Positive Parenting - 01

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Dec 6 Ajit Dembla: Dr. Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and founder of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Non-violence, in his June 9 lecture at the University of Puerto Rico, shared the following story as an example of "non-violence in parenting":

"I was 16 years old and living with my parents at the institute my grandfather had founded 18 miles outside of Durban, South Africa, in the middle of the sugar plantations. We were deep in the country and had no neighbors, so my two sisters and I would always look forward to going to town to visit friends or go to the movies.

One day, my father asked me to drive him to town for an all-day conference, and I jumped at the chance. Since I was going to town, my mother gave me a list of groceries she needed and, since I had all day in town, my father ask me to take care of several pending chores, such as getting the car serviced. When I dropped my father off that morning, he said, ' I will meet you here at 5:00 p.m., and we will go home together. '

After hurriedly completing my chores, I went straight to the nearest movie theatre. I got so engrossed in a John Wayne double-feature that I forgot the time. It was 5:30 before I remembered. By the time I ran to the garage and got the car and hurried to where my father was waiting for me, it was almost 6:00.

He anxiously asked me, ' Why were you late? 'I was so ashamed of telling him I was watching a John Wayne western movie that I said, ' The car wasn't ready, so I had to wait, not realizing that he had already called the garage. When he caught me in the lie, he said: ' There's something wrong in the way I brought you up that didn't' give you the confidence to tell me the truth. In order to figure out where I went wrong with you, I'm going to walk home 18 miles and think about it. '

So, dressed in his suit and dress shoes, he began to walk home in the dark on mostly unpaved, unlit roads. I couldn't leave him, so for five-and-a-half hours I drove behind him, watching my father go through this agony for a stupid lie that I uttered. I decided then and there that I was never going to lie again.

I often think about that episode and wonder, if he had punished me the way we punish our children, whether I would have learned a lesson at all. I don't think so. I would have suffered the punishment and gone on doing the same thing. But this single non-violent action was so powerful that it is still as if it happened yesterday.

That is the power of non-violence.

"Forgiveness is giving up my right to hate anyone for hurting me."

Getting drenched with Guzaarish

Recently I watched "Guzaarish" with my best friend C. We already had a sad time in the morning. So I wanted to do something that would refresh her mood. However, I didn't know I am going to drown her with tears.

It is another movie with sad ending. However is a masterpiece of Bhansali's. I give it full 5/5.

Even though we were crying like babies, but I liked each and every part of the movie except where Ethen says his Guzaarish is to die. I feel like disclosing the entire story, however, there won't be any excitement if already know the story. I didn't know anything about the movie except that Aishwarya-Hrithik pair is again coming back in the movie. And the songs. And that had raised the level of curiosity to know what next and an expectation for happy ending. Throughout the movie I was requesting God please make some changes in this real of the movie and make it happy ending for me.

But the ending is surprising. And it has kept me mesmerised even after 3 days are passed now.

I like everyone's acting in there... starting from the Hrithik to Aish to the lawyers, the judge, the caretaker(s), the new boy, the father, the mother, the doc, the assistant, the rude guy, the best friend... everyone...

Limited characters, but excellent performance.

After a Khamoshi this is the movie that I liked from Sanjay Leela Bhansali's treasure box... I am just waiting for the DVD to come...

I like this dream of Bhansali and I like the way he has brought every pieces of his dream, every word, every sentence of the script to life. And the Songs... ah... they are being rewinded and played again and again in my mind. Awesome lyrics... I can't explain how powerful the meaning is of each and every song.

Thodi si meethi hai

Zara si mirchi hai

      Sau gram zindagi yeh

      Sambhal ke kharchi hai ...

Udi neendein aankhon se
     Judi raatein khwabo se
           Mudi ke jaane mein kahan? ...

Oh!! I am love with each second of this movie and becoming impatience to wait for the DVD to come. If possible I might again go and watch the movie. However, this time with someone else, since C has already left B'lore and is in Chennai now.

I am already drenched with the rain of this movie... the lighting, the colors, the smell of the greenary is still fresh in me... Hope you too could see the movie through the director's eyes and enjoy each every scene of it.

♥ ~ Smile

Happy (belated) Deewali!!

Happy Deepavali!! (The Festival of Lights)

I have enjoyed my Deewali... After a long time I burst crackers; that too with my parents, my brother and my hubby. 

Though the weather was not good and it was all cloudy and rainy weather; fortunately there was no rain in the night. The crackers would have burst even better had it been sunny. It was fun painting the Diyas, then organising them and put the right amount of oil to it and then lighting the Diyas. It was really a great experience. And after a long time I did the Puja myself. 

Oh!! I feel great when I recollect the memories,  except a few. One of those is when a burnt out cracker suddenly swifted to Dinu's leg and he burnt his leg's lower skin. He could not walk properly for around 2-3 days. Mupimet ointment showed it's magic. So he was fine by the 3rd day. I missed my sister a lot. She had night shift that day. But I hope she enjoyed wearing her traditional Lehenga / Saree. 

I tried some photography. Many personal and few object oriented. I tried take the pics of the twins we have as neighbors. Bubbly was hiding her face a lot, thus it was a bit challenging. Bubble was always ready for snaps. However, he smiles only when Bubbly smiles. 

Here are some of those pics, including one of Bubbly & Bubble:

I still have some of the crackers left, for may be later use in some other festival. :)

I hope you too have enjoyed the festival. 

Happy Deewali once again!!

♥ ~ Smile

Gift for a Friend - 06

A gift that I created for my Mom, for my home. These are made of ice-cream sticks, lace, small rings, plastic flower, bells, plastic stands. There are a few more with some other design which I don't have the pic at the moment.

I made the orange colored one in the year 2002-3 and the maroon colored one in the year 2008.

How to make it?

For the bottom stand:

STEP 1

Take 6x6 sticks and cut 1/4 of it out and shape the 3/4 piece's edges to semi-circle shapes.

Arrange he first 6 sticks in hexagonal shape and stick their edges with Fevicol.

Then above this pattern stick other 6 sticks in hexagonal shape only.

Continue this for other 6x4 sticks.

thus, we have the hexagonal base of 6x6 sticks.

For the rest of the pot:

STEP 2

Take 6x24 sticks. Arrange the first 6x6 sticks in hexagonal pattern in increasing order. When you would be sticking those sticks with Fevicol, the shape would look small steps formed out of the sticks.

STEP 3

Now, take the other 6x6 sticks and arrange it one above another, maintaining the hexagonal shape. You may notice the middle part it looks like a bigger version of the bottom stand. This is how it should be arranged.

For the pot's neck part, take the other 6x6 sticks and follow STEP 3 in reverse manner. Take the other 6x6 sticks and follow STEP 3 as it is.

Allow the Fevicol to dry. The decorate the pot / vase with lace, rings, bells, sparkles, plastic flowers etc. Decorate it just the way you feel like. And the pot would look beautiful.

I know the instructions are brief, but I can't help it. I feel bored to write detail instructions. :(

Hope you like my flower vase.
Thanks for looking!!

♥ ~ Smile

Gift for a Friend - 05

Here's a greeting card with snow white on the front page. I created for a hostel mate who presented it to her sister. Fortunately I had this snow white picture with me. So, thought of drawing it on a design paper. It's may not so attractive but I like the expression caught in the drawing.

♥ ~ Smile

Gift for a Friend - 04

This sketch is the one that I gave to one of my of my friends during my Engineering college days. It was presented to him on his birthday. I liked it so much that I thought of scanning it before I give it to him. I had a greeting card, I guess Archies greeting card with this picture in it. I drew this in the year 2002-3, I guess.

Anyway, here's the sketch:

I can't believe that it used to come up so well in those days.

I had presented to so many to so many people but the idea of scanning had never come. Otherwise I would have all the beautiful drawings I had done, which unfortunately doesn't come up so well now.

After scanning that I have colored it using Flash software and added some features to it like twinkling stars etc. Here's the colored version of it:

Hope you like it.

♥ ~ Smile

3 points a woman

This is what a Well-Qualified, Professionally Independent girl is and this is what she wants in her life:

First… She needs a secured monthly income of her own, for which she spent day & night in study room during her academic life. She wants to fulfill her needs, materialistic ones, and doesn’t want to depend for the small things she loves to spend on. Her existence is associated with her performance, that’s what her parents & her teachers have taught her. She needs her recognition because that gives her a reason to respect herself.

Second… She needs her society, her associates to share her experience and her views - to improve herself. She is open minded, loves to be pure & honest. Unlike her mother she needs one life partner, who can be her Friend, not her God - because she can perform, she can earn, she can decide, like her Dad. She is able to go places and adjust with the people around there. Till now in her life she got inspiration to be like her dad.

Third… She is taught to solve all the challenges herself through affection. She has the courage to struggle and survive through tough situation without needing a person to help her. She has the power to face any challenge, without having anyone beside her.

Now, even though the guys know how she is, and what she wants to do; they agree to these and then revert from their own opinions - they just suddenly change their opinions and their expectations. Why are guy so confused about what they want in life? And why are girls are so clear about what they want? I am sure there many girls who think like the above and there are many for whom the whole world is just their home. At least I am not like the one who is just confined to the four walls and the people in those four walls.

Can anyone answer me? I am so confused about this. And some time these thoughts haunt me a lot. Is anyone listening to me?


♥ ~ Smile

Do... if you want others to do.

I got this FWDed e-mail several times "Subject : Fwd: This are our Ministers!!!". I have been deleting it every time I receive. Now, I am fed up of receiving this e-mail from every other friend / colleague of mine.

All we do is we blame others, we blame these politicians that they do not respect the national flag.

However, do WE really give the respect to our National Flag / Anthem. Standing in public when the national anthem is sung is Obvious, as we all think of our own reputation.

But, do we do the same thing, i.e. rising to our feet, when the same we listen on radio or we watch on Television?? Do WE do..??

If you do not do so, then just give a thought about it, about what lesson are you teaching the siblings, the other family members, to the children.

If you do not do so, then never ever blame the next generations for their disrespect towards you or your nation.

You and I, We all are responsible for our future... for our future generation.

Instead of blaming others, lets just spread the right attitude. Instead of showing what should not be done, lets focus on what should be done.

I am inspired by Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam's thought about positive parenting. A good thought, few good words have a much more powerful and pleasant effect than few negative words or negative thoughts. Negative thoughts urge our mind to focus on the negative thing only. In Earl Nightingale's words, "You become what you think about!".

So, lets not urge others to focus on what's bad. We are the parents for the current and the future generations. Lets inspire the future generations and avoid spoiling them.

Lets stop spreading these few situations and stop publicity for the few people who you feel are bad.

If you have issues with the Politicians of our country, then lets use our voting power and choose the one we think are appropriate. We have this power in hand at least.

Think about it, how many times you have received any article about Gopabandhu Das or Mahatma Gandhi or the Freedom fighters or the great people of the world who brought such change that we enjoy life today in our AC Car. How many times you read it completely, when you receive it? When you are focusing on what's bad and what's spoiled then you must not expect your kids, your siblings to be stop following bad things. They try to mirror you, and when you show a bad image to them you will see the same in them too.

If some day you scold your children for some silly mistake of his and scold him and beat him saying, "By doing this you are setting a wrong example for your siblings." Then as a parent what example are you setting to the other children of yours???

Think about it!!!

♥ ~ Smile

Gift for a Friend - 03

This is a greeting card that I had prepared for my hostel mate. And she presented it to her husband on their first valentine day after their marriage. She had provided me the designer papers and the printouts of the pictures. She also had brought the print out of the quotes. We used the smaller piece of printout as it is. However, we drew the other picture on a butter paper.  The greeting card was prepared on 2008. It's not with me now, however, I feel great when I look at these pictures. Sometimes I become surprised about my own skills and sometimes I doubt.

Here's few snaps of the greeting card:

The photos is behind the designer cloth-paper, not pasted on it.

Picture drawn on the butter paper; A boy and girl are sitting on the edge of the boat, near the shore. There is a tree near by. The mountains are at distant and birds are flying on the sky. The girl is smiling keeping her head low. And the guy is sitting quite and is very shy too.

I did not wanted to ruin its beauty. I can't create the clone of this picture, so preferred to use it as it is.

There is no meaning of Sea without Water,

                  There is no meaning of Day without Sun,

There is no meaning of Night without Moon,

                 There is no meaning of me without you...

                                                             Sweetheart! I Love You.



The picture is behind the ring of heart  and not pasted on it. The middle part of the heart is used else-where. I think you must have guessed by now. If not yet, then I would disclose it in the next photo...

The bigger heart is the one taken from the ring of heart. I used it on the envelop. The envelop is also my company's. Thus, to hide the header I used the heart. And the Greeting card also fitted into the envelop. B is my friend's name and T is her husband's. There's a beautiful quote written in the left side of the above pic. I just love this quote. It goes like this:

                            I would rather spend everyday

                                           fighting with you, than to spend

                                                            the rest of my life without you.

This is how the card looks after everything is finalised and completed

The entire orange sheet is one piece. The three hearts are cut with proper calculations. However, for safer side we have applied a small piece of cello-tape on the common edges.

I love this card. I wish to prepare another on like this.

♥ ~ Smile

Gift for a Friend - 02

A and me prepared a beautiful b'day card for her husband's b'day. The present is made from a marriage invitation card. The painting is done by A solely. The heart and the flower is prepared by me. She has made the steps on which the teddy is standing. The message is missing in the present since it's personal to her, so we clicked the pics before she added the messages to it. Anyway, everyone found it very creative and nice. No one had expected the invitation would turn into such a beautiful present.

Here are few snaps of it; hope you like these:

♥ ~ Smile

My Glass Paintings - 01

I recently tried experimenting my skills with Glass Painting. I am novice in this field, so have many mistakes. However, I still like my paintings. I hope you too (with the mistakes ;)).

I am working on learning different techniques to enhance it to perfection. Let's see how much I succeed in this. Wish me luck!!

♥ ~ Smile