“No one has ever become poor by giving.”

–Anne Frank

 

It is often quoted that taking even small steps of philanthropy leads to having an abode in heaven. But if I were to rephrase it, then I would say 'Small steps of philanthropy not only leads to having an abode in heaven, but also making other's life a nirvana. Try giving teaching an underprivileged child how to draw, write, read or dance, feed a stomach that hasn't consumed any food in 12 hours, give a home to that animal who look for a shelter in rain and see the heart-whelming happiness and satisfaction you'll experience at their pleasure. Yes, even small acts of kindness make a big difference, might not in your life but in other's life it surely does. 

 

If you're confused about where to start? Or you don't know where is that place that can help you in making a difference in other's life?  Or even you're looking for that platform that can guide you forward? 

#LivingMyPromise is just that platform. A community of people (Indians) who share your zeal and desire of providing the society by giving 50% or more of their wealth and fortune to philanthropic causes either through their will or during their whole lifetime. The people involved inspire each other to participate in different causes and to do the right thing. Anyone affluent who has a net worth of above 1 crore can make this promise. 

The reason it is for people with a net worth of more than 1 crore is basically to ensure that the people who are promising and associating with them contribute a significant amount of money to charity without affecting their pocket or lifestyle as well. 

At present, a lot of people are associated with the initiative promising their half or more than half fortune towards charitable activities. The initiative works efficiently towards different causes by organizing events often. The recently conducted past events by them are:-
1) The young too can be givers - An event to know what are the views of generation z and millennials towards charity, philanthropy and inheritance.
2) Dolphin Tank - An event inspired by the Shark Tank to support young NGO start-ups and many more.

One can find more information about the initiative through the following handles:-
A) Official Website - https://livingmypromise.in/
B) Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/livingmypromise/?hl=en
C) Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/livingmypromise

Joining the initiative will not only bring a change in other's life but yours as well. Before I end this blog I can certainly say the people associated are really winning hearts and adding just good wishes along with blessings from all the people whose lives changed for the better. 

 

Thanks for all your kindness, love and thoughtfulness #LivingMyPromise! 

- By MeeRa

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Note: The pictures used in this blog does not belong to me rather to the LivingMyPromise initiative and other respective owners. The poster used here is my own work on the other hand and I own the copyrights for the poster.

 

PROTAGONIST SUPREMACY ALL AROUND!

“Perfect heroines, like perfect heroes, aren't relatable, and if you can't put yourself in the protagonist's shoes, not only will they not inspire you, but the book will be pretty boring.”

-          Cassandra Clare

What do you understand by a Protagonist? What is that one thing that clicks in your mind when you come across this word? The main character, the hero/heroine, the person or character around whom the story revolves – aren’t these the thoughts that occurs in your mind? If further, then maybe the character which should have the most character development by the end of the story. But have you ever considered the fact, that writers often tend to leave any scope of character development in some stories by making the protagonists either ‘Godly’ – who are patients of protagonist syndrome believing themselves to be the supreme power or ‘God-like’ – who are astonishingly the most righteous, kind, walks on the path of higher level of spirituality, not even voicing against the unfair because that would be too rude!☺😅

This supremacy of the main characters we commonly refer to as protagonists sometimes makes me miss relatable and reliable characters to some extent. Now, I was aiming to pen this down since a long time, but I was short of examples somehow. Though, recently my Granny solved this problem unintentionally by watching some of her Indian daily soaps in front of me making me have enough examples to highlight in this blog.

So, here are some of the different story mediums highlighting the supremacy issue in characters and some of the over-rated, vague and disappointing writing techniques which are used to show the importance and ascendancy of the supreme torch-bearer of the stories –

A)    Indian Daily Soaps – Now, I don’t want to highlight my utter dislike towards serials, but I can’t overlook the fact I got a lot to say on these stories. Stories which would start from women empowerment, career prospects, dedication, struggle and all the different malpractices in the country. But would somehow end up in two girls fighting over a single guy, trying to harm each other so that he somehow accepts them as their life partner and all the ladies being pure evil in one way or other. Not to forget the habit of treating male characters as props, who would stand in background watching all this drama with a dramatic music playing in background (Dhoom tananana😂😂). As if the only thing left in a girl/guy’s life is to conquer (okay not literally) the person he/she loves. Then what is the whole point of showing someone’s empowerment when his/her whole life is shown dependent on the partner.
Not to forget, the extreme need of having ridiculously negative female leads with hideous bindis who would plan and plot, girls/guys who are supposed home-wreakers, and can even plan murders oh-so efficiently. Furthermore, the main point of this write-up, supremacy of the main characters where they would be shown so righteous and naïve that whatever they say or do – if even absurd and pointless – it would be the most correct thing to do in this whole damn world. Just to quote an example, I saw a glimpse of a serial today with Nani, where the female lead gave proposed a business marketing idea and the supposed villain too did. If we analyze the whole business situation, target audience and the plan, the female lead’s plan was shown the most effective even though the negative lead had the more effective plan. Just because, yeah we know, the naïve, perfect, righteous and obedient female leads are alwaysssssssssssssssss right?!😕😕

B)    Books/ Novels – Here, I won’t be talking about some respected authors and their published work because honestly I never find these issues in their stories but definitely in online stories and books which I have read around 200 by now. The most prominent problem in these is degrading the side or passer-by characters to showcase the supremacy of the main character. Remember those instances in stories, when a male billionaire would always have female employees who would be dying to grab their attention, accused of being after the main lead’s property, money and fame and being dressed like sluts? And then a girl enters who would be different from all these employees, the man would fall in love with her because she is oh-so different and then they would go play house-house. Perfect story, isn’t it? Has anyone ever wondered that to show the distinguished personality, authors practically tend to defame a mass of people. A person’s distinguished personality should never be dependent on the mass’s vicious traits (specially stereotypical, untrue and fake). Let’s just not forget, the tendency of showing the most righteous women would end up with a son of a devil often. And that, that man would somehow end up turning a saint by the end of the story losing all the character’s essence. No doubt, the term ‘opposite’s attract’ is over-rated in stories. Why having a negative character with all the relatable traits is still amusing for readers and people?

C)    Movies – I don’t think I even need to explain this much! The story is as same as the other two, the negative character would die the most painful death by the ‘HERO’ of the movie. And if a story is based on a villain, either he would end up dead, mad, prisoned, or losing his lover by the end of the story. Fine, I get the idea of truth, honesty and kindness being always triumphant but atleast writers should leave fictions sometimes. Honestly speaking, the negative characters add life to the story for me, because it’s really tiring to see heroes too good to be true, and people worshiping them.

Not just these, but stories all across us have these things somewhere or the other. My question here is, “Is supreme characters more important? Or relatable characters?”

My own answer would be relatable! I think most of us here would say, Relatable! But then, why a girl in serials who won’t talk back to elders is supreme, but someone who would point out the unfair, does not want to live within a family, and is not all about love is bad? Why a male character who is a gentlemen is supreme? And the man who is shown having drawbacks like insecurities, dark secrets, anger issues and selfishness is wrong? (Actually, selfishness is portrayed wrong more than often when in reality the whole world is somewhat selfish) No doubt, old daily soaps were loved because it had the perfect bahu’s and female characters in stories.

These stories impact us a lot in real life, whether we tend to agree or not. This supremacy factor makes people doubt that whether they are the protagonists of their own stories. If they are, then why so imperfect? They forget we as people and people as characters are supposed to be imperfect, that’s the whole point of character development. Either the person would turn more imperfect (nothing bad with it) or become a better person.

Perfect/Supreme characters are over-rated! Relatable, reliable and specially REAL characters who’re imperfect and flawed are the ones our stories need now.      

- by MeeRa 💖💓

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Note - The picture uploaded in this blog is not owned by me, but to its rightful owners! And this blog is not meant to hurt someone's sentiments or insult anybody's creativity or works, its just my opinion on the common scenarios in stories. 

 

That guy in a hoodie!

Author’s POV

The evidence of the heavy rain could be seen on the roads of Delhi, with puddles on streets and corners, water dripping down the roofs, trees and plants, animals sitting in the shelter while the carts were covered with plastic sheets to avoid the commodities getting drenched. People were still walking with umbrellas due to the light drizzling and a soft breeze in the air. 

 

It was almost night when Tanya came out from her office building and stood under the shade of the bus stand, waiting for her daily router to arrive at its fixed time. She was fumbling with her jet black umbrella when her phone rang cutting through the shrilly silence. Groaning, she took it out and the number just made her groan louder if that was possible. It was the same unknown number that was pestering her for the last few days. She would pick up the incoming, call out the person until her throat would literally beg her to give up, then shouting some colorful words would cut it. This was the routine for a few months, she has almost blocked a ton of numbers but the calls just wouldn’t stop. Somewhere she even knew who was doing this and having fun at her misery and it made her shiver unconsciously. 

 

Why can’t he just leave her alone! 

 

She thought to herself, gritting her teeth thinking that she would have to encounter him as soon as she hops down the bus near her house. She was busy dreading thinking about the impending encounter she would do, similar to every night. 

 

Her thoughts were brought to a halt with the sound of an engine and the tires screeching, her head snapped towards the automatic gates opening of her daily bus. Deciding to shake away her thoughts, she scrambled up to it and got in quickly. She thanked her stars, seeing the bus almost empty, meaning she would at least get to rest her tired self, till her house. 

 

Sitting on the window seat in extreme front, she rested her stuff on the vacant seat beside her and switching her phone, decided to spend the time till her home hearing her favorite playlist. As the songs buzzed through the earphones, the soft tunes and vocals soothing her, of course, when it’s raining who would want to listen to loud beats and dancing stuff. Rainy nights and slow reverberating music is the best combo according to her. She sighed resting her head on the window as she saw droplets shining on the glass. 

 

She could see her reflection in the mirror, and what she witnesses didn’t make her too happy or ecstatic. She could see the tiredness on her face, fine lines coming along due to all the stress, puffy eyes – a result of sleepless nights – and dark circles underneath them. Unconsciously she raised her hand, and caresses the skin under her eyes, before closing them feeling utterly distressed. 

 

She knew all these weren’t due to everyday stress, hectic schedule, or busy life, the reason was a different one altogether. The reason was him! And she hated that how that one person has managed to pirouette her whole life with his shenanigans. 

 

Raking her hand through her hair she thought,

 

When will this get over? Why can’t he just leave me alone? 

 

But as usual, she didn’t receive any answer from the deadly silence. Sighing, she just waited for her stop, and to her dismay, it didn’t take more than five minutes for her to reach. Paying her charge, she got down and again opened the umbrella shading herself underneath it. 

 

Just as she started walking, she heard the usual sound of footsteps behind her. Her heartbeat rose as she heard the familiar frantic footsteps behind her. Her walk turned to a sprint in a second, trying to look back as discretely as she could. 

 

And there he was, in the usual black hoodie that covered his face too, following behind her. She could feel herself sweating even in the breezy weather and her throat turning dry. She gulped loudly due to fear and shrieked as she collided with someone. 

 

Quickly apologizing, she didn’t even wait for a second and again started sprinting, but she could feel the man hot on her tail. Tears started racing down her face, as the man was just some footsteps behind her. She cried out as her foot collided with a stone there in the middle of the street, but what made her panic more was the shrill laughter behind her, and muttering in the dark,

 

“Careful, love!” 

 

She gasped and ran towards the house crying loudly. Reaching her street, she straight away went to the threshold of her house, and frantically rang her bell looking behind every second. And just like usual, the man stood there on the end of the street looking straight at her. She could feel him piercing holes in her body and again rang the bell. Breathing a sigh of relief as the door finally opened, she saw her concerned mother who was shocked seeing her in this state. 

 

“Tanya! What happened? You look so disheveled!”                                                                    

 

Her mother gasped seeing her daughter looking like she just ran a marathon, gasping for breath. Crying, she came inside and threw herself in her mother’s arms not even acknowledging her father who came there too due to the commotion. 

 

“Mom! Mom! He w….was..aga..again…followi..following me. I told…yo...you both. But you…you guys didn’t listen…..he is stalking me for long.” 

 

Her father looked at his crying daughter sadly, his heartbeat rising in fear for her. Patting her head, he tried to say, 

 

“We believe you, Tanya! Stop crying now, I promise we’ll go tomorrow to the police station and file a complaint. Now stop crying, my dear!” 

 

Tanya nodded, as her father hugged her while her mother just went to the gate to look if the stalker guy was there. Pacifying Tanya, her father sent her to the room before joining his wife on the gate and sighed seeing no one standing there. Her mother said through a heavy throat,

 

“Again? A stalker this time? This is getting serious Mahesh!” 

 

Her father nodded, but replied, voice dripping with agony, “But what can we do Smita? Her hallucinations just won’t end! She is schizophrenic, not some patient suffering through a fever that can be cured in a day or a week.” 

 

Smita closed her eyes, wondering why only her child had to go through all this, when Mahesh kept a hand on her shoulder consoling her, “Still don’t worry, I’ll discuss this with the doctor.” 

 

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Tanya came out of the bath after freshening up and crying for an hour in the shower, dressed in her nightclothes. She sniffed, still feeling discomfort and not able to calm down after her encounter. 

 

Standing in front of the mirror, she was drying her hair when her face paled and eyes went wide seeing the same hoodie guy, her stalker’s reflection in her mirror standing just near the window in her room. She could feel her heart palpating at a high rate, and sweat again dripping down her forehead. 

 

“Who..Who ar..are you? Wh..What do you …want?” 

 

She asked stammering, when she saw him grinning through that hoodie, as he spoke in his husky deadly voice sending tremors down her spine, 

 

“Missed me? Love!” 

 

And as he took a step making a move, she wailed loudly grabbing the first thing she got and banged it into the mirror breaking it into shreds. Her legs felt jelly, as she fell on the floor, near the sharp shreds not even caring about them piercing in her knees and clutched her head before finally passing out due to exhaustion muttering, as his footsteps neared,

 

“Please, leave me alone! Please!”

 

-          By MeeRa  

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Note:- The pictures used in this story does not belong to me but to their rightful owners.

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INSOMNIA - The wakefulness bug

                  

    “The last refuge of the insomniac is a sense of superiority to the sleeping world.”

                                                   ― Leonard Cohen

                        

 According to a study, 33% adults in India are insomniac. Insomnia, in basic words, means disability to sleep. People who suffer from insomnia have difficulty in dozing off, sleeping peacefully, waking up at early hours and not able to sleep again. Though people may still feel tired after waking up. This disorder can vary in degree, i.e. it can be acute insomnia (for a short period of time) or chronic insomnia (for a long period of time). Even it is possible that this condition may come and go in intervals. 

Insomnia can be classified into two types :-

A) Primary Insomnia -  This means that the sleeplessness isn't connected or linked to any other disease or a problem. This type of insomnia may develop due to following reasons :-
1) Stress related to life events such as loss of any loved one, job or something prominent in life.
2) Things around you may disturb you like light, sound or the room temperature is too low or too high.
3) Change in sleeping schedule due to moving around. 

B) Secondary Insomnia - This type of insomnia is usually linked with some disease that causes trouble in sleeping. Examples include cancer, asthma, depression or diabetes. It can also be due to drug abuse, alcohol consumption and other unhealthy lifestyle habits. Causes of this type of insomnia are following :-
1) Mental health issues like depression or anxiety.
2) Pain or discomfort at night.
3) Caffeine, tobacco, alcohol and drug abuse.
4) Excessive medications for fever, cold and cough. 

If we observe the figures closely, women are at more risk of developing insomnia than men and older people are at more risk than the young generation. There are many risk factors that circulate around this disease :-
a) People can develop a long term illness.
b) Various mental health issues can develop if the problem is not treated initially.
c) People might take up night shifts or jobs that might exert their energy and tire their body. 

If someone wants to know, if they have developed insomnia, they just need to check on the following symptoms :-
# They feel sleepy during the day and sleepless during the night.
# They feel tired and fatigued all the time.
# They can become grumpy and have mood swings.
# People might develop problems in memorizing or remembering things.  

Insomnia can be treated through medication, using sleeping pills but only those that are prescribed by your doctor. However, if a person is suffering from chronic insomnia, avoid intake of excessive sleeping pills because it has many ill side effects on our body and health. 

Sleeping is a natural mechanism, and controlling it too much with medication will only disrupt the natural sleeping process of your body. Our bodies need sleep so they can repair themselves after a long day of work. If insomnia is keeping you awake, you could have a higher risk of health problems like high blood pressure, obesity, and depression.

Though, insomnia can be fought with good sleeping habits, also known as sleep hygiene, and other things like,

• Go to sleep at the same time each night, and get up at the same time each morning. Try not to take naps during the day, because they may make you less sleepy at night.
• Don’t use phones or e-books before bed. Their light can make it harder to fall asleep.
• Avoid caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol late in the day. Caffeine and nicotine are stimulants and can keep you from falling asleep. Alcohol can make you wake up in the middle of the night and hurt your sleep quality.
• Get regular exercise. Try not to work out close to bedtime, because it may make it hard to fall asleep. Experts suggest exercising at least 3 to 4 hours before bed.
• Don't eat a heavy meal late in the day. But a light snack before bedtime may help you sleep.
• Make your bedroom comfortable: dark, quiet, and not too warm or too cold. If light is a problem, use a sleeping mask. To cover up sounds, try earplugs, a fan, or a white noise machine.
• Follow a routine to relax before bed. Read a book, listen to music, or take a bath.
• If you can't fall asleep and aren’t drowsy, get up and do something calming, like reading until you feel sleepy.
• If you tend to lie awake and worry about things, make a to-do list before you go to bed. This may help you put your concerns aside for the night. 

 Follow these steps, and notice the changes in your sleeping pattern. Insomnia is not incurable, as long as people take efforts in pushing it out of their life. Having an 8 hours of sleep in a day is necessary, for you body to regain it's lost strength and working through another tough day. 

Sleep well and sleep tight! 

 - By MeeRa 💗💗

Being a Budding Journalist

"Learning is a part of growing, and growing is a part of life!" 

 

Learning has always been a significant part of my life. I have always been up to learn something new, something which would  increase my knowledge or expand my horizons. And journalism has been nothing less than a vast ocean of knowledge, creativity and experience.

My experience so far has been phenomenal. From learning how to design new things, how to express my opinion through words, writing different things to Indian history and geography. It is so diverse as a subject that it even gives us an opportunity to try our hands on different activities.

I remember choosing journalism as my career option, honestly just for the sake of doing event management. But now, after exploring it, I realized that in such a small time period, I came across so many career options that even I never thought of. 

You know it's very apt when people say that you should explore the world and your interests. That's how you'll finally get what path you want to take and which destination you want to reach one day. 

Like right now, I am feeling like I am not only on a crossroads, in fact like I am standing in a middle of a desert, there are no roads and i can actually go any which way I want. And no matter what, I will surely reach at a place where I would find my oasis. 

Now i do believe that whatever happens in life, happens for a reason.

A good reason at that!

Like how currently I am surely having the best time of my life. 

I am finally getting to express my views, that too through something which gives me immense pleasure and happiness.

I am writing.

I am being creative, designing things, drawing my thoughts and imagination on screen with ease.

I am communicating, which I never did before so easily. I am speaking on things freely despite of never ever being comfortable in speaking out in front of mass. 

All these have given birth to a new person, I think was inside of me but never emerged out.

And I am not exaggerating.

I don't think something else would have been a better career for me than this. It gives me freedom to express whatever and however I want - though not complete freedom - but still if I feel there is something we need to discuss and shed light upon, I can do it.

We, as journalists, are responsible for sharing information to people. We need to be the journals which makes them aware about what is happening around in the world. 

The most important thing, I have learnt to do this, is whatever you are saying, or spreading should be nothing but truth. What information you share is important but HOW you share it is more important because whatever you tell people, you don't know how it would affect the mass. 

It can be either positive, or negative.

And the effect remains positive is what we should aim for. 

As a budding journalist I know there are many lessons I would be learning along the way and I am sure I would try my best to adhere to all of them. 

I truly hope to transition from a bud to a beautiful flower in this context. 

-By MeeRa

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Becoming a writing freak.....

My First Novel

I remember being a bookwarm since childhood, when my school curriculum included Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte in 4th standard. That was the moment I built my interest in books and novels. After that day I must have read plenty of books, that I cannot even count on my fingertips. I never came to know when my love for reading changed into a passion for writing. 

Writing poems.

Stories.

Quotes.

Writing absolutely anything and everything!

Soon, writing my own novel was a bulletin on my wishlist. 

I was just looking for opportunities when I would be able to write it. And that opportunity came to me when Corona hit us like a shock wave. Truly I know, I might sound insensitive, but the break we got during this lockdown gave me enough time to finally start working on my dream. It might acted as a bane to the world - somewhere for me too - but it even was a boon to me atleast. 

Moreover, I refused to just sit idle at home, watching television and scrolling social media after I actually drained my little book shelf reading every single book present in it for atleast two times. 

So, soon I found myself working on the novel. I actually had a fair idea about what I want the story to be, so all I needed was to develop characters that would relate to the readers to a great extent. 

When I started writing initially, I thought that it would take me a millennium to come up with something worth reading, instead it actually didn't take me a while. Would it sound weird that when I wrote, it was as if my fingers would just work on the keyboard non-stop, I wouldn't even need to think what I want to happen next in the story. The idea was so clear in my mind.

Like a crystal clear picture that was saved in my memory. 

And it seemed I was describing that vision in clear-cut phrases and words without any roadblocks and issues. 

It was just so excited and exhilarated that writing came so naturally to me. As if it was in my blood. (Well it actually is, since my mom write stories and amazing shayaris 😜😜😄)

I knew I was always fond of writing when in any story competitions and writing sprees in school, I would be appreciated. But I never knew that I would be someday writing like all those amazing authors whose books I basically hogged on. 

And now after a hardwork of about 2-3 months, and spending my whole days stuck with the laptop typing like a lunatic. I am finally halfway through achieving my dream.

I wrote half of my novel and am looking forward to the moment when it will be finally released and people would be able to read it. I know they all might not like it, it can be a flop. But all that matters to me is I atleast tried. 

And I would try till the end of my time, to be able to become a author, who is not just well known but well LEARNT!

 

- By MeeRa   
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