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Living in the moment

by Tina Basu
written by Tina Basu

Don’t you think we miss a lot every day? In this mad rush of life we overlook the small things that make things different, isn’t it? How many of us wake up in the morning, look at the morning sun and appreciate there’s a new day? How many of you sit down quietly at your favorite corner and savour your morning cuppa? How many of you enjoy the first meal of the day and feel yes I am looking forward to this day with a smile?

If you ask me – I don’t even get the time to have a proper hearty breakfast at times and before I know anything I am out of the house, somehow dressed, with comb in hand so that I can avoid the morning traffic. All brushing hair and having breakfast happens in car when I am stuck at signals. Sometimes I also wonder why I even take morning newspaper. Only days when I can read newspaper peacefully is over the weekends. Other days I get my dose of news through apps, sites, twitter – there is no dearth of news these days.


Coming back to the moments that I miss – sometimes I wish we had a more laid back life with a little more ‘me time’. I know many of us think the same. For some time now I am travelling less and working from home. And it surely has given me a great opportunity to look at life closely. Since I don’t have to travel that much I feel more rested. And you know how you are happy when you get that much wanted rest.

There are days when I wake up early to catch the first rays of sun – for a photo op or just to take in the fresh air. There are times when I look out in the distance and catch a glimpse of a colorful little bird. There are days when I actually ask myself if I am eating healthy, and take care to add some fresh fruits and nuts to a regular multigrain breakfast.

Moments when I have stopped and appreciated for being there.
The capitalistic society has changed our lifestyle and mindset – we almost have accepted our robot like life. Sometimes I wonder what was life meant to be? To spend 80% of your time for another person (I mean a corporate) and be away from your family? Or maintain a balance between your family and work? Yes we do that over weekends, we spend time with our families, relatives etc. But how do working mothers cope up in these situations? I don’t know. Do they have guilt – I am not giving enough time to my baby or I am not giving my 100% at work?  

There’s too much to think then, isn’t it? But for now I am living in the moment. I’m trying to appreciate the little things. They may look insignificant but when you closely they bring a smile to you. May be you just need to find happiness everywhere.


What do you think? Let me know. 



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I am participating in write tribe festival of words #4 Post written for DAY 3 Topic: Pledge to be aware of every moment. Focus. Appreciate.
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Break Free – You are beautiful

by Tina Basu
written by Tina Basu
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We all have fears – fears from insects, fear from heights some are also fearful of children! I have my own set of weird fears and I am sure a lot of you have some other fears too. It’s in fact futile to think that people are fearless and lead a fearless life – I mean like quite literally.

But the most dangerous fear, what I believe, is when you start fearing people, social norms, and people’s perceptions. The constant fear of ‘what are they going to think’, ‘am I good enough’, ‘I don’t fit in the so-called “normal type”’ are going to eat you up.

This fear of being judged by people is quite rampant in women. Women definitely are conscious about how they look, what they wear and there is a constant tug of war between ‘am I doing it right’, ‘am I good enough’.


I came across this startling video yesterday while browsing on the life and emotional upheaval of Taryn Brumfitt, a mother of three hailing from Adelaide. She is someone who had a perfect body but gradually became extremely insecure about how her body transformed after her pregnancies. She conducted a survey asking about 100 women – how they felt about their bodies. And the answer was shocking – almost 90 percent women answered – DISGUSTING!

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Really, is that what society and glossy magazines doing to us – believing we are disgusting just because we don’t fit the bill of having a 36-24-36 vital stats! Aren’t we supposed to be happy about who we are and how we are? Then why live in the fear about – ‘I am not perfect’ or ‘I am not beautiful?’


Taryn Brumfitt gives out a very powerful message – EveryBODY is beautiful. When you think about it deeply you will feel how true is that. As long as you are feeling healthy inside and making the healthy choices you are good. Believe in it. Feel happy about you stretch marks rather than spend sleepless nights over how am I going to remove it. Feel happy that you have a bundle of joy with you – nothing can be more precious than holding your baby in your arms. Let the questions like – ‘will I fit in my old jeans’, ‘will I get back my old shape’, ‘will I be accepted’ take a back seat.

Lady – you are beautiful – just the way you are. Struggling to change yourself to fit in a set mould and being depressed about it is not what you are meant to be. You are meant to be happy in your life. Let us not think our life as a failure let us break the fear and come alive! Let us use our creativity and create a happy life for ourselves. 


Check the video below.      

Are you insecure about anything and planning to break free? DO let me know. 


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I am participating in write tribe festival of words #4 Post written for DAY 2 Topic: Fear blocks Creativity.
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When life asks you to Restart

by Tina Basu
written by Tina Basu

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Do you sometimes get a feeling – you need to hit the restart button? As in hit the restart button of your life and lifestyle? Yes weird, I know but I do get this feeling. In fact, I have been getting it for quite some time. For a change I thought I’ll pay heed to what my mind and soul was telling me – RESTART.

For some time now I haven’t been keeping well – thanks to a very hectic schedule, loads of travel and wading through traffic – everything has been taking a toll on health. The sedentary lifestyle that we lead, rather that I am compelled to lead resulted in back pain, low hb, low blood pressure and god knows what not. It’s easy to say that we should find time to exercise and all that gyaan but in reality it’s difficult when you leave for office at 7:30AM drive for 18 km each side and get back home at 8:30 pm. After that only two important thing on your mind is food and sleep.


That is when I realized the body was shouting to just stop and block out the stress and hit the restart button. I realized there was an urgent need to get back to basics and throw out the ‘convenient lifestyle’ – if there is anything like that. And get into a path of holistic detox. No I’m not trying to sound all spa-ish and enlightened type of thing.

I’ll share just how I rebooted my system and what changes I can see in myself.

Start your day with Food

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When you lead a busy and stressful life you want things quick. You hardly have time. But this is exactly where you need to invest time. Some wise men had said “Health is wealth” it definitely is true. And if you don’t pay heed all that wealth you are accumulating will get into the bulging pockets of hospitals and nowhere else. And you know how hospitals are these days. I’ll keep my experiences with hospitals for a latter post.  

So instead of starting your day with bread butter jam and glutten laden food, packaged food – I started taking fresh cooked food – sometimes the plain poha, roti subji, fresh fruits or egg white omelets with whole wheat bread does the trick. Starting the day with heavy breakfast is a good way to charge up your metabolism. When I was younger and at home my mother always made sure I started the day with a full tummy because she knew my lunch tantrums with tiffin boxes! Mothers are always right! Heavy breakfast helps, remember that!

Keep the Junk in the Junk Yard

Lot of people might disagree with me but really I was trying to heal and detox my body from inside. We need to identify the things that only our tongues like and stomach doesn’t. I completely had cut out caffine and soda from my system. Coffee is was one of my favorite beverages and I loved my lattes and espressos, but it only dehydrates you. I am off coffee completely for a year now and I can see how much less dehydrated I am. All the black shots that I was taking to wipe off the headaches were actually the reason for them!

And yes, soda or cold drink is just not a good friend for your body – specially your teeth and bone. The earlier you realize the better.  I am off soda completely for more than 6 months now and I can live without it without any trouble.

Instead I started taking in lot of water – plain water – it’s not just like that that they say water is life. Lemon water, ginger water, honey water are all good ways of hydrating your body. All that bouts of headache have vanished without medicines. (Yes the doctors gave a huge list of tests and meds for every damn thing I asked).

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The next big thing I did was say bye to fast food chains selling chicken fries and burgers and pizzas and what not. I left that for two reasons – I am actually bored of the fries and tacos and burgers & I really don’t want to make my body suffer because of 1 minute of taste indulgence.

Now I order a pizza occasionally, I in fact like baking one myself – and because I know I am making it fresh I am much relieved. There’s actually no alternative for freshly cooked food. I never believed it before and survived on street food/ junk food for a long time. But now I can see the difference in myself. Better metabolism, better digestion and less stomach troubles!

Get closer to nature and natural products

When coming to my hair and skin – I stopped using all sorts of creams, essential oils and all that jazz. Yes they promise a lot of things but don’t deliver. I switched over to fresh aloe, coconut oil, olive oil, almond oil, natural yogurt and these perform way better than anything else available on market.  

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I still don’t get a lot of time to have a full fledged exercise routine but I started doing a lot of breathing exercise whenever I got time – while driving, in shower, while reading. Morning deep breathing has some sort of a thing that really can clean up your mind. It at least does to me.

So going back to basics and getting creative with lifestyle wasn’t too difficult a task. And I can see a lot of positive changes already in the last 7-8 months. I wonder why I had to wait till the mind and soul started signaling! It doesn’t take much to create a better life for yourself. 

Do you sometimes feel like doing this? Let me know.

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I am participating in write tribe festival of words #4 Post written for DAY 1 Topic: Can you learn to be creative
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The irresistible features of ASUS Zenfone2

by Tina Basu
written by Tina Basu
Today every Tom Dick & Harry is a gadget freak, isn’t it? Even school going kids these days are highly gadget savvy with the latest smartphones and tablets. And since most of us are very much in tune with the gadgets that we like to use, we like to get into the details in the spec division every time we are researching for the latest gadget.

Now in case you are wondering about the research thing that I just mentioned let me tell you I do a lot of research before picking up any new gadget – be it a tablet, or a smart phone or even the DSLR! These days when you have such an avid choice of options you need to do your research well to get the best for yourself. I am sure you will agree with me on that.


So what do you require in a smartphone? Since I use my smartphone like my best friend I have to be constantly connected with it. Now, in this day you just can’t be happy with ‘just a pretty phone’! More than what meets the eye you need to be careful about what goes inside.
Some features which I just can’t compromise with my smartfone is the processor and battery life. It’s actually really really frustrating when you see your smartphone hanging and not being able to take up the challenge of multi tasking. I have experienced this earlier with an android device that I owned and that made me go nuts. Similarly you feel even more frustrating with the phones that require constant charging or which makes you carry a power bank all the time in your bag. What is the use of keeping a smartphone when it just drains out the battery after two levels of Candy Crush!

I just got to know about the latest ASUS Zenfone 2 which promises quite a lot on these two features that I just mentioned. Let’s see the top 5 reasons which can make me give a thumbs up for this beauty.

SOURCE


GOOD RAM
It is supposedly the 1stsmartphone with 4GB RAM. Isn’t that like great?? ZenFone 2 is powered by an up to 2.3GHz 64-bit Intel® Atom™ Z3580 processor which means you are going to have a great gaming experience, you can play videos better and not bother about troubles of multi tasking. In short – you don’t have to wait!

BATTERY LIFE
It boasts of the new ASUS BoostMaster Technology which promises to charge the phone at double speed. So in like 39 minutes you fill in about 60% of the battery life. I can see myself enjoying a good run in the subway! (You know what I mean right?) SO that is also a thumbs up.

CAMERA
It has a 13 MP PixelMaster camera which promises great photography in low light with a f/2.0 aperture. It guarantees a 400% brighter photo in low light or night time photo. You can definitely show off some photographic skills as if you had a DSLR!

REAL TONE FLASH
This is really a nice feature in the phone. I hate when you shine like a white ghost when you are clicked with the white light flash in a smartphone! The Real Tone flash ensures you get to look human in your groupvies!

MEMORY
I like my phone with lot of space. This one has 64GB internal memory which is great for all your music and videos. I don’t like the phones that says 4GB user access memory – doesn’t make much sense.

And of course the price. It is not going to make a huge hole in my pocket. 20K is good enough budget for a premium smartphone and not that everyone wants to shell off half a Lac all the time!


So go ahead and check  http://www.asus.com/Phones/ZenFone_2_ZE551ML/. I want to experience some new possibilities with this new smartphone. Someone gift it to me!    


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Hubby Takes the #WashBucketChallenge

by Tina Basu
written by Tina Basu

Few days back I was reading an article online about men helping in day to day house hold chores. I was quite surprised to see Indian men being at the bottom of the list. According to the survey men in India spend an average of 19 mins (yeah 19 mins only) for regular routine household work daily whereas their female counter parts spend 298 minutes a day for the same. That’s like insanely disproportional. Most cooperative men are probably from Slovenia & France! Hats off to you guys.


Now coming back to Indian men, is house hold chores only a woman’s job because she is a women? Even in this age? Even after she goes out to work and contributes equally to the average income of the household?

Men can chip in doing simple things if not too much – like dusting or even laundry! Women also need to concentrate on their jobs and even travel for work. I have been lucky enough to get a man who understands me and my work schedule. And I must say he is very co-operative and hands on with the household chores when ever required leaving aside the so called male ego from which a lot of men suffer. When you are in a nuclear family and you have to run the show and make the house look decent (at least) you need both to work towards that.

So we have divided our division of labour and perform our duties. We do swap them too once in a while.

These days who washes clothes in a bucket or by hand? Most families use washing machines. So the pain of laundry is relatively easy. All you need is a good matic detergent powder and the will to help your wife!

So when I asked Indro to take up the #WashBucketChallenge he was more than happy to take it up. We segregate used clothes in anyways so that you don’t have too many whites with colored clothes. (You never know when which t shirt might start to bleed!) So it was easy for him to dump the clothes in the machine. He used the new Ariel Matic powder and after half an hour of quick wash our clothes were clean and soft. He was also kind enough to put them out to dry. That is what I feel is chivalrous in a man when he wants to help out his lady in every way possible. You don’t need to do a lot, you just need to have the will!



Now what is so wrong about sharing the load of household chores and don’t men do it regularly? You are also living in the same household, why not do some work for the house too? When you start living on your own you realize how much does it take to run a house even when you have a house help and a cook. So gentlemen come forward and #ShareTheLoad with your women. It doesn’t take too much and you can enjoy your TV too! Let’s work towards breaking this gender stereotyping in our society and equally participate in running the house.


 ‘This post is a part of the #WashBucketChallenge activity at BlogAdda.com is association with Ariel India‘

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Check our Mrs. Gupta’s yummy breakfast Ideas

by Tina Basu
written by Tina Basu
Which is the most important meal of the day? Breakfast we all know it. But isn’t it true that we tend to skip it most of the times when we are running late for college or for work?

When I was a kid I remember my mom giving me an earful every time I suggested I’ll grab something in college and not have the breakfast at home. You know how it is friends and canteen etc! But yeah now when you are running a family yourself you know how important this meal of the day is. A good hearty breakfast not only ensures a good start of the day for your body but your mind too. It gives the right push for the metabolism for your body.

And all you guys who are sweating it out to lose weight disclaimer – don’t skip breakfast, eat good healthy breakfast you will help your body to digest fast and lose some weight! How about that!

Now I have been a fussy eater myself and often I find myself eating some poha or sandwich at the office canteen. But aren’t breakfast cereals just that friend you need in the busy mornings? Pour some milk may be add some nuts and you are ready to eat?

Kellogg’s cornflakes have been a friend for a long time now. The most convenient way to get that start of the day. Grab a bowl, pour some cold milk , some cornflakes and my healthy breakfast is ready. I sometimes have it with curd and also mouth it while I’m driving to work.

But did you know there are many ways you can enjoy your morning cornflakes. You can use Kellogg’s cornflakes in many different ways. Kellogg’s Wale Mr. Gupta ji’s kitchen is what you need to look for the same.


Visit their You Tube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/kelloggindia and you will be surprised to see the host of recipes that are there to use your morning cornflakes in different innovative ways.

I am listing down 5 of them below check the easy recipes which you can recreate anytime.


Strawberry and Banana Cornflakes – Jagah Banane Wala Nashta 

Cornflakes Crumble Mango Custurd – Razz Kholne Wala Nashta 

Very Strawberry Cornflakes – Badmashi Wala Nashta

 

Some of these recipes are so drool worthy that I want to try two of them very very soon. Infact, I have strawberries in my refrigerator, and thinking of making the very strawberry cornflakes tomorrow for breakfast. How about that?

Our Kellogg’s wale Mrs. Gupta has conjured up 100 delicious quick recipes using cornflakes – it ranges from payasam to custard and faloodas too. So all you people with a palate for Indian sweets can also check them out on you tube and recreate them. And I have already told you my plans! Check their FB page for updates too – https://www.facebook.com/anaajkanashta 

This post is written for https://www.facebook.com/anaajkanashta and https://www.youtube.com/user/kelloggindia.



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