“Most of us have that one wound we carefully keep under wraps. It is that one sacred spot that never ran out of blood.
It follows us all our life; festering, not wanting to heal, resurfacing at the worst of times, times when we think we’re at the best of life, and then, in a moment, it appears almost always when we feel it’s finally gone.”
A normal act, such as clothing yourself is what courage means to a Rape Victim.
An act of learning to read, at whatever age, is what courage is to a mother whose daughter was born with Autism.
Passing a normal 24 hours without being judged or stared at, is the only safe haven for a person with Mental Illness.
We at Born Of A Million Thoughts, salute these simple stories of Unflinching Courage.
Born Of a Million Thoughts was born with a simple idea : to express. Many a times, all of us have unsaid and unfinished stories and they die a silent death. This is exactly what we are trying to combat.
Started by a team of 2 Nineteen year olds, Simran Keshwani & Anvita Bhandari, the start-up celebrates its third month anniversary on May 3.
Here’s what they have to say.
“In the beginning, we had nothing. Zero investors. Zero sponsors. What kept us going was our idea. An idea to listen. Wherever I went, people would blatantly ask me “What is the Return on Investment of the entire project?”
And when I’d tell them the project is for a social cause, they’d bash about their monthly disposable income and all I could say was, “Thank you For your grace. I’ll keep my idea, and you can keep your disposable income.”
Here we are now.
“80+ members from across 4 countries. 20+ companies as tie ups and still evolving.”
Taking our endeavor to the next step, we came up with the idea of doing better for the society at large.
Thus, our ambitious project titled Unflinching Courage was initiated. It is a documentary we’re producing that aims at highlighting the struggle and plight of the mentally ill among the underprivileged lot and to do away with the elitist stereotype mental illness carries. Some people are so poor, that forget treatment, they can not even afford proper diagnosis. Yet, these heroes continue to face life with a smile, in a diurnal struggle.
We don’t just stop at creating awareness. We’ve partnered with more than 20 companies across 4 cities to help us reach a Lot of audience and have engaged a team of lawyers, psychologists to help these people out.
Among other projects of ours include :-
• Reviews for brands, cafes
• organising blogger’s meets
• event/seminar/talk organising
• interviews with celebrities
What we study for ages is ‘ poverty, poor, money ‘ but nobody taught us what poverty brings along, what poor have to go through every single day, what money can’t buy, which is a safe harbour. An ear to listen. And a voice to express.
Keeping all this in mind,
We, the team of BOMT, created a platform to express their thoughts because at the end of a long struggle- all we need is for somebody to listen to us.
“I am at BOMT because I believe it is really important in this world of majority of evil to bring out some sunshine from those narrow spaces we thought it can never settle down in.”, recounts Vanshika Jain, BOMT‘s youngest member. In addition she thinks – “Dream. Believe. Achieve because life is not a time machine.”
Talking of Unflinching Courage, When we started researching upon poverty issues, Google’s search topics came out to be
- Poverty leading to crime
- Poverty leading to terrorism
- Poverty leading to terrorism
Let’s not bring or insert any poverty definitions here as we all are aware of them. The crux here is to understand an apparent, yet complex relationship between poverty and mental illness. Yes, mental illness. We are aware how poverty deteriorates heath and malfunctions the people inside and out. More casualties are reported on the inside, and it is this area that people readily dismiss, since it is not met with the naked eye.
The idea is twofold :-
To understand the broader context as to how people who are unprivileged and of the low-economic backgrounds are suffering in terms of mental health. People who are economically backward face serious issues of mental stigma and face many challenges and gaps in their lives. They have not only inadequate income support or health care but they are alienated from the society. The exclusion from the society leads them with social isolation, depression and mental disabilities. They are both witness and victims of the violence and trauma.
And understanding how the doubly poor, the woman, is treated when effaced with mental issues.
We also address victims of Rape from a remote town in Chhattisgarh. Some of whom, have been crushed under the whims and fancies of Babus & are still unable to find apt platforms to raise their concern. The NGO we are covering, Samadhan deals in providing these women with basic knowledge in law so that they can file their own cases & fight them.
Apart from this, Our Fashion Department has decided to feature them as models in an OOTD feature. A simple act of clothing yourself when your dignity has been stripped off has a much larger imperative than what comes to the eye. Here’s our little gesture, to applaud this bravado act.
Team BOMT functions at Bangalore, Lucknow, Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, Dubai and Kuwait.
We also worked closely with Apsara Reddy – India’s first transgender woman journalist making a mark in the global media scenario by featuring her story as part of the documentary & are supporting Stop Acid Attacks – by Laxmi Agarwal by donating most of our income towards helping acid attack survivors.
Want to know more about us or wish to watch our documentary? Head on to Born Of A Million Thoughts on Facebook.
