Lightning Strikes -close encounter

Lightning - it is pretty if you look at the pictures. Lightning is frightening if you see it's furious face up close especially if you hear a loud thunder followed by it.

Yesterday, bunch of our friends met in a common friend's house to plan for their daughter's upcoming arangetram. Pot luck dinner and good time with friends. We were all having fun. Planning for the arangetram is similar to planning for wedding (in India they compare conducting a wedding to building a house). Lot of tasks. lot of work. But it also becomes lots of fun when you get together with your friends and share the tasks.

Around 11 pm, we heard a big thunder followed by a bright light. We were not sure if it is lightning or somehting else. We saw a bright light through the shutters of the window. It looked wide and seem to be lasting little longer than a typical lightning. We all came up with different theories - may be somebody is celebrating with fire crackers, may be a transformer got hit by the lightning etc. We went to their deck but could not see anything. There was no power outage in the neighboring area. Turning on TV we found out that there is a severe thunderstorm warning in our area till 4 am. So we all decided to leave and go home before weather gets bad.

Today our friend called and solved the mystery of the bang we heard yesterday. The tree in his neighbor's property which is closer to his fence (about 20 feet from the place we were sitting in his house) got hit by the lightning yesterday night. It just burnt but fortunately, the rain prevented the fire from spreading to the neighboring trees. I have not experienced the thunder and lightning that close before.

Really God has been watching all of us. It could have been worse. I can not thank God enough for sparing all of us yesterday.

laughter yoga

Kids and babies laugh about 300 times a day. As they grow, we make sure they grow out of laugh. We think it is silly to laugh too often. Age and number of times we laugh are inversely proportionate.

In India, when we were growing up, girls were expected not to laugh too loud. You will be scolded if you laugh loud especially when our parents have guests or visitors. Now scientific studies have shown health benefits of laughing. Dr. Madan Kataria of India has started laughter yoga movement to bring harmony and peace in the world while improving your health.

I just joined  a laughter yoga and it is helping me mellow down. Laughter has helped me to relieve stress.
I took my daughter to laughter yoga. She is usually very vibrant and has a nice laugh. So she did not appreciate that we have to fake laughter to get the health benefits of real laughter. She has the real thing baby!

There are different kinds of laughter. (I am not talking about sarcastic laughter). I have a friend in Oregon who has the most beautiful laughter. Once you see her, she will make you forget all your worries and start laughing. Her laughter is very contagious. In fact I was talking to one of our common friend who mentioned that when she was in high school, she could hear Shivi's laughter across the building. My older sister laughs very quietly without making any sound. My unlce used to refer it as lightning - it will come in a flash and disappear fast. My younger sister used to laugh loud and my uncle referred it to thunder. It comes loud and it is continuous.

This is the first blog I am writing. I hope it inspires you to laugh and forget your stress.