#Let'sTalkAbout-- Depression

I'm a Psychology student. One of my family members suffered from Depression. None of us have any feeling of guilt or embarrassment in talking about it. Depression has nothing to do with how strong one is, rather the strongest are those who admit to need of help and not they, who sit around and declare them to me mad. In India, there are social stigmas attached to several things one of which is depression. Why? I ask. When there is no stigma around having any physical disease then why is having a curable mental illness stigmatized?
Friends try to brush away the topic or at declare one to be attention-hungry and thus "Doing drama". But Depression is not drama, nor is it seeking attention, it is not anything an ill-informed prejudiced person tells you; It is-
A depressive disorder is an illness that involves the body, mood, and thoughts. It interferes with daily life, normal functioning, and causes pain for both the person with the disorder and those who care about him or her.
A depressive disorder is not the same as a passing blue mood. It is not a sign of personal weakness or a condition that can be willed or wished away. People with a depressive illness cannot merely "pull themselves together" and get better. Without treatment, symptoms can last for weeks, months, or years. Depression is a common but serious illness, and most people who experience it need treatment to get better. Appropriate treatment, however, can help most people who suffer from depression.
Depression can sometimes occur without any apparent cause, other times it may be triggered by a traumatic experience. Studies also blame certain genes for pre-disposing people to depression. 

India has the most number of depressed people in the World, it also has the highest Suicide rate in the world. As early as 2011, 36% of the nation was suffering from Depression, in 2012 over 2,50,000 individuals committed suicide. And yet, talking openly about depression is a taboo in the country. While people have no qualms in visiting a doctor when they have cold n cough, people hesitate largely to visit a psychologist when they feel they have a mental ailment as they consider it to be a fruit of their own minds and thoughts thus holding themselves responsible.
Indians, generally, do not wish to discuss the topic of depression due to the outdated orthodox belief that if someone is suffering from it he/she must be mad. Many people are apprehensive about consulting a doctor for their mind, as they are afraid of being judged not only by the society at large but also by their own family members.
This however needs to be changed. The topic of Depression needs to be de-stigmatized.
Depression is just another disease, and like any other ailment can be cured by medicines if one consults a doctor at the right time. The hush-hush discussions about depression need to be done openly without any shame. The patients needs to be convinced that it is not their fault, and that having depression does not imply that they are mad. We need to broaden our mindsets to accommodate the simple fact that mental ailments are not a cause for ostracizing people or to gossip about them. Mental ailments need to accepted like any physical ailment would be, and be treated.
A nation of 1.2 billion people deserves to talk openly about mental illnesses the way it would about any physical illness.

Teacher 2014

I've been meaning to write this post for quite a while now, but due to my impending examinations (just 6 days away) I kept delaying it, putting it off until all my exams got over (that would be 15th of January) but being the impulsive writer that I am I couldn't really contain myself anymore. Too much to ask for.:P


So I've decided to put up what I learned this year in this particular post . Obviously I cant put up Everything, the highlights maybe. This is was typically different for me. I don't even remember this year in a proper chronology! As in what happened when and then what happened and so on (you get it, right? ) I don't even remember this year's festivals properly! (except Diwali somehow :P) So here it goes.

#1 People Are Not What They Seem, Always.
 When we meet someone for the first time we form an impression about them, positive or negative, but we always do. There are many things that contribute to this impression, for example you may have heard about the person from  gossips. And then when you meet them you already have a layer of introduction about them in your mind. As your conversations progress you form a rough idea of how the person perhaps is.
But then here lies the catch. People are not what they seem. The Sweet girl you met may not really be so sweet- well she can even be a serial killer, you never know! And the boy whom you found Super-Rude? probably he has a dysfunctional family and needs you the most.

 #2 Go back to the roots, Introspect.
When I began to really dislike One Direction ( You & I, was that even a proper video! >_<) I started to wonder why I even liked this band in the first place.What Makes You Beautiful came to the rescue, like seriously!
And then I realized as we grow we just keep going on with our choices without re-evaluating them, trusting that the decisions we made in the past were be right and will probably continue to be so. I think that's wrong. We need to sit down with a calm mind, go over the decisions, and think about it. Were the decisions worth it? Were they right? Did they lead you where you wanted to go? Would you, if given a choice, go back in time and take the same decision again?
 Only you can determine your life and your life is a result of the decisions you take, so be careful, decide wisely

#3 People will Always Judge you and your choices.
 
Yes they will. Irrespective of what you do. If you don't talk they'll judge you and even if you talk they'll judge you. You wear outrageously provocative clothes or a burqa, you top the test or score a zero, They Will Judge You. It is human tendency. The best thing to do, thus, is follow your mind, do what you want and not bother about log kya kehenge. Do Not Seek Validation. You are perfect, remember that.
 Your choices, your life, don't let anyone else be a reason why you change your actions or preferences.


#4 Dream big, very Big!

 Wanna score over 90% in the upcoming test? Why not aim for 100% ? you mayn't achieve it, but hey! You may as well. You might end up with a 95%, that's better than the 90% you were aiming for na? Just dreaming isn't of course of any help, you need to work for it. Work hard. "To have something you never had, you need to do something you never did."





#5 Be with the Right Kind of people.


Be with people who share your passion, feed your soul, care about you, understand you and don't ask you to change. That my dear friends, is a simple formula for happiness. Instead of being with people who you think you'll like, be with people who genuinely like you. It's tough to figure out but then nothing is impossible. Life is too short to waste on people who don't deserve you and make you feel bad about yourself. Never let anyone tell you that you're not good enough, you are, they are just too blind to see it.




#6 Don't cry for something you didn't fight for.





If you want something fight for it, give it all you have instead of curling up in a corner and sulking about it. You need to fight your own battles, no one will do that for you. It is your life after all.




#7 Make Peace with Yourself.



Yes, make peace With yourself. Some time ago I had read that acceptance is the biggest teacher and I outright rejected it. The year slowly taught me the same lesson. If you're bad at some sport or at being a good friend or any other thing for that matter, accept that you are bad at it. It Is Fine. Only after you accept it, will you be actually ready to do something about it. Bad at Cricket? Take classes to improve your game. Pat yourself and scold yourself too. But don't let others' words affect you too much.




#8 Take a Break

 In the rush of life today, we so often forget to slow down and be grateful for our lives. We are too busy with work. Take care of yourself first. Your health and mental peace come before any test/project/deal. Ensure it. Once in a while take a break, go out , breathe the fresh air, listen to the birds chirp, feel the ground, the grass, see the vast sky. Remind yourself why you are doing what you are doing and re-energize yourself for it. Put yourself first.

Of Stress, Exams, and Me

I am so stressed at the moment, nothing is able to calm me down. I feel like a volcano which is going to explode any second now. So I decided to vent out on the blog. my pre-ISC are due 14 days from now, ...And the syllabus needless to say is humongous & I needless to say, haven't finished it. It is now that I see the glaring loop-holes of our education system  crystal clear, mocking me for falling prey to them. So much theory, so much theory, so much theory, I feel like I'm compiling an encyclopedia in my notes. There are so many concepts, so many finer aspects, so much to understand and learn that it has overwhelmed me right now. 
I have five subjects, out of which Political Science is my least favorite. I mean I love reading about American Congress and stuff but then don't ask me memorize it and reproduce it on my exam sheet. It stresses me out. I mean there is so much we all know which we don't write down but then we still know it na? It is still there in our memory. A few chapters to comprehend and mug up are okay, but then sooooo many? Really? What are we? Machines? or better, Microsoft Word? I am aware that writing long answers is a way of testing our understanding of the concepts and grasp of the subject but hello, there are other ways too, which are less stressful for students like multiple choice questions, weekly tests, practical application tests, etc, etc.
It is my fault also, I agree, I can't remember stuff for long; like I can remember them fairly long but not like very long. I have to read so many chapters that suppose I read chapter one today, by the time I read chapter 20 I will have forgotten the details of the first chapter. It is obviously common with everyone, but it at the moment frightens me.

What if I don't do well in my pre-boards? Some colleges check these marks for admission and, as if there are many seats for a 'general' student. SCs and STs get 50% seats, students of the state get 10% . Considering that there are 60 seats, 60% are already reserved, so I have to compete in the remaining 24 seats where students from all over the country are applying?! Not that I doubt my abilities or my getting into a good college but then it scares me. Other colleges take boards marks into consideration. What if I spoil it there? Then? What next?

And even though it'd be wiser if I stopped writing this post now and went off to study, I don't want to . SEE! That's the kind of pressure I am under -- every second I spend doing anything other than studying I feel Guilty. I feel defeated, like I am cheating my own self into a bad life. My friends say I stress too much but then there is simply no way I can stop it from happening it isn't like I tell myself "Let's start to stress and then I start. No no no. It just kicks in. They say stress is harmful for me but then isn't not studying, scoring low, not getting into the college I wish to, not being to prove myself both as a remarkable female and a human, ruining my life harmful too? My parents are thankfully the cooperative ones. They don't fret if I get low marks but then I fret. They are my marks na! How do I not? There's simply so much to study & learn.

 I feel better now. The magma is receding and the surrounding atmosphere is cooling down. And also when you read this don't take all my words very very seriously, I was stressed after all! ;)

A New Morning #2

This is a continuation of a post I wrote in February, click here to read the preceding part.

It was her first day in the college and she had, in her excitement, forgotten to silence her phone.
The phone rang all of a sudden and everyone stared at her. She was too embarrassed to return their penetrating looks. Her slim hand with the blue bracelet which clearly showed her eclectic preferences in fashion, jerked rather roughly, as if it was awoken from a long peaceful slumber. Her fingers groped the phone and she rejected the call before unlocking her phone and activating the silent mode. She promptly got up after doing this, adjusting her blue jeans which hung attentively at her waist and pulled it up for better fitting and apologized to the professor in the classroom assuring him that such an incident would not be repeated.
The professor spilled a few words in anger and then said to her, "Sit down."
The class was over within an hour and she grabbed her classmate-cum-roommate-cum-friend, took her under the shady tree which was first among the line of a huge number of trees and was nearest to the entrance gate of the college. She pulled out her phone, which bore enough evidence of having been purchased recently, and checked the person who was responsible for the happenings of the day. Seeing the name, her face slowly lit up.

She pressed the call icon on the screen and waited to be connected. Each second of waiting made her more anxious, she hoped it was good news on the other end.

Suddenly a rough voice shook her out of her worries, "hello... Hello?"

"Hey Sam, it's me.", she said rather softly "sorry.. I was in the midst of a lecture, had to reject the call. Any success?"

The jarring voice spoke again, this time more tenderly, " Well yeah, I called to inform you about that. I got the number; should I message it to you?"

"Sure, do."

She saw a petite figure approaching in a saree with a purse at her elbow, the sunlight made it difficult to discern any more. The figure was approaching them and her friend, being the adventurous one rushed to find out who it was. She could see her friend folding her hands into a namaste, then turn to her and wave her hand across her neck to motion her to end the call. She understood the signal and hung up after an abrupt bye. Her friend reached her within seconds of her ending the call. With the figure.

.... to be continued.

Haider: A Movie Review

Haider 

I'm writing this blog almost immediately after having watched Haider (immediately if you don't count my dinner :P) I was awaiting the movie since long and was already mesmerized by it's soulful music. Bismil and Aao na are way too good to not be favourites.


my rating- 4/5  (go watch it!)

About the movie now.
Haider has been directed by Vishal Bhardwaj and is an adaptation of Shakespeare's play hamlet. Vishal Bhardwaj has adapted the bard's play into beautiful movies before too, Maqbool (Macbeth), and Omkara (Othello) were also based on plays by him. Siddharth Roy Kapoor and Vishal Bhardwaj have co produced the film. The cast of the movie includes a melange of talent ranging from Shahid portraying the young Haider, Shraddha Kapoor playing Aisha, a journaltist, Tabu, Haider's mother, Kay Kay Menon, as Khurram Meer , Haider's uncle to Narendra Jha as Haider's father. Irrfan Khan also has a special role in the movie.

The film is set in Srinagar in 1995. Haider's father the life saving doctor brings home a wanted militant to treat him when there is a crackdown. he is taken into custody and then disappears. Young Haider returns from Aligarh to see his mother enjoying her time with Khurram, her husband's brother not long after his father was taken away. He sets out on a search to find his father who has simply disappeared. He tries every legal option and when that is exhausted resorts to unlawful ways. Haider is then determined to murder his uncle, who, he is informed, was responsible for his father's death. The film then explores the various acts of aggression and the mental upheavals experienced by a young boy.

Haider is a bold film. its a fresh piece of daring cinema. it is probably Bhardhwaj's best film so far (don't take my word for it, I haven't seen all his films) the tragic location of Kashmir fits the cinema's atmosphere perfectly and it brings forth several word-less emotions. it goes beyond the entertainment, dance-and-songs and portrays a story worth watching. the characters are all strong in there own ways and they do not try to please the audience. Haider reminded me of the kite runner, the tortured soul,  he is too. the movie calls a spade a spade. the characters play hero as well as villains at different points in the movie. it explores the various facets of the Kashmir problem and does not, at the same time, endorse any particular way or solution.
Bharadwaj explores several themes- violence is Destructive is the most dominating one. Entire families are wiped out, policemen lose their lives within the blink of an eye, the young, the old, the troubled are all a depressed lot and this is somehow augmented by the location. Clouds of smoke against the pristine white snow, pools of blood too contribute to the haunting experience. The director has also dealt with the Oedipal Complex, Haider is a man who loves his mother beyond the normal and at the same time detests her for having betrayed his father.
the dialogues are good too. sentences like 'Hum hai ya hum nahin?', bring out the unconfirmed confused identity of the people. Haider even remarks 'Pura Kashmir ek quaid khana hai'.
The movie flows beautifully before the interval, no overwhelming songs, or dances and no melodrama. The second half however feels extremely long and towards the end one gets impatient due to the lengthy duration of the film.The music is nice and rustic. Some local songs have also been incorporated like Rosh Vallo; other than Khul  Kabhi which feels unnecessary and needless, the other songs blend into the movie and transport the viewer forcing her/him to feel the emotions of the scene.
There is flawless acting on the part of Tabu. she brings out the desire of Ghazala to experience happiness in conflicting, tragic situations and be denied of it every single time. She carries a major part of the film. Kay Kay Menon convinces one of his finesse in acting, he play the villain and the hero with equal grit. Shahid in the beginning feels disconnected however gradually the actor comes to own the role, he cries, screams, laughs, fights with equal passion. Shraddha does not have much role, the little that she has, she portrays confidently.
All in all, Haider is a must watch for people who are tired of entertainment movies. It leaves the audience with food for thought and is haunting and appealing at the same time.                 

Te Amo

( Gosh, my love for Spain and Spanish seems to be spilling into the titles! :P English next time, promise! )

Love. It is really one of the most used and abused word in our vocabularies. Ask a guy who hardly knows English, he will invariably know the meaning of 'love' even if he doesn't know the number of alphabets in the language! Love has been romanticized, idealized, worshiped and what not in the past. There are legendary love stories, pray, who hasn't heard of Romeo and Juliet? Or our very own Heer and Ranjhanna? Bollywood churns out movie after movie on the same theme : love. Our daily soaps cry for change!
(Obviously it's of no avail. )
Here I'm not going to further raise the status of love but rather present my views on it. They may, rather, they are cynical, but are mine and in no way wish to alter your views forcefully on the subject.
Love to me is humorous, silly. 

1. People in love are always consumed in thoughts
Thoughts about? Heavens know what! But you always see them thinking, musing with all seriousness, as if the future of the human race hangs on their pensive thoughts. Break their train of thoughts and they still seem disconnected. You have to repeat your description (from the beginning, yes!) for them all again. 

Yeah!

2. The wrong people always end up together.
The people who you least expect to see together take their vows of eternal love in front of your eyes! The Byronic hero/heroine gets the athlete, the poet gets the cheerleader, the sports king/queen gets the extrovert, and so on.. And even though reading them here does not make you realize the intensity of harm done to the universe by such "couples", you should take my word for it. It is always weird, at times super-funny too!

3. PDA
Need I say more? 

4.Silly names, rituals and wishes
Why on earth will you be liked to be called "puchu", "guchu" or wait, how about "tweety"? There are tons more I've heard people say. Some force you to stifle a laughter and look all serious and continue with utmost normalcy whatever you were doing. Tough.
Good morning, goodnight, good class, etc., etc. The wishes and simultaneous rituals don't seem to have an end. Exhausting. 

5. Stories you don't wish to hear.
Everyone has that one friend who tells you snippets of their life, even though you beg them to stop. From how they picked up their partner's pen to what the other has/had for lunch, nothing is left out and while your friend is telling you about it, you are busy planning an escape route! God be with you!

The Tremors

I had no intention of dedicating a post to this topic, I'm not much of a Geography-Geology enthusiast. But. what happened back yesterday deserves a post!

As all my class-mates already know, it's summer-vacation-time and we have our exams the very first day our educational institution re-opens. So yup, we are supposed to study this whole vacation for the tests! Not that I dislike the vacation study part, I personally take a lot of time to understand a single lesson, sometimes even four to five days (yes, that's abnormal I know) and am usually crammed for time to finish all my lessons. My speed, no wonder. So I'm really glad about the vacations. 
Yesterday I wasn't reading any lesson, I had decided to take a Two-Day-Long-Break to just, you know, rewind and refresh (ya, I know that's abnormal too :P ). So I was lying down on my bed wondering about the various ways our new Prime Minister-in-Waiting could change the country within the next sixty months, when my cell phone rang. It was my cousin and we soon began to babble about a melange of issues. After we finished all we could think of talking at that time, I handed over the cell to my sister who had just walked into the room.
I went out to the drawing room to catch up on IPL. Barely had I sat down on the sofa, when I felt the ground trembling. For a moment I felt I was imagining and feeling things that weren't even real.I told dad that I felt the ground shaking, expecting my statement to elicit a roar of laughter from everyone in the room, but thankfully it didn't. Dad said he felt it too. It suddenly struck me that it could be An Earthquake and within no time my mind flashed images of the moving tectonic plates, just like the ones i had drawn in my geography test back in eighth grade.

Without even a moment's thought I yelled "RUN!" and just as soon as I said it there was a second round of shake and this one was way more stronger. I bellowed out to my sister who was on the phone to run out and I dashed out of the house. Almost immediately my sister and parents followed. My neighbors too, rushed down the apartment,all in their night-suits (it was around 10 in the night, what do you expect?). Everyone began asking if everyone else was fine and related things. some of my neighbors who live on one of the higher floors said they saw their furniture moving. My mother was of the same opinion about our house.
After about 15 minutes of a desperate wait for nature's fury to stop all of us decided to go back in. As usual, I was the first one in. I entered my room to check if everything was alright, what hit was another sudden realization- I was shivering.
I don't know since when I had been shivering or for that matter 'why' I was shivering. I blame adrenaline now (fight-or-flight, remember?) . Soon everyone was home and we dined quietly and retired to our beds after having thanked god.

When I think of it now, I'm just so glad to have gone through this experience. It was such a different zone altogether. It makes me think how assured we are about our lives, of  how a slight tremor gets people rushing out of their homes. It makes me wonder about how guaranteed we take Nature and her laws, of how small and insignificant we, as humans, are compared to her.In all the chaos of the earthquake and the subsequent effects it had on people, one thing is crystal clear- The Earth does not belong to the Humans, Humans belong to the Earth.

How To Read Khaled Hosseini

Well isn't a set of hard and fast rules you need to follow in order to read Khaled Hosseini's books, this post might just help you read and understand him and his books better.

1. Khaled Hosseini books are ALWAYS an emotional roller-coaster:

 Be mentally prepared to face a lot of ups and downs in his books. There is a twist here, and then, a turn there. There are even dramatic revelations when you least expect them. Like in The Kite Runner the Truth about Hassan is so dramatic that it took me a while to put the story back together and join all the pieces together. There are moments of elation, even universal happiness if I may so, and within a few pages you might already start feeling sorry for that high you felt.

2.Try To Start Reading On a Weekend:


 This one might not apply for every reader, but it did for most of my friends. They started reading on a week day and they soon found themselves unable to work, play or concentrate on something else wholeheartedly. Their mind kept reeling back to the book, it's story, its characters and what would happen next. That is the Power of a Khaled Hosseini book, it's addictive and it has something for everyone. So try to begin reading when you have enough time to spare. It can be a weekend or a vacation or whenever you feel you'll be able to read the book at a stretch without neglecting your work or play.

3. Keep a Tissue Nearby:

  If you cry at the sad scenes in the movies or at despairing and sorrowful parts in books, it's better to keep a tissue handy. Khaled Hosseini's books are filled with Lilliputian details which might at times get the better of your emotions. and before you know it tears will be coursing down your cheeks. Also at times, the book will get you're adrenaline running, the tissue might help with the sweat too.

4.  Be Ready for Some Farsi and Urdu Words:


  Needless to mention there are word directly from Farsi and rarely even Urdu. they don't fill the entire text up, and it is not like you will not understand the book if you don't know their meaning. Mostly, Hosseini gives the meaning of the words in the context they are being said very soon after they've been used, sometimes it's the immediate next thing after the word. However, in order to get what I call The Feel of The Book, try to get the meanings of the words and find out under what circumstances they are usually used.

5. Let the Story Flow:


 Numerous themes are there in Hosseini books, all interwoven beautifully. Try your best not to abandon the book before it's over. The story might get slow at times but Do Not give up. Don't try to think of alternative tracks for the novel till you finish it, after all the writer put it all there after considerable thought. So, basically just let it Flow.