Hello Kochi!

Kochi is so dear to me as it is the first place I stayed away from my parents.

I had nights crying myself to sleep for not being able to see my parents and not to mention those mosquitos which haunt me at 3am. That was my first experience with the "Queen of Arabian Sea". Terrible, in the first go!

But fate had different plans for me, I was pulled back to Kochi 2 years later once again. and this time, not to hate her, but to fall in love with her forever.

It was definitely Kochi, who made me love lonely life. To celebrate and love myself without expecting others to do that for me. A part of me grew mature staying on her lap and another part adventurous. I could walk for hours alone, even to places I have never been to before, I dared to talk to people who were complete strangers to me; I could live life to the fullest!

Willingdon Island will always remain my happy place in Kochi. Unlike other tourist attractions, the place has nothing to offer you other than an old museum, Cochin Naval Base, and several factories. You may wonder what is so special in this?

The Peace!

The kind of peace that you can't even imagine to have existed in the heart of a metro city like Kochi. And a year later, that was the main reason I found myself again in Kochi. Whenever there came a time to pick up an internship spot, it was always Kochi for me. My first and probably only option 😂

I did a lot of my "firsts" in Kochi; the people, places and calmness of Marine Drive evenings. Those crowded nights at Lulu Mall, those mighty verandas of Maharajas, Kochi-Musiris Biennale amidst the bustling heat of the city and numerous other instincts. That feeling of being alive when a cold evening breeze blows against your face while holding hands with someone special will always remain one of those special moments that I would pick from my deck of memories any day while feeling lonely and cherish it with happy tears. 

It's hard to believe that Kochi has now become a distant memory, vague yet so clear, near yet so far!

~ Cheerachi 

           Marine Drive, Kochi (2018) | Pic Credits: Dheera Sasidharan (@itscheerachi)

Miserable as it is!

Don't you think we are a weird generation of weird people?

We say we love people out of love.

But it's not like that,

We love people, who were there for us when we were breaking down.

we love people who helped pull back our shits together.

we love people who helped ease our pain.

we don't love people who laughed with us, No we don't.

we love people who cried with us, people who can relate to our pain.

we love people who are broken, just like us.

So next time when someone says they love out of love, tell them that it's not love they are longing for, it's companionship. It's just the feeling of having someone who understands your miseries as much as you yourself can.

Ours is a broken generation, which bonds over sorrows and stays together because of the fear of falling apart if we don't.

As miserable as it seems! 

- Cheerachi

     Pic Credits: Dheera Sasidharan (@itscheerachi)

I: Musings!

       Pic Credits: Dheera Sasidharan (@itscheerachi)

 I know I have changed.

A lot as a person.

I don't laugh at the same kinda jokes anymore, 

I don't talk to most of the people whom I used to call my best friends a year ago. 

A year has made a lot of difference, indeed.

I don't cry for people leaving me anymore,

I don't care too much about life anymore,

I just sit idle most of the time, doing nothing.

I don't talk as much as I used to,

I don't laugh with the same enthusiasm anymore,

Am going with the flow, trying to survive.

People don't excite me anymore for some weird unknown reason.

It's been ages since I have seen my eyes twinkle when I smile.

For the same reason, I have stopped taking photos.

I have stopped reading books, which I have brought with utmost love and eagerness.

I have lost count of days since I smiled genuinely.

I actually don't remember the last time I felt at
home.

All I need is a hug, a long tight one, one which will probably reduce me to tears.

I need one such 'coz I have stopped being myself.

~Cheerachi

I believed my life was mine until...

I believed my life was mine until I lost one of my best friends

The moment I heard that news and the moment I had to believe it, would always remain two of the most painful ones in my life.

How do you put that feeling into words when you realise that a person whom you have known for more than 20 years of your life won't be there in your journey ahead?

He won't be there to tease you anymore,

You won't hear him call you stupid names anymore,

You don't need to expect him at your doorstep on any random day ever again,

You don't need to check out on his house every time you pass by to see if he is there in front of it or not, 

You won't get to see his innocent eyes flutter with his childish smile, 

You won't get to see him ever again! Not in this life!

All you get to see is, him turning into ashes! And you know that sight is going to haunt you until you breathe your last.

After the latter, my life changed forever and I couldn't do a thing🙂

Now I couldn't laugh to the fullest, every laugh I ever had since that moment ends in a delusion, a constant conflict with myself asking me the same question that if am I really happy?

And the answer always comes as a smirk on the corner of my lips that gradually fades into a frown.

I believed my life was mine until I realised it wasn't actually mine

Every single person I love remains the owner of it.

It's not like that I don't love others as much as I loved him, I do!

But nobody can replace another person and the void that he has left behind will forever bleed within.

Does that mean life would stop when someone close to us departs?

No, it won't!

Life must go on, no matter what, the only difference is that I am left in constant fear of losing someone, every second, every moment for the rest of my life!

You promised me that you will be there to see me succeed and then you left!

You are a cheater Peece🙂

I know I am a brave girl, I know I can fight this through but then again ...

Sometimes it feels like I can't do this anymore, 

I can't pretend to be okay when I am all broken inside.

I can't pretend to smile when all I want to do is cry my heart out.

I can't stop thinking about you when all I am left with is your thoughts.

I can't really wake up one day and move on like nothing happened when deep down I know my life would never be the same.

I have lost a friend whom I know would always be there for me no matter what!

They say self-love is important and I do agree.

But love those who are important to you without setting bars, because tomorrow isn't promised 🙂 Tell them how you feel for them, because you may not get a chance in future.

#Cheerachi will always love you #Peece ❤️

Farmer's Protest: and the saga continues...

 

Sachin's and Rihanna's tweet. PC: Twitter

        

Just the two things I want to make clear on Sachin's controversial tweet is:

The first one, 

I just want to ask the people supporting the tweet, on what grounds Sachin can say that nobody outside India can have the right to talk about our internal matters?

Who gave him that right?

He is one among the millions of other Indians who cried for "Black lives matter", an incident which unfortunately doesn't happen in India, is now bringing up the term "Sovereignty of our nation" and all feels a bit dramatic

Against propaganda is okay, but someone please let me know which propaganda is the worst,

The one that is killing the rights of our own citizens and then whitewashing it by suppressing others opinion on the same 

Or the one that supports our cause?

You see, it doesn't work that way, you go on interfering in someone's matters and expect others to shut their mouth when it comes to you, that's typically arrogant to say!

The second one is,

Someone on the other day was arguing with me about Sachin's right as an Indian citizen which Article 19 or freedom of speech and expression gives him, wait a second, how come Sachin a greater Indian than anyone of us?

No doubt he played for India, No doubt he is a phenomenal cricketer, so what??

Does that make him a bit more 'Indian' than me?

I guess no!

The laws and rights in the constitution are the same for all of us and I do have the right to question Sachin's tweet as well!

Then the question arises is how come someone outside India can comment on farmer's protest?

They don't have the privilege of Article 19A of the Indian Constitution, right?

Wrong!

They do have another right that gave them this power, that neither India nor Indians can deny, here it is,

"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. Legal Citation: Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 19) (10 Dec. 1948), U.N.G.A. "

Now, do you guys argue India is above the UNO?

No country is actually above it, because there does exist an idea of World peace and the UN stands for it. 

A high-ranking Indian celebrity like Sachin Tendulkar replying this rudely to an international celebrity on such sensible issues concerning human rights isn't sending a good vibe to the world as a whole regarding those peacemaking reforms by the UN which again "unfortunately" India happened to agree long ago. 

Think twice before you speak, because not everyone and everything work according to your wishes, and you can't persist to keep it in control as well.

India is a democracy! 

Don't make that sentence a past tense with your actions.

#Cheerachi

PS: This is all that I, as a student of media and communication understand about Laws and ethics. Please do let me know if I am anywhere wrong. Anything other than blind emotional patriotic abusive comments will be welcomed!

2020: A year which got misinterpreted.

I have seen people saying that 2020 is the worst year.

Is that so?

I used to think the same too, until that point where I realized that it is the other way around.

That  2020 is one of the best years indeed because reality is always harsh and bitter than our imagination. And when reality hits hard in order to ignore the mental trauma of accepting the truth, it's a human instinct to not accept that and remain in our imaginary world by blaming others to be mentally safe. 

That's exactly what seems to be happening here with 2020.

2020 indeed made us all prisoners in our own homes, it even closed all our doors to interact with people and forced us to shut everyone out who was so close to us all of sudden. We were left with little choices to make and more precautions to take, for us and for the collective good of humankind as well.

This was the first time that we were given the chance to sit at home in the comfort of our couches, doing nothing, and still save the world. And we did it too.

But the aftereffect of this was devastating, suddenly taken away from our social life and friend circles impacted so many people and even made them victims of depression.

And that's exactly when we started pointing fingers towards 2020 for being a lame year.

You know why most people become depressed? 

At some point or the other, the truth is that 2020 really showed us who is real and who will remain real forever...

Who actually cared for us and who were pretending it all...

What was actually meant for us and what never was...

It showed us the bitter truth of life that everyone starts forgetting you once we stop meeting them in person. And for most of us, this lesson was a huge one to be accustomed to in such a short span of 8 months and it did break us, every single one of us.

But let's keep our grudges aside and try to bring out the positive in it. It's almost the end of December and we are almost done with 2020. Looking back to this extraordinary year, which we will all remember till the end of our lives, 

I am a little bit more optimistic towards life at this point, 

I am proud that I made it through this hard time even though broken, I am never shattered,

I know whom to trust and whom not to anymore,

I know who loves me for real and who never did,

I know time and distance play a major role in every relationship and I learned to value my parents more for all the things they have done for me and loving me unconditionally regardless of me being anywhere in the world.

Maybe 2020 was harsh, but it surely taught us some serious life lessons indeed.

                 Pic Credits: Google

Bye Bye 2020

Thank you for the lessons, I will always cherish you!

#Cheerachi 

The Subtle Art Of Not Giving a Fuck

Book: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck

Author: Mark Mansion

Language: English

Pic Credits: Dheera Sasidharan (@itscheerachi)

I was not a fan of non-fiction till the day I pick this one for a read! I was always skeptical about myself being engaged in a non-fiction read this much. I even doubted if I have that power to understand all these. If you can relate to this, then here is your solution to the problem!

💥"A counterintuitive approach to living a good life" as the tagline says is the first thing that struck me!

💥"THE SUBTLE ART OF NOT GIVING A FUCK" was actually a life-changing read for me. A lot of my fellow readers do have extreme opposite thoughts on the book, but I found it enlightening!

💥The first 20 pages are like an "entrance test", if you actually pass that test and move on to the next chapter, then there my friend is where the magic of this wonderful writing resides! Most of the people I have known either get bored somewhere between those 20 pages or just hesitate to pick it up for a read in the first place. Either way you are missing a great read.

💥There is no such thing as "not giving a fuck", we actually give way more fucks than we are meant to. So this book is simply about choosing those important things to give a Fuck about in life! 🤗 This is how I can literally summarize the book.

💥The language and the writing style is so simple that even a beginner can understand it without second thoughts.
The best thing that I found about the book is that it actually improved my general knowledge on certain subjects via stories that I would have never known if I wouldn't have chosen this book. Forever thankful to the author for this great treasure!

#Cheerachi

The Kite Runner

Book: The Kite Runner

Author: Khaled Hosseini

Language: English

After completing "And the Mountains Echoed" I felt the sudden urge of reading this one, as I have heard a lot about this one within that short period.
I kept on searching for it everywhere and finally found this little bundle of joy in Lulu Mall. 💫🤗
.
.
.
💥As I believed Khalid Hosseini will never disappoint me and that turned out to be true. This is one of the best reads I have ever had so far, the pictures it paints in the readers' mind will keep on haunting them for a while. I could always feel Aamir and Hassan within me. 
The way our little insecurities turn out to be life-changing decisions for others is beautifully portrayed in the book.

💥Eventually, it teaches you every crime in the world is a kind of theft in itself, 
" When you kill a man, you steal a life" 
And if you go on thinking about it further you could find undying examples for it in real life!
And you will agree at last, that every crime is theft in disguise!

💥Like every other Khaled Hosseini book, this one is also a bit emotional, that it will surely let you sigh at times and also remind you that not every story has a happy ending, sometimes the end won't hurt much is the only thing we can hope for.
.
.
.
"For you a thousand times over"
Is a line that will keep echoing in my mind forever!

Pic Credits: Dheera Sasidharan (@itscheerachi)

#Cheerachi

Extraction

Pic Credits: Google

Today I got to see this Netflix film, Extraction, and that hit me hard...

Like I always wondered why those super quality action scenes and superhero movies never happened to come up in India? Why we always have to settle with Bahubali and Mahabharata? But this movie...I guess it gave me some answers...answers that are hard to digest but are the truth of the Indian Film Industry! I remember those trolls who say If Spiderman was made in India he could have long gone dead due to the electrical wires which go past every nook and corner of the country. And I guess it is the same with the roads as well...and the traffic...and the busy streets! We could have never shot a successful car chase without a man or a stray animal coming in between! That's it...that's the way our cities are molded. Be it the most rural Indian cities or the most urban metro cities like Mumbai! India has this undying love for stay animals.😂 

Coming back to the film, Chris Hemsworth is a brand in himself I must admit! Amidst the fact the story is happening in India and Bangladesh, he gave it an unmatchable quality that most of our native Actors could have failed to deliver at some point or the other ( Yes, he does remind me that Avengers is never gonna be the same without him). Randeep Hooda has been exceptionally well as he always sets his limits high. And if you ever feel the film disturbing then the only thing you gotta remember is the place it is happening! 

The one and the only drawback I felt is the disturbing and noisy backdrop. Then again, this is the way it is. Films are the reflection of the society in which they are being made. So to the people who don't really appreciate this film, it's not the movie, It's the reflection of your own reality you are being distributed of!

  #Cheerachi

For more details visit:

Extraction movie review & film summary (2020) | Roger Ebert

Extraction (2020) - IMDb

Feminism! Oh wait, Fake Feminist Agenda!

 I do identify myself as a feminist.

But let me make it a bit more clear, even if I believe in the core idea of feminism I don't agree with 90% of the claims the so-called "feminism activists" are putting forward nowadays.

I must say the basic idea of feminism has gone wrong in this country. It would be foolish to expect the people who twist and turn almost every ideology even the Democracy and secularism according to their benefits, would spare a sensitive idea such as feminism. 

When I say I believe in feminism,

I said I believe that there should be equality in status and freedom for men and women,

I believe cooking, cleaning, and all the household works should be more of life skills than gender roles,

I believe a child should be the responsibility of his father as much as it is to a mother and there should be paid paternal leaves for taking care of a mother and child along with maternal leaves in almost all jobs,

I believe in equal pay for equal work,

I believe almost every job and vacancies should be identified as gender-neutral,

I strongly support the abolishment of practices like dowry which unconsciously state that girls are a burden to their parents,

I even recommend the removal of phrases such as "You are a girl, be obedient", "This work is not for boys", "Girls can't raise their voices", "A girl is a guest in her own house" and what not??

This is all I ever wanted, equality, in every perspective of life!

Now, let's talk about the pseudo-feminist perspective that I don't agree with,

See, you cant support both equality and reservation at the same time, both are extreme opposites of each other. So, when you are a feminist you can't cry for those privileges you enjoy for just being a woman. 

Let's take the case of Rhea Chakraborty, these feminists say that she has faced unfair media trial and slut-shaming in both media and public domains, they say that she 'is a women' and so she should be treated with respect.

Now, this is confusing? You are the ones who were shouting for equality till yesterday, now all of a sudden you start crying for the gender privileges that you were enjoying. How can that be possible? Can you guys even hear yourself when you blurt out these things? You even won't make sense to yourself!

You can't argue to treat her nicely just for being a woman. The first and foremost thing is that you can't expect people to respect you because you belong to a particular gender, respect should be earned. You cant cry when a woman criminal is treated as the same as a man criminal in this society. Understand that the word Criminal is gender-neutral and it is so for a reason as well. Because in the eyes of law a criminal is a criminal no matter what gender, caste, creed, or religion they belong to. (That's what equality before the law says if I am not wrong?)

This is like you cry for equality for ages, and when you are finally getting the equal treatment you become conscious that you are special and you need special treatment. That is the dumbest logic I have ever heard.

Now, if you are hurt because of humanity, that she has received inhuman treatment, then I must remind you that she isn't alone, her brother too has been harassed and arrested. I haven't seen a single man standing by his side for his rights and other blah blah. I haven't even seen a single one of you fighting for that cause either. And where was your humanity when a pure soul was drugged and murdered? It didn't bleed that day like it is bleeding now? oh! that was a man!! So isn't this clear cut gender division from your side? Now how can you preach gender equality when you, yourself are against its basic norms? 

At last, if you are saying about her human rights, let me tell you any person who commits such cold-blooded crimes automatically lose their right as humans in the first place. If they were humans they wouldn't have done all these and what good is a human being without humanity? So stop bragging about the human rights of criminals. That is the most ironic of all claims I have heard so far.  Let them face their karma. 

For God's sake don't say this is what you call feminism. This isn't feminism and this will never be. Don't give that name to your egoistic filthy propagandas!

I hope this helps!

    Pic Credit: ANI

#Cheerachi

  For more details visit:

Death of Sushant Singh Rajput - Wikipedia

Rhea Chakraborty Being Mobbed At NCB Office Is A New Low; Bollywood Reacts - Entertainment (mashable.com)

Rhea Chakraborty arrested in drugs case, in 14-day custody - india news - Hindustan Times

Wakanda Forever!🖤

 

                                   Pic Credits: Marvel Cinematic Universe Facebook Page

From the very first time, he said "Wakanda Forever" I know I was already in love with this man!

He said forever and left like there is no more forever! How can he do this?
I know you are a fighter Chadwick!
You fought for 4 years and gave us movies to remember for a lifetime, you were in pain and still managed to make us smile.
Never been a fan of superhero movies, but after watching avengers the two people who struck me were the Iron Man and Black Panther!
More because of the wonderful humans they are in real life!
King T'challa was a real-life hero too.
One of those videos that I have seen of Chadwick, where he interacted with his fans, mostly the African-Americans, one could see the kind of human he was and the level of inspiration and influence he had on his people!
One among the few people to represent the community in big screens around the globe with a superhero image!
They dearly loved him and thanked him for making them believe that people like them could also be Superheroes, they could stand with their heads high and watch the world around them change for better.
They truly accepted him as their King, not for the delusional role he played but the way it inspired millions of their children to believe that heroes can be among themselves too.
The way the film portrayed their women to be powerful, not because they were in anger or sorrow, but because they were powerful from within.
I believe he will always be remembered as a true king among his people, who made them believe in themselves and made them proud of their identity once again! 

Chadwick Boseman, 2020 has become more of a nightmare than a year! But I am happy that you are away from pain!

Rest in Peace would be too short a line to bid you adieu so I would better say Rest in Power, King!
28 August 2020

Wakanda Forever 🖤

NB: To those who don't know,
Black Panther is the first Marvel film with a predominantly black cast. It became the first comic book and superhero film to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, as well as the first film in the MCU to win an Academy Award.
Beyond his film appearances, though, Boseman is widely known for his community work and being an activist combating racial injustice in America and around the world. 

#Cheerachi

For more details visit:

Chadwick Boseman: Black Panther star dies of cancer aged 43 - BBC News

Remembering the life and legacy of Chadwick Boseman | Charlotte Mecklenburg Library (cmlibrary.org)