dear friends,
Was invited to visit a perfume factory near Tambaram, Chennai today.
The hosts were absolutely delightful and warm in inviting us in. The entire family is in the business. One son manages the business and the other studied perfumes in France which is an asset in the family business. Makes sense too.
They mix and match very high quality perfumes which are Eco friendly, have as their base some herbs like the cinnamon, cloves, fruity like lemon, orange and floral like the rose, lavender, etc.
I loved the cinnamon which lingered on in the conference room even after we returned back after 3 hours of factory rounds. The best among the lot were those of orange which had a Brazilian orange as its essence and my favorite, the divine sandalwood. I requested and carried home these two samples to enjoy back home for later. I am glad I got what I was searching for a very long time indeed.
I stuffed my handbag with swabs of different dips from many perfume mixes gives out such wonderful smells of fruits, herbs, flowers and roots. What a beautiful bouquet!
Cheers!
Mahalakshmi
Friday, May 7, 2010
Monday, May 3, 2010
Stress in life
Dear Friends!
We all have stress. We have to face it all the time in our lives right from we are this high in childhood.
It is mild and perhaps we have support from our near and dear ones in our childhood so we manage it somehow.
Into our teens we see it in a different way. Stress due to poor marks scored at the school exams, peer pressure for some things and how we deal with it, friends whom we discover are not really our friends! All this plus those embarrassing questions from our parents who want to know what's happening in our lives outside home.
For some a love failure or a crush could make matters even worse.
But it is friends again who support us and we somehow sail through these years without health issues.
Then its college time. This is the most difficult of all in many people's lives. There's lot more exposure to others from many places than the same friends we have been seeing at school for a long time since childhood - of course, it depends on whether we have studied at the same school for 14 long years!
At office we face another set of people and we are lucky if we have good humans as our superiors rather than those who feel threatened at every shake of their chair to mean that we are up to grab it!
In the efforts to prove ourselves worthy of our jobs we learn, re-learn, unlearn many things at work. We make mistakes, get pulled up, never make mistakes, get pulled up, work hard, but never get praised, never work hard but feel we ought to be praised for attempting to attend office :D
Some bosses put up and some don't suffer upstarts or juniors kindly.
Through all this we learn big and small things which mold and shape our lives.
We are not what we were 10 years back, well even 10 hours back if a massive event had occurred to change our lives forever!
So what does all these things tell us? Life has its ups and downs. How can we wish only the happy events to take place all the time in our lives. How can we also be depressed and bogged down only with bad events all our lives. Is it not then in our own hands to try to make our lives better by taking whatever positive steps we can to damage-control our mistakes, be ready to learn from our mistakes and try to lead a calm and peaceful life.
Stress can be dealt at every turning point in our lives by keeping our balance in happy as well as not-so-happy times. This does not mean we should savor in the happiness an event brings. Not just cling to it all the time is the secret of letting it go. This letting go after a while is to be applied to both happy and sad events. Let go means not simply trying to forget but to learn to move on with more maturity and strength. To get up and move on with the set of goals we have before us. If goals are too long to reach, it makes sense in breaking them into smaller segments so that the length of time does not bog us down which could result in our losing what little interest we started the work with.
Finally, the best way to de-stress is to talk to someone close who is not judgmental about us, or chant some routine mantras repeatedly until we can divert our minds in a more positive way and meditation is another excellent form to overcome our disturbed minds.
In these modern times it may be hard to find friends who have time to lend an ear to our problems but chanting and meditation can be practiced to good effect to put our lives back in order!
Cheers!
Happy chanting.
Mahalakshmi
We all have stress. We have to face it all the time in our lives right from we are this high in childhood.
It is mild and perhaps we have support from our near and dear ones in our childhood so we manage it somehow.
Into our teens we see it in a different way. Stress due to poor marks scored at the school exams, peer pressure for some things and how we deal with it, friends whom we discover are not really our friends! All this plus those embarrassing questions from our parents who want to know what's happening in our lives outside home.
For some a love failure or a crush could make matters even worse.
But it is friends again who support us and we somehow sail through these years without health issues.
Then its college time. This is the most difficult of all in many people's lives. There's lot more exposure to others from many places than the same friends we have been seeing at school for a long time since childhood - of course, it depends on whether we have studied at the same school for 14 long years!
At office we face another set of people and we are lucky if we have good humans as our superiors rather than those who feel threatened at every shake of their chair to mean that we are up to grab it!
In the efforts to prove ourselves worthy of our jobs we learn, re-learn, unlearn many things at work. We make mistakes, get pulled up, never make mistakes, get pulled up, work hard, but never get praised, never work hard but feel we ought to be praised for attempting to attend office :D
Some bosses put up and some don't suffer upstarts or juniors kindly.
Through all this we learn big and small things which mold and shape our lives.
We are not what we were 10 years back, well even 10 hours back if a massive event had occurred to change our lives forever!
So what does all these things tell us? Life has its ups and downs. How can we wish only the happy events to take place all the time in our lives. How can we also be depressed and bogged down only with bad events all our lives. Is it not then in our own hands to try to make our lives better by taking whatever positive steps we can to damage-control our mistakes, be ready to learn from our mistakes and try to lead a calm and peaceful life.
Stress can be dealt at every turning point in our lives by keeping our balance in happy as well as not-so-happy times. This does not mean we should savor in the happiness an event brings. Not just cling to it all the time is the secret of letting it go. This letting go after a while is to be applied to both happy and sad events. Let go means not simply trying to forget but to learn to move on with more maturity and strength. To get up and move on with the set of goals we have before us. If goals are too long to reach, it makes sense in breaking them into smaller segments so that the length of time does not bog us down which could result in our losing what little interest we started the work with.
Finally, the best way to de-stress is to talk to someone close who is not judgmental about us, or chant some routine mantras repeatedly until we can divert our minds in a more positive way and meditation is another excellent form to overcome our disturbed minds.
In these modern times it may be hard to find friends who have time to lend an ear to our problems but chanting and meditation can be practiced to good effect to put our lives back in order!
Cheers!
Happy chanting.
Mahalakshmi
Sunday, May 2, 2010
House Cleaning!
Dear Friends,
Today there were some guests who wanted to come over for just half hour to see us. Thank god they informed us 3 hours ahead though in the morning when I should have been cooking for the day!
Instead I just went into folding clothes, re-arranging furniture and generally putting things in order as the maid would come only towards noon. By the time I came out of the bath, they had already come visiting.
One thing about frequent guests or visitors is that we try to put things in order so much more often! Otherwise we just let things be as other work keeps us busy.
But in these days when we have very little time for much else than our routines we could do with help in such labor intensive cleaning work. Maybe if the concept of students offering to help in exchange for some money on an hourly basis were to catch up in India then things would be so good. But Indian parents never like their kids to do such types of work for others. Many don't encourage their kids to do menial jobs like sweeping, mopping, dusting around their own homes so working elsewhere even if it is for money is next to impossible. But these very same kids take up jobs like these while they pursue their studies abroad to earn extras for their upkeep. Working at such jobs inside India is a big no, no for most parents as they feel a loss of their prestige or dignity.
I will sign off now.
Cheers!
Mahalakshmi
Today there were some guests who wanted to come over for just half hour to see us. Thank god they informed us 3 hours ahead though in the morning when I should have been cooking for the day!
Instead I just went into folding clothes, re-arranging furniture and generally putting things in order as the maid would come only towards noon. By the time I came out of the bath, they had already come visiting.
One thing about frequent guests or visitors is that we try to put things in order so much more often! Otherwise we just let things be as other work keeps us busy.
But in these days when we have very little time for much else than our routines we could do with help in such labor intensive cleaning work. Maybe if the concept of students offering to help in exchange for some money on an hourly basis were to catch up in India then things would be so good. But Indian parents never like their kids to do such types of work for others. Many don't encourage their kids to do menial jobs like sweeping, mopping, dusting around their own homes so working elsewhere even if it is for money is next to impossible. But these very same kids take up jobs like these while they pursue their studies abroad to earn extras for their upkeep. Working at such jobs inside India is a big no, no for most parents as they feel a loss of their prestige or dignity.
I will sign off now.
Cheers!
Mahalakshmi
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
