Be there, n make a Difference

I’ll try and set the tone for this post by listing some noteworthy facts here:

• A.R. Rahman, genuinely an Indian, wins 2 oscars for his work in the film Slumdog Millionaire in 2009.
• Vishwanathan Anand retains his world championship title in 2008.
• The National Indian Cricket Team wins the 5-match Sri Lankan series, 4-1.
• Abhinav Bindra wins individual Gold in Men’s 10m Air Rifle Shooting in Olympics, Beijing 2008.
• Vijender Kumar and Sushil Kumar win a bronze medal each in Men’s Middle (75 kg) Boxing and Men’s Freestyle 66 kg Wrestling respectively in Olympics, Beijing 2008.

These are some of the feats achieved by Indians of whom we should be really really proud of.

 But this is not normally the case. We Indians are so good at heart that we feel proud even if some person remotely associated with India or having Indian origin, even though the person’s great or great great relative is Indian born – migrated to foreign country, achieves something.

There are umpteen cases of this cheerfulness of Indians. Let me name a few:

Kalpana Chawla, V.S. Naipaul, Piyush Bobby Jindal, Sunita Williams and many more such names.

YES, they are achievers in their own rights and fields, but they are not basically Indians in the true sense of the word. They are just of Indian origin or somewhere remotely connected to India.

There are so many things in India and Indians to be proud of. Need a cite examples … ??? OK, let’s have a look:

• Chandrayaan-1, India’s first unmanned lunar exploration, is successfully inserted into lunar orbit on the 8th of November, 2008. A feat spectacularly achieved by ISRO ( Indian Space Research Organization )
• Saina Nehwal, at age 18, becomes the first Indian to win the World Junior Badminton Championships.
• Sania Mirza is the highest ranked Indian female tennis player ever from India.
• I have no words apt enough to describe the achievements of the Missile Man of India, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam.
• Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and many more legendaries and luminaries in cricket.
• Verghese Kurien for the White Revolution in India ( dairy )
• Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw for scripting the Indian victory in 1971.

And the list goes on and on and on and on …

Need I say any more … ?!?!?!

What a day for India and Indians … !!!

A.R. Rahman, the Indian music composer/director won 2 Oscars, at the 81st Annual Academy Awards ( Oscars 2009 ) held at Los Angeles, one for his composition “Jai Ho” in the Original Song criteria and the other for Original Score, both in the movie Slumdog Millionaire.

The Danny Boyle movie, adapted from Vikas Swarup’s Q & A, is a rags-to-riches tale based in mumbai, won 8 oscars at the gala event.

So, here we have a movie directed by a British National, based on a novel authored by an Indian, winning 8 Oscars !!!

A detailed list of the Oscars won by the film are:

• Best Picture ( Danny Boyle )
• Best Director ( Danny Boyle )
• Best Adapted Screenplay
• Best Cinematography ( Anthony Dod Mantle )
• Best Sound Mixing (Resul Pookutty with Ian Tapp and Richard Pryke )
• Original Score
• Original Song ( Jai Ho )

Not to be forgotten amidst Slumdog’s sing song is the success of Smile Pinki, a documentary film which won the Oscar in the Best Documentary Short Subject section.

All in all, a day worth remembering and celebrating for Indians coz here at last we have truly Indian talent shining gloriously at the peak.