The temple guide

A young newly married couple all decked up to explore the temple culture of the small city. Dressed up in local attire they went to auto stand to take auto, all auto walas were interested in taking foreigners only. They felt not wanted in their own country. Anyways they got an auto. They asked the auto wala to take then to a temple, which they had searched on Google. They reached there around quarter to 12 and it was closed. Temples usually stay closed there from 12 to 5 pm. The auto wala took them to another temple by himself. That was also closed. He himself was a Christian so he got down and enquired in some shops, and came back and took them to a temple which closed at 12. They reached there at 11.55. The husband asked his wife to tip the driver. Since he was dressed in the local munch, he wasn't carrying any cash. They entered the temple and saw from a distance that arti was going on. They thought they might close the gates of the deity so they kind of ran towards it. A lady signaled the wife something about her man. She didn't understand the first time the local dialect. The second time the lady signaled, she realised her husband was wearing t-shirt. Males are only allowed to wear mundus in temples in south. She asked him to remove it.

The guy removed his t-shirt and they went and stood at the end of the line of all devotees. Strangely there were only ladies. The aarti was over by then and the priest put the arti at one corner of the raised platform on which the priests were standing, worshiping the Lord. The young wife was busy handling her pallu with one hand, they went and took arti. The lady who had signaled her before, came and stood next to her. She was an old lady, very simply dressed, she was speaking only malyalam,  the couple had no clue what she was saying but they anyway smiled. Then she guided them to follow the priests. They went to another God. They sang something similar to "Om Jai Jagdish " but obviously she couldn't understand the lyrics. The young wife went and stood in front of the temple gate, to get a glimpse of the statue. Another lady told her in hindi to stand at a side and not in the way. There were two narrow white lines made in front of the temple and all ladies were standing on its either sides. Then she saw some males standing on the outer circle wearing shirts so I realised why there were no males standing with us except her husband.

All devotees started walking again towards another deity. They along with aunty followed them. One of the priest was carrying aarti and another was carrying two long rods. Aunty was telling the young married couple something and they were just smiling and had absolutely no clue. They then moved ahead and reached an open temple, it was a Shivling with Nandi as usual facing it. Finally one deity was visible properly. According to what she assumed, they had been to Hanumanji, Vishnuji , and now Shivji. Aunty told them to sit at a corner. She sat next to her and a girl was sitting next to her, as she saw her husband, she got up and left. The guy came and sat next to her. Aunty kept telling her something, while she wasn't getting a world, she was just understanding her active and feelings. Finally they went to Krishnaji and lastly Ganeshji. In north Ganeshji is worshipped first.

Aunty asked them to stand on a side of a passage. She muttered palki, so the wife understood that they will be carrying the lord in a palki through this passage so she was making them stand on the side. She made sign of money, so she understood that they need to keep some money in their hands. The husband was not carrying wallet, as there is no pocket in Mundu, and his wife was carrying clutch with their phones and money and in form of change she had only a 50 note and a Rs 10 note, so she gave him the 50 note. She signalled them something about him, which they could not understand twice then the lad understood and he stood at the other side of the passage. Then the priests took a cow and made it enter the temple gates, they worshiped it and everyone outside touched it and then placed their hand on their foreheads. The wife was thinking, wish she could gift that aunty something, so it would remain a sweet memory for her too, as she had made it for them.

Fianally the priest emerged carrying a palki, and outside some men were standing with musical instruments , they started playing drum and a pipe instrument. The priests stopped and did arti and took a thal filled with flowers to every devotee standing there. Everyone put their money on it and the priest gave them flowers. Aunty did not put and neither she was given flowers. The wife kept waiting, when they had to shower the flowers. The priest started moving ahead with the palki again. She could vaguely guess that it was Vasudev Bhagwan. Aunty signalled them that now they were free and could leave from behind. She thought for a moment if they should take her blessings by touching Aunty's feet, but that would be too much. She thought she could gift her bangles, which she was wearing, but aunty might not like used bangles, although she was a new bride and was wearing them for the second or third time itself. So they didn't do anything and tried to find their way back, as the temple had gates in every direction and they needed to get back to our footwears. They passed the palki again. Then outside we took tempo back to hotel.

Such a simple act of one person can mean so much for someone else. We are often so busy in our daily lives that we don't take breaks to enjoy these little joys in life. Humans can affect each other's lives, whether small or big, passively or negatively, is in our hands !

When Bad Luck has you on its Hitlist!

Ever felt like you got a big jolt from your best friend, you fall down, and you get up dusting off yourself and saying to yourself, I will find a new bestie...

Well in my case, I can't find a new best friend, I have to live with it, because my best friend is life! I'm surely on top of its beneficiaries. Whenever its not in a good mood (which is quite often, seems like it has mood swings or something), it gives me a nice push. I fall down, bruise my knee, get up and walk again. I am that kind of unconscionable person, imagine.

Sometimes it really hurts. It hurts so bad that you feel like never want to get up again. Most of the time I am aware of the superior quality of my bad luck, so I do not expect anything from my best friend, life. But sometimes it feels like I won't be able to take another jolt.

Most of the time my bestie gives surprises only to me. I happily take it. I'm its bestie after all, its my duty to make my friend happy. But sometimes it involves my near and dear ones too while punishing me. It hurts bad.

Like Midas knew, whatever he would touch would become gold, I am aware its the opposite in my case. If I touch gold, it might be detected as fake. If my life touches a good fortune person, he might get noted in bad luck's books. So much for being besties!!

I usually don't remmember movie dialogues, but there was this superhit bollywood movie, by the name " Raanjhanaa" and in the end the lead says, " par ab saala mood nahin, aankhe moond lene mein hi sukh hai" I feel defeated in the same way. You win life, you win!

The girl who pooped in class 4th!

"What's that disgusting smell?" said Meenakshi to her friend standing behind her in line. Her friend nodded in agreement.

It was time for school to be over. Just a few moments back, Shweta felt pressure in her stomach building up, she thought to herself, "School is about to get over.... If I go to washroom now, what if somebody locks me in, and I get trapped inside.....no let me hold it in, I'll go when I reach home"

The pressure increased, and she decided to go to run to the washroom. As she got up, her intestines lost control and she pooped in her sports shorts. Shweta became red with embarrassment and fear. Just then the bell rung indicating it was time to leave school. Shweta sad down thinking what she should do. The fear of visiting washroom overpowered her again and she decided to clean up after reaching home.

The kids were supposed to leave classroom in line. All the girls were confused about the bad smell, except one of them ofcourse.

Shweta rushed to her school bus. She sat near the window today, in the front row, specifically. Any kid who climbed up the bus had his expressions changed to disgust. Many of them covered their nose, to protect themselves from the bad smell.

The bus started, most of the girls had their nose covered now, Shweta also covered her nose in order to not stand out. Some girls were pointing towards her, claiming her to be the source of the smell. Another girl claimed it was some dead animal.

Finally, Shweta's home came, what a sight of relief it was for her. She rushed inside and told her mother everything. Her mother exclaimed, " God!....such a big girl, who poops in her pants, in class 4th?!!"

What happens is for the good!

Difficult to believe, right?


Well, yes, certainly, I myself didn't believe in this for quite sometime...well now, certainly YES!!

Often we hold on to something very tightly, we don't want to let it go...ever. 'Coz we think that was the best thing that ever happened to us, ever!

And in most cases, if you are among unfortunates, such as me, we don't end up getting those things what we long for...usually never.

Its undoubtedly very heart breaking. Our heart weeps, we
long to get it back...we have all kinds of dreams, day dreaming as well as subconsciously...thinking, what if we had it?

Well my friend, let it go. Let it go, for two reasons; the first, its about destiny, it wasn't meant for us.
And secondly, it was definitely for the good, and much more better things are bound to happen. Trust your instincts.


When I say, it was destiny, I don't mean that we should just leave everything on destiny, try your best, give it your one hundred percentage, let out your soul into your efforts; but still if you don't get it, it was definitely not meant for you. Luck didn't favour you, because it has better treasures in store for you in the near future.

I have a shaky kind of faith; after my first awakening incident, I got firmly latched onto this belief. When a second incident happened, of a kind that I mentioned above, I let it go thinking its for the better, but soon after when something better was not happening, I started loosing faith in this concept (shaky belief...... what I call it).

When the awakening comes, it blows your mind. There are things when you never thought of, as you saw "all green" in what you wanted, you realise them now, awe struck. Very soon my second awakening came, and recently after again a period of shaky faith, my third major awakening came pretty quickly, and so I was compelled to write this down. I will now always read this blog, whenever my shaky periods come back and haunt me.

Supermacy

"Oh! That's the ant hill I can crush by my foot!"

Yes, true! 'Coz you don't have the stature to look upto mountains, and so settle for ant hills.

Many people I came across have the above definition of taking control. In life we are always amid two pavements, one above us and one below. That is we are always younger/ smaller/ less skilled/ junior/ less knowledgeable/ subordinate/ etc from someone and on the other hand senior/ bigger/ larger / wealthier/ etc from somebody else.

Its a great thing to be senior to someone, you give a chance to somebody to look upto you, to respect you, to follow your footsteps. But to be bossy about it, to try to control, and/or emphasize control is not justified. Just to conquer and crush the ant hill you are capable of doesn't Rationalize.

Leaders and seniors ( yes they are not the same) should try to nurture their ant hills, and all of them, not just the ones that they can't crush because they know they need those to make their reign a success.

A friend of mine was working with an organization for the sake of work experience. She had already got another better job. But her manager was a leader with beautiful ideology, and she found herself working for him and not for the company or the project. Her manager's behavior made the inner employee within her rise.

Help build the ant hills under you, one day they might come handy in times of crisis, with their underground food storage!

Attraction

"What makes you click?" He asked brushing his leg against mine, "Definitely not this..." I thought, reserving my leg and faking a shy smile.

"Well there are many factors...."and I listed out a confusing and self contradictory list of factors.

Attraction is a vague subject, and I have never found a perfect answer in this field. Usually we have criterion lists for each and everything around, but our decision making power just some how gets quicken in the vicinity of a person we are attracted to.

Many people judge attractiveness by skin tone, height and other such bodily features. Most people find people with fairer skin tone to theirs attractive. Many other are obsessed with other bodily features such as eyes lips hair and such endless list.

The funny part I find is, we usually have an ideal list on our list regarding attractiveness. While there are some people who have absolutely zero matching features with our list but there is some "X"

factor about them that draws us towards them.

Like some body who hates smokers, and gets attracted to a smoker and with the plans of making him quit eventually gets married!

So attraction depends on timings, maybe chemistry or maybe stars!!

Power

It's a strange context, the elephant too is sometimes threatened, by his own power!

By his own power?!!

Well yes, a new teeny ant joins the office, the boss Mr. Elephant gives the ant a nice warm welcome, with grand plans of suppression and subordination in mind ( with a wicked wink).

Mr. Ant has a positive outlook towards work, he wants to work, bring out a positive change. All co workers are happy with Mr. Ant. They might not be showering him with compliments but are contended with his work and behaviour, so don't have any complaints against him.

Which is bad, right? Bad for Mr. Elephant obviously! He needs something against Mr. Ant to keep him under his feet. Mr. Elephant switches work profiles, makes him work round the clock and everything to make him frustrated. Our Mr Ant is a fine worker or we can say a non complaining obedient employee, he gives his best and doesn't complaint.

Now Mr. Elephant needs something more, something to make him feel suppressed. He greets Mr Ant one fine morning in the most unusual manner; he shouts at him in front of all office employees, for a petty issue. Mr. Ant quietly listens to his boss. He knows there is no point arguing or putting ahead his point. He makes himself busy in his routine with a subconscious side story running in his mind, what if he had shouted back...