In the wake of 'heat'

Literally, Kolkata has never been so hot, they are saying. I pray to God to keep safe the people who live on streets. And I worry we urgently need some fans for our village school. Will try to buy one, atleast, by the next weekend, for sure. 

I salute the AAP volunteers on ground. In this scorching heat, they are all out there under the Sun, working tirelessly, dedicated to the service of the Nation. 

May it rain soon.

Mishti.

Prayers..

As a kid I prayed unconsciously, as in, without understanding the meaning of 'soul' or 'divinity' and such things. I prayed because praying seemed like an independent avenue to build myself up. As I grew up and read books of Swami Vivekananda, I  gradually learnt about 'soul' and such things, and I now pray consciously.

After Dad's departure, my prayers have now become a spontaneous act of seeking assurance from the unseen Divine. The sole avenue to build myself up.

Prayers.

Mishti.

the Big News for now! :-)

The Big News for now is better written down, in bullets :D

1. The GREEN Corner is organizing a cultural event on 15th May, 2014

2. Our beloved children will present some creative performances in the event.

3. We are inviting some eminent social-activists to grace the occasion with their support.

4. And, we request everyone to be a part of our journey and stay tuned! :-)

All updates are available in our Facebook Page.

This NGO is a like a dream come true to me and my like-minded young friends in Kolkata. We are deeply concerned about the holistic education of rural children who are equally talented and enthusiastic, sometimes, more so, than the children born to parents who can afford that education. These children would just go happy on days when they can eat 3 full meals, but we are on our journey to empower them with the developmental tools and the much-needed guidance, to become socially & financially equal with urban kids. It's indeed a matter of opportunity that separates children in the underprivileged society from those born to privileged homes. And as representatives of that privileged class of society, we take it as our duty to provide these rural children with equal opportunities of growth. God bless.

Jai Hind.

Mishti :-)

of Secrets

With 'Secrets' I remember that dialogue of Kareena from 'Jab We Met' : Abb bata bhi do...itna bhi kya secret hai yaar? :D :P 

Well, in my case, sometimes I wonder why God gives me all these secrets of people from all over my life. This is not new. From school-time, to hostel-times, to office-times, somehow I always had friends who trusted me with the deepest of their secrets and said: Kisi ko nahi batana, okay? I said: Nahi bataungi, Chill. And I never blurted out those secrets as I respect them and loved them.

Many of those secrets I've forgotten by now. [I love the lack of grammar in my writing! ha ha :))] And many secrets keep popping up in my mind and i just say to them: 'shut down!' . My life is already and beautifully multi-'tasking' and this duty to keep secrets adds to the meaning of it. 

You see, when they trust you, you gotta keep that trust. But am a silly cute human being as well, who gets tired maintaining & safe-keeping that 'safe' of 'people's secrets' :-( Nevertheless, these people are pretty nice, and I find them sweet enough. So that makes it up for everything :D ^_^

Sweet nothings...

Mishti :-)

Argument: I failed, because I never learnt to win

Why such a grim title? Because, after grim, comes glee :P :D

One of my greatest failures in my life has been: Failure to continue an argument and win it :-) The reasons of my failure are so straight-forward that I feel it does not make sense. I mean, one should be able to argue and win, no? That's like an accomplishment, isn't it? I don't know. What I know is: even if I start an argument, I feel it is based on a selfish need & hence is unnecessary, and so either I apologize, or I justify why I said that, but I don't see sense in continuing it simply because it disturbs "peace".

Moreover, ever since I grew up to start making friends, going to school, somehow the elders always picked me up to 'solve' situations, 'monitor' kids etc. etc. things that I perhaps never wanted to do, deliberately. But my natural obedience towards elders led me to listen more, analyze more, and arrive at solutions. I never got a chance to 'create disputable situations', or, argue over a matter to reach a conclusion, and thanks to my mom, even if I wanted to argue over things, she always taught me: You should try to look at your faults first, correct them, forgive others, and learn to become a better person from the whole experience. As a small kid, I obeyed her. And on doing it as a habit, it became a part of my natural trait. I never learnt to continue even my own arguments, forget about winning them. In the corporate world, where people pitch for their cases of promotion, argue over things to verbally assert their high-performance, I've only managed to objectively state my achievements, and hence could never sound strong enough, for a winning candidate. And somehow I feel.....when you objectively state something, they don't take you seriously, & perhaps they doubt your ability to perform if they trust you with a bigger responsibility. 

However, all this grim side has a glee side to it: my favourite side. The glee side is: I've learnt to grow up faster as a more mature person, I've learnt to bless others even if I didn't get what I wanted, I've learnt to be humble, I've learnt to accept every person the way they are, I've learnt to wish for others' happiness because I feel great when people are happy even when my happiness is at stake, I've learnt to make peace among people, I've learnt to bring people closer & love more, I've learnt to be more sensitive towards other people's needs, I've learnt to seek the deeper truths of life & found them, I've learnt about the existence of God and love Him, I've learnt to sacrifice, and I've learnt to be selfless. Having learnt all of this, I've learnt to be at peace, under all circumstances. 

And the best part that is above and beyond all the grim & the glee is: FAITH :-) You know what faith is like? Faith is like: Suppose there is something that you "logically" don't think will happen because of the existing factors that govern the 'happening of that thing'. But if you stay happy, and don't doubt it at all, don't fret about it, and blindly keep the faith instead, that thing actually happens! Out of my incapability to argue, and strong urge to maintain peace and wanting other people's happiness, I've developed a deep faith in God :-) The faith that He is the ultimate doer, and He is doing the best.

One may wonder what is this post all about? :D It is about one trait of failure and many gifts of success :-)

Keep the smile on ! :-)

Mishti.

15 Years

Well. It is actually 'more than' 15 years of my involvement in social service(s). The interview that was published in T2 said I have been exploring education, arts and music as avenues of social impact among the underprivileged for the last 15 years now. And some of you wanted to know what exactly have I been doing? This blog post is an attempt to share my long story.

Am born in a lower middle class family in a small town of the largest district in West Bengal. All of my fore-fathers from Dad's side are farmers, owned farms, and mostly lived in villages. My Dad and his siblings were the 1st ones to get into town schools. Dad's dad couldn't afford my Dad's science education in +2. Dad pursued Arts, did his M.A. in Political Science, cracked U.P.S.C. written exam, while doing small teaching jobs and supporting the family throughout. He helped (read: with all the money, moral support, and inspiration to Dream big, stretch limits of one's potential and not to stay complacent with the clerical job after B.Com) my Chaacha pursue C.A. and set-up his own Firm, and did everything to get my Bua finish her education and get married as per her wish. All this, before my Dad got married. So, eversince I was born, I have seen many of our relatives from villages often visiting our place in Kharagpur, discuss various matters (Agricultural, Education, Music, Property, family marriages etc.) with my Dad. I've grown up in a joint-family set-up, where my Dad had taken complete responsibility of one 'distant cousin after another' to get them enrolled in school, teach them music, and provide them with expenses of medical care for diseases for which medical-care facilities were not available in the villages. These uncles, and aunts grew up at our place, my Dad got them married as well, and we all rejoiced every family gathering with humble celebrations and lot of music ! :-)

So, what was I doing in all of this ? You see, Dad did the most part. Mom supported him thoroughly, by taking care of those uncles & aunts [who were not too older than me and my sis] equally as she reared us (me and my sis) up: feeding us all, in time, providing timely food to Chaacha as he was preparing for his C.A. exams (for 5 years), etc. etc. I and my sister used to teach (how to spell words, how to write names and sentences, how to pronounce them well) whenever we had time. And over the years, I saw spectacular improvement in their behaviour, social manners, way to talk to shop-keepers etc. : the kind of human development that wouldn't be possible if they remained in the remote villages they came from. Seeds of "serving the underprivileged" were sown in my heart and soul, as a natural process of my upbringing.

My parents never forced me into doing any of this. Infact, mom would have been happier if I spent more time in doing my riyaz (i.e. practising Music) :-) But I loved to read, write, paint our bedroom walls with Mickey Mouses & Donald Ducks, play with my friends in neighbours, and spend quality time teaching those uncles and aunts :-) I "really enjoyed" doing all this. So, yes, by getting an open opportunity to be at myself and do what all I loved to do, I developed a deep love for these family members. They all love my Dad and mom a lot, and visit our home till now whenever they find time :-) "Charity begins at Home" is the philosophy that I have "lived for real".

I will not get into the scientific analysis of the impact of education, arts, and music. Am sure there are many analytical and research forums doing the needful. What is unique to me is the real-life experience I have had. When 1 kid from an under-privileged community is supported financially and morally, an entire community gets uplifted. And as a privileged child, I strongly feel it is my duty to serve that sector of humanity. 

Last week, one of my friends from IIT Bombay said he wants to learn 'how to sing' even though he can humm Bollywood numbers. He said "I want to sing to my friends out there, and not just to myself inside closed doors. But to 'present' a song, I need to sing it "properly", and that will come with training. I also think that....singing will help me communicate better". And I said a loud YES to that ! :-) We joked that, since he is also going to be married in the next 2-3 years, a wifey will love more a hubby who can sing :D

So, you see? Education helps us build confidence. Music helps us become better 'communicators'. Arts nurture our creative side (and there is no denying the fact that Every individual has a creative side), which in turn, helps us become better human beings who can empower other human beings.

My point is: While the facilities of education, music and arts are easily available to urban children, the rural children are completely deprived of that opportunity. And I take it as my personal responsibility to provide those children an access to these avenues. The GREEN Corner is my NGO that is dedicated towards doing exactly the same. And the 'business plan' that is mentioned in the interview is a forward-looking idea to empower the rural women. Empowering a rural woman has a cumulative effect that we all know. However, since it is a big project and requires a lot of ground-work and investments, the implementation is on hold. God willing, if I do receive enough funds and interested volunteers for the necessary ground-work, I would love to kick-start the implementation at the earliest.

So, that's my story of 15 years. Feel free to drop in your comments and questions. I'd love to interact and learn from our discussions. Thank you :-)

Happy to serve.

Mishti :-)

The Coolest Experience. March 2014.

This is an avalanche of inspiration for our generation & the next many generations to come. The Coalition. An event organized by 'Only Much Louder' and 'Do One Thing'. A platform that inspires and empowers creative entrepreneurs to do their things....only much louder ! And in a nice strange way of God (or destiny), I kept bumping into Anshuman Arya & his friends, idhar-udhar, almost everyday, out of nowhere :D & ate, talked, shared, learnt, ........while I also got to interact with Shaswat Mohanty, Subrata Pandey, Ravish Khan, Farakh Abbas, Swaminathan Jayaraman, Akshay Ahuja, Rahul Chakraborty (Rana), Rahul Chakraborty (from Chillum Ink fame), and Soumendra Bhattacharya.

Anshuman (the tall guy in blue Tee, who also stuck his tongue out for a moment :D) made this video that beautifully captures the heart of the matter that The Coalition was all about:

Watch. Share. And let me know if you wanna know more about it !


Keep smiling :-)
Mishti :-)

Conversations

Life has more often than not put me in situations where I seem to be saying: 'Hey wait wait wait.....am not ready for this as yet okay? And I don't even want it nomatter how lucrative you make it look like! :P' while Life cajoled me into those situations as if in a tone 'It's okay baby....it's all for your good & for a larger good and you'll realize it once you truly relish the purpose. So take it and take relish it' :-)

Conversations with friends have opened up a whole new outlook towards life, for me. Informations that I perhaps didn't want for myself, but the kind that gave me necessary means to form important decisions that shaped lives of great purpose and immense value. Informations that seemed to be cluttering my space, but ultimately cleared some cluttered space. Informations that I just had to *share* and get done with. Conversations help me be me.

Out of all conversations so far in life, the ones with my Dad remain special and will be so, forever. Oh yes, be prepared to hear more about him here on my Blog as I was and I will always be my Dad's little girl and his inspirations will dominate my Blog space for sure :-) I mean, I have seen many many \talented\ people in this world, the talents that my Dad had. But I haven't seen another man with such principles, zeal for a 'meaningful life', a true down-to-earth attitude, indomitable courage, and a genuine love for human beings. My silent conversations with him now are the most special as am all set to play the 2nd & the final innings of my own life, this lifetime.

Oh btw, to continue from the last Blog post, just want to update that my planned Church visit didn't happen ultimately as I was indeed neck deep @ work and had to submit few deliverables within tight schedule. Later I got to know it was community-specific and perhaps I wouldn't be able to participate as I had thought I'd. I thanked God :D God does the best for me. A.L.W.A.Y.S. ^_^ 

That's it folks!

Writing is *so* wonderful.

Thank you for reading :-)

God bless you.

Mishti :-)

The black-and-white of Life.

Somehow I have never been able to, or made any attempt to distinguish between the real and the unreal, except for the fact that I firmly believe in one reality: that is the existence of God. So I see the world in very black and white form. Jo hai, jaisa hai, waisa hi hai. I fail to justify 'ye aisa kyon hai, wo waisa kyon hai' :-)

What I mean to say is: I like everyone :D And, equally so :-) I mean, I don't find any reason to not like someone. However, I do make strong decisions as to which all people to mingle with, and which all, not to mingle with. That's about me, and not about them. 

I fail to explain everytime when anybody asks me: How come she is a friend, when you just met her just once in the last 5 years? I say: She is a friend because we share a bond that is beyond the realms of time and space :-) She is a friend because we can talk for hours long, we trust each other, and we like each other.

Today was one such great day...........when I spent 80% of my time just talking to 2 of my bestest friends, on phone. If at all I have to be thankful to the invention of 'mobile phone', it is this: A great means of communication between loved ones. :-) 

And finally finally finally, am soooooo happy to be back to the Blog world. For the joy of writing, sharing experiences & feelings, and staying in regular touch with friends. Back to my roots. :-)

Wish you all a happy sunday tomorrow!
It's the Easter sunday and am invited to a nearby Church. 

Will come back and write about it tomorrow, for sure :-)

God bless you.

Mishti :-)

After a long hiatus :-)

Hello Nirwa, Satish, Madhavi, and Others :-)

It's been long since I had last written anything on a Blog. So much has happened in the past few years that I feel I've become quite a mature woman now to handle all the attention :P once again :D haha....just kidding ^_^ 

Am all set now to start learning anew and start catching up with the world with a renewed confidence. Before I start off with regular updates on my Blog, let me just briefly say what's going on right now in my life: (1) Job (2) social work (3) Sarode (4) planning to start oil-painting once again (5) supporting & inspiring young entrepreneurs in Kolkata (6) and ofcourse, Blogging :-)

I thank each one of you for being there with me, for real, all these years, when I went missing in action on the blogosphere, however, you let me get to know you in person. Am indeed grateful for your friendship. 

So that's all for today and tonight.

Wish you all a grand weekend ahead ! :-)

God bless you.

Mishti :-)