THE HINDU

Class 12th is keeping me on my toes. Because I am not being able to write new articles, I thought I should share my little article on suicides, which was published in The Hindu in 2012. 

STOP AWHILE AND THINK

Suicide — a small word, but with an impact so strong that it can devastate lives, not one but many. Life is a gift we get only once from the supreme power and respecting it by ‘living’ it should be our agenda. This journey of life might be a bumpy road with difficulties and failures at every step, but giving up our lives does not end it there. It gives birth to a whole new set of miseries and sorrows, not to you but to those who love you.

Your life is not just yours, it has strings attached to lives of your family and your loved ones. Can you even imagine the magnitude of sorrow that hits a mother when she gets to know that her son, whom she brought up, has killed himself because he failed in his exam or because his girlfriend broke up with him ?If you are not brave enough to face hardships of life, why should your parents go through so much pain? Why should they suffer? Who gives you the right to ruin someone else’s life?If, anytime in life, you think you should kill all the hardships of life by killing yourself, STOP. 

Stop and think about how life of your family would be after you are gone. Think about how your life has been and about those beautiful times in life when you were happy. And then you will realise no matter what the reason for you to commit suicide is, it is not worth the life you lived or the life you might live.The waves in the sea will settle down, the sun will rise and the spring will come but for that you will have to face the storm, live away the night and bear the winter.

Remember, you are special to many, there are people who love you, you can do wonders if you want to, all you need is a pinch of hope and courage. Challenge the God and surprise him by overcoming the obstacles and always remember if the winter has come, the spring won’t be far away.

To read the article on The Hindu's website follow the LINK

Keep Reading. To tell us about the blogs you are reading this summer, mail us at writerspointblog@yahoo.in

Penguin India shares Writerspoint blog post!

Penguin India shared a post on Writerspoint on their page today! 

Read the post on Ruskin Bond and Sudha Murthy at Spring Fever'13 HERE

Friends in Small Places- RUSKIN BOND AND SUDHA MURTHY

Yesterday was yet another enchanting day at Spring Fever'13, with much loved authors Ruskin Bond and Sudha Murthy. Paro Anand started the session by narrating how she met Sudha Murthy for the first time. Paro Anand went on narrate a story from Sudha Murthy's book- 'The Day I Stopped Drinking Milk' about the young ticketless traveller who was hiding underneath her berth. The ticket collector caught her and threatened to throw her out on the next station. But Sudha Murthy thought it was not right to throw out a young girl on an unknown station, so she took the girl to her home. Now the girl- Chitra works in the U.S! 
Followed by this moving incident, Sudha Murthy's editor Shruti read out the wonderful tittle story from the book. 

The session really became interesting as Ruskin Bond read out a poem from his collection- Hip Hop Nature Boy.
Before reciting the poem he said that publishers are usually not interested in publishing poetry so what he does is, he tells his publisher that he would write a story only if his poems are published!As it was expected, the poem was absolutely delightful and humorous but what made it better was his style of reciting it. He read it out like a little child who was enjoying the funny poem!

 Ruskin Bond really made the session interesting and fun. When Paro Anand asked him- "How many books have you written", he replied- "its unlucky to count!" 

He did it, He said it and we loved it- Ruskin Bond

"My favourite genre is short stories, because I am a lazy writer and they seem to keep getting shorter with age! When I run out of people, I write ghost stories."

"When  a particular character becomes popular, people expect more stories about him or her. When you run out of stories you have to make them up. My uncle Ken is long gone, so he cannot sue me now!"

" When you are telling lies in your stories like me, you tend to get a writers block. Keep the script aside and come back to it later. You should be patient and draw the story in your mind properly so that you don't get stuck half way through."


"My landline was not working, so I asked my grand daughter- Dolly to get me a cellphone. I held it to my ear and she said- dada you are holding it up side down, then switch it on. But nothing happened. So she said go to the window. I went the window. Open the window, she said. So I opened the window but nothing happened. Lean out of the window. I leaned out of the window and I dropped it!"

What we love the most about him, were his poems! I am sure he impressed every body sitting there with his innocence and spontaneous humour.

Here is the video of Ruskin Bond reading his poem- 'If Mice Could Roar'

                                                           Video by Writerspoint

She did it, She said it and we loved it Sudha Murthy

I take two-three years to complete a novel. I like to share whether

it is my experience, my joy or my sorrow. So I like to share everything, except my husband!  

Life has a larger canvas than imagination. Imagination has  limit, life does not. When I started meeting different people- tribals, rich people, poor people, politicians- my canvas became larger

I want to write a children's novel and for that I want to understand today's children. Today children have a greater exposure than what they had say 50 years ago.

When I was young, my grandfather asked me to promise him that when I have enough money, I should buy books for at least one library. And now, when I have made enough money I have bought books for fifty thousand libraries! 

I like children because they are un-biased and straight forward. Adults don't do that. When they tell me my book is good, it is very often followed by- we applied for a loan or something like that, because they mix my job in infosys and my job as writer. Once a little child told me- you write well but you do not read well. And that was the last time I read out my story.

Watch my interview with Paro Anand at Bookaroo HERE

The Global Storyteller- MIRA NAIR at Spring Fever'13

On her journey from ‘Salaam Bombay!’ to ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’

I attended the ongoing Spring Fever at IHC today and it was a delightful experience. Organised by Penguin Books, the Spring Fest has a great line up of eminent personalities for each day. After spectacular sessions by Shobha De and Gulzar on 15th and 16th respectively, today the genius film-maker Meera Nair graced the literary festival. 

It was a perfect setting in the open air amphitheatre with a lovely stage and the library. Mira Nair was there on time and the session started at seven as scheduled. 

She had some really interesting experiences to share. Some made us laugh while others left us awed. Here are some of the interesting things the story teller talked about- 

"I always played the girlfriend's mother or something un-sexy like that"

Before Salaam Bombay, my beginnings really come from theatre, when I was an actor. And the first inspiration for me as a kid growing up in Bhubaneswar was actually Habib Tanvir who brought logical theatre in the most radical way to the school fields of Bhubaneshwar. That made me feel that I could perhaps be a part of the “tamaasha” that he had shown me as a young girl. So that led me to join theatre. I was on stage most of the time. I always played the part of the “girlfriend's mother” or something un-sexy like that. 

" My Antony was Shashi Tharoor! "

I was a part of Shakespeare society in St. Stephens College. I was cast as a very heavy weigh Cleopatra and to carry me on stage there was a bunch of slaves led by Amitav Ghosh in a langoti. Not really a pretty picture! And my Antony was Shashi Tharoor! I better behave, he is a minister!

"I would say, come to India, I will send my elephant to pick you up from the airport"

I made about four documentaries, all in India in the early 80s. It was interesting but I found frustration in not finding an audience. Here in India, there was no room for them. In America they would ask me dumb things like-“I saw running water in your movie. How come you have water running in India?” I would say- come to India, I will send my elephant to pick you up from the airport and they would not really get the joke!

"The kid would dance and sing- I am a disco dancer!"

The idea of Salaam Bombay came from a documentary; I made, ‘India Cabaret’ about strippers. I lived with these girls, Rekha and Rosey. And every day at twelve in the morning this tea-boy used to come and this wonderful role- reversal used to take place where Rekha would say- "Nacho" to the boy and the kid would dance and sing " I am a disco dancer!" and they would drink tea like Nawabs’. That got me to look at a street kid- the tea boy. What was remarkable about kids in each street corner is that, on the surface they have absolutely nothing but inside they have such a will to live!

                          "I polluted the poor guy"
Sooni Taraporevala, writer of the film (Salaam Bombay) and I found a bunch of rag pickers. At first they ran away from us but then we gradually befriended them and for four months just picked rags with them, went to the movies, waited at the weddings. After documenting it and writing down own version, I asked Barry Jones to come and we did a six-week workshop with nineteen children. The main thing we did in the workshop was to create discipline and focus in the children through either dance (weirdly enough, they would choose Madonna songs to dance on) or yoga.
I met Raghubir Yadav, who played Chillam, yesterday after 25 years and he said- "main to saala cigarette bhi nahi peeta tha, main to bolta tha ki bas Mira Nair ne hi mujhe cigarette dia"
I polluted the poor guy. 

"The kids have no self-pity"

I did not want to make an ‘arty-farty’ film. I wanted children to go to Liberty and watch it. These kids have no self-pity. My earliest images were of when I was shooting India Cabaret, being in a taxi in a traffic jam and one hand held on to my open window. I looked down and saw this kid- just the torso on a hand-made platform with wheels. The lights changed and with the velocity of my cab, he moved on and at the end it he just let himself go, did a piravid, held his hand up like a circus player. Even though no one was clapping, but for him that was his performance! 

        "I was the aunty ji Delhi"

I am currently directing the musical of Monsoon Wedding. We have recorded seven songs and have four more to go. We hope to open in May'14. 
My son and I wanted to make a film in his school holidays, in the monsoon. I met Sabrina Dhawan and we both got along like a house on fire! She was like the hipper Delhi and I, the auntyji Delhi.  Once Naseer was cast, I started casting other people around him but many people, who said yes, did not turn up! I had to take many auntyjis’ from my area-Vasant Vihar and anyone who was for free was in monsoon wedding. The actor who was supposed to play the lover of the bride called me one day before shooting and said- Sorry for not being able to come, because he had been asked to compare Amitabh Bachchan's dinner! I called a young actor in London and asked him- Do you have a brother?  Yes, I actually did that! 

This was followed by questions from the audience. Later Mira Nair, signed copies of Salaam Bombay and The Reluctant Fundamentalist for the audience! It was a wonderful evening with the global story teller. Thank you Penguin Books!

Spring Fever is a must attend.  Click here for more information.
Did you attend Spring Fever? Share your experience with me- writerspointblog@yahoo.in

Edited by Prakriti Anand

INDIA- A CELEBRITY OBSESSED NATION

Welcome to India, where everybody is more interested in other’s lives than his or her own. We all have encountered ‘inquisitive’ aunties who have a long list of questions ready, as soon as we step out of our house.

And when it comes to celebrities, we all get into the inquisitive aunty avatar to dig out as much information about them as we can. Yes, we are a self-proclaimed celebrity obsessed nation!

I don’t know whom my Chinki didi married, but I know what Kareena Kapoor wore on her wedding, who designed the wedding invitation, the guest list and the honeymoon destination. That is how I am and that is how we all are!  

Most of us pull out HT City and Delhi Times from the main newspaper and start our day by updating ourselves with the fresh news about our favorite celebrities.  

We are so obsessed with them that we make their few extra kilos a baby bump, a movie together means an affair and giving someone’s party a miss is a dead sure rivalry.

We want to know why Anushka Sharma wore a Masaba and not a Sabyasachi. Is Twinkle Khanna pregnant again? Why Abhishek Bachchan and Karishma Kapoor never got married? We are inquisitive aunties in true sense!A swollen celebrity lip is a good enough news to become a headline here, followed by rumours of a lip job and sting operations on the surgeon who supposedly did that

Here a father might not be enlightened about how many tattoos her daughter has but we always keep ourselves updated on what Deepika Padukone is doing to her ‘RK’ tattoo. In India, we might not have a roof on our heads but hey, there is something as important as that- Sunny Leone is looking for a house in Mumbai! We are people who hesitate to donate money but when it comes to laying hands on a tissue paper an actress used to wipe off her make up, we are ready to spend more than anyone else. While many of us might not be able to handle our own relationships and marriages, we don’t mind keeping a track of celebrity love-birds and telling them to get married soon. Actually, we love it!

 Here we need an Amitabh Bachchan to attract tourists to Gujarat, a Kajol to sell a toffee and an Amir Khan to tell people about Atithi Devo Bhava. 

Writing horoscopes of celebrities and predicting how their next year will be is an all time favorite task of our tarot card readers there. And yes, my friend might not give me a treat on her birthday, but I do get to feast on cupcakes on Hritik Roshan’s birthday, he is her favorite actor after all! In India, the most popular T.V show is Big Boss- watching celebrities brush their teeth, cook food, wash utensils and doing make up- Ah bliss!  Another popular show in this celebrity obsessed nation is 'Live my life'. God bless the ones who conceptualized this show – fans get to step into shoes of their favorite superstars and get to spend ‘ intimate moments with the Stars themselves’.

  Yaha celebrity raj hai!

They have crazy fans- who marry their photographs, who are ready to pay them in crores for a two-minute performance and who buy whatever they endorse. They can sell pictures of their babies for what ever they want and yes, in India there’ll be thousands of people who desperately want to buy them.

And it doesn’t end here. We are much more generous than this when it comes to our love for celebrities. We also make their children stars. Sridevi’s daughter, Jhanvi Kapoor is a star at fifteen. Now don’t ask me why? I just told you- “Sridevi’s daughter!”

Being emotional humans, we might just sometimes out of love make a celebrity God. Rajnikanth has experienced this obsession down south. So, who is next?

We follow (read-stalk) celebrities. Their daily life is a matter of national concern. We discuss them on dinner tables  (read- all the time) and this is how obsessed we are, with our celebrities.

 This is why India is a celebrity obsessed nation! 

                                                              ________________

                                  ( screen shots from- http://www.missmalini.com)
                                                            ________________

You can now read my articles on WriterBabu.com also -http://www.writerbabu.com/profile.php

AND THIS WEEK MY ARTICLE WAS AMONG THE TOP 10 AT WRITERBABU.COM AT #4 !

                                           

THE PETTICOAT JOURNAL

READ MY ARTICLE ON SAFETY OF WOMEN FOR THE
             PETTICOAT JOURNAL HERE

ABOUT THE PETTICOAT JOURNAL-

We beg not to be confused for a soft, polite and submissive platform just like you want your women to be. We are not even suggesting rouges and mascaras for women. We are here with the after-story. The story after the woman is decked up and all set for life. Does the world stand by her? Does she have the courage to go it alone? Does she get derided on the way?

You say, "Huh! What world are you talking about? You may be living in a time warp. We've come far from those days when all these questions were relevant." Well, we would love to believe you. But even as we were gathering the mindset to believe you, we came across official reports about professional, educated women being subjected to atrocities, verbal and physical, by men in their families. Men would not necessarily be husbands. They happen to be fathers-in-law, brothers-in-law, brothers, fathers. As we turned the pages of the reports, we realised that after all the grassroots work by various well-meaning organisations, women in villages consider rape and violence a part of life which they have to tolerate no matter how painful.

A lot has changed over the years. Thanks to activists and social workers and the handful of men and women who believed in change. But there are a majority who consider such change disastrous...to their hegemony, to their egos and to their personalities. It's here that the change is stuck. It's this filter that suspends change.

It's no wonder then that we deep in our hearts we keep the lowest of low opinions about women and nurture lowest of low feelings about their characters. It's so fragile that we start doubting a woman's character without instigation. No? Consider this.

How does the world react to a decked up woman waiting for her family in the middle of a market place on their way to a family function? We know what's the very first thing that hits people's minds!What does the world think about the woman walking late evening along a lonely footpath on her way back home from office? SUVs and sedans slow down to ask her what she'll charge for a night. A submissive woman may just be pulled into the car without even the courtesy asking her charges. Then, the next morning, we read about her raped, bleeding, abandoned body found in a jungle.

What does the world think of a woman who mixes with men in offices or gyms or other places where she is a regular like any other man out there? That she is a nymphomaniac...that she's interested in men.
What does the world think of a woman who is the female version of a Casanova? Err there's no female version of Casanova!! We only know of sluts!
The world is changing. but the thinking isn't. Women are moving out and striving to make a mark and break free. But men and some other women are going regressive. They want to pull the charging women back. The Petticoat Journal is for them as much as the women who have begun the fight to raise their status from a doormat to a human being.
We bring you the Doormat Revolution! Join us!

UNBOX FEST'13

Isuri Dayaratne, a 27 year old illustrator from Colombo, Sri Lanka who joined several other artists, designers and master craftsmen  at the UNBOX FEST'13 shares his experience and illustrations at Writerspoint.

Explore Isuri’s art and quirky characters here.

UnBox Festival is an annual celebration of interdisciplinary thought & work through a series of seminars, performances, exhibitions and talks

Held over four days from February 7-10, UnBox Festival took place at Zorba, New Delhi this year. My first time at this annual event, it was truly an experience for me, where I had the opportunity to showcase my illustration work and collaborate with some amazing artists.

UnBox Festival, being a celebration of different platforms of art, gave the artists as well as the participants a chance to fully  discover and engage in the workshops, music performances and talks that took place over the four days. There were multiple stages, work rooms and open labs that were available to all of us, as well as all day bars and cafes that brought out a community atmosphere.

Throughout the festival I was invited to work at the Print Lab where I had the chance to collaborate with BLOT and Levi’s. Although it was my first time experiencing screen-printing techniques, I got the hang of things by the second day and was even helping out participants make custom t-shirts. All the artists who were working at the Print Lab had pre-made fabric screens of their own artworks and the workshops held over the four days gave participants and artists a chance to work together and experiment with a lot of designs.

Best part of the festival was that all of the events/workshops that were happening around Zorba gave everyone the opportunity to meet a lot of people who came from various backgrounds, be it from art and design to music.

JAIPUR LIT FEST'13—more to it than glamour

By N. Madhavan

Columnist/Associate Editor

Hindustan Times

Jaipur is just the place and the last week of January is just the right time to hold a literary festival. For one, there is a colourful air about the Rajasthani capital, with its exotic past and camels that go with history and the magic of the printed word. On the other hand, not far from Delhi, it is great for both those wanting to get away from the metro rush and international travelers at the end of a cold period to catch some sun.

The festival has acquired its own unique colour. 

credits- Shweta Maheshwari 

For a festival that calls itself the “greatest literary show on earth” it is not just about staid writers and sombre sessions. The Diggi Palace lawns, where the festival is held, has the air of an Indian mela, and has also acquired what some might call “Page 3” glamour with fashionable ladies and somewhat loud partying people making up the ambience. It also helps that the festival organizes musical evenings (this year shifted to the Amer area in the suburbs).

The festival this year was less controversial than last year, when writer Salman Rushdie was prevented from coming by Muslim group protests. This year,  protests erupted towards the end of the festival when sociologist Ashis Nandy mouthed a comment about corruption and backward/scheduled caste leaders. 

The furore underscored the fact that the festival has become a political event of sorts.

Alongside politics, the festival also sees a Bollywood touch. Lyricists Prasoon Joshi and Javed Akhtar and actress Sharmila Tagore were among the attendees this year, as was cricketer Rahul Dravid.  

So, is literature about such glamorous figures? Clearly not. While these lent fodder for the news media, there is undeniably some depth in the festival from less fashionable sessions held in the large tents and halls outside of the front lawns and the “Char Bagh” front grounds where the bigger sessions occur.

I particularly enjoyed a session on books about music, featuring Vikram Sampath, author of “My Name is Gauhar Jaan” -- about a British colonial era courtesan. There was another serious session on books about India’s Maoist heartland and the Northeast. Yet another one discussed the life of the mathematical genius, Srinivasa Ramanujan.

These sessions more than made up for criticism that the festival is shallow.

My high point as a Tamil speaker was listening to a US scholar, David Shulman, who is fluent in Indian languages and about the history of India’s temple towns and holy places. Such scholars are ones who notice only when a festival showcases offbeat topics and writers. For this, one must thank the organizers of JLF!

WANTED- POLITICAL IDOLS IN INDIA

Writerspoint wishes all it's readers in India, a very happy Republic Day.
As we celebrate our 64th Republic Day we marvel at how farsighted our constitution makers were!
The brilliant political leaders made our constitution rigid enough to maintain its basic structures and philosophy of the country and at the same time flexible enough to incorporate changes that time demanded. Even after 64 years, we awe at the makers of the Indian constitution for drafting the longest written constitution of any sovereign country in the world so successfully!

                                                                 _________

                                                          

Like everything around us, politics has also changed and continues to change rapidly. Today, when we look at politics, we cannot help but associate it with corruption and other mal-practises and eventually end up calling it 'dirty politics'. We no longer have political idols or political leaders, all that politics offer us today is ' politicians'. The youth today idolises actors and sportsmen, singers and dancers. Don't blame them, they do not have much choice because India has lost the recipe to create idols in the field of politics. 

Should we seek inspiration from Abhijit Mukherjee? Yes, son of our Honourable President who claimed that the women participating in the protests for Nirbhaya were “pretty women who were dented and painted”.

He said students who go to protest there think it is fashionable to hold candles and protest.

“This is almost like the Pink Revolution. These women who are protesting have no contact with ground reality. These pretty women, dented and painted, who come for protests are not students. I have seen them speak on television, usually women of this age are not students,” Our politicians make such comments on critical issues like gang rape.

Can politicians like him who do nothing but make obnoxious comments and objectify women become idols for our generation ? 

If not him, how about Laxman Savadi and CC Patil? The Karnataka state ministers were caught watching porn in the State Assembly. Now, they are perfect political idols, aren't they ? 

Ironically CC Patil was the minister for women and child development! This is what he had to say- "The truth is like this... The mobile phone had a video of a rape incident. The victim is murdered by the rapists. Subsequently, the people chase the rapists and catch them. Later, the government awards death sentence to the accused. Patil and myself were sympathising with the victim."

 They are the representatives who are elected by the people with the hope that giving them position of such great powers will change the condition of our country. But unfortunately, for them State Assembly is not a place to discuss issues of social welfare, but a place to watch porn! We can certainly not expect youth to seek inspiration from ministers like them! 

We might be stupid enough to elect you, but we are not stupid enough to believe what you say, irrespective of what we see! 

How about Mayawati ? This Indian politician who claims to be working for the downtrodden and backward classes of our country chose to spend 685 crore on a mere park with statues of herself and stone carved elephants! Dear miss Mayawati, had you used all that money for setting up schools for children of backward classes, you would have done so much good. Unfortunately politicians of our country do not know how to work towards something even if they have a good cause to work for. So I don't blame my friends who idolise Salman Khan for his N.G.O Being Human.

     ___________

While the list of politicians like them is very very long, only two names pop up in my mind when I think of Political Idols of 21st Century in India.

 AUNG YANG SU KI 

"It is true that I have lived abroad. It is also true that I am married to a foreigner. These facts have never interfered and will never interfere with or lessen my love and devotion for my country by any measure or degree."

A.P.J ABDUL KALAM

"To succeed in your mission, you must have single-minded devotion to your goal"
  ________

Their words are enough to inspire us, their actions make us look up to them. What they have done for us and our country is something we cannot pay back. What we can do is respect them and their ideas! 

It must be a lonely path, with every single day a challenge. To stand up for your rights without flinching, to face humiliation and violence with courage, without retaliating violently - Oh no, not everybody can do that...

But they have done it for India and for us! We need more like them.

Tell us about the political leaders of India you idolise. We need more like them !