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!!

I am not the only one who is obsessed—or writing…It may not be true that “the three most written-about subjects of all time are Jesus, the Civil War, and the Titanic,” as one historian has put it, but it’s not much of an exaggeration. Since the early morning of April 15, 1912, when the great liner went to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, taking with it five grand pianos, eight thousand dinner forks, an automobile, a fifty-line telephone switchboard, twenty-nine boilers, a jewelled copy of “The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam,” and more than fifteen hundred lives, the writing hasn’t stopped.

But today Im not writing about the movie Titanic but using this largest ever built ship, widely admired for its triple-propeller design, and declared by the press to be “unsinkable” as my theme to express the value of human relationships and words.

In a world where vows are worthless. Where making a pledge means nothing. Where promises are made to be broken, it would be nice to see words come back into power and relationships breathe their virtue.

I left every royalty of my family name to keep the promise of togetherness that I made with the man I had loved so much. I spent the glorious, beautiful years of my life making babies with him and building a home. Alas, someone from either of us failed and togetherness withered away. My life was a fairytale and I always longed for a happy ending.. But all fairytales have rules, and perhaps it’s their rules that actually distinguish one fairytale from the other. These rules never need to be understood. They only need to be followed. If not, what they promise won’t come true.

But like every fairy tale, I am also gifted with priceless possessions... my two adorable sons! I made a promise to always stand by them, to hold them up when they’re about to fall, and to always keep them safe. I never believed there was a strength out there for me. Until I had them. They changed everything. And I never want to live without them. I love them more than I ever thought possible.

Linking Titanic again... the success of this movie was also its superb talented cast. God has written your story and its beautiful, it may be tragic for some but a conviction for many to keep promises and that life must go on. Your story also has a unique cast... your selfless parents, true friends, wondrous siblings, amazing children and a beautiful partner. The events may shake you, drown you but the experiences will be intense making your life story a timeless classic and an epic masterpiece.

Pain of the past never goes away, you just find a way to deal with it. And in the future....... all the promise it holds.... that's what keeps you moving forward, and out of the darkness.

Remember the last words of dying Jack :"Rose, listen to me. Winning that ticket was the best thing that ever happened to me. It brought me to you. And I’m thankful, Rose. I’m thankful. You must do me this honor...promise me you will survive....that you will never give up...no matter what happens...no matter how hopeless...promise me now, and never let go of that promise."

Friends, to be born is the best thing that ever happened to each one of us... we should be thankful and make the Creator proud of His creation by leaving this world a little better than we found it.

With all my respect and love,

People of our time are challenged to comprehend the meaning of "celebration". We end up being amused or entertained and call it as "celebration".

Celebration is an active state, it is to feel happiness around and cherish life. When we walk down the memory lane, our childhood was the time when we had celebrated profoundly. I remember buying a pair of red shoes, I was bringing my fairytale beauties Cindrella, Rapunzel and Red Riding Hood to life. I even slept wearing these red shoes and walked proudly like a princess.... a celebration of my fairytales.

The other day, I saw my little champ playing piano with happy moves and trying to make his own composition. The notes didnt sync methodically but the music was a celebration of a toddler's proudest possession ... PIANO.

I have fondest memories of my elder son watching " Lion King" daily at his lunch time when he was in grade 1. He was celebrating his appreciation for "Simba" while learning the lesson of good always winning over evil.

As we leave the wonder years of our childhood, we substitute celebration with amusement & entertainment. We may go for a movie even now but sit there to criticize the director or the actor or give our perspective to the story line making the entire movie experience a business report or a thesis. We forget the days when watching movie was like meeting our favourite stars, laughing , dancing and walking out of the theater with our hearts smiling.

Have you ever thought that why the lessons learned in childhood are hardly forgotten? Its because children take joy in their work and celebrate their wins, celebrate themselves for everything they do. And sometimes as adults we forget that's something we should continue doing.

Give the fullness of your brilliance, play your heart out; life is made up of moments and it is for these moments that we give our lives. And we are not here for that long, we'll all be dust before you know it.

Celebrate God by choosing happiness over suffering; by taking the power to love what you want and love it honestly and by taking the power to make your life happy.

Celebrate yourself with a kind deed or word to someone who needs you, with laughing aloud with friends, cuddling with your kids, with long walks hand in hand with your partner, and with being breathtakingly committed to your goals.

Cheers to an EXTRA ORDINARY YOU. 

don't let your failures define you. It's who you are that matters..

Today I was at a government office to apply for change of my marital status "Married to Divorced" . At the Information Desk, I was welcomed by a decent man who seemed to have all the information that any visitor would need from this office. As I asked him to guide me through my work, I experienced a very different human behavior. There are words we could not say, words that no one might be longing to hear yet we utter them to complete our tasks.

 I said " I am here to change my marital status; back to my father's name". I could see the man struggling to choose what is right over what is best  in selection of his words to continue this conversation. He hesitantly answered " may I know the reason of change, is it divorce or god forbid a young death" . I answered " Divorce". He then continued with the procedure. Around the same time, a lady in her late fifties ( looked more aged beyond her years) approached him with a similar question. I immediately turned to listen as how would he attend this lady. Here he questioned " is it because of death" and the lady replied " No, divorce after 33 yrs of marriage and now im 59". The man replied "do you still want to go through this hassle of name change" and the lady said "yes, I want to live and make my own identity. I gave my youth to this man and his children, now I want to see what I can give to myself".

Friends, we all dream for fuller lives, healthy relationships but when we fail, we start blaming ourselves till we brutally kill our own existence. No matter how hard it is for you to decide whether to leave that person who had played a vital role in your life but has hurt-ed you, you have to do it with conviction- for yourself and for all that wants you to be happy. At some point you need to stop looking out at others and start looking inward, at yourself, at your own accomplishments and your own failures. It's only when you begin to look inward that you can begin to have an effect on those out there.

Many a times you fail over and over and over again in life , only to succeed. You must make a decision that you are going to move on. It wont happen automatically. You will have to rise up and say, ‘I don’t care how hard this is, I don’t care how disappointed I am, I’m not going to let this get the best of me. I’m moving on with my life.'

I leave you today with a thought as why  are you going to choose failure when success is an option? why are you going to choose pain when joy is an option?

Remember always..instead of regretting about the past what's more important now is to change the present for the future.

                                 Cheers ..to a real YOU!