By: Xeno Acharya
It does not take a genius to figure out we live in a beautiful world. The mighty Himalaya is a nice example of that. In cold winter mornings when the first rays of warmth flood the streets of Bhaktapur, heavenly beauty spreads over Kathmandu valley. Beauty that lies in the flames of burning butter candles in a monastery in Tibet. The silence of a Japanese garden talks about the peace that could have been. The womb of the massive volcanoes gives one a glimpse of nature’s might. The colorful lives of the aborigines in Africa, the Niagara Falls, the energy in the devotees in Jakarta all sing the tales of nature’s glory.
When the first Spanish invaders fell the mighty Brazil nut trees of the Amazon, thousands of dreams fell and shattered with it. Ugly buildings sprouted up like wild mushrooms, and people invaded the majestic hills and forests like vermin. Now the children of men linger in places where only the daring beasts once roamed. Factories buzz with low paid slaves, and the lives of men are reduced to a slow mechanical beat- click, ping, thump…click, ping, thump…click, ping.
The noise fades away, and silence. Human beings are the products of a technological advancement, clean healthy and almost perfect organisms manufactured to propagate and rule. The defective ones don’t make it out of the factory because it is hard to survive in this cut-throat world. And when the mind no longer can tolerate the growing pressure of this technocratic society, mass murders, suicide bombings and blind shootings result. To satisfy the thirst of an unhealthy soul hungry for love, we fall from the heights of humanity and succumb to mere pleasures of the flesh. War, the major outcome of this struggle for power and dignity has been in human history for centuries. Only we used to fight with stones and clubs, now we do with fighter planes and tanks and land mines. We used to fight for women and territory. Now we do for oil and money. We fuel the burning fire inside us with rage, hatred and the never ending desire for something more, better, bigger. And yet, in the dark corners of the world like Nepal and the South East Asia, people struggle each day for their subsistence. We are a hardy race.
Life has lost its color, dreams have no meaning and dragging is all we do with our lives. Dragging, a slow, dreaded inevitable and heavy dragging. And death seems just like yet another stop. So we run, we run for our lives, we run away from people around us, we run from ourselves. We run for the preservation of something that we dearly love, we run for life. But is life just this running, or is it something more?
Come find out this Saturday at St. Xavier’s Campus.
Project Baraka Details:
Film duration 96 min
Show dates May 19, 2007 Saturday
May 26, 2007 Saturday
Show times 2:00 pm and 4:00 pm
Ticket prices Student Rs. 50/- (with ID)
Regular Rs. 100/-
Venue St. Xavier’s Campus, Maitighar, Kathmandu, Nepal
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