Sucker punch:

Sunday, April 24, 2011 | shubha khamparia


Everyone has an Angel. A Guardian who watches over us. We can’t know what form they’ll take One day, Old man, Next day, Little girl. But don’t let appearances fool you, They can be as fierce as any dragon. Yet they’re not here to fight our battles. But to whisper from our hearts. Reminding that it’s us. Its everyone of us who holds power over the world we create.
You can deny angels exist, Convince ourselves they can’t be real. But they show up anyway, at strange places and at strange times. They can speak through any character we can imagine. They’ll shout through demons if they have to. Daring us, challenging us to fight.

Who honors those we love for the very life we live? Who sends monsters to kill us and at the same time sings that we'll never die? Who teaches us what's real and how to laugh at lies? Who decides why we live and what we'll die to defend? Who chains us and who holds the key that can set us free? It's you. You have all the weapons you need. Now fight!
 
 

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A morning at VMS.

Thursday, March 3, 2011 | shubha khamparia

Close your eyes and try to walk around your room..little difficult?

Or try blind folding your eyes and spend a whole day ..HARD?

Or try doing all basic activities of the day blind folded..HARDER?

What if you are asked to spend the whole life the same way?IMPOSSIBLE!!

I took my first lecture on english for the 6th standard students in Victoria Memoria School for the Blind,
and I found that nothing seemed to be HARD or IMPOSSIBLE for those Kids.
Saturday morning I was a bit confused about how would I deal with the kids , what if I go wrong somewhere?
What if I named a colour,then how would I explain them that?
I was nervous..
But believe me,I had a BIG smile on my face since the time I entered the class , till I reached back home.

I had four students in my class..Anand, Ravi ,Shiva and Mayank, and one more volunteer from TCS.
They introduced themselves in english not so good , but amazingly very sweet :)
The introduction content was: name,favourite subject, hobbies and aspirations.
The kids like playing cricket ,watching CID and playing musical instruments.
When asked about thier aspirations, some students said abhi socha nai.., some aspired to be a musician.
I saw books in Braille for the first time.I could not sense anything in those dots.
There was a wrist watch on Ravi's hand which was a hurdle for my concentration,as I was wondering..how would he use it?

And in some time Mayank asked Ravi 'what's the time?' and he pressed a button so the watch spoke the time for him.
And I literaly felt like a fool at that moment.

The students were very much enthusistic about learning new words , grammer and conversation.
Infact Anand told me that saturdays are the best days of the month for him because he gets to meet us and learn some new english words.
While going through a story we came accross a sentence 'The peasant found a treasure in a BOX while ploughing the field.It was filled with gemstones and coins of gold and silver'.

The students asked me what are 'gemstones'? I answered 'Diamonds,heere jawaharaat' and expected the next question to be: how/what are these?
But to my surprise Anand said "kitna khush hua hoga na wo farmer.."
They stood up at their place every time they answered any question.I had never seen such enthusiasm in any class.

There were a few instances when I was completely stunned..:

1.Ravi asked me 'May I go to toilet..' And then I was confused whether I should help him through the way ..or..
but the other volunteer who was experienced with the kids stopped me. And as I said yes, Ravi easily went out of the class ,walked through the corridor, found his way to the loo and back to the class. He sat exactly in his position without any hurdles!

2.Mayank had problem with the FAN, so he asked Shiva to shut it off.
Shiva so smoothly went to the switch board and pressed exactly the switch that turned the fan off!

3.There was some drilling going on downstairs, so Anand could not concentrate. He repeatedly said that he cant stand the noise pollution. He stood up to close the windows, which were about 10 meters away from him , He banged on me once as I was standing unepectedly at a wrong place. But he found the windows , closed them ,and while coming back to the place he banged a few plastic chairs which were wrongly arranged,so he arranged them back in order.
I am still trying to figure out 'HOW?'

After around 2 hours of lecture ,Shiva inturrupted us in middle saying 'Kantaala aa gaya abhi bas karo na yaar .. lets sing some songs.."
After the class , Shiva sang 'dont say ALVIDA'.
Mini, one of the voluntiers , took me to the music room where students played the song 'AAWAN AKHIYA' on harmonium and tabla,
It was mesmerising. They could beat any one ,in any music competition.

I may have tought those kids a few simple words , but from them ,I learnt a very important lesson for the life time .
And that is "Come what may..Keep smiling , be enthusiastic, learn new things , forget all sorrows,indulge,enjoy! This is the way to live life.:)"

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One of the most memorable days of my life..

Monday, April 19, 2010 | shubha khamparia

It was 7 AM and I woke up in anxiety, I could hardly sleep last night
as it was going to be the first day of my 4 years of voyage.
I got ready , wore a simple old kind of salwar kameez (as many of my school friends had warned me about GECU being blacklisted for ragging and stuff,this kind of salwar kameez was an attempt to escape from ragging), my hairs neatly oiled, and as my seniors
adviced me to take a tempo of a yellow n black combi to the Govt. engineering college, I stood by the side of the road waiting for that special entity to arrive. I could see a pig faced black n yellow thing approaching towards me on the road. I succeded to grab the tempo assistant's attraction and finaly that speacial car paused on the road specialy for me :).
I stepped in and and oh my God !..why the hell was I shivering!? I struggled for the words 'Govt. Engineering College'
And there.. I was dropped outside a huge campus where I could figure out nothing except BABOOL trees.
I managed to walk in a few kilometers and saw the college building. It was 10 AM already, and as I was about 1 month late in joining the college, I did not know which class I was supposed to go in.
Class room for the first sem students were swapped almost in every lecture: this was an anti ragging special measure taken by the college authority. Thus I was unable to figure out my class room. I read in the notice board:
"Computer Science: first sem : Computer lab". Then as I was running through the campus in search of the first sem computer lab,
One guy helped me out. He insisted me to accompany him as he was supposed to go to the same lab, I agreed.
I stepped inside the lab and noticed two things:
1. Every body in the class seemed quite elder to me.
2. God! I guess I had missed many important lectures as the students inside the lab were busy preparing projects in JAVA.

I querried peaple over there about what was I supposed to do ..and they suggested to just wait for the faculty to instruct me.
Sitting at the last PC,I opened MS Paint (this was all I liked to do in computers @ that age.)and made some funny cartoons. Almost every body in the lab noticed my screen and then they were either giggling and whispering something.
Then a Man with a register came inside the class room and started marking the attendance . I complained as My name was not announced, and the faculty in quite surprised words spoke" First class?"
I said 'yes' with a shivering voice and mixed expressions. And then he turned towards the rest of the students in the lab and asked "who got this girl inside the lab?"
And the batch laughed.:(
He informed me that it was the third year batch project lab, and I am definitely in the wrong place.
He guided me towards the notice board to check out my next lecture location. With wet eyes I checked the time in my watch , it was 12 PM and I
still could not make it to my class room. The notice board displayed "COMPUTER SCIENCE FIRST SEM - G17 - MECHANINCS"
Then finaly I succeded in searching G17 and attended my first lecture: Faculty Mr. Pahwa , subject: Engineering Mechanics.
As I had already missed around 4 lectures on mechanics in the past month and specialy after whatever happened since the morning, I could not get even a single alphabet present on board into my head.
After the lecture I blindly followed my classmates to the next class room , we walked in flocks like sheep.
Ahh .. It was 5 pm and I had to get back to the hostel.
Standing on the road, while waiting for the tempo, I had sung almost 8 songs for the amusement of my seniors.And the funniest part was: I did'nt know how but that day every senior guy who spoke to me , belonged to my home town! :P (Allthough later on I came to know that it was'nt true.).
I saw the tempo approaching towards me. Without wasting any time I stepped inside it to save my life. After around 20 mins I realised:
this is not the the same route that I followed in the moring while comming towards the college.
In Innocence I asked the tempo wala "Teen batti nikal gaya kya?"
And the full crowd inside the tempo was laughing. Hell ! why so?
The tempo driver stopped and told me to get out and wait for the same type of tempo but from the other direction.
The scene was: I had reached a nearby village , with tears in my eyes I stood on the road waiting for the black n yellow pig faced thing, but  from the opposite direction this time.
My eyes shone bright in yellow color as I had seen it approaching . yes!!! a few seconds later Ill be out of this hell.
At 7:30 PM, I was back in the hostel. After such a horrible day , I Woke up in fever 100 degrees the next morning :).

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