Own it!

Own your fears!

The best way, I am beginning to realize, to fight an adversary is to first own it.

The adversary could be in the form of stress, a chronic ailment, low confidence, self-doubt, lack of a certain requisite skill-set, loss or even a person with villainous intent sitting on the edge of your circle.

The trick is to first acknowledge that such a situation exists, be comfortable with its presence in your life, own its influence on you and then go hammer and tongs with a well-defined strategy to combat it and minimize or obliterate it from the zone of influence.

What's your take?

Picture courtesy - Google Images

Pimping my Crispy Ride!

Last evening we were in crispy heaven. The Living Room was infused with the aroma of baked potatoes, grilled cheese and oven-dried tomatoes.

There is no better bouquet than this, emanating from a zestful Kitchen.

Scent for all the senses, indeed!

Brahmi - the Wonder Herb!

It has been a purely chance acquaintance for me with this wonder herb called Brahmi. I have used the capsules bottled and sold by the Himalaya Drug Company but I had never seen the plant with a naked eye or touched its lushness.

A fellow gardening enthusiast friend, Lata Bhasin, gifted me a few sprigs of the plant and now the magic herb has filled up the pot with such exquisiteness.

What Lata introduced to me as the humble Pennywort was identified by another plant lover as the magical Brahmi. It is also known by a bunch of other names, chiefly - Centella, Asiatic Pennywort, Indian Pennywort and Gotu Kola.

Brahmi is a heavenly herb and is called a wonder drug for the Brain.

Used extensively in Ayurvedic medicine, Brahmi is also used in the following health issues - hair loss, Alopecia, Insomnia, several mental issues including Alzheimer's, epilepsy and many others. It is also known to accrue benefits for scalp nourishment, Stress reduction, memory enhancement and more.

But for now, it is being feted at Ibaadat for its beauty. It is mesmerizing to see the raindrops sitting prettily on its perfectly round, serrated leaves. The shade of green is in itself a tonic for jaded eyes.

Enjoy the beauty of Brahmi in these pictures!

Happy 70th Indiyeah!!!!!

The "I" in India is me, you and all of us. May we uphold the essence of 'Mera Bharat Mahan' and make it a county that we'll always be proud of.

Wishing you all freedom from shackles and stupidity, rituals and rage, communalism and callousness, pettiness and passionlessness, fear and fascism, hate and hopelessness!


"Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake."

Happy "Aazaadi" everyone!

Picture courtesy - Google Images

My finest takeaway from Baahubali Part 1.

The two Prince brothers are set off to fight their biggest, strongest adversary yet, in a do or die battle. It is also to prove one's prowess over the other.

After the religious ceremony conducted by the Royal Priest, the two Princes are to perform another ritual.

Bhallal Dev goes ahead and sacrifices the giant Buffalo by cutting the head in one, strong, powerful chop. His father, the priest and a few other Royal men hail him and his act of power.

Then comes the turn of Amarendra Baahubali. He is handed over the chopper but shows hesitation. The aide steps up ominously to finish off the act of sacrificing the animal as an auspicious ritual to mark the beginning of the royal battle and as "Pay in" to the Goddess Kali to get appeased and bless them with the victory.

Baahubali refuses to conduct the ritualistic sacrifice. Katappa, his loyal aide, inches closer and urges him to perform the sacrifice; both to follow the age-old ritual and to win the respect of his people.

Here's what Baahubali says and does -

He tells all the people gathered there - "There is no need to sacrifice a poor, helpless animal. I have blood raging in my veins - more warm and ready - to be offered to the Mother Goddess. She would be more pleased with that."

And then, he makes a sharp cut on his hand and in a symbolic fashion, his blood gets splashed on the Goddess's forehead as the formal Tika!

Baahubali gains on several scores with this - he gains the adulation of the Queen Mother and the fearless Katappa, he gains more respect (and the real kind that is not attached to fear of a person) from all his country people, and most of all he gains on good Karma by saving another life and showing utmost compassion and wise thinking in the face of archaic and cruel rituals.

What a fabulous lesson and something that all of us should abide by and never forget.

My huge compliments to the Writer of the film and to S. S. Rajamouli!

Picture courtesy - Google Images

The rot, indeed, begins at home!

Why do villainous men behave so repugnantly with women and without any compunction?

Because they have been conditioned at home in such a way. 

They see their fathers behave similarly. They see the menfolk being extremely patriarchal and riding roughshod over the females in their clan.

Worst of all and extremely disturbingly, the mothers have a big role to play in rearing such monsters; not just letting them get away with it all but in most cases encouraging such behaviour as a mark of manhood.

A Facebook friend (with the background of incessant crime against women in India - from minor to colossally bad) says that women should be taught to cuss in local bad words and to retort when hit like this.

I fully concur with her opinion.

Abusing (both in the local language and the one you are comfortable in) lets out the frustration, it helps level up eyeball to eyeball with the offender telling him off and his bullying ways and in a contorted sort of way, it brings in a sense of liberation.

Perhaps, payback in the same coin is what is required for such men.

Once on a bus in Doon, coming back home from College, I had a dirty old man in a dirty kurta-pajama mess around with me as he stood behind me for some part of the journey. 

We were packed like sardines in the bus so one could not easily extricate oneself from the situation. 

So, the more the old man tried to press against me, the more I paid him back in his coin - I shoved my bag sharply into his crotch, I elbowed him back in a strong thrust time and again (and once to my utter satisfaction I heard him wail) and stepped on his toes heavily with my shoes.

This way I had ensured retribution and felt far less ravaged.

Only if Indian men learn to show respect to women!

Picture courtesy - Google Images

In India - We are like this only!

The picture above of a beautiful part of Copenhagen is taken by my Facebook Friend JD Andrews.

By all counts, it is a breathtakingly lovely shot. And the subject has been done full justice to.

We all will be cooing and cawing at the shot, marvelling at the beauty of the location, its cleanliness and overall aesthetics.

Back home in India, we will continue to do all the following and then blame the Government for not picking after us and for letting India be a dirty country -

1. We will continue to pollute Ganga and all our other rivers.

2. We will not ever assume responsibility in keeping even areas around our houses clean.

3. We will spit and piss on trees and walls.

4. We will roll down the windows of our sedans and throw empty bottles and packets, straight on to the road.

5. We will not pick up our own garbage and will allow the common garbage areas to swell and breed by adding our filth to it.

6. If we are getting the renovation work done to our houses, we will have nothing planned out to make sure the debris is instantly taken away and that we cause as little nuisance to others as possible.

7. We will choke the common drains with our misdoings and then curse the Government because it failed to clean our mess before, during, after monsoons.

8. We will be virtual tree huggers but care fuck-all for the environment when our own convenience is at stake.

9. We will just look within our four walls and never plan to beautify and upkeep the surrounding areas.

10. And if somebody else puts up pretty plants and flowers, we will either rain on their parade or pluck their flowers at will.

11. We will go abroad on vacations, take pretty pictures, curse our own country, say that our Government sucks and our places stink and then come back and add to all the muck around.

So typical of us! We are a strange lot!

Picture courtesy - Google Images and JD Andrews