Hows the josh?

I was looking for all the answers outside and kept on searching and hoping that someone would change and all would be well. I kept on looking for love, compassion and empathy and kindness from others not realizing that along this journey of dismal hope I was changing myself and continued to treat myself with pity. I allowed everything to happen to me; in some fashion I let them have power over me as I took refuge in this hurt. It is easy, as we know no better, we let them in our minds and let them take control of how we will react. When we let them in, we let them guide and change our true nature.

This is not easy to admit. I changed and I reacted and I started pitying myself saying why me, and why not more of this or that? But, then one day I didn’t have an epiphany nor did the apple fall of the tree I just stopped reacting to the angst and decided to take back control. Let me tell you it happens when it has to happen not a second before or later. There are enough exercises, motivational speakers, quotes, meditation, breathing techniques to take you to Wakanda and back but it only happens when you truly will it as you wish to change.

We all have inner strengths, and the best is when we stop searching, reading for answers outside. It is true, it all lies inside of you, what you are searching for outside, what we are seeking for is already present inside. All the saints, preachers, seers hold this to be true. The mirror holds all the answers, look clearly at the mirror and do you like what you see? If you do, well all is good, if not change the image. Work on yourself, slowly and be kind to yourself. Stop judging yourself according to others and their standards, if you have failed and I have to. One should be kind to oneself, this world is a mirage that has been so hyped and accentuated by this visual imagery and fake drama and over representation by advertising gurus to a materialistic hype. Its ok to be dark, thin, fat, small, overweight, pimply, gangly, mediocre, geeky, nerdy, gay, lesbian, straight, failure, don’t be shamed into anything.

Just give yourself time and you will shine, it can be later and it can be after hibernating for years or just after winter.

In fact, one needs to find the inner strength that is always inside us, as goodness resides in all of us and we need to believe in ourselves, first and then only can we convince others to believe in us. 

I know I sound like a politician and a ghisa piti one but it works. Its just like in the movie, Uri that makes me believe and I can ask you, How’s the josh?

Some may say, its filmy but we all must always believe in hope and tides do change. It is step one to believe in hope and  then to just wean yourself from the black hole of the virtual world that lets you to believe in things that aren’t. Make life more simple, start doing kind acts , and step by step reclaim yourself and that old adage of walking outside and absorbing nature all hold true.  

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ravneet sangha 

lohri, fire within

Every day countless children are born, some make it, some live and some die and some are killed. It is the sad, brutal truth that we face, ignore and shove under the carpet to be socially correct, as the constant drive to have a son is the driving force in all the procreation in this country. Trust me that am the reason behind every birth! I came to know about the birth of a young baby girl who when she was born, her mother also died in childbirth and she was shunned and scorned by the family members. They were all upset, saddened and just didn’t want the additional burden of bringing up a baby girl who was going to be a burden, a strain on them and then the extra burden of dowry, marriage and so forth. So she was left there to die outside the house swaddled in her birth clothes. After the cremation of the mother, when two days had passed, someone remembered the infant baby girl and he or she decided to bury her too.

When they looked for her, and found her in her clothes outside in the verandah, she was still alive, as no one had cut her umbilical cord. She had survived and was alive. It was as if God had saved her and later a couple that didn’t have a daughter adopted her and now she has become a professor of English, imparting knowledge to many more. What a strange circle of life. We try to kill and nature has its unique way of saving its own.

In the recent years, we have started celebrating Lohri for the girl child and awareness is there, it is small, gradual but the festivities eclipse it for a boy child. No one asked to be born, no one chose his or her sex or the gender, who are we to discriminate so openly?

Why is the mindset not changing? You might say oh no things have changed; it’s not like this anymore, so how is the ratio so skewed still? Someone, somewhere here is still doing this. Is it like the One who must not be named?  I mean it’s all prevalent but we turn a blind eye, or a cold shoulder and look the other way.

A lot of initiatives are undertaken to save the girl child, to make her feel safe and secure. I just genuinely feel that we all need to collective come together and not do the drawing room armchair conversations.

In fact, procrastination is our middle name .We will mull, think, delay, discuss, decide, argue, fight and succumb to social pressures that are so engrained in our souls with invisible writing that we go back to our patriarchal roots.

Till we don’t set an example, make it safe for her, don’t give her equal rights and stop treating her a burden and have different set of rules and do’s and don’ts for her this rot is going to continue.

Collectively, lets stop the rot as now its seeped into the foundations of society and what we were known for once is I am afraid going to be lost in the pages of Lonely Planet.

India is synonymous for color, bonhomie, festivities, ancient civilization and the Vedas, yoga, we have given the world so much but we are reduced to this downward spiral and I haven’t even started with politics yet!

 However, it’s the start of a new month , sangrand is on the 14^th and I always have hope for a better ,newer day and may the fire burn bright in all of us.

Happy lohri.