I have a spe­cial place for Tibet in my heart — espe­cially since one of my dear­est friends is a Tibetan. And I think that it’s quite a strug­gle for Tibetans today try­ing to find their iden­tity wher­ever they are in the world. It’s not easy when your home­land is no longer yours. Or that you can no longer even “visit”. And that the only images you can see of your home­land are the ones you see through films that make their way out of the bor­ders. I can’t even begin to think what it feels like for the Tibetan community. 

But here is some­thing inter­est­ing hap­pen­ing on Mon­day. Acclaimed film­mak­ers, Ritu Sarin and Ten­z­ing Sonam will pre­miere “The Sun Behind the Clouds: Tibet’s Strug­gle for Free­dom” in an event jointed hosted by Friends of Tibet and Think Tibet.

The details:

Win­ner of the Sil­ver Conch Award at the 11th Mum­bai Inter­na­tional Film Fes­ti­val, “The Sun Behind the Clouds” will be screened at the Cen­tre for Film and Drama, 5th floor, 71 Sona Tow­ers, Millers Road, Ban­ga­lore on Mon­day, March 01, 2010 at 6pm. The doc­u­men­tary will be pre­sented by Ten­zin Tsun­due, Tibetan poet-activist. Entry is free.

In The Sun Behind the Clouds, Sarin and Sonam take a uniquely Tibetan per­spec­tive on the tri­als and tribu­la­tions of the Dalai Lama and his peo­ple as they con­tinue their strug­gle for free­dom in the face of deter­mined sup­pres­sion by one of the world’s biggest and most pow­er­ful nations. The film­mak­ers had inti­mate access to the Dalai Lama and fol­lowed him over the course of an event­ful year, which included the 2008 protests in Tibet, the inter­na­tional response to it, the Bei­jing Olympics, and the break­down in talks between the Dalai Lama and the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment. Set against this back­drop, the film explores the inter­play between the per­sonal and the his­toric, spir­i­tu­al­ity and pol­i­tics, and the ten­sion between the Dalai Lama’s efforts to find a peace­ful res­o­lu­tion to the Tibet sit­u­a­tion based on com­pro­mise and dia­logue, and the impa­tience of a younger gen­er­a­tion of Tibetans who are ready to take a more con­fronta­tional course.

The film had its North Amer­i­can pre­miere at the recently con­cluded Palm Springs Inter­na­tional Film Fes­ti­val in Cal­i­for­nia where it became the focus of much media atten­tion when the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment tried to get the fes­ti­val to remove the film, osten­si­bly for its anti-China stand. When the fes­ti­val refused, two Chi­nese films were with­drawn in retal­i­a­tion. The film had three sold-out screen­ings and a fourth was added when it was voted one of the Best of the Fest films.

“In a wel­come depar­ture from many pre­vi­ous films about the decades-long fric­tion between Tibet and China, “The Sun Behind the Clouds: Tibet’s Strug­gle for Free­dom” pro­vides a two-sided view of the com­plex polit­i­cal and social dynam­ics within and out­side Tibet. For the “strug­gle” in the film’s title is not merely against China but also between com­pet­ing Tibetan views regard­ing the best strat­egy: co-existence or inde­pen­dence. The film is essen­tial view­ing for any­one who cares about the fate of the moun­tain region and the legacy of the Dalai Lama.” (Vari­ety, a lead­ing US film trade journal)

To know more, visit: www.thesunbehindtheclouds.com or con­tact: Ten­zin Tsun­due on email: tenzin.tundue@friendsoftibet.org

Hope to see some of you there! 

This guy’s going to be get­ting a lot of calls for sure. 

Meet Sam­son, an auto dri­ver from Chen­nai, who has his own web­site, and incred­i­bly (yes, yes!) also turns on the meter!

When I think Chen­nai and auto dri­ver, my mind wan­ders to a jour­ney we under­took a few years ago — my sis­ter and I. We were just vis­it­ing South India then and decided that Chen­nai would form a part of our tour plan. We made the mis­take of try­ing to bar­gain with a auto dri­ver who was intent on rob­bing us. We paid him a per­fectly decent amount. 

What he did next, left us scarred for­ever. Despite my abil­ity to com­pletely for­get small details, I still remem­ber this inci­dent. He threw the money out of the rick­shaw and abused us. I thank God that we didn’t under­stand a word of Tamil. Phew! After that, I approach all auto dri­vers in Chen­nai with some amount of fear.

Sam­son there­fore comes as a breath of fresh air.

A Japan­ese tourist set up an email ID for him, a Brit tourist set up his web­site and a Dutch client gave him a lap­top! Only going to prove that nice things hap­pen to nice people! 

Okay, so I know who I’m call­ing on my next visit to Chen­nai. Though I have a feel­ing Samson’s cal­en­dar might be a lit­tle full. 

(And here’s another inter­est­ing auto dri­ver from Mum­bai via Twit­ter — he offers a 10% dis­count to newly mar­ried cou­ples and has a first aid kit in his auto!). 

I hope auto dri­vers in Ban­ga­lore, who don’t want to go any­where (and I mean, any­where except where you want to go) take a hint! 

Had quite a bad expe­ri­ence with makemytrip.com today. 

I booked a ticket online for a bus to Chen­nai in the morn­ing. After the pay­ment was done, the screen blanked out and I didn’t get a con­fir­ma­tion for my ticket. 

Then I receive an SMS with my book­ing ID and a mes­sage that my credit card had been charged. But there was no ticket for me in my mailbox.

When these kind of gaffes hap­pens, I also realised that they don’t call to tell you that some­thing went wrong. I had to wait for around 10 min­utes on their toll free num­ber try­ing to fig­ure out what hap­pened. The lady apol­o­gised and asked me to try after an hour. 

Later in the after­noon, I try again. After another 12 min­utes of hold­ing for some­one to answer, I get told that my book­ing is not done. My card is charged (!). And could I make the book­ing again? And not only that, pay again? 

Why would I want to book my tick­ets again on a web­site which can’t get it right? 

(Mean­while, I stum­bled across this when going through the Open Social Media Chal­lenge.)

It was a dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ence in Mum­bai this time around – we played tourists to the hilt. When you live in a city, I think you tend to miss a lot of things – fine details you don’t really notice as you rush about your daily work. Like that lovely Church behind Fort where I worked for a year or so – why had I never seen it? The beau­ti­ful old her­itage build­ings in Kalaghoda and Fort – never looked at them closely before. I had lit­tle time to stand and stare back then. 

The trip was a lot about food – vis­it­ing a few of my old time favourites and check­ing out some new ones. I think we packed in much more than we intended.