"Why should boys have all the fun...?"

Few years back, there was an advertisement with the tag line saying "why should boys have all fun" and i always used to wonder what fun they referred to. Our society assumes its pretty easy living a guy's life, i mean you can wear whatever you want to, you can go wherever you want to..at any hour whatsoever. For guys, there are no creepy opposite gender staring at you desperately and  trying to get into your pants. How easy it is for guys to have a normal life, right? That's the normal perception they have for a guy's life.
 
My question is, is it entirely true? Do guys really have such easy going lives? Honestly, NO! Being a guy is no less frustrating and irritating than being the other gender. 

Can our society accept a girl with no stable career? Yes.. Unfortunately they do. But can they accept a guy with no stable career?  


Can our society accept a girl who pursues her hobbies over a financially stable career? Yes.. They can. But do they approve such a guy? 

Does our society believe when a girl says that she's being molested? Yes.. They do (and they should obviously). But do they accept it when a guy puts the same claim? 


Does our society accept a girl who likes sketching over studying mathematics? Yes.. They do. But do they accept such guys with an open heart? 

We are a society wherein being a guy has become such a responsibility that the guy actually starts suffocating, living up to everyone's expectations, making all the right choices every time, no scope of committing a mistake because apparently you were born with a biological organ which differentiates your responsibilities with the other gender in the society. You are a man so you are supposed to do the right thing, always. You are supposed not to give up under any circumstances. You are a man, you are not supposed to be weak, you are supposed to take care of everyone around coz apparently you are supposed to be the hero. A father is the first hero of his child so he can not shed a single tear in front of his family. He is supposed to be strong who keeps the whole family together, no matter what. 

I never say that being a woman is easy, they have their own struggles in our society which can not be ignored. But the point is that everyone has their own struggles, regardless of their freaking gender. So if you think that boys have all the fun then i guess you have never seen your father closely. You have never known him and his struggles that he goes through everyday. So lets stop being a bunch of morons, stop judging people based on the genders, start respecting people regardless of their biological organs and not make the life of a guy any harder. 
"Obviously guys DO NOT have all the fun."

Alone in the horde of friends..!

Another change of place, another change of people, of colleagues and of friends of course. Changes never troubled me ever but this one has been an exception so far. Being an extrovert, it didn't took me time to get comfortable with the people around.   Now i always am surrounded by people i call friends. 

People getting anything and everything they love, people enjoying every course of their lives, people sharing laughs and tears together, people who actually are loving the life they landed into. 

Here i am, smiling vaguely on the jokes i don't like, pretending to enjoy the company of the people around, staring at their lives they have accepted happily. I never was an overly optimist person but somehow managed not to get envy of the people around. I have had change of places and people quite frequently but i was well versed at creating good companies.

At 26, almost, i already have started getting bored of the jokes in a group of friends, i don't find people amusing anymore, great humor impress' me no more and chirpy people irritate me now. I still get myself registered in the gatherings where people talk, laugh and enjoy each other's company but there is me, standing, and pretending to contribute. The fact is, somehow no species of human being amuse me anymore.

Most of the time i am irritated, confused, furious and envy. I get envy of the people around me who i don't know how, manage to enjoy all the ups and downs in their lives. I get envy of the people who get each and everything they think of. I get envy of all the happiness around me. I get envy of the people boasting about how their lives are shaping the way they wanted.

And here i am.. Standing in a group of friends.. Trying to get myself marked among their joys.. But finally finding myself alone in the horde of friends! 

P.S Loneliness is a bliss for some and misery for others. Decide what you want to make out of it.

How could have i never imagined my life without you...? How could have i never thought of living without you..? How could has this thought never crossed my mind that there is life beyond you..? 

We were madly in love with each other or at least we thought so. Holding your hand all the time, walking by your side, watching you from the corner of my eyes while walking.. And that sheepish smile when i get caught looking at you.  That urge to hug you in the middle of the class, playing with your fingers under the bench, that look at your face and that smile.. The "You can look at me after the class, idiot" look you used to give me.. Our endless talks, bitching about your girl-friends, cursing the lecturers.. 

Memories are endless, but today these are just the memories to cherish. The thought of losing you must have killed me back then, i hated it when u jokingly used to kid about talking to that hot guy in our class, why wouldn't it.. After all, i was this typically average guy you easily find in a college. I couldn't have imagined myself living without your shadow on my heart.. 

Today.. I don't understand why i didn't jump off the stairs when i saw you with your fiance in that mall. It's so contrary to my feelings back then, seeing you with someone else and still feeling no pain at all. I think i listened to what you said when you left me.. To forget you and to move on. Here i am.. Over you.. Moved on with my life. Although i couldn't resist myself from enjoying that guilt face of yours when you saw me too. As you wanted me to, I certainly moved on but i doubt if you ever could. 

P.S. Just a fictional Story! :)

I am GAY.. 

That's what you love to call me, no? Yes i am and i have no shame in accepting it. I don't have anything to hide from anyone, It's you people who need to check your sick, narrow mentality. The society we live in is already not very adaptive to people who are unconventional and here being someone who loves his own gender, it's devastating already.

So please stop making it even worse and spare me with my sexual orientation which is not "cool" according to you all. Have you ever thought how hurt i get when you stare at me like i raped someone, or killed an infant? You tease me, call me names, give me disgusting looks and treat me like i stepped out of a space ship. Now, you need to get this in your head that i am as NORMAL as anyone else in this society. I have feelings too which get hurt when you stop talking to me the moment you get to know about my fascination for my gender. 

I just happen to like the guys, get attracted to someone who is charming and fall in love with someone who i think i can spend my entire life with. I am a guy with dreams in my eyes of landing on a decent job, having awesome friends and settling down with someone i love, just like any normal person in the society. Is it too much to ask for? That's my birth-right and i deserve this much in my life, just because i'm GAY no one can take these rights away from me. And yes, even though i like guys, i DON'T like dressing like girls. I am a guy by birth and i am proud of being one, it's just about my sexual orientation which is different from most of the guys but that doesn't make me a girl.

Anyway, i don't expect you people to understand my feelings but i would request you all to please mind your own business and STOP staring at me. I am NOT an alien.

P.S The writer is strictly straight. 

Dream of Perfection- Nasra

 We live in a society where a lot of importance is given to one’s perfect personality and how one can become an ideal character. People spend all their lives seeking perfection. 
I don’t intend to neglect the importance of perfection in our lives. All I want to state is that we run after perfection all our lives but we don’t even know its real meaning. Perfection is not how we walk, talk, eat or sleep. Neither is it flaunting your 99.9 percentile marks in an MBA entrance exam. I’m not saying that these things are not important but you can’t call a person perfect if he talks really well, is good in studies or walks like a show stopper model. It is about how you take things in real life.
If I put it this way, perfection is a way to live your life while you still care for others around you. Perfection is to make your parents smile even in their hardest of the day; it is to make your elder sister laugh with you even when she wants to scold her naughty sibling. Perfection is the urge to study when the circumstances are not really in your favour; it is the effort you make when even your parents have decided to give up on you finally. Perfection is to convey your message when others are not able to understand you properly.
Here, I’m talking about one sweet little star of our Sarthak family whom we met on the very first day of our project “educaTE A CHild”- Nasra. She is the second youngest child in her family of 5 siblings. Her parents found her a very normal infant until she started speaking. She found it difficult even to speak a small 3 letter word. She used to stammer and her parents tried possible measures for a treatment. But their financial condition didn’t allow them to try hard enough. When we first met Nasra’s Ammi, she was looking as if she had almost given up on her.
Initially it was tough on Nasra to catch up with other kids in our class but gradually she started picking up words. Now after a year and half, with all her efforts and will power, she can speak most of the 4-5 letter words clearly without any hesitation. You can see clear confidence in her eyes which was not present on the day we met her first. Now Nasra shares her mother’s work at home, sometimes goes with her Abbu at work. She plays with her sisters and most of all she’s the one who takes care of her little brother Altaf, most of the time.
We see a perfect and confident lady growing up in Nasra with time. She’s the same shy girl who had never gone to school before and was afraid to speak with anyone. She was afraid that someone would make fun of her stammer. She still stammers now, but the difference is that now she knows that it’s not her fault and she’s working on this. She knows that one day she will get over this.
This is what I call perfection, a perfect combination of confidence, will power, hope, happiness, love, dreams, care and most of all the ability to accept the failure. She may not strike someone as an impressive perfect personality at first but if you go in detail, you will find the meaning of perfection in her. It’s not about how you present yourself to others, it’s only about how you see yourself and utilize your capabilities. 


You can view all my posts on the link below:

www.facebook.com/SarthakFoundation

Dream- Spread the Smile

A 'Smile' is such a beautiful feature we human have got from the Almighty. A 'Smile' is one thing that can get the stress off anybody with the blink of an eye. A simple but real smile has the ability to win the hearts. Our smiles may have a lot of meanings but it has only one motive, to let others know that we are good.
Everyone appreciates a smiling person and a smiling face, it blossoms the entire surrounding and can lift the bad mood up. Moreover, it takes nothing to smile.

We have one such, ever smiling, little angel Ritika. Very soft spoken, shy to strangers and naughty to friends but ALWAYS smiling (Touch-wood). Ritika lives with her Nani Ma as her parents don't live together. Her father used to beat her mother in front of Ritika and it had become a part of their daily schedule. One day when her poor mother could not take it anymore she left the home with Ritika and now Ritika lives with her Nani. At this tender age of 6, Ritika has already seen a lot but one thing she has always carried with her is her beautiful smile. This is the beauty that even while complaining about anything or anyone in the class, she doesn't lose her smile. She knows very well about her parents and she actually doesn't like them much, may be because her heart as a child has never seen them living happily so she is not very comfortable accepting them as one.

We in our lives can have no better example than Ritika. In spite of all the hurdles, all the problems she never forgets to smile. Smile is something which she carries with herself wherever she goes. She is excellent in studies, stands first in her class, never fights with anyone, is very punctual and diligent when it comes to her homework, but when anyone meets her for the first time, the first thing they get impressed by is her angelic smile.

It takes nothing but a second to smile and all your surroundings get lightened up. People start liking you more and appreciating you more, while all you do is smile. So we'd suggest you to take out some moments off your busy schedule and smile at least twice a day and it will not bite you, trust us! 

'Priyanka's Dream- A New Life with the same Zeal'

These days, we can easily find ourselves crying over petty issues in our lives. Issues which are actually petty and can easily be ignored but we choose to crib over them ignoring all the fortunate things we have got. Some people have salary issues in their office because the 7 digits salary they get annually is not enough to bear their expenses, some people are tired with their health because of the migraine attacks they get once a week,some are not satisfied with their 3 BHK apartments because their colleague recently bought a 4 BHK apartment, some are frustrated with their relationships because their partner demands too much of their time and this list goes on.
Have we ever thought of the actual problems which a person may have in her/his life? There are numerous people in our country who don’t have enough sources of income, houses to live in, food to feed their children, money to buy medicines and they lack in each and every necessity.

Priyanka, one of the oldest students of our Chinhat center,belongs to one such family. She has 5 siblings (all sisters) who along with their parents and an uncle live together. Her father drives a taxi and this is the only source of income for the family. Still, most of the times, he somehow manages to feed them properly. But lately he has taken ill and has not been able to go to work. This was the start of the real problems in Priyanka’s family.There was no one who could earn for the family. So they had to be dependent on Priyanka’s uncle. He plays Dhol in the wedding bands and doesn't earn much. Though her father is admitted in a government hospital, the family is not able to bear his medical expenses.

With all these problems, the education of 6 girls is neglected, for obvious reasons. They don’t go to school now (previously they attended government school) and they are dependent on our regular classes now. Every single thing they need seems to be out of their reach now, be it proper food, proper residence, proper medicines and even proper education.
After all these problems, the commendable part about this family is that they have not lost their zeal to live. The family doesn't allow their daughters to go and beg like other kids in the locality. Although they have lost everything they had, they still have not lost the hope, the zeal to live and this is what makes them stand together as a family no matter what.
We all should learn from such families around our lives. They do not have enough resources like we do but still they have chosen to live their lives with full optimism than cribbing for what they don’t have. In spite of all the difficulties, they have chosen to live the life to its fullest and make the most out of it and with the dream to have a better life.

Reference: www.facebook.com/sarthakfoundation
Author: Yours Truly :P 

If you want to hear Priyanka's story from her, please leave your footprints on the given link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogP8yt42ppg&feature=youtu.be