MOTHER

MOTHER The officer at the Driving License counter asked the lady "What is your occupation?" The woman seeking renewal of her license seemed to be puzzled. So the officer said "Ma'am, are you employed, have your own business or........ The woman replied "Oh, yes!! I have a full time occupation. I am a mother" Officer: "We don't have 'mother' as an option for occupation. I will write it down as 'Housewife'. That takes care of all questions." This had happened long ago, and was forgotten. Years later when I went to get my license, the Public Relations Officer was a somewhat pompous. woman. "Your occupation?" she asked in a rather authoritative tone. I just had an inspiration and replied "I am a researcher in the field of Child Development, Nutrition and Inter-personal Relationships" The lady officer stared at me in amazement. I calmly repeated my statement and she wrote it down verbatim. Then, unable to conceal her curiosity, she politely asked "What exactly do you do in your profession, Ma'am?" I was feeling good about having described my occupation so calmly and confidently. So I replied "My research projects have been going on for a number of years (Mothers never retire!!). My research is conducted in the laboratory as well as in the field. I have two bosses. (One is God and the other is my entire family). I have received two honours in this field. (A son and a daughter) My topic is considered to be the most difficult part of sociology.(All moms will agree!!). I have to work more than 14 hours every day. Sometimes even 24 hours are not enough and the challenges are tougher than many other professions. My compensation is in terms of mental satisfaction rather than money" I could see that the officer was thoroughly impressed. After completing the licensing formalities, she came to the door to see me off. This new viewpoint about my occupation made me feel much better on my way back home. I was welcomed by my 5 year old research assistant at the door. My new project (my 6 month old baby) was energetically practicing her 'music'. I had earned a small victory over the Governmental red tape today. I was no longer 'merely a mother', instead I was now a highly placed functionary in a service vital for mankind -Motherhood!! 'Mother' - Isn't it a great title. Fit to be added to the nameplate on the door!! By this standard, grandmothers deserve to be called Senior Research Officers, and Great Grandmothers qualify as 'Research Directors'. Aunts and other ladies of that age group can be called 'Research Facilitators' Please share this with all mothers, grandmothers, great grandmothers, all ladies currently holding posts like didi-tai-chachi-mami-mausi-bua ...... They will all shower you with blessings and life will be happier. All husbands, fathers, please note. This is a must read for all !

Marriage Needs Routine, Not Passion For Being Successful..Shaadi-Saving Secret

Marriage Needs Routine, Not Passion For Being Successful..Shaadi-Saving Secret Turning every love guru’s advice to married couples on its head, writer and wife Elizabeth Weil tells why high passion means low stability MOST Americans, and married people anywhere in the world who’ve heard of Elizabeth Weil, and her recent experiment, think she’s bonkers. The San Franciscobased writer and husband Daniel Duane, married in 2000, volunteered for year-long couple therapy after nine years of marriage. The surprise? They didn’t need it. It was what Weil calls an effort to see if their good marriage could get better. In her just-released book, No Cheating, No Dying: I Had A Good Marriage, Then I Tried To Make It Better, the mother of two daughters wittily chronicles her private journey. “The idea of trying to improve our union came to me one night in bed. I’ve never really believed that you just marry one day at the altar. I believe that you become married, slowly, over time,” she says in an email interview. Weil convinced Duane to sign up for a pact that would test their micro-manias. “It was fascinating,” she says, “to watch the rapists tag you in a lab. I had distaste for French kissing. One therapist thought I was ‘subsumed’. You know, marriage is a teachable skill; you have to love each other completely to know what works in your marriage.” Soon, Weil realised she was treating her marriage as “one of those things”. “I had read all about it — how to be a good mother, how to have a good home. I wasn’t doing anything to my marriage. I wanted to ask questions. Trying to figure what was really missing became irresistible,” she says about her search. It’s a challenge, Weil feels, because modern marriages are under pressure. Couples are economic and romantic partners. They expect to face work stress, anxiety that kids gift them, and still be in love. Excerpts from an interview: Everyone who has heard about your book is asking, why would any halfway sane couple married for nine years opt for a yearlong training that could reveal ugly truths? Every couple is worried what a therapy session might bring up, because we’ve tried so hard to brush the unpleasant under the carpet. For me, my relationship with my husband had to be the core of my universe; I wanted to check if it was fine. People told me, ‘You’re crazy! How can you?’ Americans have this romantic notion about marriage — either you are in love or not. Your husband says he cooked his way back to a happy relationship. How does food help strengthen a marriage? Dan has always been interested in food. He’d cook in the early years of our marriage, then he started cooking for the kids; he made it his passion. The kitchen is a great place for a couple and family to bond. What is the one marital misdeed that could prove threatening? It’s a personal thing. For some, it could be infidelity. For me, it would be giving up. For instance, not paying attention to the other, not acknowledging that something’s wrong and then addressing it. Marriage is so complex, you can’t let it stagnate. A bad marriage is like ill health. Don’t wait to go to a doctor till you are very sick; you won’t make it. Imago therapy, you say, helped you focus on how your relationship with your parents had an impact on your marriage. How are parents and a spouse linked? The way we are raised as children, shapes us. If you’ve enjoyed a wonderful relationship with your parents, it’ll reflect in your dynamics with your spouse. The therapy looked at the baggage people carry from their origin. My close relationship with my parents was in fact, one of the few points of contention in our marriage. Pick one session you’d tag as the most bizarre? The Mastering the Mysteries of Love session demanded that we play the character of the spouse. I’ve spent years talking to him, listening to him. But this role play was bizarre. I ‘became’ him. The last stage of our training involved sex therapy. ‘Improving my marriage in one area often caused problems in another. More passion meant less stability,’ you say. Explain that? Passion can be explosive; it’s risky. Nobody can remain in a constant state of passion. Marriage requires calm, peace and routine. Stability and long-term passion in a marriage can’t co-exist. More passion means less stability. In India, urban marriages are falling apart. There are trust issues. How would you convince singles in favour of marriage? Marriage is amazing but you need to be committed. In a marriage, every day isn’t beautiful. It’s the being together for long where the beauty lies. Writer Elizabeth Weil and her husband signed up for a marriage improvement project to see if they could make their good marriage better Archana Puran Singh, actress and TV host, married to actor Parmeet Sethi for 20 years Every marriage undergoes compromise and failure. We belong to the old school, and so, we fought the cracks. My sister is my confidante, so is a close friend who is a psychologist. I consult her often. After six nights together, there’s no mystery. Sex will turn boring in a few years. But I enjoy routine. I don't want that butterfly excitement and passion. I want stability and sameness. It’s comforting.

LONGEVITY IN GEN.

Israeli researchers studied a population of Ashkenazi Jews who have lived to age 95 and older and found that their eating and lifestyle habits were no better than those of general population. In fact, men in the long lived group drank slightly more and exercised less than their average counterparts, said the findings in the online edition of Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. “This study suggests that centenarians may possess additional longevity genes that help to buffer them against the harmful effects of an unhealthy lifestyle,” said senior author Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Aging Research at Yeshiva University’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine. The study involved 477 Ashkenazi Jews aged 95-122 who were living independently. A total of 75% were women. All were enrolled in an ongoing study that aims to uncover the secrets to longevity. Ashkenazi Jews were chosen because they are more “genetically uniform than other populations, making it easier to spot gene differences that are present,” said the study. Overall, the elder group had similar habits in terms of height-weight ratio, smoking, exercise level and diet as similarly matched people in the general population. Data on comparison subjects came from 3,164 people who had been born around the same time as the centenarians and were examined between 1971 and 1975 while participating in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Twenty-four percent of long-living men drank alcohol daily, compared to 22% of the general population, while 43% of the older group exercised regularly compared to 57% of regular men.

Wrap a rainbow of joy in your heart

Today... wrap a rainbow of joy in your heart, let the sun paint a smile on your face, remove all clouds of doubt & fear and receive God's Gift of LIFE. Have a blessed day with caress ~~* I can appreciate coffee without cream, pay without overtime, nights without lights, meals without rice, hugs without kiss, but never a day without greeting you.

YOU'RE IN MY HEART

There is a place for us that no one else can enter. It is a place that holds no secrets, only beauty, peace, understanding. A place that we come to, thinking we are one, only to have our souls fused together for a moment. And in that moment, I know you; every pore, every pulse, every thought, every fear. And I love you more. I feel myself laid bare before you, and I feel content . . . joyous that you are with me, loving me tremendously.

ART OF GIVING

"Rivers do not drink their own water, nor do tree eat their own fruit, nor do rain clouds eat the grains reared by them. The wealth of the noble is used solely for the benefit of others? Even after accepting that giving is good and that one must learn to give, several questions need to be answered. The first question is when should one give? We all know the famous incident from the Mahabharata. Yudhisthir, asks a beggar seeking alms to come the next day. On this, Bhim rejoices, that Yudhisthir his brother, has conquered death! For he is sure that he will be around tomorrow to give. Yudhisthir gets the message. One does not know really whether one will be there tomorrow to give! The time to give therefore is now. The next question is how much to give. One recalls the famous incident from history. Rana Pratap was reeling after defeat from the Moghals. He had lost his army, he had lost his wealth, and most important he had lost hope, his will to fight. At that time in his darkest hour, his erstwhile minister Bhamasha came seeking him and placed his entire fortune at the disposal of Rana Pratap. With this, Rana Pratap raised an army and lived to fight another day. The answer to this question how much to give is "Give as much as you can! The next question is what to give. It is not only money that can be given. It could be a flower or even a smile. It is not how much one gives but how one gives that really matters. When you give a smile to a stranger that may be the only good thing received by him in days and weeks! "You can give anything but you must give with your heart! One also needs answer to this question whom to give. Many times we avoid giving by finding fault with the person who is seeking. However, being judgmental and rejecting a person on the presumption that he may not be the most deserving is not justified. "Give without being judgmental! Next we have to answer How to give Coming to the manner of giving, one has to ensure that the receiver does not feel humiliated, nor does the giver feel proud by giving. In giving follow the advice, ' Let not your left hand know what your right hand gives? Charity without publicity and fanfare is the highest form of charity. 'Give quietly! While giving let not the recipient feel small or humiliated. After all what we give never really belonged to us. We come to this world with nothing and will go with nothing. The thing gifted was only with us for a temporary period. Why then take pride in giving away something which really did not belong to us? Give with grace and with a feeling of gratitude. When you help someone in need, give it before he asks for it; for if you place him under the necessity of stretching out his hand, you take away from him his self-respect which is worth more than the value of your alms. What should one feel after giving? We all know the story of Eklavya. When Dronacharya asked him for his right thumb as "Guru Dakshina", he unhesitatingly cut off the thumb and gave it to Dronacharya. There is a little known sequel to this story. Eklavya was asked whether he ever regretted the act of giving away his thumb. He replied, and the reply has to be believed to be true, as it was asked to him when he was dying. His reply was "Yes! I regretted this only once in my life. It was when Pandavas were coming in to kill Dronacharya who was broken hearted on the false news of death of his son Ashwathama and had stopped fighting. It was then that I regretted the loss of my thumb. If the thumb was there, no one could have dared hurt my Guru. The message to us is clear. Give and never regret giving! And the last question is How much should we provide for our heirs? Ask yourself 'are we taking away from them the gift of work'? - A source of happiness! The answer is given by Warren Buffett: "Leave your kids enough to do anything, but not enough to do nothing! I would conclude by saying: let us learn the Art of Giving, and quoting Saint Kabir: "When the wealth in the house increases, when water fills a boat, Throw them out with both hands"

YOU ARE LIKE AN ART WORK

Your lips, your eyes, your soul Are like a work of art Your lips, your eyes, your soul Are like a work of art, The most creative thing of all Is your beautiful heart. If you were a painting, No colours could express The beauty deep inside you, A rainbow, nothing less. If you were a sculpture The clay could hardly make Your figure of an angel Without one mistake. If you were a euphony No choir could really sing All the beautiful music Your eyes could possibly bring. So here I am, an artist, With inspiration beyond belief But to capture such rare beauty, I'd have to be a thief.