Friday 26 December 2014

Thank you



We are towards the end of 2014. I feel writing the last post of this year to express my gratitude to each and every one of you who showed interest in my blog.

I created this blog in July this year. You encouraged me to keep going by responding positively. People from different parts of the world visit this space, which excites me massively. I value all the visits, readings, likes, shares and comments in relation to my posts.


I am happy that you like my menu. I hope you will keep visiting and responding to "Benu's Menu" in 2015 too. I promise I will serve you with new and more delicious dishes in coming years. 


I simply take this opportunity to thank all the visitors and readers of my blog. Thank you very much. Without your support it would be hard for me to maintain this.

I wish you a happy and prosperous new year 2015. I will see you next year. Until then bye.

{The pictures on this blog are posted here with permission from their owners or have been gathered from various sources on the Internet. If you are the copyright-holder to any of the photographs herein do not hesitate to contact me. They will be swiftly removed if desired so.] 



Sunday 21 December 2014

Thoughts don't control actions

The generic statement, 'Our thoughts control our actions,' is seen to be recurrently used. On the surface level it seems true too. For instance, if someone is thinking, 'I don't want to speak to these people.' S/he avoids those people or pretends not to see them. However this may not be the case in all circumstances.

If we go a bit deeper and question, "Do really our thoughts control our actions?" The answer will certainly be, "Not necessarily." 
                                        
I remember Cristina Comencini's novel 'When the night' to confirm how our actions do not match with our thoughts. The main characters of the novel, Marina and Manfred have very wild thoughts towards each other but when they come face to face their actions do not follow their thoughts. For example, there comes a situation where Manfred carries Marina's two-year-old son and walks ahead of her, then gradually disappears from her sight. Marina gets frustrated and thinks like, "How dare that bastard take my son away from me! When I get him I'll kill that asshole!" But when she eventually meets Manfred she acts being very polite, confident and friendly and says, "Thank you for carrying my child. This really helps me."

Similarly, in his book 'The confidence gap: From fear to freedom' Dr Russ Harris gives an example of Joe Simpson (writer of the book 'Touching the void') who was freezing cold and in terrible agony because his right leg was broken and the knee completely
shattered. His climbing partner had left him for dead at the bottom of a huge crevasse. In such a desperate situation Joe, who did not have food, water or fuel for a fire, also thought that he was definitely going to die on a deserted mountain. However, in contrast to his thought Joe did not wait there for his death. In action he mustered all his courage and crawled out of the crevasse dragging his mangled leg behind him and made his way back to base camp. If he had listened to his mind which was telling him all his efforts were futile Joe would not have survived. Instead he focused on his action to get out of his ordeal and he did it.

Our mind can trick us easily. It is said that at least sixty thousand thoughts pop up in our mind in a single day, and most of them are negative. So we must be aware of the fact that particularly the negative thoughts cannot hold us back from reaching our goal. We should not trust those thoughts which try to limit us but like Joe Simpson, we should immediately act upon the thing that we want to achieve.  

{The pictures on this blog are posted here with permission from their owners or have been gathered from various sources on the Internet. If you are the copyright-holder to any of the photographs herein do not hesitate to contact me. They will be swiftly removed if desired so.] 

    


Tuesday 2 December 2014

Impossibly possible

A little girl needs her Daddy 
to love her with gentlemanly charm.
To hold her tightly when she is afraid;
and keep her safe from harm.

From pigtails and bubblegum,
to lipstick and high heels;
Help her mend a broken heart,
teach her that true love is real.


These stanzas are from the poem 'On this father' composed by Kacee Harrington. Generally, the word 'father' is related to love, care, support and hope. Every child's hero is his/her father. However, are all people fortunate enough to have a role model kind of father? Not necessarily. Xue Xinran tells us an unbelievable story of such an unlucky girl in her book 'The good women of China: Hidden voices', who is destined not to live but to die because of her cunning father. Xinran's book is a collection of 15 true stories of Chinese women, which the writer dug out by gaining their trust by her radio program, 'Words on the night breeze'. All the stories are extraordinary. However I am mostly touched by the story, 'The girl who kept a fly as a pet'. The story exposes an immoral father with demonic nature. It is hard to believe that such people also exist in this world.



As soon as the girl named Hongxue turned 11 and got her first period, her father started to abuse her sexually. At the same time, he did not forget to threaten his daughter not to tell the mother anything about this. The bewildered girl felt "sick" all over.  

Once the man began his dirty game he never stopped. Whenever the mother was not around he would corner  and assault 
Hongxue. The poor girl says, "I became more and more afraid of this activity." As if this was not enough, the circumstance compelled Hongxue and her younger brother to live only with their father. Since then the father started to rape the helpless girl.

She tried to protest at her best but in vain. The man had stopped pretending it was "father's love." He warned Hongxue saying that if she told anyone she would have to face a public criticism and she was already a "broken shoe." After a couple of years of such torture the mother somehow got to know about the father's filthiness. At this point Hongxue was hopeful thinking that eventually she would be protected by her mother. To her great surprise came the lady's response, "For the security of the whole family, you must put up with it. Otherwise, what will we all do?"

The writer: Xue Xinran

Due to her painful lifestyle Hongxue fell ill every now and then. She found the hospital was much safer than the terrible home. With this realization she started to hurt herself so that she could stay longer at the hospital. She was not afraid of dying. In fact for her death was dearer than life. At the age of 17 Hongxue died of her self-inflicted disease 'septicemia'. In reality it was an unspoken suicide, which nobody, even doctors, knew about. 

In this way, poor Hongxue never got a chance to experience the fatherly love, support and protection expressed by Kacee Harrington above.


{The pictures on this blog are posted here with permission from their owners or have been gathered from various sources on the Internet. If you are the copyright-holder to any of the photographs herein do not hesitate to contact me. They will be swiftly removed if desired so.]