Celebrating neurodivergent talent

We released the 2nd film from the Ummeed campaign earlier this week. 

Simply titled, 'Celebrating Neurodivergent talent,' the film chronicled the stories of four ND youths who sing, dance, model and do other cool things. 

It isn't lost on us how much of a big role privilege plays in enabling careers in arts and similar fields. It's pretty much why engineering and STEM are so big in India. 

It's super tough to make it in these fields. Especially without a godfather, a mentor, or someone to pretty much handhold you through your initial years. 

But the film was less about the politics of a career in the arts and more about self-expression and being enabled to showcase your talent, what you're really good at. 

Cuz most of us don't even get those opportunities. 

We express differently, we say different things when expressing differently, and in our expressions, we talk about the divergent ways in which we experience life. 

I get it - it's not for a mass audience. A majority just won't get it. The system aligns way too perfectly with how they think, feel and express for them to feel the need to consider other perspectives. 

And that's ok. Maybe in another life we'll all come back as the same people we now are, and the system will come back as someone totally different who mainstreams us rather than marginalizing us. 

And then the art we create, the dance we do, the songs we sing and everything else we do will be celebrated for its full authenticity. 

Success v failure

Success v failure. 

For a while I've been thinking about what it means to be successful vs a failure. 

Are they binary states of being? Are they black and white, or more a spectrum? Are they mutually exclusive? 

Is a success never a failure? Or vice versa? 

I think it's more a continuous state of mind. Not to say they're not entirely made up constructs, and very, very subjective, both of which they are to a very large extent. 

But also not to say that society doesn't have a very clearly defined set of parameters for what success (and failure) look like. 

In terms of physical appearance, the wealth and property you own, the people you're surrounded by, the respect you get, the followers you have, etc. 

I do believe that, largely, each person defines their own terms for success, and if you tick off those boxes you've set for yourself, you're successful. 

But a large part of it also comes down to making others see that you're successful, na? 

Because what even is success if it doesn't change others' perception of you for the better? If it doesn't make them believe you're the superior being, and - in the larger neurotypical scheme of things - they must listen to you and obey. 

I don't know. 

I have started to think that success and failure are both very ephemeral. 

Like it's a daily thing. Every day you succeed and some things, every day you fail at others. And some things are net no result. 

Like for example if you're up for an award, the day's success or failure builds up until the point that the announcer on stage is going through the nominees list. The moment the name of the winner is announced, if it's you, that's the day's success. And it lasts for the whole 10 minutes that you walk up to the stage, take the award, shake hands, do photos, make your grand speech, and walk off. 

The moment you're doing the walk off, the success - which for those 10 minutes was in a state of limbo, existent but neither really moving towards fading out nor growing - is now slowly fading away. It's already begun to subdue. 

Now the deal is to maintain that success. Because in this world, not being able to maintain a level of success you've reached is also - believe it or not - failure. 

As for me, as a neurodivergent individual, I succeed every day, I fail every day. My parameters are way different than most others because people might find the things that I find difficult very easy, and so my challenges are alien to most neurotypicals. 

So if I manage to finish some work while there's a loud procession passing by outside, or crackers going off, that's a huge win. That's me having achieved the day's success. Or doing a 20-min Headspace session without having a single bugging thought. That's major success. 

Failure would be not being able to tick off everything on my to-do list, or falling behind on a course. Which - again - is something that does happen every other day. 

Of course these are only a couple of the things from my everyday to-do list, but my point here is that success and failure are literally every day occurrences. 

It's like a large horizontal scale with zero in the center, and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 on the right, and the same sequence on the left (no negatives, because success is hardly a negative). 

Say you do three things successfully, and you fail at two. That's a net count of S1. So net net, you saw success that day. Your net count every is what matters, what adds up. 

So of course the larger goal is to be able to see success in every thing every day, and failure in nothing, but until the time I'm human, that's not possible. 

So trying to have a minimum net S1 every day is the goal. Net S1 and  >S1s add up to count to something in the long run. 

Up until the point you're walking off stage with that gleaming, shiny, glittery award. 

Cuz by the time dinner's served that evening, you're already wondering what peak to conquer next. The scale's already been reset to zero, and tomorrow's a shiny, glittery new day to prove yourself all over again. 

Darkinaar in the news

Darkinaar is in the news because the awesome folx at Mid Day did a full feature on Neurodiversity Celebration Week, and recommended our film as a must-watch. 

Big ups to our team and the guys at Ummeed, who are a real pleasure to work with. More of such natural synergies need to happen in the world. 

NV is no more

The saddest thing in the world is for someone who has a family to leave this world like he were all alone. 

Been one of the saddest, most deeply upsetting weeks in years. 

One of our friends - NV - who we met just once earlier this year, was supposed to be featured on our page. 

Both Liz and Aditi were speaking to him throughout Feb, sending him emails and stuff. Helping him figure out what to send, how to send it, etc. Plus he'd been in and out of hospital. 

Wednesday afternoon Aditi last spoke to him. Thursday just before midnight we get a message on one of our groups saying he's passed on. 

Shocked out of her skull Aditi opens her whatsapp to show me his messages, and that's when we see his last status update. It said in plain Hindi, 'from now on, we'll only ever meet in your thoughts. yours, NV.' 

Fucking broke my heart. NV was a good guy. He told me about his condition. Then I read about it, and him, and found out he had had a hard life. His mom died at a young age, and he had to pretty much take care of himself and his brother, which he did for some years selling vegetables in his village. Later he worked as an electrician, but couldn't keep at it because of constant hospitalisation. 

Guy was in too much pain just being alive. 

All his life he had been going in and out of hospital, requiring continuous treatment. He'd sent us a picture of an ulcer on his leg. It looked horribly painful. 

Life is brutal for some disabled folx. And it makes me wonder if storytelling is even of any consequence at all? 

Would NV's destiny have turned out any different had his story gone global? 

Maybe he'd have received the help he needed. But would that mean everyone going through similar things would've got the support they need? 

How many NVs exist in India currently for whom every day is full of pain? How many of those stories can we possibly tell? How many of those stories told get the help, the attention they deserve? How much of that change really ever happens? 

A fraction of a fraction of a fraction. 

Darkinaar - a film on bullying

Worked with the delightful team at Ummeed Child Development Center to put this out. 

A short factual chronicling the bullying experiences of disabled & neurodivergent people. 

Much Much Media shot with Bill Gates

We just shot with Mr Bill Gates. As part of the Gates Foundation's work in social sanitation and agriculture across Odisha and New Delhi.

Was quite a hectic shoot too, with back-to-back days of travel and same-day edits and uploads.

Here's one edit.