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If you had a choice, what would you dream about tonight?

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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 ...

A tribute on Father's Day

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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...

Baobab - A fascinating Species

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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...

World Environment Day: Wish you a sustainable lifestyle

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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...

WhatsApp and What a Wonderful World……

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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-...

Culturally diverse? Yes Please!

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Let's start this topic with a quote from Jane Austen. “ There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. ” she said and argued “ I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature. ” That's probably how most of us as Indians feel about our culture except a few who thinks differently. I have been living outside the country for more than two decades and have met many people who has left the country temporarily or permanently who echoes the same sentiment. One thing that unites us all is the our culture no matter how diverse we are in our thoughts, beliefs, language or appearance. Yes we are still culturally diverse although many of our festivals and values are now intertwined across the subcultures.  But retaining this trait for a country of India's complexity and volume withstanding resistance from people who quite often spew venom in the social media is quite an commendable achievement. I once listened to an interview and one stat...

Writer's Block or Writer's Excuse

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Finally I looked up for its literal meaning in the Wikipedia. I believe it was a subconscious instruction to my fingers to confirm what my mind had been suspecting for some time now. Writer's block is a condition, primarily associated with writing, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work, or experiences a creative slowdown. The condition ranges in difficulty from coming up with original ideas to being unable to produce a work for years. Throughout history, writer's block has been a documented problem.   As if finding a subject was not difficult enough that my mind also insists on justifying that with reasons before it would let me get going with my writing task.  This makes maintaining a blog even more challenging.  I am sure, I am not the only one who feels this way and envy those who keeps churning post after posts day after day. There was a time when one used to approach the proverbial wise-man, who could easily been a woman too, for support a...