Ab Montu Bolega : Our India, Clean India !!!!

Dear Responsible Citizens and Govt Officials of India,

The decision has been made. Our Honourable Prime Minister has given the wake up call.  The choice is ours – whether we want to be part of it or choose to abstain like always – It’s now or never. Yes you guys guessed it right – Bharat Swachh Mission.

There is an old saying that charity begins at home. Can we then pledge to ourselves to keep our homes clean – use dustbins at home or accumulate all the garbage stuff/dirt at one place and systematically throw the same whether at nearby dustbin or hand over the same to the people who come to collect garbage and throw away casually at a nearly neighbourhood place. By doing the same we are knowingly harming spread disease. The Municipal officials too have a role to play here – by ensuring there is a systematic way of regular collection of garbage and disposal of the same. Policy on Recycling of Waste is something which there is Government intervention required, but that another topic we may choose to keep for another day.

Let’s now move out of our homes, to our nearby public places – Park, School, Colleges, Religious places like Temple or Mosque, Movie Halls, Historical places – there is a consolidated effort required here from all of us to keep the places clean, particularly the places where kids go. If the kids will inhale dust and other unhygienic stuff, how on earth will our next generation grow healthy? Hence it is of paramount importance that these places are cleaned on a regular basis, dustbins are placed at every nook and corners of the public places, distinctly identified for use. 

Another major issue in India is how we treat our roads, fields, railway tracks as our private backyard. Littering them and using them as toilet (though one may dispute the alternative available) has to be stopped by all means. Building Toilets is one of the most critical matters of intervention and this has to be done by Govt as well as the Corporate through their CSR model. However as citizens of India, we too need to change our habits and make best use of situation. Instead of littering everywhere we need to find places to dump garbage in an organized way.

The next big issue is the way we use our river as favourite dumping spot in name of religion. The river is one of important natural resource and even more in a country like ours, where we are largely an agrarian economy. This is the most complex job to be done because along with us, industrial garbage too gets dumped in the rivers, which further pollutes them. It is a viscous circle and there has to be a serious focus and rethinking to be done.

There are plenty of issue to be addressed but we need to start step by step towards that direction. #AbMontuBolega is such a campaign, initiated by Strepsils which promotes to raise your voice for the right and against the wrong, because it’s now or never. The campaign in its first phase focuses on #SwachBharat and encourages citizen to participate in the same. To know more about the campaign, pl visit: http://www.abmontubolega.com/ or you can visit them at Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/StrepsilsIndia and follow them at Twitter handle : https://twitter.com/StrepsilsIndia

Clean India has to be a habit instead of one time activity. This has to be part of values and cultural system – and to make it work, let’s all join hands in a Citizen-Govt Partnership and make it happens. The buck stops here – with all of us.

Regards

A Citizen of India

Sprinkle of Love....

Riya was four pegs down. She could hardly open her eyes but never the less she was enjoying the music at the background. She hardly cared for the lyrics. One could imagine her state of mind, after four pegs down; she was almost there in cloud nine. There she was sitting alone at a pub, enjoying a drink with random people around. She was quite a confident young girl, go-getter by all means, till she fell in love. Love made her insecure given it was first relationship and she never wanted anything to go wrong.

But things haven’t been going her way. Riya loved Neil a lot and she knew deep inside he loves and care for her a lot, until a couple of weeks back. Neil had never hidden his first relationship from Riya but the face that he had come heart-broken from a seven year old relationship always worried her. It was a usual Friday evening at his place. Both of them were high and listening to their favourite Beatles, when Neil slowly started caressing her hair. His touch always made her nervous, but that day it gave her a new high. She drew her face close to him, put her hands over his shoulders and whispered into his ears the three magical words. Neil looked happy and high. Stroking her nose with his, he looked into her eyes, and said “I love you too Anu”. Anushka was incidentally Neil’s first girl friend.  

That one word was enough to bring Riya down many pedestals from a beautiful dream to reality. She just could not believe her ears. Her anger knew no bound; she simply picked up the wine glass, threw the remnants of the glass at Neil’s face and left the apartment. Neil was too shocked to react. Post that day, Neil had called and messaged her but somehow she was not able to forget the incident. It had housed deep down in her heart.

Two weeks had passed by. Riya had a fought a prolonged battle with herself but probably her bruised ego wasn’t ready to reconcile. But then alcohol can really make people do things they would not do otherwise. Riya speed-dialled Neil’s number. His number was not reachable. She tried again but was met with same response. She suddenly felt worried. She hurriedly dialled his room-mate who informed that Neil had left for Delhi couple of hours back to meet his ex-girlfriend who has met with a serious accident. She felt a strong punch in her heart.

Riya left the pub and started walking down all alone. The tear in her eyes, threatened to wipe off her mascara. It was almost midnight and she knew it may not be safe to stroll around alone in the street, even if it was Mumbai.

With great difficulty she caught hold of an Auto and reached her building. She didn’t know she felt happy hearing about the accident of her boyfriend’s ex girlfriend or sad that he went to meet her in Delhi.

As she was trying to open the door with her trembling hands, a warm touch from behind shook her up. It was Neil, standing in shorts, with a half smile. She looked puzzled. He gave her hard long kiss. She opened the door as both went inside. He locked the door and held her close. Trying to steal glances, Riya looked other way. Neil caressed her finger and hugged her from behind. Gently leaning towards her, he slowly whispered sorry. Several questions were running through her mind but she knew it was time to put them through rest. At the end of day, when it mattered, her man was with him. Riya felt secured in those arms and wished to freeze that moment forever.

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Gone Girl : Brilliantly Disturbing !!!!

Gone Girl is an unusual take on married life of an estranged couple and incidents thereon. The story unfolds in a thriller format, when one fine morning, the wife is found missing under mysterious circumstances. As investigation starts in anticipation of a potential murder, startling facts gets revealed one after another with a grand twist during the interval. But it is the second half of the film that hits you psychologically. Some of the scenes are so raw, that it keeps you at the edge of the seat, dreading to anticipate what would happen next. The film's ending is perhaps one of the most ironic endings that have been ever meted out and one can’t stop thinking whose karma it was anyways. 

The film travels between present and past, as it unfolds tale of the couple and their journey- from how they met to how they put up a perfect pretense to keep their marriage going, even when skeletons kept peeping out now and then. While probably a lot of modern tale couple will identify, the similarities end here. What happens next, is what takes the audience off the hook.

The film has been brilliantly shot and its crisp editing ensures that the suspense drama never goes off the hook. The film explores complicated relationship between married couple, twin siblings, child-parent and of course lovers. The film doesn't use background music instead uses sometimes silence and sometimes natural background noise to give it a desired effect. In several places, the director has used body language and sound effectively as medium of communication in important sequences.

The characters of the film are complex and layered, so much so that the darkness of one of the protagonist can actually make you feel sick. The psychological effect on the audience is paramount. The gentle cat in the house, who is almost a silent observer, is then almost a symbolic paradox, given the wildness around. The intimate scenes of the movie are shot with minimum nudity and rest has been edited out by Indian censor board. The film also occasionally springs up with unintended humor at the weird situation of the male protagonist. 

Loosely based on Gillian Flynn’s best-selling novel, David Fincher delivers an ace with Gone Girl. Superbly directed and acted by all characters, the real hero of the movie is the riveting screenplay which not just engrosses you and by the end of it almost engulfs you with its unnerving raw power. Yet another book that makes into great cinema. Wish Indian Cinema pick up some cues from it.