WWPCS in CANADA...

Hey guys! We just got the cards from the kids in Canada...As you all know this could not have been possible without our dear friend, filmmaker and teacher Mitra Sen and her wonderful school kids!
Check out the beautiful postcards at the WORLDKIDSUNITE Blogspot...
Let's spread the word...of Peace!

Here Vs. There

This is the first installment of a slice of life comparison between Here Vs. There. By 'Here' I mean the developed countries that we comfortably sit in, often complain about and take for granted. By 'There' I obviously mean the so-called Third world(I hate that term) countries, so we shall refer to them as developing /under-developed countries. These images are meant to jolt us into action...at least ring a bell deep inside us to appreciate the little things we have in life.
This was actually an email forward that I received. Also see the afterword below the picture.

"Observe around you and be thankful for all that you have in this transitory lifetime…
We are fortunate, we have much more than what we need to be content. Let’s try not to feed this endless cycle of consumerism and immorality in which this “modern and advanced” society forgets and ignores the other two thirds of our brothers and sisters.
Let us complain and give more."

Designing an alternative SOCIETY?

We have endless talks and discussions about how demoralized and desperate our present human society is!
When someone asks you the simple question, What would you do to change the society and help make this world a better place?
What would be your answer?
I came across this SCHOOL FOR DESIGNING A SOCIETY. It is disappointing in the sense that we all have time to complain about how incorrigible the current system has become but never have the time to sit down and note down changes that we can actually make - to make it better!
Check this School's site and get an idea as to what you could be doing instead of just sitting and discussing what is wrong. The idea is not to get you enrolled in the school but to think of taking some action towards creating a change which could actually make a difference in some small way!
Check their blog site HERE
Check their PDF book on ALTERNATIVE NECESSITIES

Also check the blog PASSIONS AND SURVIVAL.BLOGSPOT.COM for the interview with ROB SCOTT on Beyond Available Alternatives.

Preview Clip (2) - Men of Burden

Here's a re-post of the second preview clip.

Preview Clip (1) - Men of Burden

With our impending Exclusive NYC screening of "Men of Burden - Pedaling Towards a Horizon", on May 12th, 2007, at 5 p.m (at Aicon Gallery), we just thought it might be a good idea to re-post the Preview Clips.
For more Event Information, please click on Exclusive Screening.

Sculpting in Time: Tarkovskian theory of cinema

The concept of time in film has been a fascinating aspect to me. The past, nostalgia, dreamy flashbacks, foreseeable futures and even basic montages that cut through time. And then, there are also the concepts of linear story-telling and horizontal story-telling (Linear Vs. Non-linear narratives) which we may all be familiar with.
But I recently came across this great filmmaker - Russian director, Andrei Tarkovsky - who actually developed a theory of cinema called "Sculpting in Time" where the passage of time is in "real time" as in unedited sequences. To be more precise, here's an excerpt from Wikipedia about his method and style of working/directing.

Tarkovsky developed a theory of cinema that he called "sculpting in time". By this he meant that the unique characteristic of cinema as a medium was to take our experience of time and alter it. Unedited movie footage transcribes time in real time. (The speedy jump-cutting style that is prevalent in music videos and many Hollywood movies, by contrast, overrides any sense of time by imposing the editor's viewpoint.) By using long takes and few cuts in his films, he aimed to give the viewers a sense of time passing, time lost, and the relationship of one moment in time to another. Up to and including his film Mirror, Tarkovsky focused his cinematic works on exploring this theory.

This is one area I really wanna explore in my future projects. But I guess this is mainly possible in story structures that demand a specific emotional response. I don't think there's any way to make fast-paced movies with this kind of a styling. Well, we could, maybe intersperse the sculpting-in-time scenes with action and create a horizontal structure. And we should keep in mind that the narrative shouldn't get lost in the array of parallel scenes.
(Pic courtesy - http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/ThePhotos.html)

Men of Burden - Exclusive Screening in NYC

Accessible Horizon Films in association with Aicon Gallery(formerly Gallery ArtsIndia), presents an Exclusive Screening of “MEN OF BURDEN – PEDALING TOWARDS A HORIZON”

Total Running Time: 66 minutes
Screening Venue: Aicon Gallery, 206, Fifth Avenue, New York, NY – 10010
Date & Time: 5:00 p.m – 6:30 p.m, 12^th May, 2007
Post-Screening Discussion with Filmmakers: Moderated by Actress Pooja Kumar
Tickets: All proceeds go directly to a Social cause (Men of Burden Cycle Rickshaw Revival Project)
$12 cash at the door
$20 cash donations at door(Receive the Men of Burden Sound Track CD by Steve Gorn)

For more information, please visit: www.AccessibleHorizonFilms.com

Wings Of Evolution meets Asim H. Premji

Ok, so we thought we had only a few proponents of quality education in India - education towards building a better tomorrow, education that lets children decide what they want to study, education that truly focuses on the learning process. Guess what? The (above) theme of our documentary film Wings of Evolution is exactly the same as what Asim H. Premji, Chairman of Wipro Technologies, thinks that education should do.
Wings of Evolution, based on Siragu School in the outskirts of Chennai, focuses on Education that makes children an integral part of creating the learning process, themselves. Children have playtime and study time mixed up in the right combination that children never feel the pressure or the need to compulsively allocate study time. This has helped them to focus on areas of learning that they truly feel attracted to. This has enhanced the quality of learning such that there has not been a single dropout during the 3-4 years of their school's inception.
Best of all, all this quality comes FREE. Free education combined with quality and international standards can only result in India looking forward to a better future.
Asim Premji in his column The Weight Of Wings on Outlook India magazine, talks about revamping the entire system of education in India. Of course, this is an issue that needs to be addressed not only by the independent NGOs or social organizations or Trusts, but also(obviously) by the Government of India, through policy makers who have to play an instrumental role in seeing this change happen.
Key quote from his article:

In India now, there is a growing realization of the need for change. We have begun to realize that our children don't seem to learn how to learn; numerous studies have proven this. We have made the transition from concern for just basic literacy to quality education. We need to progress from a compulsion to mass-produce stereotypes to creating independent thinkers and active learners.

For more, check out The Weight Of Wings, We need a revamp -- to create free thinkers, not compulsive learners

Simplification #1

A PRIORI	POSTERIORI
BELIEVE THAT IT ALREADY EXISTS IN THE MIND	BELIEVE THAT EVERYTHING HAS TO BE LEARNED THROUGH EXPERIENCE
REASONING DOES NOT DEPEND ON EXPERIENCE	REASONING THROUGH THE SENSES
SOMETHING I CAN KNOW WITHOUT HAVING TO EXPERIENCE… For Eg: PARENTHOOD… I’M AWARE THAT IT INVOLVES TAKING CARE OF KIDS AND PROVIDING FOR THEM. RATIONALISTS	SOMETHING I CAN KNOW ONLY THROUGH EXPERIENCE… For Eg... LOVE…I CAN SAY HOW IT FEELS ONLY IT I HAVE THE EXPERIENCE OF LOVING ANOTHER. EMPIRICISTS

I have tried to simplify two concepts from a broad perspective...I am trying this for the first time..
More to come..
:-)

Men of Burden - Official Selection at NJISA Cine Fest

Hi all
'Men of Burden - Pedaling Towards a Horizon' has been officially selected at the New Jersey Independent South Asian Cine Fest and will be screened June 2nd-3rd at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick. This will most likely be the NJ premiere of the film.

New Jersey Independent South Asian Cine Fest, NJISACF, produced by the Asian American Film and Theater Project, in association with Manavi, is committed to the exhibition of independent films by and about South Asians. It promotes and recognizes the talents of the new, the established, the best and the brightest Indie filmmakers from across the globe.
The two-day festival will screen feature, short, documentary and animated films of all genres, with accompanying filmmaker Q&As, and panel discussions on various topics related to the craft and business of filmmaking. Jury and Audience Choice Prizes will be awarded for excellence in various categories.
The festival’s mission is to facilitate a thriving and dynamic interaction and dialog among filmmakers, writers, actors, producers, film critics, film scholars, film industry professionals, the movie-loving public, and the American society at large, thereby making it an essential part of the multi-cultural landscape of New Jersey.

Watch out for updates on more screenings in the NY Tri-state area.

Reality & States of Being

Of late, I've been having random thoughts, very ambiguous, ecstatic and weird even. Sometimes I wonder where all this really comes from. I mean, does me saying I'm happy or sad or confused or angry mean that I'm all those at different points of time. What is the reality then? That is, if 'reality' even exists.
Well then if I feel those at different times, aren't my thoughts always subjective to that 'reality'. So those random feelings - are those just states of being(emotions) depending on various situations. So if we can control our thoughts or situations can we control our subjective reality? Our states of being?
Which brings us to an important school of thought - Subjective reality.
Here's an excerpt from Steve Pavlina's theory of subjective reality.

Subjective reality is an integrated belief system where consciousness and awareness are primary. They are the container in which everything else exists. And I do mean EVERYTHING.
In a truly subjective universe, there is nothing outside your own consciousness — no world, no bodies, no brain. Suppose I ask you the question, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” With an objective belief structure, you might say yes, but you might also say no, depending on your views on quantum physics. However, if you believed in subjective reality, you have to reject the question entirely. You’d say that there’s no such thing as a tree outside your awareness. That tree doesn’t even exist. Nor does the forest for that matter. If you are not there to observe it, it doesn’t exist at all. Without consciousness there is no existence.
A secondary element is that within a subjective universe, thought is the primary creative element. All thoughts manifest in some form, whether conscious or unconscious. So the physical universe is like a giant computer, crunching your thoughts into reality. Thoughts are waves, and the physical universe is the summation of all those waves. Hence where there is no thought, there is no physical existence. If a thought does not exist, its physical manifestation does not exist either.

In spite of all this, we have objective reality which obviously is a departure from subjective reality, but again it is one that is under the realm of subjective reality. Here's an article on transcending subjective reality from http://www.martialdevelopment.com/blog/transcending-subjective-reality/
Do check out the quote from the blog on the Persian philosopher Ibn Sina which I think makes sense as far as understanding objective reality is concerned.
My point is, in order to understand reality, we have to be aware of both the subjective and objective realms and act accordingly. Sometimes it may not seem to make sense but we wanna cope up with our reality a basic understanding is definitely essential.
(picture courtesy - http://home.wxs.nl/~brouw724/enlightenment.html)

Want FREE Wi-Fi Internet Access?

Are you paying money for your internet access? Why do it when you can get it for FREE. ABSOLUTELY FREE. Google just announced this new TiSP service which can provide free Wi-Fi service at your home for free. Here is how it works. Follow these simple instructions and you can be online in no time. All you need is a toilet and Google TiSP kit. Its a little weird but it works.

For more information visit.
http://www.google.com/tisp/index.html

Are you ready to get that service? ;) Did you order for your TiSP package?

FREEGANISM for all...

Am back with some real good stuff this time..take a few minutes and think about this...
Do you throw away things that have a re-usable value??
How bad is that? Sadly, that is the state of most of the things that could be re-used in our day-to-day activities. We have been gradually introduced to throw away items that have a re-usable value because many corporate organizations plainly survive on that. By throwing away things we can use again, not only do we increase the amount of garbage but also fail to see the true value of the item.
Corporations create new commodities every second and do not care if they are truly useful. They somehow make it sound useful and with the help of advertisements create useless products and manipulate the minds of the consumers into buying them. With bright colors and catchy designs they entice the consumers to spend their hard earned money into things like this which mostly get disposed off after the first time they are ever used.
Think about this and we could do a lot to help save the environment.
Try taking your own bags to the grocery stores instead of accepting the plastic bags from the shop. And even if you do have plastic bags , do not just throw them away...you could use them more than once..they should serve some purpose right?
plastic bottles are another whole issue..and you even have people who campaign that if you use plastic water bottles more than once, you have a risk of getting infected from the plastics...think twice before fully believing anything anybody says...be open and think about the re-usable value of each item you use.
There are a whole bunch of FREEGANS who practice FREEGANISM...
There are a lot of free exchange of items that take place...amongst Freegans..and is it not good to share what you have and do not use?
Check this alternate way of life and see how much you can contribute!!
Reduce unnecessary consumerism which fill Capitalist pockets and exploit you!
HAPPY THINKING AND REALIZING!!!
Related Articles:
http://www.cnn.com/2006
wikipedia
FOOD NOT BOMBS

World Wide PostCard Sharing is..GRR..OWING...

Hey!! I don't know if you guys visited the worldkidsblogspot recently and read about our postcard sharing in New Jersey, USA. We went to this Brownie meeting and met these amazing and creative kids who were so enthusiastic in taking the WORLDWIDE POST CARD SHARING to the next level. Well, we first started this in SIRAGU as you all know and then it went across to Ontario, Canada (we haven't got the post cards from them yet, and we'll keep you posted once we do) and then now it was these kids from the Brownie meeting here in New Jersey, USA.
We cannot even begin to explain the eagerness of the kids and the love that came right across from their hearts, when they joyously accepted the cards from India and started doing their art work in turn for the kids across the world.
Anybody could come into this postcard sharing...and kids especially can come and share any of their creative work in this platform...by this, we cannot imagine how many of them will have friends all over the world by the time they enter their senior grades...
It is a constant learning process for us as children are innocent and so loving by nature and have so much to offer to bring this world together..
PLEASE GO TO WWPCS FOR FURTHER DETAILS...
So, once again we lovingly say...CHILDREN OF THE WORLD, UNITE!!
Related links:
Siragu Documentary

Violation of Body & Soul

Can't believe I was actually reading this about Delhi - The Rape capital of India. It's 2007 and still we haven't really advanced to a state of security and protection for women. Leave alone the moral and psychological battles we need to wage against the phenomenon, but what about Law enforcement and the judicial system. Don't we need stricter laws? Stringent measures to prevent rape? Ok but then again, in spite of all this, we need to do some community outreach, towards a more holistic approach in dealing with rape prevention and its effects.
Just so that we are more informed, here are a couple of links on Rape and Prevention.
Child Rape prevention
Preventing Rape
http://www.indianchild.com/sexual_harassment_india.htm
Rape protective measures

We are not alone in this world. Together we can make it Happen!!!

In this big world we are not left alone to save our Mother Earth. There are so many organizations who are already working on making our world a better place. I came across this interesting website VOICE YOURSELF. This site has so much information about how you can live an organic life by consuming Organic Products, prepare Organic Food, reduce Carbon emission and how to protect our mother Earth from all this chaos.

And some other ways you can reduce pollution and lead a simple and a healthy life. Here are some ways to reduce the usage of Plastic bags and lots of other useful tips.

Its not just enough to just feel bad about how we are polluting the environment and not do anything about it, so here is a list of sites where you can really contribute and make a difference

Previous in our blog we have several posts on pollutions like Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emission, Reduction of air pollution - An Awakening, Alternate means of Transportation to reduce Pollution

Related Items
Inexhaustible Natural Resource - SUN
Phases of Nature!
Natural Consequences - PAYBACK TIME?

Inexhaustible Natural Resource - SUN

Do you think Nature is exhaustible?? Well, you are totally wrong! Nature has always provided us with the best of its resources which we use, enjoy, exploit to the best of our ability.
How about the SUN?
The SUN is an eternal source of energy but most of the time we take things like this for granted. Well, there are many people who realize this and make the best use of its energy. Our forefathers have had so much insight on the natural resources and their uses to the beings on the earth but all we have been doing for the past hundred years is run behind Globalization and Capitalism thus exploiting the natural resources and suffocating the earth as much as we can.
I have seen and heard about solar cookers and solar energy all my life but never gave it much attention. (you know how self-absorbed we can become running behind routines) It was then that I again came across solar cookers in a Forum I recently attended.
Though the concept of solar energy has long come into our system, it has not penetrated enough into the actual-common-man's home.
There are people struggling really hard to make a difference and help a lot of homes all around the world. One such group of people is the SOLAR COOKERS INTERNATIONAL
and they provide all the needed information and it is absolutely free for anybody. Anyone can read the GUIDE TO SOLAR COOKING and learn about Solar cooking.
It doesn't matter even if you live in urban areas, you could always try to solar cook on a beautiful sunny day!

Related Links

Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Global Warming on the Loose??

The Chomsky Solution: Nuclear Non-proliferation

Imagine this - You are in the middle of an earthquake with thousands of people running all around, screaming for help. You know a way out and are screaming your lungs out so that someone will hear you out. Everyone knows they are in trouble but want something to happen - magically. But they aren't willing to listen. The outcome - Chaos, chaos and more chaos.

Does this seem hypothetical? Out of your immediate reality? Third-person effect? Well, think again. You are smack in the middle of the world of Nuclear Proliferation(earthquake) and the so-called civilized, developed countries(screaming people). At a time when Nuke non-proliferation is becoming increasingly dangerous with war rhetoric and non-acceptance of diplomatic measures, we have to look at SOLUTIONS. This is specifically related to the US-led war rhetoric and it's unacceptance to agree to international proposals (surprise, surprise). Here's an article by Noam Chomsky, the thinker, media critic and political activist - focusing on the current situation with Iran's nuclear program.
Check out this article: "Solution in Sight"
Image courtesy: Wikipedia

PeaceTreeSpirit Blog by Kids!!

Hey all you wonderful people there!!
Kids from Canada have started a new blog spot called PeaceTreeSpirit
Check it out and read the posts written by young peace visionaries(they have to be called that rightfully)
I was so overwhelmed when I read their posts...Please go to the site and share your thoughts with the kids. They are absolutely amazing!!
They have even completed the Post Card workshop and will be sending their Postcards to Siragu School kids. It will be great when the kids in India get the cards and lots of friends through this.

Preview Clip 2 - Men of Burden

Here's a second Preview clip from "Men of Burden - Pedaling Towards a Horizon". Updates coming up soon.