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30 Mar 2021
#423 8 years of musings and reflections
8 years of musings and reflections
Source: Google Images
It’s absolutely a thrilling experience to share this day with you all when our blog turns 8 years old. It is no different from witnessing your baby growing into a matured one and learning through its own experiences. It’s like an act of introspecting my own thoughts all over these years. I must say, it has been a hell of an experience and many more to experience in days to come! So, this post is going to be a contemplative one. 8 years are long- isn’t it? To be honest, it’s the only thing that I have clung to, over these years.
What a
coincidence to share my biggest day falling in this month as well! So March has
definitely got some of my favorite and interesting episodes of my life to look
forward to, each year. On 4th
of this month; in March, I completed a year of togetherness with someone whom I
just met a year back and Cupid conspired us to be with each other before Corona
put everyone within the confines of their four walls. Life has its own timing
and plans which no one is able to decipher accurately.
About my
journey of writing, I was not so regular in this platform, I must admit, but
it, in no way, implies that I gave up on this activity; writing. I was always
writing on one or the other platform; either on digital media; online or with a pen over a piece of paper and experimenting with different forms of writing to
express myself better. Sometimes, I seriously get stuck about the topics to
write, you know, that’s writer’s block which every writer faces when he goes
out of prompts to write about. This year, I am serious about reading as much as
I can and make myself comfortable about the topics which have been obscure to
me. I hope reading can be one of the ways to tackle writer’s block. Another
resolution of this year is to meditate as much as I can so as to organize
several thoughts to enhance my creativity. Of course, there are a lot of goals
for me to achieve in the professional front as well.
People
mature with their age and experience. For me, it has been a bit opposite. I
feel the graph of maturity seems to be inversely proportional with age, in my
case. I am still figuring out the real purpose of my life; the reason of my
existence. I am still figuring out different options to advance my career. I am
still figuring out the ways to accomplish my bucket list which I created a year
ago. Among all these confusions, episodes of rise and fall, I did really learn
to control my emotions in a better way. I have again started to dream like I
used to and believe the possibility of my thoughts as no goal is difficult to
achieve once you’ve decided firmly to achieve it.
My
heartfelt gratitude to the almighty for helping me to find my soulmate and a
lovely family who have accepted me as part of their family with so much
love and care that I always make myself feel pampered. What can I ask God more
than to have a partner who shares similar goals, aspirations and supports me to
achieve them. I really apologize to God for the days when I felt ungrateful,
unloved, or underconfident in spite of having everything in my life.
My
vision associated with this blog still remains intact; to write to inspire
people or create a change in their lives. May I get experiences ordained by the almighty
to derive wisdom to put them in my writing.
Thanks
to all readers for constantly supporting me in an unconditional way. I couldn’t have gone so far without your
words of appreciation. I always look forward to your feedback for my
improvement.
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| Source: Google Images |
All
Rights Reserved
Swati
Sarangi
25.03.2021
29 Mar 2021
#422 : Book Review : Life's Amazing Secrets
Life’s Amazing Secrets-How to find balance and purpose in life
Image : Google
Author: Gaur Gopal Das
Genre: Non-Fiction
Format: Ebook
Number of pages: 209
Star: 4.9/5
(Self)
Published by:
Penguine
Review: Who
doesn't know Gaur Gopal Das? This book is written by one of the most respected
and loved monks of today’s time, who is also a disciple of Radhanath Swami.
This book provides a very interesting read just like his lectures that you
might have come across in YouTube. This is a self-help book of its own kind
which is written in a very simple and narrative tone.
Gaur Gopal Das has made sure to
inculcate precious philosophies of life through real-life examples. This is the
reason why he has created a main character Harry who invites him over the lunch
prepared and served lovingly by his wife Lalitha. They discuss several aspects of life, right from how those
couples met, fell in and out of love to the meaning of life. This is when the monk goes on
narrating several incidences from his life to emphasize on the fact that our
car-like-life must be balanced on four wheels as Personal life, Relationships,
Work-life and Social Contribution. If there's an imbalance in any of these
wheels, the car might get lost from its path while moving towards its
destination. He also has discussed the importance of gratitude, spiritual
practice, the act of forgiveness, speaking sensitively, self-discovery,
decoding spirituality at work, selfless sacrifice, etc through several stories
and anecdotes to make it relatable by the readers. Philosophies of life are
better understood when those are relatable. This is what Gaur Gopal Das has
exactly done.
My
Review:
I
feel so grateful to have picked up this book for reading as it’s my 5th
book of the year. The language of the book is such that I felt listening to his
lectures. This book acts as a gist of all the lectures given by the monk. I
would definitely recommend this book to those who are on the path to figure out
the purpose of their lives.
All Rights Reserved
Swati Sarangi
23.03.2021
25 Mar 2021
12 Mar 2021
#420 Certificate of Publishing; Magic comes in Pieces
Hi folks,
I hope that you're doing well!
Here comes my first publication of the year! Do give it a read!
Grab your copy here; Magic comes in pieces!
31 Dec 2020
#419 Revisiting year 2020
Revisiting the year 2020
Hello Everyone,
Hope you
all are doing well. You may be engaged in the process of bidding adieu to the
year which is going to slip out of our hands in the next 3-4 hours. It has been a customary practice
for me to reflect on all the moments which I lived in the year and express my
gratitude to it before it fades away. So, through this post, I feel so excited
to walk down my memory lane.
This year
made me believe in the power of the Law of attraction and manifestation of
intentions. The first month of the year promised me to establish a lifetime
relationship with someone I had come across then. There was a family reunion to
celebrate our engagement. Then followed Valentine’s week which had always
been an ordinary week for me except this time, it had a meaning. There was a
joyous phase of preparation for the D-day of my life. I trusted my intuition to
invite someone I had come across a few months ago, in my life. I let myself go
with the flow of the process that the Universe had designed for me and finally the
D-day arrived for us to depart from the home I had been a part of and to take
responsibilities of the family I was very warmly accepted as.
Then it was
the conspiracy of Universe to let me quarantine with my partner to know him better.
I learned to cook and be more responsible for dispatching my duties of
day-to-day life. The phase of lockdown was never easy but it had definitely
provided me enough time to be with my permanent roommate. During this phase, I
tried to create beautiful memories to cherish for the rest of my life. The phase
of lockdown had definitely slowed down this fast-paced life and enabled all of
us including the nature to bloom in our own way, away from the unknown rat-race
we had been into. I started following the activities that provided me internal happiness.
It included singing, painting, writing, reading, learning different programming
languages, revisiting my bucket list and striking off a few points from that, and
developing some healthy habits. I completed watching all movies from my movie
list which had been pending since time immemorial. I participated in some of
the virtual competitions and garnered appreciation for my performance. I was successful in getting an international
test score.
I realized how
important it is to live in the present moment as the future is uncertain and it
is promised to none. The importance of health cannot be ignored; I realized it until
I fell sick twice and the fear of getting infected COVID started haunting me. The
reunion with family after a long period was literally emotional. I am so
grateful to God for letting me meet one of my dear friends.
The most important thing to feel grateful for during pandemic days is that I am healthy and
safe and so are my family and friends. I wish that this trying and challenging the phase will pass off soon when we all will be getting back to the normal state
of life when we will be able to breathe in fresh air devoid of this deadly
virus.
No doubt,
this New Year’s Eve is different from all other years and all of us are locked
up in our rooms, practicing social isolation, many of us are away from our
family and friends but amidst all difficulties, let us hope for a bright future
which is about to embrace our lives.
So, wishing
you all a very happy new year! May this year 2021, fill your life with
abundance in all spheres.
Image Source: Google Images
All Rights Reserved
Swati Sarangi
31.12.2020
30 Dec 2020
#418 Book Review:The infinite Road
The Infinite Road
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| Grab a copy from here :The Infinite Road |
Genre: Fiction
Format: Ebook
Number of pages: 147
Star: 4.8/5
(Self)
Published by:
Locksley Hall Publishing
Review: This novel revolves around the central character, Alunkrita, who works in the
corporate sector of IT. She discovers a
disabled and abandoned child, Anokhi (which she names her later), and brings her
to her home to take care of her. Slowly and steadily Anokhi becomes the
motivation of her life and her mundane corporate life does not seem to be
dominating now. When she returned from her office, Anokhi’s description of
her day at school and her mesmerizing skills of art would always enchant
Alunkrita. Alunkrita’s life consists of Sowmya, her childhood best friend who
invites her to be her partner in her business venture with Parth, who was her
lover from her school days. Alunkrita was in a relationship with Parth and
because of the career priorities of pre-University days of preparation, their relationship
broke up on a bitter tone and Alunkrita has still not forgiven Parth for
that incident. It was from that incident,
Alunkrita has never fallen in love until she meets the neighbor, Siddharth who
located from Dehradun to her neighbor’s house which remained empty for many months.
Alunkrita’s attraction towards Siddharth grew more over the fact that he bonded
so well with Anokhi.
One day, Alunkrita’s mother
arrives at her home surprisingly and finds Anokhi to be there. There’s an unpleasant
discussion about Anokhi between the two. Anokhi overhears their discussion and
Alunkrita’s plan to send her to a boarding school in the future. The fact of going
away from Alunkrita saddens Anokhi.
Alunkrita plans a surprise
birthday plan for Anokhi where she has also invited an orthopaediatrician couple
who will be doing surgery on Anokhi’s feet so as to remove her disability. On
her birthday, Anokhi goes missing. After a lot of efforts of Alunkrita, Siddharth
, Sowmya and Parth, it’s Parth who finally finds Anokhi and takes her to her
office the next day after finishing off all formality.
All misunderstandings
between Alunkrita and Parth starts to fade away after Anokhi’s discovery and
Alunkrita decides to give love a second chance after Parth’s honest confession
of feelings towards her. Both of them get engaged and plan to marry in the next two
months. Parth gifts a well-designed office room to Alunkrita to begin the
start-up journey that she has always wished to.
Alunkrita gives a nod to
Siddharth’s wish to adopt Anokhi and take her to his home at Dehradun.
Siddharth, a widower, who has lost his wife and daughter, in a car accident, feels
that Anokhi would alleviate the emptiness of his daughter, Diya in his life.
With an understanding partner, Parth by her side, Alunkrita’s journey of the
infinite road of life now seems less challenging.
My Review:
First of all, I would like
to thank my dear blogger friend, Shefali for gifting me her book as a Christmas
gift and this is a really great book to end the year with! It’s really great to
connect with one of the dear blogger friends of google+ days and witness her
pursuing her passion along with her profession.
I always prefer a happy
ending in fiction and I am glad the story has a happy ending to it. I like the
way the characters have been introduced in the plot and connected to the
existing characters. The style of describing different events and expressing different
emotions is simply superb. The narrating style is so interesting and engaging that
I finished the book within three sitting and I felt like I was one of those
neighbors of Alunkrita who witnessed everything happening in her life and
neighborhood. I was so engrossed in the plot that I left everything aside to
finish off this book. Believe me, it was a very engaging read! With this novel, I'm successful in completing the 2020 Reading Challenge of Goodreads
I would definitely
recommend you to read it. I’m sure about the fact that when you get hold of
this novel, you’ll simply lose track of the time until you reach the last page
of it which exactly happened in my case.
I wish the budding Author and my friend great success in all her
future endeavors.
All Rights Reserved
Swati Sarangi
30.12.2020
29 Dec 2020
28 Nov 2020
#416 Dreams into reality
Dreams into reality
It’s
a story of a girl, Richa who enjoys being in her world of fantasy; where she
has all rights to do anything, where there’s hardly any difference between imagination
and reality, where there’s no time delay between her wishes and their
manifestations.
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| Google Images |
Richa
is someone who believes in happy endings. In spite of keeping optimistic views
about life and her future, she had to go through several incidences of
heartbreaks or breakups. Perhaps she was not so lucky in love or her prince charming
was yet to arrive in her life. Life’s
unpredictable, there’s no one who has been successful enough to decipher the
equations of life. So was Richa. When she attained marriageable age, her
parents set out on a path of groom hunting. After meeting a few Rishtas or
proposals, her marriage got fixed with Rohan.
It
was an arranged marriage everything happened so hurriedly from engagement to
performing rituals in Mandap; they barely had any time to know each other. Like
every other girl, she had a lot of rosy dreams about her marriage and partner
which she decided to keep aside for daydreaming in the future. She was wondering
if Rohan would be her prince charming or it would be ever possible for her to
express her dreams and world of fantasy to him.
Just
few days after their marriage, the news of the breakdown of Corona spread like a forest fire. Everyone was unprepared for this uncertain phase which had never
happened before. This pandemic was life-threatening and scary. She had made a
lot of plans for trips which couples go after their marriage; so-called-honeymoon-trips.
She made a secret list of her attires, poses that she would make while posing
for a couple pic; kind of pre-wedding pics which she had always wanted to
treasure for her lifetime and which will be framed to adorn the walls of her
house. She searched for few destinations from the internet along with options for
hotels to reside in. Why would she need a tourist guide when she was so
passionate to research and make all plans?
There
goes a saying, “Man proposes, God, disposes”. Corona was testing everyone’s patience by spoiling all plans.
Richa was no exception in this regard. How can she ever imagine her plans to
materialize in reality when social distancing became the new norm? She
surrendered her wishes to this unexpected phase.
Fast forward to a few months;
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| Google Images |
The sound of the alarm clock on the
table, lying adjacent to the bed started to ring. In an attempt to turn off,
Rohan’s hand accidentally slid a diary from the table. It fell down from the
table with a loud bang sound. As soon as he opened the diary to see what it was
about, the following page came to his notice which read as below;
XX.XX.XXXX
4th Lane, 3rd Street
Near Park Avenue
London, UK
Dear Diary,
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| Google Images |
Thanks
for everything. Thanks for the beautiful plan and unexpected surprises. I
can never be happier than today.
You
know very well that I have been eagerly waiting for the trip;
so-called-honeymoon-trip, because of Corona, we could never plan it. I am so
glad to write that it happened today I felt as if I was dreaming, I
pinched me from time to time to be confirmed about the fact that I was
neither sleeping nor it was a dream.
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| Google Images |
We
went on this beautiful trip to celebrate our first Anniversary. It felt magical
and heavenly. I wore a beautiful
gown. We were on a beach, posed for a lot of couple pics. Amidst the waves,
soothing breeze, and scenery, I had forgotten the fact that I was married, I
felt like a bachelorette enjoying with her best friend. We took a lot of couple
pics on the beach, those silhouette pics are my favorite now which I am
planning to frame very soon, I thanked that photographer for capturing precious moments of togetherness.
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| Google Images |
After
the photography session was done, he blindfolded and dragged me to a place
where he made me sit on a chair; I was excited and nervous at the same time,
not quite sure about what was happening. After a few minutes, perhaps 15 or 20
minutes, he removed the scarf from my eyes, by that time, it was getting a little
dark. I saw a bouquet of roses with a card in front of a table near me and a
very well decorated cake with ‘1’ written over it saying "Our First
Anniversary ”. I was so happy to see that. I started to pick that beautiful
card kept over the table and started reading it. In between, I had lost my
notice, he had already knelt down with a ring in his hand to propose to me, it
felt like a scene from a Bollywood movie and I blushed like a girl being caught
staring at her crush.
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| Google Images |
He
slid the ring into my finger and tears of happiness rolled down my cheek. I don’t
know what made me so emotional at that time. I was still in a state of awe, not
being able to process everything happening right in front of my eyes.
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| Google Images |
The ambiance was filled with floating candles on the
containers having water and these containers were placed over the sand. There
was soft romantic music to suit the moment and environment. The tent
above glittered with Diwali lights and was decorated with our pics. I loved
every bit of the decoration. I was literally in a fairyland, just the way I
had always imagined.
We
ate the delicious cake together and blew sky lantern which soon disappeared in
the vastness of the night sky. We were celebrating everything that day, our
Diwali, Anniversary and my dream proposal.
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| Google Images |
That day I realized that I was quite quick about judging my partner just within few
months of togetherness. To know about someone, his dreams, wishes, aspirations , etc. takes a lot of patience and perseverance. It demands us to put ourselves
in his shoes to analyze situations from his perspective.
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| Google Images |
Then
we went to the hotel, changed our clothes, got ready for dinner. He handed
a beautiful box. I opened that to find a stunning necklace set, he put that
necklace in my neck and it suited me so well as if I was already the owner of
that piece of jewelry. It consisted of colored stones, I was wondering how come
he knew about my taste.
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| Google Images |
The restaurant was fabulous and the meal was super delicious. I was still wondering if I
was sleeping. It was difficult for me to absorb reality and me-being-lucky
this time.
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| Google Images |
I
was thanking Universe again and again for so many surprises. I don’t know how Rohan
had arranged everything to welcome me in a foreign land. The fact which
surprised me more was his secret way of knowing my taste. He knew more about me
than I had ever imagined. Perhaps, it’s love, and this time I was lucky in love.
Richa
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| Google Images |
All Rights Reserved
Swati Sarangi
15.11.2020
P.S: This is a second short story under the Series- Lockdown Tales with happy endings which I started during the lockdown. This is purely a work of fiction. All names, characters, places are parts of my imagination. Any resemblance to an actual person, living or dead or actual events is purely coincidental.
This is the first story of the series in case you've missed it ;Lockdown Blessings.
So, Happy Reading!
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