Blunt Sensitivity

Every time I pick up a newspaper, I sense an increased sense of numbness and indifference developing around me. It seems we are getting more and more self-engrossed with every passing day.

The importance of News has leveled down to mere stress buster for many just like those mills and boon and mindless stories of the kind become the refuse for students during exam season. While we consume news, somewhere inside we secretly feel content because we believe that tragedies of the sort happens to certain people and we are positively different from “them”.  We forget that we are the part of the same society; we are watching on tv and renouncing.

Everyday, the newspapers and numerous twenty-four hour news channels in India are overflowing with stories of murder, burglary, theft, rape, frauds, scams and anti government protests but there is hardly any positive news on development or government reforms. The exact same crimes and the exact same stories everyday, which are crisply articulated by our hard working journalists and fed to us everyday, day after day with the only change in names and dates.

Surprisingly like most others, such news does not make me sad or enraged anymore. We all seem completely indifferent on such matters and towards those victims and a lot of us consume news as entertainment.

For example, I read an article today where a teenage girl from Delhi accused the father of physical, mental and sexual harassment and next to it a new report on Arushi Talwar case stating that on the night of murder, the parents of Aarushi googled murder techniques on their computer. Such stories have become a norm in our society. In fact these crimes turn into trends for example the trending rape cases and the children in borewells trend a while ago and the domestic help abuse trend before that.

Apart from these issues being the trademark of an ailing society, the bigger issue is the way it is affecting our sensitivity, morals and our efforts to eliminate the ills. 

Unfortunately, the daily dose of crime report has made us numb and inconsiderate. All that matters to us is our personal safety, security and wellbeing and in the process we forget that we are all connected with each other for our social and economic wellbeing.

India is a big country with a bigger population. It’s a big chaos where everyone is struggling to survive, grow and grab every possible opportunity. It’s a country of intense competition. Economically, we are one of the fastest growing nations in the world. But socially, we are still lagging far behind. We are poor, our living standard is one of the lowest, sex ratio one of the worst, poverty ratio one of the highest and corruption level at among the top in the entire world.  We are a society with huge socio economic disparities and the differences won’t go unless we become sensitive towards the problems. We need to give a closer look to such matters that are affecting anyone around us and figure out a solution for each problem. News is not all about entertainment and it is definitely not something to watch and forget.  News requires reaction. Only a collective social sensitivity can lead to a better individual life.

THE DANCING MONKS

At the beginning of this documentary, I joined ISKCON or the Hare

Krishna movement as a member. I had seen them dancing and chanting on

streets of London and being an Indian I knew about this organization

and the works of charity they have been involved in. But, I met a lot

of people in London who had no clue about who the Hare Krishnas are

and also the people who were suspicious about them due to a tainted

past. So, I decided to explore the Hare krishnas to know about the problems in the past and their present situation.

Today ISKCON has active centres in more than 96 countries and has a

huge following of members from all over the world.

In the UK, it has centres in all the big cities. They run organic

farms, vegetarian restaurants and schools at most of the centres. 

The members of ISKCON are peace loving, non violent, spiritual and

religious.

Filming the documentary was a major challenge. I was told that the Hare Krishnas are out on the streets thrice every day in Central London, dancing with the crowd, distributing pamphlets and merrily chanting 'Hare Krishna.' Capturing them live was integral to the documentary. Since I had to move constantly with the devotees while they danced on the streets, I was fearful about the quality of the footage and had to capture the shots on several occasions to perfect them.

During the process, I also captured footage of the famous Rath Yatra festival, a carnival organized by ISKCON. Because the Rath Yatra took place on the streets in Central London, I had to take special permission from the London Metropolitan Police, allowing me to shoot in these places. Besides, filming at the 'Bhakti Vedanta Manor', the main temple of ISKCON in London also required permission from the Media Office of ISKCON.

In the end I would say this documentary has been a personal experience of finding peace of mind through spirituality among odds of all kinds.

Hare Krishna!!!