WHERE I'M MEANT TO BE
"It is inspired by the prison diary of Professor James Tooley, who in Hyderabad, India was wrongfully imprisoned while working on a film about education in slums and shantytowns. Without his work, we wouldn't know that all over the world, parents are pooling their money together and opening their own low cost schools."
James Tooley has just released his book, “Imprisoned in India: Corruption and Extortion in the World’s Largest Democracy.”
bit.ly/2fugaB7
About the book
James Tooley has been described as a 21st-century Indiana Jones, travelling to remote parts of the developing world to track something that many regarded as mythical: private schools serving the poor. It was in the Indian city of Hyderabad that Tooley first discovered these schools, and wrote about them in his award-winning book The Beautiful Tree, which also documented state corruption and the attempts to shut the schools down. But the state was to exact revenge: upon returning to Hyderabad, Tooley was unjustly arrested and thrown into prison.
Conditions in the prison were dire, and the jailers typically cruel and violent, but the other prisoners were extraordinarily kind. Chillingly, many had been in prison for years, never charged with anything, often victims of police corruption, too poor to go to court and secure bail.
Imprisoned in India tells the story of Tooley’s incarceration and subsequent battles with maddeningly corrupt Indian bureaucracy, which made him realise how fundamental the rule of law is to the workings of a good society. It’s something we take for granted, but without which all human flourishing is threatened, especially for the poor. Tooley discovered, too, how the human spirit, even amongst those wrongfully imprisoned, can soar above the brutality and tyranny of those in power.
Here's a video of James Tooley discussing what he has found and how he helps some of the world's poorest people.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuYFgkYZfvU
A poignant story about the “Indiana Jones of education,” Professor James Tooley, who was imprisoned in India for trying to bring education to the ill privileged. Vopnfjord was honoured to read Tooley’s diary that was sent to him, and has adapted Tooley’s story in song: “I will write my prison story down in the margins of this book / Around the great words of Gandhi and the chances that he took / And all of us are guilty and the others they are crooked and corrupt.” The song, like many on Frozen In Time, reveals the deep awareness Vopfnjord cultivates naturally as an artist and a feeling man. The song demonstrates this artist’s compassion and advocacy for important issues that many a folk song in the 60s were known for. As if frozen in time, Vopnford channels a similar vibe as Simon & Garfunkel or Dylan and many of the poets and songwriters documenting the changing times and struggles of their time, and shared on the university campuses and pontificated at coffee houses over coffee and cigarettes and protests.
Buy his book, "The Beautiful Tree"
from
Frozen in Time,
released October 28, 2016
Lindy Vopnfjord
Acoustic Guitar and Vocals, Wurlitzer Piano on track 4
Rick May
Bass Guitar, Engineered by Garnett Betts at Coast Road Recording, Victoria, BC
Örn Eldjárn
Electric Guitar on track 2, engineered by Snorri Helgason at Snossgæti, Reykjavik, Iceland
Bob Egan
Pedal Steel Guitar
Ian LeFeuvre
Electric Guitar on track 2, Percussion and Drums on track 2, Violele on track 12
Stephen Krecklo
Lap Steel Guitar on tracks 6 & 7
Simon Miminis
Drums and Percussion
Luke Doucet
Electric Guitar on tracks 5 & 11
Todor Kobakov
Vibraphone, Rhodes Piano, Percussion and Drums on tracks 5, 6 & 9
Engineered by Jeremy Darby and Julian De Corte at Canterbury Music Company Toronto
Engineered by Todor Kobakov at Kobakov Sound Toronto
Mixed by Todor Kobakov at Kobakov Sound Toronto
Mastered by Steve Fallone at Sterling NYC
Produced by Todor Kobakov
