Psychoblogical

Hello there,  Today I am going to blog about a topic that occurred to me because of something that our maid did.  Those of who know me well, know that I bake. A lot. And I baked a cake today too. But the reason for today's baking session was a little bit different than usual. Today I baked for our maid's son's birthday :) She has been working at our house for years now and has seen me bake numerous times. Yesterday, she asked me whether I would bake a cake for her son's birthday.  This simple request of hers turned into a long chain of thoughts in my mind. I suddenly realized that we have been pretty lucky when it comes to having 'Help at Home.' We have had two maids till now, that have impacted my life.  The first one started working with us ever since ; or in fact even before my birth. Since both my parents were working, she used to care for me. As such, she was family. Later, due to her knee-problem, she was unable to continue work. But even after that, she a...

Those of who have read my blog  http://psycho-blogical.blogspot.com/2019/07/spain-spanish-and-spaniards.html  know that I am a big fan of everything Spanish.  Today, I was missing my Spain trip a bit too much. So I decided to bring a little bit of Spain into my home.  I took it upon myself to make Churros. For those who don't know, Churros are traditional Spanish snacks that look something like this and are mostly eaten with hot Chocolate Sauce. And trust me, they are D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U.S. Now I feel there is something mysterious between Churros and Me.  Every time I have eaten Churros, a story worth telling has unfolded. Let me take you back to the first time I ate Churros. We were in Spain at the time, for a 3-week trip. We had a 'Free Day' that day, meaning we had no fixed plans. We were free to do whatever we wanted to, go wherever we wanted and explore places on our own. We were instructed to come back at an allocated point at a particular time. As per pl...

March 20,2020 marks the beginning of my quarantine life. Now this is something we never expected to happen to us and on that account, we were totally unprepared for what was to come. The current situation is grave. But all we need to do to save lives is STAY AT HOME. Although this might seem easy at first, it definitely is not. Humans, primarily being social animals, are having great difficulties maintaining their sanity in this Lock-down Period.  I, for one, am the living evidence. Albeit I have the opportunity to work from home (which takes up most of my time), I too, have moments where I crave the 'Outside'.  To curb these cravings and to keep busy, I did a few things that I am really proud of (including washing dishes, sweeping and mopping the floor, hanging the clothes for drying and the rest...😏). I would like to share these with you and may be you can share a few with me; because frankly, I am now running out of ideas 😜 Lots and lots of cook...

Hello Readers, Today I am going to write about another topic that I am really passionate about. Since a number of days, I had been thinking about penning down my thoughts on this topic. But every time I sat down to write, I felt like I couldn't do justice to the vastness and importance of it. However, a few incidents in the past days gave me a final thrust to write. As we all know, this year, rains caused havoc in a number of cities throughout the country. Mother nature showed her wrath in the form of floods. Day before yesterday, she gave yet another word of warning when she caused whopping destruction in some parts of my very own city- Pune. To the best of my knowledge, there have hardly been any instances of destruction caused by heavy rains in a city like Pune, given its geographical advantage. But then what was different this year? Mother Nature has had enough of it! That's what's different. This year, she just won't digest all the trash we dump. She w...

Hello Readers,  Today, I would like to share with you all my experience of visiting the country of my dreams - SPAIN!  Let us start from the very beginning. I wanted to learn Spanish since I was 14. However, as the saying goes- 'Better late than never'- I started learning the said language last year and Oh My! I fell head over heels in love with it! Needless to say, I was besides myself with joy when an opportunity to travel to Spain presented itself.  I was lucky enough to travel with a group of students from my institute who were equally thrilled about going to Spain. And this crazy bunch of people with limitless energy and curiosity made my travel experience a 100 times better.  _______________________________________________________________ A fair warning: I love Spain, Spaniards and the Spanish language. So I might have biased opinions.  But Spain is unlike any other place I have ever visited. Like most European countries, Spain t...

We are living in an fast-paced age where it seems like we do not have enough time for others, nor for ourselves. We are running in circles from chore to chore, living "per diem". In such a situation, it is necessary to reinforce the practice of 'Mindfulness' into our routine so as to perpetuate mental health. I say 'reinforce', because our ancestors were hitherto reaping the benefits of Mindfulness through practices such as Yogasana, Praanayam, Yoga nidra, Meditation et cetera. . . WHAT IS MINDFULNESS? Cambridge dictionary defines Mindfulness as “The practice of being aware of your body, mind, and feelings in the present moment, thought to create a feeling of calm.” In plain terms, Mindfulness is the practice of focussing on your thoughts and on the information that you receive from all of your five senses at any given moment, Broadly speaking, it is the experience of the 'here and now'. For experiment purposes, monitor thoughts. Note down ...