A story I recently wrote has been published on Pure Slush. Read it here: http://pureslush.webs.com/afall.htm
8mm film of my grandparents
Dadi recently found two 8mm film reels, which I happily agreed to digitize somehow. The first reel had “Republic Day Parade 1961″ scrawled on it – and later cut out – in an unknown handwriting. The address of Kodak Developers at Hornby Road, Fort, Bombay was written in my Dada’s handwriting. So I went into the process of digitization quite clueless as to what I would find.
What I found was quite astonishing – the majority of the film was taken pre-1953 (my grandparent’s wedding) – perhaps around the time my Dada (MP Srivastava) went to Manchester to study. When he was around 24 at that age (my age right now!). In the video we see my Dada’s sister Manorama Sinha, her dashing Army-man husband Narbadesh Sinha, and a whole bunch of their kids (Anita Bua, Prashant Chacha, Perhaps Rekha Bua and Shivesh Chacha), on a holiday to what looks like Logie Estate in Mussorie (so pre-1951 when it was given on rent).My Dada (MP Srivastava) is holding a baby wearing a sleeveless sweater. We can also see General SK Sinha’s father (according to my Dadi, he resembles SK Sinha aka Mane) and mother (name unknown – but Dadi remembers that she used to tie her sari seedhe pallu). There is someone who resembles Dadi’s father (PC Saxena – Inspector General of Police) – which means that that section of the film was post 1953.
Later we see Dada (MP Srivastava) posing with a lady – unknown – in front of some grassy type area. Near the river we see Dada (MP Srivastava), Ramesh Dada (RP Srivastava) and Vimla Dadi (married to Ramesh Dada) joke around in front of large river or sea. Some of the film could have been shot in Kanpur – some of it perhaps in Bombay or Cal – when Dada went/returned from UK by ship.
1. The way i did it – take a lightbox and take photographs of sections of the reel. then manually cut copy paste each frame and save as a separate image. then import the image sequence into a video editing software. painful.
2. the way smart people do it – simply use a projector to project the film and use a dv camera to record it! if u can find a projector that is…
I later read somewhere online that if your reel smells like vinegar (and both my reels do!) – it’s probably in terrible condition and won’t be playable on a projector anyways. So one reel to go…….! phew…
For the young who want to
By Marge Piercy
Talent is what they say
you have after the novel
is published and favorably
reviewed. Beforehand what
you have is a tedious
delusion, a hobby like knitting.
Work is what you have done
after the play is produced
and the audience claps.
Before that friends keep asking
when you are planning to go
out and get a job.
Genius is what they know you
had after the third volume
of remarkable poems. Earlier
they accuse you of withdrawing,
ask why you don’t have a baby,
call you a bum.
The reason people want M.F.A.’s,
take workshops with fancy names
when all you can really
learn is a few techniques,
typing instructions and some-
body else’s mannerisms
is that every artist lacks
a license to hang on the wall
like your optician, your vet
proving you may be a clumsy sadist
whose fillings fall into the stew
but you’re certified a dentist.
The real writer is one
who really writes. Talent
is an invention like phlogiston
after the fact of fire.
Work is its own cure. You have to
like it better than being loved.
—
Writers Anonymous: A 3 Step Program (Quentin Huff)
[Step One: Resentment]
Hi, My name is Quentin.
I’m a write-a-holic.
I can’t control it, can’t curb
the urge to write.
I need help.
I want my life back.
[Step Two: Commitment]
I write poems on fast food napkins,
with toothpicks, using ketchup for ink.
I jot ideas for poems
on my arms and legs. When I run out of space,
I use my shoes.
I make motions
similar to Michael Jackson’s moonwalk
when I need to erase.
I make up stories
while making love to my wife.
She left me. Who needs her?
She was suffocating my creativity.
I await submission replies
like an addict, hands trembling,
head shaking in disbelief.
Not another bout with rejection!
I’m manic depressive.
I’m happy to be here.
No I’m not.
I live for revision.
Instead of sex, I have poems.
I eat feedback.
[Step 3: Contentment]
As a recovering write-a-holic,
admitting my problem
has provided a much needed catharsis.
Joining this nurturing group has
(Excuse me,
but are you going to throw away that paper cup?
That’s good paper!)
taught me to reconcile my past
and move forward.
So You Want To Be A Writer (with Nanowrimo)
So You Want To Be A Writer
By Charles Bukowski
if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.
don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
—
Shilpi sent this to me a few days ago. It got me thinking about my writing process, my book in progress. I haven’t verbalized what I’ve done so far, where I’ve suffered, where I’ve gained. This would be a good opportunity to see my writing progress.
I started in chaos. No plot, no script, no idea. However, what was there was this urge, this drive. To do it and to do nothing but it.
Trying to make sense of chaos!
I have a problem. It is a problem of patience and commitment. A problem more of impatience. The drive to do something – anything – lasts for precisely two weeks. In the last 2 weeks of Jan, I edited films. In the first 2 weeks of Jan, I did animation. In the last 2 weeks of December, I jogged every morning. In the first 2 weeks of December, I sketched. In the last 2 weeks of November, I made political cartoons. And in the first 2 weeks of November, I wrote 50,000 words. Actually, something closer to 51,400 words.
The problem, as you can see, is as much a virtue as a problem. The drive to do whatever I’m doing consumes for the entirety of the 2 weeks. Won’t eat, won’t sleep, won’t watch How i met your mother. Okay, will watch a few episodes of HWIMYM.
So, in the first 2 weeks I wrote 50,000 words. It required a LOT of effort and concentration. I was inspired and encourage by Nanowrimo - (Inter)National Novel Writing Month – a US based non-governmental organization that encourage people to do one thing – write! A novella in a month. You can track your word count on their website. They send you short mails of encouragement – where fellow writers cry and crib, whine and vent. And encourage. Keep going. Don’t give up till the last word is down. Don’t look at the past. Don’t think of the future. Look at now. Write till you forget the world. Write till all that you see and feel is in the paper before you. And when you have the last word down, remember the world. Remember to breathe.
And I kept going. I kept writing till I had 50,000 words. Till the last word was finally out of me.
Of course, what I had written made no sense. It was a jumbled up boo of words. A story which had started somewhere. A story which had ended so far away that I barely recognized it.
But printing out the 137 single-spaced A-4 sheets was sheer joy. Just holding my work in my hand – the feeling and weight of it was awesome. Despite knowing that editing would be another nightmare.
The editing. Ah. The editing! No we’re not talking about grammar and punctuation. No spelling. Nanowrimo encourages you not to edit while writing. If you’ve written it, let it go. Go back later. Don’t get stuck on one word. Get the story out of you first.
The story was out of me. And I, the plotless, would now almost 2 and a half months later, begin editing. Restructuring the entire damn thing. It was such a bloody difficult thing to do. Harder than writing the thing, I would say. Trying to find a thread of order and semblance in a chaotic world, a world before light, was freaking hard. But it was harder because now I was reading my own words.
Because now judgement had come into play. Not only would be killing my irrelevant words (the words which I had previously toiled over), killing characters, killing scenes, killing chapters - but I would now begin judging everything I had written.
And the judgemental conclusion – what shit have I written. It is corny and immature. Sure, there are some parts which leap out at you – where the words are honest. Where there is truth and reality in the words. But the majority of it – is not real. It’s artificial.
Does that mean I give up. I think not!
I spent another 10 days in isolation restructuring the book. That bit has been done. I’m still not wholly satisfied with the structure. It’s slightly lame. But I will deal with that. I’m not giving up. And the beginning of the book, the words which I have stared at too much – have become artificial. Why? Because I’ve editing the prose too much. It’s too pretty, it’s too perfect. Too unreal. I will deal with that too.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
Mr. Bukowski – I’ve fallen into so many of your “dont’s” that I shouldn’t be doing it. But until I die or it dies in me. I’ll keep going :)
—
Now, I was reading a collection of articles on Smashing Magazine about Story Telling and User Experience. One particular article was super interesting in the way that it taught me something about writing and design. Where the two interconnect. The author of one of the articles said that design, particularly web design is just prettiness. Pretty prose. Pretty visuals. Pretty animations. Without a concept. Or on the other hand. It can be just concept. A wonderful concept. But without anything visually appealing about it.
It was like a story without a substance and only gorgeous prose. Or a story with an idea – but communicated terribly. Now a story, like any good design, needs both.
And the author of the article, a screenwriter, said that THE moment while writing a book or a screenplay for a writer is when he can answer the question – what’s the main idea behind the book or screenplay? Once the writer understands this, he understands why he is writing. Everything else will fall into place and make sense.
So far, whenever someone has asked me the same question – I’ve been very hesitant. Haven’t really conclusively said what it’s about. There were many issues, I thought. How can I clearly state one is more important than the other? I got thinking and came out with a list of what I actually wanted to portray in the book. This was what I came up with:
- how history occupies both the past and the present.
- how history exists simultaneously in two or more places
- how having everything can be as debilitating as having nothing
- how having every opportunity can be equally or more debilitating than having nothing
- how there is nothing to fight for any more
- how art has very little space in a commercial society
- how being an artist is impossible unless you have the financial backing.
- class matters
Earlier I thought that the love story in my book was intrinsic to the story. But now I’ve come to the conclusion it’s secondary. There is love, there is magical realism, there is death. But all these are limited in their scope.
What I want to write about is the struggle and the lack of struggle. What I want to write about is history – which in it’s circles brings us back to where we were.
Then I came up with these ‘prophetic’ lines:
The book is written, the story is yet to be told.
So much to be done! :)
how history occupies both the past and the present.
how history exists simultaneously in two or more places
how having everything can be as debilitating as having nothing
how having every opportunity can be equally or more debilitating than having nothing
how there is nothing to fight for anymore
how art has very little space in a commercial society
how being an artist is impossible unless you have the financial backing.
the book is written, the story is yet to be told.
Ludo & Lessons of Life
So it turns out being bored in Yelahanka does have some uses. No, not saving Sita from Ravana (YELA-hanka – no Sri). It has brought the family closer together (Nam, Dham, Me) and has brought back to us what was lost some decades ago – board games!
Ludo has been desecrated as a mindless game totally dependent on chance. But I would like to disagree. Over several carefully conducted clinical trials of Ludo in an observed setting, I have come to several conclusions:
1. When Nam, Dham & I play – Namrata HAS to lose. No matter where she sits. No matter what colour she chooses. Chance says that she should win won out of 3 matches. This does not happen. She loses after loses after loses. Does this mean that chance/fate/destiny does not favour her? Or that she simply strategizes incorrectly. A little bit of both would be my argument – although more likely to be the first.
2. It’s not random – it’s strategy! Of course, there is strategy involved in Ludo. If you were a soldier moving around squares with the license to kill, would you kill someone if you were vulnerable to attack? I think not. Similarly, with Ludo and its safe havens, homes and attack zones, there is a lot of strategy involved. But the end move, whether you pull the trigger, whether you escape from attack – is dependent on chance. Just like – life!
3. When the four people playing are 2 Indians, 1 Canadian & 1 American – The Canadians and the Americans will be too busy trying to kill each other (and saying “sorry” afterwards – apparently the game is called “sorry” in the ‘West’) that they won’t even notice when the Indians have won the game and walked away. In such a situation, Nam won’t lose.
4. When the four people are Indians – including a Marathi & a Mallu – The Mallu aims to kill and kills eagerly at that. Always the gold digger! The Marathi doesn’t leave his home state (yes, mumbai is yours! blah blah!). My luck seems to depreciate – but Nam’s luck somehow gets better but not extensively. The results of this clinical trial were inconclusive as the participants decided to eat my wonderfully crafted food instead of playing this great game.
5. When you say what you want and you mean it – you get it! … most of the time. In a certain trial, the Canadian, after suffering much loss, decided she couldn’t take it any more. She shouted ‘six’ and threw the ‘die’ into the table with much force – sending the die ricochetting off a glass – and hoo haaa hee – it was a six! Not once, but several deveral times! Similarly, in the trial involving the eager-to-kill Mallu, when the Mallu needed a three to kill and said ‘three’ right before rolling – he got it! When he needed 5 to kill and said ‘five’ right before rolling – he got it! The Marathi, by this argument, didn’t truly mean what he said when he said ‘six bitch, six’.
6. Elephant poo paper doesn’t smell – Our lovely, pretty Ludo board, dice and blobs are made of elephant poo by a company called Haathi Chaap. Poo paper doesn’t smell. However, feedback for Haathi Chaap – your dice aren’t amenable to much rolling – the dots keep falling off! And the blue and green counters look crazily similar – sending fears of colour blindness to your unwitting users. Not good! But otherwise, the Ludo board is very pretty. Elephant profiles, elephant back-files have never looked soo good!
Some People Laugh, Some People Cry
Based on a poem by Telegu poet Sri Sri. Set to Bombay and the music of Ray Spiegel. Random shots collected from all over Bombay – planned and unplanned – knit together in an attempt to tell a story…
A man investigates holes. They differ in size.
A man investigates holes. They differ in size.
A man offers anarchy for sale. He appears to be wading in space, searching for something with his long arms. He eats nothing but the giant lemon found in the lakes of blood in the hearts of the young. That too, only once a day.
A man spends time singing Raga Khamboji. It is not unnecessary to remind you that he has a flute with him. He has fingers only to legislate the ragas sung at appropriate times. At their touch stars catch fire. Lakes on the moon come to a boil. Winter begins to bud and my heart begins to offer marriage to the butterfly.
A man puts camphor in his eyes and red lead on his cheeks. He is a poet. He interprets the messages he receives in secret code and works for the air force. He is the one big reason for the fall of prices in the market.
A man meditates with a string of rudraksha beads around his neck. What’s the use of your knowing that there’s no use in my pleading with people not to break coconuts in front of him?
A man loves only one woman. She dies. Follow the rest of the story on the silver screen.
A man gets hanged. Society buys peace with his death. The law sighs with relief. Every evening a blind dog visits the spot where his blood was spilled and barks piteously. This man was so proud he refused to say he was unjustly hanged.
A man becomes great by making speeches. Another becomes poor by drinking too much. One takes a copper from his maternal aunt and buys a kite. Another grabs it from him.
A man runs away. Another screws up his life. Another gets married. One man sleeps. Another dozes. Another talks and talks away time. One man’s crying makes you laugh; another’s laugh makes you cry. I can prove this with examples
And on and on and on and on and on and on and on.
Sir, when will this end?
Son, this is endless.
No More Fear of the Dark
I came to Bangalore 6 months ago. To the northern suburb of Yelahanka to be precise. Yelahanka is a conservative place. My college, a design school, definitely isn’t. When conservatism collides with cosmopolitanism, a strange combustion happens. For one, there is resentment from both sides. Secondly, categories begin to collapse. Thirdly, a state of anarchy prevails before new categories are borne.
I’ll elaborate on these states in a later post. But right now I’m concerned about the state of anarchy that prevails as categories collapse.
Three women are walking home after eating dinner at 9pm. It isn’t late. It isn’t a long walk home. 7 minutes. It is, however, dark.
A man, a short man in a blue t-shirt, is walking a few metres ahead. Two women in front, one woman talking on her phone following some 5 metres behind. The man suddenly turns around and walks towards the girls. The women don’t react. They think maybe he’s forgotten something. The woman at the back doesn’t notice him. She’s on her phone. Suddenly, the man lunges towards the woman. Tries groping her breast, grabbing her breast. He’s on his feet. Yet he believes he has the abiltiy, the audacity, to attack a woman. A woman who is decently dressed. A woman who is not alone. A woman minding her own business.
The woman screams. Scared, the man begins to run away. The woman continues screaming, in shock. The shock is soon replaced by an understanding of what just happened. This is soon replaced by anger. She lets go of everything in her hands and chases the man.
They run. The man has a headstart. The woman is screaming as she runs down the street. It is a residential colony. There are houses on both sides. People hear her. People stare at her through their windows. The man turns around, thinking the woman must’ve given up by now. He’s shocked. She is still chasing him. He quickens his pace. His chappals break. He leaves them behind.
The woman reaches the end of the road. She is out of breath. She has no alternative but to stop. The man disappears into a park. He is free.
The women, and her friends, return to the spot where the man’s chappals are. They pick them up. They want to burn them in a public gathering. They want to humiliate the man who thinks he can fuck with a woman. They want to humiliate all the men who believe they can assault a woman, who think it is their right to assault a woman.
The women hide in the bushes, waiting for the slightest chance that the man returns. He doesn’t. They head home. As they return, the conservative neighbours appear at their doorstep. Asking what happened. They are too scared to get directly involved. They suggest the women file a report with the police. The women hear them. But they know better. They have been harassed by the police before – why? For walking home at 2am. Because the night doesn’t belong to women.
For a conservative man to see a cosmopolitan woman, dressed in jeans, smoking, laughing, confidently walking alone at night must be a shock. His traditional idea of what a woman is suddenly jilted. His category has collapsed. He feels a certain sense of insecurity, the possibility that there is a shift in the order of the world. A shift in his world.
What can he do? Can he embrace this shift? Obviously not. Change, especially when it is a loss of power, is rarely appealing. His solution: the transference of fear.
He transfers his fear, his insecurity, into the women. By harassing them. By attacking them. By making them feel vulnerable. There is a certain element of cheap pleasure in touching, groping, a woman’s breast. But it is more than that. As the women grow fearful, they lose their power. They are less threatening. Power returns to the man. He is now strong once again. The man and his ego now have space to grow bigger.
The women have two alternatives. The first is what our mothers tell us – be scared. Be fearful. Stay home. Don’t go out at night. Don’t endanger yourself. They say it out of concern. They want us to be safe. But this is not a solution. It is a reaction, a reaction that encourages men to behave the man more animalistically.
The second alternative is more radical. A reverse transference of fear. Go out at night. Put yourself in danger. Use yourself as bait. With the help of friends, male or female, catch the bastards. Beat them up. Take their pictures, post them up on flyers. Send them to the police. Humiliate them. Make them scared. Make them believe that they don’t have the right. That they’re not stronger. That the night doesn’t belong to them.
Reclaim the night. Your night. No more fear of the dark.
Note: There have been a lot of reports of women being attacked in Bangalore recently. While it’s a new phenomena for the media, the women of my college have been experiencing this for atleast 2 years now. There have been atleast 4-5 incidents a month, where women have been attacked, harassed, assaulted, by men on bikes or on foot. A vast majority of these women have moved away, to the city or to safer residential colonies. Running away is not a solution.
Tea with Krzysztof Zanussi
Krzysztof Zanussi is an established, ‘unentertaining’ Polish filmmaker who visited Srishti for a brief talk on 3rd March, 2009. He is a maker of movies for ‘refined’ audiences, such as, The Illumination (1972) and Persona non Grata (2004). Having not seen any of his movies (I’m not the elite 6% he caters to), I won’t be able to comment on his skills as a filmmaker.
However, having met the man, I shall pass some good-natured judgement (as I’ve already done) on his beliefs as a filmmaker.
Before I begin: I’m sure Zanussi is one of the most entertaining filmmakers out there. He was certainly a very entertaining orator. However, he kept iterating that he didn’t make his movies for the unrefined, popular, normally distributed audiences that wanted mindless entertainment. He was catering to the elite 6% of people who lie far above the mean of Gauss curve – in the category of the ‘exceptional’. Personally, I have huge issues with statements like these. Thus, the jesting.
We missed most of the beginning of his talk and were fortunate enough to sit through the question-answer session that
followed, as well as the ‘so-that-i-remember-you-students-from-bangalore-university’ photo session (which will help us get a place to stay in his open house in Poland!)
One of the things Zanussi stressed upon was the importance of the narrative. This is in opposition to films having visual appeal and no narrative depth. Zanussi incorporates a lot from his life into his stories. To the extent that most of his talk was anecdotal. So his life pretty much gets transformed into his movies.
As a writer, a writer of fiction that too, I often have pangs of guilt when I incorporate things from real life into my
stories, whether its things I’ve experienced personally, anecdotally or even read in a newspaper. Somewhere, I believe, the line between reality and fiction is blurred. This discomforts me. I feel like im stealing from world to another.
Clearly, Zanussi doesn’t experience this problem. For him the story is derived from reality, all fiction is ‘transformational’ – meaning can be transferred from reality into fiction. Funnily, ‘transformation’ literally
translates into ‘across forms’, which is exactly what Zanussi is doing.
An interesting point he made was about cross-over cinema. It’s the in-thing today. The west, ie europe, isn’t all that open to it so far. They don’t have the exposure to the east to the extent that the east has exposure to the west. We know the Iliad, we know Shakespeare, and we know our Mahabharat, our sanskrit narrative traditions of the sutradhar. So to be open, is much easier for us – than for modern day Europeans to know the Vedas or ancient Chinese literature. As the world shrinks, the art world has to remove it’s formal boundaries, has to become one. Jai ho, slumdog (who’s going to kill me for saying that!? :D )
One thing which I really enjoyed was hearing about zanussi’s experiences as a scriptwriter. When asked about how he copes with a writers block, he answered (to the effect), I’m like a wild animal. The cross over, from the real world to the imaginary world isn’t hard. But to stay there is. The imaginary world is all consuming, it is your world, you know all the details, all the angles, all the strokes, the colour of the ring in the hand of the woman on the left edge of the frame. When you are called back into the ‘real’ world, it is disturbing. How can you let go of your imagination, let go of that woman with the ruby ring, even for a moment, just to answer some silly question like where is the bottle of water.
I’ve experienced this sooo often. I get irritable, angry, become a wild animal, when im writing. To the extent the only solution is to be up all night when the world sleeps – or quit writing. Zanussi’s solution (not really a solution as a call for world understanding):
Leave us alone for 3-4 days, we’ll create a world in the clouds, be happy with it, and then only return to earth. Don’t force us. We’ll be back.
Zanussi doesn’t belong to here or now. He belongs to the time of my grandfather. He belongs to the old school of art – which derides ‘entertainment’ and survives for the elite. He wouldn’t say elite, he’d refer to his audience as those with
‘refined taste’. In fact, he even mathemetically proved his point. The Gauss curve in statistics – saying the majority of
people, whether it comes to cinematic taste or even, when running a 100m race, fall into the median range – the
ordinary, middle class – which looks for the ‘entertainment’ created by Hollywood or Bollywood. Then there are some
exceptions, those who fall far below the curve (exceptionally bad) and those who are far above the curve, those with
exceptionally refined taste. Zanussi caters only to them.
However, he does admit that on rare occassion, a movie meant for the ‘normally distributed’, does crossover into the exceptionally good. These are the gems.
So comes the question, who is this person with refined taste for whom Zanussi caters. In the olden days, says Zanussi,
it was simple. the middle class didn’t have money, so they weren’t catered to. The rich/ the elite/ the monarchs, the
maharajah’s – had money and fine taste.. or with moderate tastes which were refined by training. These people became the patrons of artists. So it was simple.
Zanussi didn’t really answer his question. But as a professor, as the owner of an open house for artists, I think the answer is implied. He is the patron that he no longer sees around him. It is people like him, believers, who will be the support of future artists, in whatever capability. Obviously, in today’s world of markets it’s not economically viable – not for the patron nor for the artist.
His last words of inspiration: We should look at what our fathers and grandfathers achieved. And then take it one step, or even two steps, forward. We should not be satisfied with the things that our fathers or grandfathers woudl be satisfied with. It is our job to take what we’ve inherited from them, and push the boundaries further. That is our duty.
He’s a great man. Even if I don’t agree with everything he says. He gave us his wisdom.
Image from here.
Believers and Non-Believers
I think that there are two types of people in the world. Those who have faith and those who don’t. Now I’m not talking about faith in the religious sense. Whether you believe in God or not is great or watever, I don’t really care.
The faith I’m talking about is the belief in belief. Do you believe in anything? Not to stand up and fight for it. But to fight within yourself for it.
Do you believe the art world sucks? And the corporate world is the place to be? Then are fighting for your position in the corporate world.
Do you believe in open source? Enough not only to take from it, but to give back?
Do you believe in yourself, that you are a great filmmaker? Enough to make movies, and not only to dream about them.
That’s the difference between do-ers and thinkers. Thinkers believe that they believe, but they really dont. Believer’s dont spend time thinking. They just do.
Ha. I’m finding it sooo incredibly different to publish such an opinionated post!
Aero-India 2009, Bangalore
We were there! Videos and Images coming soon!