The sanctity of Love and Marriage

Many things exist that are beyond human perceptions. And one such thing is the power of love. Love in its magnificence is capable of miracles and the highest form of love is the union between two bodies when they revel in the ultimate union of the body and soul.

The act of making love or sex is considered sacred in many religions and it is so because it is the coming together of opposite energies, opposite entities, the Ying and the Yang. In many tribes, the act is considered so sacred that special prayers and rituals are performed when a couple is married. When a couple gets married, there is a promise made, a vow given with extraordinary depth of feeling and singularity of will. It is a promise witnessed and sanctified by the presence of one or more persons. Even when there are no witnesses, our subconscious mind, our soul and God become our silent witnesses. Such a vow becomes an oath that gets embedded in the very core of our being.

In every incarnation, there is a mate for every human being. And some of the souls reincarnate with vows made to be together in age after age, incarnations after incarnations. An invisible thread of love binds such souls. When we succeed in finding our soul mate, our twin soul, we attain the highest possible bliss in love and advance spiritually.

For these very reasons, I am not in favour of pre-marital sex. The coming together of two persons before marriage is considered as a sin in many religions. If a person doesn’t consider the union between two souls or two bodies as something sacred and magnificent, then it degrades as a mere act of pleasure that lasts for a short duration of time. But when two persons who have exchanged marriage vows and are comfortable with each other make love, the act of their coming together bonds them together in a solid relation.

In many western countries, couples live together and test their compatibilities before getting married. Some couples never get married. But they live together throughout their life; this too is a type of marriage at the spiritual level, where God is the witness. The institution of marriage is questioned for its purpose and sanctity. But in an earlier period, in Europe and other countries, pre-marital sex was a taboo and a man caught in a compromising position with an unmarried female was supposed to have ruined her. He had to marry her.

In India too, pre-marital sex is not approved by most of the societies. Though urban societies have toned down their outlook towards pre-marital sex, the rural regions still consider sex before marriage as a taboo.

The current generation is open to the ideas of living together before marriage and they don’t consider it as an act of sin. Many say that there is nothing wrong in pre-marital sex if there is mutual consent. But many later regret their decisions.

Indian culture has given a lot to the world. The sacred relationship between man and woman, the sanctity of marriage is one such belief. According to Hinduism, the sacred vow of marriage exists between the persons for the next seven incarnations. If these two souls come together, they attain a higher level of spirituality in the ensuing incarnations and attain the nirvana or ultimate salvation eventually.

The presence of the atrocities like rape that exists in society also degrades the divine union between man and woman. Under the influence of alcohol and drugs, many men commit such atrocities. It is often the female that is persecuted and she dies inside after the heinous act. She blames herself and is further outlawed by the reactions from the society. Such poor girls should be rescued and rehabilitated.

The spiritual strength of marriage and the sanctity of it should be preserved by all individuals. The peace that such a relation bestows upon a couple is enormous. 

Click here to buy Poonaam Uppal's True Love - A Mystical True Love Story on Flipkart. which according to the author is a passionate Gospel of true love .

This post is written as a part of a contest on Indiblogger.

Toilet for Babli

Clean, serene country side

More than six decades have passed after India gained independence. We have sent a satellite to Mars, is home to some of the most brilliant brains in the whole world and the richest in our country occupy the top rung among billionaires of the world.

Still nearly 130 million households lack proper sanitation facilities and people are forced to defecate in the open. The unhygienic conditions that prevail in the public toilets that are present in many areas also drive people to seek a spot of clean ground out in the open to answer nature’s call.

While driving to my native place, we have to pass through many rural areas and kids defecating in the open, beside the roads and railway lines are a common sight.

We go on travels by road and the worst problem that a female travelling by road in India face is the absence of clean toilets. Most of the public toilets are in dilapidated condition and are terrible stinking hellholes. I have had to use public toilets while on long travels and they have given me nightmares for days together. On many occasions, we search out the good hotels or restaurants in the area just to answer the calls of nature. Even pay and use toilets do not cater to my sensibilities.

In India, the general theory is to treat the toilet as a dump area, which usually will be the worst place in the whole house. The interior of many houses may speak of splendor and cleanliness, but if you enter their toilet, you might want to run with your nose pinched closed tightly.

I personally spend time to clean the bathroom and toilet in my house until it shines. I believe that the health of the inhabitants of the house depends on the cleanliness practiced in the house. Inside a toilet, we cleanse our system and our bodies by taking bath. Hence we should clean our toilets with proper care if we want to maintain a healthy environment in our home. The toilet should be the cleanest area in any home. Otherwise, there is a chance of inviting infectious diseases.

Another problem that women face is the lack of clean separate toilets for women in workplaces. I have come across many women who work in shops as sales girls drinking very less water to avoid using a toilet. Many use the same sanitary napkin for more than 10 hours because of inadequate facilities. Very soon, they damage their health and lose the ability to earn a living. They instead become burdens to their own family.

School going children too face similar problems. Even schools, which demand huge donations at the time of admission, fail to provide the basic hygienic facilities to the kids who spent a majority of their waking hours at school. I still remember the stinking toilets that we avoided entering while in school and college. The situation has not changed even a bit.

The presence of malls, which maintain clean toilets, the restaurants that employ staff 24/7 to maintain hygienic environment need to be applauded. I have seen foreigners heading to malls just to relieve themselves after their visits to local attractions. The toilets available in tourist places are yet another stain to our country. Do I have to mention about the toilets in our trains, bus stations and railway stations?

It is a welcome relief that our present Prime Minister has proclaimed that building toilets should be given more priority than building temples. What I want to see is that plans are put I place to see to their maintenance. If they are not maintained properly, they would just become the hub of contagious diseases that people will dread to enter.

Many kids in rural areas fall prey to water borne diseases like diarrhoea and suffer due to the unhygienic conditions that prevail in their villages.

Domex has come up with a solution to this. Domex, HUL’s flagship sanitation brand, currently runs the Domex Toilet Academy (DTA) programme. They build toilets in villages facing the problem of open defecation. 

For more details, do log on to http://www.domex.in/.

  

 You can bring about the change in the lives of millions of kids, thereby showing your support for the Domex Initiative. All you need to do is “click” on the “Contribute Tab” on www.domex.in and Domex will contribute Rs.5 on your behalf to eradicate open defecation, thereby helping kids like Babli live a dignified life.

This post has been written as a part of Indi-Happy hours  on Indiblooger in association with Domex 

A Healthy Child Makes a Happy Home

My little darling when he was six months old!

When I was in college, my niece was born. Very soon, she won over us all and became the reigning queen in our house. The whole house would become a happy place when she was awake and smiles were dominant on every face.

While she was in her sixth month, she came down with chicken pox and the whole house was twenty-four hours on alert until she became alright. That was my first encounter when an unhealthy child turned the home atmosphere unhappy.

I remember how my father used to carry me around when I was down with fever when I was small. I was a normal healthy child and I didn’t have any chronic disease as many other children of my generation. My father was a doctor and he took good care of our health. Whenever an epidemic was spreading, he instructed us to take precautions and gave us preventive medicines.

Now I am a mother and every time my son becomes sick, my heart thuds like mad. I am the worrier and my husband calms me down. We hover over him like protective angels and until he recovers, every precaution is taken and medicines given as prescribed by the doctor. We browse online for foods to be avoided and food that can be given.

I keep a note on things that might make him sick. An ice-cream late at night surely invited a bout of cold and cough. If we sent him to school when he had not fully recovered from a minor illness, he would take more time to recover from it. So we never send him to school when he is having even a slight cold.

When he was two years old, he got chicken pox and that one month was like hell. Sleepless nights! Both my husband and I had to carry him around as he refused to sleep on bed. As it was April, we had a regular supply of watermelons, which luckily he liked and ate. He refused all other food. Only homoeo medicines were given to him. He recovered from it within two weeks and was back being the happy child that he normally is. Our home again became a happy place with his sound of laughter.

Only another mother can understand the tension when a mother finds that her kid has fallen sick. No matter how strained the relation, even after her kids grow up, a mother still sees the little kid of hers in the grown up person. I have seen my mother fussing over me and my mother in law fussing over my husband. A mother always remains a mother.

I can understand now why my mother used to get tense when any of us were down with any sickness. How the presence of a sick child at home made the whole house gloomy. I now understand how parents become super humans who don’t need sleep when their kids fall sick.

I now understand that more than those medicines that they give, it is their love that make their kids recover from any illness.

I now understand that healthy food and hygiene are the best doctors in the world. May all the children of the world lead a healthy life! May god give their parents a happy home!

A home that is brightened by the presence of their happy and healthy child.

Take a look at the following website of Dabur Chyawanprash that is a boon for today's kids.

https://www.liveveda.com/daburchyawanprash/




This post has been written for "A Healthy Child Makes A Happy Home" prompt for the contest by Dabur Chyawanprash in association with IndiBlogger.

A Web Portal for Car Lovers

Trust Indiblogger to come up with innovative contests and introduce us to new websites and brands.

This time, they have introduced us to a unique website, which aims to bring together car lovers. Don’t we have at least one in each home, who wants to brag about his/her favorite companion, their cars?

I have many in my family, whose favorite time-pass is researching or browsing about their dream car. One very mad cousin has a huge poster of a Lamborghini pasted in his room that is the first thing he wants to see when he gets up. Forget about Deepika Padukone or any other hot female. Lamborghini is his femme fatale, who gives him adrenaline rush.

When I logged onto Carconnect.in with my facebook account, I found many such youngsters who had shared their car experiences and long drive memories. I knew then that I have to write about this unique website which aims to bring together car lovers and provide them a platform to share (brag) about their love for their four wheeler.

About Carconnect.in:

Carconnect.in is a portal that lets you enjoy the ultimate car experience. You can share your car experiences, compare the latest cars, find cars that fall right under your budget, become updated with the latest and changing trends of the global automobile industry and above all, interact with like-minded people who share a passion for cars just like you.

Unique Features:

·        Create your own profile page: You can create a profile page by logging in with Facebook. It takes just a few minutes to create your profile page. Once you create your profile, you get access to the other features of the site.

·        Find friends on the portal: If you have your friends registered on car connect, you can join them in sharing your long drive and car experiences. You can also compete with them to earn the badges. The below snippet explains how to earn badges and what each badge entitles you to receive.

·        Share Experiences: This tab allows you to submit your experiences. You have two options. You can enter your Car experience, where you describe your experience driving a car you own. You can write about Long drive experiences, where you get to describe a memorable long drive you made in a car where you may have been the driver or might have been a passenger. The posts undergo moderation and my posts were approved within a few minutes after my submission.

My long drive experience

·        Leaderboard: On the leaderboard, you can find all those who have earned the badges before you got your chance to join the battle for the badges.

·        Long Drive: This tab provides you the best long drive experiences explained by members tabulated under various destinations. When you click on a destination, a post, which gives a detailed explanation of the route of the journey and the experiences along the way, opens up.

·        Compare cars: Using this tab, you can avail the service of experts, who will send you a detailed pdf report of a comparative study of two cars you want to be compared, as an email within 48 hours.

·        Car news: This is another unique feature, which provides you with the latest car news from around the world, with focus on India.

·        New Launches: This feature announces the latest car launches in India with details about the on- road- price, launch date and the venue of the launch.

·        Chat Room: There is a chat room where you can join your friends and other members of the portal, to chat about cars, cars and more cars.

The portal is user-friendly and doesn’t make you scratch your head much to navigate about or find the various features. The layout is elegant and simple.

Suggestions I have are:

1.     They can make it a touch more colorful with Car photos and stuff on the home page.

2.      The layout of the experience column and the photos that are uploaded can be given a better layout. Now the photos are embedded at the end of the post, which makes the experiences long text columns. If they were interspersed with photos, the experience would be more expressive.

Sharing my experience on Car connect made me go down the memory lane on many nostalgic trips. Thank you Carconnect.in for the opportunity.

In this age when the cyber space rules our lives like the kings of a foregone era, Carconnect.in has enough material to make in-roads into the life of all car enthusiasts.

Check out their website here: http://www.carconnect.in/

This review is written for Indistuff, part of Indiblogger in association with Carconnect.in

Indiblogger Rocks

Indiblogger

Life on my blog before Indiblogger, was like a cold winter night, where loneliness reigned. All I wanted to do was pack my bags and fly to a place where the sun greeted me with a warm smile and a friendly hug.  With Indiblogger dawned a day, which welcomed me like a spring morning, shining bright, thawing the ice of loneliness. Never was I alone again.

Here I go, summarizing the Before and After story for my blog.

·   Readers: Before I joined Indiblogger, the main reader of my blog was just me. I didn’t even share the link on my social networking sites.  Visitors who accidently came upon my blog left without a word.

After I joined Indiblogger, I began to get feedback on my writing and art. I made new blogger friends and visited amazing blogs. Many inspired me and I found friends who shared common passions and ambitions. The number of page views on my blog has gone up from a mere 1000 to 32, 000 within a short span of 7 months. I had joined Indiblogger in November 2013.

·   Blogs galore: Before I joined Indiblogger, the number of blogs I frequented was two or three, which too I visited googling for specific subjects and spending confusing hours online.

With Indiblogger which keeps a detailed and separate directory for the type, region and subject of the various registered blogs, it is just time that is not enough to visit the many number of blogs that I want to visit daily. 

·   Inspiration: Before Indiblogger, my literary activity was limited to the journal that I wrote. It was never a craze.

After Indiblogger, the many number of prompts through the various contests and Indispire urge me to write and read more on each topic that does the rounds on Indispire.

·   Rewards: Before Indiblogger, the last time I became a winner for my writing was while in college for a short story competitittion.

With Indiblogger, I have had two wins till date. Winner for the second half story for Tata Capital- do right campaign and runner up for Go further to get closer. 

Read my winning entries here.

Being an Artist

Going Further to get Closer.

·   Indirank: Before Indiblogger, my blog didn’t have a rank to boast about.  Its moz rank was zero and I didn’t know about Alexa rank or anything about SEO.

With Indiblogger, I get a monthly update about how my blog is doing online and like a mother to a erroneous child, it corrects the brash ways I lead my blog through. When I become lazy, it lowers my rank and when I am active, I am rewarded with a rank that makes me smile.

One thing I miss is the Indiblogger meets, which unfortunately I have not been able to be a part of when it was there in Bangalore. I wish another meet came to Bangalore soon. I so wish to meet my fellow Indibloggers.

Verdict:  INDIBLOGGER ROCKS… It is the guardian Angel of my blog.

So bloggers, what you say? Indiblogger rocks…Right?

This post is part of  Indispire by Indiblogger