Bucket List Reloaded

Don’t you wish to live the life you have always dreamed of? Don’t we all have that power of hope that is within us even during the most pessimistic of moments? We all do, and in my case, I have had a long bucket list which I am choosing to bring down to a small list of five. I have never been able to limit the list to five, but these are a few things which were in my mind for such a long time, some of them which my readers might have already known and the others not really brought to light.

1. To visit Florence and Rome: There are many cities that I wish to visit, but these two have been in the list for so long that I feel that this need come from my previous birth. Florence being the city of Renaissance and Rome being once a great city of ancient times, I would want to visit these two places first. It is only fair to start with these two cities as I can always travel more inside and outside Italy, from Venice and Milan to Barcelona and Lisbon outside the Mediterranean.

2. To spend a lot of time in a Buddhist monastery: I have never been to one in India, but I have been to a few in Sri Lanka. I have kept the list of a number of monasteries, and there are a few which I have liked more than the rest – they make me wish to travel to Ceylon, but Nepal, Bhutan, Burma and Thailand are also in my list. I have spend enough time in a number of Christian monasteries and it is time I add these to the long list too.

3. To tell Pope Francis that he is awesome: No, it is not that he needs to be told that, but still, with what he has been doing, I feel that it is my duty and privilege to go and say that. He has made people say that the Pope is awesome in such a small period of time. It should also mean a journey to St. Peter’s Square, which should another nice thing. St. Peter’s Basilica, sooner or later, I am coming there and I shall take those photos for my church photography collection.

4. To have a long Carpathian expedition: Carpathians! You should have heard the name. Count Dracula and Carpathians have that kind of a relationship with me that has made my brain remember the name of that mountain ranges a lot of more than I would have needed to. I have kept that in my list from childhood, and some day, I am going to travel to any castle around there and ask for the Count. I do hope that they have calling bells. Yes, I also wish to go back to Romania’s cities and get an autograph from Simona Halep. That means two things in one journey.

5. To volunteer for Missionaries of Charity: There is no other organization in the whole world which I consider with that much reverence as the Missionaries of Charity. I have visited a number of their convents and the places of work, and it is safe to say that being part of the congregation is one of the greatest things of service that one can do. Yes, I can be of service somewhere else now, but may be one day, volunteer for their work if possible. Kolkata is indeed a blessed city.

The list should go on and on, especially with the cities to be visited, which covers almost all of the Europe and a good area of Latin America. There are always more things in the bucket list than you can keep thinking about, and there are always more things in the world to add to that list. For now, these are the five things that I would do if I had nothing to hold me back and I was #BefikarUmarBhar.

*** The image used in this blog post is from the Happy Hours Campaign page at Indiblogger. This blog post was written as part of the Happy Hours contest from IDFI Federal Life Insurance in association with Indiblogger. Please check this link for further details: http://bit.ly/BefikarUmarBhar

🙂 TeNy

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More than One Label

As Gillette Venus and BlogAdda takes the one-dimensional labels out of women, and brings to light, those multitude of things that make them who they are, I would like to contribute with something about my cousin sister about whom I have always had pride, and who has always deserved more applause and love than anyone else. I have known her since my birth, and I am proud about the choices that she has made in her life.

She has been the good daughter in her family, helping her mother in all ways possible along with studying at the college. Her being a good sister was evident with her elder brother as well as with us cousin-brothers and sisters as she became a great role model to all of us, and her presence as the guiding light was there even when I was going through dark times. Still, there was no random advice, but help.

A very old photo of my cousin-sister and sister 😀 Don’t tell my sis that I didn’t write on her 😛

She has been firm in her decisions, and powerful in her ideas, and the quality of compassion was something that she seemed to have had for a very long along with her time spent in prayers. Being a compassionate human being was never something of lower preference for her. She knew that her prayers had answers, and never hesitated or doubted, unlike a number of her cousins which included us.

So, when we went to Kolkata in 2011, meeting her again was a major reason for that journey, while not denying the everlasting love for the City of Joy. She had joined the congregation of Missionaries of Charity hoping to do something for the poor and the downtrodden. We went to a number of children’s homes, old-age homes and places like Home for the Dying and Mother House. Visiting Kolkata had a lot to do with visiting her, who had spare time now after years of joining the service.

A photo taken during the journey in 2011 – tomb of Mother Teresa at Mother House, Kolkata

When I was a child, I used to wonder why she had joined that Roman Catholic group of religious sisters which needed more sacrifice and a lot more of the vow for poverty than any other group of nuns. Even her relatives had wondered if she could have joined a local congregation of nuns and did well in that community. But now, I know that it was because she was ready for it and this was another role that she wanted to do not for herself or to the taste of the people who knew her, but for the society.

Compassion had been coming naturally to her, and helping people was something that she longed for. Almost each and every place which had children needing help, she was there, and anger was something that never found her. In my whole life, I have never found her angry. Not ready to make a choice, she chose to be educated, and also decided go the way she wanted to, and that was related to social service, no matter what the relatives had said. Salute to her for that decision.

This post is a part of #UseYourAnd activity at BlogAdda in association with Gillette Venus

I thank BlogAdda and Gillette for the opportunity to write on this topic. I also take this opportunity to tag Moon, Najm, Anita  and Sucheta to share their awesome views on the topic. Click on this link to know more about it: http://blog.blogadda.com/2015/01/08/useyourand-break-free-with-gillette-venus-indian-women-bloggers. And please don’t forget to acknowledge me in your posts. Thank you. *All photos used in this blog post are mine only.

TeNy