Sunanda Pushkar: A beautiful tragedy

Sunanda Pushkar would have been known to us today as Sunanda Das, had this sassy lady not rebelled and used the first name of her father, breaking the age old tradition of the Kashmiri Pandits where girls attained the last name of their fathers.

Sunanda Pushkar was found dead on January 17, 2014 in Room no. 345 of  The Leela Palace Hotel, New Delhi.

Everyone is speculating the cause of her death.
Sunanda Pushkar's episode has all the ingredients of a chintzy Bollywood movie; love, glamour, death, drugs, extra-marital affair. Everyone has their own version of stories. What killed her? Was she poisoned? Was she over dosing the unprescribed drugs? Is it a conspiracy? Did her husband's alleged affair with the pak journalist make this supercilious beautiful woman kill herself?

As against the common perception that 'drug overdose' was the cause of Sunanda's sudden unfortunate demise, experts believe that intake of huge Alprazolam tablets alone cannot cause death, which were found in the room.

Few know Sunanda as a person, I thought to write this up because I think it is only fair to know her life as a child and a young girl if, anyway, you are going to sit in your sofas and speculate her choices in love, life and death.

Sunanda was born with a silver spoon in her mouth to Poshkar Nath Dass, who is now retired as Lieutenant Colonel from the army. Hailing from Bomai village of the apple-rich town of Sopore, Sunanda’s family migrated to Jammu after the onset of militancy leaving behind all the land, orchards and a grand house. 
The Das family was famous in the village for their benevolence, riches and indulgence.

As a young girl Sunanda was different from the girls her age. Even though she was brought up in a village, she had disparate notions about life. 

She was bold, ambitious, lively and nothing could stop her from speaking her mind. Most of the conventional Indians, ceremoniously, refer to girls like these as 'Impudent' or 'Audacious' and Sunanda was also not spared of such adjectives. 

“She was always giving bold statements what we could not do as girls… She had no inhibitions. When we did our first workshop of Kashmir Vahini she sent her statement over phone,” says Dr Khema Koul, Sunanda’s childhood friend and spokesperson of Kashmira Vahini, an apex body of Kashmiri migrant Pandit women.
To the few students of her school who did not know her really well, she was this thin, Kashmiri girl, with the traditional red threads dangling from her pierced ears who was serious about her studies.
She was a person of brassbound honesty and often landed her up in troubles too.

Sunanda was a career oriented, highly motivated woman. After completing her degree in hotel management, she started her career by working as a receptionist in Centaur View Lake Hotel in Srinagar.
In Dubai she established an event management business called the 'Expressions'. She became globally renowned for sponsoring the artists and the fashion shows.

Later on she along with her husband Sujith Menon organized a Mammootty show together, which made a financial loss. After Sujith passed away in an accident, in 1997, Sunanda had to got through lot of troubles as she faced financial troubles, as she had to repay Sujith's debts, support her parents and her brother through engineering college.

When she married Shashi Tharoor they were truly, madly, deeply in love and the Indian newspapers were full of candid pictures of the couples.

The happy times: Shashi Tharoor and Sunanda at their wedding reception in Delhi, 2010.

In her last few months Pushkar was seen retreating to herself and was seen alone at most of the parties, when asked about Tharoor she would say that he was busy in Thiruvanantpuram.
She was apparently depressed by the gnawing realisation that her husband, Shashi Tharoor was drifting away from her.

Friends remember Pushkar as a person who could light up any party!
She was a woman who couldn't fit into the role of a minister's wife neither did she try to.
She was politically incorrect and loved expressing herself.
A friend remembers Pushkar meeting a popular TV anchor and saying to him in a disarming sort of way, "I wonder how I haven't thrown my glass of wine at you."

She was a 'muhphat'  in typical dilliwali language. Someone who was incapable of concealing her emotions.
And indeed she was. Very incapable. 

Pushkar came in news highlights when she slapped a Tharoor supporter at the Thiruvanantpuram airport, alleging that he had misbehaved with her.

She was a woman whose presence one could not ignore!
The woman died at the age of 52 trying to save her love, self esteem and bruised ego.

The little Kashmiri girl whose net worth today is a whopping 80 million dollars!

It makes me really sad that amidst all this drama and mystery about her death the media highlighting that she has 3 marriages in a really derogatory way. I fail to understand that how is this relevant in the whole case.

I wonder why there is so little talk about Tharoor's third marriage?
It only disports that how the Indian media is still in the shell and how the idea of a woman marrying 3 times seems exciting to them in no other way but scandalous. No doubt Sunanda Pushkar's story has added upto the masala on which most of our newspapers thrive their sales on and TV channels their TRPs.

'Even when I go, will go smiling' Sunanda's last tweet said.

Delhi will miss Sunanda Pushkar. It will be difficult not to.

Just another stupid train of thoughts!

My train journey back to Delhi is nothing short of a 19 hour torment. This train is already running 9 hours late.

I am sitting here on the lower side birth. It wouldn't be an exaggeration if I say the journey is like a nightmare and I can’t wait for it to get over.

I am bored, angry, disgusted and hungry.

The smell of the train and its leather seats is making me sick.

Every time I check the schedule over the internet in my phone, I get to see new notifications that this long journey is going to be longer. So I decide to keep my phone aside and let it rest for awhile; I don’t want to be disappointed again. The upbeat child in me is expecting that when I check the phone again it would miraculously surprise me. May be nine hours late is demoted to six hours or seven. Or maybe even eight.

As I am tired of lying down and tossing sides on my seat, I get up and sit. I remove the curtains and let the pleasant winter sun shine on my face. The warmth feels good and cozy. Suddenly my slothful train again takes a halt. I look outside. There is a dirty rusted board in the middle of nowhere which says “Daud Khan”. I have no clue what part of India this place is in. The place looks like dead remains of an old station that would have been alive and green once. Now it looks like a defunct depressing junction.

I try hard seeing something that would be interesting. My eyes track down a graveyard somewhere in the middle of the barren lands. Its boundary is colored in sad blue and ugly green.

Whenever  I see a graveyard- a cold rush passes through my body.

The thought of death!

The thought of death of my loved ones. It makes me sad. So sad that I find it difficult to breathe.

I try to focus on the two little houses and a tree which are trying hard to come into my sight.

But the graveyard and the stories buried under it do not let my mind wander anywhere else.

It is scary.

I feel like that little girl who is scared and alarmed of the big strange man at her doorstep and tries hard shifting her gaze inside the house to look for her mother. I try looking for thoughts that would be more comforting or maybe just less disturbing.

But in vain!

I remember how as a little kid I used to share my frets and fears of growing old with my grandmother. She would lovingly tell me that as you start growing older you make peace with your fears. Your needs, your dreams and your perceptions change. She told me there comes a time when you find your happiness and contentment in your spouse, then in your kids and then in your grandchildren.

And finally death doesn’t scare you anymore. Because you have lived your life. You have seen it all. You have had your share of smiles and tears. Eventually when death comes you embrace it happily.

Thinking of the 56 years of perfect marriage she had with my grandfather and how she passed away quietly in her sleep one night, I can say that whatever she said was true. At least in her case it was.

But then who knows if it is even true for me.

Next month I will be turning 23. And actually birthdays do not make me feel my best. Yes, I do enjoy and cherish all the attention and the gifts and the cakes but deep down my heart aches in a strange way knowing that I am one year closer to being old and wrinkled.

The thought that I won’t be young anymore. I could be sick or bed trodden even! It is the most frightening thing that could ever happen to me. A chill passes through my veins. Usually when these things come to my mind it bothers me so much that I go to my best friend and puke all my fears out and he would comfort me. But in this lonely journey I have no one around to assure me.

So I decide to save myself from the dreadful ideas that are haunting me. I tell myself that it is going to be fine when I grow old and I am going to have a loving spouse and beautiful children just like my grandmother.

Ummm…. But then that would only happen if I actually get married someday!

Woahh!

Here I have another more interesting (atleast something that I look forward to more than growing old and dying) horizon to let my mind wander into!

Lipstick Feminism

Is a girl wearing dark chic lipstick and a bold tattoo on her arm the ideal feminist?

Is it that a woman powerfully dressed in high waist trousers and suits, more confident of her sexuality than a plain Jane?

In multiplex cities, often we come across young women in bold outfits and fluorescent make up. These women are fully aware of their existence, confident of their bodies and its flaws. They carry themselves with an aura that could leave others spellbound; and yes they also, always, get few eyebrows raised and few faces frowned!

Yes, no doubt a saucy tattoo and 4 inch heels is a sign of rebellion against a culture that insists women be demure. And I dare say so, because more or less, I am a part of those women. And yes I am a feminist.

Today a large number of women exists which are vociferously self indulgent and feel liberated by going to parties in sexy outfits. These women are at ease with their sexuality. And many of them are looked down by the society and people refuse to acknowledge them as ‘real feminists.’

Does it really matter what shade of lipstick a woman is wearing when it comes for her to stand up for gender equality?

And as far as I know feminism is all about gender equality; not about men sucking and women being awesome. That is all to it. And everyone who believes in it is a part of the feminist movement; never mind some are more upfront about it and some are not! Lipstick feminism is creating havoc because since ages traditional feminism condemned the fashion industry for sexualization and exploiting women in order to feed into society’s patriarchal mindsets.

As it looks to me, a lipstick feminist is someone who is a feminist and wears a lipstick. A mere lipstick doesn't and shouldn't have the power to make her less serious about what she believes in. A lipstick feminist is totally aware of her sexuality and has no qualms in showing herself off. So what!

It is only the prejudiced and the narrow minds that refuse to come out of their shells and accept the change in traditional feminism just the way they frown when anything new is happening in the world.

 I will tell you how it is.

There is a stigma in the society these days: 

“ The curvy women women are better is the most splendid example of crutch use.” Now there is a right way to celebrate curves and there is a wrong one. The wrong one says that skinny women are ugly and repelling and curves are beautiful. But the right way to put it would be saying that all women are pretty irrespective of their sizes.

In a parallel comparison, shouldn't it be that all women that are a part of the movement, are feminists with or without their lipsticks?

And must you be an extremist to be labeled a feminist?

Absolutely not!

The core of feminism shouldn't rely on extroverts to flourish, it is practiced by women everywhere; the women working in multinational companies, a stay at home mother; girly girls and the tomboys; women are little bit of everything and women are little bit of nothing.

So does this mean that a modern educated feminist wear a lipstick necessarily? She could be a girl wearing bright red lipstick and a raunchy tattoo on her neck. She might.

But then again she could also be a bra less, unshaven, angry little hippie!

Hope: The Shawshank Redemption

 ‘Hope is a good thing, and good things never die’: The Shawshank Redemption.

I had never come around to watch ‘The Shawshank Redemption’. Of all the wonderful movies, I have ever seen, I never understood why I never sat down earnestly to watch this one. And now that I have watched it, I think I’ll be mesmerized for a long, long time.

There are always movies that would hit you, leave a dent irreparable, motivated to conquer something in this world. However, have you actually wondered, how many movies you see got you moved, ready to take on the world. Be the change you have always wanted to be or more importantly, changed something you have always pledged yourself to do.

But then life isn’t just about changes, right? Had changes been so easy wouldn’t we be the perfect copies of each other, successful in the quanta’s of success as we define it, perfect as we measure it?

Change is a very elaborate process. It doesn’t come with a ‘thirty minute guarantee’ like our pizzas or a fifteen day trail pack like the fairness creams. It grows into us slowly as we pick traits from the environment, it takes cues from the experience and  we travel the road we had taken. It might come from the incidents that move you, small deeds and actions that might bring a whole lot of perspective in our life.

Irrespective of how our life shapes itself or how many changes we think it requires, we always possess something is a source of our happiness; something that we call our own- our own dreams, our own people, our own anything. These might be perceptible or be a part of subtle background, but they are ours, they are our own hopes.

We might have the perfect person in our life or the correct set of friends as we desire. At the risk of sounding clichéd, I might call it love. Has it ever occurred to you, that you forget how strong the bond is? We tend to move ahead of it and we believe that love has happily deserted us.

But do we actually stop, stand our ground and think for a while. Besieged by problems, troubled by the mention of problems, we give up on those very things that define. We believe that it wasn’t meant to be and we should look for other ways that might contain us.

We believe that love has given up on us, but has it? Have we given up on love? We have given up on something rather more important, that is – HOPE!

For others like me, we find happiness in our dreams. In the darkest hours of night, I am sure my dreams leave a smile on my face. Because, somewhere deep inside them, I find what I have always looked for- my reasons to reach the state of blessitude.

But the worst hours are the ones that come after that, the mornings. It is the time when we decide to give up on those very reasons that pierce through our heart.

We for no reason, presume that things can’t be the way we have always wanted. We suck ourselves into the vicious circle of karma again, the monotony of the day, too afraid to step out and venture in the world of our contentment- the world of our hope!

We kill our dreams, the way we killed our love, our people (metaphorically!), because we weren’t strong enough to believe in ourselves. We talk about standing to people, facing the world with held high but instead, we are afraid to face ourselves. How many of us would look in the mirror and proudly say that whatever we involve ourselves in, we are proud of it? I speak for myself, I cannot.

And if we cannot, we exhibit cowardice. We are the ones who are too afraid to do what they know might be right. The ones who would refuse to follow their heart because their hope couldn’t find strength in its belief.

Life is simple, uncluttered and awarding. All it requires is us to have strength and to be truthful to ourselves. All it requires us is to have hope.

All it requires from you, is to believe in your belief’s which you know are right. Believe in your happiness.  For once, try not to mix your brain and your heart. If you know what your heart has always wanted, take the plunge and go for it. Your mind would follow on its own.

If you are one of those readers, who are heartbroken or miss the person you have always loved- wait for him, talk to him or tell him how you feel. If the love of your life is the one in front of you, build your life around him. Have hope in your love and be proud of the fact that you have someone you can mould your life around.

If you are like me, who believes in a dream but are not just motivated enough to go for it, then think of the mirror which you’ll face in twenty years from now. Would you be able to look in the mirror and answer the question with confidence when you are asked that have you’ve achieved everything you’d aspired for?

Don’t let your hopes crumble because hopes give direction to your life. Hope’s lead you to your heart’s strongest feelings, your loved ones or the happiness that you have always wished for.  If you have set a goal for yourself, respect it, think about it and move forward to achieve it.

And if it’s right, you’ll never be lost.

And if you are never lost, maybe you’ll be one step closer to perfection.

Why do you need girlfriends?

Dedicated to my beautiful girls Kamya, Annie and Twinkle!

Before coming to BVB, I rarely made good friends with girls. The only friends I treasured were the ones I had since childhood; my two girl best friends whom I have known since ages now.

 Not that I had a thing against girls but whenever I made friends with a girl, sooner or later  we fought and things like jealousy and ego crept in between us. So I had decided that my stars didn’t totally were in favor of girlfriends!

I have tons of guy friends, the kind of friends you could die for! I always believed that guys made much better friends than the girls.

But recently there has been a slight shift in my paradigm.

Since past few months, I realized that no matter how good or close friend a guy becomes, he will never understand you like your girls do!

Girls, inherently, are soft hearted, delicate creatures.

Girls will sit with you and cry when you tell them about your broken heart.

They will hate the guy who cheated on you more than you hate him.

When you sit with them and cry your heart out without the fear of being judged, when you tell them about your past and your mistakes and share your deepest darkest secrets with them without giving it a second thought; those friends are priceless!

Whenever girls make friends they love them with all their might, loving people by halves is not in their nature.

And you know what are the sweetest type of girls, who have no courage to fight for themselves; they will roll into a corner like a terrified little pup when in a situation but can kill when someone points out a finger to their friends!

Every girl has a mother instinct imbibed in her heart and soul. A good girlfriend will treat you like a baby when you are sad; tease you like a sister when you are crushing over that guy and scold you like a big brother when you screw up things!

An insane, crazy girlfriend is everything you need to feel good about yourself.

Many of you might find whatever I have written above absolute crap but these words came out straight from my heart after the trip I was on.

After the trip I realized what amazing, beautiful honest girlfriends I have and this article here came out as a result of the enormous amount of love I have for you guys now!

Dian Von said, “When a woman becomes her own best friend life is easier.” I say, “ When women become each others’ best friends life is as awesome as fuck.”

Loving!

Someone recently asked me to write about love.

The way I feel about love. Honestly, I don’t know what to write about.

Love is one of the strongest words I have ever known.

And as I grew up, I heard a lot of people saying absolute stupid shit like ‘Love hurts’ and blah blah. I mean, can love actually ever hurt?

No.

I mean, even , if you get your heart broken one fine morning, isn’t it a beautiful feeling to know how does it feel to feel!

To know that okay, you loved that one person and for you he/she was the world and now he is no more with you, you actually reach to a level of self realization.

I have gone through that stage and believe me it was just fine with me. I felt and I healed. And I am as good as ever!  Heart breaks make you stronger and give you a clearer vision in life.

 Maybe people will disagree to what I am saying here but that is just the way I feel.

 I have been the kind of girl who keeps falling in love all the time.

I fall in love way too quickly, get my heart broken and then sit and cry rivers until I fall in love again!

YES.

Sounds weird but that is it.

I fall in love with people all the time.

I fall in love with their smiles, with their confidence and  their lack of it.

I fall in love with people’s thoughts and their little annoying habits!

I fall in love with their honest mistakes, their courage and their beliefs.

And obviously, I, here, ain’t talking about the romantic love only.

Yes, I have been in love with men too.

Most of them assholes.

So there is absolutely no point talking about them.

Nevertheless I still believe love is a wonderful feeling to have.

And self love… yes! My favorite thing in the whole world.

Self love is very important, you cannot really love others until you learn to love yourself.

You should love every bit of you.

Your looks, your thoughts, your whole reason of existence on this planet.

I mean, you should be able to do your thing and not care what others think of it.

And remember you don’t have to be different to be worthy. Your worth is in your nature, the core of love and inner goodness.

You are a beautiful light. You are love. Your magnificence can be buried, but its impossible to destroy.

People in search of love often tend to forget that you don’t need to be accepted by others but by yourself.

One question that we all need to ask ourselves.

Do you love yourself enough to live in the moment, to forget the past, not worry about the future, but to be truly present to the opportunity within every moment?

How to get drunk off of happiness?

1.    Stop dwelling.

Past is precious. Learn from your mistakes. Learn from others’ mistakes. Remember the good times. Remember the people.

Forget the pain and the tears.

Let the heartaches heal.

The pain is just training; it doesn’t define you. Think about what went wrong but only in terms of how you will make sure that, next time, you and the people around you will make sure that it goes right.

2.   Stop buying possession, start buying experiences.

Instead of buying that extravagant piece of diamond, why not go on a trip to that little hill station?

No doubt buying things makes us feel better immediately, but at the end of the day it’s the experiences that count.

They enrich us in more ways than one could imagine.

3.     Pay compliments.

Start paying compliments. If you like someone’s hairdo or their shoes or their smile, go ahead, tell them. Tell them you find them beautiful, with a smile. And the moment you do that, you will feel better about yourself. The idea behind this is when you know you can make someone feel better about themselves, you automatically feel good about yourself too.

Believe me, this works.

4.   Stop blaming, Foster forgiveness.

When you blame others for a mistake they did, you yourself carry half a burden of their faults on your shoulders.

If the loss is too big you can be mad at them for awhile as it is inevitable but in the end let go of it. Holding onto grudges will only increase your pain.

5.   The gratitude diary

Maintain a gratitude diary. Write down all the things you are grateful for.

A baby looked at you and smiled in the morning. You felt nice about it, write it down in your diary.

Doing this exercise kills the bitterness and despair and promotes happiness.

6.   Do what you like. Live your dreams.

This is a very simple and easy thing to do.

But we rarely we do it, screw anything that doesn’t make you happy.

You like eating ice creams?

Well go out and eat as much you want, all that you want.

You like reading?

Sit all day at home and read all that you love.

You like dancing but due to something or the other you never got a chance to take your dancing onto another level.

I say, do it right now. Go get yourself enrolled into a dance school or become a dance teacher, go and try your luck in a reality show. Do it! Curbing our desires for the sake of fitting in the society or under any other pressure is no good. Do what you really want to.

7.   Learn something new.

Think of a subject that you wish you knew more about and spend 15 minutes on the Internet reading about it, or go to a bookstore and buy a book about it. But be honest! Pick up a topic that really interests you, not something that you think you 'should' know or 'need to' learn about.

8.   Smile!

 Indeed the simplest step to happiness.

 Even if you don’t feel like it, fake it! Research shows that even a fake smile induces harmones that make you feel better instantly. 

According to Henry David Thoreau: "Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder."

With all due respect to the author of Walden, that just isn't so, according to a growing number of psychologists, you can choose to be happy, they say. You can chase down that elusive butterfly and get it to sit on your shoulder by taking time to reflect, and making conscious steps to make your life happier. It really does work!