Ingredients for celebrations

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A good life is one filled with celebrations. You cannot keep living without being thankful to all that you're getting in life. And once there is an opportunity for a celebration, you mustn't let it go. There are many things in life that make it worthy of celebrations and here I would like to list a few out. Just see if in your checklist, these things exist or not-

1. Good friends

A good life needs to have friends in plenty. Because, in words of the legendary Barney Stinson from the popular TV series, How I Met Your Mother, 'No moments in your life are awesome if you don't have your friends to share them with.' 

If you have good company, every moment can be a celebration. Every place is the right place and every way leads to the fun alley.

2. Money

Yes, money can't buy happiness but, it can buy everything else which comes pretty close to happiness. If you have enough money, you can celebrate without worries.

3. Good books.

Now those are the real treasure troves. They are your best companions and can enrich your life to no limits. It is indeed a cause for a happy life if you're surrounded by good, useful knowledge.

4. Happy family

One's family's happiness is an important life goal. If they are happy, a big part of your worries is taken away. 

5. A good home

A good house where you can relax and work at your own pace. A place which you can proudly call yours- is an indispensable ingredient to a happy life. 

6. A good ride

A ride of choice is nowadays a necessity. It reflects not only your personality but also shows the amount of elegance and power you wield. It can be a cruiser bike, a sports bike or a sedan, but it is needed.

7. A perfect partner

Life is incomplete without true love. Poems and ballads have been written on it, can't stress it enough,

8. Good food

All your money goes to waste if it can't extinguish the fire in your belly. Good food is like God talking to you. Food is as spiritual an experience as any other.

9. Adequate leisure time

The mind needs to indulge but, it also needs to unwind. A time to just lie with a book on a beach on a summer evening is also required from time to time.

10. Inner peace

All these things are just the fireworks needed for life's celebrations. The ignition or fire is provided only by your inner happiness. If one is content and happy from the inside, it shows.

Sharing the load

I am writing for the #ShareTheLoad activity at BlogAdda.com in association with Ariel.


In old family albums, the happiest pictures are those in which everyone is smiling, looking at the camera and there aren't any grim, worn out faces. A way to ensure perfect family albums is by sharing the load. In today's day and age,when women are taking equal responsibility in the economic affairs of the home, it is time for men to step up and take responsibility of the household chores too.


When I dream of a house, in the future, when I am married, I cannot fathom the idea of coming to home and seeing my wife immersed in the chores of the household. It wouldn't only fill me with guilt, but will also create a sense of alienation in the relationship. You cannot treat someone like a servant and then expect to be friends with them. I intend to be my wife's best friend and for that I need to share her load.


How beautiful would it be to learn to cook the breakfast, toss some salads, do the dishes and wash the clothes while the radio plays one's favourite song and the significant other looks at you with admiration.


I want her to say that she is lucky to have found me. It is the race to winning the 'Best Husband' award and one has to do whatever it takes to get there. Of course, there is more to it. When you're helping share the load, you, as a couple, work like a functioning unit. The environment at home is not that of complaining and whining but, of whistling and smiling. You find things getting done smoother than before. Also, the kids get to see the true sense of a marriage which is companionship.


Our patriarchal setup has created too many dads who just read their newspapers and order for their morning tea as the mother runs around the house. It is time we changed that. It is time we created dads who hugged the moms from behind as she chopped onions in the kitchen, dads who cooked the curry as the moms doled out those perfect rotis for lunch. We need more dads who did the dishes and moms who went grocery shopping. We need dads who changed nappies and moms who drove the car. There needs to be a change. This change will create better dads and moms and in turn, better homes. We need to share each other's load.

Will of Steel- Blogadda Post

I’m voting for Laxman Rao’s #WillOfSteel and blogging on BlogAdda to help him/her get felicitated and eventually enabled by JSW.


Here's an intro taken from the site-

LAXMAN RAO

NOMINATED BY VISHAL ZAGDE

Meet Laxman Rao. He sells tea on the roadside in Delhi. He is also an author, having penned 20 novels in Hindi so far. What’s more, Hindi is not even his mother tongue! Laxman originally hailed from Maharashtra and has settled down in Delhi, running a tea stall. His interest in writing manifested in the form of a book in the late 70s when he published his first novel Nayi Duniya Ki Nayi Kahani.


You can also vote for your favourite nominee by clicking here

Why Laxman Rao?

What I liked most about Laxman Rao's story was his love toward his craft. Writing is not the easiest of skills and it cannot be easy for someone to work as a tea-seller while knowing that he is also a master craftsman. I honour the art of writing because I have tried it and I know how difficult it is to put your head to a story and make it come true.

The fact that he is doing it in Hindi is even more heartening. In an era where Hindi novel readership is steadily falling and hope seems bleak, it is people like Laxman Rao who need to be encouraged so that our language has its rightful place in society.

If by voting here, I can bring about change in the life of one such man, I am very sure it is all worth it. Writing as a craft is also much close to my heart. This guy has written 20 novels and it is no mean feat. It is like trying continuously like an ant with a sugar cube, and rolling down the wall and yet, picking oneself up and preparing for the next novel. We might not find his books in a bookstore, we might not find him good enough, he in fact may just be a mediocre novelist but, the tenacity makes me want to salute this guy.

Also, the Indian pride also goes a few notches up when someone indulges selflessly in the art of storytelling because that's what we Indians do. We are the tellers of stories. Long, short, happy, sad, musing, amusing stories. We are filled up to the brim with stories and it is such a happy thought that one such guy is taking it seriously. He deserves much more respect that probably what he is getting. He should at least own a bookstore where they serve tea to the seeking mind. He should own a library. With years of wisdom in him, I wish he were just to sit somewhere comfy and write his next novel instead of selling tea on the streets. Not that selling beverages is beneath him or anything, it is just that he deserves the leisure a mind that is full of stories desires. There is much better use for those rags that he probably uses to clean tea stains. They can be sticky notes on his idea board and we might be looking at an opportunity of helping the creating of something unique, something rare- a timeless novel set in India.
 Instead of Ram, this time, I wish that may the force be with Laxman.