BreathTaking place that I have seen recently

I have been shooting my diploma film in the Konkan region and for that, I have had to travel across the Sahyadri ranges everytime I was going to the location from home and back. During these travels, I used 4 different routes, and was stunned when I saw this on one of those routes. This place is amazing not only for the visual impact, but also the atmosphere there. We were driving through clouds for about 5 -7 Kilometres before we reached a steep U-turn, where we saw the view that we see in this video, and we just stopped. It was raining and that still did not stop us from getting out of the car to see the view, and feel the crazy wind in our backs, making it difficult to hold ground. Enjoy this video.

MV Wisdom - Beached in Mumbai

MV Wisdom - Beached in Mumbai
Originally uploaded by Kunal Deshpande

New Camera... New Video

Hi,

I just recently bought a Nikon D 7000. I bought the camera for its utility to me as I want to take pictures and videos at once, given the photo-filmmaking kind of work that I intend to do. I love the camera for its simple and powerful functionality. I have still to get used to it properly.

I took a few test shots of its video capabilities when it was just out of the box, and made this video :

Nikon D 7000 Test Video from Kunal Deshpande on Vimeo.

I am highly impressed with the quality of video of this camera. It is not too far off the visual impact created by the supposedly "better off" video cameras from Canon, Like the 7D. Infact, I find this camera more spot on than the 7D in terms of color rendering for video. There is hardly any banding in daylight, or any burning out of colors. There will be things that will keep getting revealed as I keep exploring the boundaries of this camera. As and when new discoveries are made, they will be posted here.

MUR001

MUR001
Originally uploaded by Kunal Deshpande

reflecting upon oneself....

reflecting upon oneself....
Originally uploaded by Kunal Deshpande

GEN0025

GEN0025
Originally uploaded by Kunal Deshpande

A Being in Bhuj

This was the second time that we had been to Kutch as part of the Non-Fiction Filmmaking course in the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology. When there, I went through a lot of learning about how a lot of things about non fiction filmmaking work. I had gone there with a completely different intent for a film, and came back with something that even I did not expect. However, in the meantime, a lot had transpired. I had gone there to make a film about Dholavira, an ancient Indus Valley Civilisation site in Kutch. However, after reaching there, I got disillusioned after watching the research footage that I had shot, and seeing the conditions more or less the same. So I thought that it did not make any sense to make a film where one could not really see anything in the frame. I had known, and Identified by then the proverbial "mistakes" that I had made in the first trip and first non-fiction film that I made, about BhojaBhai Meghwal. This time when I had gone there, I was armed with a more potent understanding of Non-Fiction film. This time, however we were given certain assignments to understand how camera and shot taking works for non-fiction film as opposed to fiction. This is how our trip here began. I made an attempt at it, and decided to just feel the moment that I was shooting. This was well received and appreciated by faculty as well as colleagues. I then, after the disillusionment from Dholavira, went and spoke to RV Ramani, one of India's most prolific and admirable non-fiction filmmakers, who was our guest faculty for this trip. After having discussions with him, I decided that I will make a film about the place I was living in, Bhuj. In certain ways, I tried taking the camera excercises forward, and in someways, tried to find a BEING IN BHUJ. There were times when I could achieve success in the path I had chosen, and sometimes when I failed miserably. But this was the biggest learning experience of my life for sure. This is what came out of it.

Thanks,

Kunal D

A Being in Bhuj from Kunal Deshpande on Vimeo.

Portfolio Shot 1

Portfolio
Originally uploaded by Kunal Deshpande

This is a photograph from a recent portfolio I shot for a friend. There was a great sense of pleasure because I was returning to purely still photography after a long time of not doing anything constructive....

Tapping Water

Tapping Water
Originally uploaded by Kunal Deshpande

First Non Fiction Film From Kutch

This is the first non fiction filmmaking experience for me. We were in Kutch as part of our non-Fiction Semester at the Srishti School of Art Design and Technology in Bangalore. These films are made with the focus being the Craft of the Region of Kutch being at risk of dying out. The film tries to understand what the craft means to the Craftsman, BhojrajBhai Meghwal, and tries to know him as well. First attempt at filmmaking on the field, and alone, this film has many drawbacks, and I would like to know what people feel. Also, Would like to share the craft with people.

Bhojraj Meghwal - Kutch craft films from Kunal Deshpande on Vimeo.

The Battleship Potemkin :

Battleship Potemkin : Dialectics & Socialist Realism:

- Kunal Deshpande

We will explore the Socialist Realism and Dialectics used in a 1925 film By Sergei Eisenstein, called Battleship Potemkin. For exploration of these two terms, we first need to understand what these terms mean. These two concepts are essential elements of Eisenstein’s body of work.

The term Socialist Realism means the kind of artistic expression that was used (especially in the Soviet Union) to forward the aims of socialism and communism. This was used largely in the Soviet Union after the end of the Tsarist period for propaganda of communism and the idea that everything was in the ownership of the proletariat (common people).

The concept of dialectics has its roots in communism and Marxism. The concept, in essence means that anything in this world (called the THESIS), comes into being with an opposite (called the ANTITHESIS). The conflicting nature of the Thesis and the Antithesis leads to a Synthesis, which is either an alternative remedy to the clash, or is an entirely different approach to achieving the desired result. According to Marxist Dialectics, the society is the thesis. The problems in society are the antithesis and the new social structure and form that emerges from the clash of the existing society and the problems is the Synthesis. This is an endless triangle of the clash between the thesis and the antithesis in society or economy, and the synthesis also has an antithesis and then leads to another synthesis and so on.

The film battleship Potemkin [N1] is a socialist realistic film, as has been said earlier. The film portrays how sailors on a ship by the name of the movie mutiny the autocratic and torturous leadership on the ship. This leads to a conflict in a town called Odessa where the people gather in large numbers to greet the ship, and they are indiscriminately fired upon by the Cossacks, who were the Tsarist guards. The struggle between the people and the Cossacks at the Odessa Staircase is what is going to be the focus of our study here. We will study the Soviet Socialist Realism used here along with the dialectic frames used by Eisenstein in the Odessa Staircase sequence. [N2]

THE ODESSA STAIRCASE:

The sequence of the Odessa staircase is the 4^th act in the film, which is made of 5 parts or acts. [N3] The sequence begins with text telling the viewers that the town of Odessa was with the sailors (in spirit). The sequence then shows a lot many boats streaming toward the ship with food and supplies. Following this is the portrayal of many people standing on the massive staircase and waving out to the ship. Here, in one shot, there is a lady who looks well to do by her attire, which is a white gown, standing on the staircase with one foot on a higher step and one on the lower. The frame only shows her gown below the knees, with an umbrella touching the floor. There is a woman wearing a similar BLACK gown in the right mid edge of the frame. Between these two ladies, a disabled, haggard looking man comes into the frame from the right. This is an indicator that Eisenstein has used to establish the social stratification in Soviet Russia. This also indicates, according to Marxist / Hegelian dialectics, that the women and the man are the thesis and the antithesis, and that the class-driven clash will yield a classless society, which will be the synthesis. There is a very notable distinction between the attires of the ladies and that of the man, by which one can infer that the classes of these people are apart, but even then they are together in that space to greet the people controlled ship Potemkin?. This unison for the cause of the ‘control of the people’ is an example of Socialist Realism as it puts forth the idea of control being in the hands of the people, as important[N4] .

The next dialectic is found in the sub-sequence of the Cossacks shooting indiscriminately at the people gathered. Here, the framing and continuity editing used here is replete with dialectics and propagandist realism. The shooting begins with a woman’s mid shot, where she is shown to be screaming and writhing in pain as if somebody stabbed her in the back. The shot is taken from a low angle, letting the woman cover the whole frame. Then there is a shot where there is a statue pointing ahead, in the left of the frame, in the foreground. Below the statue, the Cossacks are marching toward the starting point of the massive staircase, slowly taking space in the frame. People are shown running away from them, on the staircase. The camera position gives the viewer a feeling of being in control, or being the higher authority as we look from a higher point of view, looking at the scene as something that is happening at a level below us. This is because of the framing and the mise en scene, which is the arrangement of elements in the frame to put forth what the filmmaker wants to convey to the viewer. [N5] The sequence then shows a mother and son running down the seemingly endless stairs. (Eisenstein has used a very typical semiological “signifier” in the Mother who is a very typical character. The “signified” here is the typical helplessness of women[N6] , especially the ones from the lower classes in the Feudal Heirarchy, and their struggle against it.[N7] In keeping with James Monaco’s article on How to Read a Film, the film, as mentioned above, also does not have a vast difference between the ‘signifier’ and the ‘signified’.) [N8] The son gets shot and falls behind. The mother, upon realizing that her son has fallen back and is dead, gets very upset and angry, and starts walking back up the stairs. While she is walking back, she picks up her son and carrying him in her arms, proceeds towards the Cossacks. The shots that follow are taken from the side where the Cossacks are seen entering the frame from the left top and exiting from the right bottom. Here there is a suggestion that the Cossacks are the ones higher in the social order, wielding more power, and they are descending upon something or someone with deadly force. The mother is shown in the same way, from the side, walking up the stairs looking upwards. She enters the frame from the right and exits from the left. Thus Eisenstein establishes the eminent clash between the Cossacks and the mother.

The frame is as follows :

This clash between the mother and the Cossacks leaves the mother dead as in their quest to retain power and control, the Cossacks shoot her dead too. This was a shocking moment in the film for the viewers in the 1920s, when the film was made. Eisenstein, in his theory of filmmaking dialectics, states that any 2 shots are dialectic in nature, as the clash between the shots leads to the evoking of emotion in the viewer by creating shock for them. This sequence in Battleship Potemkin shocked the audience when the film was made. The shock was created because the film evoked the sense of Pathos (as in Aristotle’s views of dramatics) in the spectator due to the powerlessness of the mother. The fact that in the sequence, the mother, even though powerless, was still courageous enough to go against the Cossacks. By doing so, it proved the theory put forward by Eisenstein to be true.

In the following parts of the sequence, taken from the base of the stairs at eye-level, the viewer can see some Cossacks riding horseback and hitting people. They enter from the bottom left, and remain in the bottom center of the frame throughout the shot. There are people still running down the stairs through a lot many dead bodies lying on the steps. Some of them are shown getting shot and adding to the number of dead. This sequence has suggestions of how the proletariat (people) always got stuck & exploited between the power and force of the Bourgeoisie (privileged class of society).

The way some more shots have been taken is also in keeping with the socialist realist motives of the film. The common people have been shot mostly at the eye-level. The few more privileged people on some frames have been shot from a slightly lower angle, suggesting that their status and position in society is higher than that of the viewer. The Cossacks have been shot from a low angle and also from high angles. The switching angles of looking at the Cossacks suggests the viewpoints of the people, who look at them from below in the social hierarchy, and from the viewpoint of the higher placed people in society, who are above the Cossacks, in the hierarchical construction of the Tsarist Feudal social order. This portrays society in as real a way as can be done.

When the film was made, the Proletariat Government controlled the portrayal of society, and there was very little creative freedom that any director could avail while making a film. This given, the way the movie portrays the events, is very close to the real events on which the director has based his film. The real events on which the film is based are the mutiny on the real ship called battleship Potemkin while the ship was returning from a los in the Russo-Japanese war, and the subsequent clampdown on people by the Tsarist Cossacks during the Bolshevik rebellion in 1907.

Eisenstein was a supporter of the Marxist ideology and vied for a classless society. That is why he made propagandist films in this time period. The way Karl Marx had imagined a communist society was one where there was no stratification, whether vertical or horizontal. The society that he had wanted was a utopian idea. However, during the reign of Stalin, there was a certain hierarchy and stratification of the society during the ‘proletariat dictatorship’ as it was called. Eisenstein probably wanted to trigger the thoughts of the people toward breaking out of this kind of a stratified society and into a classless, utopian society.

The film carries a lot from the Semiological perspective of looking at film. As stated above, the film certainly uses the Signifier and the Signified[N9] . Also, like stated in James Monaco’s article on how to read a film- signs, the film definitely carries in it an ability to denote and connote. The connotation of power hierarchy is surely done by the angling of shots as mentioned earlier (People higher in social order being shot from lower angles, and subsequent lower classes shot from eye level or even high angles.) The Cossacks are shot from low angles and high angles, connoting the power that they have, as well as establishing the viewpoint, and drawing the viewer into the struggle by making him feel powerful by being above the Cossacks in the particular Statue shot as explained earlier. These connotations are called Paradigmatic Connotations, according to James Monaco. The arrangement of the shots and the story that they tell the spectator denote the struggle between the general peoples of Russia and the Feudal order of the Tsarist era.

This sequence that we have seen is a part of this film that has the most dramatic shock and a fast pace of events happening one after the other. That is the reason for choosing the sequence for the study of the historically important film Battleship Potemkin.

Night and Fog :

Reflecting on Night and Fog by Alain Resnais :

In Night and Fog, Resnais deals with the holocaust. He does not, though, deal with it in the institutionalized manner of the Jewish memory of the event. He chooses instead to use the world impact of the horrifying events of the holocaust, and construct a common memory for the viewer in the film. Except for one sentence, the film never uses the word “Jew”. The film follows an intellectual montage style throughout, using the juxtaposition of two images next to one another to create a meaning out of them. Jean Cayrol, who was a survivor of the concentration camps, has written the text for the film. The vocal narration of the film has been done with a very dry and seemingly emotionless voice. This was done on purpose by Resnais to make the viewers feel more of the cold brutality of the memory of the concentration camps and the atrocities perpetrated. Holistically, the film carries a very matter-of-fact view about the whole event and its horror. Michel Bouquet, who has narrated the film, was specifically asked by Resnais to have a very matter-of-fact voice in the film so as not to create a feeling of alignment with anyone in the film.

Visual Treatment:

Resnais takes the montage forward when he uses tracking shots to introduce the viewer to a space in the film. From the opening sequence where he tracks down to reveal the barbed wire before the pristine pastoral beauty of a vast open field, to when he tracks around the ovens / furnaces that were used to burn the bodies, to the last shot, where he tracks over the muddled swampy water over the graves, and along the dilapidated electric chair, and then around the ruin of a building of the camp complex. He makes the viewer feel the space by using an eye level camera height, and the track pace is of a slow walk around the space. The way he places the camera close to the fences of the camp compounds makes the viewer feel trapped inside. The light used to shoot the buildings would be considered a very “perfect” light, however, it gives the spaces a certain duality of emotion. It is common memory of what transpired inside those buildings of the concentration camps, which gives the duality of emotion along with the light. There are a lot of still images from the time used in the film, which help the viewer in visualizing the ghastly horror of the camps. These images, in combination with the film footage of the bulldozers pushing heaps of dead bodies into large pits dug as common graves for the millions who were killed in the camps. The images of the victims of het camps standing naked in large numbers, shows the viewer how they were humiliated. The voiceover narration over these images remains very matter-of-fact, lending it coldness as mentioned before. In the shot where the train comes into the camp in the night and fog, and the following shot of the same tracks in present times, the viewer can feel like a victim of the camp because of the camera angle and movement used. The camera keeps tracking forward, looking down at the tracks, and then gradually tilts up, revealing the main building and entrance of the camp. The narration over this bit gives the viewer the context to imagine. With the description of the barking dogs, fallen bodies on the sides of the tracks, and the massive searchlights etc, the viewer can very well imagine what the situation could have been at that time. In addition to the aforementioned points about the visual treatment of the film, there are other points as well like the shifting from black and white images of the found footage, to the colored images of the footage that he shot while making the film. This also lends a temporal passage of time in the narrative without mentioning it in words. The film never tells the viewer about the time that it is engaging the viewer in.

Temporal spaces:

Resnais in this film does not follow the exact chronological order of events. He was of the opinion that he was not interested n representing reality. Therefore he does not follow the exact chronological order of events in the film, while depicting the concentration camps. The film successfully establishes different temporal spaces by using color and black and white images for the depiction of the past and the present for the film. The film also shows the concentration camps in the present first, in the opening sequence and then it goes to show the processes that were followed in the times when the concentration camps existed. The film then also goes to show the unified and machine like way in which the German “Fatherland” used to function. In the scenes where Michel Bouquet says that “ The machine goes into action”, there are shots of hundreds and thousands of people doing the same action together, in the militarized fashion that was the mark of the third Reich. He then uses another shot, taken from a low angle, from the triumph of the will, where soldiers with Deutschland banners walk in a line to separate left and right near the camera, in a mechanical fashion, echoing the words of Bouquet. The temporal connections are also made by Resnais by using the common memory of the Second World War that people all over the world have. He uses this fact to create the ‘internal cinema’ or experience in the viewers’ minds. When he talks about the nail marks on the ceiling of the gas chambers in the camps, the viewers’ mind immediately begins to imagine how low the ceiling must have been. More so because to make a mark on concrete, person needs a lot of force, which makes it imperative that the ceilings were very low.

Creating Associations:

Resnais uses the natural tendency of people to his advantage to tell his story of the camps in Auschwitz. He never shows video footage of the torture that transpired in Auschwitz. But he shows images of men and women being paraded naked through the camp, trains getting filled to the brim with people and reaching a station with many dead in them already. As said before, he has married these images to a narration that is almost emotionless. This lends the coldness needed for the human mind to make an association of the dehumanization and the cold horror of the camps. He creates the association of the people in the camps being tortured and treated like animals by juxtaposing the images of them being packed into halls and buildings like animals, being paraded naked, and then the images of the latrines where one can easily imagine the way they must have had to sit right next to each other to perform daily chores. This way, the mind has the capability of manufacturing a memory for itself, by which even if a viewer is not completely acquainted with the details of the holocaust, he can construct a memory of the holocaust for himself while and after watching this film. However he does not use the technique of creating illusions at all in the film. All through the film, he only uses real images from the times when the genocide was perpetrated, juxtaposes them and creates a meaning out of them.

A new life has begun....

It has been a long time since I posted anything online. not only on this blog where it has been ages since I wrote anything... but also on other platforms like social networks and photo-sharing websites etc. I have been too caught up being involved in analysing and scrutinising myself and trying to find out who I really am...

Am I a social science student? Am I an upstart photographer? Am I a filmmaking student? Who am I?

I guess I am just a dreamer. I dont know what I am going to do next even at this moment. I only know what I am doing right now.... I hope to continue knowing what I am doing like I am right now, so I can have some clarity about life and everything in general. I am starting a new blog called "A new life".... thinking of writing more often on both the blogs. too long hve I worried about what to write and what not, too long have I worried about propreity and culture.... too long have I been afraid of telling a story.... not now... now is the time to get to doing it... see you all soon.... see me also on... rippedtiger.blogspot.com

Its All Becoming Filmy.......

Its all becoming a very filmy life currently. I have always been dreaming of getting opportunities to do something that I have always wanted to do. I had always said that I wanted my photography to get to certain level before I ventured into filmmaking. However there are always certain instances that turn your planning on their head. What is happening with me currently is something of the same sort. I had imagined myself to be getting to do some work with Mr Nitin before I got hold of a video camera and started to shoot any picture that was in motion (motion picture). But, one fine day I was talking to a friend of mine and telling her about the Thane lecture and the Vashi Judging of the Photo contest and everything when a junior in my college asked me about films and stuff. I told her that I have always wanted to do films, but I do not have the requisite experience for it. She however got me acknowledged about the concept behind making the film and how she wanted it to happen. The concept was classical art and its place in today’s youth. This somehow made me think that I could somehow do it and make a good thing out of the film. I have always wanted to make a film, so why not start with this. So that is how we got together to make the film. Where she had chosen people of her liking to work on the film, I chose one of my friends to work on the film with me as I needed an assistant anyway. I wanted him to help me while making this movie so that I could help him learn something about how shots are taken as he has been asking me questions about still photography for a long time. I got him along with me on board the project, and we both have been the most committed members of the team, of course, after our conceptualiser and DIRECTOR. The film is her concept and her baby so it is her job to give us directions about which shots she wants taken, although she does not understand a thing about composition and framing of a photo. She has made us very clear about the concept and the intention of the film, and she has been egging us on in doing this film. I now belive that we can actually make it happen. There is a saying, which says that ‘ Upar Wala Jab Bhi Deta Hai Chappar Phaad Ke Deta Hai’, which means that whenever the lord blesses us, He gives much much more than we ever imagined. We have already canned one interview for the purpose, got hold of one group discussion in one college in the city, and we will be having another discussion today in another college, which has been culturally strong historically.

The story and the concept of the film is not really what would catch peoples’ fantasy. For us, it is more of a challenge to ourselves to complete a film in a given timeframe and to make it as good as it can be made. We have had a lot of changing of ideas about how to start a film, and how to end it. We had been wrong there, because one cannot decide what to have as the opening shot of the film before any footage is shot. However being first timers, there are going to be quite a few mistakes. And the best part is that we are not making the movie commercial in any way. Me and the other guy on the team, Niranjan would like to make another film together. However I also want to make a film all by myself all the way. I have had certain ideas recently. I haven’t really been able to put them down on paper. However currently this film is the focus of our attention, and we hope to have it all done and dusted by the month of December. We do not want any hiccups in the shooting of the film, and we know that we would come with as good a product as we can…..

Hope I can at least put up the bloopers on the net for you all to see……

Bye for now, See you soon…..

Hi,
There have been so many things happening in the recent past, that i have hardly had time to come and write on the blog. However I have now found time to write.... I hope that I can WRITE ON!!....
I am waiting for rock on to release. I think it would be a nice movie to watch. Hope it turns out that way...

There have been many things that have happened in the last month. Almost all were positive.
I had the opportunity to go to the Rotary Club of Thane North and present a slideshow of some photographs I have taken to a modest audience of around 50-60 people. I then had to talk about the art of photography, its history and how it became popular etc. I also talked about why I chose to get into this line. There have been various reasons, however the most compelling have been the old OLYMPUS TRIP 35 Camera which my grandfather gave me, My mother, who herself has been a fine photographer and has encouraged me always, and Mr. Nitin Upadhye who has been THE inspiration for me right since the time I have met him. He has an illustrious career record, and has worked with some real big names. He encouraged me at a point when I was gradually starting to lose perspective and the general determination to get into photography as my mainstream career. He was the one who told me, Of course other than my Mom and my Dad, that I could genuinely do something in the feild.

I reecently also had the opportunity of judging a photography competition in Father Agnels' College, Vashi. It was a competition of still photos in one category, ad films in another, and short films in yet another category. We had a great time there and of course, Nitin's photos got a very very loud applause. What has egged me on since that day is, that Nitin was clapping for me when i showed my work also. I had been quite skeptical till then about what he would think about my work then, however, I felt relieved and a sense of achievement when I saw him clapping along with the others.
Nitin's work is something worth seeing and admiring. Every photo I have seen is AMAZING. He has been my guiding light, and will always be. I just admire him for how down to earth he is and how he can so easily relate to others around him.

All the while that I have ever had the opportunity of even being with him, I have had a life changing experience. He has been instrumental in teaching me the relation of life and photography.Hope I have this guiding light with me for a long long time. I would love to call him Captain Inspiration........

Thanks......

Upon reading further, you might feel that I have written nothing different. How boring you might say. Yes, I have written nothing different. A lot of people have said this before. I am just another guy saying the same old thing.

However I am writing this to let everyone know that I think too. And many times, I do think correct. Alright, let’s talk.

Recently, I have been having this thought repeatedly. Whenever I am alone, I face these words – ITS ALL ABOUT A CHOICE—

It’s been eating me for long now. Upon giving it some thought I have realized that it really is all about a choice. By ‘it’ I mean, for most part, the way we choose to live our lives. If you too try giving it a little thought, you just might feel that what I am saying is true. Otherwise, you would think I am a madman, talking nonsense.

I once had a huge argument at home and was sitting alone later in a coffee shop when it suddenly struck me. The thought. I tried to ignore it and convince myself that it was the other person’s fault and that I did not need to feel guilty. But it just kept coming back. It was almost like a zombie following me wherever I went. I was feeling low already so I decided to give in to the feeling and actually give an ear to what was going through my mind. In the end I did realize that the argument was totally my making and nobody else’s. I was the one to blame for all the things said. It was then that I realized that I actually had a choice to yell or not. I had gone for the former and had suffered miserable feelings. It was almost as if I was speaking to myself, talking myself out of anger, transforming into a calm, composed, good human being.

Then, my inner voice or my subconscious told me that it was all really about a choice.

Our life is really all about the choices we make.

One choice of ours can lead to happiness for ourselves and others, or could wreak emotional havoc. It is always a choice. Our name is a choice made by our parents. The way we are brought up is a choice that’s made by our parents. The morals and values we get at home is again the choice of our parents and other family members. What we choose to take from these values is our own choice.

It’s always choice to be angry or not.

It’s always a choice to be happy or unhappy,

To be satisfied or otherwise,

To be cheerful or not,

To share or not,

To emote or otherwise,

To be arrogant or not,

To be rude or polite,

To hurt others or to cheer them up,

To love others or to hate others…….

The list goes on & on & on….

What I want to say is that it is always a choice that keeps us happy or unhappy,

Tires us down or keeps us fresh.

It is always choices which make us who we are, what we are & how we are.

So in the end,

THERE IS NO CHOICE, BUT TO MAKE A CHOICE.

Diwali 2007 (02)

Diwali 2007 (02)
Originally uploaded by Kunal Deshpande

Shot of a firecracker exploding in Diwali 2007 in India, The country of festivals.

Shot with a Sony Cybershot DSC P-200 compact digital camera

Will be writing about it shortly.... There is a Story to it.... ;)

Hi people. If at all you have been reading this blog, I would like to say that I have not been coming online too often in the last few days and that is primarily because my college has started functioning again. I haven’t really had the time or the compelling desire to come online and write on the blog. I have not really been in the liveliest of moods recently which is perhaps due to the rain. This is one season which absolutely irritates me. I do not like getting wet in the rain again and again, which the rains, especially in the city of Pune make you do…. That is because they never stop and they are never heavy enough to stop….. It just keeps raining endlessly as if the clouds want to tease you. The sky always looks as if it is in the worst stage of constipation, which makes you feel even gloomier…….. The rains are sick here as they have always been, and will always be.

The other reason why I have not really been able to write much is that I was doing one-off assignments for a supplement of the Times of India’s Pune edition, called Westside Plus. I did two assignments for them and I have not got paid and my name hasn’t been mentioned in the second assignment of mine they carried in their paper. So that has been another reason I haven’t been in the best of mindsets recently. I have also started reading books on different issues and topics. I have become a member of the British Library in Pune. Alright that means, in all, it has been a busy time for me recently. Errrr, why am I talking as if I am a star or a public figure or something? I guess that’s the last thing I want to do, at least right now. :):):):):):):)

I am here to communicate with people. To let them know of what I do and what I want to do in the future. To let people get to know me better. Maybe I want to be a star someday. Who doesn’t? All of us want to be famous one day, to be rich one day, to be loved by thousands of people, to be the ideal for somebody in their life. ALL OF US, SOMEDAY DEFINITELY WANT TO BE AN ICON……..

I will definitely be writing regularly from now…. And that is a promise. Not only a promise to you, but to myself as well. Chao!!!!!! :):):):):):)

There are some days in your life when you don't want to do anything. Nothing at all. No matter who you are, what you do, where you are or anything. You just want to be at home, and relax, doing nothing, absolutely nothing. When one goes through such times, it is very hard to actually be at home, doing nothing. One at least takes up a book to read.

For me, whenever this happens, I happen to read a book which, by coincidence, moves me from the inside. In the same way, I had decided to be at home because my dad had asked me to be at home for the day. I guess he was not happy with the fact that I used to be out of the house for most of the day, whiling away my time doing nothing. I happened to pick up a book titled " A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini. I had read his first book, titled "The Kite Runner", which had been an amazing book to read. So I was sure that this book would definitely be above average. I took up this book yesterday morning, and by midnight yesterday, I was through the book. It is an amazing tale of average people living in Afghanistan during the uprising, and then the Russian invasion through to the American invasion of Afghanistan. An amazing book to read. It is a kind of a book that compels you to think about how fortunate you are, if you live in a country free of such strife and pain.
True that there is pain in every country in the world, however we, after thinking a bit, come to realize that there are very few countries in this world whose people are affected so harshly by the greed of a certain kind of men. Those who are worse than warlords, worse than a man who batters his wife everyday. The kind of men not worth calling men in the first place. Those who kill millions in their hunger for wealth and domination, power, fame, a place in history and what not. This book compels us to become a mother, a father, a son and a daughter all at the same time. I hope one day comes, when we would be told that this book is to be a movie. It would be one of the all time classics for me. Provided it is well made, keeping the essence of the book in mind.

A Must-Read....