Are you blessed?

The New Testament says “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts 20:35)

I wanted to Thank God for whatever he has done for me till date. He has taken care of me as his own baby… Series of events, where I faced disappointments made me feel that I wasn’t all that lucky! There were times when I called myself a badluck favored girl and kept comparing myself with others. Whenever I cried in past I questioned myself…What did I do to deserve this? Where was my fault? Later I learnt that, whenever I was denied of certain thing it was for good. I realized pretty late that whatever was given in past looked bad at that particular time but was good for a long run perspective. Sometimes we look at a smaller picture where as god has great plans for future and we seem to keep cribbing & cursing ourselves for such petty stuff.

Something happened recently where in 90% people got affect around me and I was among the few who remained untouched by a particular scenario. It was not that I wasn’t prepared for it but not being touch has helped me on other fronts which were little crucial from other angle. I know why it happened and what the message was to me. I came back home and realized a task which was due for quite some time. I thought of doing it many a times but lack-of-time excuse always managed to get in me. Yesterday when I reached home back at 6 which was pretty early from my standards of returning home, I opened my lappy to work from home but somehow my mind kept wandering.

I opened my system & told myself that its now or never, so I finally took my card and sponsored a Nanhi Kali. Well that means I sponsored a little girl’s education and this would help her study for the current year. I have put a reminder for myself to help every year so that she completes her education and earns herself a better life. The organization would provide the detail of kid in a month’s time who is going to be benefited with updates on her scores and performance. They don’t initially let ou choose for avoiding discrimination based on various factor. I feel better as my first step towards a long goal has been taken! Lot is to be done in the journey towards a dream that I have been cherishing since my childhood.

I will surely share about the Nanhi Kali as and when I get to interact with her :)

Experiencing houseboats, humanity & Unions

While writing the previous post, I just recalled an incident which took place about 4-5 months back. We had planned a trip to Allepey & munnar in Kerala. We got down at the railway station and looked for a Taxi. Kerala is famous for one thing “Worker Unions”. The dominant unions can be felt in almost all the industries out there. We somehow got hold of a guy who agreed to take us to the point where houseboats can be hired. So, he showed us where the taxi was parked and sent a driver for the ride. Now this driver, who was 6 feet tall & into his early forties drove the car for 6 kms and dropped us at a point which he called as a starting point for houseboats. The price that he had charged us was for 10 kms, but anyways at new places you are bound to be cheated. We got down the taxi and we could only see 3 houseboats standing out there.

Generally before going on any trip we read lot of reviews and do lot of googling to gather information. There should have been more than 30-40 houseboats as per what we had read but all we could see was 3 of them standing. When we enquired the price they quoted 3 times of the normal price. We thought we were early for the boats and started waiting for other boats to return from their previous day’s trip. After almost an hour, we saw no movement and we got irritated. When we turned around we saw the cab driver still waiting. We guessed the scenario: he had tied up with houseboat guys for commission. It was such a pathetic feeling and when we enquired from a local tea vendor, we came to know that there is another point where all the houseboats come and this wasn’t the main point. We had specifically asked the guy at railway station to drop us to main point for houseboats and he got us dropped at a seedy corner for some commission. The worst was we could not see any taxi apart from the one in which we had come. But somehow I was too adamant to go back in it and we decided to walk.

The driver who was observing all this started his cab and came to us asking us to drop at the right place. We told him that we don’t require as we were quite pissed waiting in hot sun for almost an hour & half. He had a guilty face and he requested us to get in his taxi. When we refused, he said politely that he is anyways gng back and he will drop at the right place without charging. We weren’t sure but then he seemed to be apologetic and we agreed. When we sat inside the car, suddenly 2 people from nowhere appeared and yelled at him. It was in Malyalam (local language) and we could figure out from the conversation that due to Union thing he was not supposed to take us, it was someone else’s turn. He denied and almost took panga there and drove us and dropped at the right place.

We offered him money but he did not accept. I felt bad for him because, for a tourist he took some problems on himself. He was doing as he was asked to but he wasn’t a bad guy! I then felt that even in a strange city you will find people who are still nice, who still have some humanity left in them and who are not just looking for commissions but the problems caused to other. That did not make me carry any bad memories for that city/state.

I don’t know how it is with other tourist but I felt comfortable with the trip. The houseboat guys had also shown great hospitality and it was overall a memorable trip.

Slumdog Millionaire

Most of us are feeling proud that we (Indians) have won Oscars for the movie. Kudos to A.R Rehman for his great work!

Before watching the movie, I had heard abt Amitabh Bachhan’s statement about the movie and I wasn’t too pleased on his remarks. For me, it was more like…recognition to India and how does it matter if a foreigner has shot the film. I tend to generally admire the work of a person irrespective of the nationality/caste/ creed.

This movie as the name suggest is based on a kid from slum & his story on how he wins the Million Dollars in a contest which looks like a KBC contest. All I could see was the movie with lot of flaws. Two important ones:
1. A slum kid speaking English & hindi at the same time.
2. Showing that every damn Indian was bad in the movie (including Anil Kapoor)!

I hated the way the director has painted a bad image for the country. India is not just about slums, crooks, cheats etc. It has other good things as well which could have been captured. Overall I feel it’s more of hype thing then to anything else.

Bollywood has produced many better films then Slumdog in past and I am sure it will continue to do so. I am happy with the fact that couple of actors got this opportunity to work in the film and show themselves up at red carpet but at the same time, I am very disappointed with the way it has let down our image. I am wondering how the prospective tourist will react to it? How will they trust anyone here after watching this movie? We keep working hard to build that credibility and just couple of things like 26/11 & slumdog tends to take that away from us.

I have nothing against the director or the people who are associated with the movie, but I am just not feeling good about it.