Revolution 2012?

It was a lazy Sunday afternoon.....

As I munched on my lunch lazily at the dining table, my dad said " Solar panels are available for Rs. 60. wanna buy?"

I literally spilled some food out of my mouth and my eyes popped out in shock (not exaggerating here!)

Then, I told him atleast 20 times repeatedly "Are you kidding me? Do you know what you are saying?" 

(I felt it was a crime to say something like that, that too so easily!)

I asked him his source, he said "Its in the paper today!". I ran across the living room, nearly tore TOI and started scanning through it! I wondered how I missed it out. Eventually, din't find any such story, at this point my dad goes like "Might be in Dainik Jagran". And I was amazed again. So this time picked up the Hindi newspaper and it was right there.

Some shops in Lajpat Rai Market in Delhi have started selling 'Chinese' made cheap solar panels. How cheap?

Well, digest this: Rs.60 per watt! The article goes on to lament that how the prices have come down from Rs. 260 to Rs. 60. What I wonder is, how did our 'English' national dailies skip this story?

Can't wait to go to this market and see it for myself. Till then, I am still in disbelief.

According to the article, people have started flocking to this shop and are taking back solar panels for their homes. It says pay Rs.1100 to light 3 bulbs! Solar inverters are available for Rs.15,000.

Has China done it again? How do they achieve such a fleet each time? With every product under the sun! (pun intended)

Does this mean, finally this technology will be adopted by the masses?

Things that we need to find out: Quality and warranty of these panels? How much does the battery cost?

For eye-witness account, wait till tomorrow as I plan on visiting this place and finding out for myself, what really is happening! (Till then save this image and zoom in to read the whole story)

Betrayal....

This is dedicated to a dear, close friend who is fighting the battle of cancer. This was a result of anger and frustration and that thought: Why her?

It grows inside me,

I may not know!

where did it come from?

betrayal of my own cell

it will alter and control whatever was built since inception

who will stop it?

shots of chemicals and rays

will give me a second body.

but what about my injured soul?

who'l mend whats changed 

will I ever get to know, who betrayed me?

as I mourn the betrayal of my own cells....

I see green and blue for months and months

the sanitized smell is now a permanent guest

privacy lost, veins exposed

the nurse gets me the mundane fuel

on a fat bed I lose and thin....

a stranger stares back from the mirror

as I traveled a decade in a year.

the mane is coming back but the soul is gone

I call out to it, but the hurt fellow has left for far

what haunts me, are not the scars,

but the sheer memories of the life that was

will I ever get to know, who betrayed me?

as I mourn the betrayal of my own cells....

Art in Wasteland- The story of beautiful people

I am on a mission. To watch the top 10 environmental documentaries as listed on this website: http://green-buzz.net/environment/10-must-watch-environmental-documentaries-2/ 

I have already watched the top 2. I started watching # 4 Earthlings but couldn't complete it (about animal rights and it really gets brutal and sad after a point).

So let us come to #3 : The Wasteland (2010). I was very eager, since waste management and landfills excites me! (Yes, you read that right :) ) And i wasn't disappointed. In fact was moved by this movie.

So, Vik Muniz a renowned visual artist based in New York connects to his roots and travels to his homeland Brazil. His mission being: Creating art from garbage. So he travels to Jardim Gramacho, the biggest landfill site in Rio de Janeiro (70% of Rio’s waste reaches here). And of course a documentary maker documents his entire journey and this experimental art project.

The best part about this movie is ‘human connect’ element. One can connect with each of the protagonists (waste pickers). These ordinary people have extraordinary jobs. What we throw away as waste, is handpicked by pickers and plenty of items are recovered as recyclables (saleable and source of livelihood for them). They clean our mess, literally!

There is a point in the movie where the leader of the waste pickers association says that:

“People throw away books” (can you imagine?) which he then picks up and adds to his library. He shared that he was taught to value reading, unlike others who tore the books they found and sold the paper for recycling!

There are points in the movie that will suddenly transport you from a light scene and from lively interactions to glimpses of harsh reality, like a scene where a truck enters with fresh pile and all the pickers attack it as if it is filled with gold. At another point of time, a group of pickers guess which trash is from a rich household and which is from a poor one!! It does make you smile and also makes you wonder- How does my trash end up looking in the landfill? :) Also, it makes you feel small, because we are the ones who without giving a thought throw away things just because we can afford to! While these guys are the ones who command respect, as they sort through our garbage and give meaning to it, by reusing it.

The association leader also says "I can't complain, no! God will punish me if I complain". And look at us, how we go about complaining about every other thing in our urban lives.

As Vik’s idea shapes up, he captures artistic photographs of some of the protagonists and later creates the outlines and shapes of the portraits from garbage. So empty bottles, buttons, slippers, plastic, rubber creates an amalgamation of a rare art form which is created from waste! For this, the pickers themselves volunteer. How beautiful a concept and equally beautiful is its execution (have a look at the pictures). Not only this, Vik being a popular artist auctions off these portraits and donates the money to the pickers and their association. The first auction fetches $50,000.

The documentary is beautiful and the credit roll ends with an apt soundtrack # Look at us, we are beautiful...by Moby.

Greenhorns Festival

Yesterday, it was back to school for me. Not my school, but got a chance to conduct a discussion session after a movie screening of this animated movie called 'There's no tomorrow' for 8th standard kids. The location was Modern School, Barakhamba.

Needless to say, I was nervous! and that too days before the event.

I must thank my fellow climate champion Saumya for giving me this opportunity. She is the co-founder of the environmental social networking site- battigul.org and it was part of their Greenhorns Festival.(http://www.battigul.org/event/7)

I happily volunteered for this movie-screening activity as I love watching, discussing and making movies! Thanks to my journalism days and those discussions after the countless screenings of documentaries and off-beat cinema.

But, discussing a movie with kids was a first for me, and the challenge got me excited in the first place to sign up for this.

So, here I was all set after watching the half an hour movie a couple of times and making notes on the concepts mentioned in it. Simplifying the statistics and information for the kids to understand.

There's no tomorrow speaks about the increasing consumption of fossil fuel by the world and its implication on resource depletion and our future. 

Now, the movie even though animated had many stats and graphs (since it kept mentioning about effect on economy and growth) So I was apprehensive whether the 8th standard kids will be able to follow or not. So I decided to stop two times in between (at these section breaks) and I summarised what was mentioned and also threw some fun facts and asked these little questions on concepts mentioned in the movie like: Energy density, EROEI (Energy returned on energy invested), carrying capacity etc.

And these kids were bright :-D Initially when the movie was playing and the audi was dark, i could hear the kids talking among themselves and I was terrified that the discussion would be dull and silent, but I was pleasantly surprised as they actively participated and correctly answered almost all the questions.

As for the restlessness and not paying attention, its natural at their age :)

In all, it was a lovely experience and honestly hearing a short brief about me being read out at the beginning made me feel strange (in a good way) and nostalgic as I was on the 'other side' in school for the first time. 

I have to do the same at two other schools in the coming week. So, I hope to get better and more confident of myself. 

Till then, enjoy the movie:

My late night movie made me cry :(

We all are familiar with the acting prowess of Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson, just saw their highly acclaimed and popular movie finally- The Bucketlist. Where do I start from? Knowing someone closely who is fighting cancer can make you see this movie in an altogether different light. Tales of death and doing something meaningful before dying is familiar to me but this tale attached a different meaning to it. Realism and emotions is something that I like in my movie watching experience. Both of these were conveyed beautifully in this one.

I won't go on to give a movie review here neither will I sermonise on how life is short, so must be enjoyed. But, would still say one thing- We can make few days if not all, in our life where we strike off an item from our infinitely long bucketlist :) The bucket will be filled with our dreams and aspirations and also our desires. Life is all about going out to fetch them. Don't stop being a dreamer...and don't wait to get old to do things (there! i did finally sermonise)

The picture above is a screen shot of the Taj Mahal scene from the movie :) Indians are obsessed about everything Indian. right?

By the way am really an emotional person but a confession straight away- cried like crazy at the end of this movie and no tears din't stream, they flooded :| yes am still perplexed at my sudden outburst. Here is why I feel movies are so important :) rekindling all kinds of emotions within us. I can never stop 'experiencing' movies ... (And to tell u honestly, am proud of that)

My evenings....

I have a new room-mate :) Guess who? or guess what actually!

My birthday gift from sis- Xmini speakers.

So I am a music lover (mostly like hindi numbers, not that into english songs) who does not own an i-pod!

Whose speakers have long worn out and whose phone memory card has limited storage space :p

So given that situation, I-pod was on my wishlist, but since its a bit expensive, my sis suggested I rather spend that amount on a new phone. But guess what I don't want a new phone, am absolutely fine with my 2yr old E71! I mean phone should be used for talking and texting, right? Why kill the battery by playing music? Yes, thats me, I think that way :|

So, my thoughtful sis gifted me x-mini speakers (the round black thing in the picture) (realised after typing, thats obvious, since the other two things are kinda obvious :p)

So anyways, we discovered this beautiful creation (also a portable party material by the way to spice up your gatherings with awesome music sound system) at a cousin's place sometime back.

You should have seen my sis and me, we were so mesmerised and regretted on not having a high gizmo IQ.

But being the best sis in the world :) she just made my day. Infact made my evenings :) After coming back home from my internship, i liven up my room with music, my shell is alive again!

Right now as i blog about this, i sit on a rag on the floor with my favorite collection of songs playing in the background.

Welcome to awesomeness, feel blessed to be re-connected to music.

Solar for all?

These days we hear about green and clean energy sources, specifically renewable energy sources like solar. But, if we look at the target audience of these 'projects', it is either rural poor whose villages are unelectrified or we speak of new urban structures incorporating the same.

What lies in between or rather who lie in between are the urban poor. The rural migrants in cities, with no basic rights (housing, sanitation, electricity, water supply etc). So most often they fail to be a target of development initiatives.

There are plenty of hawkers in Delhi that provide us with basic goods like vegetables and fruits, clothes and other daily commodities. They use conventional sources of lighting like kerosene or pay a daily rent of Rs.20-40 for bulbs and CFLs running on diesel generators and thermal power station supply.

What if they adopt solar lamps? Not only will it make economic sense, it would also in the long run be environment friendly.

To know more about a story of such an intervention, watch this short documentary, tracing an idea of two young Master students:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvZV2tXyy00&feature=youtu.be

The death of a facebook account...

Hi Rozita,

You have deactivated your Facebook account. You can reactivate your account at any time by logging into Facebook using your old login email and password. You will be able to use the site like you used to.

Thanks,

The Facebook Team

Can't believe but i have finally taken this step :)

After 5 years of being on facebook i finally decide to quit. Atleast for a while, thats for sure. But then again, can we really be sure about anything in life?

Anyways, so the next step of this 'rehab' (yes its no less than quitting smoking!) is to utilise this freed time for writing and reading. As geeky as it sounds but that is the reason why I have deactivated my account.

My story is the same as millions of other facebook users- 'Addiction'

Need i say more?

Lately I had started feeling that there is so much more wiser and intelligent to do with one's time than refreshing your facebook page every 10min! or spending long hours doing nothing on facebook! yes doing absolutely 'nothing' consumes way too much time on this frankenstein monster created by zuckerberg.

So, here I am, from now on my stars will be blogger and twitter who will get all my attention during my rehab. Looking forward to the wiser me :) Hello - reading and writing!

There is so much that requires my attention. Coming few months will be busy busy with thesis, composting project and planning for June 5!

Last week along with turning a year older, I guess I got some wisdom too :) (Please bear with my obsession with wisdom)

Goodnight world! I hope I feel so kicked in the morning too....