जन्मभूमी की याद में

आंगन में हिमगिरि के, शिखरों की वर्णमाला |
देता रवि गगन से, इक दुग्ध सा उजाला ||
झोली में केसर, गेंदा, के पुश्प लहलहाते |
प्रांगण में मृग, मयूरों के झुंड, चहचहाते ||
अठखेलियां पवन की, निर्जन सी घाटीयों में,
मस्ती में घूमते थे, निस्तव्ध बादियों में ||
ममता में तेरे पल कर, आंचल में खिलखिलाकर |
आता है याद तेरे, आंगन में बीता बचपन ||
हर सुबह को तुम्हारे, चरणों की धूल लेकर |
प्रांजली हिये से करना, मस्तक झुका झुकाकर ||
चिड़ियों का चहचहाना , कोयल का गीत गाना |
संध्या समय से वापस, बरगद पर लौट आना ||
नदिया के तट पर जा कर, बालू के घर बनाना |
उन बन चुके घरों को, मिट्टी में फिर मिलाना ||
बावली के शीतल जल में, मछली का झुनझुनाना |
धीमे से बहते जल को, पैरों से थपथपाना ||
सूरज की उष्मा में, सुगबुगाहट |
तितली का पीछा करना, जुगनू पकड़ने जाकर ||
वह टिमटिमाता प्राणी, सन्धया में लौ जगाता |
अन्धकार को मिटा कर, सन्देश दे कर जाता ||
जो स्वयं को जला कर, सब को उजाला देता |
वो ही जिया है जीवन, जीवन सफल उसी का ||
दीयों की भीनी लौ में, तारों का गिनती करना |
आंचल में तेरे सोना, सपनों में मुस्कुराना ||
ओ जन्मभूमि क्योंकर, मुझे याद आ रही हो ?
जीवन की सांझ में अब, क्योंकर रुला रही हो ?
वो कनेर के जो पीली, कलियों के खिलते दिन थे |
वह तपिश भरी दुपहरी, वह जो सांझ की हवाएं ||
वह जो पर्वतों से उठती पर्जन्य की घटाएं |
आषाढ़ के देिनों में, पॉखी का तिलमिलाना ||
जल के लिए बौराए, पंछीयों का छटपटाना |
श्रावण के भीगे दिन में, तेरा रूप खिलते देखा ||
फिर पौष के महीने, तुझ को ठिठुरते देखा |
वह जो धूप खिलती दर पे, वह जो दूव का विछौना ||
अलमस्त हो के, तेरे सीने से लग के सोना |
बहती हिये से तेरे, ममता की धवल धारा ||
वैकुन्ठ से भी सुन्दर, तेरे रूप का नज़ारा |
वो शिखर हिमगिरी के, करते तुम्हे सलामी ||
वंदना तुम्ही को करते, हे धरा, प्रजनिका, धरनी |
यह तन बदन तुम्हारा, मेरे प्राण हों निछावर ||
मैं बार बार जन्मूं, आंगन में तेरे मर कर |
ओ जन्मभूमि क्योंकर… ?

— कमल किशोर भारद्वाज

The post In the fond memory of my birthplace first appeared on Inspirit Blog.

I like the fact that Hinduism cannot be discretely fit into a particular system of beliefs. To me, it’s more a way of life than what the word ‘religion’ has come to mean today. I have always looked at Hindu ethics, rituals, theology and philosophy as an abstract work. I look at it as food for thought; as a mask which, if overlay’d on the context of a situation you are in, guides you to the right action and gives you valuable learning for life.

Considering the thousands of Gods and Goddesses as only symbolic representations of the ‘right’ in the situations/circumstances depicted by their tales – I have come to respect all of them equally. I feel comfortable visiting just about any temple (or Gurudwara, Mosque, Church for that matter), bowing to and worshiping the presiding deity of the place with all my heart, no matter which one it is. Whenever I have felt blessed in my life, I have never been able to tell which God or Goddess did the blessings come from. This only further strengthens my belief in The One, who just happens to have so many names.

Recently I got acquainted with a genuinely kind person who happens to be a staunch follower of a recently founded (400 to 500 years old) Hindu sect* that looks at worshipers of more than one deities as short-sighted people who cannot see or understand the difference between the Supreme Power [let’s call it Lord X] and His incarnations. They believe that devotion of such worshipers remains in crude form because they cannot worship any one deity wholeheartedly. Thus, my friend doesn’t bow to other Gods or take ‘Prasad’ from temples other than their own.

(* Until now, I didn’t know Hinduism was also divided into sects! I’ll pretend I still don’t know. It’s better that way!)

Now, I found myself absolutely unable to digest this. This gave me an opportunity to sit down and evaluate my beliefs against his. It didn’t take me too long to realize that his beliefs carry only as much weight as mine. I wasn’t being any different when I was telling you what I think Hinduism is and what it should be. Until they come to guide your actions downhill, beliefs are beliefs. Just that! For anything they mean, they shouldn’t mean a thing to you.

No matter what his perception of any other individual in his head is, this man is a kind man. He won’t abuse or hurt anyone. He won’t lie for anything. He won’t smoke or drink. No matter what he practices, he won’t force anything upon you or stop you from practicing your own set of principles. In the end, this is what matters. Your actions define you. Your actions will take you to your destiny. Whats in your head is insignificant. What you do and put out there is the key.

‘You are an actor, not the judge’

The post Of Beliefs and Actions first appeared on Inspirit Blog.

“We have done it right and have no regrets about it”

These were the words of a terrorist, the only one who was caught alive out of all the terrorists involved in November 2008 Mumbai Terror Strike. This clearly shows that humanity in any form is totally unknown to these stone-hearted orthodox radicals who engage in heinous killings like this in the name of God!

I strongly condemn the terror attack on the largest city and financial capital of India in which over 170 people were killed and over 250 people injured some seriously. In the aftermath of this senseless tragedy, I pray to God to console all those who mourn and to grant them that spiritual strength which triumphs over violence by the power of forgiveness, hope, and reconciling love.

And I truly salute the brave commandos of National Security Guard who helped preventing the terrorists realize their plan to kill 5000 people in the city. Every Indian salutes the members of the bomb squads that helped diffuse the live RDX bombs that could have killed much more people after the 60 hours long battle with the terrorists was over at many upscale landmark destinations in Mumbai.

Any honor is not enough for these brave guardians of peace and harmony in India.

How can the fire department, the paramedic and the medical staff be thanked who were the lifeline of rescue operations? And the man over the announcement mic at Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station, who cautioned people on platform no. 1 and alerted the GRPF jawans to analyze and react to the situation there and averted a huge loss of life, truly deserves a mention.

May the departed souls rest in peace and the guilty be found out soon, tried and treated with the harshest punishment for their hairy actions. May the injured heal soon and peace and harmony be restored to the city of Mumbai and anywhere else where terror shows it ugly face now and then.

Peace.

The post Inspirit Blog condemns November 2008 Mumbai Terror Strike first appeared on Inspirit Blog.

Teachers’ Day Celebrations

In some countries, Teachers’ Days are intended to be special days for the appreciation of teachers. Some of them are holidays while others are celebrated during working days. Teacher’s Day in India is a tribute to the hard work that is put by the teacher all year long to educate a child.  Teachers and students report to school as usual but the usual activities and classes are replaced by activities of celebration, thanks and remembrance. At some schools on this day, the responsibility of teaching is taken up by the senior students as an appreciation for their teachers. They go to the junior classes, teach the subjects of their choice and try to maintain discipline as their teachers would have. In a lecture or two, the students and teachers interact in the auditorium and exchange messages of wisdom, knowledge and success. On this particular day, teachers are made to feel how important they really are, to the students who’ll become the citizens of tomorrow and hold the key to the future of the nation.

Who is a Teacher? What is Education?

This is a question that has been bothering me since my senior secondary certification days. Things aren’ better today, nor do I hold the hope that they’ll get better in the near future. This question bothers me because I don’t know the answer is false. I know and understand it well. But the said part is that those who implement education in India don’t understand it. The controllers of the Indian Education System don’t get it.

Who is a teacher? What is Education?
I’ll quote an excerpt from the Indian President, A.P.J Abdul Kalam’s address on the eve of Teachers’ Day in India , 2003.

…I am reminded of my childhood days when I was studying in 8th class at the age of 13. I had a teacher, Shri Siva Subramania Iyer. He was one of the very good teachers in our school. All of us loved to attend his class and hear him. One day he was teaching about a bird’s flight. He drew a diagram of a bird on the blackboard depicting the wings, tail and the body structure with the head. He explained how birds create the lift and fly. He also explained to us how they change direction while flying. For nearly 25 minutes he gave the lecture with various information such as lift, drag, how the birds fly in a formation of 10, 20 or 30. At the end of the class, he wanted to know whether we understood how birds fly. I said, I did not understand. When I said this, the teacher asked the other students whether they understood or not. Many students said that they also did not understand. He did not get upset by our response since he was a committed teacher.

Our teacher said that he would take all of us to the sea shore. That evening the whole class was at the sea shore of Rameswaram. We enjoyed the roaring sea waves knocking at the sandy hills in the pleasant evening. Birds were flying with sweet chirping voice. He showed the sea birds in formations of 10 to 20 numbers. We saw the marvelous formations of birds with a purpose and we were all amazed. He showed us the birds and asked us to see that when the birds fly, what they looked like. We saw the wings flapping. He asked us to look at the tail portion with the combination of flapping wings and twisting tail. We noticed closely and found that the birds in that condition flew in the direction they desired. Then he asked us a question, “Where the engine is and how it is powered”?

The bird is powered by its own life and the motivation of what it wants. All these things were explained to us within fifteen minutes. We all understood the dynamics from this practical example. How nice it was. Our teacher was a great teacher; he could give us a theoretical lesson coupled with a live practical example available in nature. This is real teaching. I am sure many of the teachers in schools and colleges will follow this example…

…In an integrated way it can be said, that any enlightened human being can be created by three unique characteristics. One is moral value system. That I got from my father the hard way. Secondly, the teacher becoming a role model. Not only does the student learn, but the teacher shapes his life with great dreams and aims. Finally, the education and learning process has to culminate in the creation of professional capability leading to confidence and will power to make a design, to make a product, to make a system, bravely combating many problems…

When we are kids, or we are young and wild, or old.. When we are watching the birds fly.. When we are sitting in the park listening to what the silent nature says.. Whether we are reading a news item in a newspaper or a blog post on the internet.. WE ARE ALWAYS LEARNING some thing or the other at all points of our life. I just wish all your teachers are so good and make you a better human being at each turn.

Happy Learning. Happy Teachers Day.

The post September 5, Teachers Day in India first appeared on Inspirit Blog.

Eerik from XP tricks has won this jump-the-queue blog review worth $150 as a prize in the Lets Win This Contest Together that ran for a month at Shanker Bakshi’s blog and concluded on 1st September. Inspirit Blog had sponsored the contest with prizes worth $185. Today I am going to review Eerik’s blog XP tricks jumping over the queue of so many blogs already waiting for a free blog review from Inspirit Blog.

Having said that, I’d start with this blog review that will cover all the elements of a blog from its design and eye candy to the add-ons and content, from the management of navigation bar to the sidebar widgets, and everything else that is significant for a blog. Whatever I’d tell through this review will (of course) be related to this particular blog, but I’d recommend that all of you read through and try to pick the maximum tips from this review to better up your own blog.

Navigation Overview

5 posts on the home page is optimal and the read more tag has been sensibly used to optimize the length of the home page. You can dig through the previous posts by clicking on the Older Entries link below the 5 posts on the main page. However I am disappointed not to see the archives anywhere. Its hard to navigate older entries beyond a few pages without the archive in place. No having or listing an archive virtually kills the prospects of your previous blog posts getting their due exposure. You might get some search engine traffic to them but unless people read that buried comment, rate or review it, social-bookmark it, you’re not going to get good rankings in the SERPS (Search Engine Results PageS) even!

The navigation bar at the top is minimalistic with only the most basic pages listed there : About | Contact | Register. However when I ran through the links in the rightmost sidebar just above the footer, I figured a link to the Link Exchange page. That can come in the top navigation bar as well, instead of being down there so neglected! My personal recommendation yo all of you is to list all the pages on your blog together at one place, be it the navigation bar or a prime spot in the sidebar.

Besides all this, the posts have not been categorized (or labelled) and hence there is no categories widget in the sidebar or anywhere else on the blog. Sorry Eerik, but I am not at all pleased with the navaigation on your blog and I really recommend you add the archives in the sidebar, and tag or categorize your blog posts appropriately so that they can be easily accessed from the tags/categories widget. Also, move the Link Exchange page to the navigation bar from the bottom where no one will easily notice it. Your Link Here looks more like a text link ad-spot.

Sidebars and Footer Overview

The very essential features that I feel should always be there in a blog’s sidebars are navigation elements (as we talked above), feed subscription options, social bookmarking, social networking and blog promotion widgets, blogroll and resources link-list ( and advertising elements – if you wish to). Out of these basic elements, you have the feed subscription options in the right place on the home page, and social bookmarking buttions like digg, reddit, etc. on the single post page. You may add the RSS subscription options on the single-post page as well.

You should start working on other elements as well. The prime aim of any blog is building traffic. As soon as possible, join social networking sites for bloggers like blog catalog and mybloglog, entrecard, etc. and work on growing your blog’s community. Build a healthy readership base so that all your hard work doesn’t go in vain. If you’re investing your peace and time in publishing useful content, you should market it in the right way so that people actually see it. It’s important to build traffic and grow your blog’s readers community.

Considering that your blog is now 8-9 months old (Yes, I read back till the first welcome to XP tricks post), the MyLinks section just above the footer should not be empty as it is right now. See below how I use that space on my blog. A very basic footer with copyright information is okay. You may add a privacy policy or disclaimer there. Else, its fine.

About Page

Another important thing that you should take care of while writing an About page is that it should give the reader an idea of what the website or blog is about and who’s the person behind it. You’ve briefed about XP tricks in 2-3 lines but I did not see your name anywhere in the whole blog. I would have never known that you’re Eerik if you’d not told your name while entering the contest.

Advertising

You’re using Google Adsense smartly on the main page with text-links unit just below the title and an ad-block below the post. Nice places to put those ads, actually. However consider avoiding the in-line ad placement in your blog. I find that quite distracting as your blog’s content container isn’t as wide that it’ll accumulate the ad quite well. You should consider this post of yours and see how the image used in the post is being pushed out of view due to the ad placed along with it. You may consider placing adsense somewhere in the sidebar, instead.

Content Overview

Overall, your blog has quite some content worth reading but not everyone is as patient as me to navigate through all the older entries through the link at the bottom. Work on your blog’s navigation bar so that posts and pages are easily accessible. Try to minimize writing content that can be found elsewhere on the internet and bring up more original and interesting tutorials, tips, tricks and tweaks unless the intent of your blog is to share the goodness of internet that is already there.

I hope that this review helps you optimize your blog and build some traffic and a healthy readers’ community. Feel free to drop your comments, share ideas and opinions and write about this review on your own blog to share with your readers.

Peace.

The post Blog Review – XP Tricks dot Net first appeared on Inspirit Blog.

Shanker Bakshi’s third contest on his blog Lets Win This Contest Together successfully concluded on 1st September after running for a month. There were 208 entries in total considering 5 entries from a blog post about this contest and 3 entries from subscribing to the blog by email. All the entries were processed using random.org and a list of winners was generated.

Inspirit Blog had sponsored the contest with a 125 x 125 ad spot for a month worth $35 and one jump-the-queue blog review worth $150 ! That totals to prize worth of $185. The 125 x 125 ad spot worth $35 for a month is won by Amor Francis, a 31 year old female pinoy blogger from Manila, Philippines. And, the jump-the-queue blog review goes to Eerik. Congratulations to you – Amor, Eerik and all the lucky winners of Lets Win This Contest Together.

You can find the complete list of all the winners at Shanker’s blog. I am looking forward to another good blog contest coming up at Shanker Bakshi dot com soon. I am working on setting up the ad-spots as I lost the configuration while switching from windows based hosting to linux based webhosting, recently. Amor, you can email me the 125 square banner so that I can put it up here. And Eerik, your blog’s jump-the-queue review will be published tomorrow itself around this time. I recommend that you subscribe to Inspirit Blog through email to keep track of any updates.

Once again, I’d like to congratulate all the lucky winners of Lets Win This Contest Together.
Peace.

The post “Lets Win This Contest Together” concludes. Winners Announced. first appeared on Inspirit Blog.

If you visited Inspirit Blog in the last few days you probably might have encountered a HTTP 404 – Page Not Found or even a Error Establishing Database Connection page! Before Inspirit Blog went down, I had somehow managed to set up pretty permalink structure even as I was on an IIS based server over the default (SEO-unfriendly) ugly permalinks which look like http://www.inspiritblog.com/?p=134. But then I found myself in another trouble, which usually happens when you go off-the-track! I was cool with having the SEO friendly pretty URLs set up on my blog, but in my previous posts (and on other blogs that linked to posts on Inspirit Blog) the links were directed to the older permalink structure AND those links didn’t redirect to pretty permalinks like they should do.

301 redirects that never worked fine

So, I decided to use 301 redirects on my blog to redirect the old ugly permalinks to the new pretty permalinks. I tried many available wordpress plugins like Yoast’s Permalink Redirect, Deans Permalinks Migration, FUcoder’s Permalinks Redirect and Advanced Permalinks to serve the purpose but nothing seemed to work. The level best that I could achieve was with Scott Yang’s permalink redirect plugin which reloaded a page with new permalink after it had already loaded with old permalinks. This meant that a page was loaded twice for a one time access! And besides this, what really sucked was that my homepage started reloading infinitely in loops. While I left this up while working on finding a solution, for some days – I didn’t realize how much bandwidth Inspirit Blog was eating up like a monster!

I realized this only when I talked to my friend Leo about it when I found Inspirit Blog not opening up once, and other time when I saw a database error. Leo had been so generous to me (And I am really thankful to him for that), he had provided me webhosting on his host for so long! and this silly plugin ate so much bandwidth that it might have costed him some extra bucks!

Decided to move to a Linux based host

Well, I was already giving up on editing that plugin and nothing else seemed to work. Also, I had earned some money from this blog that I could use to buy some webhosting for myself. This was the time when I made up my mind that I’d finally move to a Linux based web host and free myself from all these issues! Plus, if I got my own hosting and space, I’d also start some new projects that I have in mind. More control with cPanel, fantastico support, webmail, mod_rewrite support, etc. I just so wanted it all!

Error Setting Up Inspirit Blog on Sameer’s Host

I talked about my plan to switch host with my friends Sameer and Mohit and wow, these amazing people were so ready to support me on their own respective hosts when I was thinking to BUY webhosting for myself! In fact, I really liked a plan at NetFirms and decided to go for it, but they don’t accept Paypal and I don’t have a credit card. So, the netfirms idea was dropped and I couldn’t afford the hosting packages at other sites…

Sameer helped me move the Inspirit Blog files and database to his host and I pointed the domain to his host. I updated Leo, that I had moved to a linux based host and that I had changed the DNS and I’d be fine if he removed the database and files from his host. I had all in the backup. But for some unknown reasons, things didn’t work out. Probably that was an error in my database that Inspirit Blog redirected to the root of the directory in which Inspirit Blog was installed, instead of opening my blog from its own directory!

Finally on linux based hosting with HostGator – Thanks Mohit!

Then, Mohit helped me set up Inspirit Blog on Hostgator. We put the database and the files where they should be. Then Mohit created an add-on domain for Inspirit Blog and I pointed the DNS to Mohit’s host and erased the ones pointing to Sameer’s host. I knew it would take a couple of hours for the DNS update to take place and in the meanwhile I reviewed my database in order to manually remove some clutter that I didn’t want and thought, might be causing the problems.

That is when I spotted a problem in siteurl and home field under the wp_options table. Even after the DNS update had taken place, opening InspiritBlog.com still redirected to the root of the directory in which Inspirit Blog was installed at Sameer’s host, instead of opening my blog from the installation on hostgator. I cleared and updated the set parameters in siteurl and home under the wp_options table in the database, and lo! God smiled on me.

A Better “Inspirit Blog“

Everything is now back to normal. In the last 4 or 5 days that Inspirit Blog has been up again on its new host, I have optimized the blog’s theme, removed some plugins that I don’t use and installed some new ones. I have also made some changes to the navigation bar. Its better organized now and more comprehensive. Another major change is integration of Google Custom Search into the blog. I have replaced the default WordPress search with a Custom Search Engine powered by Google. How I did it without using any extra pages, posts or plugins is interesting and useful as well, and I will cover that in a dedicated post soon.

I am now going to catch up the free blog reviews thing soon. I am planning to set up a sub-domain here that will be dedicated to free blog reviews. Thus, I’ll clear the main site off all the reviews and keep them in one place at the sub-domain. I believe it would be nicer, that way. Anyway until further update, dig through my previous posts. I hope you find them helpful. Enjoy your stay here.

The post Inspirit Blog switches from Windows based host to Linux based host first appeared on Inspirit Blog.

Its 15th August today, the 61st Independence Day of India. Today, I’d like to salute all the martyrs who laid their lives for the country’s freedom, those immortal freedom fighters like Bhagat Singh, Raj Guru and Sukhdev who kissed the gallows at unripe ages. I salute those great people who gave us the free air that we breathe in today, the great saints and holy sages who spread the message of love, harmony and peace. I bow my head before the Indian Flag and pledge to devote my life and all my work to progress of this nation.

Feel free to share, download and use this wallpaper. Happy Independence Day. Preserve your freedom, celebrate your independence.
Jai Hind. जय हिन्द।

The post Independence Day of India 2008 first appeared on Inspirit Blog.

The launch was publicly made in the the sector 17 market, the heart of the City Beautiful, Chandigarh. The founder members of Chandigarh Bloggers Alliance (including me) who come from diverse fields like web design and development, marketing, management, literature, media and finance, etc. introduced the crowd in Sector 17 about the concept of blogging that is still nascent in North India. We told people how easy it is to set up a blog, how you can start blogging without any investment, that is for FREE and that you don’t need to be very tech-savvy person or be the nerdy geek to jump into mainstream blogging.

The presence of Reet and her sister (who is a graduate in Psychology, and blogs about the same) at the launch event further showed the people that blogosphere is not a man’s world and at least in the virtual world of blogging, the fairer sex is actually advancing shoulder-to-shoulder with men. Their presence served as an add-on to encourage the people to blog besides Shanker Bakshi telling them how to monetize a blog and generate significant revenue from it.

The website www.chandigarhbloggers.com will serve as a platform for the new bloggers to learn about what blogging is, why and how it is emerging as the “new social media” and how it can help you to make money online and prove to be an asset to your career. All the questions related to blogging can be asked in the Community forums where they will be answered by other members in the least possible time. Chandigarh Bloggers team will also offer any kind of help via email or telephone.

Apart this the website aims to integrate all the existing bloggers of in Chandigarh and neighboring North Indian states of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir. The membership is however not restricted to people from this region, but all are welcome to join and participate as a healthy community of bloggers.

The community blog is going to be the center of activity in the days to come when it will be used by the contributing members to share their experiences with a vast readership about topics including (but not limited to) the society, the government and politics, environment and climate, travel, education, industries, etc. – anything ( ! ) that they’d like to write about. Everyone is welcome to Chandigarh Bloggers, register for free. Members are welcome to come up and express themselves freely, seek or offer any help to fellow bloggers and play their part to form a better India.

The post Chandigarh Bloggers dot Com goes Live! first appeared on Inspirit Blog.

Recently I saw this blog post by Brian Top Blogs @ Blog Engage – 5 Most Voted Blogs! on the Blog Engage blog. Though I have always secured good response to my posts that ever get submitted to BE, I wasn’t expecting to see Inspirit Blog on the list this time, because I had been quite inactive for some time. But to my amazement, Inspirit has been placed on #2 just after Raivyn’s meta blog- Idiot’s Guide to Blogging.

Its good to see that even though I fail to catch up with activity on my blog sometimes, but people still love to read the content published at Inspirit Blog. In the comments to that post and otherwise on their blogs as well, members have stated that they like Inspirit Blog as much as they like ProBlogger or CopyBlogger. Its such an honor, and I am done with the I-am-Happy dance to celebrate this already.

The post Inspirit is again a TOP PUBLISHED blog at Blog Engage first appeared on Inspirit Blog.