This is a newpaper cutting of Divya bhaskar.

The center part of the top of the page is article about us! Oh and in the photo, I’m there too, the only girl!:)
The title in the top-middle says: Online friends of yahoo, belonging to one gruop, made 4 short/documentry films in 12 hours of time!
More things, and translations of the whole news article will be the topic of next post! Kudos to all of us guys!! yaay!!!

Ekta.

Where is the bloddy democracy!?

Where the hell is the freedom of speech!?

If it was because they thought terrorists use blogs to communicate and spread, why don’t they stop emails, and for that matter kill the internet,phones, and even snailmails for that matter. I mean, no communication would surely serve the purpose of not letting any terrorist communicate!! It’s be pretty childish to come down to such level, but after DoT came out with this ban, I’ve started to doubt the responsible people’s IQ levels!

Every technological invention has its advantages, which can be used for good or a bad purpose. And you cant really stop people from using that technology. Its a personal thing, a pure matter of choice, and individually one should be punished for making a wrongful or sinful choice. Why should a whole community suffer from a few bad people’s wrong use of it. Where is our india going if this is what the outcome is after 7/11 mumbai blasts!

I’m so pissed off, and am not going to keep it cool or not talk abt it. Wether if that means DoT have to ban my blog, or put me behind the bars, because I’m going to fight for this till the ban is taken off!! This is totally unacceptable for me, and should be the same for the other indian genuine bloggers who use public blogging sites like typepad and blogger.com

What surprises me more is the dictatorship that they are showing off by simply doing it. Haven’t they ever thought of any consequences? Aren’t they smart enough to see where this ban will lead to? Do they really think indian people will take it lying down??

I mean, this happened the second time in less than a month or two, in my enviornment. First was the ban on the movie “fanna” which was totally childish and for political reasons. I admire Narendra modi for what he’s doing, what he has done so far, And he wasnt even actively involved in banning that movie, still his name was used as such. And unfortunately Fanna was not released in any of the theatres around, which to me, came out like a shock. If it was a public protest, they should have let fanaa release, and let people decide whether they want to watch it or not, and then people could have shown the dislike for Aamir Khan’s statement by not going to watch fanna. But putting a ban and not letting it release, is like a large knife cut on the freedom of the choice for people here.

And this is repeating again, this time with a second controvercial issue, blogging used by terrorist. Its even sounding so funny to me, i cant even imagine being it true. I blog from like 3 yrs now. I have been surfing and bloghopping a lot. And so far, I’ve never seen any terrorist write on a blog about when/where/how he is going to blast such and such place at such and such time. [ infact, if anyone who reads me, has seen someting like it, let me know..I'd love to see that blog] No kidding, but that notion seems so ridiculous to me.

Anyhow, If they think, banning a blog means they can ’stop’ terrorists communication, then they are not just acting childish, they would prove to be having IQ in negative numbers. Why blogs, I know i sound quite repeatative, but still.. Why?!

*Sighs*. Why none of the DoT people has ever thought of putting a proposal of banning weapon making?!

For every girl who is tired of being weak when she is strong, there is a boy tired of appearing strong when he is vulnerable.

For every boy who is burdened with the constant expectation of knowing everything, there is a girl who is tired of people not trusting her intelligence.

For every girl who is tired of being called over-sensitive, there is a boy who fears to be gentile, to weep.

For every boy whose competition is the only way to prove his masculinity, there is a girl who is called unfeminine when she competes.

For every girl who throws out her e-z-bake oven, there is a boy who wishes to find one.

For every boy struggling not to let advertising dictate his desires, there is a girl facing the ad industry’s attacks on her self-esteem.

For every girl who takes a step toward her liberation, there is a boy who finds the way to freedom a little bit easier.

… a walk.. hand in hand.

The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog.

 The man will be there to feed the dog, and the dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipments.

Disclaimer: Whatever written in this post, is just my perception. Its not written with contempt against any people or any NGOs whatsoever. Its just how i think, and it should be taken with a pinch of salt.

I’ve nothing against social work. Even though i define my self as an individual, driven by my selfishness, i still hold no contempt against NGOs and what they do. Even i admire a few NGOs that do real good work, like Redcorss. But a few others look like they’re actually doing bad to the society. And thats why I’ve always been skeptical about joining an NGO as a volunteer.

Recently I was proved right at my decision once more. An NGO which is connected to a few members in the photography club that i’m a part of, undertook a really silly activity in the name of charity and social work. They temporarily gave cameras to slum children, saying they wanted to teach them photography. May be they had a real good reason behind why they thought THAT was what those children needed! All i can think of is, the people who came up with this idea, were just having fun trying to act a superpower god figure. What they wanted to give was a moment of happiness. But what they did not understand was that, they were giving those children an impossible desire, which would then be a corrosive grief. The desire to have confort of cultivating an expensive hobby as PHOTOGRAPHY. I mean, really, do those children need that more than they need education, food, or work to earn money?

What makes me think right now is some poor kid’s mental dillema that i could hear in my head, so clearly, like he was shouting in my ears. After having touched that camera, having seen the miracle of capturing a moment in an 50 grand priced DSLR, when the camera was taken away from him, his happiness was replaced by thousand times more misery. He would then sit in a corner, and hate his life, hate his fate, for not having those comfort those guys had, who had the camera. He would remember the last time when he felt similarly sad, that was when some lady took him in her car for a drive. A big AC car that he had seen only in ads in those torn newspapers that he used, to cover himself while sleeping due to the lack of blankets. THAT car was now around him, in fact he was sitting inside. He was happy, never happier. But when the lady was gone, he was back to his life where he didn’t even have a bicycle to call his own. It was not his fault that he was born poor, but then he started to think may be it was. May be everything/everyone, even God was against him, that he didn’t have the luxury that lady had.

What he failed to realise was that the lady EARNed that luxury her self, the lady wasn’t born rich. But he was miserable, ignorant of that reality in life, that things aren’t always handed down, given to us, But we have to earn them. His childish mind was in utter torment, with the question “wHY?”.

The happiness of sitting inside an AC car, was gone, right then and there.

I’d not do that to a kid. That sadness is not worth the moment of happiness.
I’d not join a NGO which does this to a kid.

Better i’d teach some kids some sort of small level art, that could earn him some money, some food. And then see the happiness on his face that he EARNED it himself. That is much better in a long run then to just those singular moment of happiness.

Ekta.