Promotion to Mrs.A

God is gracious. Otherwise what was supposed to end in a register office would not have happened in God's home with all elders from both families.I was just thinking about my wedding that happened on Aug 27 2006, Sunday. It happened in Shri Sharadhambal temple with all my parents and in-laws, relatives and friends followed by reception in G.S.N Thirumana Arangam.There were lots of tensions the previous three to four days.

Friday- Aug 25 2006
I went to the parlour on friday and did all the pedicure, manicure, bleaching, but was too late for mehendi.

Saturday, Aug 26 2006 - The day before promotion
Morning we started very late from Kangayam with my mom, dad and periamma. My dad was feeling very sick that morning.The driver who was supposed to come at 9.30 did not turn up till 11.00. Then my neighbour, my friend, Sel's brother arranged for a driver for us.There was some kinda tensions and crying as i felt i will no more be my dad's cute little girl and will be somebody's. Mom was also crying unconsolably while travelling. After someime this tension was relived and we started concentrating on what has to be done next after reaching coimbatore. My mehendi has to be applied. We reached mandapam by 12.30 that afternoon. Lunch was prepared by Martin and ready to be served. Post lunch we started for mehendi.The mehendi lady was meetha and she spoke very well. When applying mehendi i was just telling her : There is a custom followed by a set of people. They pray God that if their prayers are answered, they will donate a goat by killing it and serving some people.Before that goat is killed, turmeric water will be poured on it and it will be garlanded. Then they will kill it. I was telling the mehendi lady that i feel like the same bakra, getting dressed to be sacrificed.The mehendi lady really admired the similarity. She was amused and was happily agreeing that's how real life is.
Then we rushed back to mandapam at 6.00. As soon as i reached, i had to change to saree as the groom and some of his relatives were supposed to arrive. I got ready with the help of my sister's Thavamani and Shenbagam. They were always of major help to us. My sister Meena and her hubby were busy in arranging a lot of other stuff. I never knew until that time she could do so much work. She was fully concentrating on things to be done. Without her and her hubby's sincere effort , the wedding might be a mess.

The groom Mr.A arrived with some relatives from Coimbatore like Meena anni, Mani periamma and kutty Rajkumari.We were asked to pose for some photographs. Then we had dinner and the grooms left for the night. Then we relaxed in the mandapam and slept at 11.00 in the night. The next day morning, i woke my sister meena at 4.30 in the morning as they had to go in person to pick the beaticians. They arrived at 6.30 only and the make over started.We left at 8.30 from the mandapam and reached the temple at 9.00. The same time people from tirupur arrived at the temple. Then in temples, there were so many weddings happening. Each wedding takes 10 minutes. We were in Queue and there were two couples waiting before us to get married.Then our turns came.They distributed the rice coated with turmeric which they use to bless the couple.Then the time of Thaali.My in-laws came next to us. Behind them were my parents.The music began at the auspicious time and Mr.A tied three knots to me.Three drops of tears rolled down my cheeks and i was praying and thanking God for the wedding. hen we went around the temple with our hands locked in a kerchief.Then we went and prayed the Sun God. Then we signed for the marriage certificate to be issued by the temple. After that we started in a Tavera of Meena Anni& Machu to the mandapam. Then i went into another make over matching my skyblue silk saree. It took more than an hour to get dressed. Then reached the stage with Mr.A.

There was a huge crowd.The exected number of people was 1200, but we received almost 2000 people for our wedding. It happened unexpectedly well.

Take life as it comes!

I really believe in the above philosophy.."Take life as it comes and keep doing what u have to do". There are some situations in life when u forcefully got something and u have to abandon it in a shortwhile due to some reasons.There are also some situations in life when things that fall on ur lap, but you are not interested at that point of time.But such things might be very much better in the long run and it may take sometime for us to realise that.The same is the case today with me.Two months back, out of all good intentions to learn and serve the organisation, i had asked for a change to finance.But now i have got an oppurtunity that fell on my lap to be into testing. My intuition says this will work out well.Believing that the best things in life come to u and donot come thru force, i just take up that has come to me. I am feeling much more relieved now. I think this feeling at peace in mind will definitely improve my productivity and increase my satisfaction with job. God! with all the trust on you, i march ahead. Be my guiding light always.

Skype confusion - Weekend!

Being very anxious to reduce my landline ISD bills, i borrowed credit card from my friend and got credit points in skype for 10$ and called up to inform my bills will be less this month. Was horrified to see 0.36$ in 25 minutes.Oh man! Almost Rs.500 for 25 minutes. Then explored to get more information regarding it. Found that calling mobile was 17 times costlier than landline. Then found that if i called landline i could have spoken for 8 hours for the same Rs.500. Its ok! A lesson learnt but quiet a costly one.Decided to call up landline only on weekdays. Lets see this month bills.Weekend was ok. Friend U's parents and in-laws had come. Nice people. Had good home made food. Raagi dosa and fantastic sambhar.Yummy. Then started for morning walk today at 6.15PM. My watch was ten minutes slow and the cab came at the right time when i just stepped out of house. Then RUN..RUN..RUN to catch the cab. MY god. Should keep the time on my watch and the cab's clock in sync to avoid last minute rush!

Mood for Weekend!

Yippie! The long awaited weekend is near. Feeling so happy that i can sleep till late in morning. Then meet up with friends and see some movie. Have to try PC to Phone calls? I am a premier customer of Airtel paying 10,000 plus for ISD calls everymonth. Of course this is the first month. But we decided to put some cost cutting measures in place. SO have to figure out this PC to Phone calls thru skype or something. That's the project of the week. Am also planning to get a LAptop for personal use. Compaq's screen resolution was too good and can be viewed from any angle without glare.Lets see if it fits my budget. The project for next weekend will be Project "Chennai & Laptop". I am gonna bring a new guest to my home - The laptop.

Exercise - Fourth basic necessity after Food, shelter and Clothing

I strongly believe that the current lifestyle will lead to a lot of health problems. Specifically for IT people staring the monitors 10 hours a day in an AC environment. Absolutely no exercise. I have a deep passion to exercise everyday, but i do it for a few weeks..then a gap of months..again restart the whole thing. Recently i have started last week : simplified exercises in the morning; 30 minutes of brisk walking in the evening; and diet of only vegetables and fruits at night. Hoping to continue it for next six months consistently. I tell this in a blog and i do have a reason behind it. If i say it in public, i need to stick to my commitment. And to keep my head straight, i need to consciously keep up my commitment. This attitude may be kiddish but hope it helps. I always have high regards on people who are consistently exercising. I appreciate them and am inspired by them. I like meeting people who really take care of their health. But the irony is my dad has been exercising consistently for the past 10 years and when he advises or asks me to exercise, i dont take it. I think its always like that with parents....when our parents say something, we lack the openess to agree to them...anyways my dad is a person who will never give up and once he told me " i will ask you everyday , have u exercised till the day u make exercising a habit." And he has been doing it for the past 7 years and finally the result is his daughter has realized the importance of it and is trying her max to it. Also now she is advising her friends to do the same. Hats off to you dad! Thanks for the unrelenting effort for 7 years.

In continuation of my yesterday's post about losing a ray of hope in life....
Usually when my cab takes me from office to home in the evening i take a nap, a short contented one. But yesterday after hearing about my Guru's demise, could not sleep. Rather was going thru all my past memories and associations with him. I had planned to cry satisfactorily after reaching home and to feel lighter. As soon as i reached home, got ready for a walk in a park closeby. I was singing one of my favourite of his poems " Ellam valla theivamadhu, engum ulladhu neekamara; sollal mattum nambadhe, suyamay sindhithe thelivai;avanai marandhal nee siriyon; avanai arindhal nee periyon; avanil than nee unnil avan , avan yaar, nee yaar pirivedhu." humming it to whatever extent possible was walking back into my memories. I tried to cry out, but in vain. Probably my sub-conscious mind was thinking that, "My guru did not have undergo further disturbances and he is in peace". I was happy to see him in peace rather than live miserably thru all that happened. Can a person who was having half idli a day from 1991, bear the effect of strong pills given after removing a stone?His kidneys failed to do their work. Then a dialysis was done. That was too much on a 95+ year old ripe Gnani. Still wondering How merciless God is at times?

I just created my blog name as Life is a ray of Hope but one important ray of hope in my life is gone. My spiritual Guru "Vethathiri Maharishi" is gone from this world as on March 28 2006. This is my first blog and i happily named it as ray of hope and one important ray of hope vanished from my life. To tell you more about him, he taught me a lot of things right from standard ten. I attended so many of his classes on spirituality and personality development at Aliyar. He taught me a dsiciplined way of life..whenevr he speaks he brings tears to my eyes. He has spoken about mother and brought tears to so many eyes that were listening to him. I had promised to him that i would not wear silk, killing so many silkworms and wearing that is a heartless act to do. He taught me determination, discipline, health in body and mind. He showed me peace, showed me ecstasy, showed me silence is a very powerful tool. I have been in silence for 15 continuous days once and 6 continuous days again. Those were the days of my life that i really lived. My age is 21 days. Fantastic days of being in communion with God. 21 days, i let God to speak to me, other days in my life i was talking to God. Beautiful 21 days. I died a thousand deaths. I worried a thousand worries. But am in the end ready to bid farewell to the body of my Guru that have served this humanity without any expectations for 95 years. Certain things that happened in the association should have disturbed his mind. His adopted daughter who was taking good care of him for more than 25 years was sent out of that community itself. A staunch follower and a very good friend of Maharishi was also sent out of the community. This should have definitely disturbed the 95 year old a lot that he got heart attack. Even a person like me who is associted with that community for the past 12 years could not take it. How could a person who has started the community to serve humanity take it. I really think, is this how life should treat a mature, stable, Guru at the age of 95. How merciless? Think God must have been a little merciful that such a honourable Guru should not have gone thru such a presure at such a ripe age. Is this for all these things that my Guru worked and devoted his entire life for? When power comes thru authority to any person, he becomes cruel, he forgets the beginning. He forgets the end. He just enjoys power and is rude to a person who taught him life.It was there in the ashram, that i decided on my life partner. I dint know how it struck my mind, but my mind would not heed me and kept going its own way and thought of my life partner. With all his blessings began my life. I write it out with lots of pain that my guru - my guiding light - my ray of hope is no more in flesh and blood on this earth. BUt he is there within me, in my heart and around me guiding me thru every step i take. I know my trust in him will guide me and my family the rest of my life. I did not understand when i had an unbearable headache last evening that it was an omen. Usually when i fall sick at a particular time, either my mom or dad would not be well in body or mind. Yesterday, my headache was unbearable...i was very restless...didnt realize that it was an omen that my Guru is leaving the world. If there is rebirth for me, let me remember my guru and his way "Mouna is way that God communicates with us". Wish and pray for his soul to rest in peace. I know he might have been disturbed a lot. A worthless world and ungrateful people. I wish atleast people like him do not be disturbed by these kind of things. These people wanted to make life better for everybody but they take all troubles for themselves. I can relate it to Jesus being crucified. A similar situation my guru has undergone now. Wish his soul to rest in peace. God take care of him!