May be it is time to start over again!

Well, that is what I want to tell myself as I want to get back to blogging. Life has really moved on since the last time I shared my thoughts here. 

M came in to my life to make it more beautiful than ever. She has captured my life, thoughts and every bit of me beyond imagination and I have fallen in love more than ever. What a new life can do to you is just amazing. These days I find it hard to talk casually to anyone without thinking about her or mentioning her. Believe me, I never thought motherhood would be this intense :)

Work and M are the two dominant parts of my current life. As I restart blogging, I wonder why I will have to share and if that will even be worth sharing. Not sure why I never had such thoughts when I started blogging the first time. Is it age? Is it because life became centered around fewer things? Is it because I have started becoming more inward? Well, I don't know. But I think I should give it a try and lets see where it goes.

Looking forward to this second stint.

Can you help me, please?

Hi folks,

I am doing a project on "Understanding the helping patterns of people in the society" out of my personal interest. As part of that, I have come up with a survey to get inputs from people.

I am looking at having 200 responses. I need your help in reaching that number.

You can help me by
1. Taking the survey
2. Getting at least 3 of your friends take the survey.

Survey link - http://www.esurveyspro.com/Survey.aspx?id=c17cbd63-10d7-4278-b355-6fc738fa5ca4

It takes around 5 minutes to complete the survey. So, please go ahead and give me your inputs.

I will be happy to hear any comments you have.

Love,
Aarthi

I want to enjoy my childhood, ma

"I want to enjoy my childhood, ma", this was an article in the last Sunday's Hindu paper. This article really moved me and I could so much identify with that child.

What surprised me even more was to see Dr.Abdul Kalam's response to it in a few days. His reply was also publishes on the Hindu. Here is a poem from his article that I liked very much.

The Student’s Prayer

Don’t impose on me what you know,
I want to explore the unknown
And be the source of my own discoveries.

Let the known be my liberation, not my slavery.
The world of your truth can be my limitation;
Your wisdom my negation.

Don’t instruct me; let’s walk together.
Let my richness begin where yours ends.

Show me so that I can stand
On your shoulders.

Reveal yourself so that I can be
Something different.

You believe that every human being
Can love and create.

I understand, then, your fear
When I ask you to live according to your wisdom.

You will not know who I am
By listening to yourself.

Don’t instruct me; let me be.
Your failure is that I be identical to you.”

I thought, there is a connectivity among young hearts even beyond ocean — “I only want to enjoy my childhood, ma” and “The Student’s Prayer.”

All these meaningful articles make me more fond of Hindu than any other newspapers :-)

Just Books

Today me n N dropped into this new book library 'Just books' on IndraNagar 12th Main road on our way back from the team outing. I should say this place is awesome and their idea is just so cool... As I write even I am wondering what makes them so cool, they are just a library.

I have not seen (m)any good libraries in Indra nagar area in the last 5 years. This one is really a blessing for people like me who need some motivation like a big collection of books to read. They have some rare collection of books. I was sweetly surprised to see the English version of Kalki's Ponniyin Selvan there. The staff were so friendly and kind enough to take requests for books unlike the other famous big ones in the city. They have a cool sensor based book checkout to bypass the long queues and waiting for someone to make an entry. To top it all is the various membership options -- they have a basic plan where one can take 2 books + one magazine at a time, pay Rs.175 as montly fee and 250 as registration. There is a 1000 bucks refundable deposit. They have other options too but I found this one perfect for a slow reader like me. Ooops, i forgot they even deliver books to home. I am just waiting to take pv there to get ourselves registered.

I am so damn excited to get back to reading...

BTW, that remind me I am currently reading "Making It". I will post the review once I am done.
The more I see such places, the more I get enthused about giving life to my own ideas :-)

"Good or bad!! Short or long!! I want to write a post today. How many long days will I keep telling myself different reasons for not writing one. Enough is enough", I told myself on my way back from office and I decided to overcome this inertia.

This post is about our diwali celebs this year. I have so many other things to write about too. Two weeks ago, I suddenly came up with the idea of celebrating 'Green Diwali'. I wanted to be that caring ecotizen (hahaa...self coined) who does not pollute the environment. I told pv and he agreed to celebrate a green diwali by not bursting crackers. Immediately my mind made plans (totally involuntary) on how else the crackers money could be spent :) . I came up with the next brilliant idea of buying diyas and decorating the house with them.

Then I searched and searched on google to find some NGO selling terracotta diyas (my latest interest) and ended up finding few which did not seem to have good designs. I then went around the Tippasandra market and finalized on the shop where I got a good deal. Pv and me went there and purchased diyas for 500 INR. Pv was shocked on seeing the amount.

We started our diwali celebrations with Pooja followed by yummie payasam made with Milkmaid. After sometime we got bored with the tv programmes and felt something was missing in our celebrations. We heard every one bursting crackers and we could not resist ourselves sitting inside the house. In few minutes, I gave my ecotizen status and went to buy crackers :)
In the evening, we did a small rangoli in front of the house and decorated it with diyas. Then started our foto session and pv's wonderful clicks. We burst some crackers in the night with friends.

Overall it was a good diwali. One big realization for me was, I cannot celebrate diwali without crackers as they form an integral part of my diwali. I can't even imagine any other way of enjoying diwali. I should find one before the next season so that I can be a true ecotizen then.

I have uploaded pics here.

I know but still ...

Sometimes (actually most times) I feel there is so much in this world to do than to sit in a company and be at the mercy of somebody's decision. I mean, there is so much one can do in every damn field, then why do most of us end up sitting in an office, doing work that does not interest, end up feeling unrecognized for their work and above all don't have any say in the decisions made by the management. We know for sure that we can put our talents to better use in a place which demands so much public attention for improvment, yet we settle for a heavy pay check that gives us all the materialistic pleasures than satisfaction.

I have come across so many so many ideas recently that I wonder why I haven't been able to think about them. Maternova -- bringing maternal and child care by connection health workers, health facilities and innovation in that space. Imagine how useful a handheld ultrasound would be for those rural women who can't afford to travel to the hospital which has the equipment. They have come up with a motor bike ambulance. Another intelligent idea I came across was Sasix - It is a social investment exchange. They have given a truly different shade to the concept of 'donation'. All social development projects are listed out here and people can invest in it like buying shares. They get regular updates (say quarterly) on how the projects are going on. This helps in funding the project for the beneficiary, at same time gives a kind of realistic view to the share holder on how the money is being used and makes the beneficiary accountable for the change they are trying to bring in society.

These aren't any rocket launching ideas, but they are on their way to become path breaking ideas. I am sure they are gonna make a big positive impact on the society. If we carefully look at our society, almost every domain - health, transport, environment, people, education, care, family, agriculture, crafts, tradition, tourism and countless other things are looking for ideas which could greatly benefit. It is not that we don't know -- we know and we still IGNORE.

I started out writing as "I" and ended up as "We". Let me get back to I. I know every time my project at work gets put on hold, I get to think it is His way of telling me that 'Aarthi, why don't you go out and try your ideas. It will be of help to the people.' I know it will be helpful, but I am scared to dirty my hands, am shit scared to quit my job and try. Now I have the time, but the whole project put on hold at work only makes me dejected, disappointed, frustrated and disoriented in life. I know I have to get past this and use this time to try out my ideas. I know.. I want to... I will...

Too many things to write about

There are too many things I want to write about and don't know which to add and which to omit. Does this happen when one does not write for long???

I will try to cover tid bits of everything I want to write about.

Pv and me took a '2 marriages and a week's vacation' sprint a week ago. We started off with Hyderabad - the city of foodies (no offence) as I would like to call it. Attended a marriage in the morning and went to PARADISE (rightly named) for a round of Veg biriyani and Qurbani ka Meetha for lunch. If you are new to Hyd, don't miss the biriyani here..its yummie and the best of Hyderabadi cuisine. For the first time, I wanted to be a non-veg so that i could taste the other varieties. Visited charminar, for a change I spared pv wallet :) and then had a lovely walk on banks of Hussain sagar.

Wanted to watch 'Magadheera' chiru's son's debut movie but ended up watching 'Gopi Gopika Godavari' :( Don't ask me how the movie was, that emoticon says it all.

Saw some prawn cultivation fields on the way to Kaikalur. Could not get to go closer and check how it would be, I din't want to go near thinking it would stink :)

Auto wala robbed us on the wee hours of monday morning as the rain Gods welcomed us with a heavy shower when we entered B'lore. We paid 100 bucks to come home from CMH rd BDA complex. This is called 'Pagal kollai'.

Yesterday turned to be a memorable day in the life. I had my first convocation on completion of the social entrepreneurship course. Wow!!! I found the course really useful, especially gave a lot of clarity to my thoughts on venturing into social sector. Mom still is apprehensive of that.

Another piece of good news is my mentor agreed to help me out more on my project. Oops.. I dint tell abt my project yet. Its not making science more fun and easy to understand for kids. I have started out with the grade5 children of Ashwini charitable Trust and so far its been ok. However, I am struggling to get simple concepts like sound, environment to children. We (me and the children) created some hand made telephones to understand how sound travels. I enjoyed the whole session more than the children :) I am waiting to get the help of my mentor to take this project further.

The tv at home is down with flu. I mean the picture tube is having some problem. All we get to see is a horizontal line when it is on. Gotto get it repaired. I am slowly realizing the power of 'No TV', atleast I got myself to blog after long time...hehee...