The illusion of escape

Days keep passing through and you find yourself following a rather mundane routine. It is mundane purely because nothing much changes, not because it is highly boring or exhaustive (which it is, in most cases). You do all of it only for one respite - for being able to get away from all the hassle for good. Until that magical day comes about, you believe in taking short 'escapes' in an attempt to relax your mind and recuperate.

Does it really help? Coming to think of it, almost all of us only look for an opportunity to escape a situation, even if it is for a few days. Can you really make your mind not think about a particular situation for a day or two? Especially, when that situation is a part of your immediate present. The answer is a resounding 'No'. Do not try to refute this hypothesis right away. Give yourself a minute to think and then, decide.

Here is the second part of the puzzle. The important thing to understand is that we tend to find ways to escape a thought or an emotion or even stress (the modern day reality nobody really accepts). Some might argue that going away for a while helps them escape the stress or the sadness in their mind. Does it? If it does, you are among the luckiest and belong to a club which is very small. Most of us struggle to do it. We go away for a few days only to revisit those thoughts in our mind, as we have considerably more time to introspect, and at large, revisit the fear of getting back to the situation again.

This illusion of escape has caught up in the last decade or so with so much changing in people's lifestyles. Your life today essentially thrives on two terms - reality and escape. There are a few lucky ones who have managed to make their 'escapes' a reality where as the majority is still lingering between the two. I am no different. I find myself thinking about this every single holiday that just breezes past me before I even realise it.

The point that needs to be understood from this little hypothesis is that there is no point trying to find the 'big escape' and keep dreaming about it. It is far more fruitful to indulge in smaller escapes in your daily routine that relieve you and make you smile. This could be as simple as eating something that you absolutely love or going out with a friend and genuinely having a conversation, not just a 'pseudo' one (more on this in a separate blog post).

Sounds like something you have already read plenty of times? If yes, why have not you done something about it? Take some time and give it a thought. You will soon understand that the mad chase is not worth it at all. I am not asking you to stop dreaming. I am a dreamer myself. It is just that I have learnt to tell myself the truth and stop living in a state of denial. It is not easy to do but believe me, you are not the only one trying.

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Choose your listeners wisely

Our mind is never idle. There is no hibernate mode we can switch it to. It is impossible to keep our heads clear of thoughts, fears, opinions, or stories of our past experiences, even for a second. Along with this, comes an urge to let it out in one manner or the other. Some choose to write it in their secret diaries (wonder how long they remain a secret) while some choose to express it to a person they believe would understand it.

As shrewd as it might seem, not everybody cares to even respect what you have to say let alone understanding it. The virtue of lending an ear to somebody with an open mind while being sensitive to the other person’s emotions is fading in today’s world. More often than not, minutes into the exercise people become busy in judging you and painting you with a brush they use to categorise ‘people like you’.

I remember an instance where I learnt it the hard way. I used to discuss few of my life’s challenges with a few friends in college. On one such occasion, I was telling a friend how worried I was about arranging for the fees which had to be paid for the second year of my Bachelor’s degree. After listening to me (or to my cribbing/bickering as some would term it), she asked me why I kept cribbing about my problems and never did anything about it.

It sent jitters down my spine and I could not believe what she had said. However, coming to think of it, I gave her an opportunity to pronounce a judgement on me. I do not blame her for saying what she did. We can never control everybody’s perception about ourselves and our lives. In my defence, I merely wanted to discuss things with a friend to get a different perspective on my ideas and see how I can improve my efforts. Only I and my family knew how I ran around desks of different bank officials trying to obtain an educational loan in vain.

This is when I learnt that I need to choose my listeners carefully. Since then, I have consciously worked on what exactly I discuss with different kinds of people. I might have won a few battles while working at it but there is still a lot I need to do. However, I do not endorse being sceptical about everybody you know. You definitely need to share your thoughts and experiences with people because it helps you evolve as an individual. Different people lend you different perspectives which help you in the longer run.

Try to know somebody with an open mind, lay your trust on the goodness inside them, and become good listeners yourself. Remember it has to be mutual. If you cannot respect your listener’s advice or opinion on whatever you said, please do not go beyond talking to yourself in the mirror waiting for your conscience to wake you up to reality.

Close-ended questions: the biggest error in cold-calling

The training I received at my first job, at a US call center in Panchkula, taught me a few tricks when it came to converting cold calls to sales leads. One of the tricks was to never ask a customer a close-ended question. A question is called close-ended when the answer to it is either yes or no. Clichéd examples include – “Is the right time to talk to you?” or “Would you be interested in it?”

It is a given that every answer has a consequence and at all times, we like to be in our favour or for our greater good. When you ask a customer or a client a close-ended question, he/she puts the thinking hat on and wonders what the consequences of both the answers would be. Any layman can predict what I am going to say next. On a sales call, a client’s ‘no’ is not going to have a negative impact on him/her unless you convince him/her of that. On the other hand, a ‘yes’ could mean an outflow of a certain amount from the company’s or the individual’s account.

In this scenario, a ‘no’ is definitely an easier way out. Therefore, more often than not, a 

customer or a client is going to opt for it over a ‘yes’. How do you change it then? It begins with a simple step – do not give him/her an option. Instead, explain what the consequences of both those answers would be and eventually, lead him/her to a point where he/she would believe that saying a ‘yes’ would be far better than saying a ‘no’.

Rather than asking if it is the right time to talk to him/her, try saying – “I am calling you with an opportunity worth the ten minutes you are going to spend listening to me”. Start simple and change it every single time you approach somebody. Once you have the listener’s attention, take charge of the conversation, make him/her comfortable enough, and lead him/her to what you really wish to discuss.

Avoid close-ended questions, learn to be spontaneous on the call, and at all times, remain in charge of the conversation. This may not guarantee that every cold call would turn into a lead but it would certainly do a world of good to your confidence as a salesman/saleswoman.

Do not let the writer in you fade away

You are not a writer because you can churn out content (of any kind) for your company within tighter deadlines. You are a writer if you know how to notice a story in everything and be able to narrate it clearly. Like any other professional who writes for a living, not an author or a poet, I have let the writer in me take a back seat in the last three years as I was too busy writing to convince my boss or the audience at large.

To evolve as a professional writer, you have to adapt to the latest trends and mould yourself to suit the market and attract higher salaries. However, in the process of doing so, you must not forget to do the most important thing – that is, to write to express yourself. As ashamed I am to admit it, it has been long that I sat down to write something for myself. I have always explained my love for writing by telling others that I indulged in it to find solace in my otherwise maddening life.

Better late than never. I have decided to awaken instinctive writing that has been left buried inside me for years now. Starting today (July 24, 2016), I will write at least 100-150 words more often than not and to help me write better, I will read at least a chapter from a book. These definitely seem to be extremely low standards to set but goals like these are often the most difficult ones to achieve. Believe me when I say this as it took me two weeks to eventually write this article and begin with this challenge.

I do not expect you to take inspiration from an ordinary writer like me. However, I would request you to do everything you can to keep your zeal for writing alive. Writing for an audience is definitely important but let it not be the sole objective for everything you write. Try keeping yourself above everybody else for a change. More importantly, do not let self-doubt cloud your thinking and writing capability. You can never please everybody as you cannot control their perception of your writing. Write while being honest to yourself and readers who relate to you and your words will support you no matter what happens.

I don’t remember him

A recurrent question crosses my mother’s mind whenever she talks about her married life and our childhood. A question that she always asks me but never gets an affirmative answer for. She looks at me, asks me, “Do you have any memories of your father?” It leaves me with a stream of thoughts in my mind which try to dig up those childhood memories of which my father was a part of. All these years, I have been making an effort to recall those memories but they never seem to come to light.

Astoundingly, I don’t remember his face, voice, touch or anything else related to him. His image in my mind is a construct of whatever my mother has told me about him, be it his face, dressing sense, personality or even his love for me. My pursuit for finding the reason for this to be happening to me ends abruptly.

I was a child who was still in the initial stages of getting a grasp of what things were around him. It was my third birthday when he left us. I could barely speak or think for myself. Being a child who started mumbling very late, my mother was still teaching me to call ‘Mumma’ and ‘Papa’. Even after a month of his death, I used to keep a pillow beside me waiting for him to come and sleep right next to me, as he always did. Not even tall enough to see things for myself, I would just look up to my mother and call her, “Mummma….Muuummmaa.” There was a reason why I wasn’t aware of the truth and couldn’t express myself through words. It all seemed God’s plan to save me from knowing the biggest truth of life – death.

Sigmund Freud seems to have an answer for what has happened to me. Of what one would assess of my situation based on his theory, the memory of my father is a repressed memory in my mind. Had I recalled things about him, I would have always got hit with a lot of grief having lost him so early. Unfortunately, I would always regret not being able to remember anything about my father, anything at all, apart from whatever I have heard.

Although I wasn’t blessed to live with my father and experience his love, I owe him a lot. It is a part of his inheritance that has brought me to the place I am today. I feel sad for his absence but the fact that I cannot even recall him pierces my mind even more. I devote my prayers for his soul to always rest in peace. My inner self asks me, “How can you not remember your father? How? Don’t you love him? Would his soul feel happy about it?” I fail to answer all these questions. Eventually, I leave for another fruitless stroll down the memory lane, only to find more questions with no answers.

“Easy answers: God’s answering,” Albert Einstein

The life of one of the world’s greatest minds was coming to an end at Princeton Hospital in Princeton, New Jersey, USA. He was assigned a special ward with a nurse to take care of him in days which would turn out to be his last days. Even if it was going to be his last hours alive, all he had with him was his notes, glasses and basic stationary. Astonished by his meticulous approach to his work, she asked him if he would ever stop working and rest. To which he answered that he would not until he finds answers to his questions. To this, she asked him that did all questions have an answer to them. Trying to defend his relentless urge for finding answers, he said, “I don’t know. But, I will keep searching for answers to my questions.”

Giving all of us a message, he said that we should keep finding the answers to our questions because there is no reason why God would hide something from us. Adding to this and eventually making a statement that would inspire anyone, he said that as soon as we start finding answers easily, it meant that God was answering. With this, Professor Albert Einstein, regarded as one of the greatest scientists of all time, left an impact on my mind. This particular statement of his made me take a pledge in life that I will never stop finding answers to what I want to know and I want to do. I always believed in the fact that God gives us what we deserve and this statement certainly made my belief stronger.

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Like every one of us, I went through a set of experiences in my life that have moulded me in what I am today. At present, I have a lot to look forward to, challenges and joys alike. Considering this, I believe in Einstein’s words and pledge to keep fighting until I find answers or solutions to the problems in my life. Probably, all of us should take this up as a principle in our life and dedicate all our strength in doing something that we believe in.

As Einstein puts it, no one can be sure of the fact that he would find answers to all his questions. But it’s the quest for those answers that is more important. It’s this quest that requires persistent determination and eventually the answers would come to light. We need to give it all what we have and strive for the solutions. After all, fortunes are not written, they are made.

Digital activism: Bringing minds together

The phenomenon of change is indeed inevitable. But, what is it that brings about a change? Is it an act of God or there lies a driving force within us? In any case, it is the outcome of driving force within every human mind, which once channelised and brought together can create wonders. History has duly noted how various human minds have come together for a cause and brought about a change. Revolution, as we call it, is not possible without collective and coherent action. What is it that makes it possible?

Leaders across the world have used various tools to propagate their ideologies and bring about a revolution, both for the good and bad. Some have failed and have faded with time, but few have created history. Besides history, this is true in the case of today’s world as well. Is such a revolution possible, considering the fact that each one of us lives a completely different life? Is it possible to bring us all together and make us stand up for a cause?

It is definitely possible today but only when we can bring everyone together on a common platform. A platform where they would express themselves freely and act collectively when need arises. This common platform today is the internet. Today, the majority of us live a socially connected life through internet. We live and experience an online life where in we express our opinions and ideologies free from many barriers that other-wise exist. If one has to reach out to people, specifically from certain demography, social media is the key.

Working on similar terms and fighting for their identity, is the Tibetan community, through Students for Free Tibet (SFT). Having lived in exile for years and being scattered around the world, it is a huge task for them to have a coherent existence. But this has not deterred the Tibetans, thus their cause has gained momentum through their collective effort. They have taken up this fight to gain a right that no one can be denied of - freedom. Coming from a country that has been tormented for decades now by a superpower, Tibetans are fighting for their own identity on the world map.

In order to execute this huge task and get people conscious, not only natives but people from round the world have taken up to it, through digital activism that SFT has taken up. Running campaigns aimed at lobbying for Tibet’s cause and making the governments of various countries aware of the situation in Tibet, SFT uses social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube among others as a platform to reach out to more people and eventually garner their support. This has also helped SFT to reach out to the people in China, who can be of great help in exerting pressure on the dictatorial regime of China over Tibet. “Nothing could have served the purpose better than digital activism. Our campaigns on Twitter and YouTube have helped us generating support in huge numbers worldwide,” said Rashi Jauhri, Project Co-ordinator, SFT Bangalore.

Building public opinion and collective actions through digital activism have definitely changed the norms of revolution today. While this has been testified in SFT’s efforts, it is true in the case of many other organisations that aim at progressive reforms. Digital activism has helped them making their voices count in this world, which is otherwise dominated by oppression and capitalism.

Why can’t people just move on?

If choices make our life, relationships drive it. No matter what stage of the life we are going through, relationships always affect the way we perceive our life. Relationships of all kinds, be it with the family, friends, colleagues or with the one you love, seem to decide whether you feel happy or not, at a particular stage of your life. Expecting every relationship to be a worthy one, we try our best changing ourselves according to it and trying to adapt accordingly. We tend it give it so much of importance at times that we start pursuing our happiness in them.

What happens when it does not turn out to be the way we want it to be? Majority of us feel hurt and tend to feel that everything has gone wrong. Often it leads people into depression and a stage where they lose their self-confidence. Surprisingly, some start blaming themselves and decide to live a life of solitude. One should understand that relationships when put to the test by time and reality, come out with their real worth. Any strong relationship passes the test where as the weaker ones fail miserably. When such relationships come to a standstill, it’s a warning to end them and move on, rather than taking it as a part of your past for the rest of the life.

One needs to understand that trying to hang on to such relationships never helps in the longer run. It either ends up with a guilt or regret, as to why did not you end it before? Logically, if you can’t see a possible future in a relationship, then what’s the point in extending it to a stage where it would become more difficult for you to end it? The time when a relationship becomes nothing more than a burden, should be the time when you should end it and move on in life. In the longer run, you will realise that what you did was for your own good. Sometimes, you need to be practical in life rather than just thinking emotionally. Let it go and you’ll feel good.

Men need to be tamed

From time immemorial, the good and the bad have co-existed in the world. Across societies around the world, instances of the bad causing the ugliest of experiences have always existed. Such acts do not merely end with just their occurrence but also leave an unhealed and unbearable wound on the victim’s life. The pages of history stand testimony to the bitter fact that it is mostly men who have been the ones to orchestrate the worst of acts that are humanely possible. Some of these acts haunt us in general, while the relatively or rather stereo-typically referred to as the weaker sections of society are victims at large.

Topping the list of the heinous acts committed by this most proclaimed section of society is a rape. Technically speaking, the word means an act that forces someone to have sex against their will. Is it really so simple and naive, as an act? A rape, once committed, leaves the woman’s soul tore into pieces and she is left with a challenge to rise from it and live. What adds to her pain and agony is the way society treats her. They often accuse her of being responsible for what she had gone through. Victim-blaming is what the majority of the so-called intellectuals of the society do.

       

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Is our ethnocentrism justified? First, we are incapable of protecting our women and on top of that, we blame them for what happens to them. Isn’t victim blaming just an excuse to prevent ourselves from accepting the fact that our men need to be tamed and sensitised? This attitude of always making women conscious that they should not get raped is neither fair nor justifiable. Why not try and make our men understand that they should not rape? The ruthless, cruel and imbecile men in today’s society need to be told that you can’t take out your frustrations on women; be it through a rape or domestic violence. It should be strongly placed in their beings that frustrations caused due to their own failures in life doesn’t give them a right to spoil someone else’s life. Majority of the people who actually want a solution to this issue instead of just making false promises like the government are of the same opinion. They strongly feel that sensitisation of men is the way forward.

                                            

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In spite of this, there would still be a section of men, high on ego and superiority who would continue to indulge in acts like these. For such men, or rather animals that are incapable of social conduct, chemical castration and capital punishment should be imposed by the law. For once, the bureaucrats and the people who apparently govern this country should state an example to the rest of the world. Men, specifically rapists, unable to control their sexual drive should be subjected to chemical castration. This would guarantee the elimination of one sexual animal from society every single time it’s conducted. More times this is implemented; more would be the number of secured women in society.

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Today’s men need to decide whether they want to be on the good side or the bad. Either they live like a true man with dignity and self-respect, guaranteeing women the same quality of life or they succumb to their evil desires and commit such heinous crimes, defeating the whole notion of humanity. Existence like that of an animal or a man - is a question that needs some serious thought.

Are we really cultured?

Talk about being ethnocentric, we are the toughest competition to face across the world. Every single Indian, at some point of his life, brags about the Indian culture and its history and so called purity. We are the ones who claim to maintain a certain level of ‘civilised’ behaviour with the people around us. All religious scriptures irrespective of the religion ordain us to follow a certain code of conduct when it comes to our social behaviour, especially towards the ‘weaker’ sections of society like women, children and the older ones. We scream out loud proclaiming about such value systems and ideologies in our culture? Do we actually follow them?

If you are at least alive and awake in this ‘civilised’ society, you would have witnessed or heard of innumerous unfortunate events that have taken place in recent times. Latest such event is the brutal, inhuman and horrendous gang rape of a 23-year-old girl in Delhi. If ours is a society that’s so cultured and civilised, then why doesn’t a girl or a woman feel secure stepping out of her house? If men from our own societal setup commit such inhuman acts, can we still proclaim about our culture? Can we be called cultured when one section of our society treats the ‘less in number’ section of society as some commodity to satisfy their lust?

This might be a really small issue for most of us, given the fact that such cases and instances taken place every now and then. One thing that we need to understand is that standing up and screaming on the top of our voice about the so called greatness of our culture wouldn’t fetch us anything, neither respect nor growth. Self proclamation cannot hide the darkest of truths that lie in open in our socio-cultural set up. So, the next time you see someone proclaiming the cultured behaviour of our society just ask them to sit in silence for two minutes and introspect. Make them ask themselves a question – are we really cultured?

Every penny counts

Surrendering to God’s will and adapt according to it was a lesson that I learnt at a very young age. It was my third birthday when I lost my father. My elder brother was only six years old. We both did not have any clue about what had actually happened and kept on asking our mother to tell us about it. Being the strong woman she was, my mom took a decision to bring up us both in a way that my father dreamt of. She also knew the fact that it would not be so easy for her. Whether you consider it patriarchal or not, a father is the head of the house. Everyone in the family feels secure under his leadership, although it’s circumstantial.

We moved out of our native and made our way towards the northern part of the country. Through this journey, we kept on changing domiciles and found us well-versed with a fact that money rules one’s living. My mom used her passion that is music, to earn money to bring us up. She made us both study in English medium schools which helped us in keeping up with the others. One anonymous fact that we both came across was that life was our teacher rather than the studies.

I came across the most important lesson of my life in the beautiful state of Himachal Pradesh. Me and mom used to stay there whereas my brother was studying in a boarding school in Mussorie. My mom took a huge debt to meet the expenses of making him study there. She used to work in a school there and I was studying in the third grade of the same school and staying with her. Due to the huge debt and less income, we had to go through various difficult times in terms of bad financial condition at home. The last week of any month would always prove miserable and difficult for us as there was always a shortage of money at home.

It was another day of the last week of a month. We were eagerly waiting for Mom’s salary to arrive along with my father’s EPF pension. It was almost like waiting for Christmas so that Santa comes and delivers Christmas gifts. The day went on quietly with a tense situation wherein my mom told me that there was nothing left in the kitchen to eat and probably we both have to sleep with an empty stomach. I felt helpless as I could not do anything for my mom and probably she felt the same way too.

Eventually, the night dawned upon the blue sky and it was the time for dinner. Mom came up to me and told me to complete my homework. I was a bit hungry but didn’t feel like telling mom as she would be worried. Finally we both sat together to arrange something to eat. My mom had a small pouch wherein she used to keep some money mostly some left over coins. She got the pouch and started searching it for some money. I saw only five or six coins in it which made me even sadder. Mom took out the coins and counted them; it was five rupees. I understood that this was the budget for the dinner. I got the money from her and went down to a bakery shop which was about to be closed down. I bought a piece of small bread as it was the only thing I could get for five rupees.

I came to my house upstairs, sat with mom and shared the bread with a glass of water. I didn’t know how to react to such a situation. Either to blame God for this joke or accept it as God’s will. But certainly I noted a fact in my memories that every penny in this world counts. After having the dinner, we both slept off without talking to each other as if we were two strangers with nothing to talk. Day in and day out, several memories cross my mind and even some of them shade away with the tide of time, but this memory is stuck in the deepest of roots of my mind. Now when I lead a reasonably happy life, I still breathe with a fear that a similar kind of night may be across the corner.

The Diwali of drastic contrast

As soon as one hears the word Diwali his face glows up with happiness and expectations of some gifts coming his way. As the festival is called the festival of lights, the first thing one tends to imagine about Diwali is glowing lights all over the places whether it’s a home or a shop. Many houses and shops are studded with decorations worth of thousands of rupees. As the dusk calls upon, people of all ages come out to burn crackers, to hog sweets and to see other people relishing joy and happiness. People get ready for the new year and conduct poojas to satisfy their gods to bring them prosperity and happiness. Walking down any given street on a Diwali, would screen these images in front of you.

On a second thought, is Diwali really a festival of lights for everyone and for every family? Well, one might know the answer which is, it is not. On one hand, where you see houses studded with lights, filled with children’s howling and screaming and crackers bursting to the highest of the noises, on another hand one would find some houses dark and sad as if they have been discriminated from the festivities. These are the houses where the glowing of a single bulb so that the family gets some light in the night is far more important than a cluster of decorative lights running through the whole house. The residents of such houses only pray to God so that the darkness does not cloud upon their house. The families in these houses wait for their bread winners to bring some money in by night so that they could feed their bellies. These are not the houses who through their exemplary and expensive decorations try to flaunt their wealth on the festival of lights.

According to Hindu mythology, it is a day for Lakshmi Pooja where in the members of the house worship the goddess Lakshmi so that she brings wealth and prosperity to the family in the coming new year. People in their quest to satisfy the goddess offer numerous eatables and decorative materials worth a lot of money. Somewhere in this world, lie those families who can't even afford their god and goddess’ idols to be kept at home- forget about carrying out the rituals. They don’t even have anything to offer to their own appetites  so what would they offer to the goddess. Instead of praying for the coming year, they pray that God gives them the strength to somehow survive the remaining year. Should not the goddess bless their family with wealth and prosperity? What matters the most- the grandeur of the worship or the real faith in the worship?

While gazing at the children bursting crackers and eating sweets given by their parents, you almost sense their happiness. But there lies a section of children who don’t have either a single sweet to eat or a single cracker to burst. Are these children happy? They go to various houses and shops to ask for something to eat and share with their friends. Is this a festival for them? They might not even know about the festival but they only strive for and ask from their parents the same happiness that other children feel on this same day.

Coming to the so-called normal sections of the society, even for them the festival often turns out to be a nightmare more than a sweet dream. People come out of their houses to burst crackers which they have bought from the market worth of thousands of rupees. They love to hear the noise of the bursting crackers as they feel that they have justified their act of spending a lot of money on something that vanishes off as soon as its been put to test by a flame of fire. For people who burst the crackers, the noise is selfishly very pleasing but same is not the case with others such as the elderly people and the people who don’t support the noise. Does the grand festival give you an excuse to trouble other’s privacy or health?

There is a famous saying related to the flame of a candle that beneath the flame always lies darkness. The darkness right below the candle flame shows a deep contrast between the good and the bad. Probably, the above phenomena are a part of the darkness beneath the candle of the grandeur festival of light. The attempts to make the flame bigger and brighter, increases the darkness and hence, the contrast even more. The real act of humanity would be not to increase the flame but to decrease the darkness beneath it. There’s nothing wrong with celebrating the festival but what one needs to know is that spreading lights in others’ lives in the end increases the lights of his own happiness.

  

This idea might seem a bit vague and ambitious but it’s a fact that it is possible. If one succeeds to even bring light to one life, this would add to the brightness of his celebration of the festival of light and the coming New Year.

The day I felt the importance of a shelter

It was a time in my life, when I knew absolutely nothing about my near future. I was just a young boy walking down various streets and knocking up various doors just to seek the light that would shade away the darkness in my life. I had just completed my PUC and had to drop one year from studies in order to work as my elder brother was still pursuing his graduation. I was standing on the verge of a year that would well turn out to be the worst year of my life.

This was a time when I used to travel 45 kms from my home town to Chandigarh almost every day to get an opportunity to earn. Tumbling down various streets of Chandigarh, I was searching for a job to meet my family’s domestic expenses. And then finally one day, I got a job in a U.S. call center in Panchkula (a city right next to Chandigarh). It was a night shift job and I was asked to come for the training for the initial week.

I was glad to have found an opportunity that would solve my and my family’s problems to some extent. But I never knew that I was about to encounter various truths of life during this year. One such day arrived; I travelled for two hours in the bus right to my new office for another day of training. It was dusk when I reached my office. Eagerly waiting for the training to start, thousands of thoughts went through my mind- whether I will be able to do it or not.

Suddenly my Training Manager comes up and tells me that the training for the day has been cancelled as most of the trainees have not turned up for the day. I was initially relieved but soon worried as I knew I might not get a bus back to my town, it was already 8:30 p.m. Looking at the clock, I said to myself either I sleep off in the office or sleep at Chandigarh Bus Stand. I got tensed for a moment, and then suddenly one of the new trainees asked me to stay over at his place. I felt awkward but then agreed.

As we both made our way to the bus stop next to our office, I thought of going to the bus stand and try getting back home. The other guy agreed and I caught a bus and reached the bus stand. It was half-covered with darkness with people waiting for their late night buses and platform vendors making their way back to their homes.

I came down to the platform from where I could catch a bus to my town, but only got my hopes slammed after hearing that the latest bus was at 6:00 a.m. in the morning. Deep in my thoughts, I knew that I had to survive the whole night at the same platform. I took the notebook which I had in my hand and placed it below my head to let myself doze off.

I tried very hard to sleep but the noises around me kept on digging my head. I could easily hear people talking while boarding their buses and conductors whistling and howling as they prepared to make their move. As the night grew older, it started becoming chilly. I had to nothing to cover myself with. Same was the case with the dogs sleeping at a distance from me and people sleeping as they had to board their buses early morning. This was the time I came to know the importance of my home and shelter. I felt very lucky that every day I went back home, I used to get food from my mom and sleep under a proper shelter. Every night I felt secured and relaxed. But this night was not the same.

I was literally shivering due to the cold winds blowing around me. I felt disgusted but in a way also lucky that it was just a single night for me to go through. I realised the reality of the famous saying that when you go through some pain, then only you come across the pain felt by others. I somehow managed to spend the night gazing at the lights in the bus stand and taking small naps out of sheer fatigue. Then, finally I got the first bus in the morning and thanked my fate for being a bit supportive. I kept on fighting the various thoughts that came to my mind while making my way back to my town. As soon as I reached our home, I shared the experience with mom and slept off to get ready for another day.