Here's hoping all of us had a great Diwali.It's been a week since we met and while we gather ourselves after a period of festivities ,let's also take this opportunity to wish each of us and our families a year filled with the best of health,happiness and most importantly peace of mind!
Vinisha,to say that we loved the feel and the ambience of your home is an understatement.You transported us literally, to a world we did not know existed in Singapore.As we walked from the MRT we paused along the way to admire nature in it's glory around us.Piu for one, looked like she was ready to plonk her self down with an easel and canvas and begin to paint.Much to our consternation. we even caught her admiring the view while standing in the middle of the track and we had to break her reverie and say -"oh, do be careful."
A lovely home and a great hostess -what more would you want.We had two ladies -Megha and Ruchi who were attending the meeting for the first time and while they introduced themselves to the group, we looked forward to our session with Mrs Ratna Khemani.
Mrs Khemani or Ratna as she wanted us to address her asked us to introduce ourselves and gave us useful tips to manage our home,children and careers.One of the points that really hit home was -spending quantity time and not quality time with our children.This really got me thinking as many a time,during a busy day, I would console myself saying that I would spend an hour or two of "quality" time with my son in the evening.Like Mrs Khemani pointed out,your child does not realise it is quality time, he just feels that mom is spending less time with him instead of more like he would want her to.I have tried to capture the essence of Mrs Khemani's talk by listing down some of the points ,I took away with me -
1)Be there for your children.
2)Be an instinctive,creative and intelligent mother.
3)Don't rush your child-he will show his intelligence when he needs to.
4)Try to do lots of activiites with them.
5)Don't be an over-demanding spouse.Create a stable atmosphere at home.
6)Look after yourself and your children.
7)Involve your child in extra curricular activites.
8)Learn from every step and from every situation.
9)If you fail,don't feel bad -just learn from it.
10)Speak less,listen more.
11)Do not associate with people who want to pull you down.
12)Let your actions speak for you.
13)Believe in yourself.
14)Always go in for a positive attitude that you will succeed.
Mrs Ratna then went on to speak how her experience as a mother helped her career.She spoke about developing a good personality,grooming one self,importance of oral and written communication and a lot about the workshops that she conducts.
We would like to thank Mrs Ratna Khemani for a very memorable morning and look forward to hearing more from her -when she visits Singapore next.Thank you Vinisha, for hosting the meeting at your place, the crunchy,yummy bhelpuri and the lovely turkish tea served in dainty tea cups.Like always ,you were so generous with your plants and herbs - that we spotted some happy faces leaving your garden.I for one, can't wait to get the cuttings from Shalu:)
