Breaking the silence with music

Chase the sun by Planet Funk

I'm flying away
Running like the wind
As I chase the sun
Up spinning around
Circles in my mind
Sailing over ground

The Flame Of Life

'Each of us has fire in our hearts for something. Its our goal in life to find it and to keep it lit'.
Something a friend said to me, a year back in time.

This THOUGHT in a LIFETIME

This thought in a Lifetime, can set me forward or retrace me from where I'am going.
This thought in a Lifetime can make me, break me orrr..... free me.
This thought in a Lifetime can be a prayer or a curse.
This thought in a Lifetime can last till the end or be gone before its born.
This thought in a Lifetime may flower as love or decay as hate.
This thought in a Lifetime can endure tolerance or enrage a fury
This thought in a Lifetime is firm faith or elusive hope
This thought in a Lifetime is what I make of it- a boon or a bane.

This thought. This thought. This thought.

This Lifetime.

Of Thoughts.

Gag-Tag

Apoorv tagged me.
1. Grab the book nearest to you, turn on page 18 and find line 4
["I say so," he pursued desperately, "because the Bourbons ran away from the Revolution, leaving the people to anarchy.] Leo Tolstoy's words from War and Peace, the book am currently reading.

2. Stretch your left arm out as far as you can.
Window panes. Moist window panes- it just rained :)

3. What is the last thing you watched on TV?
Planet Action on Animal Planet.

4. Without looking, guess what time it is?
Hmm...6ish....

5. Now look at the clock, what is the actual time?
Its time to see the time (haha... bad one) 6:30 pm

6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?
Coldplay tracks and Samit laughing sporadically (some laughter show am sure- let me check what it is- Takeshi's Castle on Pogo! haha- its so pooped, but cant deny, it tickles my funny bone too)

7. When did you last step outside? What were you doing?
Stepped out late afternoon to drive
Samit to the bus stop.

8. Before you started this survey, what did you look at?
Gmail I think

9. What are you wearing?
Cotton pants & shirt.

10. Did you dream last night?
Not that I remember!

11. When did you last laugh?
This morning at Ranga's tantrums- running around the lawn at the speed of sound... :)

12. What is on the walls of the room you are in?
Paintings & photographs.

13. Seen anything weird lately?
From the way "I" see it, everything seems weird.
Jokes apart, some 'weird' tattoo show on Travel & Living.

14. What do you think of this quiz?
Lengthy.

15. What is the last film you saw?
Madagascar- with my kid cousin some two weeks back.

16. If you became a multimillionaire overnight, what would you buy?
A farmhouse with a river in the backyard, ticket to a world tour.....hmm... dont want to make this more lengthy than it already is. Let me just add- start a NAT GEO equivalent (a channel, a magazine..... a SOCIETY) of India.

17. Tell me something about you that i dunno.
That I was born when I was seven months old and my tiny feet need size 3 footwear.

18. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?
Its nice the way it is. Without politics, that is.

19. Do you like to dance?
Like- no. Love- yes!

20. George bush.
Demon!! Perpetrator!!

21. Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?
Hmm....dont know.

22. Imagine yout first child is a boy, what do you call him?
Hmm... dont know again.

23. Would you ever consider living abroad?
May be for a few years. But then, one can't live away from home (read India) for too long.

24. What do you want GOD to say to you when you reach the pearly gates?
Welcome!

25. 4 people who must also do this meme in their journal.
KJ, Saurab, Samit, Anju

Beyond what IS...

The soothing-sunshine cajoles the lurking-clouds away in the aftermath of a gloomy-day wrought with a frozen-numbness.
The crisp-glow lights-up the landscape and vanishes the sullen-silence of dullness into a sparkling-slience of green leaves.
The sun-saps out of the horizon, exploding crimson-tinted hues of a challenge overwhelmingly won.

The silver-lined cloud defines all that is vague,
With its molten-lining it contains all that's ephemeral and volatile, tightly in its binding care.

The silence of the night guards my faith in the constellation of its sparkling-stars.

As silence crawls into a cacophony of mundaneness,
Those untrodden-lands and those nomadic-dreams, tread my journey on...gently...

Hanging in Hunger

Behind the stock market boom, swelling economy and swiftest of cars & haute couture, there are basic amenities our fellow country folks are fighting for. And lurking round your very own corner is HUNGER.

This is no talk of urban-rural divide. This is the very ridge that makes for castles of crores shadowed by jhopadpattis in the sidelines in our urban cosmos.

What dawns your mind when you hear/read/think of 'malnutrition'?
Most likely than not, it's images of African Children starving to death.

So, like me you would be surprised to know that Ethiopia & India share the same malnutrition rate. 47%. Check out more on the report card on child nutrition 2006 here.

Feeding a hungry child is not charity its a social responsibility.

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.

Wonder Years

Park amusements every evening,
Cycling the summers away,
Picnicing Nruptunga hills, carrying with us sandwiches, cake and cookies all 14 0f us.

Being a pest to the rest
(Esp sis n bro)
Playing lagori till we lost the ball or rather until we couldn't find it no more,
Playing badminton till the sunset blinded the shuttle,
And carrom, snake & ladder, ludo, scrabble after that sunset.
TV was turned on when Malgudi days, Ramayan and Mahabharat were on air
And we counted commercials in the breaks.

Then came satellite TV and changed the importance TV had in our lives and that of friends' too.
Some took on to reading books. But many, most, went with the TV.

October cast beautiful skies and stars too.
Festivals and celebrations beckoned us hometownwards
Striked a bond with cousins that careless childhood had shed away.

Evening walks and treks one fed on,
Munching chips and sipping coke.
Opinions commenced to form
And slowly one opened to the world around.
Like Thumbelina.

The wonder(ful) years have taken their rightful place in memory and mind's eye.

Bonded Labour

Now dont be deceived by the title! Nor by what is generally understood of bonded labour.

Am not referring to the bonded labour we studied about in history textbooks (who knows if its not history yet- existing in a lost corner of yet another ignored, remote village). Wat am referring to insinuates the labour rendering into years of working with the same organisation, people, household or even a cause for that matter. Its almost a labour of/ for love.

This is an ode to these three men I see at work everyday.

Parshuram ~ 20 years and still going.
Never been late/ absent on a single day except when he's been bed ridden. He's a hallmark of recognition at the place he works and a role model too.

Anant Jorapur ~ 11 years and climbing higher.
Class 12 education. Humble beginnings of a worker. A story of focused toil and alchemy that now stands him today as a supervisor. His equals are science and engg grads.

Ravi Kankannavar~ 10 long years and he's still electrifying.
Yes. He's an electrifying electrician and mechanic. There's more to him than his soiled cap and laconic smile. Just a look at a machine and he dives deep until he makes the machine roar again.

On another note, the place I interned at lost almost 12 people left in one year.
(Guess its all about the alchemy of the right people in the right place doing their rightful thing)

Really, gone are the days of bonded labour.

Young Changemakers

The Ashoka Foundation, as u know, supports young social entrepreneurs who render societal change ( u'll find the link to Ashoka to ur right).

The very thought of youth engaged in societal change is incredible.
While a lot sit back and speak, they sit forth and act.
Commendable!


And this time around... its awarding them.

Change is the only REAL constant. And may it always loom worthwhile.

Knocking some sense...

Save Trees. Trees Save.

Upside down, inside out...

That screech beckoned them to rush...!!
In exasperated gasps and weak knees the victim pointed out to the big fat, scary, stodgy, dodgy, unusual, (ugly- if I may call it so!)....guess wat?...... LIZARDD!

Brooms, brushes, bags and all came in a jiff, as the mighty "MoP-it-out Operation" began.
Soon things went flying out of the room, few went to their rightful places- some dustbins and some on shelves. In astute alarm they stood- waiting for its every unexpected turn. They stood like Tom but Jerry was smart and he whisked.

Beds got turned upside down and every nook and cranny got scanned. But it hid in a place no one could find (which is why it was a lizard!).

Soon everything fell in place as the evening advanced into the night.

And as midnight came crawling so did the familiar "big fat, scary, stodgy, dodgy, unusual, (ugly- if I may call it so!)....guess wat?...... LIZARDD!"

And speed knew no bounds as quilt n' pillow were gathered in a flight leaving behind the luxury to the LIZARD to do what it may please- LURK AROUND!