Bookoholics Open Mic! - 16th Nov '14

Event - Bookoholics Open Mic!

Organizers - Bookoholics Group (Surat)

Venue - VR Surat

Must Visit for – Book Lovers, Bibliophiles.

Blog By - Rahul Kedia

Photos Courtesy - Puja Kedia Photography

So we had a formal Bookoholics Meet after what seems like ages. Here is what the meet looked like in pictures with in brief minutes of the meet :)

Prakash.

Prakash, the host of the evening for this meet started the meet with a little introduction to Bookoholics and what we do. And then invited Pinak and Arvind to share their experiences of the Mumbai Literature Festival which they had attended recently.

This was followed by the speakers taking the center stage one by one and presenting their monologues -

Hemant Sir.

Arvind

Amit

The variety in the presentations was refreshing. And also the good part was most of the speakers had specially prepared their talk for the meet. So their views/ideas in the form of their monologues was a treat to be had for all of us present as audience.

Nazm

Dharmesh

Veronica

Pinak

All the speakers were absolutely outstanding and were a delight to listen to. We also squeezed in a small segment where the audience had a chance to take the center stage and introduce themselves and tell us what they would want the next Bookoholics meet to be. Following are some happy pictures from this segment -

A fun meet all in all which adds the much needed variety to our #LifeInSurat :)

Already looking forward to the next meet.

Rahul.

PS: We are really thankful to VR Surat for providing us with the venue. The help extended by the VR team is really appreciated.

Happy Minds.

Event: The Happiness Therapy

Conducted By: HappyMinds (visit website)

Venue: Science Center Auditorium

Guest Blogger: Shweta Merchant Gandhi

Photo Courtesy: HappyMinds

We at HappyMinds look at the organization as an empowerment institution, on a spree to infect the nation with happiness! And are just overwhelmed by the response we received for our very first "The Happiness Therapy" session this last Sunday which is a small step in this endeavor of ours.

The Happiness Therapy session aimed to answer a few simple but really relevant questions from our day to day lives... questions like - Do i need a direction in my life? Do i need to be more positive and confident? How do i be awesomer? I need to practice gratitude and life anger free/complain free life... but how? This fun session was aimed at teaching ways to positive thinking, rediscovering self and making best possible use of one's life.

The session is aimed at making people aware of the simple fact that they are the CHIEF HAPPINESS OFFICER of their lives! And no one else should be assigned that much power over YOUR life!

The session was also full of small snippets of wisdom such as - "Change The Script" which essentially tell you that the Mind Is A Great Story Teller. And it loves telling stories. All day, everyday, it tells you stories about who you’re, what you’re like, what you should be doing with your life, what other people think of you, what’s wrong with the world, what will happen in the future, what went wrong in the past & so on. Unfortunately a lot of these stories are negative. Change the script! Change the quality of these stories – make it positive, powerful & pure!

We were thrilled that we had a jam packed auditorium. And we could i hope make a small impact in their lives through this session. In the end i want to leave the readers of this blog with what we call 10 HAPPINESS FACTS. Do tell me if you think of them... here they go -

1. Only 10 percent of your happiness comes from external circumstances.

2. Your outlook on life, and what you choose to do with your life accounts for 40 percent of your happiness levels. This includes your friendships, work, and participation in your community.

3. A mere 20 minutes of exercise, three days each week will increase your happiness by 10 to 20 percent after six months.

4. The happier you are, the more antibodies your body generates – up to 50 percent more, in fact.

5. Happy people generally earn more than unhappy people.

6. Dancing increases happiness.

7. Money buys happiness. Those who can afford to have their basic material needs taken care of are happier than those who cannot, however…

8. Money does not buy happiness. After having your basic material needs met, additional money does not have any impact on your levels of happiness.

9. People in relationships are usually happier than people who are single, however…

10. Happier people are more likely to retain relationships.

PS. - If you attended the session do post your feedback as a comment to this blog. I would love to hear from you of what you think about the session. Do let us know your take away from the session.

Shweta.