Category Archives: Life

Esotericism: Mystical or Mundane?

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“Moonlight floods the whole sky from horizon to horizon;

How much it can fill your room depends on its windows”

                                                                                Rumi

I’ve always been fascinated by the esoteric, especially the esoteric sciences, be it astrology, palmistry, alternative healing therapies like Reiki or the world of mediums, mystics and spirituality. It’s quite strange actually, since I am also the sort of person who needs to see evidence in front of her to actually believe in all this. But that’s me, eclectic and eccentric, I guess!

What are Esoteric Sciences? According to Wikipedia,  there are different definitions of this term, but what I would go with is “It is the sum total of the different parts of this universe – both visible and invisible, earthly and divine” Esotericism is the metaphysical point of unity where exoteric religions are believed to converge.

Whatever the definition, I am fascinated and intrigued by them. In my younger days, when I had more time, I would go for courses which delved into the unknown – courses like Reiki, Sudarshan Kriya and a Zoroastrian one which I can’t remember the name of. I also dabbled in Palmistry and have had some successes there, though I would say more intuition rather than skill was employed. Tarot is something else I have tried to do, using playing cards though, but can’t say I was very successful. Another thing my friends and me have played at is Planchet, but did we really invite the other-world beings is anyone’s guess!

Now, that I don’t have the time to dabble in anything and refuse to read palms of my loved ones, my fascination for this subject is restricted to what I read – both online and offline.

I also believe in astrology and will probably do more posts on that, Palmistry and perhaps Reiki over the next few weeks. I’ll update this post to add links to those posts when I do that.

2015 Week 2: Weekly Update

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I had meant to do this post yesterday, but somehow weekends just seem to fly by without anything productive actually happening! I really need to work on this…

This is the last week before my parents return back home on Saturday and I am really not feeling good about that – I wonder when I will be able to meet them next, hopefully the year-end holidays?

The past week was bad in terms of food choices and I’ve added more than a kilo to my weight! Gasp!! No can do, need to work real hard this week and not only lose that gained extra kilo, but any additional one too….

Other than that, life is as we say here – sama-sama (same-same) and nothing really happened.

At work, I seem to have lost my mojo, need to dig deep inside and look for it and wake it up! Otherwise this year will be hard for me…

Have been blogging more than my promised three times a week, so feeling good about that.

My Week 1 update is here for anyone interested in reading it!

Festivals of India: Pongal O Pongal

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This week all over India, various communities will be celebrating/would have celebrated their Harvest festivals. In the southern part of India, specifically Tamil Nadu, today is the day that is celebrated as Pongal.

Not to be confused with the yummy sweet and salt Pongal dishes, the festival of Pongal is a harvest festival celebrated by Tamil people all over the world around 13-16 January each year. This is a four day festival which is according to the Gregorian calendar, unlike most Hindu festivals, which are based on the lunar calendar and marks the start of the sun’s six-month long journey northwards or Uttarayan as it’s called in Sanskrit. This is also celebrated as Makar Sankranti in other parts of India.

The word Pongal in Tamil means ‘overflowing’ and signifies abundance and prosperity. The celebrations for the four day festival start with ‘Bhogi Pongal’ with the worship of Lord Indra, the ruler of clouds and rains to thank him for a season of good rainfall and to make sure he blesses the farmer with just enough rain to ensure abundant harvest. The next day is ‘Thai Pongal’ which is the main festival day. People wake up before sunrise and bathe and get ready and at the time of sunrise, ritually boil fresh milk and let it overflow the earthern pot it is being boiled in. When the boiling happens, people shout “Pongalo Pongal” which means “Let there be prosperity and abundance everywhere”.  The third day is set aside for the animals in the household called ‘Mattu Pongal‘ to give them thanks for the work they do helping the farmer with his harvest. The farm animals, specifically the bulls and cows are scrubbed up and decorated and treated with goodies. The last day is a time for family reunions, called ‘Kaanum Pongal‘ where brothers give their married sisters special gifts and employers gift their employees. This marks the end of the Pongal festivities for the year.

Other harvest festivals celebrated in India include Bihu in Assam, Lohri in Punjab and Makar Sankranti in Gujarat, my home state of Maharashtra and other states in India

This is basically a festival meant to thank the Sun God  for a good harvest and has been celebrated for more than 1000 years, though some historians say it’s older than that.

Culture is important for a human being. You need to know where you come from, what your values are, so that, as custodians of the next generation, you are able to pass it on. This post is so BB & GG know where they come from and are able to pass it to their children and grand-children!

A Cousin a Day keeps the Boredom Away

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“Nobody will understand the craziness of your family better than your cousins”

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Cousins are your friends by blood. Not everyone, especially these days of smaller families have cousins who are with them through thick and thin.

My mom is the oldest of four sisters and my dad is the oldest of a younger brother and sister. We’re closer to my mom’s family. My dad lost his sister when I was in school and his brother moved away when I was real young and now we are not in contact with him or his family! I feel real sad that I don’t know my cousins from his side – I have not met them (two boys) in the last 15-18 years and they must be adults now (I last saw them when they were 4 & 8!) I sometimes joke with my dad that if I ever pass them in the street, they would be random strangers to me, that’s how out of touch we are!

I’m the oldest of eight cousins from my maternal side, dominated by girls. Between me and the youngest there’s an 11 year gap. We’re six girls and two boys.

Growing up, we were close, but since we’d meet maybe once a year if lucky, it was not that “tell you all my secrets” type of closeness. Plus, because of the eleven year gap, when I was say fifteen, my youngest cousins were like three or four! I even have memories of my second last cousin’s birth! I remember seeing her as a new-born in the hospital and since she was born in early March, I distinctly remember going to my grandmother’s home for our summer holidays in April/May and being with her. I have memories of begging my aunt to let me hold her and I would sit patiently with her on my lap when my aunt went for a bath or did something else.

However, as we grew up, the age gap somehow closed and we could relate to each other and instead of growing apart, we grew closer!

Thanks to Facebook, emails and social media we got even closer, sharing photos and milestones. It was great, but somehow we were not able to meet due to distances, schedules and what have you. Currently, we’re scattered all over the world – Hong Kong, Singapore, India, UK, USA and Canada – you get the picture right, when someone is free in one part of the world, the others are busy in another!

However it was last year, when one of my youngest cousins got married, we really started connecting with each other. Before the wedding, we started a Whatsapp group to discuss what to give her. This was something we started when the first one of us got married. In addition to the family gift with the parents, we wanted to give something special to our cousin and at that time, with hardly anyone working, it used to be small. Now that we can afford it, it’s more expensive.

It was great fun at the wedding – we had the time of our lives and missed the one cousin who could not make it. Then we decided to keep in touch more since it was so much fun and since then there’s hardly a day when texts are not pinging their way across the globe.

Cousins brighten up your life so much, that I hope BB & GG also have the same relationship with their cousins, both first and second (aka children of my cousins)

2015 Week 1: Weekly Update

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I thought of putting down what happened this week here so I have a kind of running update on my life!

This week was a mixed bag one – on one hand work has been good, but health is not so good.

Work: A good week, where my views for our forthcoming event was considered. So far 2015 has started well and my fingers are crossed that this continues for the rest of the year. A project I have been working for almost a year is seeing completion and I hope this will auger well for me.

Health: I had a good number of health goals for the year and this week was not a very good one, need to step up to the plate on this! I exercised 5 days this week while my goal was six days, so need to figure how I can incorporate this over the weekends. I also lost a bit of weight, though not the 1 kg I was hoping for. I missed taking my diabetes medication one time, should not do this again. Also food choices were not the best, so need to work on that too. I also started meditating this week, and could do that twice this week, which is a plus for me.

Writing: Not bad, managed to post almost every day, especially in my other blog. I need to work more on posting here!

All in all, a not-too-bad start to 2015. If my life continues in this vein, life’s gonna look good by the end of the year.