10 ways to avoid being home-sick while studying abroad

If it's your first trip abroad, it is natural to miss your home and loved ones. Read on to find out what you must do.

Everyone expects studying abroad to be an incredibly exciting experience.

However one phenomenon that can hamper the entire experience is “homesickness.”

Mostly fuelled by the cultural shock, homesickness can be a little daunting to deal with.

Here are a few valuable tips, which will help you overcome homesickness with ease.

1. Keep in touch with your family and friends

An assurance that your loved ones are just a call away is a great way to make you feel at home in a new setting.

Use Skype ,Whatsapp, or Facetime to keep in regular touch with your loved ones without causing a dent in your pocket.

2. Use online mediums to connect with people

You can spontaneously engage in unplanned chat sessions with your family and friends on G-chat, Skype chat or Facebook.

This will take your focus off from constantly thinking about what’s happening back home.

Keeping in touch with your loved ones does help but make sure that you don’t overdo it and end up getting completely dependent on them emotionally.

3. Visiting local temples, churches, and mosques

Paying customary visits to ISKCON temples, churches and mosques will make you feel connected to your religious roots and impart a sense of well-being.

4. Celebrate festivals with your peers and local community

With a little effort you will always manage to find folks from your home country.

Make it a point to regularly visit community centres and actively participate in celebrating festivals with them.

This will serve as a fantastic way to build new bonds of friendship and beat the homesickness blues.

5. Eat in an Indian restaurant

Occasionally sinking your teeth into a familiar cuisine will give you feeling of being at home; even if it is for a short while, it will surely serve its purpose.

6. Walk into an Indian grocery store

A random visit to the neighbourhood Indian grocery store and spotting Amul, Rasna and Parle-G is sure to bring a smile on your face.

7. Go with an open mind

You are going to a new country and be ready to embrace it with arms wide open.

Removing this mental barrier will help you broaden your horizons and help you in welcoming a new set of friends.

Be open to the idea of utilising your free time by closely working with student bodies and clubs.

If it still doesn’t help, don’t shy away from making the most of university’s student support services.

With a little counseling and student-mentoring program, you will settle down quickly.

8. Join a student group

Becoming a member of Indian Student Association will allow you opportunities to interact with your Indian peers and instantly feel at home.

9. Learn to be self-sufficient

You will miss your mom more than ever when you are required perform daily chores like washing, cooking, and cleaning.

Learning to single-handedly manage yourself will equip you to stay on your own and stop you from feeling forlorn and secluded.

10. Gear yourself up for a different climate

One important factor that students fail to anticipate is the difficulty in adapting to an altogether different climate.

Researching and preparing yourself for the unique climatic conditions of your host country will enable you to weather initial body shocks and adjustment challenges.

There are many like you out there struggling to acclimate themselves to a new setting, but rest assured it will soon start getting better.

Reassure yourself that homesickness is a 'transient emotion' and the sooner you get out of it, the better it is.

Do your utmost to convert your overseas higher education experience into a cherished memory for your lifetime!

Collegepond is a career guidance company whose aim is to help students achieve their potential, crack the competitive exams and guide them in the application process for various courses across the globe.

15 practical tips to be mindful and beat stress

These can help you be more productive and have a stress-free life

Photograph: Giulia Bartra/Creative Commons

While working out in the gym on a treadmill this morning, I was catching up on the daily news on the TV fitted to the treadmill. The gentleman exercising next to me did not have the TV switched on, which surprised me. When asked if there is some problem with his TV, he said, “No, I am following mindfulness”. Whoa! I have been trying to follow mindfulness at work and this gentleman was way ahead in the game and trying to follow it during exercise too. This is so right: you can’t be mindful only at work and not otherwise. I do realise that it is a fundamental change in the way we spend our day that can make us more mindful.

The concept of mindfulness, inherited from Buddhist traditions, has already caught the attention of companies like Google, General Mills, and Target. Harvard Business School has also included mindfulness principles in its leadership programmes.

So here I thought of compiling a list of 15 practical tips which can help you be mindful in day-to-day life, be more productive and have a stress-free life. Here you go:

1. DO NOT multi-task. Period. You will end up messing up several things at the same time.

2. Plan your day ahead of time. Make a to-do list of all the items (personal as well as professional). You will be in a better position to prioritise and execute things.

3. Don’t feel guilty about taking rest. When you are weary, take a break, refresh and renew yourself, your body, your mind and then get back to work.

4. Eat well: This might sound trivial but it has a significant impact on our mood. Trust me J! Always carry some healthy snacks with you.

5. Have your priorities clear -- for the day as well as life. Don’t just take your to-do list and start executing the items. Prioritise the tasks before you get into execution.

6. Follow a routine -- you will save yourself from decision fatigue when you don’t need to decide on what to do next, every now and then.

7. Take out some time to have fun, spend time with family, give time to your hobby and relax.

8. Steve Jobs was so right when he said, "The only way to do great work is to love it". Do only that work which you enjoy. After all, we all spend more than half the day at work so might as well do only the interesting things.

9. Don’t think about past or have regrets about the past -- you are not going to live there. Have the end goal in mind and live in present.

10. Have self-discipline. It’s one of the most important qualities that can contribute to your happiness and success. This is one trait which is crucial to accomplish goals and lead a healthy lifestyle.

11. Instead of doing it fast, concentrate on doing it well -- you will eventually end up spending less time in doing that thing.

12. Meditate -- being super busy is not an excuse for not meditating. In fact, you need it all the more when you are very busy. Take out at least half an hour for meditation every day.

13. Frequently look at your to-do list during the day. If something on the list can be done in less than 2 minutes, do it right away. Otherwise, delegate/reprioritise/reschedule it. Checking the items on to-do list gives a lot of pleasure J

14. Switch the phones to silent mode (even better, switch it off) when you are doing something really important. The work done in that un-interrupted period will be done faster and better.

15. Respect time -- yours as well as that of others. Don’t be late for meetings, don’t have lengthy talks on phone and don’t send unnecessary emails.

These small changes in our day-to-day schedule can have significant impact on how we feel at the end of the day. Try these and let me know if these worked for you! 

Khiv Singh is AVP Sales -- America, Sapience Analytics

Water and Boko Haram

Water scarcity is often a factor in conflicts, but is India ready to cope with limited water resources?

Most of us in India are only dimly aware of what has been going on in conflict-ridden zones in the world, and even less aware of the underlying reasons for conflict. It took Soli Özel, a Turkish professor from Istanbul who was speaking at a conference organised in Delhi last week by the Ananta Centre, to point to water as an important underlying issue that gave birth to Boko Haram, the violent Islamist group in Nigeria that has resorted to kidnappings and mass killings.

Specifically, Lake Chad used to be the size of Israel. Over the last two or three decades, 95 per cent of the lake has dried up, depriving communities around its periphery of their traditional sources of income from fishing and farming. Refugees from poverty-stricken northeastern Nigeria, which borders the lake, began streaming away from the area years ago, in search of work and a livelihood. That is the area where Boko Haram (which means “Western education is forbidden”) was born, replacing a more moderate version of Islam that had prevailed till then.

Prof Ozel referred also to the role played by successive droughts in Syria, which has been torn by conflict since March 2011. As it happens, the country suffered four droughts in a five-year period to 2010, and various scholars have pointed to the connection between water scarcity and political/military strife.

Peter H Gleick, in a paper for the American Meteorological Society (Water, Drought, Climate Change, and Conflict in Syria), refers to “challenges associated with climate variability and change and the availability and use of freshwater” in a list of the causes underlying the Syrian conflict. 

It goes without saying that water scarcity is by no means the only reason for the strife of recent years in Nigeria, Syria and elsewhere, but it has been an important contributory factor that is usually ignored. The question is, what is happening here at home? The unexpected damage done to the standing rabi crop by unseasonal March rain has already caused a crisis in millions of farming families.

Cloudbursts and floods have ravaged the economies of Uttarakhand and Jammu & Kashmir in recent years. Inter-state water disputes have become ever more intractable – between the states of north-western India, including Delhi; Karnataka and Tamil Nadu; Tamil Nadu and Kerala; Telangana and Andhra Pradesh; and so on. Think also India-Pakistan and the Indus waters. 

That the conflicts have a sharper edge in the peninsular part of the country reflects the fact that water resources in the southern states have been more fully used than in the north, while demand for water continues to grow. But, equally, Punjab faces a groundwater crisis that will become more evident over time.

For the country as a whole, per capita water availability has dropped to a third of what it was at Independence – because the population has trebled and we have done little to augment water resources. From being water-abundant, the country is now classified as water-stressed. By the time the population peaks and stabilises in a couple of decades, India will be water-scarce – like Morocco is today. Are we ready for what that might mean?

Most of the water goes into farming, but India has unsustainable cropping patterns that do not reflect limited water availability. There is no (eco)logical reason why water-hungry sugarcane should be one of the principal crops in Maharashtra, or why paddy should be grown in Haryana. India has become the largest exporter of rice in the world, and sees sugar exports as a solution to the domestic glut. But exporting rice and sugar is like exporting water.

If we are to cope with the coming water crisis—an existential challenge if ever there was one—Indian agriculture will have to change. While the Green Revolution was born out of improving the supply of assured irrigation water, in the future crop technology will have to focus on how to grow more with less water.

How Mumbai once lived!

Mumbai may pace to a frenetic beat, but the metropolis has hidden corners where life moves more leisurely.

Satish Bodas/Rediff.com visits the city's BDD chawls where neighbours live like one big family.

If you want to see what life was like a few decades ago, I'd suggest a visit to Mumbai's 92-year-old Bombay Development Directorate's chawls.

Families manage in tiny rooms and neighbours, unlike what happens in much of Mumbai, are very much a part of each other's lives. The chawls's residents still share their joys, sorrows and festivals with each other.

BDD is a little oasis in the heart of Mumbai -- where a bustling lifestyle and tall skyscrapers pause to watch a slower, more measured Time that exists in a few old stone buildings.

But the residents -- mainly Hindus and Buddhists -- say it is time for change. Their families have expanded and living in such tiny spaces, plagued by leakage problems, is no longer easy.

Many youngsters have moved out; the older generation waits behind, hoping that redevelopment will take place, yet not completely ready to let go of a life they are so familiar with.

In my eyes, it is one of the last bastions guarding a simple, old-fashioned way of life.

The structures of the BDD chawls were built between 1922 and 1925.

When space is short, windows provide a convenient area for storage.

Kashinath Anna Kakade, who is 95 years old, has created a special calendar.

If you tell him the date of your birth, he will tell you on which day you were born.

He makes it a point to read the newspaper regularly and enjoys drinking a glass of milk every day.

Mr Kakade has been staying here since 1948 and feels that life today is much more comfortable than it was in his youth.

"Then," he says, "we had to go down to fetch water, but now the BMC (Brihammumbai Municipal Corporation) water comes directly to my house."

This old ladder leads to the terrace. Only one person can use it at a time.

As you can see, the ravages of age have begun to show in this old stone structure.

The families living here rely on gas cylinders and kerosene stoves to cook their daily meals.

As you can see, water continues to be a major issue. Look at all the vessels used to store the precious liquid.

Each room is home a family and is self-contained; it includes the bathroom and the kitchen.

The toilets, of course, are communal and are located outside the house.

Each floor houses 20 families in 20 rooms.

There are six toilets on each floor -- three for men and three for women.

This family on the ground floor, like many others in the chawl, uses the extra space outside their house to wash and dry their clothes.

If you look at the photograph carefully, you will see the little door (behind the lady in maroon) they have made under the window for a quick entry and exit.

Sadly, the rear areas of the BDD buildings are used as chicken coops-cum-garbage dumps. 

Facing the chawls is a huge open area where children skip out to play... a rarity in Mumbai.

Most of the residents, except those who stay in buildings reserved as residential quarters for the police (known locally as Police Line Buildings), have extended their rooms to get extra space.

Take a look at this picture and you'll know what I mean.

You don't need to live in fancy buildings to have a gymnasium on the premises. Here's a look at the gym at BDD chawl.

Skyscrapers, with their alluring promise of a more modern lifestyle, tower nearby.

Every floor is connected through a long passage, with houses on both sides. These passage, as you can see, become an extension of the houses.

Finally, here's a glimpse of how the new replaces the old -- the old wooden staircase of the chawl has been renovated using tiles and marble.

He paints Bollywood in Bollywood

Meet Bollywood fan Ranjit Dahiya. If you are in Mumbai, you can't miss his massive tributes to the industry that he loves, discover Sonil Dedhia/Rediff.comand Hitesh Harisinghani/Rediff.com

Like much of India, Ranjit Dahiya is in love with Bollywood.

Born in a small village in Sonepat district, Haryana, Ranjit used to earn a living by white-washing walls.

His passion for painting saw him sign up for a degree in fine arts at the National Institute of Design in Chandigarh in 2002.

"I did my first Bollywood painting in 1993 when I was still in school," says Ranjit. "I painted Kishore Kumar."

Today, Ranjit freelances as a graphic designer in Mumbai.

He still finds time to indulge in his passion for Bollywood, dipping into his funds to pay for the murals he has created in Bandra, a north-west Mumbai suburb that is home to Bollywood stars like Aamir Khan, Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan.

He uses shoe polish brushes to create these murals "as it becomes easy to fill the surface with it."

As a creator, he has some quirks. "I don't like to touch up my work as I want people to know the age of the painting."

And like every artiste, he has anecdotes about dreams that are yet to be fulfilled.

"I had planned to paint Helen's poster on a wall in Bandra. I had taken all the permissions and had completed the formalities, but somehow missed one lady's permission. She objected when I started painting on the wall of her residence and asked me to pay Rs 50,000 if I wanted to continue!"

Right there, he stopped painting that mural.

"I haven't made Helen's painting," he says regretfully.

Some of Ranjit's paintings and the stories behind each of them in his own words:

This was the mural that changed the direction of my life.

In 2009, I had painted Amitabh's iconic pose from Deewar.

After seeing this painting, a renowned artist invited me to Paris to hold an exhibition of my work.

In Paris, I could not paint Anarkali for some reason, so I ended up painting Mughal-e-Azam.

I remained obsessed with Anarkali but it was only back home in Mumbai, in 2009, that I finally got to paint the stunning Madhubala as Anarkali.

It took me 10 days to finish this mural.

Anarkali is special to me in more ways than one... It was with this mural that the Bollywood Art Project, BAP, was born.

Mumbai is Bollywood and Bollywood is Mumbai... you can't separate the two.

Yet, visually, you don't see this synergy. Except for the homes of the Bollywood stars, we don't have any other visual identification of this unique bond.

I thought of giving the city what it is best known for.

In 2013, the film industry completed 100 years of existence, so this is my tribute to the industry as well.

I am a big fan of Amitabh Bachchan.

If I could, I would paint his movie posters all over the city. But if I did that, it would be unfair to other artistes.

This was my tribute to Rajesh Khanna.

I made it after he passed away.

It took me six days to create this mural.

Bollywood is not just about heroes. It's also about the villains.

If our good guys did not have bad guys to beat up, would our films be as interesting?

So I thought it would be nice to create a mural of an unforgettable villain.

This painting of Amrish Puri as Mogambo was sponsored by Visual Disobedience (an artists's collective that helps visual artists in India with public and commercial projects).

Local residents, too, provided their support.

It took me four nights to complete this painting.

My latest addition to Mumbai... the legendary Dadasaheb Phalke.

It was my dream to paint the father of Indian cinema.

Approximately 20,000 sq feet in size, it is the biggest mural in India.

It was well planned, so I could complete it in seven days. Drawing it took me just two days!

His art will make you think, and weep

Art is a reflection of society. And when conveyed by artists like Valay Shende, it becomes a hard-hitting social comment, discovers Satish Bodas/Rediff.com

Art can be beautiful.

Art can be decorative.

Art can make you think.

And that seems to be the objective of Valay Shende, the creator of thought-provoking sculptures like Transit.

His recent exhibition, Migrating Histories of Molecular Identities, had life-sized works that represent objects and situations around us.

Shende's unique perspective allows him to use everyday images to underline vital social issues.

He has chosen to construct his work with thousands of discs made of metal. These discs symbolically represent atoms, which are the base of existence.

Viewers see themselves in each of these highly reflective discs, thus becoming participants in his work.

Seen below is his exquisitely detailed and most well-known creation, The Transit, depicted through a truck carrying 22 men, women and children on their way from one work site to another.

They are stuck in a timeless transit.

Shende has converted the rear view mirrors into videos of buildings and construction sites from Mumbai and London.

This exhibition, which was Shende's largest one yet, took him four years to complete. It has been exhibited in Rome, Lyon and Mumbai.

Below: A kerosene barrel mounted on a modified cycle. At one point, such tricycles were a common sight in Mumbai.

It was a source of this much-needed fuel for the poor, who would line up with cans to buy the precious liquid.

Seen on the side is the typically shaped jug that was used to measure the kerosene.

Below: For small farmers, the bull is the main source of sustenance and support. It helps him till the field and can be yoked onto a cart for transport.

This installation, which shows the head of a bull mounted on a wall, represents the hunted... the farmers who have been hunted down by an increasingly consumption-based society.

The base on which the bull's head is mounted is made up of photographs of small farmers in Maharashtra who toil unsuccessfully to eke out a living.

Below: At first, the setting looks pleasant.

A pair of what looks like gold salt and pepper shakers sit at the centre of an ornate silver dining table, surrounded by rich, brocade-upholstered chairs.

The salt shaker contains the ashes of Narsinghlu Rukmawar, a poor farmer from Vidarbha who committed suicide because he could not feed his family.

The pepper shaker contains soil from Rukmawar's field, which grew the grains that another family will now enjoy, perhaps at this silver dining table.

Below: Using the onion as a metaphor for tears, Shende creates a satire on disharmony, border issues, migration and the division of land and people.

The layers of the onion represent the current world scenario, with its incessant layers of wars and massacres.

Satish Bodas/Rediff.com

Have you been to Bombay Canteen? You should!

Last updated on: March 24, 2015 15:38 IST

Harnoor Channi-Tiwary visits the spanking new restaurant and returns impressed.

What do you say about a one-month old restaurant?

That it warms the heart and tantalises your taste-buds?

That it quite simply fills you with a sense of blissful contentment that you never want to come out of?

Like Erich Segal's Love Story, a meal in the restaurant evoked something deep inside and held on to my heart, refusing to let go.

Booked for dinner after a long and heady day, I wasn't in the best of moods when I entered.

And yet, something magical happened in those two hours and I left with a smile and a spring in my step. That is what Bombay Canteen can do to you.

The city is choc-o-block with restaurants and new dining concepts.

How does one enter such a crowded space and yet create something memorable?

Floyd Cardoz, Sameer Seth and Yash Bhanage did just that.

With decades of experience between them, both International and in the country, they conceptualised a dining experience that would parallel a visit to Disney Land, for your taste-buds and all your senses.

Bombay Canteen is not only about celebrating Bombay as is rumoured.

Undeniably, the decor is all about recreating the Bombay that existed years before Mumbai rose.

Stone walls, stained glass paintings and more do their bit in giving it a feel of an old Bombay bungalow (yes, I'm told they did exist).

But the food goes beyond the borders of the city and brings to your table, India in all its glory.

The menu manages a balance between applauding our heritage and marrying that with the modernity that allows places like Bombay Canteen to flourish.

The cocktail menu is intriguing with options like Tar-Booze (vodka based watermelon cocktail) and Dark Monsoon (Rs 325) which matches Old Monk with ginger and Angostura bitters.

I tried the Dark Monsoon which failed to please and was perhaps the only thing that let me down the entire evening.

With so many tempting dishes on the menu, it was almost impossible to pick and choose.

Thankfully, Sameer and Yash, partners at the restaurant, came to my rescue and were kind enough to customise a never-done-before Tasting Menu so that I could get a glimpse of their food-story.

We started with the Chilled Seafood Bhel (Rs 300, above) and I was hooked at the first bite.

If you like your street food, this and the Arbi Tuk (Rs 150, below) are must haves.

The bhel is a tossed up chaat with shrimp, calamari and kairi-date chutney topped with crunchy sev.

Tangy and delicious, it comes highly recommended.

They also do this interesting sev-puri replica with arbi roundels topped with a vegetable kachumber, imli chutney and chilli hung curd. Genius on a plate.

The much talked about Methi Theplas Tacos with Pork Vindaloo (Rs 250) failed to reach the high standards that the earlier two dishes had already set.

Redemption came in the form of Grilled Calamari (Rs 300, below). And how!

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The calamari was marinated with a chilli paste and charcoal grilled to give it a smoky flavour.

Perfectly cooked, deliciously spiced and well paired with the pickled onions, this almost made it to the 'Star of the evening' award.

To go to Bombay Canteen and not try their Signature Dish, Kejriwal Toast (Rs 200, below), is but a mistake, I had been told.

And I concur, the rumours were true.

I am a self-confessed Eggs Benedict addict and their dish draws its inspiration from the same.

A fried egg sits pretty atop half a bun (which was a tad bit hard to cut through) and is topped with melted cheese and green chilli chutney emulsified with coconut oil.

This is the kind of stuff that sets Bombay Canteen apart from the other restaurants in town.

The flavours worked perfectly with each other, complimenting and raising the dish to higher levels.

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I have never tasted another dish that could explain that concept better.

Already in love, hook line and sinker, they did not need to woo me further. Yet, they did. And the pièce de résistance was yet to come.

If you go to Bombay Canteen and have just one dish, let this be it (well, actually the seafood bhel and the calamari and the kejriwal too, but you know what I mean :-P).

The Tandoori Pork Ribs (Rs 550) are a little private party inside your mouth.

Cooked on the tandoor to give it a nice char, the meat perfectly juicy and succulent inside, it is served with a spicy jaggery glaze and green beans that add a crunch.

The Tingmo (Tibetan steamed bread, below) brushed with a chilli garlic paste (Rs 75) was even better than the one served at Yeti in New Delhi, the only other place where it stands out.

The dish is an example of how Chef Thomas Zacharias (formerly the executive chef of Olive Bar & Kitchen, Bandra) sets foot on paths un-trodden and takes each diner along on a magical gastronomical journey.

It takes courage and conviction to open a restaurant like Bombay Canteen.

It is not only about recreating an inviting space or cooking delicious food.

Many restaurants easily achieve that.

This one is about trying to push the boundaries further, stepping off the precipice and seeing if you can fly.

It can, and fly high it shall.

Reservations recommended. Currently open only for dinner (7 pm onwards)

Address: Ground Floor, Process House, Kamala Mills, Near Radio Mirchi Office, S.B. Marg, Lower Parel, Mumbai

Phone: 022 49666666

Meal for two: Approx Rs 2000

Photographs: Harnoor Channi-Tiwary