I need a holiday!

We all work hard. Weekends are more like workends. We sleep with our smartphones. And we think vacations are for wimps. So we don’t take them. Or if we do take a break its because folks nag nag nag, so, we take work along with us.

But my own learnings have impressed on me that a break, a holiday, a vacation not only makes me feel healthier and happier, equally makes folks - family feel the same. So why are we busting our backsides without a well deserved break? 

Here I feel the need to add a qualifier- a break by definition means- time out. Time to unwind, pace down, go slow, relax. It aint about the same frenzied life like at work- now on a vacation too!  

Allow those mellow, good vibes, to envelope you, let that deep breath inhale all the worthy oxygen to help create a happiness pandemic. This collective restoration in itself is healing and rejuvenating. 

Most cold countries, see a sharp decline in anti-depressant prescriptions during their summers. Telling isnt it? Vacation time must mean leave work completely aside. Do the things you like and enjoy. Get outside, meet friends, spend time with loved ones, discover places and new people, spend time with aging parents, have that aromatic brew you so love with a friend you haven't met in eons, chase away the blues, just be.

Resting, gathering lost energies back, enhances emotional mood and productivity once back in the hum drum of daily life. Patience levels are higher, tolerance quotient deeper. Wonder why corporates don't encourage this - given how positively it impacts work. They say Europeans, with their 20 and 30 days of paid vacation every year, live longer and spend less on health care than Americans. 

Get awed by the gigantic elephants in the wild, the sleeping lions in the shade, the dew drop on a leaf, the singing and dancing around the campfire, the friendly jostle over a drink, the beautiful sunrise in a kayak...without the niggle of the blinking light on the BlackBerry, or the dread of work pile up once you are back

This cannot be too much to expect for ourselves surely? Especially if you do understand the weight of *health is wealth* - so go on, take frequent breaks, get transported, and sort of awed by nature or whatever it is that you love to do over and over again.

Raksha Bandhan - the bond of love

Raksha Bandhan is a celebration of the love and trust between brother and sister. When the sister ties rakhi on the right wrist of her brother she prays for her brothers safety and prosperity at all times and in return the brother vows to protect his sister at all times.

I was told two stories by two ppl today (on Raksha Bandhan day). Both - felt right


‎Story 1

Draupadi once tore a strip of silk from her sari and tied it to Lord Krishna's bleeding wrist, he was touched by her gesture and declared Draupadi as his sister.

Years later Lord Krishna helped Draupadi in protecting her honour. Thus, a small strip of silk became that raakhi which Hindus started following as Raksha Bandhan.

Its a brothers vow *to respect & protect his sister/s*


Story 2

The essence and spirit of Rakshabandhan - or the secret if you will, is that when a sister ties the thread on her brother’s wrist, it is a gesture of her saying to him “I will protect you at all times”. So it is the sisters who pray and wish for the protection and well-being of their brothers. This is what Rakshabandhan truly means. 

A woman is often considered as weak and fragile, how can she hence, protect a man and give him moral strength and support?

Women possess a very unique power within themselves – the Sankalpa-Shakti (the power of will and determination) - it is this will power and inner strength that helped Savitri get her husband Satyavan back from Lord of Death.

Inner strength implies -the power of intellect and also the strength of will and emotions. A woman possesses the unique and beautiful combination of both these. Hence some say, that on the day of Raksha Bandhan, it is the ladies who take a vow to protect the men (by tying a sacred thread on the wrist of the brother).

Each of them stories, resonates. Afterall it is about smiles, laughter, silliness, spats, arguments, jokes, pokes, tears, hugs... between a brother and a sister ...  *the* bond of love