Have you ever seen a torque blue sky?

I was in my vehicle, crossing the Princess Margaret Bridge in my town, north of Fredericton, and was struggling to hide my eyes from the piercing light of the afternoon sun. It was around 3:30PM Atlantic Time.

When I got around to the half circle-ramp, coming up from Riverside Drive and going towards the bridge, the sky zoomed in at my eyes and I felt as if I was climbing up the sky. I felt hallucinated. I slowed down my car a bit. Gripping my both hands tight on the steering wheels and hiding my eyes behind the rearviewmirror, I looked straight up to the sky – it was bright torque blue!

What’s happening? Am I seeing things?, I questioned to myself.  I looked ahead and up again. There was that bright torque blue sky standing magnificently in front of me. There were a few scattered white clouds also, all glowing as if they were beamed up by the thousands of light bulbs behind them. I wasn’t imagining. The whole thing was real!

I picked my husband up on my way home and told him what I had seen a while ago. He just smiled at me with an expression on his face that said “Yah, sure”.  After reaching home, I looked at the sky, again. This time the sky was in dull baby-blue color and the clouds didn’t shine!

In my bed time I thought about the torque blue sky again. I wondered if anybody else had seen such sky, or that was just the trick of the afternoon sun? After giving a lot of thoughts, I attributed the torque blue sky and the bright clouds to my brother who had just passed away a few days earlier. “He must be in heaven, now”, I said to myself. It was his way of thanking me for donating the bags of food to the food bank in his name this afternoon.

That was the only logical explanation I could make out of the heavenly experience I had that yesterday, and I slept the whole night peacefully!

RIP my dear Sanu dai

Old age and the fragility touche everyone

Old people are perceived as unsightly and burdensome by many societies and a lot of elderlies are condemned --not for doing anything wrong or harming anyone, but simply reaching their “unproductive” stage.


Our societies burry the issues of old age altogether, instead of preparing our young generation by educating them on this very eminent stage. Most children don't get 't the opportunity to be with their grandparents and older relatives. They don't understand what growing old means. For example, I didn't know how to look after elderlies when my visited about 10 years ago. The old saying "you've to be old to understand an elderly" is so correct!


I had heard an interesting story about an elderly when I was very young that I want to share to demonstrate how we cheat ourselves:


Once there lived a young couple who had a very young son and very old man--their father and father-in-law-– living with them. From the account of this tale, it is understood that the old man had reached at his “unfruitful” age, and the couple decided to get rid of him. They said, "this old man is useless and draining our resources". So, they devised a plan.


Next day the husband brought a basket, large enough to fit his old man, and loaded his father in it. After watching his father, the very young son of his asked, “What are you doing, father?” The father replied, “I’m loading your grandpa to dump him down from a tall mountain, so that he can’t return home”.


When the man finished loading his father and was on his way to the mountain, his very young son came running after him. He shouted, “Wait, wait, father, I’ve to tell you something…” The father was in a hurry, but his love for his son compelled him to stop. Impatiently the father asked, “What is it son?” “What is so important that you must distract me from carrying on my urgent work?” His very young son breathlessly replied, “I just want to remind you to bring the basket home after you dump grandpa down the mountain”. His father paused a while and asked, “Why my son; why do you care about this useless basket?” His very young son replied, “Because I would need it to dump you down the mountain, too, when you reach to grandpa’s age”.

Taking things for granted

It was a perfect evening for a walk in Fredericton, NB. As I stroll up the hill with my husband, a cool comfortable breeze blew at our faces, then I suddenly noticed the breath I took – a deep, long, strong inhalation that I felt it was the first time I had done so. Instantly, I thought about my brother who is fighting for his life in a hospital in Nepal. “If he could draw the kind of air I just did into his lungs a couple of times without the help of ventilation, he would be up and running” I imagined.

For the first time in my entire life I became so thankful for each breath going in and out of my lungs!

Me and the Pickle jar: Radha's story

I found a jar of artichoke pickle molded and rot in my refrigerator:

"A strange thought struck in me," said Radha. Then I started chatting with my pickle jar, sitting on my countertop and looking as impatient as I'm: 

Me: waiting for my children to pick the career they want, so that I’ll know what kind of future they’ll have.

Pickle jar: waiting for one my children to come home and eat me up.

Me: waiting for my children to marry with their boyfriend/girlfriend, so that I can finish some of my motherly responsibilities.

Pickle jar: waiting for my children to come home and find me still waiting.

Me: waiting for my children to settle down, so that they could take their belonging to their own place.

Pickle jar: rotten but still waiting…

Me: waiting for my children to sort out what they want to keep, so that I could give away the things they don’t want.

Pickle jar: can’t wait any longer; I’m out of here and in the garbage now!

Me: still waiting for my children to come home and give me some good news…
 
Radha tosses the pickle jar into the garbage and goes for a long walk.

The end.

Being honest and being known to be

“While honesty and integrity are financially detrimental in today's society, the needs of the future will almost certainly reverse that. Honest people will be so, no matter what the prevailing political climate is, and have been disadvantaged for many years for being so. In the near future that will change, being honest and being known to be, will become the benefit it always should have been.”

 By

 Perry McCarney.

My mom was not a drug addict and sex trader

Please read this to understand why some women do what they do:

For two years now, The Missing Women Inquiry in B.C. has been investigating how so many women - no one knows the exact number - could be murdered right under the nose of the Vancouver Police Department.

One of those women was Brenda Wolfe, a mother of two young girls.

Not much is known about Brenda Wolfe. She came to Vancouver's Downtown East Side from southern Alberta. She liked country music. She liked to dance. She could be kind. She could be very tough. And she'd do whatever it took to support her two daughters, Angel and Destiny.

It was at the intersection of Main and Hastings, in front of the Balmoral Hotel, that Brenda Wolfe was last seen alive. She was 30 years old. Three years later, her remains were found on Robert Pickton's pig farm.

Wally Oppal, the commissioner of the Missing Women's Inquiry, heard from 83 witnesses. Brenda Wolfe's daughter Angel, now 19, was one of them. Mr. Oppal is expected to release his report within the next few weeks.

This week, though, we bring you Angel's story. For the first five years of Angel's life, the downtown east side was home. Angel Wolfe is one of many who have spent a lifetime coming to terms with what happened there. Here in her own words, is the story of Brenda's Angel.

Some of what you will hear may be disturbing to some listeners.

Angel Wolfe is an active social justice volunteer and public speaker. She works with the organization, Sex Trade 101, to help women and their children to escape the sex trade. She is also an active volunteer with Canadian Roots Exchange, an organization dedicated to bridging the gap between young Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians. One day, Angel hopes to go back to school and become a police officer.

Brenda's Angel was produced by Marjorie Nichol

Source:  The Sunday Edition with Michael Enright, CBC Radio One

Available at:         http://www.cbc.ca/thesundayedition/documentaries/2013/07/07/a-daughter-a-mother-and-vancouvers-missing-women/

Note: If you  rather hear this compelling story from Brenda’s own "Angle", please click at:

http://www.cbc.ca/thesundayedition/popupaudio.html?clipIds=2311365632

Behind every successful man is a woman

After so many years I accidently got to watch The Flintstones and loved it! This is the 1960’s shows, of course, but you still can watch the re-runs, I didn’t know.

Flintstones used to be one of my favorite shows when children were growing up and, I especially loved the episode when Fred takes credit for his best pal Burney's heroic act (saving a girl from a runaway carriage). But with his wife, Wilma's, help he gets his conscience back and confess that Barney is the real hero, not him.

Like Wilma and Marge (The Simpsons), I wonder how many brainy wives are behind their "successful" men, helping their husbands do the right thing for their own family and for the greater good?

The Flintstones and The Simpsons are family shows you should make some time to watch with your family. 

For fun shake, I searched for other family shows and found these:

Harold Coffin

Behind every successful man you'll find a woman who has nothing to wear.

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/haroldcoff391973.html#OAD5GMJihwAOspTB.99


 A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend. A successful woman is one who can find such a man. 

Lana Turner
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/successful_man.html#vGwyAIRgA2D75qua.99

The man who has the courage of his platitudes is always a successful man.

Van Wyck Brooks
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/successful_man.html#rmqhMFQ0J8XyykhC.99

Bob Brown
Behind every successful man there's a lot of unsuccessful years.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/successful_man.html#5sePcXjVDyWSSB2U.99

Clement Stone
Every great man, every successful man, no matter what the field of endeavor, has known the magic that lies in these words: every adversity has the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit.

More from Clement Stone
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/successful_man.html#rmqhMFQ0J8XyykhC.99

The successful man doesn't use others, other people use the successful man, for above all the success is of service.

 Mark Caine
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/successful_man.html#rmqhMFQ0J8XyykhC.99

The successful man is the one who had the chance and took it.

Roger Babson
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/successful_man.html#rmqhMFQ0J8XyykhC.99


Source: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/successful_man.html

Born empty handed and will die empty handed

I heard one of my childhood friends was hit by a vehicle last night. She is lying flat lifelessly in the hospital bed in her town, while the doctors are trying to figure out the severity of her injured brain, another friend of mine reported me.

I grew up side-by-side with both of these friends in the same town. The first friend was a vivacious person with an inquisitive mind and strong body when we’re growing up. She performed better than I did in school and in sports. She had to be on ‘top’ always and aggressively yearned for wealth. She didn’t need much sleep or any other form of physical rest as her mind overworked tirelessly.

With her hard work and determinations, she had amassed everything she wanted! She had a long career with the government, few rental properties nearby to cover her living costs, and her investments in the financial markets were growing exponentially. Most of these investments she will never have to touch since her residual income (passive income) were enough for her and her family to live even if they survived for hundred more years!

This friend of mine had been buying property left and right. She never let go of any ‘good’ piece of land or home that had a potential to increase overnight-value. Once, she even bought the piece of land behind her mother for which her mother had already made advance payments for to secure the deal.Her love for money had over shadowed her conscience. She had forgotten that we were born empty handed and will die empty handed. 

When she had a liquidity problems (she ran out of cash in her bank), this friend of mine borrowed money from her friends and relatives and financed the properties she eyed to --not because she needed but simply out of greed!  She often borrowed from the relatives or friends who had the least for themselves, because my friend calculated that by exploiting the people with no ‘voice’ in the public her aggression would be kept secret from the public.

Now, my friend is lying on the hospital bed disoriented, I heard. Most of her body-parts are wrapped in bandage, they tell me. However, she can talk a little, although not coherently. She can drink a little, although has not been able to keep in her stomach for long. She started to go to washroom with the help of her family and friends since yesterday, they assured me. Thanks to her iron-will, which seems to be still functioning well!

Midst of my friend’s ordeal, I heard that her husband is running around looking for a person to borrowing money from. He needed the money for his wife’s treatments, he's been telling people.  While his lifeless wife barely knows what is happening around her, he on the other hand, seems to be ‘too aware’ of the depleting savings in their bank accounts.

Putting everything together, it seems that my friend will live a few more years with minor disability, since all of her vital-parts seem to have started working reasonably well. Is this a good news for the people exploited by my friend for all these years? I don't know.


Regardless of her attitude, she is a wife, mother and a few other things to her family members.  I wonder how her quality of life would be from now on. Will she be the needy person she was in all her life? Or, she will be the convert one with totally healthy life style, I ponder.

I grew up hearing, “as you sow, so shall you reap”, but I was sceptical about it, as I had seen many people getting away with their wrong deeds. But with the news about this friend,  I'm fairly comfortable to assume that you get back what you give to others.  

Not to take seriously: An advice to parents

Learning not to take your own children seriously. It's hard, but we must do it in order to save ourselves from a lot of headaches. Seriously!


Most parents consider their children part of them and they are, theoretically. This was the thinking of most children also until a few decades ago, which made the world go-around smoothly for so many centuries. But the time has changed.

Now, most of the children don’t think the same way their parents do. These children are not capable of thinking about their parents. This does not mean they would not expect help of all sort from their parents; they do. In fact, they automatically think what belongs to their parents is theirs also and they think it is their rights to seek help from parents when they are in difficulty, but not vice versa!

They would come home and tell you “so and so’s parents did this and that for their children” But they would never take the time to find out what their “so and so” have done to deserve those things from their parents.

When you deal with our grownup children, you cannot treat them like kids. They would be mad if you do. However, if you treat them like a grownup, they wouldn't like that either. They can become your kids conveniently or act like grownup when  suits them.

Children have their ‘rights’ to become who they want in situations that suit them!


There is no winning with your own children. If they’re successful, they take the credit – “I work my butt off,” they would say. If they can’t make it –realizing that they were wrong, they’ll always blame parents --“You screwed me up.” There is no winning!


When it comes to dealing with your own children, you can’t count on them to be accountable for their mistakes. They will tell “We’re only human being. Making mistakes is how we learn”. But if you try telling them your experiences and suggest them, giving examples of someone who are diligent and hardworking, they will shut you off, by telling that they wouldn’t like to be compared with anyone. “I’m not them,” is their readymade answer that fits in most of their situation!


Advice from your children's guidance counselor, psychologist or psychiatrics are useless. Most of these individuals are running with the same problems at their own home. You can’t even trust the people in your own “support-group”. Even within the circle, I’ve noticed some parents lying through their teeth to keep their children’s misbehaviours to themselves.

A Dream became reality for the Frederictonians

Fredericton has its own ‘cultural’ building, housing all the ethnic groups under one roof. This was the vision of a few people in my community including myself, so when it finally became a reality (yesterday), I was very emotional. I couldn’t help it!

https://www.theculturalcentre.ca/about/our-history

Who am I: Sunita's story

I met an old household helper today. She told me that I was the best boss she ever had and that she misses me very much.

This was not the first time I had heard such compliment from my former helpers. But this time I felt different.

I treat my helpers as human being, not as an object to fulfill my cleaning needs. Unlike some people I know, my eyes fills with tears when I see or hear others suffering. I can be happy when others success and sad when they fail miserably. I've been this way all my life. I've inherited these treats from my mother.

After hearing time and again, “You’re so negative, nobody wants to be around you” and “ You've lost so many opportunities because of your loudmouth”, I really needed to hear some constructive quality of mine. I needed to be appreciated and be assured that my sense of righteousness has a place in this 'me, me' world. I knew I was doing something right, among a lot of wrong, but I needed confirmation.

Hi, Sunita is my disguised name. I'm hiding my real name for my privacy shake. I've lost a lot of money-making opportunities because I can't focus on my own welfare. Nor I'm able to go along with those who think about themselves all the time.

No matter how hard I try, I can't lose my conscience and I’m too damn sensitive to my own detriment. That’s who I am!

Playing with Emotions

The hypothesis that most women stay in abusive relationships for their own economic benefits does not measure up in my opinion, b/c I know more than one way of measuring relationships.

Women stay in relationship for more than economic reason and, sometimes they cling onto the relationship they never had because of the way they brought up. Let me share a story to demonstrate how this works:

An elderly lady I knew when I was growing up had joined a group of people that she had no connection with in her entire 70 years of life. The group she joined remotely relates to her good-for-nothing husband --the husband who married her at her tender age of 16 and left her in a society where her remarrying chance  is Zero!

The lady was with her husband for about six months. Even within this period she didn’t have physical contact with him according to her recent testimony. Other than this brief period, she has been living with her parents (dead now) for all her life. How did she think she belonged to her estrange husband and his family circle?   But she strongly believes she does!

Her estrange husband is probably married and living happily somewhere, while this lady is spending a lonely life for all these years.

The news of this lady joining the group took me back! I began thinking about the logic behind this lady and others like her mind.

When I was a child, I had heard that girls are conditioned to feel certain ways about the man they would marry later on. With so much brainwashing on how a husband should be treated and how to be a wife, it’s easy to accept any man in life and pretend to fall in love.

Girls in many societies are raised in such a way that they learn to take the word “husband” in a very emotional way. The promise to take care of each other in health and in sickness  in marriage they take literally. But not the man they marry, because men are permitted by our society to remarry thousand times!

Marriage vows are developed and construed by male in our male-dominated societies. Most ladies don't consider this and believe that there is no other relationship more promising, comforting and connecting to each other than the relationships between a husband and wife. No wonder marriages are taken so seriously by many women in our societies, but not by many men..

The circumcisions of young boys and girls (happens mostly in Judaism and Islam societies), the child-bride cultures, the polygamous philosophy, the untouchable cultures in some pockets of the world, and the abuses, rapes and murders that we read and hear every day in our societies are all part of the brainwashing. Brainwashing is the most powerful strategy used systematically to justify what is already known is the only truth, everything else is false!

Many girls in our societies are systematically brainwashed at home through the dialogues between their mother and father. Then the society reinforces further to make these assertions legal. How else can we explain millions of powerful women taking slaves role and treating their husband is a master?

Every temples, churches and mosques are built to reinforce these "master and slaves" roles. Folklores are written and recited again and again to shape the girls' brain certain ways.By the time the girls reach their puberty, they are completely sold to the idea that without their husband they are nobody. Their unwavering-faith towards their husband provides them with the emotional security that they can’t imagine their life without their husband. Because of this, most men see their marriage as a through-lane, instead of the two-way traffic lanes, where the traffic rules apply to both husband and wife.

Women’s willingness to consign themselves

Women’s willingness (mostly for the economic benefits) to wear low-cut blouses and jeans has been upsetting me since these ‘trends’started many years ago. I always wondered how much money the girls (and a few women) made from those activities and whether they could have earned the same amounts doing something else?

Making money from ‘legal and ethical’ work is hard, I’ve noticed. There are plenty of women publicly announcing her temporary career as sleeping with men to earn her living. Her arguments were, “I make more money by sleeping with guys a few hours a week than working my butt off for 40 hours a week on other jobs”.

Well, she does have compelling arguments! But is her expression permissible if we, as women, demand for equal opportunity and equal pay for equal work with men? Are there some men feeling the same way as the women do?

I’m well aware of some men prostitutes (gigolos). But this is fairly a new ‘market’ for men and would not announce their new career as openly with pride as some female prostitutes do!

Women making their living through selling sex or wearing low-cut tops and bottoms (showing their private parts)for money have their 'rights' of course, but they can't claim that they are 'discriminated' if they themselves choose to be nude in the name of ‘women’s fashion’. Becoming naked out of their enslavement (happens in some cases)is one thing, but doing it with their own conscience is quite another!

Most women don’t realise that they’re selling part of themselves to the ‘marketers’ and promoting the very corporations that they’re protesting against for moving the factory-jobs to oversee and exploiting child-labour.

 One of the blogs I read wrote:

Does wearing a low-cut dress give you more confidence? Should women really have to show off their breasts to get attention? Every time I wear something low-cut, I always have the fear that I'm too exposed or that I'm going to fall out of the top and have an embarrassing moment. I'm always readjusting my shirt and bra to make sure I don't fall out of my top. (Dalingish, February 2012)

A few other sites I visited wrote:

"...Men want hotpants, miniskirts and low cut tops banned from the office because they are too distracting (Mailonline, January 2013)

"A woman's clothing is broken and the entire chest appear before the masses of people and on television," I read on YouTube and was afraid to click on it, so I don't know what came on next!

"...Is it really bad to stare at a girl’s breasts? Are there any health benefits of staring at a girl’s cleavage? Also, what do women really think when they catch you staring at their breasts?," the Lovepancy.com wrote.

The New York Times wrote:

Those jeans that are cut three inches below your natural waist, so that no matter how skinny you are, when you sit down you have company: You and a roll of fat. And what happens in the back is anyone’s guess, but you know it cannot be good. You can feel it, your traitorous jeans slipping down and there you are in the window of a restaurant in a ladder back chair. You move your hand back to assess the damage and sure enough, there’s a panel of exposed flesh, jeans sneakily sliding down threatening that 21st century nightmare: butt cleavage (13 March, 2013).

We, as women, protest on women’s oppression, against abusive situations and batterments on women and demand for equal pay for equal work, but willingly show our breast and butt cleavages! We got to stop these ‘diminishing our own kind’ activities, if we want to move on with men in an equal footage.

Want to read an academic paper on this issue?, here is a good one:

http://www.academia.edu/1476147/Is_it_ethical_to_use_women_as_a_marketing_instrument

Thanks for visiting this blog! Leave your comments if you feel like it.

Celebrating the International Women's Day

Today is the International Women’s day I heard and that reminded me of all the women I know who were (and have been) wrongfully convicted and battered over the years. Top of that list stood a lady's name: Radhika.

Radhika was not her formal name but the one given to her after she was married by her in-laws. Radhika was petite, attractive, energetic, intelligent and witty. She worked very hard. Yet, her husband put her down constantly, often in front of other people, to humiliate her!


Radhika no longer lives among us. Now that she is gone, all we can do is to learn from her mistakes. Mistakes that she made to keep peace in her household. Mistakes that she couldn’t stand in front of her bully husband and say ‘You’re hurting me with your words (verbal abuse), please stop”. Mistakes that she couldn’t protest, “You work for money and I managed it. This makes us a partner, not a slave and a master”, when her husband claimed all the property they owned belonged only to him. Those mistakes not only hunted her for life but also to her next generation, little did she know!

Her husband was a victim himself. He didn’t realise that he had a victim mentality when dealing with his juniors (wife, children, and servants). His father had died by the time he was born and he was raised elite couple (his foster parents) who had spoiled him by providing more than he really needed (and that could have been the problem, too), he grew up wondering “who he really was; was he loved enough?”

Radhika's another weakness was that she  didn't have a courage to tell her husband, “Please don’t put me down by talking about the dowry my parents couldn’t give you at the marriage; I’ve made it up to you by working 16 hours a day.”

Learning to protect herself (himself) is one of the 'most have' skills in women (men) most people are not aware of, I've noticed. I've also observed that husbands (or any other persons) go after the proud, conscience, and submissive wives (people). They know that a proud wife (person) will not disclose her (his) abuse at home in the public; a conscience wife (husband) will forgive her husband (wife) thinking that "he (she) really doesn't know what he (she) is doing"; and a submissive wife (husband) will simply accept anything thrown at her (him) because she (he) has no courage to stand up to her (his) bully husband (wife).

When a husband asks dowry from his in-laws or orders his wife to work for money, there is a reason to be alerted. When a husband says, “I can feed you; quit your job”, he doesn’t mean it. He is just saying “Just because you earn some money, you can’t stop me from abusing you”.

Most parents love to give whatever they can afford to their children, as dowry or any other form. Nobody has to pressure them to give. Similarly, every wife would willingly look for a paid job outside of her home without her husband’s pressures when she realises that her family faces financial difficulties.

There will be always something a woman would do wrong in the eyes of her abusive husband. On the other hand, a loving husband would always find a way to appreciate his wife’s efforts even when her efforts go unintentionally wrong sometimes. Being aware of the abusive behaviours is our duty as a woman. Standing 'straight' up to the bully is something all mothers should teach to their daughters. Since economic dependency seems to be one of the major reasons for our girls to be abused, it is time we pay especial attention to our daughter's economic wellbeing.

Celebrating "women's day" once in a year is just the opposite of raking our daughters financially self-dependent all year around. It may not fit in many women's view but I think we need to stop celebrating this day since we don't celebrate "men's day". If we want men and women to be treated equally as partners. Either we start celebrating men's day or quit celebrating women's day.This is just my view, of course!

Waking up the lion within women

This morning I woke up with a nagging question of why do women most always need a ‘reason’ to bring out their courage (lion) that had been with them for all their life. I have noticed, while most men exhort their power to get what they want, most women hide theirs (not just their strengths, even their wisdoms they hide) to keep peace in their household.

Why keeping peace is women's job in most households?
 

Most women are acutely aware of their men’s vulnerabilities with regards to their egos -- if disturbed men can hunt their women down to their graves and the people (men as well as the women) around would just watch them suffer. Why does this happen? Well, that’s just what most people do!

 

It seems that most women are as capable as most men to carry out the missions they believe are worth pursuing. But most women don’t take advantage of their capabilities until they are put in the ‘fight or flight’ position. Even after this, most women choose to flight, rather than fight, because that’s what they have learned from their grandmother, mother, sisters and girlfriends.

 

My above thought sprang out of the most amazing story I read yesterday about a woman in Pakistan. Her name is Zahida Kazmi. Zahida had the courage to change her fate by taking a path that not only the women of developing countries but also the men of progressive world had thought impossible.  However the 'lion' inside of her did not wake up until her innocent little children needed her help. To read these incredible stories, please follow the links below:

 

http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/01/08/the-only-female-taxi-driver/

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12680075

How we are conditioned slowly and surely

Yesterday I found two slugs in my bunch of watercress that was bought from a local farmer. I hate slugs! With all the warms and insects, I hate slugs (snails) the must. Come to think of it, I don’t like any of the earthly friends – can’t stand the caterpillars or earthworms, either. I love gardening, though. But not a good gardener since I can’t work around my garden friends.

I didn’t know what to do with my watercress. “Should I throw away the whole thing, slugs and the vegetable, or just the slugs”, I debated in my mind. I thought hard. I recalled some of the books I had read about pesticides, animals and the environment. Pesticides and animals do not go together; I determined. I reasoned: if these slugs are still attached to the watercress, this is a good news! This means the watercress is not sprayed and there are no poisonous chemicals. I knew one thing that what is good for pest (slugs) is good for us (human) also, so I felt happy for a brief moment. But my positive thoughts didn’t last very long.

With my dubious mind I washed the watercress three times in a sinkful of water and cooked the vegetable little longer than I usually do. While cooking the watercress, I kept repeating in my mind, “this is pure, without the pesticides vegetable” “It’ll do good for me…” But it didn’t! I kept thinking about the slugs all day long and I felt sick to my stomach.

Living in the supermarket-grown vegetables for years, I had forgotten how the ‘real’ vegetables grow in a farm without a pesticide.

These slugs reminded me of the groundhogs we’ve in Canada.  Beyond our rock garden there live at least half a dozen groundhogs, I think. They often invade my garden in the spring and summer and I’ve been chasing them ever since I established the garden. Sometimes I stone them. Other times I throw whatever I find close by. I’ve targeted them with my shoe, placemate, spoons, quarterplates – anything when I saw them from inside of the house. Still they visit my garden just the same! They’re not afraid of me anymore. In my desperate attempt, I asked one of my neighbours to buy me a slang-shot and/or a trap. But my family threatened me that they would report my case to a police. “Mom, you invaded their habitat. It’s not their fault that they eat your garden (my favorite plants); your garden is where their home used to be”.

One of them died in our driveway, one of our daughters drove right over it one summer. The poor thing must have been resting under our daughter’s car; she didn’t know. She was so sorry when she found it out!

We’re conditioned to do certain things and behave certain ways without our knowledge. We feel ‘normal’ to do the things we’re accustomed to. We forget that normalcy is the condition we bring to ourselves, slowly and surely.

This piece of blog is the tribute to my favorite environmentalist, Rachel Carson. For those of you who do not know about Rachel and want to know about her contributions, here is a link to follow:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/magazine/how-silent-spring-ignited-the-environmental-movement.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

In the memory of all the Saheeds of Nepal

Ankha n dekhne andha ra kan nsunne bahira politician haru lai kashri bujhaune?
kashri dekhaune jntako pir marka?
Iniharu danab hun!
Inihru le manb ko bhasa bujdainan!!
Khai ke gari shamjhanu?
Khai ke gari bujhaunu?
Tara panai kosis ta garnai priyo!
Sas chhaunjayal aas ta garnai pariyo!!

In their memories, please watche this video I found on Youtube:

HERA NA SAHEED HARU LAI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAW2G_5YDYs

Thank you!

My achievements

How did I spend the whole 2012 year? What did I do to help people in need? What did I accomplice that I can be proud of after a few years? What did I do to save the environment or to keep peace in the community I live?

I really can’t say I did much of anything to improve the situation of any one of these: My family, my community or the environment I live in. For that I can blame the following people: My colleagues, friends, neighbours and, most of all my own family -- my husband and children.

My children didn’t do what I wanted them to do. My husband didn’t allow me to do the things I wanted to. I didn’t have money to give away, or to buy things for others. I had plenty of excuses, like any others do. So, I’m fine!

This is how my 2012 year passed. Do I want my 2013 year to pass like this? No! And, therefore, my Lord, I beg you humbly to give me the strength to do the things that I truly believe will improve the situations of a few people, even if I will be hated by a few others …

 

Happy New Year!