Chasing Ice! Documentary of a lifetime

Climate change is so much  heard of, so much talked about...but I never had a chance to see it this close. Although I was sitting on my couch watching just a documentary. But it was an experience of a lifetime. Hats off to the team of James Balog who put in unimaginable efforts just to convince people that we're going to pay the penalty of our ignorance & harsh treatment we give to our beautiful nature in our very own lifetime. 

To give you a quick brief, James Balog is an acclaimed environmental photographer. He aims to spread awareness in people by showing the real climatic changes through photographs. He believes that one of the best ways to get real picture of global warming is to observe depletion of glaciers. And with this starts his journey of EIS [Extreme Ice Surey]. His team start off by setting up 25  cameras in different places [Greenland, Iceland & Alaska] by placing time-lapse cameras which capture photographs every one hour throughout the daytime. These places are not for human existence. Even technology will also fail to support in such severe & extremely cold conditions. And here is a team which keeps visiting these places periodically over 3 years to ensure the gadgets are working fine.  Although watching it on a TV screen, the calving of ice for continuous 75 minutes, which is witnessed by James & his companion, leaves you in splits. 

I was really moved watching this documentary. They have put in enormous efforts just so that they could let us know with evidence, what is the impact of our actions, on our beloved nature. The least we can do is to watch it. Sharing the breathtaking trailer which will compel you to watch the complete documentary. 

Chasing Ice Documentary trailer

Having watched this I feel I have made some good use of my weekend.

~~ Cheers ~~

Joy of Learning

Hey All [more to myself],

I am back to this place after 1 year 4 months. And it indeed feels nice :) I was waiting for this urge to come in me to get back to this place as writing cannot be imposed.

It's now almost 2 years into my Job and  Sunday is usually marked by some good time with friends, lots of time with family and some time with myself. All this while I resorted to a personal diary to share my thoughts. So what's special about this Sunday? 

Can you recollect the day when for the first time after learning to ride a bicycle you went out on your own? Or the first time after you learnt driving a bike by troubling someone to accompany you always and then a day came when you got the confidence to hit the road all by yourself? Well I had a similar experience today.

Having learnt car driving 2 years back, I never felt the need to make it a part of my regular routine. Thanks to my simple lifestyle & awesome friends who always picked up and dropped me. But off late this was taking a hit on my self confidence. And 6 months back when dad got a second hand car only so that I could learn car driving without having to worry about implications if I went wrong, I decided "this is it" [Bas bahut hua]. Slowly, steadily with support of different people I started honing my skills of car driving. Sometimes I fared well, sometimes I went wrong, Once met with a accident and lots of instances when I felt this was not meant for me....! On one side came a voice from within "Komal, you need not do this. There are umpteen number of people who are living without knowing this". And immediately popped another voice "Komal, in today's world car driving is a must thing. If you let your fear take over you today, you'll never be able to drive".

And today, 9th Aug, finally I gathered courage to take the car out all by myself for a lunch meet with friends. No one in car to guide me, to scare me, to motivate me. Me and my car. It was the same feeling as a child would get while taking his first steps in life [although I have no memory of it :P]Finally I checked all prerequisites mentioned by few experts and slowly took the car out from parking after taking God's name. My car's tire hardly took 2 rounds after the main gate, a black cat crossed from left to right in front of my car. Holy Shit! Whyyy??? Why now? I stopped the car aside. I got a feeling that this is divine hint to say me that I am not ready for this [You know how we are trained for this from childhood]. May be I should simply put the car back in parking and take an auto. I took a few seconds and told myself, "You never believed in these superstitions. Then why today? Why on this occasion. Drive slowly, drive carefully and you'll be fine". I started the car again and took a leap of courage to drive all by my own.

What happened after it is nothing to be elaborated about. I am sitting here and posting this blog after such a long gap. With this, I trust you can imagine how full of adrenaline rush was my experience today from which I emerged victorious.


Signing off with this thought :) Stay tuned.

"To escape fear, you have to go through it, not around" 
                                                                              - Richie Norton