Life and other things..

Today I completed reading the very famous book by a very renowned writer, Khaled Hosseini. He is not the one who wrote to be a best seller, but he wrote selfishly for himself. The name of the book is"A Thousand Splendid Suns". After I finished reading the book, the very first thought that came to my mind was 

                                       "It opened the closed doors"

 I felt a very deep lingering pain that I had subsumed inside a part of my heart years ago. 

Violence against women, when they were treated as animals, only used for having sex and bearing babies especially boys.We have come so far. 

But while reading the novel, my heart cried for the pain and struggle women have been through even after India got freedom and the constitution came into being on 26th January 1950 (even though as per writer it was all happening in Afghanistan). The fight for freedom for women has still not finished but yes has enabled some bright stars to come out of hue and shine brightly.

I recall how Mariam was punished by her husband of 50 yrs for not bearing a baby at the age of fifteen.She went through several  cycles of bearing a baby but was unable to have one.

One day Rasheed threw the food on the floor and stashed coal pieces into her mouth,

 forcing her to eat them to tell her how the food tasted which led to her loss of teeth.

Me, being a women myself have personally witnessed such incidences when the women have cried for mercy from her husband when food was not cooked properly or not served on time, when she was not allowed to keep a mobile phone or even look at another man.When a girl is educated and  

puts her views forward in society and hence called shameless and characterless by the so called judges of society.

 A women who gives all her life for her family without questioning the work time, starting from early morning cup of tea to serving each and every member of her family.It  brings me great pain today to know the real reality of women behind those close doors and superficial feminist talks of women being equal to men. 

I feel the suffering of women who quietly every night go to bed and are sexually and emotionally assaulted by their husbands, just because it is their right to do so.

I know I might be sounding a feminist, but for the example sake we need not look farther, but in the other room of our house where our women are working day and night selflessly and being treated like an object that is good enough to take care of home and maintain gardens rather than raising her voice and putting their views forward. 

I hope women in Afghanistan whose faces are covered with veil are well protected and have gained courage to accept the reality of life and tried to educate the coming generations cause the present is too good to be mended...

A women is like a flower which needs to be cared for,

her fragrance fills up the dark rooms and brightens the life cared for

for if not done she turns into a thorn 

than can ruin the dynasties like draupadi

or bring heaven to earth like Mother Teresa.....

I hope you did not forget this?

She was like a wind

That many tried to capture her in a jar

But no one actually owned her

There was something wrong about her

 that attracted men of good nature....

So many times in life, we run after certain things that seem fit for us whether in terms of friendships, relationship or our future decisions. 

But have we stopped and thought what are those standards that we use to decide upon what is right or wrong for us.

Being loved by someone and loving them back is one important decision that we make in life but then when we set our standards straight why do we have failed relationships.

 Now, you would say things such as love fades, too many expectations and wrong perception of the person we fall in love with.

But do you really think love is small enough to be shaken by such reasons.

Why do we look at other person to feel completed or make them the soul source of our happiness? Why not find happiness within self and give abundant of it in back.

I go through various articles throughout the day where certain factors are talked about how to be good in relationships or how to love for a change.

 

But in spite of a vast pool of advice, what I strongly feel the first step is you need to love yourself, develop a passion that gives you a purpose to wake up every morning and love life.

I have been through such a stage in life where one person has been center of my universe but I did not realize I was burdening them with a very big responsibility to make me feel happy and loved. Shall it have made me happy, no readers, it complicated things cause I forgot its my sole responsibility to keep myself happy not others.

Readers, if you love someone or have friends, family that are dear to you give them the gift of taking your own responsibility to be happy, love life and give back love in abundant by truly loving yourself first.

Meditate, read, learn new things, challenge yourself, travel alone, play any sport and stay fit and you shall experience great joy which shall also serve your dear to heart relationships. 

Give yourself a chance readers by believing in yourself. Trust me we all have that one gift that awaits us to unleash it.

There was something wrong about her

that attracted men of good nature

She was so complete in herself,

That like a soothing wind gave freshness,

To whoever came in its way

Embracing all the beautiful things

 Like a glittery sky,

Showering beautiful reflections of happiness….

The Unworthy Promise To Self

Here comes 2017, the year filled with lots of hope, happiness, an endless wait to find someone you can be passionate for and in the way finding yourself.

Readers, resolutions, you are very well aware of this word. A word, that represents a promise to self to do things the right way. But wait for a second, for how long we are able to follow those promises that we make to ourselves. And do you really think there is any such thing needed that we need to bind ourselves with to follow a better life.

With all my good and bad experience in life, I have learned until and unless a person doesn’t feel passionate about a cause or a feeling, no one can force them to.

There she was standing by the window,

Waiting for the rain to stop

Her fear of getting wet

Getting judged by strangers

Never let her truly enjoy the feeling of being free.

All we need is to make a promise to self to live truly and freely with compassion. Making resolutions and binding ourselves with chains, has it not been enough to bind ourselves with fear of being judged that we again chain ourselves with resolutions.

If you feel strongly about something, why to wait for a single day in a year to make temporary traditions that are eventually going to be on the top of our guilt list. Let’s do it today and tell the world we were here.

Nothing has changed in these years to follow

The same strangers walking by the door

Still the rain was calling her as the old times

She draped her silk sari around her waist

Spread her arms open

And stepped out….

Let’s live freely and give back abundant love and care such that we do not need resolutions to feel passionate about something. Cause if you love yourself you can truly nurture your loved ones with care and unconditional support.

A secret to everything!!!

When I was a kid, I had this habit of asking my mom to say these words: “The day is going to be great”. At that time this belief held so much power that still till date I ask her to repeat these words when it’s a big day for me or I’m going through a rough patch such as bad marks in semesters, heart break, fight with a friend, when I’m sick and many more. I can say all of this in full breath , trust me , readers!!!

It’s so much important to be assured of positive things in life, I mean being positive. With demonetization, Trump’s surprise win, increasing inflation everything seems to be haunting us, that what next is left to happen. The time from when I wake up to the time I sleep, I’m fed with many pessimistic thoughts, but I choose to be positive , believe in me and that keeps me rocking and happy!

So do you think , we shall really wait for something good to happen to us or shall we make a promise to ourselves to be happy and smiling and surround ourselves with positive people.

Friends are the best way to start with. It’s like they are a blessing to make you feel special and pampered. No matter what you do, cry over silly things and speak your heart out, they are always by your side.

One important thing that I have learned so far is , its always unworthy to cry over things you can’t control and the irony is they affect you the most. It’s like you know there is going to be another moment soon and shall have no control over passing moment, but you still waste it crying over petty things.

Being happy is a bliss!!! So readers give yourself a gift: positivity and trust me there will be wonders in your life.

Till then take care and the next part of “Yes you became the one” is soon to come!!

Love you all!

Transformation: A sweet bitter candy

Hello Folks, I hope you are doing great!

Life has been a rocky business but they say it has its own ways to help you be a person of substance. Sometimes I wonder, if I have never faced any problem, would I be so strong today. It’s so strange, I have cried like 1000 liters of tears all my life, but every tear taught me a new story with a very beautiful lesson like petals of a flower unfurling one by one.

 I sit on my couch today and feel like a Buddhist monk who is changed from a girl who got upset on small silly things to a lady who values even smallest gestures in life and ready to analyze thing from other’s person perspective.

The journey has been very tough and don’t know how much more tough it’s going to be. But today I stand with wide open arms staring right in the eyes of life and saying let’s LIVE it. There have been two lessons which life taught me the hard way: importance of family and friends as well as real meaning of love.

After coming to hostel, I went through many lonely nights where maa was not there to caress me at night and give a good night kiss. It has been a nightmare. Every day she WhatsApp’s me positive thoughts, good morning wishes (no matter how rocky her life has been) so that I can be the best of myself. It feels she is at every step of mine, giving me blessings and whenever I fall, she picks me up. How the tree supports its branches with strong roots so as to withstand strong arms.

My sister has become my best friend, with whom I have memories of fights like cats and dogs (how she wore my clothes and I used her ornaments, it was like a world war 2). Never thought I and she can talk on something which we both would agree on. Now I sheepishly smile remembering those moments. This relationship has reached another level where I give her advice on dealing with difficult situations and being strong. It gives a whole new meaning to my life. All thanks to life, the teacher that teaches the hard way.

  I don’t understand how can a person live without family and friends, they are like breath of fresh air.

Love, yes love has surely changed its definition from the time to butterflies in stomach to understanding other person’s perspective and giving them the freedom to be themselves. It’s much more than being together forever and taking it to a destination but being true to the one you love (keeping them in your heart), respecting and accepting them the way they are.

A relationship needs two people who are not only ready to love and respect each other unconditionally, but also accept with all their bad and good part.

It matters a lot to care about the ones you love and being there for them when they least expect it.

“Love is a smile that lightens up your soul; makes you a better person every moment you spend in this feeling".

You must be thinking I must have read somewhere and is writing such big things but this is what life has taught me and seriously trust me it has been very hard to learn this. But at the end of day, my 24^th year of life on this planet is transforming me from a girl into a lady. And hope I learn my lessons fast so that I can fill the lives of people close to me with love and happiness.

I hope life brings beautiful things into your life and surprises you with it;s sweet ways to make you a better person every day. Till then take care readers. 

Will write soon.

Second phase of life!

Hi readers, it’s been long that I wrote and shared my experiences with you.

Stepping into 24 has been a whole new experience for me. The Independence that I feel is lifting me every moment and helping me to turn into a lady from that small girl who was swayed by all the things that sparkled. It’s no more about words; it’s much more than that. Hearing those unsaid words in complete silence and understanding everything such as those rain drops on the leaves, the birds chirping, people walking on the footpath, a small kid sitting on the railing and waving bye. Everything makes sense now.

Falling in love is no more the same as it was used to be. No more butterflies, no more excitement. It’s a serene feeling that takes you to a whole new world wherein everything is not accountable and yes it’s not forced even.  It’s like a drop of water falling onto the leaves and finding their own way, so effortless. But sometimes I wonder how things have changed, it’s no more about those dolls or chocolates, it’s more about what you are feeling at that particular moment. Setting yourself free. I’m still waiting for that feeling when I’d feel all these things and understand love. It has indeed turned out as a mystery to me.

The journey is no less than a roller coaster ride or I may say it’s like a season, sometimes spring, sometimes scorching summer and sometimes like a winter cold winds that are bitter sweet in their own way.

I feel like a cotton flower, who keeps on wandering here and there and as soon as it feels it has settled on a place, the wind comes and it takes it along with it to another direction. I have started to love this journey, full of sweet-bitter pain. Sometimes I feel I should jump high and touch the sky like a small girl in her polka dots skirt and sometimes I enjoy and feel the winds blowing and thank god for every beautiful moment he bestows upon me. I guess it’s the beginning. The beginning of a journey which shall open up new horizons of life.

Entering into this phase of life has been a big leap, wherein I was leaving behind the innocence and entering into the world where everything runs by logic. Where there are no more fairy tales, everything was practical. Where there are no free lunches just a sinking ship which comes on the shore every day and at night it goes back into deep sea.

It’s not dull readers, but it is one of the best phases of my life, where I’m stronger than before and ready to take on life whatever challenges it throws in front of me. But in a more practical way, where the heart still hurts the same way but I rule it and move on for another miracle to happen.

Who's the boss?

It has been not more than 8-10 years that online market place has come into picture and such is the effect of it that the offline market place has started feeling its jitters with consumer being more informed and smart. The trend is such that the consumer looks into the online market place first where it finds the lowest prices and then visits the offline market, compares the prices and then makes the buying decision. Goldman Sachs, in a recent report, estimated India’s online market to grow nearly seven times to $47 billion by 2020.The bargaining powers in the hands of consumers have increased giving a major setback to the brick and mortar.

2015 saw a lot of conflicts arising from the side of offline marketers protesting against the online sellers with respect to the lower prices set. But at the end of the day business can’t be run on a single strategic model, hence comes the need of online market giants to maintain a pace with offline marketers as they need to connect physically with the customers and create brand equity.

India’s offline market place consists of an unorganized mix of aggressive marketing techniques making it more complex. The big mergers between Bharti Retail and Future Retail , Aditya Birla’s acquisition of Jubilant’s  retail business all these indicate that the customer being smart enough today prefers “the research online and buy offline” model which can be justified by the research done by KPMG which indicates offline market to be the crucial member of the marketing mix.

This fact has been well understood by the E-commerce giants like Snapdeal, Paytm, Amazon and Flipkart who are pulling all stops in 2016 to get more merchants to sell on their platforms. You must be wondering why? Well, the offline market place is the crucial member of the game which will help online marketers to attract more buyers.

Not only this, the companies are not only helping sellers list their products online and develop pricing strategies but they are also ramping up financial services for merchants, increasing warehousing capacity and unveiling technology platforms that serve as one stop shops  for all merchant requirements.

In Dec, 2015 Snapdeal, headquartered in New Delhi launched Sherpalo, a platform that provides single window access to all seller services enclosing onboarding, training, advertising, and order and returns management.

Snapdeal also launched ‘Shopo’ for its mobile marketplace  in July,2015 targeting 1 million sellers in 24-36 months.

With evolution of online market place the traditional methods of doing business are changing at a very fast speed. It is very hard to predict what is going to be the future of marketing where the books like Kotler, which is considered to be the bible of marketing, would be needed to be rewritten.

Let’s see how the new marketing principles turn out to be and who turns out to be the boss.

Source:

·       http://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/lessons-in-selling/article7239364.ece

·      The Economic Times