What do I want to be, do I imitate you, or you in the corner I dream of the original idea, but its not there I struggle for identity, in midst of Joe everydays and black suits, Everyone is running towards somewhere, why do I not want to be there...
Do I drop the accent, and the haughtiness and be me But where do I find me, is there a me Am I supposed to be my father's son, or my College's alum or my country's citizen, But why not me, even though I don't know who I'm
Do I want to travel, do I want to see parts of the world that few could imagine or Do I want to run back home, enjoy the monsoons go back to the playgrounds to remember a simpler day But do shadows and empty fields await me, as a stranger
Maybe, but I will scale that mountain to seek me, And when I do, I will meet you on it peaks Until then...
We often feel hesitant to take the first step to do something. For some it might be hitting the gym, for others it could be asking a girl out.For years, for me it was getting involved in volunteering and community service. I used to always think i would volunteer and give back to the community, for what was going to stop me. Of course the answer to that was, ME. To be more specific my laziness, my hesitation and my lack of commitment. I always used to put it off and think of it as something that I would so someday, but someday never became a today. This was the case until recently.
Getting a job, and moving to a new city(Washington DC) where I didn't know anybody and most parts of the city, I felt volunteering would be a great opportunity to meet people of DC and understand what defines DC. It was also an opportunity to give back to the community that I would be living, however small that impact might be. While I was aware in general terms that volunteer organizations were involved in the city, I didn't know of any specific organization or how to get involved with them. So in time of requiring information I did what any human being would do. Use Google. And as I had expected there were a ton of websites with a great amount of detail on opportunities. Filtering through them required time, as I wasn’t very sure on what level of commitment I could give, given I didn't have a car back then, and travel was a big hassle. Luckily I was able to find an organization called One Brick(http://www.onebrick.org) which fitted nicely with my requirements. It allowed people to volunteering but not having to given a fixed commitment. Almost like an ad hoc sort of arrangement. This allowed me to flex my schedule nicely to be part of many of their opportunities.
Despite this, it wasn’t another 2 weeks before I signed up for an event. On signing up my mind was filled with doubts and some of the apprehensions that I had before. Was this is the right thing to do, would I fit in and was I volunteering at a safe place. These questions lingered for the entire week, and were intensified when it was finally time for me to finally go volunteer. I remember reaching the venue and thinking, what am i doing here, can I just go back? But suffice to say, I'm glad I didn't. For all those thoughts disappeared within seconds of actually doing work. We went around cleaning up a fair, moving desks and benches, carrying some heavy stuff. In short it was a lot of work, and if my mom was there to see it she would’ve said that ‘Ashwin finally you’re doing some work’. As the day continued, I couldn't believe that I was actually having second thoughts about this before this. It was an awesome event and by the end of the day I was extremely happy that I got to do something meaningful rather spending my time doing something menial.
I would like to think that event was an instigator in me, over the past year I volunteered in numerous events. But more importantly I got to see parts of the city and its heart that I would never have otherwise. I went to food banks to help organize food deliveries, drove around the city distributing food to poor and needy, and worked at the Smithsonian for their monthly events. It has given me a unique perspective on the city. I will admit to the fact that often I'm hesitant to go to the poor or the less affluent parts of the city and that I'm scared for my safety. Often we look at the affluent areas, the restaurants, and the pubs and think of it as the representation of the city. But that couldn't be further away from truth. Through volunteering it made me realize how trivial our thoughts and wants are. Our desires of higher pay, bigger house or bigger car are trivial when compared to what lot of people in the city go through. There are families out there thinking of how they will pay this month's rent or how they can feed themselves. It makes you thankful of your life but also sad that there is so much help needed.
But sadly volunteering isn't the most natural reaction for most to do. Many want to do it, some do it, but lots don't. For most there isn't an incentive to do it, you don't have the financial rewards of it, you don't get fired for slacking or it’s something that somebody else will do. Also its lot of effort and commitment on your part to do it. And here comes the essence of my point. Lots of live our lives wanting to find some sense of purpose and that we make form of dent in our lives that revolve around us.
Volunteering gives a person the opportunities to reach out to people and communities that you often wouldn’t otherwise. And when you give, give without expecting anything back. Some are appreciative, some aren't. The great thing about volunteering is that it gives you an opportunity to do something that will impact lives of people you will never otherwise see and in ways you can't even imagine. On your journey you meet so many passionate people. Often people like me and you, working, leading busy schedules, having a blackberry, but setting aside so much time of their lives to make other people's lives and communities better. Witnessing people like that gives me encouragement and at the same time a sense of shame that I don't do enough.
You might wonder where we can start. The simplest is to look outside your home. It could be organized group, or it could be an impromptu group that gets together to do a great good. You’ve to get out of your comfort zone and that nice Saturday morning coffee sometimes. There is no lack of opportunities in the city to do volunteer work. If not, you can always resort to our good buddy, Google. Another great place to find opportunities is through Meetup (www.meetup.com), where there are tons of activities every day. But the sad reality is that despite the plethora of opportunities there aren't enough people doing it. A person I know recently told me about a lady in Georgetown(DC) who collects gifts for Xmas from various sources and distributes them to low income families throughout the city. But sadly most years she isn't able to distribute all the gifts simply because there aren’t enough people to go do the drop off. I was shocked in a city where we see so many people willing to give and where there is no shortage of cars, that there is a scarcity of volunteers.
I would like to think that this gives an insight to why I think that at the very least everyone should volunteer and how they can make their communities better. It isn't easy,but it shouldn't be. I like to end by giving a quote about what I think captures its essence...
"The purpose of life is not to be happy - but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference and that you have lived at all."....
One of my fondest memories of my childhood was the lazy summers and Sunday afternoons that I spent with my family. A good amount of them were filled with memories of playing cricket in the yard or going to a small ground to play. The other main activity was playing board games like Scrabble, Monopoly, Snake and Ladders and other games I don't recall. And for the longest period in my life, I never played these games. I still can recall all those boxes gathering dust back home. And it wasn't until recently something changed which reunited me with one of my old loves.
As odd as it seems, the first reason for it was the Apple iPad. Let me explain, little under a year ago I was gifted the iPad, and I will say it's an extremely impressive piece of technology. But little did I realize its potential as an awesome platform of board games. When I think of it now it is a natural fit. The screen resembles a board, and the graphics and sound can really simulate the feel of a real game as well.
Risk and Scrabble on the iPad
And often when I travel to work, these games are time eaters and also tons of fun. Especially two games on the app store that caught my eye were Scrabble and Risk. Playing scrabble all my life, buying Scrabble on the app store was an obvious purchase. And I've to say it's a brilliant implementation of the classic game. Sure there are times when you are left leaving head scratching when you hear a particular word exists. But the design is so intuitive that on a recent trip to my friend's place, his wife picked up the game within 2 minutes of getting it. The other game that I mentioned was Risk(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_(game)), which I will say didn't catch my eye initially. I was interested in it simply because I had seen the ad for the game on Xbox Live and heard really good reviews about it. So buying it on the app store was simply out of curiosity that anything else. But since getting to know the rules, I've become very addicted to it. The design is simple, but yet so effective in conveying the feel of being at war and that you have to constantly keep monitoring your trip units and those of your enemies too. I will confess that this game has beaten me more often than scrabble, but don't worry my day will come soon :). The great thing is that you have friends (big IF), you can play them over the network or Internet.
The other big reason, I've fallen in love with board games yet again is this awesome meetup group near my house. For those who don’t know you can find tons of groups who share your share same interest in a particular area on the website Meetup.com. It is a great way to organize these kinds of unconventional groups and bring people together to share these kind of experiences. Sometimes it goes by the way side but often it’s bloody awesome. And this case it's awesome, plenty of people who know tons of board games, man some of them I've not even heard about. We meet every Sunday at 1718 P Street NW, DC around 1pm. And so far it's been a packed house. The games are loads of fun, filled with dumb moves (mine mostly) and awesome moments of winning a game (definitely not me). It brought back a lot of good memories of my childhood fighting and arguing my brothers during those lazy afternoons over board games. And the awesome thing is that every week the organizers do something new, which makes going for them lots of fun. And I will also say they’re very well organized and arranged that the experience is just even more awesome.
It's funny that these two seemingly unrelated events reunited me with a past that I had long forgotten and one that I want to remember and relive. If at all you guys have an itching to play those old board games, go ahead buy an iPad or find a meetup or just buy some board games because they are definitely worth the every single dollar or rupee or euro or whatever that you spend on it.
Today was unique experience. I attended for the first time a live concert on the Internet. As it sounds its live video feed from the concert. The band was one of my favorites Avial. For those who know me, you probably are already scratching your heads thinking, oh no, not another Avial post, but for those alien to them let me get you up to speed. Avial is a malayalee dish, which is a mixture of different ingredients. And as name suggests their music is too. They are an Indian rock band, who sing in my native language of Malayalam. Their songs have varying elements of traditional folk to heavy rock riffs. Their music is truly unique, with heavy bass lines, very little guitar solos and song structures which don't follow the typical lyrics-chorus style. For anyone who loves music their first album is definitely worth a check out. Even though they sing in Malayalam, they've fans ranging all across the country and the world. Avial is Tony John on vocals, Rex Vijayan on guitar, Binny Issac on bass and Mithun Puthanveetil on Drums.
Now on to the concert. The concert was at a club in Mumbai and was in celebration for the launch of their website avial.in. I was pretty excited for it even though i was seeing it online. Sadly the stream was single video feed and I guess you've to expect that as probably such sophisticated production costs could only be afforded by bollywood and cricket, at least in India. Anyways they began the concert with a song that I couldn't recognize, either it was a traditional malayalam folk song or song from another band I am not aware. It was pretty good, and the accoustic guitar really lend itself. Up next was a song called "Anna Kallan" from their forthcoming album. The song talks about fake swamis and priests. Tony did a real good job of singing it, and the guitar riff was really catchy. Anyone who wants a preview should check it out on YouTube. After that another new song called "Ayyo", and I had heard it previously. The version they cracked at Mumbai was mind blowing. Awesome bass riffs, coupled with a really awesome guitar work. I would say they've definitely getting the mix absolutely correct on this song. It bodes well for their new album.
By now, I couldn't help feeling that Tony was sort of getting on my nerves. Not his singing, but rather he really didn't try to mingle with the crowd. His interaction with the audience pretty lame I've to say. I really did wish somebody like him with an opportunity to really connect with a small audience absolutely squanders it. Anyways, more on that later. Little later, came the highlight of the night when guest singer Neha S Nair came out to sing the traditional song Nagumo. The singing and the fusion was amazing, it was just an incredible performance. If they do post a video of it online, you should definitely check it out.
It was at this time, the stream started acting and it went down for about 10-15 minutes, and I missed out lot of their numbers sadly. And it came up back up around the conclusion of the song Aadu Pambe. As the concert went by Tony's singing began to deteriorate, his performances on Karukara and Nada Nada were pretty bad. Its funny, I've seen lot of videos of Avial's live performance and he usually sings those songs pretty balanced, and has of late he has nailed Nada Nada. Its not like he is a bad singer, but just seems like he didn't care, which was sad and I'm pretty sure everyone will talk of bringing back the previous singer Anand which is pretty dumb.
In ending this, I would say the online experience was a sort of an Avial. It can't beat the experience of being there listening to it live, and singing along, but yet its an awesome model to bring in audiences. My respect for the band has increased even more(something I thought wasn't possible). They're truly an exceptional and unique band, which can really hit the heights as a live act with little more consistency from the lead singer. As with the rest of fans, I'm eagerly waiting the release of their next album.
