Tu hi mere liye ab kar dua...

Last saturday, I completed my 5th fall in the same month for the first time... Yes I do keep on falling here and there, hurting myself every time, but 5th time in a single month is really too much. Normally I have a quota for 2 max 3 falls in a month, my friends even call me giri hui ladki jo humesha girti rehti hai :( but I really cant help it.

There must be something really weird about either my mind or my attention... Falling down while walking on the normal road, just vanishing in a 5ft deep pot hole (thanks to the road work going on since last one year in Kothrud), sliding from stairs, hitting my head on doers, all these things are routine for me... resulting in some fractures, all those blue-red-black marks and pain!!!

If anyone has any medicine/upay on this do let me know...otherwise as usual I keep on telling my parents n bro, keep on praying for me, atleast I would like to spend a single month without falling down or hitting my head anywhere....

Those cute lil things in life :)

Last week when I was at my home, my nephew came to me and declared that he is in love with one of his classmates. It was time for us to get shocked as he is just 6 yrs old. :) At the same time it was funny indeed to heard this from him.

Thanks to our bollywood movies and tv serials, we realize the concepts of love and affairs at quite an early stage of life... I mean yes I was also in love for the first time during my fourth standard. Love, crush, whatever they call it, that was not the time/age to think of it.

We were friends but always used to keep on fighting and beating each other for more marks, same place, same attention etc etc. I remember, one day my other friend asked me, haven't you seen the movies? Nafrat pyar ki pehli seedi hoti hai...n tum log itna zagadate ho that means you are in love... and banggg... I realized I was in love. Though I didn't tell him anything about it and even today I don't know what he used to think of it... we are still great friends.

After fourth, I changed my school and went to a girls school. All those five years I spent with girls changed my attitude. We treated ourselves like the greatest, intelligent, adorable creatures of god and nothing in the world can reach us. Eventually we evolved a theory that we don't need any boys and we can rule the world. That made us really arrogant in the boy's world. I don't exactly remember now why and how we developed this theory but it was fun dealing with such a feeling :P

I took almost 2 years to overcome this attitude after my school was over and to get habitual to the co-ed system. When I was in first year of my college, I fell in love again... On the very first day, a boy from final year helped me with the class directions and gave me some information about the teachers we are going to get. He was cool and I had "love" at first site :P Again I didn't tell him anything but as the year passed my friends told me he is a bf material and not a husband material. (yeah i forgot to mention, we had created certain categories of boys and used to apply it on every single guy we met. Based on the results we used to decide what kind of relation we can develop with that guy... It's so habitual that today as well my mind applies one of the category to every guy coming in my life :) It's a bit confidential so can't share all those categories ;) ) During second year, I used to like a boy but was a sacred to approach him... and nothing happened in third year :S

Later on when I joined my first company, I had a crush on 2 guys at the same time...that made me think, as per kuch kuch hota hai, love happens only once...is that really true? As time passed, I came to know that thin line between love and crush and started thinking maturely. But whatever it is, it at least gives some inspiration and there is something happening in life :)

No matter how much we grow.. still when I see any impressive guy, a though comes to mind - yes this is the guy... and I fall in love over and over again :P

Why Seven???

I happened to go for a wedding a few days ago. As we knew during Indian weddings, we have 7 rounds (which we call fere or Saptapadi) around the fire and then bride and groom ties a knot for lifetime. I was wondering why do we have 7 feres and not 6 or 8... Then I realized, there are many things which are 7.... wanna check? Lets start from the wedding rounds itself.


1. Saptapadi in weddings.
Initially I used to think as normally people say there are 7 human births a person can have. So each round might be a replica of each birth. But when I asked my grandpa, he said, with each round a couple makes a vow to establish a happy married life. These includes - providing proper food, being strong and complement to one another, being blessed with prosperity, being eternally happy, being blessed with children, living in perfect harmony and finally being always the best of friends.


2. Seven days in a week
Have you ever wondered why there are seven days in a week? There were atleast 9 planets identified when the days, weeks and years into place, then why not 9 days in week, why 7? It may be due to the association of the seven celestial beings (the visible planets plus the Sun and the Moon) with deities in the minds of humans from probably an early stage in the development of intelligence up to the time of the advent of modern science. As we all know they include Sun, moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn


3. Seven wonders of the world
The number seven was chosen for this because the Greeks believed it to be the representation of perfection and plenty. However it still continues and now we have different sets of wonders but in number 7 :) like 7 wonders of ancient world, 7 wonders of medieval world, 7 wonders of modern world and etc. etc.


4. Seven colors in a rainbow.
Scientifically, there are many colours in a rainbow, almost infinite if you want to look very very closely. However we only have specific common words for 7 of them, and thus it is commonly known that a rainbow has the 7 colours red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. All the rest we dont see because they are too far away. Again why there are 7 common words for colors is again a mistery...


5. 7 Sur in music (Saptasur)
Indian Music has Saptak Swaras octats (sa re ga ma pa dha ni) which are basics of music, using which hundreds of ragas are composed. The seven notes of the scale (swaras), in Indian music are named shadja, rishabh, gandhar, madhyam, pancham, dhaivat and nishad, usually shortened to Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, and Ni and written S, R, G, M, P, D, N. Collectively these notes are known as the sargam (the word is an acronym of the consonants of the first four swaras)


6. Seven deadly sins
Wrath (Anger), Greed (a sin of excess), Sloth (neglecting what God has spoken, and being physically and emotionally inactive), Pride, Lust, Envy and gluttony (over-indulgence) are supposed to be seven deadly sins in the world.


7. Seven spirits of god
As per the old mythes there are seven spirits of god, which include the Spirit of the Lord; the Spirit of wisdom; the Spirit of understanding; the Spirit of counsel; the Spirit of might; the Spirit of knowledge and the Spirit of the fear of the LORD.


Also, as per Hinduism, there are seven worlds in the universe, seven seas in the world and seven Rishies (seven gurus) called sapta rishis. The sapta rishis include Bhrigu, Atri, Angirasa, Vasishta, Pulastya, Pulalaha and Kratu. There are seven virtues as per the catholic history including faith, hope, love, patience, kindness, courage and justice. According to Arthur M. Young there are seven levels of evolution. According to Charles Muses there is a seven-dimensional Q-universe which is the master control center of our 3-d universe.There are seven step pyramids in Mexico, seven step ziggurats of Mesopotamia. And the mystery of number Seven continues :)

Travel Diaries 1 - New Orleans, France

There is always something in life to be happy about....
June last week was one of the best weeks of my life. I was in France for a training session, though it turned out to be a great short trip for all of us :) It was a first onsite experience for some of us, so with a bit excitement we did all the R&D required.

The place we lived was Orleans, a small, beautiful city located on the Loire river. Situated about 130 kms from Paris, Orleans is a great place with a rich history. You can find very well structured roads, trams connecting all the city quite finely and grand cathedrals. Along with Paris and Roune, Orleans was among the three richest cities in middle age. After the heavy bomb crash on the city during world war 2nd by American air force, this was the first to rebuild with a great and strategic reconstruction and city improvement plan.

We reached Orleans on Saturday noon, so we had all the weekend to explore the city. The day in Orleans starts at around 5 Am and sun sets almost after 10 Pm, providing the longest day span. It was really surprising to us when we saw all the streets empty during the saturday-sunday as if there was a curfew. The beautiful houses seemed as if no one has lived over there for past few months. We were the only people roaming around there. Later on our french teammate told us that people from the city are quite family oriented and enjoy spending time at home with their families rather than roaming around. The only place where we could see some people were the malls at city center. But as the city was really striking and we being a cool group (:P) , enjoyed it the most!

From Monday, it was a time for Orleans jazz festival.
They have this festival at the start of summer. It was the best treat for us to enjoy good jazz music, see people dancing and celebrating on the road. The quiet and peaceful city suddenly turned into a great celebration with people enjoying there most and having the best days of their life. Apart from jazz, we listened all types of music and danced on various french and english tunes. (and yes it was really great having our italy and china team as well during our typical Mumbaiya dance :) )

Sharing some of the snaps of city that we tried to explore in our 5 days span over there :)

Miracles do happen.

Currently I am reading a book - Breaking Dawn. The last one in Twilight saga.
I always like such difference making stories. I mean an encounter between a normal human girl and a vampire who tries very hard to keep away from the delicious smell of her blood. Then their out of the world love story. Her best friend turning into a warewolf trying to resist falling in love with her human friend and a love triangle between human girl, vampire and a warewolf...Interesting hmmmm... And beyond that when I started reading the last book, there comes a new twist with the vampire baby...

I was wondering about such miracles which can happen only in books or movies but then I realized miracles do happen in our day to day life. Rising Sun giving joy and energy to the world, magical colorful petals of flowers opening with the rising sun, the seasons we enjoy in an year....aren't all these things a miracle? (Now science freak people will tell me the reasons behind all these things happening around but as I said earlier, I do believe in miracles.)
A little cute baby forming in moms comb, trying to walk, learning to eat, play, talk in childhood, getting a great family and awesome friends, mom-dad's care, warmth at home, enjoying fighting with bros and sis, feeling totally relaxed and happy by just a smile of your friends, I feel all these things are miracles. Music that makes us feel happy, hobbies we enjoy, games we play... We do consider all this as a routine life because it keeps on happening everyday around us and we neglect the importance of such things.

Someone has said it very correctly : Don't look too far for miracles, it's right next to you...and I do believe it.... Do you?

A rocking evening for a great cause....

On Sunday, we celebrated third annual day of AksharBharti (AB) at Pune. Akshar Bharti is an NGO which works for underprivileged kids from remote areas providing them with a set of various books. It is an initiative to nurture the reading habits in children between age group 5-15 years. We had various kids activities like preparing scientific toys, quiz based on general knowledge and some presentations for their teachers in the morning session. The evening session came with a rocking fun having the Avdhoot Gupte and Troop for supporting the noble cause. It was a fantastic eve for volunteers as well, as the program was a big success and we got to tune and dance on the AVG songs rhythm :)

It's been a great time for me being with AB since last 2 years. We set up a few libraries in various regions like Bhor, Yamagarwadi, Dhankavdi, Yeravada Jail, Hinjewadi etc. some of them with Cognizant and some with IBM. Every time I went for a library set up, it gave me a unique experience and showed a new side of a life. It's really a great learning being with kids, understanding their background, dealing with their issues, spending the most amazing time of your life with them and most importantly observing a smile on their face and knowing the reason behind it is you...believe me, it's an experience which I really can't express in words. Every new chapter of AB brings a new story for me and I always keep on waiting for such new things. You can get it's more information on www.aksharbharati.org

One more cool poem

This one I got while surfing on net.... Truly beautiful poem with a great thought..

Who are you to judge me,
Based on the way I look,
Do you always judge a story,
By the cover of the book?

Who are you to judge me,
By the way I dress and what I wear?
Who are you to judge me,
By the way I wear my hair?

Who are you to judge me,
By the things you imagine I do?
When you don't bother to figure out for sure,
What exactly is or isn't true...

That's my point,
You're no one at all,
You judge me for one reason,
So you can feel tall...

You judge me because you want to,
And because it makes you feel better inside,
Because my imperfections aren't yours,
But your flaws won't always hide...

I'm my own judge,
And you're your own too,
So judge yourself,
And the things that you do...

Because I'm tired of being judged,
By people who think they know me,
Who refuse to judge themselves,
Because they aren't as perfect as they could be...