As the day goes by - Page 2

Originally posted by: shilpita87

Kolkata may be home for the rest of my family but in my mind its still a holiday retreat. So when i moved back to Kolkata and took a job here, I knew I would hate it. I don't really take much interest in my surrounding here as everything seems stagnant to me. But there are somethings that you cannot help but notice.

There is a small bench on the road opposite my house. It is the place where all the neighborhood's uncles gather for gossip of cricket and politics in the night. But for the whole day there was this Old man who used to sit there, looking at the road. His one leg was shorter than the other . He was pushing seventy. Face withered with time, Hair whitened by days and eyes blurred with all the things they have seen. He used to watch people going. Like a silent tree or road he witnessed the time just pass by him. He had no one back home waiting for him. He never married and lived with his two brothers who were as old as him and just as lonely. Sometimes they all used to sit and wait for a familiar face to pass by so that they can slip them some money to get them their food or medicine.

This old man was the most frequent visitor of The Bench. and many times some delivery guy or postman would stop by and ask for directions. He used to detail every house in every street to give the directions to them. prolonging the time of the conversation, a simple need for human interaction.

It made me wonder , what are we running after! What is this 'Commitment Phobia' that our generation sprouts about? How long are our parents going to be with us? Our siblings? what does a open relationship mean? what is the cost of it? That man probably had many reasons for his lonely single life. Maybe a love lost, some responsibilities to complete. But what of us. What reason will we have?

I agree one's spouse might leave the world before the other but sill its better to have loved and lost than never to love ever.

This old man died on the Dwritiya of this NavRaatri (7Oct2013). The last face he saw was that of his nurse asking him to drink some water from the spoon she held to him. And I was thinking I don't want to go like that. I don't want to leave this world like that without a beloved face before I close my eyes.

Originally posted by: shilpita87

Kolkata may be home for the rest of my family but in my mind its still a holiday retreat. So when i moved back to Kolkata and took a job here, I knew I would hate it. I don't really take much interest in my surrounding here as everything seems stagnant to me. But there are somethings that you cannot help but notice.

There is a small bench on the road opposite my house. It is the place where all the neighborhood's uncles gather for gossip of cricket and politics in the night. But for the whole day there was this Old man who used to sit there, looking at the road. His one leg was shorter than the other . He was pushing seventy. Face withered with time, Hair whitened by days and eyes blurred with all the things they have seen. He used to watch people going. Like a silent tree or road he witnessed the time just pass by him. He had no one back home waiting for him. He never married and lived with his two brothers who were as old as him and just as lonely. Sometimes they all used to sit and wait for a familiar face to pass by so that they can slip them some money to get them their food or medicine.

This old man was the most frequent visitor of The Bench. and many times some delivery guy or postman would stop by and ask for directions. He used to detail every house in every street to give the directions to them. prolonging the time of the conversation, a simple need for human interaction.

It made me wonder , what are we running after! What is this 'Commitment Phobia' that our generation sprouts about? How long are our parents going to be with us? Our siblings? what does a open relationship mean? what is the cost of it? That man probably had many reasons for his lonely single life. Maybe a love lost, some responsibilities to complete. But what of us. What reason will we have?

I agree one's spouse might leave the world before the other but sill its better to have loved and lost than never to love ever.

This old man died on the Dwritiya of this NavRaatri (7Oct2013). The last face he saw was that of his nurse asking him to drink some water from the spoon she held to him. And I was thinking I don't want to go like that. I don't want to leave this world like that without a beloved face before I close my eyes.

Originally posted by: jedy25

Originally posted by: scorpio10

'Stop Staring and Start Learning'

When she was in high school, Lizzie Velasquez was dubbed "The World's Ugliest Woman" in an 8-second-long YouTube video. Born with a medical condition so rare that just two other people in the world are thought to have it, Velasquez has no adipose tissue and cannot create muscle, store energy, or gain weight. She has zero percent body fat and weighs just 60 pounds.

In the comments on YouTube, viewers called her "it" and "monster" and encouraged her to kill herself. Instead, Velasquez set four goals: To become a motivational speaker, to publish a book, to graduate college, and to build a family and a career for herself.

Now 23 years old, she's been a motivational speaker for seven years and has given more than 200 workshops on embracing uniqueness, dealing with bullies, and overcoming obstacles. She's a senior majoring in Communications at Texas State University in San Marcos, where she lives with her best friend. Her first book, "Lizzie Beautiful," came out in 2010 and her second, "Be Beautiful, Be You," was published earlier this month.

"The stares are what I'm really dealing with in public right now," she told Dr. Drew Pinsky in an interview on CNN's Headline News this week. "But I think I'm getting to the point where... instead of sitting by and watching people judge me, I'm starting to want to go up to these people and introduce myself or give them my card and say, 'Hi, I'm Lizzie. Maybe you should stop staring and start learning'."

Velasquez was born in San Antonio, Texas; she was four weeks premature and weighed just 2 pounds, 10 ounces. "They told us they had no idea how she could have survived," her mother, Rita, 45, told the Daily Mail. "We had to buy doll's clothes from the toy store because baby clothes were too big." Doctors warned Rita and her husband, Lupe, that their oldest child would never be able to walk or talk, let alone live a normal life. (Her two younger siblings were not affected by the syndrome.)

Instead, she has thrived. Her internal organs, brain, and bones developed normally, though her body is tiny. Since she has no fatty tissue in which to store nutrients, she has to eat every 15 to 20 minutes to have enough energy to get through the day. One brown eye started clouding over when she was 4 years old, and now she's blind in that eye and has only limited sight in the other.

"Some days life doesn't make sense," she writes in "Be Beautiful, Be You." "You just have to change what you can, ask for help and pray about the rest."

She notes her triumphs and posts inspirational messages on Tumblr, and says that she's learned to embrace the things that make her unique. Instead of trying to retaliate against people who have made her feel badly, she sets goals for herself and pushes herself to succeed in spite of the haters. She's even reclaimed YouTube, video blogging about everything from bullying to hair-styling tips to staying positive.

"I feel really glad that I don't look like the celebrities out there that are so beautiful," she told Dr. Drew. "There's a lot of stereotypes attached to that." Not looking like a supermodel "gives people the opportunity to know you personally," she explains. "If they're willing to take that extra step they'll get to know the person you really are."

Of course, the horrible comments left on that old YouTube video stung (the video has since been removed, but Velasquez says she read every single comment). Now, she says, she understands that they're "just words."

"I'm human, and of course these things are going to hurt," she said. "Their judgements of me isn't who I am, and I'm not going to let these things define me."

"I didn't sink down to their level," she said in a follow-up video on YouTube last year. "Instead, I got my revenge through my accomplishments and determination. In the battle between the 'World's Ugliest Woman' video vs. me, I think I won."