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The one where tradition takes front seat

On a Sunday morning, as I was sharing the dining table with my father, I noticed him coughing & sneezing.  Me : Mommy, arrange some Tulsi leaves before it's evening. (As per Odia tradition, we are not supposed to pluck leaves past evening) Mommy : But we just had our  breakfast Me : So ?  You can pick leaves only in morning on an empty stomach. Is that rule-2 in your dictionary of tradition ? (I was slightly irritated, because last time I asked her for my cold, she told me about evening, rule-1) Oh, how fool of you that you don't know this. No no, saying one can't pluck leaves after having non-veg would have made sense (considering odia culture), but the thing about empty stomach makes no sense.  You think you know everything, but you don't. No mom, I know that I don't know many things. But sometimes you say things that's just plain stupidity.  You REALLY think one can pluck leaves after having meal ? ( This time she was angry)  No, one can't (I said whi
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A Storm in Silence

I knew it. I knew it then, when it was buried in my heart. An imperfect feeling in a perfect surrounding. Then it stayed there. Sometimes it would stare back at me. Teasing me. Mocking me. Talking to me in a condescending tone.  Was I hurt ? Sure. It was torture. That constant attempt to talk myself out of that voice. Not letting it have it's hold on me. Not going down that rabbit hole only to be left stranded in a deeper underground. A part of me kept growing cold & lifeless. It forms a strange dipole where mind is in one end & heart is in other. The heart asks for freedom & the mind cherishing it's unrelenting clasp. This continues untill there is nothing that a heart could feel. What follows is a long bland void. It was better off when it was hurt. There was movement, there was pain, there was rebellion. It felt strangely alive to be burnt under the fire of doubt & agony.  Now it's just cold. The water that used to flow in a river is now confined in a poo

5 Exceptional yet Not-So-Famous Movies in India

It's been a long time since I made a filmy post. So I thought, well, why not I make one today ?  Each year since last 5 years I have kept a record of all the movies that have caught my  attention in the most peculiar way possible.  So here I present 5 unique movies each with their major highlights. Hope you have a good time.   1) Up in the Air - Based on Corporate life - The charm of George Clooney   - Winner of Golden Globe Award  2) Inglorious Basterds  - Based on World War 2  - Suspenseful & surprising story told in extraordinary way  - The Tarantino touch  3) Romancing the stone   - Treasure hunt story full of adventure & a touch of romance  - There is twist  - Michael Douglas at his best  4) Million Dollar Baby  - Sports drama  - It is exciting & heart breaking  - The acting will melt your heart  5) Secret Life of Walter Mitty  - A unique character that you may have never seen in cinema  - The locations are stunning  - The adventure is a breathe of fresh air  That&

Something to think about...

People are not dumb. They are smart. The irony is... Okay, what am I talking about ?  Let's go out for a walk in the market.  What do you see ?  You see girls.  Now look at all those stalls selling street food. Quite busy stalls.  Can you see the Pizza Hut ?  Let's get a little closer, we have to see something. Do you see the fat guy holding a gym bag ?  He probably just came after a gym session. Look what he is ordering.  A pizza.  Not JUST a pizza.  A pizza with added cheese & coca cola. Now see what he will do after getting the pizza box. He is reading the ingredients & calory content in the box. I told you, people aren't dumb. Do you see what he found ?  Ofcourse you don't. You are with me & you are watching him from a distance. No worry. We can google it.  Searched "total calories in a medium sized cheese pizza" Result "Nearly 2000 calories" So the guy perhaps lost 400/500 calories in gym & now he is reading that the pizza has 20

3 Ways to Pick Non-Fiction Books for a Fun Reading Experience

If you are reading this then I am assuming you have come accross few books in past & looking forward to lift your reading a notch higher.  So what do you think about reading ?  How that experience of holding a book & reading it all by yourself inside a calm room sounds like ?  Fun, right ?   Hell no.  Opposed to scrolling Netflix & Instagram, the idea of putting down your head over a book already sounds quite geeky, which could be described as the opposite of fun. But is there any way to make it fun ? Ofcourse. You can have a coffee. You can sit over a comfortable chair with a comfy cushion inside a home whose doors give way to a cool green balcony. That's the decoration part. But there is something more important than decoration & that's the secret.  It's fun  ONLY IF YOU PICK THE BOOKS RIGHT FOR YOU . Read that sentence again.  I didn't say "Pick the RIGHT BOOKS" I said "Pick the books RIGHT FOR YOU". Got it ? Now that's what ma

Concept of Marriage : Getting Clarity through Confusion

Marriage has been a deeply confusing topic from the beginning of civilization. As soon as you hit a certain age, you have to make a decision. A big scary DECISION. Getting married or not ?  Now here I have cited most of the common reasons why people marry. Hope you will agree. But that's not the point of this post.  The point is to get clarity over why we do it. And I think, there is no better way to understand something without questioning the very foundation of what we think to be correct.  So, without further ado, let's dive in & think through some questions, which I believe, are hard but worth pondering over.  Ready.....Steady.....Go. 1) Some do it for physical, mental & emotional fulfilment  Don't you feel fulfilled now ?  How do you know marriage will make you fulfilled ?  Is this fulfilment just an IDEA or a real thing ?   2) Some actually don't need it presently, still do it so that they will have a child who will take care of them in older days  What if

An Underrated Aspect of Waking Up Early : Backed by Experiment

Welcome !  This is a blog post that tackles an issue almost 80% people deal with : WAKING UP EARLY.  Now given the kind of lifestyle our generation is exposed to, it's no wonder why sleeping on time & waking up early feels like an ordeal of infinite magnitude. Sadly, like many others, I have felt it all my life & rarely succeeded.  Now there are hundreds of explanations about how to do that effectively. There is the role of diet, exercise, surrounding temperature, sound etc. But there is one parameter that's arguably most dominant :  LIGHT, specifically SUNLIGHT.  Prof./Podcaster, Andrew Huberman is by far the biggest supporter of this notion on social media. He has repeatedly emphasized the role of SUNLIGHT when it comes to waking up early (& also sleeping early).  According to science, when we are exposed to light of higher intensity there is reduction in melatonin (sleep hormone) & rise of cortisol (hormone during activity). So, better the intensity better th