative feelings through tears & become light. We shall not burden our heart & mind by storing thoughts or feelings there. You should see Namyaa smiling or laughing! How gorgeous she looks! My little Ms. Universe!...and at times she starts laughing in the middle of her crying! She has tears in her eyes & on cheeks, but the moment I call her, she turns her cute little face towards me & give me her million dollar sweet smile! I can't resist myself from taking her into my arms and give light pecks on her cheeks!

When Namyaa is overjoyed (most of the times she is!) she starts shaking both her hands in unison like a bird or a butterfly with that trademark smile of hers on her face! And at times also starts singing her 'ka..ka...ka..ka...' or 'aaa..aaa..aaa..aaa' song loudly in the language she only understands! She does not care a damn of the people present around! Can we be free like this?

Children are fearless but as they grow we instill different kinds of fear in them. Today Namyaa looks at a cockroach or a lizard and she tries to touch it or she sees a diya or a lit agarbatti, she tries to grab it in her tiny hands! It is true that in such instances, fear proves beneficial for the safety of child and it saves the child from harming itself but we shall not scare children unnecessarily or for our own convenience (which we many times do & curb their curiosity).In fact we shall accept the virtue of fearlessness from children to some extent!


Thus children can be our best teachers provided we have a yearning to learn!

Never ever Think about Suicide...

Mother is said to be creator of new life. Woman is said to be Shakti. Today Mumbai women seem to have decided to prove these beliefs wrong. She has not only proved herself weak but also has become destroyer by killing her own offsprings.


I am talking about suicides of two women in Mumbai in last two months. Nidhi Gupta killed her two children by throwing from 19th floor of her residence building who were both below 8 years of age & later jumped herself behind them. Just after a month of this horrible incident one more woman Dipti Chauhan repeated the same act with her one & only 5 year old son from terrace of her 7 storey-building.

Attempting suicide is a cowardice act in itself. Moreover whatsoever pain is agonizing you in life can not be so big that it can make you contemplating suicide. Even if you are upset with your life, just because you suffered nine months pain to bring your child into this world do not give you the right to end its life. Those tiny innocent lives have not yet even begun and before that their own creator destroys them. How unjust & sad!

Why these two women could not sort the issues out? They could have taken their parents in confidence. If their husbands were useless, they could have filed divorce. Don't know about Dipti, but Nidhi was a CA & a professor. Could not these ladies have opted to separate from their husbands and lived on their own. In a city like Mumbai, it is not that difficult for anybody to make two ends meet. Then why die? And kill your innocent children? Why such harshest punishment to them due to your own problems with your spouse/in-laws or your incapability of handling pressure. You should behave maturely.

Lesson to learn for parents of married daughters is to understand the cues. When your married daughter gives you slightest hint also about the harassment from her husband or in-laws, help her. Stand by her. Even if financially it is not possible for you to help her, give her moral support. In a city like Mumbai it is not that difficult to live a life of your own if one has the strong determination to live and face challenges life offers.

Another strong point I want to make through this blog is about Media. They play a dirty role in such situations. We shall understand that it is their job to sensationalize issues. Don't take them too seriously. You should pay attention to only good & positive stories. I read yesterday only that people in depression get more depressed by such stories and get encouraged taking such drastic steps. Dipti was strongly moved by reading Nidhi's case and probably got inspired to end her & her child's lives from Nidhi's case only. I have not even completed this blog and I read one more suicide story of a man who killed his wife and child before killing himself. Media creates hype. They show gruesome photographs of such incidents which really affect weak minds and rather than spreading the right message, inspires people to do the wrong.

You should have a strong emotional quotient. Any issue be it grave or minimal, shall be discussed with your friends, family members. Nothing in this world is impossible. No problem in this world and in human life can be such that it does not have a solution. Every dark tunnel has an opening towards the end & light near that opening. One shall ask for help and take some one else's opinion when he or she can not think by him/her self. If there is nobody close to you, today there are so many help lines also available for counseling. But never in your dream also think about suicide.

First flower is going to bloom on one of my favourite plants...

You must be wondering that I returned after a long time on  my Blog space....


But now I have started writing my Blogs in my mother-tongue: Gujarati. So I hardly get time to write in English too after my pretty busy schedule. But whenever I feel like writing something in English and have time, I would drop in here to share my views with you!

Lajamani (Touch-Me-Not)

Lily

I want to share a small story. Shall I call it story? Actually, it is my true experience. I like growing plants since childhood. I have 8-9 pots with plants of different types at my home which I am maintaining since I was a school-going child (may be 15-20 years). I have a Sada-fuli (Baramasi) which has been all along with me since I had started growing my first plant. I have had Tulsi plant, Touch-me-Not (Lajamani) plant, Marigold (Galgota) plant. I have a Lily plant (which look like grass and flowers only once every monsoon. I have an aloevera plant. One plant I have is a very old plant which I had got from Bandra on my way to Mount Mary Church a few years back. I have office flower plants which also bear flowers in specific seasons and these flowers also opens up in the morning and lasts till sun sets!

I also have a rose plant which grows like a weed and never bears any flower!

But a few months back I had got a plant that bears very beautiful small flowers like sun flower with few petals. They have a very beautiful colour mix of yellow, orange and Red. These flowers are very delicate and cute. Now I had purchased these flowers and that time only one of my friends had instructed me to keep them in proper sun light and water them very regularly. I had kept it in my balcony.(Most of my plants are kept near the door of my home at the ground floor. Only 2-3 pots I have kept in my balcony on the 1st floor of my home)When I brought these plant home there were already 2-3 flowers on it and there were also a few buds waiting to be bloomed into beautiful flowers at my home and make me very very happy. Every morning I used to water this plant and look at the beauty of its flowers for a long time and felt divine when I touched them, felt them. (See the picture of the very pretty flowers in my balcony put here in this blog.)

After a few days my dad had to be hospitalized due to his heart-surgery and I was almost out, staying at hospital for many days and when after 5-6 days since I last saw my new favourite plant, alas! I was devastated to find the dead dried-brown plant instead of my loving green plant which bore those wonderful cute orange-red flowers only a few days ago. I really felt sad and fought with my family members for not taking care of my plant in my absence.

Few days after this incident I happened to visit a nursery one more time and I found the same plant again there. I could not help myself from buying it one more time with the resolve to take proper care this time. But after some days again I had to go out of station and same sad story repeated. My family members forgot to water this plant & for the second time I lost my favourite flower's plant. I waited for days without plucking out the dried brown leaf-less life-less stem from the pot only hoping that a new green bud of the plant will be visible one day. But in vain. Now after a few days, one day while watering this lifeless stem of the plant I noticed a small sapling of this variety of plant in adjoining pot. I recollected that before some days when the flowers had bloomed on my favourite flower-plant, I had plucked a few flowers after they had bloomed fully and were dried completely on the plant. I had tried to sow the seeds along with the dried flowers and waited for days. Nothing had come out from the soil in the pot. But the same plant had taken birth in that adjoining pot and a small delicate sapling was swinging with the blow of air in my balcony and I was ecstasic to witness this sight!

Now today I am waiting for the first flower on this newly born favourite plant of mine! Tomorrow Morning I am expecting to see the first orange-red flower on this tiny plant.

This time I am feeling more belongingness to this plant as it has actually taken birth from the seeds sown by me! This feeling of waiting for the new flower to bloom is like waiting for a new baby to born!

I will post the picture of this new flower in this blog in days to come...

....and as promised here are the day-by-day pics of this flower....Enjoy!!!

15-Mar-2011



16-Mar-2011

17-Mar-2011

18-Mar-2011

19-Mar-2011



20-Mar-2011

...and today on eve of 20-Mar-2011, this first flower on my fav. plant went to the feet of Riddhi Vinayak Ganpati Dada...

Good news : there are two more new buds growing on this plant now!!!