What is your legacy?

Source: Film Flows Uneven – The World on Wheels

The legendary actor Soumitra Chatterjee’s word of encouragement for AHEAD –

“The organizations who consolidate and support the work of such care givers do a great deed and it is a very positive step ahead”

I was happy to know the short film Flows Uneven – The World on Wheels will be screened in International ‘Other Film Festival” in Australia this year.

If I had shot this film, I would take the viewers through those doors in AHEAD, through those little minds there in the class rooms learning about life, the discovery they make each day to stretch and reach their full potential, the trust of proud parents who see how able their dear ones can be in the care of those trained teachers. And who is the man behind this movement AHEAD – Some one with lots of money, power and influence?

I would then begin to tell the story of someone real, someone next door who knew - It is not your personal history that makes you who you are - it’s your response to it (Richard Bandler). What a response this man has given to the world, all these years!

The world mostly showed little tolerance and patience with his shortcomings. His limited mobility and associated grievances could have slowed him down but his contribution has been far better than most of us who are standing still on our feet, without any legacy at all.

A first class first in M.Com, a Ph. D, a Cost Accountant, a degree in Advanced Financial Management from Glasgow University with scholarship from British Council, retired as DGM after 34 years in Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Ltd. -. What good were these degrees and the job he did?

This is where he stands apart from the rest of us – involved in conserving nature, a regular activist for disabled, worked for the welfare of tribes, a composer, a writer, whose energies have always been directed to impact other’s lives positively through different channels. In GRSE, he was instrumental in providing employment to about 20 people with handicap. In 1979 he founded AHEAD, a school and a pre- vocational training center for special people.

For a man of this stature who has been awarded multiple times including Helen Keller, Birsa, for a fighter like him who refused to compromise or take any concession owing to his state and for a movement of this magnitude, is it justified to highlight the wheels alone and even title the film based on that?

Wasting precious reel time on an empty wheel chair at the very outset, with camera angle dwelling on “not haves” and “Can’t do” people rather than the smiles the man created and the grit he displayed. Even the script kind of pushed that sentimentality combining an awkward mix of real people and actors to reflect different states with serious lapse in sequencing.

The enthusiastic voices I heard in the film of parents, teachers, siblings showering positive comments seemed more excited to be part of the film. My way would be to get a real story of a family whose child is in AHEAD that would have said it all about how Dr Chowdhury has made a difference or track some one from GSRE who was hired and share his experience.

I am clueless, why are the wheels so important in the film?  I am at war with creative people’s need for expression as that kind of dwarfs and dilutes the intention of creativity in the first place. The reason to share this critical review is to encourage people to go beyond the film to watch the man in action, the movement in progress.

Dr Chowdhury’s books, his music, his family’s support to AHEAD, even this film capturing moments of his life are not his legacy. It is the way he has touched so many lives that will remain his true legacy.

What is your legacy? When you do not get that kick factor any more with a salary hike, a promotion, a new job, new purchase, when you are tired of uploading all those pictures on face book and those hundreds of likes seem mundane, it is time to work on your legacy.

What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others – Pericles, Greek Statesman

The Man                    http://www.aseshkbc.com/

The Movement        www.aheadindia.org