To all you supertramps...

"Happiness is only real when shared"

I'd like to repeat the advice I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one piece of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is the passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no great joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. If you want to get more out of life, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty. And so, in short, get out of wherever you are and hit the Road. I guarantee you will be very glad you did. But I fear that you will ignore my advice. You think I am stubborn, but you are even more stubborn than me. You had a wonderful chance on your drive back to see one of the greatest signs on earth, the Grand Canyon, something every person should see at least once in his life. But for some reason incomprehensible to me you wanted nothing but to bolt for home as quickly as possible, right back to the same situation which you see day after day after day. I fear you will follow this same inclination in the future and thus fail to discover all the wonderful things God has placed around us to discover. Don't settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon. You are still going to live a long time, and it would be a shame if you did not take this opportunity to revolutionise your life and move into an entirely new realm of experience.
You are wrong if you think JOY emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living.
My point is that you do not need me or anyone else around to bring this new kind of light in your life. It is simply waiting out there for you to grasp it, and all you have to do is reach for it. The only person you are fighting is yourself and your stubbornness to engage in new circumstances.
I really hope that as soon as you can you will get out of wherever you are, put a little camper on the back of your pickup, and start seeing some of the great work that God has done here on earth. You will see things and meet people and there is much to learn from them. And you must do it economy style, no motels, do your own cooking, as a general rule spend as little as possible and you will enjoy it much more immensely. I hope that the next time I see you, you will be a new man with a vast array of new adventurous and experiences behind you. Don't hesitate or allow yourself to make excuses. Just get out and do it. Just get out and do it. You will be very, very glad that you did.

 Take care,

Alex McCandless


Excerpts from Into the Wild
Jon Krakauer

The World Before Her

In the lobby of a modest Bombay hotel, 20 young women from across India arrive for an intense, month-long beauty boot camp. They are the hand-picked contestants for the Miss India pageant, the ultimate glamour event in a country that has gone mad for beauty contests. Winning the coveted title means instant stardom, a lucrative career path and, for some girls, freedom from the constraints of a patriarchal society. 


But as the popularity of pageants has exploded, so have the controversies surrounding them. 

Through dramatic verite action and unprecedented behind-the-scenes access, The World Before Her sweeps back the curtain to reveal the intimate stories of young women determined to win the crown and the forces that oppose them. Hindu fundamentalists view pageants and their “international” beauty standards as immoral and a symbol of the rapid Westernization of India; protests are common. 

Yet amid pageant dazzle and heated rhetoric, filmmaker Nisha Pahuja ensures the faces and voices of India’s young women remain front stage centre. 

As the contestants move through beauty boot camp, Pahuja travels to another corner of India to visit an annual camp for young girls run by the Durgha Vahini, the women’s wing of the militant fundamentalist movement. Through lectures and physical combat training, the girls learn what it means to be good Hindu women and how to fight against Islam, Christianity and Western influences by any means necessary. The Indian government says these camps promote terrorism and is trying to ban them. Until now, they have never been filmed.

At the camp we meet a dynamic Durgha Vahini youth leader who has already fought on the front lines and says she is willing to die for her beliefs. Yet her passionate desire to work for the cause sparks constant household friction; her father insists she will marry and soon. 

Moving between the transformative action at both camps and the characters’ private lives, The World Before Her creates a lively, provocative portrait of the world’s largest democracy at a critical transitional moment. These young women may represent opposing extremes but in their hearts they share a common dream: to help shape the future of India as she meets the world before her. 


Read the credits for Canadian Director Nisha Pahuja's film :D :D :D

http://www.worldbeforeher.com/#!credits

The film is getting amazing reviews and awards...

Check out the website for more!

http://www.worldbeforeher.com/#!

To sign the petition to stop female genocide / femicide / gendercide in India:

http://genderbytes.wordpress.com/petition/petition-to-stop-female-genocide-femicide-gendercide-in-india/

Where It All Began (Part II)

(To read Part I: For The Last Time http://chelcbfrost.blogspot.in/2012/07/for-last-time.html)

Come on... Come on...COME ON - I mentally beg the elevator, whose button I'm banging a million-times-a-second, to get to the rooftop...

 I can hear Him... no... feel Him running. Running to catch His lost kill.

You're mine Lizzie. Always. Don't ever forget.
His last words to Me before...

COME ON PLEASE! COME FUCKING ON!!!

The doors open. I'm in. I quickly WILL them to shut. I'm safe. I breathe.

But as they close before My eyes, He almost makes it, almost. And swears.

I collapse on the floor. "This can't be happening. This just can't be happening. Not now. Not like this." Grabbing the railing, My brain yells - STAND DAMNNIT - even as I feel the numbness beginning to creep up My spine.

I close My eyes feeling mascara run down My face in straight lines. "I'm sorry I put you through this Lizzie. I'm sorry. I never imagined this would happen. Never." Yeah, I know it's just my luck.

Not one to care what the world thinks about My disheveled appearance, I step out of the elevator, involuntarily twitching left and right for signs of trouble.

With no thundering footsteps and shouts of STOP THAT WOMAN (as if) - I race past the revolving doors and jump into the first cab in sight.

My numbness complete, I vaguely remember telling the cabbie My address. After an eternity I can't recollect, I stare at the driver dumbfounded, as his kind eyes tell me loudly for the Nth time I presume - "Ma'm, we're here."

Home.

Thanking him, I slowly walk the walk of shame to My first floor apartment, barely, hanging by a thread.

"Lizzie, don't do what I think you're thinking of doing. Please don't. He isn't worth it. You gave Him two years and eight months of your life and time, all of which you'll never EVER get back. Don't do this. Please, I beg you."

"I won't break. Not again. Not ever again," I keep repeating, letting Myself into My den of shadows.

As I kick off My heels and switch on the lights, the front door bangs open.

Don't ever run away from me again Lizzie. Ever.

I stand rooted in horror, staring at Him as he looks around My dimly lit dump.

"So... This is Where It All Began."

~CBS

If you don't pay the bribe, you pay the price in India.

I have a police problem and I need help.

On 11 December I applied to renew my passport at the Passport Seva Kendra, Raheja Tipco Plaza, Unit no. 2-b, Rani Sati Marg, Malad (East), Mumbai- 400097. My passport was water damaged. So I was applying to renew it. I didn't have a change in address. I didn't get married. I didn't have a change in my name. All that happened was it was damaged and a fresh one had to be issued. 

On 13 December my file was received by the Kurar police station. After visiting them every Sunday asking them when the office would come to verify my house address, the Kurar Police station finally sent a man home on 5 January after going to the police station and asking them why they were harassing me as I had to travel on 15 January (just as a pressure tactic). The man they sent to my place on 5 January asked me for a bribe for all his troubles of coming to my house and I told him to go away without giving him a bribe.

On 6 January, I went to Kurar police station again with the documents I was told to carry and this police officer Praveen Bhosale, Badge no 161367 verifying the documents tells me get your post graduate degree original certificate - I don't understand what it has to do with verifying my house and even if it was needed why wasn't I told about it earlier. This was the 5th time I was at the police station and I had to go home and come back again with my papers. Finally, I was able to submit all my documents after the verification.

Today is 16 January. It's been a week and a half since the document submission. I asked my dad to go to the police station on 15 January since it says on the passport website http://www.passportindia.gov.in/AppOnlineProject/locatePSK/locatePFCInp - the police still need to verify your address. The police officer Praveen Bhosale, Badge no 161367 says he has sent it to the Superintendent of Police's office last week. I checked the SP office website. They haven't received it.

I don't know what to do anymore. Is it because I didn't pay the bribe that I am being hassled? Is it because they think I have that much free time to keep going up and down to the police station as I have nothing better to do? Or is it because the Mumbai Police just don't care?

Please help.