P.S: SPB - I love you

 Grief is a devastating emotion, a penetrating pain that evades every part of your body and soul and takes you through several stages before you accept it and hope that you will be normal again.

I feel this pain right now but I believe I m in the initial stages of grief – in denial that a voice that has been an integral part of my life, intertwined into every phase of it, a voice that was an emotion for me, that I have imbibed into me forever is no more. Yes, SPB sir, you were an emotion. It tears me to even address you in the past tense.

The plethora of songs sung by you and your voice that has interspersed into our souls can never be taken away. There is not a day that passes in my life without listening to your voice. My morning satsang begins listening to your Om Nama and you travel throughout my day be it on my way to work, at work, after work, while cooking until I sleep. Right from adolescence to motherhood, through ups and downs your music has travelled with me.

Through decades you have taken us all on transcendental journey of music and have drowned us in love with your soulful rendition of raagas like Charukesi in Kaadhalin deepam ondru from the movie Thambikku entha ooru, Lalitha in Ithazhil kathai from Unnal mudiyum Thambi, Darbari Kanada in Malarey Mounama, to Keeravani in Manil Indha from Keladi kanmani. This is just a small fraction of your immense contribution to Music. I am not a musician but have explored music through you.

Many of us have fallen in love because of you, many of us have raised from low moments of life because of you, many of us still and will continue to live this life that will be interspersed with your music and divine voice.

Honestly, I believed you were going to make it and never thought that this virus was capable of destroying you. I believed you would rise and emerge stronger than ever.

When I read articles about the immense damage Corona could cause to the lungs and after ECMO, I spent sleepless nights thinking if it would hard for you to cope up,if you can never sing like before. But I believed that a miracle will happen and will cause you no harm. 

All I wanted was for you to survive the tides and reach the shore to continue your journey with us fit and happy. But millions like me stand in the shore heartbroken that you are now not going to return.

You will continue to be an integral part of our lives and generations to come.

But its going to be ages before I say RIP to you because my heart is in denial to accept that your gone. There is still a crazy part of me that is frantically searching the internet to see the news of your death is fake. I am going to wake up to a world tomorrow without you in it and i know deep down my heart that its never going to be the same, its changed forever.

Fault in the star - Sushant Singh Rajput

The Virus Within Us

 Events happening around the world in the last two weeks have been extremely horrific in nature and deeply disturbing. The pain one human can inflict on another human both physically or verbally is excruciating. 

Floyd told those racist police officers he was claustrophobic; he pleaded them that he wasn’t able to breathe. Even then he wasn’t spared. While the whole nation was erupting with mass protests, the leader of the nation was busy tweeting rhyming tweets “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.

And then there is 14-year-old Iranian girl who was killed by her own father with a farming sickle in the name of honor killing.  

Police officers who are meant to protect us go around on a killing spree, families which are meant to protect their loved ones go on a killing spree. I just wish Post-covid the word “trust” would not become extinct. 

Abuse, be it of any kind racial, physical, verbal, child abuse, elder abuse, women abuse, animal abuse, body shaming and anybody who causes it should be thrown behind the bars and punished strictly.

Has lockdown caused the wild beasts so far locked inside our brains to run loose? When I hear that the numbers of abuse cases across the world have increased and most of it in your own homes, a place that is supposed to be safe haven turns into the most unsafe and scariest place to survive, I can imagine the plight of such people, especially children and the elderly.

The virus is looking for a host to survive but it is interesting that the virus may also changes its course and mutate to a less deadlier form when it realizes that its killing the host even before it finds another healthy host for its descendants to survive. There is hope there that it will eventually stop. But we human beings offer no such hope, though gifted with sixth sense neither do we have the realisation of the harm we cause upon fellow humans verbally or physically nor do we realize that we need to coexist in harmony with fellow humans be it family or society.

Most of us would have studied about ecosystem and balance of nature while we were in school. There are four different types of ecosystem interactions mutualism, commensalism, competition and predation or parasitism. Often mankind has been compared to be parasitic in nature where our species benefit while destroying all other species and resources that coexist in the ecosystem. But we have proved ourselves no longer worth of even being called parasites because they at least stand united for their survival. All we do is harm our own species in the name of race, caste, creed, religion or pure selfishness. Do we know what this practice of destroying one’s own species is called? Its called cannibalism.

Mutualism is said to be the best interaction type among ecosystem interactions but most of us do not even understand the meaning of mutual interdependence or mutual coexistence. We want the benefits when offered but we are not ready to compromise or offer compassion in return. Often judgmental, immersed knee deep in false assumptions, neither do we respect fellow humans nor do we express gratitude for all the good things we are blessed in our lives. 

How many of us even genuinely feel happy when someone we know has achieved something phenomenal in his or her life? How often do we support a friend who is going through a bad phase? How often do we ask our old parents or elders if they have eaten their meal for the day? How often do we stop and ask our neighbour how he/she has been doing? How often do we count the blessings we have in our lives instead of grumbling  about all the negative aspects of our lives? How often have we paused and judged our own actions before we commit them?

What scares me the most is about the little lives we as mothers have brought into this world? The responsibility now lies on us to at least to see to that, the new saplings find their roots not in this debris of greed and violence. 

Every morning there is only thing I wish for , is for the world to become a better place to live again and if there is even one thing I could do to contribute to this cause, I might have a good night’s sleep.

The Lockdown story