Yaay! Here is our second post on Screen Free Challenge Why should kids have all the fun? Divya is the famous roommate I keep mentioning in my posts. A techie by profession, an old soul, proud feminist, a movie – buff , avid book reader and the list goes on. Adult coloring has been the new buzz in town. She started doing it recently and has been having a lot of fun.
Read on in her own words:
I, like everyone else, am constantly surro Continue Reading
Meenakshi Ravichandran, a doctoral student in Switzerland (Yes, I know what you are thinking. And yes she is ‘studying’ in Swiss!) , a nature and adventure lover, an ardent traveler and most importantly a fiercely independent woman. My best friend, sister-like, confidante and someone whom I have most fun with. When I announced the screen-free challenge last week, she was telling me about her solo-hike experience. So what better than that to start off this series 🙂 Here you go, in her own words.
I am sure the topic is self explanatory!
If not, in the present day how many hours are we completely screen-free? Should we be screen free? I believe we should.
I am no science expert but it seems pretty clear that being glued to gadgets most part of the day is not a good idea. Most of us unconsciously do have screen-free times, like cooking, spending time with your family, exercise, hobbies.But there get intertwined with taking pictures, updating statuses on social media or even watching a game with family does not fall under screen-free.
So what is the challenge?
Try to consciously plan screen-free hour(s) every week and write about it. It could be something you already do, a new hobby, reading , writing(not typing!) , travel, friends, family etc. Of course we do need pictures for our posts but try to take them at the very beginning or the very end of the challenge. 
Pingback to this page (not this post please) and use the tag #ScreenfreeChallenge for others to read. I will list the participant posts on the page over time. Please find below an old post of mine about making a jigsaw puzzle. That was one of my screen free times!
I request everyone participating to read other posts and reblog them.
P.S. This is my first time trying to organize a blogger event so if you do have any suggestions please post them in the comments sections.
Happy Screen free time!
Brown n’ Proud is an organisation started by a group of extremely passionate youngsters who are creating awareness about Rangbhed/Colourism in various forums. I recently got a chance to meet the team and found them to be extremely passionate 21-year-olds who had started this initiative straight out of high school. They recently had Navneet, the household name for stationery, to rename their “skin” colour crayon to peach and to make a point that peach is not the skin colour of everyone in our country.
Read my interview with them here, Team Brown n’ Proud Interview!. Please do follow them on Facebook and show your support for this cause.
I had been wanting to indulge in the “Broadway experience” for over a year now. With my roommate having raved about shows she saw, I was waiting for the opportunity. I did not have a particular show in mind and ended up buying tickets for the one which was available for the long weekend and that was fairly inexpensive. And that was “An American in Paris”. A post on why everyone should try to appreciate live stage performances or experience at-least one time in their life. No spoilers ahead!
For those reading from India or particularly Chennai, where I come from (If not you can skip to the next paragraph). I grew up attending plays and dramas (dragged to by my dad!) of the leading artists such as Cho Ramasamy, S. Ve.Shekar, Y.Gee. Mahendra and Crazy Mohan and many others. They are all amazing stage artists with an amazing sense of humor and content filled with satire. Over the years I began to appreciate everything live, its organic , pure and even any flaws will make me sympathize with them rather than otherwise. Live music, plays, musicals, stand-up comedy – everytime I watched them I would imagine a hundred things that could go wrong from forgetting dialogues, bad make up to even a set falling down on an artist. Every time a team have a great performance, despite its content and quality it is an achievement just to have performed for few hours. Not that I want to compare but film artists perform a few times on-set which is aired a thousand times on-screen while live artists have to act each time and are critiqued much more every single time. One bad performance or flaw and they lose ticket sales. Same with singers or dancers too. The reason why value live performers much much higher than those who sing only in studios or give recorded performances.
As I got into my late teenage years I began to appreciate English plays and Mummers in Chennai such as Evam, Madras Players and Unarviyam. Having had the privilege to be friends with the core team of Unarviyam, I got to work in public relations, be a critic , even a back stage professional for a brief period of time which taught me the struggles artists face and all the hard work that goes into it. You don’t just pay for a three hour performance but for months of script writing, hours of practice by actors, sound engineers, set designers, PR and many others. You are watching team work at its best.
And finally I got to watch THE BROADWAY!!! The most acclaimed place for live performing arts and my reaction was nothing but exhilaration. I watched it at one of the oldest theatre called Palace Theatre on Bradway ST, NYC. It was built in 1913 The theatre itself was a treat with palace like architecture.
An American in Paris, a true Broadway experience. If you ever get an opportunity to watch one do not miss it. As I mentioned before, the story and people will not be discussed but the experience. The sets were AMAZING!! I watched from the balcony so actually got to see people coming after every scene to set it. It was beautifully done with finesse and sometimes in rhythm with the music. It was absolutely flawless from an audience point of view. The live band played from below the stage. the dancers, the music , the acting, set designers, every single person deserved credit for giving us this experience. I can never do justice with words to describe it 🙂
So in conclusion, whichever part of the world you are, please appreciate performing arts around you and encourage artists. They do it to pay their bills but more for the art as well. In the end the standing ovation and an appreciative audience is what will make their day.
All images were used from the internet!
What is your favorite performing art? Or What was the last one you saw? Let me know!
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