I rather not be ANNA

The write up by Arundati Roy in Hindu, the only sane voice I felt that resounded in all that tamasha of Janlok Pal Bill. Her article echoes a lot of the questions I wanted to ask. So here is the article for you to read.

While his means maybe Gandhian, his demands are certainly not.

If what we're watching on TV is indeed a revolution, then it has to be one of the more embarrassing and unintelligible ones of recent times. For now, whatever questions you may have about the Jan Lokpal Bill, here are the answers you're likely to get: tick the box — (a) Vande Mataram (b) Bharat Mata ki Jai (c) India is Anna, Anna is India (d) Jai Hind.
For completely different reasons, and in completely different ways, you could say that the Maoists and the Jan Lokpal Bill have one thing in common — they both seek the overthrow of the Indian State. One working from the bottom up, by means of an armed struggle, waged by a largely adivasi army, made up of the poorest of the poor. The other, from the top down, by means of a bloodless Gandhian coup, led by a freshly minted saint, and an army of largely urban, and certainly better off people. (In this one, the Government collaborates by doing everything it possibly can to overthrow itself.)
In April 2011, a few days into Anna Hazare's first “fast unto death,” searching for some way of distracting attention from the massive corruption scams which had battered its credibility, the Government invited Team Anna, the brand name chosen by this “civil society” group, to be part of a joint drafting committee for a new anti-corruption law. A few months down the line it abandoned that effort and tabled its own bill in Parliament, a bill so flawed that it was impossible to take seriously.
Then, on August 16th, the morning of his second “fast unto death,” before he had begun his fast or committed any legal offence, Anna Hazare was arrested and jailed. The struggle for the implementation of the Jan Lokpal Bill now coalesced into a struggle for the right to protest, the struggle for democracy itself. Within hours of this ‘Second Freedom Struggle,' Anna was released. Cannily, he refused to leave prison, but remained in Tihar jail as an honoured guest, where he began a fast, demanding the right to fast in a public place. For three days, while crowds and television vans gathered outside, members of Team Anna whizzed in and out of the high security prison, carrying out his video messages, to be broadcast on national TV on all channels. (Which other person would be granted this luxury?) Meanwhile 250 employees of the Municipal Commission of Delhi, 15 trucks, and six earth movers worked around the clock to ready the slushy Ramlila grounds for the grand weekend spectacle. Now, waited upon hand and foot, watched over by chanting crowds and crane-mounted cameras, attended to by India's most expensive doctors, the third phase of Anna's fast to the death has begun. “From Kashmir to Kanyakumari, India is One,” the TV anchors tell us.
While his means may be Gandhian, Anna Hazare's demands are certainly not. Contrary to Gandhiji's ideas about the decentralisation of power, the Jan Lokpal Bill is a draconian, anti-corruption law, in which a panel of carefully chosen people will administer a giant bureaucracy, with thousands of employees, with the power to police everybody from the Prime Minister, the judiciary, members of Parliament, and all of the bureaucracy, down to the lowest government official. The Lokpal will have the powers of investigation, surveillance, and prosecution. Except for the fact that it won't have its own prisons, it will function as an independent administration, meant to counter the bloated, unaccountable, corrupt one that we already have. Two oligarchies, instead of just one.

Whether it works or not depends on how we view corruption. Is corruption just a matter of legality, of financial irregularity and bribery, or is it the currency of a social transaction in an egregiously unequal society, in which power continues to be concentrated in the hands of a smaller and smaller minority? Imagine, for example, a city of shopping malls, on whose streets hawking has been banned. A hawker pays the local beat cop and the man from the municipality a small bribe to break the law and sell her wares to those who cannot afford the prices in the malls. Is that such a terrible thing? In future will she have to pay the Lokpal representative too? Does the solution to the problems faced by ordinary people lie in addressing the structural inequality, or in creating yet another power structure that people will have to defer to?

Meanwhile the props and the choreography, the aggressive nationalism and flag waving of Anna's Revolution are all borrowed, from the anti-reservation protests, the world-cup victory parade, and the celebration of the nuclear tests. They signal to us that if we do not support The Fast, we are not ‘true Indians.' The 24-hour channels have decided that there is no other news in the country worth reporting.

‘The Fast' of course doesn't mean Irom Sharmila's fast that has lasted for more than ten years (she's being force fed now) against the AFSPA, which allows soldiers in Manipur to kill merely on suspicion. It does not mean the relay hunger fast that is going on right now by ten thousand villagers in Koodankulam protesting against the nuclear power plant. ‘The People' does not mean the Manipuris who support Irom Sharmila's fast. Nor does it mean the thousands who are facing down armed policemen and mining mafias in Jagatsinghpur, or Kalinganagar, or Niyamgiri, or Bastar, or Jaitapur. Nor do we mean the victims of the Bhopal gas leak, or the people displaced by dams in the Narmada Valley. Nor do we mean the farmers in NOIDA, or Pune or Haryana or elsewhere in the country, resisting the takeover of the land.

‘The People' only means the audience that has gathered to watch the spectacle of a 74-year-old man threatening to starve himself to death if his Jan Lokpal Bill is not tabled and passed by Parliament. ‘The People' are the tens of thousands who have been miraculously multiplied into millions by our TV channels, like Christ multiplied the fishes and loaves to feed the hungry. “A billion voices have spoken,” we're told. “India is Anna.”

Who is he really, this new saint, this Voice of the People? Oddly enough we've heard him say nothing about things of urgent concern. Nothing about the farmer's suicides in his neighbourhood, or about Operation Green Hunt further away. Nothing about Singur, Nandigram, Lalgarh, nothing about Posco, about farmer's agitations or the blight of SEZs. He doesn't seem to have a view about the Government's plans to deploy the Indian Army in the forests of Central India.
He does however support Raj Thackeray's Marathi Manoos xenophobia and has praised the ‘development model' of Gujarat's Chief Minister who oversaw the 2002 pogrom against Muslims. (Anna withdrew that statement after a public outcry, but presumably not his admiration.)

Despite the din, sober journalists have gone about doing what journalists do. We now have the back-story about Anna's old relationship with the RSS. We have heard from Mukul Sharma who has studied Anna's village community in Ralegan Siddhi, where there have been no Gram Panchayat or Co-operative society elections in the last 25 years. We know about Anna's attitude to ‘harijans': “It was Mahatma Gandhi's vision that every village should have one chamar, one sunar, one kumhar and so on. They should all do their work according to their role and occupation, and in this way, a village will be self-dependant. This is what we are practicing in Ralegan Siddhi.” Is it surprising that members of Team Anna have also been associated with Youth for Equality, the anti-reservation (pro-“merit”) movement? The campaign is being handled by people who run a clutch of generously funded NGOs whose donors include Coca-Cola and the Lehman Brothers. Kabir, run by Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, key figures in Team Anna, has received $400,000 from the Ford Foundation in the last three years. Among contributors to the India Against Corruption campaign there are Indian companies and foundations that own aluminum plants, build ports and SEZs, and run Real Estate businesses and are closely connected to politicians who run financial empires that run into thousands of crores of rupees. Some of them are currently being investigated for corruption and other crimes. Why are they all so enthusiastic?

Remember the campaign for the Jan Lokpal Bill gathered steam around the same time as embarrassing revelations by Wikileaks and a series of scams, including the 2G spectrum scam, broke, in which major corporations, senior journalists, and government ministers and politicians from the Congress as well as the BJP seem to have colluded in various ways as hundreds of thousands of crores of rupees were being siphoned off from the public exchequer. For the first time in years, journalist-lobbyists were disgraced and it seemed as if some major Captains of Corporate India could actually end up in prison. Perfect timing for a people's anti-corruption agitation. Or was it?

At a time when the State is withdrawing from its traditional duties and Corporations and NGOs are taking over government functions (water supply, electricity, transport, telecommunication, mining, health, education); at a time when the terrifying power and reach of the corporate owned media is trying to control the public imagination, one would think that these institutions — the corporations, the media, and NGOs — would be included in the jurisdiction of a Lokpal bill. Instead, the proposed bill leaves them out completely.

Now, by shouting louder than everyone else, by pushing a campaign that is hammering away at the theme of evil politicians and government corruption, they have very cleverly let themselves off the hook. Worse, by demonising only the Government they have built themselves a pulpit from which to call for the further withdrawal of the State from the public sphere and for a second round of reforms — more privatisation, more access to public infrastructure and India's natural resources. It may not be long before Corporate Corruption is made legal and renamed a Lobbying Fee. Will the 830 million people living on Rs.20 a day really benefit from the strengthening of a set of policies that is impoverishing them and driving this country to civil war?

This awful crisis has been forged out of the utter failure of India's representative democracy, in which the legislatures are made up of criminals and millionaire politicians who have ceased to represent its people. In which not a single democratic institution is accessible to ordinary people. Do not be fooled by the flag waving. We're watching India being carved up in war for suzerainty that is as deadly as any battle being waged by the warlords of Afghanistan, only with much, much more at stake.

Table for one

Here is another article that I came across in the net and liked . Hope you guys also like it :)

How often do you get to be girl, uninterrupted in the city? If you're hanging out after work, it is work colleagues, friends or significant others. If it's a movie, it involves finding out who is available and willing.

If it's going dancing, it's how much critical mass do you have, really? If you are traveling, someone always wants to know what you do, where you work, whether you are married or single. If you go to the beauty salon to get pampered, they want to know where you cut your hair or get your pedicure.

If you're waiting to board a flight, there's a nosey parker in the next seat. So it's not very often that you have alone time really, not even when you retire to your nest, as there is always someone competing for that remote, that favourite couch, that precious hour in the bath, that copy of Time magazine.

Not surprising why the sight of a woman on her own in a cafe like bistro, deli or wine bar is increasingly a common one these days. And it's not about whether these women are single.
These are basically women with hectic lives, jobs, bosses, colleagues, husbands, boyfriends, socialite evenings and plenty of friends. They're not lonely losers, they're confident women marking out 'me' time.

Advertising copywriter Savita Nair is one such woman; a self-confessed "restless soul" who desperately needs time alone, even if just to collect or organise her thoughts. She admits that people find it weird that she is married and yet enjoys going out alone occasionally. "Most of the men I know act disappointed. 'But why couldn't you call us?' The women of course assume you are depressed or sad if they hear about it. And the next day I'll get a call from one of my girlfriends to ask, Babe, are you okay?'It's as though the only reason you seek aloneness is because you are depressed," she says.

Nair has been a resident of three cities - Pune, Delhi and Mumbai - in the last 10 years, and finds Mumbai most conducive to a woman one her own. Second-best, she says, is Pune. The first has the advantage of excellent public transport, while the latter is a two-wheeler paradise, where every woman has wheels of her own. "But I would never venture out alone in Delhi-I am totally put off by the north-Indian male mindset which typically assumes that if you are alone, you are easy

. Also, Delhi sucks in terms of public transport, and women are safe only in very high-end places, and not in mid-level ones," she adds. Then there is this thing about 'the look' that people at adjacent tables sometimes give you. "It is harder in your twenties, but if you keep at it, you learn to ignore it by your thirties, says Nair.

" She adds that she'd prefer her own company to being tied down "to some utterly superficial conversation that she is not looking for." Her idea of places to hang out alone is quite clear.
"Any place that is restful, doesn't have loud music, kids or teenyboppers, but is not necessarily as clinical as a library." She is most happy with a glass of wine, a pasta or salad, a book and herself.

Another reason why she chooses to go out alone many times, she says, is that she enjoys eclectic eating experiences but most of her friends don't. "So I might as well go alone instead of waiting for the right company," says Nair.

Prachi Jain, art director with an advertising agency, says she needs to be left alone from time to time, to recover from the madness of her advertising life, and find the peace and quiet that is hard to come by in the city. Jain finds the cafe culture most conducive to leisurely reading and coffee.

A Delhite who moved to Mumbai a few years ago, and is now married to a Mumbaikar, she remarks that 'the look' is a good barometer of the difference in the two cities' attitude to women on their own. "In Mumbai, someone might just give you a cursory glance and move on.
But in Delhi, the staring is more persistent, more questioning," she says. She also feels that lounges and bars are totally out of bounds for a girl alone in Delhi, but quite acceptable in Mumbai.

"Women do go out to cafes alone in Delhi, but since the crowd tends to be more boisterous and loud at cafes, there's no peace anyway," she adds. And then there is Sonya Dutta Chowdhury, a freelance writer and mother of three, whose 'me' time is mostly wedged in-between various errands.

She calls herself " a coffee-and-muffin kind of person," and finds it boring to order lunch alone. She usually has her days full, balancing writing, the husband, maids and her daughters. Eating out alone gives her the alone time she most looks forward to. "I deserve it," Chowdhury says. Occasionally she also goes out just to think and write. "I've spent many productive hours with coffee, muffins and my laptop at Brio, my neighbourhood cafe," says Chowdhury.

She agrees that doing this in Mumbai is much easier than her hometown, Delhi. "Here, no one bothers you, unless of course you go to some specialty restaurant and look like a bit of an oddball. In Delhi, men somehow haven't yet learnt to leave you alone," she adds.

Chowdhury got used to going solo since her stint in the US, though her friends here wonder how she does it.

Still, it takes a lot for most women to be out there alone. Gourmet chef and food writer Karen Anand, for one, confesses she is not comfortable with the thought. "I don't eat out alone in India. I might when I'm traveling abroad, but even then I order in my room, and that's not the same thing.

It's different in, say, Europe where you essentially eat out to 'eat the meal' she says. Rajashree Khalap, an adventurous animal activist who often travels alone to sanctuaries and wild-life reserves, also admits she is uncomfortable eating out alone. "I'm not a foodie, and at the most, I might stop for a cup of hot chocolate somewhere, but that's it," she says.

Will this article make any difference to women still hesitant about sitting at a table for one, afraid of being labelled lonely losers? I hope so.

What I can tell you, from my own experience, is: try it once and you'll be hooked for life.

Nobody understands me..

This a blog written by by Vibhore Gupta on 22 Dec 2008 on MSN India I loved it and have put it up here. Hope you guys too like it.

There is one statement I’ve heard more often than any other, that statement is, “Nobody understands me”. To be honest I am not at all surprised by the frequency of this statement, the reason being, it is the tendency of human beings to stay a little secretive. Understanding a person depends more on the steps taken by the person himself as compared to the steps taken by the people around him. After all, it is me who will decide whom I want to keep inside my circle of trust and whom I want to keep outside of it.

Understanding a person does not mean doing or saying something which will please the person concerned. Those who have narrow ideology they have a tendency to please everyone around them. But a true friend of mine will be one who will recognize my long term gains. It’s very simple to be understood by someone, all we need to do is speak our heart with someone whom we feel to be trustworthy enough. We all love our families and to be honest though we love them a lot but we cannot share everything with them. It’s not that they will not understand, it’s just that our culture prevents us from doing so.

I think there are two categories of people who say, “Nobody understands me”. First category consists of fools and second category consists of again two kinds of people, one, who are betrayed by life at every step of this journey called life and second, who are lost in their own thoughts.

I don’t think it would be an effective utilization of time if we start discussing the category of fools.

So lets just jump to the other category, people who are betrayed by luck and circumstances; these people form an iron cladding around themselves, these people don’t want anybody’s help but they are ready to help others. These people are as hard as rock from inside but as soft as cotton from outside. I believe they even start hating emotions but the catch is hate itself is an emotion.

Recently, I had a conversation with a girl who is qualified to be put into this category. She says that she is the best friend of her every friend but she does not appreciate somebody’s helping attitude towards her, I think I should replace the word appreciate by hate in the previous sentence. I don’t know her even a bit but I know that something has happened in the past; something has shaken her from top to bottom. She has had losses; she has had setbacks but she stood against the tides.

When we have had failures, setbacks, losses, then we tend to become numb towards emotions. We think, “I am used to it now”. And this is exactly the statement which takes us away from our friends when we need them. We rely on ourselves way too much that we tend to forget the existence of others, and in this process we start hurting our friends and one day we are left all alone. People are all around us but we have come so far from them that now even if we try to call them all we hear is our own voice. I don’t know how to phrase my emotions here, I've been on that road, I’ve walked down that isle and I know there’s lot of loneliness on that road, there’s a lot of hatred on that isle.

I am not trying to show sympathy to anyone nor am I trying to change the thought process of someone, but if someone can get back on the lines of sharing his sorrows than I think this post will achieve its purpose. I know these people strive on the policy, “Happiness is for 'us' but sorrow is for 'me' ”. This policy leads to a lot of respect but even lot more loneliness.

Now, comes the second kind of people, the people who are lost among their thoughts and the realities of life. The problem with these kinds of people is that the actions of these people are affected by the thoughts of others. They are full of negativity, they picture themselves as a person who has all weaknesses and no strengths. They don’t think about it too often but if somebody tells them, "you think you are great", "why do you behave like this?". These words kill the self confidence of these kinds of people. The irony is that these people are surrounded by negative thoughts yet people around them think that these people are natural egoists. People think they are arrogant and are more interested in themselves and they don’t care about the people around. But believe me, they care about the people around them more then they care about themselves. But honestly, what I believe is that these people should believe in themselves more than others. Believing and caring are two different words, they should learn to go with the flow of life.

After all, every wants to be special but for that, one should know how to believe in his dreams. There is no beginning or end of this circle called life and we should know when to start running around it, it doesn’t matter if we don’t know how to walk.

I don’t know how to end this post so I’ll just put my pen down, but hey! I’m not using a pen. :-)

Let her be

This is an article which appeared in the Sunday Times in O-Zone on 1 March 09 and wanted to share it. It has striken a cord with me and my friend, I guess it is the best descrption of what I am feeling right now on the subject.

How do you know who is the right man for you, was the plaintive question a colleague, Ritu, just entering her 30’s asked the other day. Under pressure from her parents to get married within the year, she despaired of finding the right guy and dreaded ending up with the wrong one.

Actually, how do you know who’s right or wrong for you? Surprisingly one finds more women than men debating this question. You hardly ever come across a man scared of being hitched up with the wrong woman. Or at least not one who openly expresses this fear. Women are more commitment phobic these days. It used to be a man’s problem, but today many women don’t get into matrimony for fear of getting attached to the wrong partner. What goes on in a girl’s mind when she is seriously considering the ‘M’ question?

Shilpa, a professional who is unmarried at 32, says, “What holds me back is the fear that a man I like may be pretending to be somebody quite different from what he really is; how is one to know? It’s one thing to enjoy a cup of coffee with a guy and quite another to commit the next 40-45 years of your life to him!” She doesn’t feel as paranoid about striking a new friendship or getting a new job. “Well, of course not,” she says, you can always walk away from a friend or a job; the emotional commitment isn’t so high, but not so from a husband and a family!”

Amrita, a colleague who at 36, is yet to tie the knot, says, “My fears stem from a lot of ‘what ifs’... it’s like you want to know or sort out issues before you actually marry, later will be too late! Is he a cribber? Is he honest? Does he have a sense of integrity? What if I end up tied to a man who is a big bore!”

When Hillary Clinton was asked how she knew that Bill Clinton was her one true love, she replied, “How does anybody know about love? If you can describe it, you may not fully be experiencing it.....My husband is my best friend. We have an endless conversation...we never get bored.”

A lady bureaucrat, Pooja, now happily married with a daughter, recalls how determined she was to satisfy the “inner romantic” within her. “I had to find ‘Mr Right’; the only other option, which didn’t seem too bad either, was to stay unmarried. I could support myself, my time and space were my own; what did I need a man for except perhaps for companionship and to enhance the quality of a life I already led?”

“It had to be someone who shared a general sense of compatibility with me, someone who enjoyed and could share what I wanted of my life. He had to share my value system and be a man I could respect; or at least someone I couldn’t just dismiss; someone who was not unintelligent...”

Note the way the selection process became one of elimination rather than selection for Pooja. She wanted an intelligent guy, but would have been happy with one who was “not unintelligent.” A guy she could respect, or at least, as she put it, someone she “couldn’t just dismiss.”

Sometimes the choice becomes easier by first eliminating what you just will not accept in a life companion rather than looking for the qualities you want. For instance, if you are clear you will not be able to respect a guy with a squeaky voice, or a man who finds it difficult to smile, or someone who drinks or smokes, those are the things to watch out for and clarify first, and the rest follows.

Coming back to how does one know, most women who have met their destined men, insist that you just know. “It’s a feeling,” Pooja tries to explain. When she did meet her soul mate, she describes it as “a gentle feeling...he was bright and fun loving. I knew men... I had enough friends and batch mates...but what was most appealing about my husband was that he was one of the few men I met who gave me this feeling of space...I could be Pooja around him!”

And really, this is what most women are seeking in their men today; just the opportunity to remain themselves. Agrees Ritu, “I want the freedom to keep doing what I love — reading, writing, composing poems. I don’t want someone to clamp me or my aspirations. I want a deep companionship, where we can enjoy the same things together. I want friendship, and passion — for each other yes, but that fizzles out, so passion for the same things in life...” Is that too much to ask for? To just let a woman be herself?

Sweet Solo!!!!

This is an article which came in the 'Times of India' Hyderabad edition dated 13th July 08. The subject 'Loner' is one which I relate to very much and hence I wanted to share this article with the rest of you. :)

"I’m 13 now, don’t you think it’s time I got my own apartment dad?” is a teaser from a film currently running on a prime time movie channel. Walk in alone to a restaurant, and the maitre d will ask, “Table for one, Maa’m?” without batting an eyelid. As Oprah Winfrey once put it, “Nobody’s manufacturing any more space. I’ll take every bit I can get”. Loners echo the sentiment.

People across age groups and professions are finding their invaluable sense of personal space, urging them to live on their own at regular intervals. Space issues are cropping up within homes, and children are moving out even in the same city. High-rises are getting higher, cities more crowded, and suburbs stretching to their outer limits, as the great Indian Individual marks his personal territory.

Delhi-ite comedian Vir Das now lives in Mumbai. “I have an apartment slightly bigger than my body. Thanks to my work profile, I always see crowds around me. Hence, I need solitude back home. Here I don’t need to perform. I am just myself, doing what I want to do.” Self-indulgence does not necessarily make you a bad person. “On the contrary, I have become more disciplined, caring and responsible. But the best part is that I have begun to discover myself. Self-revelation has its own high.” Das is 29 and a new-age Loner. But you don’t have to be single to be a Loner. Successful online art dealer Aporajita Pal Mukerji has been living on her own for at least 20 days a month for the past 13 years. Her husband, a marketing professional, is out of town for the most part. But she wouldn’t barter it for anything else. “I love the time I have to myself. I work out, read books, connect with my friends… I know couples who have separate bedrooms and bathrooms too,” says Mukerji.

The trend has gone from joint families to nuclear ones; from nuclear families to Loners. And Loners are no longer stereotypical sad, isolated individuals who can’t make friends. Many are in healthy relationships, have bustling social lives, are part of clubs in their neighborhoods, and are constantly in touch with their families back home. Look at the girl or guy next to you in the train or bus. Prod a little and you’ll find a Loner.

The Loner is financially responsible and independent. Paying guests, rentals, and hostels are as much in demand as family homes. Actress Neena Gupta explains “financial empowerment is walking the talk when it comes to enjoying the option of living alone.” Those who’ve caught on to the expensive ways of the city have wisely invested in suburban apartments.
Spiritual teacher Neena Dandekar points out that “the urge to find one’s little nest is seen even among today’s teenagers. It’s easier to do away with the curfews parents impose.”

The Loner is also keenly focused on ambition and career, migrating to build the demographic with a dipping age-profile. “Now more people are flocking to different places at an impressionable age to study or work, which has given a whole new definition to the concept of happy loners,” says creative entrepreneur Preeti Vyas Patel. Rising incomes have allowed personal space to unfold. Spaces for family and for self; personal studios for creative artists, two-car homes, and separate vacations are not rare. Connecting with one’s self is all-important. Singer Sonu Niigaam feels his best indulgences happen during a long flight. “I read, watch movies, create melodies…” And he has a future vision of peace, he says. “When I turn 54, I’ll live alone in the middle of a forest, by the sea, or on a mountain, meditating or farming!”
Consultant psychiatrist at Mumbai’s Jaslok hospital, Shamsah Sonawalla says “Living alone out of choice can actually rejuvenate one’s mind, discipline one’s self and makes one very attractive to others as he/she is perceived to be self-reliant.”

The Loner is also not a stop-gap to living a complete life. Banker Arindom Chatterjee is happily married and a successful professional. Yet, he is most content when he steals few hours of solitude every weekend. “I either go for a long drive or curl up in bed and read or listen to my favorite song. I insist on this personal space as this is the best way I unwind,” says Chatterjee.

Even senior citizens like Arati Gupta, who has the option of moving in with her son and daughter-in-law, prefers to live alone in Delhi. “I share a beautiful relationship with my family, but I prefer my me-time. I gave up a high-profile job to enjoy things one talks of doing someday. Three years later, I have yet to ask myself if I’ve felt lonely. I live by the motto — ‘Enjoy life, employ life, it flits away and will not stay’. I plan my activities such that each action is satisfying. I travel to my ‘wish-list places’. I enjoy being with my grand-daughter. At home, I’m comfortable with my music, books, internet, friends and above all, my fitness routine.”

The Loner lives in her own space. Alone, but no longer lonely. She has found her own space, her calling, her self.

Valentines Day.....

This is an entry which I have taken from the internet an entry by me regarding Valentines day will be posted shortly.

Every February, across the country, candy, flowers, and gifts are exchanged between loved ones, all in the name of St. Valentine. But who is this mysterious saint and why do we celebrate this holiday? The history of Valentine's Day -- and its patron saint -- is shrouded in mystery. But we do know that February has long been a month of romance. St. Valentine's Day, as we know it today, contains vestiges of both Christian and ancient Roman tradition. So, who was Saint Valentine and how did he become associated with this ancient rite?

Today, the Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred.

One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men -- his crop of potential soldiers. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine's actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death.

Other stories suggest that Valentine may have been killed for attempting to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons where they were often beaten and tortured.

According to one legend, Valentine actually sent the first 'valentine' greeting himself. While in prison, it is believed that Valentine fell in love with a young girl -- who may have been his jailor's daughter -- who visited him during his confinement. Before his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a letter, which he signed 'From your Valentine,' an expression that is still in use today.Although the truth behind the Valentine legends is murky, the stories certainly emphasize his appeal as a sympathetic, heroic, and, most importantly, romantic figure. It's no surprise that by the Middle Ages, Valentine was one of the most popular saints in England and France.

While some believe that Valentine's Day is celebrated in the middle of February to commemorate the anniversary of Valentine's death or burial -- which probably occurred around 270 A.D -- others claim that the Christian church may have decided to celebrate Valentine's feast day in the middle of February in an effort to 'christianize' celebrations of the pagan Lupercalia festival. In ancient Rome, February was the official beginning of spring and was considered a time for purification. Houses were ritually cleansed by sweeping them out and then sprinkling salt and a type of wheat called spelt throughout their interiors. Lupercalia, which began at the ides of February, February 15, was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus. To begin the festival, members of the Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would gather at the sacred cave where the infants Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf or lupa. The priests would then sacrifice a goat, for fertility, and a dog, for purification.

The boys then sliced the goat's hide into strips, dipped them in the sacrificial blood and took to the streets, gently slapping both women and fields of crops with the goathide strips. Far from being fearful, Roman women welcomed being touched with the hides because it was believed the strips would make them more fertile in the coming year. Later in the day, according to legend, all the young women in the city would place their names in a big urn. The city's bachelors would then each choose a name out of the urn and become paired for the year with his chosen woman. These matches often ended in marriage. Pope Gelasius declared February 14 St. Valentine's Day around 498 A.D. The Roman 'lottery' system for romantic pairing was deemed un-Christian and outlawed. Later, during the Middle Ages, it was commonly believed in France and England that February 14 was the beginning of birds' mating season, which added to the idea that the middle of February -- Valentine's Day -- should be a day for romance. The oldest known valentine still in existence today was a poem written by Charles, Duke of Orleans to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt. The greeting, which was written in 1415, is part of the manuscript collection of the British Library in London, England. Several years later, it is believed that King Henry V hired a writer named John Lydgate to compose a valentine note to Catherine of Valois.

In Great Britain, Valentine's Day began to be popularly celebrated around the seventeenth century. By the middle of the eighteenth century, it was common for friends and lovers in all social classes to exchange small tokens of affection or handwritten notes. By the end of the century, printed cards began to replace written letters due to improvements in printing technology. Ready-made cards were an easy way for people to express their emotions in a time when direct expression of one's feelings was discouraged. Cheaper postage rates also contributed to an increase in the popularity of sending Valentine's Day greetings. Americans probably began exchanging hand-made valentines in the early 1700s. In the 1840s, Esther A. Howland began to sell the first mass-produced valentines in America.

According to the Greeting Card Association, an estimated one billion valentine cards are sent each year, making Valentine's Day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year. (An estimated 2.6 billion cards are sent for Christmas.)

Approximately 85 percent of all valentines are purchased by women. In addition to the United States, Valentine's Day is celebrated in Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, and Australia.

Valentine greetings were popular as far back as the Middle Ages (written Valentine's didn't begin to appear until after 1400), and the oldest known Valentine card is on display at the British Museum. The first commercial Valentine's Day greeting cards produced in the U.S. were created in the 1840s by Esther A. Howland. Howland, known as the Mother of the Valentine, made elaborate creations with real lace, ribbons and colorful pictures known as "scrap". Special thanks to American Greetings.