harsh realities...

It was a tiring day...for all not-so-funny reasons...its' been more than an year I have been living in the U S of A...and there are so many things I like about this place....I like the way things are planned here....the infrastructure, the development....blah blah blah...but then there are so many more-important-things-for-me that I find absent here...for which I miss being in India...miss the people of India...there are times when the whole life here seems SO robotic and mechanical to me...something as silly as a small bump on the road...!! Guess what! You have a BIG signboard for that too!! I mean....c'mon guys! gimme a brk! People here are SO used to living in the "perfect world" ....no offence meant....but they don't have the slightest of idea of what the world is like outside their shell!! isn't it a way of actually retarding people's ability to think!?!? I came across so many instances that proved that people here are not used to use much of their brains for day to day activities...goto a shop...get something....the screen will tell the person at the counter how much money to get, how much to return...! one of the days...I happened to give a lot of change at one of the shops (just to finish those coins up)...the dame at the counter got SO freaked out with the thought of counting the whole bunch! I just remembered the 10 year old kid who used to manage the small shop when his dad was out for lunch and the ease with which he used to calculate the totals and returns and change and everything! its' suchcha natural phenomenon that your brian actually stops thinking when everything around you so mechanically perfect...!! Perfection in this form is not that good an idea I guess! But today was a different day for all possible not-so-pleasant reasons...Jags, happenend to sprain his back badly while playing soccer yesterday...poor guy was hardly able to walk....we decided to take him to the emergency section to avoid the hassels of getting an appointment ( the earliest we can get an appointment with a doc is the next day)! The day ahead bought me face to face with one of the crudest realities of a common man living in the US of A!! I found the term "EMERGENCY" redefined completely...it all started by the long process of documentation of the whole story...the personal details....details of the insurance...details of the ailment...blah blah blah!! I wonder what do these guys do with a person who's struggling with life and death when he arrives to them!! after completing the elaborate process of documentation, started our ordeal to wait-for-a-call-by-the-doc!! for a person in the emergency section, it took almost 5 HOURS to get a call from the DOC!! and believe me that was not funny at all!! I am supposed to be a relatively "patient" creature...but today, its' limit was checked...we could see Jags in that acute unbearable pain...and each time I went to one of the attendants to check when can we get assisted by a medico, all we got back was "I really can't say...the doc is attending more critical patients right now..."; or "its' not a first come first serve basis...we are attending cases by priority"...!! I mean what the @$*#$@ all it reminded me was a govt hospital in India...(I guess even there the wait time is less than this!) finally after a wait of 5 long hours...Jags was taken inside one of the emergency ward rooms...with a tag "The doc is on his way...he'll assist you in 15-20 minutes"....and the doc did came...and the doc did examined JAgs...and the doc did gave his prescription....with a slight difference in his schedule...instead of arriving after 15-20 minutes....he arrived after 3 hours! I don't blame the poor soul for this...but all I was trying to comprehend in the meantime was...Is the state medical assisstance that bad in the most powerful and resourceful country of the world...in the US of A!?!?! In between the wait time of 3 hours for the doc, when I went out to check with one of the persons at the counter as to when the doc will actually arrive, I got an answer that shocked me from inside. She replied, "Please bear with us...we have only one doctor to attend the emergency cases...he'll be there shortly...we have called another doctor to speed up the process..." I was like WTF!!! I never knew that the place US of A is short of medicos!! the statistics that I knew depicted a completely different picture! after today, I have some serious doubts on my statistical knowledge on such things! But then alls well that ends well!! Finally the doc arrived to check Jags, a really sweet and cheerful and last but not the least a very effecient guy...didn't take much for him to figure out the problem and then writing a prescription....and then we off from that place....hoping JAgs gets well soon! and hoping no one falls sick in USA...its' a crime! In midst of all these events, I was passing my time watching people around...and believe me that was not a pleasant experience at all...I watched old people, suffering from ailments, coming on their own to the "Emergency ward"...getting their Xrays and Blood tests done...all alone...I thought of myself...how I hate to be alone when I am sick...how would these people be feeling in a situation when they are counting the days of their lives backward, and there they are alone...with their agonies...with their pains...gave me just another reason why I love India more than any other place...'coz my India has all those things that more important to me than the things it doesn't...it has the soul....it has feelings...it has empathy...it has love...it has respect....in all its' forms...I keep my fingers crossed that it doesn;t lose its' soul in the race of going ahead..."developing" ahead.... MERA BHARAT MAHAN!!!

to let you look at what he's missing -- as long as you are willing to let him do the same to you...

you guys gotto read this! A dear friend shared this with me...

Everyone tries to create a story in their heads to explain the things that baffle them. For the same reason we want to know how a magic trick works, or how mystery novel ends, we want to know how someone different, strange, or disfigured came to be as they are. Everyone does it. It's natural. It's curiosity.But before any of us can ponder or speculate - we react. We stare. Whether it is a glance or a neck twisting ogle, we look at that which does not seem to fit in our day to day lives. It is that one instant of unabashed curiosity - more reflex than conscious action - that makes us who we are and has been one of my goals to capture over the past year. It is after this instant that we try to hazard a guess as to why such an anomalous person exists. Was it disease? Was it a birth defect? Was it a landmine? These narratives all come fromthe context in which we live our lives. Illness, drugs, calamity, war - all of these might become potential stories depending upon what we are exposed to in connection withdisability. In each photograph the subjects share a commonality, but what does their context say? Looking at each face, I saw humanity. Rolling through their streets, I found theunique cultures and customs that created an individual.
-Kevin Connolly ====================================================================
What Are You Looking At? Born without legs, Kevin Connolly snaps photos of people staring at him -- turning the watchers into the watched.
When Kevin Connolly was ten years old his family took him to Disney World, but for some theme park visitors that day, it was Connolly who quickly became the main attraction.Born without legs but otherwise healthy, Connolly traveled the world, taking pictures of people as they stared at him. "I remember distinctly being surrounded by Japanese tourists trying to take my photograph without talking to me or asking me," he says from his apartment in Bozeman, Montana. "My dad was right behind me, and I remember him getting pretty frustrated with the whole process, because it was something that was happening every single day." Born without legs, Connolly was already used to the stares of strangers -- but that moment would help him start to understand that the lens could work in both directions. On a solo trip to Europe, more than a decade later, he was riding his skateboard down a Vienna street when he felt a man staring at him.Connolly lifted his camera to his hip, pointed it toward the man and without even looking through the viewfinder, clicked off five or six shots. Connolly would repeat that action 32,000 more times during his travels, creating a diverse portfolio of individuals from a broad assortment of countries. He posted some of these images online, under the title "The Rolling Exhibition." What he captured was a paradigm shift, turning the watchers into the watched. In the process he discovered something about them -- and himself. "While these people have, on the surface, an expression of pity or sadness or curiosity, looking at the legless guy on a skateboard," he says, "at the same time, they're opening themselves up; they're incredibly vulnerable." For a photographer that kind of image is the Holy Grail. Connolly, from his unique perspective (he's three feet seven inches tall), seems to have found a way to capture it over and over again using himself as his subjects' focal point. He explains his technique as not baiting people, but inviting them to look. "If you were someone on the street," he says, "and I was passing you, my eye line would either be straight ahead, down at the ground, or more often, off in the other way with my head turned so that it would give the viewer full permission to stare without the potential of getting caught." "Patting a legless guy on the head and telling him that he's really inspirational... is probably the last thing you wanna hear when you're trying to seriously work on a photo project." — Kevin Connolly While gratifying artistically, it's also an unsettling position for the 22-year-old University of Montana photography student. Connolly has spent most of his life shrugging off the perhaps well-intentioned, but ultimately dismissive, stereotypical role of the "inspiring" physically-challenged individual. "That's just people looking for the easy answers," says Connolly. "So patting a legless guy on the head and telling him that he's really inspirational, and it's so amazing how quick and fast he can get around is probably the last thing you wanna hear when you're trying to seriously work on a photo project." But Connolly isn't normal. In fact, he lives much more adventurously than many of us. With the exception of his missing legs, due to a random birth defect, the rest of his body is fine, all organs intact and fully functional. A prosthetics manufacturer created a custom body shoe for him that looks like a leather bowl covered on the outside with a rubber tread for traction. Connolly uses the device to protect and cushion his torso during most of his activities. Growing up, Connolly says his parents didn't coddle him and raised him like any other outdoor-loving Montana family. They took him camping and hiking. Connolly became an avid rock climber and a champion skier who took a silver medal in the X-Games. With the prize money he won in that contest, he decided to travel alone throughout Europe and Asia. It was on that journey he began shooting the photos that would become the Rolling Exhibition. Connolly is a champion skier and avid rock climber. But Connolly learned something else during his photographic odyssey -- something that raised the issue of identity. Many of the people he met, it seemed, did not wait for him to explain the reason for the absence of his legs. Instead, they automatically supplied their own narrative, one uniquely suited to their own environment or personal sensibilities. For example, while traveling in New Zealand a woman asked Connolly if he was the victim of a shark attack. In Romania some thought he was a beggar; at a bar in Montana aman bought him a beer and thanked him for his service, believing Connolly was a wounded veteran of the Iraq War. Connolly says he learns more from people by not correcting their assumptions. "On the one hand, it's surreal to have that happen to you and to have that projection put upon you," he says. "But on the other hand, it's a great clue as to what's going on inside someone's head." He's happy, he says, to be their blank slate, if that's what they need from him -- a point he makes in a striking Internet video he made to promote the Rolling Exhibition. In it, he walks on his hands onto the middle of a stark white backdrop, his face blurred by the glare of a powerful light, which slowly drops in intensity until his face is revealed. What it also seems to reveal is that he is a man willing, for a moment at least, to be the object of your gaze, to let you look at what he's missing -- as long as you are willing to let him do the same to you. Kevin Connolly graduates from college in May and says his next photographic journey could include exploring some of the world's conflict zones.

the break is over...

almost 6months....pretty long time....the longest for my blog to remain dormant...I guess it needed a break! not that I haven't been writing; but my writing all this while is nothing but just "scribbling" in the truest possible sense...nothing more...nothing less...nothing worthwhile to put on the blog...life has been good all this while...things happening around...another phase of life that bought a new set of people, new set of experiences, new set of lessons learnt in the journey of my life...each of those helping me grow as a human being...making me realize about everything I need to improve in myself...adding salt n' pepper to my life's recipie in perfect proportions!! something or the other has been happening around since I came to San Antonio from Chicago...after six months suddenly I realized that I have turned into a workaholic...spending 12-15 hours in the office everyday...most of the times, even the weekends are not spared from this...but the best part is...I am enjoying it....I don;t remember the last time I had worked SO much ;)) so typically unlike me...times b/w the work remind me of old days...and I get nostalgic...apart from work, things have been happening around...attachments and detachments have become a part of life...I guess I have become pretty used to these...but most of the times its' difficult to make people understand that detachments dont stop you from caring about people...its' a pretty ironical and confusing line...but I live with it...now when I look back...there have been so many instances when I detached myself from people but that didn't stop me from caring about them...that detachment is simply a way to minimise the probability of letting others hurt you...as for the caring is concerned, that you always do by your choice...maybe its' just a way to make your life easy...I just happened to read Abhi's blog the other day in which he mentioned about turning into a workaholic and how irritated he used to become with certain people around...and the whole thing made me feel just one thing....Deja Vou!! sans the "getting irritated" part....I guess I have another way of handling this...by simply completely ignoring the people...that in turn makes me an "irritating character"! ;) just like Abhi...even I need a break! a break from myself.... a break from everything around me....I wanna go home....I wanna goto aai baba...I wanna be with the people who don't expect anything from me...who won't question me for all my actions...for all my silence....for anything and everything....I wanna be with the people who won;t try to change me...who'll take me the way I am...who'll love me the way I am...I wanna go home....just waiting for manager to come back so that I can talk about my leave! ;)