What made you what you are today?

I failed to notice the dark clouds which were all storming towards me. While I was busy celebrating the light, suddenly the smoke was everywhere making it difficult for me to breathe.

No there weren’t any stars visible in the dark which those inspirational quotes claim about. An unwanted and unexpected moment not willing to pass at all. I was confused.

I asked myself that were my eyes even open because I couldn’t see anything. Though I could feel something surrounding me with all the bad vibes.

I could hear it cursing with a promise that it won’t leave me for a long time now. And will stay and make things difficult for me everyday for many more days ahead.

But right when I was about to give up I reflected upon myself & my journey so far. I realised that I have always been moulded by those who built me as well as the ones who have broken me. These days shall pass too. And it will again mould me into something new.

So what made you what you are today?

Community Immersion : Extended Family!

When she mentioned that I shouldn’t leave her house because she feels lonely without me, I felt my purpose was served. 

She is Kunti Ma’am, an Aanganwadi Teacher in Vadyuda village of Bageshwar District. I’m living in her shelter from the past 10 days for a community immersion project and 10 more days to go. She has taken care of me like my mother but also been a supportive and funny friend. 

She is again an inspiration to me because she has been living alone for a longer while now that her family has shifted to the city to work and earn. She has encouraged them all and herself as well to lead her motive for people’s welfare. 

She call’s me Nikita and keeps asking me if I’m hungry even after I have eaten.

Ofcourse there is a discomfort to live at someone’s place without paying them anything. 

But when they love you like their own and support you for your vision you know that you have increased your family. Right? 

Village : Vadyuda, Block : Kapkot,District : Bageshwar

Vipassana Retreat : Power of isolation.

With my first Vipassana retreat I tasted silence and solitude. Several months before I moved from Mumbai to Uttarakhand to find some peace. To escape the regular life and contribute in the rural community. While I worked between the cold & misty mountains I decided to travel to Jaipur for a Vipassana course. Not only for meditation but in search of some answers to my misery. And look where I found the key, within myself. 
Dhamma Thali Vipassana Centre demands us to remain silent for 10 days, without talking to anybody one must meditate the whole day, eat plain food & isolate itself deeply. 

Being a proportionate explorer I could see myself getting down in life after seeing the mess in myself. 

It wasn’t that easy because just like some, I am a complicated person with tangled cycle of thoughts. I have always been writing stories and verses to entangle my own miseries. But here I learned to accept the same without giving any feeling or any label of craving or aversion. 

Yes! I felt like running away the very next day. The first few days was a jail experience. If I knew I could then I would have surely left the place. 

I had several people around me who followed the course rules of not even passing gestures to each other. Disconnecting myself from everyone and technology was not difficult but being unable to share the outbreak made me feel weak. Who knew it was making me strong. I kept smiling because I wanted the same to reflect between the people in the same journey. And started stitching stories inside my mind. 

Unfolding some tales turned unnecessary. The baggage of this untold experiences ain’t heavy either. 

Letting go of many unwholesome beliefs and habits that had set boundaries, one becomes aware of the body and the mind. Mostly the interaction between the two. Because we are usually busy distracting ourselves so we can’t see or readily face some difficult truths about life and death, joy and suffering, karma and chaos etc. 

This will change – This is what I learned, experienced & will follow that nothing is permanent. And also that I am not going to perform any good only for others to think I’m good. But for myself to feel good. 

The experience is different for everyone. Some take a dive into deep peace, some barely are able to get the hang of it. But this course isn’t demanding. It believes in giving to all those who can accept. I did and I’m happy. I suggest you all the same. 

The best stories will be curated when you will have no pen or paper on you.  
Have a happy reading & meditation. 🌻

Role of a little leader – Children in Uttarakhand

Suddenly I was warned, time is up.🌻

Coming from a place of electronic school bells I am now experiencing an old yet effective alarming process in the schools of Uttarakhand. Some how I found leadership in the students from these government primary schools. They are regularly taking control over their own time & schedule in the school. 

They have small hammers tied to a metal tray which we all are aware about. To alarm everybody for any purpose a child is told to hammer the metal tray. I encounter many such delightful responsibilities very often among children.
These are small leadership activities that go unnoticed. Because not an automatic alarm will take control over a child’s day to day activities but they themself will take this initiative where one is aware about it’s time to study or play with the guidance of their teachers. 

Have a happy reading 🌻❤

It’s more than a sprained ankle.

So this is a post by a home-sick attention seeker. 🌻

It’s more than a sprained ankle.🤕 

It took me a good scooter fall to really know where I stand. It doesn’t get easier because I crave all the attention and caring. More than the wounds the fact that I am alone hurts me more. 👪

Surviving with the maybes and probablys and could-bes and still unable to convince myself for a better reason to stay in the hills. 💙 
I realized the worth of many relations today. 

#bikeaccident #hills  #confused #toughliving

#fellowshipdiaries #gandhifellowship  #sprainedankle #winterfashion #pink #friends #me #himalayas #trekkers #india #businesswomen #writersofinstagram #death #likesforlikes #fear #lonely #homesick #mumbai #bageshwar #kapkot #reema #shithappens #traveltheworld #fashion #words #surviving

It was a shooting star! 🌠

Little Maroon Riding Hood 🌻

It just happened a night before while I left from the boys hostel to reach my hostel. 

This Mumbai-City-Partner of mine planned to drop me. On our way toward his bike I stopped to stare at the sky. I was dazzled with the constellation right when he was about to share the same feeling. 
So I explained him about my lucky stars, three that are vertically aligned and 4 that are misplaced into a triangle. 

Any wish that you make when these sets are visible together will come true and after telling this to him we paused to make a wish.
As soon as we opened our eyes and he spoke about a set of bear structured stars we saw something crazy. 

YES! A shooting star. ( I know this ain’t my first time but still a moment of Yay! )
It’s always fun with you buddy. ( This image is from our trip for baseline test in the government schools ) 

#tfu__ #talesforeveruntold #fellowshipdiaries #himalayas 

When I began to adopt some schools in a heavenly place.

Imagine having a classroom located at the top of the hill for some time. Having a window that distracts you with those green but misty mountains. The soft and cold breeze that chills you with those ice-creamy skies. 

What if I say I’m working with such schools? 

The children of this community provide me an atmosphere which is family oriented. They make you feel like you are an angel and that’s the biggest encouragement to take in all the efforts to do something for them. 

It wasn’t that easy when I actually began this journey. Being a girl I had to be sure about my safety in these remote areas. But when you start taking small steps and start trusting families from these locations you get encouraged to explore more. And when you go through some homesickness, challenges and still find a sense of happiness you would want to explore more and this is what happened to me. 

As I and my team are under a District Transformation Program, we need to work with the Head masters of these government schools and build leadership within them. Our aim is students development. So that they achieve immense knowledge that they deserve. 

My trek toward these schools has been difficult. Every school is mostly situated on the top of the Kumaon Hills. Even though Pahadi people are used to it, when people like me come from Metro Cities like mine, happen to exhaust and tremble a lot. 

There have been days when I had no means of transport and I had to walk back for 16kms daily. Apart from this climbing my way to different schools was spraining. Eventually the best part was to never give up. I have felt the sense of inner achievement on every visit of mine to school. 

As I have performed various teaching patterns and introduced these children with the bigger world, I am planning to help them with career guidance and a healthy friendship. 

( My 2nd week experience page ) :

Today was one such day where I visited these students at Banshe P.S and I wish to be assigned for this school. All I wish to do is while the students are living between the skies, taking all the efforts to let them reach great heights as well. This fellowship is blessing our team with so many buddy-relations with these kids which we are never going to forget. 

Oh yeah this is just the beginning. 

( Below are the images to my 4 months of various School Activities ) 

#fellowship #schoolvisit #individualexperience #goodcause #ngo #foundation #ruralschool #transforming #uttarakhand #kapkot #bageshwar #teaching #blessed

Between beautiful disasters 🌎

Have a look at those sharp mountains behind. The wild finishing to it’s skin are bruised by the frequent landslides. But it still continues to stand huge, strong & still.

 
Are you getting me? 

In the past few month after travelling into this heavenly district of Uttarakhand, I have been surrounded with people that have never seen more than what was made visible by the doors.

Many people with no hope of climbing down those mountains and migrating to a better place. Also children who have no clue how a city looks like or even had a simple bus ride.

These experiences have formed a baggage of emotions within me and everyday I think of ways to be a part of their lives. I crave to create a fairyland for them all. So that when I return to my city, I’ll have all hope that someday many of these kids might come down to meet me as well with all their achievements.

Let me share my experiences with these beautiful disasters. 

I’ve seen land slides. Walked on many roads with a fear of collapsing down the hill with the roads. Dared to look up above with worried predictions of huge stones sliding above me. 

I never knew how earthquakes feel like till I experienced a smaller one last month. Even though it was just a shaky experience but you never know what it could have resulted into. 

Mostly travelled on the edge of the roads looking at how deep the hills are and wondered what if I die? No one might even find my traces. 

I’ve climbed cold hills with worried feets. 

Every strangers welcoming smile that was adorable, alarmed me of being on a safer side in the deep forest roads of these remote locations.

They say this place includes huge alcoholism and fear of leopards. 

But where are we safe on this earth? No where. These are all challenges that I chose to accept and is why I’m walking without turning behind. 

Between these beautiful disasters I have found how beautiful my life could be. 🙂 

#tfu__ #talesforeveruntold #microtales #latest #natural #shoes #adidas #denim #greenarrow #l4l # #ngo #foundation #fellowshipdiaries #bethechange #womanpower #fellows #adventure #latest #trip #kapkot #bageshwar #uttarakhand

Diwali Vacation – Back to Mumbai! 🌻

Time really changes, along with us and our situations.
I’ve noticed some change within me and within those people whom I used to come across regularly before and the way I deal with the things today and how bold I could be. 

Suddenly the tables are turned and I exist everywhere. 

But now I question myself that do I really need all of this? I don’t really know how to answer this but I know what I really don’t need anymore. 

So I want to go back far to that place beautiful, that teached me how life should be treated. 

If there is any story that I wouldn’t want to leave incomplete, it would only be all about my fellowship. 

I’m blessed & this is why I am a Gandhi Fellow. 

Though I’m back to Mumbai for my vacation but sooner will be leaving toward Rajasthan for our Boot Camp. 

And after that will travel a little more toward the lap of Himalayas where the work will be back on track. 

Have a Happy Diwali! 🌻

#pollutionfree #gandhifellowship

We must survive but happily.

Problems are part of our lives. We invite some and few occur uninvited. They seem to be out of control sometimes and how others remark our issues bluntly makes us go mad. They advice us to relax and take it easy and when they go through the same they are simply living our trauma too.
Another human tendancy after all!

I think my problems are always bigger then the others. And every other human thinks the same.

But what I really want to suggest here is getting at our hyper mode won’t really change the situation. The situation is going to remain the same and will change either for good or bad. All we should do is not let it impact our lives in a negative way.

Why? Because unless we keep ourselves content with what we have, our mind won’t possess the stability to deal with what is happening. Try to get involved in something else till the phase disappears. Eventually we are still going to have what was supposed to happen. One shouldn’t drown themselves in their grievances so much that they keep their lives aside.

(I’m going through a similar phase, it is difficult I understand. But trust me I’m doing and feeling better then what I used to before)

All you have to do is survive, but happily instead.

Do visit my work on instagram @tfu__
Have a happy reading & writing 🙂