Its not about the bike… Its about Lance Armstrong, a Tarnished name now.

Book: It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life                                                                                                                                 

Author:Lance Armstrong with Sally Jenkins

Genre: Autobiographical/Personal Memoirs

Madhu Stars: 4.5/5

A struggle of Cancer, Cycling, and the fight to be the color yellow.

                                           Lance Armstrong, one name which will never be forgotten in the world of professional cyclists. But now may be for the wrong reasons than the right. It was very difficult and dicey for me to write this post, because it was going to be strictly a book review and not a post in support /against of Lance.

The book presents a detailed insight into the life of a very prominent cyclist Lance Armstrong the six-time winner of the Tour de France, his hardships, his failures and his enduring tales of success.  Lance as a kid, always felt irritated and burnt down by life, and hated to see his mother take up so many difficulties just to give him a better life. He also felt helpless when his father left him even before he was born and also when his step father hit him, but yet his mother stuck to such people, just because his step dad’s income made their life a little easier. His mother’s presence was the only solace in his life, and one another thing which gave him strength from the inside was Cycling :). He grew passionate about it from the age of 10 and he initially won state level competitions in  Swimming. Then later cycling became his primary sport and love. He was the number one athlete in the under 19 category.

It was all good and success kissing his feet, not that he was not losing races, but he was being noticed, that he was diagnosed with Testicular cancer at a very later stage. The cancer had already affected his brain and lungs. The book is a more of a world in itself, a world of Lance when it got bad to worse and to a situation where you live with him through his cancer.  He has very well presented every detail of his illness and mentioned every bit of his treatment that you can feel through the hardships any cancer patient goes through.  But with his grit and determination he fights every obstacle in his way and leaves no stone unturned to win over death. He wins. He cycles, he lives with the help of his friends, doctors, his mother, his nurse La trice, His love then, Kik, and many more of his fans who included cancer patients and who were inspired by his struggle. He always lived in the fear that cancer will relapse, and he also gave up on cycling thinking living is more important but his passion for the sport brought him back to life in the real sense and then he fights through only to win,  Tour de France, not once or twice but 6 times.

For a cancer patient to overcome his illness, and cycle in such dire climatic conditions cannot obviously be taken very normally and suspicion around him always lingered. He tested positive, then he had reasons, he denied, he retired, the allegations continued, he finally admitted. But what is the truth? After reading his book, i get biased, i feel after one goes through 3 majors surgeries, recovers from the cancer, and assuming he doped himself, it is still difficult to win a race like  Tour de France   though i agree it is unpardonable.

Lance started Lance Armstrong Foundation, to give back to the people suffering from cancer. The yellow Livestrong bracelets is its creations which i flaunted in my school time without even knowing what they symbolized. The yellow color represents the Yellow jersey given in the sport of cycling to the person who leads Tour de France.

But what i found out on the net (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2265.It_s_Not_About_the_Bike) was very disappointing and shocking to me, He did drugs that’s what everyone says, but that’s not my job to find out, I can just tell my readers the takeway’s from the book. A very very interesting read, (Please do not hold any preconceived notions in your mind), real life is always more tempting to know off,  it gives you inspiration to fight back. It tells you how difficult a cycle race is, be it storm, hail or ice, one has to keep cycling. The right set of people who want you to succeed will always be there in your life. And lastly, god will not knock on your door and help, but he will send people, resources, its up to you to use them in the right direction.

Images Courtesy: Google.

Information sources: Wikipedia

When I lost you forever… This time you were never gonna come back..

I write this blog post to express my pain, and writing  has always been my favorite things to do in my painful situations.

Why? Why? why? why god.. do you have to punish your children by taking away their parents. I know death is the most practical reality of life, but why so early.. why when no one is prepared? If you want us to accept your decisions with grace, please take them with responsibility. I know all the atheist and agnostic friends of mine would be ready to fight back saying, its all science. God is nowhere responsible for good or bad things that happen. But you know, sometimes we just have to blame someone.. it gives us peace, a kind of solace.

We all handle death in numerous ways. some are strong, some fall weak, but i always felt that i would cry and eventually forget. I thought that if i know the person really well only then will i feel bad, else even if i try i would not cry. I also felt that i would never be able to see a cremation, see a person, with whom we have shared the best of our moments, who have seen us as a baby, whom we have seen behave like a baby. But all my beliefs and my opinions overturned when i saw my dearest friend lose her dad..

I knew uncle very less, i was not supposed to cry, but everything that she told( memories flood into your mind in these situations ), every tear that fell from her eyes, just dragged the strong girl from my body and throw her outside and my weak self gave in. I could not stop my tears but could not stop it either. I had to be strong for her. Every time i would put myself in her place i would shatter from inside. Whenever i would think that there would be no dad calling  on her phone, i got shivers.  Hats off to you that you stood strong my friend. I had never attended a cremation before, i never wanted to either, but this time i could not let her stand alone in such a tough situation, i went. And to my surprise i din feel scared or upset. Because by then uncle had just reduced to a body.

Rituals.. they have been specially crafted to make the person feel bad, hurt and make the tired eyes cry again. People, stop having rituals which make you feel bad. God will never want such a sacrifice from you. Please realize that someone out there has lost their father/husband/mother/daughter…… please don make it worse for them by pushing them to see their near and die get burnt to ashes. It might amuse some people and be a public melodrama but its not an easy situation at all for people who are really going through it.
Sometimes no set of words can be right. I could not say a word, i always felt i was faking though i was not, but just could not say anything. Because no words can comfort the other person because no matter what you, death is an irreparable loss. This time the loss is eternal and he would never come back. No matter how much you call him back.. he would not come back.
I know all of us may have lost someone we must have loved with all our heart, i just hope their souls rest in peace and may god give strength to all of them who are not prepared for this situation. I know one can never be prepared for it, but everyone needs some time to fulfill their dreams,  to see their kids settle, I wish if by any chance one does not have time at least give their near and dear people strength to cope up with this harsh reality of life. You know sometimes that might just be the beginning of their lives…

PS: I wrote this blog post not to hurt anyone/ remind them of their sorrowful incidents but because i could not keep so much pain inside me..

Is committing suicide being Coward??

“22-year old girl commits suicide”, when you see this headline in the newspaper, what do you do ? Think for a while. You either turn the page or you curse the dead person calling her a coward. You read the article and try and find out why she died, if she had left a suicide note, was she married…? and so on. Let us say she did not leave any reason/note for her death, we immediately conclude that she must have had a love failure. We also try to think of other reasons like she might have been fired at her workplace, she might have been in debts, there would have been parental pressure for marriage and so on. But still the reason of a love failure stands out. Why does a person become so weak only when he/she has a failed love affair?

Seeing a lot of people suffer around me, i observed that when someone gets dumped, or the other person does not wish to continue, one cannot do much about it, because then the person getting dumped will always cry and the person whom dumps feels so guilty that he almost makes it his responsibility that the other person gets over him. And in this process the weaker side suffers a lot and at one point, one is so heart broken and shattered, one feels dying will give a permanent relief.

Commonly all of us think that committing suicide is one of the most defeating, pessimistic,gutless thing to do. Its like running way from the situation. But i have something to talk in favor of those people(please note: I am not talking in favor of ending one’s life). The first thing is we all want shortcuts in our life, we all want an easy way out. Hence dying seems to be the most viable option, since you no one would scold you, you would not feel pain, and most importantly we also think that our essence will be realized. And when a person is in pain, trust me barring a few extra positive exceptions, we all would chose this option.

But one cliche truth is a person has to realize his value first and only then would others do. Don’t throw yourself  as a weak lifeless soul to someone and wait for that person to realize your value. That person never will. We all want someone who has self respect.

Killing oneself for getting less marks or being scolded by parents is plain stupid. One can always score better and besides you only have to pass, parents scold because they are parents. They cant be your friends all the time.

There have been a lot of times in my life when i have been through a tough phase, when no one around is able to understand the turmoil inside me, when i felt my life is meaningless may be because i lost someone, something. Then all i think of is my parents. They love me and i can vouch on that. I try and push myself away from the thought. I watch tv, especially movies, they have the capacity to hold you. And that is something which is most necessary at that time. If you can get a grip on yourself at that moment, you have achieved something that monks took hunderds of years. You will achieve self control. You can also paint, scribble or just write blogs, my way of self healing. You write it on a piece of paper, whatever you feel if you don’t want to tell this world what you feel. And when you write you can also curse, abuse the person, the thing that has hurt you. Human beings need to express, to be happy. Expressing them makes you feel light and happy. It works.

Getting a thought of ending one’s life is not getting defeated, in fact killing oneself needs a lot of bravery. But just think of that one person/animal who loves and will definitely miss you and drive away that thought from your mind.

SAY NO TO SELF END.

Images Courtesy:Google

I will miss you Rasana Girl :'(

This blog is a small tribute to you Taruni.

It was a very shocking and deeply saddening to see the news about the death of Taruni Sachdev, popularly known to us as Rasana girl. Yes she is the one who says “I love you Rasana”, not that i knew her personally but she was too little to face this harsh reality of life.

Her mother and she were the passengers of the chartered flight to Muktinath in Nepal which crashed on monday. Taruni had acted in a lot of Ads, movies(hindi, and also south indian). She was a a part of  BIG B’s movie PAA. It really feels bad when a little child with so much potential dies. Looking at the picture i get teary eyed. Such a cute child is no longer a part of this world. May her soul rest in peace and her father have the strength to bear the tremondous loss.

A little request to you god, if you are listening. Please don’t increase the headcount there in hell/heaven by taking away such innocent lives. RIP TARUNI.

Pictures courtesy:Google.