Three songs that are significant to you.

Music is the essence of all beings. We find music and rhythm in everything that we do. The birds chirping, the water falling, the sounds of cooking…… there is music all around as and in everything that we do. Music is a great mood uplifter for me. I can’t imagine my life without music. I would probably shrivel and die if I was denied music.

I was introduced to music at a very young age and since then my day has started with songs sung by my mother and ended with her humming a tune. Strangely my mother never required a source of music to listen to……. no iPod….. no stereo. Sometimes she would listen to the radio as she went about her daily chores….. but that was about it. I was introduced to a rather serious form of music….. Hindustani classical. It was supposed to fine tune my voice after which I was supposed to have branched into Rabindra Sangeet. I didn’t go that far as to become a maestro but enough to understand the delicacy and movements in music. I simply didn’t have the commitment and discipline required for the training….. but music remained my passion. My choice of music is eclectic. I can be happy listening to pop or disco and be equally comfortable listening to a rendition of  Raga bhimpalasi.

I am an Indian so my choice of songs will essentially be Hindi or Bengali the language that I am comfortable with.  I love so  many songs that I am not able to decide which one to put up. The crazy thing is that the top ten on my charts keep changing so often that I really can’t keep track of it.

So I am going to go with my first song being my all time favorite. Its a song by Pankaj Udhas from the album “Aman” : Song is Abhi ghar na jana.….. This song gets me nostalgic every time I hear it. This song is something of a blast from the past that I have not been able to shake off till date. I don’t know whether it is the slow tempo or the lyrics or maybe the piano used as the main musical instrument…… the song always has me in a sort of nostalgic and melancholy mood. I remember when I first heard the song I was in college and I must have replayed the song a hundred times.  The song really has no significance just that it is a beautiful piece of music by a great singer that I had come to adore. The music is light and it is soothing to hear. The lyrics are meaningful and there isn’t much as far as instruments….. just a piano.  I am posting the video of the same. (Courtesy You Tube)

 

The second song that I chose came to my mind as soon as I read the post. It is a very strange choice of music. It is a bhajan by Saint Kabir. Why it was my choice I wouldn’t be able to tell…… just that it was something my mother left in some corner of my mind. My mother would often sing this song. More often than I can remember. It made quite an impact on me. (Courtesy : YouTube )

LYRICS

Maati Kahe Kumhar Se, Tu Kya Rundhe Mohe
Ek Din Aisa Ayega, Main Rundhungi Tohe…

Aaye Hai So Jayenge Raaja Rank Fakir
Ek Sinhaasan Chadh Chale, Ek Bandhe Janjir
Durbal Ko Naa Satayiye, Jaaki Maati Hoye
Bina Jeev K Shwas So, Loha Basam Ho Jaye…

Chalti Chakki Dekh Ke, Diya Kabira Roye
Do Patan Ke Bich Me, Sabut Bacha Naa Koi
Dukh Me Sumiraan Sab Kare, Sukh Me Kare Naa Koi
Jo Dukh Me Sumiran Kare, To Dukh Kahe Ko Hoye…

Patta Tuta Dal Se, Le Gayi Pawan Udaye
Ab Ke Bichade Kab Milenge, Door Padenge Jaye
Kabir Aap Thagiye, Or Na Thagiye Koi
Aap Thage Sukh Upaje, Aur Thage Dukh Hoye

TRANSLATION

Clay asks potter why do you knead me
one day it will be my turn to knead you
( it refers to the day when the potter will be dead and would be buried in ground).

Everyone who is born will die some day, be it a  king or a poor man.
one goes on a throne and another one goes with chains on its body.
Don’t harass the weak, there is a lot of power in curses.
just like a lifeless dhokni can melt a strong thing like iron. 
( Dhokni is a hollow cylindrical tube used to blow air in furnace to make it hotter) 

On seeing the grinding stone (which grinds the flour), Kabir cries
nobody can survive between the two stones of karma and family 
Everyone remembers god in bad times, no one remembers god in good times.
if you remember god in good times, then you would never have bad times .

A leaf  falls off the branch and is carried away by the wind
Now that they have got separated who knows when they will meet
Kabir says don’t con others and don’t get conned by others as well ,                
You cant con anybody and get away with it.

The third song is by Frank Sinatra “My Way“. I love all his songs but this one especially for the lyrics. He kind of talks about my motto in life. I love the song simply because it is a very meaningful song and a very beautiful rendition.  I identify myself with the song and the way he has sung it. He has encompassed his whole life in the song. It is a beautiful composition. (Courtesy : YouTube)

Mahalaya and Mahishsurmardini

Ma Durga

I know I am late but it is still navratri and I found the some videos of mahalaya and Chandi path. I think all of us bengalis have been tortured and some point or other on Mahalaya by our parents……… waking us at wee hours of the morning to listen to AIR and Mr Bhadra. The only part I remember is the  part 4……….. only to go back to sleep. I found some videos of the same…….. ENJOY!!!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Ohhhhh Kolkata

Truly and officially Kolkata is just not my city…….. Honestly I went there with an open mind…….. totally OPEN as OPEN as I could get but NAH, the way things work there is truly irrational and beyond the realms of my pea-sized brain!!!

The hospital is a place of worship where doctors are put on pedestal (like tons and tons of swamijis) and once they are found not so up to the mark they are whipped of their god like stature and brought down to the stature of dogs. I think I like it here where doctors rather be questioned and thought of like humans beings who could falter and thought of as people with a different line of education who have the capability to heal people of their sickness and in the process of treatment they explain to mere suffering mortals the reason for their ailment and the subsequent treatment.

I met the sweet tongued sari clad ladies who had soooo sweetly abused me on phone and guess what they didn’t actually look soooooo good to me rather they lived up to their sneaking selves of being unscrupulous thereby pacifying me that my judgment of them was not so wrong also they put me off my guilt trip. What works in the passionate city of Kolkata is sob stories…….. yeah that sells like hot cakes especially if you have somebody sick, somebody cheated you, denied of inheritance or just plain you being sick…….. so much for me putting up my brave facade of being totally well and sneaking pain killers down my throat and hiding my swollen legs.

My pa-in-law is well. Hospital’s patient care was good but can’t say the same of their information section or their billing section. It sucked!!!! They have employed a bunch of female nincompoops totally wet behind their ears…….. fresh out of college, totally unprofessional, who were getting slapped right left and center by one and all and took it all well without complaining…….. to repeat the same mistakes again and again.

Screaming at those people was just so normal that it did not even raise my bp this time……. everyone was screaming at them. It took us five hours to get our patient admitted in spite of making pre-arrangements and the hospital calling us in the morning to confirm every detail. Waiting five hours meant waiting/standing for five hours in the OPD as they did not have a separate waiting area and since OPD was in full force there was no place to wait……. emergency patients also were made to wait. Similarly clearing bill and getting together and clearing up took a long time……. because they had obviously wrongly billed us and after a session of table banging (by hubby) everything worked smoothly and the bill was reduced.

What was very alarming was the rate of bypass surgeries and angioplasties done in a day at the hospital. It seemed like an epidemic of heart diseases there. Very scary!!!

Another thing that I was exposed to this time was the disparities in the city………. the disparities between the haves and the have-nots……. the elite and the not so elite. My side of the family in Kolkata comes from the northern side…… the displaced partition stricken people whereas hubby’s family is the British Raj worshiping elite of Bengal. The difference is so striking that I was actually shaken.

Just 30 km apart from each other but the difference hits you like a punch to your stomach. On one hand you have a whole family living in a 12 by 12 room and on the other hand you have a family of 4 saying that 3000 sq worth of carpet area is not enough…… that is the part of Kolkata that totally still lives in the era of British Raj and the glories then even though the current generation has not seen anything of it…… they live on memories and on imagination of the utopian world fed to them by their parents and grandparents.

Memories of hoodless convertibles, of waltz dancing in the balls given by Horton Sahib, innumerable servants, going on drives whereas the other side talks of the crossover, of poverty, of going without food wearing the same clothes till they were tattered and moving from house to house in search of shelter. Where on one side the elite discussed how Rabindranath was the epitome of all Vedas and Upanishads put together and bramho versus Hindu religion and sociological developments across the coffee table, the other side family is discussing the factory’s closure with the wife who patiently cooks fish on the earthen stove for her family.

I experienced all this in a span of hours…… all in the same day. So much disparity!!!! Also another factor that everybody talks about is inheritance…… The son of Bengal survives on the inheritance left by his father or grandfather. Most discussions usually revolve around who got what and how much…….. kind of disgusting to self made people like me.

With this scenario in mind I am not surprised why the Communists have ruled the state for decades. I always wondered why and how the CPM came to power year after year……. the mystery is finally solved.  The truth is finally evident to me.

On the lighter side whenever I wanted to go from one side to the other I used to get a lot of advice take a rickshaw (hand pulled ones) then take a metro then take 52 no bus, then an auto (auto rickshaw or cycle one)etc etc….. It used to really scare me to even me imagine me on all these modes of transport with my broken leg and my rheumatic arms and legs!!! as scary as JAWS!!! I used to have my eyes like golf balls and my mouth hanging open just thinking of doing all that they had suggested.

They really have a lot of modes of transport. When I was young I used to be totally terrified of the tin buses with wooden floors which moved on the roads and looked slanting to me…… I always thought that it would turn turtle but it never did. All you have to do to stop a bus is to raise your hand……… unlike us who run like the devil is after them to the bus stop to take a bus. The trams were another experience I could easily walk faster than the tram I wonder why people bother sitting in them. I remember not so long ago, dad had told me how the whole city had gone on a strike because the fare had risen by 25 ps. (talking of paises, we had a real tiff with a guy and lot of screaming because we did not have 25 ps change…… it still works there……. I haven’t seen one in a long time.) There is the popular cycle rickshaws and the hand pulled rickshaws. You wont believe it but really fat women even fatter than me…… two of them…… sit on one, which is pulled by a really scrawny thin guy. There is also the jetty, the popular metro and the of course Mamta Banerjee’s Indian Railway. This is one city where the Ambassador totally extinct elsewhere still rules the road and it is amazing to find how good it still is.

Another striking similarity both sides is that they have huge large windows and at least two doors in the bathrooms and since Kolkata is a congested area there is always somebody else’s window on the other side. I don’t understand why anybody would install huge windows and so many doors in the bathroom. For a maniac like me with bathroom phobia this is a total nightmare.

I did visit Dakshineshwar and Ma Kali…….. my second mother!!! It was so peaceful there. It kind of sucks in everything from inside you and keeps you just peaceful inside….. total silence!!! I have no idea but the inner sanctum of the temple is really beautiful and the Ganga flowing by is so beautiful. It always takes away everything that you have inside you to put in just peace in there. That is the only place in Kolkata that feels like Home!!!!

Apart from all that I did have a lot of sweets and bori and saw the city totally buzz with activity for the upcoming Puja. Shopping everywhere……… sadly in my case I did not have the time. Also owing to my grand mother-in-law’s death this year we will not be celebrating the festival.

I came back with a different point of view and appreciated my city my home and my family a lot more.

broken feet do have its advantages!!!

Today I was at my wits end as to what I should do………. so after a very long time I took to chatting and just put a big thing on my yahoo messenger that someone should please talk to me. It was kind of advertising for desperate attention but who cares desperate situations need desperate measures. You know I did not even have yahoo messenger on my comp. I actually downloaded the damn thing and then started to chat with my friends. I met a very old friend of mine after a very long time. It was fun catching up. Broken feet do have their advantages!!!

See I am looking at things positively. Still am not able to read……. still lacking the patience for it but man it is fun if I am to look at things positively. I pinged almost all my friends whose id i had and asked them to chat with me. Some replied, some felt pity and replied whatever be the reasons I spoke to a lot of people after a very long time. It was good fun!!!

Ma made me lots of tasty stuff like cutlets and begun bhajas. Its not bad at all BUT I still don’t like the damn cast!!! and it just won’t rain!!! It is so damn hot and me I have become the reincarnation of khujlibaba and am taking a bath almost three to four times to the extent that Ma and dad are filling every available vessel to store precious water.

I sometimes wonder what is more costly air conditioner, electricity or potable water. There is an acute shortage of all three. I wonder which is more acute. The AC is apparently punching holes in the ozone layer, electricity shortage is so acute that people have started making alternatives to electrical appliances and the grinding stone is back in vogue in middle class homes. Potable water is the most precious of all. I have been to villages in Maharashtra which face droughts every year. The women folk there carry water across kilometres every day so much that they have become bald on the top of their heads carrying pots of water.

With the sweltering heat doing its rounds and my bouts of itching increasing with the increasing temperature, I wonder what should be the options for heat peedit people like us. Al Gore says recycle and grow more trees. In my society there are so many trees that we have to actually ask them to cut some branches so that we can have some sunlight inside the house not to mention the balconies of every home and grills of the windows. As far as recycling we are already recycling waste to bio gas but it is still hotttttt and the heat is only going to increase every year.

I close with an earnest prayer to all the rain gods !!! relent damn you and give us water!!! (I have broken feet so I am legally allowed to swear)

And a last note: all of you (my friends I mean) come and meet me or atleast call me and keep me occupied till I am decasted (which wont be long……. I am still negotiating)!!!

Happy Sashti !!!!

Today is Sashti and my entire family sans me and hubs is at the temple taking the blessings of Ma. I wish that for today I had my wish of becoming a flamingo!!!

I pray that Ma grants all of you and your family peace, health and happiness !!!

I have no memories about Basanti Puja because it is my first time.

I have these lapses in my life wherein every six months I get full-to and totally spiritual. I call it lapse because that is what it was…… though I always wish that it was a permanent fixture in my life. It has nothing to do with the fact that it is Puja time. It could be with the happenings in my life which reach rock bottom every six months and the fact that I lose hope very soon.

Whatever the reason it gives me back my focus in life. I am able to get more organized and methodical. I wish I wouldn’t have to wait for calamities to take charge of my life but alas I am as bull headed as you can get. So coward me…… I take recourse to spirituality whenever the going gets tough.

I wouldn’t call myself a very religious person because I am not ritualistic even on my bad days. I have often wondered about the requirement of being ritualistic. Are rituals necessary??? Someone once told me it is!!!…… to give a certain discipline to religion. As for me discipline is one word not found in my dictionary and I truly hate the mundanity of routine (if there is a word such as mundanity)……. so try as I can I cant turn myself into a ritualistic freak much to the chagrin of my mother who spends hours everyday adorning the idols with flowers and clothes and ornaments and reading spiritual texts. As for me I am also illiterate as far as scriptures are concerned and my knowledge goes as far as amar chitra kathas.

I believe that there is a god in all of us and there is a god beyond the universe. Connect the two and you will find fireworks that no amount of chemicals put together can create. The trick is to sacrifice ego and self…… if you know what I mean…….. let go!!!!

Apparently that is also the way vedant describes the way to attain supreme and sublime feeling. My Ma believes it is a shortcut. Well it works for me and anything that works for me is OK. I am lazy to the core…… I dont think I will last even one day of the methodical ways of spirituality.

Talking of laziness…… now that my Jethu is fine as of today morning and so is dad as of today and hubs, and finally peace reigns in my abode, I will return to gymming.

Multitasking is not one of my strong traits. I can concentrate on only three things at a time. Only three!!! I can juggle between one-two-three not more. At the end of it I get totally drained out and tired. Right now it is health (everybody’s), work and home!!! Today the health is on its own so the gym can take its place.

So UNhappy gymming (I can never be happy gymming!!! You have to sweat it out remember) for me and all of you take care!!!!

Believe in yourself

In case you’re thinking that I am onto some kind of motivational post…….. you’re wrong!!! I am talking about the proverbial M syndrome that ails me every now and then!!! It is more now and more then……. so much that at times I am completely and totally living in a world of black and white. My exposure to people who are totally into the world of black and procrastination is definitely not helping. These days I keep oscillating pendulum like between GOOD AND BAD!!!

I guess you’re wondering about this proverbial M syndrome that I suffer from…… as I am sure you have never heard of it. It is this syndrome I developed after a very good friend of mine took me to task because I lost my temper one day…….. honest to God I don’t even remember the circumstances of the so called day in which I contracted the syndrome…… I plead amnesia !!! all I remember is that : I lost my temper, was accused of having anger management problems, and since then (Its been a very very long time) I have always held myself responsible for anything that happens around me……… people falling sick, maid not coming to work etc etc.

I don’t believe that I developed the syndrome overnight but the roots of it can be found in my childhood at school when the teachers chided me for things which were not my fault. I totally understand their point, specially because I know that it is difficult to manage a class of 80 or so students….. they are bound to make mistakes…… but that does not make me forgive them…… maybe someday……..

Flashback: In my third standard my class teacher Sr Bertilla divided all of us into groups for the GK class. One day the group leader asked us to meet at the certain location during the lunch break…… I had not finished my lunch so asked the group leader to go ahead and I would join them later. When I went back she told me I was late and I could not join in. The group leader who is now a very good friend of mine, went to Sr Bertilla and told her that I had told her that I did not want to join in. Sr took me to task and in front of the whole class took me to task citing that I was BAD etc etc and that I would not be included in any further activities……. well that was my first……. It did not even help that I topped in GK that year and have hated teachers all my life.

Years later a very good friend of mine refused to talk to me because the group of guys I hung around with were weird and had long hair and had notorious stories to their credit…… I was told that I should hang around with GOOD people and also that she could not be seen with me because my friends were BAD!!! I never dumped my friends for her but yeah I did not talk to her for years. I did not have time for snobs……… still don’t.

These days the people I meet are also totally negative. They are either slaves to their husbands or their kids or slave to their situations slaves to recession and career and money and their lives and do not want to work towards making it better rather live that way and curse their bad luck.

I do not understand the terms of GOOD and BAD. There is no RIGHT or WRONG in my dictionary. For me these things are totally ambiguous. There is good in bad and bad in good……. that is my perception!!! You can’t castigate somebody because they think or behave in a certain way. Every man’s behavior is based on years of experience. A person behaves in a certain way because according to him that is the right way to do things. What is good for me could be bad for somebody else and vice versa.

The problem is that for some reason we start viewing ourselves from the eyes of others…… the problem is not with what people think of you……. but what you think of yourself.

For years I thought it was a self esteem problem and I had my best friend make me stand in front of the mirror and do the I love myself act. It never worked because it wasn’t the problem. Earlier in life I used to do things and tell myself that everything is OK as long as my ma and pa believed in me……. I still think that but today additionally I think that I everything is OK as long as I think that it is OK!!! but somewhere deep in the heart there is always a MAY BE…….. Ma says that little bit of doubt in yourself keeps pride from going to your head and helps you in case of failures. I totally agree!!! The mantra here is to believe in yourself even when all others around you lose their faith in you!!! Every decision that you take in such crossroads is going to have effects which are both positive and negative. It totally depends on you how you take it and are able to turn things around!!!

Today I am again faced with the classic case of M syndrome of good and bad !!! If I take the easy way and do the right thing I get accolades but if I refuse I have years of work ahead of me but the satisfaction that I did not compromise with my ethics. I have lived with the satisfaction as till date I have never compromised on the ethical front…….. guess one more time but the temptation to bend is really too much….. but nope!!! I guess I will just have to believe in myself that I can do it again…… proverbial phoenix!!! and rise again!!! This time I am going to lose a full year of work but the experience of it remains with me that nobody can take from me……. guess if I can do it once I can do it again and again and again!!! But honestly I wish this would just stop and I wouldn’t have to reinvent myself every six months. Even I deserve a laid back life!!!

WHY I AM A HINDU – A MUST READ

One of my friends sent me the following article. It was so true of hinduism and my belief in my religion that I just had to post it. I have no idea about the author of this article but whoever wrote it has described the religion very beautifully. I wanted to share it with one and all so I decided to post it on my blog.

Four years ago, I was flying from JFK NY Airport to SFO to attend ameeting at Monterey , CA.

An American girl was sitting on the right side, near window seat. It indeed was a long journey – it would take nearly seven hours. I was surprised to see the young girl reading a Bible quite unusual of young Americans. After some time she smiled and we had few acquaintances talk. I told her that I am from India.

Then suddenly the girl asked: ‘What’s your faith?’

‘What?’ I didn’tunderstand the question.

‘I mean, what’s your religion? Are you a Christian? Or a Muslim?’

‘No!’ I replied, ‘I am neither Christian nor Muslim’. Apparently she appeared shocked to listen to that.

‘Then who are you?’

‘I am a Hindu’, I said.

She looked at me as if she was seeing a caged animal. She could not understand what I was talking about. A common man in Europe or US knows about Christianity and Islam, as they are the leading religions of the world today. But a Hindu, what was that?

I explained to her – I am born to a Hindu father and Hindu mother. Therefore, I am a Hindu by birth.

‘Who is your prophet?’ she asked.

‘We don’t have a prophet,’ I replied.

‘What’s your Holy Book?’

‘We don’t have a single Holy Book, but we have hundreds and thousands of philosophical and sacred scriptures,’ I replied.

‘Oh, come on at least tell me who is your God?’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Like we have Jesus and Muslims have Allah – don’t you have a God?’

I thought for a moment. Muslims and Christians believe one God (Male God) who created the world and takes an interest in the humans who inhabit it. Her mind is conditioned with that kind of belief. According to her, (or anybody who doesn’t know about Hinduism) a Religion needs to have one Prophet, one Holy book and one God. The mind is so conditioned and rigidly narrowed down to such a notion that anything else is not acceptable. I understood her perception and concept about faith. You can’t compare Hinduism with any of the present leading religions where you have to believe in one concept of God.

I tried to explain to her: ‘You can believe in one god and he can be a Hindu. You may believe in multiple deities and still you can be a Hindu. What’s more – you may not believe in god at all, still you can be a Hindu. An atheist can also be a Hindu.’

This sounded very crazy to her. She couldn’t imagine a religion so unorganized, still surviving for thousands of years, even after onslaught from foreign forces.

‘I don’t understand but it seems very interesting. Are you religious?’

What can I tell to this American girl?

I said: ‘I do not go to temple regularly. I do not make any regular rituals. I have learned some of the rituals in my younger days. I still enjoy doing it sometimes.

‘Enjoy? Are you not afraid of God?’

‘God is a friend. No – I am not afraid of God. Nobody has made any compulsions on me to perform these rituals regularly.’

She thought for a while and then asked: ‘Have you ever thought of converting to any other religion?’

‘Why should I? Even if I challenge some of the rituals and faiths in Hinduism, nobody can convert me from Hinduism. Because, being a Hindu allows me to think independently and objectively, without conditioning. I remain as a Hindu never byforce, but choice.’

I told her that Hinduism is not a religion, but a set of beliefs and practices. It is not a religion like Christianity or Islam because it is not founded by any one person or does not have an organized controlling body like the Church or the Order, I added. There is no institution or authority.

‘So, you don’t believe in God?’ she wanted everything in black and white.

‘I didn’t say that. I do not discard the divine reality. Our scripture, or Sruthis or Smrithis – Vedas and Upanishads or the Gita – say God might be there or he might not be there. But we pray to that supreme abstract authority (Para Brahma) that is the creator of this universe.’

‘Why can’t you believe in one personal God?’

‘We have a concept – abstract – not a personal god. The concept or notion of a personal God, hiding behind the clouds of secrecy, telling us irrational stories through few men whom he sends as messengers, demanding us to worship him or punish us, does not make sense. I don’t think that God is as silly as an autocratic emperor who wants others to respect him or fear him.’

I told her that such notions are just fancies of less educated human imagination and fallacies, adding that generally ethnic religious practitioners in Hinduism believe in personal gods. The entry level Hinduism has over-whelming superstitions too. The philosophical side of Hinduism negates all superstitions.

‘Good that you agree God might exist. You told that you pray. What is your prayer then?’

‘Loka Samastha Sukino Bhavantu. Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti,’

‘Funny,’ she laughed, ‘What does it mean?’

‘May all the beings in all the worlds be happy. Om Peace, Peace, Peace.’

‘Hmm ..very interesting. I want to learn more about this religion. It is so democratic, broad-minded and free’ she exclaimed.

‘The fact is Hinduism is a religion of the individual, for the individual and by the individual with its roots in the Vedas and the Bhagavad-Gita. It is all about an individual approaching a personal God in an individual way according to his temperament and inner evolution – it is as simple as that.’

‘How does anybody convert to Hinduism?’

‘Nobody can convert you to Hinduism, because it is not a religion, but a set of beliefs and practices. Everything is acceptable in Hinduism because there is no single authority or organization either to accept it or to reject it or to oppose it on behalf of Hinduism.’

I told her – if you look for meaning in life, don’t look for it in religions; don’t go from one cult to another or from one guru to the next. For a real seeker, I told her, the Bible itself gives guidelines when it says ‘Kingdom of God is within you.’

I reminded her of Christ’s teaching about the love that we have for each other. That is where you can find the meaning of life. Loving each and every creation of the God is absolute and real.

‘Isavasyamidam sarvam’ Isam (the God) is present (inhabits) here everywhere – nothing exists separate from the God, because God is present everywhere. Respect every living being and non-living things as God. That’s what Hinduism teaches you. Hinduism is referred to as Sanathana Dharma, the eternal faith. It is based on the practice of Dharma, the code of life. The most important aspect of Hinduism is being truthful to oneself.

Hinduism has no monopoly on ideas.- It is open to all. Hindus believe in one God (not a personal one) expressed in different forms. For them, God is timeless and formless entity. Ancestors of today’s Hindus believe in eternal truths and cosmic laws and these truths are opened to anyone who seeks them. But there is a Section of Hindus who are either superstitious or turned fanatic to make this an organized religion like others. The British coin the word ‘Hindu’ and considered it as a religion.

I said: ‘Religions have become an MLM (multi-level- marketing) industry that has been trying to expand the market share by conversion. The biggest business in today’s world is Spirituality. Hinduism is no exception’

I am a Hindu primarily because it professes Non-violence –’Ahimsa Paramo Dharma’ – Non violence is the highest duty. I am a Hindu because it doesn’t condition my mind with any faith system. A man/woman who changes his/her birth religion to another religion is a fake and does not value his/her morals, culture and values in life.

Hinduism was the first religion originated. Be proud of your religion and be proud of who you are.

Om Namo shiva…..