Confused Soul: July 2009

Journalism: A changed definition

Posted by Akash in Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Please have a look at this news article(Crowds watch in silence as a woman is molested). This news created a high-tide for many news channels and they showed the video of this news again and again. At every single time, the news was telecasted with the video, news reader never failed to mention that crowd was watching this shameful incident but nobody came forward to save the poor woman. I do agree with this argument of the reporters but I was forced to think that reporters were there to shoot the incident and pointing fingers on public not to say anything against it. But couldn't they come forward and save the poor woman? What kind of journalism is this?

According to Wikipedia journalism page "News is what the consensus of journalists determines it to be." So I want to know that what point reporters wanted to emphasized here: the girl was molested in public or nobody from crowd came forward to help her? Were the journalists with camera and mike were not a part of crowd? Or if they helped the victim coz, they might have lost a SPICY news item.

TRUE, journalists were able to raise this issue in state assembly but how could they let a person being tortured/molested for a money-making-TRP-booster news... And this is not the only incident. On many instances, I have seen that journalists reached before anyone else and engaged with their camera-and-mike work... But between the coverage they forgot to-send-someone-to-hospital or to-save-a-child or to-save-a-girl-from-public-humiliation...

I would like to make an appeal to everyone (including journalists) first to take necessary corrective action and then make a news out of it.

TEACH-INDIA induction

Posted by Akash in Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Last Sunday, I attended the induction session for TEACH-INDIA at Noida. The idea behind TEACH-INDIA is to raise the social literacy rate in India. At the start, TOI guys shared their experiences with last year’s TEACH-INDIA campaign. When they kicked up this event last year (its first year), they received around 1 lakh applications in the first few days and by the weekend, they had to shut their site to accept further registration. But as usual, people show great enthusiasm while registering for these kinds of initiatives but when implementation comes, most of them withdraw. Same happened here and around 30% registered users dropped the induction program. Another 30% backed out once they visited the slums and saw the conditions there. This year, they limited registrations through online portal only and this year also around 50% registered people came for induction (at least at my centre).

After this, there was a presentation from Udyaan (NGO for Noida, Gr. Noida region). Udyaan shared what they do and what is their plan for this campaign. Actually, this NGO has some homes for orphans, where they stay as a family. They are provided with best possible educations in schools like DPS. The best part is that they never refer these homes as orphanages. Again, they cited that how difficult to convince children that a new person is here for them. Children repel coz they feel that this bhaia/didi will also leave after 3-4 months. So the task is not only to go there and teach children but to build a relationship with them and make them feel that they are not orphan; there are lots of bhaias and didis for them.

Probably, from coming weekend, I will start my visits to one of Udyaan homes and start teaching. I’m very excited about this experience. As a member of this campaign, my primary focus was to spend time with children, motivate them play games with them and building a strong relationship with them (teaching will obviously be there).

India's Got Talent

Posted by Akash in Sunday, July 19, 2009

I am following a new reality show - India's Got Talent on colors since last few days. And I am bound to say that this is a show, which actually provides a platform to everyone to show his/her/their talent to the world. Some of you may argue that this is nothing but a copy of Got Talent series, but this doesn't lower the praise, it deserves.

Today, I was watching a repeat telecast of the show, in which a band came on stage for performance. Here 'Band' means no rock band or something but one of the bands, which are their in Indian Baaraats. And that band truly rocked the stage. Some of the best words came out of Kiran Kher's mouth: "Shaadiyon me, everybody concentrates on bride-groom and ignores the talent of these guys", she broke out when the band was performing. I don't think that any other show can give this kind of freedom to everyone.

This was just one example; I have seen multiple extra-ordinary and unusual performance on this stage. And most of those talents were almost obsolete or under-status arts. This is the show, watching which you will not only get entertained but also come to know about various arts hidden in different parts of India.

I have just few words to say: "INDIA HAS REALLY GOT TALENT."

PS: Watch here, here and here to get a feel, what kind of talents this show is nurturing. There are many other interesting videos with these links.

An initiative towards social welfare

Posted by Akash in Saturday, July 18, 2009

Hello Readers,

I have created a survey, please spend 1 minute of your time to fill this survey. Don't worry, you need not to give any information of yours. Please be honest while taking this survey.

Once you are done with the survey, please read the following intent behind it.

Click here to take the survey now

I am thinking about an initiative to create some new jobs for unemployed and under privileged people.

Objective:

A new business with minimal investment
Creating new jobs w/o eating up some other jobs
With these people's skill set, very hard to find a socially high status job w/o much investment.

Idea:

3 steps:

Collect shoes from houses
Wash/Polish those
Return back to houses (collect payment)

Since minimal initial investment, so no worries if idea fails.

Another concern is that people should not feel that they are donating their money to someone and intended employees should not look for free lunches. I am looking for this survey's result to make a call for starting this kind of service.

If you convince with the idea and want to help these guys, who generally starve 20 days a month. Please propagate this survey to your friends. It will be very helpful to get as many responses as possible.

If you think that there are better ways to fulfill the objective, please share.

Jiska bhi chehra cheela, andar se aur nikla...

Posted by Akash in Friday, July 17, 2009

Did you guys checked the title song of Kaminey?

I am listening to it since morning in loop and still liking it. Some of the amazing lyrics this song has. Salute to Gulzar for writing such beautiful lines and to Vishal Bhardwaj to do full justice with some great lyrics.

Earlier, I used to listen "DHAN TE NAN" from the same album and liked that a lot. But on recommendation of one of my friends, I listened to this song... And I could not help myself admiring this one.

Here are the lyrics of this song:

[Kya kare zindagi isko hum jo mile,
Iski jaan kha gaye, raat din ke gile]- 2 times
Raat din gile…
Meri aarzoo kamini,
Mere khwab bhi kaminey,
Ek dil se dosti thi, yeh huzoor bhi kaminey,
Kya kare zindagi isko hum jo mile,
Iski jaan kha gaye, raat din ke gile…

[Kabhi zindagi se maanga, pinjre mein chaand la do,
Kabhi laanten deke, kaha aasmaa pe taango] – 2 times
Jeene ke sab kareene the hamesha se kaminey,
Kaminey kaminey kaminey kaminey,
Meri daastaan kamini, mere raasten kaminey,
Ek dil se dosti thi, yeh huzoor bhi kaminey…

Jiska bhi chehra cheela, andar se aur nikla,
Masoom sa kabootar naacha to more nikla,
Kabhi hum kaminey nikle, kabhi doosre kaminey,
Kaminey kaminey kaminey kaminey,
Meri dosti kamini, mere yaar bhi kaminey,
Ek dil se dosti thi, yeh huzoor bhi kaminey…

Though complete lyrics are amazing, I particularly like these lines:

"Jiska bhi chehra cheela, andar se aur nikla,
Masoom sa kabootar naacha to more nikla"

Going to Mars...

Posted by Akash in Thursday, July 16, 2009

I am going to Mars :)

hehe, don't worry, not me but my name is going to Mars... And you can also send yours. Visit here to send your name to mars on a microchip on the Mars Science Laboratory rover heading to Mars in 2011!

Jigsaw Event

Posted by Akash in Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Time: 3rd - 8th July 2009
Location: Select CityWalk Mall, Saket, New Delhi
Celebrities watchout: Royce B. Mcllure, Konkana Sen Sharma, Cyrus
Our Role: Guest of Honor (as they said it)

Don't have time and mood to write a complete post on it. But I will share more pics of the event as soon as I get them.

The sharp Guy

The team

Start

Trying to straighten the sharp guy

Following Gandhi

Guess the size of Jigsaw

The sharpest :)

Change

Posted by Akash in Monday, July 13, 2009

Basa le apni aakhon me, chaman ke saare phoolon ko,
mumkin hai kal yahin par, koi imarat khadi mile.

Agli chutti me bachchon ko, parvat par le jaana,
mumkin hai kal, Himalaya ki jagah Aravali mile.

Vida hai aaj beti ki, jee bhar kar nihaar le,
mumkin hai kal aspatal* me, beti jali mile.

aaj gangajal hain, tu taharat* abhi kar le,
mumkin hai kal yahi par tujhe, sookha pada mile.

-Akash

*taharat: purification
*aspatal: Hospital

Long Holiday...

Posted by Akash in Wednesday, July 8, 2009

$\Toon\$

10 things, I love to do...

Posted by Akash in Monday, July 6, 2009

1. Driving with my car's windows rolled down & my elbow on the door.

2. Eating something and not to brush my teeth before going to sleep so that I can enjoy the taste if sleep denies to come.

3. Walking in the rain.

4. All types of Hindi movies and most of the Hindi songs. Also love Animations, romantic and action movies. Don't like period dramas.

5. Anytime, I can have "Mexican Green Wave" with cheese crust and "Gralic Breads" with "Cheese Dip" from Dominos.

6. I never used to like "Arhar ki Dal" and "Gobhi ki Sabzi" and "momos", but now these are among my favorites.

7. Solving puzzle, YES: mind blenders and not-to-mention Jigsaws.

8. I love drying my hairs and body under the fan after having a bath(this caused me fever on several occasions).

9. Watching Cricket and Tennis, if nothing interesting is there on TV, I like watching old matches. I usually like all kind of sports which keep tickling the scoreboard like Cricket, Tennis, TT etc... Football, Hockey, adventurous sports falls in the 2nd spot.

10. Hanging out with my friends

10 worst possible things...

Posted by Akash in Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Hmm, I prepared a list of 10 worst things that can happen to anyone and are not in your control. Most of these are derived from personal experience and some from other’s experiences too :) I didn’t include the work related stuff in that and too personal stuff coz I wanted to keep it as light as possible. Also there is no ranking so every point carries an equal weightage.

1. It’s the first rain of the season; you go out to enjoy the rain. It stops raining in 2 minutes leaving you half drenched.

2. Your best friend’s marriage, wanna capture some moments. You click only to find discharged batteries.

3. Missing a train/movie coz of traffic jam.

4. It’s Sunday... Ind-Pak final in some multi-nation cricket series and cable-waala-bhaia is all set to ruin your sunday.

5. Crossing a red light, wanna give thulla a tough look but your bike runs out of fuel at the same time.

6. A tough day in office, waana have a shower... find hot water coming out in month of June.

7. You wake up at 6:00 AM hearing ring of your cell only a find a cust-care executive at other end.

8. You are looking for your cell everywhere... not able to find it :( finally you find out that you are talking on your cell.

9. It’s 3:00 AM, you are in deep sleep...suddenly you feel thirsty, walk to the refrigerator, pour in some water... only to find that it was squash bottle.

10. Having a bath...applied soap all over your face and body... shower denies to continue.

Confused Soul