IT ALL BEGINS AT HOME.

We go around talking about how those kids in that group ‘Bois Locker Room’ were wrong and how the police getting involved is a big step towards change. To break your bubble, the kids who are going to face these circumstances don’t even believe that they are at fault. Hence, their basis of differentiating between right and wrong itself is flawed. They’re probably still going to be proud about what they are and what they did.

Then, what’s the point?

We’re all going to mention them on social media handles, make them viral for a bit and then move on with our damn lives because we tend to forget easily. We hide behind laptop screens and talk about respect, patriarchy, filth and upbringing. That’s the problem.

Let’s get to the root. Patriarchy is real, don’t deny it but why does it still exist in the 21^st century?

Simple, it’s because we as women, let it exist. More than men dominating the world, it’s the women against women that prove patriarchy right every single time.

We’ve all read this quote, “Don’t teach your girls how to dress, teach your boys how to behave”. Tell me, how exactly are we teaching them anything at all? We are only imposing ideologies about women empowerment, equality and respect while setting contradictory examples. Don’t believe me? Read on…

1. Why do you look at your daughter to go fetch the guests’ water and not at your son? Mind it, your son is looking at you looking at your daughter. It all starts with a glass of water.
2. Why did you not let your daughter attend the same party as your son did last night? Mind it, your son just made mental notes about this incident.
3. Why did you as an aunt lecture your niece about why she shouldn’t be wearing that dress? Mind it, your niece is going to talk about the same thing to her niece.
4. Why did you never bring up the subject about sex education? Mind it, your kids already have access to sensitive content, one click away and are free to make any presumptions.

So ask yourself, what examples are we setting? Is it right? Does it matter? Literally, these are the tiniest things we do at home without realising their potential impact.

What those kids have done is all kinds of wrong and there is no justification to it. The debate is endless, moreover pointless. What I want to focus on is the ‘why’ part. Why did they do what they did? They did it because they felt entitled to do so. They don’t think it was morally wrong because they have developed values from flawed examples at home and as much as they are at fault, so are we.

I think that more than the men being men, women are letting the men be men by not letting the women be women.

It’s like the women are on this auto pilot mode, with their instincts directing them to put others beyond themselves. It takes years and years of conscious effort to shake off this conditioning and somewhere, someone needs to start!

So, start talking about this issue because whether or not you agree, we are all a part of this problem! And here’s what you can do:

1. Practice before you preach.
2. Discuss it, talk to your kids, this implies to both girls and boys about having a basic sense of respect towards all humans.
3. Bring about sex education. Talk to them about consent, protection, safety, choices and coercion.
4. Tell them about cyber crimes and cyber bullying. Ensure that they know, they can rely on you if they’re in any trouble. (Talk to the girls about sharing their private pictures online and why they should avoid it, irrespective of the fact that whether they trust their partner, or not because there is nothing that is private on the internet. Worse come worse, what if the phone gets hacked? And talk to the boys about manipulating their partners into sending such sensitive pictures and why they need to take ‘no’ for an answer.)
5. Teach your children about self defense, alertness when they are out alone, emergency contacts, a few basic tips to tackle any situation, empathy, understanding towards others, modesty, pride, violence, mental health and depression. There is loads of content on the internet about all of this.

Restricting the girls or bad mouthing the boys is not going to make this situation any better. If we need to bring about this change on a higher scale, teaching them good values to live by, despite the threats this world possesses, is one big step in the process of eliminating such instances in the future.

It all begins at home!

I’m trying to make a difference, 800 words at a time; do help me out by sharing this article.

Thank you.

FIND YOUR CALM AMIDST THE CHAOS

It’s been a few weeks since we’ve been in lock down and for everyone who has a roof above their heads and doesn’t have to worry about essentials or isn’t stranded in the middle of nowhere, I want to let you know that you’re also overwhelmed by the saturation of this situation, whether or not you realise it but in some deep corner of your heart, this feeling exists and it could end up doing more harm than good. Overwhelming can be both good and bad and sometimes too much good turns bad and too much bad turns bitter.

Of course, you’re working from home/ studying from home and days do pass by eventually and we’ve been doing this for quite some time now but we still have a long way to go until we resume our routine completely. Till then, we need to keep ourselves sane enough to get through the day because I know you’ll agree with me, it’s getting harder by the minuet, not because you’re bored, not because you miss going out and chilling with your friends but because you’ve never spent so much time with yourself and your family outright with nowhere else to go.

It was all fun and games for a few days but sometimes it can be mentally taxing to end up in a situation like this and here’s why.

– It’s not that you’ve never spent time with your family before but it was a completely different scenario, everyone had their schedules, everyone was occupied with something and you would still end up having meals together and making memories that you truly cherished. (Sure you loved the first few days of the lock down and now it’s getting monotonous, you’re not cherishing any more Sundays or anymore meals as much as you did earlier)

– You’ve never spent so much time with yourself. (You’ve always been occupied with work, study, meetings, deadlines, trying to live through the week only to reboot for the upcoming one on the weekend. But right now, you’re already a 100% charged and now suddenly you have a lot less work/study/purpose that you don’t know what to do with yourself anymore. Eventually even a full battery goes down if one does not use it at all. That’s what is happening; we are beginning to get lost along the way)

– The pandemic is the only news the whole world is focusing on right now and this is all everyone is talking about and we like to keep ourselves updated but sometimes it just leaves us uneasy for we don’t know where this is going to lead and we hate being in a continuous state of uncertainty and despair.

All of this does really take a toll on ones mental health if the situation prevails for a reasonably long time.

This got me thinking about one question;

Do you like you?

Not so surprising, you did pause to think about it for a moment.

Do you realise that you inevitably spend most of the time in your life with no one but yourself. Self acceptance doesn’t happen in a day, it’s a process and it takes time. Therefore you need to find your calm amidst this chaos.

Alright, never mind, what you’ve been doing or what you think you should be doing. Here are a few crazy/unconventional approaches to make peace with yourself and make this quarantine a lot more rewarding than it already is:

• Introduce you to you. Have you spoken to yourself lately? (If you think this is completely crazy, read on)
• Try to understand yourself in ways you never thought you could and figure out why you feel the way you feel about certain people; ideologies; mindsets and about your own self ( Whether you really like the barbecue sauce in your sub sandwich or it just seemed to picky to say no at the counter? Do you really not mind always lending your stuff to everyone? Can you actually say no to things you don’t like or people who get on your nerves? Most importantly, do you do what you do to please yourself or is it just another imbecile excuse to fit in? And if the answer to any of these is apart from what you usually do, then it’s time to bring all the inconveniences to an end and find out what exactly truly do you want, and stand up for yourself no matter how petty it is. )
• Indulge in self care and take a day off ( Seriously, this is a once in a life time opportunity to use those essential oils you bought ages ago, try that face pack your grandparents always asked you to, give your muscles a stretch, get a champi and yeah, amidst a so called vacation, take a break to be with yourself, shut off your phone, take your eyes off the screen, try green tea, make a poster for your room maybe, listen to that age old tape recorder hidden away in your closet, don’t watch the news if it disturbs you, do only what pleases you, be selfish when it comes to mental peace.)
• Remember all those trips you took and the endless photographs stored in your computer, sort them out to get them printed ( Yes, the idea is ancient but having a printed copy is worth a lot more than having 10x times the number of soft copies, you finally have the time, make an album. And when you’ll look at those pictures, you will remember your younger self, carefree and brave, you have always been brave, it’s time to dig it out and keep it with you.)
• Actually watch more sunsets ( Generally by the time our everyday hustle comes to an end, the sun is already down; get on the terrace today and every day, listen to the birds chirping, watch the sky change colours, witness a simple earth routine for once. This is basically the earth redeeming, all those times you missed something you wanted to do, with plain beautiful sunsets.)
• Meditate ( It can be anything, someone recently told me that their form of meditation is indulging in suryanamaskar, for you it could be dancing on EDM’s and for all anyone cares about, do what you love doing. Start feeding your soul)

These are challenging times and whist the world is fighting wars, you’ve got an opportunity, something you never asked for, use it; maybe you will end up surprising yourself.

Lastly, when all this ends, promise to take yourself out on a date, just you and something you love doing. It could be as small as a cup of ice-cream but do it because you deserve it, you deserve being pampered by yourself, you deserve to prioritize your needs and you deserve to feel absolutely content with who you are.

INSIDE A DOCTOR’S HEAD (THINGS YOU ALREADY KNOW)

For starters, yet again, not many of us get a distress call from their doctor siblings who just got out of a corona update class.

After speaking to him I realized, how their life is no different today than it was last year. Corona or not, aren’t these guys always attending to people who need them? Why are they suddenly termed heroes in the eyes of the nation only when it gets as huge as a pandemic and then lost in oblivion for the rest of their lives, probably until another such crisis occurs.

He told me how it feels to be on the front line, it is a matter of pride for any doctor to be there, on duty working continuously for innumerable number of hours selflessly taking care of the sick even with the risk of contracting the virus. It is also, frightening because in some deep corner of our hearts, no one would like to risk their lives for anything, nevertheless they do because they find themselves privileged enough to be able to save lives and make a difference.

Here’s what they actually want you to know (The things you already know):

1. Due to acute shortage of protective masks, PPE units, the health care workers are more susceptible to the virus.
2. They have a family who is waiting for them in worry, they make their loved ones also vulnerable to the virus with a few of them being elder, already dealing with diseases like diabetes and hypertension and some of them even have newborns at home. It is scary to even think about it and these guys are actually living this life. Some of them are staying away from their families while the rest of the world is complaining about quarantine, being locked up in their homes, safe with their loved ones.
3. They’re fighting 3 wars (Something you may not have noticed)

• War with the virus
• War with the systems and infrastructure which the nation is short of

(Fun fact: India has only 2-3 beds per population of 1000, while countries like Italy and China have 12-13 beds for a 1000 people count)

• War with the people

(Fun fact: Doctors are being stone pelted; slapped; ill-treated; beaten up by the family of their patients. They are being thrown out of their houses by the society or their land lords because they are said to bring in the virus with them. Within ten days, some people went from a clap to a slap.)

All they ask for is a little bit of support, love and respect throughout their life because even when we eradicate COVID-19, and move on, they will be there, in the hospital, still saving thousands of lives and still being at risk of exposure to tuberculosis, H1N1, hepatitis B and will still smile and treat anyone who comes to them.

Tell me how are they any different from the people who are from any defense background of the country. They’re war heroes too; the only difference is that these wars are fought in operation theaters and ICU wards.

What they’re asking is, to be looked at as a human.

Is this too much to ask for?

Share this with everyone you know, or don’t. The world deserves to know how doctors or for that matter, any health care worker feels. I guess we owe them this much 🙂

THE AFTERMATH OF COVID-19

For starters, not all of us have siblings who are doctors and who can give us a scare, time and again while providing authentic information about what really should be our priority points.

The first thing my brother, who is a doctor, told me today was that, it’s not the 21 day lock down that matters, it’s what we do on day 22.

So here’s what’s going to happen:

1. Like some people did during the Janta curfew, now the whole country is suddenly going to run out of their homes with the national flag, playing patriotic songs and shouting slogans like we’ve won a war and talking about how great of a nation we are forgetting that we have not completely eradicated the virus but merely tried to cut it down.
2. The so called highly educated people of the city are going to flood public places like cinema theaters, restaurants, malls, parks etc. exactly on day 22, because why not. They’re absolutely going to neglect the fact that they can’t altogether abandon social distancing and that the virus may still be out there, let’s hope not but one can never be too careful.
3. All the small and medium businesses, all corporate offices are going to start working on their normal scheduled time and if I may say, double shifts, extra hours to cover the leftover work of the lock-down period, hosting the employees at large to a possible contamination at large.
4. The people who have already left for their villages, example our house help or those who work for daily wages will now come back running to the city because of the bad economy and in hope to earn back a little of what they’ve lost. On optimistic grounds, even if one single person of the thousands is seemed to have mild symptoms or not tested and is still hosting the virus due to any reason of negligence or unavailability of infrastructure, now shall travel through a train/bus carrying another 50 people right into the city.
5. All means of public transport will now be over crowded to and fro throughout the country suddenly exposing loads of people to loads of possibilities of contracting the virus all over again.

 

I’m telling you exactly what’s going to happen on day 22, India is going to forget that we are in the middle of a pandemic, a damn global crisis and everyone is going to get back to their normal lives, leaving behind the masks, sanitizers and forgetting to maintain extreme personal hygiene because hey! We’ve found a cure to the virus, we stayed home for 21 days, now let’s forget it and move on.

 

This is the reason there are high chances of a second wave of the virus spreading like wild fire into the country. If you don’t believe me, you can check the statistics of this virus called the N1H1 which arose in 2009, where in the exact same thing occurred. As soon as it was contained and people went back to their normal lives, there was a second wave.

So technically 21 days of Quarantine is going to be absolutely useless we educate the people about what exactly is to be done on day 22 because otherwise there is a possibility of another lock-down being declared. We definitely don’t want that.

So here’s what we can do:

1. We act wisely and use our common sense by doing the most basic things; don’t go partying on day 22; try to follow all the instructions you did for the last 4 weeks to the maximum extent; please don’t forget, this is not the end of the virus, this is only the beginning of the end.
2. We educate and spread awareness about the after effects to people who do not have access to resources and information by sharing this article.
3. We use this as an official petition urging the government to take into consideration the above points before announcing any further instructions after the lock down is over.
4. We persuade the government to let the lock-down downsize in separate stages :

• For example from day 22 say for another week only the essential services shall be open like banks, grocery stores and the frequency of public transportation shall be minimal
• In the next week the frequency can be increased after monitoring the effects of the spread and the public shall be urged to avoid assembling in large numbers and practice social distancing
• All public places like theaters, malls, parks shall be the last priority to be open for the public.

 

If we genuinely understand the seriousness of the issue and come together as a single voice in these times of crisis, we can make a huge difference in the lives of 1.3 billion Indians.

 

I’m just a regular kid who’s paranoid about the virus and who really wants to make a difference.

Thank you.

 

 

 

 

T

 

Thank you.

WRONG

How difficult is unanimity?
I’d say, almost impossible.
Agreeing to the same thing amongst two people is far off, do you realise if you have unanimity within yourself?
Think about it, aren’t there situations where your heart feels something while your mind disagrees?

In 7/10 situations, there’s a war..

From the simplest of the tasks
– Whether to text first or dress a particular way or to buy something, even if it consumes the last penny of your salary..
To the most complex ones
– Choosing between holiday destinations v/s budget or career options or marriage for that matter..
There’s never unanimity.

Actually, there isn’t supposed to be.
I believe, confusion leads us to the best of results.
Come on, offer some credits to your brain and heart for making life a little bit more complex yet interesting..

We seek for an answer to this confusion within ourselves and within other people.
Ofcourse there’s a biased view sometimes and instead of analysing everything, we start taking impulsive decisions or get influenced by the wrong sort of people, do things we know we’d regret later, drunk dial people we’re not supposed to, take that leap of faith when we still doubt, end up on wrong roads, get on wrong trains, change our perspectives, change our destination, we experience heartbreaks, start believing in satan or maybe, start believing in god.
At some point of time we give up while at some other point, we pick ourselves up.
We fall, we’re hurting, we cry, we curse, we get up, we learn, we grow..

Think about it this way…
The wizarding world wouldn’t have gotten a better Hermonie if Emma Watson hadn’t auditioned for the role in the first place.
Yes, it was at her school that the audition was conducted, she thought acting wasn’t her thing and denied to audition. Nevertheless, her teacher asked her to give it a try. She was the last girl from the entire school to audition for the role of Hermonie Granger.
The rest is history!

Sometimes, all the wrong choices bring out the best in us..
Sometimes things we think are not meant for us are our only calling.
Sometimes we find meaning in all the wrong roads, the roads with rocks, the roads less travelled upon, those roads that we’re oblivious to.
This doesn’t mean we’re lost.
Even if we are, maybe we’re lost so that we could find ourselves in a better state.

This isn’t a cliché post about “Always listen to your heart”
The point is, whatever route you’ve picked, maybe it is what’s written for you, even if you think it’s the wrong one.
Now that you can’t do anything about it, travel without regret. Enjoy it.

To all the people who are oblivious to the beauty of wrong choices, remember, this could be one of the best things you did for yourself when you realise that it was always meant to be!
No matter how much you hate yourselves right now, maybe your older self will be thankful to your present self for being your present self.

There’s a ‘Maybe’ here but isn’t life altogether a big ‘Maybe’?
There’s an equivalent chance of things going wrong , yet again that in itself is another learning.
All I’m trying to say is, now at this very point in your life, if you’ve taken a decision you regret, maybe you’re meant to regret it and extract a lesson out of it or maybe this regret is leading you to something better.
If you’ve taken a chance you think you shouldn’t have, so be it. It’s done for.

Taking chances is always better than repentance and what if’s and If I had the guts, then..
Right?

ONLY TIME WILL TELL

We believe in the good and the bad, the powerful and the weak, our friends and foes but our actual rival is time.
All things age, all things die.
Well that’s all time does, it just passes by.
It does so little and yet so much.
It is a predominant and an exceptionally unquestionable measure of everything that exists, whether or not we’re aware about it.

Every feeling, emotion, urge can be relative.
Time too is relative.
It objectifies it’s very existence and yet is quantified in terms of deadlines or schedules or events, moreover just learnt and forgotten as a mere concept in Mathematics.

I’m pretty sure all of us have some idea about the concept of ‘Time value of Money’, for those who don’t, the time value of money calculates how much money to be invested today to get 1 rupee per say after a given period of time.
Well, ever wondered what would be the time value of a person?
In literal translation terms, how much time would you have to invest in a person today to get a desired level of affection after a given period of time?
It sounds absolutely ridiculous but for a moment just think about it.
This concept has always been there and with a change in perception, suddenly there’s so much meaning added to it.

We’re being oblivious to the very existence of this phenomena.

Think of it this way, you invest 100 rupees today in an expectation to earn interest and multiply your wealth.
Does this wealth really matter in the end?
Ask yourself.

To me, this wealth isn’t what you’re going to take along in your 6*6 feet grave, what you’re really going to take along is a part of that interest, that multiplication of the time you invested in the people who mattered the most.
The interest we get from investing time is our identity (Wajud), the very testament of out existence.

Everything takes time..

It takes time to get to know someone
It takes time to understand
It takes time to love
It takes time to get attached
It takes time to accept
It takes time to let go
It takes time to forget
It takes time to get over
It takes time to heal.

It’s okay, take it slowly, take time but don’t let time take you.

It is said that time heals everything, I beg to differ. I belive time mocks us that we aren’t capable of changing the reality and that we cannot have control over everything under the sun, so we slowly try to accept the situation we can do absolutely nothing about and the scars heal.
Time doesn’t heal scars, it’s the realisation it imbibes in us that heals the scar.

Time is so simple yet so complex
Abundant yet scarce
Free yet expensive
Available yet taken for granted.

The point is, don’t race time.
Walk along with it.
Quantify it’s existence in terms of every minute you’ve spent with the people you love, something that you’ve experienced for the first time, things that makes your heart race faster, circumstances that challenge you, anything and everything that makes you feel a little more alive.
Acknowledge it.
Reap something which is genuinely valuable with this extraordinary gift that is made available to us.

Invest just enough, be it time or love, be it yourself or anyone else.
Metaphorically, it’s like salt in a dish, you need to add just enough, neither less nor too much.
And always remember, all of us have been given the same amount of time during the day, what matters is what we make out of it.

A CONSTANT IN THE VARIABLES

Heisenbergs uncertainty principle states that you can never determine the position and velocity of an object accurately at the same time. (Quantum Physics)

And what that implies in a fundamental sense is that you can never know anything with certainty. You can only deal in terms of probability.

This got me thinking that the principle applies to everyone of us in our day to day lives, so I started looking for something that will forever remain constant irrespective of the uncertainties.

The answer to this from my understanding took me back to those little stories that urged us to stay up just a little more late during school, those characters who we’d dress up as for our fancy dress competitions, those wars we’d fight and always save the day, that little world which was entirely our own and that we completely believed in at one point of time in our lives.
These tales helped us grow a little bit more everyday and to believe at little bit more in ourselves everyday.

Somewhere along the line, we’ve gotten out of touch with these little tales, somewhere we’ve stopped relating to them, somewhere, we’re lost.
Because we know it’s not real. We knew in our head, subconsciously that we didn’t believe in these stories anymore. Do we really?
We’re missing on everything that a story has to offer.
Wouldn’t you want to know something you’ve never heard of before or experience something that you’ve never experienced before?

Ever wondered how one human brain can imagine something so humongous or something so divergent from what reality it lives in?
How one story can change everything you thought you knew about yourself?
I never thought scuba diving or sky diving could ever make it to my bucket list before watching Zindagi na Milegi Dobaara.
I never thought I’d look at life from a different perspective after Augustus Waters died.

I mean, who thought mice could be so cute?
– Mickey

Who thought that an octopus can own a dog and a house and chill at the beach.
– Oswald

Who expected a little boy with a bell in his cap to drive a plane and a car, live on his own and spread joy?
– Noddy

Who knew that the cat apparently could turn piano shaped if it was hit by a piano.
– Tom

Those little tales are the magic in our lives we now believe to have never existed. Right?

For one moment, just imagine your life without Pikachu or Jerry.
Oh wait, you don’t have to because it is how you’re living it right now.

What I’m trying to point out here is our brain being oblivious to it’s own need for imagination and creativity and us not even trying otherwise.
Everyone needs a little bit of magic in our lives, something that mesmerises us, something that incites us, something you can look back to because that something is a part of you that you’re now denying to have ever experienced.

No one’s ever too old for stories.
Also, I believe that somethings unlike almost everything else in our world are not meant to evolve or grow with us. If stories did evolve, then their purpose would be lost.

Look for a character you think you might admire, hunt for their story, read it, live it, try to be that Johnny Bravo in your own little way, you always thought you’d be when you grew up.

The catch is, find time for little adventures in your life.
These may not necessarily be from a book or a cartoon, it could be by a simple conversation with a stranger or a small getaway trip and if none of the above work, maybe a movie.

Make some time for something apart from the everyday hustle.
Because change is inevitable and in this fast moving world there are some things that are worth holding on to, some stories that are worth re-reading, some escapes that are worth spending time on..

And some people that are worth melting for..
– Olaf
Remember how Naina told Bunny, “Ki life mein jo chahe karlo, kuch na kuch toh choot hi jaata hai, toh jaha hein, wahi ka maza lete hein.”
I have my own little extension to this..
Aur jaha nai ja paaye, waha ki kahaniyo ka maza lete hai..