Thursday, December 8, 2016

Book review part -6 : Being Mortal


This is the second book from Atul Gawande that I have just read, what a thought provoking and ground shaking book it is. Both of the books are distinctly connected to each other. In “checklist Manifasto” he talks about how checklist can save lives and in being mortal he talks about how one should die.
I have read only a few dozens of non-curriculum books but non of them talked about this issue even in small details. The only reason I can conclude is – Death is ultimate fear of one's life, we are scared to core just thinking about it. Hearing “Death” word gives you some or other kind of goosebumps, but can you escape it- No, probably never. If it is unavoidable – do you want to talk about it- there is also a No here.
This is what Atul has accomplished in this book, he talked about it and talked pretty gracefully and interesting. No where in the book it feels boring or too scary.
Book's tag line is -”Medicine and what matters in the end”. And same is the motto of writer. Whatever Atul is trying to conclude can't be covered in this review. This book is highly recommended for people who are more than 50 and for those who are taking care such people.
Some focus points of this book are as follow:
  1. This book helps you decide whether you should opt for medical help or not. if taken medical help how long you should be taking it and when you can decide to stop it.
  2. This will also help whether to get medical help at home or in hospital or in hospice.
  3. This is another book which establishes connection between a healthy person with helping family.
  4. You will also notice beside family and medicine, there are other factors that can help you get well
  5. It tells you difference between your horizon vs Doctor's horizon.



This is a book of reference of its own kind, if you have it you will definitely revisit it throughout your life. One worthy for book for our bookShelf(physical or digital).

Monday, December 5, 2016

Hindi words included in Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary

I have found some of these hindi words in OALD7th Edition while going through it. Enjoy!!!


Achha
Aloo
Ashram
Aya
Badmash
Baksheesh
Balti
Bandh
Bania
Bapu
Bhagwan
Bhai
Bhaji
Bhang
Bhangra
Bhavan
Bhindi
Biriani
Chai
Chakra
Chapkan
Chutney
Chutney
Dal
Devnagri
Dhal
Dhania
Dharma
Dharna
Dhoti
Ghagra
Gharara
Gharial
Ghat
Ghee
Guru
Halal
Harerama
Hindi
Hindu
Hookah
Karma
Kasbah
Krait
Kulfi
Kumbhmela
Kurta
Lathi
Mantra
Mullah
Namaskar
Navaratri
Pagoda
Paisa
Pandit
Paneer
Puja
Pujari
Raita
Rattan
Saag
Salad
Salam
Salwar
Samosa
Sari
Sarpanch
Sikh
Sufi
Swastika
Taluka
Tandoori
Tantra

To be continued ....

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Books in queue for the year 2016


  1. The intelligent investor -Benjamin Graham 
  2. Fault Line: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy - R Rajan  
  3. Denied by Allah- Noor Zaheer
  4. The theory of everything - Stephen Hawking
  5. The old man and the sea - Ernest hemingway 
  6. The Little Book That Beats the Market - Joel Greenblatt 
  7. Who moved my interest rate - D Subbarao
  8. Being Mortal - Atul Gawande

     
     

Thursday, April 7, 2016

Before it goes to Ctrl+alt+del its time to Ctrl+s

I born in a town (Sasaram) where I have literally no access to nature. I was introduced to nature by none other than Mike Pandey. After watching "Earth Matters" I got to know why loved to visit the nurseries around my town. These nurseries are situated in the far West of the  town. Around these nurseries there is a dense bunch of trees. Since my childhood I loved that place, I didn't know the reason behind it.
 After reading various books and during my PG in environmental science, I found the reason behind it. And the reason is not complex besides nature being fairly complex. And the reason is - we are made by nature so there is no-brainer that we like it by default. It's inside us, we have to listen and follow our heart. Then our mind will act in similar manner. 

I can still remember those rainy days when I used to just stare on trees, plants , ponds while it was raining. This could go on and on for even several hours. I never felt guilty watching rain even my next day was term end exam. 

Recently I visited to Pangot and the most amazing thing there was - crystal clear sky at night if no clouds wandering here and there. That moment my eyes felt alive- my mind dived into the depth of the sky. I was calm and relax. And that type of calmness I felt only when I was in Kanatal in 2012. It took 3 years to reach that soul level calmness. My whole office was partying in the night while I was busy watching stars at Pangot. What I missed most there- my family should have been there to watch those stars along side me.

We have surely forgotten our roots, from where we came(city,village?), from where our food comes(malls,supermarket?), from where the fresh refreshing air comes(ACs?) from where our drinking water comes(water purifiers, municipality?). If you think any of the answer in the bracket is right- sorry to say you have surely not gone close to the nature enough. There is one answer to all the questions- All comes from the nature in their raw form, you need not to refine them to reach you. And these things comes from nature for free. See the current scenario you can correlate by yourself
  1. You now pay for food, if you are a farmer- you have almost no choice but to purchase seeds from big corporates.
  2. You now pay for fresh air- through air purifiers or air conditioners.
  3. You now pay for water- municipality, water purifiers and water tankers
 If we don't stop polluting our mother Earth, future can be very dark where we have to purchase some compressed air to breath, just what already happened to your drinking water. We need to stop this mess. And the best way to do it is to-
  1.  teach our kids the value of nature, by taking them away from city or town to a natural place.
  2.  Saving the nature in its current situation i.e. Ctrl+s and then step by step giving nature back whatever we have taken from it.
If we don't start Ctrl+S nature can take its measure to rectify it which is equivalent to Ctrl+Alt+Del. Surely you don't want this to be happen to your kids. I have already written the current scenario in details what can be done through the tag.
Some images of nature can be found at

“I’m blogging about how I’ll remind kids to press Ctrl+S for nature for the Shortcut Safaari weekend activity at BlogAdda.”

Friday, March 18, 2016

Holi @ Saraon Tola

I don't know how to start describing Holi. Holi is definitely a celebration of colours, besides that in my home town it's celebration of brotherhood as well as celebration of family bonding.
You know how Holi is celebrated in India, more or less customs are same everywhere in north India atleast but I want to describe how Holi is celebrated in my Hometown and in my village. Only you can decide how much it is different from yours place.

Holi@Sasaram - My Hometown
Being a town here Holi celebration is bit filmy at the start. At start means at the day of Holi from morning to afternoon( 5 pm is cutoff). So it starts with matki phodu event like this

A band of guys with a band start with some pre-defined place and move this band to the whole locality with song and music. And all families pour colour or water on them. After covering all locality and they go for matki place. And every Majnu tries to impress her Laila by trying to smash the matki. After this event all guys go to their respective home or friends home to have their lunch with sweets and all.
This was schedule of some gangs of boys, not every guy take part in this. These remaining guys used to go to their friend's house to put colour on him and take their friend along with him. Thus again creating a gang and moving house to house putting colour on people according to relations. Eating and colouring goes on and on each house.
Around 3 and 4 pm all chaos comes to a halt for some rest and removing colours from all parts of body :P.
Then phase 2 of the Holi starts in evening around 5 pm, where again each individual goes to their relatives and  neighbours for their blessing and Holi congratulations. In this phase no water and liquid colour is used. Only abeer or say dry colour is used.
In phase1 mostly friends are involved in each activity where as in phase 2 , family and relatives are covered. We take blessing of our elders by putting some putting some dry colours on their feet. They gave us blessing to us by rubbing the dry colour on our face. Everybody tries to meet as many as many relatives they can meet.

Holi@Sasaram - My Village
My village is around 40 KM is away from my home town, it has slightly different way of celebrating holi. I will mention only the differences from Sasaram, rest is same as of Sasaram if not mentioned.
  1. No matki phodu event
  2. Chaita song like this at Holi night .
  3. Awesome night before Diwali where boys act some kind of prank at each targeted house. 
  4. Lighting crackers also happens a day-night before diwali.
Don't know why but due to Chaita only I like Holi at my village most. Please let us know in the comment section how much different is Holi celebration at your place?




“I’m pledging to #KhulKeKheloHoli this year by sharing my Holi memories at BlogAdda in association with Parachute Advansed.”

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

How to Empower Women

I have been observing women and their difficulties in empowerment since my childhood. Whether it is for political power or power to put any point in family. 

Whatever I know through my experience is that- everybody wants some kind of power. Women also want power, but their choice of power may be different from men. That’s why I think it took this long claim their equality. Why I am saying this – because if women wanted equality like men they would have regained very earlier. 

Women constitute 50% of human population. How 50% of population can dominate other 50%. Do you have any reason for this, I don’t have any. Women’s 50% consists of mother and wife. How many men do you think can survive without mother and wife 5 to 10%?  Your answer.

If women lost their power in the process of civilization or modernization, I would blame them too, why? Because you can’t expect from anybody to not to take advantage of you (women) if you don’t let it happen. It’s a known fact that women lack unity, this is why taking advantage of them is easy. 

 Tell me some good example of women unity in comments if you have any. If you talk about India, you will say women don’t dominate due to lack of education or a patriarchal society, but what about west. Why even Google, Facebook and Microsoft are trying very hard to bring more women onboard……….where is the fault? Whom to blame? Interviewer?  Company Policy? Family pressure? 
According to USA’s National science foundation women have higher degree ratio but men dominate them in science and technology. It’s under 25% (Means- for every 100 students, there are more than 75 men and less than 25 women - Tell me dear women how do you really expect equality when you are opting out high paying and technological degrees (STEM in particular) by yourself. 

See the report now
Dear ladies, if you want luxury of equality, you have to work hard equally like men. You have to come out of comfort zone. Please don’t want a Prince charming who will come and you won’t have to work ever. I know most of you are not like this but still there are male dominating field and women dominating field. And most dominating field is not that tough as you may think. Like being a computer science engineer. It require all the skills your already have or you can gain it from the hard work and experience. 

I am waiting for ladies to join these fields where they should be present.

Friday, March 4, 2016

Dear future husband,, here's few things...


Dear future husband,,,

Here's a few things,,
You need to know if you wanna be
My one and only all my life....


As the first few lines and of course the title of this post itself conveys that i have not found my man yet. And yes,, of course it doesn't mean that i have not thought about the #kasam aur #vaada that i want from my future dear hubby. So my dear future hubby ,,, be ready ;) Here comes few of the kasams out of the long list.

1. I want my man to make a promise that as I would be going to accept his family wholeheartedly, he should also accept my family in the same way. The way I would be going to give the love and respect to all his family members, I accept the same from him for my family too.
2.The second promise that I want from him is that sometimes I may be irritated and may act in a crazy way ,,, so in those moments he must understand me and be by my side. Comfort me in time of distress. 

3.He must promise to dance with me. Yes,, you read it right. As I love dancing, he should dance with me often. I'll love it,, if in addition to dance he'll sing for me (Singing will be a bonus point ;) )
4.Promise to go with me on shopping. and not just go,,, I also want him to help me out genuinely in making choices while shopping. (I know ,,, ye thoda mushkil hai,,, but if he loves me ,, he will bear it with too... :D )
5. Secret and Lies Kill relationship. So no Lies please. I want him to promise me that he will never lie to me. Promise to be a true and faithful partner.
6. Love is built on trust. Relationships that are not anchored in trust are not made to survive rocky trials. Therefore, I want him to promise me to trust me.
7. Promise to show me sweet romantic gestures every now and then so that our love flourishes and our relationship never lose it's spark.
8. Last but not the least,,, Promise to love me for who i am with all your heart.

chalo,,, abhi k liye itna baaki hai,,, furthermore i'll tell him when i'll meet him... :)

P.S. - I’m blogging about the kasams I want from my man this Women’s Day with the #SadaSexy activity at BlogAdda in association with Set Wet.


Saturday, January 9, 2016

A Bimbo World

America is bombing, Russia is bombing, the sidekick nations are also bombing but ISIS is still hale and hearty. Like a hydra, you kill one, many more are born. For the survival of the ISIS, there has to be money power to manage affairs and buy weapons. And Money is her oxygen, ISIS can’t survive without it. But this money is coming from the sale of oil. . It barely took anytime, USA within three days, had Japan on her knees during the Second World War. America has more respectable feathers in her cap, if one goes by the conspiracy theories about her technological advancement.

But still when it comes to terrorism, somehow America keeps on killing and terrorism keeps on growing. The capitalistic model of economy believes that there is invisible hand of god, in a free economy, which shows light to the economies. For a vibrant and proper functioning economy, it’s very important to have free and fair trade. Any restrictions will only harm the business. In the global world everything is interrelated, and now such a time has come, if China sneezes, oil market gets cold. The best way to end the reign of terror is not by bombing her but cutting off her oil business. But the question is who is buying her oil and why can’t it be stopped?  Wasn’t it a rational and logical, if America and Russia had given a little thought to it, before flashing their tools of manhood, modern weapons.

In international affairs it could be my hallucinations, myopic understanding and the smokes from oil might have blurred my vision but atlest I can be sure of what is happening around me. My Delhi, Dying Delhi. In Delhi there are two kinds of human species and mind you it’s not male or female. But they are known as supporters of Modi and Kejriwal. For the success of Modi failures of Kejriwal is required and vice a versa. The ODD-EVEN, more than improving the the Air Quality Index or any other thing has exposed the judiciary.

Like a pervert, the High court of Delhi wanted the pollution level to be down in just within a week of the trials. It asked the Delhi government if the pollution level is not coming down what’s the point of continuing with the scheme. To this Delhi government had her answer prepared, that it needed a longer period to conduct the trials, argued that the pollution had come down and showed with emphasis that the traffic has improved.

This scheme covers only 10% of the vehicles running on the roads, and Odd Even scheme will mean that, out of those vehicles, half will be on roads.(Not considering the cases, where people have the option of plenty to choose, having many four wheelers) So it means 95% of the things are maintained as it is. And on the basis of the 5% change, the court and people wanted to obliterate the pollution done since the last two centuries in just a week. What is more ironical and humorous is that the court demanding results and the Delhi government proving it. It’s a lot like a student proving a problem of mathematical induction, where he knows the end result but not the correct method to solve it but as he knows the answer, he proves it anyway and anyhow.

The judiciary few months ago, which declared that in an independent nation she is more independent. She refused to come under the control of ‘the legislative and executives’ and ensured ‘Indian democracy continues to be the tyranny of the unelected.’

How can one become adept to sit on the judge’s chair to ask why the pollution is not coming down? What it takes to be that person, who doesn’t know that environment is an open system, the pollutants from the nearby areas by the action of wind can come to Delhi and the damage of centuries can’t be wiped in few weeks.  The answer for this idiocy is that there is no concrete basis for one to become judge, any of the Tom, Dick and Harry can become a High court judge all he needs is to be in the good books of the collegium of the judges, who do the appointments, no merit, no basis, no grounds for selection or rejection (all you need is to be a practicing lawyer, regardless of bad or horrible for a decade). And this arbitrariness is called as ‘independence’ in their corridors.

From reservation to the election of the president, it’s the judiciary which has the final say in things, and our judiciary herself is like that ostrich, which has permanently buried her head into the sand. She will correct everything but not herself, she will wage war on corruption but will be blind eye to the erroneous selection procedures. And anybody who will try to show her that something is wrong, she will act against him, as speaking against the court amounts to contempt.

Hitler, Mussolini, Napoleon and others they demanded unequivocal support from their masses, they demanded blind support and they ruled like the ultimate authority, you were either pro Hitler or anti nationalist. Today in the battle of politics, the youth specially the ones from Delhi are in similar position. The Odd Even plan is not a wrestling arena for being a pro Modi/Kejriwal but for the environment. Environment is not your World Trade Organisation, where a decision in the favour of one necessarily will have to be against the other (weaker nation most of the times) but it about coming together to save the only planet that we have, to heal a little, our mother earth.

Odd Even, though I neither support or reject it altogether but this is not how you protect the nature. More than Odd Even plan we need a sustainable approach and that is to have CNG and electric vehicles in the transitional cities like Bhopal, Indore, Ahmedabad, who will be the metros of tomorrow, why we are waiting for Mumbai and Kolkatta to become the next gas chambers? Why we are not relenting from our habit of solving problems on the ad hoc basis? Why are we waiting for the things to deteriorate and environment to degrade in other cities? Why can’t we be ready with solutions in advance?

Humans have history of over 60 lakhs years and we learnt to speak and write few thousand years ago. But remember we survived when we couldn’t communicate, the naked man survived the harsh weather and nature. A lonely man living in a cave evolved to into the social animal of the modern world. We were at peace, when we had nothing. We were then ugly but it never mattered because we had the will to survive and we survived.

But what is more saddening is the fact that we have in the last few centuries, become only beautiful not intelligent, man’s modern progress is a very fast paced journey towards apocalypse. North Korea yesterday claimed that she has hydrogen bomb, she is adorned with the modern jewels and undoubtedly she would have found herself to be more beautiful after the detonations. But is this what we want? The bust of bombs, the erection of nukes, the pervert governments and brainless citizens, where are we pushing ourselves? Why are we so blind? Limited by nationalism bounded by professionalism, man has forgotten the art of rebellion, he has given up his inner instincts and reasoning for a Bimbo world.