If you are a believer…

If you are a believer, show me that you are a believer,

And rise high for humanity to become its agony reliever,

Mosque, temple or church;

Go anywhere for your faith’s search,

God will be everywhere,

Teaching the same truth here, blessing the same love there.

Our heavenly God is the same ,We are all equal, so let us aim,

Not to compare your god with mine,

But with respect for each other, let us shine.

All the bounties that are blessed on you,

Pass them without bars of creed,

Don’t hold them to feed your greed,

Rise high to be a giver, if you are a believer.

You follow your prophet and let me follow mine,

As all our but one God’s messengers,

All walked upto the same Lord ; All dwelled to guide the people of the same Lord,

To think what is good, to speak what is good and to do what is good,

Step ahead to be a soul soother, if you are a believer.

God’s glory is what it seems,

Humans as tall, stout, dark n fair,

Thus the outer shield varies while the same heart beats for all,

And no matter what you name,

The fact lies of humans being same,.

God is humanity and thus I call you,

To show me that you are a believer,

Bow to God’s , And, stand to be His people’s redeemer.

Heart to heart with single moms..

On this International Women’s Day, this piece of my writing is a rendezvous with the thousands of single moms around the globe. These beautiful ladies who go through deep pain and shattered emotionally recollect all their energies and rise up only to make the lives of their kids better, brighter and safer .

The journey of motherhood centers on being the person God has chosen out of all humanity and space and time to care for these souls called “children”.

Neither me nor all the other women ever plan on being a single mom, but you have to deal with the cards you are dealt the best way you can. A mother does not become pregnant in order to provide employment to medical people or teachers in schools & universities. It is a woman's crowning creative experience of a lifetime and till her last breath , she continues to give her complete self to her child. A mother risks a lot because she believes in her child.

Remember this, for it is as true as true gets: it may look beautiful on paper that a woman is making her mark in corporate, in media, in parliament and is also a single mom raising her kids; the kids that were born to a couple who meant love n trust but are then only accepted by the woman and not the man. This single mom juggles between her job deadlines and needs of her kids ranging from food on time to homework to a movie or just a warm hug. She has the power to dress up and reach office and perform outstandingly even after being awake the whole night with an ailing kid. She would be the real cheerleader for her kids to win sports field although none is cheering for her. She would inculcate lessons of love, trust, respect & compassion to her kids although she has been robbed off such emotions long ago. She aims to raise her boys to give the world compassionate men, men who would respect women and she aspires to raise her girls to give the world strong women, women who would not let men shatter her dreams of a safe home & a beautiful family.

Last year while attending a sales conference I had the opportunity to hear a very successful corporate leader acknowledging his mother for nurturing him after the death of his father. It was symbolic of the true respect and love pulsating in his heart for his mom. It was a relief to discover that the single moms rarely get the appreciation they deserve and if someday their kids earn high repute in society and stand high to acknowledge the hard work, the pain, the love and the countless sacrifices of their moms, it becomes EPIC.

So ladies, pause a little today and expect something good to happen to you no matter what occurred yesterday. A simply abundant world awaits. Take time to meet the giggly, natural, soft, kind-hearted little girl inside you and her vitality will always make your heart smile.

Taken with the magnitude of the both emotional & financial challenges, a single mom manages to balance in a world which is always tearing her down and splitting her dreams straight down the seams, it will not be wrong to call the single moms as soulful fairies.

As wise have said, God knows that a woman need fortitude and courage and tolerance and flexibility and patience and firmness and nearly every other brave aspect of the human soul because when the divine script gets her into the role of mother , she would need all this and even more if she is a single mom.

It is a pleasurable thing to earn the admiration of others, but it is a far better feeling to honestly admire thyself… love yourself, love your uniqueness and keep moving ahead. Love blossoms from the inside out. That is why it is so important to do the work necessary to heal our emotional wounds, to love ourselves and stand strong in who we are. Only then, are we truly free to give and receive love, unconditionally and in abundance.

Single Moms, I beseech you all to believe that you are the most beautiful humans on Earth, God has trusted you and has empowered you to nurture your kids. You are chosen to do the unimaginable with pure grace, dignity & honesty.

Being a single mom is twice the stress, twice the work & twice the tears but also twice the hugs, twice the love & twice the pride.

Next time you think of beautiful things, don’t forget to count yourself in.

Happy Women’s Day!

As we approach to the new year eve, even in the loudest of music and elegantly dressed men & women our minds are flooded with memories of the year that just slipped away. These flashes of high intensity that completely turn our lives upside down actually end up defining who we are. The thing is each one of us is the sum total of every moment that we’ve ever experienced with all the people we’ve ever known. And it’s these moments that become our history. Like our own personal greatest hits of memories that we play and replay in our minds over and over again.

We spend January 1st walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this new year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for flaws, but for potential that lies within us and others.

Many of us must have endured a long and painful difficult 2014. And sometimes in the midst of these storms, the future that we are trying to build may seem beyond our reach. But this milestone should serve as a reminder to all of us that the future is ours to shape and to now aim higher than ever before.

As we pray for the new year 2015 to bring all the rewards of love, contentment and success; let us also understand that there will always be times when we may feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate... and so let us pledge that if we are shattered in the journey we will come back even stronger, we shall be more than our scars.

Friends, sometimes the one thing you need for life is the one thing you are afraid to do. For instance,there are some who said I should have fought harder or longer than I did for my marriage, but in the end fighting for love that was already gone felt like trying to live in the ruins of a lost city. I had to step over the false belief that there will be a verse, quote, phrase or talk that will magically make me feel content & complete.It made me finally realise that I left without ever leaving. This type of journey is the scariest road one will ever travel. However, it is the road God will never let you travel alone as God will Himself travel with you.

Just for a change, this year just this year, try to make a promise to be a little better human being than you ever were. How would your life be different if…You stopped making negative judgmental assumptions about people you encounter? Let today be the day…You look for the good in everyone you meet and respect their journey. With others, try to do less correcting and more connecting ; less tugging and more hugging and comprehend the difference that you would care to know less and know to care more.

Let our new journey be about letting go and learning to let in; getting along and moving on..I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with more openess and acceptance. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.

May we remember why we came to Earth . In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours. They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, we are needed here, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear.

So cheers to a wonderful you, your beautiful family and your new journey of love, compassion, success and prosperity in the year 2015 and beyond!!

Stay safe and blessed,

Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care...

These words of Rosevelt endorses the essential basics of a good leader... Be Empathetic.There are many organisations or leaders in an organisation who are all focused on their profitable goals and in the journey makes the organisation a skeleton of trust , conviction and unhappy employees.

Organisations are made up of people not machines, and people have feelings. Leader have to reach out to people to understand their needs,challenges and the inner purpose that drives them, then with his/her expertise weave the link and set the right tone between people's expectations and organisation's goals.

When I was a young merchandiser, I was lucky to have been nurtured in the hands of an empathetic leader. My strengths were identified and brushed for more productivity; my areas of improvement were coached and because I was heard, I realised the importance to speak up and make a difference. Thus, early in my career, I learned the power of empathy to break down barriers and open doors.

Empathy gives you greater awareness of the needs of your employees, it facilitates you to create an envoirnment of open communication and more effective feedback, it empowers you to resolve the problems in greater interest of the organisation.

What holds back the leaders to make empathy a fixture in today's business world is still linked with the ruthless phrase "its nothing personal, its business". The excuse that most of us make for not being empathetic is obviously the reason that the expression or recoginition of any type of emotion in the workplace is still reagarded as being a form of weakness. True empathy is a combination of both emotiaonal and logical rationale that goes into every decision.

However, the clear distinction of leaders who excel in leading is the focal point where they understand and strongly believe that their leadership is not only to direct all energies towards achieveing goals but also on fulfilling the collective purpose of creating something meaningful.

Lack of empathy in leadership can lead to critical issues like poor employee morale, lack of trust in leadership and customer retention in an organisation.

As Jason Boyers said "if we were to keep our business relevant and our customers happy, we must embrace empathy and let it be the force that drives us forward".

God is closer to you than you think....

13th November 1999...... It may be of no significance to the millions of beautiful souls in this world but it was "THE" day of my life. Yes, I was married on this day to the man I had once loved with all my heart and an honest confession that this love has defined my life. Everything happens for a reason and may be today, yes today I realize that we were not made for each other. Because all I remember today is not romance or care but the long nights when I cried endlessly to find the answers to the withering of what once was bloomed with love. I had faced horrors during the 12 years of my marriage... I don’t know which tore my soul apart. The terror I felt the first time when I witnessed such things, or the numbness that came after it started to become ordinary. I was silly and naive who continued to hope day after day that things could someday get better when really it was decaying.

During these years, I had felt the cold and darkness coming, I knew that this fairytale will have a tragic end but every time I wanted to free myself, I found as if being dragged behind a carriage and cannot let go or turn the course aside. I looked at my two adorable sons and thought I would someday be able to save my marriage for their well being. But now I realize that he knew what he would do and just walked over all of us... the three of us. I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now, I can still see the dark circles around my eyes sinking deeper and deeper and my skin resembling a fresh corpse, cuz' my soul had suffered and it had started surfacing. Just like those who say time heals, do not know that outwardly it does, but the havoc it wreaks inside is beyond repair. Those supposedly healed scars we carry with us around, they become our life defining secrets.

And then I accepted that the love that I had so long clung to, has gone forever. With all the lessons it taught me, I remain in debt for the strength it had given me... my two extra-ordinary sons. One masters academics while the other paints my life's canvas with a million colors that I never knew ever existed in this planet.

The story of our life can be told in a thousand different ways. I realized that I am a divine project and so instead of telling my story over and over as tragedy, I have chosen to call it an epic. I have gathered the boldness and courage to call it beautiful instead of calling it ugly.

And you know why?

Faith, love of family, friends, respect at work, enough money to raise my kids, time to pray, play, hug , laugh , forgive and forget, health, food, clothes and the list of things to bow with gratitude goes on and on as compared to the few tragedies I faced in life. So I retraced my steps and went back to the purest place in my heart… Where God lives. I found my way again because I know God is opening my book and I’m the next in line to be favored by Him.

Friends, with this piece of writing I hope to sweep away the terror and the sadness of my life and to have my heart made pure again by God's grace. And I also want each one of you to dream your dreams and surely God shall pour overflowing grace and divine power upon your life to make your dreams come true. Amen.


Stay blessed!!

Wise men had written that hearts and promises are meant to be broken. Yet you have to live and love because this is why you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart, and when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, you have lived the purpose and have given an oscar winning performance on your divine script.

Once upon a time, there lived a young princess surrounded by magic of love and care. She once cried endlessly because her doll was stolen from her backyard, she thought she would never heal her heart. But she was wrong. She soon found her solace in adventures of her teen. She then cried endlessly because her best friend was moving to a different place, she thought she would never heal her heart. But she was wrong. She soon found focus in her career. She then cried endlessly because she earned low grades, she thought she would never heal her heart. But she was wrong. She soon found dreams of her prince charming. She then cried endlessly because her prince walked over her, she thought she would never heal her heart. But she was wrong. She soon found her commitment to raise her kids. She cried endlessly when her kids moved on in their lives leaving her alone., she thought she would never heal her heart. But she was wrong. She soon found her conviction to celebrate her life. But now she was not wrong but was too late as she was just left with last few pages of her divine script.

This little princess of my story had done her best and continued to move on but through the journey she lost a piece of her heart, a fragment of her soul, a purpose of her existence and that was just not what God had scripted for her.

Life will hurt you but you have to realize that you are the value that God added on this earth when you were born. The world will tell you a thousand things, your name would be dragged in the mud a hundred times but you have to celebrate the value that God has inculcated in you. You are beautiful, you are sparkling. You are here to make the difference, so while accomplishing life's challenges dont ever lose that very spark , that very light, that very grace that defines you.

Dont let the burdens of your journey give way to anger, resentment and jealousy as this all doesn't change the heart of others-- it only changes yours. Remember that once diamond was nothing special, but with enough pressure and time, becomes spectacular, You are that diamond!! and dare not lose your originality in the testing times of fate... Value, love, respect , celebrate yourself as it is when you value yourself, you are letting the world see another masterpiece of the creator.

Love you all!!

There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.Human beings are born in relationship and the lives we lead right from infancy to old age are anchored in relationships. It is in relationship that we grow and achieve adulthood and die in the final peace that comes through dying in a trusting relationship with God.

I feel that one of the biggest tragedies of mankind is not to value people, relationships when alive ... we take every smile, every word, every deed of our loved ones for granted till they are actually gone.

A month after my 16th birthday,I fell ill with some renal infection. The doctors had prescribed antibiotics to be taken 8 hourly. Somehow one of the doses became due at 3:00 am in the morning. Obviously, this task was taken by no other than my darling Dad; we both had a heart to heart chat for a while but then I soon fell asleep. To keep himself awake, he sat to watch some video recordings of his favorite cricket matches, then woke me up at 3:00 am and gave the medicine. At 9:00 am, he walked to my room with the breakfast; he told me about how he managed to be up the whole night and I felt very special for all that he has done for me. But, as we humans are never satisfied on what we have, I experienced the very demanding side of my personality.

After finishing the breakfast with me, he said " sweetie, now you go to sleep and I'm off to office. Take your liquids and I'll try to come home early ." My rude and mean reply was " Oh, you are worried about your office when your daughter is not well. And now I know, you were not up the whole night to give me medicine, actually you never get time to watch your cricket so you actually were awake to enjoy your matches."  He smiled and walked away.

Today, I realise that he must have felt hurt and I should have thanked him with my love instead of my mean critical analysis. But its too late now, he is gone forever. I miss him when today I don't have anyone to care for me so much, someone who would sacrifice his sleep to feed me medicine on time, someone who would just smile and understand that even with these mean words all I meant was his presence around.

When you are in the final days of your life, what will you want? Will you hug the degree hanging on the wall in wooden frame? Will you ask to be carried to garage to sit in your expensive car? Will you find comfort in reading your financial statement? Off course not! What will matter then would be people.. if relationships will matter most  then, shouldn't they matter most now?

Value the people who will make an ordinary moment seem magical, the kind of people who brings out the best in you;treasure the people who will drop everything to be with you at any time no matter what the circumstances. And most of all cherish the people who will put you at the center of their universe, because that's where you belong.

We never know but what we say and the way we say could completely change someone's life. If we can learn from hard knocks, we can also learn from soft touch, people will never forget how we make them feel.

It is only with true love and compassion that we begin to mend what is broken in the world.It is these two things that can begin to heal all broken hearts.

Its never too late to pick up a phone or write someone just to thank or that you care. You never know that such unexpected gestures of affection from you may bring joy or hope for someone to live again, to smile again.

Cheers!!