Things to do before I die

Source - http://personalexcellence.co/blog/bucket-list/

• What would you do if you had unlimited time, money and resources?

1. Create an animal sanctuary

2. Create an orphanage

3. Create an old age home.

• What have you always wanted to do but have not done yet?

Learn to play the piano

• Any countries, places or locations you want to visit?

1. Africa

2. South of France

3. Himalayas - the inner depths (again and again... as many times I can)
4. Hawaii

• What are your biggest goals and dreams?

Impart education for children and empower women to get out of the vicious cycle of poverty.

• What are the most important things you can ever do?

1. Adopt a child

2. Save vulnerable babies/kids and animals from harm.

3. Teach

• What activities or skills do you want to learn or try out?

1. Swim laps

2. Ride a bike on a trail without falling.

3. Learn to play piano.

• Are there any special moments you want to witness?

My kids taking humane decisions and living up to those.

• What experiences do you want to have / feel?

Giving birth (normally without epidural) which I think is the ultimate responsibility females have been endowed with.

• What achievements do you want to have?

Change one thing in one society for the better.

• What do you want to see in person?

Underwater life.

• What would you like to say/do together with other people? People you love? Family? Friends?

Backpack on the Wonderland Trail in Mt. Rainier with Arnab.

• Are there any specific people you want to meet in person?

1. Bill and Melinda Gates

2. Narendra Modi
3. Sheryl Sandberg

• What do you want to achieve in the different areas: Social, Love, Family, Career, Finance, Health (Your weight, Fitness level), Spiritual?

Social - I don't need to be more social... just need to keep my balance. 

Love - Loving the people already in my life and the ones yet to come

Family - Have two human kids (one biological and one adopted) and keep on caring for Mota, May and Bebe.

Career - Be something like a test architect, an SME of test automation :)

Finance - Pay off the house mortgage ASAP

Health - Gain a few pounds :) 

Spiritual - None... doesn't matter!

Healing...

There was a time in my teenage years when we had things called auto-books. We would give those to our friends to fill out and they would write down their favorite colors, quotations and definitions of what is love and what is friendship. They would also write down their thoughts about us. I still have kept those old auto-books because it feels funny how teenagers would try to define what love or friendship is about.

I have wondered about both these things and up to the point in life where I am at, I still don't know what these are. People sometimes say that friends have to have some similarities, others say that opposites attract. So it is difficult to fit everything in the same formula. I think having a close friend who is my carbon copy would not help me much. It will be like looking at myself in the mirror. What is more exciting is having someone who is different. Rather, I should say there is an optimal limit in the balance of similarities and dissimilarities which makes a relationship "just right". And who could be this soul mate? Any random person. Sometimes they pop out from the most unlikely places. Believe me, this person doesn't have to be your friend from kindergarten. Age, race, gender, language, religion, background of how you are brought up, nothing matters! There are some universal human languages that is all is needed.

Source: Pinterest

I realized this after coming to the US when I found out that the people I was hanging out with have completely different backgrounds and I cherished that difference because I found out that it makes them very special. The things that truly matter go above and beyond any regional boundary - "there's one Moon and one golden Sun, and a smile means friendship to everyone". A smile, a hug, a quick handwritten note mean the same to everyone in every culture. Recently, I realized once again that the differences are superficial. The undercurrent of any human relationship is common to all humans. I also figured out that in life as we will have tough times on one end, people to support us will also come from random places to help us go through it. Sometimes there is this idea that if you are away from home it will be very difficult when you are in trouble. I used to think so too but now I know that is not the case. A support group doesn't have to consist of your family. Like it is said that when you are in trouble you get to see the true colors of people around you. I saw how warm seemingly aloof people can be. Simple texts can mean so much when you are down. You can actually feel the effort someone else is putting in just to make you feel good. Sometimes no words need to be spoken. Just being there, being physically present in front of you, listening to you rant is the best thing someone can do to you. When someone you know for barely a little over a year lends you a shoulder to cry on and holds you tight when you cry is the best therapy you will ever need. 

I am still sad. It will take me a while to get over what I experienced this week. But I am confident now that when I am surrounded by positive people in a loving environment, that healing process can be miraculous. 

An unopened gift

It is not possible to lose something before you actually have it. The only difference is that of a baby. The moment your home pregnancy test shows the double line or spells out "pregnant", women go into a mom-zone. At least, that's what happened to me. I was overwhelmed and excited, happy and scared all together. However, life doesn't always come with happy endings. Life lessons can be difficult. That positive pregnancy test ended at six weeks with a lot of cramping, red blood and a trip to the ER at 4:30 in the morning where the doctor said "looks like you have miscarried". End of one short chapter of my book of life.

It is shocking. I won't call it devastating, because honestly when the horrible cramps came, I knew that it is over. Also, at six weeks (out of which I knew about the pregnancy in the last 3) I should never think that I bonded too much with the fetus. However, there was a heartbreak. I did not buy maternity clothes, we did not set up any nursery and we didn't even see the heartbeat. But still, I felt like my dreams crashed. I am still thinking that I would never know what he or she would have been. Would she be a girl, my carbon copy? A mix of characteristics between Arnab and me? Maybe he would have been a mama's boy... I would never know and there is no way for me to find out. This was my unopened gift. I had the gift but I never know what it was.

It is difficult, very difficult.

There are a few things I want to tell to other women who have gone through this. The first thing that comes to the mind is - everyone else is having healthy, happy babies, then why can't I have one too? The fact is that, many women go through miscarriages and some have multiple miscarriages too. This is just a normal part of pregnancy. The problem is that people don't talk about it. You see the babies after they are born, you don't see the miscarriages, neither do you see the number of years some people take to conceive. Don't use Facebook to gauge what is going on in people's lives. If you open your heart to others, they will also open theirs. In the last few days I have had friends, relatives and even not so close colleagues telling me their personal stories of loss. We are not alone...

Secondly, there is NOTHING to be ashamed of. It is not your fault, it is not your partner's fault. It doesn't mean you are not healthy, it's not the reason for you not being careful enough. That extra cup of coffee did not cause this. It's also not God's will. Neither are you "not going to be a good mom". Stop any of these thoughts should they come to you. Don't listen to anyone who hints at these.

I know it is normal to grieve. It is ok to weep for the one you could never hold in your hands. It is ok to wonder where he is, what he could have become and also to wonder when you will meet him again. I think like the Rainbow bridge, there is a place for these babies too. It is wishful thinking, I know that, but it helps. There are two fur babies waiting for me at the Rainbow bridge. A few more will join them over my span of life. I am sure my Angel Baby will be with them too. I will see them when the time comes.

For the time being, the only thing I can do is to stay strong. I don't think my baby would like to see me depressed and sad. He would want to see his parents happy, the way he knew us to be for the very few weeks he was with us. The only satisfaction I have is that - he was with me for each and every second of his life and that he knows how much he is loved... loved forever.

The Sun

I always feel bad that people romanticize the moon so much but never really bother about the sun. How many people have written songs on the sun? Who ever talked about "strolling in the sun light with her lover"? Is there a composition called "Sunlight sonata"? Nobody, no, never! Poems, songs, sitting under the moon, dreams, fairies, pictures, all relate to moon. The pockmarked dead satellite of ours that doesn't even know how to spin on its own axis.
And with all the fame of its light, what is that? Reflected sunlight that it passes off as its own. Silly thing. All it can do is pull the tidal waters and think that it is very important.

And what does the Sun do?

Really? You need to ask this question? All the stuff you see around yourself, including the keyboard is there because of the Sun. What would we revolve around? What would ripen our crops? What would make us happy after a week of Seattle drizzle? And what would we name the first day of the week after?

In case you think that the Sun is not romantic enough, you have never walked on a trail with sun beams peeping through green foliage, neither have you seen the golden beams dazzle on water. A cat is smart enough not to curl up under moon beams. Even if they did, it wouldn't look half as wonderful as a cat curled up in the sun. Green grass, bright colored flowers and blue skies wouldn't look so wonderful in moon light.

Ever think about that? No, you only think about yourself!

What's the big deal about science?

It was decades back that I learned the most important part about Mathematics. That was the only subject in school where you could score 100 or 0. And who knows it better than me? The number of times I lost points because of silly mistakes!! Why was it so? Because in mathematics, the answer was either right or wrong. There is nothing in between! That is the most important thing about science... be it mathematics or computer science or any branch of biology or engineering. The truth is the truth and you can't tamper with it! It does not depend on your faith, your race or how much power you might have. Science is exceptionally just and correct.

That is the thing that is so awe-inspiring. In my high school chemistry class, I found out how you can find what salt something is. Very crude experiments, yes, but the basis is the same. If an alkali is supposed to react in a certain way, it would. Yesterday I was trying to write a Gradle script for the first time. My tests failed. I looked up that I was missing a dependency. Once the missing dependency was imported, the tests ran. It is as simple as that... binary. The cool thing about science is that it follows logic. If you do it right, it will be right. If you do it wrong, however much you yell at it (or at others) or tear at your hair it will not work! 

The other thing is that the confidence it gives you because of this tendency. As you know something will be right if you do it in the right way, it imparts a lot of confidence. I realized this once again yesterday when I was studying how spacecrafts are sent to Mars. No one found the theory through trial and error, the theory was calculated using maths and then it was put to practice. Just imagine how much confident those people were who calculated the position of Mars when the craft was supposed to reach it. Yes, there have been many failures, but like I said those are human errors, not science errors :)

The world of Science never fails to amuse me. Be it numbers, data, coding logic, the night sky, building things or life! There is a beauty in everything. If you are of that type who think that math is boring, check this out -

Behind every successful woman is...

Today is the last day of Women's History Month. Not sure if I like the concept of having a special month for women's history, but it is true I get to know a lot about many women who have been pioneers. For example, Grace Hopper. In general I would like to cherish men and women both who have tried their best to make the world a better place. So today, I would write about a few men who were behind some successful women.

I have written about Dr. Pierre Curie before. I think the Curies were the best couple ever! I still don't know why women don't want to be like her. I mean, really... she had the best partner, two amazing daughters, a wonderful career... what else do people want? However, without Pierre Curie how much of this would have been possible? If he believed that a woman's home is in the kitchen and insisted his wife "bring up the daughters" because "kids need their moms more than anything else", we probably would have lost the twice Nobel Prize winner and ended up with a frustrated snappy woman. Maybe... who knows?

Anyway, people still know about the Curies and their amazing partnership. Today I want to talk about another person who is not very well known outside Bengal. He is Dwarakanath Ganguly, husband of Kadambini Ganguly, the first female doctor in India. Dwarakanath was an emancipated individual was almost like a mentor to Kadambini who was a young widow. In those days (mid 1800s) being a widow meant the end of life for a Hindu girl so basically Kadambini was expected to live her life within the four walls of the women's quarters with almost literally not seeing daylight ever. Dwarakanath saw the potential of this young woman and encouraged her to complete her formal education and then go for medical studies. Realizing that the society would never let a single woman achieve these lofty goals, Dwarakanath, a widower himself, decided to marry Kadambini and give her the social platform.

Kadambini had many kids from this marriage but she did not have any problem in leaving her kids with her mother and go to England to get her medical degrees - LRCP (Edinburgh), LRCS (Glasgow), and GFPS (Dublin). I wonder how many husbands in these days would let their wives do this. And just FYI, after she came back from England she set up her home just like any other married woman, brought up the kids and made a lot of money through her medical practice. These actually support my belief that a lady who can handle career can handle the stuff at home quite easily. 

I will end this part of my anecdote by narrating an incident of Dwarakanath. He found out one day that a certain newspaper editor wrote insulting comments about emancipated women. He went to that editor's office with a stout stick in his hand and the paper cutting of that editorial. He was quite a big guy, so the editor got a little scared and asked what brought him there. Dwarkanath replied, "to make you eat your own words." And that's what he literally did. Made that editor swallow that piece of paper cutting. The editor published an apology the next day.

That's how you "Lean In" :D

There is another person whom I need to acknowledge when I talk about successful women. He is Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. I owe all my thoughts, all the words I have spoken, all the sentences I have written and all the confidence I have ever shown to him! And I am sure millions of women from Bengal do the same as well.

Yes, women do have to struggle much more than men in order to be successful, but there have been many a man behind these successful ladies.

Down the memory lane to the 1990s

I have forgotten the TV shows, remember snippets of those cricket matches but when it comes to the advertisements I not only remember them very well but some of them I liked so much that the memories associated with them are very fond ones.

Thanks to YouTube, we can watch the ads too just like we can watch old TV shows. When I watch these I seem to wonder what happened to the simple lives we had? The families, the clothes, the means of conveyance...seems like life was much simpler. Families had a proper structure, neighbors were much closer and little things really made people happy. I understand there were problems too, but maybe as I was much younger, I only associate the 90s with much fondness.

This is the ad I would start this series with. Those people who buy cars after almost landing on their first jobs make me wonder what happened to this India? (The video is so old that it is pixelated)

This is from 1989 actually

And this is of that little boy whom we all like... the word "Jalebi" is sure to bring back memories of this ad.

Dhara

This music, replayed many times on different instruments still tell the same story. A household, a wedding, two sisters, their father...the main thing is the commodities never really matter that much. We anyway buy Titan watches. These ads just make us remember those days more than the things they tried to sell.

Titan

Now comes the story of India... Amul deserves a blog article just for its own. I don't know of a single major event in India that they have missed. That girl is just too familiar in Indian households. She is literally present in every dining room all across the country.

The funny thing is that in the commercials, all the characters look like her but you can distinguish the famous people without fail, be it Sachin Tendulkar, Sushmita Sen or Pranab Mukherjee! And here's the ad that takes you across India...

Amul

And here's my favorite. If I have to choose my best ad ever, it would be this one. Maybe because of the fact that the thing is Cadbury. Our most favorite chocolate with the logo of a glass and a half full. And also because it shows the snowy white clad cricket player. Where did they all go? The red leather ball? The open stands? I have lovely memories of the 1996 World Cup and of Aravinda de Silva associated with this ad. This is a must watch.

Cadbury's

This one is extra...this is Arnab's special favorite

Feviquick