8 Offbeat Things To Do On This New Years Eve!

So this is again dat time of the year-when we reaffirm dat the time flies. 2015 is coming to an end and we all are busy in making plans for the evening. So why not choose an offbeat way to pray goodbye to this year and get JSON 2016.

Dress to Dance - Dress for the occasion in an eye-catching, marble. Because algemeen New Year's mood is wild as your style needs to reflect that. To leave a lasting impression with your hosts and the other guests, choose a daring, glitzy outfit and appropriately daring shoes and accessories. Finish your look with highlighting your best facial features with dramatic makeup. There are not many occasions-when-you-can get away with wearing a sequined dress. On New Year's Eve, however, sequins are not only welcome, but classic.

Movie marathon  invite people in comfy clothes hun for some colorful evergreen movies in English and Hindi zowel buckets.  Schedule toilet breaks and als lycra film will finish and start. Lay out drinks, popcorns, Machos, set out a snack and drink table somewhere in the house so people kan walk to get a beverage or hun choice. Make sure your guests are happy with hun visit and harbor an exciting time!

Bollywood Theme Party -  Can you imagine life without Bollywood? The Silver screen spreads and sells not just DRAMs but captivates the hearts of young boys and girls. The Sizzling and sheen decor kan turn a simple party hallinto an extravagant movie set. Cover the walls with the posters or latest movies and hit. Ask everyone to fancy dress his favorite actor or re Zeenat Aman life, Kareena Kapoor, Kajol, Sharukh, Amitabh, dev Anand etc.

Entertainment Entertainment Entertainment !!  Has to be the mantra for the evening. U can plan umpteen numbers of games to entertain the guests. Like -Antakshari and Dumb Sharads, Give the English translation of the Hindi songs, Identify the Dialogues ...

A Slumber Party or Pajama party dat we call.  This is such a relaxing way to celebrate and has always favorite way to celebrate. You can learn pretty creative-when thinking about themes. Like spa theme party. Have Those wonderful face pack, sea salt, sugar scrub, a masseur to give dat 10 mins foot massage lycra and so on. Let the people trade pedicures and gossip untilteh lights go out.   

Complete Detox on an organic farm house - Go for that complete detoxification with focus on stress reduction, immunity, rejuvenation, cleansing and nurturing of the body, mind and soul. Before starting 2016 notice us recognizing the belang or eating Healthily and thinking positively disposed dat is the basis of the all science. This will leave you feeling 'completely Recharged and better-able to deal with the everyday Demands at home and at work. A healthier body, complete relaxation and Clarity of mind await you to take in 2016 on fear.

Head To The After Party -  it Could be anything. May be a bonfire on the terrace, garden or cozying up at home near dat small corner fireplace. New Year's Eve are always chilly enough for Those Sizzling gossips and reason enough to Snuggle close to your crush. It's definitely fun alternative to dancing, plus there is no way the host will get hurt house after party madness.

Explore Goa - If you are planning a quick vacation-then Goa is one place dat is Meant for all childhood or celebrations. One does not really need a reason to visit Goa though, it makes for an ideal destination for almost anything. This New Year's Eve u can sit back and relax on the exotic beaches in Goa or u can explore the Churches and all child or nightlife and party hopping places there.

Finally pray  goodbye  in a way Sizzling -   pHIR Milenge Chalte Chalte !!

My take on- By Twinkle Khanna | Posted on February 16, 2015

Totally agree with the article madam. Reminds me of a Hindi proverb "chor chor Mausere bahi" . Anyways! Let us raise a toast to 'your' roast 🍷 Ahhh!! Roast se yaad aaya .... What was that jean ad where you did that unzipping act and it was so fucking bad (this word shouldn't offend you because it is inspired by "roast" and you have more serious national issues to get offended from ) that nothing popped out 😡 :-(( even Akshay blushed and backed off. Btw - backed off where?? Priyanka ? Raveena ? Or latest bachhie sonakshi?? Uffff!!! Too complicated for my tiny brain. Now it looks much simpler to understand women safety issues. GDP , Repo and reverse repo rates. Why bother about what's going on 'between the sheets' of people with zero value addition in our lives . 

Disclaimer - this article is only for 18 and above ;-)) (again inspired by roast)

6 Things Single Parents should always remember:

1.  Single parents have to deal with many tough questions. The most common one, "where is my daddy/mummy”? One has to handle these questions in a very tactful and matured manner to ensure that the children clearly understand the responsibilities of a single parent and also respect that. Being a single parent can be really tough, but it is not impossible. Best way to handle your kid’s innocent questions is to be truthful to them and by doing so you will definitely earn their respect.

2.  Always understand that its ok to feel lost and its even more ok to follow that some days are better spent in bed. Take your time and bounce back.  It takes confidence, resilience and courage and each in double the amount. First thing which one has to sort out in one’s head is that you are not alone, because there are many children who are living with single parent. Once you start venturing out you will notice far more single parent than you imagined.

3.  Sometimes the memories are what keep us from moving on, but eventually all things fall into place. Until then, what you must believe in is that everything happens for a reason. Remember, no storm lasts forever. Hold on! Be brave! Have faith! Every storm is temporary and we're never alone. So the best way is to calm yourself, take life one-step at a time. You have rest of the life to plot and plan. 

4. It’s obvious to have fears, which is why we have friends and family. Confide in them for sound advice and comfort. Get a grip of you earnings, savings and investments. Ensure that you work double of what you were doing, so that you make more than you can spend, have that contingency fund available. You must strategize and ensure three goals on the priority list i.e – buying a home, saving for your child’s college, investing for retirement.

5.  Don't cry over the past, it's gone. Don't stress about the future, it hasn't arrived. Live in the present and make it count. Life goes on. Always remember that. Get control of your life. Take that mentor out for lunch to explore opportunities in your profession.

6.   Silence speaks when words can't. Over-thinking will destroy you; just forgive them because you are strong enough to know people do make mistakes. Get real with yourself. Start making each personal and financial decision a conscious one and not out of that impulse. You will feel more empowered and confident about your life and money.

7.   You learn more about someone at the end of a relationship than at the beginning. Anybody’s life isn't perfect, but be thankful for everything you have because the fact is that you never know how good you have it until you hear someone else's story.

Remember getting back on your feet after that breakup can be a long process full of emotional and financial setbacks. But not to forget this can also be most exciting and empowering times of your life. So take it to your stride.

 Tôbe Êkla chôlo, êkla chôlo, êkla chôlo, êkla chôlo re

Open thy mind walk alone
Be not afraid, walk alone

5 Reasons why “All that glitters is not gold”. “Har Chamakti Cheez Sona Nahi Hoti”.

This is dedicated to all the new MOMs to be MOMs and Teenage daughters.

Outward appearance can be extremely misleading. Lets take an example. Like Fairy tales “Happily ever after” - what exactly this means? Is there any story to prove that “happily ever after exists”? Well I haven’t read any. Ok! So basis my observations, and self-experience let me try to take you to the world of ever after… 

I always wonder why world’s greatest love stories never had a happy ending? Because there is nothing called “Happily ever after” Its Just a MYTH. Why do all fairy tales, Mills and Boons and other romantic stories ends at “Happily ever after”. Because there is no story after that, it’s only a struggle. A wrestle within. More often, there may not be one reason that you can pinpoint, but a series of reasons for why things doesn’t remain the same or even somewhere close to what you had imagined while entering into that bond.

Tips to replace “Happily Ever After” into a Contented and peaceful life would be:

1.     Stop analyzing life because it only makes it more complicated. It’s much easier to just live it. Personally I am afraid that if I think too much about everything that could have been, and never was, I will only fall into a dark hole and will gradually loose touch with myself. It’s just not worth it

2.    Be smart to understand that life is no storybook where 1st chapter starts with “Once upon a time” and ends with “Happily ever after”. There is ZERO possibility of any Prince charming coming and telling you “No matter what you do, I will always find you”. For those beautiful sweethearts out there who are less aware, let me warn you, Prince charming is just an IDEA. He is just a fiction hero of every Fairy tale and doesn’t exist in reality.

3.    Don’t disillusion your life for figment of imagination. Remember dreaming isn’t as simple as it seems. In fact it is quiet dangerous. Always remember that when you dream, you must make a choice of what price to pay.

4.    Remove your rose tinted glasses and start seeing world as it is. I live in a fantasy world and I realize that i feel I am lying every day to myself and I don’t know where I am heading. It is like being one of those fallen dead leaves on the ground, who lived thinking it would be everlasting and dies without knowing exactly why? Who loved sun, moon, stars, seas and mountains, who believed in fairy tales and its perfect world and some day died wondering.

5.    Eventually all things fall into place. Until then, laugh at the confusion, live for the moments, and know everything happens for a reason. Finally, Time will march on.

At the end, having said all about the world where our fantasy shatters when it meets reality, just try imagining your life without your spouse; what bothers you the most? Exactly! This feeling which the question has given you is "your answer". For most of us it’s the companionship, which we don’t want to let go off. The very thought of coming back to an empty home not for days but for rest of our lives is very gut wrenching. Actions have power, its better to make best of what we have rather than procrastinating over things that doesn’t exist.

6 Important Life Lessons I Learnt After Being Away From Home, Which made me believe that hostel life cant be ignored for Children.

I was lucky to be born and bought up in a middle class, which prioritized academics. Thankfully ours was a gender-neutral family. May be this is one of the reasons why till date it remains a mystery to me that if my parents in 20th century in a place like Bihar have such an open outlook why can’t parents of 21st century think the same. Both my parents encouraged my education. I could have got away with anything in the name of education. I was good in academics but that was purely by chance, I was never too ambitious, someone getting more marks never bothered me. My primary objective was to have fun in life, be with friends, go to parties, volunteer for NGO, art, etc. with a motive to keep me outside house so that I can get my share of freedom and fun. Time passed and I reached 12th std and I hadn’t made any life goals yet. Only objective was to score in 12th exam so that I can get admission in Delhi University and get a chance to start staying on my own, away from parent’s restrictions and have a life of my own. The idea of staying on my own, experience independence, taking decisions - good, bad, ugly, facing the outside world, experience life, night life in particular, negative, positive, all was very thrilling and exciting. Thankfully without much genuine effort I managed good rank, which got me admission in Miranda House Delhi University. Now why this particular college? Well this was the only condition of my father to let me live in a strange city (actually in this college his friend’s daughters were also studying which made him feel more in control) and since I was too obsessed with the idea of living on my own so I readily agreed to his wish (though secretly I had always wanted to go to Hindu or HansRaj). 

I was seventeen, sort of confident, sort of not, but eager for adventure. We didn’t have mobile phones, only hand written letters and telephone booth, which meant limited communication with parents. I knew things would change. I will be out of the shield and protected environment. A bit scared and a bit excited. I left home with a bag full of cloths and two bags full of books.

I remember going out on my own, chatting/gossiping whole night, sleeping whole day, eating Maggie for lunch, bunking classes, etc…etc. It was an amazing sense of independence, and this staying away from the “comfort” and “protected” environment of home did teach me some valuable life lessons which otherwise were very difficult to know. Few of which are:

1.      The value of that phone calls from home. When at home we craved for some private time with friends and now nothing is more joyous that one phone call flashing on screen “Maa” or “Papa”

2.   Realizing that living on own is not as cool as we use to fantasize when we are “stuck” at home.

3.  Financial management. All of sudden you discover newfound respect for your father who has been doing this behind the scenes for the family all these years.

4.  You realize your mother is a human with magic powers. There is simply no other explanation for how she manages to keep the whole house clean and in place when you don't even know where to begin when it comes to making up your own bed. Forget the rest.

5.   Food at the right time and temperature is a myth. Unless of course, you are somewhere in the vicinity of the magician mentioned above. Gradually like me you too will develop love for cold food.

6.   You have to take each decision (career and relationships) and have to take the onus of it. There is no chance of faltering. This in my eyes has been the biggest challenge of all.

And perhaps because of these reasons I strongly believe that making a child stay in the hostel at some point in his academic lifetime is very important for his character development.

 P.S – and this will become your all time favorite nostalgic song:

If you miss the train I'm on, you will know that I am gone
You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles,
A hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles,
You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles.

Not a shirt on my back, not a penny to my name
Lord I can't go back-home this a-way
This a-away, this a-way, this a-way, this a-way,
Lord I can't go back-home this a-way.

5 Lessons Which You Will Relate To If You Have Ever Read Fairy Tales.

So many years of my existence and I am still reeling and totally unaware to come to terms with what I have been through. Sometimes I feel it’s the ‘women thing’ - That inherited urge to go back to home and be with our loved ones only to feel unvalued. Sometimes I blame it to the fairy tales, which have been an integral part of my growing up. They have certainly disillusioned me from the REAL WORLD for a long-long time, but finally I have gained my wisdom and have derived the ‘real’ lesson out of them, which I was unable to see through rose-tinted glasses.

“Cinderella” and her beautiful story, a timeless romantic fantasy that is still buried in some corner of my heart. A story about the power of goodness, optimism, glittery balls, glass slippers and THE Prince Charming? Later in my teens I bought a glass slipper for myself too. The story taught me that whenever I will be treated unfairly and unkindly, a fairy godmother will appear from nowhere to rescue me, and finally I will meet my prince charming who will wait for me, search me high and low till the time he finds me only to sweep me off my feet and we will live happily ever after. Alas! Real Life is anything but a Cinderella story. And this is exactly the lesson I learnt.

1.   One must keep picking oneself up as; life is not a Cinderella story. Coming from my experience heartbreaks are indeed one of the best thing to happen. They make you who you are and hence be thankful to all who caused them, wish them good and let them go. FOREVER. After all we can’t judge the whole tree by one bad Apple! Now I totally believe that whatever happens, happens for good. Our shattered dreams breaks our heart but, only later we realize that our plans was wrecked by GOD only because he knew that it would have wrecked us otherwise.

2. I continued to pursue the knight in shinning armor who will slay the dragon, pick the rose and clip the thorns, until I grew up and experience life and relationships on my own, hence can now vouch to the fact that a girl abandoning her life for a boy is a total rubbish, because dragon-slaying knights exists only in fairy tales. The real dragon never dies.

3. One must have the courage to go beyond one’s comfort zone, and find a place that one feels more at home, because it takes a real brave soul to break expectation of everyone else and stand for what you think is RIGHT. Irrespective.

4. One has to learn to deal with the scary situations does this not happen in our real life too that sweet little pig gets eaten by the big bad wolf? Hence, it is important that we prepare ourselves to fight that "wolf" and not be the "sweet little pig”. It actually showed us that we all have to live a cautionary life with awful things happening to us all the time and there nothing like perfect life -- Life is indeed a bed of roses with thorns in it. Live with it. Deal with it.

5. Time Marches On - Even the powerful witches, stepmothers and all the evils in all the possible forms can never take away your destiny and will not be able to stop the inexorable march of the time.

Is Old age worrying you ?-- Take Charge !!

The life expectancy in India has been rising steadily in the last few decades, so have the costs of medical treatment. For senior citizens, who have a lack of regular income or financial support from children, unfortunately, this could also lead to a financial crisis. Plus, gone are the days when parents can rely on living with their children. In such a scenario, The Reverse Mortgage, introduced by the Union Government in 2007, is an answer to such issues faced by senior citizens, giving them a life of dignity.

Reverse Mortgage Loan (RML) enables a Senior Citizen i.e. above the age of 60 years to AVAIL of PERIODICAL PAYMENTS from a lender against the mortgage of his/her house while remaining the owner and occupying the house.

A reverse mortgage in a simple term is just “opposite” of a Home Loan, because like in the traditional mortgage, here the payback stream is reversed.  Instead of making monthly payments to a lender, as with a traditional mortgage, the lender makes payments to the borrower. Which means that it is a loan available to (i) Homeowners (Self occupied residential house/flat where the titles are clear; and the life of the property is more than 20 years) (ii) who are 60 years or older, this enables them to convert part of the equity in their home into cash. 

This product was conceived as a means to help retirees with limited income use the accumulated wealth in their homes to cover basic monthly living expenses and pay for health care. However, there is no restriction for how reverse mortgage proceeds can be used.

The Senior Citizen borrower is not required to service the loan during his/her lifetime and therefore does not make monthly repayments of principal and interest to the lender. With a reverse mortgage, you always retain title or ownership of the home. The lender never, at any point, owns the home even after the last surviving spouse permanently vacates the property.

The loan is repaid when your home is sold, upon your death, or when your home is no longer your primary residence. The bank first gives an option to the next of kin to settle the loan along with accumulated interest, without sale of property. If the next of kin is unable to settle the loan, the bank then opts to recover the same from the sale proceeds of the property.

With a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage, you can receive a fixed monthly amount for a specified period of time, fixed monthly cash benefit for as long as you live in your home.

The amount of funds that a person is eligible for - depends on his age (or, in the case of couples the age of the younger spouse), the value of the home, the interest rate and upfront costs. The older you are, the more proceeds you may receive. Even though, as long as you live in the home, you are not required making any monthly payments towards the loan balance, but you must remain current on your property taxes etc. Any lapse in these policies can trigger a default on your loan.

The Reserve Bank of India has formulated the following guidelines for a reverse mortgage.

•   Maximum loan amount would be up to 60% of the value of the residential property.

•   Maximum tenure of the mortgage is 15 years and minimum is 10 years. Some banks are now also offering a maximum tenure of 20 years.

•   Option of monthly, quarterly, annual or lump sum loan payment.

•   Property revaluation to be undertaken by the lender once every 5 years (The quantum of loan may undergo revisions based on such re-valuation of property at the discretion of the lender and If at such time, the valuation has increased, borrowers have the option of increasing the quantum of the loan. In such a case, they are given the incremental amount in lump sum)

However before opting this, as a regular income option lender must analyse all income sources -- including pensions, look closely at how much money is left over after paying typical living expenses.