The Count-Down Begins!

"Of all the life cycle points, getting married is the most public"- Wikipedia

The countdown begins. It's exactly 13 days to my wedding day! With the song "I believe I could fly" by R. Kelly playing in the background at this moment, my exact thoughts would definitely resemble the quote below:

"True love comes quietly, without banners or flashing lights" Erich Segal

Cheers to 2008 and celebrating 2007!

New Year's Day is every man's birthday. ~Charles Lamb

What makes 2007 special is:

* My engagemet to Emon.

* Having the most memorable official tour to Singapore and getting a chance to meet thousands of media and Communications guru from around the world.

*Having my nephew calling me aunt (khala) ..which does sound a lot like "Tala" though.

* Seeing my younger brother being interviewed on national TV for the first time.

* Getting back in touch with my oldest school and college friends like Sania, Pinky, Gauri, Shehab, Inam and Sohana. I actually met Shehab, Inam and Sohana after 12yrs.

* New friends are always a blessing. I made some really good friends this year and came to know them pretty well like Marium, Rahat, Momita, Rozana and Rubayat.

* Attending Samina and Rob's wedding. Samina one of my oldest buddy from school days.

* Birth of Deeba, Deenaa and Babu's baby daughter, two of my closest friends from Bangalore.

* Attending the wedding of Shanu and Russell, two of my students. I had taught them Biology in Grades 5 and 6 about 13 years ago.

* Completing my MBA (Touch wood) finally after three rigorous months of continuous exams.

* Learning that life should not revolve around work as everyone at work is replaceable.

* This year marks great tidings for my friends Jobayer, Imti, Rahat and Marium for their brand new beginnings in their life.

Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right. ~Oprah Winfrey

(inshallah, touch wood)

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

The most memorable Christmas celebrations were in school. My childhood memories of Christmas are numerous. I still know a few Christmas carols by heart, and on Christmas I am always in the mood of rejoicing. I remember once playing the part of one of the three shepherds in the school play; I remember the beautiful chapel in school with colored window panes and the carol singing, the candles, the beautiful nuns with their wonderful voices. Nigeria and childhood are far away but the memories remain.

One such memory makes me smile. There was a personal ritual I followed which included buying presents for my sister, mom and dad with my pocket money saved for weeks for the auspicious event of Christmas. And every year, on Christmas Eve, I would crawl out of bed silently and place all the gifts on the huge dinning table so that it would be the first thing they would get to see when they get up in the morning.

However, there was one particular year when I had run out of money after buying my parents their cards and small gifts and realized that planning for this Christmas was not as authentic as before. I needed more gifts, for my lovely elder sis. On a creative streak, I took a shoebox and filled in all the things I had that I knew my sister would like, like a colored pencil, a beautiful brand new shoelace from my pair of new shoes, a handmade notepad cut and bonded from my school exercise book and old calendar paper, a nice handwritten card, my favorite pair of hairclips and so on. Than I had used crayons to color the shoebox and wrapped it with newspaper dipped in paint. My sister was overwhelmed but she laughed and laughed when she spied something in the box. In the midst of all the tiny lovely things, there lay her ink pen which went ‘missing’ a while back. In my zest of giving a Christmas gift, I had also casually returned her the pen I had ‘found’ on her table a few weeks back and didn’t know how to return it back without looking guilty.

Every time we recall that memory, I and my sister never fail to share a laugh. This brings me back to the present Christmas much older and wiser, knowing that beyond the cloak of festivities everyone loves to celebrate the joy of living and being with loved ones. And that’s what Christmas to me is all about.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,

Let your heart be light

From now on,

our troubles will be out of sight

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,

Make the Yule-tide gay,

From now on,

our troubles will be miles away.

Here we are as in olden days,

Happy golden days of yore.

Faithful friends who are dear to us

Gather near to us once more.

Through the years

We all will be together,

If the Fates allow

Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.

And have yourself A merry little Christmas now.

A Silly Break to Rediscover Thyself

“Take a break, have a kitkat" is one of the best advertisement slogans that have stuck on through the years. Today is memorable, because today is the last day before the big final exam, the last one this year.

Short breaks are significant especially while doing monumentous tasks which exerts pressure on the braincells. How we take that break would definitely differ from one person to the other. And internet surfing has replaced a lot of usual break-time activities too like TV browsing, long phone conversations, reading magazines, manual window shopping, exercising. You name it, and the internet can be termed guilty on all accounts.

So, it comes as no surprise that I opted for a random internet surf today. I needed to do something different, something totally irrevelant to my studies, which would effectively take the pressure off for a few minutes and for another round of serious studying time. So instead of the usual checking of mails or checking the business news online. Instead, I discovered a few silly and completely bizzare personality tests online and here are the interesting results.

What color should your toe nails be? : Black

What Season are You? You Belong in Spring Optimistic, lively, and almost always happy with the world...You can truly appreciate the blooming nature of spring. Whether you're planting flowers or dyeing Easter eggs, spring is definitely your season!

How much is your life worth? : $656,500 (that’s not much with inflation rates growing higher each day. Is it?)

What Flower are You? You are a lily. You are a nurturer and all around natural therapist. People see you as their rock. And they are able to depend on you. You are a soothing influence. You can make people feel better with a few words. Your caring has more of an impact than even you realize.

What is your power Element? Metal and your Your power colors: white, gold, and silver. Your energy: contracting. Your season: fall. You are persistent (and maybe even a little bit stubborn).If you see something you want, you go for it.You have a lot of strength, and it's difficult to get you down. Very logical, you tend to analyze everything going on in your life.

What’s your theme Song? Your Theme song is back in Black by AC/DC "Back in black, I hit the sack,I've been too long, I'm glad to be back". Things sometimes get really crazy for you, and sometimes you have to get away from all the chaos. But each time you stage your comeback, it's even better than the last!

This is where my break would end for the day. But if you are tired of being really serious and would like a laugh. You can take some time off to try out a few whacky tests here.

"Life"

"I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended."

(Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, born 1918, South African lawyer, statesman and 1993 Nobel Peace Prizewinner. This quote is from Mandela's inspirational 1994 book, Long Walk to Freedom.)

Mirror Mirror

"This situation won't really last for long". I consoled myself. After three weeks of continuous and rigorous strive for excellence, I shut my eyes for a moment and recalled a simple mistake asunder, made today. It was during the most significant moment of writing an exam that conscious common sense and analytical recollection escaped which would most definitely cost me at least a mark.

"If only I had circled the letter “c” instead of “a” in a multiple choice question today, if I had slept a little more to clear my brain, if I had …."and the list goes on….

Yawn, I need a few winks of sleep and I shall doze off but not before I have to look at the mirror and see...

The Guy In The Glass

When you get what you want in your struggle for pelf,

And the world makes you King for a day,

Then go to the mirror and look at yourself,

And see what that guy has to say.

For it isn't your Father or Mother or Wife,

Who judgment upon you must pass.

The feller whose verdict counts most in your life

Is the guy staring back from the glass.

He's the feller to please, never mind all the rest,

For he's with you clear up to the end,

And you've passed your most dangerous, difficult test

If the guy in the glass is your friend.

You may be like Jack Horner and "chisel" a plum,

And think you're a wonderful guy,

But the man in the glass says you're only a bum

If you can't look him straight in the eye.

You can fool the whole world down the pathway of years,

And get pats on the back as you pass,

But your final reward will be heartaches and tears

If you've cheated the guy in the glass.

-Dale Wimbrow, 1934.

Incognito

Some people tend to normally write off whole swathes of humanity by sticking a label on them and dismissing them.

I went to a grocery shop today where a salesgirl recognized me and came up to talk but I sneezed while I stood too near to a huge shelf and immediately she said “You always have cold, don’t you?” I calmly pointed out to her that the shelf above me probably had dust and I was sensitive to dust. But she was not pacified with my answer and retorted back “but when I saw you the other day at the hospital with your mother, you were sneezing there too”. I smiled at her and told her that poor ventilated rooms have that effect on me sometimes. But even than, she still had a look of disbelief on her face. I shrugged and walked down the aisle putting grocery into my shopping cart. The shop girl and I had two chance meetings in a space of one year inbetween and she had already labeled me on health rates pertaining to two sneezes!

Huge numbers of people are judged daily, given a label and dismissed. Or simply put into neat little boxes called generalization. Did we come across people who voiced their opinions similar to this sentence?

“Want more”? No, I didn’t think you would.

Is there any remedy for this classification or should we just drift away, not paying heed because we just don’t have the time. I know for certain that if that girl at the store was someone who had meant a lot to me, I would have liked to make her understand my situation, but since I didn’t know her, I didn’t expedite a lot of time on her.

As we grow, we learn that these labels mean something that we may not want to be associated with. Furthermore, we learn that we are labeling ourselves to others with our posture, body language, and tone of voice as well as mental and physical well being.

Ego Tonic

My dad has recently been attached to a green electric bat, the kind that is used for swatting flies and mosquitos with a loud crackling noise and a flash of light. Ever since than, we can see him very happy. Today, I received a forward (see below) mail from my friend Karishma and I realized there must be something in it to describe his change of mood after the electric bat arrived in our house.

The ego does not feel good, at ease, with molehills; it wants mountains. Even if it is a misery, it should not be a molehill, it should be an Everest. Even if it is miserable, the ego doesn’t want to be ordinarily miserable; it wants to be extraordinarily miserable!

People go on and on, creating big problems out of nothing. I have talked to thousands of people about their problems and I have not come across a real problem yet! All problems are bogus — you create them because without problems you feel empty. There is nothing to do, nothing to fight with, nowhere to go. People go from one guru to another, from one master to another, from one psychoanalyst to another, from one encounter group to another, because if they don’t go, they feel empty, and they suddenly feel life to be meaningless. You create problems so that you can feel that life is a great work, a growth, and you have to struggle hard.

The ego can exist only when it struggles, remember — when it fights. And if I tell you, ‘Kill three flies and you will become enlightened, you will not believe me. You will say, ‘Three flies? There doesn’t seem to be much to that. And I will become enlightened? That doesn’t seem to be likely. If I say you will have to kill seven hundred lions, of course that looks more like it! The greater the problem, the greater the challenge...and with challenge your ego arises, soars high. You create problems. Problems don’t exist.

You don’t have any problems; only this much has to be understood. This very moment you can drop all problems because they are your creations. Have another look at your problems: the deeper you look, the smaller they will appear. Go on looking at them and by and by they will start disappearing. Go on gazing and suddenly you will find there is emptiness...a beautiful emptiness surrounds you. Nothing to do, nothing to be, because you are already that.

Don’t make unnecessary trouble for yourself. And understanding will dawn on you if you watch how you make a problem bigger and bigger and bigger, how you spin it, and how you help the wheel to move faster and faster and faster. Then suddenly you are at the top of your misery and you are in need of the whole world’s sympathy.

The ego needs some problems. If you understand this, in the very understanding the mountains become molehills again, and then the molehills also disappear. Suddenly there is emptiness, pure emptiness all around. This is what enlightenment is all about — a deep understanding that there is no problem. Then, with no problem to solve, what will you do? Immediately you start living. You will eat, you will sleep, you will love, you will have a chit-chat, you will sing, you will dance. What else is there to do? You have become a god, you have started living!

Live, dance, eat, sleep, do things as totally as possible. And remember again and again: whenever you catch yourself creating any problem, slip out of it, immediately.

Feel Great Everyday!

“Great people are those who make others feel that they too can become great”- Mark Twain.

As I stepped away from my table strewn with books and files and notes and stretched my legs shaking away the strain forming in them from inertness over the hours, I reached for my phone and decided to dial one number. The telephone number of one person in town, who I knew would be able to give me a moment’s respite from the monotony of the religiously studious moment.

And without fail, after few brief moments of banter, I felt much more energized and active, ready to take on the world by its “tail” yet again!

It’s so important to have good friends and be a good friend to others. Sometimes we falter, depending on environmental stimuli and other factors, but most of the time if we are simply joyous over the effort of listening to others, and talking to them in return; lovingly and unconditionally sharing the time, discussing just about anything, good or bad, when otherwise we could engage ourselves doing something else, than that time is highly commendable.

“There are two types of people – those who come into a room and say “Well, here I am,” and those who come into a room and say “Ah, there you are.” – Louis E. Boone.

Point to ponder: Watch out for the later, for they are the ones who would make a difference in your life. Be ready to recognize and filter them accordingly.

Fresh As a Daisy

Little girls are precious gifts like birds and brooks and streams...their hair is tied up with ribbons and bows...their hearts are tied up with dreams.

There is no greater joy than watching two favorite friends of mine tying the knot and finally giving birth to a child. Deenaa and Babu’s pretty baby girl was born on 24th of October, 2007. The days have gone by so fast, I can still remember the day when Babu, who I knew from college met Deenaa, about eight years ago and fell in love instantly. What resulted was a long courtship, proving to all the lovely couples in the world that love certainly passes the test of time.

"In the eyes of a child...there is joy, there is laughter... there is hope, there is trust, a chance to shape the future..."