#203 Diwali @Dhanbad

Diwali @Dhanbad

Diwali is a festival of light and dispeller of darkness. It also spreads a message to instill within us a source of knowledge by driving out the darkness of ignorance.

For me, Diwali has always been so special. Why so?? Because Diwali brings a lot of surprises for me: starting from gifts, a variety of sweets, decorative diyas, crackers and much more. All the mentioned things are always included in my wish list. Preparation of Diwali starts one week before by cleaning rooms and arranging things in a proper manner. I am always excited about decorating my rooms with a variety of lights and wall hangings. Some are created by me for this special occasion. So, the preparation of Diwali makes me occupied for long.

The celebration of Diwali at Dhanbad was no less than a surprise for me. All were so excited before one week. This could be very easily identified from our faces. Wishing ‘Happy Diwali’ and bringing ‘Diwali’ into discussion very clearly reveal so.  The wait for Diwali was very justified as it would bring a series of holidays with it as a gift for us(as students) who are always in dire need of holidays. We would be busy in making some plans to spend the holidays.

Choti Diwali started with a party being thrown by one of the classmates who was offered a job. It was a lunch being arranged in one of the restaurants of Dhanbad. We as M. Tech 1^st year students gathered there and enjoyed our lunch together. In the evening a ‘Lantern Fest’ named ‘Arise’ was organized by third years in collaboration with Sadda NGO at the upper ground. It was a musical night and a no. of bands from students performed there. I was among the audience, tapping my feet with the songs. It was then followed by DJ night. The crowd was eagerly waiting for this. Songs played there, were quite synchronized enough to make the crowd to groove.

It was the turn of Diwali for which we had been waiting for long to celebrate with our friends. The first phase of the day went with decoration. We had already purchased candles, diyas, and crackers before. In afternoon, my roommate got a speaker and we had an inbuilt dance floor in our room to tap our feet with the most popular Bollywood songs. To get the feeling of real DJ night(but we were doing that in afternoon), we invited some of our wingmates to join us. And it was really fun and exciting. Our show went for about 2 hours with some of the audiences peeping from outside of our room. In the evening, I with some of my wingmates visited a temple for evening prayer. The campus of IIT(ISM) Dhanbad was glittering with candles and Diyas being placed at the fence of hostels and roads. The whole scene was worth watching. We headed towards the lower ground where we saw a no. of students burning different types of crackers. We went back to the hostel and we had a photo session with our friends. Dinner was special enough to make this day more memorable. Lots of dishes were included in menu and decoration at mess was worth watching. Rangoli added much more colours to mess.

The feeling of being home by staying away from home was a wonderful experience indeed.  I thank everyone who made this festival so memorable for me. And yes, it was possible because we were in a new-family by being away from our families and under the same roof sharing a unique bond of friendship and compassion with each other. I wish that this continues forever.

Wishing every reader of this article a Happy Diwali.

Sweta Sarangi

30-10-2016

#202 Mentioned in FB page of Blue Grass

Directed to FB Page of Blue Grass

#201 My Quotes

                                                My Quotes(4)

#200 Illuminating through darkness

Illuminating through darkness

Diyas,candles, LEDs

Like little stars twinkling

No distinction between

The sky above and the ground

Housing many dazzling patterns-

Random, organised or round

Driving away the darkness

Spreading the spirit of festivity

Nurturing a sense of unity

Should we not urge to dispel

The prevalent darkness

That rests within us?

The thick veil of ignorance

And the dormant self awareness

Are the prevalent darkness

The ongoing fickleness

Of the mind disturbing

Its innate tranquil charm

Let’s light the lamp of

Hope, positivity and creation

On this night of Diwali.

Wishing everyone a very happy,colourful and safe Diwali.

© Swati Sarangi

29.10.2016

# 199 My Quotes

My Quotes(3)

#198 My quotes

My Quotes (2)

#197 My work in FB page of blue grass

FB Page of Blue Grass

#196 Can I be a rose?

Can I be a rose?

Can I be a rose

In the world

Full of thorns?

Why should I 

Not glow

In the world of

Highs and lows?

To spread out

My vibrant scent

An enchanting appearance

Metaphorizing effervescence

My smooth petals

Radiating a glance

Of beauty so divine

In form of colours

Oh! How can my

Role be forgot!

An embodiment of love

A sign of proposal

Of a feeling eternal

When soft wind blows

I want to sway

Along its flow

I believe that I

Can be a rose

Entitling a poetry or prose

That’s when I think

Yes, when I speak.

P.S: This poem has been an entry to a competition held on International Day of girl child having the guideline to start the poem with ‘Can I be a rose’ with the concluding line as ‘When I speak’

©Swati  Sarangi

13.10.2016

#195 My Quotes

#195 My Quotes (1)

Hello Readers,

I am going to introduce the new section of 

my blog entitled 'My Quotes' where

I will be posting my quotes

from my dairies.

I hope that you all will enjoy reading this section.

Any suggestions are always welcomed .

Here is the first quote of mine.

-Sweta Sarangi

20-10-2016

#194 My works in Kartik Issue of Agnishatdal

Kartik Issue of Agnishatdal

Words of Fellow writer Troy David Loy for my article

Words from the creator
Few pages of the Ezine

Swati Sarangi

20.10.2016

#193 Love and War Anthology

Our poems being shortlisted for Love and War Anthology

Intimation Mail

Happiness is getting shortlisted for an anthology with sister.. :)  

It gives me immense pleasure to share that our poems have got shortlisted for Love and War Anthology. The extent of my happiness manifolds on seeing my sister’s name in the list. What can be a better surprise for the day! :)

Swati Sarangi

20.10.2016

#192 A divine invitation

A divine invitation

Most of you might have heard of the lyrics of this song, “Chalo bulawa aaya he, Maate ne bulaaya he” whose English translation goes like this: let’s visit the divine together as we have received a divine call from the Goddess herself. My journey to Vaishnodevi was similar to it, the situations under which we went there were too challenging. Now when I reflect back, I truly have to admit that without the divine invitation, it could never have been possible for me to visit there.

It was a family plan to visit Vaishnodevi – in fact it had always been in our wish list. The enjoyment of the journey increases manifold when the number of participants of the journey increases. We were 7 members for the journey. We prepared a layout of this plan with another family from our closest acquaintances and chose the month of March to visit as it would offer a moderate climatic condition for the journey. Then we started making preparation for the journey which included gathering relevant information, acquiring reservation in train, packing up the luggage. Something unfortunate happened before few days of the journey, two members of the journey got seriously ill and they had to be admitted in the hospital, the journey was about to get cancelled when we could get to witness the miraculous recovery of them and after receiving the agreement from them regarding the commencement of the journey, we started from the pit stop – our home.

           

          The journey was full of trials, we felt as if all the adversities were designed by the Goddess herself to test our will power, patience and belief. Belief is the fundamental foundation of any religion. In fact, many concepts exist because of the belief system. I was lucky to witness many miracles of the Goddess. Is not the fact of climbing up to the temple of Vaishnodevi few hours after getting discharged from the hospital the testimony of the mercy of the Goddess? The opening line of this itinerary kept reverberating inside my mind though out the journey.

We boarded the train Jammu Tawi from Kanpur to Jammu Tawi. It took 24 hours including the delay of 7 hours which was quite expected. After reaching the station Jammu Tawi the next day at around 5:30p.m, the first job to be done was to quickly head towards Katra so that we could start climbing to temple from the same night itself. The delay of the journey in train put our plan little out of place as we made the return ticket to home the next day at 4p.m. So this was a challenge for us to complete the entire process of ascending and descending the mountain within the limited time and pack up the entire journey within a deadline less than 24 hours!

  

          Without wasting anytime, we hired a taxi and headed to Katra. I had already been lost in the scenic beauty of Jammu the moment I landed at the station, I was very meticulously observing everything in the faint background of the evening. It took nearly one and a half hour to reach Katra from Jammu Tawi station. On reaching Katra, we had to do book tickets for Darshan. After getting freshen up in a hotel which we booked at Katra , we began the most awaited journey at around 9p.m from the hotel.

It was raining so we hired a taxi to reach the main entrance of the temple. After the formalities of the checking got over at the entrance, we were signalled to commence our journey. The unexpected rain made the temperature to fall even more, intensifying the prevalent cold. We were wrapped in winter clothes and rain coats. We purchased a stick to support the process of climbing.

I could get to find different provisions for devotees to climb up the temple- through horses and palanquin. Devotees were from different places of the country and the group of devotees included the people from different age groups even newly born! We chanted Goddess’s name to ease down the fatigue of the journey. The slope was getting stiffer as we moved higher and we were accompanied by other fellow devotes by foot or carried by horses and palanquin bearers. It got dark and I was enjoying every bit of that adventure. Climbing by staying awake all night was no less than a dream to me. The higher we climbed, more blessed and satisfied we felt about taking decision of this journey. When I used to look down from the location where I was from time to time, I was awestruck by the starry jewelled view of the ground due to the illuminating light from different shops. What a moment; no less than a dream – stars all around; up above the sky and surprisingly beneath and we were in the middle of this heaven!

 The weather turned rude after we reached Ardhkuwari, I would connect it to the upcoming tests that we had to appear to get a Darshan of Vaishnodevi. Ardhakuwari , as the name suggests , is  situated at the middle of the journey to the temple  . We had to halt there for few minutes because of heavy rain fall accompanied by hail storm. Many devotees returned from there after hearing the cases of deadly landslide but we were determined and continued with an utmost faith at our hearts.

It was too cold at the temple since it was at the height of 5200feets .The temple is situated at Trikuta Hills. The sight of the temple to us was no different from the sight of the water that would appear to a thirsty deer in the desert. Fortunately, it was no imagination, it was the reality! And yes, we were absorbing that divine reality! It was the most satisfying scene for us after having covered the distance of 14 kms in 7and and half hrs.  The interesting thing was that we got the Darshan of the Goddess at around 5:15 a.m, just 15 minutes before the closure of the duration of morning Darshan , otherwise we had to wait till 8a.m ! It made us realise that Goddess always had a better plan than ours!

Bhairon Nath is the temple which is situated at a distance of 2.5 kms from Hooli Cave and it is believed that the yatra of Vaishnodevi is incomplete without the darshan at Bhairon temple. Due to the unfortunate event of heavy rainfall and landslide, the route to Bhairon Nath was made closed.  So we had to return from Vaishnodevi.

The trial of the journey was not over yet. We had to bear the harshness of the cold weather at the station of Jammu Tawi with 10 hours of waiting for the train. I am happy to state that we could successfully complete the tests of the journey one after the other, all by the mercy of Goddess Vaishno Maata.

This is the divine magical power of Vaishnodevi that attracts 5 million people from different geographical location every year. We were lucky to have been invited there and we look forward for such adventurous journey in future!

Jai Maata Di!

 Swati Sarangi

16.05.2016

#191 My poem being shortlisted for 'The Stage'

Intimation Mail

I'm happy to share a good news with you all that one of my poems has got shortlisted for 'The Stage' conducted by the team Pepper Script. Here is the intimation mail , I received few hours back.. :)

Grab the copy from here

#190 Stay healthy and Stay Happy

Stay healthy and Stay happy

There is a proverb saying that ‘Health is wealth’. Yes, it is quite relevant.  Health is an asset and staying healthy is one of the main reasons which bring happiness. When one is happy, he has the maximum will power to perform his daily routines quite easily as well as comfortably. To stay healthy is not a thing to be done by chance, but it should be included in a list of main priorities for all. Every year on 29 Sept, world heart day is celebrated who soul aim is to make people aware of the cardiovascular diseases. It was founded in the year 2000.

There are some of the interesting facts about heart that one should know-

·        Size of a heart is equivalent to size of your fist. “Hearts can enlarge in response to certain conditions,” said by Kathryn Boiling, MD  a family medicine physician with Lutherville Personal Physicians in Lutherville, Maryland. Heart can only enlarge if it is affected by congestive heart failure.

·        Heart is a giant pump which pumps about five quarts of blood through blood vessels.

·         Symptoms of heart attacks differ from women to men. It has been observed that me often report  chest pain, feeling of being crushing chest muscles, sweating etc, whereas a woman experience fainting, dizziness, shortage of breath etc.

·         Heart diseases are the potential killer in men and most of the women die because of heart diseases. According to the American Heart Association, more than one in three women is living with heart disease. Every minute in America, one woman dies from heart disease, stroke, or another form of cardiovascular disease.

·         Heart beats about 100,000 times a day.

·         Heart rate is also affected by fitness level, diet and age. It depends on how one life his life, considering the habits of intake of food and other daily chores. The following data is given by National Institute of health which demonstrates the rate of heart beat with age.

Newborn (0 to 11 months):  70 to 160 bpmOne to four years:  80 to 120 bpmFive to nine years:  75 to 110 bpmChildren 10 years and up and adults (non-athletes):  60 to 100 bpmAdults (athletes):  40 to 60 bpm

Excessive sitting at one position may contribute to various heart diseases. Numerous studies have found that spending most of the day by sitting on a chair can harm your heart.Heart is the main part of our body which should be taken care of. By following a healthy lifestyle, you can be successful in making your heart young and healthy. Here are the few points mentioned below-

·        Avoid SMOKING
Smoking is injurious ton health as it decreases the age of heart by making it prone to various diseases.

·        Reduce WEIGHT
More is the body weight; more is the pressure on your heart to pump blood. So, try to control your weight by doing exercises daily.

·        Get ACTIVE
Staying active all the time can reduce the risk of heart diseases to a greater extent. It is really a stress buster.

·        Eat BETTER
Add fibrous food to your meal such as bread, grain, cereals, potatoes etc. You should try to cut down the intake of saturated fat. These are responsible for level of cholesterol in blood.

·        Stay HAPPY
Happiness reduces the level of stress. So one should always try to stay calm, happy and confident. Currently in India, with hectic schedules and sedentary lifestyles abound, most people believe that achieving heart health is a daunting task. As a result, they are stuck in a state of inertia and their heart health suffers. However, recent findings from the World Heart Federation reveal that even small lifestyle changes like being active, eating better, and staying happy can make your heart up to 50% healthier.

So start making small changes to your lifestyle to experience a healthy heart.
“I am joining the Saffolalife #ChhoteKadam initiative in association withBlogAdda and follow these small steps for a healthy heart.” 

Sweta Sarangi
30-9-2016