Don't whine, go fight!

So, I had a terrible day today and was upset for most part of it. I lost a wonderful opportunity to go to Kashmir for 10 days to work on a documentary. I was to make my own audio-visual presentation on entrepreneurs in the valley and was super excited to be a part of this project but my father did not allow me to go.

This is not the first time I have had to miss an opportunity but it is worse than usual because people who know me Know traveling to Kashmir was a dream of mine.

I was miserable about losing this golden ticket.. still am. And then it hit me, a revelation.

I realized, this is My life, the universe or my family doesn't get to decide what I should or shouldn't do with it. I would not defy my father's order but I sure can find More opportunities of this sort.

I've got a long life ahead of me, and its unpredictable. Thinking I would never get a chance like this is a mistake.

If you passionately want something in life, you fight for it. You Make circumstances for yourself. Don't wait for fate or this universe or God, whatever. Your life is in your hands and you are its sole master.

I may have missed this chance but I sure as hell am not gonna cry anymore. This life would bring me more opportunities like this and it if doesn't I will find them for myself.

If you love something, don't let it go. Humanity taught me this much-this world is for you to conquer.

Good luck with your dreams!

A Hero will save us!

The teachings that we receive in our childhood shape who we are. Nothing new in what I am saying.

Any basic religious philosophy talks about salvation- or redemption from death, punishment and oppression. I am not wording it correctly but it is something like God is at the helm of this ship sailing in the abysmal ocean of death and despair. Only he can take us to the other side, redeem us from this world, this life.

Now, I've always had my faith in God. Its just that, teachings like this eventually turn people into passive-activists. Whenever a problem arises in our life, instead of solving it, we wait for a divine intervention to happen or to the very least, hope for it.

We would never stand up and confront our issues, we just sit and wait for someone else to take the first step. Be it a fight with your friends, or issues with your boss or a corrupt Government.

Not just religion but all these super-hero movies and magazines, we all are fed fairytales throughout our lives. Its funny that guys laugh at women who believe in fairytales and when they themselves believe in heros.

This way, not only do we procrastinate, ignore or avoid a dispute, we also undermine our ability to resolve it. Everyone of us including me are waiting for a hero to come save us. Somebody much stronger than us, able to take on the whole world and help us in despair. This where the basis of all problems is.

I say, If you want to achieve something in life, you Have to work for it. Don't wait for a divine intervention. There's only one intervention and that comes from within.

When you say I am done with my situation, I've Got to do something about it, Thats where you initiate a revolution. 

We need to stand up and take an action, we need to take responsibility, give our thoughts and opinions a voice. Stop sulking within yourself. Don't wait for people to help you.

We are our own heroes and if we want to succeed in life we have to work for it.

Rape in the City

The topic of sex is quite sensitive for me so I'll try to cover it as best as can.

Lately, my timeline has become a battleground of the cities. Delhi versus other metros to be precise.

People have been bashing Delhi for being the rape capital of the country and having the highest rate of crime against women and children.

What concerns me the most is that regardless of a city number of registered rape cases, women all over the world suffer from the hate-crime that is forced sex. Be it sexually liberated countries of the West or sexually oppressed countries of the East, women are prone to sexual slavery of forms.

Coming back to India, is there a foolproof way to curb this problem? I don't think so. In a hugely diverse country like ours how can a uniform solution of Any problem be the savior?

Some methods that come to my mind are:

• Buying sex toys in India is illegal. I wonder why the Government would have a problem with experimentation in sex but not with sexually explicit songs and videos like Sheila ki Jawani and Tinku Jiya. I mean seriously, you allow a kid to enter theaters and be witness to such obscenity and then expect them to grow up to respect women and value sex? This treatment of women as sexual objects in the mainstream media causes more harm than we care to take account of. Opening up of sex stores near the NCR would be an interesting social experiment. I don't suggest selling hardcore stuff for BDSM though. Just some blow up dolls et al. India suffers from sexual desperation. Wouldn't it help if we take the desperation out a little bit?

• Sex education shouldn't be imparted at an early age as it can corrupt young minds. Let kids believe in Santas and storks for a little longer. Kids today are more aware of this topic than we realize. It would be silly to wait for long but we can at least wait till they're pre-pubertal, i.e. 10-11 years of age? This also means that the Censor Board should be more stringent in filtering cinematic content and theaters should be more judgmental at the box office. Every rule or law requires proper execution to be a success.

• Respect towards women shall be taught as part of children's formal and informal socialization. Fathers shouldn't be portrayed as the head of the family. Instead parents should have equal jurisdiction in family matters. Preferential treatment towards any child must be discouraged. This can be followed in schools through moral education classes where stories of successful men and women shall be shared among other things.

• Lastly, I dreamt about it ever since I was a kid. Why not open an all-girl orphanage? Parents with unwanted girls can drop off their daughters to these orphanages instead of aborting them or marrying them off as kids. Encourage mothers to give birth to girl child  instead of aborting them and enlisting them in such orphanages.

Of course none of these methods have a 100% chance at success. They may all bomb for all I know. But instead of being sitting ducks and cursing each other and the system for all the crimes, wouldn't it be better if we took a step towards the betterment of society.

I am not an expert at this topic so please feel free to suggest more methods for prevention of such crimes and correct me in places I am wrong. Lastly, learn to respect women for if We revolt, we literally are the Mother of this civilization.

Your Kids, Your Responsibility!

Irresponsible parents disgust me. No matter how much family pressure you're under or how big a void you have in your marital life, do not and I repeat Do Not have kids until you are capable enough to take care of them.

Feeding your kids junk food then complaining about them getting over-weight. Dude, Seriously, is it not Your fault your kids are not in your control? Shouldn't you have been more vigilant about your kids' eating habits?

You swear in front of your kids and think its cute when your two year old has a mouth dirtier than that of some scum of the earth. Is that the upbringing any parent should give their child?

I know you all have a very busy life and it is necessary to maintain a social calendar but you need to prioritize what is more important-your fun or your family?

I may sound as if I am preaching and many of you will tell me I have no idea because I don't have any kids yet but really, instead of wasting your time arguing with me if you spend it with your little kids, telling them stories from Panchatantra, making them sit and finish their homework giving them the love and affection they deserve you will become proud of your offsprings someday.

So please, be a little more responsible, your kids are Your reflection, make sure they don't show you in a bad light. After all, they are our future. The biggest way you can help this planet is by helping them grow into sensible and healthy human beings.

Plight of the Housewives

I wrote this piece for my college magazine when I was in first year. Enjoy!

While the rest of the world wakes up to the sweet ring of their alarm clocks (only to hit snooze again), I rise to the never-ending rattle between my granny and her nurse. Alarm clocks, bah, humbug!

I hear people talking about their caffeine addiction. But thanks to my maid’s scratchy vocals, I can’t go back to sleep anytime before the sun sets.

The best day of the week for me is Not Sunday. That’s the day when my maid goes about her social calendar leaving me and my mum to do all the house-work.

Then there’s the everyday ritual where all the maids sit together for tea to gossip about their employers’ lives, new clothes and daily fights. I say, who needs a mother-in-law when you have a maid like that back home?

What keeps confusing me is who employs who? Are they working for us or is it the other way around?

“Kal chhutti karoongi bhabhi, baad mein mat kehna bataya nahi.” “Hazar rupaya badao bhabhi, varna kal se chhutti.” “Itne mehmano ki khatir nahi hoti bhabhi, khud safai kar lena.” “Kuch kaam aap bhi to kar liya karo naa.” name one house that’s stranger to such dialogues.

Theft and sneaking stuff is their birthright, but you dare not complain to them about anything. They can be the savior of the law at times too.

Their beloved threats-will file reports in the police station/will complain to the NGOs for maids. Any misconduct on your part and you will be boycotted from the house-maid’s community forever.

Who said we get it easy?

My school Days!

The following post was primarily written for http://playgroundofsmiles.tumblr.com/thesmilingplanet

My school always put emphasis on social service. As a student we underwent a special programme where we had to give less fortunate kids elementary education for 3 years.

So I went to a slum near my house and started teaching 9-10 kids who were more than happy to learn and share my school experiences. I helped 2 girls rejoin school and it was moment of pride for me.

After that, we had to visit blind school every weekend 2 hours a day. It was really awkward the first day.

I felt like i was trespassing in on someone else's world where i wasn't allowed to go, had no idea about the decorum that needed to be followed but these people turned out to be so kind and welcoming.

Lack of vision didn't make them any less of a person. I met scholars there, poets and even actors who depended completely on themselves and their Braille system.

I made many wonderful friends there who would ask me about my life, my school, my family. Some would ask me to read for them and some of the younger ones even raced with me on who can read faster.

All through my growing up years, thanks to my school and supporting parents i had the opportunity of helping society through small acts of kindness like these.

It is needless to say it built my character, brought about a dignity and sense of self-confidence in me. And hence I would like to nudge you all to take that leap and see yourself become a whole new different person. In the end, your actions are all that matter.

All of you who have keen interest in helping this world become a little better than what it is now, kindly go to the link and be a part of this lovely initiative. Trust me, there's nothing more fun than knowing you're important.

Honesty and Success!

These days, the game seems to have changed, success doesn't follow intellect, it follows superior's ass.

Everyday we're confronted with this question of morale, should I kiss this ass and be on my way to success, or should I kick mine hard, keep working honestly and wait for success to happen to me?

Well, if dignity is your biggest deal, there are many ways of keeping it.

• Born into money so that you don't have to work at all. Of course, this isn't something you can control so we can leave this option out for the Richie Rich/s of the world.

• If you Are a silver spoon holder and want to work, get your parents to lick people's asses to get you a job as a CEO or something equally reputable.

• If you're a woman and beautiful, gold digging is a Very viable option. Just sleep around with rich old guys and get any job in the world you like.

• Be cool, professional and maintain a distance from everyone, minding your own business, alienating your colleagues in the process and continue to exist for the rest of your days, hoping for success, that Will come to you some day.

• And the last one that comes to my mind is work hard, persevere with life, be sublime and success will come to you eventually. It may take time, but once you hit the high road, there won't ever be any going back.

Luckily,  I've met all four kinds of people in my short life - a friend who never wants to work, relatives who leech their parents off money and respect by using them as contacts, a talentless woman that slept her way up and a friend who is distant with everyone.

But I have yet to see the 5th kind. Yes, I've heard a lot about him and aspire to become someone like that myself one day, but like every sensible human being, I understand that its not easy to choose between professional and personal ethics. There may be situations where you may have to sacrifice one for the other which you learn to live with over time.

Lately, I have come across a lot of ass-lickers that only survive on kissing people on the bottom for getting their work done. In the process, even their hard work is looked down upon and mostly ignored by their pears And their superiors.

These people are whom I previously called friends and have now come to hate because of their despicable behavior.

This post is my humble request to anyone out there reading it, to have some respect, stop taking shortcuts, do something fruitful with your life and make your families and friends proud.

Let it Go!

This short post is for all of you that have lost your love, one way or another, in life.


Let your love spread out in the world, let it go. Sprinkle its ashes onto the fields, let it grow.


Open up the cage, make it free. It will reach new heights, come back like a blessing.


The happier it is, the joyful the world will be.


Let the positive airwaves travel into the atmosphere. One day, it'll come back to you when you aren't looking.


Let it flow, let it go!

Observing Earth Hour!

In keeping with my tradition of blogging about Earth Hour, here follows my lesson from this year.

Another year, another Earth Hour.

I've got lots to complain about this time around though. The goal of Earth Hour is to motivate, educate and aware people about the various harms that we are bringing to our beloved planet and the little ways we can make a difference to this world.

In order to do this, they need to market their initiative as well as they could. But doing so, they should have kept in mind less energy wasting methods.

In Delhi, people were invited to India Gate to watch Euphoria's concert during the Hour. They wanted people to print out their posters for a free entry to the concert plus mentioned that the stage will be all lit up with candles. They did not however mentioned that there were many microphones, generators and big screens installed. Plus, the numerous media vans that surrounded the venue.

In India, the youth is not really politically active. We just do what seems cool and what hundred others are doing. No questions asked, no answers given. Nobody talked about the adverse effects of million candled being lit up in that one single hour or petrol wastage by people roaming around the city. We just switched off the lights at home and hurt the environment another way.

it takes about 40 candles to produce the same amount of light as a 40 Watt light bulb and puts out a lot more CO2, so lighting candles during Earth Hour isn't exactly doing much for our greenhouse gas emissions. Although it is roughly carbon-neutral if you don't burn too many.

Basically, Earth Hour is about being grateful not only for mother nature but also for technology. By switching off lights for on hour, we learn how important it is to save energy so countless others who spend their lives in pitch dark can have some light at last.

Its also about realizing that united, mankind can face any challenge. If enough of us stand together to make this world a better place, we can Totally do it. So extend this Earth Hour and make the most of this knowledge.

The Ticking Clock!

The worst part of life, for some, is that you move on. No matter how strong your hold is, how deep your affection, time Does change it all.

It may take days, weeks, months or years, but change is inevitable.

Some learn to live with the pain, some suppress it and some simply replace it with happiness.

In this sense, time is a remedy and at the same time, a poisonous disease eating at your memories till what is left is either a rose-tinted picture or a sepia toned slightly torn photograph of the moments past.

What once was a bone-deep traumatic wound evolves into a slightly colored scar, a reminder of old mistakes; What brought insufferable pain earlier only brings light pangs to you now.

Some laugh it off, some remember fondly, some don't even have a recollection of what happened. We move on. The smarter ones reflect, it all happened for a reason while the simpler ones blame the Almighty.

But...we move on. In a way, its only fair on us. Nobody deserves to live with pain forever.

Life carries on like a carefree tide-ebbing and flowing with each passing day. We can either be the stubborn sea-shell on the beach-waiting for a connoisseur to pick up, the forgiving water that goes with the flow or the gutsy sand-welcoming each new tide with a smile and bidding farewell to the ebbs.

Whatever part we play in the bigger scheme of events, we do move on, lot of times against our wishes so why not accept the fact and let time run its course?

Eh, time, aren't you a bastard! :)