We suffer ....but not in vain !

Here's an interesting article.
Depression.
Please Don't Have a Nice Day
I'm kind of relieved that I'm not alone in thinking about pain,suffering and depression as probably a push - sometimes they are just the push ,a knock on the head - absolutely required for human race.I've learnt certain lessons only because of good solid knock on my head and melancholy and frustrations. Infact  I have learnt nothing from happy moments - not even gratitude ! Gratitude  i learnt from bad times and remembering to be grateful always is still a task !
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"Human resilience is really quite astonishing. People are not the fragile flowers that a century of psychologists have made us out to be. People who suffer real tragedy and trauma typically recover more quickly than they expect to and often return to their original level of happiness, or something close to it. That's the good news—we are a hardy species, even though we don't know this about ourselves. The bad news is that the good things that happen to us don't feel as good or last as long as we think they will. So all that wonderful stuff we're aiming for—winning the lottery, getting promoted, whatever we think will change our lives—probably won't do it after all. We're resilient in both directions. We rebound from distress but we also rebound from joy."
-Daniel Gilbert from Stumbling on Happiness

Lipsticks

Ok ,I think I've fetish for lipsticks ! I have tonnes of lipsticks and as far as i can remember I've completely used only one - a nude from Lakme ( this was easily a decade ago). My Mom got alarmed whenever she saw the dabba full of lipsticks and i think she mentally calculated how much i had spent.Now my spending on lipsticks increased alarmingly in the last decade which was full of strife,heartbreak,frustration ,stress,pain and general stupidity.The last decade was also the time where i worked jobs so i had the money. So ,like decadent selfish youth, i splurged and am still splurging on lipsticks.

Now don't get me wrong...I'm not a make up person however...I'm a lipstick person. During my teenage and twenties i seriously ( naively) thought kajal and lipstick means make up. So a beautiful palette of eyeshadows and blushes which was gifted sat gathering dust in the cupboard because invariably we 3 sisters ( yes ,we shared make up when we were naive, unselfish sisters) thought foundation and eyeshadow ,blushes was too much make up.

Now I'm talking about an age when Lakme ruled the roost in India and foundation was worn to make one whiter !

Why talk about make up now ??

Well, you see i accidently came across a make up blog and since then trawling makeup blogs and reading about all the beautiful blushes and stay on eyeliners is a kind of stressbuster in my miserable life.
Hurrah for internet and for the fact my father can afford one!

I also learnt how cleverly applied makeup can highlight features.And its trickery - make up is trickery ! And more importantly , I learnt about Chambor, Mac, Revlon,Maybelline and the stuff they hawk and of course now in hindsight i realize how some of the stuff from Lakme was really bad.
Maybelline i knew when i was in senior college . But hey, i always thought it was very expensive. Of course i now realize Revlon and Maybelline is just a drugstore brand in US and retails there so cheaply yet they are so costly in India. They retail for far more in India. But then in India, all make up is costly - especially the really good stuff and sometimes the bad useless stuff as well.

Now recently to stub my loneliness and grief, I bought eyeliner Prunella and Cocobar and metallic black and pledged to My Mom that i'll use my makeup, iron my clothes and be as well dressed as i possible can.More importantly use my lipsticks and not buy stuff which I'll probably never use !

Wash thy face

Since i'm conventional and since i did not have mom who always wore make up..i readily believed whatever my mom said especially about cosmetics and creams.
Now when my mom was young or for that matter well into her thirties they didn't have something called 'facewashes'. In fact i don't remember seeing multitudes of ads on Tv for facewash till the time i turned 15 and that's when i bought Garnier facewash and my mom wondered why i wanted to waste money. I'm a Mama's girl and that was true even when i used to argue with her, tell little white lies( yep, she has caught my big lies ALL the time- since i'm very bad at lying ).Anyway, so though i bought the tube i never really let go of 3 cheap recipes which always worked for me. I have a smooth wheatish brown skin without blemishes or pigmentation. Now , I've turned a full circle after last so many years of experimentation on creams, facewashes, shampoos and other blah blah.

Here are my failsafe recipes for fuss free facewash:

1. Mix fine masoor dal powder 1/2 tsp with 1 tbsp of milk (use full fat if you have very dry skin) then add 1/2 -1 tsp of lemon juice depending on the quantity and mix and apply to your face. Now if you have time - add 1/2 tsp honey ,a pinch of ambahalad.You can use this any time of the year.And to make this super easy for you- subsituite milk powder for milk, omit masoor dal powder for dryer skins or mix oats powder.

2. Another cheap deep cleansing face wash for pimple prone skin is honey + lemon juice+ mild reetha water .Apply and wash off after 5 minutes. Mild reetha water can be made using 2 reetha soaked in 1 glass of water ,mashed filtered and stored in fridge. Add a pinch of sodium benzoate to this to increase its shelf life.

3.Another simple face wash is dahi + honey + pinch of ambahalad.

You can add and minus a lot of stuff from these basic recipes depending on your knowledge,time and patience.The smart thing to do here is make this stuff for one-time use only.

A little something.....

Why do I always lose?
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Long absence because I'm struggling against a personal tragedy that had mostly left me emotionally lame .Since, I've marginally grown stronger and in dedication to my mom's spirit i thought I'll write. My mom is currently bed ridden and terminally ill and taken care by me and dad. Our days and nights since last 9 months are revolving around her. Among this misery, the good news is that I became an Aunt 7 months ago.
Mom always accepted situations that she could not change ....I'm very bad at accepting calmly what is beyond and out of my hands.Currently this blow is teaching me that.
This blow is teaching me to prepare nutritious liquid diets,soups,changing diapers,sponging and nursing,running the house,cooking for others in the family,sometimes buying groceries and running out to get medicines,washing clothes(thanks to washing machine).Doing each and everything with my 2 hands.Mom said life is the greatest teacher and hard work will not kill you. I'm doing just that -slogging.Family friends look pityingly at me and ask us to get help- some bai. I tell them i've one bai for cleaning the house and washing utensils and she gives enough headache..besides i want to do this last bit for mom. Sure..i get frustrated especially when my one sis is working full time and other one is tending to her baby and they don't do as much.I crib too because i have this nagging and cribbing bone in me. Right now there is no feed back from Mom ..she is in semi conscious state so i feel even more let down.
I bought a camera seven months ago only to click mom's photos for memorabilia.And yeah, right now, I don't have a "life" to speak off. But i don't care..my introverted and low tolerance level for superficial social life always limited me to few people whom I care aboutAnother thing i learned,i don't have anyone who i can wake up at 3 am ,bawl ,talk randomly about my pain over and over again.If you have someone like that in your life,count yourself lucky and guard them like treasure !
When i sleep these days its because I'm tired .