THE HINDU

Class 12th is keeping me on my toes. Because I am not being able to write new articles, I thought I should share my little article on suicides, which was published in The Hindu in 2012. 

STOP AWHILE AND THINK

Suicide — a small word, but with an impact so strong that it can devastate lives, not one but many. Life is a gift we get only once from the supreme power and respecting it by ‘living’ it should be our agenda. This journey of life might be a bumpy road with difficulties and failures at every step, but giving up our lives does not end it there. It gives birth to a whole new set of miseries and sorrows, not to you but to those who love you.

Your life is not just yours, it has strings attached to lives of your family and your loved ones. Can you even imagine the magnitude of sorrow that hits a mother when she gets to know that her son, whom she brought up, has killed himself because he failed in his exam or because his girlfriend broke up with him ?If you are not brave enough to face hardships of life, why should your parents go through so much pain? Why should they suffer? Who gives you the right to ruin someone else’s life?If, anytime in life, you think you should kill all the hardships of life by killing yourself, STOP. 

Stop and think about how life of your family would be after you are gone. Think about how your life has been and about those beautiful times in life when you were happy. And then you will realise no matter what the reason for you to commit suicide is, it is not worth the life you lived or the life you might live.The waves in the sea will settle down, the sun will rise and the spring will come but for that you will have to face the storm, live away the night and bear the winter.

Remember, you are special to many, there are people who love you, you can do wonders if you want to, all you need is a pinch of hope and courage. Challenge the God and surprise him by overcoming the obstacles and always remember if the winter has come, the spring won’t be far away.

To read the article on The Hindu's website follow the LINK

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THE PASSION THAT 'DANCED' AWAY

                                               photography credits - Manya Ahuja



There is a blinding white light in the apartment. Streaks of marble are shining under rivulets  of sunshine.
The wind is staging it's own opera outside and the chirping birds on the branches of the oak tree spectate a fair young lady dancing to it.
Clad in her pink Tutu dress and her foot wreaking pointed ballet shoes she slides through the area like a soap on the wet floor and ends gracefully with a smooth pencil turn.

Adia Greene - a  passionate ballet dancer, who's toes can never stop doing a grapevine and her hands always flowing in air practicing her first love- dance.
She has been dancing since she was seven and this is what she wants to do till the day she dies.
She grooves with the wind , moves with the music and stoops to elegance.

The next day was a big day for her and her dancing career.  It is the largest dance show of the city! Tickets had sold like hot cakes.
The first ray of sunshine waked her up and like any other day the dancer in her woke up with a eagerness to improve.
She danced to the auditorium, where her dreams were going to take a flight of glory.The auditorium seats were filled with dance hungry audience and the lights were turned on!
She changed to her new Tutu dress and spent an hour on the barre, which is for strengthening. There was something going on in her stomach, out of excitement and nervousness. Every dancer before presenting himself on stage does go through a series of emotions- excitement, the hunger to perform, nervousness to name a few! Her hands and legs did not rest while she kept practicing to perfect her steps.
It was on her favorite song by Richard Maddock and Herbert Von.
" Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats the show is about to begin"
She stole a peek through the wings at the hundred people craving for a supple ballet performance.
She has to do her best!
All the dancers, with their hair tied up in neat buns adorned with a white Lily
 lined up to take to the stage.

          Adia looked like a fresh Lily herself!

Adia was ready to dance to glory

The music started and they trotted to the stage on their toes.
Adia was in full swing. She perfected every moment from piles, tendus, jites to battements.
The dancers jumped into the attitude position, took a piravid turn and came to rest on their knees.
The beat became fast and now Adia danced to a platform much above the main stage.
She smiled as the spotlight fell on her. She took to her toes, ready to fling her left leg up to her head. In the mid way she lost her balance. She tried to regain control but her foot twisted and she fell down from the great height!
The soft ballet beats ended with a loud thud added with horrified yells of the dancers and the audience!
Down lay Adia, her face still shining under the yellow light but her body all numb . She was immediately rushed to the hospital.

                                             X-----------X---------X

It has been a fortnight since her apartment was locked but now it opened  and Adia slowly entered with wet eyes. She is on a wheel chair guided by a nurse and not on her dancing feet.
The doctor says she has displaced her pelvic and shoulder bone, and will never be able to dance again.
Adia's eyes fall on her pink dancing shoes, covered with layers of dirt. She advances towards it but rolls down the wheel chair and lands on her elbow. The nurse help the crying Adia back.

the shoes lay unused covered with dirt

  Dance is a drug, once you take it, you get addicted to it, but when your dreams don't support your desires you end up in frustration and helplessness.

She sniffs and the realization of the fact that she may never be able to dance again crushes her inside. No matter how much she wanted to dance, her body did not move and when it did it was painful. She wished she would have died because for her, life without dance was hollow.

Once a dancer forever a dancer.
 But now only her heart dances and she reaches her former glory only in her dreams. Though her tryst with dance was short-lived the dancer in her is immortal. She still jigs a little when music falls on her ears. Her soul never rests. It keeps burning in love for dance.
Adia feels herself drowned in the fatal waters of helplessness, after all, she used to dance in joy, in sorrow, in excitement, in agony. She used to dance every moment and she wished to dance her life away. !

Adia kept seeing the pictures from the days when she could dance

 She and dance were like ships that passed each other in the night but they did cast a healing light on each other that will last    forever.