Why we meet?

8th March, 9.30 AM at Ross Frisco(Texas USA), I stood in a dilemma looking at travel bags, a black and a grey. It was too early for shops to open and shop keepers cleaning & smiling at me. Having bitten by shopping bug and its side effects, my bags couldn’t accommodate all I had bought and I had to shop the last gift for myself, a travel luggage. LOL!!

As I walked around luggage displays, I just wished I had someone who could help me make a decision. I didn’t even notice a gentle man standing next to me looking for another bag. I was talking to myself when he cracked a conversation about a choice between Samsonite and Nautica. I asked him about my dilemma and he helped me for next 5 minutes to make a choice. I bought the bag we both felt looks good and then he left the place.

As I paid the bill and walked out of the showroom, I was just thinking why did we meet? An hour in the day, when people are just wrapping breakfast, why was he in the shop? Did he come to just help? Or was I open enough to talk so he helped?

It was the day when I was traveling back home and was stuck in a bad chaos at airport. The American airlines staff mis-guided me thrice and I was just an hour away from my flight time and still waiting to get a boarding pass. I was panicked to hell and tapping my legs furiously. A man standing ahead of me just turned and smiled. He started with a small conversation and told me the late you get, more chances are there for an upgrade. He not only told me to relax, but continued his small talk to make me laugh at the incident. He was coincidently on the same flight as mine. On the 18 hours long journey, we had good conversations about life experiences, hot & pity topic of shaadi.com and a man’s view of wife and life.

Had I been on my own, I would have missed it but he also helped me get an express transfer at Heathrow airport as well as we had less time between flights. I told him I would name him as express wala in my blog, to which we laughed aloud.

I thought the day would be easy since all the drama had ended, but as I landed in India my mobile was not recognizing sim card and there he was helping me call my cab. 5 minutes more together and then we waved each other good bye.

I have often travelled alone and have managed my way, but this was the most awkward journey with incidents to remember. Was it all supposed to happen to me and so I had some one next to me to help especially on this one.

Such incidents often make me ponder; Life is a very strange journey. As you walk the path you meet people, stay together for a while and then move on as if we are strangers. What dictates when we are supposed to meet, why do we have feelings when we are together? Then why we curb those feelings and silently walk away from them as strangers.

A friend once told me, we need such memories along with breathe which justifies that we are living. But life and its experiences, keep this wonder writer wonder….why we meet?

Touch down to a technology experience.

On a ride of universal studio tour, I learnt a lot about the art of film making. As they say we tend to believe what we see, but the level of effort which goes into making of 90 - 180 minutes feature films is just amazing. From concepts, to models, to miniature creatures to use of technology, Hollywood is way above all others. Jaws one of my most favorite English movies had an automated model of shark and 75 ships were used to create its scenes. The tour also showed us Jurassic park dinosaur models, sequences creating floods, artificial models to show earth quakes, accidents etc. It also covered a 4D experience in which the tram we were on, become a victim of dinosaur attack and then king kong saved us.

2D, 3D concepts which I had read in graphics subject was exhibited in real life, as shows and rides. The best part of day was the transformer’s ride. In the ride, I was in a car and was stuck in a world attacked by Robot’s. As the alien robot held my car, the effects on the car made me feel it is happening for real. We often see in movies how people fall from a building and the same effect I could feel with my eyes. The ammunitions hit me for real and the bombs exploded next to me. It was such an amazing use of creativity, technology and mechanics, which I have never experienced before.

The special effects stage represented yet another Pandora of knowledge on how a small model can be converted to a real looking effect. The use of storyboarding, image art, giving voice to miniature creatures and putting this all together, is a tremendous effort for creating cartoons. Their creativity is amazing and so is their willingness to do better than their earlier efforts. And this has been happening since the years of Mickey Mouse, Tom & Jerry and is being given a new direction now.

The real advancement of technology and its use for entertainment, for education, health etc. gives so many avenues to the children today, which we rarely have seen at our times. As I wrote this blog, I was just remembering the days when we used to write essays in school on our holiday experiences. Collecting feathers, describing lentils etc. was the only thing we used to know about. But children today are exposed to so many new advanced technologies and am amused thinking what they would be writing or reading about in holidays.

I would appeal to all my friends with kids- as responsible parents- to expose their children to knowledge and the amazing use of it for their better future. Other than the subjects they study enable them with use of internet, amazing games and such holiday experiences, so that their minds develop to be more creative than us. Also impart them with the knowledge on how this is created and how this relates to the subjects in science. This way, am sure they will become successful innovators and contributors to the world.