Dilemma & more than 50 shades of gray

Ever thought one important festival or event that you love to attend and how would you feel if it were taken away from you by an Evil Corporation? This was a prompt for a writing class on Wordpress, that  I am sharing here.  What would you write about?

If only, life were as simple as it was, in the movies I grew up watching, a typical movie story showed a good guy and a bad guy. The good guy was honest, truthful, poor but happy. The family, of the good guy was happy too. They portrayed their happiness by singing songs and dancing together in their simple but beautiful home.

Then, in the night, the lightning struck and thunder roared, thereby predicting the impending storm, gloom and doom. As, the bad guy who was pure evil, came in a black cloak, killed the good guy and took the children away. Now, the bad guy was not only wicked, he was also a liar, with lots of ill-gotten wealth and unhappy, with an equally unhappy family or no family. He was so bad and evil that everyone in the audience wanted him dead.

The poor helpless mother, either went blind or lost her memory and spent her entire life dressed as a widow, in one set of white clothes, as she franctically looked for her children. After three hours, the movie ended with the now grown-up children reuniting with their aged mother, but only after they had tortured the bad guy and sent him to the prison, asylum or simply put him down. And the audience, including me applauded with great gusto! This I understood, the definition of good and bad.

However, my journey through life has taught me that people don’t come in colors such as black and white or labels of good and bad, there are many shades of gray, way more than the popular “50 shades of gray.” This makes things complex. Who is the hero? And who is the evil guy?

Our love for Robotics has taken us to many tournaments. We have been to many Robotics events at the state level. Well! this time we experienced the World Robotics tournament in St Louis. It was exciting! To see all the other teams and their Robots. There was a team from Holland singing their “Team cheer” in Dutch. A team from Australia had a super-impressive pit area decorated with Koala bears. Other than their impressive Robots, the team pit areas were elaborately decorated and there were team mascots to boot; the most notable one, that I saw was a bird costume.

There are 800 teams in all participating; from all over the states of USA, Canada, Mexico, South Korea, Holland and many other countries. This is such a wonderful opportunity for kids of all ages to engage in a Science and Math related project in such a fun way. And then to compete and interact with other like-minded teams at this level is surely an exhilarating experience. I enjoyed observing the entire experience. There is still another day left, the closing ceremony is tomorrow, at The Dome. Tomorrow, this four day extravangaza will come to an end.

If an evil corporation were to take it away, I would be devastated, sad and miserable, all at once. A missed opportunity, a major disappointment for thousands of kids who look forward to participating in this event every year. But what if an evil corporation chose to support it?

I must admit, I had to put aside my initial reservations, to be able to enjoy the whole Robotics event. During the opening ceremony, I saw Monsanto on stage. They were one of the major sponsors of the Robotics event. Monsanto is an evil corporation, although opinions may vary. I think the Round up spray that they manufacture, along with the Genetically Modified food is not good for the earth or its people. What should I have done? Boycotted the event that I love and strongly believe in? Having been an advocate of Robotics for six years, should I stop participating in it and promoting it, because it is has an “evil sponsor?” This is my dilemma.