अर्ज है.....

हर जख्म किसीकी ठोकरकी मेहेरबानी है
मेरी जिन्दगी एक किस्सा एक कहानी है
मिटा देते उनके दिये हर दर्दको
पर कंबख्त दर्दही तो उनकी आखरी निशानी है

(Forwarded)

Have a nice weekend, folks! :-)

I think I will scream like a banshee if I read the words "Basis Point" - followed by "1 Basis Point is 1/100th of a percentage point" in parentheses - even one more time. Every time the RBI hikes its key rates, which happens more often than not these days, the newspaper articles are flooded with these words. The expert comments follow - some are still talking about a 9% growth and some are being skeptical about it. What is a laywoman like me supposed to infer?

As the Americans say "Enough monkey business! Do it already!".

Tough Recipe!

I was looking for a recipe the other day. Rather a difficult task given that I have about 7-8 notebooks filled with recipes culled from years of watching television cookery shows. :-( I dream that one day I will be able to turn these into a collection neatly organized as per not only the categories (breakfast, lunch, dinner etc) but also ingredients, cuisine and time needed for preparation. I dream that I will be able to have that collection on my laptop and place it in one corner of the kitchen so I can summon up the necessary recipe with a click of a mouse. And I dream that sometime in my life I will get time to try out all these recipes - at least once.

So far it has been tough luck. I jot down a recipe in the hopes of making it over the weekend but never actually get down to doing it. More recipes pile on and the cycle repeats itself :-(

Alright! Enough griping! Here's the site that features in Google Chrome's ad - http://archanaskitchen.com/

I frequently exchange SMSs containing Urdu sher-o-shayari with a friend who likes them as much as I do. I forwarded one such SMS to him yesterday:

आप हमे रुला दो, गम नही
आप हमे भुला दो, गम नही
जिस दिन हमने आपको भुला दिया
समझ लेना इस दुनियामे हम नही

(Source: http://shayari.co.in/)

After a while, I got this one back from him:

याद करनेवाले कम न होंगे
वक्तके साथ शायद हम न होंगे
आप किसीको कितना भी याद करलो मगर
आपको सबसे ज्यादा याद करनेवाले हमही होंगे

And then we both realized that this sher was like an answer to the one that I had sent earlier. :-)

BTW, if you like sher-o-shayari, do check out that site. It has lots of gems.

The burning question

What's with people? Since yesterday evening, I have been getting junk SMSs asking me to join this group or that in burning the Lokpal bill. I agree the bill doesn't have much teeth but is this the way to register a protest? I firmly believe that Mr. Anna Hazare has been very wrong in starting this trend. You do it once and people will follow you blindly. He, of all the people, should have realized this. It's a pity that he doesn't.

Most surprisingly, I got one such SMS from the Art of Living group. I don't remember receiving any SMS from them asking to do my bit to stop female infanticide, to conserve environment, to alleviate poverty, to provide education, to clean up the cities or the holy river Ganga. Then why are they asking me to join them in burning this bill?

Don't you think it is high time we look for peaceful, but powerful, ways of conveying our disagreement? If you do, check out this TOI site - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/for-a-strong-lokpal-against-corruption/lokpalbill.cms

Good Heavens!

There is nothing like a good hearty laugh as you begin your day. And I had one, thanks to Yahoo! "Here's how heaven looks like!" - says one of the links. At first, I wondered - shouldn't this read 'Here's what heaven looks like'? Curious, I read on. There were the usual descriptions of pearly gates, heavenly music and out-of-this-world aromas. I am not sure if the person who saw all this asked God "What's cooking?" ;-) As if this isn't enough, people's reactions on this news were interesting as well. Some are actually looking forward to going there. And here I am, thinking that only the good people get to go there, while the rest of us will have an appointment in Hell.

Please note that I am not making fun of the tenets of Christianity here. Hinduism also has the concept of Swarg (heaven) and Narak (sort of hell) though the Hindu scriptures don't mention any devil. If any Hindu priest had claimed that he has been to the heaven and back, my reaction would have been the same. It's just one of tricks played by the fascinating thing called Mind. Nothing more than that!

BTW, how is that every person who has had the near-death experience ends up in heaven and back? Has no one been to the dark gates of the hell or don't they want to talk about it?

अर्ज है.....

कभी यू भी आ मेरी आखोंमे
के मेरी नझरको खबर न हो
तुझे भुलानेकी दुआ करू
तो दुआमे मेरी असर न हो

(Source: http://www.orkutuncle.com/shayari2)