The Bumps In Our Journey!

One fine evening, I find my house rather laid back and unusually quiet. I rang the second bell and the door opened with a whiff of air that smelt of spiced rajma. Now to give you an idea of why I find this setting ‘unusual’ is that I have a twelve turning thirteen year old Sister!

Pari had opened the door and didn’t even say “Hi” and turned back and ran into our room. Now that was the ‘nail in the coffin’ sign that something was not right! I was on my way to the room when I found a piece of paper half-folded, lying near the bin.

I picked it up and read the contents of the letter-

Why don’t you go away

Let me live my life, my way!

When you are around

My life is dark and blurry

Please leave, please hurry!

My best friend can’t look at me

As if she’s ashamed of my presence

Others run away as I come to them

As if I’m a ghost without a name!

No one will love me it seems

If you are around me

So please dear go away

And let my Didibhai kiss my cheek!

I was beyond shocked! I didn’t know what to speculate upon- whether how she managed to pen down this nice little piece of poetry or the subject of this poem! What was it that had made her so upset? Could it be a boy? Could it be something to do with school? Friends?

My mind flummoxed my sanity and I decided to confront her instead of going on webbing my doubts!

Me: Pari baby, what’s wrong? Are you upset? [ She hid her face with a pillow and answered from beneath the pillow.]

Pari: Yeeeaaaa

Me: Won’t you share your pain with me Baby? We are best friends no? [ I was seriously worried by now!]

Pari was silent for a minute. Then slowly, she removed the pillow from her face and sat down upright! She had a pimple! A biiiiig one on her nose! And she looked so anxious!

I was puzzled for a moment! But then I made sense of that letter and all the anxiousness and burst out laughing! I know … I know.. it was mean and I perhaps should have been more understanding but then pimple wasn’t a big issue for me! I’ve always been a “pamper my skin” person! I’m addicted to my cleansing rituals and beauty essentials. My sister on the other hand has been maintaining a one-hand distance from all creams and cleansing so far! And thus, the resultant PIMPLE of a problem!

I finally got a grip on myself and sat beside her. By then, she’d started fuming and if this was a movie, she’d have smoke out of her ears, I’m sure! So I took upon the role of the big sister and made her understand the importance of a proper cleansing ritual followed by moisturising. She seemed to take me a lot more seriously and I think she sincerely made a mental note of the same!

That night I let her use my Garnier Pure NeemFace-wash and she had read about the importance of neem in cleansing both externally as well as internally and she understood the relevance of the product. She also further applied moisturizer though she cringed her face!

Life teaches us many lessons, either by others’ experience or by our own.  However, it is important to learn from that experience and grow! Thanks to this experience, I am sure my sister has learned the value of following beauty rituals, not just to look beautiful but to feel beautiful!

We often take our skin, our body for granted. But then we stumble upon a bump or two to make us believe in ourselves again!

With Garnier Neem Pure Face Wash

You can bade Pimples and Acne problems

Bye Bye!

It is time to show the world

Some YOU-th!

This post has been written for the Indiblogger contest in association with GarnierNeem Pure Face-wash.

Road Rules: Safety Begins With Me!

I do not know how to drive.

Yes, I know it is pretty weird in today’s times to not know driving, that too in a place like Delhi! However, you must understand my reasons for the same. I have always been terrified of rash driving. After having two autos, three rickshaws and two cars over my two feet, I think you’d sympathise with me.

Sometimes, I really regret my decision to not have learned how to drive. However, I have been reading quite a few driving manuals and thanks to my friends who drive sanely.. I have learned much about driving appropriately.

I simply do not understand the rush that people get by driving recklessly. It isn’t an adventure; it costs precious lives.. irrespective if it is yours or mine. Often we find social organisations and school children presenting skits, silent marches in the streets of Delhi expressing the need to drive safely and follow road safety instructions as have been prescribed by the Traffic Police.

Simple things like putting the seat belt on and making sure that the car lights are working properly, giving signals at every turn and slowing down before bumpers, slowing down before a zebra crossing or simply following traffic signals and choosing to stop when the signal is orange than to feel the rush of crossing over- these are inevitable of not just road safety but also simple civic sense.

Now that the nation seems to be awakening itself on slogans of cleanliness such as swacchta abhiyan and its voting rights, I hope that times are changing and we are realising the value of our lives.

And yes, keeping my faith in the goodness of us humans and believing that every step must start with mine, I promise to learn safe driving from a proper driving school and earn my driving license.

Safety is my responsibility- should be the slogan of every person walking in the street or driving a car or a bike not just in the city but in the entire nation!

Like Gandhiji said, Change must begin with Me!

Me asking an auto for a ride. Pic courtesy: Nadia Ahmad

There is a need for caution regarding the road safety rules that have been best expressed by the NSDF (Nissan Safety Driving Forum). It is an ideal platform to learn discuss and ask about our doubts, fears and apprehensions and essential tips regarding driving and safety of not just our own-self but also be accountable about those walking and driving around us. This sense of collective responsibility is the only way forward for us. Thank you Nissan for providing me with this opportunity to reclaim my fears and to be a  responsible person especially in terms of driving safe!

Friend, Philosopher, Guide- My Role Model

In this journey of life, no one walks alone. We're all together, either in deed or thought or just for the sake of being. Then, there's family, the closest to us. And if we are lucky enough, strangers become friends and our garden blooms further!

Today, social media is the fastest cheapest form of entertainment, of course after the shower songs and the crazy roller coaster of thoughts we have in between the time we lie down and till we sleep off! In this crowd of many, I found a brother who believes in me, who loves me for all of what I am. And the fights make us stronger. And better. God bless you for the wonderful person that you are, and thank you for being someone I can look up to! My brother, my role model!

Transcript

A role model according to me is someone who has lived his life king-size, one who promises that life can be and will be as fulfilling as it sounds to be.

Usually people take celebrities, well-known people, and politicians as role-models and so on or someone they wish to become, perhaps some creative feats that they’ve achieved.

But for me, except for my family of course- they’ve been my pillars of strength, they’ve helped me through my ups and downs and are definitely my greatest supports but a role model for me is someone who is within my reach and someone you can take immense inspiration from, but they’d also be there to tell you ‘how’ he/she has done ‘what’.

I think that apart from my family, I think I would say I have a person I would call my ‘role-model’ , not just because of what he has achieved, or what he does today but because where he comes from in life. It’s because of what he has understood from life and what is he ready to give from that, to me and others around him. It is what makes him ‘him’.

That person for me would be my brother, Rahman Bhaiya. Aalooran Rahman Bora. Yep, as you may have guessed with our differing surnames, he is not my real brother. Actually thank God, because there are so many things that you cannot talk to your family about; you need a friend, an unbiased guide. Who better than a brother! I don’t have a brother but a younger sister, so I always have to be the responsible person out there; someone who is absolutely stable. However, life does not work like that! And hence the need for a brother, becomes almost inevitable!

And it was at that time that I found Rahman Bhaiya, and he is my role-model because… not because he promises me or pampers me with things that I wish for but it is for the kind of conviction that he has for me. The kind of belief-system that he’s become for me that I know for sure that I can become whatever I want to be, he’s going to be okay with it, without inhibitions. He’ll be happy about it because much beyond the realm of career and money-making and all that comes a person who is within you and that is person he connected to, as he always insists!

We met through Facebook, and yes, that is as ironical as it gets because you know, you meet ‘friends’ on Facebook but to find a brother there, and finding an ever-lasting relationship..Now that’s as surreal as it may get! But that’s the most beautiful part about us! So, we met on Facebook and he was a follower of my blog, my statuses and poems. And then he messaged me once on Facebook saying that he was shocked to see my profile as he expected to find someone much older, wise and sage-like! (Imagine his shock now!) 

But there was this craaaazy woman there and well, that is how it pretty much started! He often tells me that I inspired him but Rahman Bhaiya, let me tell you that every time when things don’t work out for me, every time when life seems so tough and eventually I wish to give up, there is this one person I know whom I can turn to and he…That is you, you motivate me to become a better person, make me believe that even with the downs, the bad things that are happening in my life, things are eventually going to be alright and that is how ‘sail through the ocean’!

That is what makes you a role-model for me especially because I am a tough nut to crack! And well, you are someone who is okay with that! In fact, one of the few who’re okay with that, which is what makes you my ultimate Role-model!

I wish to thank Gillette India and Blogadda for this awesome opportunity because here’s how I tell him what he means to me and I couldn’t find a better way to do so! Thanks and cheers!

Well, even as I am making this video, I receive messages from him asking..

How are you?

Where are you?

Had lunch? Dinner?

Gudiya?

He is always concerned about my whereabouts and I am lucky enough to have such a person in my life because you expect such things from your parents, your real family but this is a very special relationship for me so…

Any form of dedication is incomplete without a song and I would like to dedicate this song to my brother because you’re one of the most loving, warm and considerate people I have in my life and I am lucky to have you! And I would try my best to become the person you are, with all your qualities. My Brother, my role-model, here’s the song…

This post(write-up+video) is a part of the My Role Model activity by Gillette India in association with Blogadda

We Are Reborn- Day After Day

Isn't it amazing how new things remind you of the old things, the old days gone by and how life has gone past all these years, and you forgot to realise how time simply flies!

However, there are these relations, people, possessions 

we hold on to so close that 

we don't realise that what is left of them

 is only a shadow- lifeless and color sucked out of it as if in haste. 

My purpose of writing this post? 

It is catharsis as some people would put it- it is 

to spit out the venom out of your system, for good. 

A dear friend, that long lost-now found book or that tea-stall

you'd almost forgotten of, but did not erase from your memory.

How a small talk or indirect references, made it all come back

with a salty realization that you might not be a speck of what they worry of anymore?

It takes a lot of courage to move past that mark,

To head off to a new start. But you know it is worth it!

Opportunity knocks you off the ground, that’s the door you gotta open

It isn’t as picturesque as it seems.

We live a lifetime wondering if someday

We’ll attain the closure we deserve.

And yet, at some point we do end up knowing

It was a milestone that left us, while we were busy searching.

Such closures are about us, our emotions and our way forward

Such paths have no beginning and no end.

There is no after life, only re-births.

If it at all has to be about a farewell,

Then fare them well, and grasp with both hands tight

Not them, but the memories you shared, equally.

It is about having that bad headache, which has no other solution but

A nice hot shower, with your favorite body wash.

The difference can range from a ‘good bye!’ to a ‘good riddance!’

That is how life helps us deal with what may not go

But evaporate afar.

It is all about making the choice, to either hold your own horses

Or be led by others’.

Thank you for the prompt Racold & Indiblogger

Seriously Yours!

Seriously, how many of us know the root cause of

why the world is so serious?

The aam to the khaas, from the beggars to the nawabs

Once-divorced, thrice bereaved

The end of all tragedy leads to it.

Aakhir what is the praablem janaab?

Itne kyun hai serious aap?

Imagine a world where we end letters with

A ‘Seriously Yours’ and socho if there were

Medicines with the tag ‘seriously made’?

I wish I were half as serious about my life

As my aunt is, whether it is a shaadi or a disco night!

My professor seems to have forgotten to smile

I wish someday soon
I’d get to see him out of the whole 'serious' look!

I can sacrifice my pride and look the other way

To find the smile tuck behind his moustache nook!

I wish yeh seriousness koi door bhagaaye,

So that thode aur marks toh mil jaaye!

It kills to fight over every mark,

Kya har mark deduct hota hai

From your salary, jailer sahaab?

Seriously, is problem ka koi toh solution nikaalo yaaron!

Kahin der na ho jaaye, let the smile widen a li’l more often!

Kya kare, from where do we get the babajee ki booti?

Tabhi prakat hui meri ladli behen,

Mere aankhon ka taara, mere jeene ka sahaara

Adding tadka n’ spice to my otherwise saadi daal

She made me realize that is seriousness ka hai ek ilaaj!

But she had one condition, usko chahiye thi meri favorite sweatshirt!

“No way, I won’t” I cried, aghast!

Then she went on with her pravachan,

“The world shall remember your sacrifice, meri badi behen!”

Laao! Jaldi Laao, 5 Star ki soft soft bite

Khilaao over dose sabko, chahe day ho ya ho night!

 Ban jaao apne film ke villain nahi hero,

5 Star khaao aur masat jiyo.

And if you're lucky you'll have a sister

to enjoy every bite too!

This entry is in remembrance to all the souls who miss being in the #ConditionSeriousHai mode, shukar hai 5 Star hai!