The School Bag Theory

              When I was in school, I had known two types of students. One type was of those who were very particular in arranging their school-bags as per the time table and bring only the required amount of copies and books. The other type was of those students who carried all the books and copies every day, whether required or not. These students were lazy and never cared to arrange their bags neatly. Instead they preferred carrying the weight of unwanted things everywhere.

               As we grow up, the school bag is long forgotten. However, our habits remain unchanged. We like to carry the weight of undesirable things or the unarranged school bag with us all around. We all have our share of bitter-sweet experiences in life. We face hardships, we have our own struggle stories, our ups and downs. But the worst part is that we keep on ranting over those issues for ages. The clutter of these negative thoughts fills up our mind, leaving no space for positivity or good things.  

  When we were in school, we found it easy to run from one corner to the other when the school bag was light or there was no school bag on the back. But with the heavy one, we would simply drag our feet down the path. The School Bag Theory in practical life is as simple as this.

               Life can be much easier if we learn to de-clutter our mind. Somebody was arrogant to you, somebody did not live up to your expectations, you were not invited for a certain party, you could not succeed in a particular assignment; the list of things that upset us can be endless. However, there is no point if we keep mulling over those things. It will take us to nowhere. On the contrary, it creates divide. We need to remove the old, stale, rotten negative thoughts that can be poisonous for our physical as well as mental health.

                It is irrational to depend on others to help us ease out our load because each person is trying to manage his or her own load. As a matter of fact, it is a common human tendency to shift our load on someone else’s shoulder at the earliest possible opportunity. Things would be much more beautiful if instead of shifting the load, we threw the garbage of unwanted stuff away. But everyone is too busy and instead prefers letting the stock pile up in the mind.

                Life is a journey and we are the travelers. Carrying an unwanted load will make the journey unpleasant and troublesome. So, if we wish to enjoy the journey, we must understand that the load has to be unburdened. Travelling light is the key to making the journey unforgettable. We must enjoy and revel in the happy and light moments that life offers us from time to time.

               From now on, do not forget to arrange your school bag from time to time, avoid the burden and enjoy a peaceful life.

Caution-Life Taken For Granted!

             It is a weekend. You and your spouse love to celebrate the weekend by going on a long drive. You get down at your favorite food joint to enjoy your brunch. Your day end is sealed by the mall and multiplex plan wherein you do a lot of window shopping and a bit of actual shopping till you get tired and then watch a movie.

You might also want to make plans to chill out with friends and on some other occasions; you are attending some social events. Apart from these activities, you also want to indulge in junk food, you have to surf the net, you need to meet and greet some random people, you love to hog on your favorite ice cream and you desire to get lazy and just lie on your sofa doing nothing.

Isn’t it surprising that unconsciously you perform so many activities in a day! You talk, you smile, you enjoy, you breathe and most important-you live. Every moment you use almost each of your senses. And while you are following this routine, one fine day you meet with an accident. You are hospitalized and almost get into a vegetative state.

Did this thought get you petrified? Indeed, it is petrifying. God forbid this should not happen with you. However, as a human being, we do not know what our tomorrow or even next moment will be like. Nature can be harsh on anyone at anytime. Someone meets with an accident, someone suffers a heart stroke, someone gets paralyzed and there are innumerable other ways of suffering.

Still, when we are hale and hearty, we tend to live the life recklessly. We are too engrossed in spending the days as they come, await the next day and keep worrying and planning about it. We hardly treasure the moment we are living in, the little joys that we are blessed with and the untold luxuries we get to enjoy. We ignore the importance of the breath we intake as a fit individual. We are indifferent to those countless activities that our normal senses allow us to do.

On the contrary, we whine over those things we do not have. We are busy comparing ourselves with others and are in fact insulting the creation of nature. ‘I wish I had straight hair like her’, ‘I wish I was as lucky as him’, ‘My life has become boring and monotonous’; the list of our complaints is endless. Nobody seems to be satisfied with what they possess. To sum it up in a line, life is taken for granted by us.

I, too, am a species of this genus. I might be leading a life which others are jealous of; loving relatives, wonderful friends, ample of amenities and luxuries frilled to a comfortable life. These advantages were never chalked out by me although I was enjoying them, until one fine day. It was the day when God decided to teach me the lesson of my life. It was the day that changed my perspective towards life. It was the day that told me others should not repeat the mistakes made by me or thousand others like me.

It was a day just like any other day. I was returning home from office when I met with an accident. It was a head injury with quite a blood loss. I was in hospital for 3 days and was later advised complete bed rest for at least 15 days at home. The week that followed the day of accident was horrendous. A persistent headache, a continuous drowsy and sluggish feeling, energy level running in minus caused me to be nailed to bed. I was given more medicines than the morsels of food I could eat at that stage, which only made me further sick. As days advanced, I also realized that the injury on head caused a mild jerk in my brain giving rise to minute complications in the wiring of my body as my hearing and smelling sense were affected. It was then that I fathomed how much is provided to us by nature but how thankless we are for that.

Although my injury could have counted trivial than what numerous others undergo, I felt that I had almost seen death a couple of miles away. The moments when I was wriggling in pain in my bed, I remembered the happy me. As if reels after reels of my life were playing in my head contemplating on my smiles, my laughs, my mischief, my joys and wondering how none of those things I was able to do at that instant although I wished to. I realized they were the things that are to be cherished. Every fraction of these moments has to be lived and enjoyed completely.

We cannot put a price tag on happiness saying this was a small happiness or that gives me bigger happiness; for happiness in any form is bliss. I learnt it the hard way. This will remain etched in my heart forever. I want to carve this same message in the minds of as many people as possible and this is a small attempt in that direction. Life is a precious gift gifted by nature. Value it. Do not take it for granted because you get to live only once. 

Doting Dads

A lot is always said and written about the caring, loving nature of a mother. We read poetries, compose sentimental messages and listen to heart-wrenching stories about the proficiency and capability of mothers. Beyond doubt, they are worth all the praise showered on them and should be saluted for their extraordinary potentials.

 But, for a minute, take a break and think about that stupendous personality called ‘father’. Fathers are always the unsung heroes. They are the ones who will go about accomplishing their task as a responsible parent without a murmur and sans any pomp. They are the towering mountains who will face storms and strong winds so that their families are unharmed. 

Fathers are the ones who, after a hectic day at office, will go to the shop just in time before the shutters go down and get that best dress for their little one’s birthday. They are the ones who have to lead by example. They are the role models for their sons and the first love of their daughters. Like a coconut, they appear hard for the outside world but are tender and full of love from within. And yes, they are proud of each of their role.

As a kid, I had seen my father donning various hats just for us, with élan. This moment he was our buddy playing cricket with us, the next moment he would become a magician. We adored that magician because he would get us our favorite toffees from weirdest of places like our ears, our nostrils or our head when tilted.

When I was an infant, it was him who would take me into his lap and sing lullaby or his favorite songs for me. He was the one who taught me my first dance steps. When I learnt those steps, he was my first audience. Right from planning the annual trip to our weekend getaways and from driving down to the destinations to becoming the photographer and capturing moments, dad has done everything for us.

While doing all this, he would be at the peak of his energy. Not even once, did he whine, complain or seem to be tired. While he became a philanthropist and taught us to be good human being, he would also share some mischievous moments with us.

From him, I learnt what stage courage is and he was the one to write my first speech for me. The process of teaching and learning is endless. Merely through his convictions we learn so many things even today, that we feel we are too ignorant.

I believe dads around the world must be the same for their children and I am sure, hundreds and thousands of people will be echoing my thoughts. This space will fall short to actually describe what fathers do for their kids. I have been lucky enough to get not just one but two dads-my father and my father in law. From them you learn what it means to walk that extra mile for someone just to make them happy. 

Dads are superb, and this belief multiplies when you are a daughter (or a daughter in law) and are showered with love and care from these doting dads. Happy Fathers’ Day to all the awesome dads.

Be A Man!

         “Only when manhood is dead-and it will perish when ravaged femininity no longer sustains it-only then will we know what it is to be free.” quoted Andrea Dworkin, a radical feminist and writer. She must have said these words way before 2005 when Andrea expired, but they are emphatically resounding in today’s context.

          Bizarre it is that no woman feels completely safe in the society today. The society, of which she constitutes half the part, the society which nurtures and grows because of her, no more looks like a safe haven to her. Wherever she goes, she is always under the scanner of prying eyes and sleazy minds. The disgraceful hoots and whistles or vulgar comments are add-ons to these shameful acts.

          Our society loves to play games, and one of our favorite games is the blame-game. For every misdeed of ours, we look for someone to shift the onus on. Thus, when men are blamed for misusing their manhood, they point fingers towards women for overtly displaying womanhood through provocative dresses and luring figures. They are criticized for travelling alone, being out of the house late at night and working independently. Is it a true concern or the insecurity of mind that does the talking?

Can we have an assurance that men will not be incited if women are fully clad or are not social or do not travel alone late at night? In that case, why women in villages are raped, why the small girls who are physically as well as mentally yet undeveloped, raped, why women are raped in the confines of their house by known faces, blood relations or friends?

A temporary lust of man becomes a permanent torture, disgrace and trauma for the woman and her family. Whether we talk of hundreds of Nirbhayas, who are barbarically raped and succumb to the ordeal immediately, or of thousands of Aruna Shanbaugs who perish slowly but daily like a slow poisoning, or those innumerable others drowned in anonymity, grief and trauma is inevitable. Victims are dying, being comatose, getting permanent physical disability or are losing their rights to normal and happy life, while the culprits are moving around fearlessly in the society and progressing in their life with pride.

I am not a female chauvinist or a radical feminist to shout inanely for female rights but it pains as a member of a reputable society to see the social fabric being nibbled down slowly. Let us save the society from going to the dogs. Just as much it is the need of the hour for the government to make stringent laws, it is for us to take pledge to be a man, and not a leech.

PEOPLE - Faces and Facets

Whenever my mind is not busy in generating any productive thoughts (which is very often), my philosophical mind jumps in action fiddling with some random thoughts. I start reasoning about the things happening in my surrounding, people perambulating around and so on. I start studying faces of people and try to guess what is going on in their mind. Not that I am good at face-reading or something, but it is always fun to do such exercises and keep your brain busy in free time.

            The best time to enjoy doing such weird things is when you are in a crowded place, surrounded by people of all sorts and strata. When I am in court, donning the black coat, absorbing the heat and waiting for the lift to help me traverse from one floor to the other, instead of getting irritated for the long wait, I glance at the faces of people-lawyers, judges, police, clients and people accompanying them. Some are sad that they have to go through a robe routine and it is just another day for them. Some are always pumped with energy because they are ultimately doing what they like to do. Others think that this way or that, they have to earn bread for their family so why not by doing this work. Some have plain, insipid faces without any reason. 

When the police are taking away some criminals, those criminals too, are of assorted expressions. There are a few hardened criminals who carry the “to hell with the world, I will not change” attitude on their face. Then there are those who, even in their worst nightmares had never imagined that they would land up in jail some day and hence carry a guilt-laden face. Handful others are as shameless while being whisked away by the police as they were during the commitment of crime for which they are being tried. People accompanying these criminals wear only one expression-of being helpless and hapless. Apart from court there are number of other places where we can study human psychology at its best and vivid angles.

“Scared”-was my instantaneous expression when long ago, as a child, I first saw local trains in Mumbai. I wondered how so many people lived in one city at one time and where does everyone have to go throughout the day since locals would always be occupied to the capacity. This curiosity awakened the ‘face reading genius’ in me. Suddenly the monstrous population started looking like an interesting puzzle to me. People were conveying various messages, quite involuntarily, through their face. There were those accepting life as it came and made full use of whatever little free time they could get and there were those dejected to see their fates oscillating in the local trains and then there were a few others who had mastered the art of contentedness with a statement “That’s life!”, stamped on their face. As I started observing people, travelling in a local had become enjoyable or at least tolerable. Since then it felt more like browsing through a library, each person an encyclopaedia in himself.   

There are many such places like our neighbourhood, social events, family functions where we can find umpteen species of a genre called ‘People’. So next time when you are surrounded by number of people and you don’t have any work you know what to do. But be watchful of your actions as someone else might also be studying your face and facets to your personality.

A Tattered Destiny

It was getting dark. Waiting for her last patient, Dr. Akriti hoped to finish off quickly so that she could wind up the most hectic day in past few months at the Health Centre. The patient, a lady, came in with muffled steps. Her face was laden with embarrassment. Dr. Akriti, as an intern of Community Medicine was used to with such patients who came to diagnose problems ranging from children’s vaccination to their personal physical problems. Clearly gauging the lady’s difficulty, Dr. Akriti made her sit and feel comfortable.

                Frail, fragile and drained out, her looks spoke more for her. ‘A patient of gynaec problem, it seems’, Dr. Akriti made a mental diagnosis of the patient. As she began her actual check-up, her eyes fell on the lady’s ornaments from which a Tabiz flashed. It not only demonstrated her religion but also had something to do with her health problem; a probable victim of disease due to polygamous marriage system prevalent in their sect. Seeing the doctor’s mild mannerisms, the lady spoke up, “I am Fatima. I stay in the adjacent slum area,” her first interaction since she had entered the clinic. “What problem do you have, Fatima?”, Dr. Akriti asked. Before she could say anything, Fatima burst into a bout of tears.

                She commenced her story gradually. “I was hardly 11 when I got married. At the raw age of 12, I had a child. Then again at 13, the next one; and by the time, I was 16, I was a mother of four. My husband was a drunkard. He hardly earned anything and whatever little he earned was spent in his drinking. He used to come home late at night and beat me. One day he left for work and didn’t come back for about 4-5 months. When he came back, he was married for the second time. I was shattered. He had been staying with her for all these days.” She stuttered before speaking further. Dr. Akriti calmed her down, “Take your time and tell me slowly.”

“We again had physical relations”, she continued. In our society, what a woman wants hardly matters. It is only about the husband’s will.” The affable doctor at once understood the lady’s problem, motioned further towards her and advised, “You are suffering from an infection that has been transmitted by your husband, which he could have got because of his second wife. We need to do your husband’s check up too, to ensure your own safety.” Fatima agreed and left with a relaxed countenance and a promise to come the next day with her husband.

Fatima didn’t come the next day, nor the day after that. ‘She might be unwell’, thought Dr. Akriti to herself. Whole week passed but there was no news of Fatima. Dr. Akriti could not forego the memory of that flimsy lady and so she decided to find out her whereabouts. She went to the slum near the Health Centre. After a lot of enquiries she located Fatima’s hutment. She entered with some frantic paranoia. As she entered the hut, she found, to her utter dismay that Fatima was lying inertly in a small bed at corner. She was all bruised, swollen and bleeding. The doctor, in her ever concerning tone, asked Fatima as to what happened. Fatima, writhing in pain, shuddered, “Madam, I am fine with this infection. I am ready to suffer. But please do not ask me to bring my husband for the check-up. He felt that I am pointing out a weakness in him and so he bet me badly. Even if I die because of this, it is alright. But please…..”; and she went into a state of unconsciousness.

Film Review-Ek Villain

What if someone told you that a stern looking gangster can be given a heart change by your impish chatter and inane jokes? The movie ‘Ek Villain’ drags you into believing it.

                The story spins mainly around three people-Aisha, Guru and Rakesh. Aisha (Shraddha Kapoor) is this quirky girl who can go on and on with her babble, some funny and some with a content high on philosophy. For every situation she manages to tag along a joke. Sadly, she is gripped by a disease (name of which is not disclosed till the end) due to which she has already started a countdown to her death. This makes her ever bubblier (a la ‘Anand’ and ‘Guddi’ of olden times). She wishes to enjoy happiness in every form and thus, writes a scrapbook to make a note of those ‘happiness’ moments she would love to have before she dies and a camera to click her happiness in action and paste it in the scrapbook.

                Guru (Siddharth Malhotra), the criminal who is forever lugging his deadpan looks, is a man of few words. Aisha needs a favour from him, so is always after him badgering to help her. Irritated by her nonstop talks, he tries to avoid her and even intimidates her on some occasions. But at the end, he falls for her and even helps her fulfil her ‘Project Happiness’.

                Rakesh (Riteish Deshmukh) shown as a psychopath husband is mind blowing. He loves his wife to the core. He is ready to tolerate her everyday nagging and annoying remarks; with an exception that he vents his anger on unknown ladies by killing them in weirdest of manners. One such hapless victim is Aisha, who dies before her disease can conquer her.

                What happens after that is the mystery of the movie. Will Guru take revenge of the death of his lady love? Who exactly is the real villain in the story is to be seen. First half an hour of the movie is immensely captivating as you are curiously connecting the story shown part in flashback and part in the present. But the climax leaves you flabbergasted for you feel that expectations built in the first half are dampened in the second half. It makes you think that the director, Mohit Suri had some abrupt idea at midnight and he told the screenplay writer to make it into a film by hook or by crook.

                The film has been shot mainly in Goa and Mumbai. All picturesque places have been captured for pleasant and romantic shots while dismaying locales have been artistically picked for mysterious scenes. A typical Goanese background of churches and British style buildings leave you mesmerised. The part where Aisha wants to fulfil her wishes like catching a butterfly, seeing a peacock dancing in first rains have been shot in very lush green neighbourhood like a dense forest and a hilly area. You are left with a longing to visit that spot.

                While most of the songs are melodious and you keep humming those hours later, the item number by Prachi Desai, ‘Awari’ is a total misfit even to drag the story further. Ankit Tiwari and Mithoon have done a good job in the music department. Tushar Hiranandani and Milap Zaveri have belted out some really power-packed dialogues, highlighting the underlying theme of the movie-‘a devil can be turned into a good person by bringing him out of darkness into light’.

                At the end, I feel the box office numbers ringed because ever since previous week there has been no good movie to watch and people needed some entertainment to enjoy their weekend.