responsibilities- collective and individual

they are looking for Bhagat Singh

they are calling for Indira Gandhi

these are times of crisis and everyone is in search of heroes, heroes who will take the burden of nation on their strong shoulders, so that we could go to sleep again. we need to realise that these heroes are not specially custom made but are people like us, the only difference being their acceptance of responsibility and their willingness towards doing something to change the society and make it a better place.

why don't we have 300 good people in our loksabha even once in five years? politicians have become the whipping boys for most of the people, and rightly so...but what right we have to blame them when we haven't voted and thus are indirectly responsible for the mess our politicians have made. i really loved the movie Rang de basanti, and the thing that made the deepest impression in me was the way it showed how Bhagatsingh, Chandrashekhar Aazad, Rajguru...they are one of us. its just that they are dormant, we all have a revolutionary inside us who needs to wake up now...the nation is calling.

they blame the youth of becoming passive, i think its because he is exposed too much and i blame the media for it. in the process of growing up they have played violent video games, seen media persons shouting at the top of their voices, watched films that are not to be viewed without adult supervision...and they have faced this all ALONE...i want to stress that the average youth is alone in their adolescent years in all the time he/she has spent at home. there is no one to explain things so they have grown with a distorted version of reality. they have become detached to human emotions, getting an overdose. and they don't know pain, because they have never faced it.

the media has completely shunned its responsibility and the brunt has to be borne by the society and people who are still sensitive enough to be offended by seeing the footage of blood covered roads after a blast, bodies strewn across and media persons commenting in the sharpest pitch explaining that there is blodd all around...as if it is possible to miss it in anyway when it is so blatantly shown on our screens.

these are troubled times and we all have to take a greater share of responsibilities, keep a constant vigil so that the enemies of the nation find it difficult to attack. we need to be united, we are all part of one nation and no one should support the terrorists irrespective of religion, caste or geographical location. only when the common man awakes to the perils of inactiveness will we be able to secure ourselves from enemies within.

Bravery is believing in yourself, and that nobody can teach you.

change is the need

In the times of recession, where do dreams lie? The debate ranges on dreams that come with a risk. Whether to continue doing something that gives one a secure paycheck at the end of the month or to break away and explore the roads less travelled? With attrition rates at an all time low, the wise hold on to their jobs and put their dreams in the highest cupboard of their storage room. And with the passage of time, they forget the cupboard, and they forget the dreams.

What comprises life? Are we born to merely fit in the jigsaw puzzle of society, tweak ourselves so that we fit in, so that we are not thrown out as someone who doesn’t complete the picture? And what if we start to paint a new picture, start building a new kind of world, and bring in some changes un-thought of before.

Everyone is born with a vocation in life…but rare people are born with a dream, and even smaller is the number of people who realize what their destiny is. People who strive against all odds, because they believe in themselves and believe in the power of one; people who stand up to make a difference; they are our heroes, the real ones.

I have a partiality towards people who have the gift of creativity. And I don’t believe that creativity is only there in poets or artists but I strongly believe that scientists are the most creative people of all. How would you otherwise explain how Newton discovered gravity? Creativity is the ability to think, to ideate, and then translate that idea; simplify it for the common man to understand. That is the beauty of a genius, he makes things simple.

That’s what films are supposed to do. Present an idea in a simple way, through characters people identify with. Films can be used as a very strong medium to influence public opinion; to bring in revolution; to charge people to get up and do something constructive. But alas, this most powerful means of communication has landed up in incapable hands.

The movies released and considered box office hits have been a severe letdown. Can presentation replace the utility of good matter? Going by the way the films we see, one is bound to believe it does. All that gloss, and huge budgets and stars that charge a bomb and the outcome is so lame there are no two lines to be written in a review.

And where are our critics? It seems even the reviews are bought, how can otherwise lame films like Woodstock Villa get a 3and half star rating? It’s all going wrong, and something needs to be done, and done fast before people start accepting anything given to them; before they completely lose the discerning quality and take in mediocre as good.

I guess I need to accelerate. One effort can make all the difference; at least it will start to.

“Be the change you want to see in the world.” –Mahatma Gandhi

i believe

Long time back in 2004, i had a mentor...Anupam Giri. it was a short period of time almost one and half months that i had the privilege to work with him, but his words scribbled on my autograph book have left a lasting imprint on me.
Concieve
Believe....repeat believe
Achieve
so these words echo on my mind and egg me on to move ahead at a speed of lightning and write whatever i want on the book of life...my life.
it still seems outrageous for a girl...or say woman of 25 to think that some day she will be able to direct a film. there are very few woman directors in india...but my favourite movie of all times remains "Mr & Mrs Iyer" and it was directed by a woman, aparna sen...and i cannot forget that. the movie is one of the milestones of my life.
it was the time i just finished with my first documentary, and i was going through the process of editing while i saw the movie...the first thing that struck me in the movie was that there were several small instaces i felt the things portrayed can only be felt by a woman.
for some reason i believe that the way a woman percieves the world and a man does, there is a whole lot of difference and therefore when they translate their views of life its gone to be a lot different.
i believe i have a very different take on everything in life...and i really believe i can translate what i think in my head in to a myriad images. And that i will do
and that will be my kind of film.
to quote one of my favorite lines

Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstance