Some silly headwork!

Someone once asked me, “Why do we need movies or music videos to stir up the spirit of patriotism in us? I think it’s so fake, it only creates temporary feelings.” In a way I used to think she is right; why do we need a Rang De Basanti to come and pave the way for youth activism? Why should movies like Page 3 and hazaron khwaishen aisi remind us about corruption in media and government? The three days during which we viewed an extraordinary collection of documentaries from all over the world,which were screened for us at the International Human Rights Film Festival, answered my questions. The documentary we saw yesterday, the last one in the series, was about migrants from Bangladesh, ‘My Migrant Soul’. This movie I must tell you, actually left at least half of us in the group sobbing pretty hard. I felt like I was facing a different wall now, I felt like I was in the groove of some sort, maybe I felt like I could feel what a human right violation was. But in the words of Rajesh Sir ‘I was in a high, I got swept away. It was a contamination.’ ‘ooohhh, those unforgiving words! Sir, but it wasn’t as if I wanted to catch the next flight to Bangladesh and start social work there’, I thought to myself when he was talking to us about how we can attain maximum benefits from this workshop by being ‘rooted’. ‘But why?’ my mind asked, ‘Why is it that we can’t express our emotions and discuss what has touched us all in a way that it rightfully should have, I mean this is a workshop on Human Rights in Street Theatre, it’s not like we are going to all just start weeping loudly at once, with a pile of wet tissues on our sides and act immature.’
But I think, knowing my thick head and dense mind, I needed time, space and peace to think about what sir said and I didn’t make the mistake of converting these thoughts into words, even though I was desperate for answers.
I realized that realization itself is a slow process, one possibly can’t understand the reason why we need religion, state, people, family, laws, ideologies and other elements in life at one go, even though we might experience all of them everyday. Every single person should go through this slow and beautiful process of gaining information and realizing for oneself why we need the information, how should it impact us and what should one do with this information. Ask yourself the questions. It’s easy to sleep over the information and it’s also easy to ‘be swept away’.
The movies don’t aim at transforming every single human being walking out after the movie, into some big, well-known future torch bearer of social work. Instead they aim at changing your mental set-up dramatically by making you experience the magical journey of gaining as well as handling information. After one lets the realization process proceed at its natural pace, after one can identify what the realization process has brought to him, one can then seek ways of using the information. It’s like at the end of journey each one will discover something; maybe an ocean, a mountain, a room, a song, a wall or a reflection.
But none of them will put you in front of the right viewfinder if one does not try to contextualize, find reflections in ones own life.
Apart from making you a strong and mature person, this will also bring you unexpected, surprising and inspirational gifts. 'Don't try and find out what the gift will be', as Raesh sir says. It can be anything in the world, but Raesh sir also says 'that one needs to possess the art of identifying the gift, dont wait for a box neatly wrapped up with paper and ribbon!'
But then why all this on Human Rights when all our effots don't lead to action? well it all depends upon how one defines action or the satisfaction one gains from the action. We all need to start small, proably teach others what we learnt, talk about it to others, start with helping yourself after you recognise those reflections, start with helping the people you know, and then maybe think of catching that flight to Bangladesh!
ultimately I really like the fact that this realisation process will never end...actually iI dont want it to end!