True sight!

The bench in the park was deserted as I sat down to read beneath the long, straggly branches of an old willow tree. Disillusioned by life with a good reason to frown, for the world was intent on dragging me down.

And if that weren’t enough to ruin my day, a young boy out of breath approached me, all tired from play. He stood right before me with his head tilted down and said with great excitement, “Look what I found!”

 In his hand were a flower and what a pitiful sight with its petals all worn. Wanting him to take his dead flower and go off to play, I faked a small smile and then shifted away.But, instead of retreating, he sat next to my side, smelt the flower and declared with surprise, “It sure smells pretty and it’s beautiful, too. That’s why I picked it; here, it’s for you.”

The weed before me was dying or dead, not vibrant in colours-orange, yellow or red. But I knew I must take it, or he might never leave. So, I reached for the flower, and replied, “Just what I need.”

But, instead of placing the flower in my hand, he held it mid-air without reason or plan. It was only then that I noticed for the very first time that the weed-toting boy could not see; he was blind.

I heard my voice quiver, tears shone like the sun as I thanked him for picking the very best one. “You’re welcome,” he smiled, and the ran off to play unaware of the impact he’d had on my day.I sat there and wondered how he managed to see a self-pitying woman beneath an old willow tree. How did he know of my self-indulged plight?

 Perhaps from his heart, he’d been blessed with true sight.Through the eyes of a blind child, at last, I could see the problem was not with the world; the problem was me. And for all of those times I myself had been blind, I vowed to see the beauty and appreciate every second that’s mine.

And then I held that wilted flower up to my nose and breathed in the fragrance of a beautiful rose and smiled as that young boy, with another weed in his hand was about to change the life of an unsuspecting old man.

With smiles...

Swathi Mohan

(Investing myself completely in the art of living)

Fitness freak

Life has become highly materialistic & humans become self-centred beasts. We are leading a barbaric life. About 50 years ago, life was so peaceful. People were quite healthy because of abundant availability of high-quality water & air, that too free. We are forced to shell out so much money for good quality these days!

Quality of soil in agricultural land is also ruined by the use of fertilisers, unlike in the olden days when we improved soil quality by planting different items on a rotational basis, which replenished the requisite nutrients. All the food that we eat, especially fast food, is highly poisonous and are devoid of the nutrients we need. Technological advancement has made us so lazy & most of us today are leading a sedentary lifestyle which ultimately results in lifestyle diseases.

About 5 decades ago, people used to get a lot of physical exercises by doing all the household chores. Manually, from washing, cooking, and cleaning to agricultural work. Now, we have machines for everything. Automated life stinks, I feel.

Everybody is so hard-pressed for time. So, fitness centres have been the major contributing factor in the spiralling of lifestyle diseases.

So, here are some features in MCW fitness group facilitating for you.

MCW fitness group serves you with types of equipment for the purpose of physical exercise.

It consists of free weights including dumb bells, barbells and other major exercise equipment in the main work out area.

 It also has rowing machines, stationary exercise bikes, elliptical trainers and treadmills.

Group exercise classes are also conducted by certified fitness instructors which include aerobics, spinning(martial arts), and other high-intensity training.

‘This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.

This post has won the WOW badge from Blogadda, Mumbai.
See the Winners list, here.

Pathshala Funwala!

"There comes a time when silence is a betrayal" 

I really wanted to speak out  regarding this and thanks for the team Blogadda and Nihar Naturals Shanti Amla, a leading hair oil in the country.

And truth is to be spoken at right time. Otherwise, it may be worse than a lie.

My mother is a teacher in a government school, but not as a regular government employee, bunking classes. She is an honest woman working for the welfare of children in remote areas. In fact, I learnt the discipline of “Loyalty to the chair” from her. She has been my inspiration many times by profession. She has also suffered from the frequent cut of arrears and bonus amount from her office people for the reason that she is perfect in her works and questions them for their irresponsibility. Although she has suffered a lot of transfers and other troubles, she never fails to work for her children. You won’t believe your eyes when you see her classroom. It will be like a private school owned classroom with non-A/C.

Last week, when we were doing some chart works and PowerPoint slides for her school, she said me that she wants to make English easy and friendly to her students and has been working on that allocating time for it. And she also suggested me to come and undertake some sessions for them so that the interest on it can be reinforced.

So we planned and adopted the following.

• ·        We made the children realize that they need not be afraid of making mistakes so that their confidence level would be increased. And thus, we inculcated a thought that, if only they speak, we can help them correct it.
• ·        We practised this every day by making a study plan. We informed about this plan to their parents too for encouraging them.
• ·        We frequently indulged in the four core skills, reading, writing, speaking and listening.
• ·        We bought many DVD’s and used to play it often.
• ·        Generally children adore stories. So, we narrated stories and gave them a bunch of short story books for them to read by self.
• ·        We concentrated on the mistakes more and taught them through their mistakes.
• ·        You can teach a parrot English words but that doesn’t mean it can speak English! You still need to have an understanding of grammar. So we concentrated on Grammar.
• ·        We started to converse with them slowly.

·        Along with the children, we both too learn new vocabularies everyday.

And now, we are offered with the magnanimous service of Nihar Naturals Shanti Amla for aiding children. Thank you team Blogadda and PathShala Funwala Contest. 

Toll-free number for this service is 8055667788 

I am blogging about Pathshala Funwala by Nihar Shanti Amla Oil in association with BlogAdda.

With smiles...

Swathi Mohan 

(Investing myself completely in the art of living)

It's never too late!

A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. But there are times when we hold ourselves back and don’t even take that single step. Be it about acquiring new knowledge or mending a relationship – it is never too late to live the life you want to. So, my weekend post is gonna be like this!

It’s never too late to fall in love with Harry Potter. I mean the series of Books.

Books turn Muggles into wizards and Harry Potter does.

Those who are purposelessly wasting time in chats with their crushes and lovers, Those wasting life in desultory conversations with their “EXES”, those who haven’t read any books yet, come on guys!

Harry Potter novel is much pleasure than a girl! And it’s never too late to doomed to extinct yourself in that pleasure.

Harry was defined by something that happened to him as a baby, and had to grow up forging a legacy beyond that of ‘The Boy Who Lived’. Overcoming our past is a prevalent theme across the whole series.

You can learn lots of life lessons through it. It can mean to us in different ways. You can learn much from

Harry’s choices

 Voldemort’s mistakes,

Sirius and Regulus's different paths,

Grindelwald’s remorse and Dumbledore’s regret.  

Those who already tasted this pleasure can relate these pictures with the life lessons. For those who want to read this, let me not break the suspense! But the life lessons could be as follows.

1. Happiness can be found even in the darkness of times if one only remembers to turn on the light.
2. We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. And that’s who we really are.
3. It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends
4. It’s our choices that show us what we truly are far more than our abilities.
5. Fear of a name increases fear of a thing itself.
6. It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.
7. Words are the most inexhaustible source of magic we have. 

And Finally... Just try and have fun. 

"Life is nothing without risks."

Most ineffable pleasure for a bibliophile will be the one name, "Harry Potter". So, it never too late to fall in love with it. 

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.

With smiles...

Swathi Mohan

(Investing myself completely in the art of living)

EDIT: This post has won the WOW badge from BLOGADDA. Click here to check winners.

Unforgettable friend

One day I caught myself smiling for no reason, and then I realized I was thinking of you!

Hey it’s really crazy, right? How can I just be apart from you go months and years without talking to you, but still, you cross my mind every day!

As much as I dislike all the fuss that is made out of that one day, I must admit, it reminds me of my old friend. The friendship that was close to my heart and is cherished even today.

Jeevitha Lena! I mean it.

I could recollect the moment when our friendship was born!

It was when I was mumbling an item song and you heard it little and found the song. I was embarrassed a bit. After a few seconds, you said, “What? You too like this song?” *LOL*

 And that’s when we strangers started to make memories, in fact, a fairy tale!

Yeah! We have made. I still cherish those moments with you when we were together spending times in all scouts and guide camps, in all “Work experience” hours, in all Math special classes in the evening.

In every lunch, we have had together, and I had been your crime partner every time. And do you remember we had been the negotiators? 

(Yeah negotiators, it’s better if she alone understands this :P).

We had been together in the shot put practices. And I still die laughing how crazily we get caught in kho-kho matches, running here and there hastily and clumsily. While we had been rocking on all throw ball and dodge ball matches. I always love me calling you with the name I used to call you. *LOL*

You have been to abroad all of a sudden and we had no contact in the mean time. I tried all ways of contacting you. Finally, I came to know that you were not in India.

I missed you very bad. And whenever I missed you, I would look up at the sky and feel better for the fact that we are still under the same sky! When I just gave up after years, you pinged me all at once. And that day was the most delighting day in my life, the day when my tears had come into contact with my smiling lips.

 It has been around ten years of friendship and we have not met each other since you came from abroad. But it was not as like before. Missing you became easy for me now, because I think you are now just one day further away from the last time I saw you, and you are one day closer to the next time I will see you. 

God! Please let us meet soon! 

Probably we would have made some hundreds of secrets, thousands of jokes, and millions of memory. But, they all bestowed to be a reason for one beautiful thing so called our friendship!

Life moves on, but memories don’t.

You may have gone away,

but our friendship is right here…

in my heart.

I miss you diiiiiii....I love you!

With smiles...

Swathi Mohan

(Investing myself completely in the art of living)

No, your stupid friend...!

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.’  

Unforgettable friend because it's hard to forget someone who gave me so much of memories.

This post has won the WOW badge from Blogadda. Click here to see the winners announced.