Do you ever go through hours of despair? A sinking in feeling out of a sudden and you do not know why is it happening to you?
I hate this feeling. Sadness is something I can handle when I know of its source or reason. It helps me develop ways to come out of it, reach out to appropriate music or divert my mind to get back to positive state of mind.
What really kills is not knowing. This vague air of unhappiness is what I cannot understand, escape or destroy. What do you do in such situations?
I kept avoiding a question about a certain bitterness I was carrying along before today when I finally admitted to it while talking to my friend. What followed? A complete unnecessary consoling. I hate it sometimes for I know nothing is going to work apart from change in circumstances.
My friend would ask me, when will you move on?
And I’d be like, “How do I know what is the right time to move on. I shall, when the time comes!”. I don’t feel anyone can control this emotion because it is not at all our own decision to make. One can’t convince its heart to abandon a feeling any more than one can convince Donald Trump to be less vitriolic about Muslims or Immigrants.
The catch is, if one ever feels that moving on is a choice, then evidently they already have.
Last December, a bunch of my office colleagues who are more like my best friends decided on a day trip to Lonavala. A lot of us wished if it could stretch to an entire weekend but many among us had permission issues from parents. Whole day went by, dancing, swimming, boozing and having fun and while we were an hour from returning back, few of us went on the roof.
The cold night of winter, sky full of stars and pleasant breeze was magnetic enough for all of us to unanimously take a decision of staying back the entire night. People who had permission issues called up home and started frantically convincing their parents. In the end, we stayed back. All of us went up the roof, put up pillows and lied down facing the sky. It wasn’t really spacious but each one of us, despite being congested, didn’t complain and didn’t move. The sight was exhilarating. Its nearly 6 months since that day but I still haven’t forgotten that moment. The sight of dark blanket of sky decorated with countless stars going into animation at short intervals because of shooting stars. I almost felt like leaving everything and moving to such a location, sleep on the rooftop each day or rather I wished if I could stop the time.
I feel there is a heavy price that we concrete jungle dwellers pay to enjoy the luxury of technologies and advancements. A probable reason why large number of people now have started moving to trekking, camping or nature trails. Life never gave me opportunities to travel and explore. But maybe, that trip to Lonavala has given me a reason to work hard in life, a strong desire to create such opportunities.
Last weekend, I indulged in a chat with a friend about love and trust. It went to that direction in deep because my friend kept saying that she cannot trust anyone anymore and that she has been deeply hurt already and other times she doesn’t deserve friendship and love.
Honestly, I have not been pushed to this discussion first time. I am always so positively optimistic, albeit fairy tailish too thinking that this world still has a huge number of great folks out there. Such a belief not only opens me up to the world all the time without fear but also makes me vulnerable to run across mean and selfish people in large numbers. It feels bad, it hurts too. There are days when I spend time alone trying to think of possibilities of bringing good old times back with the people with whom I spent those great days and then there are days when I spend time thinking over it and cherish that I got to live it in my life. As they say, nothing is permanent. In either scenarios, I never stopped going out in the world, making friends with people and trusting them. It is this habit of mine why I have a bunch of people close to me for more than a decade and our relationship is rock solid.
Point is, I feel bad how people turn cold and averse to risk of trusting others. I would advice go slow with it but I feel terrible when I see shutting the doors to their heart for what happened with few people in the past. There are 1.21 billion people in this country and why should 30 or 50 people decide what you deserve or stop you from going out exploring this fantastic world full of amazing and different people.
“You see, you closed your eyes. That was the difference. Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too–even when you’re in the dark. Even when you’re falling.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie
So go out there, open the doors to your heart and explore. There is abundance and no one gets devoid of love unless they shut themselves in where it would cease to delve in.
Happy Monsoon! 😀
“Despite its growing scarcity and preciousness to life, ironically, water is also man’s most misgoverned, inefficiently allocated and profligately wasted natural resource.”
― Steven Solomon, Water : the epic struggle for wealth, power, and civilization
Monsoon arrives! This year has been the most vocal year in my memory regarding conservation of water. Over 10 states in India were under severe drought. Cash-rich IPL matches were shifted, donations poured in from all sides and festivals were celebrated without much wastage of water. The department predicts that Monsoon shall be better this year in India. Whatever the future holds for us, let us hope that the rising awareness doesn’t get washed away until next drought surfaces.
There’s plenty to learn. The state we are living in today is because of continuous abandonment of sense of responsibility, lack of will and ‘not my problem’ attitude of people and politicians. Last week, I came across an article about Israel’s water management technologies. The statistics will blow you apart. Israel is World’s number one water recycler with 85% recycling rate followed by Spain who is at 12%. Look at the gap! Israel is situated in an area where water shortage is inevitable, a place where 60% is desert area and yet exports high value farm produce.
Where are we going wrong? It is simple. Besides lack of technology, it is the behavioral aspect too. It is high time we consider this an alarming problem and move towards importing technologies and ideas of water conservation. Today, Israel’s 60% water comes from the sea, 80% of waste water is used in agriculture. Desalination technology is becoming cost effective and is going to be cheaper in coming years. With Maharashtra being a state with a long coast line, I wonder why don’t we start adopting state of the art recycling technologies. The authorities has to step up and fix the leakage problems with conveniently wasted more than 30% of our water. Education Department has to introduce lectures and practices and inculcate knowledge about importance of water resources to young minds who are quicker to adapt and change. A simple transformation from Shower bathing to Bucket bathing can save so much of our water. Introduce rain water harvesting techniques, make people aware, involve religious institutions for I believe in India, if you need a quicker push, start from religious place.
Israel is home to the world’s largest Seawater Reverse Osmosis desalination plant, annually producing 100 million cubic meters at the low cost of approximately $0.52 per cubic meter of water – the most cost-efficient of its kind in the world. India is the first country to send Mars Orbiter in first attempt. There is no doubt why India cannot continue improvising on such technologies. Heat is going to increase, so is population and water needs, if we do not wake up now, when will we?
Israel’s success arise from the continuous need for and support of innovative methods, technologies, holistic water resource management and strategies for sustainable provision for the nation’s water needs and I see no reason why India shouldn’t crave for that need desperately.
Since quite some time, I have become less vocal on Twitter. Simply follow trolls for a good laugh on current controversies. However, many a times, I see jokes on Feminism. It makes me wonder, why a movement that is so important is being joked about? Surely, most of the jokes are on hypocrites or those brand of people who call themselves feminists and truthfully believe in the folly of Women is greater than men. Whereas a simple definition on Merriam Webster Dictionary defines feminism as ‘the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities’.
EQUALITY! Nothing but equality. No one is greater to anyone but shall have equal treatment, opportunities and rights. It is sad that we have come to an age where the first thing we associate to feminism is that the person must be hating men or is a person who wants that women shall have extra privileges. We have constantly misinterpreted or wrongly reacted or selfishly tried to curb movements to bring justice to the shallow mindset that has developed over the years in order to retain power. Power was a thing of past where only might could succeed. However, we have evolved into a world where even weak can survive and in this evolution, I don’t see any reasons why we should let the opportunists or rather anyone let this word get corrupted because of some misguided people.
Last week, a post on Instagram prompted me to go and buy a book, “We should all be Feminists” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian writer penning a small essay explaining why it is necessary for all to be feminists. She says, “Gender matters everywhere in the world and we should begin to dream about and plan a different world. A fairer world. A world of happier men and happier women who are truer to themselves. And this is how to start; we must raise our daughters differently. We must also raise our sons differently”. In one of the speeches, Indian PM Narendra Modi stresses on correcting your sons rather than questioning your daughters.
If we do something over and over again, it becomes normal. We are living in a world where everyone expects a male to be hard, a female to be soft. a male to bear the burden of family, a female to run the house. If roles are shifted, we shame them causing half the population of this world to be in constant inner state of turmoil and conflict. If a woman earns more than a man, he is shamed resulting a man to forcefully cut the ladder of a woman’s career growth for which she toiled so hard all her youth. Since this happens over and over again, we get used to it and move on. Many people simply say, but a woman can say No to all of this, but reality is different and more complex and the world won’t change if you won’t. It is appalling how we try to reason out rapes and molestation by questioning why a woman was at that particular place or why was she wearing that. It is like questioning a non smoking lung cancer patient, why did he step out of his house or why did he inhale smoke as if it was all in his control.
One of the most beautiful lines written by Adichie in her book is when she questions the point of culture. “Culture functions ultimately to ensure the preservation and continuity of people. Culture does not make people. People make culture. If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it our culture.”
Feminism is not a dirty word. We should all be feminists!
One Life, Million Stories. 