Religion and My Ignorance

Image May 7, 2014 jcisnowjs 6 Comments

I have read so many mysteries and thrillers, but most mysterious and thrilling stories are from our Religious notions. There is so much that we don’t know, still there is so much that we believe in. Believing in something which we don’t know fully, still we have full faith in our beliefs. I am writing this post cause my curious mind took me to a journey of some of the widely practiced religions and stories behind them.

I am ashamed to say that I knew so little about them, even right now, I am so unsure of my limited knowledge(rather say ignorance), but I am eager to learn.

For instance, I didn’t knew that three of the most popular religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam, originated from one. But, I did knew that, Hinduism is considered as the oldest Religion and it has given birth to several most widely practiced other religions too, like Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. Most astounding fact being, that all these religions emerging from Hinduism are in accord and harmony (as far as I know).

The case is not same with Christinaism, Judaism, and Islam. They started from the same Abrahamic belief, and then along the way they distinguished themselves and took separate paths. A path which now seem, so extreme from each other that one can never imagine that their roots were in the very same area of Jerusalem.

A holy place captured and attacked so many times in history, and now surrounded by walls reaching the sky. A holy place which is the center point for the most controversial religious debates between three major Religions of the world. I wonder if God still resides there, enclosed in those walls.

This actually reminds me of my visit to disputed Ram temple site of Ayodhya, India. A place of worship and faith, surrounded by army and police, guarded in such a way, to make you feel like, distant from your own God. I read about and also watched some documentary on Jerusalem, and the only thought that came to my mind was, why can’t they all live in peace accepting each others Religion. What’s wrong if person of two religion wants to pray in a single place?

It strikes me, how I felt about the Ram Temple and Babri Masjid disorder. How would I feel, if I am praying their and at the same time my Muslim friend is offering his prayers too? Will it create more discord, or, it just won’t matter, as long as we both have a right to express our religious beliefs freely?

It’s too complicated, or maybe not. I am trying to understand, what need not require understanding. Religion is not meant to be interpreted. It’s for believing. It’s for practicing my beliefs, without hurting others. It should be about love and closeness with the Lord, and not about building walls. I believe in that.

Kids and Me, Life

Lucky Are Those Who Have Twins

Image April 30, 2014 jcisnowjs 10 Comments

I am Lucky. In every phase of my life, I have felt that way. God has given me everything more than what I have ever expected (rather deserved). There are so many things which make me feel blessed, one, or should I say two of the reasons are my twin boys, Otu and Renne.

I do not come from the family of twins, but I always wished to have twins, that too, preferably non identical. Two different personalities, just growing together. Not only me, my hubby too, used to say to me, how good it would be if we will get twin babies. We were so obsessed by twins, that when we went for ultrasound, for the very first time, we bluntly asked the technician, “Is it Twins?”. She also responded in the same blunt way, “No”. We the stubborn one, asked “Can you check again, Please? :)”

LOL…. at that time, we didn’t knew that, Tisha, our first born, has already made a setting with God, to send her two little twin brothers, only after she has amply enjoyed the full love and attention of her parents, for some time. She did enjoyed a lot of attention back then, still does, being the only Princess of her Papa’s heart (now, her brother’s heart too).

It didn’t take long for our Twins blessing to reach us. This time, our ultrasound technician, smiled and said “I don’t know if this will help you or not, but this time, you have Twins.”

Then their were Heartbeats, two of them, running strong, so fast and loud, and there we were, all laughing, giggling and with teary eyes. Rejoicing the moment, as we got what we asked and then nearly forgot about it, but someone up there who always keeps track of our wishes, delivered.

Every mother will say, that first pregnancy is special; for me, my first was special because it was The First, and second became more special because of my twin boys. If you are lucky enough to experience motherhood of twin babies, then you will agree, that there is never a dull and quiet moment, when you are pregnant with twins.

One is sleeping, other is awake, one is pushing, other is kicking. Oh… I loved that. It was a special feeling to be aware of two individuals nurturing inside you. I could actually feel them, fighting with each other, pushing each other, trying to poke my tummy with their feet, sometimes. My Renne used to be a full time boxer in their. He still is.

Even our ultrasound time was fun. Once we saw them kicking and hitting each other with their legs, as if they were playing around in their very own personal playground. From our ultrasound tests, we always used to come out crying and laughing at the same time.

Most of the women say to me, how do you handle three kids, specially twins? How did you managed twins? Every time, I recall that first moment when I heard their heartbeats, two different heartbeats. Then I try to recall, when did I feel overwhelmed by having twins? I didn’t. Never.

They were and are, always a blessing and I will tell this to everyone, don’t ever feel that twins can be a burden, they are fun, lots and lots of. Actually double the fun. I loved the time, when I was pregnant with them, and I love it now, when I saw them running around me, fighting, playing, doing every possible crazy thing possible, and then giving me their precious wickedly cute smile. Two different heartbeats, two different individuals, united in so many ways still very different, My Otu and My Renne 🙂

Books

The Templar Legacy |Book Review

Image April 28, 2014 jcisnowjs 2 Comments

If you are reading “The Templar Legacy”, without knowing about its author, I can bet that you will most probably think of it as a C grade draft version of Dan Brown‘s novel, something which he used to practice before writing The Da Vinci Code. Sadly, author is not Dan Brown. It’s sad because if it had been the same pathetic novel but written by Brown, I could have enjoyed the company of Robert Langdon.

Steve Berry‘s novel “The Templar Legacy”, is by far just one time read which you would like to forget as soon as you reach the end. It has two male protagonist, Cotton Malone a retired US operative, now a book seller; and another one is Mark, who is next in line to become Master in Templar legacy. Female protagonist is Stephanie who is mother of Mark and previous boss of Cotton Malone.

Stephanie and Cotton got entangled in a thrilling chase running after a riddle to find Templar treasure and secret. Lars, Stephanie’s late husband was searching for the Templar’s great secret, referred as Device in the novel, which can reinstate their power again on the royals and popes of the religious world. Lars, got killed in his hunt for the truth, but he was the nearest to the device in his search when he died. Now, everyone is behind Stephanie and Malone to get their hands on Lars’s journal and decipher the location of device.

Their are other characters too, mostly uninteresting ones. What lacked in this novel was the fact that, chase is one dimensional. It’s not for clues, it’s just running from a villainous character. Most of the time they are just reading from the journal or one of them is remembering the past stories from Templar’s book. They are just reading or running. When they find out the key to unravel the secret location it was too simple, and was almost all over the place, which they couldn’t decipher for so long.(they so needed Robert Langdon in this story)

The big secret, around which the whole device is built upon, is based upon the Resurrection of Jesus. This could be a big secret, if and only if, it would have been less for religious gains but rather for discovering a new kind of faith. Author did tried to do that and justify the resurrection in his own way, through a letter, but it was not as convincing as it should be to instill that long lost faith in humanity rather than supernatural miracles.

I have always enjoyed Dan Brown, but Steve Berry, you are not even near what a real reading zestfulness is.

Waiting for my next read… 😦

Kids and Me

In His Papa’s Shoes

Image April 21, 2014 jcisnowjs 11 Comments

Bollywood movies have brainwashed us with their concept of Twins, wherein, one would be Evil and other a Saint; or if you will pinch one, other twin will cry. (I so want to try this) 😛

In His Papa's Shoes

I have yet to see this in real world, however; in my life with my two twin sons, what I do see is amazingly beautiful.

Both are totally different personalities, in some way, poles apart. Surprisingly, one who have inherited my looks, behaves mostly like his father; and the one who has got his dashing looks from his Papa, is all me from inside.

Today, I am writing about Renne; one who has heart and hairs of his father 🙂

Every morning, it’s his daily ritual to wake up with his Papa, wait at the door of bathroom, till Papa comes out, all freshen up.

Their onwards Renne’s sole job is to make his Papa ready for office. First he will go to his Papa’s cupboard and pick out a shirt for him. Most of the times it will be the one which his Papa has thrown on the floor after wearing it a day before. 😮

Both father and son will spend nearly an hour in deciding what to wear. Renne will even try to buckle up the belt for his Papa. LOL… that looks so funny, when he tries that.

Papa is hardly ready, when Renne starts running towards his shoe cupboard. He will pick out the black formal shoes (always, I don’t know what’s his fascination with them), and then he will search for the socks. He has to search because his Papa is good in throwing things around. By the time Papa is seated to put on the shoes, Renne is busy finding matching socks. He somehow manages to do so everyday (even I am not able to search them sometimes), and will hand them over one by one to his Papa. One sock at a time, then the shoes.

Papa just have to do one thing on his own – comb his hair, because Renne can not reach there, otherwise he would have done that too. Next he will give lunchbox and tea to his Papa.

What’s left is, giving a goodbye kiss to his Papa, that too he do very diligently. Me, Jealous.:(

From where did Renne learned all this? Who else, than his Papa himself?

I have seen my hubby, still taking care of his father’s appearance, whenever he is stepping out of home. His shoes are shining or not? Clothes are cleaned and ironed or not? Who washed his car? Which driver is going to drive today? What is his schedule? How much time he will spend in each of his meeting? Phew!!!

Sometimes, I used to joke with my hubby, that he looks more like a personal assistant than a son, when it come to his father. He used to say to me (actually, still says), “I can be anything for my Papa. He is everything.”

Now, my hubby has someone in his life, for whom, He Is Everything. 🙂

Random

Even Modi has Wife Issues

Image April 14, 2014 jcisnowjs 4 Comments

Modi and his estranged wife’s story is making rounds in political arena, reason is clear, everyone wants to know everything about you, when you are famous, specially in Politics.

Now, coming to point, why I am writing this post? Yesterday, I read an article of The famous Shobha De (his controversial articles are the only reason that she is famous), where she pointed out, why no woman would like to marry Narendra Modi?

She wrote, that she asked a lot of woman including herself that “Do you want to marry Narendra Modi?“

Answer from everyone was – NO.

Then she explained in her own tone, why no woman would like to marry Narendra Modi. Reasons were given like, he is too loud, he don’t listen to anyone and he always talk about himself, no fun, too strict and possessive, would always keep an eye on you and blah, blah, blah……

I just want to tell Shobha Ji, that actually, she has asked the wrong question to all the women.

Instead of asking, “Do you want to marry Narendra Modi?”

She should have asked, “Do you want a Son like Narendra Modi”?

I bet she would have gotten far more Yes this time. Any woman would be proud to have a son like him, who is devoted, determined and passionate for his Motherland. A man who has sacrificed everything that he could have had, for a cause that is bigger than any family, any marriage and any relationship.

A soldier when leave his home to fight for his country, is never asked, “Why he left his wife at home?, Why did he left her devastated”? Then why are we asking so many questions about Modi’s marriage problems? He is as much Victim here, as his wife, Jashodaben. Both of them, were forced into a marriage (child marriage, I suppose), he tried to come out of it, and he deserved every right of doing so. I have seen girls who were not even old enough to go to college, married off and sent to their sasuraals. We all sympathize with Balika Vadhus, but what about Balika Var?

Even if marriage would have been a legal, real age, or shall we say, normal marriage; don’t they have any rights to live separately in matters of discord. We should have been worried, if Jashodaben was forced to live in an unhappy marriage, or if she was a victim of domestic violence, or if her partner was having an extra marital affair while still married to her. They are two adults living separately, their own personal life. Isn’t it?

Rahul Gandhi mentioned that he just stated a fact and no personal comments, that Modi has not declared his marital status in the past. A little fact that he forgot to mention was that Modi have never said, that he is unmarried, too. A new rule for filling of election nomination form now makes it mandatory to declare your spouse’s details, that is why Modi has to write his wife’s name now. Over the years if he has not done so, it had actually helped Jashodaben to maintain her dignity away from media’s crooked eyes.

Just think for a second, a woman who is separated from her husband, for years, and still she is fasting and praying for the Husband’s success; think of that unspoken love and respect between them. This respect and love can not be one sided, Modi must have treated her with respect over the years, hiding her identity from media, keeping her safe, taking care of her studies and financial matters. He has earned respect of not only Jashodaben, but every woman, for being a man who loves woman of his life, his Motherland, India.