Onto The Next Turn

Akriti Jamwal. Updated: 5/16/2018 1:15:00 PM We the Women

Nupur Majumder Sandhu

In this week’s edition of ‘We The Women’, we have brought to you again about the journey of Nupur Majumder Sandhu, a therapist and counselor, writer and what not. Her journey has many twists and turns but the string in the necklace is her openness towards everything, her tendencies to move onto unexplored directions and her optimistic approach towards life. Let’s learn more about her and draw some learning. Read on.

Nupur was born in early 70’s to Santosh Gupta and Indian Air Force Sqn Ldr RK Gupta. She describes her early childhood being full of love, laughter and naughtiness with picking pebbles, collecting shells from nearby river, going for picnics, wearing polka dot frocks; listening to bed time stories, learning and singing old songs with her father was a pet routine.
Nupur describes herself as a happy-go-lucky child. She shares, “I was my papa’s darling and a brat of the highest order. Teasing my sibling and sneaking was regular affair. The people around me accepted me and loved me whole heartedly and when their love oozed out too much they fondly called me ‘Ladoo’.”
“Few years later, another winning entry happened in our family with my younger sister. Great pleasure and sister bonding was on its way. Now the family of five would travel on our one and only mustard coloured Lamreta scooter with a cushioned carrie--our ‘self-modified car’. I enjoyed more in that modified car then in an actual car which was our proud possession, a few years later,” she strolls down the memory lane.
Being born to a defense personnel father, shifting every few years, was a part of her life. Nupur shares, “Every passing year and every new station gave me opportunities to explore, learn and grow with different people from diverse cultures. I never enjoyed text book study in class rooms and the back benches were my constant play. I was more inclined towards sports and athletics.”
Nupur reminisces that her father used to check her report card from the last emphasizing on her overall development and not merely her marks which boasted her confidence. She also explains that being closely bonded to both her paternal and maternal family and spending her vacations with siblings and cousins taught her a lot about relationships, sharing and team work.
Despite being an average student and someone who was not inclined towards ‘text-book’ studies, after finishing school Nupur went forward with Bachelor’s degree in Humanities. She instantly grabbed a job as a teacher and learnt about her affection towards children.
When she moved to Ludhiana, Nupur joined an IT company, where she worked as General Manager and this gave her an opportunity to be aware of her Public-Relations skills and therefore she went forward for a diploma in PR; along with which she also learnt Computer, while they were newly introduced in the markets.
Life took a turn after Nupur got married to an Army Officer and became a mother. Though Nupur enjoyed being a ‘Memsahab’ but she decided to move out and pursue B. Ed. in order to get back in educational profession; after attaining the same she went on to pursue Master’s degree in Education.
Nupur even ran a school of her own for five years. It was in 2006, when there were suicide cases in Army school and she was asked to join a school as a counselor. Understanding the severity of that post Nupur went on to attain a Post Graduate Diploma in ‘Child Guidance and Counselling’, from Indian Institute of counseling, Delhi, and one in Public Relations. Nupur is also a trained practitioner in Neuro Lingustic Programming (NLP).
Nupur shares, “Dealing and counseling teenagers helped me understand my daughter. I grew up as a mother. I learnt about the minor details in the behavior and understood the functionality of a growing child.”
According to Nupur, her life has been an evolving process and during one of these self discovering turning points, she encountered the modality of Serenity Surrender in 2015 and was “mesmerized by the extreme beauty and soulfulness of this modality.”
Presently Nupur is a therapist and a certified teacher of Serenity Surender’s basic workshop. She expresses, “Now, I am a teacher of the modality I was earlier a student of, this journey from a student to a teacher has been overwhelming but I still feel that the modality has so much to offer that every time you come face to face with it, you learn and evolve more and hence we all are mere learners.”
She also adds, “Though my educational qualifications touch upon various fields but they all surprisingly in a very eloquent manner blended seamlessly with the modality of Serenity Surrender.”
Nupur is also Charter President of Rotary Club Jammu Elite Distt 3070 at Rotary International. For ‘Rotary International’ Nupur has volunteered for various events and projects. Nupur expresses, “As a Rotarian, working together with other NGO's and sharing ideas was enriching experience. We painted nursery class of a Gamroo village school in Dharamshala as well as planted trees and took out rally on environment and celebrated our Independence Day together.”
In Japan, Nupur has worked for the children affected by Tsunami; it was a camp to be with children, understand their emotions and help them learn English. Nupur shares, “I even entertained kids by holding Christmas party- I was the Santa Claus.”
Nupur’s other international volunteer projects includes Dubai, where she was invited by Virangi Dubai and addressed audience at community level and students of Amity Dubai as well as Cebu, Phillipines, where she was invited to be part of First Asian Volunteer Summit. Nupur shares, “I worked and exchanged SDG's working with the volunteers of 18 Different countries; addressed the audience and cleaned beach, interacted with young Rotractors.”

That’s not it, Nupur is also a writer. She has also authored ‘18 Real Life Stories of Great Valour And Bravery’ ; a book highlighting the stories of brave children who have received the National Bravery Award, was released in Chandigarh Press Club and received appreciation from Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, Amrinder Singh, and Mehar Mittal (Punjabi actor). For this she was also invited and honored by Ms. Sheila Dikshit, the then-Chief Minister of Delhi.
Nupur has been awarded the ‘Acharya Narendra Dev Award’ in 2005 by Samiti founded in Faizabad by the ancestors of Acharya Narendra Dev – a renowned social thinker, educational luminary and a freedom fighter.
Nupur has also compiled a book on marital relationships for the Rotary Club of Jullundhur. She explains, “In 2012 when I took over as the secretary of the Rotary Club I decided to put our Rotary International Theme of that year ‘Peace Through Service’ in a form of compiled book on Marriage Relationships ‘Vinegar and Honey For Perfect Harmony’ with a message that Service begins at your doorstep. It deals with serious issues with subtle humor.”
Her recent story ‘In her shoes’ based on her experiences in counseling and therapy, Nupur wrote a fiction around a girl Saachi; depicting her growth as her stepping into many shoes and portraying her walk through multi-dimensional lanes in her journey of many lives, “cherishing one lace of togetherness an happiness with the other lace of grief, despair and pain” has been appreciated and applauded too. It has also been scripted and staged in theatre under the banner of ‘Natrang’ directed by Aarushi Thakur Rana.
Nupur shares, “‘In Her Shoes’ touches the journey of a teenage girl till her marriage age who goes through sibling jealously, PCOS disorder and dealing with the importance of outer beauty.”

Now, Nupur is coming up with a six-minute long educational animated movie, ‘Beautiful Me’ which is going to be featured in ‘Plein La Bobine’ 6th Festival Internation DE Cinema, to be held in La Bourboule, France from 26th May to 1st June, 2018. She is writer, director, producer and lyricist for the movie.

Nupur is one of those women who believe in growing every day, explore and understand both her life and herself. She believes that we all are empowered inside, but we all are intimidated by our own empowerment because we do not want to go beyond our limitations and hesitate because of its industrious nature.

Being a therapist, Nupur suggests mothers, or for that matter both the parents to ensure that they only pass on their learning and strength to their kids and not their fears and weakness.
“It is essential to enjoy your child, spend time with them; it is not the quantity of time that matters but the quality of it,” she says.
She also advices to grow with the child, take cues from their behavior and understand them; although their opinion might differ but it is not necessarily incorrect.

Nupur expresses, “Home should be a place where a child should be allowed to make mistake; telling a child that you are approachable and disappointing them when needed is not the right way.”

She further adds, “Do not play ping-pong game with your spouse; it is pointless to scare the child by threatening him/her that the other parent would be ferocious once he/she finds out about their mistakes.”

To women out there Nupur’s words are, “No one can help you if you cannot help yourself; empowerment comes from within.”
She also gives a message that every woman should embrace themselves, their femenity.

Updated On 5/16/2018 1:16:13 PM
Updated On 6/12/2018 6:47:49 PM


Comment on this Story