The Guilt Of Motherhood

Motherhood is such a bliss. Motherhood is that moment after childbirth when your life changes for ever, following which there are innumerable moments of joys and a lifetime of pride. Haven’t women always been celebrated for being extra-ordinary in their role as a mother? How many times have we seen motherhood being depicted in glorious forms in popular culture? Every FMGC ad on TV where the homemaker is invariably a woman is always calm, composed and knows all the answers. She is always sorted. Isn’t it all so beautiful and pleasing? After all women have been told for ages that motherhood comes naturally to them. They are masters in it even though hardly all studied it in their growing up years.

But let’s put a break to that stereotype and cut to a story of a real struggling mother who is never calm. Have you met her? Does she live in your neighbourhood? Have your heard women whispering about ‘that’ mother who always shouts at her children and is doing everything wrong? You must have. Everyone knows that one mother who doesn’t embody the set virtues assigned for motherhood. This time let’s talk about that mother who hasn’t understood motherhood like she ought to. Let’s talk about the mother who is learning as she is teaching her kid to be a human being. Let’s talk about all the guilt that she carries to bed every night, mentally berating herself for failing her child. Let’s talk.

Not all women are born mothers. At least not those who belong to this generation who have been raised to be go-getters. In their childhood they spent their time studying and playing, their college life was spent enjoying with friends and a few romances. Then came work life which was pretty hard in itself. All this while she was just another girl with ambitions in her eyes and as equal as any male counterpart. Motherhood might have been a choice she made. But the compromises, the long hours, career-ending decisions never seemed to be a part of the deal when she took the decision. But suddenly overnight her life encircled around the tiny human being who completely relied on her.

That’s one of the most humbling feeling any person can ever feel. That feeling when another being is completely dependent on you – for food and for everything else. She spends her days and nights caring for the child. Help is around no doubt, and when asked more hands come forward then needed. But she and the child form a bond that is unbreakable, impenetrable and beyond the glossiness of words. The love a mother feels for a child cannot be expressed in words. Maybe poets have been able to justify the feeling, maybe dreamers understood the depth of that feeling but not all can express its piousness. It’s in that one moment when a girl truly becomes a woman, when she knows that she can’t love anyone more ever. Her child becomes her last love. Her final vow of commitment.

But with this feeling of completeness creeps in guilt. It is like slow poison which enters a mother’s life slowly, steadily and no matter how much she tries, she never seems to get rid of it. Guilt begins when that night she slept without realising her child was wet and needed fresh nappies. The guilt happens when the child cries of hunger because she hadn’t fed on time. The guilt strengthens when the baby falls ill and cries endlessly for hours and she helplessly holds on. The guilt overpowers when the child gets hurts by taking a bad fall. And finally it’s this guilt that consumes her when she can no longer sleep peacefully because she feels she has failed.

Mothers if you too have been consumed by this terrible, terrible feeling, know that you are not alone. You are not battling depression alone. You are not alone who is facing identity crisis. You aren’t alone dealing with the overwhelming responsibility of motherhood. Look around. There are many like you. Be sure that they are all smiling when they step out of the house. Look beyond their smile. Lookout for those tired eyes. You will find many like you. After all we are all gen-nex mothers who haven’t a clue about what’s happening and how to get it all right. Popular culture and media definitely isn’t helping. Who helps then? Oh! It takes a village to raise a kid, you surely know that. Ask for help. Talk to fellow mothers. Take out time for yourself. Do not be guilty if your child didn’t eat on time. Relax if you over-slept. Before allowing others to judge you, stop judging yourself.

You cannot do away with the guilt. That’s the bane of motherhood. It’s going to live with you. But don’t let it consume you. Make peace with it. Know you are not going to be perfect. Nobody is perfect. Everyone who seems to have it all sorted, haven’t actually a clue! So just relax and enjoy motherhood with a smile.  

What's with these days??????

Yesterday happened to be my bhaiyya bhabhi’s 6th anniversary.after the regular formalities of giving the gifts and wishing them we sat for a chat. My brother started off the conversation saying that this over-hype of anniversaries and other such “special” days are something he does not understand. Be it “Father’s Day”, “Mother’s Day”, “Friendship’s Day” all are the gimmicks of gift companies and definitely does not belong to our culture. He also added that the concept of cake cutting is also alien to our culture but now has become a part and parcel of our life. I pretty much agree with his point so didn’t have much to add. But it was my sister-in-law whose words made me sit back and think. She said, many things are not part of our culture but we have adopted it. Giving an example, she referred back to our breakfast of noodles, she said that even that wasn’t a part of our culture but we do eat it happily.

She had a point and I couldn’t argue. Though I have my reservations over the celebrations of all the “days” but her opinion had a point. There are many things which was not part of our culture but slowly and steadily we started accepting them because they were convenient and made our life easier. Today in the pace we are moving, we hardly have time for family and friends or for that matter our partner. Thus we happily resort to the convenient way of making those “special” days more “special” by throwing surprises at them. So the concept of Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day and all the other day’s becomes relevant to our life. And the gift companies happily cash of our sentiments.

So even though we may hate it, and there maybe extremists strongly voiving their opinions with dharnas and bandhs, the fact that we have also somehow contributed to the increasing popularity of these “special days”.

April Fool - The GMail style

"GMail is a new kind of web-mail, built on the idea that email can be more intuitive, efficient, and useful. And maybe even fun”. This is one line probably most of the GMail users miss when they log in. This in brief tell us what we are using everyday, what we are experiencing and what is so useful every time we log in to check our mails. Launched on 1st April, 2004 with a storage capacity of 1 gigabyte, today GMail is one of the largest products in the market. It recently celebrated five glorious years on 1st April, 2009. To mark the fifth anniversary, GMail announced its new feature AutoPilot. With the help of an automated artificial intelligence technology called CADIE (Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed- Intelligence Entity) the feature analyses ones writing skills and replies for the person.

GMail is notoriously known for the April Fools’ pranks that it have been playing on the users and the market analysts over the past five years. In 2004 when Google announced its launch everyone thought it to be a joke because no one expected a mail to have storage capacity of 1 GB. But to everyone’s surprise Google did the impossible and launched GMail with the promised storage capacity. Immediately in a few weeks time other big players like Yahoo upgraded their storage. It is still to be seen whether AutoPilot is just another prank or a real feature in GMail.

GMail since then has been re-inventing itself coming up with newer and better facilities each day. GMail comes in the Beta version meaning that all the features that they launch are on an experimental basis which actually comes out from the Google subsidiary “Google Labs”. The idea of having Beta phase is to enable the users rather than the developers or professional testers to give the feedback. GMail says that it wants the users to be the critics and respond to all the new features that they include in it.

In the last five years GMail has evolved. It was the first mailing site which intigrated chat within the mail box. It was also the first one to include video chats. As Todd Jackson, GMail Product Manager says, that these innovations and features are “really important in expanding the scope of communications that Gmail makes fun and possible and easy and fast.” Other features like less spam, easy UI (User Interface), filters and labels makes GMail a favorite with millions of people around the world. Jackson further enumerates that the steady growth of GMail has been one of the reasons the users are hooked to it. Gmail’s first aim is to make it as user-friendly as possible and then add more additional features. Jackson claims that in the next five years it will grow more and get even stronger.

As for the users, we are certainly benefiting from the increased experiments from Google Labs. Today there are millions of users logged on to GMail and it is “counting”. With GMail coming in many languages it further increases the chances of its growth. The latest edition for India is its Hindi version. Transliteration will only help GMail and obviously us, the users.

IT’S BUSINESS ALL THE WAY

Recently we have been hearing a lot about “the Indian Culture”. A lot of things for and against it have been said. And now the “moral policing” issue is quite forgotten.

The other day I was watching MTV “Roadies, Hell Down Under” with my friends. Seeing the tasks and the apparent humiliations the contestants were made to go through I was compelled to sit back and give this some serious thought. The task that I saw was where the female contestants had to fight with accomplished female boxers in Australia. Common! Now. How much is it fair? These contestants are here to play a game (though I have my reservations on that too, but later) and fighting physically with professionals is just not done. Moreover probably to raise the TRP’s of the show they showed shamelessly the uncensored version of how during the fight one of the contestant’s cleavage got exposed. It was disgusting. I wonder how is it that the so called “moral police” don’t take notice of these things. If all this was not enough, the male participants were asked to fight with two such participants. The result was that the poor had a torn ligament. Well, all in the name of a game!!!!

Now there is yet another youth programme in MTV called “Splitsvilla” and if I may add another extremely offensive and derogatory programme. How does love become a game, learn here. The way the girls and boy expose to get the popularity and win the “much coveted prize” is some sight. The games they are made to do are no way “Indian”. I mean we by our culture don’t go about seducing the opposite sex in such a pathetic manner. I just wonder again where the “moral police” are.

Moving forward, now I wonder what kind of family do these participants come from. I don’t have any right to accuse any family and my intentions are not at all doing so, but watching “Splitsvilla”, I am forced to wonder. Fortunately or unfortunately both these programmes are very popular among the youth (it wasn’t long ago that I used to religiously watch Roadies). And the youth I am talking about in this case are the teenagers and college going students. These programmes have a huge impact on their life. The way they live, behave everything. Is TRP’s all that matter in today’s world and not emotions?

Parade Attention

Location: Women’s Hostel, Varsity College
Time: 20:00 hours
Program: March Part
Event: Annual Meet

This is the schedule for every girl in the campus of the residential college. Rather, it has been the schedule for the past month. It is a big thing in the college and according to the ‘veterans’, it helps imbibe feelings of attachment, solidarity, togetherness among the boarders of a hostel. The practice simply demands all the 1st year students, some of whom have never marched in their life, to become the best in a matter of a few days.


Rigorous practice sessions, lots of instructons from seniors make up the practice sessions every evening. In this, add up the daily amount of people fainting, falling ill, limping etc. illness becomes the order of the day and the end result, less amount of concentration duringthe class hours. End result: well, your hostel becomes the best, at the expense of others health.


One may ask, what is the requirement of an even like a March Past. Unfortunately I don’t have the answer to this (I wish I had). What king of solidarity, togetherness does this event bring is another question answered to me. from my point of view, it brings bad breath, conspiracy among the hostels. One hostek’s “secret” should not be leaked to the others –an underlined rule in all the hostels.

I, as a mere spectator need to wait till theactual event to come to get a few answers. Probably, these “honourable feelings will also come in me once I watch my hostel win. Till then, I merely stand and watch the others struggle.

Introspection

As I woke up today amidst the regular hustle bustle of the other girs in my hostel corridor, I heard the chirping of the birds. Not very unusual in this part of the world. But today, I really heard them. Feeling quite nice hearing such soothing sound, I went out of my room to be welcomed by early morning sunshine warming the corridor. Well, I had to smile at this!!

Sometimes I wonder how beautiful and lovely it is to be woken up right in the lap of nature. The day definitely goes better after such a wonderful start. The way I heard the birds chirping, noticed the sunshine on the corridor made me think again if it happens everyday! And the truth is yes it does. But I never notice. I realised that even though I stay in a surrounding filled with greenery, trees, hills, I heardly notice it.

Isn’t it what has become of all of us? Havnt we stopped noticing the beautiful wold around us? Arnt we too busy making “our world” beautiful? Well a simple answer to all of them, yes we have. We all know global warning has spread its wings in our world, forests are vanishing, rivers are becoming streams, sun is scorching too hardly on us, ice is melting, glaciers are cracking, everything bad for us is happening, but we ar not doing anything.

It is true that we may not make much of a difference individually, but I am sure if we all try things will change. I guess, like I did today, we need to take notice of our surrounding first of all and then everything can happen. Observing a 5th June World Environment Day does not make much of a difference. Everyday should be Environment Day.

As I write this today, I think I should also make it a point to contribute ant little way I can to restore our environment.

You are in line!

“One person at a time”. This notice is seen outside ATM centres around the country. Though we may not be aware of this notice hanging outside the ATM centres, we do follow it sometimes. Sadly, most of the times we don’t follow this simple instruction written in three languages- English, Hindi and the local language.

In the place I am currently located Tezpur, people are probably illiterate or choose to ignore any kind of instruction. In front of an ATM centre no one follows this simple instruction of the fact that a person may be getting irritated at this breach of privacy. Moreover, there are always some smart-heads who think they know all about ATM’s and its processes and won’t stop from giving their valued opinions and suggestions when not required.

If a concerned citizen tells these people in queue to read the instruction and wait outside, smart answers like, “I want to get the cool air of the AC”, or “I won’t look at what you are doing” is alone gets. No one bottoms about it. It is really wonderful to think what do they get by entering and peeping into someone else’s transaction.


To a certain extent, if the attitude of the people cannot be changed overnight, sure the ATM centres can be changed. There is a facility in the centres where the door gets locked when a person enters and it opens only when the card is used. Sadly, in most centres this facility is dysfunctional and no one bothers to repair it.

India needs to wake to the social norms and follow certain rules which does not harm anyone but further strengthens the process. We all need to be aware of our rights and need to fight at the right time.

An emotional musing

Reading a newspaper after a long time is probably one of the worst faults of a mass communication student. Here I am supposed to be reading news everyday but I touched a newspaper after quite sometime. Not going into the reasons for it, I would rather talk about how it felt to read todays’ headlines.

“Times of India” read, “Finally, Sun Shines on Sania”. Though I had some knowledge about hers and Mahesh Bhupati’s win, it was quite something to read about on the papers. Further more, being the first Indian women to do so is quite a great achievement. But I wonder, if she will again not be taken over by endorsements and advertisements. Hope she doesn’t, we need more wins by Sania and the like to encourage other sports than cricket in India.

Anyways moving ahead, I leafed through the pages to the sports section. Here Roger Federer was shown in tears after loosing the Australian Open to Rafael Nadal. I can very well say, it was not a photo I’d like to see everyday. I mean a sportsman of his caliber in tears that too in public just doesn’t match. But again it shows some true emotions that cannot be controlled. Somehow the photograph invoked a lot of emotions in me. I would love to salute the person who tries so hard to achieve his goals.

I has always thought that reading a newspaper would only give me information but today it invoked certain feelings in me. I can say I missed reading the newspapers and would surely not stop it anymore.

You can't rely on Reliance

Reliance: Anything on which to rely; dependence; ground of trust. A meaning of the word from an online dictionary.

Dhirubhai Ambani had set up his industry in 1962 with a name that would probably make people buy the company’s products. But today Reliance Industries is a total misnomer. If Dhirubhai had meant to get trust from the name of his company, today both his sons have miserably made fun of it. Here I would specially talk about Reliance Mobile. If anyone has seen the ads of Reliance Mobile, it says, Air, Food, Water, Network.

But any Reliance Mobile user would tell you that the Network part is nowhere to be found. I myself have seen Reliance users around me searching for specific spots under the tree, under a lamp post where “network” comes. If our searching for “network” is not enough, most of the times, “all lines in this channel are busy” or simply “network busy”.

This is simple terms means trying to get through a connection in some 20-30 times, if anyone is left with the patience.

I sadly say that I have been a Reliance user for the past 3 years and even though I have many a times gone through such terrible “network”, even after changing location, I insisted on having Reliance because of their cheap rates. But today, I am so disgusted that I would harm my dear phone in my anger to get through a number and on the other hand, dear Mr. Anil Ambani would be getting richer.

One would say, what am I getting venting out my feelings through this blog. Probably NOTHING. But the fact that today atleast I am venting out my feelings gives me immense peace.

May His Soul Rest In Peace and May his Sons keep getting richer. That’s what I can ultimately say for our own GURUBHAI”

My Coffee House Experience

Starbucks may have revolutionised the coffee house culture in the world but many don’t know that India had its own “Coffee House” way before Starbucks was formed. Ask any Bengali about the song, “Coffee Houser Sei Adda Ta”, and everyone will immediately recognise the famous Manna De number. Such was the importance or rather popularity of “Coffee House” that a whole new song got composed on it.

Whenever I would hear the song, I longed to be there where famous people like Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Rabindranath Tagore, Satyajit Ray, Manna De himself and many others graced the premises of the old building. I would imagine how it would be to sit in one corner and have “adda” sessions with friends in the midst of a crowd that probably housed many upcoming famous people.

This summer my dream came true when I got to visit “Coffee House of College Street” as it is fondly called. Honestly speaking it had nothing of my imagination. I has always thought of coffee houses in their present avatars like a CCD or Barista. But “Coffee House” had the old world look to it, which I assumed they preserved with a motive. It was a huge hall of red coloured cemented floors and walls. Dozens of chairs and tables were arranged in an organised manner around the place. I, along with my companions took a corner table of four while at the same time glancing over the many occupied tables with interest hoping to see a known face. Though I didn’t really experience an adda session there, I could well imagine what it would be like to sit there and chat with friends for hours. How I longed to sit there and experience it. As I sipped my cold coffee, I wondered was it in the environment of the restaurant that such intellectuals were born or was it something else. Well, whatever it was for me it was an experience that I would hold dear for ever.

A childhood fantasy ….

Enid Blyton, the lady who rules my childhood memories. The author who taught me the meaning of adventure, independence, fun, friends, gatherings, lemonade, secret clubs, sheds, summer holidays, winter breaks…oh!! So many things, things that I can still identify with even after many many years.

Me and my friends worshipped her. We went a step ahead than others and actually formed a secret club in the hope that we would solve brilliant mysteries and make our parents proud. At the tender age of 9 or 10 we could go out with our pockets filled with a torch, notebook, and pencils in search of adventure (now I wonder, if only adventure could be searched!!!). But once we would reach our so called “destination” all our courage would wither away and we would be scuttling home like terrified puppies. And that marked the end of our adventure.

Today, after many many years, the childhood dream to explore the unexplored came true. My friend and I walked a lonely road talking to glory about life, our frustrations, our aspirations etc, when we came to a dead- end of a road. The end was by an incomplete house that overlooked a stream. Standing outside the house, I wanted to go in desperately, but my mind was continuously warning me not to trespass someone’s private property. (oh! the so called societal norms!!!) After much persuasion from my friend and now I thank her for doing so, we entered. I immediately went for the terrace to get an overview of the stream and the overlooking hill. Oh!! how I loved the place and what it had to offer me. Just wanted to sit down there and spend hours (crying maybe?).

Well anyway, moving on, I did manage to fulfil a childhood dream of going somewhere, doing something that was prohibited but at the same time childish. Just loved the moment when I became a child again and relived my Enid Blyton dreams!!

Does HE exist???

I have often asked myself what God means to me. What is the thing that makes me believe in the existence of the Almighty. But I can never get a straight answer. I just know that there is someone mightier than me somewhere who listens to me and becomes my strength whenever necessary.

I have grown up seeing religious festivities around me. My house has a “seemingly” very powerful God; Narayan. My mother has always said that He is the one who guides our lives and makes things better for us. In school too I would sing prayer hymns with everyone, never understanding its importance or necessity. However, in my adolescence, I could not make myself believe in the existence of this supernatural power. I always felt that this was just a believe my mother had that made her strong. I never saw anything good happening because of Him. Actually I could never see things in that light, could never believe that someone else could make our live better. Often I would ask little things from Him, some very materialistic others being tangiable things. But never did my wishes come true, never did I see any change taking place.

But all these things suddenly changed. When I look back today, I feel it was an overnight’s change that dawned on me. Suddenly I started believing in His existence. I thought why not give Him and myself a chance; why not try to believe in Him. So I did that. But the real change or rather development came when I visited Mathura in the year 2006. I went there with the rather cliché thought of finding a dirty place thronged with thousands of people battling it out to show their believe in Him. However, I was in for a pleasant surprise. I reached there at around 8 in the morning when the temple had just opened. The place was being cleaned and washed and in the background “bhajans” were being played. The whole atmosphere was totally different to what I had expected. The place actually gave me the jitters. Suddenly with a start I felt that yes HE EXISTED.

That was the day when my believe in Him and His powers changed. I slowly started respecting the Almighty. I started thanking Him instead of asking Him, and that was where the major difference occurred. I realised that even before asking Him anything we need to thank Him for all we have. Ever since I have been doing that and have had a rather peaceful life.

Where is Shillong's lost glory heading towards?

No one can deny that Shillong is growing very fast. Every year, there are massive changes occurring in and around the city. The government is doing much for the capital. However, there are certain areas that have been totally neglected over the years. Commuting around the city is one such area and has more than often caused problems for the people. The only means of local transport are the taxis, whereas other cities across India have regular bus services for the same purpose.

In the other cities of India, buses form the main means of local transportation. Moreover, cities like Mumbai, Kolkata can also boast of local trains. Even the smaller cities and towns across the country have local bus for the convenience of the people. However, Shillong is way behind in this basic means of transportation. There are very few buses running around the city and that too far- in- between making it difficult for the citizens to board them. Even if one gets into one such bus, he is destined to be late for his work because these buses run at their own will and stop wherever they want for long periods of time. And if anyone tells the driver or the conductor to hurry they just get rude and ignore the humble request of the passengers.

In the other cities, not only are there efficient bus services throughout the day, they are also well connected with affordable rates. Some cities also have monthly passes, wherein they can pay the organisation once a month and enjoy the services throughout the month. Moreover, these buses have special sitting arrangements for women and senior citizens. The bus drivers and conductors are also well-behaved.

In Shillong, most of the city bus have been converted into make shift lorries for the “bastis”. There are seen more often carrying vegetables and heavy sacks instead of people! Some of the buses are in such horrible conditions that many would avoid them in any case. Moreover, the local taxis have become such convenient means of transport that people do not mind paying extra for better comfort.

It is high time that the government awakens from their deep slumber on this matter and take some steps to revive the lost glory of the local bus services. The now dormant Shillong City Bus Syndicate should probably merge with the Meghalaya Transport Corporation (MTC) similar to the likes of Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) or Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) and run the local buses. The corporation should also build proper and clean shades for the awaiting passengers. The issuing of tickets should also be made more transparent. The frequency of some of the buses in Shillong also becomes a problem. More buses with better frequencies should be introduced to increase the popularity of the local buses.

If these suggestions are taken up and the dying city bus service is revived it will help each and every citizen of Shillong. It will also help to build a better Shillong in terms of communication.

I VOTED!!!!!

My first experience in exercising my right to vote!!! Oh!! The initial excitement of just the idea of voting was superb. I was counting days, asking my elders about the voting process, basically doing everything I thought “I was supposed to do and know”.

And ultimately the day came!! I woke up at 5:30 with full excitement that I will vote. Though the voting process starts at 7 a.m, I was there in the booth by 6:15 a.m. As I was standing in queue for my turn to come, I realised that I did not even know who were the candidates standing for my constituency. Until then I hadn’t realised that I never gave it a thought. I was quite happy with the idea of voting and with minimal knowledge that a candidate from my locality was standing in the state elections. When I saw the names of the other candidates, I was quite disheartened. Not only because I did not know the to- be- MLA’s of my constituency but also at my ignorance.

After casting my vote (but to the obvious), when I returned home, I started thinking. This mustn’t be an individual case of ignorance but a widespread phenomenon. But who is to be blamed for this. Is it us the voters, the citizens who do not take interest in our political upswings or is it the political parties who control the whole system. In an instant we would immediately blame the latter for not doing enough, for corruption and many more misdeeds. Yes, it is right to say that they are to be blamed. As MLA’s and MP’s these people never visit our homes or localities to see the actual plight of the people and for this reason we, in turn, do not know them. At the most we hear about them time and again in the news papers and if we get very “lucky” than we see them in some function. But as responsible citizens do we do anything at all? We too don’t take any interest in what happens around us as long as it doesn’t affect us.

So, at the end, who is to be blamed? In all honesty both parties are to be blamed for all these things. After actually casting my vote today I realised that I should have known who the other candidates are. And on their part, they should have made an effort to come over and let us know that they are contesting and not just send there workers.

I just hope that my this realisation lasts till the next elections and I do keep a track of atleast the contesting candidates if not of anything else.

Blogging!!!!!!

Once I had asked a friend what should I do when I’m happy, the reply was that I should blog. So here I’m blogging!!! Today there isn’t any thing in particular that I want to write, no issues, no troubles, no problems. But I just need to write. I just need the feel to tell the world (ok, not the world but who ever reads this) that I’m happy. Happiness is such a nice and warm emotion, isn’t it? Whenever I have been sad, there is a heavy burden on me, something that does not let me smile, and I love smiling.

Goodness me, I don’t really know what I’m writing and who I expect will read this crap, but isn’t blogging about just writing anything? But on a serious note I have learnt the importance of being happy in the past few days. There isn’t anything like smiling and telling yourself that nothing can go wrong in my life. Everytime I’m sad, the motto “think positive and be optimistic” helps me in overcoming sadness. Whatever happens, happens for us to learn a lesson, life always wants to teach us something important and it is our duty to learn these little but significant things.

Well enough of my philosophies!!!!!! It was nice writing something so abstract today!!!!

Om Shanti Om vs. Saawariya

In the past two weeks whenever I opened the television, there was just one thing showing: Om Shanti Om or Saawariya….which one will make it big? I managed to get glimpses of most of the shows. If one channel was promoting Om Shanti Om, than another was promoting Saawariya. Each had their own promises to make. If one was saying it is the most entertaining movie than another spoke all about love. The two movies not only competed between themselves but they also made the various channels compete among themselves. The same channel just would not speak about both the movies at the same time.

I read another very interesting piece on the newspaper about the two movies the other day. It said that as both the movies were Diwali releases, some brokers had started betting on them. The brokers themselves said that this kind of betting happened for the first time and it was mainly because of the hype the two movies had created.

Seeing and hearing all this, today I went to watch both the movies back-to-back. Firstly it was my first attempt at watching two movies back-to-back and that too such “mega movies”. Both were such disasters that I don’t know where I should begin. If “om Shanti Om” made fun of the film industry than “Saawariya” forgot all about a thing called “story”. Farah Khan must have been busy looking into the movies of the 70’s and thinking what should she take from them. As far as Sanjay Leela Bhansali is concerned he must have wanted to create nature in his own way quite forgetting the element of story- telling.

Both the films were such nonsense that I don’t understand what was all the hype for? I m wondering, is media completely sold to these big producers? Can’t they for once be unbiased and not mislead the poor audience? Is it all about money and profits and not really about movie- making? Well I guess I will keep wondering and maybe I will never get any answers to them.

FROM THE HILLS TO STARDOM

India has always been said to be a unique country because of the amalgamation of various people on the same soil. People of different cultures have lived together over many centuries. For this reason India is said to be a country where there is “Unity in Diversity”. In recent times there hasn’t been much opportunity to really witness the true meaning of this phrase. Every other day, there is a report of communal violence in some corner of the country. North east is specially a victim of violence in its various forms. Over the years, the region has just managed to earn a distorted name for itself in the form of a region where there are more militant outfits than ordinary people. Our own Shillong hasn’t been any exclusion to this. For more than two decades, there has always been a tension among the people here. Though this tension has somewhat taken a backseat nowadays, nevertheless it is still there. The tribals and non-tribals seemingly cannot tolerate each other. There is hardly any friendship seen among these two kinds of people.

This year, Shillong saw a kind of revolution, rather a “different” kind of revolution. There was no politician making fake promises nor were there any religious sector uniting people or the likes. There was just the rebirth of the word “music” in the place. Shillong has always been known to be the music centre of North East. Be it the only place celebrating the birthday of Bob Dylan, or international bands like Micheal Learns to Rock, Petra coming here to perform. But somehow music seemed to be dying here. But one person got it alive, Amit Paul.

Amit Paul, a contestant in Indian Idol 3, did not seem to be the best among the contestants in the beginning of the show. One of the judges, Alisha Chinai, was hardly impressed by his voice but other judges like Anu Malik and Javed Akhtar backed him right from the auditions. When he was voted out in the piano rounds that seemed to be the end of his journey in Indian Idol. But after making a terrific come back in the wild card round, there was no looking back for the Shillong Boy. Since then he became a real competitor to the rest. When the gala rounds started his performance stayed consistent and the judges were always impressed by him.
After reaching into the final three of the music show, he came back to Shillong. The response then was phenomenal. Hardly have any other person been welcomed in a similar manner earlier. Old and young, people from different castes and communities came together to catch a glimpse of their “idol”. There wasn’t any difference between a Khasi or a Bengali when they were listening to him sing.

It is said that music knows no boundary and Shillong proved it. Music, in every sense made the people here come together. The years of distrust was washed away in an instance. Hindi songs could be heard in every nook and corner of the city. The Khasi version of “Yaad Aa rahi hai”, sung by Amit became a kind of an anthem here. Everyone, right from a toddler to an eighty year old knew the song by heart. Not only this song, but any song sung by him was immediately learnt by everyone.

Before this, Shillong had never had any one going to the national level in such a big way. Thus Amit has become an icon who symbolises similar dreams dreamt by many. He has made youngsters believe in them and in the fact that they too can do it. People have realised that music has the power to make dreams come true and also to bind people together. Amit Paul has symbolised the aspirations of the people here that the North East
neglected for years, they be to call someone their own. Today any Shillongite going outside proudly says that “I too live in Shillong, where Amit lives”.

Meaning of fan following to Me

FAN FOLLOWING GETS A NEW MEANING

Staying in a small city, I had always heard or seen in the television what following a “star” is. Sometimes I used to think that the media portrays things in an exaggerated manner. I wondered how can people go crazy about any one, that to for a person who is quite unreachable, a “star”. But when the Amit Paul craze hit our quite city of Shillong I started realising that media wasn’t after all wrong. They showed the reality. There are people who are “die- hard” fans of these stars.

In Shillong, Amit Paul has broken the barriers of age among many other things. Old and young love him, adore him ad even fantasise him. Everyday I hear strange stories about what people did to meet him either from my mom, my friends, or else where. But in the last two days I have witnessed such a die hard fan. She is my classmate and a good friend. She just can’t stop talking about Amit. Yesterday, she went about telling everyone in our class, individually, how she had managed to touch him!

It was quite amazing to see and hear her. People were making fun of her, some others were being jealous at her luck. But when I came back home and thought about it I realised that she wasn’t just another fan of the singer. She signified (atleast for me) what fan –following really means. People really do get crazy and can go up to any extent to get a glimpse of their star.

Before this, Shillong had never had any one going to the national level in such a big way. Thus Amit has become an icon who symbolises similar dreams dreamt by many. He has made youngsters believe in them and in the fact that they too can do it. and as far as fan- following goes, for me, it also symbolises the need of the people to call someone their own. Today any Shillongite going outside proudly says that “I too live in Shillong, where Amit lives”.

Shillong Opens Up To The Rest Of The country

Shillong tucked away in the mountains of the north east hardly seemed to attract people from the “mainland India”. The people lived here among themselves, quite happy fighting and loving one another. But as the word “global village” has slowly creeped into every corner of Shillong, we have opened up to the rest of the country. Rather, the rest of the country is getting to know this place.

Over the last few years, there have been many such instances which proof that Shillong is no longer a long forgotten hill station. Music bands like Micheal Learns to Rock, Petra and the likes have chosen Shillong as the only place to perform against the rest of the country. Why talk about a few years back, jus this month Channel V came to the city in lieu of their programme called “My India Report”.

“My India Report” is an initiative by the channel to find out what the youth think about their nation. The programme is all about the youth, their thoughts, their ideas, ideologies and observations of the growing nation. The programme is conducted by six bloggers who have been chosen having varied background and each with a different approach to life. MIR as they call the programme is covering 8 cities around India, namely Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Varanasi, Kolkata, Shillong, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Cochin. Their idea is not to go to only the metros but to penetrate into the other cities which also have a very strong youth population and capture their thoughts and opinions. In each city they are focussing on a different issue varying from religion to love and marriage, entertainment, sex, politics, environment, future of India, social issues.

For Shillong the MIR team settled with the topic of entertainment. This was a conscious decision on their part knowing fully well the strong musical influence the city has. they of course haven’t been disappointed in any way. After a little chit chat with them anyone would guess how much they have liked the musical scenario here. We found music in every corner of Shillong, that’s what they say. They also felt that not only are there numerous bands here but also there is a strong awareness of different genres of music both national and international, here.

In Shillong they visited a lot of places, like Tattoo Artist Christopher who also has a band called “Project Blend Limited”, St. Anthony’s School and College, Swish Café, NGO’s like Impulse, Kripa Foundation,Don Bosco Youth Centre, Chilli Breeze Graphic Service and local filmmakers and music directors. Through this varied blend of people they tried to find the answers the nation is seeking. Most importantly they felt entertainment plays a major role here.

When they were asked about what they felt about the city they quickly agreed that they have not come across a more hospitable environment in their tour yet. However they felt that there is more potential in the area but due to lack of knowledge, interest of “mainstream India” it hasn’t come to the forefront yet. They felt to a certain extent the media of the country is to be blamed as they haven’t showcased the region properly.

Their coming to Shillong is a strong indication of the changing times. People from around the country have started accepting us and taking utmost interest in our city. Not only are they aware of the name of the town but also what it has to offer to others. There exploration to the unexplored places will definitely take India to a better future tomorrow.