Sunday, August 22, 2010

Peepli Live - Review

Though, i am not fluent in Hindi, i could understand the crux of the story, with a good friend of mine nearby, as the story unfolds in a rural setting, without grease paint.

Amid all the run of the mill movies releasing often, this one comes as a refreshing story, stroking you gently to the edge of your seat to think about the issues of farming and farmer lives in India. For any movie buff, this is something a reality check of agrarian crisis - India has been undergoing in the past years.

Brief story:

The lead protagonists - the farmers rumored to be dying for their unpaid loan, have not taken their lives. As the government is giving money for the died farmers because of debts, damage to corps etc, they hatch a plan of killing themselves, but it never happens. In the meanwhile, they caught up in the political and local leaders net, who mishandle them, while the government is mulling over industrialization. The starving media want to catch this story somehow- as this is a story of the live dying farmer. Neatly set in a Raisen district in Madhya Pradesh this film is taking you through the day to day activities of the farming, rustic life moments and the demeanour.  The climax ends with the lead farmer migrating to city for masonry work, leaving behind his farming.

A wonderful picture, it deserve kudos for the message it carries out saying from 1991-2001 alone, 8 million farmers left farming, according to census 2001 report. This is a very alarming development crying for immediate action, for the developing country like ours. A known saying in Tamil comes to mind, which goes as:

If a farmer does not put his leg in the farmland
We cannot put our hands in our food-plates!

As the urbanization, and white collar jobs swelling enormously in cities, the countryside jobs are losing their sheen and glamour. Adding to the woes are failing rains, calamities and climate change etc. Lets hope that the government uphold the pro-agriculture policies, and execute programmes in the larger interest of agriculture, lest we may end up with the computers on our food-plates, as many believe that technology will feed us!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Nagaraj Naidu

Attended the first death anniversary of maternal grandpa at Timmampet, a beautiful village bordering Andhra Pradesh, off 12 kms from Vaniyambadi, Vellore.  I remember him as a very industrious and nice guy.  He was a father of 11 children, a fatherhood feat nobody can imagine of today. We are not able to manage even 2 kids, how grandparents would have managed and adjusted raising 11 children. With aunts and relatives gathering to remember him and wailing, it was a day down to memory lane.

As a grandchild i have observed grandpa, who lived it up with huge family and seen great grandchildren, i admire him more for his attitudes and qualities. I happened to read a post card written by granddad to my paternal granny, after marriage of my mom in 1981. I found it very interesting that the concerns he had for everyone in the in-laws family.

Firstly, i have to thank granddad, for having educated me through CMS. I can't really thank him enough, though! In a parent meet in the year 2000, when he stood at the podium addressed the gathering with a classic 'namaskaram' everyone were in splits. Then, everybody turned to me and repeated namaskaras, which i cherish now.

The unfortunate demise of his 2 daughters at a tender age would have left him more agonizing. My mom, 32 years, died of illness, unable to bear an alcoholic addicted husband. And my buoyant aunt Humsa in her forties, died of fire-burns set by her own husband, who was also an alcoholic.

During the eve of the anniversary, I was lying in the hall,  while cousins and others were also with me on the front yard of the granddad's house, which lost the glory after granddad's death.   As i was gazing the star-studded open sky, the moonlight was reflecting on the moving fronds of the coconut trees in the cool air. The people who were more of agrarian then, have cultivated these plants, raised children and then were in a good society. Remembering the Kadapa slab in the left corner of the hall, where the grandpa used to sleep, i imagined as if grandpa was there. My sister-in-law and aunt, were sleeping on the corner of the hall beside us. Hearing this, at once, aunt and sister-in-law left hall getting frightened by my words. Now things have changed dramatically with increasing urbanization and white collar jobs. As i walk through the Coconut and Mango grooves, it reminds of his laborious years to cultivate them.  As i stay outside hometown, i always long and feel that this is place i wanted to live in, or the granny's lap i wish to lean my head. 

Many problems on the rise of distributing or inheriting the properties. We as responsible children should learn to behave fairly and treat the women heirs on par with male inheritors; taking care of aging parents with the due concerns, avoiding  the property disputes, preserving the ancestral properties from pollution, especially plastics, that is where we are going to retain the names of our ancestry. 

Granddad, may your soul rest in peace. We all miss you so much, maybe one day will turn up to the place you are right now to say hello. Until then, keep blessing us.

Monday, August 2, 2010

National Librarians' Day

Dear Friends,

August 12th is being celebrated as National Librarians' Day in India, in remembrance of national professor of library science, Padmashree Dr S R Ranganathan (1892-1972), who had spearheaded library development in India.

I request you friends out there, if you are associated with any library in your region; be it public library or academic library, pay a visit to the library and appreciate the library professionals and their service to the emerging society in national development. If we support and recognize the public service organizations like libraries, we have more opportunities to affirm that libraries are change agents in educating the citizens in public life.  In India, lot is to be accomplished, your appreciation and motivation of library services will go a long way to make awareness about the library services to reach the unreached.

In 2020, India is expected to have 574 million youngsters. There is a huge task ahead for librarians to cultivate the reading habit among them. Illiteracy, poverty and lack of access to education in still more prevalent among the semi-urban and rural areas in India. While the successive governments and department of culture have neglected the library development, librarians and struggling their way to create the awareness of reading habit among the general public with limited resources. It is strongly believed that the coming days will change the face of libraries as ICT and social media are a big boost to learning and education.

This small token of yours will help all the librarians and information professionals to keep good morale of their service, realize their mission and strive hard to reach out more masses in our country in the process of shaping our tomorrow's leaders through learning and in national development.

Remember librarians work for you throughout the year, won't you spare sometime to appreciate them on this occasion? Do you stand with me? Will you step out to acknowledge your librarians?

Read to lead.

Thank you.