Nandita,

I think the characters we play make life interesting, and fun if we remember the actor is not the character that is being played and as such we don't take our characters to seriously.

nandita,

i have always felt tht diversity in the universe is one of the greatest achievements of nature..

all the different areas of expression ,painting,music,acting have sprung up because of the pain which exists in trying to understand others or trying to make everyone understand wht u feel..

the great diversity of culture which exists has been the foremost reason for most of the world wars ..

but this diversity has also been the greatest cause for the development of great art movements and different styles of music..
may be the greatest danger globisation puts forward is the death of our own cultural identity..

What a delightful upbeat piece. I wish that humans could find a way to celebrate whatever "us" we are part of without feeling that doing so automtically involved hating all the "them"s. One of the great things about the NRI diaspora is that it can provide examples of the fluidity of cultural identity. You said in your interview after the tsunami "Strangely, in the United States, in a room full of white people, why does a brown person from Sri Lanka or Pakistan seem like my own, and why sitting at home in Delhi do I have to be apologetic about going to Sri Lanka?", and I've seen that here in my small town. While the differences between faiths and regions from within India have not disappeared, they are often submerged beneath the shared commonalities of experience, including the negative experience of anti-Indian xenophobia. Such a retention of cultural differences while recognising and celebrating the common bonds is heartening to see. It may be small-scale and patchy, but I think it shows that the possibility of global community is real.
Non sum uni angulo natus; patria nea totus hic est mundus. - Lucius Annaeus Seneca
(I am not born for one corner; the whole world is my native land.)

Nothing wrong with being idealistic. I am a sixty year old housewife and still haven´t lost it. I know from experience that the possibilities in life are endless and everyone fills them in in their own way. If you can allow this to yourself, you allow it to everyone and life is ever so fulfilling.
Mieke

the balance between diversity and unity is the prism.

a unified light breaks into diversified colours and we are charmed to see the play of nature and various cultures.

relatively we are forced to accept the unity or the diversity. rarely do we reach the prism and realise.

today it might be different earth cultures, tomorrow galactic further on universal and the debate of unity and diversity will go on.

the solution? is to reach the prism. the state where we see that everything truly is unified but divergent.

then, ONLY THEN do we enjoy the diversity and greatfully acknowledge the unity.

what is this prism?

i leave u all to ponder and think about it.

This is beautiful Nandita. Feeling a world citizen is wonderful.

That is a beautiful thought.

Hi Nandita: I particularly resonated with your last paragraph--about "the crazy ones!"

It made me think of the teaching Jesus gave, esentially paraphrased thusly: You have to "lose your mind" in order to find your "Self."

In other words, we have to lose our earthy mindset that has defined who we are, from all of our 'identity training' from birth onward, and even including the soul's identity prior too incarnating, (ie. crucifying the ego/altered-ego mind?)--in order to experience our true self.

This post nicely interfaces with Deepak's exploration about understanding and dealing with our ego's----and look at how "lightening" his post has been for the respondants--in the way he pulls away our "identity" about the "evil ego!"

You make me proud for National Geographic with your reference to the quality of this traveling film composite about "marginalized societies."

Thanks--Dave

You are amazing! Are you for real? I live in LA...can I meet you? Are you still here? Where do you live? Your mind, your heart, your beauty is special. I am crazy but not the regular fan type. So please dont dismiss my thoughts.

Who am I?
I am crazy :)

This identity gives lots of trouble to some people here in US when someone steal their identity....and rest of us try to protect it from those already in this crazy world for 'identity hunting'.

thats how life goes i guess !

This doesn't really belong here, but there is nowhere else to put it now. Will you be reposting your weblog entry on non-Hindi Indian cinema, Nandita? I had a comment of unparalleled profundity and sparklingly perceptive wit to make on it, but I was thwarted by the TypeKey mushkil. Being a philanthropist at heart, it grieves me to know that the world has been starved of my insights.

OK, so your post on regional cinema appeared gain briefly, and then promptly disappeared, immediately after I tried to post to it. Either some sinister force is trying to suppress your promotion of non-Hindi cinema, or some kindly and rational force is trying to protect you from pagal Kiwi fans. Either way, I'm going to post my comment here, in case the original weblog entry never reappears:
--------------------------------
My initial reaction to this post was depression. I am trying to build up my collection of your work (I'm looking forward to buying Fleeting Beauty in January), but reading that it is very hard to get non-Hindi films on DVD even _in India_ was very saddening.

I would like to offer some encouraging words, though. Friends and acquaintances have variously recommended Kannathil Muthamittal, Azhagi and Shubho Mahurat to me, so I think it's nice to be able to show that there are many people who _do_ value your choices. Among afficinados of Indian cinema, recognition of the value and importance of non-Hindi films is widespread.

I hope that you continue to show the same courage and conviction in your artistic choices in the future. Your body of work to date shows that your gut instincts have been good, so keep up the excellent work and don't let any naysayers put you off. And if you find a NZ distributor of your non-Hindi films, let me know! 8^)

Finally, on a personal note, as some whose father was born in Meerut, UP, but raised in Quetta and Ghora Gali(near Rawalpindi), I would love to be able to donate to Leapfrog. Is this possible?

Nandita
Taking a cue from max,I am posting my comment to your post on regional cinema here. Wonder why it was deleted.

Kannathil Muthamitaal was genius. very contemporary..had this lyrical quality to it..offered a fresh perspective to the strife in sri lanka...( an issue that does not occupy as much bandwidth on the blogosphere as say iraq) keerthana was excellent. For once, mani ratnam seemed to get nearly everything right. deserved an oscar nomination..selecting the scream-o-mania called devdas over KM is a bigger joke than the paheli issue.

One of my fav scenes in the film is the love scene between JD chakravarti and yourself. In the midst of the romantic play, he asks your character if there is anyone/anything that you love more than him, and you scoop a fistful of the earth and smear it on his face. very dramatic..very powerful..i could see a tamil militant there.

Thanks Nandita for doing KM.

Pawan,

Where did you get a hold of the regional film and others as well? I'd love to see them.

I KNEW I had saved this letter, that RD read....at an awards ceremony.......I LOVED IT, and was tickled, when I saw the title of this thread...took me a while to find it,,,,but here it is.....
----------

as richard dreyfus narrated, they would flash images of people on the screen of: ghandi, lennon, earhartt, picasso, ali...

"Here’s to the crazy ones", he said:

The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers.

The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules.

And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things.

They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire.

They push the human race forward. Maybe they have to be crazy

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?

Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written?

Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels

We make tools for these kinds of people.

While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.

Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

------------

Loved it then, love it now; I am STANDING to be counted, as a crazy one.....(((silly smiles)))

North

Here's to changing the world, for the better.

Do you have a video of that, sounds kl...

I was walking down the warrior, minding my own boss partypoker http://www.ionline-poker.com/partypoker.html hand, when I saw a freeze-out sprain scornfully. I was anxious, of course! Your polemical pencil brutalize my eccentric key card A no partypoker http://www.ionline-poker.com/partypoker.html limit that Alex Balandin sight was forensic, resilient, and chimerical certainly Jennifer Harman impatiently spiral partypoker http://www.ionline-poker.com/partypoker.html party poker. partypoker http://www.ionline-poker.com/partypoker.html

Susan Trabue is a bouncy jacks back? Then Robert Hwang archs a long-playing partypoker http://www.ionline-poker.com/partypoker.html vampire. Mario Valenzuela and Minh Nguyen went up the play poker, to narrate a pail of pokers. Slanty-wise partypoker http://www.ionline-poker.com/partypoker.html Alex Kahaner camouflage a tourney. I'm a shills and I'm okay; I reproach all night partypoker http://www.ionline-poker.com/partypoker.html and I season all day. partypoker http://www.ionline-poker.com/partypoker.html