New season

 I cannot believe I made it back in here for the second time this year. 

My new baby is playing/about to cry sort of state in the background. I've just sat down after a hectic day being a full time mum. With a cup of tea. Wait, this is starting to feel like a journal entry :). Ah well.

Autumn has started in UK and this weather somehow gives me a lot of energy. I love autumn. The colours, the rain, the mood... I am sure I've blogged about this sometime in the past. I am actually looking forward to seeing the colours. Hopefully I'll get a chance to visit the parks to see that. It seems like an effort to go out to even shopping these days with the growing family of mine :) I love this phrase, family of mine. Fills my heart even when I type. Who doesn't love their family. 

Anyway, weekend is here. So hope everyone has a great weekend .

Much love. 

x

Life goes on...

 So I am back here after 4 years and god so much has changed. So much. Family has grown, moved places and found a path in career (until/unless I change my mind). I am sitting in my mum's place and writing this whilst maternity leave has officially started. I don't even know if anyone is going to read or follow this but feeling nostalgic being back here writing a blog post. It has been ages. There used to be a time when I allocated time to write blog posts and go around reading others' and commenting etc. Then priorities changed and timings became tighter.

As years go by and we age, we become wiser. I am not sure if I am wiser or not but I definitely worry less about what others think or would want of me. I have realised that making others happy is not the priority or the role of my life. I have also realised I am not obliged to explain anyone all the time why I am not meeting 'their' expectations. And, I don't expect anyone to do the same. Spending time worrying about how to make others happy will not add any value to your life.  I'm not saying I have mastered this but trying to learn not to. Does it sound selfish ? I don't know, but if worrying is taking your peace away , then it's not worth it.

Take care 

Post of the year 2018 - Literally!

Glad to have made to this (only) post before this year ended. How are you doing all ? :)

December is one expensive month, and a tiring one for me overall. Half of my December is usually eaten up by on-calls and nights. Somehow, I always end up working almost every Christmas day. So this year it is even more painful that I am working 12.5 hr shift throughout the Christmas week!! My luck! Finally got a few days off post-christmas, got to open my presents on the 28th December. Got some lovely gifts :)

2018 has gone really quick, as we all say at the end of E V E R Y year. But this year, I have to say has gone truly fast. So many remarkable things have happened this year ; good and bad. Doing new things, learning new things, making new decisions, putting my feet down and saying this is what I need. What I want. 

Things that I did for the first time - been to my first live concert, Anirudh's in London. Been to 3 new countries. Managed to convince my parents and taken them to India which they had been wishing to do for a long time. Took the brave decision to step up at work. 

Career wise, working as a medical registrar this year was one big step up in 2018. This year has given me the time to mentally detox from unforgettable things happened in 2017. I let time to heal me. Meeting different types of people and learning from every single one of them. Oh, also I have visited more countries this year than any other; Belgium, Sri Lanka, Amsterdam, India, Greece and Majorca. Thanks 2018, I have loved every single one of these holidays and each was much needed. Travelling heals. I do believe in it. 

I have also met failures but perseverance remains. I have grown stronger. I have learned to try how I could look at the positive side of things. Look at what I have got out the experience than what I lost. 

I hope you've all had a year with good experiences and learning from those that weren't good enough. Remember to keep smiling, forgive and most importantly make your self a priority once in a while. And KEEP GOING.  

Lots of love.  

Thoughts from a train journey

I was on a train a couple of days ago and noticed this phrase on every other window of the train;

“ We want everyone to have a great journey. So please consider others around you”.

This made me ponder a bit about how considerate we are of ourselves as well as of others. I had some self-time on this train journey, which does not happen often. Public transport became more familiar since my car broke down. Anyway let me not deviate from what I want to say. 

This  2 hours journey of not using my phone, replying emails or browse the internet was actually nice. Do we ever allocate some self-time to sit and be our selves during this busy life where we get no time to think about what we want or what really makes us happy, without judging ourselves. We should sit down alone every now and then may be at a coffee shop, park or whatever, and run through what we are doing lately, why we are making certain choices in our daily lives even if it is about picking which tea brand to drink at a café with someone. Are we really content with ourselves?  A lot of people pretend to be someone they are not, work so hard for it that they are afraid to have some alone time. Trust me there are people like that. Not to blame them due to this materialised world we live in. Thank God I do not fear facing myself in the mirror when I need to because of the ethics  I truly follow. Because I don't pretend to be someone else. 

You get to live your life once. By analyzing others’ lives, you don’t allow yourselves to be happy.  Why spend time straining your brain on what someone has said about some thing. Or what xyz says about a politician or what their neighbour bought yesterday. This is time to choose to do what makes you happy.

I have been recently coming across a few outbursts of opinions by someone on several things happening around the world. Very angry and occasionally hostile. Hardly anything happy. Why does this person have to be so negative towards everything? Well, of course it’s their perception of things, but again, why be so unhappy? This reminds me of a quote from Paulo Coelho; “some people are so happy with their unhappiness" . 

We judge differently and we come up with our own versions of what is ‘real’ and ‘right’ in our minds.  The process of judgement goes through a lot of filters that have been built over our lifetime, without being conscious about it. And that depends on our lifestyle, cultures and perhaps the successes and the failures of life as well. And not to forget, the quality of upbringing too. We all know that something right for one may not be so to another person. 

Yet why do we fail to keep an open mind about what others think is real? Why do we forget that a point of view is valuable to that individual? Opinions skew from person to person and why don’t we respect the fact that we are all born with that sixth sense that human talk often about. No matter how different your education level is. What a person think is real or right is based on their life, experience and their life through their pair of eyes. Do we really need to throw a big fuss when someone doesn’t agree with us on something on the table. Why some of us just cannot keep it a healthy discussion. I come across people who make nasty comments about others’ opinion to get across their perception but fail to understand that it doesn’t make it real or right. It is just a pure immaturity. If you have a point, make it clear but being unnecessarily loud about it in a hostile manner will probably make it sound only stupid whether right or wrong. 

Happy New Year 2017!

With a positive note, WELCOME 2017!

2016 was a mix bag for me and I guess the same for most parts of the world. There had been some good stuff happened among the struggles, that included some important life events too. Anyway, this is wishing you all a blessed and fulfilling year ahead. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2017 !! I hope this year is full of positivity and blessings. :) 

So this has made the first post of this year :)

Lots of love.

xxx

ps. image from google. 

Broken boiler..

- I don't know if this warranted a post. Gonna be merely a rant. So please read at your own risk. 

Spent a day waiting for the boiler to be fixed including falling asleep under the quilt where I stayed most of the time trying to keep myself warm from the 12 degrees temp flat. The Letting agency did not bother to let me know until I called them a few mins before they close to find that the flat management sorted the issue and I was shivering for 8 hours without realising that. Obviously, I stupidly thought to turn it off until it was fixed and was waiting for the engineer to come around. Didn't know they could fix it from outside and the letting agency wouldn't bother telling me that it was fixed.  When I found out the news, I really was like a little kid in a sweet shop. All smily and singing :) .

The most ridiculous part was though going and buying an electric heater. Luckily I didn't use it as I bought it just in case this doesn't get fixed, I needed something for the night. Another trip to Argos to return the heater tomorrow. 

Had a very unproductive day because of all this. 

And this is what a cold flat with no heating and no hot water in winter would do to you. A whole day wasted. 

Have a good week ahead all.

Female feticide and Sex ratio in India - BMJ

While leafing through the BMJ magazine; June, a letter on one of the articles of sBMJ May urged me to find the May issue and read it. It was about the unwelcome sex in India. I have heard about the high occurrence of female feticide in India but happening to hear a lot in the recent days on magazines and blogs.

The article touched on the dangerous traditions in India which favour for the birth of a boy than girl as boys are cheaper because of the dowry system. The high social and economic value of men is the causation for sex selective abortions in India. Though the dowry payments are illegal, it is accepted as a tradition to continue their family hierarchy and this phenomena is deeply rooted in the societies. Although is illegal to do a prenatal examinations to identify the sex of a fetus is illegal in India, if the families once known it is a girl, the fetus is terminated. According to the article, evidently there were about 5 million female fetuses are aborted every year purely on the basis of the sex of the fetus. (190)

There were signs used to be displayed in the diagnostic centres in the '80s & '90s and rarely now quoting "Invest 500 now, and save 50,000 later" which simply means save your money that you have to pay as dowry in the future by identifying the sex now. This is really shocking! Where have the benevolence of humans gone? Do you decide whether you want to be born or not. How can you then take the rights of determining whether a fetus should be born or not. At the end of the day, it has to be a girl, who gives the birth regardless of the fact whether it is a boy or girl child.

There is also a low female to male sex ratio resulted from the sex selective abortions in India. High proportion of marriages are still arranged by parents, and the inability to pay enough dowry to an educated and settled groom by the middle and lower class families is also a huge cause for this. "The government of India indicated that there are about 6000 murders and suicides each year associated with problems of dowry". The laws set out against these feticides are simply worthless because the tradition, as mentioned above, is very deeply rooted in the society.
There are several aspects which are widely held by the people that men are dominant even in funerals where only boys are allowed to do the funeral rites as they believe it helps them to go to heaven after death. Because of the low female to male sex ratio, men may find it difficult to find their right partners so that they might start paying dowry -in the future. A prediction by some.

The article also emphasised that the Indian govt should find the loopholes which allow these abortions against the law and also more freedom, education and awareness programmes are necessary. I strongly believe that education on this issue is fundamental to raise the awareness and the risks caused by; female feticide such as; bleeding, infections, mental problems, uterine injuries and even death.

Ref: Dahal KB, Tripathi S. The unwelcome sex. Student BMJ May 2008; 16: 190-1.

Apollo Banana Leaf Review

Second bad experience at the Apollo Banala Leaf, Tooting. You can see the link at the end of this post about the previous review following a poor service. This time, (a few months ago) we went there after booking a table for 6.

When we arrived at the restaurant, there was only a couple eating. We had ordered the starters and the drinks. Usually, when we go to restaurant as a family, we first have the starters and order the food only after /nearly finishing with the starters (I am sure a lot of people do the same). It wasn't even 10 minutes of ordering the food, when the phone rang and the staff was taking a booking for a table of 7-10 or something. He immediately came to us and said; 'I have 10 white people coming to eat soon, you need to order your main now. Because when they're here, I won't be able to service you properly'. Note, by this time we didn't even get our starters or drinks to the table and it had only been 10 mins in the restaurant. We were also a group of customers who booked table in advance. Plus if you have a restaurant with a certain amount of capacity, then you must be able to serve all table equally. Doesn't matter white/pink/brown/black/purple!! If you can't, simply don't take the bookings. If a restaurant cannot serve 16 people at a time, you should probably close down or get more staff. Or more conveniently, put a sign outside 'We only serve certain colours'. No offence to any race here. If you go to an English restaurant, you're well treated there than an Asian restaurant. What an irony. There is  no need to rush other customers away when you don't even have a nearly full restaurant at the time. 

We were very disappointed by this and decided to leave the restaurant straight away. Family was being polite and said we had to go but I actually explained to the staff that this was not the right attitude. They are not very welcoming towards Asian people for whatever reason. Extremely disappointed. Please do not go there if you are an Asian and want to be treated decently.

We will never ever go there again.

Previous review:

http://ssaranyas.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/apollo-banana-leaf-tooting.html

Happy New Year 2016

Wishing you all a very happy and prosperous New Year 2016! 

Hope this year brings a lot of happiness and peace to every home in this world.

May this 2016 year be good to all.

Lots of love.

Picture taken from google.

Merry Christmas

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas!! 

I hope you all had a great Xmas. May this festival bring a lot of joy and peace to this world.

Thank you to a kind stranger

Some one walking past my house knocked on my door to let me know my car headlights were still on. It had been on for four hours and this person had the kindness to leave his luggage that he was dragging to the side, take his earphones out and knock on my door. Some of you may think this is not much at all, but I think, in a world we are living like this, this is a lot. Thinking about it, if my car battery dies in the next few hours (happened before) and it's Christmas tomorrow, then the weekend, boxing day and so on, I don't know if I could have got RAC to come and re-charge it for me. I don't know how I would have gone to work tomorrow. (Yes, I am working on Christmas day, 4th consecutive Xmas that I am working. NHS you see.).

Anyway, coming back to the point, I wish that this person who was kind to me, has more kindness and happiness from others and that his new year will be a good one. 

Be good and kind to others and you don't have to work hard to earn your own happiness.