Ode to the Friend

An ode to the NGO, Snehita (which translates to 'Friend') Women's Health Foundation that work tirelessly in the area of breast cancer awareness. Snehita has always lived up to its name lending a supporting hand to the people in need. In the time of the pandemic when everyone was confined Snehita got more visibility by the efforts of the member volunteers through online webinars and media. A lot of online events were conducted in association with other institutes and organisations including the NSS, each of which was a success. I am a proud Snethita!

 In the highest tower Friend lit the lamp

To spread the missive as a beacon, 

Guide the multitude in the damp

And shepherd them till the war is won.

The crowd moved as a busy bee

To work, markets, park and beyond the sea

Engrossed in the work of the hour;

So busy, they never lifted their eyes to the tower.

The Friend stayed up and kept the lamp lit;

By morning and night with determination and grit

Little by little the message did spread,

To raise their eyes who were prepared.

A heavy, bleeding, hurting grasp,

Anyone in the clutch of the crab;

In pain of the tightening pedipalp;

The Friend did have the healing message of help.

Then came the damp killing mist,

Stole the souls of those who touched it or breathed.

Anyone in the streets fell its prey,

The crowd stopped venturing out for work or play.

In the confines of their home,

They cried out in agony and pain

They longed for the light but in vain.

Days were dark and damp, and nothing was the same.

In the solitude they raised their eyes high;

Far above the mist was the tower high.

They descried the missive it beaconed,

As they followed it, the clutches of the crab weakened.

The mist outside was dark and damp,

But now the crowd had eyes on the lamp.

The lamp that shed the ray of hope,

For liberation from the crab, a way it did ope.

Adventures of POLICE - POLICE to Blunderland

Six kids accompany their grandfather in a perilous journey to experience the mysteries of a place they had heard of only in his narratives. ‘Police to Blunderland’ tells us about their first ever adventure together. 

What do they face on their journey? Do they finally reach Blunderland? Read the exciting story to find out.

To purchase this book, please follow this link : amazon.com/author/josephl
This book is currently available only in kindle. You can purchase the book via the Kindle App. 

Books to expect soon: 

-- POLICE in Blunderland
-- Adventures of Dr Cloney 2 - Dr Cloney and the Robocops

Here is the 'From the Author' section of the book

This story started as a bedtime story. My kids loved listening to stories and would beg for a story every night. As days and years passed by Jo and me soon ran out of stories and were forced to be creative. Every night a part of the story would be narrated an we would stop as soon as the kids fell asleep. Kids love these stories more than the stories that we narrated from our memories. The more elements of creativity Jo added to it and the more the kids loved it. A few years ago wrote a single page outline of the story and then sat down to build it. In 2013, I wrote the first manuscript. I edited it several times before it came to this form. In 2016 I added some illustrations to it on Jo's advise. It did add to the the overall appeal of the book. In my previous book, the cover page was a big challenge and I had a difficult time designing it. Though I put effort on the design, the book cover did not come out that well. So I thought of adding a good photo for my second book. I chose a real photograph for this. This photo had an air of mystery and also a fairy tale feel about it. It did come out better than the first one. 

The Black Dog and its new prey?

Sushant Singh Rajput -One more added to the list of good souls held captive by the Black Dog?

I saw him first in the movie, PK and was sure that he was a promising artist. With this single movie he moved to my list of favourites in Bollywood (in line with Aamir Khan, Shabana Aasmi, Konkona Sen, Nasuruddin Shah, Om Puri, Navasuddin Siddiqui, Nana Patekar, Paresh Raval, Kajol...). He had a captivating smile and his eyes could express even the subtle emotions.

I remember one of his speeches given to students of DCE where he was an alumni. The audience wooed and clapped for almost all the lines he spoke. There he described himself as an introvert. Though he was the owner of a personality that attracted the attention of a lot of youngsters, it did not sound contradictory to me. Many of the Mollywood actors whom I watched from childhood and appreciated were introverts. From big shots like Momootty, Mohanlal, Shobana to other talented actors like Prithviraj, Fahad Fazil, Parvathy Thiruvothu, Sreenath Bhasi, S P Sreekumar, Sudev Nair, Tovino Thomas, who won the hearts of people of Kerala are introverts. Many times I felt that they compensated for the limited words in their life with the mind blowing performances as outgoing characters. This was kind of confirmed in the message that Sushant conveyed in his speech at DCE. He admitted to feeling excited and happy when he played the characters in the movie who were very different from him.

Samuel Abiola Robinson a young actor from Nigeria, played the role of a football player in the Malayalam movie- Sudani from Nigeria. This movie won a lot of awards in the Kerala State Film Awards. Samuel was appreciated for his brilliant performance in this movie. Recently he was in the news because of his post in the social media regarding his stint with the Black Dog.

The topic of the Black Dog never came up in any of  Sushant's conversations. So none of his friends found the need to dig deeper or found any reason to be concerned. Did the brightness of his smile hide the Black one that growled behind him? Smiles can be very deceptive...

Reminds me of a small poem (Sher) which I jotted some years ago

कहते है सब, आप की मुस्कराहट है हंसीन बड़ी।
कहते है सब, आप की मुस्कराहट है हंसीन बड़ी।
मगर वह क्या जाने ;
दिल में जो चिंगारियाँ है, उसी की रौशनी चहरे पे पड़ी ।।

By the POWER of Google Search… I have POWER…

I remember the time in early 2000s when Altavista was awarded the best search engine award. Google was there even then and it made me wonder why Google was not rated the best. Today Google has evolved to become the answer to most of my questions.

Now when I search for something it gives me much more than I ask for. I can also use the powerful options given by Google to promote my site. The beauty of it is that these powerful options can be used by following some simple steps.

Knowledge Panel – This is additional information about the entity searched combining many related attributes of the entity like website, logo, name, etc. This is seen as a box on the right side of the search result. You can own up the Knowledge panel and do the necessary modifications so that the knowledge panel shows the right data. https://millennialmoderator.com/how-to-create-a-google-knowledge-panel#fold

Example: Search for Google in Google search. On the right panel you see the Knowledge Panel with the summary details of the entity Google.

Site search – This is a powerful tool to enable Google search within your website. When you search a website powered by Google search, Google gives a secondary search option in the search result for your company. Use this secondary search option to search for anything within the website. To enable this, follow the instructions in https://support.google.com/customsearch/answer/2715510?hl=en.

Example: Search for pinterest.com in Google search. You can see a secondary search option in the first result. Search for something using this and the search result would only have items within pinterest.com

Rich Snippet- Do you want Google to give you rich snippet for the items/products in your website, then this feature is for you. Code in micro-data on your product into your website page using JSON-LD or Schema.org. Google would use this micro-data to build a rich snippet in the search result. Want to know more? https://jsonld.com/product/

Example: Search for a popular product in Google search. You see the result with the micro-data that you set for the item like Rating, Description, Price, Reviews, Offers, etc.

More on the powerful options of Google search in another post

Pay it Forward

I searched the net to reach, 'Paying Forward-Trigger of an uncontrolled chain reaction', I posted in TwoDropsOfInk. I also wanted to see how Google handled my search request.

During the search I stumbled upon a movie Pay It Forward directed by Mimi Leder, released in 2000 with Haley Joel Osment in the lead. The story line is beautiful and in line with the title of my post.

Pay forward, I believe is something that every person can practice [This is more a reminder for me than an advice to others] to change the world for the better

Currently it is published in the international blog twodropsofink.com
https://twodropsofink.com/2017/03/21/paying-forward-trigger-of-an-uncontrolled-chain-reaction/?iframe=true&theme_preview=true