Idea of Positivity: Not positive enough!

Last week while we poor Delhities were battling the heat wave and showing solidarity through funny takes at Facebook and twitter, I was made to book an appointment with my gynecologist, which I was conveniently procrastinating for almost a month. 

If you are not in a mood of getting paid for your share of global warming, metro makes the best sense and avoiding the peak office hours can also reward you with a seat. Carefully avoiding the reserved ones, I got the most loved corner seat as I was planning to catch on some sleep during the one and a half hour journey.

But my plans were not going to work as I was joined by one of my closest friends at the very next station. Although I never mind sacrificing my sleep for a lovely company and that too when we were meeting after a long time, probably a year. After few doses of formal interactions, I heard her sobbing about the extremely distressing circumstances she found herself trapped in. I was a little surprised to know the situation as she had always been the confident one, usually the ones who seem to have solutions to every problem. We seriously used to respect and adore her for that.

As the sobbing continued, I heard her complaining how everyone around her was advising her to be ‘a little positive’ and that it was simply not working. I found myself spending the next thirty minutes explaining her why the mere idea of positivity will not work and she had to take some stand, and how the other people can keep the idea of her not being positive at bay. I pitied her for her situation, and I pitied her more for choosing the wrong counsel. 

For once and all, we have to understand that positivity may be a way or potential tool to nourish the broken hopes and dreams but definitely not a solution to anxiety or any distressing situations in life.

Even after she got off the cart, it all kept looming on my mind.

Are we not being a little too decisive and hopping the fence immediately inspite of helping the person in question to do the same, when we simply say 'try some positivity'?

My always brimming curiosity made me google the facts and I came to know that we females, are actually more prone to depression and other anxiety related issues which might be quite damaging to some souls than the other. Science blamed our erratic hormones and self blaming tendencies for the same. Very few would admit it, but we all are a little bit insecure and there lays the foundation stone of all stress and anxiety, which cultivated over a period of time takes shape of something more fatal for our core.

It can be anything- from academic and professional performance, need to get acceptance from in-laws, unstable finances, incompetence to manage professional and personal lives, or simply a non supportive work environment. 

The fact is that life not only throws the losses but also the healing resources. Many of us are fortunate enough to have strong support systems which suck out the negativity creeping in us. A partner who steps in, a manager who understands that you can get sick at times or a reliable friend who does not advise positivity alone, but also shows how it is done and eventually hangs around.

While some of us don't have the fortune of those replenishing resources and self exhaustion takes over. Every missed opportunity and every snub from a relative force us to question our capabilities, often sending messages like 'You are failing at it terribly'. Listening “Try some positivity” acts like salt on the wounds. No matter how honest the intentions are, those words are like grief upon grief. Its like implying your vision is flawed, just keep on going until one day when everything would fall in place and you would actually start living.

It's like being trapped in a dark room and people telling you there is light outside but not showing you how to open the window. The mere description of light won't help. Saying to imagine it simply does not work, especially for someone who has lost the idea of light. Demonstrating the light of love is on the other hand, not just telling how the light actually looks like, but offering to absorb some of the exhaustion/darkness and actually leading her the path towards that window.

Merely pointing towards the ladder is not enough. It's more of holding the ladder and keeping it steady for her while she makes her way up.

What did I do? 
Well I saved her number and put it in speed dial and try to make time for at least a weekly chat about how she was progressing, and yes I made to that appointment and was advised for some tests and ultrasounds before the lady with stethoscope could come to any verdict. So that demands a second visit! 

Image Source: facebook and Google

Someone....

Someone was peeping from the other side of mirror,
Someone strange,unknown, fighter and savior.
Someone whose dreams were still not dead,
Someone who was untouched by the influence of others.
Someone who may be exhausted but has not defeated,
Someone who need not camouflage her sorrows behind laughters.
Someone who was not lost in the world of responsibilities,
Someone who needs not seek music to find peace.

The one who was standing on threshold fueling the gears of strength,
Urging me to take the plunge and dive into the world of my faith!

Why Bajrangi would always be my favorite version of Bhaijaan!

Its been two weeks since the movie hit the theatres and I still remember the chase it had become to get the tickets. Phew… bad luck I could not get one, thanks to my poor planning. Salman’s movie and that too during Eid, well I would have planned at least a fortnight before.

Well after trying two times, I could not hold the suspense and that too when I was constantly being updated by friends about how awesome movie it was. So I borrowed the torrent version from a colleague at my office. Since that day, I have already watched the movie about four times and even find excuses to play it again at home. It is not because I am a huge fan of the actor, but I would credit my infectious affinity for this highly anticipated Eid release to the director Kabir Khan who through this entertaining and outlandish plot has hit the right chords with people like me in a complete Bollywood style.

Two bitter foes who have been fighting and feigning friendships since generations; an adorable girl who is lost and a typical Hindu version of guy who is an ardent follower of Hanuman, dislikes meat and meat-eaters both, helps people out of turn and is a man of his word. A perfect Bollywood fairytale in making. Does someone like Bajrangi can exist? Probably not, that I am sure of then why do I keep watching it again and again.

Realism, well you have leave that behind the gates when you set to watch a Salman’s flick. A some fresh dose of hope and disbelief which will awaken your love of mankind and not religions through a totally picturesque unreal climax. When it comes to hitting the real emotions, the plot hits all the right ones. A completely fun filled and light hearted entertaining flick with an ending which got a little over the head proves that people are capable of all goodness irrespective of the countries they live in. The film is a worth watch even if you are not a high-time-Salman-fan-club-member.

I hope we could take some serious note from the movie and try to bring out that good ‘Bajrangi’ in us who has lost amidst all daily struggles of life. Just by daily dose of some good deeds and definitely not by hopping the borders without visas and passport of course. ;)

Is this JUSTICE really JUSTIFIED?

Thirteen years!

Well that’s pretty late for any judicial system to pronounce someone guilty of a crime. But in our country, we are used to it. In a country of millions, we tend to create plans and delay them as per our convenience as if it will not affect anyone.

Fir no 326 was filed against veteran Bollywood actor, Salman Khan, at Bandra Police station after that unfateful night that saw a pavement dweller dead and other four mercilessly crushed by a speeding car, allegedly driven by the actor himself under the influence of alcohol. Since then the government has been very actively, albeit sluggishly, solving the already solved mystery of this case which was purely a hit-and-run case.

Putting all the detective plots to shame, the case took a gruesome thirteen years to reach its fate. These thirteen years, in which the accused delivered several box-office hits earning millions of bucks; hosted television shows and even launched a charity organization which is claimed to save lives of several needy and miserable souls. Above all this one of the most important thing he did was that he steer cleared his name from any such offence.

If you log in your social networks, you will come across several pieces of news items showcasing the anguish of the people over the verdict that sentenced the actor five years of imprisonment. Those people who were condemning him thirteen years ago for such horrible crime are today holding fasts and performing pujas for his sake.

Is there any use of such kind of punishment? Thirteen years is a hell lot of time for a person to either realize his fault or to evolve into something bigger of the sorts. In both the scenarios, the main aim of punishing the person becomes useless.

Though his good deeds in the recent years can’t make up for what he did back in 2002, the verdict is supposed to affect the whole society since there are people who believe in self-redemption and in the power of self-realization. There are people who are moved by the change in this person’s attitude, whose whole belief system has become a questionable one by the recent verdict since they believe that punishment is for forbidding the culprit to repeat his mistakes and change him into a better person, which the culprit has already done. Because there are people who are unable to decide, whether to hold him responsible for something he did thirteen years ago, or to appreciate the ones he did after that.

Is this punishment really worth it? And if it is, then does taking the life of a person and crushing four under the wheels account for a meagre punishment of five years? Something surely needs to change here.