I am matured ! ah ! :(

Today in office, suddenly a team mate, sitting beside me asked when did i complete my graduation. I said this year (may) and said i joined for work in june. He said i have changed. I gave him a questioning look. Actually, he was going through my photo album in orkut and then showed me a pic of me and my best friend(which was kinda recent pic, taken in may). I asked him jokingly "You mean good or bad?"(Hoping he will say good..hehe;) He said "Not about good or bad. You look happier in the pics. Now, in office, you look matured." I was like "Oh":(. Then he said he too have changed in the last one year. Before he used to live with his friends and it was a tension free life and now he is married (he he).
So basically if you want to stay looking young , stay around your friends or dont start to work or dont get married.:-D

PS: While i was typing this post from office, a voice suddenly asked from behind "Whats that..impressions?". And as a reflex reaction i quickly did ALT + TAB (like during the computer lab sessions in college when the lab instructor will suddenly pop up from no where :0) and i turned and smiled at my colleague and was like "Eh..well..thats my blog." (Hmm..hehe... matured huh!)

Hmm....

This photo was taken by me from the famous commercial street in bangalore. This huge lump of waste clothes were dumped in a corner on one of the roads there which was filled with tailor shops. I simply clicked with my mobile and while i was taking the pic, a muslim tailor from behind told me "Are bahut se log aate hai aur photo leke chale jaate hai, par koi faida nahin. Kahin pe bhi photo nahin dalthe aur kuch nahin hota hai.". I turned and smiled at him. Hmm...

Sleeping beauty..:-)

Passion in life!

I was having one of my usual client calls at office. Discussions and clarifications..And then after the call I, PM (project manager) and the technical architect (Manjunath) were having the usual small chat. And Manjunath started his usual tech talk and I was just listening (ahem I am not very techie person, so i am better off listening hehe…;). He is one of the major tech guys in our company. He was talking about some new project that the company got. He was saying it’s different from the usual web based application projects that the company gets and of which he was bored. The project was something to do with gprs in mobile phones and some location detector and blah blah (hehe sorry I got lost in between the conversation). But something that I noticed was the way he was talking. You could see the passion in his eyes when he was saying “Oh if we get this project na, it would be awesome! I would leave all other projects and it will be great for Nous (our company)!”

Something that lot of people lack is passion for things they do. A majority of people do most things in life because they are meant to do it and not because they like doing it.
From childhood, we kind have some facts written into our minds: Be good to all, study hard, earn a job, earn more money than others... :) In midst of the run to make all these things happen and to make parents and family and others happy, people mostly forget what actually they want (or rather pretend to forget)… And before they know, they are living a mechanical life where they work and work and do things and they are not even really happy about it. Yes maybe initially some may feel its fine, but it gets harder during the long run. Not in work alone…it holds true in most things in our life…in relationships, with friends…everywhere.

Try to love the things that you do or rather do things that you love.Not saying you can do that always, but u can in some ways. And it’s not about putting on an “I don’t care” attitude or not listening to others in life or being self centered. It’s just about keeping yourself happy both inside and outside. And unless you are happy, you can’t keep the people around you happy :-)

Indian women 'get wild' !!

** Indian women 'get wild' in US soap **Ashish Kumar Sen on a US web mini series which is creating ripples among Indianexpatriates.< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/7465261.stm >
Well my first reaction after reading this article on BBC news website was”What’s the big deal!”
India has always been proud of its history of varying cultures and traditions that speaks about its people as god fearing and principled; with Indian women being portrayed as figures of purity and motherhood. But whom are we kidding!
I agree to the fact that Indian women have always been known for being more principled and determined than the rest of the female clan and have always stood by their culture and beliefs. But we should not be blind folded. India is changing fast and so are its people; with Indian women being no exception. They have become quite independent and have started living the much loved free life, on their own principles and their own rules. Yes, many still abide by our cultural and tradition (again there is a question of what’s right according to the culture and what’s not, which is a never ending topic!), but not all!
We have a good amount of women in India (mostly in the urban India) who are enjoying the western lifestyle that they have adopted comfortably to satisfy their needs and comforts. Again, saying something is wrong and something is right is all up to people’s perspectives.
But the point is, why all the fuss about some Hollywood soap where some Indian actresses are playing some ultra modern roles and are rather being pictured as vamps. And do we have voice? What about the Indian media? Does it always go by the so called rules!??

A right activist quotes about the Hollywood series “By presenting working Indian women as deceitful vamps, [the series] has reinforced the harmful stereotypes of empowered Indian women" Hmm so what?? Is it totally wrong?? Of course, it doesn’t represent the whole lot of Indian women. But then have to agree to the fact that they are much closer to reality than the Indian soaps were the Indian women are always projected as sathi savithris!!

BORN INTO BROTHELS: Calcutta's Red Light Kids

Admist the apparent growing prosperity of India, there is a dark underbelly of poverty of another side of the nation that is little known. This documentary film is a chronicle of filmmakers Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman's efforts to show that world of Calcutta's red light district. To do that, they inspired a special group of children of the prostitutes of the area to photograph the most reluctant subjects of it. As the kids excel in their new found art, the filmmakers struggle to help them have a chance for a better life away from the miserable poverty that threatens to crush their dreams.

Zana Briski (the director) studied documentary photography at International Center of Photography in New York. In 1995 she made her first trip to India, producing a story on female infanticide. In 1997 she returned to India and began her project on the prostitutes of Calcutta's red light district, which led to her work with the children of prostitutes. Zana has won numerous awards and fellowships including George Soros' Open Society Institute Fellowship, an Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellowship, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, the Howard Chapnick Grant for the Advancement of Photojournalism and first prize at the World Press Photo Foundation Competition.

Zana and co-director Ross Kauffman were awarded grants from the Sundance institute, the Jerome Foundation, and the New York State Council on the Arts for their film, "Born into Brothels", a feature documentary about the children of Calcutta's prostitutes. In 2002 Zana created Kids with Cameras, a non-profit organization to empower marginalized children through learning the art of photography.

I liked the film not only because it brought out one of the burning issues, which despite being evident has been neglected for long by our government and society, but also for the positiveness of the film. When you see the film your touched by the condition of the people in the red street but watching the kids optimistically moving ahead so as to make a better life for themselves, makes you believe that nothing is impossible. One more thing that captures your eyes is the excellent photography by Zara and the kids, that makes one wonder if pictures could speak.The struggle they began here is just a start and a lot needs to be done but...paths are made by walking not waiting !

Dark side !

There is always a dark side...

Right or wrong!

We never understand y at times people cant understand us when we are so ‘obviously right’!!...”come on what is wrong with the way i say...of course it is like tat, u just cant understand it...i don’t understand wats wrong with this..”... hmm tel u wat...ur talkin to deaf people there...n knw wat....tats wats happenin in reverse too...the people opposite to you too feel that they are talkin to a deaf you cos u don’t seem to understand their point too... hmm so who’s point is really right...eh wanna ask a third person ??...ah..bt then he/she may have his/her own set of ideologies and may say that u r wrong even thou u think ur right...hmm so how do u actually know wat is right n wrong??...sorry if am not making any sense...;-)... Wel i believe that there is nothing as right and wrong cos thats something that differs frm person to person...wat may be wrong to you may not be wrong to me and wat may be right to you may not be right to me.. Wel wat really matters is how u feel... u should feel ur right n trust ur self...only tats needed, right ? Of course am right! I always am! :-D

Graduation blues...

You always look forward into the future and wonder..’How am I gonna face tat ?’ or ‘How am I gonna get through tat ?’..I too always wondered how I would feel wen I will be on the verge of gettin out of clg..bt then...nw wen I am..I really dont feel anythin...n am sure many would agree wit me..well nt tat we all r devoid of emotions..:) Cos otherwise I won’t be writing this... :)...

Thing is...we are at the verge of breaking into the ‘real world’ ..n we al r lookin into the future..so full of hope and expectation tat we can’t really wait to get out n grab any chance to make our way towards wat we actually want...well tats another thing.. ‘knowin wat we want’...caught u rit.? still hunting for it huh..join the club..:)bt we al agree tat watever it is, we al r lookin forward to enjoyin n bein happy in life..so should we really repent for gettin out of somewhere where we wer bound for four years bw al those crappy theory papers n assignments n presentations n da same old classes..so much tat we really cudnt do al those things tat we really wanted to do.!!..ah!yea...I know..wat abt al those wonderful moments we had.. the never endin long chats abt those out of the blue topics..the hangouts,b’day parties,long walks,hostel blasts...hmm yea gonna miss al tat..bt again r u tellin me tat where ever we r goin we wont have any of these any more...hmm no we wil..we wil still meet nw people...wud still get close to sm of them...wud still laugh n enjoy wit them..cos life is al abt adaptin...adaptin to situations, to nw places, to nw people..so is all this graduation blues momentory..??hmm wel am nt really concludin here anythin cos I really don’t know...maybe someday I wil..maybe sm years dwn da lane.. watever it is i simply can’t deny the fact that to me college was a place where i actually met ‘some people’....some crazy guys n gals who touched my life in a way that is irreplaceable..!