EDUCATION!!

Stay in college,
Get the knowledge,
Stay there 'til you're through.
It they can make penicillin out of moldy bread,
They can sure make something out of you.
-Muhammad Ali a.k.a Cassius Clay

I’M LOSING MY MIND...

“My name is Padma Vadvani, and I’m hundred and twenty five years old”, she says as one walks into the room. There is suddenly a silent pause and sense of fear comes over her face as she almost whispers, “you won’t tell anyone, that I killed him right? I did not know the medicine I gave him, would kill him.” Wondering who she was taking about she replied saying it was her first husband Otaram Vdharam Vadvani. “I was forced to marry him at the age of eleven and the only good thing he did, was give me Hiru Jhagjani, my son. My name is Padma Vadvani, and I’m hundred and twenty five years old. You won’t tell anyone, that I killed him right? I did not know the medicine I gave him would kill him...

" I am dead, I'm am dead you know, because i can never feel my heartbeat.I know I am dead , I have no heart beat” she kept repeating for the next five minutes as I just sat next to her without uttering a word.

Alzheimer's disease afflicts more than 3 million people in India. With more people living into their 80s and 90s, that number will only increase. Tom DeBaggio wrote two books about what it was like to have early-onset Alzheimer's disease. He described it as "the closest thing to being eaten alive slowly."
Mrs. Padma Vadvani is a Sindhi, who was born on 12th oct. 1920, in Karachi. Her family decided to migrate to Bombay. After independence Karachi was separated into another country called Pakistan. There is no certificate within our country to prove her existence, her birth certificate remains in Pakistan.
She was diagnosed, with Alzheimer in the year1997 at the age of 77, and her decline has been clear in the intervening years. She now is 88yrs old. She no longer can have a normal conversation with anyone including her family members, and she gets very violent. She can hardly recognize anyone from within the family. Her children and grandchildren that give her such pleasure are now forgotten. A vague memory of her son Hiru still remains. She married at the age of 16yrs to Mr. Otaram Vadvani. They moved to CBD Belapur after marriage, to a place now called Artiste Village, and have stayed there ever since. He died out of a heart attack. After which she got married to Mr. Lakhan Timberwala. She has four generations prevailing. As the Alzheimer's disease increased, it became very hard for the family to handle her. She would try to run away in search for family and get very aggressive, as if she was kidnapped. Her mind would not permit her to remember; that the people she was with was her immediate family. She always stayed with her son Hiru, who finally decided to admit her in an aged care home named “Shushrusha-where others are cared for…” fifteen minutes away from Artiste Village.
The amazing that I found out while talking to her was how she is a little aware that she can't remember things, and that she has "lost a lot of recollections”. The awareness, seems the most cruelest, when she looks blankly into my eyes and says, “I don’t remember.” What might that feel like I wonder? It’s like having something at the tip of my tongue but not being able to convey it. It can be frightening to lose control of the body in any way.
It is especially tragic when it's the body's central control system, the brain. It is the target of an angry destructive process that science has been unable to tame or reclaim.
Memories tell us who we are and where we have been and they warm us and provide sheen. In later years, the old memories remain, to offer familiar anecdotes and the safety of the past. Memories are slowly disappearing from places inhabited for so long.
"Immortality, such as it may be, is contained not in what is dreamed or the secrets we keep; it’s how we are remembered by the ones we love.”- Tom DeBaggio

Mrs. Padma Vadvani oldest resident of CBD Belapur lived there for 72 years.

YOU CAN BREAK FREE ...

We're imperfect people trapped in an imperfect world until we get to that place beyond.
-Kathie Lee Gifford

I sometimes wonder what is it, that keeps people so trapped inside, why won’t they just let go!? Today as I walked down the streets at Kapatipura, my eye suddenly caught a lady pulling, almost dragging a young girl. The girl was around the age of 10... I dont know why i just stood my eyes transfixed on them. She then led her into a brothel, as the lifted her feet over the doorframe , she looked behind in the distance for hope, drops of tears roll down her helpless eyes but her face seemed like it had been jus given an anesthicia shot ...hard, cold and numb… the men wooed at her, she was dragged along a little faster than she could walk. There was no unwillingness from the child's end. Did she know what she was in for or is it a place that just does not make her happy? Helplessness and isolation was the look in her eyes. It was a sordid story. For one thing it made me feel legally liable—I had to report the case of child abuse, but I completely did not know what to do. I felt trapped, and somewhere my feeling resonated with that child.
How does it feel to be alone and outcast? I once read a true story by Philip Yancey he said-a prostitute who came to me in wretched straits, homeless, and sick unable to buy food for her two-year-old daughter. Through sobs and tears she told me how she had been renting out her daughter--- two years old! -- To men interested in kinky sex. She made more money renting out her daughter an hour than she could earn on her own for a night. She had to do it she said to support her own drug habit, (her addiction. She lived in the bondage of her addiction, why could she not set herself free!? What did it take…)
We often hear people say it’s going to be ok. Just like the woman might have told the child before taking her into the brothel. But then there is this funny inner voice we have, that tells us the truth. Why then do we choose to believe the “THEY”. Who forms the “they” I wonder!?
I believe there’s a force in this world that lives beneath the surface and above the skies, something primitive and wild that’s gives us an extra push when it needs to survive. Just like wild flowers blossom after a fire turns the forest black. Most people I know about are afraid to accept this and keep it buried deep inside, like it’s some piece of precious gold. Only that this piece of gold may dissolve if not used properly, but there are very few people who have the courage to love what is untamed inside. Something that they want to do, something that makes them happy, keeps them satisfied. No matter what the world says.
There was once a time when people wanted to discover their real and ultimate destiny, but I see them now just moving around unsettled. I think they are still looking for the same thing, a place where they can be optimistic about the future. A place where they feel, that they still have a future, a place that helps them to be who they really want to be, where they can feel that this life make sense or there is some purpose to it. A place where they can feel ………… what I feel right now,by just living……………… all I feel is…. FREE..