My Crow Vision - Jay Nikalje

Soon after Delhi-6 was launched many of the youngsters fell in love with Masakkali. It is sign of peace also. However, people say it’s a sign of love in India ever since ‘Kabutar ja ja ja…’ was on lips. Beauty is always loved to see. Or is it that they love and find beauty in it?

Peacock has always been the one people would die to look at. Every eye has a sense of beauty.

My eyes find beauty in a crow.



Have you ever seen any peacock sitting still and calm on the gargoyles of heritage architecture? Have you ever seen a Pigeon swinging near your window when the kitchen smells of chicken? How photogenic it would be!

There are many birds like Kingfisher and Eagles to take in photographs of; but only a crow gives you humanly postures.

My habit developed with a story in which Birbal tells Akbar the exact number of crows in their state. I actually started noticing them and asked myself why didn’t I learn it before? Crows (especially in west regions of India) have developed a habit of noticing humans and behave according to them.

Some of them hang out on beach sides near food stalls, while a group of peer agers and some of the older ones love to stay alone in peace looking at the sunset. Capturing them in the camera is so much fun!

I know very few wildlife and bird photographers but I am a ‘city life bird photographer.’ How cool is that?

Many of the expressions are captured through the lenses but there is nothing like love in them. As PDA has always been an issue for every couple, crows find wires a better option. You might have blamed them when you had antennas for TVs!

They say beauty is in eye of the viewer. I tried to look inside. Crows might have spoiled seats of your bike and roofs of your car too, but at the end of the day, they clean half of the waste that you throw out of the dust bins on roads!

I don’t understand why they are called ugly.

Poor creature, a social worker, a guardian for cuckoo’s children and at the end of all, they are supposedly family ancestors in some traditions. Now this beautiful bird has a lot of importance for me. It’s not even that effortful to search for it.

It would be disrespect for a lover to give a metaphor of this name, because racism says it has to be bad. Maybe hence, it is an abuse to say! I feel happy to say beauty is skin in.

The Girl and the Guitar - Aayush Puthran

There are always some unheard vibrations of a strummed chord. The music touches you in ways unexpected and unrealized. It took me a countless number of steps in the long walk to understand the music played by the girl. And with every further meter I travel, the music from the guitar is rediscovered in my heart.

Being a media student, I often found myself in two extremes; unending conversations and killing silence. Travelling to ordinary places and out of those ordinary places, meeting finicky people, irritating the chaps who are at peace with their work, are all a part of the course. Maybe the hustle bustle of the media life forces me to retract into the peace of silence. The company of which was not something I had discovered before my trip to down south.

The maiden meeting took place when our bus halted outside a small restaurant at the outskirts of Panvel, where they served vada pav, chai, special chai and a glass of milk with half teaspoon coffee powder and a couple of spoons of sugar. Totally unfit for a South Indian to term that drink as “kaapi”. Worse still, to actually call it a “coffee date”!

She had set destinations to visit, while I didn’t have a clue where I was heading. Through the conversation, I realized or maybe just felt that the damsel’s vacation would be much more happening if she visited a few of the million offbeat locations present in the holiday destination. I offered her the idea and she accepted it without a trace of fuss.

Our bus came to its final halt at Madgaon, Goa. Till then our conversation had done enough to relate each other with our respective interests in books, music and movies; and my interest in her eccentric sense of humor!

While one of the tiniest state of the country was busy celebrating its own festive season, the girl was just happy unloading the burden of her past pressure. She was now a graduate and also a qualified professional Chartered Accountant. Only she knew what she would do the next moment. She wasn’t confused, just spontaneous! When she should have been running around for job interviews, she decided to treat herself with the gift of a half month long vacation in Goa.

The place had everything to make the vacation special; from music to dance to beaches to seafood to Fenny!

In those fifteen days, we travelled the length and breadth of the state, living in rented cottages, eating inexpensive and sometimes even free local meals from the Goan houses.

At times, fighting to separate the thorn from the flesh made us look terrible. Nonetheless, the gracious girl at the height of her courtesy, would decline the fish and simply relish curd with rice.

In our entire journey, when the conversations of the day would head towards an encounter with a sweet ending, the girl would play her favourite string instrument.

Most of her guitar notes were not even learnt; as she would constantly look at her book while playing. But she played her music as elegantly as they were ever heard amidst the woods! The melody of her voice was soothing. Unconventional yet touching!

There was something real about her. Something genuine about her words, something about her songs that touched me. In her case, the difference just didn’t lie in the eye of the beholder. The beauty was within her. Uncharacteristically, she was unfussy and unfazed for an early twenty year old girl.

Even when she claimed she was scared, she looked completely relaxed. I wasn’t like her; neither did I wish to be. I just admired the way she went about her life, her cup of coffee, her books, her guitar and her closed relationships. The girl was focused with definite goals, at times ambitious in a way of being blind.

Conversations would fail to stop even when our tired bodies cried for rest. There was a lot to discover in her and a lot to say about myself. As biased as I may seem, I didn’t expect anyone but media students to pay attention to stupid irrelevant stories of mine. Surprisingly, she did!

She spoke about her unending list of crushes and the one break-up of her life, her treasured group of friends, her ambitions, her fears and stories of a few movies that she believed, I was a fool not to have seen. We caught up with magic shows, Goa carnival, water rides and Dolphin sights. The night time were spent rather quietly drowning in her music.

There were times when we didn’t have much to say. And that happened on our way back to Mumbai. Days passed by, seemingly fast. Two weeks of unending travelling, crazy moments and the time with the music, all came to a sudden halt as the driver shut the door of the luggage compartment of the bus. The baggage stuffed with innumerable photographs and memories was locked in. Seated next to her, I dragged myself back home. No promises made and at the height of stupidity, no numbers exchanged!

While my eyes stay fixed on the words I type, my heart is still holding itself with the memory of the girl.

In those two weeks I faced the unusual hustle bustle amidst the surrounding silence and the melody of the guitar. The beauty was to stay. It would stay with me till the time I would discover her.

After all the time we spent together, there was something about her, still unknown. Not just her name, something more secretive, something about the girl and the guitar…!

All That Jazz n All

Dance As Perceived By Me through the Years

Dance has transformed lives, changed many and revolutionized some too. India has never been behind but has always seen the highest variety of dance forms in itself. Some come into the world with it while many just get it from practice or dedication.

I look at this picture and miss my Posing days!

What has taken Names like hip hop, jazz, salsa, rock n roll, Modern art and contemporary used to be just classical or western when I was a kid? Where we have the Jhatak moves still prevalent in our own Bollywood we have not gone very far off from our base. Bharatnatyam and Kuchipudi and Oddissi still stand as base for a lot of dance forms like Sanskrit stands headmaster for all the languages.

Expressions just take another level when they are accompanied with a song

As a kid I might have learnt classical and then got this strange inclination towards western just because the world was moving towards it. Have feet, Will Dance said the SDIPA and I followed. Now just a ‘Baraat’ dancer that I might be left with still would love to get back on stage with some practice someday.

An art can never die and this I believe is very true. That very line makes me go back to putting on my dance shoes (at least in my dreams!).

- Siddharth Aalambayan

                                                      The Lingo Kid

India's Got Talent - The Slumdog Way!

What is ‘marketing'?  To sell your product.  What is ‘good marketing'?  To understand people and sell your product.  Who is a good marketing person? An MBA graduate perhaps. That is probably the most common answer you'll ever get. But is it so? Well I don't think so. Marketing isn't just about the above.

Hawkers have a lot of gimmicks to market their products but none of them are very eye cathing.But sometimes they do manage to trick us into buying things we don't need at all with these gimmicks. This is the oldest trick in the book.

Malabar hill or Hanging Garden as the tourists call it is one of South Mumbai's hotspots. It Is packed with tourists, locals and a whole lot of hawkers. Many tourists purchase a lot of unnecessary things from these hawkers, so there is a lot of interaction between the hawkers and the m,any tourists from all over the world.gs from them. But after you meet Ravi , you may just change your mind about it all. So now you may ask who is Ravi? Well Ravi is a nineteen year old boy a peacock feathers fan vendor for the past fourteen years. You will find a number of peacock feather fan vendors at hanging garden, but there is something Ravi has that none of the other vendors have. And what is that? Well that is talent!

He may not know how to read and write, but he has a gift. Well all of us here in Maharashtra learn three languages according to the education board. But Ravi knows a variety of local as well as foreign languages! A polyglot, he is!

His family is originally from Gujarat. His grandparents had settled down in Mumbai around 60 years back. She used to sell the peacock feather fans first and then it became their family business.Ravi started selling the fans when he was just eight years old, he'd help his grandmother .Due to poverty his family couldn't afford to get him educated. As children in school all of us learn three languages but Ravi has learnt more than ten languages without even going to school! Well the reason for this is his interaction with the foreign tourists. I guess you could say he is a people's person. He can speak Marathi, Gujarati and Hindi along with some other local languages. The foreign languages he speaks includes English, French, Spanish, Russian, German, Mandarin, Japanese and many more. He has been observing these tourists for years and that's how he's managed to pick up so many languages. That's not all, Ravi also knows the currencies of different countries as well as their rates in comparison to the Rupee. All these little observations have not only helped his business but also make him recognized for his talent.

Ravi was just your average hawker and now he has become Hanging Garden's superstar. He has become a you tube star overnight thanks to some travelers who happened to post video's of him that showcased his talent. He has become very popular on You-tube. His video's have over a lac views in just months! Everybody appreciates his talent he is truly India's talent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULVXqYbUEsw&feature=related

- Sandesh Samant

P.s- Video courtesy- www.youtube.com
Picture Courtesy - www.flickr.com(moderator :D)

Somethings Just Don't Leave The Head
My Story Of The - CHANAWALA

As life goes by some memories just never seem to fade away. And some of our childhood memories are still fresh in our head. Even we somehow try to let them pass us but they still manage to crawl their way back into our heads .these memories are everlasting. We have a lot of precious childhood memories in our neighborhood at the playground and many more. Well my childhood memories are very precious to me too!

Memories remain as frames!

I live in South Mumbai. When I was younger I would go to school in the mornings and get back home at one in the afternoon. Then my grandmother would make us take an afternoon nap, and then I'd get up at four thirty in the evening and then go down to play. Those days were just the best, now there's no time to play at all! After we were done playing we'd sit under this big tree and chat about whatever was the latest buzz in school. Those days my parents would give me an allowance of five rupees and those days five rupees was more than enough! I would spend my allowance on chocolates and other little knick knacks but I'd always save a rupee to buy grams from the gram vendor.

I remember him so well, the old man that he was tall, dark and hair like silver wires coming out of his scalp. He'd come to our building everyday with his basket filled with grams. As soon as he'd walk through the gate we'd all gather around him and buy grams. It was so chaotic with all the little children getting hyper over something as simple as grams! What a sight it used to be! There were so many delightful memories shared over those snacks of grams. "Chanawalla Aajoba" as we called him had become a part of our daily routine. But then I don't remember how and when he stopped his trips to our building and it didn't really change anything for us. And then we completely forgot about him.

And then a week ago when I was returning home from college, I walked through my building gates and there I saw a tall dark man with hair like silver. Yes it was "Chanawalla Aajoba". I couldn't believe my eyes; I remember it like it was yesterday all of us gathered around him. All the memories of him just flashed before my eyes. We sat down and had a chat. I asked him what had happened to him over the years. He told me that he underwent an operation in his village and the doctor advised him to rest for four to five years. But he just couldn't sit idle at home and so he wanted to come out and start selling grams in the city again like he always used to , to see the smiles on the little children faces as he handed them paper cones filled with grams.

  

But unlike those days there was no one to buy grams from him. No chaos no noise, just silence and a basket filled to the brim with grams. And as I spoke to him I realized that times have changed and I have grown up now. I felt sorry for " Chanawalla Ajoba" and bought some grams from him a paper cone that used to be just a rupee was now three rupees.
- Sandesh Samant

It's not just about reporting, but is about adding a spice to it

We live in a banana republic which favours the ones who favour themselves and those who know how to (if i can say) kiss some ass.

The first two lines here may show my anger but that’s how the world is and we are proud people in it. Crony capitalism is taking over the country and all we do is stand and stare. Though we might be on a scale length from all grave dangers that can bring down a country but we still are not far. Journalism is a leg in between all of this that connects the body to its functioning of 'moving on'.

As a student studying media and wanting to get into journalism i fear my stand as i believe anything can be bought and sold in this industry and when i enter and write something where will my stand - STAND?

There are words we are made familiar to during the course which ask us to recognize the "who of communication". Well I say here, The who is the people who read the news that interests them and looks like gossip rather than reality. With cricket making more news than Bhagat singh's 100th birthday and media itself being a tool in a scam all we see are loopholes and faults. The editorial page just goes 'flip' by the time the reader realises it existed too. If we were to have TRP ratings in papers then I'm sure the Supplements would make more money than the headlines and any other segments. Well true that it’s a reader's choice as to what he/she wants to read but when we can have media causing upheaval in the same generation then why not use it as a positive and a better tool in this era and let this era be called the one that was actually the Golden period.

 

When Mubarak happened due to the media -Corruption, Poverty and a better country can also happen dude to the media. If the masses are all concentrated to one specific source then it is the media and specifically Journalism. Gate keeping is long forgotten and many other words are just part of journalism text books now.

Let’s dust the dirt off and begin afresh and talk of reality rather than painting it "yellow".

P.s - This is completely a personal opinion, it is not meant to harm any specific person, community or religion.

Art and funk just got merged through Graffitti!

 In the 21st century man has become not only social animal but he also has explored various avenues to express himself . For many ‘ART’ is their second name , be it singing , dancing , painting, or anything under the sun that is abstract .

One cannot categorize this as rebellion , its just a different language . some can relate and some cannot!. The difference is ,Those who cant, wonder . Those who can, admire.
An example of art is Graffiti, it is said to have originated in Italy as inscriptions and drawings on sculptures and walls . In fact , graffiti was found in 1851 in the ruins of Pompeii. Painting on sidewalks , and other forms of graffiti is still common In Rome today. Whereas Romans consider graffiti as a form of urban art , many westerners consider it vandalism unless owners give consent to the graffiti artists.

Bruce Dunn a young lad based in the city of Pune in India says “Graffiti is a language in itself , it has no limits!, and it never will”. He dropped out of graduation and subsequently decided to pursue a diploma in fine arts , at 21 He has established a company by the name of ‘OUTKAST INK’. Initially he started by customizing shoes , gradually word spread and orders flooded in . Shoes , Guitars , Walls , Cafeterias and Pubs too.
He has created a niche for himself ,and all this in the name of ‘ART’ . He plans on taking his art places , and inspite of just operating online(www.outkastink.com) he has managed to gather a huge fan following and clientele .
This is an example of how art has no limits with respect to cast , creed , nationality . Barriers are all in the mind , free thinking can liberate anybody , who knows , your next million might be lying in a paint box in your store room!.

-Abhay Raha

I study in Hogwarts. Really!

Yes yes YES! My college is Hogwarts (mind you, ‘is Hogwarts’ and not ‘like Hogwarts’). Really! As a kid, when I read Harry Potter for the first time, my feet did levitate above reality for a really long time. I hoped beyond hope generally makes you hope, I wanted that one barn owl to tap on my window; that one brown envelope with the Hogwarts seal; that one news which would confirm my admission in the greatest school of wizardry! And of course, schoolmates like Harry, Ron and Hermione; Professor Dumbledore, Prof McGonagall, Hagrid is pretty rad you know! And so I waited, for that one tap…which never came. *sob*

Life moved on and so did I. But funny thing about dreams and desires, they always stay in the back of your mind. So when I saw Wilson College for the first time, that voice in the back of my head gasped, “Hogwarts!” I was here, I had made it!

“Woohoo!! To all those who said Hogwarts was fiction, up yours retards!”

And I scored.

As the days passed by, I was convinced, this is Hogwarts. Only it was a tad more Mugglish than I had expected it to be. But whatever, life is never what you want it to be. Didn’t they tell you that? Here’s a sneak peek into Hogwarts. (So that you can brag it to your friends you know!)

The Great walls of Hogwarts aka Wilson

This was clicked by a fellow classmate. But damn! It captures the whole magical essence so well!

The Corridor

There has to be an owlery here somewhere...

 
The Great Sea (instead of the lake!)

I have heard them talk about the merpeople that lives in the middle of the sea in hushed tones! The fisherpeople roam around openly and so does the 'cou'ple :D

The Moving Staircase

The only difference from the book is that, this staircase doesn't move. But otherwise it functions pretty well you see.

Our Dumbledore

Prof. Sudhakar Solomon Raj! He needed a muggle disguise to survive in this world, duh!

This is what he looks like now. He keeps up with the times pretty well!

There is many more secrets about my magical wonderland! But some things have to be kept a secret nay?

P.s.:: The following post might have been a little too unreal for the most of you. Well, in my defense, I'm a tad unreal myself and so is BMM. And anyway, reality plays ping-pong with me almost every day of my life. Even the sea kisses the sky at a faraway point, why the heck can't I be unreal then?! Play along, will you?


Image Courtesy: The Awesomely Talented Students of Wilson BMM™
P.P.S: I don't exaggerate.

Koii jo mila to mujhe aisa lagta tha         

Jaise merii sarii duniya me.n giito.n kii rut aur rangon kii barkha hai        

Khusbuu kii aandhii mehekii hu'ii sii ab saari fizaa'e.n thi              

Bahakii hu'ii sii ab saarii havaa'e.n thi….!

Breathless was the expression on all of our faces by the end of the three days of that ride out of VES,chembur. No one can agree better than the C.l and A.C.l ‘saheb’ themselves. When it comes to Impressions the whole “I-we” concept also takes another level as this is where we are participating, competing and winning as a family, not just a class. And that is my friends Impressions for you.

It is one place that treats you as family, after Wilson. And it is that place where your own family finds some new entries into it! You win prizes and certificates as they forget to limit entries and exit. Contingent leader and A-cl is namesake once there, as we know no bounds of participation, PR or Madness.

All through the years it has been an FY festival and will remain down the line as one too. If the eye candy for girls last year was Chacko (name not changed to reveal identity) this year it was Mr.Sexy himself. None other than Leader of us all was wanted for ‘just one coffee’ by the volunteers.

It’s just not being at Impressions but also the ride till those 3 days that make it super special. Pre- Entries, Movie editing and photo selections need brain storming all of a sudden. All that jazz not because of perfection but because they are going in for Impressions Dude!

If I would start quoting the Super happy comments here then my article will become a book as I’m sure every one of us has had a totally blast of an experience at Impressions and has a different POV of describing theirs. Special, awesome and all those adjectives don’t come Impression’s way just because we have been winning it all these years but the fact that the Organising committee is like none other. The Chair person talks to you as if he is your best friend. When you are there the Admin desk is like the reception of a 5star hotel which was awaiting your presence and so on and that very Mehmaan Nawazi makes you come again every day, Every Year.

We didn’t only win the Impressions trophy this year (also) but we took back memories, lessons and experiences that were to make our life in BMM. Certificates came as a bundle into Yash’s and Aayush’s hands but the weight of transferring the responsibility to the coming batch is what makes the Feel more “baap”.

Impressions and its memories were fresh when our seniors showered more blessings by giving us Mosaic (Ruia College’s festival) too. We couldn’t have been happier and more eclectic. Every festival is like a treat to us because we are different. As someone has said “Generally every college attends 2 to 3 festivals, we here at Wilson BMM attend 11 to 12 festivals” out of which Impressions and Mosaic from the 2013 batch have become the FY’s responsibility.

Winning a festival and by a major percentage always takes the happiness to another level and when we win we make sure it’s by a percentage that no one has ever touched. Mosaic was won with a whopping 2400 points more than the 2nd place.

Visiting more than teh required number of festivals for a year has been our age old tradition and we at Bmm just love following trends, also creating new ones every year.

For the coming FY i would say its Mosaic and Impressions as the "FY ka fests" rather than just one.
Pictures keep memories alive and videos just give us the feeling that this was just yesterday like.

P.s- Not to forget, Cineaste- the festival that started this year and couldn't help but  have us from particpating and winning in it!