Of Epilepsy Butterflies: Flying beyond stigmas by Preeti Singh (Book Review: 4.5*/5) !!!

1928th BLOG POST

16^th Book of 2021

 

It is always a pleasure getting back to reading an author whom you had read many years ago. I am talking about Preeti Singh here. I had read her first book in 2012 named “Flirting with Fate” when I was really very new to the reading world. I had liked that book and given it a good rating of 4 out of 5. It has taken almost 9 years that I have again got a chance of reading her latest work named “Of Epilepsy Butterflies” which also comes with a tagline that says “Flying beyond stigmas”. This is an anthology-kind of a book which has been compiled very nicely by the authoress. The book is written with a very good purpose of giving motivation to the people who are affected by epilepsy and guiding others to not treat PWE (people with epilepsy) as criminals or untouchables. The book tries its best to break this stigma and taboo from the society.

 

To make it easier for everyone to understand, epilepsy is popularly known as “mirgi” or “mirgi ke daure” in India. Personally, I have never encountered any PWE in my life hence I didn’t know the problems they have to suffer themselves as well as the situations their family members have to go through because of societal approach towards them when they come to know about such patients. Whenever there is any seizure attack that happens in a public place, the person is seen differently. People start distancing themselves from the person and almost boycott him/her. Reading about such stories in this book made my heart felt so weak and exploited that even when I don’t suffer from it or don’t have anyone in my family, I could still feel the plight of the people who go through it.

 

Preeti Singh, the authoress, is herself a PWE and has been suffering the disease since she was 2 years old. She has seen enough in her life because of the continuous seizure attacks she has been getting since then. She has been very good in letting us understand through her personal account in one of the chapters in detail about what she went through at every stage of her life. Her note was so horrific to read that I couldn’t comprehend what goes in people’s mind to think ugly for a girl/woman suffering from PWE that they go further to physically abuse and molest her. She also tells how her beautiful marriage failed just for this reason as her in-laws couldn’t accept this daily trouble. Her challenge in school, college, office, relationships, pregnancy etc. makes us understand that how less educated we are about epilepsy and the people who go through it.

 

This anthology includes many personal accounts of people suffering with PWE and how they conquered it without losing themselves and their willpower with the challenges and obstacles that comes up with this disease. Ketaki Chitale, the actress, tells us how doctors misguided her which took her 19 years to accept her condition. Jitendra Gunti's story is one of the most effective accounts on how he suffered in school due to his seizure attacks and still being a good student, he ended up failing regularly till his Master's course. I liked how spirituality helped him accept his situation. But reading about how an NGO expelled him for being PWE was really heart-breaking to read.

 

Harsheen, Preeti Singh’s daughter’s version-  of how the authoress used to get seizure attacks during sleep sounds so scary but the way she handled it knowing that epilepsy needs to be dealt calmly tells us about the bravery of PWE’s family members even when they are a child themselves who needs to be taken care of. All the other accounts are equally impactful and leaves a mark in your thought process for the kind of life a PWE expects to live and the expectations they have from us of nothing but support and acceptance.

 

It also has few poems and I must tell you, it has really surprised me. Why? It was such a big realization to understand that PWE is such a big thing for few people that they went ahead and wrote something with all their heart in the form of poems. Whenever any person – artistic or non-artistic – thinks of creating any poem or poetry in their mind – it is only because of something that has hit them hard and they have a touchy way of expressing themselves through rhyming sentences in few words. This tells us how lonely PWEs get that they end up writing about their condition and silently asking Universe to do something for them so that they can stand again on their feet without any seizure attacks and move ahead in life like everyone else. All the poems in this book are of very high quality and it has amazed me because most of them are written by non-writers.

 

In the last 2/3^rd part of the book, we get to see the creative side of Preeti Singh as she has written several short stories based on the subject of epilepsy itself. I was very sceptic about them in the beginning because after reading the personal accounts of real people, I thought what difference these short stories will make in the end. But while reading them I realized author wanted to make us understand how the conversations happen with PWEs when they talk to their family members or doctors or people they are trying to make understand about their situation for acceptance etc. And it has been conveyed appreciably as I was able to comprehend the mindset of the protagonists in all the stories. Most of the stories talk about how finding a partner becomes difficult for PWEs and even if they get one, how their marriage suffers some or the other way because of their regular worsening situations. All the stories let us know how the wish to get an understanding and supporting partner becomes a painful prayer for the PWEs.

 

Overall, this book is a very nice attempt in educating all of us about what epilepsy is and how their patients’ needs to be taken care of. Before this book, I knew nothing about this subject but now I know so much. I have got acquainted with so many terms like PWE, AED, EEG test, seizure attacks, SUDEP, Purple Day etc. which makes me little more confident that whenever I’ll find any epilepsy patient in my life, I would be able to help them better rather than getting scared of their fits and attacks. Preeti Singh’s efforts are really commendable in getting in touch with such inspirational PWEs and compiling such inspiring and transforming stories. Even a person like me who is away from epilepsy got so much motivation from them to lead my life courageously irrespective of whatever situations I may face in life. I give this book 4.5 stars out of 5 and recommend it to everyone.

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Sita: Now you know me by Sini Panicker (Book Review: 4.5*/5) !!!

1927th BLOG POST

15^th Book of 2021

 

I am a big fan of our ancient history- you talk of Ramayan or Mahabharat, I just love reading about them as many times as possible. I just can’t get bored of them at all. And if I have to choose from both of them, I always prefer Ramayan because of my devotion towards Lord Ram. I just can’t get enough of his tales and righteousness. Most books that I have read till now have always concentrated on Shri Ram except one written by Amish which was based on life of Sita Mata – which is the 2^nd book in his The Ram Chandra series. But because that story was more of a fiction than reality, I didn’t enjoy it a bit but the book I just completed reading has made me so close to the character of Sita Mata that every time I’ll hear her name, I am going to feel pain as I do when I hear the name of Ram who had to go through so much in their life.

 

“Sita: Now you know me” written by the debutante authoress, Sini Panicker, in around 334 pages is published by Rupa publications. The approach of Sini has been evident right from the 1^st chapter that the book is solely going to be about Sita from Ramayan and no one else. I must applaud author the way she has been able to keep the focus on her character in spite of having Ram so closely associated with her. I always feel that you can’t write any book on Ramayan without basing it equally on both the characters but the way Panicker has managed the same is commendable.

 

The writing style of Sini is very simple and straightforward. In spite of having good command on the language, the way she manages to keep her sentences and philosophies easy to understand throughout the book is appreciable. Anyone who is a starter will also find going through this book and story easy and smooth. It is very necessary to write about the tales of Ramayan and Mahabharat in easy language as our current generation is less aware about our culture and they should feel motivated to pick up such books. Author’s intention is very clear about the same.

 

I would also like to mention another good quality about Sini- her research. Yes! The way she has written the whole story from Sita’s perspective, it needs a lot of information because most of the books talk mostly about Ayodhya and Ram. Hence, what was Sita going through in her childhood and what she must have felt with so much happening in their life is very hard to know through the available texts. Also, author has not based the whole story only on one version of Ramayan but multiple of them. You will disagree with her on many events that this is wrongly told but it is because we are familiar with only one or two Ramayan versions. Hence, it might seem wrong at places but it opens our perspective on other ways for telling of Ramayan too.

 

The book might sound stretchy with its 334 pages but let me tell you, author has been very specific about what she wants to tell. She has not wasted any of our time in useless descriptions or unwanted specifications. We are just taken as deep as possible into her mind and heart which makes us become one with Sita. We are told about how strong she used to be in her childhood that her father had decided to make her the ruler of Mithila but as soon as her marriage got in between, the way her life transformed where she had to make unlimited number of compromises which kept on messing up with her dreams, ambitions and will.

 

Later, in the book, we get to know about her sufferings during the exile with Ram and Lakshman and later, alone at the Valmiki’s ashram pregnant with her twins. I will not lie but I must have cried 100 of times while reading this book; and I have never cried so much while reading any book ever. The way Sita carries herself in Ravan’s abduction is something very painful to read but you get to understand the strength she had within her to fight against such a powerful and ferocious king like Ravan. Another mention I would like to mention about how author has been able to make us understand about other characters also in limited words that we don’t find them a complete stranger but understand their back stories too.

 

There are many events where Sita’s small and big sacrifices are discussed which makes us understand how she has been treated as a shadow whenever Ramayan comes into the picture. The book becomes more powerful in its last 2/3^rd part where the story starts coming to the closure. After completing the book and revisiting everything I went through in the book while writing summary in my journal, I just couldn’t comprehend how could author cover it in less than 350 pages as this seems to be the stuff of 3-4 books together. Overall, this is a very nice read and one needs to have a strong heart and mind to read it as it becomes extremely painful and depressing at times – because such has been life of Sita Mata.

 

Now, talking about the drawbacks, I must say that my review is surely biased because of my love for Ramayan and Siya Ram but there are surely some issues with the author’s version of Ramayan. Firstly, I feel that author has become very critical of Ram. Anyone who would be reading Ramayan for the 1^st time through this book will find Ram to be bigger villain than Ravan, unfortunately. Secondly, I must say that few events of Ramayan are completely twisted in order to make Sita’s life look more miserable than it actually was. Author has purposely picked up the specific tales from several versions wherever Sita’s plight is immense. I believe there should have been some balance.

 

Thirdly, whenever we read about ancient history or such strong and legendary characters, we expect philosophy in between. This book tries at some places but majorly, there are no philosophical approach at all. You wouldn’t get many quotes to keep with yourself as learnings from this book. Lastly, I believe that book focuses too much on Sita only. I just wanted to read about other characters as much as I wanted to read about Sita. Again, a balance is needed even if the subject of your book is based on one character. Though I would appreciate the way Sita’s beautiful relation with her father, Lakshman, Hanuman, Lopamudra, Urmi and other characters are portrayed.

 

Overall, this is one of the books I’ll always remember and recommend. Reading this has been an emotional journey for me. It has definitely become memorable. Kudos to Sini Panicker for writing it so beautifully. I give this book 4.5 stars out of 5.

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Marriage in the time of Corona by Arbind Bhatia (Book Preview) !!!

1926th BLOG POST

14^th Book of 2021

 

Since Coronavirus pandemic has begun, specifically, in India, the major concern for few people apart from surviving this disease has been managing the wedding ceremonies. Government came up with the guidelines that marriage can’t happen with more than 50 guests. Now, considering that a family has 2 parent members and 2 siblings, the invitees from each party could only be 21 members. Counting 2-3 photographers, 2 priests and other important relatives, you just can’t invite even all of your relatives and closest friends. I have seen many people getting married in my acquaintances during this lockdown period comprising of last one year and I still see many marriages happening in my circle. This book that I am going to talk about; “Marriage in the time of Corona” written by Arbind Bhatia discusses one such marriage that takes place during lockdown.

 

This is a short book of less than 100 pages so you can easily complete it within a sitting or so. The writing style is little advanced so may be the beginners will have to put more concentration than others but people into reading would be able to grasp the story at the fullest. The book talks about the full cycle that takes place in an Indian marriage circle – right from the moment of proposal till the honeymoon. Occasionally, author keeps on discussing the challenges that keeps interrupting the families and their preparations time to time. This is the purpose with which the book has been written.

 

There are seven chapters where each one of them talks about a ceremony related to the Indian marriage which involves inter-religion match and hundreds of legal and document issues that comes with it. You can relate with few characters as one can trace them somewhere in their respective family too. This is basically a preview of the book hence I won’t be talking about the drawbacks and other factors. I would like you to read it yourself and let me know what you think of this book which talks of pain of every Indian family who were and are planning marriage during the lockdown phase.

 

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The Golden Book of Business Presentation Skills by Prajeet Budhale (Book Review: 4*/5) !!!

1925th BLOG POST

13^th Book of 2021

I remember reading Prajeet Budhale’s first book named “Infin-Eight” and I really liked the eight principles shared by the author to gain professional success. This was way back in 2019. After two years, I again get a chance to read a new book by the author named “The Golden Book of Business Presentation Skills” which shares the quick and easy tips to make powerful presentations. The book is of around 120 pages and doesn’t waste much time in speaking what it is meant to. I liked the way author has discussed the topic right from the first page and makes us understand what the book is going to be about.

 

Author maintains the fact that he is not going to tell us how to make MS Powerpoint presentations but about how to present ourselves while giving a presentation to an audience. Most of us have stage-fright, anxiety or nervousness before we have to deliver any presentation or speech on stage to a set of audience. Author’s effort with this book has been to assure that half of our problems with preparing for our presentation gets over just by preparing in the right way.

 

The book shares 7 gold standards for developing good business presentation skills reading which I really felt that they are substantial and practical. I have been a student of two Master degrees and even as a professional, I have to present our software module and requirement to my team members and clients. With my experience of giving number of presentations in last 10 years, I found the concepts shared in the book good to know for anyone who is preparing for an important presentation. Every chapter is divided in two parts – “Know” and “How”. “Know” section shares with us the concepts and fundamentals related to presentation skills whereas “How” section asks us to answer several set of questions which makes it easy for us to apply it in our next and future presentations that we are working upon.

 

I liked how author managed to cover the interpretation of all the key actors in a presentation such as Presenter, Listener and Questioner. Also, it made me think again when author told a reality that our presentation is always meant for one of the three purposes – informing, influencing or inspiring. This is so true because I don’t think we make a presentation for any other reason at all. Author provides a very good formula for building core presentations abbreviated as DIET which talks about using Data Points, impacting the listener, connecting emotionally with our audience and trail close for acceptance. I won’t talk much about it as it’s one of the main parts in the book and I would like you to go through it yourself.

 

Further, author also helps us understand how to answer the questions of the questioner and audience by using the three critical components of another formula named ARC which stands for Acknowledge, Respond or Answer and Check for Closure. Lastly, author helps us in ways how we can summarize our presentation in the end and gives us a very new perspective where in the world of presentation, the Last Impression is the Impression audience take away with them rather than the First. Such insights by the author makes this book a recommended one for the new business leaders and freshers getting into the world of presenting.

 

Overall, this book discusses many such pointers, bullets and tabular data which helps us understand the art of presenting. Every sentence shows the author’s experience put into words. I really liked the approach and tendency of the author because it is really a selfless effort in the way this book is written. I would request all the readers who would be picking this book to really go through “How” section by seriously filling it rather than skipping it. It will really transform your outlook towards something you are yourself creating without knowing the importance of it. I give this book 4 stars out of 5. Please go for it.

 

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Impact of POWER OF VISUALIZATION

1924th BLOG POST

Every one of us have heard about the Law of Attraction; thanks to the Rhonda Byrne’s book “The Secret”. It tells how when we keep on thinking about a positive affirmatory thing, we end up achieving it in the future. This brings us to the concept of positive thinking. I really liked that concept when I had read it decades back but later on, I realized this is the most basic thing for a person to know when he searches for something motivational or inspirational after growing up. Even if you don’t read the book, by the time you are in your teens, you understand that being positive and thinking good brings better changes in life. But the issue is that no one teaches us how to think and stay positive.

 

As I grew up and started learning that yoga can help a person stay happy, I found it a completely unbelievable phenomenon. I thought how certain breathing and physical exercises can keep someone happy. How can yoga impact mind? Such questions made me think about this for years. Why? Because I never practiced and experienced it. After certain years, I got introduced to the best thing I ever learnt – Meditation. Now, as a concept, meditation sounds more worthless than yoga. At least, we do exercises in yoga but in meditation, we are asked to sit quietly and focus on our breathing. How can this effect our well-being? Why are we moving back to the ancient India where Sadhus, sanyaasis, rishis and munis used to perform these activities?

 

But this time I didn’t waste time and thought of getting into the practice. While doing meditation, I got to learn a very good concept – well, it must have definitely been spoken by some yog guru or written in some spiritual books – but I learnt this by myself that the POWER OF VISUALIZATION at the start of your day can really help you get to your imaginary world. You can end up thinking a utopian world which I understand is not easy to achieve. But if this world of yours needs ten things to make it, continuously imagining it in your mind will at least enable you to have five of them in the future. If you are a person who introspect yourself on every stage of your life, you will realize that whatever you have today was in your imaginary world some years back. If you don’t introspect, life will keep on doing great things with you which you’ll keep ignoring and attracting only negatives because of your careless attitude.

 

Every morning, after my meditation practice, I open my eyes for few seconds and close them back. I, then, go on imagining how I want my day to be for next 2-3 minutes. I think of everything I have in my pending list or something that I wish to complete it by tonight. I visualize all my tasks getting completed by the time I finish my day. If I have thought of spending time with my family or friend, I visualize even that. I leave nothing – even the small facts from my days when I am into the mode of thinking how great my day can be. And I tell you, 90% of the times I have found my day to be exactly how I imagined it to be. The signals that my brain sent to my body and then the aura around me, gave it a certain amount of energy that enabled me to live the day how I wanted it to be. Yes, it happens that I have to wake up till 3 AM sometimes to end my day the way I visualized it to be, but at the end, it has been achieved. What can be better than this?

 

You must be aware of few people who write morning journals after waking up. It has all the good thought they can think of. Even if there isn’t any, people deep-dive and search for some positivity around them and scribble it down. It settles the tone of the day. It then makes you purposely keep thinking about positive things around you because you have to again write 3 of them next morning. Similarly, they also write all their To-do items of the day. This makes them realize how they need to transform their day to tick mark all of them while sleeping. Some of you’ll ask why you imagine only a day when you can set tone of your whole life and make it perfect just by the power of visualization. You are right. It can also be done. But as you start maturing, you understand that each day makes your life, your one day is not separate from your life at all. An experience of just one day ruins your whole life. Right? So, if you keep on working on just a day at a time, automatically, it reflects on the kind of life you have/had. Life is just collection of all the days you have lived on this planet. Isn’t this so simple to understand?

 

This technique has really helped me on various levels in my life. Every time I landed up in a problem or scoop, it became easy for me to come out of it because I got back to the power of visualization as a habit to perform the first thing in the morning. And then, my mind made my body do exactly the things which it imagined at the start of the day. My mind just got desperate to feel pleased by the end of the day and not disappoint itself. And that is why it prepared my body and energies for the same. Life really starts becoming easy when you start spending most of your times staying silent and talking to your mind. It has all the bloody answers we are searching for. Go, talk with it.

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Death in Colaba Bay by Ambika Subramanian (Book Review: 2.75*/5) !!!

1923rd BLOG POST

12^th Book of 2021

 

Any reference to Mumbai makes me curious to pick up the book and know about my city and the story which can thrive here. This made me pick up a book named “Death in Colaba Bay” written by the debutante author, Ambika Subramanian. This book belongs to the thriller genre and is summed up in around 140 pages. Generally, when we read thrillers, it is quite long in around 300+ pages but I am glad that we are getting more Indian authors who are trying to write short thrillers rather than narrating useless sub-plots just to keep the book long. Ambika is another one in this list who knows how much to write for a story which has a basic plot around which the whole investigation shall be taking place.

 

The writing style is good and I didn’t feel that the author is a debutante considering the way she has managed to pick up a topic which isn’t very easy to write. Like, a thriller in the very first attempt is very difficult to scribble because if it isn’t good and your readers end up guessing the criminal in the first few pages itself, your book is a big flop. Secondly, taking the charge of writing it in as less as 140 pages only. Thirdly, basing it in Mumbai of 1800s which requires a lot of efforts as you need to know the locale and modus operandi of how things worked during that era. Hence, the way she has tried to maintain the balance considering all these factors is appreciable.

 

The story moves very crisply in the first half of the book and you just get excited to know how these multiple plots will land up together eventually solving the cases of abduction of 3 girls out of whom one girl is found to be dead. The character development of Tara and Arun is very nicely done such that you are able to relate with them. Tara resolving the case in order to help the police has been handled beautifully as you are able to digest that a common person is doing all of this so easily. The way royal family is involved in this plot from the central provinces keeps you excited as you wish to know what the role of Prince is in this whole abduction and murder story based in Mumbai.

 

Overall, this book is a light read for the people who get scared to pick up a thriller book thinking that it might be difficult for them to understand the murder mystery and several characters getting introduced here and there. Ambika has assured that once she is done introducing her characters in the initial pages, she will not add up any other character in the book for no reason. All the characters are introduced and used properly. The book doesn’t have any violent or vulgar scenes which are often added in thrillers to make them sound interesting. This tells about author’s conviction and belief in her story.

 

Now, talking about the drawbacks, I must say that there are many editing mistakes in the book. I don’t know how the writer and editor missed it even in such a short book. Talking about the story based in 1800s’ Mumbai, I must say that there isn’t much talked about the way Mumbai looked or lived during that era which makes you worry why the story is even based in that era except that it involves some trading which could have been easily replaced with today’s world. Also, even though the author has certain twists and turns to bring in the story, she couldn’t write them in a way that could make you jump or open your mouth in astonishment. They are written quite plainly as if someone is narrating a romantic tale to you. There could have been a lot that could have been done with this plot. It is quite an average book in terms of the offering it promises in the synopsis.

 

I give this book 2.75* out of 5.

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How my MEMORIES became POISON for me..

1922nd BLOG POST

I remember my childhood when we got our first landline phone. It was such a luxurious item to have in the home. I was so obsessed with it for years that when I grew up and created my first email-ID, even it had my first landline phone number in its username. I still use the same email ID which has my name suffixed by 6 numerical digits and people still laugh at it. We stayed in a colony where at the same time, almost everyone was getting the landline installed. The HR dept used to share the list of everybody’s name along with their phone number in every flat periodically. After a time, I had just memorized all the phone numbers allotted in the colony. So, whenever my mother used to search in the list consisting of more than 100 names, I used to ask the person she needs to call and dial the number directly for her. My parents used to be surprised with my sharp memory.

 

After a time, the company started allotting telecom sets to all the employees which made every one of us have two telephones in our phone. Now, because of my great memory, I was able to learn all the secondary numbers also. This made us very easy whenever we wanted to make blank calls to our new crushes from the guest house of our colony whenever all of us assembled in the evening to play together. It was all just to hear the sweet voice of that girl which would energize all the boy playing Cricket and trying to become next Tendulkar. Haha!

 

Well, days passed and then we got into secondary school where we got into batches with 100 odd students in two divisions. Everyone started celebrating birthdays. This again triggered the maximum potential of my memory which made me remember birthdate of almost everyone I knew. Later in life, I would also remember dates of every important event that happened in my life. My friends would get surprised during college days that how I can remember the dates so well. It was such an amazing period of my life. I would even remember when I met someone for the 1^st time, when we shared number and so on. WooHoo!

 

But as I grew up and certain wrong incidents started happening in life, the same memory became a poison for me. Because with everything good, I also ended up remembering all the bad and painful events of my life and that too in detail. The strength that I pursued all along started becoming a tragedy for me. It started becoming difficult to stay with all the hurtful and disastrous memories. Finally, I got into a long depression phase of 3 years which taught me enough about myself and what’s wrong with me. Reading certain books made me understand that attaching ourselves with bad thoughts can never help us move on and grow in life. Just after that I started putting lot of efforts in forgetting whatever happened with me during the depression phase to recover from it.

 

I don’t know how but with God’s blessings, I was able to move out of it. I don’t know how but my memory started getting weakened. If today, I have to tell someone about my childhood or the depression phase, I have very few memories of it. I don’t remember my classmates’ names anymore. I only remember a few of them whom I can count on fingers. And this has continued until now where I don’t remember many of my ex-colleagues and I have to put in lot of efforts to remind myself who he/she was and in what department he/she worked. Now, I am living with only few memories and most of them is about the spiritual concepts that I like thinking regularly and sharing with people around me.

 

You might get surprised but I don’t even remember the stories in the books I read after few weeks of reading them. Whenever someone asks me for any recommendation, I give them the link of my blog or online bookshelf and ask them to shuffle there and get their choice of book as per my ratings. This is certainly not good but when I remember what bad memories were doing to me, my mental and physical self, I feel the current problem of bad memory is still manageable. Before WFH, I always had an office diary with me which had everything scribbled on it as I couldn’t remember much about what happened in so-and-so meeting and so-and-so discussion. Whatsoever this is but it has really made my life a lot very easier. Now I don’t have to spend time in overthinking and ruining my mental health but it really helps me move ahead after every wrong or unwanted situation in my life. Even my meditation practice happens easily because my mind doesn't have much clutter to think about - hence it directly goes towards the silence I expect from sitting with closed eyes. And that is why I say – anything can’t be termed as Good or Bad and Strength or Weakness. It all depends on how it’s serving your life. Hope you could also realize something which wasn’t a great story for you but became great later on or was great but later became a poison for you.

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When your Dreams are achieved by someone else..

1921st BLOG POST

I remember there was a time when I was too crazy to get shifted to a foreign country and live there. Their cleanliness, discipline, rules, skyscrapers and aesthetics used to attract me a lot. As I am an introvert, I have very few people in my first circle. Even those who are very close to me meet very less. This makes it very easy for me to not miss anyone. I stay okay even when I am alone because of my love for reading and writing. This makes it far easier for me to stay alone in a completely new land. But with time and mostly in this lockdown, the thought process changed completely and I understood that this passion of moving out of my country was more for the reason of luxury and money. Now, we understand that we only need essentials to survive. We don’t need a big house, big car, large bank balance. We only need what is basically required to live this life for survival.

 

Similarly, once I used to dream a lot about owning a company and running it all by myself and providing jobs to people. When I joined my first company 6 years back and saw the founder of our company very closely, I got to learn the challenges of an entrepreneur. I understood entrepreneurship is not about making people to work but you have to work more than anyone else in your organization and suffer stress of the highest level. It really becomes a terrible experience when you are giving your excellent performance by putting in your 200% whereas everyone you are recruiting is giving in only mediocrity. I, as an employee, was going through ultimate pressure but after observing and noticing him closely, I understood that I am having a very easy life. Whatever stress I have is only in the office hours even if it’s getting extended daily but an entrepreneur has it for 24*7. He just keeps on thinking about what’s next.

 

Such experiences – some internal and external – made me give up my dreams for maybe- an easier or less-privileged life but I understood that this is what is making me stay happy. I understand that each one of us should stretch ourselves enough for achieving the best but sometimes you have to give up when you realize your core is not fighting for it but something else. This may be some side-effect of being spiritual too where you stop fighting for materialistic pleasures and like talking to yourself more than anything else. Simultaneously, every dream around you starts looking small in pursuit of understanding yourself, your existence and your connection with the divine.

 

But whenever I see someone else achieving their dream which makes them land the job they were aspiring for, getting a college they were preparing for, finding a girl they always dreamed of – I feel so blissed that for some moment, I close my eyes and live their life for few minutes being in their shoes and enjoy the pleasure of their dream. Recently, one of my friend and college junior got admission for MS in Canada and seeing his happiness, I got back to the days when I had similar dreams. And it becomes more special when you see someone else achieving a dream which you also had/have but couldn’t achieve. I don’t feel jealous about it but it makes me ask questions to myself about why I didn’t pursue it further. Am I not as talented as him/her? Am I not as hard-working as him/her? But then it takes me to the answer of “What I actually want in my life at this moment?”.

 

Seeing someone else living the dream I had seen before shall always be an experience I would die to have. It makes you respect and adore them and simultaneously question yourself and your mediocrity. This makes you aspire for something which you can achieve. This gives you new dreams – new goals – new targets and a new vision to look at life in a certain way. It is self-exploration, self-introspection and self-improvement for me. Hence, I pray and wish that people around me keep having and achieving the dreams I left for some other easier targets in life. May God Bless Everyone Around Me! 😊

 

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WRITING BUDDHA  

Is An Opportunity part of your Destiny?

1920th BLOG POST

I remember watching “The Kota Factory” some days back on Youtube. I had heard a lot about the series but couldn’t find time since all these months to watch it but these lockdown days made it possible last week. Just in the first episode itself, there is a scene where a boy comes to a particular Jeetu Sir and asks for an opportunity. This opportunity would have made him land into a better batch where teachers teach with more concentration and personal will. He didn’t have idea as to what that question paper would be like but he says that I’ll bring this to you within a limited time frame resolving as many questions as possible.

 

I saw that scene and tried to relate with it. It becomes so difficult when you are in a situation where you can’t repeat your past or play your future the way you want to. You are dependent on a situation to give you a chance so that you can make most of it and change your present and fortune. Few people take such chances very seriously whereas few people just let it go without realizing what it could have done for them. I always believe that opportunity never comes to you but you need to find them. But if such situation arises where the opportunity has itself walked up to you, I believe you need to respect it.

 

Whenever something bad or worst happens, we put it up on destiny that it was meant to happen this way. Whenever something good or great happens, we credit ourselves. So somewhere, we blame destiny for the things that goes wrong for us. We should also understand and learn to appreciate destiny when it brings opportunity for us. God has given us this life and left it on us to play with it. Because God loves us so much, he just can’t see us doing it all ourselves. So, he keeps on remembering us in between and giving us opportunities to bring it to our use to change our destiny a bit and make him feel proud of us. If we don’t acknowledge such blessings in disguise, I don’t think we should put it up on destiny anymore. We are to be blamed for this. And we need to realize this at the soonest to understand what right or wrong we ended up doing with our lives.

 

I have seen people getting opportunities and losing it just because of their mindlessness, ego, pride, self-respect, ignorance, idiocrasy, carelessness and many other stupid reasons. If someone thinks that they are bigger than the external factors happening to them, they are wrong. It is your inner engineering that helps you achieve most precious moments of your life. People just don’t spend enough time with themselves to understand what they are and what they can receive from this world for themselves. They want nature to give them everything just because they think they are special. You need to become a special child of the God through your decisions. Nothing comes in a platter. Ever!

 

In the end, I would like to say that please respect the opportunities you receive from this universe because it really wants you to get away with the current pain or struggle or slogs that you are going through. It wants you to get to the next level. But when you disrespect it by losing this opportunity, universe really gets angry with you. It now wants to work against you for some time until you don’t prove again by your constant effort. Just imagine how difficult it becomes for us after that. Some of you must be suffering from it even currently, so please be cautious and take good steps when you get to see a ladder. Don’t just ignore it thinking that you will get to climb that ladder even tomorrow. There might be no ladder when you wake up next morning. Be smart! May be this evening is the last evening for you to change your life….

The entire month of April, I am blogging from A2Z powered by #BlogchatterA2Z 

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WRITING BUDDHA 

Video Review: "Only The Good Die Young" by Akash Verma (Book Review: 4.75*/5)

This video discusses the book written by Mr. Akash Verma named "Only the good die young"

The review is in English as the book is published in English language only.

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Apologies to the Hindi viewers.

Anuradha left Delhi when Dhruv chose his family over her. She thought that that chapter of her life was over and so she began building a new life in Mumbai. But strangely, the moment she leaves her past behind, her past begins to catch up with her. Dhruv suddenly comes back into her life and even as they begin to figure out their relationship, horrible things begin to happen to people around them.

Sometimes when you're desperate to leave the past behind, the past is eager to catch up!

Who is it that cannot see them together? Who is carrying out these shocking crimes? Are they really soulmates cursed to stay apart or is there a karmic debt that they must pay back together?

Breathless and thrilling Only the Good Die Young is unputdownable. ___________________________________________________ Follow me on:- My Blog:- www.WritingBuddha.com

Instagram:- https://www.instagram.com/writingbuddha/

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Youtube:- https://www.youtube.com/WritingBuddha/

Purchase the book here:- https://amzn.to/3mCRxTs

________________________________________________________

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Take Ownership of your Bad Times!!!

1919th BLOG POST

Life is not always fortunate. Sometimes it lands you in a scoop where you find yourself at your lowest. As we all have heard it multiple times – Life is all about both– Success and Failure. We can’t just live with success all the time. We also need to accept failure graciously. If we accept it whole-heartedly and take it in our stride, we find life to be special. We understand that when things aren’t working our way, it is working in a divine way. Otherwise we just keep on blaming either someone else for ruining it for us or God or sometimes, even ourselves. But the moment we accept that failures shall also keep touching us every now and then in this journey called Life, we start enjoying even our bad times.

 

I understand that saying this is easy but when we are going through painful times, it really becomes hard to smile even in loneliness. But shouldn’t we concentrate upon happiness at the times of sadness? During the happier times, life itself takes care of our happiness. Only in the bad times, the responsibility is put on us to keep ourselves happier. The mistake we make is of ruining the phase more for us. Rather than resolving our situation, we end up poisoning it more by adding unwanted ingredients into it. We know that we are hurting ourselves but we don’t stand against it. The biggest and meaningful step is to take our care in the adverse times. Life handles us in every other junction before and after that.

 

You must have noticed that once we decide that you are the victim of something, the universe starts sending you signal only about it. If you have lost your parent, you will find all the advertisements on television showing the love between parents-children. If you have lost your job, you will find everyone around you getting promotions and appraisals. If you have failed an exam, you will find every cousin of yours excelling or topping in their education. If you are going through a break-up, every other song on the radio channel in your daily Ola ride will be about couples expressing extreme love for each other.

 

Why does this happen? It happens because when you play victim to the sad situations of your life, universe gets the message that you are attracting more negativity related to the same. It starts sending you the related signals regularly. As your brain is already tuned to thinking and relating with everything with the concerned issue in your life, you also start noticing it immediately as soon as you hear or see anything related to it. Such is the response of Universe against whatever you think. We always believe that our mind is confined only to the thoughts and imaginations we go through. We don’t think that it can impact anything else - not even our body. Unfortunately, the reality is that the brain has some kind of a deep connect with everything around us and even beyond our reach. Hence, it’s really difficult to run away from our sad realities if that is what we are keeping our brain mostly occupied with.

 

When you are in such terrible conditions and control your mind in a manner that it doesn’t think much about what difficulties you are facing but more about the solutions for it, accordingly, the signals are sent to the universe and you start seeing about the realities which can take you to a better future. And you find that you reach such a blissful future within such a short period of time that you can’t believe how early your problems got resolved. You start appreciating the beauty of life immediately. But all this happens only after you realize that you are on a victim mode and you need to own your mind and life. The moment you change the gears, you start noticing the positive changes around you. Start appreciating even the failures life gives you. Only then you will reach to the solutions and the ideal future you were/are always looking for. I am an experienced person of this and hence I say so. Hope you’ll believe me and start this small exercise for your own good. 😊

The entire month of April, I am blogging from A2Z powered by #BlogchatterA2Z

 

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WRITING BUDDHA 

Values needed for being on the tough path!

1918th BLOG POST

There are moments in life when you have to choose one path out of many in front of you. That one path might not be the best at the moment but then you need to also remind yourself – if you are looking out for Long-term benefit or short-term benefit. Every time you chose something that is meant for short-term benefit, it is less painful and looks brighter and shiny. Everything about that path looks great. You just want to start walking on it and complete your short journey as soon as possible. But the moment you take the difficult decision of choosing the path which takes you to long-term benefit, there are many values that you need to inculcate in yourself. You need to change yourself for good if you don’t have the required values in yourself already. 

This is another challenge in realizing if you already have the required mandatory values or not. That is for some other day to discuss here but today, I would like to talk about the values you need for getting on the highway which has lots of traffic and potholes on it.

 

PERSEVERANCE:

You need to keep continuous effort despite several obstacles that shall come in your way to break your spirit. You still need to walk on it because you know that once you crack the jackpot, the life after that is going to be all beautiful, solid and smooth. And who doesn’t dream of a perfect life? I know that perfection might be a myth but at least trying to have a happy and worriless life can be a desire. So, let’s keep ourselves enough strong to arrive at that point where we achieve THIS LIFE – which shall not have the trouble and loopholes that it currently has.

 

POSITIVE MINDSET:

I know saying this is like the biggest cliché of this universe but if you keep wronging yourself at every turn in your way and keep fearing about what would happen next, you would never be able to continue your journey. You will have to think that you are reaching your milestone by hook or by crook and nothing can stop you from being there. I see people questioning themselves so much when they choose something like this that they leave their quest in between which keeps them guilty all their life as they keep regretting why they didn’t pursue it without quitting in between. You need utmost positivity to keep walking in any which way. Hence, work on your mindset to be positive and warmed-up always.

 

SELF-BELIEF:

The biggest problem that most of us have is about not having the kind of belief we need to have on ourselves. We can trust many people around us but when it comes to trusting ourselves, we don’t. We think we aren’t that strong or confident enough to carry ourselves through/out this path. But it is very necessary to have self-belief that no obstacle or interrogation in the way can break you. Once you have realized the potential in you, no one can break you on this path. If you have decided something, no one can take away that decision away from you. You are the owner of it. Hence, keep this belief on yourself and walk the path.

 

BE TRUE TO YOURSELF:

There are times when we lie ourselves that let’s cheat on this particular day and we will continue our journey with passion and continuity from tomorrow onwards. You might not know that this particular day was of great importance to you which you wasted just like that without thinking twice. Hence, every time you decide that I’ll not skip a day, just don’t skip a day. The commitment that you made with yourself on the Day 1 with all the angst and passion should either stay constant or get increased every day but you can’t afford to get it reduced at all. This can only happen if you can be true to yourself before being true to anyone else. Understand what you want and work only for that.

 

PATIENCE:

Patience is the key in every aspect of your life. You need to have the ability to wait and wait and wait. You can’t expect results or fruits from your sowings right on the next day. You will have to keep watering your plant every day. You will have to keep giving it fertilizers every day. You will have to keep working on it until it doesn’t start producing flowers and fruits for you. But if you water it for 7 days and see nothing happening and you stop on the Day 8, you will lose having a beautiful plant in your life which would have given you fruits and flowers for rest of your life. Similarly, with life, goals and ambitions, we have to be very patient. We might see failure every day but still, we have to wait for that day when we’ll meet success. It all happens only with patience. And yes, you need to work on being patient every second, minute, hour, day, week, month and year. It comes with lots of practice so keep up with it. Don’t just lose it for a small argument or relaxation.

 

I hope this post will help you in inculcating these values in yourself if you choose a tough path for your life. People will keep telling you benefits of choosing other paths or leaving the target at all but you need to have that clarity in your mind about what you need to be happy and successful in life. Best of luck for that!

 

The entire month of April, I am blogging from A2Z powered by #BlogchatterA2Z

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WRITING BUDDHA