The debate...

I am not sure how many of you watched "The Debate" on West Wing yesterday (Sunday, Nov 6). I would call it the "Thomas Friedman" version of the Presidential debate. Down to earth, real life problems, real life solutions and the result was one just remarkable live debate between 2 potential presidential candidates on network television. This debate was an eye-opener atleast for me. They discussed issues from border issues to healthcare to gun control to job growth to education. For someone like me who will be eligible to vote in the next presidential election, this psuedo debate was something of an eye-opener to many of the issues that are at stake. I was just amazed at the way they televised this debate. This was supposed to be an imaginary "West Wing" episode where 2 presidential hopefuls debate on national issues. They took real issues facing every American today and debated them. The issues like foriegn energy sources, war in Iraq and global warming are day-to-day issues. I learnt from this psuedo-debate that US imports majority of the oil NOT from Middle east but from Canada. That was something I would have never guessed.
Well.. seeing episodes like this, I am always reminded of television episodes aired back in Indian satellite channels. I am seeing movies coming out that tackle social and governmental issues. But I am still yet to see a mass media like commercial television air episodes that tackle day-to-day social and economic issues of the common people. These satellite channels have much farther reach into common man in metropolis than cinemas. I only wish that some sane individual realizes this and start something that tackles such issues.

The child within....

Yesterday evening, I saw a child within... my wife.. It was a very sweet experience that I wanted to capture and time freeze it.. The only way I could think of doing that was to write about it. Its not often that I get a sneak peak preview into her child within..
It was about 8PM sunday evening when we had just finished watching a vey nice hindi movie and were getting ready for dinner. As we were browsing the channels, we found that SET(Sony Ent. TV) was airing Dilwale Dulhaniyan.....(DDLJ) for the hundredth time, I guess. By the time we found that out, it was already 2 hours into the movie and Shah Rukh was running around the mustard fields with Kajol in the country-side Punjab singing away to glory.. My wife being a die-hard fan of Shahrukh since her pre-teen years and DDLJ being her all-time favourite movie, she could not believe herself that she did not know about the airing of this movie. She can recite every dialog in that movie and still watch that movie from beginning to end without a break. She was so over-whelmed with the fact that she missed nearly 2/3rds of her all-time favorite movie, tears started trickling down her eyes, as I was watching her blaming me for not letting her watch THE movie. It took me a full 10 minutes to console her. It was one of the best 10 minutes of my life when I really got to see the little child within my dear wife that was so mad at me for making her watch the other movie instead of her favourite one.
Not that she had not watched that movie before atleast a few dozen times. Not that either of us knew that DDLJ was being aired that evening. Not that I conspired secretly to not let her watch DDLJ. It was the child within her that could not accept the fact that she missed watching THAT movie.. She had to let her emotions out somehow and it came out as her child within, peeking out through those eyelids as tiny little teardrops. It was so cute to watch her express her emotions in the way she did, which proves without doubt that it does not take a lot to wake up the child within oneself. Emotions like these should be let out and not bottled up. I have come to realize that we should nurture the child within oneself for moments like this.

A potential christmas present for my wife - $25
The movie we watched - $1
The movie we missed - PRICELESS...

I am waiting for more priceless moments like these..