This is rubbish???

"This is A RUBBISH video, Indian Culture is not about film stars and so called babes"

"phir mile sur a national shame..."

"Not like the old one.OLD IS GOLD"

"a racist oriented video....totally ignored the north eastern states...."

"This version is absolutely fake."

"new mile sur is highly disappointing..."

Above are some of the comments from the public for the recently made "New Mile Sur mera thumara" video which was released on the Republic day January 26th 2010.

While I agree with some of the comments I beg to differ on others. But the fact is that it is sad that many of us could only notice the popular Indian actors and some of us could notice a few musicians. The video is not about them.. it is about the diversity each actor brings in to work together. It is about cultural difference we have yet sining one tune. Did you even know the boxer from the far east state of Manipur? I searched her up only after watching this video. She is MC Marykom, the prospectus lightweight women boxing champ. The Sarod player Amjad Ali Khan, the Santoor Pandit Sharma or the violin legend Dr.L. Subramanium, do we even know about them? Sobhana is as graceful as she can be in the dance, KJ Yesudas pleasantness in his voice and Sonu Nigams charm in his. All this is diversity in a culturally different society. It stings a bit for not including major cricket stars or Industrialists, but I could compromise on that as it is brings light on other sports we pushed into closet like boxing, football and badminton. It is also true that even the older version had majority of casting from the movie Industry. But does a 17 min video define India or its spirit to be ONE SUR?

A country of more than one Billion people and if you count on each and everyone's ordinary life, it is inspirational. From the Mumbaikar who travels in the jam packed crowded train to work as a accounts manager in some corporate bank to the farmer in the Telengana region depending on monsoon showers; From the Auto Driver in Madras railway station to the Call center employee working all night in Bengaluru; Fishermen from Kerala and Goa to street football players in Kolkata; Taxi drivers in New Delhi, working household women in Udaipur, Tea plucker in Assam, Steel factory employee in Jamshedpur, Holy yogi in the Haridwar and Varanasi, cattle farmer in Bihar and countless other stories. In which place in the world can you see two families with completely different religious beliefs live side by side and share special dishes they make for their festivals. As someone said, A life time is not enough to learn about one Indian culture!! So be proud to be an Indian..

By the way the Bollywood you say rubbish, makes the highest number of movies in the entire entertainment industry in world. Tough I hate the typical Bollywood movie making and story styles, it is life line to a millions of people working in the industry and entertainment to close to a billion people around the world!!

Born to be...

Rain has finally receded to make my plans work for the last weekend (23rd and 24th Jan 2010). Destination Sea World. It was fun watching dolphins and killer whales, sea lions and walrus and their acts and shows. A couple of fun rides and lots of seagulls. It was hard to have lunch with seagulls gawking for my fries..nevertheless it was a fine Saturday... One the way back I was thinking to my self what to do the next day (Sunday) which was a special day to my mom as I was born that day abt 27 years ago. I would say special to me mom because she was the one who borne me for months and brought me to this world. To me it is another day to be thankful. So I thought for a long time looked online to go out to any place to get a good pictures..may be zoo or park or the light house....

So the next day I got up around 8AM with my phone ringing in a hotel room in San Diego. One of my friends wished me and then around me I see my laptop, my camera, a TV and remote and rental car keys. I switched on the TV and watched a complete replay of Australian open 4th round match Roddick vs Gonzales, then continued to watch NFL Live football game Colts vs Jets and by the end, it was already 3 PM..

I took a nice shower and by 4.30 PM was on the road with no plans to go by moving west for the beach to get to the sunset. I watch the sun go down while driving along the coast (couldn't get a parking spot) and then stopped to get some nice snaps. Then I went to a temple to be thankful to a power beyond my understanding. Had a decent Peserattu in Madras Cafe for dinner and retiring myself back to the hotel room and slept early watching some random episode of CSI or criminal minds.

Everyone is born for a reason, to be someone someday or may be not. Just like this photo there is a sunset and then there is a sunrise. The matters of the day is the business of living, sometime a purpose for the next day. I guess the whole day I kept hearing that I may have been born to be me.. a calm yet an adventurous person. This day has given me a chance to relish myself, relive a life long forgotten. Many at times I let myself out of my way to be someone else. But I guess I am born to be myself.. what is it.. a loner?? I am confused now!!