Bday : Love you or Hate you?

Its my "bday" again. Lemme first wish myself.

Happy birthday to meeee!!
     Happy birthday to meeeeee!!
May God bless me!

   So, here i am, still in my early twenties, preparing myself for the next wonderful year. Hope, it'll be wonderful in the bright sense. ;-) Last year i wished so, and it turned out to be in another way around. Fingers crossed! Anyway let the past be buried and start this year afresh.
   Literally, I'm not the type of girl, who go gaga over birthdayzzz. I just take it as a usual day as any other day of a year, so do my family, except the celebration which my friends arrange. Yeah that is something worth awaiting for. I totally love that. Otherwise, i don't even grasp the real emotion that a birthday buddy is supposed to feel. Seriously, i swing betwixt two extremes : Rejoice or Remorse.
What i mean, i fail to decide whether i should be in a happy hole that I've passed one more year successfully or should i pity myself that I've lost one more year without anything hot & happening in it? What is the yardstick for this assessment? i don't know. But i know this much that the elder i grow the more expectations begin to showcase themselves in the eyes of my parents. Actually, with each mushrooming year, the chances for being sometime naughty and innocent are scaling down and more & more responsibilities are loading their luggage on my shoulders. Poor me. :-(
    But then everyone sails in the same boat, I'm not a rare case. So, i shouldn't be paranoid about it. No? Rather i ought to be mature enough to handle the forthcoming expectations. Hence, from this bday onwards I'm no longer hater of birthdays on this pretext at least, which i used to be.
    But what of that "exchange ceremony"? I mean gifts and return gifts. I also dont appreciate that. What is the sense in that? Do those gifts really profess our emotions towards our dear & near ones? I think not. Ya, they can please people for once or till their expiry date. After that? After that the memory will fade with the fading of that gift. That's it. But, the little efforts we make to feel them special, our precious time that we save to consume on their bday, the b'ful plans that we prepare for celebrations do make such a memory that never die.
So, your time, your hangouts with me will go superbly for my this day rather than any bombastic bday present. No, wait......actually, you can present me one better thing. Point out one faulty feature about me on my each bday, and this will definitely make my bday flawless.
If bdayz are such then i love them :-) :-).

Do It My Way!

    Diwali-Day -  getting ready, making rangoli, performing pooja, lighting 'diya', taking pictures, celebrating with crackers and games, enjoying sweets, ogling at decorated markets, homes, streets. Too many wishes & too many blessings. A Divine Day!
    Pre-Diwali Days - purchasing necessary stuff, be it dress for diwali day or 'diyas for the 'pooja'; be it sugar for sweets or lights for lighting; be it fire-crackers to be fused or flowers for decoration; be it colors for rangoli or 'shagun-shopping' on Dhanteras. Each and everything that we like to buy, we do. Too many preparation & so much zeal. Really TirelessTime!  
    PRE-pre-diwali days - don't even ask yaar. All the cleaning, dabbing, washing, white-washing, painting, arranging, re-arranging(in case former doesn't suit your need or your mood) are included during these days. Too much stress & too much work. Must say Hectic Hours !
    Usually with the beginning of 'Navratra' those hectic-hours start to happen at my house and i am supposed to do all 'the diwali-safai' entrusted on me(yea, we divide it to make it easy) along with my cupboard and book-rack. Being a bibliophile, i always begin with my bookshelves, after that the wardrobe and other stuffs. I do contribute in this cleaning-campaign, but this whole concept is completely incomprehensible to me. They say that, its a tradition to eradicate all the rubbish and unwanted items from our home before diwali day, so that Goddess Laxmi may bless us with her entrance in our home, as according to them she prefers neat & tidy places only. WTF ! Totally fanatic philosophy it is!
      

      But sadly, Year in, year out we go for the same process. Tell me one thing- Do you really think that God has anything to do with your sweeping up the cobwebs from attics or with the white-washing of your house? Do you really believe that unless your house is cleaned, divine won't depart to dwell at your dwelling? Think once, What he has to do with this? Nothing!
      Cleanliness is next to Godliness, i know, but you know what God has a symbolic meaning behind every ritual and tradition. He had set up each and every custom with a great purpose in his mind and this rite too is not an exception, i think. Only we need to decipher it.
      So, what i decoded is that, this custom carries the tagline :- MOP UP MIND instead of mundane materials. This is what he really wants us to do. This is why this tradition is there. Too little he expects, doesn't he? Then what's the problem in it? Lets this season do the 'diwali-safai' this way.  Lets follow some steps of this sort of 'Safai'
-Exonerate others for their venials,
-whisk off all grudges towards others,
-zap the murkiest with the brightest,
-brush aside all the rubbish thoughts. No, wait a second!.... throw it away rather,
-scrub up the malice from your mind,
-Wash yourself with altruism,
-and lastly, perfume your heart with healthy morals ........and then see the magic. I bet the Deity will always reside in your heart and home as well.

        
       so, this Diwali
                    clean, not only your home, 
                           but your heart also;
                      illumine, not only your street,
                           but your soul also.

Life Is What You Make It !.......Really?

    "Passion for anything is good, but too much passion is poisonous. If we avoid our health, wealth.......then one day they will avoid us" ( 'Life is what you make it',  preeti shenoy)
Read your novels....
     'The One you can not have', 'The secret wishlist' are truly awesome. 'Life is what you make it' is also inspiring one but the overall concept is little bit tricky to comprehend. You said there that life is what we make it, is it really so?  Then, i wanna ask one thing  :- why most of the people are not happy with their self-made life.....with their own creation?
      Don't u think that Destiny, Luck, and Chance are equivalent to AMBITION , PASSION, and HARD WORK. Don't you think that they play their role on the same scale?  Sometimes without luck your hard work doesn't pay fully, sometimes without chance ambition fails to ripe..... even fails to grow rather, sometimes without destiny's hand passion loses its way. It so happens then how can we say that life is what we make it. In making of life we are as much involved as much other factors. You may say that there is a half-half participation of them in life. We can't blame one for failure, in the same way we can't praise one for the victory. That's why i believe 'Life is not what you make it alone'  instead, 'Life is what 3Ds ( destiny + desire + determination ) make it.'
  

Review : Tell Me A Story

To get the ball rolling, I'd first like to state some gems of this inspiring anthology #Tell Me A Story:-
" I expect to pass through this world but once, any good thing I can do, therefore, or any kindness I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again" (Heera Nawaj)
"Grow in the place where you are planted. Never, ever be a contrived person. Be yourself." (Heera Nawaj)
"Death, I believe, is not an experience for dead but for the living." (Sukanya M.)
"Love is all about giving hope when there is no reason to optimistic. And being the best we can be for the person we love." (Aaditi dhyani)
The concept of the stories ‘The Divine Intervention', ‘Unforgiven' and ‘Suicide (so decide)' is highly commendable. Each and every story of this thoughtful compilation is truly inspiring, touching, funny and heartfelt, thus justifying its subtitle very well. No doubt all the pieces end with one or other life lesson but this entire submission and selection made me infer one thing  i.e. the events and incidents that have affected and changed the lives of the those 21 budding writers are tragic and sad not happy ones. Emotions that have altered their paths, thinking and likings are revolving around Death, Disease and Deprivation either in their own life or in others'. I don't know how far I am right in this assumption but it seems to me that God believes in that Hindi saying - "laaton ke bhoot baaton se nahi maante". That is why, now and then he keeps giving us major or minor blows in the form of the loss of dear and near ones, or the mental and physical miseries, thus changing our direction, modifying our thinking, leading us towards what is valid; otherwise we the people live in illusions, considering the way we walk as the right one.
 Lastly, Kudos to all the writers and the editor-cum-compiler for such a stimulating anthology. ( BTW, the editor's note is quite convincing.)
P.S. - Waiting for your next magnum opus.