Nayana's Stories

  These days in times of pandemic all media, all individuals, social context conversations and dialogue are around how big the problem is that we are encountering. People feel extremely helpless, resourceless and diffident with high level of vulnerability and chaos around them. How do we maintain a balance such that we do not get so dislocated and disrupted that there is absolutely no hope. It is very natural for human beings to talk about the situations that bother them or are about a negative context. Blaming the context and cribbing about the world and the system becomes a common contention for all conversations. It just gives one a space of no choice no action and no movement. People only feel like being stuck in a trishanku from which there is no release. This attitude also comes from people who are strong and resourceful. It has nothing to do with either being weak or resourceful. It is not whether you have more or less but is about how one responds to a situation or a ...

  We are living in a context where at each step we wonder whether we should give or receive. Our needs are such that we get pulled by both the worlds that of the Giver and that of the Receiver simultaneously. What is it in each one of us that creates the sense of fulfilment and joy in being the giver. Behavioural theories also equates this phenomenon with the location with being a powerful one. So to what power does it give a giver or being on the giving side? I would like to relate this reality my context. I have found immense fulfilment in generally offering myself to institutions which generally are not for profit motive. Some of these could be like Sumedhas, AMA, IIM Ahmedabad, NID, HDSI, HDSG, Live Love Life Foundation, Teach For India and many others. I would like to travel a journey with one of them. The kalorex foundation which is the parent of Visamo Kids Foundation. I have been associated with this institute for last 10 years. The motivation is to still be deeply invo...

  For many years I have internalized Draupadi as the core identity pattern in my universe. She evoked choices in me of being the fighter, fighting all battles and not giving up in life. She also evoked standards of a dignified context irrespective of the hurt and pain that she went through. Draupadi’s core identity was anger with authority and anger with system. For many years I too had internalized this nature as a core response pattern for myself. I operated more logical self from what was right and what was wrong. I got utterly scared to trample the universe for raw feelings and sensitivity although, internally I bled profusely. The Draupadi identity also gave me the option of being able to play multiple roles (in a way she played the role of a good wife with 5 Husbands). However there was always a pull of preference from one to other and she herself was confused where she really belonged. I tried to play multiple roles perfectly. That of the wife, the mother, the housekeeper, t...

  I am very appalled by the context that we are all living in. What do I do with my helplessness, my shame and guilt of the inability to respond in a meaningful way? In this humongous war that we are fighting where we don’t know who is The Aggressor, who is The Victim and who is The Spectator in this drama of the corona world. The system seems to be the aggressor, the patient and their family seem to be the victims and most of the times people at large or community are the spectator. Every entity which is more resourceful more powerful and more affluent is in the location of being the aggressor. They want more, they want maximum security and safety and all protection that is possible for them. The victim becomes the poor me, entity who runs from pillar to post, from this doctor to that doctor, from this hospital to that hospital, this lord to that lord completely subjugating his own dignity, humility and pride in this process. The spectator takes a comfortable location of immen...