Monthly Archives: September 2015

6 Things Women Who Celebrate Teej Can Relate To

The country is going bright once again with women clad in their all time favorite color –Red. Haritalika teej or Teej is a festival celebrated by women to mark the union of goddess Parvati with Lord Shiva. This festival is observed for marital happiness and well being of family members. Though people from other cultural backgrounds think it’s really hard for women who celebrate teej because of the difficult fasting ritual the festival holds  , it is actually a festival women enjoy celebrating.

Listed are six things every woman who celebrates Teej loves about it.

Fun with Dar

Having Dar before the tough fasting day has its own charm. Moreover, meeting friends and relatives who are sharing similar experiences is what adds to the charm of the festival. We might have delicious food before and after, but Daar always has a special significance to women celebrating teej.

Buying and Gifting Accessories

Buying and exchanging accessories is another important part of teej. We love to embellish ourselves as well our experience sharers with beautiful accessories on this day. So our teej shopping starts a month before and sometimes even before that. After all, shopping is an art and women are masters in this art!

Unveiling the Best Traditional Look

This is the day we dress up in our best traditional attire. We might not step out of our houses but still we prefer to look our very best. Unmarried girls usually prefer red kurtas while most married women are seen in beautiful red sarees and a green tilhari that fully complements their attire.

Strict Fasting on Own Will

No matter what belief we have throughout the year about staying hungry, we love to fast on this day of the year. Some women fast without having a single drop of water while some spend the day with fruits and other pious edibles. We give up our meals for our family especially for the wellness of our husband and in return we get self satisfaction and peace of mind.

Visiting Temples 

Women queue up from midnight in Lord Shiva’s temples just to get a glimpse of Lord Shiva on this day. Most of the time women have to queue up for an entire day to keep their wishes in front of Lord Shiva. No matter how great the hardship, teej is never complete without visiting Shiva ji’s temples.

Dancing With Heart

No food to burn calories, no water to trench the thirst, yet we always have that unmatchable energy to dance our heart out on this day. This is the only day when even our mom and aunts dance like nobody’s watching and it gives us immense pleasure to watch them pour all their sorrows and happiness through their dances.

Good Deeds Through Social Media For The Lazy Ones!

The world has become quite an easy place to live in because these days we can do everything via social media- including helping poor children of developing countries, physically challenged people, war wounded soldiers and what not! Yet- it’s a different thing that we do all these virtually.

poorI have been tagged in many pictures of god and goddesses by my friends in Facebook . I would be more than happy to be tagged in such pictures if only they did not have these lines on them – “Like karo warna…”,…… “Do not close without liking or sharing or you will invite badluck”  and so on. And no doubt, I see thousands of likes, shares and comments on those pictures. It’s sure that people have done it because of the words written on those pictures. Facebook is now not just a place for social interaction but a place for worshipping god and purifying your soul through likes, helping poor through comments, praying for physically challenged through shares.

The thing that surprises me is how can a like on facebook give you good news, make your future good or avoid bad things to happen in your life? What do people think? Those posters of gods and goddesses are from heaven and the lines written on them by messengers of God? Why are we forgetting that facebook is made by Mark Zukerberg, a simple , normal human being. Have we gone so crazy with social media that we have started believing that likes and comments on social media is what shapes our future?

Lately I see all our good works have to be made visible in social media. If it is not, we have lost track or record of our own deeds. Not to mention the fact that others wouldn’t know about our great deeds at all if it’s not shared on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

A picture of an extremely poor child stricken with hunger and poverty circulates all over fb with the message, “A beautiful girl’s picture is liked by everyone, can I get a like too?” And , we fools from facebook, we like and comment on the picture as if the child has designed his picture himself and asking for love by posting his own picture on facebook. In reality, he will be the child, who has probably not even heard of Facebook ever. And here goes another post- “Don’t skip this pic if you love your mother!” Really? Now, we measure our love for our mom through Facebook’s post?

Facebook or other social media can be an extremely useful medium to share authentic information, but if all people start getting fooled by simple posts on social media, we are sure to have a pathetic future, dependent highly on social media information rather than factual information. It’s high time we filter our own posts and know where and how are we wasting our precious time. We are learning to help and work virtually and the outcomes are virtual too!

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