Some ways to Achieve a Beautiful Life

What do we mean by ‘Beautiful’? Is there any proper definition for ‘Beauty’? No, because beauty is subjective and cannot be described perfectly in words. How can you ever manage to give words to your feelings, though some may say that it is possible through extensive vocabulary, I would say, there are not enough words to barricade your feelings. They always brim over. Beauty arises from such emotions and perceptions while to some beauty may be labeled in brands!
Since I have an extra liking for colours, brightness, softness and minuteness of things, I generally get attracted to kittens, flowers and butterflies. You might have a fascination for grandness you might like banyan trees, tigers or even elephants. There’s nothing to be ashamed of your choice, for it is always beautiful to you like a baby is beautiful even to a blind mother.
One should not underestimate his/her self or desire or choices but have endless hope in their potential. If you succeed in this, believe me you will be enjoying life in a beautiful way. (This sense of beauty is definitely universal.)
Some steps towards a beautiful life:-
• Always value a gift from others, no matter how cheap or meaningless it may be to you, but rather think of the love wrapped warmly in those gifts. At the end of the day, love matters not money, because you won’t sleep with money.
• Paint your heart out; don’t bother on the judgments, if you love your painting it is worth looking at for ages. (I have been to several art exhibitions, I could hardly decipher the relevance or even the object that has been painted, but I have often fallen in love with some of those unknown eloquent pieces.)
• Never underestimate anyone, remember “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.” This is not Philosophy but Physics- the Third Law of Motion. So people who always hunt for scientific angle to sayings and beliefs, must follow it in life.
• Don’t fondle your anger, vent it out, then and there, or (if you are not brave enough) vent it out in front of the mirror. Watch your expressions and within minutes after completing the process you will feel relieved and calm. Sleep on that.
• Don’t follow fashion blindly, just because your friends are into it. If you love wearing high heels and manage it well, go ahead with your choice, you don’t need to wear those horribly thins soled sandals. Even though you are tall you can carry out your desire smartly and effectively shake off the confidence of many roadside- Romeos, with the added inches to your height!
• Indulge yourself into creation, and renew your chemistry with yourself. Create anything and everything. Your creations can find form in poem, essay, music, film, art, clothing, shoes, gardening and many more. Always try something new, as goes the old saying reduce, reuse and recycle, you can always abide by them to awe yourself and the rest by your inventions. Just a few days ago I saw an article online where the author has laid out steps to make coasters from old calendar photographs.
• Gift people and bring a smile to their faces. Believe me; your happiness will double, seeing their happy lips curving beautifully.
And finally laugh and smile several times in a day. Somehow it makes you energetic.
I follow these rules set by me; it does help a lot. Though life is not always beautiful, but in times of great misery, these are the techniques that actually keep me up and make me see the end of it.

A Tiny Note for Young Lovers

When do you come to know that you have fallen in love? I mean really in Love? Not when you think “She’s mine” or “She belongs to me”. But when you feel from within that you belong to her, with all your strength, love and being you surrender to her. Love is not about feeling possessive about someone. People are not things, that if you are possessive about them, no one will snatch it from you. Love is when you know that whatever happens she’ll be there for you and vice- versa. Love happens when you discover yourself smiling for nothing but for something you don’t know of right at that time.
Love at first sight is crap, I personally do not believe in this concept, but trust me; Love at no sight is definitely possible! You do no need to look out for a handsome face, but once your mind starts getting pulled towards another, and you are left helplessly gasping for more of the other mind, that is when you fall in LOVE. Falling in love is not a necessity, but once you do, it is hard to get over it… The effect might be something like a hangover!
Well there’s no need to fall in love at all, rather I shall say Rise in Love. Or else time comes when people start complaining and cursing each other for ruining their lives! There’s no hurry, take your time; what if you are alone this Valentine’s day, there are several who are “committed” yet they suffer from the disease of non-commitment in various ways. Let’s not get into all the mushy and cheesy details of daily complains we all hear while waiting in a queue, or over the desk at office, when “lovers” or rather fighters loudly complain and accuse each other. So I say my friends, first love yourself, and it is not obvious to fall in love with a human. You can definitely love your pet, your books, your garden, your room and may be even your wardrobe! Love is pure, no matter whom or what you love; don’t expect to be loved back the same way, because everyone has their own way of Loving.
If not anything else love your friends, like I do- I love Leima, Devoja, Dj, Indy, Monalisa, Sananya, Ankita sooooo much… There are many more, but presently I am deeply in love with them. Others please don’t Riot, I definitely Love you all, but yes of course, timing matters!

Following the Trend? Not My thing..

When someone is forced to follow the trend, they end up committing silly mistakes. Once I met an old friend on the street, and incidentally we started chatting but I have to admit he was looking awfully ugly he was looking. Well, he never did look very pleasing or handsome but somehow kind of decent, but that day’s appearance couldn’t hold me back from calling him ugly right on his face! I know it sounds rude to behave that way, but if I can narrate to you the conversation some of you might think that what I did was just!
“Hey! How are you?”
“I’m fine. How are you? Which school are you in now?”
He replied the name of his school, and started reciting gossips of the past year which I had missed. Then suddenly I noticed a horrible misfit on his face. “What’s that?” I asked with a horrific questioning expression. He stammered and paused to understand my sudden gesture and then looked around to find what I was talking about and gave me a puzzled look. I explained, “Why are you wearing these ugly glasses?!?!”
He looked as if he had just been slapped in front of a room full of people, I felt sorry because my outburst but couldn’t help it.
His expression changed suddenly, and he took to defending his extraordinary sense of style, and said, “What’s wrong with it? I love my new specs..”
“But they are not good looking….. in fact you are not looking good wearing them..”
“This is fashion honey!”
“What fashion?? Why wear something which does not suit you..?”
“Arree.. This is the trend, I am cool with it. And come on, it’s Fastrack, dude.”
Firstly I am not a “dude”, I wondered why people use terms which do not go with the person they are referring to.
“What Fastrack Shastrack!! How does it matter if it makes one look horrible?” I had logic, but he did not. His reply suggested that.
“You won’t understand, this is fashion. You are too simple for this…” and blah blah!!
“But it’s… ugly”, I muttered.
This is what people mostly do, when they are out of reasoning and sense, they talk rubbish! They try to prove their helpless, senseless and logic less decisions by proving themselves stupid instead! Just like one of my friends, Pratik Lahiri, posted in Facebook, yesterday that “when you are dead, you don’t know that you are dead. It is tragic only for others…It is the same when you are stupid” I often find live examples, of such cases where, when they have nothing else to do, they decide to prove their idiocy by any possible means. Why can’t people respect individualism? Why not make your own choice and be the leader rather than following the mass?

Fashion is one thing which really doesn’t intrigue me, wearing weird clothes or pieces of fabric for show, doesn’t grab my attention, and that too when done for the sake of following the unannounced trend! Another thing that escapes my understanding is the inappropriate usage of the word “sexy”. I can’t really follow it when someone says “Sexy eyes”, “Sexy hands”, “Sexy dress”, “Sexy nose”, sexy this sexy that… But it gets worse when the noun form following this controversial adjective changes. For example- “Sexy Voice!” “Sexy Bag!” “Sexy Hair”, the heights was when I heard “Sexy Headphones!” Really?? I know that sometimes talking nonsense is good, but isn’t this too much of nonsense? Calling everything sexy!!
All I could do was sit bearing a confused look, and ponder on the oxymoron. I mean how on earth can you call a mere headphone sexy? Can somebody please elaborate the thought process to me??

The Pleasure of Writing

The pleasure of being a writer is you can change everything about you but still remain “You”. You can change your form, colour, gender, race, religion, being, everything, yet think in your way, write in your way, laugh, talk, shout, scold and debate in your own way! How else on Earth can anybody get this happiness? We often think “What if I was a boy/girl?” or “What if I was to fall prey to this situation?” or “What if I was a princess?” or “What if he was mine?” And so the list goes on… “What if…?” While you write, you can be a cat, a mosquito, a free bird, a lion, may be an elephant if you’d like to sit on someone, a film star, a doctor, a flowing blue river, a car, a diamond ring, a banyan tree, or even a five rupee coin! No one can stop you from being what you want, and the best part of it is you can carry out all you unfulfilled desires through your pen!
Are you angry on someone? Go kill him in your story. How else would you solve problems in life so easily? Want to travel underwater? Just take a plunge in your ink, start scribbling whatever comes to your mind, you do not need to care whether your information is accurate; all you need to do is write to your heart’s content. And the happiness you receive when your friends tell you, that you are their best writer is priceless-ly indescribable! That was a huge compliment I got yesterday from a friend named Anurag Deb, whom I had promised to write about, but till date haven’t got enough info or incidents to write about.
I have always wanted to do a lot of things; I wanted to be a writer, a journalist, a singer, a sports star, any form of leader, an actress etcetera etcetera . I have had many plans for adventure sports as well, and I want to travel the world. But frankly speaking I never really tried or applied for the acting thing, guess I was too shy, and neither did anyone call for me, so what? I ended up making films and acting in them! So you see, you just have to keep on dreaming, and then fulfilling them is your job, no matter who says what, you should live your dream. Whether you complete it by writing or by action is up to you, but never expect others to understand your dream and carry it out for you, for then you’ll become too lazy to dream! This friend of mine Anurag, tells me “Get a boyfriend and add some spice to your life.” I say, “I already have the spices, just need to cook them.”

*Anurag, though I couldn’t write much about you, I guess mentioning you did lay an initial step on the process…

A Trip To The Lap Of Nature – Lava

Continued..
We reached Lava in the afternoon for lunch. Lava is a bit more crowded, so people who like people, shopping and talking, will love this place. There are many shops in the locality, a Buddhist monastery and another temple, a small school with a huge playground, friendly children running about and cheap oranges selling everywhere! The time when we had gone, India was hit by a cold wave heading from the further North, and the fall of temperature at 1 pm in the afternoon in Lava were -2 or -3 degrees! Only till 10 am in the morning we witnessed sunlight and its soothing warmth, but post 12 pm felt like evening, with bone chilling winds attacking the bare skin like a thousand needles.

Take a trip to the monastery and the temple, walk around in the village, buy some local goods and if lucky you might experience the weekly market where believe it or not I bought a pair of long fat woolen socks for Rs.20 only, which were otherwise being sold at the rate of Rs 60 – 80 in the local shops. Yes, those shops will demand high rates, if you are good in the art of bargaining you’ll be a champion or else you better hold your urge for shopping till you reach Shiliguri.
Keep the next day free to set out early in the morning for the Changey falls, or as I would call it the “Paradise Falls”. Well, to watch this falls to one’s heart’s content one needs to be “physically fit”, because you’ll have to walk down a steep slope with fours turns down to get a close view of the falls, and then walk back the same slope panting out your lungs. Ha! I was the first to go down to the falls and come up bubbling with joy of starting and ending the undecided race like a winner, with some fifty other travelers. Many did not take the risk of walking down till the end, and took a simple peak at the falls from the first or second turn of the pavement. We came back to the hotel, took a stroll in the locality, and made some friends, and bought lots China Bone mugs and oranges.

The nest day we were to leave for home and end this memorable trip. We left in the morning, and decided to take a different route to New Jalpaiguri (NJP) station. We made our way to the station through Garubathan. On the way there were uncountable tea gardens with workers busy plucking in some of them, streams, small and pretty houses and monkeys. We stopped by a river which had many boulders and evidently seemed to be a picnic spot, groups of soldiers were practicing marches on the open area while some where cooking on the restless river bank, or rather among the rocks, since there was no proper river bank. Then we passed by lots of places whose names I don’t remember, and we reached NJP. Having our lunch we still had two hours in hand and so all of us set out for shopping in the Hong Kong market. To go there just take an auto and head straight to the market. Roam around for hours, yet you’ll be unable to cover the full market. What more? Good bargainers will earn a definite profit shopping there.

A Trip To The Lap Of Nature – Lolegaon

continued..
Start your journey to Lolegaon after a quick shower, yes, however cold it is in the mountains never forget to bathe, because especially in the winter your body demands water both internally and externally, or it gets dry making you sick. Lolegaon also offers its travelers some wonderful sights of the town below, a tall statue of Lord Buddha and a lush green, beautiful, majestic, romantic (whatever whatever, I am out of words) forest with a small tower known as the Sunrise point, where you can witness the sunrise. When we visited the place to watch sunrise, due to heavy fog we couldn’t even see each other standing 3 meters apart, but what we got was a gift from Nature, who didn’t want to disappoint me and as it seemed that Nature knew of my wish. Clusters of clouds went past us, and through us. It seemed you could eat puffs of clouds and dance in them making momentary formations of gaps in the dense white form.
Once done with the sunrise point come back to the hotel for breakfast and shower, get ready and head straight to the mysterious forest. Just take a walk from under and above the fallen logs and branches, pluck a few edible mushrooms, only if you know which ones are edible, climb up and take a walk on the hanging bridge. Be careful enough to get out of the forest before it is dark, since the local people say that bears often take strolls in the jungle and tend to break the water pipes and drink from there and attack any humans on sight. We actually saw a brave survivor who had fought a bear with a simple dagger and had spent the following month in the hospital.

We had spent two days in Lolegaon, the following morning we were ready to leave after breakfast for Lava. While we where waiting for the luggage to be loaded in the cars, a cute dog came sniffing and wagging its tail to me. Though I do not like dogs, I developed an exceptional love for this one, I don’t know why. It wore a very innocent look on its face and looked up at me with its helpless teary eyes. Mom bought a packet of biscuits, and we started feeding the doggy. Hell! He was hungry, he gobbled up one full row of biscuits and then as it seemed he burped and looked up happily thanking us for his meal.
We set out for Lava, and once more traveled within the dark mysterious forests. These forests had trees, with labels, stating the name of the tree, the specie it belongs to and the year when the seeds were sown. Something very unusual caught my eyes while others didn’t notice it. The temperature was quite low and there were sheets of ice on the road puddles which broke when the wheels of the car passed over them. Clear sheets of ice, one might mistake them for glasses enclosing the puddles with the water beneath.
to be continued…

A Trip To The Lap Of Nature – Rishyap

Last year during the winter I traveled up to the three most exquisite local travel destinations I have ever known of, Rishyap, Lolegaon and Lava. They have different essence of their beauty in different seasons, even without experiencing what they have to offer to the tourists in the other seasons I can assure you, that winter is the best time to travel there, if you are a nature lover.
If you are from West Bengal, just catch any train to New Jalpaiguri, get down and take a car to Rishyap via Kalimpong. On your way just sit with a camera and stare out of the window, don’t forget to blink though!
There will be lots to see, and I can assure you no traveler can fall asleep in this long trip. You’ll get to see the turquoise Teesta flowing smoothly, numerous curious monkeys waiting to cross the roads, tea gardens and several mini waterfalls. You’d pass by Gourbari, the bunglow of Rabindranath Tagore in Kalimpong, and just opposite to it is a beautiful horticulture garden. They have several varieties of cactus, roses, and other flowers which were unknown to me prior to my trip. All you have to do is get a ticket of minimal expense, walk in, focus your camera and go click, click, click. If it isn’t cloudy or if you are lucky enough to miss the fog then do look down at the miniature town you have left behind in your journey from the open balcony.
The next stop would be at the shooting spot, Dello. Where I was lucky enough to meet the famous singer Rupankar! Stopping and hopping by you’d know why it is a shooting spot, they have a huge house beautifully maintained, with a medow several yards long spotted with flower bushes and huge willow trees on the edge. Again from the edge of the gardens on the skirts of the medow, you can look down for a far sight of the world beneath you.
Now getting back to your car munch on to something while it passes by the dark cold woods, where even in the daytime you wouldn’t get sunlight! On this trip you can definitely experience the difference in temperature in the various places you’ll travel, the dark forests will be surely two degrees less than the other areas.
Rishyap is a beautiful place, situated over the Neora valley at the foot if Tiffin Dara.
The sight that I’d experienced was worth living there for ages. After its dark, step out in the balcony and look out in the open black, but it’s not all black, like fireflies floating in the dark fields, you’ll see dots of yellow lights in the wall of darkness ahead of you. Those are the lights of hurricanes or electric bulbs hanging on the front doors of the residents far far away; these lights may help you to find texture of the mountains and hills in the dark. If there’s no fog you’d get a clear view of Mt. Kanchenjunga, and with patience you will experience something worth storing in the can of your memory till you die – the colour changing of the ice capped mountain with the changing position of the sun. Even if there is fog, the early morning light is quiet visible and a glimpse of the legendary mountain is a certainty. After you have watched the sun reflection rising through the golden ice capped mountain, go out in the open and look close into the trees. They’ll have frozen leaves, layers of powdery snow set on cherries and the grass and the leaves. You touch them and they melt. With the growing hours of the day the picture of Mt. Kanchenjunga changes, from golden to blue to white. What more? You get to see frozen white terrace farming lands from your balcony!
Visitng Rishyap with the fog wouldn’t be a bad idea altogether, when I was there a year ago, even in the daytime the sun was not visible, or so we thought, but keen investigation proved the existence of sun in the form of a large white moon! And the sheet of cloud covering the sky cracked at places allowing beams of visible sunlight reaching the Earth.

The mornings will be remarkable with the day beginning with Kanchenjungha, as day approaches the clouds descend and it gets cooler, another reason for the falling temperature is the melting snow. Due to this sudden fall in temperature many of us greedily dug into the hot Aloo Parathas served at the Breakfast table absent mindedly wearing our gloves!
to be continued…