Ironical

Can it get more ironical?

"The irony of commitment is that it's deeply liberating -- in work, in play, in love."
Anne Morris (part of a quote from The Way I See It #76, Starbucks Coffee)

Strangers & Friends

"Strangers can be friends. As much as friends can be strangers"
- DK & I

She says I should stop being a martyr...

Will try madamoiselle... [by the way, the French women are campaigning against the usage of the address "mademoiselle" traditionally meant for unmarried woman. As they are questioning (and rightly so) that why should an unmarried woman be addressed as mademoiselle and a man de addressed monsieur (whether married or not). Talk about equality (and fight for fairness)

Now you know why women are the fairer sex!... ok bad one. I agree.

KJ- Quite ironic that this post ended up being feministic ;) !

More than a question

What unearthed this burried question was an invite for the screening of a documentary film produced by Tiger Watch 2006, 'Curbing the Crisis'.

The point in question: Why dont documentary films have a public screening platform?

This takes me back to the time where I first watched documentary films.
While in college, as part of the media course, we had this two-day documentary film-festival, which was really an eye-opener for us and a foot-fall to rouse mass interest in the genre of documentary films for the makers.

Now the docus screened, spanned diverse issues from manual scavenging still as a practice in northern states (can u believe it?), to communal riots, fanaticism, wildlife poaching, rehabilation of tribals etc.,

But one film, struck a chord with the audience. Called "The Bee, The Bear and The Kuruba", the film is a narration of a story by a Kuruba (tribal) grandfather to his grandchild by the warm flames of an evening bhaitak. He tells the kid of bygone years, where kurubas lived in their homelands in the Western Ghats; wildlife and kurubas lived in peaceful co-existence, the kurubas doing with whatever the generous forest had to emanate (which is why the film is called "The Bee, The Bear and The Kuruba) .

Greed took over, loomed largely by encroaching and poaching. It left the genuine kurubas with little or no hope of living in their homelands as they were coerced to vacate in trajectory of dwindling resources in the forests. The agony of evacuation and a distant memory of the heartland shimmers in the eye of the grandfather as a curious innocence shines in the eye of the little one. The film moves you to a pensive mode and does so with titillation. And it effaces fallacies that documentaries are boring, long-drawn and snivelling.


Google linked me to EKTA indicating that this film was selected amongst the top 15 films for 'Travelling film South Asia' to create awareness of South Asian docus in regional and global level.

Which gets me back to the point in question "Why don't documentary films have a public screening platform?" What about awareness here and now? Possibilities may range from lack of an interested audience to highly opinionated issues (but isnt ours a free-country? or so does the constituition righteously claim) to Censor board's regulation (I feign mighty ignorance here) .

And sadly the film-makers take trouble of reaching out to people who need to be voiced, making the film with cringing resources, and then liaise with people for screening their films to create awareness?? Instead why cant there be a place for such screenings where people get to know about what's lurking round the corner? Is the faction of people who would watch something realistic than imaginative really that negligible? How many of you reading this would go for the screening of a documentary, thereby expressing a willingness to see, hear and know reality?

There is no harm in being well-informed and sensitive to certain issues than conjure boisterous marvel at box office hits! I believe, in the long-run and larger span of life, 'Ignorance is really no bliss'.

Will the 16mm ever have a public viewing platform?

That thing they do...

The politicians politicise everything.
And the media, they glamorise and dramatise everything!

Doing everything and nothing that they should be.

The days of inequality are here to stay, relish them!

Fresh strokes of casteism are reiterating that the days of inequality are here to stay.

Its 50 years and more since India unshackled its chains from Angrez and the Aazaadi we live today is dovetailed into political games- a story of the player and the played.

What with 50% reservation for OBC's (and some more for NRIs) inequality is back with a bang!
The Professional Drama Company of India (comprising of talented chair throwers, screamers, effigy-burners', cheap-electoral trick players and few numerable suave orators), is known to be a sharp and manipulative lot hankering after power like vultures swooping down every opportunity to peck on the votebank. They are playing the same games the Angrez did- DIVIDE AND RULE!

There are many views shared about this enraging issue already-

• Efficiency and quality will be hampered
• Many who claim OBC status are not infact, economically backward.
  
• Many so-called 'higher-caste' people are economically poor and do not have enough money for education forget higher education
  
• The hardworking lot will continue to working hard and the others will smoothly walk in with their sheet of paper with the stamp of inequality on it
• OBCs will succumb to the maneouvers of those politicians and vote for them in their short-sightedness and that of the politicians.
  

But what angers me most is the passive protest of those this move will affect the most- those who slog it out for merit. A photograph of Ambedkarji was wrongly reported to be removed by a BJP politician in Karnataka and there were rasta-rokos, effigies burnt and slogans yelled! This is going to affect the YOUNG people of India in more ways than one and here we are... blogging and silently petitioning online- who are we scared of so much??

And why aren't the Kalam's, Jethmalanis, Jaitley's of India speaking a word in honour of truth and justice??

Think of that dabba where the ballot papers are put. Just think of it. You will get the answer. Its a power hungry pedestal and a slumbering VIRTUAL lot.

A song for TIME

There is a song for everything.... this one for TIME
and Chantal Kreviazuk just makes TIME come alive into a person

Time, where did you go?
Why did you leave me here alone?
Wait, don't go so fast
I'm missing the moments as they pass
Now I've looked in the mirror and the worlds getting clearer
So wait for me this time
I'm down I'm down on my knees I'm begging for all your sympathy
But you (I'm just an illusion) you don't seem to care (I wish that I could)
You humble people everywhere (I don't mean to hurt you)
Now I've looked in the mirror and the worlds getting clearer
I'll take what you give me. Please know that I'm learning
So wait for me this time
I should've know better
I shouldn't have wasted those days
And afternoons and mornings
I threw them all away
Now this is my time
I'm going to make this moment mine.
(I shouldn't have wasted those days)
I'll take what you give me. Please know that I'm learning
I've looked in the mirror
My world's getting clearer
So wait for me this time
_________________

humming along....

Links

Some interesting links on Nature and Wildlife

Get linked to:

Wildlife Times
Western Ghats
Indian Wildlife Club
Indian Jungles

Colonial hangover

Amongst seasoned Derby goers, a freewilly like me felt discomfort beneath my feet, as i waited for my 'very' punctual friend (much like me ;) ) to join me.

The oval green tracks made me want to run on it (ofcourse u're not allowed to step on it!).

Well-groomed ladies and all men in suit, prim and proper, sipped on vine as the city cast spells of a scorching summer to come ( yes, I reiterate, the men were in suit and tie too).

The long wait ends as my friend walks in, in formals sans suit.
Some members take notice and raise objection to him not wearing a suit.

Now, March is no time for a 'winter' Derby, definitely not in India atleast!
And that's the kind of a post-colonial shadow we live in. Its called winter derby, and be it pleasant or scorching hot, you've gotta be in a suit!

Hail Britishers! We got our freedom, but we still cant think on our own.