Friday, 17 January 2025

Happy 2025

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Best wishes to all of you for the year ahead. May you thrive, jive and feel alive :-)

Here's a new set of Quotes as my New Year gift to you. Some of these thoughts might resonate with you.



When you are surrounded with colleagues, peers that are smart but also show up with kindness and respect, consistently, it's truly special. It has been a privilege to know you, debate with you, but eventually come together to do what is right and fun. You go faster alone but go further together. -  Roshni Das

There was something so very welcoming about the man, and I’m not sure if generosity is the word for it. Generosity of heart or the heart of generosity — or just the madness of heart. In his presence, it felt as though you were sitting under the shade of a big tree, something I had also felt with another man called Jean-Claude Carrière, the great Oscar-winning screenplay writer. Raj ji and Jean-Claude both had the art of sharing their generosity and knowledge with a disarming naturality. -  Vijay Singh

It is difficult to put it in words but it is my strong belief that this madness of heart, this awaarapan, this spontaneous and reckless outpouring of empathy and social concern, was an element that played a defining role in the shaping of Kapoor’s films. -  Vijay Singh

Believe me, I hated to speak up in large groups. But over time, one realizes your voice, questions and opinions are meaningful, and they count. I was always heard, so thank you. I will continue to advocate for folks to speak up, listen and build an influential voice. - Roshni Das

We’re all on our phones, on our screens, so much of the time that we neglect each other, and we neglect the world around us. -  Dr. Robert Waldinger

I had taken time away from my phone before, on holidays, and found it difficult in much the same way that I had once found it hard to quit smoking. There is the same restlessness, the same twitchiness in the hands bereft of something to hold, the same feeling of being stalked by an absence. -  Rafael Behr

Nicotine activates receptors in the brain that release dopamine – a potent feelgood chemical that gets involved whenever you do something pleasurable. It is there when you eat delicious food, wake from a good night’s sleep, score a goal, have sex. -  Rafael Behr

The insidious genius of the cigarette is the way it mimics the gratification of getting things done. It whispers success in your mind’s ear.  By lighting a cigarette, you have indeed solved a problem – the problem of not having a lit cigarette in your mouth. -  Rafael Behr

In your thoughts and actions, you should be honest to yourself and your conscience. -  Aparna Chatterjee

Journalists are especially susceptible to Twitter because it satisfies two appetites – compulsion to know what is happening and the need for an audience. Even hostile reaction feeds the addiction, either because you feel obliged to defend yourself or because you don’t want to log out on a negative note. You have a bitter taste in your mouth after reading abuse, and kid yourself that more tweeting will rinse it away. -  Rafael Behr

It is a race to acquire friends and followers, likes and retweets. That quest for recognition, regardless of what is being said or shared, is the commercial engine of social media. The commodity is attention, and it doesn’t matter whether it was a cat picture or an anti-vaccine video that induced the click. -  Rafael Behr

Once I stopped doom-scrolling, I became conscious of a change in mental tempo that comes when you no longer interrupt your own thought processes with a luminous screen. The search for news had rarely been the real reason for taking my phone out of my pocket. Nine times out of ten, there would be no particular thing I was looking for, no destination, just a vague itch to scratch. -  Rafael Behr

Anger is to make you effective. That’s its survival function. That’s why it’s given to you. If it makes you ineffective, drop it like a hot potato. -  Philip Roth

So many men walk into therapy saying that they want to work on themselves because they don’t want to get divorced. They see their parents living separate lives even though they’re still married on paper and they want to do everything to ensure they don’t end up the same way. -  Tanya Vasunia

India has a divorce rate of roughly 1-2%, which is not to say that we’ve cracked the formula for happy marriages, but it does go to show how averse we are to the idea of divorce. Staying in toxic relationships and sticking by abusive families are far more normalised as opposed to openly supporting happy, divorced individuals. -  Shasvathi Siva

Women get to face a lot of criticism here, and I’m not saying the men don’t, but for women — be it your body, your hair, your life, your decisions, your career, or motherhood — everything is criticised. -  Hareem Farooq

When you've had your innermost feelings expertly manipulated by someone, trusting yourself again is probably the hardest thing to do. -  Anna Rowe

The fear of “log kya kahenge?” (what will people say) runs so deep that families insist that their daughters ‘adjust’ to difficult situations instead of welcoming them back home with open arms when they choose to walk out of a marriage which no longer serves them. -  Shasvathi Siva

I like being alone better than I like being in relationships. I don’t have to ask anybody for anything. If I want to sleep late, I sleep late. If I want to stay up and watch TV, I can. I do whatever I want to do. I love the independence and the freedom. -  Janice Chavez

Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use only the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place. -  Susan Sontag

My father died very unpleasantly of Alzheimer’s in a care home when I was in my 60s. He hated it, and he resented seeing the inheritance diminish as a result. It hurts that dementia is now echoed in my own life. -  Alastair Stewart

He lost his independence, and I lost mine too. But you have to keep going, don’t you? For him and also for our children. They don’t want to see their father not being well or see me feeling sorry for myself, or bursting into tears, so I try to be positive. -  Sally Ann Jung

Being in the public eye over all this is not something that I’m personally comfortable with. Some of my friends think we’re bonkers to be so open, and two of our younger children wanted it to remain private, but the older two agreed with us. It’s a relief to me that people know now. Being honest about dementia has made our lives easier. -  Sally Ann Jung

I twist and turn, curve and straighten often without aim or result. Just an escape, an escapist thing into painting impulsively, compulsively, endlessly, tired, tirelessly, with or without joy. -  Lancelot Ribeiro

I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy. -  Rabindranath Tagore

The psychologist told me, 'When you go to bed at night, try to think back on your day and find three things that have made you happy.’ And for me, they always involve being with my grandchildren. They are like my medicine. -  Alastair Stewart

I was a somewhat distinguished physician with a 60-page resume. Now, I’m ‘no one', a retired, forgotten old man who dithers away the days. -  Paul Rousseau

Saturday, 11 January 2025

€57K

As per an analysis done by pension and life insurance provider Royal London Ireland, stay-at-home parent role has been valued at an annual salary of €57,140. The study analysed the daily tasks and responsibilities of stay-at-home parents and researched the cost of employing someone to do these jobs, based on current wage data. A survey of 1,000 adults showed that almost nine in ten people underestimated the monetary value of a stay-at-home parent. Just 11% of respondents valued the cost to employ someone to perform the duties of a stay-at-home parent at over €50,000. As per the most recent census data of Ireland, there were 272,318 stay-at-home parents in 2022 and 90% of them were women. Stay-at-home parents have a diverse range of responsibilities including childcare, household management, cooking, cleaning, budgeting, emotional support, and handling children’s transportation needs (taking children to events and activities) yet the full value of their work often goes unrecognised.

News Sources:

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2025/0109/1489793-stay-home-parent/
https://la.ie/2025/01/09/stay-at-home-parent-role-valued-at-annual-salary-of-e57k-study/
https://theirelandnews.com/news/2025-01-10/average-salary-of-stay-at-home-parent-is-57k/91487

Sunday, 17 November 2024

Quiz

I got all the answers right in this Quiz without googling.

You can also try and see how you score.

It's a quiz about cities.

Education should be fun. This surely is :)

It's informative and interesting.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zbwr239

Here's wishing you Happy Quizzing and Happy Sharing.

Cheers
Aparna

Wednesday, 13 November 2024

Pyaar

Nice song with nice music, nice lyrics and sung nicely by Sonu Nigam and Alka Yagnik

Music has been given by Nadeem-Shravan

Lyrics are by Sameer

Pyaar Aaya Aur Zyaada from the movie Barsaat (2005)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc3vjkGUme0

Enjoy :)
Aparna

Thursday, 7 November 2024

POC

POC
They say
Are people
Of colour

Excluding
Whites.

Why?

Is white
Not a
Colour?


You'll Like This

 A Pic

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/standard/800/cpsprodpb/aa47/live/75a30de0-96b2-11ef-99af-372359b57a36.jpg

A Song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArolURVjx_Q

And some Quotes :-)


It's a strange society that assumes it has the right to tell people whom they should love and whom they shouldn't. -  Bruce Springsteen

People write whatever they want; they just want to fill up the space. 95 percent of the things that were written about me were false. -  Asma Rehman

Being a celebrity is like taking an exam every second of the day. You’re judged 24/7. -  Dimple Kapadia

There was far more interest in my face and figure than there ever was in my intellect. This is one reason that I have loved ageing—it has evened the scales. -  Zeenat Aman

Racing thoughts supersede racing horses with their speed. -  Aparna Chatterjee

It is always the simple that produces the marvellous. -  Amelia Barr

Data is the new oil. -  Clive Humby

A genius is someone who makes more and better use of their subliminal thought processes than the rest of us. -  Frederic Myers

I adored my mother and from an early age was driven by a desire to make her happy and proud. She wasn’t a pushy person, but some innate discipline coupled with my Catholic school upbringing fostered in me the need to be the best at whatever I do. As a child, I excelled at school. I was head girl at Saint Joseph’s Convent and later won a scholarship to the University of South California. -  Zeenat Aman

Happiness or success cannot be pursued, for both can ensue only as a by-product of our dedication to a cause greater than us. -  Viktor Frankl

I am not denying the creativity of designers nor the skill it takes to create fine clothes, but what I am protesting is the obsession with appearance and couture that I see around me. In a world brimming with wonder and suffering, fashion should bring us joy and utility not turmoil and self-obsession. -  Zeenat Aman

What we buy, and pay for, is part of ourselves. -  Amelia Barr

People get bored and forget. Why do they drop in and want to hear about what happened and when? Weak and withering, why am I supposed to repeat every trivia? Genuine interest, or a vicarious pleasure in death and disease? I want to put everything down on a piece of paper. I can offer it to them to read. -  Bibek Debroy

Kindness is always fashionable, and always welcome. -  Amelia Barr

I have led a life of breathtaking highs and profound lows. There is nothing I regret, and nobody that I owe. Any shame or fear that has ever dogged me has long evaporated. -  Zeenat Aman

You can’t live a life without thinking how stupid you were and what a mistake that was, and how self-sabotaging that was. I’ve been in therapy for a long time, and my therapist kept me from some of my more self-destructive impulses to do with substances and bad relationships and stupid behaviour. And having kids has also kept me on the straight and narrow. -  Hanif Kureishi

There’s always tension between a mother and her daughter. The mother is saying something that she thinks is good for the daughter and the daughter will rebel because she believes she knows better. Only when a daughter becomes a mother does she understand where her mother was coming from. -  Dimple Kapadia

My sons have been abroad after graduating from school, more American now than Indian. “Will I hop onto a plane?” For what? You know precious little about India. You will be less of a help and more of a hindrance. There will be a time to hop onto the plane. Not yet, not now. Not in time for the last hug, but in time for the funeral rites. At best, send money, if needed. It was no different for my parents and me. However, that was spread across different cities in India. This is transcontinental. -  Bibek Debroy

Why are you unhappy? Because 99.9 percent of everything you think, and of everything you do, is for yourself. -  Wei Wu Wei

Everything we know in aviation, every rule in the book, every procedure we have, we know because someone somewhere died…We have purchased lessons…with blood. -  Sully Sullenberger

If you tied your hands up for a day and had to spend the day without their use, you’d see what they mean to you. -  Hanif Kureishi

Irreparable loss at the age of 70, when life’s productivity is as good as over? In another ten years, what social value will I bring? Can it be measured, quantified, imputed for? I give up the thought, too complicated. There are lives my life has touched, improved, even bruised. If they get to know, they may remember, with fondness and bitterness. Such people don’t write obituaries. -  Bibek Debroy

There are incidents in my life that the public cling to and that are dredged up again and again. I am aware of these, and becoming increasingly immune to them. My life is not defined by a few bad days that transpired many decades ago, and I need neither sympathy nor defence. I am content in myself. -  Zeenat Aman

The universe propels our evolution at a pace in proportion to our passion for uncovering purpose and meaning in our lives. -  Anil Bhatnagar

Time is the only currency you spend without ever knowing your balance. Use it wisely. -  Tiny Buddha dot Com

The nature of the world is transient. Fame, money, love, good times and bad—these will come and go. I found my inner mettle when I accepted this truth. The only thing that is in my control is my attitude. Life is just what you make of it, and mine has been magnificent. -  Zeenat Aman

With renunciation life begins. -  Amelia Barr

I don’t feel like reading, even when I can. I don’t feel like watching TV, even when I can. The same boring news, the same boring high-decibel debates. It all seems so transient and puerile. But so am I, transient and puerile, a dot that might have been wiped off. In that event, what would have happened? A few condolences, perhaps even from important people. “Irreparable loss.” Perhaps a posthumous Padma Bhushan or Padma Vibhushan. A few obituaries. -  Bibek Debroy

Nobody lives forever. Our time on this planet is finite. Don't waste your time worrying about stuff that isn't that important. Focus on the things that are important, focus on your family, the people in your life. Do that thing that you've always planned to do one day, why not do it today. -  Sir Chris Hoy

Saturday, 12 October 2024

Shubho Bijoya :-)

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Wishing you all Happy Vijaya Dashami, Happy Dussehra and Shubho Bijoya with some quotable quotes from this illusory world of Moha-Maya :-)


You don’t forget your first love. Psychologists say it is because it is a life-changing experience and one that can impact your brain, leaving an imprint on its sensory parts. By the same token, you also don’t forget your first break-up. These experiences are the first intense emotions we go through. -  Muna Khan

Nobody is invincible. And it’s vulnerability that makes you human. -  Shabana Azmi

Respect! Though you can’t demand respect, you have to earn it. Love keeps changing. Romance is the first thing that disappears with marriage. But you have to keep working at it – it’s a process of constant adjustment. Togetherness, friendship, interest in each other, and giving space to your partner is paramount. That can only stem from respect. -  Shabana Azmi

Anyone who has looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war. -  Otto von Bismarck

It is not merely wine or bhang that makes one drunk; a mad idea also can do so. -  Mahatma Gandhi

Any use of technology that undermines the richness of human relationships must be presumed suspect, especially if it encourages passivity rather than creativity. If a form of technology is proving deleterious to your relationships with others, you have to have the guts to drop it. Don’t be afraid to walk away. It is vital to remain technology’s master, and not become its slave. -  John Rhodes

If you treat me like an option, I'll leave you like a choice. -  Anon

Though sometimes we don’t get along very well-we have never been on beautiful terms ever for that matter — we have always been together. And the credit is hers and not mine. I can assure you that she is a very kind and tolerant woman. And she has been a great daughter-in-law to my parents, cared for and looked after them. -  Raj Kapoor

There was turmoil in our marriage but, at the end of the day, we both realised that we could neither live with each other nor without each other. Today, I realise that a celebrity’s life is like an open book. I regret the days when we didn’t talk with each other. I suppose that is what is called maturity. -  Krishna Raj Kapoor

When I sit back at the end of the day, I feel very sorry for all the pain that I have given you. How can I bring those days back for you? But show business is such that a woman has to be understanding because there are constant emotional involvements, because the work is such. A lesser woman would have deserted me long ago. It is Krishna who has made my home. Unhone mera ghar banaya, basaya, sajaya aur sanwara (she made my home, inhabited it, adorned it, and cared for it). -  Raj Kapoor

I am curious to see how machine learning impacts the future of our relationships. Can AI succeed in re­­plicating hum­an affection? Assuming you are in a relationship with a virtual being that always agrees with you, how will you deal with conflict and hurt, emotions that make us human? -  Muna Khan

It is easy to mock people who use apps like Replika. But at the heart of it, this is a story about loneliness, a growing epidemic that technology is attempting to solve, and profit from. If social media has profited from keeping us glued to their platforms, often at the expense of personal relationships, why blame other platforms from trying to cash in and also address a need? -  Muna Khan

Is the Englishman bad because he is an Englishman? Is it that everyone with an Indian skin is good? If that is so, there should be [no] angry protest against oppression by Indian princes. India can gain nothing from the rule of murderers—no matter whether they are black or white. Under such a rule, India will be utterly ruined and laid waste. -  Mahatma Gandhi

A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor. -  Franklin D. Roosevelt

I don't always take the right decision. I make the decision and then make it right. -  Ratan Tata

If it’s possible to be in films without taking your clothes off or killing people with machine guns, I seem to have indeed managed. -  Dame Maggie Smith

If you want things to be done well, do it yourself instead of depending on others, provided you are confident you'll do it well. -  Aparna Chatterjee

I read a long time ago that men who love their women, make them bloom! I think there's a lot of truth to that statement. -  Anjana Bhalla

That is, after all, what companionship is about: knowing the other person, listening to them and being listened to. -  Muna Khan

If you find happiness with someone today, you are lucky. One does not know what lies in store in the future. Today, life is what you make of it… the age-old notion that you have to be married to be happy and settled, no longer holds true now. And marriage is a bond, which not always keeps you bonded for life. -  Zarine Khan

Weather is like Life, always full of vagary. -  Aparna Chatterjee

I don’t want you going down the road of bitterness. It leads to hell. -  Anthea

How can a loving, omnipotent God permit disease, war and suffering? -  Anon

Empathy and kindness are the greatest strengths a leader can possess. -  Ratan Tata