Magical Touch

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Coiled inside the blanket

I could see only darkness that night.

Cold and numb

Burning forehead and aching limbs;

The pain was not merely physical

It's branches were spread in my heart too

Or, was it vice versa?

Robbing me off my hopes and dreams.

I frantically yearned for a magical touch

That can heal my unseen cracks.

The moon peeped in my room

Summoning me to be its mate;

I walked to the balcony of my room

The pain still vivid and clear;

I ogled at the moon and started feeling better

Was the moon showering magic dust on me?

I could hear the leaves sigh

As the autumn breeze changed its plan;

The breeze touched me tenderly

Like the first stolen kiss,

Beams of moonlight, twinkling of stars

The ecstatic jingle of the wind chime

Touched my soul with abundance of love 

It was a healing therapy: Love of Nature.

Linking this poem to Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Recovery/Healing

Stand-up comedy: The best form of entertainment

Life should be lived to the fullest, even amidst hectic work schedules and meeting tough deadlines. Without entertainment, life is such a waste. The best way to live life is to work hard on the weekdays and party harder on the weekends.

You can scope out the most happening bars and pubs that suits your style in www.liveinstyle.com. The bars such as Blistering Barnacles and Big Pitcher are brimming with fun and energy. They have an array of amazing cocktails and liquor options. The ambiance of such a place would surely make your weekends exciting and let you have an amazing time.

The best thing about these bars is that they feature performances of some great stand-up comedians such as Kanan Gill, Vir Das, Gursimran Khamba, Ashish Shayka, Aditi Mittal, Tanmay Bhatt, Praveen Kumar, Abish Mathew and Rohan Joshi. Can anything else be better than this?

Humor makes us see the lighter side of life and stand-up comedy is the best medium to make people laugh. Everyone cannot be a stand-up comedian. Stand-up comedy requires courage and confidence to step up in front of a large audience and perform your act.

During the first few minutes, you may find your mind shouting and begging you to stop and run, but you continue your act with confidence. Soon, you can hear the giggles and laughter from the crowd, which brings a huge relief. Stand-up comedy is about being bold enough to try to make people laugh, without having the fear that no one would laugh at your jokes.

www.liveinstyle.com is encouraging Stand-up comedy not only by featuring the popular stand-up comedians in the several bars and pubs that are listed on their site, but also by supporting the Comedy Hunt contest on YouTube.

A stand-up comedian is someone whose wit and humor gains him thousands of fans. So if you think that you have the power to make people laugh effortlessly, then you must take part in the Comedy Hunt contest. You just need to send a short funny video which should be maximum 3 minutes long. The video just needs to be funny and nothing else.

As we talk about Stand-up comedy, I just remembered that famous Irish proverb:

“A good laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures for anything.”

So true, isn’t it? Stand-up comedy is one of the best forms of entertainment which works as a major stress buster in our fast paced lives. You won’t find a single person who doesn’t like to have a good laughter. And there are only a few gifted ones who can make people roll on the floor laughing.

Are you one of them? 

Let your heart sing forever!

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The chaos and the cauldron

The angst and the fears

The bitter pangs of loss

Let them not cloud your vision

Let them not take away

The love, compassion and hope;

The sweet music divine

From your heart.

Embrace solitude in a park

Bask in the beauty of the lush greenery

Reflect, admire, smile.

Allow Nature to soothe you

And cleanse the burden of your heart.

Let love be the lyrics

Let kindness be the music

Let your heart sing forever!

Linking this poem to Midweek Motif ~ 'Let your song be delicate'

What's the date? (100 word story)

“What’s the date, today?”

“15^th September, Ma’am.”

As she heard the words, a wave of pain and a ripple of chaos erupted in her placid heart.

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One date. A thousand memories.

And all this while she thought that she has moved on.

Engaging her student with some sums, she rushed to the terrace to grab some fresh air. The smoke of the burnt good days was suffocating her without mercy.

After a few minutes, she said a silent prayer and heaved a sigh.

“You’re not there in my life anymore, but you’ll always be there in my prayers. Happy Birthday!”

A lovely evening at the #BergerXp Indiblogger Meet

I used to really get upset whenever I saw my blogger friends from Delhi and Mumbai having a gala time in the Indiblogger meets. But finally a ray of happiness hit my life when I saw about the Berger Express Painting Indiblogger Meet that's going to take place in Kolkata on 12th September. 

So, yesterday was the big day. Although I have been blogging regularly from mid 2014, it was my first Indiblogger Meet. The experience was amazing and I am still brimming with happiness, recollecting the memories of yesterday.

 Just the beginning!

As I reached the Oberoi Grand, Kolkata, I met a very dear blogger friend, Maniparna whose blog Scattered Thoughts has always been a great inspiration for me. We regularly follow each other's blog and therefore, it was great meeting her in person. She recognized me instantly and made me feel like her sister. We connected really well and here is a selfie that we took before entering the Ball Room for the event.

 Maniparna and me

I also met and connected with many more blogger friends, one of them was coincidentally, my classmate from school, Kirti. It was really nice to meet her after 7 years. There were some bloggers who recognized me through my blog and there were some bloggers whom I recognized through their blogs. Overall, it was great to meet so many talented bloggers. I wish I could click selfies with all of them.

Somorita, Kirti and me

There was also a vibrant photo studio where we posed for pictures and we got the photographs before leaving the venue.

 Posing with our best smile :)

Finally, it was time to enter the beautiful Ball Room of the Oberoi Grand, Kolkata for the event. As we entered the room, we were totally enthralled to see the ball room embellished beautifully. We could see our tweets in the large screen. 

The beautiful ball room

The event started on an energetic note as Anoop made all of us sing.We completely enjoyed starting the event with rock music and shouting Yeah Yeah Yeah! 

It was followed by a wonderful interactive session where the bloggers introduced themselves, shared their blogging stories and gave some blogging tips. I really enjoyed this part of the event the most as I got to learn so many things and I was inspired to the core. 

There were bloggers who were as young as 16 and 19 years old, but so full of spark and confidence. It was amazing to hear them speak. I didn't even discover my writing skills completely at this age, and these bloggers are so focused at such a young age.

It was amazing to hear all the bloggers speak. Each of them had a different yet interesting blogging story. It was extremely inspiring to hear veteran blogger, writer and photographer Rangan Dutta speak.

The blogging tips shared by the bloggers were really amazing. There was a blogger who said that it is extremely needed to market and promote your blog in the right way. There was another blogger who said to keep the posts short and crisp, so that you can grab the attention of your readers. Someone said that it is necessary to have an individuality so that the readers find your blog interesting and different from others.

Talking about my blog

When I got a chance to introduce myself and my blog, I felt really happy to share about how I became a blogger after being an author. I talked about how my blog helped me to discover another facet of mine. My blog reinstalled my passion for poetry, as I was only into writing full fledged novels earlier. Now I write everything from micro fiction to poetry to novels and that's because of my blog.

After the amazing fun and interactive session, Berger showed us a wonderful presentation of their Express Painting which is faster, cleaner, better. There are some great tools such as Sander, Mixer, Paint Sprayer etc. which can make the process of painting so much hassle free and better.

After their presentation, they divided us into ten teams for some fun activities. There were two activities: one was sanding in the shortest time possible and the other was painting a social cause within thirty minutes. I was a part of Team Flash and all the members of my team, Kirti, Shruti, Sneha, Dev were so enthusiastic. 

Our team gearing up for sanding

For the painting round, we chose the message "Love is the color of the world". When all the colors of the rainbow come together, we get a single white color. Similarly, when there will be no differences among people on the basis of caste, creed, sexual orientation and religion, the world will be painted with the color of love and it will be a happy world. People should be given the right to choose their partner irrespective of any social dogmas. 

The painting done by our team

Team Calcutta Palette bagged the winning prize. They depicted the social cause : Female Foeticide. All the teams came up with wonderful paintings and overall it was an enriching and fun experience.

Finally, a grand buffet was served and we were given goodie bags from Berger. 

The goodie bag!

I would really like to thank Berger and Indiblogger for gifting us this lovely evening. I hope we have many more such amazing Indiblogger meets in Kolkata in the forthcoming days.

The group pic

The poisonous FRUIT of GRUDGE!

Yesterday, I came across a short poem written by William Blake. It goes like this:

I was angry with my friend;

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.

I was angry with my foe;

I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,

Night and morning with my tears;

And I sunned it with smiles.

And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night.

Till it bore an apple bright."

So, this is how the poisonous fruit of grudge grows. The truth is that everyone in our life, no matter how close he or she is, would hurt us and let us down, someday or the other. No one can meet our expectations to keep us happy, every single time. It is really impossible. 

Sometimes, you might feel that you are terribly wronged by the person you thought would never hurt you. Thus, a small seed of grudge against the person would erupt in your heart. You would find yourself complaining again and again, "How could he/she do this to me?"

This kind of thing has happened between me and my close friends countless times. The thing that has saved our friendship, each time is that I have directly talked to my friends about the things which has hurt me. I have not let the grudge grow in my heart, by watering it with tears and nourishing it with anger.

I have noticed that after I tell my friend how much his or her actions have hurt me, my friend is also able to point out where I was wrong and where I had also caused pain. Thus, the tiny seed of grudge dies that very moment we talk about it with each other. 

Honesty and forgiveness smash the seed of grudge totally and saves a long-term friendship from a bitter misunderstanding.

If we really care for a person and if we know deep down in our heart that the person also cares for us, we should never tame grudges in our heart. We should rather talk about it openly with the person concerned and resolve the conflict. 

Else, just like in the poem of William Blake, the wrath would grow and grow until it bears the poisonous fruit of grudge (bright apple) in our heart, destroying the closest relationships that we have formed in our lives.

We should always value our relationships more than the seed of grudge that has newly erupted in our heart.

What do you think?

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Life is wise!

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People often yell and wail

"Life! Why do you give so much pain?"

They forget all the euphoric moments

They lament,shout and complain.

Life never complains

It embraces both smiles and tears

That people throw in its bosom

It endures, teaches, inspires.

Life is wise, life is patient

It speaks to us in myriad ways;

Only the ones who can hear its tales

Savor every slice of life till death.

Linking the poem with Poetry Pantry #268

The dried, red rose ( 55 Fiction )

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As she dusted her bookshelf, a book at the corner grabbed her attention. She opened it and found the red rose, which she had kept there, three years back. 

Dried and tattered, like his love! It smelled betrayal.

Holding her breath, she threw the rose in the dustbin, never to look back at him again.

Tweet: Dried and tattered, like his love! It smelled betrayal. #TheDriedRedRose #55Fiction http://bit.ly/1L8IhL2 via @Manchali_purba

Goodbye vs. Let go

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Goodbye vs Let go?

Earlier, I thought that these two terms are synonymous. But, with the passage of time, with my own set of life experiences and observations, I realized how different the two words are. Both imply separation but there is a huge difference in the two kinds of separation.

Goodbye is bidding adieu to someone, without knowing when you both will meet again, if you both will meet again ever. But, if you ever bump into each other again after some months or years, you both will hopefully greet each other with a smile and reminisce about the fond, past memories. You will shed a tear or two over the distance that prevailed for so long. You will perhaps apologize for not making an effort to get back in touch. You will be curious to know how the other person's life turned out after both of your paths separated.

Let go is something completely different. It is saying goodbye without hope. In let go, you have to replace hope with acceptance...acceptance of the fact that this person is gone from your life forever either by mutual decision or by any one of your decisions. It can be that both of you would never meet again in this life. It can be that even if you both see each other in a cafe, you both won't acknowledge each other's presence. Let go is lifetime silence from the person, who once meant a lot to you. Let go is being okay with not being able to find out how the other person is doing even after say, twenty years or more.

Goodbye is bidding adieu with a tint of hope. Let go is saying goodbye with a tough acceptance that it's over, shedding all hope.

In our life, we meet so many people. We get extremely close to some of them and then after some time, our paths separate. Only a few people stay with us, year after year, decade after decade. They are so rare that you can actually count them on your fingers. 

Dealing with separations gracefully is the art of life. But among these two kinds of separation, goodbye sounds a little easier and kinder to me.

What about you?

Tweet: Let go is saying goodbye with a tough acceptance that it's over, shedding all hope. http://ctt.ec/FX9bf+ #Acceptance via @Manchali_purba

No more food blunders. Thanks TinyOwl!

When the same kind of incident starts happening to you again and again, you are stereotyped and given an annoying name. And that’s an awful feeling, especially when you are called something which is really irksome.

Take my life, for example. Whenever I plan to take my family for a grand dinner or lunch on a special occasion, dear destiny turns no stone unturned to make it a grand blooper making me all fidgety and stressed to fix the problem. As my plan gets spoiled and ruined every time, I look at the sky helplessly and yell "Why me?" The feeling is so frustrating! 

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Be it Durga Puja, Christmas or birthdays, I always end up in an embarrassing situation whenever I take my family out for a meal and then I try hard to make amends. Fixing food problems at the last moment, sometimes by buying road side chowmein or other times by just preparing Maggi (when it was available, of course) has become my trademark instead of people complimenting me about how good the treat was. This is the reason why I am named “Miss Food fix” (not in a good way, of course!)

In fact, my granny loves calling me by this name after a series of food bloopers. I don’t blame her though. Here’s what she said, a few months back, when I told her that I want to take her out for a lovely dinner.

Me (with a cheerful grin): Granny, a wonderful new restaurant has opened. I want to give all of you a treat as my new anthology of poems have released.

Granny ( with a sarcastic smile): Oh dear, why don’t you rather cook something great for all of us?

Me (with a frown): You know it well how I hate cooking. I would rather do something more interesting during that time.

Granny: My little Miss Food Fix, you need to love cooking, else you have to keep fixing things at the eleventh hour.

Me (with a huge frown): Oh granny, stop calling me this. I agree that twice, okay thrice, things went wrong, but that doesn’t mean it will happen again.

Granny smiled and then tried hard to suppress her smile, after looking at my pitiful face. 

Now, I am sure all of you must have understood what I have to face whenever I tell my family excitedly that I will take them out for dinner. Let me share one of the blooper stories that led me to a food fix.

It was the occasion of Holi and therefore, I wanted to take my family and cousins for a sumptuous dinner. We went out of the house at 8pm and when we reached the particular place, we saw that all the restaurants were already filled and buzzing with people. There was not a single vacant seat inside and we were told to wait outside each and every restaurant. Seeing no way out, we waited outside a restaurant for about an hour and then we finally got a seat.

Being a Biriyani lover, I ordered Biriyani for all of us, but the waiter said that Biriyani was not available. Then I ordered Peas Pulao and even that was not available. With an unwilling heart, we settled for vegetable fried rice and chilli paneer. The food did not arrive, even after 45 minutes and on asking the waiter, he said that it is getting prepared. Finally the food arrived and it tasted so horrible that I don't even want to recall the taste. My Dad tried to eat some of it but my granny and cousins did not eat more than 2 spoons. The fried rice tasted like ordinary rice and the paneer tasted too bad. An abominable smell of garlic hit our nose as we had it. It was horrible.   

We left the restaurant with a look of disgust. It was 11 pm in the night and all of us were having terrible hunger pangs. 

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I felt guilty and helpless. I hit my forehead with my hand dramatically, but that did not result in anything miraculous. I kept on mumbling sorry and then remembered about the roadside chowmein which would surely be available at that particular hour of the night.

The chowmein tasted at least better than the fried rice and chilli paneer. I apologized to everyone and all of them said it was okay. Yes, it definitely was okay, but I was stereotyped Miss Food Fix when this kind of thing happened thrice. In all the 3 times, I had to do some last minute arrangement which was not at all good or even a little closer to what I planned.

Recently, I was sharing my sad story with a friend, when she suggested me to try the App called TinyOwl. I guffawed at first hearing its name, but when I tried the App, I was happy beyond limits. It was so awesome that after ordering food for the first time from this App, I was screaming "Yay!". Finally, I got a solution to my problem. 

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Tiny Owl is a great food ordering App that helps me to treat my family with a grand dinner or lunch at home itself on the special occasions and festivals. On festive days, most Restaurants and malls are always occupied and I really don’t want to land up in a food blunder anymore.

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The TinyOwl App lets me enjoy great food at home and I don’t even require cooking. This App is the smartest, coolest and the fastest way to order food. From Donut to Dosa to Paratha to Pasta, you can get anything delivered to your home by ordering food through the Tiny Owl App. The App can easily detect your location and choose the best restaurants for you. It is available in both android and iOS.

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The App also stores all your previous orders. If you are not aware of the new restaurants near your area, this App will give you great recommendations too.

This App has made my life easy and has helped me to get rid of the Miss Food Fix title as I don't have to fix food blunders anymore.  Thanks to TinyOwl!

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I was sad, wallowing in self-pity

All my plans get spoiled and gritty.

Whenever I plan a family dinner,

I end up in some embarrassing blooper.

I hate being called “Miss Food Fix”

Don’t want to take any more risk.

All I want is delicious and mouth-watering food

Now please for heaven’s sake, don’t tell me to cook!

Pizza, Burger, Biriyani and Calzone

I want these from restaurants reputed and well-known.

One such bad day, I came across you

The cute little fellow in yellow

You introduced yourself as TinyOwl

And asked,“Can I mend your mood that seems so foul?”

I shared with you all my agonies pent up.

You smiled and just showed me the App

No blunder anymore, I just scream "Yay"

Now good food is just a few clicks away

Family is happy and my life is set

Oh TinyOwl, you are so cool and great!

Do check out the amazing TinyOwl App that is available in Android and iOS.