A Learner for LIFE

As a writer,I have always been enamoured by the Human Nature. I observe, study and trace on paper the Life around me.

Just yesterday I was presented with another unique opportunity in a Study of a Different kind. I am going to attend a Faculty Development Programme for the teaching staff of the Chemical Engineering and Food Technology Department of Panjab University!

I am over the moon! This is the first ever seminar that I would be attending. The focus of the Programme is "‘Moving from Pedagogy to Andragogy". The whole idea of being on the other side of the fence is so enticing.

Years of instructing, advising and motivating can leave one drained out. I had even taken a sabbatical from work to replenish my energies and then get back to my work of instructing. This programme has really come as a pleasant surprise for me. 

I would also like to emphasise here that I do not shirk away from Learning. I feel that no age is too big or too much for us to learn more about things that we already know; or to learn new things. 

Being a Learner is such a privilege: One is allowed to make mistakes, ask questions and chart new boundaries.

So, I am looking forward to this seminar with all my faculties fine-tuned to catch every morsel of knowledge thrown towards me: to devour it and to assimilate it!

You, on the other hand I promise to keep posted on the latest knowledge to enter my realm, live from ground zero.

Cheers to Learning!

.LOVE is MY DRUG!

I never thought that long past my teenage years would I discover the ecstasy that LOVE brings to my being.
The feeling of being loved is surreal! It is as if I have been touched by a magic wand....all my worries, stresses and tensions have fallen off like the wings of Icarus!

I am floating on a tuft of gentle, loving care....where no unhappiness can touch me. If this is love then I want to be in love forever. I am even prepared to forgo death and remain in this world wrought with anxieties and prejudices only to be in love!

Love has its many surprises: it opened my eyes to the small joys of riding a bicycle, feeling the moisture laden air on my face and the smell of grass all around me.

Love is the ray of hope that I see at the end of the tunnel... but I don't want to be out of the tunnel yet.This pursuit of love is more enjoyable and invigorating than love itself!

So, love is the drug that ensnares me into enjoying the daily grind of life, .......living it,..... loving it!

Lovers don't have it Easy!

Continuing with my commentaries on Love in this mushy weather.....today I want to talk about the struggles in the life of Lovers.

Never have I understood in more than three decades of my existence, the sadist pleasure that the society and its guardians gain from obstructing the life of lovers!

The poor lovers are already under so much of stress from their own uncertain mood-swings, loving their totally hormone-inflicted beloveds and also managing to carry on their daily routine as if nothing is amiss; that the society insists on dictating its superfluous rules to these harassed souls.

The society and the so called rule-makers do not refrain from erecting obstructions in their journey of love.

I feel that the experience of a love relation is the greatest and the most fool-proof way to self-discovery. A person comes to know of his/her limitations to give unconditionally, of receiving crap from his/her beloved and other totally unrelated but 'concerned' people and also the physical boundaries of burning the midnight oil to find time either for the beloved or the pending work!

I recommend falling in love and 'REAL LOVE' that is a passionate and an all-consuming abyss; to everyone. If one can manage it at least once in his/her lifetime then I feel that such a person is cut out to be a hermit as well!

I today humbly request the society to stop playing spoil-sport in the lives of lovers.
These people are cast in a unique mould with guts of steel to support the foundation of their souls. They have their own set of rules and propriety. Even God does not mess with them. As an example from the pre-historic era I can recall the case of Panchali who loved five men and whom Lord Krishna supported with all His might. In more recent times I can safely say that even God and the monarchy had to bow down to 34 years of endless love between Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles!

Let LOVE set you  FREE,
Let your Heart speak the language of LOVE.
There's no point being jealous really!

Not Every Relation Has a Name

The trend promoted by the social networking sites to classify the people in your life into relations......I just do not get it!

An individual's life is engraved with myriad experiences that he/she has with so many people in his/her life.
I somehow find it impossible to introduce any XYZ as my friend. I cannot even call them an acquaintance on their face(very rude!).

So why do I need to assign a tag to everyone I know or recognise? I cannot tag the lady traffic police controller who helps me park every time I visit a library in my city. She is certainly not my family, my friend or even an acquaintance for that matter. I do not know her name. I am always far away from her to read her name on her name plate. Yet she is always there when I need her.

Not every relationship in life is need-based too! I do not have the time to maintain my old friendships and mind you there are just four! So why do I make a new friend? May be I am enriched by the interactions with him/her. May be I cherish the company and do not want to miss out on having a like-minded friend.

What about the relationships that are need-based and named? Are they less important? No, I feel that such relations are the building blocks of our lives. They are a legacy, a tradition. This alone certifies their significance. To have an anchor in our family makes us the social animals that we are.

However I can digress from the tagging done to the relations and call my partner my best friend, my daughter my mother and my staff my weatherman!

I simply refuse to classify and answer for every relation in my life. Because from where I see them, all of them are associations between two similar souls.  

I LOVE LOVE

It is that time of the year again......So much of mush, clouds oozing Love and the light scented Breeze...? Well, all these are getting just too much for me!

I am yearning to be a teenager again and feel the virgin pangs of LOVE!

I want to dive into the vortex of emotions where all sense loses meaning and purpose. Let me be a fool in love, may be just for this blog!

I feel that rush in my bosom when my eyes meet his for the first time. It is instant, the way our bodies tilt to each other even when we are not talking to each other; even when we are standing in a group. An invisible thread tethers us.

The first meeting has taken place, the numbers have been exchanged, the words have flirted and the looks have spoken the unsaid........

Now the wait begins for that call or that message that lets me know that I am still in his thoughts somewhere.
And Voila! As if the Universe has answered my prayers.....He calls and wants to meet me, on some pretext of course. Because he too knows, although he has me wound around his finger, yet he has not claimed my heart and declared his love.

This whole game of being wooed and pursued leaves me with a million butterflies in my stomach. I walk, talk and appear in an eternal trance.

I get ready to meet him, trying to look my best. I flutter my eyes and giggle a notch higher just so that, I can illicit the words of love from his lips.Our eyes meet for a second and there is Love.

We steal glances at each other, our finger tips touch while exchanging books and my heart skips a beat! The whiff of moist air is laden with his scent and his physical being just a few hand-widths away push me deeper into his spell !

Oh! My heart is going to explode into smithereens and each bit will crave him, call out to him and love him!

We talk to fill up the silence and leave awkwardly after a rushed rendezvous.

The wait begins yet again to meet the love ......

I love this feeling of helpless bliss, I LOVE LOVE!!!

MY SOUL MATE COMPLETES ME!

Now we all have heard this statement very often. Some of us understand it and others don't and yet we use it.

But the natural question that follows this statement is :
' Are soul mates the missing pieces of our incomplete personality?'

Why are all of us looking outside ourselves to fulfill the deficiency in our hearts.

I feel that most of the relationships in today's times are based on GIVE and TAKE. One partner gives what is superfluous and the other receives it and vice-versa. Hence we are constantly searching for our SOUL MATES, taking something from one incomplete person and giving something in exchange. Our personalities become a mosaic of impressions of others on our life . Hence in ourselves most of us in not ours, it belongs to all those people who have been a part of our life at one point or the other.

Once the need to take and give the superfluous portion vanishes, THE RELATIONSHIP DIES!

What is the fun in living a life (of which we get a solitary opportunity), which is manufactured in the assembly line of other people.

It is my life and I get only one chance to live it. So how do I live it?

I want to share a few basic principles which I follow most of the time while trying to do the best job at living.

I believe that everything in MY LIFE begins with ME. However, this does not mean that I become selfish and clamber over others to claim the loin's share of everything.

MY LIFE means my decisions regarding every big or small detail of my living.

I should be prepared to take my own decisions, own up responsibility for them and should applaud or reprimand myself (as the situation maybe).

There is a joy of a very different kind in living my own life. This is also the best way to live.My conscience always guides me towards my intrinsic desires. It is the COMPASS OF MY SOUL. So, I trust myself to take the right decision for myself. Any other person who is unacquainted with my soul will be clueless about my wishes, he/she cannot decide for me. I take the call and become the MASTER OF MY DESTINY.

How do I know if I made the RIGHT DECISION?

The answer to this question is simple:

Am I happy with what I have when the spinning wheel stops?

If yes, then I know I am on the right path. If I am happy most of the times with what I have, then I know I have developed the habit to take the RIGHT DECISIONS FOR MYSELF.

If I am not happy then I know that I faltered or chickened out while deciding. Now I either spoil my relations with someone, whose understanding I trusted to be suffice to solve a dilemma for me. Or, I am on the look out for someone to give vent to my frustration. In both the situations, I remain immature. Such a behaviour ensures that I am trapped in the vicious circle of BAD JUDGEMENT-DISAPPOINTMENT-IMMATURITY.

Suppose a decision that I took all by myself, turned out to be a foolish step; then what do I do?

I again take a different decision for myself, ALL BY MYSELF. Eventually, I shall hit the jack-pot and when I do; I would be all the more intelligent because of all the mistakes I MADE, ALL BY MYSELF.

This process of LIVING, DECIDING and LIVING : COMPLETES ME.
I become INDEPENDENT, FEARLESS and HAPPY; especially emotionally. Now I know WHAT I want from life, HOW to get it and then to RETAIN it.

I become COMPLETE or altleast I have started the process. A complete SOUL always SHINES, because it does not have the BLACK-HOLE of immaturity and purposeless living.

Once I become a COMPLETE PERSON, then only can I attract the right person towards myself. The one who will not take from me because he is already like me : COMPLETE. The LOVE will be UNCONDITIONAL and not based on some temporary REQUIREMENT. Such a relationship will only continue to grow stronger with time and stand all the tests of time.

The UNION of TWO COMPLETE SOULS is like a symphony when life becomes a melody unmarred by the cacophony of give and take.

So, please think a lot before saying that your SOUL MATE COMPLETES YOU; because he/she may not be the right person for you at that time. Even you may not be emotionally intelligent enough to be in a relationship.

Always say and believe: MY SOUL MATE COMPLIMENTS ME and SO DO I!

WE HAVE COMPETITION!

We(The Academy) is a now a validated PIONEER!

Yesterday was again a day full of surprises that could have been SHOCKS or upheavals...
but my POSITIVE THINKING unleashed its magic, yet again!

It is a few days short of a year when I opened my Academy and a few months later my partner joined me, and the academy became our labour of love and passion.

We were told that it was financial suicide, to which we replied that earning money never was and never will be a priority by God's grace and by the grace of the hard-work of our loving husbands.

We were told that no students would reach such an interior location but those who had an unending thirst for knowledge reached us from Ajmer, Jallandhar, Uttrakhand and even Scotland!

We were then told that we would remain good enough only to teach the locals but then we got to work with the best of the intellectual minds of the local university and college.

We were then told that we would not survive the competition but then because of us a few tuition classes at home sprung up and eventually closed.

And now we have another Academy like ours (similar in name and courses) opening in our vicinity.

I say to them:

WELCOME ABOARD!

Such a motivation to our work was required. My partner and I are all revved up to outdo the competition.
All the doubts which were harboured by others regarding our choice of work, location and  courses have been quelled.

We were the ones to recognise the untapped market, create awareness about the education being offered by us and now we stand validated.

It would be great to have company and learn from competition!