I am the...

I am the loneliness of the crowd…

I am the silence of the talk…

I am the dryness of the rain…

I am the oneness of the many…

I am the softness of the hard…

I am the wetness of the dry…

I am the happiness of the sad…

I am the oneness of the many…

I am the solitude of the open…

I am the darkness of the light…

I am the shallowness of the depth…

I am the oneness of many…

Coz’ I have been the one among many and many within…the one

Co Creator: Rahul Aran

The Kite Runner: The book and the movie

I will ask for a good book to someone who reads and by that I mean not read a newspaper or an article once in a while but someone who has intellectual taste about books, the real books. It is still fresh in my mind since the time I started and finished reading this book, the book that has not only touched many hearts but has drawn attention of renowned news papers, writers and directors that they were bound to read and speak about it. The best way one could speak about a book is by making a movie out of it, which director Marc Forster had done in the movie “The Kite Runner”. I heard a lot about this book and movie, not from one or two people but a lot of them. It seemed like everyone knew about this book and the movie except me.

The story is revolving around two friends, a father and a son, a husband and a wife. The story depicts how these relations make up a person’s life and the mistakes he has done and how it made a difference in everyone’s life around him. It is about Afghani guy named Amir Jan, as they call him with love and his childhood friend Hassan, a servant's son. It has portrayed the relation between them who do not belong to the same sect so beautifully that you can feel as it happens. They both are deprived of their mother’s love. Amir’s mother, who his father loved more than anything and Hassan's mother, a beauty known in Kabul, ran with other man after giving birth to him since she could not connect herself with Hassan's father, Ali. She played an important role in the story without even being present for most of the time.

How much does a child can think and go through in the age when he is supposed to play and read. Without even knowing a child goes through a lot which an adult at times misses to notice. The life went on well for everybody until one day an incident turning out as a mistake for someone else ruins it all. One of them thinks he is suffering but actually every character of this story was paying in some or the other way. This has been felt throughout the book and I bet no one will deny this.

Situations like a girl’s courage to leave her family at the time when this was happening gives me goose bumps. It makes me want to think about what really I want to do. It’s not just about eloping it’s about doing what your heart says is right. But we often get caught up with what our mind says it right. Both, according to me are not wrong. We need to weigh the pros and cons of thinking, acting and the consequences of either ways.

Most of us mainly live because we cherish our friendship with our friends. Living in their friendship rings a bell in my mind that I have also done what Amir and Hassan did as a naughty prankster. We have had friends with whom we used to play, go cycling, fall and cry and stand up and start playing again. How many of we still remember those days, how many of we are still in touch with them? If I talk about myself, I am not in touch with all of them but yes, I have few childhood friends who are still a part of my life. It doesn’t take much to make relations but it takes more than we can imagine maintaining them. In this story this is what happened with poor soul Amir. He was lost in what his fears were and what his feelings were. He was scared to find out that he is not what he thinks, a coward but a brave kid. We learn from our mistakes and so did he. He demonstrated his bravery once and for all at the end.

How much we fear or fears of fighting for what we want to choose as our career can be seen in Amar’s life. A constant struggle and suppression of a desire to become a writer can be easily related by every human life on this planet. We have to do a lot of hard work to find out our real self and what the goal of our life is. We often tend to be someone by pretending to do things or behave in ways that do not define ourselves. THINK ABOUT IT!!!

There is a mix of emotions and various emotionally shaking incidents in this book. As this story goes on, we start relating ourselves with the different characters and different situation in some or the other way. The movie could not do complete justice to the book, just like any other movie inspired by a book. You read the book and see the movie, you will find out the difference between how much a writer puts into writing and the degree of hard work needed by the director to put all the feelings from the words into the reel. Indeed, the director did a very good job. If you watch this movie before reading the book, you will definitely love the concept. You will feel what every character has felt, when it was written. The actors portrayed the feelings so well that it come across to the audience as their own story.

I would suggest everybody to read the book and watch this movie. It’s a real food for thought for all of us.

I Want to Say Something...

I have thought about this so many times and yet I do not have an answer. Should we speak what our heart says without thinking about whether it will affect the person listening to it or should we speak what the person listening to us wants to hear? In the second case we are taking into consideration other person's feelings, may it be good or bad.

We could just say whatever we think we want to say and it's most likely we made someone feel miserable, we just made someone feel pathetic about him/her or God knows about us. On the other hand, we could avoid all this by saying what he/she wants to hear. In doing so, we are eliminating the possibility of all that is mentioned above BUT we are not being truthful to ourselves and to the others too.

There is an on-going battle between ourselves and our thoughts and we choose to do what we do. The reason can be anything; it can be because of our feelings and emotions when our mind is over-ridden by our heart or our state of mind when our heart is over-ridden by our mind. It is very hard to strike a balance between your thoughts and emotions and it takes what is called as ‘experience’.

We end up taking decisions which we may or may not regret later or right after taking a decision, in some cases. We are our best judges to decide when we regret because we cannot lie to ourselves even when we think we have lied to our own selfish creature dangling inside this materialist body.

I want you all to give me your inputs on this topic...let's see what majority of us think!!!

Yet Another Incidence to be Grateful

How many times do you think you thank someone for what they have done for you? I think it is really important for us to let that someone know how much we appreciate it. I mentioned in one of my post about a Hispanic cab driver in New York City. It was my way to thank him for what he did; of course I did it face-to-face too. And here is another chance for me to appreciate their gestures. Yes, I am again talking about Hispanic people.

I never thought I would be able to have fun in the place like Silver City in New Mexico which is very close to US-Mexico border. This is a place where the only good place to shop is Wal-Mart and few stores behind the Walgreens by Route 180. The city "city" close to this town would be El Paso, Texas (2.5-3 hrs drive towards South East) and Tucson, AZ (3-4 hrs drive towards West). The downtown here is barely a street but to my surprise there were some good restaurants like Diane's and Isaac's; a coffee shop, the interior of which reminded me of the old civilization and a bakery called Diane's Bakery, which would give you the best cakes (of course in the town).

I don't need to tell you that this place is full of Hispanic people because of its proximity to Mexico. It was an altogether different experience to be here. It's amazing to see and analyze the difference in different cultures. It was hard for me to accept the fact that his is how the Hispanic culture is and people are.

The Culture:

Although I could not get as close to understanding the culture as I would like to but I still tried to get hold of it barely. I was working mostly with Hispanic people and I was in a room with three other ladies of the same culture. I am someone who would like to make the best use of time especially by learning new things and this time it was “culture”. They have a different perspective about life and how they want to live it. The common thing was the bond between the family members. But they had a different perspective about marriage and having kids. They get married twice in Mexico, in a civil way where they get married in front of the judge and in Church, in front of the Minister. If you do not get married in Church the marriage is not considered valid. The children go their own way even though the parents are strict and most of the females are ending up being single mothers. And it was a shock to me that they were so cool about the fact.

The People:

They all like to eat and eat well and a lot. They make some amazing guacamole and salsa and I did get some recipes from them. The people are care free too. They believe in enjoying every bit of the life and they are satisfied with whatever they have and where ever they are. They live close knit with their families. I have seen people staying with their families even after getting married unless they have to move out because of work.

My Experience:

I got a chance to hang out with the people here and I made some really good friends. They made sure that I could get to see in and around the area. I got a chance to go with the ladies I was working with and their family to Catwalk, a walking trail on a mountain 1.5 hour away from the city. Yes, it was me who badly wanted to do something over the weekend and I pulled the ladies into my plan and they made it a wonderful day by having their better halves with them and doing a barbeque in Catwalk. The walk through the mountain was tiring and full of fun, adventure and water. They made sure that I am enjoying to the fullest and did not make me feel even a bit, out of place.

Who would do so much for you just so you can have fun and enjoy. I like horses and would as much enjoy horseback riding as driving. So considering my interest in horseback riding, my new Hispanic friend asked one of her friends if we could do horseback riding on their horse. The owners were really nice people and came in their SUV with all the gadgets to deck up the horse back to make us able to sit and ride. Honestly, I could not understand the name of any of them. It was like a tongue twister for me so I asked them to give me easier version of their name.

I was standing there watching them put all the stuff on the horse, looked around and realized what a simple life they are living, away from the rush of the big city and close to the nature. So close to the nature and reality of life and existence of this very way of living, that I could not stop feeling nostalgic. I could see a part of “My Country” here, the part that carries a lot of significance yet unnoticed and unappreciated by most of the Indians, a part which is made up by the people who almost do every possible thing to grow in their farms, living away from big cities, living away from the life that is just the reflection of our imagination and our selfish behavior, the part that we call village but that’s where we learn the real meaning of the life that started thousands and thousands of years ago.

I would like to thank these people who made me realize that judging someone by their caste, color and culture is least we could do to human kind. We should not misjudge someone, if we cannot judge them right.

An Alien Country Vs Non Immigrant Residents

This is about my visit to the state of New Mexico, a state next to Texas and sharing the border with Mexico. I had to visit this place called Silver City which is close to Texas and very close to Mexico border. The closest airport that I had to take was the El Paso International Airport in Texas 3 hours away from Silver City. The journey from Boston started as early as 4am on a sunday and ended at 5:30 pm local time in Silver City with connections in Chicago and Denver and the the drive from El Paso to final destination. It was heck of a travel. I traveled in three different time zones in one day. I was not able to keep track of the time since my watch, which I ad adjusted to CST was showing a different time than my cell phone. In Denver I almost thought I lost my connecting this flight because of this confusion, I thought I had only 10 minutes left for my connecting flight to depart.

The Chicago aiport and the Denver airport looked like an international one but not the El Paso. El Paso is right at the US and Mexico border (this fact will come into picture later here). I could see more of spanish speaking people instead of english speaking, which was expected because of it's proximity to New Mexico and Mexico. The one thing I was looking forward to in this trip was the Mexican food. I like mexican food with all the rice, different kinds of beans, vegetables and sour cream and guacamole with chips and salsa. They make their dishes taste better with a side dish of guacamole and salsa at times. Being a vegetarian, I can think of satisfying my hunger only with these things and i find them yummyyy...

The drive from El Paso to Silver City was full of adventure and trust me on that, it was. The traffic was not that bad and I had to drive for a stretch of 96 miles on US 180 West. The higway seemed very dry with close to no stop areas in between and the sign boards saying "USE CAUTION, DUST STORMS IN NEXT FEW MILES POSSIBLE" and the others saying "ZERO VISIBIITY POSSBILE". I kept thinking about how dust storms were in India and how well we were used to those. But here, it was not a very common thing. This area looked deserted with only mountains as far as you could see. The sun was on top of my head and it was strong enough to tan me even with windows of my car closed and A/C on to the maximum.

The drivers were not that bad and I could not see a single cop car around so people were driving 10-15 miles above the speed limit and the speed limit there was not less than 70 miles on the higway. I felt like I am going to a place where I would not even find anything to eat, a place where the life would be riding on horse back and going to work, a place where the most fun thing you could do would be climbing a mountain on a weekend or get yourself tanned in your backyard. No signs of life better than this occured to me during the 3 hour drive.

The drive was pretty smooth though, my car was in cruise for most of the time while I listened to my favorite songs until I was stopped at a check post by US border police. That's what I think they were. So here one person comes and stops me, while letting others go. I guess the reason was I am BROWN but I will not hold on to this reason as there can be many security related reasons for this. He asked if I was US citizen or a permenant resident and I am none of those. So he asked me what status I was on here in US. Unfortunately, I was not carrying my passport with my VISA details on it and my company ID.

I never needed those documents earlier when I was traveling to different places but this was just a different world altogther. I was asked to pull over so they can let the other traffic behind me go. So I was asked to present all kinds of documents, right from my passport, company ID and the SSN card. "God, why would I need to carry all these documents if I am in US on a valid status with a valid DL", I thought to myself. I was scared to spit it out on the guard. The look on their faces when I mentioned that I am not carrying any of those documents was as if they are about to say, "You are not carrying your documents, sorry we will have to shoot you dead".

The funny thing that happened here was the fact that the guard could not find my name on my DL. I thought being a US CITIZEN one would know where the name of a person is written on a DL. Anyways, they did some check using my DL and came to me just to tell me that I could be deported back to India or charged a fine if I don't carry all these documents. Can someone go over the immigration rules with me here please???

That was the moment all my charm to be in a different country other than my own, faded. It was the moment that actually showed me the meaning of what "Your Country" means. I don't know how many would realize this and when, if at all they realize it but it makes you think what you are doing in an ALIEN land where you do not have an identity and you could be taken down for not carrying every minute details about your existense. I was really nervous a little for being pulled over and thought of being deported back just because of these reasons made me more worried. It felt like I am traveling within the US borders, illegally. But I do not blame them, while they were just doing their duty, I saw other vehicles passing by me without any issues. I learned my lesson.

The only intent behind writing this was to make myself and the readers realize that whatever they do to be in any part of the world as a legal citizen except their own country, they will be considered alien residents. Think about it!!!

Because when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time...

The Kite Runner: The book and the movie

I will ask for a good book to someone who reads and by that I mean not read a newspaper or a article once in a while. Someone, who has an intellectual taste about books, the real books. It is still fresh in my mind since the time I started and finished reading this book, the book that has not only touched many hearts but has drawn attention of renowned news papers and writers that they were bound to read and speak about it. I heard a lot about this book and not from one or two people but many other sources. It seemed everyone knew about this book and the movie then except me.

The book is about a Afghani guy named Amir Jan, as they call him with love. He lost his mother and so did Hassan, their servant's son. Hassan's mother, a beauty known in Kabul, ran with other man after giving birth to him since she could not connect herself with Hassan's father, Ali. Amir and Hassan played togther, stayed together besides being nursed by the same female. Hassan's loyalty towards his Agha, a word used as a title of respect, could not be questioned. Hassan could do anything for Amir and he did end up paying for his loyalty and generosity towards Amir one evening. Amir could really not do anything because of the way he was. His father used to say "A man who can not stand for himself, can not stand for anything in his life".

Amir avoided situations where he had to confront anyone. Even then when he had to express his desire to become a writer to his father in his childhood. Hassan on the other hand, was a brave lad. He even made enemies with Assef, a notorious tall and fair boy with dark eyes. A boy who lived a lavish life with all his father's money and enjoyed scaring and bullying kids around. "I will target your eye with my slingshot and you will be called Blind Assef", Hassan said to Assef once. Ofcourse, Hassan had to pay for what he said and how he shooed away Assef and his accomplices one fine evening of the day when they were returning from the place up the hill. The place where they both Amir and Hassan sat everyday. A place where Hassan used to listen to Amir's stories and carve their name on the pomegranate tree "Amir and Hassan, the kings of Kabul".

Life was going smooth until one day, the day that changed the course of lives of both friends. The day which was imprinted in Amir's memories like an engraving on the stone. The day that departed the two friends, the then friends. Life never stops for anyone, the rule is to keep moving and so did they. During the Taliban invasion in Afghanistan, Amir went to America with his father few years after Hassan left for his village with Ali, never to come back. Amir, just like any other immigrant to US got used to the life and culture of America. Not to mention, his father had no other option. But he still had the dust that he had collected before going to Pakistan, illegally.

Life was going on, Amir and his father were making a living somehow until one day he found Soraya Jan. The love that finally came to him unknowingly. His father went for khastegari, to my understanding this is a ritual that elders perform to ask for a girl's hand. "What do you see?", she asked, not allowed to look into the mirror kept in front of them on the day of their marriage. "I see rest of my life" he answered.

Phone rings, "Hello"

"Amir Jan"

"Rahim Khan"

"You need to come here Amir Jan"

Sometimes you have to do things even if you DO NOT want to. This happens to every individual on the face of this earth. He did the same. Seeing Rahim Khan, his father's friend rather say he was Amir's best friend after Hassan, who listened to even what Amir never said in his childhood, who gave Amir the love and attention that he longed for from his father, someone who read his stories and said "Bravo". The word meant more than his expensive toys to him. "Bravo" encouraged him to write more stories. To respect his relation with Rahim Khan, Amir flew to pay him a visit only to find out Hassan and his wife are both dead, leaving a son behind. The son who was taken by the goons who called themselves religious leaders. This group wanted power and hence tortured every human soul in their vicinity. Hassan's son was one of them. He was a victim of child molestation.

It was now when Amir decided to bring Hassan's son back with him to United States. The later part of the story reveals not only to readers but to Amir himself, how strong he was, that how he could have made a change had he stood up for Hassan. It's never too late, hence Amir took a stand and fought for Hassan's son with the group. Amir's quest to do justice to his friendship with Hassan changed him into someone his father always hoped to see in him.

Because when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time. It was long awaited spring for Amir and it did eventually come changing the lives of people around him. Only if his father was still alive to see the change. The story really touched my heart and to this date it is one of the best books I ever read.

I highly recommend people to read this book. A small blog about it will not do any justice to how well it is written and narrated.

Enjoy Reading!!! And do leave your feedback.

A Day spent doing Kayaking

It was a long weekend in US, the July 4th weekend which is most awaited by approximately 300,000,000 people was starting. I had come back from Indiana on the night before the long weekend. On my flight back to Boston I was thinking about how to spend my long weekend. The plans to go to Washington DC were already cancelled. All the reservations needed to be cancelled and the friends who were supposed to meet me were disappointed with the last minute change of plan. There was nothing much I could do to at this point. "I will just stay at home and read The Kite Runner".

First things first, I finished making some important phone calls. I could hear my roommate talking to someone about some plan for the day. It is still Friday so we had enough time to think about the weekend. Impromptu plans are more successful than the events planned ahead of time and they are more fun because you don't know what you are going to do and with every moment you see something new, something that was not planned and not thought about. We planned to do canoeing @ Hopkinton State Park (http://www.outdoorrec.com/hopkinton-state-park.html), 15-20 minutes drive from Shrewsbury.

The weather was just perfect, we could not have asked for more this weekend. Two cars started from Shrewsbury, my roomie and I in one car with two other friends in the second one. Hopkinton State Park was like a small island isolated from the rest of the city and the busy traffic. Life seemed to come to a halt as soon as we entered the park. It was still a few mitnutes drive to the lake. The roads were small, covered with the tress, plants and rocks on both the sides as if God had designed it purposely for the people around the area to relax and cut themselves off from the rest of the world and unwind their true self.

This was my first time canoeing and I had absolutely no clue of how it is done but whatever I had heard from people, I was up for it at the same time I kept my excitement to the minimum low. I don't know how to swim and we were going in center of the lake, deep enough and fed by continuous spring of water. You could canoe, kayak, rent a boat and go the any of the two beaches to "swim", I was not thinking about doing it anyways, and do all the fun stuff that you can think of doing at the beach.

Dressed in shorts and tanks, the girl gang after applying the sunblock was walking towards the kayak rental office. Yes, I thought we were going to do canoeing but after reaching there one of the girls mentioned Kayaking is more fun. "Heck ya, I really don't care as long as it's fun and adventure". Handed my license to the female dressed in the dress code for the staff members: red t-shirt and pants, behind the desk. The yellow card with my last name on top in big capital letters written in black marker "MOONAT" let us rent two kayaks for four of us.

The experienced person sits at the back and the novice like me, sits in the front. The guy in red t-shirt instructed me what to do and how to use the double bladed paddle. Although it is not a rocket since but I don't understand things unless I do them. My roomie sitting behind me was instructing me how to paddle. Laughing at my stupid moves we were trying hard to go straight. After few paddles, I got it. I got the idea of how to move the kayak to left, to right and when to do it. We stopped at some point and let the kayak float on water, the water not warm and cool enough to soothe us from the scorching heat. Others behind us, we were yelling at them to stop where we had taken a hault. The funny part was, we were trying to hit our friends on the paddle boat and running away from them. After an hour of fun and splashing water at each other, we finally decided to return the kayaks and go to the beach.

The beach was not something you'd expect to be in Florida or near the coastal sides. It was a small beach with few people swimming, some getting a tan and a group playing volley ball while others playing the role of a spectator. There was a small hiking range, I don't know if I should call it hiking or not be we had to climb our way to top to see the spring of water. There were 9 of us who were walking up the hill, kinda, teasing and taking pictures. The day did not end yet, the only thing that ended was the fun time with all of them. There was more to come for some us from that group for the rest of the day.

All of you out there, this is a must try if you like to do adventurous things.

Next, I want to do sky diving and bungie jumping.

My Love for Chocolate Croissants

This is a weird topic to write on but I will still try to write why I love chocolate croissants. I am not a huge fan of chocolates, though I like some of them like Cadbury's Fruit n Nut, Ferrero Rocher, Five Star (I ate those in India. I don't see them in Amercia) and Kit Kat. I like the dark flavor of chocolates too but only in cakes.

It is interesting how I was introduced to chocolate croissant. When I came to US, I didn't know that something like this existed along with other 10,000 things that I was not aware of and I still am not. Being born and brought up in a small city of India, you don't get to learn a lot unless you are street smart or book smart. Then I was neither of those. Most of you, after reading this (ofcourse who know me) would think, "Are you either of those now?"

I visited a friend in Boston in October of 2005. Traveling from Philadelphia to Boston by bus was not an exciting affair especially considering the cold weather creeping in each day. Having a thing for travel and going to different places kept my excitement alive since this was my first time to Boston after coming to US.

So I reach there and I and my friend plan a visit to Harvard Square, one of the most happening and must see places near Boston. The weather was not something that I enjoyed a lot but the drive across the Charles River and a walk in the moonlight by one of the bridges was amazing. Finally, we reach Harvard Square and decide to sit in a coffee shop, Au Bon Pain, the coffee shop which I will never forget to go to if I see one around. My friend asked me if I would like to eat Chocolate Croissant and I didn't know what it was so I thought I should try it. Not to mention, the friend mentioned that the one that we get here is eggless. Coming from India and a religion that does not believe in killing an ant forget about eating meat, this was very important.

I shared half of it since I was not sure how much I'd like it. But to my surprise I wanted to eat more of it. But I didn't respond to my craving to eat more because of the # of calories it'd put in my body. This incident is something that I will always remember, although it has nothing great about it if you look at it as a third person. I have a personal reason to it. Adding more to my liking was the great taste and how perfectly the melted chocolate is filled inside baked bun which smells of all the fatty butter. There is no dessert like it, atleast for me.

So from then on, I never forgot to eat one chocolate croissant whenever possible. When my other friend, who I met in New Jersey found out how much I liked it, he always used to get it for me but from Starbucks since there were no Au Bon Pain close by. Guess what??? even he got addicted to eating it. Poor him, he was also watching his calory intake but I will take the blame of spoiling his eating habit here.

Chocolate Croissant not only has a taste but it has memories added to it in my book of life which will never fade. All the moments of eating it were full of emotions; the one where I was happy as if you have given his favorite food to a kid; the one where you are having fun while eating it with friends; the emotion of teasing someone for adding not so needed calories...and the one for someone who introduced it to me.

If that person happen to read this ever, Thanks for this and I will eat one to toast.

Some Useful Tips for your health!!!

With the increasing pressure of work and the race to get ahead of time and people, we often forget to think about ourselves. Our mind occupied with 10,000 things except that one thing that says, RELAX and take care of yourself, which does not only include your body, but your mind and heart.

I am trying to give few tips here and a quick access to links that can help you serve the purpose of your existence. Keep in mind, your existence is for a reason. A reason which cannot be accomplished without keeping yourself healthy...

1. Exercise: One should exercise 3-4 times every week. This not only helps build muscles but reduces weight and increases stamina. Walking is the ebst exercise. Other forms of exercise can be swimming and playing recreational sports.

2. Sleep: Sleep for atleast 6-8 hours a day. This lets you work at a consistent and full speed everyday. Sleep deprived people tend to get tired very easily and they get dark circles under the eyes. Taking care of your looks is also a very important part of your day to day life.

3. Wake up early every morning and drink lots of water to keep your system clean and skin glowing.

4. Try and take a heavy breakfast. Do not step out of the house without eating anything. I don't know how many of you know that sleeping burns more calories than watching TV. When you wake up, you feel hungry and it is important to provide some nutrition to the body to start your day with.

5. Take your meals at proper time. DO NOT OVEREAT in one meal. Eating at intervals in small portions is always better than eating it all at once.

6. Dinner should be done early evening. Avoid eating dinner at late nights. The food does not get digested properly and water intake reduces too.

7. Walk for someone time everday, especially after dinner. It helps you digest your food.

6. Take the vitamins and supplements as needed.

Helpful link(s):

http://living.health.com/2008/02/21/stand-up-to-back-pain/

Keeping Your Skin healthy

1. Drink lot of water.

2. Clean your face with a gentle face wash. Finding the face wash based on your skin type is very important. Useful link(s):

http://www.ehow.com/how_5028_determine-skin-type.html

3. Wash your face with water every few hours. This will keep your skin gentle and smooth.

4. Use minimum make up on your face and use the one which had less chemicals and more moisture. Useful link(s):

http://www.ehow.com/how_14457_choose-concealer.html

http://www.rd.com/living-healthy/how-to-choose-makeup-and-use-it-beautifully/article16133.html

5. Use a good and gentle cleanser to remove your make up.

6. Use a good moisturizer for day and night (again depending on your skin type).

7. Using a toner before going to bed removes the residual dirt and keeps the PH of the balanced. Useful link(s):

http://www.ehow.com/how_2213463_use-toner-skin-care.html