Go on, O traveler!

How does it feel to be different? Having a different set of ideas, and standing by those ideas always? How does it feel to be considered as an outcast? Because you don’t know what you want to become in life?

He woke up asking such questions to himself each day. He likes to spend hours in his bathroom, with the tap on, listening to the drops hitting the water in the bucket. He is lost in his own thoughts most of the times, and fears that his thoughts will kill him someday. He loves being around people and discussing, but he finds peace in being alone in the company of some music or his thoughts alone. He wants to give up on everything and hit the road, with or without music, because what he believes is that world is music. There is constantly music around us, we fail to acknowledge it, probably because man has stopped imagining all the beautiful things, and has lost the ability to perceive things as they are, without judging them.

He says, Go on, O traveler. Life is a car and time its wheels. He wants to drive his car, but people often pull and push, hit and run, turn it around and kick it hard. No, that does not affect him, he is still on the driver’s seat. He loves colors, but somehow black and white appeals to him more than anything else. He wants to go back in time, and experience the nature at its best. Maybe be a nomad for a while. He believes that thoughts, thoughts alone are the best friend of man. There is high that the air gives us. He does not blame the world. He feels sad for the people, because most of them are in a bad trip and they don’t know how to enjoy that bad trip.

He has learned the art of enjoying the bad trip and converting it into a good one when he feels like. He hasn't perfected it, but his thoughts often give him confidence and hope. He likes being around his thoughts, he talks to his thoughts, argues, discuss and they together come up with a conclusion. He is just like everyone, with a different set of ideas and thoughts, and that makes him what he is. He falls in love, eats, dances, talks, meets people but everything with a different perspective in his mind. It’s his soul that talks, he chooses not to use his brains when it is not needed. He loves himself, and so he loves his life, he loves everything that God has created, because he believes everything is out there because it was meant to be there.

And that’s why, when he looks around, he says, ‘Go on. O traveler’. 

Mission Safe & Secure Nerul: Stay Alert, Stay Safe

That mindset of Policemen being useless and rude and disgusting and corrupt, changed, changed for some 20 people, right there, my eyes noticed it, and maybe before I stepped inside that one particular room, many people must have got out of that place with a positive feeling of safety and security in Nerul

Well, let me get to the point. Last Friday, that is ummm 10^th of January, a friend asked me to accompany her to Nerul Police Station, in the evening (you know it isn’t safe to go alone to a police station late evening for a girl, well just a fear, quite a irony). Anyway so I and the friend went to the police station for her passport verification. After sitting for like 10 minutes, one of the policemen made everyone present there, sit in the office of Senior Inspector of Police, in simple terms the senior in-charge of Nerul Police Station. Nicely arranged chairs, decent people, clean office and silence, and then enters Mr. Rajkumar Chaphekar, the Senior Police Inspector- A simple, smart, soft-spoken and funny man. He takes his seat and starts calling out names looking at the forms kept on the table, he just wants 2 simple questions to be answered- 1) Where do you stay in Nerul? And 2) since how long do you stay in Nerul? So one by one everyone he calls out for answers those questions. Very politely he asks everyone to give him some more time, as he would want to talk about a movement he has launched in Nerul for a while now. The movement is called, ‘Safe and Secure Nerul’.

Now the objective of writing the blog: This particular Movement, and the efforts that this policeman is taking, made me aware of the fact that ‘Staying Alert’ is the only funda to avoid mishaps. Fortunately most of the policemen I have come across turned out to be honest and dedicated to their work, but as the first line of this post goes, most of the people have a negative perception of police and a police station.  

What he spoke of the next 20 mins, wasn’t boring, did not make me sleepy, and did not force anyone to get up and walk out of the room. How with some common examples, funnily he explained that we humans are so irresponsible, that we just forget to use our common sense and put our life and our earnings at stake, forced people to listen to him, with attention.  The fact that most of the times, we ignore a crime, happening in front of our eyes, because we don’t want to get into any problems and waste our time, gives the criminals the  confidence to loot us, trouble us and dupe us is something that we all should understand, but we fail terribly.

All the tips and tricks that he shared with us, were so practical. No, you don’t have to go fight anyone when you see something happening, you just have to shout ‘chor chor’ and yes it is going to scare the chor. No you don’t have to stay indoors; you just have to take some efforts to stay alert, keep your cupboards locked, and keep the keys with you, not under the pillow or on the cupboard. Such really simple and common things that we avoid in our lives, telling ourselves, ‘chalta hai yaar’. We are lazy even to think smartly. We walk away quietly, when someone is trying to break a car’s window to steal some cash, walk on the roads, displaying the gold chains, ignoring to use the safety doors, putting letters for the doodhwala’s and paperwalas on the door, when going out of town, giving open invitation to the robbers, isn’t all this so dumb?

Well, this man, Mr. Rajkumar Chaphekar, talks to the people who come for passport verification to the police-station and tells them some simple things that we all know, but ignore. He goes to housing complexes, housing societies and take meetings, to make them aware and help the entire police force of Nerul to keep its citizens safe. You can invite him to your housing complex too; he will readily come, teach you in a way that it won’t ever leave your mind, and also make you laugh with his stories and the art of telling you the serious stories too wittily.

Join this movement, ‘Safe and Secure Nerul’, ‘Stay Alert, Stay Safe’!