The Elephant in the Room

(Inspired by Dr. Randy Pausch Last Lecture - Achieving Your Childhood Dreams - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo ) It’s 9:00 AM and I better be at my desk with my computer ‘on’ at work. Phew! Just made it on time! Yeah! After 15 years of formal education, 7 years of sleepless nights (I worked for a call center, quip!), I continue to run with the world. For what? To probably buy all the happiness, I can afford to with the pay-check I receive at the end of every month. To procure this happiness, I sacrifice my time with family; forfeit my family’s well-being and yeah social life. Not only disengage myself with my loved ones but also humiliating my dreams. When my 3 year old looks at me; anticipating her dad would take her out for a breath of air and hear her discussing her new friends and wonderful activities at school and my answer being, “honey, not today. Dad needs to rush for work” it’s quite an upsetting site. The pillar of my life, my wife I mean, though does not ever ...

The much hyped movie of the year on the back drop of Asia’s largest slums and rags to riches story. A story that percolates into the lives of the richly poor, the poverty stricken, combating to make their ends meet in this big money minded world. No sight of the Yamunas’ and the Thames’ but just a stream of thick fecal matter, polythene et.al, no room for the golden rays to penetrate into the densely polluted black, opaque waters. The inhabitants experiencing a frisson with hoodlum, political and spiritual wars, with every well struck cricket shot and the arrival of a world-famous movie star. The metamorphosis of Jamil and Salim in roughly 2 hours takes the audience into the lives of the urchins, beggars racket, land sharks, body shops and What money can do & what lack of money can do The movie won many accolades and the Oscars as well and had an equal share of criticism from the part of the globe that believed the city is shown in bad light. For all the politicians who think s...