Love Archives - TODAY INDIA

Why People Love Freebies

It has been observed that things labeled as “free” have always captured people’s interest and it acts as a catalyst in attracting many people. Free samples of products or services attract more attention of customer or consumers than the product or services with a specific price. It would be interesting to figure out why people love freebies so much.

Free Stuff and Human Mind

When people find out that there is something they will get for free then their mind and psychology make them believe that they are special and they have earned the thing to get it for free. The free things make them feel they have achieved something with no or less effort for getting it. People feel there is less risk in trying out free stuff and they feel that they have nothing to lose if they try the free stuff. So they reach out to try free stuff with no risk and loss. A similar human psychology works when we get attracted to discounted rates or prices of products and services.

Loads of Non-avoidable Expenses

In our daily lives, everyone knows earning money is not easy and it takes a lot of efforts to make a living. Most of the hard earned money goes away in the necessary non-avoidable expenses like groceries, fuel, and oil, paying bills and other expenses. When we find out we can get something for free, we tend to get attracted to it because we feel that we have saved some amount of money with the best bargain of free stuff for a product or service.

Some People Hesitate Spending Money on what they think is not necessary

There are many people who hesitate to spend money on what they think is not necessary even though they earn a lot of money to save money. When they find out that the product or service is for free then they are more likely to reach out and try the product or services. Such people would possibly try out free stuff than paying for it and experience how the product or service is.

Some People have Low Monthly Income

Some people don’t earn huge amount of money and they have low monthly income. They can’t spend too much money due to lack of funds so they find free stuff more likable and they look out for free stuff because they can’t spend too much.

Learn to Love the “P” Word-PLANNING

Keeping all the aspects of a coaching business organized and running smoothly is difficult at best. And, if you don’t have a system or a plan of what to do when, organizing it all can be overwhelming. Even if you have an overall vision of where you want to be in five years, you still need a quarterly, monthly and daily plan to coordinate admin tasks, marketing activities, and content creation.

Let me tell you from experience, “winging it” just doesn’t work. Sitting down to write a blog post, facing a blank screen with no idea what to write is an awful, deflating feeling. You have a LOT to say and your audience wants to hear from you, so don’t be afraid of the P word-PLANNING!

WHAT TO PLAN

There are 3 kinds of business planning:

1. Planning your goals

2. Planning out your marketing strategy

3. Planning out daily tasks

1-Goals

Setting business goals is always the first step for either starting a business, or starting a new phase/year in your business. Your business goals will be the basis for the rest of your business planning. Once you decide on say, an annual income goal, you’ll want to plan out action steps to take throughout the year in order to achieve that goal. When business actions are based on goals, they provide structure and meaning to daily activities, they strengthen social connections, and they help people weather difficult times.

2-Marketing Strategy

Your content marketing strategy planning starts with what you want to promote. Most businesses know a year in advance what they want to promote. You may only have one coaching program to start out with, and that’s OK. Start by planning out when, where, and how often you will promote it. You’ll also want to think about different kinds of promotions for the same program, for example, a lead magnet, a challenge, a webinar, or an email series.

Later on you may add additional coaching programs for your advanced clients and/or digital products that you sell for additional income. Then you’ll need to plan out when and how you will promote each of those items.

3-Daily Tasks

Now that you have a plan for what you will be promoting and when, you need to break down the admin tasks necessary for your promotions to get implemented. For example, a webinar will need a registration and thank-you page, a series of follow-up emails, time to script the webinar (and record it, if it’s evergreen), and time to make slides, if you’re using them.

You’ll need certain amounts of content to go along with each of your promotions. So content planning needs to become a part of your daily schedule. You won’t have to create content every day, but you will at least need to schedule for when you will create it. Think about how often you want to share new content, and that will tell you how often you need to spend time creating it.

When I started writing blogs, I would designate every Monday morning for writing a weekly article. Sometimes it only took a few minutes and sometimes it took several hours. But it got done!

Creating a plan of action or a daily task list will help keep you organized and focused from the moment you sit down to work. You’ll know exactly what has to get done, without question. You’ll know when you need to write blog posts, when to send emails, when to write new content, when to do your billing, and when to schedule your client calls.

Some entrepreneurs like to use a 90-Day planner to schedule their quarterly events, promotions, and overall tasks. This gives them the big picture. Then they break down tasks into monthly, weekly, and daily.

HOW TO PLAN

Make Yourself a Client

Imagine you are working with a client who needs help planning out their business tasks. What process will you give them for this? Now apply that process to yourself as if you are your own client.

As much as you want a full coaching calendar, leave some space for yourself to complete your administrative tasks. Running your business is equally as important for sustainability as caring for your clients, so give your business tasks equal priority, including your content creation. Blocking out time is a popular way to schedule longer tasks, such as blog post writing, video or podcast recording, or email marketing.

Set aside an hour or two, write up those posts or emails, do the recordings, get them scheduled, then move on to the next list item. If you block out enough time often enough, eventually you’ll start having two or three (or more!) pieces of content ready to publish as needed, which can relieve some stress.

Eliminate Writer’s Block

Create a calendar that makes note of important topics or themes occurring throughout the year.

What holidays inspire you to write content about?
Is there a big event coming up in your city or in your niche? Write about it. Interview event panelists and speakers.
Are you planning the launch of your signature product? Create and schedule special content around the launch date.

USING PLANNERS

With all the organization that needs to be done in your business, it’s helpful to have what I call “mini planners.” These are planners that help you focus on tasks that are specific to a particular project in your business. There are planners for creating a webinar, for producing a lead magnet, for creating a product or course, as well as planning out your content and your social media posts.

The International Association of Professional Life Coaches® provides planners as part of their product line, because it just makes so much sense to use a planner that’s designed to include only the tasks that you need to focus on for any given project.

For example…

The 90-Day Planner: plan out the next 90 days of blog posts, videos, social media posts, and email content. It includes pages for monthly and weekly action steps.

The Cash Content Planner: guides you to create profitable content by covering 5 different income sources for a coaching business and how to plan content to produce income from them.

The Product Creation Planner: guide you through the process of creating a product that you can either use as a digital product you can sell and get some passive income for, or give away as a freebie.

The Private Coaching Program Planner: walks you through the essential steps to turn your proven system into a sellable product that get your clients the results you promise.

In Conclusion: Planning out your business tasks, projects, and source(s) of income will significantly increase the odds of your business success. Using planners professionally designed by experts will save you time, organize your action steps to reach your goals, and make sure key elements of your business activities don’t slip through the cracks because you didn’t know all the necessary steps involved.

Two Sides of Love – Romeo and Juliet, Film Vs Play

Considered as one of the greatest love stories of all time, William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is a timeless literary classic and remains perhaps the most appreciated piece of literature in all of history. The enduring tale of love between two “star cross’d lovers” has been told, acted, and read countless times since its original debut. Throughout generations, varied interpretations of the perpetual love story have also been released, including the 1968 film directed by Franco Zeffirelli featuring Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey, as well as Baz Luhrmann’s 1997 modernized version, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. Though both are based on the original playwright, several parts of both motion pictures exemplify subtle and major distinguishing differences from each other, and the innovative play.

In the original play, Romeo’s unrequited love Rosaline remains unseen throughout the play, and is instead only mentioned by other characters. However, she is anticipated to be a guest at the Masquerade ball which gives Romeo an incentive to attend as well. Contrarily, in the 1968 film Rosaline is shown to viewers at Capulet’s banquet. The film additionally portrays that Romeo is only one of the many suitors who Rosaline disdains, though seeming to enjoy the mass of attention being thrust upon her. During the same scene in the play, Tybalt is enraged when learning Romeo’s true identity, declaring “to strike him dead I’ll hold it not a sin” (1.5.58) before being interrupted by Lord Capulet. In Zeffirelli’s version of the film, Tybalt instead discusses his protest to Romeo’s attendance with Lord Capulet. The play features Juliet delivering a drawn-out soliloquy contemplating the risks of drinking the sleeping potion (4.3.14-59). After frantically worrying about suffocating, being poisoned, smelling awful odors, committing suicide by bashing her head in “with some great kinsman’s bone”, and seeing what she believes to be Tybalt’s ghost, Juliet finally drinks the vial. In the film, Juliet merely states “Love give me strength” before swallowing the potion.

After learning the news of Juliet’s “death”, a heartbroken Romeo buys a vial of lethal poison from an apothecary in Mantua, planning to later kill himself with it. In the motion picture, this scene was eradicated completely and substituted with Balthasar and Romeo heading back to Capulet’s tomb together. The 1968 film never discloses where or who Romeo obtained the poison from. When arriving at the entry of the tomb, Romeo is suddenly stopped and questioned by Paris, who egocentrically attempts to arrest the banished Romeo. Upon doing so, Romeo kills Paris in a fit of anger. This scene was also removed from Zeffirelli’s film.

Following the deaths of Romeo and Juliet, Friar Lawrence was apprehended by the Prince and subsequently revealed the truth of the secret wedding, the potion, and all other plans for the destined lovers. His story was validated by a letter written to Lord Montague from his son, Romeo. In the movie however, Friar Lawrence was never heard from again after he fled from the tomb. Because of this, the exposure of Romeo and Juliet’s marriage was not explained in the film, though both families seemed to be aware of the situation by the time the double funeral took place. After the Capulets and Montagues agree to resolve their differences, the final line of Shakespeare’s original version of the play was spoken by the Price: “…For never was a story of more woe/ than this of Juliet and her Romeo” (5.3.325-326). Though this same line was also the concluding line in the film, it was performed by the concealed narrator whom also delivered the introduction: “Two households, both alike in dignity/ in fair Verona, where we lay our scene”.

Years after Romeo & Juliet was first released as a film, another on-screen, modernized adaptation was released in hopes of appealing to a more youthful audience. Though this portrayal of the classic love story was much different in terms of novelty, the characters still spoke in Shakespeare’s original dialogue. There are several obvious differences between this version of the story and the others. For example, instead of having swords, the characters used 9 mm pistols to fight. The Montagues and Capulets represented business empires fighting, in place of the original play’s family feud. Elegant castles of Verona were traded for modern city skyscrapers, while the setting of the story switched from small-town Italy to big-city Verona beach. In the beginning of the original play, the Capulet’s provoke the Montagues by biting their thumb at their enemies. In this movie however, the roles are reversed and the Montague’s are responsible for initiating for first quarrel. Also, the role of Abra, who was known as Abram in the play, reversed his character to become a Capulet instead of a Montague. The Masquerade Ball is one of the most memorable scenes in the entire play, for it is where Romeo and Juliet first meet. In the play, the Montague boys learn of the party by meeting an illiterate servant who asks the Montagues to read him the invite list he was given to pass out. Still in love with Rosaline, Romeo and his friends take advantage of the opportunity and invite themselves to the party. In the movie however, the Montagues hear about the party on television while they play pool.

Another major difference in the 1997 motion picture is the recurrence of water. In this version, Romeo and Juliet initially meet through a fish tank at the Masquerade ball. The illustrious “balcony scene” from the original play is replaced with the “pool” scene. Furthermore, when Romeo kills Tybalt in the play, the setting is high noon. In the movie however, Tybalt is killed at night during a rainstorm. His dead, limp body proceeds to fall into a fountain, continuing the water theme. A subtle change in the movie is the modification of one of Juliet’s lines from when she is informed that Tybalt was killed: “Oh God, was it Romeo’s hand that shed Tybalt’s blood?” (3.2.72). In the modern film version, this was changed to be said as a prayer in place of an exclamation. Another difference is that in the 1968 film, Mercutio and the Prince appear as Caucasians while in the 1997 film, they are both African American, giving the movie more diversity in the characters. The Prince is also referred to as the chief of police in this depiction of the story. As does the 1968 film, the modernized Romeo + Juliet does not include the scene in which Romeo kills Paris at the Capulet tomb, leaving Paris to assumedly survive in both of these films.

Perhaps the most major change in Luhrmann’s version of the film is that Juliet awakes from her deep sleep immediately after Romeo drinks the poison, allowing them to have brief final seconds together, leaving Romeo to ultimately die in Juliet’s arms. In the play and original film, Juliet wakes up after Romeo is already dead. She is then regretfully told by Friar Lawrence that her husband had died, and adamantly insists on staying alone with his body. After delivering a long monologue, entailing her unsuccessful attempt to kiss the remainder of the poison of Romeo’s lips (5.3.173-184), Juliet stabs herself with Romeo’s dagger and dies by his side. In the movie, the monologue is obliterated and instead, Juliet silently commits suicide with Romeo’s gun. One final distinction is the findings of Romeo and Juliet’s bodies. In Shakespeare’s version, the church watchmen find their bodies while the 1997 movie depicts police officers discovering them. Again, the “Prince” delivers the final lines of the movie just as he did in the previous film and play. However in an updated twist, the film ended the same way it began: the lines were spoken through the news report on a television screen.

Though various versions of William Shakespeare’s original playwright exist, they all have the same central message and theme of love versus society. The everlasting story of love between Romeo and Juliet will always be cherished, and possibly act as an example to future generations that social class and family rifts should not be deemed as proper reasons to separate two lovers. After all, there was “never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”

Sacred Love – Healing a Broken Heart; Part 1

Live with an open heart. Move to love. Accept the diversity of love. Don’t run away, have the courage to change your consciousness around love. Hold your love for life supreme, devote your life to it. Nothing external can have any power over you unless you permit it. Your love is too precious to be sacrificed defending menial emotions like hate, jealously, and envy. Your life is fragile, stay open in love, guard it carefully. With an open heart we learn not to punish people for who they are. Other people can’t belong to us, no matter how much we love them; our only right is to appreciate them. Don’t allow support or challenge to distract you from doing what you love, being with who you love, and giving what you love. Give respect to people by honoring their choices even if you don’t agree with them. Love is not attachment. Do not react to negativity, ignore it, let it pass you; don’t even hit the ball back. Never accept criticism you didn’t ask for. Opinions are the cheapest commodity on earth. Their stress is not your stress, their fears and doubts are not your doubts. Only the universe of Nature can create the magnificence of a flower, but any foolish mind can pull it to pieces. So openhearted living is inspired living. You can be inspired simply by knowing that everything you feel was inside you, already. Someone just bought it out. And at least that makes you honest with yourself.

Beauty is Spirituality in Reality

During hardship, don’t let faith in your spiritual world die. Know that you are always being guided, and sometimes, that guidance takes us into places we never would have chosen. But can you see that this is integrity because you devote something to your existence, and have the willingness to deal with where you are taken? You asked for leadership and you are getting it. Work with the laws of nature and you can find beauty in the darkness, healing. Sometimes we get a flood or drought, a bush fire, and all manner of things come to us even though we never overtly asked for them, the key is to learn from our life, not resent it.

Without knowing you, I can only surmise the cause of your current circumstances. Nature’s laws reveal the guidance you are being given.

When a person is deeply challenged at a personal level, and beginning to feel angry and hopeless, it is because they have lost their real dream. Sometimes in these circumstances we try to live someone else’s. It is a sort of suicide of the spirit. Emotional challenge asks a person, “What is your dream?” If you have defined your life as what you own, how you feel, or who you are with, you have built a very problematic existence and your spiritual path may be blocked.

When the wind has blown hard against the tree, is there still a tree? When the flood has stripped the earth, is there still an earth? We are continually being stripped of our ego, to find all that is lovable, our guided path, so no matter what you do, you are wonderful, guided and worthy.

I can help you answer the question, “What is my dream?” It is very easy. You take some spare time and go into the forest and find stillness. Then, unravel the knot that has become tangled. Let the stories unfold so that your heart can be open again. Learn from experiences, rather than fight them. There is no use in anger, or even analysis, there is simply growth. Heal by finding the beauty in others.

To heal, we must see beauty without reason, and to achieve that, simply diversify your outlook. See what is beautiful in something bad, and you will have crossed the line. Your life force, which is what people feel when they are near you, will be released from its judgment. We cannot do anything productive while we are suffering disappointment from the past, or false hope for the future. We must learn to see the beauty in every circumstance. No victims.

You are a wonderful person, who has a lot of love to give the world. Whatever job or relationship you have can bring out your best, happiest, and most spiritual self – if you can heal the hurt, and step forward with an inspired attitude. Find the beauty in everything.

The word for the heart in Arabic is “qalb” and literally means “that which fluctuates”;

the heart expands and contracts, and even in its purified condition passes through many states. The subtle faculties of the heart are our deepest knowing. That knowing is frequently veiled, or confused by more superficial levels of the mind – by opinions, desires, social conditioning and especially by our fears. The veils of conditional thought may obscure the mirror of the heart by the soot of emotions, by the corrosion of negative attitudes. In fact ,we easily confuse the ego’s emotions with the feelings of the heart.

Overcoming the need to react

You already know your love

And all the judgments are just the dance around it.

Blaming him, blaming her, these are just lies.

Even if you find a guru to agree with you

They are lying too

Blame is a lie, it feeds the ego, and the ego can only lie.

Ego cannot be authentic, it can only copy, react, duplicate, replicate.

Love is the spark that makes a fire.

The flames are the ego.

Never let that spark go out.

Without it, there is no fire.

During challenge, try to be in the moment, quietly, and do not talk too much. Fast response to challenge is not likely to result in anything thoughtful. The best thing is to be as quiet as possible, and to think about the matter for while before expressing your reaction. If somebody says they want to know right away, you can say, “Well, I don’t know right this second, but I’ll tell you tomorrow”. Avoid answers that come in that moment.

Reaction to another person is like throwing petrol on a fire. It serves only to create tension. It should become obvious in life that reacting to people places them far from their own true nature, far from their own true spirit, and is a great cause of broken harmony. To this end, harmony should be akin to stability. Stability however can only come from inner stillness.

The greatest reactions are those made by people to some form of insult or accusation. The more accurate the accusation, the greater the reaction. It serves neither person to react. Every reaction creates another action. The sign of a wise manager of a business is one who does not react – one who holds the calm until all the facts are gathered.

Remember, you always have choice as to how you respond to any situation. There is a wise way and an unwise way. Wise is to see the balance, the two sides of it and then choose the action, unwise is to see one side of a thing and then react, one is powerful and truth, the other is illusion, it is a choice.

The best way to know God is to love many things. -Vincent Van Gogh

Love goes deeper and deeper when you learn to be in the moment, quiet, and not talk too much. Then you will experience a deeper awareness of life. Fast response to challenge is not likely to result in anything thoughtful, so the best thing to do is to be as quiet as possible, and to think about matters. To cultivate this true love, we need to get away from our conventional environment from time to time, and create the spaciousness for clarity. We need to create seclusion for ourselves, to sit peacefully in the clarity of solitude, illuminated by emptiness.

If the mind is happy, the heart will be true, and then the body will be relaxed. We must find out how to become happy within, without achieving anything. Wanting to celebrate a loving relationship without discovering some level of self contentment is like trying to cover the whole world with leather to avoid the pain of walking on stones and thorns It is of course, much simpler to wear shoes.

Arguments

Emotion causes arguments. You react, then they react, and then you react; the pressure builds until there is a screaming match. Emotion is like a pressure cooker, the heat under it is lopsided thinking, and the frustration is building inside. Eventually you can’t take the lid off because there is so much pressure in there.

That’s why pressure cookers have that little pressure relief valve on the top. And so do you. You must create a pressure relief valve for yourself, not so you can stop feeding the emotion, but so you can stop bursting with steam, and try to see the two sides of something.

Two people can only argue if both of them are emotional. If you see the other person’s point of view and they are still emotional, then they must surely be arguing with themselves.

I use this response when people give me their worst insult. For example, guys who are insecure and want to compete. They to do the “I’m better than you thing”, they say in an aggressive tone, “You are a ………” Of course they are hoping I will turn around and say “You are too” which is grounds for a street fight. But I just turn around, look at them and say, “Yeah, I know” and keep walking. The is mahatma Gandhi’s way, he said “accept every insult without resistance and it’s like handing the issue right back to the giver”

All our emotional arguments, all the tears, anger and stress are created out of imbalanced thinking. Stupid isn’t it? It is such a denial of what is blatantly obvious in nature. Religions are the lifeblood of lopsided thinking. That is how they separate you from God and give themselves a job.

The Lower people move down the consciousness tree, the more violent they become. At the bottom of that consciousness cone, people are very righteous, fundamental, “I am right you are wrong” and this is a very violent argument. As your rise up the cone, the level of emotion is exactly the same, arguments can be quite passionate but there is not all or nothing mind space. There is the ability to take it easy, to see the other persons viewpoint, and therefore there is more arbitration.

At the top we see both sides. The argument is the same as at the bottom, same topic different process. At the bottom people argue one side or the other. At the top people argue in order to see both sides. Balanced information always exists to every debate.

At the top of the cone it is a search for balance. At the bottom, where it is violent and rejecting, there is an attempt to find imbalance, one side or the other.

You are the breeze

Gentle soul, you are the breeze that kisses my skin

Beneath the pines

And I hear you whisper into my heart

I see your sunlight

Your tenderness

It brushes my lips

And we are together

The world is gone

We are in love, forever.

Beyond Arguments dealing with Emotional Challenge

There are always options as to how you react. Say you find it out your car was stolen just before you are going to the airport. One solution is to fly into a rage, swearing and cursing, spinning with anger at those thieves, and completely cutting years off your life. That’s the emotional reaction. The other reaction is, “Well I see the bad side and man that makes me angry, I feel really angry, but there must be an upside to this. Now I won’t have to store the car while I am gone, maybe it means someone is feeding their family tonight (selling it), maybe the insurance will cover it. Maybe we can think of buying a different car when we get back.”

Love More

The key to healing a broken heart is to love more. The pain of a broken heart is emotional blockage, which stops love. But there is no need to stop loving someone, just because they are not with you. If they hurt you, lied to you, or cheated on you, then you can be really truthful and admit, “No more than I did to myself”. All that aside, just because somebody doesn’t do what you thought they were going to do, it is not a signal to stop loving them. Just a signal to love them more.

The more you love something, or someone, the less you are attached to them. If you emotionalise, then you are attached and can’t survive without them. Or you can be so angry that you can’t feel how much you love them. However, if this happens you go back out into the world bitter, and people smell your bitterness. Then, the only relationships you can have are bitter ones. So it is better to love the past, admire their gifts and their beauty, and simply say, “That past relationship failed because I wasn’t ready to love that person enough. I drew the line at something”.

Beware of forgiveness. This is a really bad place to get stuck in moving forward. There is an implied notion in forgiveness that you are the victim and they are the criminal. This is not really going to heal anything, although it’s far better than hate. The healed place of the past, is admiration. If you speak of your ex, then speak in admiration, if they were good enough to meet, they are still good enough to give thank you to.

Wish them happiness. That means you aren’t responsible for their happiness. You wish them love and happiness. Then you are not in the loop anymore. You simply do all you can, as a citizen of the earth, to make another human beings life good. You don’t take credit and don’t take blame. Just love. Simply love them more and know that you have every trait you are condemning in them. So if you can admire them, you are admiring you, this is especially healthy.

If you react to the past and don’t come to love the past, then you drag the past into the future. Your love will again be conditional, hell, because you’ll end up living in a box, alone, surrounded by your baggage, and pretending you are happy without the love and affection of a lover.

Sacred Love requires work. It is easy to love a flower, it just sits in a pot and smiles. It is easy to love a dog, you are just stern with it, or give it a bone, and it is obedient. It’s easy to love a person you hardly ever meet, because you can “tolerate” them for short stints. It’s even easier to love a religion or spiritual philosophy because that icon sits there and never disagrees, never reveals your shame and anger. It fixes all those problems by patting you on the head and telling you that you did well by doing worship. It’s easy to love kids. You just get them to do what you want and the world is happy, they can even live out some of your own missed hopes. Just load them up with your expectations to be what you failed to be. But relationship?

Now we are dealing with love. Love that is not easy. Don’t you think its amazing that we can look up in the universe and admire all of creation, we can admire imaginary Gods and spirits that we never saw, in our whole life, but when our partner contradicts us, we blame them and say, that is not God, that is not lovable. Then we climb on our high horse (the ego), and tell that lover they are unworthy of love and better change tomorrow.

There is nothing that can happen on earth that the creator didn’t create. It all got created, then people wrote books. The whole of creation is made from love, then people wrote books trying to explain it. But their explanations are flawed because they are human, they are fear driven. All of life and all of creation is explained in love. People didn’t write books and then create a world. You fall in love, in harmony with your creator, a love moment when your ego is asleep, and then it wakes up and individualises you, separates you from creation. This is where all our suffering comes from. Some people believe they can defy nature, but life is very long in this regard, 20 years is nothing. Debts are accrued – you can watch it.

The only thing in the entire universe that you can change, is your mind. Funny isn’t it. It is the only thing you can change, and always the last.

Beyond Blame

Nobody can break your heart. Your heart can’t break. Your mind can break, but your heart can’t break. It feels like your heart is broken but it is not. Your mind got offended. So you tried to stop loving somebody, your mind stopped loving somebody. That is what “breaks your heart”. Your mind got a challenge, your mind expected them to do one thing, and they did another. Then, you hated them, so you had to stop letting the love flow. But you can’t stop loving. You must need to know how to love without having them. To love someone is not possessing them. To love someone you don’t even have to like them. Liking someone is not loving.

When you stop letting the love for somebody out, you hurt yourself. If you stop admitting that you love somebody, then you “break your own heart.” Because your heart only knows one thing, it knows how to love. It doesn’t know how not to love. So, when you block your love for somebody, you block it to yourself, your next partner, your next partner, and your next partner. You block it for your whole life. Especially if it is a parent that you block your love to.

Beyond Blame

In Nature,

unity comes from diversity.

The person who will love most,

will love with open palms.

A closed fist of control

is like a the hardened crust of the earth,

waiting for an earth quake

to force a tsunami.

Soften the ego,

then you will learn to flex.

In relationship, it is easy to love when you first “fall in love”, because your mind was out of the way and your heart was free to love. Then the mind remembers the past, and that unhealed love relationship starts to bring memories back in. Inch by inch your heart gets blocked by all the unfinished business from the past. I went out with a lady who, many years before, had a teenage love affair. She was so badly affected by the loss of it, that her chest collapsed. From then on, all her partners were older men because she thought they would not “dump her” like that boy in her teens. She found she could love for the first weeks of a new affair, but after that, she was crazy in fear, hyper sensitive to all her issues. You could say she was very messed up, but really, it was a blockage in her heart to that one boy, so long ago, and it had never been fixed.

Really when we talk of a broken heart we mean broken ego. That ego in the west is our identity, so when someone breaks our expectations, we say we have a broken heart. This is why so many eastern teachings try to get you past the ego, because that ego can raise you up in excitement and dump you down in a broken heart feeling. Western teachers of eastern philosophy confuse the whole issue. They try to use eastern teaching to elate you, to raise you up, thinking, in a white Anglo Saxon way, that there can be a life without sin. This is how the great eastern teachings about nature got polluted. Even eastern gurus who go to the west mix the whole teaching up because if they are honest, they will have no students. They are afraid of the truth, that there is a balance in nature.

Crocheting Benefits: Why People Love To Crochet

There are many reasons why people love to crochet.

For one, crocheting is therapeutic. Because of its calming, rhythmic movements, many studies have shown positive results for people suffering from chronic depression, Alzheimer’s disease, dementia and schizophrenia. Crocheting is also for common ordinary people who simply enjoy the feeling of accomplishing something with their after-work, idle time. Crocheting relieves stress and muscle tensions after a hard day at the office as crocheting easily takes your mind off from work and draws you deeper into a solitary hobby where you can collect your thoughts as you let your fingers and the crochet hook do their work.

Yarn colors also have positive effects on the eyes too. Colors in soft, fuzzy materials provide a diversion to the cold, hard and glaring screens of your office computers that you have been staring at for the whole day.

Aside from the psychological and emotional benefits of crocheting, it also provides material benefits. I have known three housewives who have gone into crocheting, first as a hobby, and then into business, making sweatshirts, shawls and pillowcases in different designs and different colors. Of course, the income may not be as high as when you sell hotdogs during baseball season but it does add a considerable amount of cash into the household income, not to mention the personal satisfaction of having been able to consign and sell your own handiwork in small, local shops. Other items that can be made by crocheting are cellular phone cases, fashion bag parts, tablecloth, and coasters.

Crocheting can also bond people. It provides a healthy venue for women and even young girls to come together to share thoughts and exchange views while exchanging crocheting patterns. It is both a social as well as a solitary hobby. While some people like to meet friends through this common interest, some people are also more comfortable working independently on their crochet and their work comes out just as fine.

Most of all, people who are into crocheting simply enjoys the fact that crocheting tools are small and handy and can be easily kept in purses to take out when a good crocheting diversion is called for.

The Memory of Love, Part 1

For the entire period of my association with Satyam as an employee, I had never – not even for a day – missed sticking my pen into the front pocket of my shirt. My romantic crush Preeti gifted me a pen – a silver Parker – and since then it became a much-loved, well-cared for badge of love that I had, admittedly, loved to show off.

Preeti Ranautra worked for a financial company dealing with credits, foreign exchange, accounts and sales and the lot. By virtue of her being a management graduate in Finance, her job necessarily entailed her to keep browsing loads of forex and securities files daily; deal with money coming in and going out; files of individual account holders and small and medium enterprises/businesses (SMEs) and the whole nine yards.

1998: A Personal History

My name is Arpan… Arpan Monalic and my courtship with Preeti literally began on the telephone. The romantic year of 1998 bears testimony to that fact. Preeti used to call our office to speak with Papita InTears, who was one of her mutual friends, on the direct line. On several occasions, when Papita was not in office yet, I got to informing her:

“Papita hasn’t come in yet and she’d be fashionably late again to office! But as soon as she pops in I promise that I shall entreat her to call you first thing… and by the way my name is Arpan”.

She’d at first laugh at the breathlessness with which I blurt out on the phone and say “and my name is Preeti”. And before hanging up, she’d say “thanks”.

Papita joined Satyam at TSR Towers along with me and Manpreet Jogi. I, Manpreet and Papita shared an enlarged cabin with three computers inside it – two at the front and one at the back. Most often, whenever someone called on the phone, Manpreet’s hands always rose first to get it. His quick reflexes were seen to be believed! If his ‘Hello’ is quickly boomed into the phone it only meant the conversation from the other side of the line better be clear and to the point! Everybody knew Manpreet’s hard-boiled booming yowl very well compared to my yell or Papita’s foxy howl. On occasions when he passed on the phone to me smiling his trademark cheesy smile it only implied that Preeti Ranuatra, my chui-mui (shy princess) girl, was on line for me. Manpreet, a blue-blooded sophisticate that he is, would never eavesdrop on our coochie-cooing, nope! And this way began one of the loveliest chapters being written on the storybook of my life.

Ms. InTears was also believed to be friends with the great Pommy Candel Fishsketcher (a.k.a. Pom), who worked with Preeti at her financial securities company situated on SD Road. Both Pom and Preeti were thick-as-thieves, always together, conjoined colleagues; only Papita (with her self-centered American dreams) was like a detached feather of the same flock, who, I presume, couldn’t possibly dare to handle a ‘Finance’ job and so scampered off to join a desi IT company instead. To me this very fact was no less than a God’s blessing (actually Papita’s accidental irony!) as it bequeathed in me my close companionship with Preeti. But, thankfully, that blessing stops there.

Strangely, my office colleague Papita, a tall and ghostly predator, flinched outright at the idea of Preeti and me getting romantically involved, and now this was completely unlike her chubbier and far more cheerful friend Pom who was absolutely cool about it. To me, Pom came across as a frank, candid and an amazingly fun-loving human being; I admired her. Her self-esteem was pretty impressive to get appreciative about. She had an exuberant beehive of a soul in her that basically throbbed with fun and lively humour; she’s delightfully pompous, solipsistic, socially gregarious, well-cushioned in appearance, forcefully animated, follows what her conscience says, and a little too chirpy in nature. At other times, Pom seemed like a plus-size Mother Superiorwho took it all on herself to throw in pieces of good-humoured “advice” at our way – never mind whether really required or not! Her voice had a tonal groan that carries into your ears an echoing, squirming intensity that can easily make you feel as if someone is orating away in all glory at Delhi’s Ramlila Grounds. Such was this original Delhi belle’s prodigious reputation. Undoubtedly, such select cognoscenti go on to become true friends, opposite to what Papita had been to anyone ever.

When Papita happened to know the previous day that Preeti and I are meeting up, she turned a beetroot red in her face and reprised her at once over the phone with her ill-bred caution. She chided Preeti: “Kya karr rahi hai tu… !”, only to be met with a bemused laughter. I never knew Papita being so wary of my friendship with Preeti until her clandestine phone call that ominous evening when I came in to relieve her from her shift ending at 3pm. She had made it all so rudely obvious for me to figure. It seemed that Papita had acute attitudinal malfunction that was most akin to the sly characteristics of a well-known, modern-dayLalita Pawar.

Ever since that day, I couldn’t help but think of her as a wretched human being. I distanced myself from her – just in case it pricks me to a needless confrontation with her, which I wanted to avoid by all means (because she wasn’t worth to be dealing with in the first place). Her droopy left eye-lid, which flutters ominously at you, surely is indicative of a mindset typically Machiavellian in nature. If one ruminates further on her aforementioned personality one would evidently find that she is an undisputed drama-queen of chugalkhori (sycophancy). Not having anything to do with questions of morality even when sometimes finding herself in judgmental positions is crushingly depressing of her. One finds her a crafty old slithering eel, and bitterly distasteful is her cunning appetite for indulging in unabashed sycophancy.

Why was she hell-bent on misunderstanding me on some headless account or the other? Why was it so inordinately necessary for her to be so fiercely vampish about my affair? Is it in her nature to live her life the way she lived – in accordance to her kind of social class and background she happens to represent? Is it her disheveled upbringing that kicked in? I never have got around to answering these ugly questions in my limited feel of things. At first, it was not quite apparent why she was being vainly jealous of me – she gradually was beginning to come across as a little cantankerous individual – but what I figured is that it triggered a vapid botheration in me with regard to her crude conduct. Afterwards, when I was still none the wiser as to what her “issues” were with me, I dropped it like a hot coal and drew comfort from the age-old premonition that: Time will take its own course. Foxy Papitas of the world do not bring luxury of friendly encouragement nor do they appreciate the thought of love and its reassuring finality inProvidence. They simply have villainous appetites for sycophancy – may be a genetic defect carried on from millions of years of evolution – that makes one cringe in revulsion. To think of such people as mind-numbing pain and a big turn-off definitely rings true. I got wizened a bit and conclusively realized that it’s none of my business to put it all out with this tall and snaky colleague of mine, when, on that ominous evening, she was, in her own touchy-feely way, striving hard to forbid Preeti to have anything to do with me. But that day, it could have been a day of frank pejorative outburst in full discourse for her to see had she wanted to get candid with me then and there.

In fact, only after almost a month and a half of our dilly-dallying did we meet in person. We often postponed our first meeting because we didn’t want to break the charming spell we were enjoying while talking on phone or do away with the fine sense of ignominy which was worth its while. Preeti once told me she found my voice sweet or am I trying to impress her? I had said “both” and cackled indulgently. I understand that, Pom, her fast friend, supposed to have constantly mused on behalf of Preeti as she remarked: “voice toh sweet hai, dekhne mein kaisa hoga?” I did not meet Pom until I had met Preeti. When Preeti used to call me, Pom liked to barge into our phone conversation and share a word or two. I got to know her first this way.

Those days were the happy days of my life. It made me realize that Preeti was probably the one true reason why my life was being led to a world full of delightful anticipation and happiness. Our phone calls were so frequent and engaging that we felt like keeping our ‘on-phone’ relationship agreeably prolonged. Before making up our minds to see each other in person, we gave our relationship a little more time to mature. I guess we decided to make the best for last.

I remember oh so well watching Falguni Pathak’s chartbuster love songs on MTV: “yaad piya ki ane lagi” and “maine payal hai chankayi… “ and thinking about Preeti all day and night. Humming Pankaj Sarawgi’s beautifully picturized song: “Mujhe pyaar hai tumse… “ brings back those memories again. I’ll never forget this song.

“Mujhe pyaar hai tumse..

Ke jab bhi koi..

Aahat hue toh lage…

Ke tum aaye…

…

Sawala salona haye chehra yeh tera…

Aankhiyon mein basa hai yeh palko ki tarah… “

My days were literally filled with the tender fragrance of my jaanu (beloved) and her sweet voice on the phone. Life was so much worth living. Consequently, our telephonic tête-à-têtes started to gain on a hue of assurance and expectation and we decided upon a date in September to meet. I grew restless and jumpy and so did she. I went home early on the day when our rendezvous was setup. In fact, after I have had my share of toiling in office, I was almost a spent-force to be game for a date with whom I had regarded as ‘someone special’. I was obviously impressed with her because my apprehensions got the better of me and I felt freshly energized to meet her. The joy of meeting a person whom you’ve never met before is something to be experienced to be believed. I had all kinds of ticklish butterflies in my stomach fluttering about. Time just flies by in such an event of delectable expectations. Small fears and trepidation in the form of what will happen if… ? what will she… ? will she… ? is it OK to… ? are enough to make you go tizzy. And likewise, one finds oneself spending copious amounts of time on one’s toiletries and dressing than otherwise would have done in other ‘normal’ circumstances. That was our first ‘blind date’ and I wanted to make it count for both of us.

This is how I made it count: I finished my harrowing scheduled shift at 3 o’clock and headed straight home to give myself someshringaar. I knew the day will come when I would meet her. I had bought an assortment of personal care products. First on my list was Denim perfume (my favourite, but they don’t make that perfume anymore) and I reckoned that it’s perfectly okay to indulge a little now that I’m going on a date – an important event of my life no less. I ensured that my new shirt (maroon checks) was ironed well and had just the right creases for the sophistication I had intended to exude! (I still have that old shirt and I wear it sometimes to office; sentimental value you see.) I had a slow dream-like shave and dappled my cheeks with Denim after-shave lotion and felt fresh and manly. When I was tip-top ready, I rode all the way to the venue humming “aye kaash ke hum hosh mein ab aane na paye… “ a delightful song from the Hindi movie Kabhie Han, Kabhie Na.

I drove at a speed of 50-55kph (nothing great about the speed, I know!), reached early, parked my bike, combed my hair and took my position! I sat on a sit-out parapet railing and looked down the road I thought she would come riding astride her bike. For over three quarters an hour I waited like a Majnu, but when Her Highness was still not turning up I decided to call her from a nearby telephone booth. She got my call after the first ring and when I said “Hello” she knew from my voice I was on the line.

“Hello… ? Arpan… ? Give me just 10 minutes na please and I’ll be there”, said she.

I said laughing: “Sure. Come soon Mademoiselle. Um waiting… see ya byee”

At last, come she did and the song I was humming “kab se kare hain tera intezar, kab ayegi meri jaane bahaar… ” froze, as if set automatically on a pause button. One nice glance at her… whoa! and I knew she was the one, my ‘special someone’ with whom I had shared almost every little detail of my life on our endless telephonic conversations is right there. By all accounts a blind date it was, with someone I already knew telephonically but never had up till now seen her face. So now I know who I was talking to all during the enchanting season of August and September months of our eager courtship. Preeti wore a pastel-hued virgin pink (her favourite colour) Salwaar and I instantly noticed that she had an exquisite stance about her which was really so attention-grabbing. She was riding a Kinetic Honda. The spike holding the right-hand side mirror was wrapped with a red perforated holy scarf (laced with shiny golden borders); apparently, it was tugged there as a remainder for her to drive safe. A nice thing to do really. She was splendid and incredibly pretty lady, just like her name. I was stunned into thinking that she looked no less than apariyon ki rani (Angel Princess!); certainly not of this mortal world. Quite evidently, Preeti has a strong closeness in appearance to an actress by name Preeti Jhangiani (her namesake), and it never goes unnoticed even at the first glimpse.

Now, people should have laughed watching me doing what I could, yeah, to the best of my knowledge, trying to put up some sort of a brave front to meet her.

I descended down the short marble-tiled steps (for a moment I thought I would trip and fall on the pavement and break my teeth! but I didn’t) and stood confidently in the parking lot in front of the Aditya coffee shop. A ready glee frolicked on my face and an almost absent will-power to meet ‘a girl’ had muddled my mind into self-consciousness. I don’t know how but I just about managed to be up and about. I didn’t know how I could muster up that kind of insouciant confidence to go on a blind date. But I did it, you know. Basically, I was happy about the fact that Preeti turned out to be what I had imagined her to be. She looked up tossing her coy tresses tending them back in place; she clutched her bag and dashed a meaningful glance at me smiling warmly and then our evening rendezvous was well set to roll.

After we got a corner table, I ordered a couple of coffees with house-special cupcakes. Our conversation took off on a free note which really surprised us at first. I mean, normally, meeting someone whom you haven’t seen or met before – except of course one might have talked endlessly with the same person over the phone day in and day out – how is one supposed to react or interact without getting self-conscious or nervous? I didn’t know, neither did she I believe. In contrast, what I did sense in Preeti’s cool appearance is her easy-going, well-honed confident persona; her subtle countenances were at once very pleasing to behold. Not only was I bowled clean but also it made me feel uncomfortably conscious of my humble self.

Thankfully though, it came as a big relief to me when she coolly began talking without much ado or gumption as she sat across me with a smile on her lips that I bet was like that of Angels I read in the books or saw in the movies. What had actually assailed me up to the brim of my soul is the fragrance of her floral beauty. She was a woman of substance. I marvelled at her art of conversation which struck me as deeply fascinating. Her conversational subjects knew no bounds. She indulged in it copiously. One naturally expects a finance graduate to somehow come round talking about “finance” not bothering to see whether the person in front of you likes it or dislikes it, but luckily she was far removed from such a mercy-killing.

Her compelling allure of beauty combined with her intricate artwork of a smile frolicking all over her lipstick-lined thin lips and her face lighting up the whole corner of the room – all this had kept me possessively enchanted throughout the course of that thoroughly dreamy evening I spent with her at the coffee shop.

Ever since our first blind date going all-good, we always met over coffee at Aditya Coffee Shop, an exclusive underground coffee shop meant for lovers or soon-to-be-lovers, and had exchanged quite a few pleasantries. Time and again she found me marveling at her eyes! Preeti’s elegant black eyes were naturally a good conversation-starter for me. I gaped in wonder at those luminous black eyes and have written copious poetry in my mind and sang romantic songs in my heart – all for her. (I dabbled in poetry in those days and my muse was right in front of me.) Let God be in heaven, she was a great looker.

The reason, apparently, why she thought of gifting me a Parker is that she sensed what better gift but a pen for a scorching pen-pusher cum first-time lover like me!

[Personal disclaimer: I, Arpan, am not one of all-seasons jholawalla brigade. Never could be one, alas! It’s a different story that these days the jholawallas turn up in smart prêt-à-porter lines and are more technologically savvier than usual pen-wielding fella like me. No, I don’t mean to say this in an unkind way, for… er… journalists/writers are far more intellectually advanced to anyone who thinks can wield his/her pen (or even hammer away on the keyboard) and write as effortlessly as the way the journalists do. Journalists are conscience keepers of the world; a superior species of life-changing opinion-makers and pre-eminent writers. I, who can only aspire to be a lowly poetaster at best, lay my pen down to that because it is so goddamn true.]

In fact, prior to our first meeting, we had been exchanging emails profusely and chatting away on the phone as if mesmerized to the point of no return! No amount of office work could make me refrain from writing her emails and likewise, no amount of office work could stop her from reading my emails. I loved writing to her every single day, before I had logged off my computer and called it a day. She would call me back the next day and talk about the things I wrote to her and her plans to meet me at the coffee place we frequented. Preeti once quipped about my writing that it is so “detailed”. I very well remember writing about the movie I liked very much; it was Dr. DoLittle. Writing about the story of the film gave me such joy that for the simple love of sharing it with Preeti I ended up writing a huge email of several bytes in length which ultimately reached her erratic office email box in two or three installments! There was another movie by name Patch Adams (one of my favourite movies) that had greatly moved me. A couple of days later when I wrote about Patch Adams she replied back saying that she saw the movie solely on account of my florid descriptions of the movie in my email! Carrying me on the wings of her appeasing compliment, I had soared high to the heavens and back!

Sweet girl; she liked to agree with everything I said or opinionated on in my emails, and I adored her – almost obsessively and self-centeredly – for everything she was and what she used to talk about while sipping coffee. Our ‘feelings’ for each other were deepening, slowly and naturally. I confess I never knew how to hold an approving girl’s hand or look in the eyes and say the three magic words. But all that changed instantly, as if by some magic! Cuddling her hands in mine for a long while – sometimes almost to the point of breaking sweat – till the closing-hours of the coffee shop, was my way of obsessing about my perfect meetings with her. Coming home every day with an ‘expression’ dancing upon my face and keeping awake till the small hours of the morning thereafter was my daily routine. I had no way of knowing if anybody used to notice (except Papita) when I danced to Preeti’s love – I was pretty curious to know. The ‘expression’ on my face said: “Oui ma… I am in love… so totally in love… yeah yeaah yeaaah!”

I, Arpan Monalic, do hereby affirm that I have totally fallen in love, so deeply, with a manchali Himachali, Preeti Ranautra.

Pompous Pom

Ms. Pommy Candel Fishsketcher joined Preeti and me at Adiyta Coffee Shop once and talked about wanting to see the film Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. Apparently, they had been planning to make it to Manju theatre, and one fine day they went and saw the mushy film. It was the festival month of October when the film was released and Navratri and Dussehra were not far behind. Finally, I went to see it with one of my university buddies Praveen at Manju. I liked the film so very much that it led me to think Rani as Preeti! At one point during the interval, swinging his share of plastic bag of chips and a bottle of Thums Up, he urged me not to criticize Hindi flicks like this one, especially with Rani Mukherjee in it, and I should take it easy.

Oh well, I wasn’t overly critical of the film; I simply opinionated that I liked Rani Mukherjee’s serene beauty (Praveen didn’t know that I was actually thinking of my doe-eyed girlfriend Preeti) in the song “tum pass aye yun muskuraye… “. The song “ladki badi anjani hai… ” picturized on pugly Kajol and Shah Rukh was another chartbuster song that had us hooked. Lo and behold, he warns me at once from doing so. Yeah… yeah… you got it right, his heart went aflutter on his sweet Rani and so I have no business in her whatsoever! Even as harmless as appreciating Rani was objectionable to him! Kya zamana ah gaya, bhai! (What has the world come to, oh brother?)

In fact, on account of Pom’s standard break-ins during my lovey-dovey phone calls to Preeti, she got to know that my favourite curry is Fish curry and the more jhaal jhaal (spicy spicy!) it is the better. So she sketched a big torpedo-shaped fish (with prominently drawn fish scales, pectoral fins, pelvic fins and all – probably macher raja (King of Fish), a Rohu variety! on a wonderful paper cutting shaped like a big fleshy scrumptious fish and gave it to me. (Ah! Hah! I didn’t have to cast a line or hook a worm to catch it! I told my Ma to cook it but she laughed!)

The free-hand sketch was so endearingly good to look at, as though of a lovely presentation from a friend to another friend. Preeti appreciated Pom and her delicate paper Fish sketch, profusely. I was so damn pleased with Pom’s gift sitting on my lap that it made me agape in deep certitude. That evening Preeti kept smiling her million-dollar smile even as Pom got to her evening best in the coffee shop with such jovial aplomb that as if all the Lilies and Roses and Lotuses of the natural world were dilly-dallying on her lively round face.

End of Part 1