July 17, 2006

world on fire


really beautiful . . . . .

http://www.worldonfire.ca

yeah i know it's an old theme, but still . . . every time i come across such a thing, i promise myself that i will contribute something . . . anything, in any small way possible. but then, i put it off, make excuses to myself saying that i have a long life ahead and can do it later. i'm just afraid that i'm gonna keep delaying it forever.

anyway, back to the video at hand, it starts by assigning a cost of $150,000 to a $15 production and ends with "so that is where all the money went". it does a superb job at comparing how valuable things that we disregard as mundane can be at another point on the globe. we really ought to appreciate every little thing that we possess - if not for what it means to us, then atleast for what it could mean to one of 'them'. (i guess this discrimination that i just made is justifiable)

reminds me of this saying "if you cannot have 2/3rds of a day for yourself, then you're a slave". i vividly remember this because my brother, who dabbles at art and created admirable pieces from the time i was 10, had once painted this faceless person in shackles and wrote this quote below it and hung it up on the wall of our room. so, i got to see that everyday for a long long time and it turned out to be one of those things that just got indelibly etched into my mind.

makes me laugh at the audacious claims made by people that slavery has ended in the modern world. not even by a looooooooong shot. no number of charitable organizations with volunteers working round the clock can hope to put even a little dent into this monster called poverty. not even by a looo ooooo oong shot. there's one way - and one way alone - of putting an end to this sadness once and for all, and you all will spit fire in my face if i say what it is . . .

thank you, sarah!! you look breath-takingly gorgeous!!

2 Comments:

Blogger Chaitan Bandela said...

Sarah McLachlan is one of my favorite singers of all time.

In a way the "survivor's guilt" the video evokes in us is a bit unfair. You cannot change the world just because you are feeling guilty. You can only change it when you see yourself as a useful piece of the mechanism that is built to change the world. Throwing time and money at something is not going to solve a problem. But effort, however small, holds the promise.

August 11, 2006 10:28 PM  
Blogger -w said...

i guess it does and doesn't make you feel guilty, depending on how you look at it.

but what it also does is to reiterate the message 'don't waste'. it might be anything, whatever it is, just don't waste it.

August 16, 2006 10:16 PM  

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