My Afty Out@Nari Seva Sangha

I haven't been spending much time with my mother outside the house, because I have been spending most of my time with her inside the house!!! Unfortunately, I become extremely lazy when I reach home after office and find all sorts of excuses not to go out. The cinema halls are too crowded, the shops are boring, the food isn't great... you name it, and I have got a ready excuse for it. Even if I do not, I could cook up one really fast.So if you want an excuse for some reason, you could contact me ( and I would charge you appropriately ;) ).

Yesterday of course, I decided to be a bit more amiable and accompany my mother to the annual exhibition held at Nari Seva Sangha in Jodhpur Park. Previously she used to visit this exhibition with her BFF. BFF is unavailable currently and I am the best substitute of course :D. While going to the exhibition, Mummy filled me on some of the social aspects of the exhibition. Some women visit the exhibition for genuine interest in looking at the umpteen variety of saris, costume jewellery, knick knacks; some are from the sophisticated gentry and the remaining lot are from the wannabes.

When I visited the exhibition site in the afternoon, it was teeming with people. The ground was quite small in size -thank God for that; it meant lesser number of shops. Unfortunately none of the apparel and saris caught my fancy. I did pick up some small trinkets of course. No sooner had I finished off with one shop, I felt I had accomplished all requirements except for the primary one. I announced loudly that I was very hungry despite having a full lunch an hour back. I sauntered off to the food corner and bugged every one in view till my requested food item was handed to me - patishapta. One of the many glorious sweetmeats of Bengal - full of sweet shredded coconuts. With the small piece of heaven in my hand, I finally found some bliss in munching happily and wandering in the sunny afternoon on a chilly February afternoon. 

Of course, I soon spotted my Mum who had given up on me.  I realized that I was  falling short of her BFF standards and soon trudged to ALL the stalls with her! I tried coaxing her to buy anything she wanted but even the older generation is sold on brand names! Sigh!I decided to have fun observing the women around. There were hardly any men and most of them seem to be helping the women in the stalls..one or two old harried husbands were around of course. But the best part was observing all the oldies coming out in their Sunday best and shopping around. The second best part was how Mummy addressed every middle-aged or elder woman as "Didi" and their silent reactions. And yes an important observation, many of these designers and boutique owners were attractive women. So probably makes sense to go for a make-over if you want to go for some small-time business!

So at the end of the visit, I tired myself and Mum out; had my patishapta and also got invited to another round of patishapta eating by an aunt whom I met at the fair. Maybe I should visit these places a bit more often:). But next time I visit, I would definitely remember to spend more at the Nari Seva stall too and so should you.

Myth about Success of Social Media?

It has become next to impossible to divorce one's life from the clutter of social media that surrounds us. There are very few people I meet, who tell me that they love Facebook, Orkut, MySpace,etc. So many complain about this incessant need to stay updated about everybody . Funnily, I don't see any of these people leaving these networking websites either. Neither do I.

I was introduced to Orkut when I was in the last year of college. Of course, initially I was quite addicted to it as well. However, in those days, Orkut was quite primitive and there wasn't much to die about it . Hence when people insisted that I start using Facebook, I resisted for as long as I could. Unfortunately I had to give in. I joined it and now I am connected to another diverse mix of people. Of course it's great to send people e-cakes, e-flowers, e-pokes and what not. Then you play games, try some software to decipher your personality because you have been incapable to determine it yourself. Finally you post the game results and compare them with your friends.  I never was greatly interested in the different games though I have to admit I did indulge in some of these..some in response to friend requests and some out of pure curiosity.How long can this really go on?

Of course every honeymoon gets over in some time and I am sure sooner or later people will tire of all these websites and applications. I have seen people deleting their Orkut account totally. People who don't want to be left out from anything however are smarter. They just update their status as " Moving over to Facebook" or something similar. Of course it probably makes sense to use an application which is in news, looks sassy and has become an introductory statement for all..." Do keep in touch...Just look me up on Facebook!"

What prevents us from deleting our accounts totally? Possibly the fear that we wont remain connected to the 200+ people who need to be updated about our life every moment. Out of the enitre 200+ connections, probably only 10 of them are really network-worthy , another 20 are family, 30 from school, 50 from college and remaining are from office or just met over the Internet. So why can't we just announce that we are tired of this ?? Are you crazy! Who is going to efficiently store 200 email addresses, contact numbers, birthdays, anniversaries and so on...? Unless you are an organizing maniac you would not. And the most important point, do you really intend to contact 150 of these people as regularly as you scrap or wall them!Or would you bother to  even remember and wish 100 of these people on their birthdays? I doubt.. Frankly speaking, I wouldn't.

How did I get thinking about all this? One unpleasant contact whom I had added, kept in contact and done all the network worthy things that one does because I felt that I would be losing part of my network contacted me recently . So when I got bugged by this unpleasant personality, I just sat back and wondered. Why do I take pains to torture myself in this way. Neither is this person network-worthy, nor have I ever felt comfortable with this person. Then why do I bother to retain such contacts? After all, a sad truth is that many of these contacts are maintained only because we do not want to take the pain in doing real-time communication and proper networking. The people whom we are fond of are in regular touch with us by every possible means. And such people do not need to be connected by social media.


Does this mean, social media will fade out one day? This is tough to predict and we should all remember that technology has always been utilized for reducing time, effort and costs. And with that trend in mind, it would hardly be surprising to consider that our personal life would not be affected likewise.

The Lives Of Others

Good movies always delight me and some good movies amaze me by their quality to retain the attraction throughout the entire duration of the film. The Lives of Others is one such film. I have seen different parts of it on totally different days. Some of the days, I probably was not even aware that I was watching parts of the same movie. Funnily I watched the movie on a day when I did not even have the temperament to watch an entire television serial episode, lest a full movie. This particular movie proved to be a total exception. It not only redefined exceptional films for me but I also realized that there are some films that can be watched on any day and in any mental state. I stopped fiddling, swapping through channels and just discovered another of filmdom’s wonderful creation.

The Lives of Others is a German film (Das Leben der Anderen) by Henckel von Donnersmarck and is based on the socialistic regime which existed in Eastern Germany, prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Authors, poets, actors and artistes alike were persecuted for speaking out against the rule. Some were boycotted from public appearances. Many of these artistes preferred ending their own lives than dying a slow death of isolation and ignominy. The GDR invariably refrained from publishing the increasing suicide rates of the East German artistes.

In this particular film, the story focuses on a famous actress Christa-Maria Sieland and her boyfriend author Georg Dreyman. Sieland is unfortunately in the unwanted clasps of a minister whom she is forced to befriend and entertain for her career’s sake. The minister is aware about the artists’ dissatisfaction with the Stasi regime and finds an excuse to bug Dreyman and Sieland’s flat to find if the author is involved in any illegal activities. The captain in charge, Wiesler is an ideal socialist. He slowly gets disgusted by the corruption around and the affinity to charge the authors unnecessarily. As he taps Dreyman and Sieland’s conversations and activities, he slowly starts sympathizing with them till the point where he gets personally involved to save the couple from personal doom and disaster.

The climax is the unfortunate death of Sieland but Donnersmarck’s script is so tight that before you could stop and mourn for the unfortunate couple, the script takes a totally different turn. In fact the story is full of suspense and certain predictable situations are rendered unpredictable to the added excitement of the viewer. One is never sure of the direction to which the script veers. While there is nothing to mourn about the film, it does slow its pace in some places. Also Wiesler’s character needn’t really have been made that sympathetic towards the artistes. However Sieland’s death really made me feel that the film had lost some of its glamour and volume; or maybe it was the diva-esque presence of Martina Gedeck who plays her character.

And if your heart hasn’t melted yet, the last scene definitely will do the needful. Watch Wiesler telling the cashier “It’s for me” while buying “Sonata for a Good Man”. Of course you have to watch the film to realize how richly he deserves the book and all the credit.http://www.livesofothersmovie.co.uk/