Life and 2021

Life is going like the road to another hilltop with lots of hairpin curves. It’s all about the journey on the road and not the destination to the hilltop.

One moment I’m at the black sand beach watching my toes getting devoured by the wet sand, listening to the thundering waves; watching the sky turn its hours into colors. Then in the next moment I get a flat tire leaving me aghast.

But someone always comes up to help me. I get to meet an interesting stranger or maybe I persevere and figure out how to change my condition myself? Sometimes I just leave the damn motorbike and walk. Then stumble upon a moment meant only for my eyes.

So all in all – I’d say life is living.

With or without me but while I am here, I do my best to enjoy those small moments that add up to being my life.

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This and the last year has been draining for almost everyone I know. Hearing people losing jobs and loved ones to COVID, I came to realise that how miniscule our lives are. We worry to much about the future thinking we will do this, go there, achieve that and all other overthinking stuff. In reality, you never know what fate has for you in the next moment.

2021 is coming to an end and today through this post, I’m extending my gratitude to almighty god for blessing me and my family with his wonderful creation – ‘life’
I didn’t write much on my blog this year. Infact, I hardly opened it. But hey, no regrets. At least I got to experience other cool things, do stuff that felt important and made me a better person overall.
A lot happened this year and I’m trying to rewind and list few things that I believe mattered most.

– Getting to live with my parents and family for the entire year due to lockdowns and work from home.
– Getting an opportunity to visit my birthplace and hometown in Himachal Pradesh, India after almost 8 years. Meeting my grandmother, cousins and all the other relatives. Had a great time reuniting after so many years.
– Taking my professional career to new heights and working with amazing colleagues. Also getting a chance to lead the project as tech lead for a few months, training fresh grads and much more exciting stuff at so early stage of my career.
– Watching a lots of movies and TV. Especially the work of Alfred Hitchcock and some old school golden movies.
– Getting to write meaningful amount of code at work and off work.
– Lastly, in month of December switching to a dream job at one of my dream company ‘Amazon’ as a Devops Engineer. I couldn’t be more happy!

All in all, I see this year as a big win for me personally as well as professionally. Obviously there were ups and downs, but as I said before someone was always there to help me out. Rest I got it figured out luckily.

I’m excited for what next year beholds, and I hope god keeps blessings me with more success and wisdom.

Some resolutions for the next year –
1. Live
2. Try to do my best in new job
3. Cross 1200 rating in rapid chess
4. Read at least 5 non – fiction books
5. Aquire some non conventional skill
6. Stay healthy
7. Love and laugh more

Thank you for reading ❤️ I’d like to wish you happy New year fully loaded with happiness and success.

Should schools be reopened amidst Corona Virus?

My cousin Ashutosh, who is in 9th grade wants your feedback on this issue. Please read his message below and comment your views/suggestions.

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Shall we open schools ? This is the biggest question that is gaining attention nowadays. I understand that many children (about ⅔%) don’t have enough assistance and facilities for online classes and they are not willing to learn at their homes. Opening schools can be harmful and harmless. According to the school board, I have divided to put forward my views in 3 parts:

1. Harmful effects of opening schools in this period

2. Advantages of opening schools

3. Safety and Precautions for opening schools as well as Conclusion.

Let’s first talk about the Harmful effects: We all know this period of time is very depressing and continuously staying in home has made all students sad. If by any chance some state gets #Coronafree, we still need to remember that the cases have gone low not the disease. There is still a chance that it might spread through one single child to the entire school. Secondly, there’s a need to maintain proper sanitization and cleaning in schools. Also, public transport and buses shall also be organized in a proper way. A little bit of carelessness and all the plans will get flop.

Now let’s move to the second topic that is the advantages of opening schools:
As earlier told that the children who are not having proper facilities to study from home should not be deprived of education. Moreover, we all have have heard in the news that Hume Corona Ke Saath Jeena Seekhna Hoga i.e. we all have to make a habit of living with coronavirus and that’s the positive of opening schools. Children will gradually learn how to maintain social distancing, how to sanitize, how to maintain personal hygiene etc.

Last but not least some Precautions that needed to be taken to start the schools:

1. Schools have to be sanitized time to time.
2. Screening of the children should be done at large scale.
3. Children coming to school from Containment or Red zone shall be given extra attention.
4. Only 30% or 50% of students in the all school shall attend in a single day.
5. Children should be moralized not to be partial to any child who had the virus or has the symptoms.
6. Social Distancing should be maintained.

If you agree with my views or want to share your feedback then please feel free to drop an Email at : ashutoshmanhas7@gmail.com.

Please forward this message to other people you know.
Thank You
🙏🏻

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3 A.M Talks

Lots of people around me are having tough times managing their emotional well-being. COVID-19 has really gotten on their nerves. There’s uncertainty everywhere.

Yeah, I know life may not seem wonderful right now, probably you’re having a tough week, having a nostalgic attack or going through really hard situation and just wishing to go back to normal days.

I’ll tell you my story. My workplace is just 200 KM from my parent’s home, still I was not able to go live with them due to the country wide lock-down that started on 24th March. I and my roommates were struck in our rented apartment without any prior experience of cooking or doing household chores. Our maid kind of abandoned us and fled to her town(I don’t know how). We were on our own.

Now the real fun began or I’ll say shit got real. I work in an IT firm, and hence our apartment became our virtual workplace. Working 8 hours remote shift + managing all the household chores like preparing meals, washing dishes, doing laundry, dusting, cleaning bathrooms, sweeping and what not made me realize the importance of a father’s hard-work at workplace, and a mother’s role and responsibility in handling the entire house. No wonder she’s called a house maker. My respect for them grew immensely, but most importantly I got to learn skills that I never thought I could ever acquire. I’ve lived 20 years of my life with my parents and it was just last year that stepped out of my comfortable home and moved out to a different city after I got my first job. I never really helped in any household work before; because honestly, no one asked me to do so. Believe me or not, all I could ever do in kitchen was boil some water or make a cup of tea. That’s it! I never even made instant noodles on my own.

But now after this lockdown phase, I think I’ve become good at so many things. I can cook! Yes, I can cook every popular Indian dish. I’ve learned all the household chores, and most importantly, I’ve understood values like having a positive outlook towards life, time management and the power of gratitude. I think these times have taught me many lessons for good, made me more responsible, independent and stronger Abhishek than before!

So guys, don’t worry. You should be happy having experienced these moments. Trust me, this is once in a lifetime thing and you’ll tell the tales of these times to your children or grandchildren in the future. Or maybe someday you’ll get to experience something like this again. Who knows? For now, let’s work ourselves out of this situation, alright? It will all go good, just have faith and don’t give up. We’ll come out stronger than ever after this all gets over.

Let’s just slide with destiny and try to live our lives with enthusiasm and determination or it will end too soon.

Stay safe and keep smiling😄

Hope is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops at all

-Emily Dickinson

Need your support guys 🙏❣️

One of my favorite bloggers and a good friend has started an endeavor to launch her own E – literature magazine. She’s putting in a lot of hard work and dedication into it.
However, it’s not all fairytales and I know it demands a lot of hustle and grind to make it big.

So it’s my humble request to all my friends here to support her in this valiant journey.

Please read this personal note by her :

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Greetings!

I have started a new, risky, strange, scary, beautiful endeavor to do something big, I’ve decided to launch my own Literary magazine (online, for now)! It’s not as big as it sounds, without your time and effort! Please do read the below message and, fill the form we’ve created for you. Be amongst our first guests!

_______________________

We, at *Estrellas* *Magazine*, have a wonderful opportunity for you.
You can now be a feature of our very first edition (to be published during 2019 Christmas holidays).

Just click on the link below to submit your entry and embark on a journey with us!

https://forms.gle/QeWaBnocjcSNP4do9

We appreciate your time and energy.

Best wishes
Estrellas.

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Although the entry is open for everyone reading this, I’d like to mention a few of my favorite bloggers from whom I expect at least one entry for the magazine. You guys are an inspiration to me 🙂

Ameet Kothari

Anjali Sharma

Chandni Asnani

Diana Tyler

Dwight Hyde

Madame Writer

Kritika

Kavita

Nirant

Riya

Sid

Sohanpreet

Sumeet

Shantanu

Note: Please send your entries latest by 30th November 2019.

Keep shining 😘

Share this:

You have people that always promise to get things done the next day, but never actually achieve anything – the procrastinators. You don’t love procrastination but you do it most often? The guilt of not being in control kills you from within? “Procrastination is my sin.It brings me naught but sorrow.I know that I should…

via Why do humans Procrastinate and what you can do about it? — Articles Arena

An Important Announcement!

Hello bloggers!

Life is always full of beautiful surprises. Twists, turns, new opportunities. Just over 2 years ago, I started this blog. It has garnered a massive support on this platform. With over 2000+ followers and over 35k views, I feel blessed to be a part of this journey.

Today I’m happy to announce that I have started this new blog called Articles Arena with a friend of mine. It’s primarily a site to publish high quality articles on a variety of genres.

I wish to take this site to new heights and also try earning some money out of it. With two years of experience at blogging, I feel confident that I can really pull it off.

I want to thank you for years of friendship and support. I will be in touch and will keep on posting my poems on this blog. 😄

Do give my new site a check🤝

It’ll mean the world to me.

Wordless Wednesday

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‘Statue of Unity‘, is a symbol of the India’s unity and integrity. Currently, it’s also the world’s tallest statue.

The 182-metre-high (600 ft) Statue of Unity is twice the size of New York’s Statue of Liberty.

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Happy World Book day

In the quiet morning hours, or as I fade off to sleep at night, I cuddle up with a good novel.
This book is my world, my quiet time away from the din and discordance of the everyday world, but it’s also a way to explore the world in imaginative new ways.
There’s nothing that beats it.
I get lost in worlds wholly created by an author, imagined but containing truths about life, incisively commenting about life, reproducing it in beautiful new ways, putting me in the mind of another human being, grabbing my heart and dragging it through the thrill of falling in love or the dull numbness of divorce or the fear of being found out, giving me the power of flight or omniscience or magic, confessing about guilty deeds and crimes and affairs, taking me into richly reimagined periods of history, helping me time travel and space travel and regular travel into new lands, showing me how other people live in helplessness, in slavery, in squalor, in power and luxury, in prostitution and presidency, making the mundane seem magical and the magical seem possible.
This is why I read.
Reading has been shown to make us more empathetic people, but it also helps us learn to sit still for long without distractions, and gives us a break from the pull of smartphones and the online world.
Reading is one of my favorite habits, and though once in a while I slip away from it, I always come back.

Soldiers

Yesterday, at least 40 security personnel were martyred and three were missing / not traceable after a Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terrorist targeted a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) convoy with a car bomb in Awantipora in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama district, India, which is one of the worst attacks on security forces in the state ever. The cowardice act has destroyed 40 families and has left the whole country in mourning. Rest in peace. Today the whole country stands with their families and may God bless such brave martyred souls.

 

Here is a heart touching poem, written by a soldier to his family.

If I die in war zone,
Box me up and send me home.
Put my medals on my chest,
Tell my mum I did my best
Tell my dad not to bow,
He won’t get tension from me now
Tell my brother to study perfectly,
Keys of my bike will be his permanently
Tell my sister not to be upset,
Her bro will not raise after the sunset
And tell my love not to cry,
Cause I’m a soldier,and I was born to die.”

 

Tonight

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Tonight I wanna lift up my voice,
To know
How sweetly I can sing,
Or how well I resonate
With the music of the cosmos?

Tonight I wanna open up my heart,
To hear
The echo of its beating in time
With another,
Or the diaphanous pain of love,
Or the infinite joy of forgiveness?

Tonight I wanna open up my eyes,
To see
The beauty in a falling drop of rain,
Or marvel within the largeness of the skies,
Or what the mirror tells me
In its stark honest fidelity?

Tonight I wanna spread my wings,
To know
How high I can soar,
Or how far I can fly,
Or what it’s like to race the moon,
Or dip my fingers in a thundercloud or touch a star?

Tonight I don’t want bitter tears
Shed o’er my grave
For songs unsung, or deeds undone,
Or untasted fruits, or love untested.
When the time has come for me to depart,
There’ll be no reason, then, to fall apart.

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