1st Month Anniversary!!

October 25th….It’s been exactly one month since I started this blog…so happy 1st month anniversary to me! Lol…Thanks to Shalaka, Mini, Rishika, Dolly, Radhi, Gauri, Shafin and Anish for keeping this blog alive!

Hopefully there will be many more better and improved posts to come.
Till then,
Cheers!

Diwali celebrations-why?

Most of us celebrate diwali, but how many of us know the real reasons behind celebrating this festive time of year? It’s not only about having fun but there are mythical reasons behind celebrating diwali. Like…

1.Goddess Lakshmi’s Birthday: The Goddess of wealth, Lakshmi incarnated on the new moon day (amaavasyaa) of the Kartik month during the churning of the ocean (samudra-manthan), hence the association of Diwali with Lakshmi.

2. Vishnu Rescued Lakshmi: On this very day (Diwali day), Lord Vishnu in his fifth incarnation as Vaman-avtaara rescued Lakshmi from the prison of King Bali and this is another reason of worshipping Ma Larkshmi on Diwali.

3. Krishna Killed Narakaasur: On the day preceding Diwali, Lord Krishna killed the demon king Narakaasur and rescued 16,000 women from his captivity. The celebration of this freedom went on for two days including the Diwali day as a victory festival.

4. The Return of the Pandavas: According to the great epic ‘Mahabharata’, it was ‘Kartik Amavashya’ when the Pandavas appeared from their 12 years of banishment as a result of their defeat in the hands of the Kauravas at the game of dice (gambling). The subjects who loved the Pandavas celebrated the day by lighting the earthen lamps.

5. The Victory of Rama: According to the epic ‘Ramayana’, it was the new moon day of Kartik when Lord Ram, Ma Sita and Lakshman returned to Ayodhya after vanquishing Ravana and conquering Lanka. The citizens of Ayodhya decorated the entire city with the earthen lamps and illuminated it like never before.

6. Coronation of Vikramaditya: One of the greatest Hindu King Vikramaditya was coroneted on the Diwali day, hence Diwali became a historical event as well.

7. Special Day for the Arya Samaj: It was the new moon day of Kartik (Diwali day) when Maharshi Dayananda, one of the greatest reformers of Hinduism and the founder of Arya Samaj attained his nirvana.

8. Special Day for the Jains: Mahavir Tirthankar, considered to be the founder of modern Jainism also attained his nirvana on Diwali day.

9. Special Day for the Sikhs: The third Sikh Guru Amar Das institutionalized Diwali as a Red-Letter Day when all Sikhs would gather to receive the Gurus blessings. In 1577, the foundation stone of the Golden Temple at Amritsar was laid on Diwali. In 1619, the sixth Sikh Guru Hargobind, who was held by the Mughal Emperor Jahengir, was released from the Gwalior fort along with 52 kings.

10. The Pope’s Diwali Speech: In 1999, Pope John Paul II performed a special Eucharist in an Indian church where the altar was decorated with Diwali lamps, the Pope had a ‘tilak’ marked on his forehead and his speech was bristled with references to the festival of light.

I didn’t know the causes and reasons behind celebrating diwali but after reading this I realized that celebrating the diwali for the heck of it is different but if we know WHY we celebrate diwali it’s another thing…

I hope all of you have a safe diwali – please be careful if you are bursting crackers & those of you are not in honour of the 11/ 7 victims- way to go!
Enjoy and have fun!

Why are you waiting?

I had a weird dream last night…and I’m still trying to make sense of it. I dreamt about having just one month to live. I can’t remember for what reason and how I had one month to live but all I knew was that I had 30 days to make the most of it.

The next morning all I could think about was that if such an event actually took place what would be the things that I would want to do before leaving this globe. There were an infinite number of things I could think about, like going back to my birth place – Canada, going to Disneyland, spending those days with my family and friends. Do wacky things like dying my hair blue or bungee jumping, video record all those moments for my brothers to show them what their sister was like etc etc…

It does sound peculiar but it did make me realize that we do take life for granted. I mean I’m not trying to be philosophical or anything all I’m saying is that if we just take a look around our fast paced lives and stop for a moment we do realize that we take life for granted. I just had a dream…. but there are cancer patients who know they don’t have time; they try and live life to their fullest.

It just the thought of not having time that made me realize that there is so much to do and so little time. It is in our human nature to take our lives and existence for granted but I think that we all should just, maybe once in a while try and look around us…and be thankful for our lives.

I don’t know if this has made sense, my point is that try and not to take life for granted and live it to the fullest. Just try and imagine -if it were your last 30 days on this planet, what would you do ….and why are you waiting?

Voices Of youth

Hey everyone! I’m sorry I haven’t been updating my blog regularly but let me get to the point. I don’t know how many of you have heard of “voices of youth” (VOY), I am grateful to a friend for introducing me to this site.

Every child has a right to education, yet 115million children miss out.
Almost 12million young people suffer from HIV.
Every year more than 2 million children all over the world are sexually abused for profit.

Did these figures surprise you? I was sure shocked to know that these children suffer so much, It does make us realize that we should count are blessings every day.

In VOY you can read true stories, take part in discussions and polls, go through photo journals etc. If you want to make a difference then please go visit this website and become a member, encourage your friends and family to become a member too.

http://www.unicef.org/voy/

Lets make a difference!