GSCTM CRESCENDO

GSCTM

CRESCENDO A NEWSLETTER OF GOREGAON SPEAKERS COMMUNITY TOASTMASTERS CLUB

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Contents

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27 29 31 33 34 38 39

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President's address Past President's address Celebrate each moment - Akshay Singh Editorial: To be or not to be Editorial Team Executive Committee Hall of Fame Member Achievements Insta glance Theme - at a glance Special events Do you want to be unstoppable? -Ruchi A reason to celebrate life.- Trusha Life is a celebration.-"Only when you realize it" - Sayed Arafath Journey of a thousand miles.- Piyush Khadgi You are a product.- Piyush Khadgi Life is a celebration- Prajakta Jadhav Life is a celebration- Ravi Kalwar Life is a celebration- Vrinda Mulik Visual Memories Contact us.

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President's Address - Mohnish Dukhande “Leaders are made, they are not born.�

- Vince Lombardi

This quote by Vince Lombardi has been proved correct yet again in our GSC club. I thank all members of the GSC club for providing me the opportunity to lead the club for the current term.

I started my toastmaster journey in April 2017 all I wanted was to improve my written communication skills, as I had received feedback from my manager during my year-end appraisal and I know each one of you will be having your one reason. Back then I had never thought I would take any leadership role, forget about becoming President of the club.

Such is the magic of investing time in toastmasters that you will get a lot without even realizing it. With every passing year my learning, networking, leadership, communication, emotional quotient has improved.

Please be aware I had my shares of being regularly irregular in meetings but mentors came to my rescue all the time, helping me to come back after dealing with professional and/or personal priorities. I encourage each of you to find multiple mentors in your journey be it toastmasters or professional or personal life.

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President's Address - Mohnish Dukhande

Let us all envision our club to be an opportunity laboratory where each one of us gets the opportunity to experiment and explore a different aspect of leadership and communication. Remember our club is our place to experiment and succeed or learn after failures with the safety net of our supporting and encouraging members. Please feel free to share your idea, suggestion, or critical feedback to help, innovate the way we conduct meetings. Remember I can't , you can't but we can. Together we can achieve greater heights of success.

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Past President's Address - Akshay Singh

Greetings Toastmasters and guests, wish you all a wonderful start to our new decade !! GSC Club and its members are part of my amazing yet challenging

journey

during

the

pandemic.

People around say this was a life-changing moment for them but for me, it has been a learning experience that made me better and helped me achieved team goals and mine too. Well moving from a physical setup for our new club to an online club was a tedious adaptation but thank you for supporting and helping realize the dream. Today GSC Club is not only thriving online but is one among those clubs whose members make a mark in the community such that it feels proud to be a member of GSC Toastmasters Club. Our first President Ranjini always felt the club had huge potential and in the last six months together we have won so many accolades.

Congratulations members for completing 1 year since we officially got chartered on 17th January 2020. Twelve months and the progress each club member has made over these months is amazing. Let us continue to thrive on this momentum and make GSC Club one of the best clubs. I am humbled to receive many appreciations for our club from members of the Toastmasters Community.

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Past President's Address - Akshay Singh Supportive and enthusiastic team members that played the role of mentors coach and buddies during the six months as club executive officers, I thank you all for believing in me and walking the leadership journey along with me. My team comprised - Ranjini and Tapas my mentors and guide, energetic members Saurabh and Mohnish ready to take head-on any challenge that comes their way, Shreaya and Vishal who supported and helped when I reached out to them. Mumbai Community Toastmasters and District Officers that helped our club and supported I thank you all. One's role in a journey can change but the journey never ends. I wish each member of the GSC Club to enjoy their Toastmasters Experiential Journey to the fullest. Toastmaster by passion, leader by choice, and a proud member of GSC Club.

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Celebrate each moment - Akshay Singh It is the year 2021, the first year of our next decade. New year resolutions and new year messages all I could come across while swiping through the social media application. We are celebrating, great for us and perhaps great for our well being. But have you wondered sometimes "A birth-date is a reminder to celebrate the life as well as to update the life" Indeed a majority of us have our life's moments uploaded as posts on these applications?

These posts act as memories that we share with our friends and loved ones for them to like comment tag and share. Sometimes to be reminded of these good moments and celebrate.

Well, today I will urge you to let us celebrate each moment that makes you happy, in fact even celebrate the moments where you are part of someone else's celebratory moment.

Let me elaborate on why I say this. Toastmasters teaches us about camaraderie with club members, mentors, mentees, or coaches. Then why we only celebrate the moments where we achieve something, or we won a contest or even perhaps the best speaker award?

You should celebrate such moments not only for yourself but also celebrate such moments in the journey of your club members your strength, mentors your support and guide, mentees whom you help, and with whom you share your learnings. Why not celebrate their achievements with them?

Let us foster camaraderie to such heights where we not only have just a few moments to post about on social media as memories but we have an abundance of them. So when you look back you have your memories and memories you shared with others to celebrate.

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Celebrate each moment - Akshay Singh

Celebrate each moment, do upload them, and tag your friends. Let not only a birthdate or anniversary date remind of these celebratory moments but the people with whom you celebrated.

Let Toastmasters' camaraderie be a reason for you to celebrate each moment from this point in time. Not just be happy for your mentee's win but celebrate that moment, don't just post a birthday wish for your club members but group call them and celebrate, reach out to mentor and celebrate as their learnings helped you today be helpful to your mentees and celebrate that moment.

People of our time are losing the power of celebration let us reignite this power back within us, celebrate each moment!

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Editorial : To be or not to be - Saurabh Patel “To be or not to be, that is the question.�

- William Shakespeare

At the onset, let me clear misconceptions that may have creep-ed up into your minds looking at this title. I have not read Hamlet nor am I a Shakesphere fan. Although I have heard these famous words "To be, or not to be." These were opening lines of a soliloquy by Prince Hamlet in the play when he contemplates whether to continue living or die. I believe we all delve into similar dilemmas at micro-level whenever we contemplate whether to celebrate or not. I am not referring only to the big milestones or big events but to every moment of life. The present moment we live in is inevitable. But we do have a choice - "To be or not to be." If we choose to be, we live the moment fully. If we choose not to be fully alive, we face the death of that moment. To those who choose "To be" life is indeed a celebration.

We all have embarked upon this journey of Toastmasters for various reasons like improving communication or leadership skills, remove the fear of communications, socialize with people, or just having fun. Whatever be your reason, you can get most of it only if you grab as many opportunities as you can. When the opportunity to submit articles came up, many members grabbed them. I appreciate the efforts of members who have contributed articles aligning so well with the theme. Writing requires us to think, organise our thoughts and pen them down and all contributors have taken a step forward in learning this skill.

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Editorial : To be or not to be - Saurabh Patel We have an interesting range of articles this time. Ruchi reveals the secret to be unstoppable by improving our lives day by day, Trusha writes about finding a reason to celebrate no matter what the situation, Syed talks about living consciously. Piyush has contributed two articles, he describes start of journey of a thousand miles in one article and talks about how we are becoming a product in another. Prajakta writes about togetherness being true essence of celebration, Ravi talks about celebrating those small achievements and moments which we often overlook, Vrinda so vividly describes a Maharashtrian wedding.

My gratitude to the editorial team comprising of Prajakta and Syed. They have put in efforts to collect, collate and review the articles from our members. I thank past President Akshay Singh for giving me the opportunity to be the editor of Crescendo for its second release. I hope our club's achievements keep crescendoing to new heights under the able leadership of current president Mohnish.

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Editorial Team

Prajakta Jadhav

Syed Arafath

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Executive Committee

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Hall of Fame

Club Growth Statistics 11 Annual renewals 10 New members added 9 Meeting Posters on Meetup 121 Members on FB group 100 + Members on Guest Group 202 Followers on Instagram

Gladiator Award Positions Sept = 293 (2nd in BMS Divisions Mumbai) Oct = 474.32 (4th in BMS Divisions Mumbai) Nov = 506.92 (5th in BMS Divisions Mumbai)

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Member Achievements Distinguished Toastmaster Award

Ranjini Rao, DTM

Tapas Saha, DTM

Triple Crown Award

Mohnish Dukhande

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Member Achievements Kaliedoscope District Contest Winners

Club Contest winners

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Member Achievements Level 2

Level 3

Mohnish Dukhande Leadership Development

Akshay Singh Effective Communication

Level 1

Saurabh Patel Dynamic Leadership

Vrinda Mulik Presentation Mastery

Manoj Arora Presentation Mastery

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Member Achievements Club Growth Manager Extended Team member

Smedley Award

Akshay Singh

Ranjini Rao, DTM

Area Director

Branding Champion

Represented Club in Kahani contest

Mohnish Dukhande

Saurabh Patel

Vrinda Mulik

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Insta - glance

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Theme - glance 22 Turning Point 23 Raining Luck 24 Do What You Love 25 MILESTONE 26 7 Habits of Highly Effective 27 Swatantra Minds 28 Independence Day 29 Know Your Biases 30 TV Shows and Its Impact 31 Toastmasters Contest 32 #MyWHY Speechathon 33 Listen to heart and Follow your dreams 34 How to make friends and Influence People 35 Champions Among US 36 Lets Learn German 37 It is a Celebration 38 Lead the Club 39 Jugaad 40 Thank God Its December 41 Christmas Special Meeting 43 2020 Binary

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Special Events

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Do you want to be unstoppable ?

- Ruchi The combination of will power, selfdiscipline, along

and with

mental

toughness

marginal

daily

improvement is required to bring the tremendous change we always desire.

If we combine these traits, we become unstoppable and nothing can stop us from attaining the goals we set for ourselves.

Let’s talk in detail about this.

Will Power is the ability to restrain natural impulses and delay pleasure. It simply means to look at the long-term benefits rather than short-term pleasures.

Self-discipline is the ability to control oneself and be consciously productive at things we do.

It is a skill to control and motivate yourself, stay on track, and do what is right.

Mental toughness refers to the idea of being able to push past failures by remaining positive and competitive. It also involves training and preparing oneself to be mentally ready for whatever challenge comes our way.

Humans are born to excel and they have the potential to get things done. If that’s true, I wonder how many of us can maintain our resolutions? A student always aims to score marks and excel. A professional has his own goals. The question is how many of us can perform and get whatever we set for ourselves.

What stands between us and achieving our ambitious goals has far less to do with possessing some kind of skill or talent and it has far more to do with how we approach our problems and what we do to solve them. We all have to make many decisions each day so even a marginal improvement on how we approach our problem can have a great impact on the end results.

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Do you want to be unstoppable ?

- Ruchi The secret is to start taking little improvement steps each day in doing things on a daily basis and it is the simple principle of compounding which would make you wonder about the results you have produced at the end. Let’s take a very simple example if I need to shed weight, I need to take a tiny little decision every day, and instead of lying on the couch and I have to take the decision to wear my shoes and go for a walk. These walks taken for each day would lead to the achievement of the goal of weight loss by the compounding effect.

Take it step by step and day by day and eventually you will get there. Willpower, combined with mental toughness, is what makes people-driven and goal-oriented. Take simple conscious steps each day about decisions that could impact key areas in your life, you notice the results.

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A Reason to Celebrate Life - Trusha This year brought upon us the unthinkable. The whole world came to a grinding halt and was locked up inside

when

Covid-19

unleashed

itself. On hiatus from the daily commotion, we had the opportunity, even if unintended, to pause and delve upon our lives: both their successes and shortcomings.

In August this year, I happened to spend 12 days in an ICU waiting for the lounge as my cancerstricken mother spent her last days battling death. Due to the raging pandemic, only one attendant could stay in the hospital. I was not allowed to go outside the hospital, and no one from my family was allowed inside. And so, I ended up spending 12 days in the company of relatives of other ICU patients.

Every day new patients would be shifted into the ICU, most of them being post-operative and for precautionary reasons. Their relatives would stay in the ICU waiting for the lounge for 1 – 2 days and would move to the wards with the patients, once they were stable. Since it was a small space and with nothing else to do, most relatives ended up making small talk. The topics ranged from where they had come from, their professions, the condition of the patient, how long they expected to stay, and so on. The others spent time in remote contemplation or praying for their loved ones. Yet everyone displayed anguish as to why this happened to their family. Some would cry at the drop of a feather while some remained stoic even in the face of great pain. Everyone had a story!

Minutes became hours, hours became days, and days became weeks. But the excruciating waits continued. Everyone would wait for the phone in the waiting lounge to ring, to hear any news that the doctors would have about the patients.

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A Reason to Celebrate Life - Trusha I With me, there was just one man in his late 70s who had been in the hospital for a duration longer than mine. I fondly call him ‘Uncle’. His wife of 50 years was lucky enough to have been cured of cancer but unlucky enough to have contracted Covid-19 infection right after. She faced post-Covid pulmonary complications and was on ventilator support thereafter. In those 12 days, my uncle and I bonded over food and consoled each other. On days when I would get a tiffin from home, I would share it with him while on other days, he would order pizza or sandwiches and we would eat together.

The point I’m getting to is that even in dire adversity, there will always be something to celebrate. In this case, even though I was losing the most beloved person of my life – my everything, my mother, I had a reason to celebrate friendship even in the face of death and utmost grief.

As the year ends, it's time to look within,be grateful for what we have, and celebrate life because it is not to be taken for granted. Each day you have a choice to either hold your idea of life and create sadness out of it, or you can let yourself loose, to experience the best of life, every moment. Observing day to day life, it may seem like it is happening outside, but in reality, life is taking place within us. Don’t wait for the right occasion outside to celebrate and enjoy life, rather,begin to celebrate life inside. To make each day of your life a celebration is a personal choice and has no interdependence whatsoever from the outside world.

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Life is a celebration- “Only when you realise it” - Syed Arafath Hello, Toastmasters, I am Syed Arafath a proud member of the GSC Toastmasters club though people close to me describe my values, good qualities on one side few also describe me as an introvert. For these many years being an introvert has impacted my life happenings a lot.

One day I came across a book called “GRIT” where it had mentioned that every habit of ours can be changed if you have the GRIT to change along with deliberate practice. So, I joined Toastmasters to change me as a person and to add-on a few qualities that will enhance me as a better person. Being joined in GSCTM club in Aug’20. Here I got an opportunity to pitch in my thoughts as the first article for a magazine and the theme was chosen is “Life is a celebration”.

What is a celebration for you? Is it a moment of Joy, is it the taste of success or is it a state of mind? but what I feel is to celebrate every moment of life you need to take things from a broader perspective. No matter what comes into your life you need to keep on planting seeds of joy and happiness at every moment, then when the time comes it will reap your amount of joy and happiness to celebrate. You would have come across celebrative moments in different phases of your life. The day you were born would have been celebrated, your success would have been celebrated, events such as festive, marriages all are being celebrated. Despite celebrations, life will also turn you down off the track a few moments of sorrow and fear about something in life.

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Life is a celebration- “Only when you realise it” - Syed Arafath One such incident in my life that I have always been in a state of fear thinking about the present and future, that fear had total control on me and holding me to celebrate the present moments of life. After going on with this trauma I thought about why I should suffer and I sprang seeking a solution on the internet by watching speeches, reading blogs, and other content. The one thing that intrigued my mind is: “Live Consciously - Let go of the past, no worries about the future, and live the present moment”. This thought healed my infirmity of fear and started making me a healthier person not only mentally but physically too.

By this time, I realized that we should neglect the fear of what’s next and should live with the hope of a better future, When you stop unwanted thinking and let the space to flow for fresh thoughts it makes your mind refreshing, and there begins the real celebration.

So my dear friends from now on cherish and celebrate every moment of your life before it turns out to be an inauspicious memory.

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Journey of a Thousand Miles - Piyush Khadgi

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and this first step is always the hardest.”

My journey towards becoming a better me started with identifying and accepting the fallacies in me and that I thought was the hardest step. Public speaking and flawless communication were always my Achilles’ heel. To improve on these, I had been planning to join a toastmaster’s club for the past few years, but due to some or other reason, I always missed the opportunity. Then came a blessing in disguise by the name of Covid-19. We started working from home and I, being a Mumbaikar, was able to save roughly three hours each day from my daily commute which I was able to invest in self-learning. And then the idea of joining GSC hit me like a lightning strike.

At this time GSC was not exactly new to me. I had been to the GSC club as a guest on its 2nd meeting where I still remember there were just a few chairs in a room and at the end of the meeting the feedback was to have a whiteboard to write the theme and word of the day. Not sure if the club got the whiteboard as I never went to a physical meeting after that. But this work from home gave me time which I utilized by attending the online meetings of the GSC Toastmasters club.

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Journey of a Thousand Miles - Piyush Khadgi Once I joined the club, a new journey started and again the hardest thing there was the first step. The first role I had taken up, the first Ice-breaker speech, and the first excom election, all were a challenge to me. Soon I realized that these first steps only looked hard because I thought them to be hard. It's all in my mind and once I remove my mental barriers, they were no harder than the second steps.

I have played all the roles in a meeting, have given my ice-breaker speech, have been elected as a treasurer in the excom elections and, looking back, it feels that the hardship is only in our mind and it's our mind only that make things hard or easy. This led me to realize that, whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. The journey of life is to be celebrated at each step rather than making it difficult by creating mental barriers.

We have the power to make it a celebration or a challenge. It’s all in our minds.

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You are the product - Piyush Khadgi “If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold”.

This is half a century old saying from a classic short film titled “Television Delivers People”.

The objective of the short film was to warn the consumers that they are being consumed and the advertisers are the real customers. Whatsapp is going the same way. When Facebook acquired Whatsapp, the users were not the customers anymore but became the product because Facebook made it free.

The latest policy changes by Whatsapp should not have come as a surprise as many companies are already doing it. If you ever read the Privacy policy of any of these service providers, it clearly states that “We use the information we have about you, to select and personalize ads and other sponsored content that we show you”. And that’s what Facebook will also do with our data.

Let me share an Incidence that happened to me last week. As a newly elected treasurer of our club, I am part of financial audits for last year. Certain e-mails were being shared with me regarding the same and what happened next is that I started seeing audit-related ads on random websites I visited.

If anyone here is puzzled as to how it happened, the answer is Google AdSense. Today it enjoys a 42% share in all add spaces in the internet world. In a nutshell 42 of the 100 ads that you have seen recently were targeted at you powered by the data from google which includes your email, search history, location, and all other mobile data which you have authorized google services to use.

Let’s talk something about the Alexa now. Alexa is the future of search engines. We are slowly moving away from text search engines to voice search engines and Alexa is the pioneer in that.

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You are the product - Piyush Khadgi But how many of us know that Alexa records and sends everything back to its servers. By everything I mean everything, not just the commands that we utter after saying keyword, Alexa.

Whenever we install any new app on our mobile how many of us take a look at the permissions that are given to the app. We will see in general that some app asks for location, SMS, Call logs, Contacts, Camera, Microphone, etc. Have any of us wondered why does app77 needs these accesses? In my previous stint in an Indian bank, my job was to personalize offers for customers, and for this personalization, we used all the data that we were scraping using these permissions. Thanks to these permissions we knew where you are, how much balance you are maintaining in other banks, where you are purchasing, what you are purchasing etc. You don’t need to open the app to tell us this, there are background services that continuously share these things. Some people may call this privacy invasion but many of us are fine with the apps knowing us better to customize ads and content for us.

So, coming back to the WhatsApp policy changes, we need to understand that it is being done by everyone and not just Facebook. If we can trust google or amazon with our information, we should also be ready to trust Facebook with it. And if we want to move to any other platform, we need to make sure that we are the customer and not just the consumer, because if we are just the consumer, the company will have to find ways to make revenue by creating a product out us. Just keep in mind there is no such thing as a free lunch. "If you're not paying then you are the product�

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Life is a Celebration - Prajakta Jadhav Sometimes you never know the true value of a moment until it becomes a memory. Who among you believe that to celebrate each moment of your life you need to throw a party? I will not evaluate whether you are right or wrong, but I would simply say we all are dependent on the outside world for our happiness.

Now I wanted to simplify these two statements. First, I am happy and the second is I am feeling happy. The most dominating statement here is I am happy since happiness is not dependent on any external forces. Whereas in the second case the happiness is more dependent on external forces, if suppose that person, place, thing, the moment does not share this feeling of happiness with you then this happiness won't have any space in your life.

By the way, this celebration reminds me of something and that is nothing but my birthday celebration in the year 2009, that was the worst day or worst birthday one could ever have.

Well at that time school going kids did not have mobile phones, though it may sound a bit strange to the new generation. When I woke up in the morning on the 8th of December, I was really very happy, this was the day where I will be like celebrating my presence or my existence. I wanted to reach school before time to distribute chocolate and to meet my friends. All I wanted was to be treated as special on that day, everyone would come to me and say "Happy Birthday ". Oh my god, I am really blushing now. But nothing as such happened as my parents took me to the cousin’s wedding. I was thinking in my mind, who attends a wedding on birthdays and wastes their day. I was crying at the banquet, but no one noticed me. Half of the day was successfully wasted and we came back home by 4 pm.

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Life is a Celebration - Prajakta Jadhav Then I thought it is just of no use to be with the same people the whole day and I left for my classes. But nothing special happened in classes as well. When I came home mom said, "listen dad has ordered pizza but not the cake as you wanted to eat the pizza". I said, " So I will eat pizza and be happy? always this cost-cutting comes on my birthday I guess". Mom said nothing. When I opened the round pizza in a square box and took the first bite, it was too cold.

It was already December month winter was on and my mood was super off. I said, "you people ordered the pizza without my permission, I am going to through this away". And for no reason, I again started crying. Or I was simply finding reasons to cry and I successfully ruined my day or my birthday day.

My parents tried really hard to make my day special, but I ruined it by coming purposely late from classes and I did not want to be with them. The next day when I reached school none of my friends even said "Belated Happy Birthday". Everyone in the class has already forgotten my birthday.

Now after 11 years these friends didn’t even remember my name, but my parents every year without fail celebrate my birthday. This made me believe the creator has blessed me with this beautiful life and I should thank him every day for this. On my birthday I do visit the temple and thank God for the beautiful life and the true celebration begins here. The biggest gifts I have got are my parents themselves.

For me, the true essence of celebration is in togetherness. The celebration lies within you, no external forces are needed to make you happy. Now even the cold pizza could make me happy as my parents completed my wish of eating pizza. The more you celebrate your life the more there is in life to celebrate. This is my definition of celebration what’s yours?

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Life is a Celebration - Ravi Kalwar Life is certainly a mystery, and life after life is definitely an uncertainty and the biggest mystery. We all would agree that life has ups and downs, low and high moments, successes and failures, this list can go on and on.

Life starts with celebration and ends with mourn, but the story we create between these two points defines life. Being over-optimistic about life is fooling oneself; otherwise, there wouldn’t have been any crimes in society. However, if we keep a highly cynical view of life, it becomes very pessimistic and with no sense of purpose to live peacefully.

It is imperative to focus on small achievements, successes, and celebrations too. In this era of human advancement, big achievements too look obsolete; almost all of us have a decent life with some basic achievements to cheer for. For example, the arrival of a new baby, naming ceremony, birthdays, wedding, anniversaries, festivals, promotions, winnings, qualifications, etc. Probably because of that, in most cultures, we celebrate some important points of life. Sometimes we miss out on a couple of important points, but overall, we achieve a majority of important points in life. I believe we Indians have created so many festivals only to add celebrations and happiness into our lives. Many times, we celebrate others’ successes too. In some parts of India, the natural death of old people is also celebrated. Not sure about other lives, but human life is indeed a celebration.

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Life is a Celebration - Vrinda Mulik

“Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.�

- Abraham Lincoln

There is a reason in India we intentionally create and maintain traditions. You can observe every month there are one or two reasons to celebrate in the name of the festivals. The celebrations help bond us to those we love. They lend a certain spirit that nurtures the family connection, giving us a sense of belonging and helping us celebrate generations of family.

When we commemorate a special occasion, we are essentially placing a mental bookmark on an experience, thereby making it easier to remember it in the future. The photos, videos and other forms of memorabilia from those occasions serve as triggers that we can use to relive those pleasant experiences in the future.

Recently, I celebrated my brother's wedding, let me take you to the happenings of the wedding. Maharashtrian weddings are classically simple, traditional and cheerful in themselves. They are all about finding joy in the little things. The ceremonial activities lasted three days.

The first day was the mehndi and bangles (lagan chuda)ceremony.

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LIFE IS A CELEBRATION

Life is a Celebration - Vrinda Mulik The Second day was Sakharpuda: This is an engagement ceremony Where the groom’s family gifts the bride a saree and pack of sweets, usually sugar (known as sakhar in Marathi). Rings are exchanged between the couple. This ceremony took place in the banquet hall. Then we continued with haldi.

Halad Chadavani: This is the Maharashtrian version of the Haldi ceremony. In a Maharashtrian wedding ritual, the mango leaves are immersed in turmeric paste and then applied to the body of the bride and groom. Close family members were invited to attend the event.

Gaurihar Puja: In this event the bride was dressed in yellow and a mundavalya (a string of pearls or flowers) was tied across her forehead. With this attire she performed puja along with her parents, Where rice was placed on the idol’s head as the mantras were recited and the bride prayed to the Hindu Goddess Parvati.

Antarpat Ritual: After the priest finished reciting his mantras, the shawl was removed and the couple looked at each other. Guests shower the couple with Akshata (unbroken rice grains) and the two exchange garlands.

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LIFE IS A CELEBRATION

Life is a Celebration - Vrinda Mulik Kanyadaan Ritual: This Maharashtrian wedding ritual involves the father of the bride giving his daughter’s hand to the groom. My brother then tied a mangalsutra around the neck of the bride.

Saptapadi Ritual: The couple took seven rounds around the holy fire. The bride touched seven betel nuts placed on top of small mounds of rice with her right foot. Once the seven rounds are done, she places her foot on a grindstone, while my brother holds her hand symbolizing that she needs to be strong and he will always support her.

Karmasampati Ritual: In this Maharashtrian wedding ritual, the bride’s father along with the couple prays to god for blessings, to add some fun the bride’s brother playfully twisted my brother’s ear warning him that he better treat his sister well!

After all these cherishing events a grand lunch took place signifying the end of the wedding ceremony.

POST – WEDDING RITUALS Pathavni: The bride, now considered as a part of her husband’s family, bride left the mandap to groom’s house, bidding a tearful farewell to her family.

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LIFE IS A CELEBRATION

Life is a Celebration - Vrinda Mulik Grihapravesh: Once we reached the house along with the bride and groom, my mother welcomed them with a pooja. The bride then gently kicked a kalash of rice at the threshold of the doorway and they two entered the house, placing their right foot first.

It was so much fun in all these small activities. Each moment was filled with joy and laughter along with responsibilities. I realized one should cherish and celebrate little joys in everyday life.

Enjoy the little joys in life that come your way each day! Not all of us are destined for great things. Most of us live perfectly ordinary lives, doing ordinary things. It is up to us to make this life count.

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LIFE IS A CELEBRATION

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LIFE IS A CELEBRATION

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