IIM K... the place to be!

Finally i went on a vacation. After such a LONG time.. IIM Kozhikode was my destination and it is in Kerala... God's own country.
The place is amazing. Mind blowing.
The campus is situated on top of two hills. The distance from the station being around 25 kms.
The drive to the campus is breathtaking. I have taken several hill journeys before this one but something is truly different about the K campus. The best part is that on one side is the sprawling hills, the deep green valley with the sun peeking out from somewhere and on the other side is one of the best and desired places to study in India. The campus is serene and quiet and probably a great place to study with the calm. There is a big tower on one end and everybody who came there desired to go up that tower... In little nooks and corners there suddenly emerges a great view, a little dent in the hill and you can see the beautiful valley down below. I don't know why but i had this great urge to spread out my wings and fly!!!!!!!!!!! The campus gave me a sense of calm, something which i was searching for a pretty long time. I had heard about how a vacation rejuvenates you and this IIMK campus truly did... And the best part was the campus at night. The little bulbs all along the pathways lit up suddenly and every person is transported into a world of silence where everything is calm. I hope i can study there once... or at least someplace like it. And the circle of contemplation (yeah its called that) is another great place. I wouldn't recommend people who are suffering from vertigo to go there. And the best part is that its actually so calm that you CAN contemplate there!!! lolz

anyways. I don't have much time to use this comp and so I highly recommend that all readers go through the web album which gives you the pictures of some of the things I've mentioned. Cya.

So for the pics click HERE!!!

PARIS... Je T'aime (Paris, I Love You)

Dont be confused because of the title.. I'm not writing French here. All I want to share is this movie. The format of this movie will be familiar to the people who have seen Dus Kahaniyan. But don't even make the mistake of comparing it to that. 18 short clips comprising a full movie made by 18 famous directors.

Now comes the good part. The movie is in French but i got it with English subtitles. Each of these 18 short films focus on the neighbourhood of Paris with stories of love, separation, frustration, pain but above all a feeling of hope that pervades each of these stories. To be truthful, 2 or 3 of them are downright nonsense, and i even skipped one completely but thankfully they end in 7 minutes and are more than made up for by the others. Morover, each of these directors show different aspects of Paris, the skyscrapers, the metro(and the rule that forbids eye contact with strangers on the Paris metro), the parks, the music clubs... everything.
If i want to describe the best story among the 18 i cant choose one. There is no best story, there are best stories each of them so different and beautiful.

The picture above is a part of one of the best of these films. A mother grapples to accept the fact that her little son died, and a mystical cowboy shows her how to move on. Its beautiful and heartbreaking.



There is another clip.. which is very difficult to describe until you see it. Directed by Gurinder Chadha it tells the story of a chance encounter between a Muslim girl and a Christian boy in Paris, and how they strike up a friendship.







The 2nd best clip, which i loved was Tour Eiffel by director Sylvain Chomet. The little boy is sooooo adorable and cute as he describes the world he sees through his parents eyes. His parents are both mime artists and the movie is a must watch.

Another great one is Place des fêtes, a story of a paramedic who is treating a man wounded. The man asks her out for coffee and by the time she realises she knows him, he dies in her arms - the arms of the woman he loved at first sight.

And lastly, is Faubourg Saint-Denis, a story about a blind man who believes his long-time girlfriend is leaving him. He thinks of the times they spent together, the love they shared and the emptiness of life now, only to receive a call saying she was rehearsing lines for a play. This is by far my favorite though i forgot to mention Bastille which is about a man who falls in love with his wife again, after getting to know that she is suffering from a terminal illness. And i don't think this love sprang from pity. Sometimes in life, you need something to remind you of the love you have for someone. Sometimes you just forget, in the mundane everyday existence, the love which could keep you happy forever.





Finally i would say to everyone, please please go watch this movie!!! It is one of the few movies that seem to have just started when they end. Time flies and as you finish seeing it, the different sides of love... you want to fall in love someday.





Finally apart from this movie I also read The Fountainhead. Its huge and a little monotonous in some places but i hardly found any other problem. Though my mom and brother found it eternally boring with the details of architecture, i loved it, especially the protagonist Howard Roark. Though i dont agree with the lady Dominique Francon. However two amazing quotes from the book:

• "It must have been spring," said Toohey. "It usually is. There's always a dark movie theater, and two people lost to the world, their hands clasped together-but hands do perspire when held too long, don't they? Still, it's beautiful to be in love." Though this one is said by someone i despised, still its true and beautifully said. The hands held together for a long time do perspire. There are hiccups in every relationship and its the test to overcome them. A test which many fail.
• "I've always thought that a feeling that changes never existed in the first place". Indeed. A true feeling is one which is constant. I still love my family, I still love certain books and i still love lots of people. When people talk about moving on, and having 3 girlfriends, i wonder about their integrity. If you can move on, it means that you were never there in the first place.
  

Sorry for the exceptionally long post. But there were so many updates. And there wont be another post for sometime... coz im off on a vacation!!!! yahooo!!!!!!!!!!

taare zameen par...

Everyone nowadays is so influenced by this particular movie. I wonder how a single Aamir Khan could open the eyes of several people towards dyslexic children. So here i am, to share one of my experiences with differently abled children.

Thanks to NSS, a big and vibrant department of my college, I was exposed to the different world outside the protected environment I've been brought up in. Shishu Mela '08 was held on 13th January. Children from all walks of life were invited to our school grounds. 10 NGO's with almost 800 children. The children were just like what we might have been when we were small. A specific NGO, IICP was the first one to attract my attention. I couldn't help but stare the first time I looked at those children. My heart was, unknowingly and sadly, filled with pity just by looking at those children. IICP - Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy. The kids i saw were almost all on wheelchairs, they couldn't walk, had motor dysfunctions and couldn't focus with their eyes. Most of them could not speak. I was staring, I don't know why and for how long. At the registration desk one of the smiling teachers was getting the formalities completed. I was asked to count the children and lead them to their places. As I counted them, one of them looked at me, and surprisingly said - "Good Morning". Those words and that smile was something that probably won me over.

So two weeks later. There i was. At IICP, volunteering to help the kids. As much as I could. The experience I've had till now has been mind blowing. You know what, those kids aren't challenged, they are just differently abled. I used to think that this term "differently abled" was just a euphemism. But the work at IICP makes me realize that indeed those children are differently abled. They might not be able to move, talk, walk, read and write like we do. But they can smile even better, they make friends faster, they are true and open to you when u meet them for the very first time. Joyeeta, Debolina, Shradha, Keshav and Sushmita. Some of the beautiful and best friends I made in such a short time. They don't require our pity, they don't require our help. They just need to be made aware of what they are capable of doing. They need emotional boosts, words like - tumi korte pabe. And surprise - they actually can. I confess on my first day i was appalled. I fought back tears as i wondered why they were made like this. Why were we privileged to enjoy normal lives, while they lived like this. But I realized they are probably more human than we are. They aren't hypocrites, they don't lie, they are open, warm, friendly, happy and they are ready to spill their hearts out to you.

I was afraid of Joyeeta from the very beginning. I prayed to god that I wouldn't have to interact with her. But God always leads us to face our fears. The first time I had to wheel her down the 3 floors and help her into the bus, she cried all the way. I tried all I could but she wouldn't listen to me. The next time I wheeled her, she looked at me and smiled and didn't cry. And the third time when I was supposed to feed her her lunch, she flailed her arms, hit me and challenged me to succeed. And I did. I looked at her, coaxed her and finally got her to finish her food. She's thus happily consented to be my friend.

Debolina was the smartest. She is witty, intelligent. She gets irritated at the boy behind her in the line - coz he shouts his lungs out every 10 seconds. She's what most people would call "normal". She just needs to be wheeled about and on the first day she was the one to notice and comment that we were wearing matching clothes.

Keshav is a introvert. I have never seen him speak to anyone. But he consents to give me a smile to say that he recognizes me.

Sushmita, like her namesake, loves dressing up. And we indulge her by making a little dot - on her forehead each time she asks through gestures that she wants a bindi.

Shradha is probably my bestest friend there. She is confined to a wheelchair and she cant speak. But she has a board on her wheelchair, with all the alphabets. And she asks u questions, answers yours, by spelling out the words. She loves vivek oberoi, madhuri dixit and black. She doesn't like hrithik roshan (and disapproves of the fact that i do). She has a younger brother, who she loves. She loves my name. And she asked me on the first day - "will you be my friend". I could hardly control myself as I held her dis formed hand and promised her I would.

Now that I changed my days at IICP, I am afraid I wont see these people again. But hopefully I'll find more Debolinas and Joyeetas and Shradhas there.. in the teeming mass of children at IICP who probably will consent to be my friends.

To all those cynics who think I'm just talking crap, who say "its just a waste of time"-"whats the use"-"u'll spend your whole life doing this???"- I don't need your advice. I'm happy spending those 2 hours there. It gives me peace of mind. And it feels nice that I belong somewhere, to some people, who will notice when I suddenly disappear.