New year calmness

A new year is coming. On a flash back, every year for every body will be marked by some achievements,  marred by some aspersions and plagued by worries. Time will heal everything, even the deepest of wounds. Embrace the joy and the worries equally just like a solid rock, neutralize worries. The awesome song sung by Idina Menzel for the Disney flick "Frozen" is the right song when you are down. See the lyrics below.

"The snow glows white on the mountain tonight,
not a footprint to be seen.
A kingdom of isolation and it looks like I'm the queen.
The wind is howling like this swirling storm inside.
Couldn't keep it in, Heaven knows I tried.
Don't let them in, don't let them see.
Be the good girl you always have to be.
Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know.
Well, now they know!

Let it go, let it go!
Can't hold it back any more.
Let it go, let it go!
Turn away and slam the door.
I don't care what they're going to say.
Let the storm rage on.
The cold never bothered me anyway.

It's funny how some distance,
makes everything seem small.
And the fears that once controlled me, can't get to me at all
It's time to see what I can do,
to test the limits and break through.
No right, no wrong, no rules for me.
I'm free!

Let it go, let it go.
I am one with the wind and sky.
Let it go, let it go.
You'll never see me cry.
Here I'll stand, and here I'll stay.
Let the storm rage on.

My power flurries through the air into the ground.
My soul is spiraling in frozen fractals all around
And one thought crystallizes like an icy blast
I'm never going back; the past is in the past!

Let it go, let it go.
And I'll rise like the break of dawn.
Let it go, let it go
That perfect girl is gone
Here I stand, in the light of day.

Let the storm rage on!
The cold never bothered me anyway..."

Feeling happy, right!!! That is what songs can do to you :)

Amazing video of ingenious cartooning

Well, below is the video of a person drawing cartoons quite ingeniously. He starts by drawing a "dick" or "vagina" and then transforming them to comic figures or persons, very thoroughly done so that you will not even see the dick or vagina later in the drawing. The idea is just awesome, after all we have a lot of fuss going on about those organs. Everybody have them and they are just organs. See it to believe!!!

Another Valentines Day - Sighs!!!!

Another valentines day passes by......

It is an irony that we celebrate a special day for love while all days should be like this very day.........embracing the very happiness and pain love inflict. When we talk about love, it is all about happiness, it is a kind of delirium, but love is also about pain, the longing, loss of a loved one, the lingering memories and "the pain" it gives is a kind of sweet one, weirdly sweet. Just check out this Leona Lewis song, "Bleeding Love" which says it all. Dear folks, keep bleeding in love.......................

Check out the lyrics of the song,

"Closed off from love
I didn't need the pain
Once or twice was enough
And it was all in vain
Time starts to pass
Before you know it you're frozen
But something happened
For the very first time with you
My heart melts into the ground
Found something true
And everyone's looking round
Thinking I'm going crazy
But I don't care what they say
I'm in love with you
They try to pull me away
But they don't know the truth
My heart's crippled by the vein
That I keep on closing
You cut me open and I
Keep bleeding
Keep, keep bleeding love
I keep bleeding
I keep, keep bleeding love
Keep bleeding
Keep, keep bleeding love
You cut me open
Trying hard not to hear
But they talk so loud
Their piercing sounds fill my ears
Try to fill me with doubt
Yet I know that the goal
Is to keep me from falling
But nothing's greater than the rush that comes with your embrace
And in this world of loneliness
I see your face
Yet everyone around me
Thinks that I'm going crazy, maybe, maybe
But I don't care what they say
I'm in love with you
They try to pull me away
But they don't know the truth
My heart's crippled by the vein
That I keep on closing
You cut me open and I
Keep bleeding
Keep, keep bleeding love
I keep bleeding
I keep, keep bleeding love
Keep bleeding
Keep, keep bleeding love
You cut me open
And it's draining all of me
Oh they find it hard to believe
I'll be wearing these scars
For everyone to see
I don't care what they say
I'm in love with you
They try to pull me away
But they don't know the truth
My heart's crippled by the vein
That I keep on closing
You cut me open and I
Keep bleeding
Keep, keep bleeding love
I keep bleeding
I keep, keep bleeding love
Keep bleeding
Keep, keep bleeding love
You cut me open and I
Keep bleeding
Keep, keep bleeding love
I keep bleeding
I keep, keep bleeding love
Keep bleeding
Keep, keep bleeding love
You cut me open and I
Keep bleeding
Keep, keep bleeding love"

A touching video on bullying gay kids - What if being gay was normal and heterosexism a perversion?

photo credit: link

What if gay was the norm? This little parody video says it all, in one imaginary homo-normative world, what a hetero-person, a "different" person in that world, would probably feel and face: a parody on the status of every gay man/woman in this hetero-normative world. I think this will help to make heterosexual people more aware of what kind of alienation and isolation a gay man/women feel in the hetero-normative world, as I feel it is very difficult for many hetero-people to fall in the shoes of a gay men/women. But they may understand it if the story is told in their own psyche, in their own situation, they may relate to it better. Awesome video. Wonderful message. See it. You won't regret.

The IUCN Red List : Guiding Conservation for 50 years

This is an eye opening video by IUCN on animal conservation. We human beings are destroying our mother earth for a long time now and many of the fellow species extinct or about to get extinct. We cut trees, destroy forests, hunt and indiscriminately kill animals, pollute earth, all for our material gains and nothing else; we do almost irreversible damage to earth. Please think about what we are doing to our earth and do support initiatives like this. Make people aware by sharing. This earth is not entirely ours, but we share it with animals, birds, plants and other living things.

Art that craves your attention - Aparna Rao

This is an engaging TED talk ("The art that craves your attention") by Indian artist/designer Aparna Rao, about her recent works on cartoons that respond to the viewers emotions and mood.......wonderfully cool. For hearing the complete video of the talk please click the embedded video below or click this link.

A little bit about her, she is a part of the artist duo "Pors & Rao" specializes in interactive installations with electro-mechanical systems. The description about their art is fairly complex like "a personal exploration of subtle unconscious patterns and limitations that influence our behaviors and relationships; and the applied fiction or imaginative logic that makes them seem logical. The resulting work can be idiosyncratic, but still logical on its own terms.”The artist duo, Aparna Rao (India) and Søren Pors, (Denmark)

 

In this talk ("The art that craves your attention"), she convincingly simplifies the concepts.

Her art is dynamic, edgy and innovative. Like the ones below. Hear from the artist's own words about the installations (From another TED speech of hers " High Tech art with Sense of humour").

Uncle phone

 

" It was inspired by my uncle's peculiar habit of constantly asking me to do things for him, almost like I were an extension of his body -- to turn on the lights or to bring him a glass of water, a pack of cigarettes. And as I grew up, it became worse and worse, And I started to think of it as a form of control. But of course, I could never say anything, because the uncle is a respected figure in the Indian family. And the situation that irked me and mystified me the most was his use of a landline telephone. He would hold on to the receiver and expect me to dial a number for him. And so as a response and as a gift to my uncle, I made him "The Uncle Phone." It's so long that it requires two people to use it. It's exactly the way my uncle uses a phone that's designed for one person".

Sun Shadow

"This is a work called "The Sun Shadow." And it was almost like a sheet of paper, like a cutout of a childlike drawing of an oil spill or a sun. And from the front, this object appeared to be very strong and robust, and from the side, it almost seemed very weak. So people would walking into the room and they'd almost ignore it, thinking it was some crap laying around. But as soon as they passed by, it would start to climb up the wall in jerky fashion. And it would get exhausted, and it would collapse every time".

Upside down man

 

"This work is a caricature of an upside-down man. His head is so heavy, full of heavy thoughts, that it's sort of fallen into his hat, and his body's grown out of him almost like a plant. Well what he does is he moves around in a very drunken fashion on his head in a very unpredictable and extremely slow movement. And it's kind of constrained by that circle. Because if that circle weren't there, and the floor was very even, it would start to wander about in the space. And there's no wires. So I'll just show you an instance -- so when people enter the room, it activates this object. And it very slowly, over a few minutes, sort of painfully goes up, and then it gains momentum and it looks like it's almost about to fall. And this is an important moment, because we wanted to instill in the viewer an instinct to almost go and help, or save the subject. But it doesn't really need it, because it, again, sort of manages to pull itself up".

The pygmies

"The "Pygmies" was a sound-sensitive installation that we affectionately call "The Pygmies." And we wanted to work with a notion of being surrounded by a tribe of very shy, sensitive and sweet creatures. So how it works is we have these panels, which we have on the wall, and behind them, we have these little creatures which hide. And as soon as it's silent, they sort of creep out. And if it's even more silent, they stretch their necks out. And at the slightest sound, they hide back again".  

"we worked very hard to make them as lifelike as possible. So each pygmy has its own behavior, psyche, mood swings, personalities and so on. So this is a very early prototype. Of course, it got much better after that. And we made them react to people, but we found that people were being quite playful and childlike with them".

For reading more on the art works go to the TED speech Transcript.

If you are interested to read more about their art, check out Deepa Bhasthi's blog.

A message from Transgender community - Video by Ryan Mendonca

 

Trans-genders are an extremely marginalized community all over world, especially in India. They are born that way (most of them) and society considers it to be their fault. We should better blame "god" for making them "in-between". They are considered a "nuisance" by the society and largely abused. The men who verbally abuse them during the day will sexually abuse them at night. Whatever, they surely can grab attention, whenever a transgender steps into a public space, people turn their heads and stare. Stare and laugh are part of their lives. They don't care and they embrace their unusual self wholeheartedly. They should be praised instead of showering abuse on them. In this video, Ryan Mendonca beautifully utilizes their attention grabbing ability to good use, to convey a socially relevant message, a simple message of wearing seat belt and abiding to traffic rules. Kudos, Ryan!!

 

The message is in Hindi, but subtitles are hard-coded in English.

Awesome dance video

Another nimble footed dancer. It is simple and effective. I don't know this guy's details but he is definitely damn good. Enjoy!!!

Another one.

BTW, they are dancing to the tunes of Parov Stellar!

Om mani padme hum - Buddhist mantra sung by Tibetan Singer Yungchen Lhamo

Buddhist mantras are very good for calming down your mind. One of the famous mantras is Om mani padme hum. As his holiness Dalai lama puts it,

The first, "Om" symbolizes the practitioner's impure body, speech, and mind; it also symbolizes the pure exalted body, speech, and mind of a Buddha.

"The path is indicated by the next four syllables. Mani, meaning jewel, symbolizes the factors of method: (the) altruistic intention to become enlightened, compassion, and love.

The two syllables, padme, meaning lotus, symbolize wisdom

Purity must be achieved by an indivisible unity of method and wisdom, symbolized by the final syllable hum, which indicates indivisibility.

Thus the six syllables, om mani padme hum, mean that in dependence on the practice of a path which is an indivisible union of method and wisdom, you can transform your impure body, speech, and mind into the pure exalted body, speech, and mind of a Buddha "

Another suggestion of the meaning of mantra is,

Om purifies bliss and pride (realm of the gods); Ma purifies jealousy and need for entertainment (realm of the jealous gods); Ni purifies passion and desire (human realm); Pad purifies ignorance and prejudice (animal realm); Me purifies greed and possessiveness (realm of the hungry ghosts); Hum purifies aggression and hatred (hell realm) (Wikipedia).

Hear the mantra sung by the Tibetan nightingale Yungchen Lhamo

This was her comment on 9/11 incident; "We all were living in a dream. We often do. Nobody thought something like this would happen to New York City. That day, no matter how powerful you were, the sight of people falling from those buildings made everyone numb. I remember that feeling of helplessness. I think we all felt that. Then, of course, we all cried, no matter what country you were from. I moved to New York City with my son at the end of 2000, and America seemed like a monument or a flag to look up at. Now I travel the world, and when I see a city that looks like New York, it reminds me of that day. This song begins and ends with chants reminiscent of a puja for the people who died, with prayers to ease their passage to another world.... In order for this tragedy not to happen again, what are we going to do about it? We can only hope the experience has made all of us more human."

How True the words are, we are all humans and we are not immortals, there is no place for pride !!!

Jaw dropping National Dance Team from Georgia - Sukhisvili

Dance is a celebration of human spirit; it can inflict happiness, sadness or for that matter, any emotion. With the help of right music, dance can act as a powerful weapon to bring out change in people. Dance is a liberating experience and we can see that in a dancer's face. Dance may be simple or complex, performed singly, as duo or in groups. There are multitudes of dance forms, prevalent in different countries with varied rules and regulations or sometimes without any rules too. Irrespective of all these, dance forms cross barriers and geographical boundaries, it will carry you away even if you don't know the language or the rules. That is the charm of dance. An adept dancer transforms into you; in your mind, you replaces him with yourself. It feels like you are dancing there.

I recently stumbled upon this wonderful, jaw dropping rehearsal performance by Georgian National Ballet team (Sukhishvili). There are many videos of their performances in Youtube. All of them are wonderful, but this rehearsal performance I found most astounding. The simplicity of being informal and lack of props added to the charm of the performance. I was totally enamored by the dance form. Enjoy!!

 

Another impromptu performance and the drumming is just awesome.

"Because who is perfect, get closer" - an inspirational video by Pro infirmis

Sharing a beautiful, poignant and inspirational video ('Because who is perfect? Get closer') on physical disability. We should be thankful for our sound health and do not complain about silly things which we have not got. This video teaches humility at its best. Rejoice at your small imperfections (these days it is easy to go for a nose job, if you have ample amount of money), remember that there are other people who are in no way near perfect, but remains happy. You can read more about the video here. The video was directed by Alain Gsponer and the project was made to honour people who are diasbled on International Day of Persons with Disabilities (December 3rd). The technicians created mannequins based on the bodies of disabled people to raise the awareness that no one has a perfect body (everybody likes to think otherwise). Pro Infirmis, an organisation for people with disabilities, worked with people suffering from scoliosis (a curved spine), shortened limbs and a woman in a wheelchair. The models in the video are radio host and film critic Alex Oberholzer, Miss Handicap 2010 Jasmine Rechsteiner, athlete Urs Kolly, actor Erwin Aljukić and blogger Nadja Schmid. Restructured mannequin made accordingly to perfectly reflect their body shape was then displayed in a high street store in Zurich's main shopping street. The joy in their eyes was evident. See the pictures and video.

All models with their mannequins

 Picture courtesy (link)

 

Buddha's last words remind us of our own imperfection, "Decay is inherent to a all compounded things. Strive on with diligence". 

Yes, decay is inevitable and unavoidable. Just imagine how the human body turns into a pile of filth following death irrespective of the beauty of the body. Physical beauty has a huge impact on our minds, we draw biased opinions and conclusions on others based on external beauty. It is undeniable. A very concerted and conscious effort is needed to  see beyond that "matrix" of beauty. Those who are beautiful always have an edge on almost everything they do, totally undeserving at times, then it becomes a bias. Even parents get biased on their children who differ in their skin tone or facial features. Dark skin tone is equated to being dirty; dark skinned people are low lives. Judging people by looks is not fair, at least in my opinion. It is always a pleasure to see beautiful men and women, but their beauty is just a "random lucky gift", not a "talent". When you see Aishwarya Rai, Angelina Jolly, Hrithik Roshan or George Clooney, you are awestruck or simply blinded. But the smiles you see on the faces of the people portrayed in the above video are just "natural and real", not "plastic" or "coached" like our stars. We should respect these people, they mirror the ugliness of ours rather than their own. Compassion, empathy, more disability friendly spaces are required. Such attempts to create awareness should be lauded and welcomed. It is better to have a black skin rather than a black heart.  Do you agree? Please let me know your opinion through your comments!