Netra's Insights

From the time I started helping my mother cut the vegetables in the kitchen, we had a vegetable chopper with its handle fixed at one end and moving at other, due to which it was easy to chop. After getting married, I bought the same kind of this equipment (in a different colour off course) which made cooking part of my life easier.

As the chopper was made of food grade plastic , recently due to lot of awareness on microplastics entering due to such boards , I replaced this crucial tool to a wooden board and a kitchen knife which was used to cut only tomatoes. Initial days of switching was very difficult. I was not used to cut hard veggies or greens using the knife and cut myself many a times. The stability of balancing it in my left hand and cutting squares of onions was a mess. I thought that I would never have passed that dicing test in MasterChef. I was tempted to go back to my old board but gave it some time. Days passed, months passed, slowly steadily I got used to it and can dice veggies like a pro now.

Our lives are also similar to the above situations. When we are under our parents (one handle fixed), life situations are easier. Get married, your spouse will support you the same way (most of the times :)) . But there comes a point in life where you need to overcome an instance all by yourself without any support. Everything appears to be scattered and messy at first but give it time, you will get the hang of it. Not in case of emergency situations but there are some gradual battles which are needed to be fought alone.

Time and patience solves half the problems. Whenever you are in an uncomfortable situation, remember: “It is not difficult, it is just new”. Until next time 🙂

There is a 100% probability that I will get mixed reviews for this post. We Indians are extremely sensitive about the concept of God. From a tender age, we are thought to pray to God, expressing the gratitude for His blessings everyday, before sleeping for providing the basic necessities which half of the World cannot afford: food, shelter and clothing.

It is imbibed from a young age to thank the almighty for all the comforts in life and keep us patient during the worst times as “This too shall pass”. I would not define myself as an atheist or a theist. I was always somewhere in between. During the bad times, it is very difficult to digest the fact that our God is making us go through this phase for our past karmas and the constant question of “Why me?” arises. No one wishes to be in a life threatening accident or a small kid suffering with cancer or a young women getting molested on road; none of them wanted to be in such situation. These are just random events not in our control and that we are destined to pass these events in our timelines.

Atheist side: There is no evidence/empirical data till date which shows us the proper form of God. It is all built in our minds. The way Einstein has given us the formula of E = MC2 on how the matter is converted into energy , similarly our thoughts are converted into reality. What we visualize or think is what happens. Many experiments have proven this fact. If someone gives you a water injection telling you that they are injecting you with snake venom, your mind will create the same chemical composition of poison in the body. Mind over matter always. All the atoms and molecules can be manifested as we desire; the law of attraction. Think good, good happens else vice versa. It is all physics.

Religious side: We can’t see God but He exists, the same way as we can’t see love but it transcends all the time and space in the universe. There is a quote in the series “Young Sheldon” where he being an atheist quotes this: “It’s just that gravity is precisely as strong as it needs to be. And if the ratio of the electromagnetic force to the strong force wasn’t one percent, life wouldn’t exist. What are the odds that would happen all by itself?”, indicating that there is a Creator above us. Someone has chosen this life for us, and that we have to play our part.

I can’t speak for all but I have sailed in both the boats my whole life. Now I have come to terms where neither do I blame the creator for my misfortune nor do I thank Him for the happiest moments. All the situations I am in or circumstances, are mine and mine alone. I am responsible for both the good and bad parts. 10 percent of the religiousness left inside of me does not fear God, I speak to Him as a friend now, “See I have done my part, now whatever happens I am prepared for it”. Our Bhagavat Gita states the same. As you sow, so you reap.

Synonymously, as there is a thin line between love and hate, same way it is between existence and non-existence. Our ancestors have explained to us everything in simple terms about energies and manifestations in lines with different Gods/Hymns. It is for us to understand how far we will adapt the original scripts or modify it according to our convenience.

Disclaimer: No intention to hurt anyone’s feelings/sentiments. Purely my thoughts.

I start writing based on any one of our emotions. Today’s is anger and frustration. So brace yourselves; it’s on one of the most common superstitions of our country : (drum roll) ta-da.. left-handedness. I am in my native attending one of the functions. As pure hearted as I am (sorry sounds a bit narcissistic), I was serving the guests an afternoon meal when an orthodox aunty suggested me that it’s impure to serve with left hand and the Naivedhya oota (God blessed food) needs to be served with right hand. I explained to her that my right hand shivers if I hold the ladle in my right hand for longer but she gave me ‘n’ number of non-required advices. Being the kind of sensitive lady, I cried a bit thinking “Oh God!! Either give these people some wisdom or send them to hell ” . Then I thought of an old Lord Buddha story that you are the one who gets hurt if you punch the rock/wall. Hence I acted upon that and thought of sharing it with you lovelies.

I am born left-handed. Neither my father (God bless his soul) nor my mother tried to change my dominant hand after I developed the dexterity. I love them for that because I have heard many cases where the parents have forced their left-handed child to write with the right hand as the other is inauspicious. My parents didn’t even force me to eat with right hand. There is common belief that you wash your bum with left hand , so it is considered to be dirty. There are many folklores which believed that left-handedness is evil and lefties were killed due to the same reason. No wonder our population is less.

The survival of a south paw in the right dominant world is so difficult. Scissors are designed differently, the drafters used for mechanical drawings, the knives etc. You might think I will talk next about the famous left handed celebrities and how our IQ is more than yours but no. Just wanted to highlight on the everyday problems we face and the stare in the restaurants when we eat pasta, upma with our dominant hand. My mother alleviated my problem by teaching me to hand eat with right so that I face a less ridicule. Fun part in school is that you will always get a left seat else there will be constant elbow bumping :). As you age, when you deep clean your house and the left hand swells or numbs, you are not sure whether it is a heart attack condition or the normal hand aches.

There is no scientific or empirical evidence on the fact that left-handed people die sooner. Maybe using the right handed devices, they do. On the lighter part, I like the attention I get while writing from all ages asking “Are you lefty?” till now and the kind comments saying ,”You are lucky/rare!!”. I still remember our 10th grade teacher Geetha Raj ma’am saying “Left handed people have the ability to use both sides of the brain, so they are both analytical and creative” . One inspirational statement stays with you throughout lifetime. Its like watering plants. Wow.. writing is so therapeutic. My emotions toggled to happiness now. And to all the remnant old aunties/uncles who think ill about left hand , I wish that God grants you some brain in the prawn head of yours. See you all soon 🙂

This is my first blog. Being a movie buff, I wanted to write something about the movie series which inspired me the most , “Batman begins”. I have many analogies similar to batman’s life. Compared to him , our lives seem to be simpler. He had to travel to the rocky snow clad mountains to train himself from his master whereas we (as in the dark knights of IT) have to commute in the extremely crowded buses to office which make you question your life choices.

The monkey mind pendulums on why are you working so hard on the left to financial independence, materialistic gains on the right. It is not easy to balance the work – life parameters in your late thirties where you are in neither nor state. Boom, the midlife crisis kicks in early like all the other things. Especially when you a woman with a kid whom you want to provide nutrition and not feed outside junk food and managing a full time IT job which gradients to weekend sometimes. I mean how can you be sane with all this juggling. The third and the most crucial factor are your hormones; the pre and post menstrual ones. If you calculate the number of days when you are happy and positive in the 28 days cycle , it amounts to only around 7 days. Like a moon , you go through so many sinusoidal changes.

As a certified yoga instructor myself, even though I try all my breathing exercises sometimes the anxiousness just kicks in. And the social media projects everything to be perfect which puts you further into inferiority complex. But such is life. Whenever I feel like rotting on couch (which I seldom do), I think about my non-stop blood pumping heart and get going.

One factor or life lesson which I am completely sure of is that Life is very random, in all the situations. Whatever you are doing right now might not be fruitful in present but at the end it all makes sense. And as mentioned by Alfred , “Why do we fall , sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up”. So any moment, whenever you feel sad, think about this quote: If the problem has a solution, then why worry and if it doesn’t then why worry.

PS: At the start I mentioned that I wanted to write about Batman analogies but went completely off road in the second paragraph. That’s what happens right? You started with something and end up with something else. Until next time 🙂

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Welcome to WordPress! This is a sample post. Edit or delete it to take the first step in your blogging journey. To add more content here, click the small plus icon at the top left corner. There, you will find an existing selection of WordPress blocks and patterns, something to suit your every need for content creation. And don’t forget to check out the List View: click the icon a few spots to the right of the plus icon and you’ll get a tidy, easy-to-view list of the blocks and patterns in your post.