Leave poor Britney alone

Each day when I switch on the TV, I find the media gleefully relating some ‘juicy’ story or the other about Britney Spears. I'm pained to hear about her so called escapades day in and day out. Seeing the paparazzi hounding her like she's some demigod really gets my goat. Society is so driven by sensation that everyone is out to make a fast buck from her travails. Can’t you see, the anguished girl desperately needs some privacy? If this continues, I’m afraid she may meet the same fate as Princess Diana, another tortured soul.
I know Britney spells big business, but she really ought to be left alone. Why make her larger than life only to intensify her suffering? After all she is a mere human. Because of her mental health issues, the poor lost soul needs help and she probably needed it long before it ever got to this point. She is often criticized about mishandling her children. Who are we to be judgemental? For all you know, her weird actions may be a manifestation of her strong maternal instinct which is making the loss of custody of her children extremely painful for her. Probably, I would’ve reacted the same way too had I been in her shoes. It’s a good thing that her parents have taken charge of her now and are trying to cajole her into quitting show biz. Rather than criticize her, we should pray that she regains her mental sanity so that she is able to turn her life around not only for herself, but for her precious little kids as well.
Paparazzi lay your hands off her for God’s sake.

Better be safe than sorry

Here are some pearls of wisdom for young ladies on the brink of matrimony.
Before tying the knot, ask yourselves the following questions.

• Are we really on the same wavelength?
• Are our values in sync with each others?
• Are both of us aware of each other’s financial status?
• Are we prepared to make compromises during the initial teething phase?
• Would he be cool with my desire to work after marriage/kids?
• Can he put up with my relatives and can I put up with his?
• Have we discussed our own and our family health histories?
• Have we discussed whether we want kids and if so how many and how we want to raise them?
• Do I know how he’ll feel if I keep my last name?
• If I had problems with his parents, would he stand up for me or would I have to fight for myself?
• Do we plan on having separate bank accounts or creating one that we will share?
• Do I feel comfortable marrying into his social circle and he into mine?
• Do we have similar ideas on what quality leisure time is and how our vacations should be spent?
• Does he take responsibility for his mistakes or does he just stonewall me?
• Is my commitment strong enough for me to still be with him say fifty years from now?

If your answers convince you that everything is hunky dory, go right ahead and take the plunge, if not, then you have to give your relationship a serious rethink for it is always better to be safe than to be sorry.

Feed the world with Free Rice

A friend of mine told me about this interesting site, http://freerice.com/. It has a vocabulary game and for every right answer that you click, you help donate 20 grains of rice through the United Nations to feed the world's poor and hungry.

What do you get out of it? Well, its fun and stimulates your brain, it makes you smarter. It may also improve your speaking, writing, thinking, grades, job performance etc. etc...So now I'm having a great time, improving my vocabulary and helping wipe out the world's hunger ! Go ahead and try it. It's enjoyable and absolutely free.

Do something different this Valentine’s Day

Here are some suggestions on how you can break the strangle-hold of consumerism on Valentine's Day and let your own heart do the talking.
• Instead of the prosaic red roses, why not be a little imaginative and get a potted plant with a pretty flower or some wild flowers collected from a meadow or a park?
• Words sound much better when they are heartfelt and come from within. Speaking out what you feel will be cherished by your loved one. However, if you are really keen on giving a card, fashion one yourself. All the love that you pour into it while making it is well worth the pain and is much more valuable than those false, over priced, mushy, readymade cards.
• A candlelit dinner in a restaurant, on every Valentine’s Day, sounds so cliché and boring. Here’s a tip you’ll never tire of thanking me for. Why not ‘cook’ up a storm at home? Put on your aprons, whip up a meal of the dishes both of you love, set a table for two with candles, romantic music, champagne n all and see how the magic unfolds. The fun and excitement of cooking together, the disasters in the process and the efforts at salvaging the meal, the laughter, the friendly banter and the ribbing will all add to the enchantment and make the day a memorable one.

Anti-Valentine's Day??

Valentine’s Day has been made into one of the most wasteful occasions around... think about not just where all those gifts are coming from, but how they're packaged, how long they last and how meaningless it is when they're delivered more of out of fear of a backlash from a loved one than because it is something special.
This is what I call “socialized consumerism” unleashed by the media in connivance with the concerned businesses who will have us believe that it is not the little things you do every day that shows you care, but how much green (as in moolah) you surrender.
Since we're falling for it, hook, line and sinker, they're inventing new 'special days' to mop up what's left of our savings.
The concept of Valentine’s Day wasn't much heard of in India a couple of decades back….was the bond of love between couples any less then? Definitely not.
I know my starry eyed daughter will disagree with me totally. Sweetheart, fire away your salvo. I'm all ears (& eyes) !

Overcoming Loneliness

Whenever I am overwhelmed with loneliness and desperately feel the need for company in this cold, desolate foreign land, I find solace in the following prayer.

"Almighty God, enter my heart and mind so that I no longer feel so alone in the world. Let me have patience with myself so that I learn to enjoy my own company. Be the light in my life, so that the darkness of my heart will be illuminated by your love for me. Grant me the hope to know that I will not always be alone. Help me make friends that love me for who I am and not for what I do. Let me grow in wisdom and love for other people so that I can become a light to others. Amen."

Mithais anyone?

I guess, we Indians are a pretty resilient lot and can survive in any condition..
Living in Canada, at a place which is very far away from that part of the town where most South Asians live and where you can find a couple of Indian sweet shops, selling exhorbitantly priced sweets, one does pine for our delectable Indian ‘mithais’. Well, necessity is the mother of invention, you know. When the urge to sample our sweets gets the better of me, I just browse through the net and inevitably find some beautiful site which gives me a blow by blow account of how to go about making these objects of my desire. Yesterday I made a batch of the most divine gulab jamuns on earth and along with that went my New Year resolution. Believe me, they were awesome and no one would have guessed that it was my first shot at making them. I tell you, I'm turning out to be quite a Cordon Bleau ‘halwai’ and may very soon open a ‘halwai ki dukan’ of my own! Then poor ‘Desis’ like me won’t have to go haring across to the other end of the town to satisfy their sweet cravings!

Have to let you on to a little secret; I've also learnt to make the most scrumptious samosas and chat. Isn't that just cool?

Ginger bread house- My stress buster

Strange how sometimes the most innocuous of things can help relieve you of your stress.

Last month, I helped my niece and her friends in making a gingerbread house. Boy! did they have fun?
It was delightful watching the pure joy of the kids as they designed and assembled the house, set up the roof and then decorated the whole thing with candy ornaments.
It was a very messy affair though and the little ones had a hard time not licking the 'glue' which was made of flavoured icing! The house reverberated with their laughter and their excitement was certainly infectious ... I felt a strange kind of exhilaration and joy that I hadn't felt in a long, long time.
The end result was very pretty, colourful and eyecatching and I marvelled at the creativity of these little seven year olds. My niece looked as pleased as punch and proudly showed off her creation to her parents and elder sis.

I felt so light hearted after this and realised that my stress had just miraculously faded away.
On her next birthday, I'm planning to get her a three tiered cake covered with hot pink icing and give her all the paraphernalia required to decorate it so that she and her gang can doll it up to their heart's content.
Wouldn't that be just lovely?
This is what their gingerbread house looked like.

No Monkey Business This!

As the Bhajji-Symonds issue gets messier, there is a new twist in the tale. Apparently Bhajji hurled the Punjabi expletive “maa ki” and not “monkey" on Symonds.
Whereas both these words do not qualify as “racist slurs” in the Indian context, they are expletives all the same and the two players should have refrained from hurling abuses at each other. Mild sledging to a certain extent is acceptable but things should not be blown out of proportion.
Ricky Ponting’s complaint has opened a 'racist can of worms' which is not going to be forgotten in a hurry as it clearly has the makings of an Australia Vs Asia-West Indies showdown. As I see it, it’s going to be the Aussies’ loss all the way if they are boycotted by other cricket playing nations.
All sports should be played in the right spirit and and there ought to be healthy competition between players. And yes, we don't want 'whiners' around...test cricket is a game that ought to be played by sensible adults who know how to settle their differences amicably in the field itself.
Ricky Ponting are you listening?

Cruel Teens

Here is a shocking piece of news I heard the other day. There has been a case of severe animal cruelty perpetrated by a group of 15 year olds who thought it would be fun to break into a private residence and torture the family cat by placing it in a microwave oven and killing it.I was appalled by this utter callousness.
Any normal person cannot help but feel great sorrow for the terror and pain this poor animal experienced.I wonder how these kids would feel if someone stuffed them into a microwave and turned it on.
I think they will be let off lightly as they are minors. This is not right, for those who inflict deliberate pain and suffering on any animal deserve to be treated with no sympathy. Studies have shown that those who commit such horrific acts of cruelty against animals in their younger days usually continue with their violent actions later in life against humans.
I honestly feel that this should be viewed very seriously and the offenders awarded a much heavier penalty. They ought to be publicly humiliated as this would offer their peers and other youth a powerful deterrent in performing similiar senseless crimes.In my opinion,responsibility in such cases lies partially in the hands of the parents. Qualities like kindness, empathy, generosity and compassion must be inculcated in our youth. What are we spawning? A generation of ferocious, barbaric brutes??

Happy Birthday Mama

Today is my mother’s 74th birthday.
Mama,thank you for the sacrifices that you have made for us sisters and for instilling in us such good values.
I realise your worth and understand the greatness of your MKD all the more now that I’m the mother of grown up kids.
Here is a small poem to felicitate you, the BEST mother in the world.

"Mother" is such a simple word,
But for me it is like a keyword,
For everything I am today,
My mother’s love showed me the way.
I’ll love my mother all my days,
For enriching my life in so many ways.
She set me straight and then set me free,
And that’s what the word "mother" means to me.
Thanks for being a wonderful mother, Mama!
I love you with all my heart.

My New Year Resolve: A New ME

Once again, my resolution for 2008 is the same old one of losing weight. I know it’s easier said than done since I’ve been battling a losing battle with my bulges for quite some time now. I’m not as strong as my elder sister who has lost oodles of weight and still manages to keep them off. Oh! How I envy her...wish she could take away some of my pounds...This year, I have set more realistic goals for myself which I have written down on a beautiful piece of paper with the picture of the girl above next to it and have stuck it on my refrigerator with the hope that every day it will give me a kick right where I need it, and motivate me to go to the gym, avoid sweets and eat more fruits and vegetables! Hope this year at least I have the determination to make my weight loss dream come true. I so want to be thin, remain thin and above all, feel thin. Wish me luck...puhleese...

Not without my daughter- A gripping story of a woman's ordeal

Hi there, folks, sorry for the long silence. Hope all of you had a great holiday. With the family at home on vacation, I kind of had my hands full. However, I managed to snatch some time to read this beautiful book by Betty Mahmoody, ‘Not Without My Daughter’. A must read, it is a touching real life tale of grit and determination in the face of extenuating circumstances.
"Moody" is an Iranian doctor living in America with his American wife Betty and their child Mahtob. Wanting to visit his homeland again, he convinces his wife to take a short holiday there with him and Mahtob. Betty is reluctant, as Iran was not supposed to be a pleasant place, especially for an American female. Upon arrival in Iran, it appears that her worst fears are realized;To her horror, she finds herself and her four-year-old daughter, Mahtob, virtual prisoners of a man rededicated to his Shiite Muslim faith, in a land where women are near-slaves and Americans are despised. Moody declares that they will be living there from now on. Betty is determined to escape from Iran, but taking her daughter with her presents a larger problem.
I found this book very inspirational. It reminded me of how one can be faced with situations which really galvanise our strengths and focus our values.It also made me thank my stars that I don't have to ever face what Betty had to.
Go ahead and read the book, it is a gripping page turner. I grade this book as the best one I've ever read. I feel that each mother should gift it to her young daughter. It teaches one to be strong and fight against all odds.It has been made into a movie starring Sally Fields and Alfred Molina. I've posted the trailer above.Don’t miss it too.