Tulsa-Day Visit

This year after New Year’s Day we decided to visit Tulsa for a day before our schools and jobs would reopen. After a few minutes of browsing through the internet and getting a feel of the weather for the next week and our schedules.

Source-meme.org

I know it was a holiday, but we had a few errands to run and visit friends. So, anyways we decided to make our visit on January 8th . The weather.com website predicted it to be a bright and sunny day. Not sure about you people, but I love sunny days during winter, because it makes the day brighter and gives me positive vibes.

Source-Dictionary.com

As we were planning for only a day’s visit so we had to be sure to choose the tourist spots that were important to our interests. We decided to visit the Tulsa Zoo, Oklahoma Aquarium and Gilcrease Museum. For the Musuem we got student tickets and the rest of the reservation were done for adult tickets.

From where we live , it took us close to three hours to reach our first stop “The Tulsa Zoo”. Once were done scanning the tickets through the counter, it was all cute animals and birds to be seen. Following are some of the photographs we clicked there-

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Soure- My Google Pixel 4 XL.

I was very scared when the tigress came so close to the glass. A side effect of watching multiple films Animal related films I guess. Well, going back to the tigress story she was growling and prowling the whole time we were there. I personally wanted to get away from her space as soon as possible.

Watching the peacock was really funny . He was definitely elegant , but was also strutting his presence there. He waited for us to click a few pictures , which I was surprised to see. Once we started walking away he followed us for a bit. It took us about 2:30 hours to walk through the whole place and yeah , a few of the animals were inside their shelters as it was a wintry day. Too cold for them.

It was close to noon so we decided to have our lunch and drive to the museum, because it was about to close soon. We were inside the museum for close to 2 hours. I mean we might have spend more time, but I was tired and wanted to sit every moment I saw a bench or couch.

Source: SayingImages.com

A few images from the Gilcrease Exhibitions going at the time.

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Source- iPhone 8.

They had quite a few exhibitions from but not limited to Native American culture and history. Some of their modern art based on pictures that we make memes out of were beautiful and inspiring.

Our third stop was the Aqquaariummmm! Well I was very giddy for that, because before starting for the place I got to nap for a bit. There were lots of exotic fish and sea animals that I had not seen before. Some pictures from the Oklahoma Aquarium-

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Source- My Google Pixel 4XL

The tortoise was a friendly guy. Stopping over that particular spot and got his photographs clicked with lots of people. In the aquarium they have concrete shells filled with water, where you can touch some of the marine animals. I as usual chickened out of that.

Finally we had a filling and delicious meal in Ti Amo Ristorante Italiano , somewhere in Park Plaza ,Tulsa. I will highly recommend that place, for couples,families and friends.

Before saying adieu. Here’s a picture of the dessert that I had.

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Source- My Google Pixel 4XL. New York Style Cheesecake.

Have a good week and a great Sunday evening everyone!

6 Reasons to think twice before coming to US

I would like to present a disclaimer before starting with the post.

Disclaimer- I mean no disrespect towards anyone with this post. It is only for Indians (middle-class). It is not for engineers, doctors only for students who belong to Humanities and Social Sciences. Someone whose Grant or Assistantship would be less than $15,000 a year.

Lets begin this journey of getting to the crux of it all. Indians (specially students and service holders) always feel in a way that staying in USA would be better than being in our own country. After this post today, you might all get a second thought.

1. Public Transportation- In most websites you will find how US has better road quality than India and there are more motor vehicles on the road than in India. What they do not tell you is out of those motor vehicles almost 70% is private and the rest 30% would be public. In public transportation I would consider transit buses, passenger railways, passenger boats, subways, metro, airways. Only select cities in the USA have good public transportation which means you will be able to travel from one city to another or properly within the city without having to book a cab, most of which are in the North or East Coast, excluding Chicago (Illinois), Miami (Florida), New Orleans (Louisiana).

Source:Pinterest.com

Your University might have their own transit system, but you must not rely on them if you would like to travel to a neighboring town, which I guarantee you is far, they will not take you there . So one must have a car here, also cars can be expensive (second hand cars good quality starts from $4000 or higher) if you get something cheaper than that you will have to spend more on fixing it, on top of that there are some costs which you might have to pay for every 6 months. Unlike India you cannot ride a scooter in a highway or you could buy a bike (bicycle). Ubers can be pretty expensive too for inter-city rides ( will go up to $40 round trip) .

Finally coming to airways, travelling within USA through flights is very expensive. So if you are planning to be here please try to make friends so that you can travel together and it would not be convenient for you.

2. Health Care- You must have a health insurance to be here in the US. There are health insurances for dental care and eye care and a seperate one for a total body health care. According to websites like healthsystemtracker.org and investopedia.com, USA spends 16.9% of their GDP on their health care. So if you are an international student here you will have to expend more so, than domestic students in health insurance. For six months it might roughly end up to $1000 which sometimes is partly paid by the grant or assistantship that you received. So somehow if your grant or stipend is less than $1000 you might want to think twice before coming here.

Source-healthpayerintelligence.com

3. Taxation- All your grants and stipends will be taxed here. So be cautious if in the payroll paper you see the earnings to be suppose $500 or so it will not exactly be that , student or not you will be taxed.

Source:debt.org

4. Food- As Indians we grow up with a variety of spicy food. A meal or thali consists of every taste possible i.e. Sweet, Salty, Bitter, Hot and Sour. Once you are here in US you will want to cook your own food because buying meals every single day can be a tad bit expensive , just like in India. Some of the largest grocery stores nationwide are Walmart, Kroger, Target, Ahold Delhaize and even Amazon (it’s pretty big here). Based on the community or city population , suppose if you have a large Asian community there you might get some spices which are Indian otherwise no. By chance if you are a vegetarian, you will have to start making new recipes because lots of tropical vegetables and fruits are not available here in US unless you are in some Grand city.

Source:tenor.com

Living in an Asian community or area can also be useful at times as there might be little grocery stores owned by Asians, where you would be able to get the ethnic food ingredients.

5. Housing- Please do not book university housing here in USA. Unlike India in US University housing is much more expensive than living off campus. It is definitely fun living with a community but you can have fun living off campus too.

Source- gifsoup.com

(Feel like it should be included with ” 6 things to remember while coming to US, but you still must know this).

6. F1-VISA- If you think that the stipend you will be receiving is not enough to maintain a life here and are planning to do a side job, well take a double look at the F1- VISA rules. When you apply for F1-VISA , you are basically telling the Homeland Security that you have enough money on your own including the scholarship or grant or assistantship amount to live here for whatever number of years you applied for. So you will not be allowed to do any job outside your University.

Source:tenor.com

If you have an assistantship you can work for 20 hours per week or less, during summer holidays it might increase up to 40 hours per week. But even then you would still be allowed to only work for the University.

Side Notes:-

1. The Assistantship if you are receiving one will mostly cover your tuition fees, you would still be expected to pay some other miscellaneous fee including- library fee, sports fee, health insurance fee and a few others in the beginning of every year.
2. None of the Assistanthsips or Scholarship will pay for your VISA application which can be up to a total of Rupees 24,000/- and Flight fare a bare minimum of Rupees 50,000/-.
3. Most of the Universities will basically expect you to have attempted TOEFL which can be roughly Rupees 13,200/- and some Universities ask for a GRE score as well Rupees 14,699 approximately.
4. In US there is something called the city tax which you might have to pay in some cities for your grocery.

These are some of the points that I felt like , needed to be presented. If you guys have any questions or would like to add more to it, please speak about it in the comment section.

Have a good weekend and an awesome week ahead.

Strings of Growth-Haiku

With a wave, yellows knotted

Both hands clasped , the knot is red

Together forever, Knots formed ahead.

Source:luxuryflowersmiami

I am very excited to announce that this Valentine’s Day , we got engaged:-)

It has been a wonderful experience , so far!

Over a cup of ice-cream

Source-123RF.com

Vanilla is always your choice,

Sweet and creamy, white, wonderful to your tongue-

Chocolate, I argued ; is strong , sweet and brown

Unlike you, it pulls me towards it.

Never learnt your like for vanilla,

Stopped caring for it, when you fell for Chocolate.

copyright Meloheart

Wonders of New Mexico -Day 1

I am extremely sorry, for not being able to post earlier. I have been facing a writer’s block for the past few weeks. Continuing with the journey-

Source- My camera

The hot air balloons of New Mexico were the first thing we saw every morning from the back porch of our host’s house. She was kind enough to prepare breakfast for us everyday we stayed there.

Day 1 Agenda

Places to visit-

1. Petroglyph National Monument
2. Museum of Natural Science and History
3. Old town of Albuquerque

When we reached the visitor’s centre of Petroglyph National Monument, we selected the Boca Negro Canyon trail to hike. The trail is at a distance of almost 10-15 mins from the visitor’s centre. Once you reach there , you can start hiking the trail.

These are some of the pictures we clicked there.

A beautiful cactus flower.

The kind of rock formations visible in the monument

My man posing before we began hiking

This is what it looks like from the top

Here is a link that might help you plan your visit to Petroglyph National Monument https://www.nps.gov/petr/planyourvisit/placestogo.htm

Our next visit was to the New Mexico Museum of Natural Science and History. We drove up straight to the museum centre because that was the place we were planning to spend a large chunk of our time. It has lot of exhibitions , some real fossils , a beautiful walk through the rock and volcanic lava formation in New Mexico. I would definitely recommend a visit to this museum.

Some of the photographs from this museum include-

This area covers a huge section of the floor showing different dinosaurs and there is a gadget which you can use to produce the sound of a dinosaur.

It must have taken us nearly 3-4 hours to do the complete round up of this place. Here is link that might be useful to find more information related to the museum http://www.nmnaturalhistory.org/visit .

The last place to visit in our list was the Old town, where the christmas lights were still on and we visited some of the shops in the old town. It is a place worth visiting. Some photographs from the old town –

These were all taken in the town square. There is a beautiful old church which you must visit when you are there. Make sure that you reach there before sunset, the church closes pretty early.

I would like to apologize for keeping it extremely short. With no travel blogging abilities here, I have tried summarizing a beautiful journey.

If you want to know more about the day 1 sites we visited please mention in the comment box. I might be able to help you find some legit website links.

Wonders of New Mexico

This year on the 3rd of January me and my boyfriend went on a trip to New Mexico, during the Winter break from School.

Being tedious planners more for me than him , we planned it for more than a month, with the budget, both of our school and work schedules, we finally decided on 3rd January 2020.

Today I would like to share some photos of the journey. I must mention that we traveled via car which is common here in the States. Learnt about it right after a few days I reached here. Going forth with the journey-

We booked an Airbnb space in Rio Rancho before hand. Never having lived in an Airbnb we were both worried. But it was a good deal and within budget.

It took us almost 12 hours via I-40 W, travelling through Missouri,Oklahoma , Texas and finally New Mexico. We started at around 5 in the morning and since it was winter, the sunrise did not take place for at least the next two hours. Vast open lands in Texas and few houses here and there through Missouri and Oklahoma was what we saw through the journey. Once we entered the borders of New Mexico the scenic view altered a bit with snow covered mountains.

Source:Giphy

Here are some of the photographs I clicked while he was driving.

Picture Credits: Yours faithfully (Me)
It was a miniature figurine in one of the gas stations in Oklahoma and I clicked it because it was really interesting.

Picture Credits: Me again
This was somewhere in Texas. Unfortunately, I have a poor memory, so do not actually remember where exactly in Texas.

Picture Credits: The world is really spherical :-), but its ME again.

This photograph was taken when we reached the periphery of New Mexico, you know where you start seeing the sign boards of New Mexico University :-).

Picture Credits: Sad to break your heart, but its me again.

The reason behind me clicking most or all the pictures dear friends is because I cannot drive :-(. Anyways these photographs were clicked when we were close to the city of Albuquerque.

copyright meloheart

Snow Piled Mountains

Compiled in heaps, all cold and white

They look enchanting , from a distance.

The nearer you go, there comes a realisation-

You could only so far , without being in danger.

Avalanches a common occurrence in snow piled mountains,

Realized too late that it could also kill a relation.

copyright meloheart

Book Review – Half Brother

Halo alles zusammen. Wie geht es dir? I höffe alles ihr seid sicher und gesunden. Ich versuche so viel wie möglich drinnen yu bleiben.

That was my mini knowledge of German. I have been trying to hone it for the past few weeks.

Hello Everyone. How are you all doing? I hope all of you are staying safe and healthy. I have been staying indoors as much as possible. Also excluding the language learning, I have also been committed to reading new books apart from Academia. The title must have already told you that this post is about a book review. So let’s begin

Book- Half Brother

Author -Kenneth Oppel

Genre- Children’s book

Publisher-Scholastic Press/ New York, 2010

Rating- 5 stars

The title of the book justifies the story to its very core. It is the first book that I read by this author and thoroughly enjoyed it.

He has a wonderful way of expressing the feelings of his characters, specially because it is a children’s book it needed to be very neat and easy to understand , which he maintained through and through. Also it pulled to my heart because I am an anthropologist and the plot revolves around primates. Well, I have already let out a lot about the book. All I would say is please consider reading it , whether you are an adult or a child. It will show you how innocent love and care can be among children.

So, I am off now. Das ist schön. That is all my dear friends.

More time for ourselves

These are one of the most fearful situations we are having to deal with. Chaotic times. But does it mean that we cannot set fresh goals for ourselves.

Source- giphy

Yes, we are all quarantined but that doesn’t mean that our lives have come to an end. I believe people must try to live their lives in an active fashion and accommodate it very much with social distancing. I am willing to share my recent goals with all of you here. Also i would like for you guys to tell me about any of your plans to ensconce with the present condition.

Source- Giphy

1.Learn a new language- I am a Graduate student working through the Ph.D. coursework, normal school hours and academic work does not leave me with ample amount of time to work on a new language. For the time being. I want to develop my intermediary skills in German to an advanced one, even though that too will particularly help me with academia.

2. Develop my English Vocabulary- As you all know by now, English is not my first language. I am willing to develop it as much as possible though. With help from certain software and apps the task does not seem to be a lot testing and with the extra time I would definitely like to focus on that.

3. Meditate Everyday- I guess this is the one closest to my heart. I learnt meditation at a very tender age, but practiced it seldom. It is not tiring believe me. Only people having issues ( getting bored) to sit out in the same place for more than fifteen minutes and stare out at empty space, to make it generalized might not like it much. I want to try it out again.

4. Eat healthy and delicious- Lots of people have this notion that healthy food cannot be delicious or simply have to eat certain salads to lose weight or maintain one that you like. Tell you what , your healthy food does not always have to be salads. I am a preferable vegetarian person and during this period while I stay at home everyday , will try to cook various dishes which are vegetarian , delicious and made from ingredients easily accessible. But man, don’t forget about exercises and ample amount of sleep. Those two play an important role in maintaining your health.

5. Reading – There are some books long left books in my shelves getting dusty over the last few months. I am planning to go over them , as well as some journals which I must finish reading.

That is all for today folks! I would hope if you are reading it , to try and comment about the latest hobby that you picked up or a fresh set of goals for this year.

A little tamarind in my life

Sour filled life, do we learn from those ?

Little miscreants in life, these tamarinds.

A wonderful tangy taste, break the shell and you have them.

A lot of it though would make you sick.

Once again , when the tamarinds come in view , you taste them.

copyright meloheart

Floating

On earth, walking, numb

Mind seems to decide its own way,

My feet are taking a turn.

P.S. – I don’t know , why I wanted to write this . But my mind does really know how to work on its own.

copyright meloheart

Delhi to Heathrow, London – A first timer’s experience

I haven’t been writing for a while now, my fault completely. Actually I have been preparing for my travel to Arkansas.

Yes, guys you read it right. So here I am just going to write about my experience of the whole journey, it is going to be in three parts.

My flight to Heathrow was at around 12:20 pm which for some reason got delayed by ten more minutes.

Let me start from the beginning. I am not going to tell you regarding my bathroom habits,No. We had called a cab earlier just to be in time , so by 9:20 am I was there standing with my papa in Indira Gandhi International Airport Terminal 3, laden with 3 heavy bags we were moving towards the gate. Mind you I got an approval of two 23kg check ins and a 10kg hand luggage. And like any other first timer I filled all of them to the brim. Once in the queue towards the Gate , I was pretty nervous . Lots of incidents related to passengers being not allowed to board were hovering over my head. Fortunately nothing happened and I got to check in. Though once in the immigration queue I got a look over by the officer who checked my I-20 and gave me a pass.

Source- ndtv.com

Now, I just had to wait in the duty free area and my stomach was growling loud enough for a nearby passenger to turn his head. I wasn’t carrying a huge cash with me, so all I could do was look out for subway. I love their wraps besides they come in cheap. After food business got settled I moved towards the boarding where we had to wait for like 15 minutes before boarding.

As a child my ears had the tendency to ache in an insomniac way during flight hours. So me travelling via air wasn’t taken lightly by my father. He was too worried , really tensed, to the extant of waiting in the airport until the flight took off. Besides it was the first time his only daughter was travelling international with previous experience.

Source- self

Once seated I noticed that my co-passenger is a Spanish girl. I really enjoyed my flight journey with her. We exchanged lots of anecdotes and stories. It was wonderful, I didn’t want the flight to end. The main reason was something else though. My flight landed there at around 5:35 pm , but the next flight would be next day at 12:50 pm. So I would have to stay in the airport, as I was travelling without a transit VISA.

The immigration queue in Heathrow was a huge one as all international passengers were lined up together. God, I already missed India. When my turn finally came to face the officer, he stared at my face and asked about my next flight . I told him it would be next day. He then granted me a One day transit VISA and told me to immediately book a hotel room. I was naturally overjoyed. Ah! what plans I would have designed had I known it could be possible, probably travel towards London. But it was not to be. I was tired , had to get a new sim from the airport only with 20 pounds.

By the time I was able to get into the hotel it was 9:20pm approximately and I couldn’t fall asleep until mid night. My biological sleeping clock had been disturbed and it was just the beginning dear friends. If calculated in Indian time , I was awake from 6:30 am to 3am the next day without any wink of sleep. Yet I was there in Hounslow and the hotel room had a beautiful view. I could stand there for hours watching the double Decker buses pass by and the wonderful English houses had it not been for my tired eyes.

Source: A bit of drizzle there in Heathrow

P.S.- The most difficult thing during this part of the journey was to carry an almost 9.5kg ruck sack on my back. I am only 5 feet weighing less 49kgs. It made me loony bins at times ,lol.

I apologize to all of my readers, for not posting it earlier and I know that the content could be made brighter using pictures. But the ones I have can hardly be recognized ,with a phone as bad as that it was not easy.

Starting Over

Two days before the summer holidays would be over. The street was filled with energetic little kids bustling in and out of the books and other shops which offered valuable discounts for the upcoming session. He wanted to head straight towards the ice cream parlour where his friends would be waiting for him, but a certain petite looking woman caught his attention. She was passing through the doors of one of the most popular book shops unaware of his eyes which were tracing her movements.

He stealthily followed her inside. While she was searching for books in the biography section, he browsed randomly through Non-fictions. Stealing glances from the texts he could see the similar quirks which made him fall in love with her. The excitement whenever she found something new, the scrunching of her nose when a certain book had not been titled aptly; suddenly he felt a rush of adrenaline .

He knew he had to face her , no matter what he had to talk to her. “Keya ,” her name rolled out smoothly out his tongue.

She slowly turned to face him. He thought she would be enraged, or probably disgusted ; but as usual she surpassed his imagination.  Keya was smiling at him , waving him to walk over towards her.

“How have you been? ” she whispered , eyeing left and right to check if somebody was eavesdropping.

“ The same as you,” really smart Arvind he berated himself.

“I always knew you were secretly a seer,” she then thrusted a book towards him the title of which said ‘LET’S START ALL OVER AGAIN’.

He was left speechless for a while , then as if he was struck with a bucket of cold water. Arvind looked at her with a sheepish smile “ I can do that.”

Copyright: meloheart

Proposal

” I took the job”, he told me over the phone and I suddenly felt my mouth opening, gaping like a fish.

I was walking through the tiny lane of a vegetable market and my sudden halt made the person behind me grumble a few words. Most of which included ‘younger generation’, ‘phones’ and how our lives are a mess.

“You told me , ” I started walking again “You needed time to gain some semblance and what about”? turning towards a shopkeeper, I realized that my voice had been amplified; much more than intended. “What about the worries you shared yesterday?”

Source: Indian Market

He was quite for a while and I had to check if the line was still on.

“Well, the boss called me last night.”

” And what convinced you?” I was smiling now.

“I surely am easily persuaded,” he sighed, there was some relief in that.

“Ask me, I have been trying to do that for four years now,” I was still standing in front of the shop.

“Trying to make me fall in love with you?” some sort of cankering could be heard .

” You realized that now,” shopping now would not be of much use, I realized. He would be here soon.

“Can’t share the secret , anyways where are you now?” I could hear the roar oh motorbike.

Copyright: meloheart

Red Cheeks

There standing in the room,

Suffocating would be the perfect word;

Coping up with me I knew, is difficult

Doing it for years, but being blamed for not caring

I think my cheeks literally need some slapping.

Copyright: meloheart

Anatomy Courses in Andhra Pradesh

Life after high looked bleary for me. I did know that science was what would be my future, but the subjects and the colleges were baffling . Fresh out of high school, I was an architecture aspirant but later due to various reasons it turned into a foggy dream.

Without any proper idea about the upcoming subjects, I was more focused on the traditional branches of Biology. This is something I would like most of you to avoid, which is one of the main concentration of this post and the ones impending. Every post will include a subject, the colleges and institutions where it is available in a particular state of India and various other details.

Let us start with Anatomy courses in Andhra Pradesh. There are five institutions in total offering the course

• GVP Institute of Health Care and Medical Technology , Vishakhapatnam

Source- gvpmc.in

This college was established in the year 2008 and they only have MBBS courses approved by the Government. It has been affiliated under Dr NTR University of Health Sciences. They offer Anatomy as part of their MBBS course.

• Narayana Medical College, Nellore

Source- narayanamedicalcollege

Established in 2006, the college is private and has been affiliated under Dr NTR University of Health Sciences. They offer variety of Anatomy courses for UG and PG level- B.sc , MBBS, BPT, BDS, B.Sc Nursing, General Nursing, DMLT, DMIT, Diploma in Anaesthesia, MD, MDS and M.Sc.

• Sri. Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences

Source- collegedunia

It is an autonomous university established in 1995 and is situated in Tirupati. They offer MBBS course in Anatomy.

• Santhiram Medical College

Source- Edufever

A college recognized by Medical Council of India and Govt. of India and has been affiliated to Dr. NTR University of Health Sciences. It was established in the year 2005. They offer MBBS and MD course in Anatomy.

• Chalmeda Anandrao Institute of Medical Science, Bommakal

Source- Collegedunia

It was established in 2003 and run by Arihant Educational Society. They offer MD course in Anatomy. It has been approved by Medical Council of India.

For all these course you must remember to start checking their website from the beginning of March to be extra cautious. These are once in a life-time chances. Not everyone has the capability to wait a year and apply later. So better safe then be sorry about it.

Bantering

After a bickering and bantering session yesterday. I felt the need to ask him “Do you think what we are doing is healthy?” I sighed “I mean we argue most of the time”.

A smile made its way into his face “Both of us are stubborn individuals and we never did agree to go on head along with every decision?” he quirked a brow.

“No, we didn’t . May be this is normal for us.” I wondered before munching on the last of my biscuits.

“It is dear. Believe me”!

Source:- tasteofhome.com

copyright: meloheart

Words Left Unsaid (From His viewpoint)

It is frustrating , exhilarating-

I get baffled okay, cannot react the best way,

Silence, it makes coping easier,

Your constant prodding and pricking my head ;

Questions which I can’t seem to answer,

Did you know , your talking wrecks my brain,

I need some rest, not an IQ testing late at night,

Still we talk , I mean respond to your questions

Isn’t that conversation enough?

We meet when you want us to,

As a man I do my part well of listening,

At least you don’t get to complain,

You might not be doing well, but you are an adult,

A women ought to dissolve her mental difficulties , herself;

As if I could ever help you with that,

And don’t you dare compare me to others,

You know fairy tales are not true

You ask me not to call and the next moment you want me to fight,

Is ‘Lunatic’ the new adjective for you?

Loving you almost comes naturally, to me

Present seems alright, future is yet to come,

Why don’t we just enjoy the way things are?

Copyright meloheart

Words Left Unsaid ( From her viewpoint)

I wish you I could understand this ,

When you put obvious efforts to avoid me,

It might be the ‘nothing stage’ in your head;

For me it definitely is something-

Where I have to act as the mature one,

Precisely is it always the situation? May be,

I have lost count now,

You might tell me about the space a man needs,

Again that would be fruitful had we been too close.

copyright meloheart

Talkative and Emotional

“Why does she have to talk so much and be emotional at the same time. Can she not understand, that I am frustrated, or I may need some lone time? I wish she would be quiet for a while.” I think all of you guys must have gone through this at one moment or other.

Source: clipartmag.com

First and foremost, you do know that she loves you, and probably you are the only person she is comfortable with to share her feelings openly. Let us take into the consideration that your girl is talkative in nature, but that’s good right because you don’t have to keep on guessing around her. And sometimes if it becomes too much for you to bear, you can politely change the course of conversation. Might even ask her to talk later with you.

Emotions are a part and parcel of every woman and if by chance you don’t get to see it then you must know that she has either been hurt badly by someone else and has been wary of everyone else since then. There is unfortunately another reason, which is- this particular lady might not be completely in love with you.

So, it is up to you to decided whom you want and how much of her affections could make you cringe, inwardly of course.

Please post comments, would love to hear from all of you.

Decision

Source: Pinterest

A little word holding august importance,

Minuscle mistake , the sky could crash down,

A little impatient , risk turns as your shadow,

Patience and smartness might cure the disease.

Copyright Meloheart

How would you know if he is the ONE?

It is not really easy you know, going through all those confusing occasions when you can feel that the person who is laughing at your jokes or is trying to get close to you ,just doesn’t want to get in your pants. I said that out loud ( smilingly sheepishly) , well it’s the truth anyway. A man might be handsome, charming , with all the qualities that you want in your dream man , but there’s no guarantee that he will be the one. Every turn in our life is made up of a twist, the moment we understand the rhythm or pattern , it changes the wave.

source : tenor

I am going to tell you one thing before we move further that there is no assurance that any one of the traits mentioned below will match with your future partner, but it did work for me personally and some of my friends and colleagues , whom I have talked to before writing this blog post.

source: tenor

Without further delay lets begin listing out the characteristic features that you must start searching in your boyfriend/partner/husband.

• Desirable Qualities–  Searching for the ONE is not like a talent hunt show, where you are ready to grade according to the various parameters. But subconsciously every women creates a checklist of desirable qualities that she wants in her man. Some of us focus more on the physical attributes than the mental ones, others give equal importance to both outer appearance and intellect. If you ask me, I would say both are an integral part of a person. A man’s look as well as his thought process, behavior , personality; makes him likable . There are women who like rough and tough appearance while others love suave individuals. It is up to you to decide what you want, no body can decide for you. The first thing though that you must know is how you exactly want your partner to be.

Source: tenor

• Your feelings– Once you have decided on the desirable qualities of a man, you must wait. This can be a bit excruciating but it totally depends on your fate and luck. Among Hindus it is believed that meeting your life partner or soul mate is a matter of destiny and I obviously second that. So suppose you have met a guy, who you think is lovely and perhaps meets most of your demands . I mentioned ‘most’ here because no individual can be 100% perfect.  You will have to figure out your feelings for this person. Is it just infatuation, or you like him or is it love? Take your time and observe him, think about your future, can you really not see the years ahead without him or is it only a bit of fun for a couple of days.

Source: tenor

• His Intentions–  Falling in love with a man , doesn’t necessarily make him the ONE. He should have equally strong feelings for you. If he finds you undesirable or thinks of you only as a friend or colleague you might have to think or probably wreck your brain about the situation. Okay, well no brain wrecking but you might want to find out his intentions for you. May be talk to him subtly , if you can handle that well. If and when you find out he is interested , the next thing you need to know is whether the attraction towards you is his lust or love. Girls easily fall prey in these kind of situations.  There are few indications you can look for :-

1. Does he support your decisions?  A man might not support all your decisions , he has a different way of thinking after all but at least he will be giving you advice or probably a shoulder to lean on when you need to think.

Source: girlasksguy.com

• Is he possessive? This can be baffling, some guys are not too possessive about their girls but every man has a tiny bit of this ancient streak within him. The way they express it might be different , some of them remain quiet or completely silent, some argue, while others might have occasional outbursts.  And if he doesn’t care at all then you have your answer there.

source: tenor

• Is it only hook up for him? Well there’s another way to find out about the man’s intention . You should try to understand and properly notice the way his thread of conversation is moving. Does he promise a lot of things , right from the beginning or are his feelings developing gradually. For a man to speak a lot referencing towards future activities and incidents is not normal. Even if you have known each other for a long time,  you cannot expect him to start making promises and giving you assurances right from the next day. Believe me, he too would be naturally fearful of this new development of feelings. But if things are moving too fast, you need to hold up your Sherlock Magnifying glass, because THAT SCREAMS FISHY.

source: tenor

So once both of you have decided on your feelings for each other , you have to be strong and be there for him, while he looks after you. It is not only his duty to go through hardships for you, the path  you walk on, will have to be overcome by both of you.

That is all for today folks! See you guys soon. Oh and before I forget there are going to be some major changes in the blog. I think its been going a bit bland for my taste.

Finally , Auf Wiedersehen mein lieblings

On time

“How did our life come into this?” he said trying to get a good look at his long estranged wife, who was now busy sipping coffee.

“You mean me maintaining a distance of few meters from you?” she raised a brow and then chuckled , giving him a glimpse of her uneven teeth. “We are lucky you know”.

He kept on staring at his still mildly warm coffee “You are right, we got together on time”.

Photograph Source: forbes.com

Presence of Dhāna and Absence of Godhuma in Ṛg-Veda; The Implication of Archeobotany on Indian History

Rupa Bhaty

Anthropology of Ṛg-veda

I have taken up the anthropological issues of Ṛg-veda and they are very original in the sense that they were not covered by any author previously, like absence of tiger and elephants still shy beasts, not yet properly named. We already saw that anthropologically Tiger is absent in India from before 22000 BCE and also from Ṛg-Veda (read here) while Lion’s imagery, profoundness and metaphorical representations can instantaneously be felt in Ṛg-Veda. We already studied that trying to naming of elephants began in Ṛg-Veda but has not yet evolved with a matured noun or nouns, if the blog here made some sense to my conjecture. We also have now begun to understand the fan pan geography of Saraswati–IndavaH in the blog here. These all will remain conjectures until these propositions find a solid ground, which is already present in my mind, with the help of…

View original post 1,081 more words

Little Sapling

Water it, let it get some sunlight,

It will grow up wide and bright

Nourish it, give it space and time

It will flourish and be worth of every dime-

Beautiful leaves will ornate the plant,

As you care in abundance and not scant,

Leaves will slowly dry and wilt,

If you push it away, decide to jilt.


             ©Meloheart
  

7 Reasons to select USA as your destination for Higher Education

The competition for education and stress level among students in India is much higher than most other countries. Some of the students have their minds set to study in specific Indian Universities , meanwhile others think about flying to foreign countries. Today I will tell you people a few reasons to why you should select USA as your destination for Higher Education.

source:www.statueoflibertytickets.com

1. Grants and Assistantships– Most Indians prefer to study abroad with the help of Fellowships or Scholarships unless you are super rich and can pay for everything with your pocket ( even then I mentioned below a few reasons to select this country). Most countries and their Universities will provide you with a grant , if you are selected for it. Assistantships are also available ,but they are not a common occurrence among different subjects. What I mean to say is for fields of Engineering, Medical ,Designing, Business, Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Math there are multitude of grants everywhere , but if you are a student of suppose Philosophy or History the grants would be seldom. Here in USA though, most of the Universities try to provide Assistantship for eligible students for almost every subject.

2. Expenses of Commodities– What I like the most here is the expense of basic living commodities including food is pretty less here. They prepare the ratings in such a way that even the poorest people will be able to buy those products.

3. Helpful Communities– In USA there are numerous communities and organizations who try to help and extend friendship towards International students. There are food pantries where you can get basic grocery items for free every week for students. It does not involve any fee at all. The University also from time-to-time arranges trips for the students for a minimum fee. If you are someone who likes to travel with strangers and make new friends or if you could make your friends sign up for that you would be able to join it.

4. Flexibility in Education– The education system in USA is pretty flexible unlike India or most European countries. You can select the subjects that you would like to study. For example you might be a Math major , but you could still take a class in French if you think that would be helpful for you. American professors are very understanding, it does not matter which country you come from, once you are a student of the University they will try to help you develop your academics in every way possible.

5. Language Barrier– English might not be the first language for most of the Indians , but we still have a total population of 125 million speakers (according 2001 census). You might be thinking , why did I suddenly point that out. Well most of the countries have something called language requirement for students who apply in their Universities. Speaking of English, since most of you are either familiar with it or really fluent with it; this should not pose as a major threat. Think of having to learn different Latin based languages, forget about the Asian languages if you are not familiar with it. Mind you, these language requirement tests are not really cake walks, they can be intimidating sometimes.

6. Financial Situation in VISA– This reason might not be very important for some people, but for others this might be a breaking point. In most of the countries of the world whenever anybody applies for a VISA they have to provide proof of their financial situation or should have a copy of their assets . Depending on the type of VISA and country (I only know about the Schengen VISA, UK , Canada and US VISA) they have a requirement for you to show an evidence of enough money to stay there for a year including your living and school fees in their currency. Which for all of these cases above is worth much more than Indian currency. You can do it through the grant or assistantship that you would be receiving. If your grant or assistantship does not cover it all , you might have to show an evidence of finance of your own or through any of your family member.

7. Safe Environment– Again this point might not interest most of you, but for people who are health conscious and might want to enjoy studying and living in a country which has better air quality than most other nations, you might want to come and study here in USA. On top of mostly pollution free air, they also have good sewage disposal, better water quality than most places in the world. If you are thirsty and want to get some water, you can drink your fill from sink. American sink is lot more filtered than most of India’s expensive filtered systems.

These were some of the points I figured were interesting, what are some of your experiences ; if you are living as an international student here in USA or some other country. Would definitely like to know, so please write about it in the comment box. A last piece of information, here is the link to a previous post , which is a prequel of this post.

That is all that I have to say for today. Have a wonderful weekend folks and happy blogging :-).

Haiku-Ceiling

Night Sky, Stars and Ceiling

Dreams are getaways for the soul,

Brain doesn't stop working.

           © Meloheart

Wonders of New Mexico-Day 4

This will be the last post from this series. On our fourth day there in New Mexico , we decided to travel to the Tent Rocks or Kasha Katuwe National Monument. It was almost an hour’s drive from where we were staying. So we started our journey towards this beautiful place at around 10 am , after being served breakfast by the lady of the Airbnb place. Telling you guys again she is a wonderful woman.

A brief history and geography of ‘Kasha Katuwe’. The word means ‘white cliffs’ in the Puebloan language ‘Keresan’. It is located on Pajarito Plateau, South-West of Santa Fe, New Mexico near Cochiti Pueblo. It is said that humans have occupied these rocks for more than 7000 years. Distinctly in the 15th century, the ancestors of Pueblo Indian people lived there and they were the ones to name it. Now a days the tribal people of Cochiti Pueblo contribute and help manage this monument. They also have access to this place through tribal lands.

Source: My Phone’s camera (Kasha Katuwe from a front view).

The tent rocks are cliff faces of Peralta Canyon which are pierced by smaller canyons containing the tent rocks and that is why they have been named so.

Now that we are done with a brief history of the place, let me tell you guys about our day there. We took the Cave loop trail, which is a 1.2 miles long and you can get a wonderful view of Hemet Mountains, Sandia Mountains, Rio Grande Valley. I am sharing a few pictures that we clicked there.

A view of the comes when it is close to sunset during Winter.

The little grooves we had to walk through.

The view from the top- Sandia and Jemez Mountains.

The vacation was successful for us and the very next day we returned back to the Natural State- Arkansas.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom – Review

Source : Amazon.com

I have always wanted to watch this movie. After having experienced the other movies of this series , it was kind of an obvious desire. The wish unfortunately came true today.

Unfortunate because I have never felt as insulted as after watching this film. It is a 1984 movie and sad to say very "racist". 

I know , I should be using that term after serious thoughts these days. But right from the period when Dr.Jones visits India and he is promoted as a White-savior of the brown Indians, I started anathematizing Director Spielberg. Starting with a little village , poor Indians; oh wait we did miss a cow or two ?

Are Indians even complete without cows? lolz.
Then we have the famous meal consisting of the monarch, a couple of royals, a British officer, Indiana , his side-kick and the singer he picked up from China. Anyways they indulge in non- vegetarian dishes eating fried bugs, eyeball soup and monkey brains. For most Westerners that is a representation of what India is, right? 

But that's a misinterpretation of what the country is. You might say that , it is possible that somewhere in India they eat those things. I can assure you, at least Indians do not eat any of the dishes shown in the movie. No doubt it was banned in India. Apparently the movie was about to be shot in Indian locations, but the Government did not approve of this after Spielberg did not make the changes to the film script they were asked to do. So they did their shootings in Sri Lanka. 

Thirdly, Goddess Kali , who is actually a harbinger of positivity , shown as a cult Goddess. 

There are a lot of things that I do not know- like why did Amrish Puri decide to act in this movie?

I do not know if they have done any research before writing the story or finished the whole story while smoking weed. Are the Gods Shiva, goddess kali just names for them ? Do they even know what Hinduism is ? 
Its probably "Don't care, don't know, what can you do about it?"
 
Not sure if this post will be read by anybody or any Western individual will care about it. A fact will always be a fact. I am sure the directors and movie-makers in the present era are doing a better job at researching. "Extraction" is a whole other story though. 

Expectation-A soon to be archaic expression

Expectations, practically an element of past
Wise men must know, it will not last

Every generation brings up a new lesson,
Ours though have learned to follow their passion-

Independence is a thing for mass,
Believing only in the present  will be our class,

Virtuous or sinful only time will tell,
Hitherto there will be many folklores to retell.

                 © Meloheart