Category: Inspirations

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Inspirations

Music to help you concentrate

I never really understood instrumental music for a long long time. I always missed the words, the lyrics and always thought that it was the words that gave a piece the soul, the emotion ,until I got introduced to the music of the masters :Mozart , Beethoven and the likes

Now I may sound like a  pretentious snob when I say “Oh I listen to Mozart” but the reality is , I never even listened to them seriously for a long long time(at least not as pieces) until I decided to give it a listen while searching for some music to help me concentrate.

It is now been about a year or two listening to the music of these greats and I could not have been happier with myself . I now realize how music affects your emotions, how it can make you feel happy, sad, chirpy and contemplative .How simple shift in notes can trigger so many emotions that it is hard to explain.

I not only give it a listen, I seem to now have favorites as well, I actually like Mozart over any other musician , somehow his music is more powerful .I do not possess enough music vocabulary to pin point what I like about his music but all I can say is that it makes me feel more immersed and also helps me focus much much better .

So thanks to YouTube , here I wanted to share some YouTube videos I listen to quite often . These are collection of works of various greats

 

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Inspirations

A cause worth taking up – Affordable sanitary pads #FreedomFromShame

Menstrual cycle is still a taboo topic for discussion in India. 50% of human race undergoes it , still we cannot even talk about it forget discussing about menstrual hygiene  and various options available .

To make matters worse , in many parts of India, a woman is considered “impure” during “un dino” (having her periods) . She cannot touch the deity in a temple or even , in some places, enter their own house. They live in makeshift sheds outside .

Imagine , a biological phenomenon which basically is linked to a woman’s ability  to conceive a child, probably the purest form of “being human” , an ability to bring life to this world , a power similar to God and still being perceived as impure.

But this blog is not to discuss about various taboos surrounding menstrual cycle but to shed light on an organization that is trying to do something.

Due to various taboos surrounding this issue , many women, especially in villages are unaware of menstrual hygiene, leaving them vulnerable to diseases and loss of productivity due to discomfort. Many girls end up skipping upto a WEEK of school EVERY MONTH , eventually leading them to quit school all together .

Aakar is a social enterprise that creates affordable biodegradable sanitary pads . Their model is simple, bring the simple technology to villages where women themselves make and sell these pads . These women also educate other women about menstrual hygiene while becoming mini entrepreneurs  themselves.

They are running a fund raising for expanding this noble venture and I believe it is worth contributing to .So Go and DONATE

http://www.ketto.org/campaign/campaign_details.php?fmd_id=203#3

Top reason’s why you should contribute

  • This is a social venture and NOT a plain charity. They won’t distribute once and go away. it is sustainable. Your contribution will have a long lasting effect
  • The Women earn, they become the entrepreneurs, bread winners .

 

 

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Inspirations Poetry

Dream Chaser

Acrylic painting Dream Chaser

Original Acrylic Painting
 

My feet hurt,

legs have given up.

My only support the wooden stick ,

that I broke from a dead tree,

seems to cry out of pain.

The destination is far,

farther than anyone thought.

No lights ,no maps,

with only the moon as my guide

I walk.

Just another day for me it is,

I am a Dream Chaser

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Inspirations Simply Random

Paint a little more

A moment before Void-Painting
A moment before Void-Acrylic Painting made using fingers–No brush

 

Pain--Acrylic Abstract PaintingPain--Acrylic Abstract Painting
Pain–Acrylic Abstract Painting
Soul Trees- Acrylic painting
Soul Trees- Acrylic painting

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Inspirations

A practical experiment to teach 3rd graders the horrors of discrimination

A teacher does a class activity that helps the students understand the horrors of discrimination and racism by making them experience it themselves . Not only did she prove to them why discrimination based on skin color IS absurd but perhaps change their perception forever ,making them better human beings.

Perhaps this activity should be compulsory and we need more teachers like her.

Must Watch

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeK759FF84s]

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6 Signs that it’s time to change

  1. When you are jittery most of the time

  2. When you procrastinate 

  3. When you feel that your current place is just temporary

  4. When you start distancing yourself from people who love what you are doing right now

  5. When you see someone make it big doing what you want to do, apart from feeling inspired you feel someone stabbing you (it’s your conscience) , you feel pain for you are still here

  6. When you actually get goosebumps thinking of possibilities

That’s when you know , something is not right and it’s time to change

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Inspirations philosophy

8 Days of wilderness-Post 2-Kolkata Airport

Reached Kolkata at 12:00 , and my next transportation is at 8:oo PM(train to jalpaiguri)…8 hours to kill . Did not dare to leave the Airport .

Surprisingly found this Internet Cafe with cubicles unfit for any normal sized human to fit in , at the airport.

Killing 1 hour here , sipping overpriced coffee and a taking bite of what looks like stale sad witch. The keyboard at the cafe does not have any letters visible, playing guess what letter I am game. One key “I” is actually a different Red colored key, looks like a trigger to some bomb…let me try again IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII. Ha nothing happened here at least.

I think I should stop cribbing , possibly I hate cubicles and waiting and bad key boards and stale sandwiches 😛

Possibly my last post till the end of the trip

 

 

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8 days in Wilderness- Trip to North East-Post 1:Preparation

Finally all set to go on a long awaited trek to the beautiful North East. I along with 6 other classmates from ISB are heading out to a 8 day trek to Goechala starting 7th of this month(tommorow–yeaaa).

Will head out to Kolkata via flight then to jalpaiguri via train and then to Yuksom(Where our trek starts) via road . Last time I was on such a long trip was when I , along with two of friends drove from East to West Coast of US , that too when it was snowing. I had blogged about that trip every day as it was happening, every incident was fresh, every memory vivid and every experience unreal

Day By Day detail of out Great American road trip across US : Starting from Day 1. Every day has a separate post

Short version of the Great american road trip across US

Sadly that cannot be replicated here, forget wifi, forget cellphone connection, we have been told that even electricity would be hard to find.

Goecha La Pass in Sikkim
Goecha La Pass in Sikkim:
Picture Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kabru_Complex.jpg . User : Shillika

I believe none of our cellphone and camera batteries would last beyond day 3-4. So the probability of pictures would be less. I could record my memories after  I come back , but that would be not completely true, I would not be able to do justice to every single day, my memory and my experience would be clouded by the most vivid and maybe the most recent wonder I see. Last time I recorded every day, I was able to capture my euphoria and sheer wonder of every day.

So to over come this bias I am carrying my trusted pen and paper and also a voice recorder  In case I am unable to write. I have been told that this recorder can record way more than I would ever need.Actually I don’t remember how much , but it was a lot :).

Anyways, Plan to record what I see every day , on the way and post it one day at a time when I am back :).

Wish me luck

Stuff I am taking(Apart from normal clothes etc etc):

  1. Lot of warm clothes
  2. Extra batteries(3 pairs),
  3. Torch etc
  4. Medicines(Especially Altitude sickness),
  5. Hiking ShoesOnly woodland had it :(, Sad smiley because I generally avoid leather and Woodland is all leather. If anyone knows an alternative, would love to know. Will post here also for anyone who is buying
  6. Rain Coat
  7. Paper ,Pen ,Voice recorder, a book,book light

A very short checklist for me this is 🙂

DID I Miss anything Major? Any travel Tips?

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What would you do?

Every person some time in his/her life is faced with situations that shake their faith. It may be triggered by small things such as seeing someone else act the way you acted and hating them for it,then suddenly realising that you were also like that or big ones such as losing THE one
When things suddenly take nosedive, things change so rapidly that you are unable to get a grip, the life you so carefully meticulously planned and crafted now falls apart. Your decisions become reactive and not based on what you actually want.You let life flow in the most comfortable direction not the planned path.
There are 2 options here,
1: take a step back and rethink, do you want to react to all that is happening?If not then start recrafting things.Oh yes, life does not move the way it is supposed to move all the time , moving with it is your choice. Life is not like a river which flows where there is slope ,it is by definition alive,kicking and thinking. Take back control
2:Let it happen:Some people may argue that that is the most appropriate solution ,but is it for you? That is your call. The biggest risk here is that you may be caught in such a loop of going with the flow that the flow never stops.You are always flowing to a random place. Are you ready for this?
The counter argument can be that ,somethings are beyond your control, let them happen ,do not fight rather preserve your energies

What would you do?

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What if money didn’t Matter

Had to share this,

We all want to be happy, love our work but do we really work towards that? Why do we make choices based on what pays more and not satisfies more?

Do you not want to wake up everyday and look forward to going to work? How long can we live a life of running after money?

We spend our lives trying to earn more money, every decision in life is based on what makes more monetary sense .How robotic is that life and how sad is that life

This possibly is the reason that most people now hav almost no hobbies, they life starts and ends with work. Go do a sample survey, ask people around you how many of them  have a hobby still and what have they done about it?

Why do brilliant poets stop writing because of work pressures ? Can you imagine the number of sonnets we might have lost?

Authors put down their pens because something else pays more.Imagine the number of masterpieces we lost

Yes, I may be accused of considering money and happiness mutually exclusive , but that is not what want to say. What I want to say is that STOP weighing every life decision based on economic merit, life will be over before you know it.

All the economic merit, the so called success will evaporate and won’t matter , what will be left is memories and happiness that will stick on to you. What do you want to see when you look back? A life of trials and errors  and joys and happiness and satisfaction or a life spent shifting to the more lucrative ,more economically viable places and options?
Live an inspired life, a life that inspires you and maybe the generations to come. When you die and people say , he died a happy man, doing what he loved doing ,that is when you know you had a great run. So, work for it

 

Here is a brilliant video someone shared

DO have a look, it’s worth it, very inspirational
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nif01WZ9aI&w=560&h=315]

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