HOW NOT TO SAVE A LIFE

“She learnt a long time back that as hard as you might try and fit in, if you are not meant to, you never will.

How will you fit into a place where you don’t understand the people? Fitting into a world that does not understand simple acts of kindness or nicety and only view it as an attempt to impress or gain some extra favours.

She often sat and wondered if the world was really that stupid or was it just so self absorbed that if you did not confirm t its standard of thinking or were different there was no place for you.

She never really fit in anywhere. She never belonged here. She was forever lonely, more often than not misunderstood and used. No one remembered her in moments of joy but only in moments of sadness as the one shoulder always there.

Probably the thing that was killing Zoya all along more was not the cigarettes, the coffee or the excessive alcohol, but the immense feeling of loneliness and not being understood… Having no one who would take out a minute to look into her eyes and see the longing to be wanted for more than the shoulder for support.

Old and new friendships, family, and colleagues - no one knew her. All they knew about her was she was always there but no one ever knew how to be there for her. Somehow they never really understood what she needed, more often than not a simple hug.

Flipping through the pages of her life, I realize that the rust of loneliness was slowly damaging the core of her soul and soon it had hollowed her existence and eventually killed her over the 30 odd years of her life.

That void consumed her and saddens me more now when I go one further thru the pages of Zoya’s life.

I wish I had known her more while she was alive; I might have been able to help her know that while it was alright to be alone sometimes, there were some who did want to understand her more.

But I never mustered the courage and may be I never actually understood her while she was alive. After all too am a part of this cruel unkind world!

May be if I had reached out a little earlier, I might have saved a life…”

CAN WE MAKE A CHANGE OR NOT????

Six months back, India and Delhi especially erupted into mass protest because of young girl who was called 'Nirbhaya'... Six months down the line all of us are sitting silently even though every day we here not only of women, but little girls being brutalized, raped and damaged...

How can we all sit silent? Not only do I ask everyone else, I ask myself too? How can we all sit silent... May be it is time we all fight one battle a day? One protest a day?

2014 is not far away and may be it is time we force those in power to do something more!

Snippet

He walked out of that lawyers office and the weather had changed... The day the sky cried silent soft tears. Silent drops of rain, the overcast skies wept, for she had left!

She left behind the world she so loved, and yet it was the world that had never treated her right.

She left behind the world that never understood her childlike innocence, her belief and faith in humanity, or her stupidity to always see the beauty and decency in people!

The world would soon forget her for good! Yet there would remain a few like me who would cry like this overcast sky, whenever we think of her while we miss her!

Tears shall fall out of our eyes, silently weeping like the sky!

Announcing Aurat Bandh 26th December 2012

Announcing Aurat Bandh

26th December 2012

From 1947 to 2012, India has seen many a Bharat Bandh, Gujjar Bandh, Maharashtra Bandh etc. etc and we’ve all seen innumerable times the mechanics of these bandhs and how they do NOT function.

A woman gets gang raped in a moving bus and the country stands spineless. What do we as women get to hear – “Don’t step out of the house, don’t go anywhere unaccompanied, don’t wear revealing clothes – in short they would prefer if we would stop living.”

Since the government of this nation fails us yet again, it is now time to take matters into our own hands.

45% of our Corporate Workforce are women. If we come together and boycott all work for day, at home or in the office - we can bring the country to a standstill and force society to finally recognize our rights and appreciate us.

It's time we stand up for our rights and security.

This call goes out to ALL the women in the nation for an AURAT BANDH to pledge our solidarity to the innumerable women being victimized simply for being women.

Let us not do any work for one day and let's see how the society manages to function. 

Also one would like to clarify that this isn’t about women staying at home to be safe. On the contrary, it is about how much women contribute economically and sociologically to a society.

The aim is for men to see the least amount of women on the streets, in offices and all other familiar places not doing the things they are used too.

This is all about the power women have in any given social economical situation.

Aurat Bandh is about telling one and all that while we cannot function without a safe environment, repeatedly being victimized for being women; even an economy and society cannot function without our contribution.

Not Bharat Bandh but an Aurat Bandh on December 26, 2012.

For Further information:

Noor Enayat

Zoya's 365 days

I found a calendar in that box with days struck off, month after month. Above every struck off month was the total number of days written, as if she counted each day that went by.

As I flipped further to see where this led to I reached December 25th and there these lines were penned in the margin in Zoya familiar slant:

365 days have gone by since I saw you last. 

365 days since I felt peace wash over my being,

365 days since your scent filled up my senses.

365 days, and I have stopped looking for you,

365 days but I havent stopped wanting you, 

365 days and life has moved,

365 days and the world is still.

365 days and I breathe and I die,

365 days since I have been dead yet I am alive

365 days I've spent with bathed breath, 

hoping to catch a small glimpse while I wander the streets

365 days just waiting to see the wondrous sight of you

365 days waiting to see the sun shine down  your hair

365 days hoping to see the moon light bathe your skin

365 days wanting to see the stars twinkle when I see them in your eyes.

365 days

Hoping and Waiting, 

Wanting and Wasting, 

365 days spent Wilting.

365 days living

while dying!