Author Ambalika

Every 16th September, Bhagwan ji 's beloved 'Phool Rani' - Ms Rita Banerjee aunty visits the Samadhi Sthal, come rain or sunshine. What a blessing for her and her family to have served him in his later years 💜
Thank you Rita aunty 💐🙏🏻 Wishing you great happiness and health ❤️

"...if he could be used to displace their leadership ( Congress: Gandhi + Nehru), we should i believe be doing India a good turn"
~ Sir Richard Tottenham, A.S to the Home minister Francis Mudie, 17 September, 1945.

Mudie , however, wanted to have him hanged after WW2 ended.

Lord Wavell, the Viceroy of India at close of war, wanted him 'disposed' of outside of India.

British PM Churchill had wanted him assassinated from even before.

Yet, he lived.
Even though his "name had been struck off from the country's register " 💔

#JaiHind

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1 week ago | [YT] | 1

Author Ambalika

10 yr throwback 😀
#OTD in 2016, I started my month long part time course in professional acting from Anupam Kher's Anupam Kher’s Actor Prepares 😊
I have loved watching plays and had always dreamed of being on stage, and so badly wanted to learn acting professionally.
I had never dreamt I would actually get a chance to learn it , that too from the best instructors from the best institute in the country despite going through an extremely low phase of life!
But the Universe has a way of taking care of its creations!
4 months earlier, Actor Prepares had arrived in Lucknow to test waters for setting up a school. They did it across the street I live in 😀
At that time I had completed their 1 month long weekend workshop, feeling extremely conscious of how anti social and a misfit I am.
I loved it. Actor Prepares loved Lucknow!
They set up a school 🤩

So here I was balancing a full time job -a terrible boss and nosy teammates from whom I had to keep it a secret- spiritual sadhana, cooking, cleaning, laundry ing, grocery shopping all by myself and still showing up.on time for class, completing all assignments and preparing for my acting debut 😍 ( More on that later 😊)

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 0

Author Ambalika

Suppose you were gifted a flowering potted plant.
A) Caring for a plant is new to you but you are developing the habit. Then, once you had to be away from home for a few days. As you didn't make any arrangements for its care, you come back to find that it has withered. That's PTSD.
Now, you realise the mistake. So next time you have to be away, you make suitable arrangements. It's still not a smooth ride, but you keep trying to do better. That's recovery and rebuilding life from PTSD.

B) Caring for a plant is new to you and an inconvenience. You leave it somewhere you cant be reminded about it. The plant stays deprived of sunshine, air, water and manure. Then suddenly you remember about it. Then leave it out in the open. Sometimes days of harsh sunlight. Sometimes non stop rain. Sometimes birds and squirrel pecking it away. Infection has set in and caused the leaves to fall. Annoyed you put it away again. That's cPTSD, the abusive environment and abuser who caused and created it.
You blame the friend for causing the inconvenience.
Then one day you a friend who gifted it sees it.
You tell the friend that the shopkeeper sold them a bad plant. After all, you did give it sunlight and water. If the plant didn't survive, then surely you cannot be blamed!
The friend sees no point in talking to you and takes it away. Tries to nurse it back to health bit by bit. It may or may not revive fully but the effort is on. That's recovering and rebuilding from cPTSD.

And what do people say?
"It's just a plant!" "You can get another one"

Now replace the plant with a living person, and the dialogue changes to:
"You are weak" "You need to be more mentally tough" "You need to learn how to survive under pressure" "You are seeking attention"
"Surely it wasn't bad, you are still alive" "Oh, we all go through this. Stop cribbing" "Don't act entitled"

We don't tell these things to a plant. Because it automatically allows us to pretend that we need not be held accountable.
We tell to humans to continue getting that comfort by getting away from being held accountable.

Meanwhile, the plant -and the human - did what it could:: survive. And when it couldn't it gave up.
The plant dried up.
"These things are like that!"

The human died by Suicide.
"What a coward!" Correct. Avoiding accountability is courage.
"A Sin against God!" Correct. Nothing more pious than being abusive.
"Now he/she will be born as a lowly animal" Correct. All those findings from past life regressions of past life suicide are fiction.

I used to think Awareness Days on cPTSD/Emotional Wellbeing/Narc Abuse was meant for helping people understand these and behave better. To become a better friend, boss, team mate, sibling, partner, parent.
But now I am wise. I realise not everyone wants to do that. They cannot be forced either.
Likewise, not every sufferer wants to heal. Some see it beneficial in hanging onto it.

So then why?
I think its so we, who have resurrected ourselves can finally start believing in what the Vedas have said:
"We come alone, we go alone, in Thee alone, in Thee alone"

Afterall, overcoming cPTSD is just like overcoming cosmic delusion- only twice over.

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3 weeks ago | [YT] | 0

Author Ambalika

Yesterday I completed a 7 Day Mandala coloring challenge. Originally, I planned it for 15 days but the changes and insights came sooner😀
Mandala is Sanskrit for circle and stands for any sacred geometric pattern that represents wholeness and journey of spiritual enlightenment. It's found in Hinduism and Buddhism. Coloring mandalas is commonly used as a form of therapy.

I never did it before or even considered it until my week long retreat earlier this month when an inner voice told me that it's high time I did it.

I chose to honour that voice.

Here's what I learnt about myself:
Unknown to myself I harboured a very rigid idea about what shapes went with which colours. In colouring my very first mandala itself, this block in mindset became very, very apparent to me.

What held me back from changing this was a fear of making mistakes and of spoiling the overall appearance of the Mandala.

Luckily, the drearyness of being repetitive pushed me to change my options!
Telling myself that, it's just a mandala , not a matter of birth and death was a great start towards self encouragement! 🙂

But the real moment of transformation came when I realised that I am just a facilitator between the design and the colours. So long as I understand the design and freely pick any colour, the colours itself will flow through the design and do the job. The colours know their flow. I just have to co-operate with them!,😀

From, thereon, rather than trying to bring in a variety of colours, I began to use lesser colors but in shades, for depth.

I realised this was not just the usual kind of fear of failure. It was actually the hostility of a Little Child who was still self sabotaging to protect herself from the repercussions of failing in an initiative. So now, every stroke of the colouring pen actually became a gentle stroke of love that carresed that Child.

As for the mistakes - sometimes they are due to manufacturing problems too! 😀
My current set of coloring pens have limited shades and do match what it says on the cover 😏 Anyone will err, in such a situation.

So what to do? Am getting a new set of coloring pens - much wider in range ! 🤩

See you until my next!

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1 month ago | [YT] | 0

Author Ambalika

46th Heavenly Ascension Day of the brave Helen Lepcha, a remarkable but under rated freedom fighter from the Lepcha community.
💐🙏🏻
She's special for many reasons:
Hailing from a remote village in Namchi, Sikkim then migrating to Kurseong, she quickly picked up charkha spinning skills as a 15 yr old school student in 1917 and together with her skills as an organizer, caught the eye of all the leading Congress leaders of the day. 🧍🏻

Despite having an arrest warrant to her name, she rode her way through the police on horseback while bullets flew around her during the boycott movement of 1921. 😎🏇🏽

And oh, did I mention that the breads baked by she and her husband in their bakery were the secret link of communication with the world when Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose was in Kurseong recuperating. ?? 😊

She was very close to the Nehru family, especially Indira Gandhi. However the INC social handles never post any remembrance posts for her 😐

1 month ago | [YT] | 0

Author Ambalika

** Madan Lal Dhingra Balidaan Diwas**
#OTD in 1909, 25 yr old Madan Lal Dhingra was executed at the gallows of the Pentonville Prison, London for having assassinated in London on 1 July, 1909, Sir William Hutt Curzon Wyllie, the political Aide-de-camp to the secretary of State for India .
He was the first Indian freedom fighter to be executed in London.
The original plan had been to assassinate Lord Curzon, former Viceroy of India and former Lieutenant-Governor of East Bengal, Bampfylde Fuller. However, he missed due to timing asynchrony.

Curzon Wyllie was a friend of Dhingra's family. But more importantly, he had been the head of the Secret Police and so, was trying to obtain information about Dhingra and his fellow revolutionaries. Madan Lal was a member of the Abhinav Bharat secret society founded by V.D Savarkar.

During his trail on 23rd July, he represented himself because " no English law court has got any authority to arrest and detain me in prison, or pass sentence of death on me ".

Madan Lal went on to be an inspiration for the Ghadr movement 1912-14 and his life story was taught to those joining the Azad Hind Fauj in Far East during WW2. ( He and Sardar Uddham Singh were compulsory syllabus amongst other topics/ incidents).

After his death, Savarkar printed a postcard portraying Dhingra as a revolutionary.
Winston Churchill was outraged but called his statement the "the finest ever made in the name of patriotism".
M. K Gandhi described his actions as the result of "ill-digested reading of worthless writings." and felt " those who incited him to this that deserve to be punished "

Madan Lal's remains at Pentonville were accidentally discovered in mid 1970s during the exhumation of the body of Udham Singh- another revolutionary. Upon exhumation, it was found that his body was intact. The lime put to decay the body had instead protected it forming a cocoon around it.

I discuss this and more with his grand niece- Ms Leena Dhingra in my podcast. Check it out here:
shows.acast.com/celebrate/episodes/leena-dhingra

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1 month ago | [YT] | 0

Author Ambalika

"I had always been Ashima B. Brendon, daughter of Mr. James Brendon who in turn was the older son of Jane and Chris Brendon who had travelled all the way from Tilbury in England by ship through Gibraltar, Marseilles, Port Said before reaching Mumbai and then took the train to Calcutta and later Jorhat, to take up the superintendence of the Duroni Tea Estate. Of the unexpanded ‘B’ in my name, I did not pay much attention to. I had lived my life without knowing it. It was enough for me that I was the offspring of a ‘firang’ father and ‘desi’ mother.

But then one day, my aunt told me about a letter my father’s lost-somewhere-long-in-the-lines cousin had left for me to be delivered after he had died. When she sent it to me, I found it had another letter inside it.

This letter changed everything I knew and suspected about myself and my life.
Not to mention, it started me on a journey I had never even thought I would have to take on.

The story of my life- A Letter For Gigglepot- is now FREE to download and read till 18 July.

www.amazon.in/Letter-Gigglepot-ambalika-ebook/dp/B…

regards,
Ashima"

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2 months ago | [YT] | 0

Author Ambalika

#NetajiWeek And that's a wrap!
Many thanks to everyone who joined in the celebration by reading and sharing to mark the occasion. 🙏🏽💐✨

Today, these events are not officially observed. Not good. These need to be told every year because otherwise they are nowhere else to be found. If Netajians don't talk about it, then the field will be left open to anti-Netajians to deny these ever happened or they will showcase it in poor light.

How will future generations of Indians know? How will even the present school going indian know?

The key to who we are as Indians, how and why lies in understanding India during WW2. Without that, we cannot claim to know ourselves as Indians- had not our revolutionaries, especially the Ghadrites not persevered bypassing even death, there would have been no transfer of power in 1947!

Hopefully one day, the central government will take cognizance of this and make it's celebration mandatory as it once was.

Until then it's going to be you, me and our collective efforts.
See you in the next Netaji Week, then !

Jai Hind.
Vande Mataram 🇮🇳

pic courtesy: screen grab from Films Division

2 months ago | [YT] | 0

Author Ambalika

So lovely of Reviews And Ratings.com to support the book during its promotion period 🙏😊 Truly appreciate this unexpected kind gesture 😊
For those who want to purchase, here's the link:
www.amazon.in/Joy-Being-Jay-Ambalika/dp/9388942256

2 months ago | [YT] | 0

Author Ambalika

#NetajiWeek 9th July, 1943 At a gathering of Indians at Singapore, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose delivered his ' Why I Left Home and My Homeland '. In this speech, he outlined clearly and persuasively the roadmap that would help India expel the British and why the best time to do so was right away.

He called for Total War Mobilization,which meant it wasn't just going to be about two armies fighting each other. It was a call to build a strong India in parallel while the army fought. This needed men and women, material and money to run a provisional government of Free India that would be responsible for setting up the machinery that is required to run a country.

Never before had the Indians present there heard an Indian leader present to them the possibility of such an India. They were left awestruck at how they now had the power to do so much. It was simply unbelievable!

Until the AHF's surrender in 1945, Netaji used every possible opportunity to keep up the momentum of this call. Here's a sample of how impactful these calls were:

👮🏽At the end of the speech which was given in Hindustani, it was translated into Tamil for the benefit of the 18,000 ( approx) tamilians present .After they heard the speech, they joined the Azad Hind Fauj en mass.

👮🏽Sindhi traders with absolutely no history of ever being on a battlefield, shut shop handing over their property to Netaji and joined the INA.

👮🏽The membership of the Indian Independence League soared to 3.5 lakhs and the strength of INA rose from 12,000 to 60,000! ( Approx)

#HistoryMakers

2 months ago | [YT] | 1