What does love taste like…

Love, tastes like the half burnt meal your dad cooked for you while your mom’s away.

Love, tastes like that already licked ice-cream a child wants to share with you for he likes you.

Love, tastes like the blood you suck off from that little girl’s paper-cut finger.

Love, tastes like the poorly brewed coffee your beloved tried to make for you early in the morning.

Love. tastes like a slice of pizza shared among three friends.

Love, it tastes a lot like the cheek of a new-born.

Love, it tastes like the thumb you once upon a time sucked on.

But most of the time, love tastes like a small piece of bread dipped in wine which reminds me of the love above all…

Is This the Future of India?

India, a densely populated country, the second largest in terms of population. Where for more than 15 years I have been hearing the slogan 'Hum do hamare do'.

India, also one of the world's youngest nations, where more than 75% of the population is below 35. A nation on rise, to grow as a strong economy.

We want to control this growing population, we want fewer people, fewer children and accept it or not fewer girls. We are trying to mainstream contraceptives and to trivialize abortions just as a small procedure. We have become a country where anyone who has more than two kids are called careless and uncivilized, a place where we are trying to brainwash innocent tribals to stop procreating.

China, the only country that has more population has a strict 'One Child' policy has now taken harsh measures to forcibly abort the second child of anyone who fails to pay the penalty of bearing another child.

Population control has become an obsession among these killers, where recently a mother was forced to abort her 7 month old unborn child. She was taken by the officials against her wishes to a hospital where the abortion took place/ Above is the picture of the mom and her aborted baby read the full story here. 

Why are we against life? Why are we against humanity? In an uncontrolled craze to try and monitor population growth are we forgetting that reproduction is a gift that helps us to recreate ourselves and leave a new life behind?

Fertility is not a disease. The child within a womb is not a mass of tissues. It is life. It must be preserved and cherished.

Don't let this be the future of India, where there are only old people and very few children, where desperate mothers are manhandled and forced to abort their child. Where the innocent girls and women are considered a 'problem' because of your ability to get pregnant and are treated to be infertile.

Say NO to abortions. Say YES to life.

My Quotes VIII

A few more gems from me! :)

• God won't stop existing if you stop believing.

• Wake up everyday to create history in this world.
• Do not betray, do not lie. And if you can't do both, do at least apologize.
• Different people, different lives, but there is only one way to make it right. Keep it simple and take it all with a smile.
•  Beautiful is better than attractive.
• Do the best of all the good you can.
• When 'easy' is not right and 'right' is not easy, take a deep breath and ALWAYS GO FOR THE RIGHT.

Wordless: Blues and Greens

A Suicide Note

Dear Mom and Dad,
I know you won't be happy to find me dead on my bed, but I wasn't happy either to do this. For years I have worked hard, tried to be the son you wanted me to be, getting a good score in every subject and excelling in football too. Day and night I persevered to fulfill your dreams dad of being good at mathematics and becoming an engineer like you. And for you mom, I trained hard every morning to be a successful footballer about whom you could brag to your friends.

I loved to paint, but I know you didn't like it dad, I know you thought painting was for losers who didn't have an ambition in life. So I stopped painting. I stopped watching tv, or listening to the radio, I even stopped reading my favourite novels or hanging out with my friends. I was always holed up in my room trying to score 100% in each subject. You did not know it dad, but inside was crying. Crying like a little child trapped in an endless loop of achieving success.

Mom, I know it meant a lot to you to know that your son was a good footballer, and much better than the next door aunty's son. I know you came for my every match, I know you use to wake up before me to prepare for my 5:30am training each morning. I know you cheered the loudest whenever I made a goal. But mom couldn't you see the pain I had to endure, did you never notice that your son never had enough sleep? That he was always recovering from some injury? And if not that trying to hide the fact that his muscles were paining? Mom, when my team won the inter-school cup, you kissed the trophy, but didn't kiss me. I cried that night and hated that cup ever since. I love the game, but I love you more than the game mom, do you love me more than this game too?

I wanted to live life on my own terms, I wanted to make my own way, but I spent half my childhood chasing your dreams. For you dad, I was just the numbers printed on my report card, I will never forget the day you were so disappointed in me for losing the first rank to a girl by 2 marks, you didn't eat that night and increased my study hours, I wasn't even allowed on the dining  table to dine with my family, I was served food in my room. Dad, why did you love the number printed on my report card more than me? And you mom, you were in love with the trophies, medals and to get a chance to show me off to your friends. I know you still haven't forgiven me for catching cold and being unable to play the finals 2 years back. You loved my achievements more than me.

I don't want to die, my hands tremble as I try to unscrew the top of the sleeping pills bottle, but I would rather sleep eternally than live like this. It is too painful for me to live, every breath I draw tears me apart, but before bidding goodbye I just want to make one request. Don't let Tia, my baby sister go through what I had to go through. Let her live her life the way she wants. I know my committing suicide will bring a lot of shame to the family, I apologize for it. But living under this roof is torturing me.

So goodbye mom, dad, Tia, I hope you will forgive me for this and remember me for all my achievements that made you happy.

Your son.


note: This post neither promotes nor recommends suicide. This is a work of fiction to bring to light the adverse effects of using your children as a vehicle to pursue your own goals. Each child is blessed and come to this world with his/her own sets of talents. Don't pressurize these untapped treasures of talents into fulfilling your own greed and ego.

5 Surprising reasons why you cannot memorize that verse

You just cannot memorize that Bible verse! You’ve tried everything from pasting a print of it on your bathroom wall to writing it multiple times. But no, each time you need to quote it out of your memory you fail. Just how do those preachers and teachers commit so many verses to their memory? And why can’t I? Sounds like a familiar situation? Read the following and you will know why can’t you memorize bible verses (or for that matter any other text that you are trying to learn by heart.).

 

 

You cannot memorize it because:

1. You are trying to memorize it: Since you are trying to memorize a particular verse all you are trying to do is pressurize your brain somehow add this particular verse permanently in your memory. The problem is, you just cannot inject things like that into your memory. Try to learn from the verse, try and know what it speaks to you. Simply trying to mug it up will never help.
2. You are committing it to short term memory: You take a verse, read it 5 times, close your eyes and repeat it exactly without seeing it! And you are happy you memorized it, and never ever go through that verse/text again. A few weeks later, when you need to reproduce that verse out of your memory, you are lost. So what just happened? Hadn’t you successfully memorized it? Well actually, yes you had memorized it, but only for a short term. When we see a something and remember it to be recalled only a few minutes/hours later, it goes into a short term memory. So the verse that you did memorize went to that short term memory, and then you never even refreshed it by reading it more often.
3. It has no personal relation with you: The things that we remember till our death are the ones that are very personal and close to us. The same is for Bible verses, if its just a piece of text you want to memorize so that you can impress your friends then you better not expect to remember it for a lifetime. On the other hand, if this verse touched you in a personal way, helped you out of a tragedy, strengthened you in the times of trouble, you are more likely to remember it without any efforts.
4. You do not use it frequently: Even if you do manage to get it into your head, the Bible verse may not be used by you frequently enough and slowly it slips out of your memory, sometimes without leaving a trace behind. Once you have memorized a verse try and use it as frequently as possible, in your prayers, in your conversations, etc.
5. You are not reflecting on it: How do you expect you learn something by heart, that you don’t know the meaning of? It is difficult to memorize a bible verse, if you haven’t got a clue of what it means and what is it trying to say. So sit and reflect before trying to cram it!

Now you know the big why! So stop memorizing and start personalizing the biblical verses that you want to learn by heart.

Cow Dodge

DODGE ME IF YOU CAN!!!

Move along Angry Birds, Cow Dodge is the newest game in town. I play it regularly its super fun and super easy to learn and play. The rules of the game are simple

1. Select a vehicle of your choice
2. Drive it to your destination
3. On the way you either meet cows, buffaloes, herds of sheep and goats and of course pedestrians and other vehicles, you have to dodge them all.
4. You get to dodge an entire herd of raging bulls at the boss level.
5.  5 points for dodging each cow
6. 10 points to dodge a buffalo
7. 50 for a herd of other cattle
8. 2 points if you don't kill crazy crossing pedestrians
9. Points for how quickly you reach your destination.

Clear? Isn't it fun enough? I play Cow Dodge daily, morning while going to office and evening while returning home, weaving my way through the endless stream of crazy animals on road!

What about you? Have you played Cow Dodge too?

Warning: The world's ending

Yes it is. No don’t run for your life right now. You still have time to read this before the world actually begins to end! You are not getting what I am saying, eh?

Well, I am not one of those 2012 how-will-the-world-end theorists. Neither am I from some sort of a religious group that has successfully formulated the exact date and time by the help of some ancient cryptic text for the end of the world to come. I already here the groans of those who have come here to find another far fetched end-of-the-world theories.

But I am not going to deny the fact that the world is going to end. It will folks, it will. But not this year, and not the way you may have imagined. There will be no freaky earth quakes the eat up entire nations, no magma exploding out off non-volcanic craters, no great floods that will swallow the continents entirely, no alien armada that will suddenly attack earth, no meteors and asteroids bombarding the planet, no moon crashing on earth, no sudden severe changes in temperature that will wipe out all life, no planet X is going to come and hit our planet, no mysteries ‘web-bot’ predictions are going to come true, no zombie attacks, no mutant animals gone wild and definitely no nanobots are going to take over the world.

That does not mean that the world is not ending. It is ending as I write this, slowly dying an inevitable death. The world will end. But not as we perceive its end, wherein all life form will be terminated or the entire planet will be destroyed. The world that we know and are so attached to will cease to be: and change will come, so different, so alien that we will not be able to recognize it were we to come back and see the world. The same way as a primitive man would not be able to recognize our world as the same place he’d lived on and that we are the same species.

So go on and live your life without worrying about the end of the world, the world is coming to an end, but not in your life time!

My Quotes VII

I am back again with few more quotes! Hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed putting them down!

• Sometimes being yourself is the toughest challenge.
• Using few words is the sign of wisdom.
• Be like water. It shapes itself according to the vessel but never loses its property.
• Bloom where you are planted, but not into a cactus.
• We can only think freely when we have broken the bondage of our social conditioning.
• Charity and Pride cannot live inside the same heart.
• Humans only practice ‘keeping others before you’ when facing the line of fire.
• Evil has many heads. Make sure yours is not one of them.

Read. Reread. Ponder. And comment if you like any of them.

The older posts related to the quotes will be found here:

 

My Quotes VI

My Quotes V

My Quotes IV

My Quotes III

My Quotes II

My Quotes I

My Quotes VI

Few more posts for you…

 

• You are defined by who you laugh with, and what you laugh at.
• Humanity without humility is meaningless
• There is a difference between striving for perfection and being obsessed by perfection.
• Lead where needed. Follow where required.
• Life is a boat that sails on the waters of eternity.

It's Friday

There's a skip in my walk
A grin on my face
A tune on my lips
Cuz it's Friday!

There's cheer in my talk
Of weariness no trace
The world's on my finger tips
Cuz it's Friday!

No more looking at the clock
No more sitting in a daze
No more hunting for comic strips
Cuz it's Friday!

Monsoon

Drop by drop it falls
From the darkened sky
Hear the peacock's call
As he dances, his feathers fly

O! Look at the farmer
See the joy in his heart
The weather, like a charmer
plays his miraculous part

The season of monsoon
how fair it is
Just like a boon
Just like eternal bliss.

Agony

Once I loved you

Now I don't;

Once I believed you

Now, I won't.

There were days when

I always dreamt of you,

I don't dream now:

My sleeping hours are few

My life is fickle,

Only death is sure.

Your eyes were clear;

Your soul was pure.

On the beach 

Near the sea

You had said that

You'll be with me

I was the one

Who lived in your heart

Even God wouldn't

put us apart

That smile of yours

that made my day

Is no where to be seen

For you are far away

I just hate you

Why did you lie?

'We won't separate', you said

Then why did you die?

10 simple ways to get more out of your life

So you want more out of your life? And you are struggling to live life to the fullest? Fear not, here's a tried and tested list of how to live life to the fullest by simple means.

Maintain a Routine

1. Maintain a routine: Maintain a fixed routine. A proper wake up time, fixed meal times, and regular bed time. Trust me you won’t get anything done if you don’t follow a proper routine. If you wake up at 4:00am on one day and at 10:00am on another, your work, lifestyle, productivity and most importantly your health will suffer. If you want max out of your day. Follow. A. Routine.

Break the routine

2. Break that routine sometimes: Yes it is very important to follow the routine that you’ve set if you want a balanced and healthy life, but don’t be stuck up in it that the routine starts to take away your life. The routine should help you manage your life and your daily hours to do your best without turning you into a machine. Deviate from it once in a while.

Acquire a Hobby

3. Acquire a hobby: The one that can raise your mood, hold your interest, and help you through rough patches in life. A man without a hobby is a dead man. Develop interest in some art form or other activity and maintain and develop if all life long. The hobby will see you through your life when nothing else will.

Move on

4. Move on: Failed terribly in an attempt? Move on. Won that most coveted item? Move on. Fought with your parents/siblings/friends? Move on. Were just awarded ‘Employee of the Year’? Move on. Don’t rest on past laurels, don’t ponder on past mistakes. Just move on.

Be Yourself

5. Be yourself: I know you get that a lot. Especially on the internet. But that is because it is cent percent true. Be yourself. However stupid, lame, unpopular, idiotic, loser you may be considering yourself to be, just be yourself. Let the detrimental comments of others not affect you. Which does no mean you shouldn’t improve. It means be the best of you, but be yourself.

Expect Less

6. Expect Less: The more you expect something from someone the less likely you are to do it yourself and the more time you will waste in waiting for it to be done by the one you expect to do it. (Read again slowly.)

Smile

7. Smile: The single most important task of the day. Smile at the people you meet. It will brighten your own day too.

Don't Take Yourself too Seriously

8. Don't take yourself too seriously: Sometimes we tend to be too hard on ourselves. Cut yourself some slack. Give yourself a break. And enjoy life at its best.

9. Add life to each day: Whether it is making someone smile, or enjoying the rains or having a pillow fight, do something that doesn't make you feel like you wasted a day.

Do the best with what you have

10. Do the best with what you have: You may not have everything, every luxury or every facility in your life, but do the best with whatever you have. Be creative, be industrious and make the best with the given.

3 blogging mistakes that make you look dumb

So, you have a blog and you want to promote it and want a loyal readership, but do you may have no idea you are looking dumb to your prospective readers by doing some mistakes you weren't even aware of. Follow what is written below and you won't be a dumb blogger anymore!

1. Too many images spoil the blog: Unless you have a photography blog, having more images than the write up, is really not acceptable. Yes, a picture is worth a thousand words, but you must use it sparingly and appropriately. An image should be used to aid you post, to enhance the point you are trying to make, to add weight to what you are saying. It should however never distract your visitors from what you’ve written. A general rule to follow would be to have one image per 3-4 medium sized paragraphs if its a descriptive or creative post, one image per list item if its a list post.

2. Don’t litter your post with punctuations: Punctuations are important to convey breaks, ends, quotes in the written language. But overuse it and you have a dumb post. Ending your every line with ellipsis (…) or adding every third word within the quotation marks, misusing apostrophes, and using bold, italics and CAPS ON too often suffocates the blog post. Add ellipsis, use italics, but only and only when it is absolutely necessary and required to convey something and which adds to the meaning of what you want to say.

3. Don’t publish before thinking: So you went through a stupid situation and simply must vent out by writing down about it, or you were a part of some hilarious event that happened the other day and you want to share it with the world. So you write it down in one single sitting, quickly scan for misspellings and other bloopers and hit publish. And after 3 days, you wish you hadn’t! Think. Think every time before you publish any single post. Is this post going to cause me embarrassment in the future? Am I going to delete it/hide it/deny it five years down the line? If you answer yes to such questions, please do yourself a favor. Don’t publish it. Let it remain in your drafts. 

This isn’t an exhaustive list, there are many other ways you may look dumb on your blog, but in most cases follow the above 3 and you are safe (unless of course you have a great knack of cooking something dumb up in spite of all the precautions!).

Happy Blogging!