Don’t die before you actually die

I see so many dying everyday. Dying for money, validation, affection and what not. People cut down even on their needs to save for future. A future that may not exist. You can die tomorrow. All that money would be useless then.

I am totally amazed by how people keep dying everyday. By dying I mean not living life to the very fullest.

I’ll tell you a recent incident. I had 10 rupees in my pocket and had to take a sharing auto to home approximately 2kms from that place. I got into the rikshaw and sat down while the rikshawala was waiting for more people. Just then I saw a cotton candy seller. I loved cotton candy in my childhood and this was after years that a cotton candy seller was in front of me. But I had only 10₹ in my pocket. If I bought cotton candy then I’ll have to walk 2 km and that too in blazing heat.

At that moment I got down from the auto for 2 reasons:

1. I never disregard my heart and my heart desperately wanted that candy.

2. I love doing what most won’t do.

I’m 18yo young enough to walk 2 kms in the hot sun and child enough to get hold of that cotton candy.

After coming home I told my mother what happened, expecting a firm scolding.

But these were her words

“Next time keep more money with you”

Then she gave me a life lesson-

“Live while you are alive

Don’t die before you actually die”

-ChoubeySahab

Why 95% domestic violence cases don’t get reported?

Even today domestic violence is an epedemic that runs deep into our society. Even today women are being beaten up at homes. This happens even in the most developed metros in India. But according to official records, cases of domestic violence are on the decline.

This is because women don’t report domestic violence. But why don’t they report? It is because they consider themselves as the weaker gender which is on the perils of the opposite gender ie their husbands. As in most families male is the sole earning member. So filing a case against sole earning member means kicking away their own livelihood. Most women don’t think of themselves as worthy enough to earn a living for their children and their ownselves.

This is the main reason why women are still being subjected to domestic violence. Another reason I can think of is women are less educated in comparison to men. This problem is very pronounced in rural areas. More than half the girls don’t go to school. How do we expect them to have a self esteem to protect their rights? Forget self esteem, most rural women don’t even know how they should be treated.

Domestic violence needs to stop and only way it can happen is be empowering women with good education.

Strong men can build buildings but strong women can build a nation.

-ChoubeySahab

Self Respect (micro blog)

Never compromise on your self respect. Never. It is extremely important to know and respect your self worth.

The problem here is that most don’t know what is their self worth. What determines your self worth? Sadly, most of us attach our self worth with the marks we get in our exams. This is the biggest mistake you can commit in your entire lifetime. The score you get in your exams is NOT your self worth.

But then what is your self worth? It is your unique abilities. The thing that differentiates you from the rest. Your self worth is how you treat people. Your self worth is how much you respect your parents. Your self worth is how you behave when the tide is against you. Your self worth is how many failures can you endure.

Now you know what is your self worth. Next you need to start respecting your self worth. Most do this mistake of confusing respecting self worth with arrogance. There is actually a very fine line between the two.

You need to recognise when is it that you stop tolerating people. You need to recognise how you deserve to be treated. You need to know that you are valuable and let people know what is your value.

There is a line. Which should not be crossed and once it’s crossed by someone, there’s no going back.

-ChoubeySahab

Why can’t we drink as much water as beer?

I didn’t myself decide to write on this topic. Actually my sister suggested this topic to me. So don’t judge me for writing on this topic and try to focus on the point.

But what’s the point?- you ask

The point is that it is difficult for you to drink a couple of glasses of water but you can take shots and shots of beer without the feeling of being full .

This is not because you like beer more than water (ofcourse you do). It is just because human body processes beer faster than water. Which means that once you take a glass of beer, it doesn’t quench your thirst. You take 2, it still doesn’t quench your thirst. Then you go to the washroom and take a third glass of the very same beer.

Imagine drinking so many glasses of water. Your skin would be glowing like a bulb by now . But well beer doesn’t help keep skin glow.

But why you can’t drink as much water at once is because body processes water slower than it processes alcohol. Hence, you feel like having quenched your thirst after 1 or 2 glasses of water. But with beer, the cycle goes on:

Drink-Drink-Washroom-Again Drink

(Loop until unable to walk back home)

Health advisory : Drinking alcohol is bad for your health. Water should be preferred anyday.

-ChoubeySahab

PS. I don’t drink, neither does my sister (atleast that’s what I know) but these crazy questions keep coming up in her mind. You should also not drink. But if you’re already drunk, hire a ola man.

How to beat procastination?

Before we start I want to make it clear that I’m the most ill equiped person to write on this topic.

Procastination is something we all struggle with. We all love breaking deadlines. Completing anything on time is really difficult.

But even procastination is an art. I’ll tell you a short incident. My accounts teacher told us to do the Unit Test question paper as an assignment on loose sheets and submit on the next day.

I had a good personal image in the eyes of the teacher at that time (as it’s just the beginning of the year). So I couldn’t have disrespected the teacher by not submitting.

What I did was, I filled 1 sheet of paper with the answer of the first few questions. Then when I had to take the second sheet, that’s when I played smart. I stapled that one sheet to another blank sheet and then detached the blank sheet.

Weird, right? I did this so that the teacher thinks that he must’ve done the full assignment because of that slight piece of paper that is still stuck with the staple. That slight piece of paper is the evidence that I used more than one sheet. Which means that I did the whole assignment but unfortunately the other sheet got detached somewhere.

Now you would ask-so did the teacher notice? No, she didn’t even check those assignments.

Btw I’m not proud of what I did. But well accountancy was never my cup of tea.

-ChoubeySahab

Are we living 2 lives simultaneously?

This question came to my mind when woke up the previous morning having seen nothing short of a action movie in my dream. I was unfortunately the one who died at the end of the movie.

That moment woke me up. I was really trying to figure out if what I had just seen was real or just a dream. Well it was just a dream. But how in hell did I get such a dream. I don’t watch action movies. Neither do I think about such things.

Then it hit me that is there a possibility that I’m living 2 lives at the same time. Like when I’m sleeping I’m in a different world and when I’m awake I’m here in this world.

I really wonder if I’m a superhero in my other life. The one trying to safeguard humanity. Or am I just a 30 year old plumber in my other life?

All this is only if I am living 2 lives. One life when I’m awake and another while I’m asleep.

My night dreams are so crystal clear at times that I get the feel of watching a 3D movie. Although it is mostly scary and has a sad ending.

But this is really fascinating. Have you ever got an insane night dream which left you wondering – how can that not be real?

Next time don’t be up till late night because there might be someone waiting for you in your other life, might as well be your wife.

-ChoubeySahab

You (micro blog)

I was thinking about what can be the most interesting and difficult thing that I can write on and it turned out to be you. Yes, you.

You are an amazingly interesting being. How am I Interesting?-you ask. It is because noone knows you better than you do. Noone knows how will you react to a particular situation.

What makes you interesting is the fact that you are you. I can’t be you while you can’t be me. So for me to know what I don’t already know is interesting. This means that I’m interested in you because I don’t know you. Atleast not as much as you know yourself.

But does this mean I’m interested in everyone? No, I’m not interested in everyone. I’m interested in just you. Because you are more difficult to understand than any other human. You are difficult. Soo difficult that it is only me who knows how I’m writing on “you”.

You are worthy of all the love and hatred people throw at you. You are good to some people and bad to others but most importantly you are what you are.

You are one of a kind

One who can blow anyone’s mind

With the uniqueness you bind

A true blessing on mankind

You are one of a kind

-ChoubeySahab

There is abundance in scarcity

It recently hit me that scarcity doesn’t actually feel like scarcity. Rather it teaches me what abundance means. There is abundance in little things. The more you have of something, the less value you attach to it.

I’ll give you an example to understand this-

You belong to a rich family where the cook asks you everyday what should be made for dinner and you answer with the best that comes to your mind.

Now, imagine being a part of family in which it is only once a week (mostly on weekends) that your mum cooks something special for the whole family.

The above 2 cases are very different from each other. The first one is abundance, as good food is available whenever you want it. While there is a certain limitation in the second case as you can’t have good food as and when you wish to but you’ve to wait for the weekend.

The first case won’t teach you what good food means as that food (which would be a treat for an average family) is what you are having everyday. This can be problematic when you go to a place where there is normal food on offer. Now this normal food will feel like something really inferior to you.

While the second case teaches you to value food. It teaches you that it is only once a while that you’ll get good things. It teaches you to have patience until the good time arrives. More than anything else , it makes you feel the abundance in scarcity.

There is less of abundance in abundance itself than it is in scarcity.

-ChoubeySahab

The Evolution of Indian Cinema

The word “Bollywood” was modelled on “Hollywood” with a B which stands for Bombay.

The start of Indian cinema was marked by the release of silent movie “Raja Harishchandra” in 1913. This film was produced by Dadasaheb Phalke, who went on to produce 23 movies within the span of next 5 years.

The period from 1920-1945 saw the classics like “Mahabharata” and “Ramayana” dominate indian cinema.

It was only after 1945 that Indian cinema gained some maturity and started making movies on issues like dowry system, polygamy and prostitution. These movies tried to bring a change in the mindset of Indians towards these issues.

After this came the type of movies that we see even today. Movies packed with action, romance, comedy and what not. This era is known as the era of Masala movies where the sole aim is to entertain the audience.

Today, Indian cinema is the world leader in the number of movies produced each year and the audience attendance.

The journey from “Ye hath mujhe dede thakur” to “Itne ched karenge ki confuse ho jaoge, sans Kahan se le aur p*#@ Kahan se” makes for the script of a super hit movie.

-ChoubeySahab

Why don’t we have better political representatives? (micro blog)

The answer to this lies deep within us. It is because we don’t expect anything out of them. We have accepted them to be useless creatures.

Very few/ almost none of our student population wants to become a politician. They will happily work day and night to become a politician’s servant (IAS and other services) but won’t try to be a politician ourselves. This is because we believe this profession to be dirty. A profession where only manipulative people can survive. A place where money speaks louder than knowledge.

The educated class tries to stay away from politics. This makes it easy for uneducated people to enter our political system.

Take Arvind Kejriwal for example, he left his civil service job to become a politician and today he doesn’t seem much different to other politicians. However good or bad you might be, politics will paint you in its own colour, unfortunately this colour is black. Most of us hate being painted black.

But if it’s about the nation. Will you be in for public blackening of your face? The answer to this question is no for the educated class while the uneducated class doesn’t really care what colour it is. I hope this changes and we have more educated beings ready to put all at stake to make this country a better place to live.

-ChoubeySahab