Home made beauty aids

To keep your hair healthy and luxuriant, the scalp should be regularly rubbed once a week with warm oil. There are many oils that can be used for this purpose—amla, mustard, coconut. Soap-nut powders or arethas are wonderful for washing the hair, as they make the hair glossy. Washing the hair with ‘curds’ is also a tried and tested ancient recipe for beautiful hair. Vinegar and lemon juice are splendid rinses for the hair, after a wash. They impart a soft, glossy sheen.

The habit of beautifying the eyes with surma and kajol is another practice that has stood the test of time. It was practised in ancient days and continues to this day. Kajal is easily made at home. It is simple lamp black, which is collected on a plate held over an oil-lamp. Castor is used in the oil-lamp, and the lamp black, dissolved in castor oil, is then applied to the eyes.

 Surma is a preparation of antimony pounded to a paste in rose-water. A silver or zinc slide is dipped into it and passed along the rims of the eye-lids, lightly but firmly, to make the eyes appear larger, luminous and exquisitely shaped. Skillfully applied kajal or surma can beautify the eyes almost as well as the modern eyebrow pencils and eye-shadows.

Pimples and acne are often due to impurities in the blood, and cutting out fried foods and sugar and eating more raw fruits and vegetables, skimmed milk and curds, will help. Neem-tree leaves can make an excellent blood purifier. Crush neem leaves in water, strain and drink a tablespoon daily. 

The juice of a lemon in a glass of hot water drunk first thing in the morning is indispensable for people on a reducing diet. But it should not be confined to dieters alone, for lemon juice, in hot or cold water, is excellent for the system and the complexion.

 The price of good cosmetics today is prohibitive and not all of us can afford them. Why not utilize some of the old and proven beauty aids, so easily available in one’s own home.

The language of Gods

Everybody on this earth is a singer and a musician. A singer need not carry a note. Music is the language of gods. We understand that god is universal and he encompasses everything which is good. Similarly, music is universal. Music soothes the nerves. It makes people laugh, cry and forget their pain.

Music can make a man fall in love. It never tells a man to hate. It is  our perception of music that  determines our actions. Some people may become violent after hearing a song. But it is their perception. No piece of music asks them to be violent. Music can be understood and misused. Even God is often misunderstood and misused. But God never asks a man to commit crimes and hurt others.

Music was created to make human beings feel better and stir their  emotions. Music can be appreciated differently. Some people understand the complexities of various forms of music like classical, jazz, rock and others. Some people are not experts, but they enjoy it regardless of its form. Religious scriptures can be understood by some, but religion and God are appreciated by all.

Listen to what you like. Appreciate music. Do not misunderstand music and never ever misuse it. You will be surprised how simple life becomes and how  better a place the world becomes to live and prosper.   

Are you curious about content curation?

People love to collect things. They collect stamps, postcards, coins, matchboxes, newspaper clippings, photographs, obituary notes, etc. The list is endless. Collecting has always been a kind of experience that demands interest and skill for selection, evaluation and classification. In the age of Internet when digital content disappears fast, some websites allow users to become content curators and save what they like.

Most of us use social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, etc., and every day come across digital content in the forms of pictures, tweets, FB updates, blog posts, articles and web links. Content on the Internet is short-lived. If you had read an update on Facebook a few months ago and want to read it again, it becomes nearly impossible to find it again.

In the information age, we are loaded with digital content. Some of this digital content we find useful and want to keep in our archives. Collecting digital information is becoming increasingly popular among Internet users because it makes  it easy for them to refer to the content they like and find useful. It is like sorting out information from Internet for study and reference.

Users have two options. First: They can download the desired content and save it in their external hard drives. Second: Use the services of the websites that provide content curation. A few websites such as Scoop.it  and others provide Internet users with a service by which they can save  the desired digital content in their accounts. The service is becoming popular because you can save even an update on Tweeter in your account.

Content curation is a collection of articles, pictures, web links, videos and other content on a website. People tend to collect content on the web for future reference or for research. An online advertisement of Scoop.it shows a person, Jack, who is passionate about the electric guitar and has a huge content  collection in the form of web links, articles, You Tube videos, etc., but no one has any idea about his hard work and passion. He opens an account on the website, saves the digital content of his choice and shares them with others.

Pinterest.com is a website that enables users to pin pictures they like on Internet on virtual boards and share them with their friends. The site allows users to find, classify and share images of their interest. Users can pin pictures on virtual boards under different categories. Reddit.com is a website on which users can share news of their interest with other users. The website allows users to rate the news items they like. Some other content curation websites and tools are Strawberryj.am, Curata, Faveous, Delicious, Inboud.org, Hackernews, etc.