On the 20th of January we had a
session
with photographer and movie-maker Umang Bhattacharya. We interacted and
talked about civic responsibility. The session began with a talk about the
importance of empathy and sympathy. Mr. Umang involved us using all our
definitions, ideas and thoughts to reach a final conclusion. We realized how
empathy is different for each and every one of us, for some is it taking action
and not only thinking. For others it merely talking as you care and actually
caring. Empathy as we think of it is looking at the same incident from another
point of view. Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. Sympathy is merely
saying or stating that you are sorry and simply feeling sorry and not
empathetic. We talked about how we can be empathetic in different situation
like breakouts, epidemics and disasters.
We
also viewed and talked about
one of his films, made for The Water Trust, New York (on his website
www.umangb.com). It is about a community in
Masindi, Uganda and how with the
help of Water Trust they were able to
overcome the many challenges they had been facing due to shortage of clean
drinking water. Water Trust empathised
with the community, involving them and using the community’s help to build
their water source, a water pump. This provided the community with fresh
underground water.
This session went really well. I
really liked the way Mr. Umang involved us as if we were making this session
and in reality that was what it was. It was really an informative meeting. It
also brought out the fact about how every person had a different perspective but
everyone empathises.
