Monday, October 14, 2013

'Voicing' out!

It is glorious that we live in an age where pizzas get delivered before we can say "Antidisestablishmentarianism" and where we can exist in parallel universes as 'sifakas' through quantum tunneling. It isn't as glorious when there is another spectrum in this society that can't tell between the color blue and red; living a life of mediocrity, illiteracy and downright poverty!

Over the last few decades, a lot has happened in both these spectrum; a progress that is so precariously overwhelming and a decline so irrevocably daunting. Obviously, I do not wish to dig deeper on the whys and whereofs and whatabouts, but I do wish to point out that my heart goes to out to the children belonging to the dark side of the spectrum. They are vulnerable, helpless and thoroughly exploited; to an extent that redemption seems almost like a dream.

Living in a world that dismisses every attempt at wanting to bring about a change, revolutionalising the way we think, questioning authority, busting myths et al; I have become numb and unambitious. Thanks to that last straw of perseverance and the fear of turning into a nobody, I have broken the pressure of conformity that this society is cynically trying to shove into my throat.

Okay, I have broken free - now what!?

There is a group of friends who will stick around no matter what - lets not talk about them. Lets talk about the bunch of people who will fear / hesitate talking to you because you don't conform - what if you bite their head off just because you have a difference of opinion and you are expressive about it. They presume you live a solipsistic life devoid of all happiness that these cultural and religious baggage offer! They pity you, sympathise with you - ha!

You start looking for other non conformists - yeah I know, if not anything, one has to conform to non conformity!? So, getting back to doing something about the sad lives we live, I have endeavored to target children in this journey and in the process bumped into the opportunity offered by Nirmukta. I have written about them once before here in my blog. Children, mostly from an economically challenged background, for no fault of theirs, live a life they don't deserve - I feel compelled to do something about it. With the help of Nirmukta, I am trying to reach out to those children in every small way possible. We are making basic concepts of science, understandable and accessible to a lot of children belonging to non-English medium schools / corporation schools by making short videos in Tamil. We are taking a lot of care in structuring it with many local analogies and folklore so it appeals to them. A team of amazing people work on the content, a fantastic person working on making these videos and believe me when I tell you this, I have never been more happier than while "voicing over" for these videos.

I imagine narrating the story of evolution, concept of earthquake, skin color and the constituents of medicine to the young, ambitious, eager and phenomenally bright children and I have had goosebumps at times. I will do all I can to bring about a change, even if it means very simply, voicing over to these short videos.

I have never felt so fulfilled, at the same time, never been more motivated to keep at it.

Quoting Lennon:
You, you may say
I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Here are some of the videos: