SIMRUN KNOWS BEST

Have you ever been ghosted by someone, or have you yourself ever ghosted someone, intentionally or unintentionally?  Agree to it or not, getting ghosted by someone we had a good time with is one of our generation's biggest fears. I have talked about social media in my previous articles, and in this one, I intend to talk about the biggest social media related scare of all time. False Pregnancy scare or getting bitten by a hidden snake on the toilet still tops the list, by the way.  Before diving right into the topic and my personal experience with ghosting, let's help the boomers who are currently reading this article understand what 'ghosting' means and no, it does not mean being haunted or followed by a ghostly spirit, nor is it a Halloween thing.  According to the Oxford dictionary, ghosting is the practice of ending a personal relationship with someone by suddenly and without explanation withdrawing from all communication. How many of us have been in a position where...

Very often in the race of life, we cease to live. Schedules and Deadlines often have us not addressing what resides within ourselves. By ‘inside’ I don’t necessarily mean physical health, but something equivalent and not much talked about – Mental Health.   Unlike physical health, healing mental health issues is a tedious process that often robs oneself of peace and confidence. Making a mess out of a fully functioning human being and driving them to the peak of it, leaving no option but suicide. Suicide is never an option, we often preach this to someone whom we know is suffering.   Often while lending our support to such a person we tend to suggest to them what they should and should not do to compose themselves and achieve completeness. We ought to stop doing that and find other ways of lending our support. Suffering is personal, no matter how much we attempt, we can never share the sufferer’s pain. In such a situation let the person be (this does not mean abandoning...

I thought I knew what 'Love' looked like.  At 16, Love for me had tiny eyes with long lashes, Love had a voice that had just reached its depth.  Love was proud, and to get love, I had to drown.  Maybe that wasn't 'Love', but somehow it felt like it was.  Maybe I'll never know or maybe one day, I will know.  At 20, someone knocked again, but it wasn't 'Love'.  How could it be? for he who knocked was not who I thought ‘Love’ would be.  He did not have tiny eyes but long lashes,  He was not proud but a warm chord.  He did not want me to drown, he was different, yet what I felt for him,  I cannot argue if it is not love.  Maybe it is, maybe it is not.    So what is 'Love'?  A type, a feeling or a person?  Or 'Love' exists just in my mind? Or has it crept me but I just don't realise? Or will it find me when the time is right?  What if 'Love' is not my type?  These are the answers, I still have to find. ...

  2020, the moment I utter the digits, those in front of me utter promptly, "Ugh". There is no denying the fact that 2020, indeed was a challenging year, full of ups and downs, actually, mostly downs.  Let us go back 12 months, to December'2019 when everyone around the world, be it in Mumbai or Manhattan, was out for shopping Christmas presents and decorations, celebrating thanksgiving with their loved ones, meeting up with friends for new years or just chugging on beer cans. All of this sounds so nostalgic, to me, it seems like the last time I made such plans was in my past life. No one, including myself, ever thought that we will ever have to face something like a pandemic, in fact, most of us didn't know what the word 'pandemic' meant in the first place making it the most searched for word on Google in 2020. I'm sure that many of us were already familiar with the epidemics that have taken place across the globe from time to time but a disease or sicknes...

  It has been around seven months since educational institutions in India; Schools and colleges were ordered to shut until further notice. As a student, I very much understand how ineffective online education can be. Trying to adjust to the new normal, I would say was no piece of cake.  At that time I was faced with two options. I could either blame the pandemic and the situation for the large hole that was about be dug in my education or make the most of this time to hone my existing skills and learn new ones, shaping me as a professional.  I chose the latter option. I started out as a fresher into the job market with no experience or understanding of how the professional world works. Let me tell you, as a college student with no prior experience, landing an internship opportunity was very often disappointing. Nowadays, companies prefer hiring candidates with prior work experience or skills.   HOW IT ALL STARTED? While my university was still finding a way to educat...

  With more than 26 million cases, the COVID-19 pandemic has grappled the world and there is no sign of it getting better. The future of students is on hold and people are being laid off. Economies are sinking and industries collapsing.  It has almost been six months since a nationwide lockdown was imposed in our country due to which schools, colleges and offices were ordered to shut. Students were told to educate themselves through online lectures and employees, asked to work from home.  While the working class is still trying to adjust to the new routine called 'work from home' (as exciting as it sounds) it has had its own implications. When you work from home, your employer in most cases, naturally assumes that since you are at the comfort of your home, you can easily and effectively do the work that is given to you.  Raised employer expectations often have employees overworking themselves, sometimes without breaks in front of a screen. The pressure to look and so...

Before I begin to preach about what I am about to preach about, allow me to tell you how I came up with such a dramatic title. I have a light, a neon lamp basically which spells ‘Love’, I motioned the lamp in a wave and captured this deep ( only if you see it) photograph. Kudos to my camera! Love is a feeling that we are supposed to hold for others if we are conditioned that way. Just like a wave, our feelings including love experience high tides and low tides. Here, I will not talk about love, the one that is being shared between two subjects ( assuming that love can happen not only in humans but animals as well ), but the one that you hold within yourself for yourself. Talking about ‘Self Love’, how many of you would name you when asked about a list of things and people you love? You’d call your insecurities out, your imperfections, you’re a human after all. But have you ever imagined what happens when you start loving yourself? To this, my younger version would say “ Me neither, pas...