Love and Romance

We all know the essence of love and the 'three letters I L U' in our life. Love is usually on a budding stage in the beginning and later it reaches the matured stage. I am somewhere in between these two boundaries. I didn't know the exact meaning of love until I met my man. He taught me the romantic love that exists between us today.

This happened just couple of years back when we first time met each other on an arranged marriage - date. On a fine Sunday morning I received a big email from a guy who got my email address from my Mother. This happened only after the initial horoscope matching and family screening which was done by our families. He wrote a very big email to me and his words and his thoughts were free flowing. He never mentioned in his email about how I look or what he feels about me. He wrote only about himself, his family, his principles towards the life etc. But one could easily make out that he was quite attached with his family. He is not only a caring and sensitive person but he is a bit emotional too. He somehow requested me to meet up for an official date. I was bit reluctant to meet someone directly without knowing any thing about him like his taste, his interests, I didn't even know how he talks. So, I replied to him saying that I want to talk to him on the phone and we can take it from there. Initial conversations were mostly formal stuff like what are we doing currently, what are our lifetime goals etc. We found some kind of connection between us and we hit it off!

After two weeks the big day was going to arrive. I was pretty tensed meeting a guy for the marriage alliance. We met on a dinner date evening at a fantastic restaurant. It had a decent candle light setting for people who were dating. We didnt' talk much while eating and we just decided to meet tomorrow. Next day we went out for doing some fun stuff that I liked. I live near by the ocean, so I asked if it was okay to go for Jet skiing. He didn't know swimming yet but he said he trusts me with that. I was shocked to hear that. Anyways, we did jet skiing and we strolled on the beach for the rest of the time. After the sunset we had a coffee date and right at that time he asked me if I could go for a dinner again! I was feeling comfortable now and I said okay no problem. After dinner when we were talking he suddenly said " I feel I am falling in love with you !" I was taken a back. My reaction was " Are you kidding me? you don't even know me much" He didn't speak after that but his eyes were talking now. " I think if you come into my life, it will lit up my entire life" By that time we had actually known enough about each other and we weren't just dating but we met each other with a purpose in our mind. I feel we don't really have to search for love, it just comes to us and fate gives us signals which we need to identify.

But I took some time to identify this signal. After second day he went back to his city and we got busy with our work and daily routine. He waited for me to call him first.

"Hi, are you busy?" I asked him.

"No, not really. What's up" he asked me.

" You said that you are falling in love with me, is this true or you were trying to impress me" I asked him.

He smiled and asked me " What do you think? I have known about you since last one month. I always have this feeling to keep on talking to you till the end of my life. I feel peace and tranquility in our relationship. You tell me what do you think is love?"

"Well, I think Love is something that happens between two individuals and that results into marriage."

"Not quite right. Love is a feeling of deep attachment and affection between two individuals. It is about liking a person even when he is in his worst mood. It is understanding a person and giving him unconditional support. I wanted to give you enough time to know me."

"I feel you can be a right partner to me. I know we met as an arranged marriage match but here I am proposing to you. Will you be my girlfriend first, fiancée next and wife later?"

"Hmm.. I don't know what to say" I was thinking for a minute.

"Can you say something, I am still on my knees" He said. It was right at that moment I fell in love with him too. I know it is dramatical but after knowing all this about him I knew that I was making a right decision in my life.

I said yes to him and things proceeded in our families and we got married within 4months of this incident. I am very lucky to find my love like this and hope to carry the same feelings throughout my life.

Facebook fanpage of Preeti Chenoy, author of Life is what you make it.

Blogadda's page http://blog.blogadda.com/2011/02/09/stages-of-love-blog-contest

Just a call away !

Some incidents happen in our life which we cannot forget. Some memorable moments where we feel like we are reborn but do not have a valid explanation. What can we say about such moments? Are they illusion of our mind or has it really happened? I have to take you over to my childhood days when this incident actually happened.

It was summer vacation in my school and as usual I was persistently requesting my parents to take me to a new place. They were kind enough to fulfill my request and they booked our tickets to Puri, Orissa. We were going to spend one week of time in Orissa to visit various places and the beach ! I was 8yrs old but I still remember that day. We had visited the famous Lord Jagganath temple in Puri. This place is famous for its annual rath yatra in which the three main temple deities are hauled on decorated chariots. After visiting the temple and praying to lord jagannatha we decided to go to the beach for sometime and spend the evening.

It was a very wonderful day with lots of sunshine, birds were chirping and the cool breeze near the ocean was very pleasant. The whole atmosphere near the Puri beach was alluring. This is one of the best beach destination in the eastern coastline of India. I decided to make a palace with the mud near the shores and I got busy with that activity. My father decided to take a holy dip in the ocean and then swim amidst the ocean waves.

By the end of the evening, it started getting dark and the ocean waves were raging. We could absolutely hear the roaring sound of the waves even if you are near the shores. By this time me and My mom were tired with building my mud palace. We started looking for my Dad but we couldn't see him anywhere. My mom started panicking and she started screaming for my dad. I was a child and when I saw my mom in this situation I started crying very badly. It was difficult for my mom to manage me and handle the situation. At a distance inside the ocean we saw him waving his hands to us. He didn't realize much but he went bit deep inside the ocean where the waves had actually start forming. Those waves were full of rage and my father was getting pushed back by the waves. He made his best attempts of swimming but he couldn't succeed in front of these waves. Meanwhile me and my mom were screaming at the top of our lungs. My mom requested nearby people to go and help him to come out. But those people didn't know swimming either. Moreover, it was getting dark so people were going back to their hotels.

After around twenty minutes of trying my father almost lost his hope of coming back and he was actually getting drowned slowly in the ocean water. At this moment me and my mom didn't know what to do and we started praying to Lord Jagannatha. We left all our hopes to him and started chanting the divine songs and shlokas. My mom started requesting to the lord "Hey Lord, we came here with lot of hopes and getting blessed from you. Please save my husband. We don't know whom to approach at this peek time. Please dear Lord, if at all our prayers are reaching you, then save my husband !". Even my father who was struggling to come out of the ocean started to pray to the Lord and for a min he didn't do much efforts to come out of the ocean as he thought that he won't be able to reach the shore now. Of course his prayers were different than ours. He prayed for our well being after his departure. We both closed our eyes and were praying to the sun and to the Lord. But my father who was still the water experienced a sudden jerk to his body. It was kind of like a little push that encouraged him to fight back with the waves. He was suddenly pulled towards the shores by wind or by his own efforts, it was not clear. But in few moments the waves themselves starting pushing my father towards the shores and the whole story was different now.

Was it by chance? Was it fate? Or was it the dear Lord himself? All we could say is that finding God is never so easier. But we realized that when we actually experience the presence of God, our lives become perfect. We all hugged each other and I couldn't stop crying. When we opened our eyes we didn't find God, but we knew that he was there standing with us near the ocean - Smiling and saying "Whenever you need me, I am just a call away !"

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The Social Network

This story is based on a real life incident

This post has received appreciation from Blogadda:

"Varsha has addressed a very real concern in today’s world where people seem to live virtual lives. While we all know that it is important to be careful while making “friends” online, as Varsha rightly says, better safe, than sorry – be cautious what you say. Because the internet has the good, the bad and sometimes the very ugly. Very good read, Varsha! Keep writing."

I am sure many people have read the incidents related to cyber crime or internet stalking. But I want to narrate a real life incident related to this.

This incident happened at the time when the social networking sites had just emerged in the internet world. People were getting used to the sites like orkut, facebook and other sites like Google sites etc. I was living in a shared accommodation with my friends. One of my friend was bit naive for this internet and world wide web and she decided to open her account in these websites. I was bit reluctant though for creating my account. I asked her the advantages of using this online social site.

"Well for starters we get to know where our old buddies are and we can get in touch with them", she said. I agreed to this. " Next is we can share our thoughts and feelings and also this gives us a chance to connect with some new people you see", she said. Well for me I don't need new people in my life through internet. I don't even know where they are located and I feel these kind of relationships sucks. I thought for me its a bad idea so I wasn't still convinced about creating my account.

"Hey see this.. I made 10 new friends online", she told me one day. She showed their info and what they were doing. Couple of them shared their email ids with my friend and she had already added them in her yahoo messenger. I warned her that it might not be so safe to chat with some unknown person. But she didn't care about my words and she started creating her detailed profiles and shared her personal information as well.

She told me about a guy who is interested in her. She was talking to him online since one month and she felt like she is falling in love with him - ONLINE !! After couple of days she told me that she was going for a date. It was with the same guy whom she met online. She didn't know about the guy much and that was their first official meeting. I saw her laptop and found out where she was going. Somehow, I sensed some danger and I went out with couple of my friends to the place where she was supposed to meet him. When I went there I found out that she was made to take drugs at a local pub and the guy with whom she was hanging out had all her belongings. She was in an unconscious state when he took her inside a hotel, we immediately informed the cops who came to the site within couple of mins and we were able to track him down ! They came to know that the guy was a local city resident who is a criminal. He used to trap pretty girls in the pub and allegedly raped them and stole their belongings.

We all were so relieved that our friend was safe. Later, I found out that she was too much into the networking sites and she had made so many online friends and shared all her information. The guy had come to know that she is alone and looking for a new relationship. She used to post all her pictures in the profile album which anyone could access. We traced couple of fraud profiles who were using her photos to do illegal things like prostitution. She felt a deep remorse for what happened due to the misuse of the social networking sites. This was an eye opening incident for all the girls in our group.

Social networking is the invention that has attracted many youths and adults in this generation. They bring all kinds of people from any race or religion in one place and let them interact. But as we know, every coin has two sides. The negative shades we can find in using this technology is online dating, free broadcast of news that can be used by others to blackmail you, scams & harassment etc. We should be very careful while posting our information on these sites. Nowadays, because of the security reason the sites provide good features like you have the control on allowing people to view your information. You can block anonymous people in getting your information. There are eyes everywhere on the internet. The content you post is read by many people so its our responsibility to make sure that we restrict people reading all the information.

Moreover, stuff like online dating and building relationships is crap. We don't even know the person who is talking to us is giving a genuine information. Unfortunately, the internet has made it easy for individuals to claim to be someone they are not. This not only leads to disappointment when we find out, it could also lead to danger. We cannot foresee what is going to happen but at least we can prevent ourselves by not falling on any of these traps. We should realize that there is no truth in online dating.

There are many youngsters out there these days who make online friends and find online dating interesting. They make new friends by accepting friend requests sent by people who have joined same community or just anonymously they find your profile. Please be very sure before adding any anonymous person, since he is going to get all your personal info like name, email address, place etc. Also, keeping identity theft in mind we should not be providing all our personal details on our profile. There are so many people involved in stealing identity and making use of that in all types of illegal activities that might cause added trouble.

So people, stay online but be safe ! Remember its always better to be safe than sorry !!!!

This article is written for "Good over bad" contest at BlogAdda.
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The Swimmer..

Childhood days are very special for everyone. Now when I look back to my childhood days I feel they are like the golden days of my life. Those were the carefree days where we used to do whatever we like. We don't worry about homeworks, assignments.. parents are there to take care about those things ! Whenever I sit and ponder about my childhood days, many memories come rushing. But here in this post I want to describe about my favorite sport "Swimming" and how I started liking this sport.

In summer vacations, we all cousins used to camp at our uncle's place. We used to do some fun everyday right from playing indoor games to mountain climbing etc. One day to our surprise our Uncle took everyone near a
well. He tied me with a tin box and made me to jump into the well. I was not able to swim properly. I struggled to go touch the other side and come back. He promised everyone that he will take us for an ice cream. We all were almost 6-8yrs and hence got tempted by the ice cream. I was scared in the well and I got partially drowned. I was fainting and struggling to spend a quality time in the water. I cried and came back.

I mentioned this incident to my father after the vacation was over and I told him that I want to swim like he does. My father knew swimming and he knew how to teach swimming to kids without making them scared. I was about 10yrs at that time and I made up my mind to learn swimming. He took me to a nearby swimming pool. I was very excited at that time. I got a new pair of swimming dress and swimming goggles. When i saw the pool I decided on that day, I am going to learn swimming and enjoy this sport lifelong. My father taught me why swimming is essential to learn and how people cut down on lot of outdoor activities just because they don't know swimming. He was my swimming teacher at that time and I listened to him. First day was cool, he taught me how to kick and taught me how to hold and release my breathe inside the water. My eyes were burning little bit on first day but i totally enjoyed swimming. When i came back home i was very tired but I wanted to thank my dad for teaching me how to SWIM. In next few days I was able to swim properly but my father wanted me to swim fast. He was timing my laps and was boosting me to swim fast. But I wasn't picking up my speed. He told me not to loose hope and taught me some techniques which will help me to move faster. I was going to participate in the inter-club swimming competition for the first time.

On the day of the competition I was very nervous but my father's face and his enthusiasm was giving me some power. I completed my lap in very short time and won my first ever swimming competition. I was very happy. Later when i met my father with the medal i gave him a letter with a note.

Swimming is all about moving within the water,

moving at the speed of the motor boat,

I have decided I will swim faster like the dolphin,

And always be a good swimmer like you want me to be.

I learnt many other swim strokes like breast stroke, back stroke, diving etc. I am glad that I learn't swimming which is the best exercise and a complete body workout.

Thanks to Blogadda I revisited my childhood memories.

This post is written for Blog-Adda's "sporting memories contest"

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Breast cancer awareness month

October month is declared as the national breast cancer awareness month. The main mission is to save lives by increasing awareness of the disease. I wrote this post as a part of Blogadda's online breast cancer awareness campaign.

What is a breast cancer ?

Breast cancer is a malignant tumour that grows in one or both of the breasts. It usually develops in the ducts or known as the milk producing area in the breast. Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women.

Types of breast cancer

Breast cancer is divided into two main catagories - noninvasive cancer and invasive cancer. It is known that estrogen and progesterone play a role in developing breast cancer. In breast cancer, estrogen causes doubling of cancer cells in every 36hours.

Breast cancer screening and early detection is very helpful. Early detection results into earlier diagnostics. I believe one day there will be less breast cancers and more birthdays. Many of my friends and myself are supporting the cause by running or donating. Hope it brings a smile on many faces this year who will be saying bye to their breast cancer.

Lets all support the campaign in this month and bring change in our lives. For more information about breast cancer you can go through NBCA website.

Indusladies. com is conducting an online breast cancer awareness campaign during the month of october. As a part of the campaign there are awareness quiz, fundraising, prevention videos, discounts on mammography etc. I am spreading their message through my blog.

Lets say bye bye to breast cancer.