Sunday 27 December 2015

5 Reasons books are worth their cost


Disclaimers: By this post I am in no way trying to demean, insult the or devalue the sacredness in this universe that's called books. Why I consider books as sacred may well be a subject for another post, for this one let's find out 10 reasons to discourage those who say books are costly.
  • They're cheaper than sex toys
That they are. Totally. Any day. Books are cheaper than sex toys. Even a pirated dildo will come for at least 400 bucks in a  market like Palika bazar. A majority of books (even non-fiction) will be  way cheaper than this. I have almost 1000 books in my collection that have cost me less than this amount. And second hand books are cheaper and you can use them very very safely unlike being worried about secondhand sex toys ;)
  • They're cheaper than a pizza
 An average Dominos  / Pizza hut pizza costs around Rs. 400 at the bare minimum. The other day brother and I together paid Rs. 950 for our meal delivered by Dominos - a meal we could have done amazingly well without. And ironically, a book of Saki's best (H.H.Munroe) cost me Rs. 150.

Priority shift?

My Dream Room - Chodd Aaye Hum Wo Galiyaan

  • They're cheaper than a night in a hotel
How many of us have run away to friends' place or at times even hotels, only because we wanted to escape from our day to day mundane life? I certainly have. And much as I appreciate the value of time away from my own house, I think buying 500 Rs. worth of books is any day better than a Rs. 999 worth of Oyo room.
  • They're cheaper than a movie ticket and a tub of popcorn combined
A discounted movie ticket - Rs. 150. A tub of popcorn - Rs. 300. Travel expense - Rs. 200 minimum to and fro.

The Art of War - Rs. 250.

Simple Math. No? :)

  • They're cheaper than a full bottle of alcohol
A lot of us drink at least once a week and even at home, a quarter of any day - to - day variety of alcohol costs at least Rs. 300. And Let me not repeat the math, stats, or count benefits of books, the point boils down to the same.

Books are always going to win the game for me, come what may !

And if you feel the same way, come let's throw a books party one of these weekends ! :)


©Anupama Garg 2015 July

Saturday 26 December 2015

Gratitude Journal Day 11 - 15

Day 11 -

1. The hanger pangs I get, for they help me learn self - control.
2. The spilling of water on some things and hopes I'm really looking forward to, because they make me think about other avenues to things I want to do.
3. The availability of information I have around me because it helps me look inwards and tap the untapped potential
4. The air I breathe for I know I'd otherwise be dead.
5. The cool water I drink when I'm thirsty for without my muscles would ache, my body would eventually die.

Day 12 -

1. Thankful for having a job and enough opportunity to explore different roles.
2. Grateful for having a job that pays me well enough to make both ends meet with ease and comfort and allows me to pay my loans / save / plan.
3. Thankful for staying close to work, and taking so less travel time so I can find more time to invest in work / other constructive activities.
4. Thankful for being able to look reasonably attractive when I smile. Makes people like me wink emoticon
5. The blessing of coffee !!! Keeps so much stress away smile emoticon.

Day 13 -

1. Thankful for strangers who are happy to share families with me.
2. Thankful for family being able to visit me after 2.5 years.
3. Thankful for people who believe in me, my dreams, my passion.
4. For People who push me through my depressed moods, mood swings, lows and highs.
5. People who trust me despite being strangers and let me create memories for them in my own way.






Day 14 -

1. People who believe in me and second chances, third chances and more.
2. People who want to see me grow, not necessarily in ways I understand.
3. People who share their vision with me and allow me to be a part of them.
4. Admiration I receive for simple things as my smile and for larger ones as my perseverance.
5. Being adored by different age groups alike.

Day 15 -

1. I'm grateful for the ability to bounce back after being hurt.
2. The sensation of fear which keeps me careful.
3. The sense of occasional fearlessness that helps me take the leap of faith.
4. The faith in basic human goodness, which allows me to trust people.
5. The ability to dream, envision and the aspiration to fly one of these days.


©Anupama Garg 2015 December

Gratitude Journal Day 6 - 10

Day 6 -

1. Random strangers, who enter my life and become precious. They allow me to embrace and acknowledge love, affection, camaraderie.
2. A long weekend in sight for it will bring me the much needed relief and relaxation.
3. My artistic, mildly creative, and expressive tendencies because it gives me a reason to feel like I can create value.
4. My faith in a power above because it keeps me sane in stress.
4. My faith in a power above because it keeps me sane in stress. it, should I be tempted and later realize that it wasn't a wise decision.

Day 7 -

1. The fact that I am able to sleep so much that I even forget to thankful. The gratitude is for the gift of deep sleep.
2. The fact that there are some people junior to me who trust me enough to learn from me and allow me to teach them - reviving my passion.
3. There are people who push me away from the mediocrity I sometimes start giving in to thanks to the struggle.
4. People who won't let me give excuses to myself and would constantly encourage me as enablers to my own growth.
5. My mind that challenges me every moment and pushes me to search solutions for seemingly overwhelming problems.


Day 8 -

1. My inner conflicts, between desires and taboos. They help me grow.
2. My love for pain, makes me more sensitive for other people and also makes me strong enough to suffer it for higher goals.
3. My interest in writing, gives me one thing to truly work upon.
4. My ability to spend some money when I'm depressed.
5.I hate my inability to overcome chronic depression, but I like my strength that keeps me going and am thankful for my insights that help me identify and remove trigger conditioning.


Day 9 -

1. Being able to express myself, even if not that succinctly.It makes me feel less worked up.
2. Someone chastising me for mumbling, it helps me express myself much better than I usually would.
3. The confusion and ability to see that I am confused empowers me enough to acknowledge my shortcomings and working on them.
4. The fact that I don't have to worry about having just 100 bucks in my wallet anymore and not knowing about where to get money for paying next month's rent anymore.
5. Being able to pay off loans even if bit by bit.


Day 10 -
1.  For honest people in this world, make life so easy to deal with.
2. For liars, they help me value the honest people better.
3. The people who remember what I do, how I do it and why I do it and open up windows to the world that I deserve.
4. People who give me wings to fly through reference, recommendation, mentoring, love, affection.
5. People who kiss my foreheads and give me warm bear hugs.

©Anupama Garg 2015 December

Gratitude Journal Day 1 - 5

So, I haven't been able to write for quite some time now. Writer's block, maybe. Perhaps energy block as I usually think of it.

A few months ago, I did a 15 days gratitude exercise and tried to count my blessings. Things , people, situations I was grateful for. The idea was to have a long list of everything that made my life beautiful than it could have been. That's where I'm going to begin with.

Day 1 -

1. For being able to breathe. If I wasn't breathing, I won't have a life and then everything else would be inconsequential.
2. For my body (even though broken), if it wasn't intact, whole, healthy, I'd be either sick, or dead or forever dependent on some charity to feed me(trust me I've seen some really non-functional, under developed physical bodies and I know how humbling the knowledge was).
3. For the fortune of being able to think, to speak, to express. Or I'd be so suffocated inside.
4. For the five senses and fully developed faculties, or I could have been entrapped with so much in this world, which I would be unable to feel, to learn, to show, to express.
5. Coming across the very idea of expressing gratitude, otherwise I'd be spending this time in some more negativity and bitching of people.

Day 2 -

1. The lesson I learnt yesterday - Appreciating your blessings and ignoring what wasn't good are mutually exclusive. I had a wonderful day with a very upsetting ending. And does that mean all is not well, because the end is not well? No. It doesn't. Thank you life for giving me this insight.
2. My work, which gives me an opportunity to learn, share, work, do new things.
3. My Boss who provides me the necessary support, resources to work and learn to grow not just professionally but also personally. I have personally grown immensely in regards to my patience, my control on what I speak or how I react emotionally. In a lot of ways, it's because of the place I work at and the people I work with
4. My colleagues who support me, receive knowledge and share theirs with me. These are people who I work with and who I spend almost 10 hrs a day who constructively criticism me, who give me a chance to constructively offer them criticism.
5.People who have not worked with me, or who have quit but have been bullies, extremely judgmental, critical, hypocritical and negative towards me. I need to thank them, because they make me look good in comparison, they make me feel stronger to fight bullies. They make me value the support systems even better. They make me value even people who are neutral to me by the virtue of comparison.

Day 3 -
1. Thankful for friends who are capable of mentoring me, supporting me through my ambitions, the tough journey everyone calls life.
2. Thankful for people who have given me an opportunity to love them, share my affection with them and care for them, irrespective of whether in a personal or a professional setting.
3. Grateful for senior people who treat me like equals, and share with me what they've learnt from their experience.
4. Grateful for the opportunity to interact with people, meet so many of them not just at work or in social life but also through so many online forums and lots of other avenues. The emotions they share, the secrets they confide, the love they shower.
5. Thankful for the food and the nourishment that I receive through so many different sources, and the various people who feed me and serve me the meal so lovingly.




Day 4 -

1. People who skeptically ask me - what do you get out of wasting time on activities like this? Because they make me think about why I do whatever it is that I do.
2. My ability to think, rationalize, challenge and question my own aspirations, actions and beliefs. It helps me discard those that I find of lesser use and it helps me strive more towards the ones that help me grow.
3. The technology existent in this world that I so thoughtlessly use as if it's a given because it makes my life simpler.
4. The fact that I have had to request for help. It taught me that humility is necessary. It also taught me, that no one is ever fully self-sufficient.
5. People who helped me, because that made me believe stronger in inherent goodness, kindness and loving nature of the human soul.

Day 5 -

1. I am thankful that I have a job that pays me well and helps me sustain. Lots of people do not have one.
2. I have a family that lets me work. The feminist might claim that my right to work is mine, but then there are so many people, women, who are not let to work because of the people who live with them. I count my blessing of a loving, liberal and supportive family.
3. For the education and the teachers I received in life. My education is what has led me to my work life and my teachers are the ones responsible for imparting it. I have had SO many teachers both in and out of the system and I am grateful for each of them.
4. The upbringing that makes me sensitive to other people's needs because it helps me love and appreciate this world better.
5. The understanding of religion and spirituality that I have now slowly over the years come to and will continue to have.

©Anupama Garg 2015 December

People - Him and Trident

Counting my blessings always makes sense to me. In this post, I will not mention his name, nor any recognizable character about him.

He's a friend ! In every sense of the word. I've written another post years ago on him, a post on my old blog. And I can still find it in me to write more about him.

What matters is that the friendship has stayed. What matters is that there was this one incidence:

I had known him for a brief time through internet and through sparse phone calls. I knew he was married to his love, successful, highly qualified from the best institutes in the world, happy, someone so not my league! Or should I say I was not his league? Oh but then I wasn't really looking for an affair with him either :) In fact, the image I've selected is not even the closest when it comes to how I feel about him even today. If we could grow younger, some day this is what I know he'll be like :)


Trident and Him



It so happened that we both traveled - to Delhi and NCR. Separately. From different Cities !

How scared I was, naive as I am, someone who did not know how to go sit alone in a restaurant, didn't know that straws came packed in their covers, someone who chose the cheapest drink without alcohol on the menu (I couldn't choose preserved juices even then though :P).

I waited and waited and waited and his meetings kept on getting late and delayed. Every passing minute bugged me to no end, making me jittery, nervous and making me doubt his intention to meet me.

I had imagined a paunchy, balding man (knowing his age was what he claimed it was). And there comes a dandy, without any airs and absolutely no haughtiness :) I'm talking of a man whom I hugged while reaching his chest at the max, when I first met him, with so much trust. A man who hugged me back with uncomparable warmth.

Even today, when I am nervous, fidgety, jittery and impatient while waiting for someone, I remind myself that patience is worth a hug like that and effort is worth a friend like that. I am no longer the woman who gets nervous going anywhere to any establishment anymore. The meeting with you was the beginning of it all.

Thank you for meeting me in Trident that day !

Thank you for being who you are!


©Anupama Garg 2015 December