Of Sneezes & Cold! Sigh..!

Have you seen that episode of Tom and Jerry where Jerry fools Tom by convincing him that he (Tom) has got measles! He makes fun of Tom and pesters him crazily! At last, it is Jerry who actually gets measles! Well, a somewhat similar incident happened with me in the past few days. Sigh..!

It has been raining here, ceaselessly, since past four days. The weather is dark and dingy, wet and cloudy, 24x7. For the first two days, we were relishing the rains. J But now, we are yearning for some sunlight, for a change!

My bro caught cold 3 days back. He was having coughs and sneezes and body aches. He was feeling lethargic and wanted to sleep all day and insisted on putting off the fan. I did not make fun of him but I was continuously pestering him for being a lazybum, not letting him sleep and cribbing when the fan was turned off!

Yesterday when I got up in the morning, I felt a tingling in my throat. Sigh.. I knew what was coming. By the time I took a bath, the tingling grew into pain. L By afternoon I was feeling febrile! Then ofcourse, the cold caught hold of my nose~ continuous irritation and 4-5 sneezes at a time. :/ And then as the night approached, I was all wrapped up in a blanket, feeling cold and sneezing profusely with a head-ache. And when my bro came to the room and tried to approach for the switch of the fan, I .. er.. had to say to him..

“Please fan mat chalao..Hume thandi lag rahi hai” L

He raised his brows and said,

“Ab pata chala hume kaisa lag raha tha” :/

I felt so embarrassed. :P

How I .. (wait, I am trying to remove the word ‘H**E’ from my dictionary, so I would say) ‘dislike’ this cold! :/ No matter how febrile you feel, the mercury in the thermometer will refuse to show any rise and this prohibits you from taking Paracetamol. And the elders will say, “Koi bukhar nahi hai tumhe!” The cough syrups fail to provide relief from the cough for more than 2 hours. And there is nothing you can do to control your sneezes! A terrible body ache follows and what makes it worse is a head-ache! :/

The only thing that seems to provide some relief when you are barely able to breathe, is the Vaporub; but CAUTION- If you overdo it, it can cause further irritation!!

So the only thing you can do is to bear with it and wait, till the virus completes its cycle! :/

Yes, you can certainly make this time interesting! Wrap yourself up in your cosiest blanket and lie down on your bed, with your softest pillow under your head. Keep a novel or some comics (Archie, in my case) handy. Relax and read! Take steaming cups of Coffee at regular intervals to extend some relief to your sore throat. Sounds better..? J

And from next time, be careful, empathise with the person having a cold! Sigh..!

Some Timeless Pleasures! :)

Now, this post is dedicated to someone very special ~ and that is ‘Me’! J There are some things that are soothing to your soul and more often than not, these are very small things, some unmentioned joys of your heart! So here are few of my ‘Timeless Pleasures’......! J

·      Contrary to the popular belief (which is a result of my own habits :P), I love waking up very early in the morning ~ at ‘Dawn’, to be precise. I simply love to watch the Sunrise. We used to hear this from the elders, that ‘dawn’ is the best time to study and yes, it is.

I don’t know why but I always feel a gush of energy within myself whenever I step out of my house at dawn. To watch the first rays of the sun peeping through the leaves of the trees, rendering a golden hue to everything around, is a feast to the eyes. A brace of ducks or a host of sparrows, flying in the boundless blue sky, given you a feeling that a new day has begun. J And ofcourse, the nippy breeze of the morning, leaves not just you but everything, refreshed and rejuvenated. Honestly speaking, it is like meditation to me. J

Then slowly, the world starts gathering pace. You hear the symphonic chirping of birds which is the best music created by nature. Morning makes everything look so beautiful & wonderful.

Ofcourse, then you start seeing people coming out for morning walks and children dressed up in their uniforms, ready to go to school.. the newspaperman throws the regular daily into the boundary of your house.. breakfast served.. a new day has begun! J

·     Another thing that gives me bounteous peace is to watch cows. :P May sound silly to some of you but, hey.. that is me! J I would say, you should try this too.

Whenever I am too tired of the hectic schedule of my day or fed up of the humdrums of life, I go out, stand at the gate and watch the cows wandering in the field in front of my house.

They are plain, harmless creatures who have nothing to do with the world around. You just leave them on their own and they’ll be quietly grazing, strolling in fields or may be just sitting and staring.

Just look at the simplicity of these animals. They are so unadorned and peaceful. I often stand and watch them, and whenever I do, I forget everything and just keep admiring their chastity. J

·       As I had mentioned in one of my earlier posts, I love it when it is raining outside and everybody is at home, cosy and warm. J Then to sit in your veranda or peep outside the window and see the beautiful rains.. ah.. isn’t is lovely to be at home.

And then, as the cliché goes, have pakodas or sandwiches, watch T.V. and what else......just feel the warmth of being at home. J

·   I used to love those days when Bhai and I used to sleep with our parents. It was so cosy when on those cold winter nights, we used to be tucked up in our bed, under the rajaiis, which were heavier than us :P . And yes, the mosquito net, which used to be a mini-home for me then. I, ofcourse, being a girl, used to keep a soft toy or two with me when I slept. Often bro n I used to cover ourselves with the Rajaii and used to play inside it. J

Even though we sleep in a separate room now, but we are still tucked up in our beds cosily when we sleep. Don’t you just love it when you are warm, under your blanket, on a freezing cold night! Is there anything cosier than that! :)

·   Brought up in a big, joint family; my biggest moment of happiness is when the whole family gets together to celebrate a festival or any other reason for that matter. Isn’t it glorious to have a house full of Bothers & Sisters, Uncles & Aunts, your Grand Parents and Parents! J

It is so pleasing when the whole family sits together at night and has a conversation ranging from narration of silly comic incidences to real stimulating intellectual discussions. Every second hour, there is a round of tea and all this lasts till 3:00 or 4:00 A.M. in the morning. No matter how sleepy you feel, you don’t want to miss the fun! :D

Love Joint Families ! :) 

A tale of 'Agni-Pareeksha' ......!

This isn’t the first time I started wondering about these things and I am sure, this thought must have crossed the minds of many girls; so this post is dedicated to one out of the multifarious aspects of women’s lives!

Today I was reading this book which was dedicated to the great women whose names find place in the world’s history. When I mention the word ‘find’, I mean it literally. So here I was reading about the lives of these amazing women and I ended up observing that every second woman that I read about had done something remarkable and ‘hero’-ic in her life (not for herself, but for the world around her) but in the end, she still had to pass the ‘Agni-Pareeksha’ laid by the society to prove that she deserved respect (to say the least).

Here I’d mention an example ~ Joan of Arc.  I am sure you must have heard her name but let me throw some light upon her life.

She was born in a small village in France and grew up hearing stories of the sad condition of France from her father, how the country was in possession of England and how the French King did not dare to be crowned. She felt so deeply about it that she made it the mission of her life, went to the king, and asked him to allow her to lead his soldiers to victory against the English.

She was just 18 when she led an army of 5000 men against the English. Mounted on a fine war-horse and clad in white armour from head to foot, an ancient sword in her hand, she rode along past the cheering multitude. She ‘led her men’ to victory after victory against the English and drove the English back to far North of France. Her fame spread everywhere, and the English as well as the French thought she had more than human power.

Then, Charles (the uncrowned King of France), urged by Joan, was finally crowned as ‘The King of France’.

Now what do you think should be the end of ‘her’ story? Well let me tell you –

Joan was betrayed and accused of being ‘a tool of the devil’. She was tried, and was burned! And guess what! Later she was declared a ‘saint’ by the Catholic Church!

Ironical .. haan?

Well, this is not the only example, the book is loaded with numerous such examples! With all due respect to God, I don’t think I even need to mention the origin of the word ‘Agni-Pareeksha’.

I am not a ‘Feminist’ that I would say that all women are good. No! But one thing is for sure, no matter how much ‘good’ a woman does, the ‘society’ (so to say) will find some reason (rational or irrational), or some loophole, to blame her of being ‘wrong’.

I did not find any reason for people to call Joan of Arc as a ‘tool of the devil’ and burning her for absolutely nothing! And on the other hand, I read about Queen Victoria who survived eight assassination attempts, was even injured! But she did not put her assassins to death, even when she had all the reasons and the power to do so. They were merely imprisoned.

Take the example of history itself! We must have heard about Queen Victoria and some of us may know that it was she who made Britain the most powerful country in the world during her reign. But do we know, that it was Queen Isabella who encouraged and funded Christopher Columbus to go on his expedition which led to the discovery of ‘America’. It was she who made Spain, a world power, during her era. And do we know that the Egyptian economy flourished under the rule of a woman - Queen Hatshepsut. 

There are many such names which are not even mentioned today. It is ironical. They say and rightly so ~

“Whatever women do, they must do twice as well as men to be thought of half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.”

Why look at the 'larger than life' deeds. Look around, take the example of our very own Indian women. No matter whatever their condition is, no matter how successful or modern they are, they will observe 'Nirjala' fasts for their husbands. Fasts, which are taken as mere customs ~ that all women are supposed to observe. Wish someone could peep into a woman's heart to see with what devotion, piousness and love they observe these day long fasts. :)


And So, here I am, again wondering, what made women so full of ever-lasting love, devotion, sacrifice and patience. What makes them so strong to endure all the pain, ready to take all the tests and still misjudged! What was God thinking when He was making a women’s heart......!

I’ll just end this post with a saying ~

“Woman ... is the divine object, violated, endlessly sacrificed yet always reborn, whose only joy, achieved through a subtle interplay of images, lies in contemplation of herself”.

P.S. - I repeat once again, please do not 'misjudge' me as a 'Feminist'. I am not. :)