Breaking The Ice

First impression varies from person to person and situation to situation. It is human to feel nervous about the “first”. However, overcoming the awkwardness by being aware of yourself and the situation, and more so by simply being natural and confident, helps in making the right first impression. Never will life give us a second chance to create a first impression, but being aware of yourself and not faking it to create the first impression will be the lasting impression.

Read the complete article on:

http://wordwiserr.com/ 

Father

My name, ‘Deeya’, has always fascinated me. Etymologically, the word has its roots in various languages. But my father named me ‘Deeya’, inspired by the Hindi word ‘Diya’, which means ‘lamp’.

 I grew up listening to my school teachers, fondly, referring to me as the ‘lamp of the family’; and I travelled with my family where ever my father’s transfers took us, changing schools and accommodating cultures and traditions.

Once on a long vacation, we happened to be in our family home in Kerala, and my father showed me his world of books and writings. There I came face to face with ‘Deeya’, my father’s pseudonym.

A surprise indeed! My father had never mentioned his joy of writing, except that he enjoyed reading my creative ventures.  To help me improve my writing skills, he encouraged reading, bought books, gifted diaries, and advised me to make them my best friends.

Occasionally, he would enquire about my latest diary entry, and I used to read it out to him very reluctantly. Then it had mattered less to me. Gradually, I found myself sharing every single write up and poem I penned; and he was more than happy to view his opinions and mend.  

In fact, my first book of poetry materialised due to his quiet work of passing on the poems to the publisher.  

Years have passed by. Nothing seems to have changed.  Even today we spend hours over the phone (distances hardly matter!), especially on holidays, discussing news, views, and his critical observation of my writings.

Need to mention, he hopes to see me read and understand the depths of Malayalam literature. To begin with, recently he gifted me an English translation of the great legends of Kerala.  

Over a period of time, my relationship with my father has matured from a father-daughter one to a guru-shishya (teacher-student) level of understanding. A teacher, who understands, guides and accepts the student as she is.

I often wonder if I have idealised him. However, I am still learning from his philosophy of life. And I have realised that I am truly his “Deeya”. On this Father’s Day, I salute you, my dear acchan (Father in Malayalam).    

  

What's Up, Man!

 

Smartphones are the necessary evils that keep our day busy with activities. With the amount of software downloads, as such, our life is centered on finger tips. Facebook, PIP Camera, EBook  Reader  and many such applications are in offer. These  are not only useful but also sources of image enhancers, which keep  the happy hormones flowing. Along with these, there is this software called WhatsApp messenger that offers cost cutting messaging applications and easy functionalities to keep us connected and entertained 24X7.

I remember the first time I set a Facebook profile. The long lost friends and acquaintances were soon only a click away. Yet with time, logging on, updating, reading the comments and counting the number of likes were waning away. My face then searched only for mails, the messages my friends and acquaintances from the book, sent through Facebook message system. Wow. That was such a relief. I was no more worried about a PC, an android phone insisting on software download, and if ignored the profile or pictures going public.

That is when I was gifted an android phone. My well-wisher, my husband, wanted me to have all the facilities under one roof. And he introduced me to WhatsApp.

What’s up? I cried out. Hush hush, as it sounded, I defined it as an application that did not disturb me much, especially when the setting is put on silent mode. And at the same time, it helped me share the messages, videos and images on an immediate basis. Along with it, there was entertainment in the form of jokes, current affairs, notification, and information circulation, which brought the WhatsApp users on the same platform.

Interestingly, the same joke may come from more than one contact and so do the dissection of news, views or even the jokes, for that matter. Though I am a lazy Facebook user when it comes to  reading and liking various Facebook pages, I could not resist ignoring the little jokes, and tit-bits on WhatsApp.

Wonder, who are the people behind? I like to call them the creative heads that can visualise and execute a joke from nothing. At the same time laugh at situations and make a joke based on their personal experience.

And as I kept myself fully occupied as a WhatsApp user, the dear old Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19 billion, at a time when there were about one billion users.

Now, what do I say, we belong to both Facebook and WhatsApp. And we love tampering with our privacy settings and account settings. The creative heads continue to churn, irrespective of the software, and the audiences continue to pursue their entertaining and messaging means. In short, we feel smarter day by day in our online world.

To Mothers

What does little birdie say

In her nest at peep of day?

Let me fly, says little birdie,

Mother, let me fly away.

Birdie, rest a little longer,

Till the little wings are stronger,

So she rests a little longer,

Then she flies away.

The famous lines from Alfred Lord Tennyson, written ages ago, taught and is still being taught, have remained ingrained in my mind.

My school long forgotten, and we classmates awaiting our little birdies’ flights, still enjoy reciting this poem.

As I clicked the picture of a nest with little birdies in my garden, I look at the mother bird struggling to keep her calm.

The hummingbird that appears ageless, in her tiny body, blue sheen, and beak sharpened to perfection, fluttering, I wonder how much we struggle to look young. At the same time, life has been a sweet struggle when we take the role of providers to our children. Probably, all in the hope of living up to their expectations!

And then comes the day, when they find their way into the bigger world of dreams and aspirations. The excitement to take on an independent life makes them camouflage their love, and it transpires into achieving a living.

Apparently, most mothers, in spite of their busy schedules and work, find it hard to deal with this parting. Gradually, their love transcribe to loving selflessly. And then they learn to live with the day.

Music Writes:Remembering Rabindranath Tagore

Some days I sit long hours glaring into the computer screen. I know what I want to write. But, the words simply refuse to come and thoughts vanish into oblivion. Here I am in one such boundless moment where, the mind is behaving meditative and I sense an absolute blankness.

However, somewhere deep within, I hear one of my favourite Rabindrasangeet play.

“Aaguner parashmoni chhnoao praane

E jibon punnyo karo……….”

The lines literally mean “purify my soul”.

And blessed I feel. I do not remember the ‘first time’ when I got to listen to this song. But I do remember the ‘every time’ when I listen to this song and am overwhelmed with emotions. The lines written in Bengali  with its in-depth meaning, spoke the universal language. It touched my heart deeply.

It is then that I picked up an English translation of Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali (Song Offerings), a collection of poems. To me, the precious creation is an honest heart’s journey of life in communion with the Almighty, and the spiritual connection in every simple thing that makes them the most extraordinary beings in life.

This year marks Gurudev’s (as he is fondly called) 154th Birth Anniversary (May 7, 1861). His creative endeavours are still refreshing. To quote one of my dearest friends from West Bengal, “Meaning changes with each passing phase of life….That’s the magic of Gitanjali.” “That’s the magic of Rabindrasangeet too,” I added.

Little wonder, my mind plays his music magically therapeutic. And I write, the words from my heart.

April - A Poetry, A Day

 April has been considered as the National Poetry Writing Month in the United States of America and Canada.

I came across this NaPoWriMo.net site very recently, and decided to try my creative writing skills on a daily basis. Since I started my first poem on a page, I continue to add the remaining to the same page.

Given below is the link to my contribution :

  NaPoWriMo 2014 - My First Experiment

A Poem - Wonder Whether I am Lonely or Alone

I have always wondered, have we ever tried to understand the difference between being lonely and alone?

While alone has always been seen in terms of physical proximity, loneliness has been associated with deeper psychological meanings. In other words, loneliness is a state of mind.

A link:

Wonder, Whether I am Lonely or Alone

Binding Memories

Life without gadgets, especially our dear mobile phones, has become a dream impossible to even imagine. A recent incident in my friend’s life, was about to make me believe the same. The endless list of contacts, the pictures clicked at various occasions, the thoughtless pranks captured, family and friends in different poses, and the downloads from mails saved…. 

These minicomputer like devices, technically speaking, the high end phones with high end technology, bring the world into the small frame, and link us to the people, places and things at the tap of our fingers, which are too large for those tiny keypads. Hmn…. 

A day without that phone was miserable for her. 

Two days after the loss was reported, a complaint was filed; and then the phone reappeared miraculously. Yes, miraculously. God knows the reason for it. 

My friend was surprised… Happy … Life could not have been more joyous. 

Of course, expensive it was. And the plan to buy a new mobile phone was discarded. 

My friend decided to reset the instrument with the new SIM and bring her life back on track.

She opened the phone carefully and I could see shadows of unhappiness setting in. I could not help but look in her direction. The storage card or memory card was missing. 

In that shocked moment the only thing I could hear and remember was…. “Somebody has wiped my memories”. She did not cry. No tears rolled out. 

As a friend I stood by her watching. So right! Her memories….

The instrument was instrumental in binding memories. What will we be if our memories could not be captured? In bits they remain, somewhere ingrained in our subconscious….

Content Writing: A Marketing Strategy

Writing is an art of expressing ideas, thoughts and information.  The concept of writing has been used through media as journalistic writing, creative writing, research writing, personal writing, and many other forms; and in the current context content writing.

In fact, content writing gained its prominence with Internet. This is mainly because “content writing is a branch of content marketing, which aims at writing in a way that draws the targeted audience to the site in engaging them to active participation. This participation may include readers commenting on blogs and social networks, clicking ‘Like’ and ‘Share’ or ‘Tweet’ about the written post or uploaded video.”

A good content strategy often begins with the use of search engine optimization (SEO) technique to obtain higher number of visits to the site.

Search engine optimization (SEO) can be defined as an Internet marketing strategy that helps to improve the visibility of a web page or a website in a search engine’s (e.g. Google, MSN, Yahoo) search results. A web writer makes use of keywords, searches for new keywords and works on specific keywords to get new traffic.

Here, it is necessary to mention search engine marketing (SEM), which in short, “is a form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs).” In fact, it is a rather broad term that utilizes the technology of search engines with the goal of “combining the two processes of search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click advertising (PPC)”. Indeed, it would be better to say that, “no SEM campaign is complete without SEO.”

A link to the power point presentation on Content Writing- A Marketing Strategy –

http://www.slideshare.net/DeeyaN12/content-writing-ppt

Connected, Yet Disconnected

A life was gone. I didn't know. A condolence message to that friend, which appeared as the recent update on my social networking site took me by shock. I sat to remember the last interaction; it was a birthday post on my friend’s profile.

Social networking sites are the new means of staying connected with friends. School, college, office colleagues, neighbourhood and like-minded people from our profession. The friend list goes on increasing and decreasing, oft and on, as and when, people move in and move out due to their own personal reasons. 

However, the question that continued to haunt me was "do we really stay in touch with each and every individual from our friend's list?" I would not have thought about it had it not been for a friend whom I lost recently. 

Today that friend is a living profile on the social networking site.  Many may be still waiting for the site to update on the individual’s birthday; a day we chose to wish our friends. Here, I search for an appropriate word, “friend”, “acquaintance” or “contact”. Whoever it is, we hardly know most of the people in our endless list.

On the hindsight, social networking site is an excellent platform to build network. This does not necessarily mean emotional connects. A practical approach to life and the concept of “live, and let live” is the rule to live.

I wished for once to reconnect with my dear and near ones. I was happy that I still could get to speak to them over the phone. I knew they were all safe and sound. And that my cyber indulgence is a far cry from reality. A farce of true value of friendship.