OLD AGE ISOLATION.

A World of solitude and melancholia........ 

 
They gave you air conditioner and themselves slept in fan,
they gave you pizza and themselves ate khichdi,
they gave you spring bedding and themselves slept on floor. Now after all these years when it is your turn to return the favor, don't shirk away from your responsibilities. Whether they live in old age homes, bereft of the care of their children and the love of their grandchildren, or with you in your home, in a secluded room where nobody visits, they feel neglected. In their times the world was different, there were different sources of entertainment, there were different kinds of hobbies, there were cheaper goods available and tighter boundaries, and after spending three quarters of their lives in a different era, they don't feel like they belong in this one anymore. They feel stuck in a world which they don't recognize. All they are sure of is that even amidst all this, they are your parents and they love you and one visit from you will make their lives easier.

Reading a book on a rocking chair is not fun for them anymore. Their eyes hurt because of the strain and need a cataract surgery now.The smile that made you feel that everything is right with the world is wrinkled and fading because they don't know what the world is anymore. How would they!! Their world always has been their children and their children refuse to admit them in their world now.The feet that used to walk miles to pick you up from school or just to take you out to a park are paining because of arthritis. Their lives were defined by you, they measured their success by your happiness and now that you have left them alone, not only their lives have become meaningless to them but also they don't know what success means. 

And the best part is that they still manage. They still manage to make use of their aching body and buy a loaf of bread and cook meal even when they forget a lot of things because of old-age and nauseating medicines.  They still face every day with bravery, they still manage to smile with their heavy hearts, they manage to entertain themselves and try to forget about the pain and they do this everyday with a hope in their heart that their children would someday think of them and call them, maybe even visit them and then maybe for a small while, the world wouldn't be so strange and scary anymore. Maybe then even if for a small while, they could laugh without the burden. 

But every rotation of earth is increasing their age and their miseries and there is only so much they can take. Even if they look perfectly fine to you, and even if you look after their physical health, you fail to understand that the emotional fitness is as important and that with everything happening in their lives, with people going away, closed ones dying, it gets tough for them to fit in and carry on. Their loneliness can graduate into clinical depression and your neglect of their emotional health might lead to sever consequences.

They can't spend evenings with their old friends because they have either shifted to different old age homes, or their children have taken them elsewhere as per their convenience. Some of their friends have died, some are on the verge of that and this isolation makes them wonder if life on the other end is more peaceful. It makes them wonder if death would be easier than this struggle. And then they think of you and live for you. Because even when they you have isolated them from their lives, in their weak heart , you are still precious to them. They are amusing themselves everyday and they are lonely and isolated and they love you and they miss you. 

They just need simple actions from you. They wait by the phone for your call and receiving one makes their day. They need your help in finding another hobby just like they helped you find yours. They need you to take charge and pull them out of isolation. Make them acquainted with local groups, gift them pets that would make then feel wanted. Pay attention to them , love them and show your love.

And one day when the sand clock has run out of time you will definitely realise that you always needed them more, than they needed you.

“They were your wings.and you just flew away from them….”

MAHATMA GANDHI not Mahatma vs Gandhi !

-Divyansha Sharma

It is ironic that when the entire world adulates Gandhiji and the president of the US has a portrait of him in his office, he is criticized most in his own country. Sitting with bunch of my colleagues, I mentioned 2nd October, Gandhiji in particular, and before I could speak any damn thing I felt for him, I jolted out of my stupor to hear the acerbic reactions I got from them .It Is shocking that people use words like a rogue, the destroyer of India, a traitor, a betrayer, and what not for him. Of course these virulent super extra enlightened elements are a minority compared to rest.



But if you listen to these people, you get a picture that Gandhiji was no less than the malicious Shakuni mama with a façade.(and before anyone complains, that’s not an insult. So don’t take offence, when none is intended.)It is sad that when someone is being called a Gandhiji, it is more so because it is rudely sarcastic that he is adherent to his honest policies, rather than a compliment. One of the most commonly used phrases that we come across these days-
“Majboori ka naam Mahatma Gandhiji.”
I mean seriously???
There are so many majboor people all around us, how many of them step out and become Gandhiji?
How many of them would give up their family and their wealth for their country or a state! Leave alone them, how many of you would do that? He neither gave a damn as to what people thought of him then, nor does he now. Nobody’s personal opinion in any way mattered (Godse’s did matter unfortunately).


He was, is and will always be revered because his methods were novel. Non-violence was a sensation in the times of the world war. He was a great leader. How else can someone drive lacs of bare handed people along with him just by his words? He made people turn their heads coming up with a new approach to oppose invasion and authority and at least for this part of his white I fail to connote any black (may be because there is none.)Unfortunately ‘novelty’ is the same reason why people have started hating him. When you are among the millions who made Gandhiji the mahatma he never was, just saying “I dislike him” earns you a lot of attention.


Now I may not agree with everything Gandhijiji said. I’m not sure Ahinsa would have helped Jews against Hitler and he himself agreed that if ever violence was acceptable it would be against an evil of that magnitude. But he believed "that violence breeds more violence. Even violence for a right cause. It’s a double edged sword that merely deflects the injustice to another group of people if at all. Never mind what Godse stood for. If the end result is killing of someone who never preached violence and never harmed him, I want no part of what he was smoking. Shooting an unarmed man in a dhoti. So cowardly brave!!!"



An ordinary rock cannot shine for that long even if you polished it. If he is still a recipient of such an international spotlight , you can’t deny his charisma. It amazed me when I read somewhere that Obama told a student that the one person, dead or alive, he would like to have dinner with was Bapu. Such has been his aura in the last few years that even the RSS and the BJP have tried to include him in their pantheon of heroes. In March, RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat and our prime minister Narendra Modi together released Gandhiji’s book ‘Hind Swaraj’ in three languages.


We now live in the age of Munnabhai MBBS, where Gandhijigiri is made glamorous to preach or convey his messages. But it is not just about one film. In a sense Gandhijian ideas are reshaping the world’s political geography even today. He believed that long lasting peace can’t be attained with the help of violence.



There are a number of texts, films and plays that portray Gandhijiji as a great man but with his own long list of flaws he mentioned in his autobiography “My experiments with Truth”, which went against the near-perfect godlike image which school textbooks projected, doesn’t merely give anyone reasons to overreact. The demystification only made Gandhiji into an even more interesting character. He was a man with his own set of flaws, which were negligible compared to his massive achievements. And that is over and out fellas!!!!



The moral influence of his personality and of his gospel and technique of non-violence cannot be weighed in any material scale. Nor is its value limited to any particular country or generation. It is his imperishable gift to humanity.



And for those who criticise him- Fine.no problem!!!But then let the change start from you. Simply criticising and doing nothing won’t help. Be the change you want to see in the world #MahatmaGandhi. Make society a better place in the ways you find apt and if u succeed in doing so, even then Gandhiji wins ,his dream for an honest, free society wins.

Are women really empowered?

                                                                            

-Divyansha Sharma

Today, women don’t need to put their feet down and challenge men’s hegemony. They don’t have to fight for their ostensible and outlandish rights like joining combat forces and fight alongside men in the battlefield. It’s education that empowers a woman. But when an academically empowered woman longs to have a male child and curses herself for giving birth to a female child, is she mentally, socially and psychologically empowered? When she has to wear a veil, doesn’t she resent it deep down?

Does she feel truly empowered?

No, its not because of men and their much maligned patriarchal attitude that we see the lopsided male female ratio in the northern states and more or less all over the country. Women are also equally to be blamed. I have an aunt, also a columnist, who talks-nay shrieks-about women’s right and equality but she had to give up after her third daughter. She failed to have a son to perpetuate the family.

Empowerment comes from within. It’s not a stray thought.it a collective mind set. Toppling a man and becoming the CEO of an organisation is not empowerment. To be empowered is to be emancipated. It is freedom from all societal pressures and ingrained doubts. When a woman talks about her fundamental rights, she must herself follow them. Charity begins at home.

Why do highly educated and advanced women still use their husbands’ surname that have been imposed upon them? Why does an empowered dark skinned woman in India still buy fairness cream to look fair? Has she been able to internalise the idea and spirit of empowerment and emancipation?

When the women of north India observe karva chauth even if their husbands exercise any height of domestic violence on them, do they follow and understand the purport of empowerment in its totality? When working women still expect and demand reservation quotas, reserved seats in buses and trains,

are they empowered?

We all demand equality. Is reservation for women, in its true sense, equality?  Doesn’t this reservation only indicate that we, women are still feeble, weak, and above all, inadequate? Why demand your right when you can command it! We all want humanity, men in particular, to be sensible, rational and sensitive towards us. Does starving oneself on Karwa Chauth for longevity of another makes sense? Is accepting all such customs and following them rational? This is not ‘Treta Yug’. To be an ideal wife, you don’t have to put on the blindfolds(Gandhari in Mahabharata). Remember, you are treated the way you want to get treated!

One needs to change one’s whole attitude to accept and promulgate changes. Wake up women. Every women who is silent is with a voice unheard. To let that voice reach the world ,women themselves need to channelize and encourage it first .We will never live just for the sake of living as mere survivors but as real winners of the world. If you want something you never had, do something you have never done. Don’t go the way society takes you; take society the way you go. Remember you are not living because you are born; you are born to live and make lives. After all, you’re not just ‘a woman’, but ‘the woman’!

The Purpose of Life

-Arun Bhardwaj

CEO at AVTEG, Social Entrepreneur, Thought Leader, Mentor, Transforming lives.

More than a year ago, I had visited Pune on a business trip, where I was introduced to ‘Mr. Ranganathan Iyer’. Mr. Iyer was a trainer, a spiritual person and had been involved in Ontology (the language of being). He wanted to get associated with us as a facilitator and we had an half an hour chat over a cup of coffee. After the meeting, I wasn’t sure, if he was the right person to engage on our behalf with the Corporate clients but we didn’t do much business development in Pune and almost forgot about our meeting, as time went by.

On 27th March, 2015, I get a call on my mobile that I am Ranganathan speaking, remember we had met in Pune!! After some time, I was able to place the gentleman vaguely. He said, he was in Gurgaon and wanted to come and meet me. I invited him to my office and after some pleasantries, he mentioned that he had published a book “Purpose of Life”. The book is 70 odd pages and looks more like a fancy retail catalogue but I am sure lot of deep thoughts may have gone into it. When I asked Mr. Iyer, what’s the purpose of life, he mentioned the following:

1. To fulfill your Karma
2. To make a difference to your immediate and extended family
3. To make a difference to the world

After he left, I did go through the book and I would like to share some of the interesting thoughts from it:

• We are divine… in living and experiencing humanness, we forget our divinity… the journey within takes us closer to our divinity. It’s the longest journey to be on … but the shortest distance to cover… from head to the heart.
• One cannot change the Universe but a change within is all it takes, to change one’s Universe!!
• What lies beyond one’s perceived reality, is possibility of life, larger than what one is perceiving for oneself. It’s a journey, beyond the obvious!
• Everything is possible and attainable. To live this possibility, it’s important to drop one’s own limited beliefs.
• One can regret the past or worry about the future. However, one can’t change the past and safeguard the future. Life unfolds in this moment – it’s not the past or the future!
• Who we are is vast and majestic…Who we become is limited…Limited by our own perception! When one alters the context… one’s world stands altered…From proving to others, to doing it for self. From lesser ness to worthiness. From blame and complaint to being responsible.From attachment to letting go. From dependence to freedom. From the past and future to now. From fear to truth and love.

We are ready for a new journey!

What is the journey of awareness:

• Step one is to be Aware. To be aware of oneself, thoughts, emotions and reactions.
• Step two is to Acknowledge. To acknowledge one’s emotions.
• Step three is to Accept. To accept presence of emotions, without resisting or opposing in anyway.
• Step four is to Ascend. Moment of complete detachment from both, the emotion and the inner source of emotion.
• Final step is to Attune. This means focusing one’s attention to the very center of one’s core, where inner peace and power exists..

I believe that it was my Karma that I met him again and that I share some of his work and profound thoughts with you. This is possibly one of the ways, I am giving it back to the world.

Hope you enjoyed reading it, as much as I enjoyed sharing it. Look forward to your views and comments.