Shushma

Last year COVID brought to the forefront how society views people who have a disability or special needs- that their life is deemed less important than a person who has no disability or special needs. Why do I say this? Well, there was a lot of talk about priority of beds if the hospitals became full and the Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) orders. If a person was ‘fit and well’, they would get priority over my daughter due to her Special Needs and Cystic Fibrosis and a DNR order due to her CF. It has been brought back into the spotlight due to Jo Whiley tweeting that her sister with learning disability had to wait as she came under No6 in the priority list, yet Jo had been offered it. Her sister is now in hospital with COVID, fighting for her life. So, who then assesses quality of life and what determines quality of life? Let’ first look at what quality of life means- in the English dictionary it states the degree to which an individual is healthy, comfortable, and able to participate in ...

Society has so many connotations about India and Indian people due to what they see/hear/ read through the media as well as the British Asian people living here. The question people ask me is “Where are you from?” I say London. I mean come on; how can they miss the cockney accent! They then say, “but where are you originally from?” I want to say “why don’t you ask me directly, which country I belong to because I am brown,” but I don’t. I say I was born here but my parents are from India. This then leads to more questions. Growing up, I always felt I didn’t belong to any country because the UK never accepted me as I had brown skin and India never accepted me because I was born and raised in London. Now I don’t care. I know who I am and that’s all that matters. People get confused between religion and culture. This is what it means to me. I feel religion is a belief and devotion to a particular God. Yet when I say I have no religion, people, especially Indians believe ...

Some programmes have a lasting effect on you and It’s a Sin was one of those. Why? Because I was born in the 80s and to me that seems recent and yet I have been completely ignorant to how it was for people who were Gay and had AIDS in the 80s. I know it has been so raw and painful for some of friends having to relieve those memories as the programme has triggered this. I often wonder who choses what we study in schools and why. I never learnt about the British Raj, how Wales became part of the U.K. or the pandemic of AIDS. It’s part of the things that the U.K. got ‘wrong’ yet instead of teaching it in schools it’s been buried under the carpet. How are we ever meant to learn from those mistakes if we don’t revisit history? Watching It’s a Sin echoed what is happening now with COVID, the only difference, is that it was seen as the gay plague, men who had to quarantine against their will and for no reason. If AID...

F amily and Framilies- What it means to me I find it interesting when I hear people's thoughts of what family means to them. When I tell people, I adopted my daughter or when I was going to have my hysterectomy, the reaction was don't you want your own children, or having your own child is different to looking after someone else's child even though Layla was part of our family for over four years. That's that person's prerogative but don't dismiss my motherly love for my child or think I could love a 'biological' child more as I KNOW I couldn’t. It did make me think though that when their children marry, what kind of pressure would be put on them to have their 'biological' children but may not be able to due to whatever reasons. I am questioned by many how come my daughter calls me mom but why wouldn't she. She’s only known me as her mum and not her birth mum. I always think wh...

                                The Year 2020! My book This year, 2020 will go down in history and we are all part of it. However, it’s been generalised that it has been a horrible year for ‘EVERYONE’ and while it has for some no doubt, due to their loved ones dying, NHS workers working tirelessly and people losing their jobs and for other reasons too. For others like me it has not, as I have a roof on my head, income coming in and my loved ones are safe. What more could I ask for.  For someone like me, it has been incredible year. How can I say this? Well, my worst year was 2009, when Arvind died, and it can’t get worse than that. So, while I miss my Nani and Shaun so much this year, it gives me comfort and hope knowing that both are well and safe and I CAN see them next year, all being well. Whereas Arvind I will never see again, never celebrate his birthday or Christmas again.  My life right ...

                    Weight loss and Exercise My breakfast  So many friends have asked me to write a blog on how I lost 23kgs, (nearly 4 stones) when I didn’t leave the home for over 4 and half months.  I have never been a couch girl and have always been active. But there’s a difference between being active and getting your heart pumping. So what did I do? The most important thing I believe if you want to lose weight or get fit, is that it is not about will- power but all about your mental state and your mind set. You have to be ready and motivated inside and that’s about it being personally rewarding to you rather than losing it because you are going on holiday or it’s a new year which is an extrinsic motivator. That is short term.    Running -When the original shielding kicked in, I had headspace to grief (I didn’t need to wear the ‘mask’) and I could deal with daily life and so I stopped comfort eating but gradually...

I’m not sure why we don’t talk about periods when most women, trans, non-binary and intersex folks have them. I mention here not just women as I want society to be aware but, in my blog, I can only talk about what I as a woman have experienced having periods. Periods are nothing to be ashamed of as most of us have to go through this in order to have our own biological ‘children’. This is a beautiful thing as it’s bringing life into this world. However when you have a vice-principal, a lady herself saying to her students that :'Learning to deal with monthly inconvenience is all part of being a woman, I’m afraid … unfortunately taking that time off is not how society works.” Maybe that's why we feel we can't speak about what we go through each month in fear of being mocked or dismissed. I started at 11 years old and it was not pleasant as I fainted a few times that year in school due to heavy bleeding and ended up in hospital once, but the doctors didn’t take it seriously...