Class Act


I saw two films today that I'd like to write about. The first is Entre Les Murs or The Class, the french film that won at the Cannes last year. I had read so much about it, and heard so much, that it was a real treat watching it finally!

Education. Students. Teachers. The system. We like to stick it to the man starting from a young age. It was very interesting to see both sides of the system in close interaction here and to realise that sometimes students are liable to question their teacher's authority and not, how teachers exercise so much patience with young minds and lose it with them as well. I tried to look at those students and spot myself as a character there. I tried to cast back to my schooldays to find out if I was rebellious or understanding of authority. None actually. I just wanted to learn, ignore teachers that I didn't understand, and go with the flow. Maybe children have evolved. Or was I passive?


The second film, is the 2003 Canadian documentary, The Corporation. I liked it a lot, loved it....it has extensive research and we get to hear a good balance of either sides, the owners of big corporations in the U.S and thinkers/activists who consider them to be new-age psychopaths. Which makes me link my observations of Entre Les Murs with The Corporation - "The system's got too much control". There is a part of the documentary that films a public discussion in a small town of America that is opposing the entry of corporation chains to set-up base in their town. I was struck when a woman says, "So, we'll figure it out what we can do apart from jobs in this sector. We are creative people."
Narrator: "Some of the best creative minds are employed to assure our faith in the corporate world view. They seduce us with beguiling illusions. Designed to divert our minds and manufacture our consent."


So are we passive?

Sigh

Sigh Sigh Sigh Sigh Sigh Sigh

Sigh Sigh  Sigh  Sigh  Sigh  Sigh

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Sigh

SighSigh  Sigh    Sigh   Sigh    Sigh   Sigh

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SighSigh  Sigh

Sigh

sigh...no pattern to this sigh-ness

song for summer

by harry

this heat plays on me

plays on my heartstrings

summer summer

a month of love

summer summer

a month of pain

rain come and wash

away all the stains

Call me the Breeze

J J Cale

Youtube link 

They call me the breeze, I keep blowin' down the road
Well now, they call me the breeze, I keep blowin' down the road
I ain't got me nobody, I don't carry me no load
Ain't no change in the weather, ain't no changes in me
Well, there ain't no change in the weather, ain't no changes in me
And I ain't hidin' from nobody, nobody's hidin' from me

Well I got that green light, baby, I got to keep movin' on
Well I got that green light, baby, I got to keep movin' on
Well, I might go out to California, might go down to Georgia, I don't know

Thanks to my friend, Anand in Pune for sharing this song with me! 

Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don't complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don't bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake Up and Live! 

- Bob Marley

[Picture Courtesy: Flickr.com]

Turn! Turn! Turn!

The Byrds

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose, under heaven

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose, under heaven

A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose, under heaven

A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace
A time you may embrace, a time to refrain from embracing

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose, under heaven

A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to mend, a time to sow
A time to love, a time to hate
A time for peace, I swear its not too late

Love, Love is a verb....

Yesterday, I commuted through the underpass at South-Ex in New Delhi in an auto. That underpass is choc-full of graffiti. Lovers Graffiti. 

I found it so amusing. Is this graffiti vandalism or a celebration of love/a relationship? I have always found it funny the way, hearts are scratched on tree trunks, bare walls or arches and alcoves in historical monuments. Even disgusted. 

But now, I am looking at it as a certain kind of expression. Maybe you won't consider it art, but it is certainly one or two persons dire need to tell the world about themselves...and their relationship status! Heart-broken, single and yearning, lost in love....statuses long before facebook came on.....

Whatever their reasons....it's encouraging to see some public spaces vandalised. 

I drank endless cups of tea

that flowed from pots

and not cups....

tea, tea, tea

ginger, lemon and honey....

is the soulful combination

of divinity

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.....

.......while walking to naddi village, mcleodganj

“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”

--Buddha

....inside the Dalai Lama Monastery, Mcleod.....

[Photo Credit: Harmanpreet Kaur]

Wall-art in Mcleodganj

Spotted two places with wonderful wall paintings in Mceodganj this time around. One was a shop selling coffee, handicrafts and interesting crunchy blocks of cornflakes bathed in chocloate sauce.

The other a quaint tea and food place set in a garage of sorts, whose name I didn't notice or probabaly wasn't there. I was attracted to the art on its walls, and it was the most revelatory excited awe feeling to look up at its ceiling, to notice a map of Tibet or probably a way into the homeland, painted up there. That was my moment...another moment of nirvana. To sit in absolute silence sipping tea, admiring the ceiling and feeling the presence of two more individuals - a tibetan guy staring outside and a foreign lady deep in her book....each of us in our own spaces of mind.

It's all in the mind.......

I met these two nuns at the Dalai Lama monastery in Mcelodganj. I asked them to explain me a tibetan quote painted across the door of the monastery. Despite the language problems, they explained to me that if one lets go of all suffering from the mind, it can free you. Their faces are peace and joy personified.

Buddhism is so simple. I've been facinated with it for some time now, and the peace that one can observe in dharamsala on the faces of tibetans and monks alike, makes me wonder why we lead such convoluted agitated lives sometimes.
It's not easy to let go of pain, but if one really thinks about the simplicity of it all, it's easy to emancipate the mind.
I've always felt that life is about balance. And Buddha felt that the middle-way is the best way. All the excesses of life in a palace left him dissatisfied. When he stepped out into the world and saw suffering, he realised pain. When he penanced without water, food and even air, it left him feeling ill. The middle path--within neither extremes, was the way to live a life of happiness, he felt.

Is that tough to practice?

I feel it is not about "letting go of desires"...as I assumed it. If one reads the buddhist philosophy, you realise it's all about knowing yourself, crystal clear.

“We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.”
---Buddha

[Photo Credit: Harmanpreet Kaur]