Project TAG ALONG

Project TAG ALONG was a simple and novel way of celebrating the success of the movie Slumdog Millionaire. I became a part of it quite unexpectedly actually. I came across a write-up in the newspaper about this guy, Harish,who wanted to celebrate the success of the movie in a different way. He wanted to take children who live in slums,i.e, under-priviledged kids, to watch the movie. Basically, it was to make the society aware that this strata of the society need not be ignored or shunned. So, i googled this 'Project Tag Along' and reached his blog where he had posted details about it. The deal was simple. Just take along a kid who has never had a whiff of a mall or a multiplex, and watch the movie together. All those interested were to book tickets for the Hindi version for themselves and their ward in a theater in Andheri, which was the pre-decided venue for all. So basically, just have fun! I dont know what made me do it, but i was soon texting everyone i knew, sending invites on FB and making calls to rope in people. I had two days to make plans and set things up. By friday evening 7 children were invited, tickets were booked and we were set. So today afternoon a jing-bang lot of 11 people made their way in the brutal heat and the excrutiatingly slow-moving Andheri traffic to watch the much acclaimed film. Well, plainly speaking I dint like the movie, and was quite appalled that we had brought these already very dazed and extrememly shy children, to watch this flick. But surprisingly, at the end of the show, all of them were quite happy if not thrilled with the experience. Then i thought, maybe they connected with the movie and its message more than I did. Thats when it struck me that this was the whole idea of this endevour. The movie is all about optimism and it did get across the message to them. So inspite of the almost non-existent response from people to join in this cause, or any media attention(well, i dont deny that i was very excited at its prospect), I was satisfied with the whole exercise. The kids were happy and expressed their gratitude, which removed all remenants of doubts if the whole thing was worth it or not, from my mind. It was a bloody tiring day, but it was worth every bit of the heat, grime, sweat and commute!!!