my god and your god!!!!!
my last post was on Providence. it is not that i am a very spiritual kind but yes off and on depending on the situation and challenges i resort to the concept of almighty! people who are reading this post, some of them may feel i am such an opportunist that even did not restrain myself from taking advantage of GOD :)
well, GOD.....i have tried to visualize the concept called GOD. though i have not read any books of religion or attended the discourses of spiritual gurus (pardon me, but none of them who are available to public domain appeal to me) or being to any ashram but in my understanding of religion and GOD so far, i adore Kabir's concept of GOD - moko kahan dhoondhe bande mai to tere paas mein , na main mandir na mai masjid na kabe kailas mein....in std VI or VII i guess, i read these lines in the hindi text book.(CBSE had a chapter on dohas for these classes) and since then this concept appealed to me more than any other. not that i follow the nirgun line of thoughts, and for that matter i had a  series  of idols at my Delhi house as well  including my favorite Ganesha, the fiery  Kali , the  motherly Durga, Laxmi ji ofcourse and Lord Shiva.  and of late i  want to have a big idol of Krishna as well (since i joined PSU, i have one good thing that is having quite a lot of my personal time, which i spend listening to music. and that includes bhajans too, so to add to the ambience i want to have Krishna ji too, i hope he does not mind the context because the reverence wont reduce if i had him for this purpose!!)
so my point is why to have such a hullabaloo on the matters related to religion. though we are raised to identify ourselves with a particular religion, and our identities are inseparable with the religion we follow. but we are also taught  about having a mind which  can accommodate views of other religion and heart which can accept others' religious beliefs. GOD or almighty is a concept and depending on the families we are being born into we start following a religion. just think if i was born to a sikh parentage i would be going to a gurudwara, in case of a muslim would have read Quaran and said 'amen' and celebrated X mas if i was born to a christian family but my nature of resorting off and on to the concept of GOD would be same. so my point is- be of any religion or sect, what matters is the belief on a supreme....and that should be all.
imagine if a child is not raised to identify him/herself with any religion, what religion will the child follow? probably the simple concept of brotherhood and humanity,love and care shall be his guiding lights. and isnt that the base of any and all religious books or books which are on religion. every and each of those books emphasize on doing your duty - as a human, as a fellow, as a partner, as a father/mother/husband/children or any other relation. how many of us firstly realize our true duties? the greatest confusions are born when we fail to understand our duties and start poking into what others should or should not do. if each one of us does our part then werent many issues have a better solution and peaceful resolve.....think over :)

Providence and the stangeness of it!

Providence has strange ways of working. Read this line in a book by Nayantara Sehgal. A shayari says “hawa khilaaf thi leqin,ye shama bhi kya khoob jali hai-khuda bhi hone ke qya qya sabot deta hai”.


Indeed it is. And I have many times experienced it too, and have always wondered why so. Simple ways, normal or rather plain routine is may be a bit boring for God or the almighty. So to add spice (read zing) to itself or our lives he/she (deciding the gender of supreme is of great responsibility and understanding) does it probably. What could Life have been with no ups and downs just a flat road without any speed breakers….it always amuses me to explore that possibility. There are shocks, jitters, tremors, set backs and there after follows stability, new avenues, opportunities, accomplishments and triumph. And then we realize it – the strange ways of the working of providence, the realization of the supreme. But my point is – is it necessary that to realize and respect the supreme, do we need the jitters first?

A very recent tremor encountered by me makes me mull over the idea more. It happens to me that I have been devoting more time in religious or spiritual activities these days. At times confronting them and at times practicing them. But either ways the time spent is on these types of things. The more I am thinking the clouds of confusion thickening. Is it not only normal that after a quake, return of normalcy is a natural course? Do we call it providence or the normal course of nature? Is it the involvement of supreme or only the natural course? Am I afraid to accept the normal that I need to resort and relate it to supreme? Or is it actually the supreme, which is unseen and is strange in its manifestation, that we spend our life time in understanding its ways!!

the new audiences for tv soaps, aila !

even five years down the lane of time, i could hardly find a male glued to the television during a daily half hour soap which basically revolved on topics of family drama with highly charged up emotional scenes. but today i can have the list full with them. some of the names are actually surprising because i can vouch that otherwise these 'guys' seem truely practical and pragmatic! well both the words practical and pragmatic have been used in perfect positive sense by me , here. there were times when the only available channel DD showed serials like humlog, nukkad, ramayan and etcetra, and the whole family gathered to watch them. but then came a time when daily soap concept started revolving around the saas bahu saga, where the quintessential sindoor and bindi became the trade mark and ornamentally designed pallus the hallmark. those were the times when not only the subjects of these soaps had a typical feminine audience but also pushed males to channels catering anything but not these.
the dramatic turns of such sopas which took a regular five day pause to unfold were too tiring and monotonous, the repetition of one punch line (read boring & melodramatic) at least thrice, the super pathetic background score in a sad scene, the sudden leaps and jumps of time and generation, the countless number of family members...uff all added to the unbear-ability of it. so if the male population just wanted a different channel or separate tv room or may be a different occupation at that time, no feminist even could raise a word on that!
but surprising it may be,suddenly i find more males booking themselves for the 8.30 to 11 pm slots for tv these days, picking and fixing their very own sopas and deftly switching between channels to catch the glimpse of rest of the lot!!! be it the new era of soaps which include various social and human topics with the flavour of bit of melodrama and touch of unrealism though. but still these topics have if not anything else showed that television serials are not only meant for bahus and saas but even bhaiyas,chachas and taujis too have thier slots and preferences ......cool for a change and india of 21st century (read pragatisheel)

here, ! too join

after seeing the enthusiasm of so many people around me about blogging i realized that the need to let self's feelings published is not such a bad idea nor something uncommon. so finally letting myself loosen a bit and attempt thy begining. as usual a bit unsure about the future course regarding this attempt but very excited about the start .... hope to have loads of learning and fun on the way :)