I wanna inspire

I meet a lot of people who want to do something or the other but for some reason they havent. There are a lot of reasons, some dont have time, some dont find it meaningful and some say tey arent inspired yet.

Those who dont have time are unable to get time coz they arent inspired enough to start it and those who do not find it meaningful, let me ask them a question. If you feel hungry, we eat food, we feel thirsty we drink water. But at times even if we are not hungry we eat and drink. Is there a meaning behind it?. Some times you need to feed your soul, by doing something which brings you the closest to yourself.

Writing is one such thing, it brings me very close to myself. I realize who I am and what I am capable of. There are people who are able to draw energy from within themselves to do things which seem impossible to those who are not in touch with themselves. It is necessary that we all learn it and again the solution is to get in touch with yourself.

I have always believed in work, may be I havent followed it entirely I am working towards it, godwilling it will happen soon. But what is the reason for one person to keep doing something?

See, a person has very limited time on this earth, and we have a lot of dreams and aspirations to fulfill in this short while. Your work is the key to immortality. Your work will keep you alive after you are gone. What have you lived, if after you have gone, no one remembers a few words you have said!!

Here is a quote from one such immortal man

Kuch kaam karo, Kuch kaam karo
Jag mein rah kar kuch naam karo

Yeh janma hua kis arth aho
Samjho jismein yeh vyartha na ho
Kuch to upyukta karo tan ko
Nar ho naa nirash karo man ko

Sambhlo ki suyog naa jaye chala
Kab vyartha hua sadupaay bhala
Samjho jag ko na nira sapna
Path aap prashast karo apna
Akhileshwar hai avlamban ko
Nar ho naa nirash karo man ko

Jab prapta tumhein sab tatwa yahan
Phir ja sakta hai satwa kahan
Tum swatwa sudha ras paan karo
Uthke amaratva vidhaan karo
Davroop raho bhav kaanan ko
Nar ho na nirash karo man ko

Nij gaurav ka nit gyan rahe
Hum bhi kuch hain ye dhyaan rahe
Sab jaye abhi par maan rahe
Marnottar gunjit gaan rahe
Kuch ho na tajo nij saadhan ko
Nar ho na nirash karo man ko

Harivansh rai bacchan

Happy Independence Day

Our YOUNG country has become another year OLD. Promises were made and not all of them were fulfilled, it's the time where our leaders make New Year resolutions and like all of us (even they are mortals!!) they also have a resolution of not following a resolution, so we are almost back to square one. We still have the same problems which we had 62 years ago…so what was the point in getting independence?.

The thing is that we don't know what the cost of Independence is. Independence is like the car we just brought. Only buying a car doesn't mean that it will work all its lifetime, you need to maintain it. We thought that by just fighting for independence, we will become a developed country, but without maintaining it, it's become like that car of ours which we haven't maintained, consumes a lot of petrol, hardly any efficiency, and always has a breakdown when we need it the most. We try to change mechanics but no one can put it back to order. Our country is in this state right now..But there is a silver lining

Not all is lost, by slowly but steadily and constructively we will and we are working towards a better tomorrow. We now have realized what the cost of our independence is….It's time that we pay that cost…

Now next time before you ridicule the country for something, first ask yourself

Have paid the cost of Independence?

( BTW did anyone notice I wrote this blog exactly how a seasoned mechanical engineer writes..I hope the university agrees!!!)

More on Zahir

I thought I was done with Zahir, but then a special conversation happened with a special friend of mine, Aamir Khan. Well I wish he was the real one but he is the hindi editor of Sourabh. We went to check out the Sourabh work, then it was time for the Friday prayer.

We walked our way to the mosque and may be like this walk towards the mosque, it was like a small spiritual journey. We talked about our favorite topic, that of religion.

The topic of religion is always the most talked about topic all over in the world. The reason could be unlimited, and to be honest I really dont know why I love to talk about religions...is it because I know a few things about it? or may be I know a lot of people who do not know anything about it

Well coming back to our conversation, what point Aamir put forward was this.

" What do we mean, when we say that we follow one religion?", thats typical Aamir for you

"You know the religion we follow is according to our convenience. If I can follow a few things, then I follow them other wise I dont, what we do is we dont practice Islam, we practise Shahid.Islam or Aamir.Islam, but not pure Islam"

Very well said Indeed, if we ourselves dont follow our religion in entirity what gives us right to fight for it? I do not say that when one has followed every aspect of the religion he gets a license to fight for it, coz once a person understands any religion completely, he will never fight about anything!( ironically)

Now another thing which is always debated on, is how we decide our religion, wait a minute do we select our religion?, are we given that option? Do we really want to follow what we are following right now?

All of us follow what our parents have told us to, it is impressed upon us. A belief is something one has after a little experience of his own, a little understanding but is that the truth, is that the reality and this brings me to the Hans Question( from Zahir):

Is this how it always was? whatever we have been told, is that the truth?

I think everyone will have to ask yourself the Hans question atleast once in your life, maybe that will help usk now ourselves better

Zahir- everyone has one

I am a huge fan of Paulo Coelho, I might not have read all his works, but definitely thought about his works a lot. I just finished reading another of his book Zahir. He has again come up with a masterpiece. Through the eyes of a spiritual writer he has taken the reader on a ride through miracles, sacred energy and a blanket of Love surrounding the universe.

My liking for the sacred makes me write this. I am a firm believer of the fact that there is something which is beyond human understanding, but is a part of every human. Confused! Let me try and explain. We would have read in so many sacred texts about one communicating with god, nature ( Paulo Coelho has at least one such instance in every book).

Not a lot of people would know or believe in the idea that nature at all times guides you, it is up to you to understand the signals . You don't have to have supernatural powers for that, all you need is a moment with yourself and nature. There are so many times when we just don't feel like doing anything, but when asked a reason we don't have one, that is what we call ' Listening to your inner mind'. While almost all of us can listen to our inner selves, we can't really understand everything it does. That has been the irony!.

Had we deciphered our own human mind, we all would have been happy. There are a lot of people who look happy, act happy, but don't really feel happy. Why is it?. I don't really know, Maybe the answer is a Zahir. Zahir is something which fills all of our lives, everyone is in search of their Zahir, but the problem is that we never know what our Zahir is !.

For us to know that, we need to stay connected with ourselves, nature and listen to our inner minds, one day we will definitely decipher what it is saying

I was thinking to end this thing here, but believe me something special happened! I went out to drop my younger brother at his friends place. While I was driving, it had started to rain heavily, and I found shelter under a huge tree. After a good 5 mins of heavy rain , the cloud cover was replaced by mild sunlight, and because of that, the wet mud gave out a beautiful fragarance, which I can still smell, and feel. I don't know what this means, but to be honest the fragarance invigourated me and probably took out a lot of negative energy out of my body. I am not having the best of times to be honest, so even a small thing like this is something different. Atleast I learnt that everything is necessary, its like cooking a recipe the salt in itslef might not be having a great flavour but its added to every food for flavour, the universe/ nature knows what its cooking, just follow the signal

Coming back to today's signal, May be a few days, weeks or years down the line something would happen and I would be able to put a finger on this day saying

" This is what it meant",

The return of the Dukkar

Blame me for selling the chocolates which are the flavour of the season..but really can’t help it...I mean who wants to be out of fashion ?....

Well the topic of this post is none other than a Dukkar (The English have given it a fancy name SWINE...sophisticated you know!!). The Dukkar has just started giving us its flu and well its kind of more dangerous coz…Bird flu, when it was the flavor of the season dint spread that wildly..even if we ate it( My tummy just burped!!!). The irony of the situation is that I don’t eat a Dukkar, why can’t it just stay inside its filthy and unhygienic body??....

Now that the virus has moved on from the home territory and decided to visit greener pastures, it decided to inhabit us humans ( Greener pasture for sure!)…and guess what its making news everywhere…People are falling on the roads like 9 pins ( at least the media makes it look like this)…its made all us humans look so much like the Dukkar(just look at yourself wearing the mask), I hope now you realize that the major symptom of this Dukkar flu is that it makes people look like Dukkars ( surprisingly even those who still haven’t received the virus!). Dirty swine (that sounded good, dint it?)

Getting a little serious I know this disease has scared all of us, and there is an air of panic. But is this panic justified?, are we all going to die because of it, even if it is a global epidemic we are going to have the vaccine available in no time. See we even have the cure of this disease, then what makes us panic. Now I remember reading certain reports saying that one third of India is going to suffer from H1N1 (that’s fancy too!..I admire the English or whoever named it). That’s one in three people, If we anyways going to get it then worry about it. Now compare this with chicken pox, more than 59% of Indians have had this disease, so are we scared of that disease?, are we wearing masks?,

Let me throw some facts on you ( don’t duck!), I hope I am able to create some kind of a panic situation at the end of this article

Deaths due to Chicken pox and small pox: During the 20th century, it is estimated that smallpox was responsible for 300–500 million deaths.( http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Smallpox)

That’s around 3 million a year, that’s around 8219 deaths a day! Ok you might argue that this happens only in a few areas in India, but I guess we all are susceptible to it

Deaths due to malaria ( mosquitoes are everywhere and they bite too): It is estimated that in the world around 90% of deaths due to malaria happen in tropical Africa, and India still reports more than 75% of the world..and have a look at the severity of this disease in the world (http://www.searo.who.int/LinkFiles/Malaria_endemicity07.pdf) that’s from the WHO website

Now if I haven’t scared you enough let’s have a look, at some causes of deaths due to pneumonia is more than 2.1million among kids only according to UNICEF in 2007 that’s around 5753 children dying every day ( Whoaaa!!!)

Number of deaths on the road in India is 1.3lacks (http://www.india-server.com/news/india-has-highest-number-of-road-4241.html) that’s around 365 a day , and well we had 195 deaths in one day on 26/11, come to think of it we have a 26/11 every day in our country on our road (http://www.easydriveforum.com/showthread.php?t=2214)

The WHO estimated that HIV/AIDS caused 2% of all deaths and 6% of deaths due to infectious diseases in India in 1998. If current HIV/AIDS trends continue, by 2033, HIV could account for 17% of all deaths and 40% of deaths from infectious disease(http://www.kff.org/hivaids/upload/7312_02.pdf)

Now India has the second most number of deaths in the world due to terrorist activity i.e. 3674 people that’s around 11 people every day ( still more than the Dukkar Flu!!)

I know this can go on and on and on, but the point what I have been making is that diseases, deaths would happen come what may!, we haven’t stopped driving because of the deaths or injuries?, have stopped making love at the thought of contracting AIDS, have stopped coming out of our houses because of terrorist attacks or do we wear masks coz someone somewhere would be having pneumonia?

See the survival of humanity isn’t fickle, we have and will survive! So what do we do about our Dukkar? Take precaution!!(You dirty minds…stop giggling)

For your reference I am writing down a few things you can do to prevent the spread of this H1N1 ( there you go the sophisticated name again)

Proper hand hygiene:

There's a right way and useless way to wash hands and wash away micro-organisms. The object is to break down the protective membranes of germs, dislodge them from your hands and let them go down the drain. Plain soap in the right hands is strong stuff.

Cover your cough

If you must cough or sneeze, cover your mouth with a tissue, or the inside of your elbow (not your hand as you may then contaminate surfaces when you touch them). Throw the tissue away in a waste basket. Do not leave discarded tissues on your desk or other surfaces.

Then, wash your hands thoroughly.

The throw-it-away part is essential.

Micro-organisms live a life span from a few seconds to days on inanimate surfaces such as desks, table tops, faucets…tissues. If your tissues are scattered on your coffee table, they then are in contact with community surfaces. Both the tissues and the surface it sits on can spread germs to the person who touches the coffee table.

If you begin to feel ill: feverish, achy, have a dry, painful cough, sore throat, go home from school or work and call your health care provider for further instructions.

Together we can and we will make a difference

P stands for Pain and Pleasure

A lot of people must have read Paulo Coelho's book 'eleven minutes'.

The book had an erotic undertone throughout. I remember the director of 'Laga chunri main Daag' Pradeep Sarkar saying that he was inspired by this book. I wonder why he decided not to include the 'Pleasure of Pain' part of the book. For me that was the highlight of the book.

It talked about the forbidden ecstasies which are experienced when one experiences pain. A lot of people were surprised when they read it, not knowing that everyone of us are practitioners of the same. It is just that the barriers of pain one needs to go through are different.

The pure act of making love is one example, where during the act , the two go through a lot of pain in search of ecstasy. But the protagonist also discovers pleasure through another form...and that of pain...be it walking on sharp stones, or using a hunter during the act...or so many more

But it isn't that simple....Tell me how many people have tried to hold their breath, well it does give one a kick but there are groups which have gone a step further. There is a group of people who practise a different form of pleasure from pain act. They hang themselves from the fan for a minute for the extreme pleasure, or like they say ' For a Kick.

Now, let me talk about one special category. Now , how do we feel after a prayer?...a goody goody feeling inside our hearts, we feel cleansed and pure, but thats for normal people. Have you heard about prayers done while having sex...or prayers being done by poking needles and knives in ones stomach?....just go on youtube and one can see so many such rituals...What point I am making here is that these acts were thought to bring one closer to god....its the state of nirvana one achieves that is sought after...

Now lemme ask you ppl to do this excercise....it plays with your mind.....

What you need to do is keep saying some shloka, some dua, continuosly with your eyes closed in a fully illuminated room.. now every time you recite the dua, shloka once , try and rollback your eyeballs while having your eyes closed...you will get a kick. The surprising thing..this act has been practised by certain religious sects all the while...

I am back ...again?...again!!! ( Dont know which expression is right )

Here I am blogging again after a long long time. What brought me here after so long?....

A mail from IndiBlogger telling me that my blog ranks 40 in India. It was surprising at first and I really do not know how I got ranked that high, so I checked how many bloggers where registered on this thing, to my relief there were more than 40( Phew!!!)...Now this has motivated me to take my blog a little more seriously, so what do I write then ???...I guess I need to explain why I dint write for so long...So here goes

I know I have a very few followers, and so I am damn sure that they know that I was working for our college magazine called Sourabh. Well, the work is almost over and it will see daylight soon. It gives me goose bumps actually. I dont know how people are going to take it, I mean will they like it, will they not?? The competition at the University is tough and it will have to be worth its salt to have a standing there. I dont know what the result would be but I am optimistic. I am sure that if there has been an effort, the result would be there.

But there is something which goes beyond the result is experiences. Trust me there was a lot of stuff what i read, some of it was brilliant, I dont know when I would reach a stage when I would be able to write something that brilliant, but I am trying and chugging along!!

One of my frenz Seema suggested me to write a lill about my experiences while working on the magazine, there was this incident she wanted me to discuss ...and Seema I will not disappoint you , but I think that the time isnt right, will post it at the right time...

I will try and blog more regularly( I know I have said that umpteen number of times, but here it goes again.....) the bottom line I will try!!!!!!!