it is possible, if you push yourself to do it
What was it you loved doing as a kid? How long is it you did it again? By things I mean skating, cycling, running etc.
I feel I lived my entire 2015 in December alone because I got back to doing what I loved as a kid. Dancing Bharatnatyam, Running flat races, Trekking, Acting and also Writing.
The true joy is to give oneself time and do these things that make you happy and this is my ultimate goal for the next year.
(Glimpse of my goals below 😉 )
A conversation that inspired and enlightened me at the Tata Literature Live 2015
I saw him walk by as Mumbai’s heat kissed each part of his face and dropped down at the garden of Experimental Theatre, NCPA. His honesty at the previous session dragged me towards him to appreciate it.
‘You are one of the few authors, who carries his heart on his sleeves’
‘oh really, thanks for appreciating’
‘A session by Susan Laidlaw yesterday has made me go back and began again my unfinished novel’
‘Oh! That’s great, I am not that disciplined, a writer, but the secret… is keep going and never stop writing’
‘Can you give me some advice on how to make my book better?’
‘There is actually a formula to make a book-page-turner, I mean if they’d give me a book and pen at the previous session, I would put the formula down’
I grabbed this opportunity and DBC Pierre wrote for me on my notepad, explained to me with examples, now in some shade of Experimental Theatre garden.
Obviously what he wrote in my notepad is my little secret.
Thank You, Susan Laidlaw for taking me back to to my unfinished novel and Thank You DBC Pierre for being such an inspiration not only as a writer but as a human being. And as promised, I shall complete my book and have a big thank you written for both my inspirations on my first page. Thank You, Tata Lierature Live for making conversations with such amazing authors possible.
‘Imagine your own character. Feel it. Then create a back-story of it, by asking Who What Why Where and How. Then be clear and confident of your character and just perform it without fear of anything at all. When on stage you have co-actors, try and understand their back-story and try to respond accordingly. If you are able to do this, you shall have a successful performance.’
This is the advice I got from one of my seniors during drama class. But as I am used to finding another meaning to everything, even this made a different sense to me.
If you imagine yourself, you know your back-story, you can feel it. If you know who you are, what you want, where and how far are you from your goal at the moment and how to achieve it.You just have to go and perform it without the fear of anything at all. And while you do this you shall have your friends, classmates, family as your co actors and companions. If you can understand their back-story and react accordingly, you are sure to succeed.
I could relate this bit to many real life incidents. Kindly comment and tell me if this made sense to your realities.
Prejudice is an opinion not based on reason or experience. It is an unfair behavior based on such opinions. This is what the dictionary tells me. But I feel it is way beyond this…
‘Do you have some water?’ a lady in burqa asked
‘No’ the lady in sari said
The lady in burqa left to get down from the train. And after sometime, this lady drank water from her bottle. She discussed with her friends why she would not ever help a lady in burqa.
This incident that I saw last week is still fresh in my mind. But there are so many of them. Many such incidents proves how me people in trains, on roads or at functions have Prejudice towards this community. I fail to understand why. There are Christian terrorist troops in the west, shocked? Did not know about it? Go Google it. There are Hindu Babas getting fame for the wrong reasons lately, but do we hate them or their community? Why would we, we are too busy to hate the terrorists we know and in turn have a strong socialized hatred towards the entire community.
The lady who did not offer water discussed all the bad experiences she faced with people of that community. I am not here to discuss religion, I am humanistic. And from my perspective there was no fault of the thirsty lady. I believe no one or no religion in this world is perfect. I believe to rejoice the good values from each and leave the rest. But as a humans we always end up enjoying the faults of others.
Psychologist McGuire says that parental influence on a kid is so huge that family can be termed as Total Institution. If a parent has prejudice towards certain community, the child will develop it too. So we need to be more careful of what we say or do in front of a kid.
We have always heard that half knowledge about something is more dangerous. So I feel one should try to understand the entire history of a religion or of a community they hate and then have an opinion.
WHAT is happening?
It was recess time in my grade 6 class. My friend was absent, so for a change I sat alone. As I ate from my lunch box I saw Anish enter the class. He smartly handed over some money to the ranker Rohit and left. I wondered what was it for. Rohit told me he gets paid from Anish to show him answers in exams. I was shocked! Someone made money out of copying in exams…
WHY is it happening?
The root cause of copying in an exam lies in the disinterest of children to study. There is no love for studies created. There is a fear of failing, traumatizing us. This small fear leads to an extent of making money out of it.
As a human once we figure out a simpler way of doing something we do not go back to the tough one. My friends who have got used to this bad habit give stupid explanations and make up stories to satisfy their guilt that they are not doing wrong. It is also passed on from a generation to the next.
Exam is not that an old phenomena. But copying in an exam has definitely been passed on from current generation to the future. I have noticed school children of grade 6 or 7 making chits in train. These kids awkwardly hid it in their socks, ties etc as they discuss how their brothers and sisters did it.
Suggestions to curb it
The solution is to kill the root cause. The way things are taught should change. Children should love what they study. This is not easy in a country where making people literate is the first goal. But it is not impossible either.
To be honest and morally right may not be simple to teach to a school kid. But to make him love what he studies is. A teacher shouldn’t horrify students with the things that shall follow if he is caught copying instead show him how fun can it be to study.
Many teachers ignore students who copy even in Board exams. Actions should be taken against them. Because of such teachers children even began making money out of this act.
On an individual level one should try to be morally right.
‘You both might share the relationship of brother & sister but it doesn’t look like that,it seems more than that’
This statement of a fan caller on a reality show I saw today took me back to my school days. Where to walk with a boy and to call him brother or ‘just friend’ was so essential. And if you did what I did ‘he is my friend’ not like ‘just friends’ but a good friend then you are caught in trouble. A lot of teasing,pairing up,taunting etc.
But a snap back to reality, the boy I called my friend in school days I am unable to share the same bond now. His mother felt I tried to drool her son and she did public defamation of me and her own son for reason best known to her. Today we cannot talk just like that in public, I have to meet him secretly on our building terrace or chat on phone. It is not that we both fear his mother or the society but we do not want yet another drama of defamation that shall hurt our families. He is my friend and one of the few childhood friends I am still in contact.
There are a lot of layers to this. Firstly all should have the right to live the way they want. Make and maintain relations as they wish and not what the society expects and accepts. A friend or a brother is not always essential a tag. At times it should just be the way it is. A bother is a brother and a friend is a friend, both these relations should not be mixed. I agree for love to happen friendship is essential that does not mean every relation should be looked at in the same sense. One thing that pricks me more is that this thinking pattern is set in our heads as school kids and so stays with us forever. This is why the adults of reality show and the fan caller perceived the way they did.
I felt this is the reality of small towns of big cities. As I talked about this many of my contacts, social media friends also had boys who faced this. There are few who got over this and have pure friendship with their friends while many others miss a friend in life who got misunderstood of being something else. There are even friends who get Rakhi tied on their hand as they know only that one tiny piece of string can help them be in contact. Sounds stupid but this is the reality.
There are a lot of things that have to be molded for the development of the country but some things should get extinct right now. It is high time that thinking is changed and it can’t be done in a day.
I feel helpless about this situation. Only thing we can do is promise one self to make sure that our future generation does not face this unfair reality.
There are various meanings to one simple thing. In Mumbai ‘non vej joke’ is a colloquial term for sexual jokes. Similarly there exists many meanings to one simple word like fan. Many jokes are made by using such words. But these words already have various meanings what about other things which have meanings that lay beneath? The smile a car driver gives before he shakes hand with the traffic police means something different than the usual formal handshake.
nishanavgire.wordpress.com has a meaning too. I love to be spontaneous. I hardly believe to think twice before i do something and so at times I tend to take people I love for granted. I have done this many times and hurt many of my loved ones. This name of my website shall help me remind myself that I should think twice and behave myself and avoid to take anyone for granted.
I am obsessed with coconut trees and the reason is unknown. To give my blog a name I went through a lot of names but got stuck with coconutwriter as i am obsessed with both writing and coconut trees. Writing is something I love and coconut tree is something that soothes my eye even as I look at one from my window and write this.
This is the meanings of the names of my website and my blog which were i know weird. But to understand different meanings of one simple thing is not always easy. Like the one i explained of the traffic police where corruption lay the underneath meaning.
I strive to find different meanings to all things in life that i perceive and write about it. This can be stated as my blog motto. 🙂
‘Never compare yourself to someone, You are you’ He said.
My professor explained this common concept I have heard for years now. As he spoke I tried to figure out all the comparisons I have faced so far. To get compared to my elder sister because we look similar being the worst, expectations to score like a ranker and many more. All of these stupid comparisons have stayed with me. But I guess this was last day I would keep it with me as He again said
‘Comparisons kill Creativity’
5 Fingers can never be same
For a less confident person like me to hear this was such a delight. We can compare, share stuff and learn more but to me these comparisons for years together actually killed me. I am bold and on the go,forever ready to talk and give an opinion but when it came to share what I have always loved to do-my write ups this fear of getting compared killed me. But it was time now to let go of it. The climate outside was peaceful, I could see the coconut trees wave at me, tried to encourage me. As He completed the session I was so sure of sharing what I write somewhere someday soon. He also explained in the session how important it is to love oneself. If we love our self enough only then can we be confident of what we do. Thanks to this Person and This session I was blessed with on my recent Industrial Visit of my first year degree college that I finally decided to write and share my views on regular basis.
Following are the beautiful lines He shared, written by Fritz Perls, which is the ultimate cause for the birth of this blog…
“I am not in this world to live up to your expectations. You are not in this world to live up to mine. I am I & You are You and if we by chance meet, it is beautiful”
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