Hope Floats

There has been so much devastation and loss in Kashmir recently. I can't even begin to imagine the horrors of being trapped on the terrace of your own home or school or shop, as it lies flooded, all your belongings having floated out with the raging water. To fight for survival not knowing whether your family and friends are okay, or if your children are managing in the school where they are trapped. To wait to be rescued for many nights, with no food or water or medicines or company.
In the midst of this heart wrenching nightmare, there is a sliver of hope. It isn't much, but it does exist. Hope has come in the form of our people. People who have come out in hoards from neighbouring villages to help the stranded. Who have taken time out from their jobs in order to help as much as they can. The army officers who are tirelessly rescuing people from all sorts of tricky situations and rowing them to the safety of overcrowded hospitals and dry ground - some who themselves have loved ones missing. There are people like my housekeeper here in Gurgaon, who has donated her hard-earned money so that medicines may be bought for the Kashmiris, because she wants to help in whatever way possible. Money from all over the country is steadily coming into rescue funds for the flood affected as citizen groups are reaching Kashmir to try and volunteer at camps and hospitals and assist the army in their boats.
I pray, as do prayer groups across the country, that the water recedes soon, and the damage is as minimum as possible. I hope we remember as a nation how it feels to come together, support each other, put the needs of others above our own for a change. I hope it doesn't take another national disaster to remind us of how good we can be.

Men, Money and Chocolate - the Holy Trinity Redefined

I'm rather impressed with Menna Van Praag's Men, Money and Chocolate. The author takes complicated personal issues and elegantly turns them on their head making you wonder how you missed such obvious truths. Deceptively simple, perhaps even seeming like chick-lit given the title and cover art, this book is in actuality a godsend to anyone who feels like they need a partner, wealth or comfort food (chocolate, anyone?) to feel better about themselves. It's not preachy and high-handed at all, but does drive home the message that you are all you need to be happy. The protagonist, Maya, finds her way to the light in the most captivating manner and I know that in some small way, we can all relate to her insecurities, which is what makes this book so special. You feel lighter, somehow, and more hopeful once you've read it. It's also filled with chocolate and charming men, in case that helps. 
Here's an excerpt to whet your appetite:


EVERY DAY MAYA LOST AN ONGOING BATTLE to resist breakfasting on coffee and chocolate croissants. Sometimes she managed to hold back for a few hours, but rarely made it to ten o’clock without devouring a couple of croissants in a guilt-laden frenzy. The rest of the day was an inevitable downslide into oblivion. All the time the chocolate treats tempted her, and Maya wondered desperately why she couldn't win a battle of wills with a slice of fudge cake, just once.
She glanced at a plate of chocolate cupcakes on the counter and absolutely vowed that today she wouldn't eat anything sweet. She looked down at the unopened self-help book in her hands, the title promising to cure Maya of her addiction to unavailable men, and caught the sad sight of her cake-rounded belly under her apron. Maya turned a page, trying to focus, but her heart wasn't in it.
Some days Maya feared she’d finally have to let go of her dreams. For years she’d been trying to finish a novel, scribbling sentences between baking cakes, serving customers and worrying about her accounts. She’d tried, hoped and wished to find love but had spent the last decade either serially single or recovering from failed love affairs. And every day she tried to impose a strict diet on herself, calling on ever-diminishing reserves of willpower, and every day she succumbed to temptation.
Maya’s world was shaped by her thoughts about men, money and chocolate; and these thoughts were almost always self-critical and depressing. In the pursuit of love, success and weight loss she’d failed to find anything like joy, but she continued to try.
It rarely occurred to Maya that perhaps she might be mistaken, that in her obsessive focus on these particular goals, she may be missing something.
Sometimes Maya sensed some special secret to happiness that lay just beyond her reach. For, in rare moments, she would be surprised by a sensation of childhood joy that crept up when her head hovered over a cake bowl and she bent down to sniff the sugar, or caught the sight of sunlight through golden leaves. Without knowing why or how, the memory of something she’d once known would touch her and suddenly she would smile, seeing a whole bright and brilliant world opening up before her. And for one eternal moment, Maya would be flooded with a feeling of warmth and peace. But in the next second it was gone.

So, while Maya believed, deep in her heart, that she could be truly happy, she had absolutely no idea how.


Excerpted from Men, Money and Chocolate, by Menna Van Praag. Copyright © 2010 (Hay House)

Fear Less

I sometimes imagine what it would be like if the flight I’m on exploded into flames, or if the elevator I’m in suddenly plummeted ten floors to the bottom of the building. I imagine the crowded flyover collapsing under the weight of so many cars and the movie hall full of smoke and people running to escape. It’s thoroughly bizarre and unrealistic, so I tell myself to stop being psychotic and realize that the law of attraction is always at play thus I’d be better off thinking positive.

My wild imaginings are definitely the product of a mind under too much media influence, something I’m desperately trying to remedy. I've stopped reading the newspaper because the headlines are always full of rape, murder and other horrific things. Selecting what news I want to read online is so much nicer. I do not open emails that I know are spreading ‘true’ stories of how people were attacked or robbed or stabbed or suffered at the hands of authority/our government. I already know this happens, and telling me the gory details doesn't change anything. Whenever people get bad news, the first thing they want to do is share it. They ruin someone else’s peace of mind and more often that not, the news doesn't even concern them. Avoiding unnecessary negativity isn't burying one’s head in the sand, it’s choosing to focus on what will help one feel better and be of more use to the world in general.

Certain well-meaning souls doubt the intentions of others, fear what could happen to their loved ones and live in a constant precautionary state. The children aren’t safe walking to the market, the roads aren't safe at night and people are not to be trusted easily. I agree that we do have to be smart about things and not tempt circumstances, but there is a fine balance to achieve. It’s the sad truth that things can and do happen, but that’s why we need to be stronger than ever. We need to live fully, and that's not possible in fear. Nothing changes if you stay home under the blanket, but if you step out into the sunshine, you get a chance to live. We cannot know what will be, and we most certainly cannot change it; the only thing we can do is make the most of the time we have. Call me fatalistic, but people have died slipping on banana peels. 

Don’t let the naysayers get to you - some with far less have done a lot more because they didn't waste time looking over their shoulder. We like to control each other with fear, hold each other down. For ourselves and for those we love, we need to climb out of the quicksand and just refuse to sink.