The lost childhood

Difference has been created. Things are now not the same. The sky is same but is not the clear. There is dust, smoke and impurities. Within them, something has lost, what is called as childhood.

As a child, people have pure soul and clean mind. There is no if and but. There is just innocence. No child thinks before speaking. He speaks what he feels like, ignoring what may hurt, just the truth. But as we grow up, we leave innocence. As we reach teenage, we become conscious about us, about our appearance, shape and size. If we are not one, we pretend to be. The crazy competition leads to peer pressure and what not we do to maintain our image among our fellow mates. If we compare this to our childhood, we find that during childhood we were happy in normal dress and could run bare feet on the streets to call ice cream vendor.

Then came the adulthood with a bag full of responsibilities and tensions of career and family. The 9 to 6 shift keeps the man busy and busy and keeps the brain filled with worries. Then the man sits and thinks how beautiful was childhood. The only tension back then was of missing the favourite cartoon show. The hustle man faces was not during childhood. The hustle child faces is reaching home after school. The workload man faces today is tremendous while there was no workload during childhood.

After adulthood, comes the second childhood that is old age. Man retires and is again free, has enough time to spend in peace. But unlike childhood, he is surrounded by numerous diseases. He finds happiness in the happiness of his children and grandchildren.

The festivals become less interesting as we grow up. During childhood, a festival was full of zeal, enthusiasm and cheerfulness . During Diwali, children wait eagerly to go out and burst crackers, during Holi, they are always ready with colours. But growing up brings lots of formalities.

There should be a percentage of child in everybody, be it a very less proportion, but still one should keep the child alive in his soul.

Smile please, you are in Lucknow!

I belong to the capital of Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow, the city of Nawabs, the city of manners, the city of chicken embroidery and the city of Tundey Kebabi.

I can easily figure out a person travelling in Delhi metro that he or she belongs to lucknow. The reason is the way they talk. Addressing themselves with “hum” instead of “Mai” is a mark of recognition of belonging to lucknow. That is why the manners and etiquettes of Lucknowites is famous.

When any of my relatives of friends visit Lucknow, it becomes my responsibility to give them a city tour. Lucknow is a good place for shopping enthusiasts. The chicken embroidery is very attractive with traditional design.

The taste of Lucknow is famous all over India. The famous Tundey Kebabi brings you delicious mutton kebabs. Prakash’s kulfi has been featured in 100s of food shows on television and food articles in magazines.

Lucknow also has architectural values. The lmambada’s Baoli and Bhoolbhulaiya shows a great example of architectural wonders made during Nawab’s regime. It has some security features due to the architectural work that draws attention of every historian and architect around the globe. One such example is, the guards of the Baouli can see who is on the main gate but the one at the main gate can’t see the guards.

The evenings of Lucknow are mesmerising. Known as Sham-e-Awadh, people come out of houses and visit many beautiful places at the bank of river Gomti.

There are many things hidden about lucknow and many exposed to the eyes of explorers. To know lucknow more, one has to visit here and live for a month.

How real I am on Instagram?

Today every individual has a smartphone with great picture quality of their phone cameras. 70-80% of the youth is active on Instagram. Be it a marriage wish with a “Congratulations” or a death condolence with “RIP”, Instagram stories have helped to spread mass information.

Instagram shows a very happy and happening life of people on their stories. But is it true? Here is my confession. Last weekend I went to Kasol, a small town in Kullu district of Himachal Pradesh. My trip was not so up to the mark. I hardly enjoyed very few moments there. But i uploaded many stories on Instagram, which fooled my followers that I had an amazing time. Many people replied to my story with comments like “wow”, “you are so lucky having beautiful moment ” etc. But these comments acted like salt on my wound because the stories I uploaded were all FAKE. Only the posts I uploaded were real because I uploaded only some good pictures of mine and some sort of so called photography I did there.

Similarly, just like some people have good moments on Instagram, there are some who have only dark moments on Instagram to upload. But as per my observation, I have seen most of the people with such posts very happy and cheerful with numerous friends around them.

This says Instagram is like a mirror. It shows people’s moments in exact reflects like a mirror do but on the other hand, it may also show the inverted image like a mirror do.

The Great Wall Of Superiority

Everyone is the hero of his story and the king of his kingdom. The great wall of one’s ego is too thick, tall and opaque, that it does not allow the entrance of any other opinions.

When we walk on the roads, we find every vehicle moving very fast, while when we are on a vehicle, the same walking populations looks like a hinderance on the way.

In every topic, everybody is genius in their own way. Players play on the field under tremendous pressure, think of the next possible precise move, their performance might not look good as it really is, obviously due to pressure, but the public outside, sitting in front of television sets know what exactly was supposed to be done.

Why so? The human ego? The thinking contradictories? Or just desire to be superior than others? I don’t know. It’s just a thought.

Social Animals on the Social Media

The human eye, and the camera eye, both have different perspectives. Human eyes sees what humans want to see, but camera eye (lens) sees what humans wants to show others. This whole era is an era of fake show off. Everybody’s Instagram stories are full of Cafe’s sizzling burgers, endless night outs with friends, promises to keep their friendships alive forever. But till how extent is it true?

Do people show on social media what they really are up to? Or they just pretend it?

Are those friends whose posts are full of their best friends pictures with the caption “together forever” will they keep their friendship forever? Why uploading a Snapchat story of car’s dashboard every time necessary by a teenager when he drives the car? Maybe just to show other people that they are doing something that is “cool” in their sense.

With a lot of information, has social media also brought some fakeness in this so called Social Animal? Maybe yes! Maybe that is the reason why before enjoying the meal in a restaurant we prefer taking it’s picture very essential, as if not doing this can disturb the digestive track.

Maybe wishing parents good night is out of schedule nowadays, but sending Snapchat streak is never forgotten.

But whom to blame? The human or the social media? I don’t know. It’s just a thought.

Teenagers Under Smoke

Recently, a video of a Bhopal boy, Kamlesh went viral in which he was seen enjoying inhaling solution. In that clip, he revealed about his addiction that he can’t live without that drug. He even said that apart from solution, he does all kind of drugs and drinks. The worst part of that clip was that he was just 12 years old. Earlier, being 12 meant exchanging cheat codes for PC games, playing gali cricket, flaunting the “self proclaimed ultra sonic remote control car” and watching Pokemon.

But with time, generations have changed. Nowadays drugs are a source of attraction to teenager. Those kids who spent most of the time playing in streets or video games, are now seen playing with smoke in Hukkah Bars. Those kids whose special drink was Rasna or Tang, now wet their throat with alcohol. Those kids whose morning started with flavored milk for their health, now begin their day with lemonade to cure hangover.

Yes! Their fantasies did changed. Their taste did changed. While asked about this “development” in their taste, a very basic reply is received – “to release stress”!

Now if we talk about this reason, or rather say “the stress releasing therapy”, is there no other way out to deal with it engaging no harm? Why not to try yoga? Not only it will release your stress but will also keep you tranquil.

Most of the drug addicts are college students. They come to college and when they meet their friends, they read each other’s eyes, in which they see a written invitation – “Chal foonkne chalte hai!”. Obviously drugs are not allowed in the college campus, but students make effort to step outside the colleges and cross the road to go to their “adda” to release their so-called stress.

Near any big college or university, wine shop can easily be found. Not only the wine shop, they can easily make contacts with a peddler who can get them weeds. Many students are seen in participating in “Inter-personal Smoke Ring Championships” in which they challenge each other to make better smoke rings than each other. Yes! Such interesting games do exist.

Smoking leads to various diseases such as cancer asthma etc. Smokers suffers from such smokes but more than them, passive smokers suffer. Passive smokers are those who indirectly inhale drug smoke.

But instead of playing such creative games, there is a need to quit drugs. Youngsters, who are said to be nation’s future are themselves in danger, drug addiction being the danger for them. To save themselves from such fatal diseases, they must quit smoking.

 

Incredible Indians of Incredible India

Once the ads and the tagline of Indian tourism impressed a foreigner to come in India. After his visit, he was so impressed by the incredible India and her incredible citizens that he decided to pen down his experience in a letter to me as we became good friends after we met at Taj Mahal during his tour. His message was,

I was so excited for my India tour. I always heard about the kind of treatments Indians give to their guests. And I found it true also. Not only the people there, but the animals are so humble that they welcome us with love. In the way to my taxi, a cow had already prepared a cake for me to cut and begin my journey. Though the smell of that cake was not so pleasant, still I appreciate her efforts to make me happy. Visiting a temple I realized that India is not at all a poor country. In our country, milch products are not so cheap and nor they are cheap in India, but people there are so rich that they drain milk in the sewers. Trucks in India are very special and creative. Just look at the piece of art made on most of the truck. They are so amazing with HORN OK PLEASE written mandatory on each truck. My driver Suresh told me about the rhyming lines written on each truck. Since I don’t know Hindi, so Suresh used to translate them to me. For example, one of them was ‘Has mat paglyi….’ I remember only this much. What Suresh translated to me was, “Don’t laugh or else I will fall in love”. I always observed Suresh that he did not wear seatbelts always. I asked him the reason behind this. He said, “I wear seatbelts not for my safety, I wear it only to save my pocket from fines”. Another incredible thing about “Incredible India” which I saw there on a rainy day was, at some places you can enjoy both roads and streams at the same place same day in monsoons. The incredible people of your incredible country are also incredible lovers! I visited many monuments there. The monuments which are landmarks on the pages of history, also contain the names of thousands of lovers embedded on them. I saw the names of various couples written in many monuments. So in this way they made their love a part of history.

I loved my journey a lot still I am unsure to visit the incredible country again and meet those incredible people again.

This letter forced me to think that is this what we show to the foreigners to visit our country? We often say that “Atithi Devo Bhava”. Is this what we tell our atithi about our country? Is it how to make our Dev happy?

 

 

 

(Inspired by Jug Suraiya’s INCREDIBLY INDIAN)

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