Open and Closed Spaces

He woke up with a strange heaviness in his head . His eyes too were red and puffy.
Right above his bedside was a poster that he had been given in a workshop long back.

It read 'You are never alone in Schizophrenia'

I read somewhere that one in every hundred people in India suffer from this disease and yet so many people in todays world have not even heard of this word . I have come across people who have looked puzzled on hearing this word , some have nodded in agreement and told me that they knew what it was as they had watched the Russell Crowe starrer 'The Beautiful Mind'.

This blog post is my attempt in explaining an illness that continues to intrigue me . It is an illness characterized by hallucinations, disorganized thinking and social withdrawal . It is another thing hearing about it and it is a completely different world if you are actually living it .

Doctors all over the world are trying to understand this disease . A lot of research is going on to understand if this can ever be cured . Some say in the years to come , they will find a cure which will involve putting a chip in the brain to take care of the chemical imbalances in the brain .
All this is too good to hear . And I am glad that there are people who are working on it.
What bothers me the most is why the medical community does not realize that social factors too play an important role in the outcome of this disease.While doctors treat one part of the illness, they potentially complicate another part of the illness that being of social withdrawl .

A patient begins to feel different from the rest , he begins to realize how his illness makes him behave differently , react differently and gradually with time he accepts that he is less than others in terms of health and happiness and that he may not be able to lead a normal life .

Who treats that? No one.

It is definitely a benefit that back in India families play a crucial role . Families stick together like a rock and help the patient cope up with the illness . But what about the families? Someone has to be there to guide them. Someone has to be there to tell them what to do , what not to do. There is no one in the medical community who is thinking of that . Atleast not in India.

Medical doctors need to think about this . They need to think why mental illnesses are only aimed at treating the brain , at controlling the chemical imbalances in the brain..in the body?

What about the rest?And what role do people like us have to play in fixing yet another problem ? A disease with a problem or a problem with a disease?

I wonder how much better it is in western countries...

Happy birthday to me ...

It is that time of the year again . The time when your family and friends wait impatiently for the clock to strike 12 and then your friends call you to wish you . Your family waits to find time with you so that they can also let you know how happy they are for you on your birthday .

And I sit here by the windown , looking out and wondering where life is headed , what lies next , how old is too old , how young is too young to die , how people are desperately searching for a worldview to match their thoughts , how we all are always looking for agreements and searching for the commonalities between us...how we all are same and yet so different...how home is where the heart is....and the heart knows no boundaries , no limits ...how love is so difficult to define ,how love crosses all boundaries laid out by us ...how important it is to remember those who make you what you are today...how those books played a role in shaping your character...how life every now and then takes you by surprise ...the fun of living life without knowing what happens next and the sleeplessness that comes with it...
How we speak the language of love and kill in the name of God?...

And how we all are the same...in search of that eternal happiness .

Happy Birthday to me .

Peace be upon us .


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMo9vNVkPOs&feature=fvw

-This is also the official theme song for FIFA World Cup 2010. Beautiful song .

The Big Eyes syndrome

'The girl is nice . She has a good job.Family too , is sweet. The only thing that is missing are big eyes'

Those are the exact words from one of my aunts about a prospective bride for her son.

My family has an obsession with big eyes. Strangely enough , all of us have big eyes . Big eyes of all sizes and shapes -oval , round , bulging , puffy ,deer shaped eyes etc.

My teachers back in school remember me as the girl with the big eyes .
I would often as a child, be an experiment for young girls in JNU to try on eye make up . My mom used to have a heart attack looking at her 4 year old daughter with all sorts of eye shades , eye mascara , eye liners . But to be honest , I sort of ....in a way ...loved that :) Who wouldn't I? C'mon you are 4 years old and people are looking at you...hmmm...i mean your eyes and wondering how to make it look prettier . Those days were too good for my (size 0) ego .Perhaps if it was not for my brother's constant teasings and his remarks about how I shouldn't laugh when his friends were around coz of how ugly my teeth looked back then(yes, I wore braces for a year!), I would have grown up into an annoying,self-conceited,vain,full of myself kind of girl .

Growing up with big eyes has its own pros and cons . Back in school , my friends would push me to the canteen to ask the canteen owner for a free burger . They'd tell me to just blink my eyes a couple of times while talking . And yes it used to work...well not always...but sometimes the plan fell into place!
In the classroom , the boys would call me all sort of names . "Cyclops" is the one I remember so well . I hated being called "cyclops".
I looked up the meaning of this word in the dictionary and this is what it says -
'Any of the three one-eyed Titans who forged thunderbolts for Zeus.'

:(

When the boys in the class sat behind me and just in case their view was blocked...they'd ask me to move my eyes...instead of asking me to move a bit . It is like all they saw in me were my eyes !

And then there were the nice uncles and the numerous aunties who told me how lovely my eyes looked . A few years later, my college friends told me the same including the boys this time .

When I worked in Singapore and Malaysia ...after a couple of months....I noticed that most girls at work had suddenly started wearing a lot of eye make-up. My friends had a good laugh thinking how my big eyes had given them a huge complex,how it was a huge blow to their egos !

Sleeping too ,with big eyes isn't easy just like waking up with big eyes . When people with big eyes sleep in deep sleep , sometimes though very rarely ...their eyes open up a teeny weeny bit. Now that can be scary for some people and cute for others . And don't even get me started about waking up with big eyes ! In one word...it is not very easy .

Last but not the least , it is true that it is easy to read one's mind just by looking into big eyes . I have had major issues hiding my tears , pretending to look happy or sad whenever needed and the worst of all...to LIE. Even if people like us lie and do a good job at it...we think in our heads how the other person must have known that it was all a lie. Eventually we end up telling the truth and at times also end up making a fool of ourselves .

Despite all this...I personally feel eyes...big or small...black ,blue or brown,big or small eyelashes ...it doesn't really matter .

What matters is what brand of eye make up you use !!! :))

On a serious note , it never mattered to me and hopefully it never will .
Eyes just like everything else can be beautiful as long as you are beautiful...but then what is beautiful ?

Beautiful is what appears beautiful to you....as some great man once said ..beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.

Cheers to that .

Some funny commericials that I recently watched. Quite understandably one of them is banned . You decide which one ? ;)


1.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT86iWiH2mI&feature=related

2.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-OqKWXirsU&feature=related

3.And last but not the least -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUEkOVdUjHc&feature=related

Her Story...

The alarm rang for the third time.Hesitantly,she got out of bed and then decided that just maybe she could manage to sleep for another ten minutes. Ten minutes sleep in the morning is the best sleep ever .

She closed her eyes and dozed off to sleep .

When she looked up again , she couldn't believe her eyes . It was half past ten and she was late. LATE...again . All these years Shelly had struggled to be on time but somehow she was always late . She was late for her interview , she was late in meetings , she was late for those early winter morning walks in lodhi gardens back in Delhi ,she was also late when she gave birth to her son (late by 2 weeks).

And if that was not enough ,she was also late in understanding things , in realizing the consequences of her actions. She enjoyed living in the moment and she took pride in having lived through her past. So much was the fun of living life this way that she, at times forgot the role the present plays in shaping one's future .

Gypsy looked up at her . It was the same disappointed look she would give her whenever she was late . Gypsy , their labrador was one of her most prized possessions -second best after her three year old son .

Shelly was a cheerful person during the day . But as the sun would set , her heart would start sinking . Everything would come back to life in her memories. She would lay still for hours in her bed every night and would just think about those times . Sometimes she would try to distract herself . She did everything she could. Prayed to God , listened to music , watched television , read books,spent time with gypsy,with her son . All this seemed to work but only temporarily.

Now she hated herself especially in the nights. She was tired -physically,mentally. A lot of times she wanted to give up and just talk about all this with someone but then each time her son would sleep in her arms ...she realized how important it is for her to keep herself going.

She had grown to like the person she had married. He did everything right for her . Deep down , Shelly knew that it was not him but her who was holding herself back...who even after trying for years couldn't love him the way she had once loved.
Despite all her shortcomings , he cared for her and she silently thanked God that she had him .She knew how difficult it was to live with a person like her -A person who was emotionally bruised and battered .

A few years back , her friends told her it was a matter of time . She believed all that and told herself that time has to heal all wounds .Hers too , would heal.She believed that she would be kicking and laughing all over again .

And now after almost fifteen years , she did laugh .She went for parties , had a social life -a small one ,she did everything she had to to move on . At one point , when the memories started bothering her less....she revelled in the thought that finally she had found the closure that she was seeking for all these years .

But then all the times that she thought her life changed for good or bad..she'd remember him,she would remember his face ,his hair,his laugh -the way his eyes would shrink each time he'd laugh, his jokes and his tears too just like she did on the day she got married , the day she gave birth to her son...On days like that she would rush to the bathroom and cry .
Tears would well up in her eyes and the memories would again come back to her,to haunt her , to remind her the life she had once wanted to live but could not . The reasons were of no significance now. She had been through all that turmoil in her head a million times.

Who was right , who was wrong ,what was destined , what wasn't meant to be etc? All that and more - She had done it all . All she knew was the life she was left with and this is what mattered to her now .
The rest was something she did to tell herself how this was meant to be , how this is what God..if there is a God ...wanted her to live her life . All this helped her to cope up ,to smile , to laugh , to live...the little bit of life that was left inside her.

She looked up at the clock in her bedroom . It was 6 pm.A tear trickled down her left cheek.She had learnt to live with those tears .
The whole day , she had sat and thought about all this .

She could see the crimson coloured sky and knew that the sun had set . With the setting sun and coming of darkness , she mustered all her courage and got up from her bed to face another night -Another night of restlessness , of trying to forget and then trying to remember . She wanted to get rid of her memories and yet hold on to it .

Despite all the pain those memories had given her , she knew deep down how special she was to have lived through those and what it had brought into her life.
It made her realize now , what she had missed in this life .

With a deep sigh , she got up and wondered if there was a next life and how she couldn't wait to live that new life the way she had once dreamt of .