The way you embrace, that pretty fake curve on your face.

So well it cache, all you are, all you were.

But doesn’t that heart crave more?

To fly. To breathe.

In this insanely beautiful space??

The world has become walking dead. Everybody is running a race, a race towards death. But this race is about how well you go. And in this hassle to make the most of one’s life, we often forget to take a break and appreciate our own presence, this gift of life, and the marvel that is our mind. Often to achieve the societies’ parameters, we overlook what oodles of expectations and shallow impressions we burden ourselves with. In the hopes of future filled with all things beautiful, don’t we try to make our present a little cumbersome? We forget what life is, life is here in the present. We should make our present happy. Yesterday is dead; and tomorrow isn’t going to arrive anytime soon. We have just one day, today,  to make all the difference for the rest of our life and we have to make it better. But how???

• Become your own best friend first. Love yourself. Challenge your negative thoughts. It’s OK if you fall down and lose your spark. Just make sure that when you get back up, you rise up like a whole damn fire.
• It’s high time to find a hobby and develop a positive addiction. Write your heart out, read it out and burn. Let that burden off your soul. Everyone has a negative and a positive. But be careful, water the flowers, not the weeds.
• Ups and downs are a part of life. It does not matter who hurt you or broke you down. What matters is who made you smile again. Happiness depends on what you can give, not what you get. Celebrate love, family, friendship. Appreciate beauty.
• Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is PERFECT. It means that you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections. One door closes, another opens. So my dear, keep looking with an open heart.

“Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”

Make your heart come alive, and surely your days will be filled with so much light that everything will be clear, just like the sky after an abounding shower of rain.

 

LAUGH. LOVE. LIVE.

Contributed by Neetu Yadav

“We see the world, not as it is, but as we are.”

Somebody rightly said the above lines, but we, the “normal” people as we say we are, we define a boundary or a parameter of normalcy at just 2πr. If you are inside this circle you are normal…but how do you know what’s going on in someone’s else’s mind? If I am found talking with myself then I can pass off my action as being an ‘occupied scientist’…but if my maid does so, she will be simply called ‘mad’. Well, busy-ness and constant planning of the next move is common in both of us, and therefore, the situation can ideally arise in both of us. And of course, there are people who are both busy and calm at the same time…exactly! So here comes the word perception – about us and others.

Let’s talk about people suffering from Alzheimer (a disease mostly seen in older ones) in which the common symptom is dementia, which itself is characterized as a syndrome in which functional and cognitive abilities keep on declining, the reason being toxic changes in the brain especially starting from a region called Hippocampus which is supposed to be responsible for learning and memory. The neurons (cellular unit of brain) die due to abnormal deposit of certain protein, and with the progression of time neurodegeneration spreads in the whole brain. Similarly, in the case of Parkinson disease – we know this is age related problem in some people, but In our society we still say “sathiyaa gaye hain” and give lots of directions to them. How many times do we suggest somebody who has a broken wrist to shake it off?!

Nowadays depression and anxiety is common even in children. These diseases have their own biochemical basis. Instead of telling the children to just pull themselves out of it we should ensure their medication and psychotherapy on time. Even in some cases of mental illness like Schizophrenia instead of seeking a doctor’s help people go to a Baba who in the name of religion behave harshly and in some cases beats patients up brutally by proclaiming that a Devil/Shaitaan/Bhoot has captured the body.

We need to increase our medical facilities for the treatment and therapy of affected people. According to WHO Mental health workforce in India (per 100,000 population) includes psychiatrists (0.3), nurses (0.12), psychologists (0.07) and social workers (0.07) which is quite less in number as compared to our population.

Most of all, we need to change our behavior towards mentally ill person, because they are behaving only as their brain wiring is allowing them to and we need to understand and help them instead of judging them on our own standard set parameters.

contributed by Shumaila Iqbal Siddiqui

Aroma of cumin seeds turning golden spread in the lanes from windows of a grand mansion which stood on the rusty lanes of an Indian town. The chatter in the house proclaimed its prosperity and the royalty was evident from its giant entrance. On a fine Sunday afternoon, the dining table was set, the kith and kin embellished the chairs , the only thing being awaited was food!

From the kitchen area you could hear a hasty voice calling, “Deep-ae, Deep-ae!”. The sense of domination in those calls entitled the person being called as the house help who had to serve the family and be every ready at the beck oftheir calls. The tinkling anklets  resonating with those authoritative calls darted the acceptance that the young daughter in law had accomplished . It also created an image of Deep-ae in the mind of the spectators; a young man in his twenties who went running even to the mock calls of kids being their source of recreation, his shoulders burdened by the coarse red cloth which symbolised favours he had been getting from this family and the debts that he had to repay.

The entry of Deep-ae in the kitchen leaves spectators perplexed as he is nothing as you would imagine! A man with grey hair, in his seventies stood obediently before the young daughter in law, scared by her calls. His ears were trained robotically to listen and interpret every command he received. To the mercy of spectators stood a feeble old man with the string of his loose – fitting pyjamas hanging out bluntly , his meek frame hardly supporting the weight of chinaware he held. The kids in the family found a constant source of entertainment in Deep-ae and one of those naughty throng came running towards him and pulled the string.

The family could hear the broken chinaware, the spectators could hear the broken dignity and somewhere deep down inside Deep-ae could hear that insult.

Meet Mr.Deep Chand Jain one of the two heirs of Shri. Pratap Chand Jain and the owner of half of the grand mansion property worth crores of rupees. A rare mental disorder had caused degeneration of neurons and gifted him the life he was leading. He could understand, but couldn’t interpret. He could feel but couldn’t think. He certainly couldn’t express. He was there with all working senses but no sense of perception and nil interpretation. He was the owner of the house in which he led a life worse than servants. Impairment of brain deprives an individual of his individuality. The story of Deep Chand Ji , the wealthy owner of crores who rejoiced the one rupee coins he got while he begged was at the mercy of the entire town except his own family who saw him as a mere body and not a soul.

Many like him have impersonated Mental Retardation before I have on a stage and perhaps strained their nerves in the overwhelming situation as I have while watching them since childhood during those oft-attended plays. It has accommodated my hypothalamus, dominated my emotions and enveloped my heart ever since. Exploration in this field with substantial inputs of scientific achievements ought to be the current research boom. Stem Cell Therapy holds a faithful potential, has found success and can be a revolution from the people, for the people and has to be made by the people.

When the curtain falls, most of us will be silent spectators, unaware and distant; while elsewhere disintegrating individuality and loss of life though alive asks for a cure of the dignity of mental patients often crushed beneath the red velvet.

contributed by Aakriti Jain