Mira road is divided right down the middle. Shanti Nagar where the Hindus and Jains live, Muslims and Christians are not even allowed to buy a house. Naya Nagar is where the Muslims live. These were Muslims who were pushed out of Mumbai to begin with.
A day after BJP has remained in power in Madhya Pradesh by a landslide despite strong anti incumbency, i thought it would be pertinent to share my experiences of working in the state
People who have never set foot in Mira Road should really just STFU about it. You have no idea how safe the Muslim part of the place is for everyone and how the Hindu part of it is unwelcoming to even Hindus who are not sanatani.
Ramadan Kareem everyone. This holy month means the world to me and millions of Muslims across the world. This Ramadan, let us remember our greater responsibility in this pandemic. Help those in need, donate generously and please please fast, pray and stay indoors.
I've no hopes from the people of this country. This is the India you wanted and are celebrating. But fuck around and find out how this pans out in the future. I can promise you that you'll be horrified at your own creation in a few short years.
If Indian colleges paid professors well, I would teach full time. If unis paid PhD students (and we didn't have to rely on the measly JRF) I would be a full time scholar. If we paid therapists the amounts they do in the developed world, I would do only that. Instead i do all 3
Don't RT any congratulatory tweets by ANY political party today. They did zero for this. Even
@AamAadmiParty
didn't include repealing
#Section377Verdict
in their manifesto!
#NeverForget
This is down to the tireless work by those who fought the fight on the ground level!
The worst part living away from home in your late twenties/early thirties is that you'll always feel like you're alone even though literally everyone else you know is going through the same. Yet we don't reach out because we feel we don't want to impose.
#Thread
: If you're a young professional who doesn't understand insurance and savings, this is for you.
Disclaimer: I'm not a finance expert. These are suggestions. You should make your own decisions based on your needs.
I'm keeping receipts.
Every chillar influencers, startup founders, doctors, academics, comics, actors. All of you who are selling out today. Know that you have crossed the point of no return.
PSA: If you have been thinking of (re)starting therapy and have been held back by the cost or the lack of availability of a reliable and ethical professional, reach out to hello
@alternativestory
.in
Online therapy at rates starting โน199/-
F2F under โน1k in Mumbai and Bengaluru
Poverty in India in States like Rajasthan, MP, UP, Bihar (States where I can say I have worked at the ground level) is abject and unimaginable. Decades of misgovernance by parties of all hues and lakhs of crores of rupees later these states worse off than many African nations
Ask yourselves why it was necessary for Hindus to celebrate a temple built in Ayodhya by going out to a Muslim neighborhood on bikes, and stopping Muslims and forcing them to chant Jai Shree Ram. The videos of this were live streamed by the thugs who did this
Yesterday in a training for mental health professionals I asked the group what the chief symptoms of schizophrenia were. One of my very gen-z trainees without missing a beat said 'halulus and delulus'.
Divorce settlement is either determined by court or mutually settled between lawyers out of court. It's possible that if someone is settling for a huge alimony out of court there's a good reason why they are avoiding going to court.
But sure, PaiSa nAhi fAleGa
Irrespective of who comes to power in these states, the picture remains the same. No news channel or paper will cover this and no Twitter debate will address this
Regarding this whole Cโนed and Mil@
@p
situation, please note that both are ruthless for profit organizations. The latter especially will set up a campaign page for everything, including Kapil Mishra's campaign post Delhi riots
I hope people realize that Agnihotri has not won The Dadasaheb Phalke award. He has won an award at a film fest that was named Dadasaheb Phalke International Film Festival.
The original award is given out to one awardee a year and has not been given out since 2020
What it takes to be a half-decent therapist
- An UG degree in psychology followed by a PG qualification in applied psychology
- 100s of hours of supervised practice
- Learning evidence based therapies
- Working on yourself
What some therapists think it takes
- an Instagram page
PSA: The Alternative Story's office in JP Nagar, Bangalore is now ready to receive visitors!
Apart from Therapy, feel free to drop by and read one of our books, have a cup of tea/coffee with us, play a boardgame or of course meet Zoe - Our Chief Borketing Officer!
As a Mental health professional myself, I call bullshit. We've made anger sound like a toxic, destructive emotion that needs to be suppressed too long. People need to be FURIOUS right now and MHPs need to normalise and hold space for this anger, not pathologize it!
Acc to Dr. Gangerene, itโs traumatising to see bodies being cremated on TV but apparently nothing happens to you when to see that happening on your street or to your family.
Ok guys. A challenge. What is Hindi word for divorce. Donโt give me nouns.
And check why there is no Hindi word for divorce
Coz Hinduism never promoted it.
Google it.
Proud to be Hindu
The lady from my building who went around distributing akshathe, then organised the programme yesterday, at the end of the night posted a text on the community group chat saying that she got laid off last April from her IT job and would appreciate any job leads. It writes itself!
The faculty WhatsApp group where I teach is infuriating. Each day, I kid you not, each day, we hear of our kids losing family.
The institute's response? To create an Excel sheet of those affected, and organise a zoom meeting...to pray!
Buildings in Shanti Nagar have templez. The Hinduism there is dialled up to 11. Yet during Navratri and Pajyushan, meat shops in Mira Bhayander in the Muslim neighborhood are forced shut too. It's clear that now that Mira Road is prime real estate they want Muslims gone.
To everyone who needs to hear this l:
You can be successful and still be anxious
You can have a great partner and still be lonely and depressed
You can have likes on your Instagram and still feel ugly
Don't let anyone tell you that you don't have it bad enough to feel this way!
@kehkaeluga
The videos of Muslims being forced to chant JSR and ransacking Muslim shops were live streamed by the thugs themselves. Don't blind yourself so much that you have to call the truth a lie.
PSA: I'd once again like to remind you that if you're looking to start therapy and can't find a good therapist at affordable rates,
@TheAltStory
is accepting new clients once again. Therapy in multiple languages available starting at โน299/- a session!
#Mentalhealth
However if the experience I had in MP was any indicator, his govt has never been serious about improving key indicators that define development and quality of life.
Since I was asked by someone today and was filled with disbelief at my answer - Yes, you can come to The Alternative Story's office to just chill.
Things you'll get for free
Books to read
Board games to play (you can bring a friend)
Tea/coffee and Parle G
A doggo to boop
If you're ever applying to
@TheAltStory
you're more to us than IMPACT or NUMBERS. We want to know your story as a person.
In fact, take most of this thread and go the opposite way.
I've worked for 2 years in Mira Road at the first and only tertiary care hospital there. It was built by the Muslim political family that is also responsible for most of the real estate development there. They also got it the status of a city with its own municipal corporation
Hindu owned businesses exist in Naya Nagar but not vice versa. The hospital I worked at treated people of all faiths and provided charitable treatment to all.
It had a special ward got Jain Munis who were always treated for free. This was also true for orphan kids from Madrassas
When the 1993 riots happened, the political family used its influence with the Muslim community and its friendly relations with the Jain community to ensure that Mira Road was peaceful while neighbouring Dahisar burned.
Ask yourself why there are riots there today of all times
MP has 51 districts even after an entire state was carved out of it. Yet you'll be hard pressed to name a 'developed' district in MP that is not Bhopal, Indore or Gwalior. It's a stretch to call the entirety of those districts developed too
Major life update from this week. After a year of incubation,
@mizarcle
and I have finally registered a Pvt Ltd company to carry out the work being done as AltStory!
Say hello to newly minted Directors, y'all!
#Entrepreneurship
The 'riots' and the bulldozing have all happened in Naya Nagar. So basically, Hindu thugs high on the temple celebration went to Naya Nagar, harassed and beat up Muslims there and then their shops have been bulldozed. This is an old, tried and tested script there.
Since I haven't done this in a while -
Reminder - I offer offline as well as online counselling at starting rates that are cheaper than a cup of coffee at Starbucks.
Reach out at sharmaparas8
@gmail
.com if you're considering therapy& have been held back by costs
#MentalHealth
Good morning, people. To those of you still worrying about the results on 23rd May, remember that a NDA victory isn't the defeat of voices against the NDA. Defeat is when we stop fighting them, here, in our families, our social circle, at our offices, and in our own conduct!
Personal update: I was offered an Assistant Professor post at the college I was teaching at as an adjunct faculty, and today is my first day fulfilling this dream of mine!
My work as a therapist, and as a co-founder at
@TheAltStory
continues unchanged.
I'm going to keep saying this because more people hear about it everytime I do -
If you're in Bengaluru, Delhi NCR, or Mumbai and have been looking for ethical and reliable, trauma-informed, queer-affirmative, and feminist therapists, The Alternative Story is here for you
Around 2016, MP, which has some of the worst numbers when it comes to Maternal Mortality, Infant Mortality, Child Mortality, Malnutrition, Tobacco addiction, Child Marriage, Underage Pregnancy etc decided it had too many health counselors (it did not)
Things AltStory is doing right:
- Operating offline in two cities and online everywhere
- Employing six therapists full time
- Offering face to face therapy sessions in our own offices at โน299/- onwards
- Providing training and supervision to 6 trainees
Personal milestone in this trashcan fire of a year - I complete 10 years in the field of mental health as a working professional today! 10 years since my first working day!
The hospital never accepted Zakat from the Muslim community and instead offered charitable and free treatment to the community as Zakat. I was the medical social worker there and I raised lakhs for free treatment of patients and an equal amount was matched by the hospital
Just got a call from a Men's Rights organisation accusing us of being anti-men and pro the murder of men because we are a feminist organisation and we're not doing webinars addressing 'domestic and sexual violence against men by their wives in the time of Coronavirus'
I've met many BadAssShubham's in my all-boys school and they're actually popular for their foul-mouthed, abusive act. I've seen them in local trains blocking doors and abusing people for no reason.
I've got threatening calls from them when my family couldn't pay EMIs
Shivraj Singh Chouhan has come to power again largely on the basis of his 'Laadli Behna' yojna which promises to pay โน12000 a year to poor women. How much money will actually reach these women remains to be seen.
Often the gap was not just in knowledge, but also cultural. There would be days where the only counsellor available was a man. Women wouldn't talk about breastfeeding and family planning with them.
The reduction in the workforce coupled with these mismatches actually resulted in lesser counselling taking place.
The cruel irony was that the majority of the budget was sanctioned for 'beautification of the counselling centre' which as you could imagine never happened
On the surface, this may sound nice - a one stop counselling centre for all your health needs. But this was a terrible idea. Firstly, it rendered jobless more than 2/3rds of these health workers, who in many cases had been contractual govt employees for more than a decade
Secondly, the few (approx 1/3rd) workers who remained now had to become proficient in counselling on topics they had no expertise in. Imagine a nutrition counsellor now having to talk about mental health.
Instead of having counsellors who specialized in maternal and child health, breastfeeding and nutrition, de-addiction and mental health, adolescent reproductive and sexual health, it decided to merge all of these functions under one centre called 'Swasthya Samvad Kendra'
Sanghis screenshotting tweets and tagging after I've disabled replies from those who don't follow me saying 'why have you disabled replies? Are you afraid of answering us?'
Fuckers won't ask an elected PM to do an unscripted press conference for 10 years but I have to respond.
During 2015-17 I visited MP several times as I worked with the UNFPA and the National Health Mission in the state. Why I went there is a story in itself
I've been thinking of this one for a long time, based both on personal experience and on clients being absolutely wrecked in terms of their self and body image thanks to dating apps.
If you've been struggling on these apps thinking it's you, it's not! It's the apps!
PSA: if you have a laptop that has been purchased in the past five years that runs windows and you think it's time to retire it, here's what you need to do ๐
Tech Bros and consultants have such a boner for war that they want to call everything a war room.
War too is fought on the ground by poor people who risk it all and earn minimum wage, and lorded over by dudes who think they have an รbermensch personality.
Convinced my mother to waive off the rent from her tenant this month. It's not a huge amount but it means a lot to their family.
Consider doing the same if you're a landlord
Absolutely EVERY media outlet reporting it as 'committed', not 'death by suicide', or 'killed himself'.
Please put the minimal effort to report using the right language, media folks!!
It's a sad state of affairs in our country. If you point out that something doesn't work people will say that these things didn't work when Congress was in power. When you agree that Congress failed and say that BJP has been in power for 15/25 yrs since 1999, you get silence
I just lost a student. He switched streams to become a therapist and in a better time would have graduated 4 days from now with a MSc in Counseling Psychology.
No words for the destruction this pandemic has caused!
Not subtweeting anyone at the moment, but whenever I see someone fundraise for a crisis, I see them raise money for food, medicines, consumables, medical costs etc. But counselling is always expected to be volunteer work.
Could we perhaps raise money to pay a therapist too?
And that's why, no matter how popular these apps get, they're unlikely to help most of us find our dream matches! Because, guess what, that's kinda not the point anyway!
Repeating what i say at every big festival
If meeting family and going home is a source of anxiety for you and not a source of joy.
If celebrating a festival is a financial hardship
It's okay to not celebrate festivals
Anyone else not celebrating is welcome to join us!
@JaeyeB
I disagree there. The Left parties in Kerala, and the Dravidian parties in Tamil Nadu have actually lifted people out of poverty, built roads, schools, universities and hospitals and shown that you can be politically relevant while actually governing a state.
The data that came from these centres was questionable to the say the least. Most of the centres didn't have a functional computer with internet access. Those that did had counsellors who didn't know how to use a computer.
Does it feel like you're a failure because you tried multiple apps and didn't get the desired results on any of them?
Doesn't it feel almost like a large corporate conspiracy that everyone seems to be on these apps but no one has a good thing to say?
Well, that's because, it is
What stuck with me from Russian Doll was that each of our stories needs an empathetic witness. Having someone who tells us, 'Listen, I don't have an answer to this either, but sure AF, I see you!' is tremendously important
Other times young and middle aged women had to counsel adolescent boys on reproductive and sexual health, which they themselves were uncomfortable talking about
Because personal is political, anyone out there who considers me a friend/friendly acquaintance, and who still doesn't believe Modi-BJP are poison for this country, please know that you're not welcome in my home or my life.
Thread: As an employer (
@thealtstory
) that believes in paying fair wages and offering our employees a non-exploitative working environment, I'm doing this thread to explain how difficult running a mental health service in India is
Many conscientious counselors had to go to cyber cafes and pay out of pocket daily to enter data just to ensure that they had access to a computer with power backup connected to the internet
Today is
#WorldMentalHealthDay
and all I can request each of you is to
#BelieveSurvivors
and not troll those who are relaying voices on behalf of survivors who want their stories heard.
For all my friends dealing with bouts of anxiety thanks to Twitter trolls, I see you!
Other times computer operators/, data entry operators of the hospital took over these new computers for other data entry work.
Some corrupt counsellors took these laptops home and they never came back to the hospital
Well here's a list of apps/dating websites that Match owns
Aside from the eponymous match(dot)com it owns both Tinder and Hinge. If you ever trash talked Tinder and thought Hinge was more sophisticated, well, it's like saying you prefer Classic Milds over Gold Flakes!
We have now got ourselves our own office in Mumbai now! This is a big deal because it allows us to do more work in Mumbai as well!
We can now offer
#PayWhatYouWant
sessions face to face in Mumbai as well!
My brother who lives in Australia who has never spoken about Modi, demonetization, beef lynchings, article 370, CAA-NRC, or the plight of the migrants has made a BLM post on Instagram
If it feels like it's a game you don't seem to know the rules of, it's exactly that.
The apps don't actually want you to find a date, they want you to believe that you can.
When you join one of them, you'll initially be shown more profiles and ones that are actually active