पिछले कुछ दिनों से अजीब सा ही चल रहा है

पिछले कुछ दिनों से अजीब सा चल रहा है

दिन भर की  मेहनत के बाद

जब थाली सजाके टीवी चलाके खाने बैठते है

बस ब्रेकिंग न्यूज़ की भौचार होती है  

मौत की खबरें और लाशों के ढेर दिखाते  है!

पेट में भूक होती है पर

निवाला गले से नहीं उतरता

 थाली को सामने से हटाना

बहुत अजीब और नाटकीय लगता है!

न जाने कब ख़त्म होगा ये सिलसिला

पिचले कुछ दिनों से अजीब सा ही चल रहा है

दिल बहलाने के लिए 

कभी बागीचे में जंगल साफ़ कर लेती हूँ

थो कभीकुत्ते बिल्लियों को नेहला देती हूँ

फिर कहीं न कहीं से एक सखी का phone आजाता है

जिसमे सिर्फ मौत की ही बाते होती है.

उत्साह भरे लहज़े में  लाशों ही गिनती 
और मृतकों की तफ्सील की जाती है  
तबाही की ख़बरों में  इतना जाइका ढून्ढलेती है  
की विस्तार से लुफ्त उठाके विवरण  देने लगती है 

मैं बस कोई बहाना करके 
फ़ोन काट के म्यूट पे दाल देती हूँ. 

न जाने कब ख़त्म होगा ये सिलसिला

पिछले कुछ दिनों से अजीब सा ही चल रहा है

देर रात तक जागने के बाद

मुश्किल से आँख लगती है

ठीक उस पल में

 भूके भेड़ियों की तरह आक्र्रमण

करने लगते है बुरे सपने!

मानो ऐसे जैसे एक आरसे से

इस मौके का इंतज़ार कर रहे हो

(AC) की ठंढ में  पसीने से तरबतर होके कांपते हुए  उठ जाती हूँ

आँख खोलके अपनों को बिस्तर पे  करवट लेते हुए देख

 ये तस्सल्ली हो जाती  है की अब तक मेरी दुनिया मेह्फूस है

पर जिस रफ़्तार से यम धूत धरती का भ्रमण कर रहे है

लगता है मौत हम सब से बस दो गज़ की दूरी पे है

न जाने कब ख़त्म होगा ये सिलसिला

पिछले कुछ दिनों से अजीब सा ही चल रहा है

I am not optimistic, I am not pessimistic, I AM REALISTIC !

I will not blame Sushant Singh Rajput for the extreme step he took.

we do not know the battles he was fighting outside and within.

often the enemies outside of us are easier to win but the inner demons multiply faster than cancer cells.

I as a daughter, sister, parent and friend offered counselling to help fight negativity at many stages. 

but I felt the resolve to talk more about it after I encountered the same in my house

My daughter is a very sensitive, kind and a giving human being.

she faced discrimination, exploitation and envy of the company she moves in.

Many times, she came back to me and cried, mom why do they do this to me. why do they bully me for my colour, for my hair?

why are my so-called friends unhappy and taunt me when I get good marks or I win a trophy in sports. They envy me even for having pets.

Somewhere I as a mother was victimising and humiliating her for underperformance in studies, I dumped my ambitions on her and bragged about it when she couldn’t meet my expectations, this added to the deteriorating self-concept.

I realised that all these were making her very pessimistic about life and the beauty of it, she felt it is worthless to live as nobody is happy with her and no one likes her.

she felt suffocated and stifled. She said she did not derive any joy out of life. it is stress, pain and hurt everywhere. Added to this there were teenage infatuations and betrayals.

Other than parents and home there is no safe and comfortable place. 

That’s when I realised the damage we were doing to her psyche.

I started speaking to her about harsh and rude facts of life

1. There are no best friends, people evolve, the dynamics change hence two people may not feel the same for each other forever and it is perfectly ok. Not just our friends but we all change.
2. We have to get into a fight or an argument only based on our ability to battle it out, never bank on somebody’s support before you start a battle
3. Accept that the world is an unfair place in the short term but in the long run, the wrong will be exposed as everyone cannot be fooled all the time.  
4. We might be chasing something now thinking it to be the ultimate happiness of our life but tomorrow the same object may become the reason for our downfall. so be happy when you don't get something you are very passionate about
5. In this larger scheme of things at play we don’t know what is good/bad for us. 
6. Look at life as an opportunity to serve. When all the ways to keep yourselves happy see a dead-end, realise that you are born to serve and not to seek.
7. By helping someone you are leaving an obligation on the creation, do not hesitate to offer help even if the one receiving is never returning it.
8. At the same time Never go out of the way to help anyone, do not indulge in self-deprivation, it is ok to fall in love, it is ok if someone cheats on you, betrayals sometimes come as a blessing.
9. Do not make a coterie of friends and limit your interactions to them only. Don’t be a part of a lobby, it will crush your individuality and your identity. Meet many people, listen to them, understand perspectives. Read, write, make opinions destroy them make newer ones, don’t be rigid, don’t have a fixed ideology, let everything evolve.  
10. It is better to fail than to be a bootlicker. If you deserve something, not even gods have the power to stop it from coming to you. What you think is good for you is not always good. Let things slip away. The job of Failure is to facilitate something big coming your way.
11. Do not submerge yourself under hype and expectations. “YOU CAN DO ” attitude is good but the best attitude is to be realistic. We all have limitations and strengths. Live in reality, do self-talk, allow the chaos within to settle down, be grounded in your head.
12. One of the easiest ways for your rivals to put you down is to separate you from your companions/friends/teammates “DIVIDE AND RULE”, but if you invested in people and relations, believe me, no one will leave your side. 
13. The second easiest way to put down a lady is “CHARACTER ASSASSINATION”. I have seen this happening with every second lady, if you cannot defeat her malign her, she will retreat. Do not fall to this ploy ever. The more they will try to put you down, stand your ground. Your resilience and strength will weaken them from within.

Dear Sushant

You were mistaken if you thought Karan Johar, Alia Bhatt nexus/lobby/coterie existed only in Bollywood. 

A Karan Johar/Alia Bhatt clone is running an unholy lobby of bootlickers in every big and small organisation.

The undeserving move up the ladder because

 they have learnt very early in life 

to play sidekicks, surrender their self-esteem, give up every trace of self-pride and ego for petty gains.

There are politics at every place where there is an assembly of more than 2 men.

Amidst all this, all you were required to do was work hard, remain focussed on your goals.

Online streaming channels were bringing a death knell to the big stars and big project from huge production houses.

Post covid19 era, there is no space for mega movies, even the megastars will vie for a space on the small screen.

you should have stayed back to see the Tamesha unfold.

This was your time to make a foray into the drawing rooms through web series.

Karan johar's and big khans of the world are going to be buried under their stardom in the days to come.

That vile fellow hosting nasty shows, making a mockery of others over coffee, giggling, gossiping and calculatedly creating questionnaires to put down others did not deserve the sacrifice you made. 

Creation was going to show him his true place in the days to come. Imagine the kind of legacy he will leave behind for his children; do you think a person can thrive on wealth alone.

Sushant You got buried under the hype you created around yourself as a star of 70 mm, built false expectations around yourself.

You know we all go through these suicidal phases, but what stops us is our loved ones, our dependants, as our life doesn’t belong just to us but to everyone associated with us, it is selfish to give up. It is ok to take a step back reassess the situation and start all over again.

It is NOT EASY to kill oneself and I am sure it all happened in a moment of weakness, see how the world has moved ON whereas you left behind infinite grief for your father. He will not be a normal person anymore. you should have lit his pyre and not vice versa.

It is a choice you made, a decision you took and as the audience of your cinema, all we can do is respect it.

Rest in peace Sushant, I hope you landed in a better place, but if you can manage, then do come into the dreams of people who are going through a similar phase to give them some courage to fight it out and not give up.

You in the lockdown as a child and as a Parent

You in the lockdown as a child and as a Parent
____________________________

Having personal space is essential for every person to blossom, in a stifling, restrictive environment even the most potential will not bloom.
Today's new era believes in keeping their personal space intact at every cost.
They don't like their phones or laptops being checked, they want their parents to trust them, allow them to make mistakes, learn from them and chart their path.
This lockdown at my home has been an extremely beautiful experience from a family perspective.
we had as much family time without compromising on The Me-time.
This past 3 months I cherished the beauty of having grown up children around. They are wise and intelligent but at the same time are gullible, and foolish. they read a wide variety of books, watch very interesting selective programs on multiple streaming platforms, discuss the plot, the narrative and an alternate ending too, just as stakeholders.

They are mature willing to discuss, debate and understand their absurdities. They are transparent but very strictly guard the boundaries they fabricated around themselves.
They give access but at the same time create restrictions for our foray beyond a point.
They experiment, make mistakes, but never let guilt dominate.
They share their fantasies and dreams however unrealistic and absurd it may sound without the fear of being judged.
we had fruitful individual journey along with a collective one as a family sharing the domestic work and caring for each other health wise.
Today's children are quite independent with a mind and choices of their own and I like it about them. It was easy spending the lockdown time as each one of us had access to what we enjoy doing the most during a break. There was no chaos as we were spaced out beautifully.
-------------------------------------
Now when I juxtapose the same to times I grew up in, it sounds like a nightmare if we had to remain homebound amidst a lockdown.
During our times there were no gaps as such between the parents and the kids but the personal space was an alien concept. Maybe this is one of the reasons we as parents have evolved and become a better version of our predecessors.
Our first complaint would have been about the restriction to go to Nani Ghar for the summer vacation.
Then With a house full of people, children fighting all the time, only 1 tv to watch, no laptops or any kind of gizmos other than a tape recorder or the rich kids having a Walkman.
Mother in the kitchen, father not sharing work at all, dominating mother in law, inquisitive neighbours, ever fighting children.
As kids, we fought with siblings as if they were our enemies. One of the reasons for the fights was the age gap factor. All the siblings were on an average 2 years apart from each other, which made them contenders in everything.
Food choices were limited. All of us had to eat whatever was served. No chips, cold drinks, maggie or a chicken tikka at our beck and call.
Biscuits were the highest form of indulgence. Chocolates too were a distant commodity as they were demonised as enemies of oral health.
Five-star chocolate came into homes maybe 4 to 5 times in a year.
The meat was once a week affair an egg was an alternate day thing, desserts were for festivals and special occasions like birthdays, anniversaries or when guests came visiting.
No private space, most of the rooms had interconnecting doors, because houses were not constructed in a go, a room was added every now and then depending on the resources and requirements. So planned, designer homes were only for the super-rich.
The lockdown would have stifled us down. As the only activity known to kids then was to go out and play. Play till we injured our knees and bruised our elbows.
I cannot imagine father spending day and night at home without reading his favourite Eenadu newspaper for 70 consecutive days. all of us staying at home would have added to mother’s agony because we didn't know what to do at home as storybooks were always on a rotation mode. one book was read by the entire colony. given the strictly imposed lockdown borrowing, and lending would have been impossible. the best time pass was to knock down each other in a wrestling match,
The fights were mostly centred around who will control the remote, sleep next to the air cooler, or when dad asked for water who should go and help.
The only occasion when mothers face used to light up was reading an inland letter from her father, which would have been missing.
The father would have missed all the people visiting him every morning and evening for legal advice and suggestions. with the stock of fictions, he read exhausted in the first one month, and nowhere to go and buy a new book by his favourite Robert Ludlum, James Hadley chase or Jeffrey Archer, I wonder what he would have done at home.
when I try imagining spending the lockdown time in my town during the '80s, all I long to cherish are the small moments with Mother, father, siblings and a crossbreed as a pet all the time, the chaos, the fights and the limited resources.