Off Appriciation

We are in a constant need of a moral booster, and in most cases from someone else! My observations go in favor of - "Appreciation is (for some odd reason taken to be as) the best motivation!" I do agree that appreciation is one of the ways of getting encouraged, but it's certainly not the end of the list. And more important, not the best means!

Since the focus is on appreciation in this post, lets try and define what is appreciation,  deeper and relevant to us in the real sense. One of the dictionary explanations says - "Appreciation is the recognition of the quality, value, significance, or magnitude of people and things." Keeping this as the background, 2 things should be taken into consideration - First, that of the periphery of judging the performance on quality, value, significance or magnitude; and secondly, who is appreciating in the same periphery.


So why is the periphery so important? Simply because it avoids vagueness, brings in more clarity, and defines the limits of evaluation. And the other side of the same coin is the auditor. It sounds such a perfect form of moral booster if it goes this way! 


Given the abusing of this term off late, it only makes me wonder - of what importance is an appreciation which has no authenticity? 

Time to wake up

Its all around us and a common thing in our world,
To see destruction of nature, heritage and human lives.
The survivors of destruction are homeless, hungry and thirsty!
Is this the way we want to leave behind our history?

All succeeding generations learn from the past,
For building their worlds on what we leave behind.
What do we have for them apart from mass destruction?
Is there any good to over power our evil for their selection?


Let us think, let us act and let us rebuild
A place which will make us feel our life had a purpose,
We did live for a cause and made better future,
And we created history our children would like to nurture!


Time to wake up and change the world before the end of our time!
Time to wake up and swear off to eradicate the evil slime!

Touch me not

I couldn't stop myself from capturing this, while passing by one of the most emotion displaying plant - Touch me not... :-)

It reminds me of a lovely line I once learnt long time back. 'John Keats' writes in his 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' - "Beauty is truth, truth beauty - that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." (Meaning - "Beauty is nothing but the truth around you. Like wise, no matter what it is, if it is the truth, it has to be beautiful.")

p.s: It's amazing to understand the same lines in an entirely different perspective which you had before! :-)

-Thekkady, Kerala (August 2011)

In your remembrance...

Rohan Gaekwad

It is hard to say good bye... And it so happened last week (20-07-2011) I was in a state of confusion, shock, sorrow, helplessness and all other emotions that take away your happiness, when I got to know that he is no more with us!

Yet another time uncertainty strikes and reality appears in a way it never did before! There is no speculation about tomorrow and there is no way you can alter yesterday! How many times do we spend in thinking about the two, and forget about living today! How many times do we worry about what is not with us yet, than celebrate what we already have?

Rohan was a gem of a person, an artist and a dear friend! The only person who called me "Kavita" as his special pet name!! I don't even remember how I got baptized that way by him - may be because I loved his poems! I always addressed him as a "Kavi"! :-) Though I am shattered to bits by his absence from our lives, it feels right to remember your loved ones by their happy memories! I shall always carry his smiling face till my last day...

I am trying my hand at expressing myself in his area of expertise - poetry. And a promise that though he won't be with us anymore, his journey of life shall continue in our hearts forever...

प्रिया माझा कवी,

एका दिवसात शिकवलस आयुष्याचं सार,

जीवनाचे क्षण मोजके असतात फार.

दिवस नसतात ठरवत आपण किती जगलो,

जर प्रत्येक वाटेचा क्षण पूर्णपणे भोगलो.

नाती गोती नुसती राक्तांचीच नसतात,

मन जोडलेली नाती देखील घट्ट असतात.

दुरावा जरी भूमी जागो जागी भरत असते,

मैत्री नेहमीच हि अंतरं मिटवत असते.

खंत फक्त एवढीच, कि इथे तू दिसणार नाहीस,

पण तुझ्या आठवणींना मी कधी विसरणार नाही.

असेच कधी मिळत नसतात मित्र सोन्या सारखे,

जीवा पलीकडे जपीन मी हे ऋणानुबंध आपले.

- तुझीच

कविता

Foundations of a great relationship

Traveling together is not only a great space to "catch up" on sharing the latest updates, but also a place where you can have extremely interesting uninterrupted discussions! It so happened on a recent trip with my Uncle, where we began with realizing that it was our very first journey together in so many years. And then we really don't remember how we reached to one of the most memorable discussions on "foundations of great relationships".

Stating one's relationships are strong or good is an absolute vague statement in itself. And most of the times we come across people who are rather over confident in saying so. But I am unsure how many of them can actually say the same thing after going through the following questions to themselves!

1. Sharing - It's a two way road. It doesn't take you anywhere in a relationship if sharing is not from both the persons on an equal wave length and seriousness. Only one way sharing cannot confirm that the relationship is deep enough.
2. Security - How much "me" space is given to the other person. This can be in 2 parts. One, that of between the two people concerned. Two, that of the other person's personal choices and preferences individually. And then the association of security to this is, in the form of, how this space is respected. For example, being possessive, insistence of being the "only one", not approving of someone else being more important in the other person's life and anything that falls in this category, simply manifests an in-secured relationship.
3. Criticism - The ability, freedom and intention of criticism also defines the depth of a relationship. How well one can take the criticism and make critical comments without hurting the bond actually proves the strength of one's relationship.
4. Comparison - Declaring that the relationship is "best" stops it from evolving further! It is not a constant phenomenon to tag it with a status. Relationships grow with age, experiences, crises and many variable elements per say. And further to it, comparing two relationships is insulting both independently as well as combined! Every relationship is unique to the people and only between the two of them! The only acceptable comparison of a relationship would be to compare its yesterday to its today!

That brings us to the fact that most of the times these questions result into confronting experiences to which most are averse to! But I feel those who can pass this through with genuine feeling of improvement, can actually reach a certain level of establishing special relationships! :-)

- Mumbai to Nashik (April 2011)

Mugdho the great! :-)

This is a video captured by my cousins when they did not believe what my dear sister was capable of doing! She claimed to have trained our pet dog to open the door all by himself. Check out his adorable expressions and unbelievable skills of opening the door! ;-) :-D

p.s: Muggi, you are simply great! :-)

Powerful Generation Powerless

Generations bring along changes in the lifestyles, beliefs, values and anything that goes with society. In spite of this constant change, it is surprising to see some traditions remaining unchanged. I accept that traditions are an integral part of a society, or to be precise, they are the concepts by the people at a point in time to bring peace and order in their community. Which by the way, are most of the times devoid of any laws and scientific logics.

To talk of just one aspect, in this post, I would limit the views to Marriages only. And to avoid the disparity between the social orbits, I would further limit it to the educated class only. My questions begin right from the way marriages take place these days. Against the elaborations, I shall raise my questions to the generation I belong to...

The financial responsibility and dowry over the Bride's family. Yes, it is surprising but it still persists in today's marriages. This tradition has its roots from the time when gender discrimination was strongly prevalent and women were married off at the tender age of 10-12 years. Dowry was a security given by the father to his daughter for her future. Is any of these situations even relevant today? Women are highly educated and well placed with their careers before they take the plunge. Why provide her with the future security when she does not need it? Also, women have all the say to choose their life partners. Marriage transforms life of both, the man and the woman, then why only the Bride's family be responsible? Isn't it an unfair thing to do?

All the rituals and ceremonies last for 2-3 days, and it is simply blamed upon the "Traditions". Ever wondered why this tradition was introduced? It was because, in those times, the Bride and the Groom used to meet during the marriage days only. In the times of child marriages, the families used to help them get comfortable with each other. Today, in case of love marriages, couples know too much of each other to even demand this time to "get comfortable with one another". And in case of Arranged Marriages, there are enough courting opportunities to "get comfortable" with each other! Besides, how many of our generation follow the rituals in our daily routines? Then why begin your new life with something you never follow or most of the times never believe in?

Our generation is extremely challenging in almost all the aspects of life! Then what holds us from asking questions when it comes to natural justice with respect to equality? Why cant the expenses be equally shared? Why should the parents take the financial responsibility when most of the times, they are not even making the choice of their children's spouses? Why can't men who are favored in the rituals take a lead to make a change in the way the preceding generation views all these traditions close to their heart? Why can't women put their foot down when they are being portrayed as the weaker sex and dependent on men for existence? It is highly disappointing to see this "Powerful Generation" I belong to, not questioning these baseless traditions even once before being a part of the entire farce!

To Sir, With love...

I promised my Sir to gift him a painting on the completion of his life's half century! :-) Here it is!! :-)

Fortunate!

"If you have food in your fridge, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of the entire world. If you have money in your wallet, a little change and can go anywhere you want, you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy. If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than the million people who won't survive this week and die. If you can actually read this message and understand it, you are more fortunate than the 3 billion people in the world who cant see, dont know english or suffer being mentally retarded! Life is not about the list of pains... Its about a 1000 other reasons to be happy!"

p.s: Hats off to the mind who thought of these facts!

Sweet Tweet!

Researches claim that the sudden disappearance of sparrows is due to the extensive use of pesticides and the large no. of mobile towers that emit waves proving fatal for their survival! This is a video I could capture very closely from where the sparrow was!

Are the technological developments benefiting us in real sense of the term? Or are we slow poisoning our own mother earth?

My sincere thanks to her for posing for my camera! :-) There was a time when we used to wake up to real twitters!!