Mahatma Gandhi, The Journalist

Almost everyone knows that Mahatma Gandhi was a Political Leader, but very few know that Gandhi was also a journalist! Yes, Gandhi was a Journalist. For 40 years he edited and published weekly newspapers!!!

Mahatma Gandhi, lawyer by profession, was a freedom fighter and social reformer. He used newspapers for achieving his goal of complete freedom. Chalpathi Raju (an eminent editor) wrote that ‘Gandhi is probably the greatest journalist of all time’ as he intelligently used the pen to lead a mass movement against the British rule.

Gandhi started his journalistic foray in South Africa with Indian Opinion in 1903. The intention behind the newspaper was to give the Indians a weekly round-up of news and to educate them in sanitation and hygiene.

When Gandhi came to India in 1915, he immediately jumped into the freedom movement. He started with Young India to educate the people on Satyagraha as a potent weapon. Harijan, a weekly, was intended to push his social reform agenda of eradicating unsociability and poverty. Gandhi wrote on almost all subjects under the earth. What was striking was that his writings were simple yet clear; it came from passion and burning indignation.

Main objects of journalism according to Gandhi are:

Ø Understand popular opinion and give expression to it.

Ø Arouse desirable sentiments among the people and

Ø Fearlessly expose popular defects.

His newspaper didn’t carry advertisements, yet it had high circulation. He felt that journalism should not be a vocation for earning a living. It should be a means to serve the public, an aid to a larger goal. ‘Journalism is very powerful- to be used in a controlled manner; control from within not outside’ (Gandhi was against censorship). He reached a large number of the Indians with his newspapers at a time when mass media was limited.

"My newspapers became for me a training ground in self-restraint and a means for studying human nature in all its shades and variations. Without the newspapers a movement like Satyagraha could not have been possible." -Mahatma Gandhi

Photo Credit: Wordpress

Living life, by the moment...

'It's always the little things that make a big difference.' And I bet this isn't the first time you're reading it.

But, its true, down to every word that the smallest, most mundane things that we experience on a day-to-day basis become little pieces to a (soon-to-be-complete) jigsaw puzzle. Things like waking up in the morning with your loved ones next to you, following your daily routine that you may hate, love or miss one day or another, the everyday chatter with your friends and probably about them as well- what I'm trying to say is that it could be normal things- the forgettable things that we often take for granted- little things that make life worth living.

I always tell myself to 'live in the present' or 'savour each moment as your last' or 'live each day as it comes', but who am I kidding, I don't. We are currently living in an age that is so competitive with everyone tirelessly racing against each other, racing against time and for what only to be either rich, famous or more successful.

We are always thinking, planning, organizing the next step, stressing on what should have or shouldn't have said or done, making assumptions on what could have happened....so engulfed in our bottomless unworthy list of worries that we have no point or meaning in the end.

When all that time, what we should have done instead, was 'Live in the moment' (something else you haven't heard for the first time)- but come to think of it how many of us actually apply this overly clichéd phrase.

I doubt many of us actually live, act and breathe that waking moment of your life. By just beinghere and now and not there or somewhere around, we could actually live up to simply living life, for real this time by taking one step at a time, doing one thing at that time, relishing, retaining and living that memory as if it were your last. It's simple not that hard and I urge you to start now.

Some people drift through their entire life. They do it one day at a time, one week at a time, one month at a time. It happens so gradually they are unaware of how their lives are slipping away until it's too late. Do you want that to happen to you? Cause before you realize it, life is going to inevitably end and you don't want to regret that you didn't 'live life to the fullest'...

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I am here. Are you?

Stop and Smell the flowers...

With our lives so busy
We fail to notice
Things around us
Things, we take for granted
Cause we know
It will be
Tomorrow and the day next.

Flowers for instance,
Grow quietly,
Unknowingly,
Spreading its warmth and joy to everyone and anyone.

But do we once

Stop and smell the flowers.

No instead
We pluck them,
We tramp them,
We throw them,
And we walk passed them

Never do we praise its beauty,
Selflessly,
And lovingly.

That's because we are too absorbed
In our very own machine-like lives, that
We refuse to notice anything but ourselves!

So I beg
I plead
I kneel to you now
Stop and smell the flowers
Before it's too late!

(Also view http://portugal.com/blogs/azorzen/)

Photograph by Megna Kalvani

Leaving a mark...

“You can’t exist in this world without leaving a piece of yourself behind” was one sentence that struck me as I read ‘The Pact’ by Jodi Picoult.

We are born today, only to leave tomorrow. There is no guarantee on what may happen in the next second, minute, hour or day. Each moment we live is gradual yet unexpected. Nevertheless, we live on, waking up to a new day, time and time again with the same circumstances of unpredictability still lingering in the air.

You meet hundreds of people every day, millions by the end of your lifetime, they maybe faces looming past you; faces you’ve come to recognize; faces you have come to despise or faces you seem to have memorized.

Life is a giant web, one string depending on the next, leaving imprints on each other as we move forward.

We are not alone in this world, someone, somewhere thinks of us when we think not.

Someone, somewhere is motivated by our actions, by our decisions, by our love or by hate.

Someone, somewhere is reading this right now, as I leave my mark…

Print Design: Paramore: Live in Dubai

Paramore is an American rock band from Franklin, Tennessee, formed in 2004. Members are lead vocalist Hayley Williams, lead guitarist Josh Farro, bassist Jeremy Davis, drummer Zac Farro, and rhythm guitarist Taylor York.

The group released their debut album All We Know Is Falling in 2005, and their second album, Riot! in 2007, which was certified Platinum in the US and Gold in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK. Brand New Eyes, Paramore's third album, was released on September 29, 2009. Brand New Eyes is the band's highest charting album to date.

This poster was designed in the name of Paramore, if ever they decide to come to Dubai! (A wish, come true!)

Your feedback on the poster, would be most appreciated. Thanks in advance!

The First of Daran

Lourens Blok has made his debut as a director, with The Seven of Daran: Battle of Pareo Rock, a Dutch 2008 movie. An independent film was produced by Amsterdam-based Rolf Visser and Felice Bakker of AAA Pictures on a budget of about $8 million, the live-action film shot in South Africa and Namibia has played at Middle Eastern and European festivals and was even distributed by Walt Disney in Holland.

The Battle of Pareo Rock tells the story of a rich 11-year old European boy, Jimmy Westwood (Johann Harmse) who resides in Africa with his mother, (Caroline Goodall, Princess Diaries;2001) who is too indulgent in her work as an executive, establishing a golf resort. On the other side, there seems to be some tension brewing up between two once-friendly African tribes who have turned arch enemies over the land (Pareo Rock) which they now don’t remember who it rightfully belongs to. As one tribe, the Bombattas tribe want to sell it while the Saladir tribe wants to preserve their ancestral grounds and so the war instils….

On his way home, Jimmy meets the talking white giraffe, Seraf, at a busy market. Seraf tells Jimmy that he has to stop this tribal battle and presents him a precious medallion. So together with Charita, (Ketrice Maitisa) a poor African girl at his side, they embark on an adventurous and enchanting journey facing obstacle after obstacle, making it even more difficult than it already is, urging us to know whether Jimmy will reach Pareo rock in time?

The movie has all the ingredients a great movie would need, good direction, an interesting plot coupled with intriguing acting from the actors. One is also compelled to commend the music by Maaten Spurijt; nominated by Golden Calf Awards, as it was really apt arousing the right feelings at the right time leaving one deeply touched,

The Seven of Daran, ventured from fantasy, suspense, action, violence, romance thus with so many varied genres, the movie puts across a strong message to its audience of varied ages, particularly children; ‘we must believe in ourselves, set our goals and we will eventually achieve them in good time’.

(This film review entered the finals for 'The Young Journalist Award', Dubai International Film Festival 2008)

My Address.

I travelled from far and away to seek my forgotten and aged address that sheltered me during my young, dreary yet fulfilling years of my life.

It felt like eons of years had passed since I withdrew myself from my strenuous, exhausting schedule in the depths of busy, chaotic city, Chicano- the city of workaholics. With continuous breakdowns, mental attacks and not-to–mention my recurring distant dreams of the indelible place that I once lived…it was clearly a sign that I needed a break after 35 years of immense hard-work and struggle. To rekindle memories that I was afraid were soon to be lost.

Detour after detour, sign after sign, I finally stumbled on my familiar Bella Lane. And beautiful it was, lined with orange blossoms; freesia and pine enriched with an earthy smell of rot and moss, the resin in the evergreens, the warm, almost nutty aroma of the small rodents cowering beneath the tree roots filled the summer breezy air.

My house, my home was closer now; I could feel the forever tensed knot feeling of the lost- never- being-found drowning away in the pits of my stomach giving rise to yet another series of emotion. Ah! Sweet reminisce. I could see it now, as I crossed over Greyhin Bridge that connected my old world with my new one. Sheer emancipated happiness amalgamated with anxiety electrified through spine, producing cold shivers down my spine as I simply wondered if my weathered unique trove still held those varied memories that I held close to my heart. I hopelessly questioned whether my home would look and be the same as I left it.

Drawing closer to 'The Burrow' as our family once called it, I could smell, it's sweet unforgettable smell that made you taste an almost-honey-lilac and sun flavoured scent. I could see it now; no one could miss it, its grandness more marked with the perfect July afternoon sun streaming through its majestic windows highlighting the once white marbled porch.

The Burrow welcomed me as it once did before; it felt like I had never left. My home never changed. I did. Vine-entangled the once bold, smooth marble name plate which engraved the letters of my found address, Holmes it said, in black letters on peeling white enamel. And on the jamb, a bit higher, the number. Number 48.

The City indeed changed me, demarcating me from who I was to who I have become. I felt strange but in good way. Memories flashing as I look at each corner, everything the same place where we left it. I wish nothing changed, I wished I never left. It all happened when I left for the city to fulfil my now-so-silly unquenchable thirst for adventure; for knowledge; for my dreams were as tall as skyscrapers; as tall as the evergreen trees at Bella Lane. And then the War followed…

Tears unconsciously rolled down my cheeks as a collective series of memoirs left me, joining hands with the house. Together again, made me carefree; closing my long lashes, memories danced all around me, voices sang to me, urging me to remember of why I left it all behind. I had remembered it. But I had waited a long time to go there. Initially after the Liberation I was absolutely not interested in all that stored stuff, and naturally I was also rather afraid of it. Afraid of being confronted with things that had belonged to a connection that no longer existed; which were hidden away in cupboards and boxes and waiting in vain until they were put back in their place again; which had endured all those years because they were 'things.' So afraid that I hid my remorse under piles of work in strange and far off city that I now call "home".

Strange. It was so eerily quiet, a sound so rare, so pure…that I could taste it on my tongue, relishing it as I could for I knew, soon this too would be nothing but a distant memory. All I heard was the unnatural sound of my voice and I went on to only say, "I'm sorry", my trembling lips let out "I left. I shouldn't have, but how could I have known!"

More tears but this time of joy, for I was happy I had done it; I had returned to Bella Lane….laughter surrounded me, music filled my ears…it was all me, I felt reborn, I felt alive. Thank you! I screamed to The Burrow, to Bella Lane for they had changed in their own way as I did in mine. I was no longer the same Irina Holmes who walked through that door.

Remarkable how only time can amend everything, how it continues without a stop, without a care…giving you only to hear its inevitable tick-tock.

At the corner of the road I looked up at the name plate. Bella Lane, it said. I had been at Number 48. The address that no longer remained aged and forgotten. But priceless and remembered. Now I didn't want to remember it anymore neither did I want to forget. Though, I wouldn't go back there because the objects that are linked in your memory with the familiar life of former times instantly lose their value when, severed from them, you see them again in these unchanged surroundings. And what more could I have done with them, besides treasure them close to my heart.

I finally resolved to remember the address, my address. For of all things I had to remember, that would be the easiest for it truly was an indelible place I ever lived in.

But in a goodbye bed

With my arms around your neck

Into our love the tears crept

Just catch in the eye of the storm

And as my heart ran round

My dreams pulled me from the ground

Forever to search for the flame

For home again

For home again

(Daniel - bat for lashes)

Genre: Fiction

Photograph source: By Alunaticloner, a surreal artist from Indonesia