Tid Bit from My Diary

The sun rises every morning oblivious of billion worries of the people awaiting it. No matter how much people request him to come early or late, he remains unperturbed. He has a job to do and that is all that matters to him! I personally requested a late start during school exams or college submissions and am quite sure that many others have wished for the night to be a bit longer for a variety of reasons. Every night we sleep hoping that tomorrow’s Sun rays at the dawn will usher in a new day filled with opportunities and possibilities. This hope or faith keeps us going. But the dilemma here is do I sleep late or wake up early. A more important decision for to make is when to sleep late and when to get up early. A thought I had shared  earlier . The place where I live and work is amidst a high density residential tower block punctuated with roads and parking lots. The windows are thickly draped to keep the dust and heat off and therefore we are detached from the nature an...

Someone might ask what's special about today! Isn't it just a date in the calendar and another ploy by the capitalistic world to sell products or services?   I find this as an opportunity to reach out to all my friends. The ones always in my thoughts, the ones I meet regularly, the ones I would like to meet in the future and the ones I know I will never meet in this world. Today as the line between virtual and real is getting increasingly blurred, I also reach out to my friends in the cyber world ... my blogger friends, my social media friends and corporate friends... Happy Friendship Day 2018!

Google image search T he other night I woke up in my dreams to find out that I was not actually asleep but wide awake . Although quite baffling, it is not very uncommon and probably many among us have encountered similar moments at some point in our sleep. Dreams are yet another aspect of our life, over which we have little control. We can accomplish many feats in our dreams which would otherwise appear unthinkable. “ Dreams come true ” is therefore synonymous to accomplishing something truly marvelous. All ancient culture tried to make sense of their dreams and their interpretation have been carried forward by their descendants. Depending upon happy or sad events that followed a particular dream, cultures created their own almanac of superstitions. We too have grown up drawing various inferences out of elements such as water, food, snakes, elephants etc. and associated action that appeared in our dreams. Our ancestors connected dreams to our previous birth, forewarning or ...

W hen we were small we believed that our father will protect us whenever we though we will fall. For us he was not only our superman but a super human. Its only after one becomes a father himself, that he understand a father's true vulnerability, weakness and his limitations. You realize the sacrifices he had to make while walking a tight rope as he struggled to maintain the balance between relationship, finances, priorities of life, time management et al. I remember the look my then infant daughter gave me when she was vaccinated for the first time. As if her eyes were questioning me, how could you ever let them hurt me ! When I look back at those wonder years, I understand my dad a bit more each time. But its too late as he left us for the heavenly abode as soon as I graduated and started with my job denying me the opportunity to give back anything. I wish he was still there and I could treat him, take care of him and hug him! Happy Father's Day wishes to o...

The name was not very common to my ears neither was its look to my eyes. Ever since I saw them at the Aspire Park in Doha, I might has asked my Landscape Architect friend umpteen number of times to remind me of the name of this tree. He used to give me the name with the questions, “why, what happened?” I always wanted to know more about them. I am told that we have a few of the species in some botanical gardens in India but incidentally never got to see one. “There are  nine species of baobab  in the world, and Madagascar, one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots, is home to six. The African mainland and the Arabian peninsula have two, and Australia has one. Africa’s most notable species is the  Adansonia digitata , named after the French botanist Michel Adanson, who undertook an 18th-century exploration of Senegal. He stayed there for five years and contributed to the publication of 1757’s Natural History of Senegal.” theguardian.com ) The shape of the trees...

The most explicit definition of Sustainable living that I ever came across is the following: “Meeting our present needs in a way such that the coming generation would be able to meet their own.” Our generation is selfishly rushing to achieve their self-defined illusive “Progress”. In the process we are mercilessly converting our farmlands, wetlands, forests and water bodies destroying the natural habitat of our co-dwellers in this earth. On the 5 th of June 2018, this World Environment Day, I request all to take a moment out to decide where we want to go from here. We need to be wary of finding our environmental report card in the hands of our grandchildren and decide between growth and development. Growth is all about getting bigger and bigger whereas development is about getting better. I have no qualms in accepting the fact that it will take a messiah to change the world totally and revert the damages already done. But no one can stop us from participa...

The school that my daughter attends for music decided to participate in the annual day celebrations of a school for children with special needs . When it was their turn, they got to the stage and stood shoulder to shoulder with the choir group of the celebrating school. Together they presented the popular song, “ What a wonderful world” by Louis Armstrong. I felt it was quite an intense and emotional experience for all the participants as well as their parents. As they sang together “I see trees of green, red roses too I see them bloom for me and you And I think to myself what a wonderful world……” it was a defining experience for those kids who had little idea about the challenges associated with the term “ special needs ”. But this is not the subject of this post. In preparation of the program, the teacher in charge had formed a group in the “WhatsApp”. She coordinated with the parent of this small group of voluntary participants letting us know about the time to drop-...