A dream Week !! ;-)

Hi once again!

What does one think of these awards which are held by so many organisations everyday at national and international level?? Many would be thinking them to fixed, pre-decided Winners, everything settled before things come to the Jury Panel, something like that … atleast I used to think something similar. I used to think the same till last week just when something happened and everything changed and I was in for a big surprise.

October 1st Week:
Siting pretty in office, cant say ‘relaxing’ as I was in office ;-) working as usual and suddenly got a call, identified it as Delhi number and I picked up the call … and someone on the other side said .. .”Hello” …

Flash Back – 8 months back
Ok. Lets go into flash back … some 10 months back to January-February days … when I used to come to work everyday in the morning and see people working at a construction site just besides my office, it was everyday that we colleagues used to discuss about the construction that was happening, people working there and the kind of job they do …
Once, as usual I was coming to office and saw a person working on top of a crane, height of around 8-9 floors and strangely so … not wearing any safety belts, jackets nothing at all … guess he was doing some maintanence work … not that I was seeing him for the first time, taking such risky moves .. but something struck me … and I took out my Nokia 6300 mobile phone (with 2mp camera), not that its great a feature, but soon you would realise how good it has proved to me! :-) I captured that person working on crane in my mobile, a regular thing I do actually, whenever I see “kuch alag” (I have a folder in my comp ‘kuch alag’)
That’s it .. regular days work, had lunch and we all again saw the same person working, and discussion started between us!
I did something more, which you all would realise when I come out of my flash back and take the story forward! :-)
[Now imagine I forget all this episode which happened 8 months ago and we ‘ll come to last week]

October 1st Week:
Siting pretty in office, cant say ‘relaxing’ as I was in office ;-) working as usual and suddenly got a call, identified it as Delhi number and I picked up the call … and someone on the other side said .. .”Hello” …
Me: Hello!!
Caller: “Hello, Am I talking to Mr. Mukul Lele?”
Me: “Yes, who’s this?”
Caller: “Sir, am calling from CNN-IBN and this is to inform you that you have won the Citizen Journalist Award for this year”
Me: “Ok” ??????????? (and I have no idea .. what she just said)
Caller: “Sir, you have one one of the awards of the Citizen journalists this year”
Me: “Mam, Can you please confirm you are talking to the right person?”
Caller: “Sir your email address as per our records is ********@***.com?” (correct)
Me: “Yes” [My god .. she is speaking to the correct person]
Caller: “Sir, you had uploaded a picture of a person working on a crane without safety equipments, that picture has been selected as the image of the year by a Citizen journalist”
Me: “Oh is it? [Hell …. How did this happen .. never even thought about this!!]
Caller: “Yes Sir, you have won the Citizen journalist Award under Best Image Category for this year. Heartiest Congratulations Sir. We wanted to know if you could come to the Award ceremony which will held next week in Delhi?”
Me: Not sure, Will inform you in a day! [hahahaha!!! Who ‘ll miss such an opportunity but Cooolllllll .. don’t jump on conclusions, lets think over this]
Caller: “ok Sir, Please tell me by tomorrow so that we can make arrangements. Congratulations once again Sir, I will call you tomorrow”
Me: Thanks a Lot Miss ****

That’s it … 5 mins of call and it confused me to the core … just cant tell you .. how confused I was .. I can list so many things which went through my mind at that moment, the biggest one … ‘I doubted the originality of that call itself’
Spoke to my brother, dad and at once called CNN back (had to search their numbers) to confirm the news. YES, THEY CONFIRMED IT!!! :-) :-)
[Sorry my manager, I didn’t work that day!, I was in a different world!]

16th October 2008 –
Function day .. needless to mention so many VVIPs invited!!! CM of Delhi, Sheila Dixit being the Chief Guest for the occasion.
My Car enters The Taj mahal, New Delhi and I am stunned to see the cameras, people, nice people :-) all around (wait, am not even inside the function hall .. this is outside the hall). Btw must confess one thing .. just as I stepped out from my car, I saw a big glass door, which ofcourse will take me inside the building (not inside the hall) and I had no clue how to open it. PUSH – PULL – HANDLE – ENTER – EXIT, what all I thought and suddenly the attender said “This way Sir ..” … lehhh .. usne to koi aur hi door khol diya .. mai to kahi aur hi khada ho gaya tha :-)
So .. finally we entered the function hall and I wont say much here .. See the video for yourself, to know how things unfolded”

http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/76805/10_2008/cj_awards2510_4a/cj-awards-step-forward-in-inclusive-journalism.html

Sach bolta hoon .. forget me taking the award but for me .. being around with people who have experienced a lot, and have done so much for the society for years and years, I felt so nice and I was just enjoying the moment … I literally did! May it be a lady struggling for 2 years to get a public toilet at her Delhi residentail locality, person who constructs bridges in villages to connect them to towns / other villages, or a disabled person fighting against the govt and finally getting Delhi buses enabled with a footover step for the disbaled! These people are really special!



Now the question is .. With people doing so much for this society, working hard they deserve to be @ the center stage but why me (or few other people) who comparatively have done nothing at all but yet sharing the same space with these honored citizens!
And I feel .. There are few people who experienced, who fought and who conquered but there should be few more to bring in front such an experience, for people to think, decide and take the right steps towards their bright and safe future!!!

[EVERYTHING MENTIONED ABOVE IS JUST MY THOUGHT / MY OPINION AND AM NOT MAKING ANY STATEMENTS .. Suggestions / comments welcome!]