What does it Mean to Celebrate?

For those of you looking for an answer...I don't have one here...! you can either share your thoughts or move on.

Presumably, 4th July seemed to be a big day and I asked a couple of friends at the office about how it is celebrated? Everybody said, they would have a game/fireworks etc. That set the thought process of what celebrating really meant? When it is an independence that is being celebrated, I feel it should be in a true sense. I cannot mention anything in detail, coz I don't know.

Maybe, something like, free people from their credit burdens, provide them the freedom of not having to pay the late payment fee/service charges/tax on service charges. After all, credit card companies chase the customers until they take one. Once they have a customer in their bag, other internal departments take over the customer and try to lure him/her into so many schemes that most of the customers would fall into atleast one of them. After a certain point, a customer would realise there is no real value in that scheme and start sulking about how he could have avoided. The same goes with buying everything that you feel like having, start to think about how much a product is really utilised and worthy, before submitting yourself to your temptations.

This is similar to a ball that is rolled downhill on a snowy mountain which gathers all the snow around it and turns into a huge one which cannot be controlled. Just that probably snow may seem fun, but it does not feel really good when you have to pay a lot of money which you do not owe in the first place. I am assuming , when a person who has bad credit rating dies, that it does not affect his/her next generation or friends from securing loans.

Or, another way of celebrating independence is to provide financial freedom to deserving students who aspire to go to college or want to graduate from one. I know of situations where people sponsor candidates who go to elite schools, probably in the hope that they would be able to reap some benefits in the future. Not that most of such candidates have not gone through their share of problems and then turn out be really good later, but candidates from not so elite schools also should get such assistance, as some of them have a potentially worthy future. You never know, these kind of students can make this world a better place to live!

I would love to see, what you mean by celebrating in the true sense? Hope to have a discussion!

Create your own History!

I was talking to my friend today and suddenly realised that we were talking about all the good / bad things that we did during our college days and how that has shaped our lives. We never knew then that we would talk about all the fun, grief and achievements we lived then, forget about even remembering them.

Achievements seem such a silly word now...however, learning to smoke with style, beer competitions, flirting with a girl, trying to get tickets for a movie that just released were all achievements then. We just enjoyed our day to day lives with gay abandon.

When I started looking for my first job, I was filled with fear about future(not that I am absolutely certain now). The determination to be something was so intense that I would attend all the interviews that I could. When I look back, I feel I have always enjoyed the process of getting the jobs (yes,I changed a couple of them) more, rather than doing the job itself. Happened to meet some wonderful people all through, and also found that some friends who I thought were dear did actually prove to be a*******s .

I Wish I could get back to my college days again and to the beginning of my career when I was searching for jobs like crazy. Deja vu, a couple of yrs ago, I remember posting a blog about being frozen in my childhood when I had no big worries(no, I was not born with a silver spoon or even anything near that) and just enjoyed the simple life.

Now I know, man will always feel like living in the past more than being in future. When somebody reaches a point X in life, they will enjoy their journey to X than being in X itself. I think it is only natural to feel nostalgic about taking that journey again, except that none of the factors would be similar if you ever had a chance to do that. I am getting used to the fact that it is only one chance that is available!

Go on, make today a history(a nice one) and feel good about your yesterday, tomorrow.

Born into Brothels!

Happened to watch this documentary feature by chance and was simply amazed by the way it was made. From what I have seen until now, a documentary showcases a certain problem in all its possible entirety. This one actually went ahead and provided/implemented a solution. The implementation part was really touching. Trying to get the kids out of the brothel is itself a huge effort, getting them to go to a boarding school is definitely something else.

From the point that I knew a change would be made to the kids by the Film maker, I wished that Kochi, Avijit and Gour would take advantage of the change. After his mother dies, Avijit kind of gets ignorant and does not seem to care about his selection into Photo Press Conference(or whatever) in Amsterdam. It was sinking feeling to see him lose his life's best opportunity. Thanks to Zana's determination, she works on getting his passport done and makes sure that he goes to Amsterdam. Having seen the Indian bureaucracy myself, I empathise with Zana for her struggle to get Avijit's certificates. It was good to see that Avijit go to school after he returns from Amsterdam and Kochi continuing to study. However, felt a li'l bad for Gour as his parents does not allow him to go to school. His kind of parents should be tried in the court for not allowing their child to study even after talking to them about the benefits of getting an education. From the way he speaks, he seemed to have nice thoughts and a mature view of the world, given the circumstances in which he was brought up.

Puja's mother seemed positive when the school authorities spoke to her, but later, withdraws Puja from school. The first day when she goes to school, the grandmother says that her mother died on a thursday at 5 PM and so, she does not allow anything to be done on a thursday in her house. What is she? an Idiot....her beliefs have more preferences than future for the child.

I wonder how many such children will get a chance to learn photography from a professional, to be in a boarding school. It feels bad that not all of them have taken advantage of the opportunity.

Zana Briski, take a bow for making such a wonderful film in a refreshingly different way.

Into the Wild

I saw the movie trailer about a couple months ago and wanted to watch the movie desperately. However, with the everyday routines, I forgot about the movie. Happened to find the movie on my netflix browsing list and ordered it right away.

I have always admired Sean Penn for his ability to direct movies which are mostly real life stories or something that is very close to real life. But this movie was something that just hit me so hard that it took me about a couple of days to come out of the feel.

Christopher Johnson McCandless(Alexander Supertramp), seemed to be an individual with a lot of very mature thoughts until it is revealed about why he behaves in a certain way. All the fights that his parents had, he trying to protect his sister, finding about his birth etc. I was still hoping that he would get back to normal life at a certain point,which he does, however fate has it that he die. Otherwise, the noose hunters who found him about a couple of weeks later after his death, could have found him a couple of weeks earlier and this man would have been another happy human for finding the real meaning of happiness (Happiness is in sharing) after enduring so much and the earth could have lost a little weight that the sadness of his life has generated.

From the moment he sets out of his home for the Alaskan adventure, everybody who meets him(the grain elevator episode, the hippie couple sequence, old man @ hot springs, CA, the one who drops him off at the foot trail) tries to stop him from taking the trip. Was it just that he does not realize? or, his finding about his birth and the way his parents treated their children had such impact on his resolve?

Why do parents sometimes become so shut off with the feelings that they provoke in their children? I do understand the pressures that they have to face in the everyday life, however in this case,it was their ego and the plain ignorance that children begin to have an opinion after a certain age and that will have a very strong influence on how their life would shape up. Although the parents realize after Supertramp goes away, it does not matter as they have made an irreversible influence on the opinions of their children.

Felt a li'l bad that he could not meet his sister after he left home, who was the only person who had affection for him.