The little matyr

For anyone who is wondering why the news of a 3 year boy lying on the beach is breaking the internet, that boy was born to Syrian parents in Syria and since ISIS has taken over, many of them are fleeing from their country. Aylan Kurdi, the boy, along with his parents and brother and 8 other people on a boat in the sea when the high tides hit them and everyone except a few drowned and the bodies washed up over the Turkish sea.

The Syrian Civil war which started in 2011, has forced people to flee Syria and try to get asylum in other countries. However, many countries have been hostile towards the refugees and are not ready to accept them or to let them enter their country. The death toll estimates run into hundred-thousands and the saddest part is that despite the increasing number, the politics of the world is largely deciding the fate of millions of citizens of Syria. It has taken a heart-wrenching picture of a dead body of a 3-year-old for us to realise just how serious the situation is.

So my only question is, what is war fetching us? What religion, what conscious, what sort of fucked up logic allows you to take a life to satiate your thirst for power and money? What has establishing dominance over other given us? What sort of a sadistic pleasure are these terrorist taking in the name of their God that human lives mean nothing? Why do they believe that killing people and torturing them will get appreciation in after-life?

Fucked up logic, fucked up extremism has led to Syrians fleeing their own country. They can't live in their own and the others won't take them. A boy named Aylan Kurdi, who was on a boat with 11 others, was found dead on the Turkish shore and yet we aren't ashamed of ourselves. Why you ask, because politics. NATO countries, UN signatories, so called "peace-keeping" missions, why isn't anyone taking a step against the Islamic State?

How many people need to die, how many more to be tortured for us to do anything? Do we need another world war to realise that things are not working out? Fuck the politics for a fucking minute and look at what is happening in the world. Look at that father crying about losing his sons and his wife, look at those girls captured by ISIS and Boko-Haram who approve of slavery. Why the fuck can we not unite.

What is so inherently wrong with the human brain that the word "unite" means nothing and all it sees is greed, power, money and dominance? Better are animals than us, at least they have compassion. We are somehow completely devoid of it. The powerful countries of the world, what are you doing? Stop thinking about the oil mines and the resources that are present in the depth of the Earth under those troubled countries and work to make this world a better place, a place where a children don't have to die, women don't have to be abused, men not be tortured.

Yes, this is a rant because I'm sick of hearing the stories of people dying, children abused, terrorist attacking and killing people. Why are we wasting our time in making more treaties with one hand and many more nuclear heads with the other when we should be ensuring peace, equality and basic levels of human dignity that everyone deserves? What good is the power when it isn't used for a better purpose? I had tears in my eyes when I saw the picture of a lifeless body of that little boy with his head down on the shore. If we don't do anything now, we're in for a lot more violence and a lot more sad stories.

The joy of giving

It's so many time that most of us wonder whether or not are we making a difference? Whether or not are we leaving something behind? We all wish to make a mark in someone's life in a way that they won't forget. How many of us really achieve that?

Last summer, one of my closest friends and I had a gratifying experience of working with underprivileged children who live in the slums through and NGO. The task that we were entrusted with was to help them with their studies and teach them the subjects they had a tough time with. Since those children go to government schools, sadly, they all fail yet pass on to the successive grade due to the government policy of not failing a child until 8th grade. This means that if I am enrolled in a government school and I go to the exam hall, fill up my details on my answer sheet and leave the rest of it blank, they cannot fail me.

Because of this rule, most of the girls failed their 9th grade exams and most didn't know the basics of math like multiplication division and none of them knew English. This made our task harder. To teach a child, who doesn't know basic multiplication and division, polynomials, surface area etc was impossible. We started with the basics, taught them number line, basic arithmetical operation, rules of divisibility and the like. For English, we could only teach them articles and spellings due to the time constraints.

In our minds, we were just doing some good deed. Helping the society and using our free time productively. We put in all our efforts for those few days that we were there and on a certain level we even cared about the girls but eventually we moved on with our lives, got back to our routine.

Yesterday, however, I put together a charity of sorts. In the spirit of Holi and just feeling like doing something for the children in the slum, I put together an event where we could donate sweets and all and make their Holi special. A lot of people came forward to donate for this cause and to get a smile on their faces. They were immensely generous and donated in huge quantities. When I went over to the sFor the first time yesterday, I realised, how I had been able to make a difference with just two hours of my day last summer in the lives of those few girls. It made me realise that I had left a mark in their lives.

Here are a couple of the pictures from yesterday, something as simple as a cupcake and cookie made their day.  It was wonderful to see how cheerful they were after receiving a plate of goodies. The little ones who were approximately around the age of three even recited poems for me as a thank you. For them this was no less than a party and I'm  glad I could do something for them.lum, the children were getting anxiousand asking the teacher "Didi kab aayengi? Didi humare liye kya laa rahi hain?"


As I entered, all the children, wide eyed looking at the huge boxes I carried, wished me good afternoon and all of a sudden the tiny little room was filled with smiles and happiness. It was a good change from a usual day in school. We gave goodies to over 60 children. Including the girls I taught. When they met me, they took their plateful, sat me down and told me how much they missed me and Nehal didi( my friends who taught with me), they wanted us to come back and teach them because we seemed to have motivated them to do better. They made sure I took a bite from each and everyone's plate and again before they left, they asked to come back soon.  

(Note : I would personally appeal to you to engage in such volunteer work and help the children of our society do better at academics. The NGO that I worked and would continue to work for is ACT For Children. The link to their facebook page is : https://www.facebook.com/actforchild .  A couple of hours of your day could make a massive difference in their lives. Thank you.) 

The culture and the day of love.

My morning started with an early morning delivery of a beautiful bouquet and chocolates. It's apparently the most romantic day of the month. Some might even say that all of a sudden all the love is in the air and the couples can't keep their hands off each other. But Hindu Mahasabha  wants to get these couples, who choose to display any sort of affection, married. You ask why? The answer to that would be that they want to teach these youngsters that with love comes responsibility, you know like spiderman got responsibility with power.

Now, I have lived my entire life in India. I come from an open-minded background. My family has given me the liberty to find myself a guy and I know they will stand by me in case it tuns out otherwise. In fact, most of my friends have that liberty and their families are fine with them finding a boy for themselves, who they are in love with and would want to spend their lives with. But the Hindu Mahasabha think that finding love corrupts our "Indian Culture" and whoever is seeing be intimate should be married there and then because in the name of love they might do some activities that will ruin our "culture".

Now, I haven't read the Vedas. I have not read all the religious texts neither am I the kind to go to the temple everyday. Although as a kid I remember watching Ramayana, I loved hearing mythological tales and I was awestruck by the fact that every Hindu God had a shakti (power) with him who was portrayed  as a woman, his better half and without whom he was nothing.

Now, I might not know my religious text, I might not know the shlokas. But I sure know that our "Indian Culture" that the Mahasabha talks about includes everything from out society to our spirituality. Our culture is not as rigid as they think. I would request the people of the Mahasabha to go back to our texts and see how these Goddesses have had the liberty to choose their own husbands. Janaki had the liberty to choose and there was a swayamvar for her. Sati fell in love with lord Shiva and finally immolated herself to uphold the honour of the man she chose to marry. Lord Krishna never married Radha but she was his best girl. Our own God have preached love and given it importance throughout.

Our Indian Culture that we are so proud of is not of staying away from the opposite gender but of respecting our elders, of treating our guests as Gods, of having big huge joint families, of being spiritual, of believing in the best of people, of communities and of respecting the diversities of our country. It makes me sad to see these comments passed against the show of love today. Why should the young not be allowed to do something that out own God did why should they not live our culture because our own relics have given it importance. It's time that we changed that rigid definition of the Indian Culture and embraced what India is really known for. As for today, I hope each one of you go out with your loved one. I hope each of you find the one you want to be with. And the last time I checked, India was still a free country.