from an article from the August Scientific American on Facing the Freshwater Crisis
Jordan's Flickr Photostream
all cool boys come on make some noise and say…
Monday, August 25th, 2008
most north americans would struggle to understand the importance that film plays in contemporary indian life. bollywood is omnipresent throughout the world’s most diverse country: bollywood stars grace billboards, splash across newspaper headlines, and own cricket teams. bollywood itself isn’t merely cinema, but a total business/entertainment experience that inherently includes music videos, ringtones, merchandising as part of the method of expression as opposed to some post-release side effect. this media is devoured by an imagery (and social activity) hungry public. while i was in ahmedabad, the public realm debated whether movie theatres should be open 24 hours, in order to sustain the city’s bollywood addiction.
in itself, however, the relationship to film seemed much different for indians than for north americans. the cinema in india is more of a meeting place, a spot where pre-marriage-aged boys and girls could spend time in relative darkness and anonymity. the plot is generally not the point - most bollywood movies center on a handful of derivative themes, interrupted only by rich colour dance scenes that bear only a cursory relationship to whatever was going on before and after. india is home to a rich history of filmmakers capable of makin excellent commentary on contemporary indian society, but for the massive majority, pop, colour, sexuality, and music seem to be enough to keep them coming back to the cinema weekend after weekend. the cinema itself is a sensational experience, filled with talking, ringing cellphones, jeering at the screen, and, of course, singing; pop music is generally disseminated exclusively through current film. (in that regard, bollywood provides an interesting vision of the future to a north american record industry historically predicated on declining album sales.)
we are so fortunate to live in a society where we can sample the best cinema from around the world. but for something that isn’t the best, but is definitely lots of fun, check out ‘om shanti om’, ‘dhoom 2′, ‘jannet’, or some of the other hit bollywood flicks from the last few years. here’s a couple highlights of some of my favourite songs:
the main character in this clip (in the suit with the red collar) is shah rukh khan, the king of bollywood cinema.
tibet
Wednesday, August 20th, 2008
i had the incredible good fortune of seeing the dalai lama on the day before i left india. the dalai lama - as head of the tibetan government-in-exile - spends a good portion of the year in his adopted home, mcleod ganj, a small village near to dharamsala, about 15 hours bus from delhi. mcleod ganj is magnificently perched on a mountain ridge 1800m above sea level, surrounded by lush green forest and spectacular waterfalls; it is a great place to spend a week, month, or year, and is accordingly filled with foreigners, many of whom graciously donate their time to the local tibetan community in exile.
more than 30,000 tibetans live in mcleod ganj, part of a diaspora that numbers into the hundreds of thousands. travel for tibetans in china is highly restricted; the vast majority of the diaspora were forced to brave the high himlayan passes to escape tibet and seek asylum in india and other countries around the world. many of the tibetans in mcleod are working in government, ngos, or in the monastery; sadly, many are dealing poorly with the internal effects of losing a homeland. yet mcleod is unconditionally inspiring: hundreds of foreigners live year round in mcleod to provide education and technical skills that will help ease the adjustment period. the spirit is one of hope, and in a place so inspired by love and compassion, it’s hard not to get caught in the idealism.
most optimistic of all is the dalai lama, who overwhelmed my experience with his serenity, laughter, and smile. the dalai lama arranges public teachings several times annually to discuss varied topics in buddhism; the dalai lama is the rare political leader who unselfconsciously integrates his spiritual belief into his political affairs. nothing i can say about him can do justice to the power of experiencing his presence; his baritone voice sang with emotion and understanding that i am not poetic enough to describe. nor am i well-versed enough in buddhism to responsibly recount his teachings. but the experience was exceptional, and it inspired a deep interest in the pursuit of further awakening and understanding.
nearly four weeks earlier, i stopped in shimla, a regional capital high in the mountains, en route to the high valleys of the transhimalaya. tibetans had come from across india to participate in a peaceful protest, similar to ones that had been broken up by chinese soldiers in tibet earlier this year. while the leadup to the olympics in beijing have shed some deserved light on the plight of tibetans still living within the territory that was annexed by china in 1949 - and while the facts remain unclear to this uninformed observer - the passion of these seemingly non-violent and loving people alarmingly hints at the monstrosity of the reality. here, below, are a couple snaps of that candlelight vigil.
a tibetan man on the streets of shimla, near the beginning of the protest.
how much/how many?
Monday, August 18th, 2008
for the last six or eight months, i’ve carried around a quote in the signature of my emails:
“once you can see the boundaries of your environment, they are no longer the boundaries of your environment.”
growing up, it’s easy to believe that there is a limit to understanding; that, when you finally achieve adulthood, you will have experienced all things and will make educated, verifiably correct decisions accordingly. and then you have that wondeful, despair-inducing realization that the set of things is actually unfathomably, inexperienceably large. throw in a ferrari or a new wife and this is also called a midlife crisis.
our boundaries are in place to try to shield us from this uncomfortable realization. they provide the rules, structures, and limits to our worlds, and in doing so help us to differentiate between what we believe to be comparably easy and what we believe to be comparably hard. in truth, the only difference between the easy and the hard is psychological. we understand this implicitly, but somehow remain so easily shocked when olympians like usain bolt and michael phelps shatter our notion of what is possible.
the impact of travel is similarly monumental. deep, honest immersion in another society makes us aware of the unspoken limitations of our own. hiding behind the western rhetoric about the pursuit of happiness is the fear that we’re not really happy, and that all this work might not actually be worth the promised reward of Truth that keeps elusively escaping us. we chase a utopian ideal, consistently ignoring what we know to be true. and we live within our walls, rarely summoning the strength to peep over and see what might be hidden just outside.
it’s both unfair and insulting to suggest that the pastoral - and often poverty-stricken - life in a place like India inspires a nobility that is preferable to our world of Plasma and LCD. but it’s similarly one-dimensional to believe that the nature of that life is so much worse. hidden behind the marble countertops over here is a feeling of sadness that overwhelmed my return almost as oppressively as the sweltering humidity that marked my departure. this place resonates with the drone of perfection that permeates every family photo and each carefully selected keffiyah. that drive for perfection, in its intensity of pain, seems to challenge the authentic realities of a totally separate world overcome with disease and poverty. the biggest affliction affecting the world, i’ve come to believe, is our own attachment to our idea of the importance of our Selves, and the very sad irony is that we’re too self-involved to see it, much less stop the rate at which we’re helping the disease of Self-Importance propagate around the planet.
i’m not smart enough to understand how we got ourselves into this pickle or how to get ourselves out. but i do think it’s a conversation that’s worth having together, which is why i’m always trying to push you to see past your own limits. as i keep learning, the most difficult part in reconfiguring your boundaries is finding your new ones.
Put oil firm chiefs on trial, says leading climate change scientist
Monday, June 23rd, 2008
James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.
more here.