Who gave you the right?

Well, she was always a weakling

Got sick often, couldn’t keep up with everything you did

Low immunity got her down

So you called her a wuss!

Who gave you the right?

When you tell ghost stories

He shuts his eyes tight and tries to drown out the sound

They echo of memories and dreams that he tried to forget

So you called him a chicken

Who gave you the right?

She’s never liked sports

She is a brainy nerd and she likes it

Just cause she couldn’t run as fast or hold the bat correctly

You called her a loser

Who gave you the right?

You didn’t like that he stood up against you

So you decided to be a bully and call him names

Just cause your ego got a little bruised

Well, he’s scared of having a voice now

Who gave you the right?

She dresses and talks differently than everyone else

And make the queerest of friends

She doesn’t fit into a social box that you created, the one you are so comfortable in

So you called her a sissy

Who gave you the right?

You live by certain rules, always cool and popular

One day you broke those very rules and did what your heart said

And got called every single one of those names that you used for others

It pricked and stung and hurt like never before

Well, who gave them the right?

You did.

My To-Do List

It’s something that’s always on my mind
And keeps my head to the grind.
It pops into my head the moment I wake
Why can’t it just give me a break!
Every waking moment, it runs marathons in my brain
Getting some shut-eye at night is a task that goes in vain
If the list is not done, it’ll haunt me through the night
Dreams of completing them can give such a fright!
To do the things I have to do
To do this and to do that,
To clean my cupboard and make my bed
To complete assignments and oil my head
To make some calls before the day ends
Stitch the holes in my socks and make amends
To cook and keep my tummy happy
To do some work on the lappy
To send those emails and answer more
To complete those blinking household chores
To sweep the house and mop the floor
To pick each call and answer the door
To wash my clothes and set them straight
Are just some of the things I seem to hate.
The list can just go on and on
And make a person sad and forlorn.
I struggle to check those tasks off the list
And double check to see what I’ve missed.
I get up fairly bright in the morning
And there goes again, that familiar warning.
Those tasks were not done, ‘twas all a dream
“Not the whole rigmarole again!”, I scream.

Making and Mending Childhood!

As I walked into the Press Club Conference Room on the evening of 11^th June, 2015, I didn’t know what to expect. I was promised an insightful evening of talks, poetry and music but I think I got so much more.

One of the great topics of discussion and debate, along with women’s safety of course, is the violence against children. And that’s all it remains- a discussion. I had the wonderful chance of meeting an NGO called Hamara Footpath who have taken this discussion further and are actually working wonders for the street children in Mumbai by educating and empowering them.

The evening began with two artists from the NSPA (Natural Streets for Performing Arts) Mayur and Harsh, a duo that call themselves MH01, delighted everyone, especially the children with their lovely Sufi music and singing. They chose famous songs in order to get the children to sing along and soon had the whole audience humming and clapping along with them. The children of Hamara Footpath clambered forth and recited poems written by Vignesh Smitha. A multi-lingual poem that brings out a child’s view and his yearning for respect called “Half Chapati” was the highlight of the evening.

Taha Jodiawala, a co-founder of the NGO, explained the work that the NGO does. With anecdotes of his own experiences, he expounded on how they have come a long way from just teaching the children the very basic of English, math and soft skills to admitting their children in full-fledged English schools. A couple of child counsellors and psychologists from Rubaroo created awareness about child sexual abuse.

The final part of the evening was a poetry reading by Jane Bhandari who read some of her own works as well as poems from To Catch a Poem: An Anthology for Young People. She read out quirky and funny poems that would specially appeal to the children. This amazing Culture Beat was organized by Menka Shivdasani and Anju Makhija.

It was heart-warming to hear some of the kids yell “Bye, Didi!” as I walked home that night. It's amazing how their hearts are ever open to people in spite of all the hardships they go through. When will we open our hearts to them?

A musical evening

There are some well-known quotes like- ‘When words fail, music speaks.’ But the truth is that even when everything else fails, music can still speak to you. To prove and demonstrate this, Anil Srinivasan, a pianist, educator and innovator gave a talk about the magic of music called Pianos in the Playground at the MCubed Library in Bandra on Saturday, 6^th June 2015, a Mumbai Local Event organized by Junoon theatre.

Pianos in the Playground wasn’t just an ordinary talk. The peaceful and tranquil ambience of the library enhanced and intensified the magic that Anil Srinivasan created. He began by playing a snippet of Happy Birthday, something as simple as that and explained how the brain performs a task called ‘thought completion’. He also elaborated how music can be used to teach difficult subjects because it is a memory trigger. He elucidated the functions of the brain, how it accepts musical inputs, collaborates with parts of the brain like the frontal cortex and amygdala and then gives the necessary output. A simple thing like the rain clap we learnt in school can be used to teach rhythm and music. Anil Srinivasan blew everyone’s minds with his talk which not only included musical but also psychological terms. This, he said, was due to a research he had done in order to rope music in along with his studies.

Playing the piano from the age of age, he is extremely well-versed in Carnatic music, Indian classical and western music and can serenade you with his renditions of the same. He takes classical pieces and makes them his own. His description of how a tiny pause in a musical piece could symbolize a shudder of a leaf or the waves on the ocean revealed his immense love for music. He wowed us when his played some of Mozart’s variations of the well-known Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Anil Srinivasan has not hidden his musical genius under a bushel but had used it to light thousands of lives. He uses his music to educate thousands of children in South India and also as a therapeutic tool to better some lives.

His eloquence and sense of humour charmed his audience ranging from young kids to a few young-hearted senior citizens. He included short stories intermittently in his talk to appeal to his younger audience. At the end of his talk he welcomed questions and feedback and explained his whole journey from a student to an educator and how he had always carried his music along with him. He stressed on the fact that it is important to love music, interpret it yourself, make it your own and form your own conclusions. The best part of the evening was when he took requests from his audience and launched into a medley starting with the Raga Bhairavi, a few other Indian classicals, Bollywood songs like Badtameez Dil, variations of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and ended with When the Saints Go Marching In. That brought on a huge applause. Everyone left the library with a smile on their face that evening.