People Come and Go

Sometimes people come into your life and you know right away that they were meant to be there, to serve some sort of purpose, teach you a lesson, or to help you figure out who you are or who you want to become.

You never know who these people may be - a roommate, a neighbor, a professor, a friend, a lover, or even a complete stranger - but when you lock eyes with them, you know at that very moment they will affect your life in some profound way.

Sometimes things happen to you that may seem horrible, painful, and unfair at first, but in reflection you find that without overcoming those obstacles you would have never realized your potential, strength, willpower, or heart.

Illness, injury, love, lost moments of true greatness, and sheer stupidity all occur to test the limits of your soul. Without these small tests, whatever they may be, life would be like a smoothly paved straight flat road to nowhere. It would be safe and comfortable, but dull and utterly pointless.

The people you meet who affect your life, and the success and downfalls you experience, help to create who you are and who you become. Even the bad experiences can be learned from. In fact, they are sometimes the most important ones.

If someone loves you, give love back to them in whatever way you can, not only because they love you, but because in a way, they are teaching you to love and how to open your heart and eyes to things.
If someone hurts you, betrays you, or breaks your heart, forgive them, for they have helped you learn about trust and the importance of being cautious to whom you open your heart.

Make every day count. Appreciate every moment and take from those moments everything that you possibly can for you may never be able to experience it again. Talk to people that you have never talked to before, and listen to what they have to say.

Let yourself fall in love, break free, and set your sights high. Hold your head up because you have every right to. Tell yourself you are a great individual and believe in yourself, for if you don't believe in yourself, it will be hard for others to believe in you.
You can make anything you wish of your life. Create your own life and then go out and live it with absolutely no regrets.

And if you love someone tell them, for you never know what tomorrow may have in store.

Learn a lesson in life each day that you live!
Today is the tomorrow you were worried about yesterday. Was it worth it? 

The Valentine Scam

WHERE DID VALENTINE'S DAY COME FROM?

The Origin of Valentine’s Day:

The Christian history attributes many different origins of this day. But it is not really a Christian festivals at all, since it is known from history (mentioned in Encyclopedia Britannica) that the in the ancient pagan culture of Rome and Greece, the month of February was always considered as a month of romance, fertility and spring, and history proves that St. Valentines day originated from two most perverted and obscene Roman festivals of fertility called Lupercalia and Feast of Juno Februata both celebrated on the 15th of February..

Lupercalia

This festival celebrated on 15th of February was held to celebrate fertility in the honor of roman god Lupercus also called Faunus, an embodiment of fertility and lust. He had the head and torso of a man, but the hindquarters and horns of a goat

The ceremony began with the sacrifice of goats and a dog. The youths were anointed with their blood. They were made to wear goat skins (to impersonate Lupercus) and small pieces of goat skin were cut into long strips called Februa. The youths then ran around, striking at any woman that came near them with this Februa. This was considered to bestow fertility to the woman.

Feast of Juno Februata:

The feast of goddess Juno Februa was celebrated after the ceremony of Lupercalia. Juno Februa was the roman goddess of love, marriage and women. For this feast, women wrote their names on slips of papers and men would take the slips out. The woman whose name was on the slip would become his partner for the day’s l festivities.

Christianizing Lupercalia and Juno Februata

Christianity was greatly influenced by the Roman pagan philosophy during the reign of the Roman Emperor Constantine I (288 – 337 AD) who accepted Christianity but Pagan festivals continued under his empire and pagan philosophy also integrated into Christianity.

It was in AD 494, that Pope Gelasius I decided to suppress the perverted pagan festivals. He replaced Lupercalia with the Feast of The Purification of Virgin Mary, celebrated till now on 15th of February by the Eastern Rite Catholic Churches.

It is also said that he replaced the Feast of Juno Februata by St. Valentine’s Day and moved it to 14th February. Instead of lottery of girls, the lottery was replaced by names of Christian saints, whom the youths had to copy that day. Different stories and legends were made, attributed to many different people by the name of Valentine, to give credibility to Saint Valentine's Day. The creation of a festival for such obscure figures further proves it was merely an attempt to white wash the pagan celebrations with a label of Christianity since they were not able to get rid them from their culture.

 Love is one of the strongest emotions placed in the heart of man - it is a power that can ruin or redeem a life- that can bring joy or painful heartbreak.

Today as the world celebrates this emotion on Valentine’s Day, we see hearts of all sizes and shapes all around, hearts of chocolate and satin. O Yes! It’s Valentines! The day of hearts, red roses, poetry, candies and above all - Love!

This festival in the recent years has seen a sudden boom in our society as well and is now ‘religiously’ celebrated by the young and old both. The media has played a major role in encouraging this festival and this day has become a flourishing business for selling Valentine's day cards, flowers, chocolates, gift items etc.

The question that comes to mind is why should WE Muslims celebrate Valentine’s Day? Is it our occasion? Days and occasions are part of a nation’s identity. They symbolize any religion or culture.

VALENTINE'S DAY TODAY

Whatever the origin of this day, today it seems to have returned to its pagan, vulgar roots with the child-god cupid and open dating being very much a part of it. It is celebrated in many parts of the world in different ways. For instance, in France, a girl befriends the first boy she sees in the morning and if this relationship lasts for a year, they end up getting engaged on the next Valentine’s Day. The Valentine lottery caused severe problems in France and was banned completely in 1776. Later Italy, Hungary, Austria and Germany also rid themselves of this obscene custom. England remained safe until it was under Puritan rule but then Charles II started it again and from there it entered America, where it was first commercialized by A E Howland, who made 5000 dollars from selling Valentine cards. In 1995 one billion valentine cards were delivered in the US and the postal Dept. made an extra profit of $ 30 million. Flowers began to be used in 1300.

Now people all over cash in on this opportunity to kindle the fire in young hearts and instill in their minds the necessity of having a ‘Special Someone’ to love. No wonder last year’s newspaper carried news of a woman who sued her husband for divorce for not giving her anything on Valentine’s. According to her it was absolutely necessary to express one’s love on this day and her husband did not give her anything which meant that he did not love her.

Apparently Valentine’s Day made her feel ‘unloved’ rather than ‘loved’.

What kind of love depends upon gifts for its survival? What kind of love is restricted to one day in the whole year? What kind of love breeds hatred, jealousy and a sense of deprivation in many?

Valentine’s Day also proves exceptionally painful for the not-so-popular kids in school who don’t get as many Valentine cards as their friends do.

In India, this day has come to mean getting dressed in red, valentine cards, hearts, and chocolates. Through these apparently innocent things the occasion promotes the culture of free sex and male-female relations. Also becoming common are public displays of emotions including advertising love messages in newspapers, going out on romantic dates and attending valentine balls and parties. Schools are not far behind in holding such parties for their students. As a result, even young children are fed new ideas of developing lusty feelings and expressing them boldly. Closet romantics are given a chance to emerge. They imitate their favourite movie love scenes in broad daylight. In all this ‘love’ fever Islam is given a backseat to sit and see how it’s teachings are being ridiculed in public.

(Data taken from Wikipedia.org)

The Curious Case of a Missing Blog. And it's Blogger.

Talk about being away. Its been a good 11 months and finally it struck me that I do have a blog. So why am I not writing in it? I forgot! So tied up with life and the daily adventures that I forgot I have a blog! Makes sense right? I know. Totally does. Not.

So how did I remember that I'm on blogspot.com? Simple. The spam comments reminded me. They were offering millions of dollars in return for my bank details. And then a queen in Nigeria wanted to come over and live with me. Some were less subtle. They were selling 5 dollar weight-loss tablets. So in a nut-shell I was reminded of my poor blog lying all by itself. It completed 5 years in October I think. No 5 year old anniversary post also. Selfish times. Such is the world. What to do. "No time", "I'm busy" etc have become such cliches. Okay that's not what this rant is about. It's about love, hate, betrayal and murder. No. I'm just cracking lame jokes just to warm my fingers. On the keyboard that is.


Interesting year went by. Whatever year you taking count of that is. Whether its the Gregorian, Hijri, Mayan, Chinese etc. But 11 months went by since my last post. So I'm using the blogspot calendar. Yeah, we're all slaves of the internet. Google specifically. Facebook also. That also has become such a cliche. (Did you notice I used the word 'cliche' twice in this post? No? Pay attention human!)


So as I was saying an interesting year whizzed past. Didn't feel like an year actually. Feels like just yesterday I was doing whatever I was doing this time last year and boom! So many months have passed. So many new cities, change in fortunes, events, people etc. And in between all this, I completed 25 years. I'm silver now.


By the way, a thought just struck me. I write once in a while (look at my definition of a while: 11 straight months) so why am I actually writing again? Because I want to 'revive' myself. Yes. You read that right. I did say 'revive'. I want to 'revive' this blog. Writing sets one free. No inhibitions, constraints or fears. Expressing always does that. It sets you free. Try it out. My motivation is not the reader. My motivation is setting myself free. Okay that was a barrage of 'free' now.


I'm rusty with the keyboard for some reason. I'm more used to my BlackBerry now. I use that more often than any other device. I'm hooked on to being connected. Family, friends, business, browsing etc all on a smartphone. Welcome to the new age. Where the smaller is better. Small is the new in thing. Okay this is a random tirade to fill up paragraphs. But the point is I shall now kick myself to write. It's probably what I do best (I can feel so many of you rolling your eyes already!). But hey, I noticed that my blog has 10 followers. Now that's inspiring. But then my blog is integrated with Facebook (it was complicated but I did it. So what if it was only through  a click of a button. At least I did it.) so many eyeballs will be reading it. I need you to egg me on (egg me on, alright. Not throw egg on me).


I shall write more often (yeah right) and hopefully get in to a rhythm. Writing is wonderful. We should have more blogs than Facebook accounts these days. A blog is mightier than Facebook. Blog is blah blah blah. Bottom-line is, (I like these conclusion 'bottom-lines', they make it sound like this is it, nothing else matters) I'm back. Spread the word.


Cheers!