Perception

I took this pic on one of my trips to interior Orissa. The Picture reminded me of the old man and the sea, just that this old man was rowing his boat in a river. Such scenes are common and yet capture our imagination. I was lucky enough to click this one..

The man and mask

The man, a mask and his crooked walk, had faded out of sight,
His lonely tooth, his toothless smile, his eyes moist and bright,
He swung on his way, singing gung-ho hey, and held on to the bottle of wine,
Alas, he was gone and not seen at all, his footprints proof; he was fine.


His mask had weathered with time, but he held it close to his heart.
It had after all been his face, when his smile grace and youth were his part,
The colours may have faded with time, but it had stood by him as a friend,
And now the man and his mask had aged but together years they would spend.


If the years to come were of grief, they would cry together for sure,
If happiness came a visiting, they would share the feelings pure,
And if came death, with arms wide open, they would both embrace
A life that had been entwined by two faces would fade away in a face.


The mask had been the man, when he searched for himself in youth,
The two together, were but one, but for a fateful day in June,
The day that seperated the man and the mask, was when he fell from a height,
He got back on his crooked feet and bent too much to his right


And then he walked to the place on the wall and took off the mask and said;
"Friend! oh friend, you are me and together we will be,
In sickness, health or better days,
You and me, you and me, you and me..

excuses

there are excuses for not doing things you don't want to. I could have written each day, but I preferred not to. At times I was busy or simply lazy, on other occasions I was sad or happy. The excuses knew no bounds and I got into the habit of denying myself that little space I had promised i would give myself, and to make matters worse, I didn't feel the urge to get back to witing. Today, yet again, I force myself to type in a few words.

A transition from good times to bad times isn't easy. When you've seen good days, you are so engrossed in yourself and the joy of the moment that any hindrance seems a burden. But, when that burden is there to stay, all you can do is try and look at the positive side of life, take in a deep breath, feel strong and get to work. Things have a way of easing themselves out and bad times don't last forever. I know all that and yet all I want to do at times is bawl like a child and howl and cry my lungs out. The tragedy is I can't. I just wait for time to fly by. But, time has to make it's pesence felt and has started moving at snail's pace.

Someone told me that there's nothing as good times and bad times. There's a part of good in the bad and vice versa. But, I DISAGREE..
Enuf for today I guess..

Jinnah in jannat - India at war

Life is at it again and the sailing isn't too smooth these days. Jinnah is the last thing on my mind, and the whole controversy surrounding Jaswant Singh's book on Jinnah is certainly not distracting me from the turmoils life has to offer. BJP may be on a soul searching spree and there may be too many sacrificial goats who will readily give up their lives for the party. One such man being Jaswant Singh. He knows he might never see the chair of power, ever again. His jaw dances every time he speaks and so, he'd rather use his brains and write a book on none other than 'Quaid e azam'- The man India would rather not talk about. How many Indians would jump at the prospect of reading a book on Jinnah?? not too many. I for one wouldn't read it even if someone gifted it to me. reason, well too many.

However what Jaswant singh has managed to do is, rake up a small spot of my brain where I had hidden the plight of muslims in India. They aren't a minority, if we go by numbers, but how many people actually make it to the most prized careers in India. Most muslims are towed away to professions like weaving, stitching, carpentry and other menial jobs. The educated ones have managed to carve a niche` in various professions. They are present in Journalism, engineering, medicine or for any other profession. The numbers are less but their presence can be felt.


Hindus and muslims have co - existed in harmony, but for the interference of some selfish, self centred people. My chidhood days were the most secular phase of my life. That was when we waited for months to eat the delicious sewai at a friends place on the occasion of Id? The whole month of Ramzan was a celebration with various iftar parties and gosht and biryani. These days were clouded by the hindu - muslim riots, which ruined not only properties but also lives of people. The incidents mostly occurred during the Ram navmi - Muharram processions. Civilian authorities dreaded the time and hoped and worked at making it a peaceful day. The temple and mosque were constructed on teh same road and the colourful prosessions leading to the temple/mosque were a show of power. Swords clanged. Tazias glittered in green. The whole place was a riot of colours. The peaceful day was about to change into a dreadful ghory tale and no one knew.

Young men, or were they boys, who played football and cricket matches together were on two other sides, when something happened. The peaceful marchers turned into a mob. Swords which had glistened in the air attacked others. The happiness and gaiety in the air had vanished. Blood thirsty younsters were at each others throat. In no time at all word spread to other parts of the city and in no time a muslim dominated area was burnt down. Muslims attacked hindus and women and children on both sides were also affected. A bus full of women and children were burnt down. Curfew was clamped in the whole city and we could hear police sirens, as they made rounds of the city. My father's friend and his three grown up daughters had taken shelter in our relatives place. Hindu mobs had followed them and they left the house only after they were convinced that the muslim family wasn't there.

The processions were banned on that road after that episode and life switched to a more peaceful pace. However, scars had been imprinted on the lives of the people who had lost their houses and loved ones. The other ocassion when hindus and muslims were at loggerheads was when there was an India Pakistan one day match. If India won, things would be fine. But, if Pakistan was victorious, we still heard crackers burst. That was enough to instigate the Hindu neighbourhood. The green flags with moon and star were dragged down and burnt. Muslims were beaten up. All this happened some 30 years back. India was all of 32 and we had Indira Gandhi ruling the country. Restlessness in society was dominant. Religion was still the basis of all social activity and tolerance was at ground zero. That was the time when a new generation was either being conceived or was in the womb.

Muslims in India have lived in fear. Each time there is a bomb blast, muslim men are targeted as an aftermath. There is an unsaid sense of dissatisfaction that exists in the silent eyes that look on, in anticipation of being a part of the countries secular fabric. The divide however, is so large that it would take many years and lots of effort to bridge the gap. That, muslims form a major part of the society is something that hindus would rather deny but the fact remains that they are an integral part of India and will always be so..

Love aaj kal

It's been a week since i saw 'Love aaj kal' and i realise that i like it even more than i did the day I saw it. How is that possible?? especially when it's a hindi movie we are talking about. Was it the Brazilian beauty and her innocence or was it Neetu Singh in the last scene or maybe the songs or the ... I guess it was all of it and the fact that this love story had a happy ending. There's always something magical about a couple in love. The glow on their faces and the dreamy look in the eyes make them look like characters of a fairy tale. When it all merges into a 'they got married and lived happily ever after' phase, there are tears of happiness all around.


Last year I met a 25 year old girl from some European country. During our conversation I came to know that she had another sister at home and two step brothers. She told me that her mom had got married thrice and that she was single now. "My mom left my dad when I was 7" she said. "Oh! I am so sorry", I blurted out. "hey, don't be sorry" she continued " My mom thought she had met her soul mate and she couldn't stay away from the man. So, she left home, dad and us and went away", she added. I looked confused. "She left him in three months because she thought he wasn't the actual soul mate", she went on. I didn't know whether to be sorry for her or for myself. I felt like laughing but preferred to tuck away my emotions. That is love - the western style.


India seems to have arrived too. Love today is more about convenience.
It's more about - I engineer + u engineer = love + marriage = no kids. When and if Cupid does strike, it is probably a wee bit late. The man/woman is already married and is surrounded with responsibilities. If one is able to heal oneself within the folds of their comfortable existence, the do so and if not, then they queue up outside the Divorce lawyers office. The queue seems to be getting longer by each passing day and the quest for true love is on. Being married for 10, 20, 30 or 40 or 50 years is not too fashionable any more.


Love aaj kal has a new face to it. The innocence is lost and there is a sense of superficial freedom that keeps the youngsters on their toes. The emotions are mere words which can be used as and when it's needed. There is a dearth of time and everything else can be dealt with. The confusion of whether Love has actually happened or not is what Saif Khan goes through in the movie. The last scene in which Deepika Padukone moves down as she wipes away her tears was an absolute treat. And, for a change I was happy she was crying..

We call him Buster

That's iittle Buster with his favourite toy - the tiger. The tiger was shredded into pieces by this little devil and had to be replaced. His new companion is a monkey..




sleeping with the enemy:

Making a stream

Somewhere by the road, people are working. They are making a stream..

Hysterical Mehbooba

Lush green fields, monsoons, wonderful weather, all this and Mehbooba. That makes for a perfect setup. It's everything one ever wanted - An ideal situation. Add a Mufti to the tale and it gets twisted. Today, an angry Mehbooba Mufti, the PDP leader, darted towards the Speaker in the J an K assembly and hurled the microphone at him. Some onlookers sneered, while others sat through the episode in sullen silence, until the lady was thrown out of the assembly quite unceremoniously.


When asked why she took the step in full public glare, she whirled a volley of words at the interviewer and said that it was because she wasn't given a fair chance during the questionaire. "The speaker used derogatory words aginst me", she claimed. Does that give a leader the right to behave like a child?? So much for Indian Democracy.


This kind of show of angst isn't uncommon to the Indian audience. We may be made to understand that there was public welfareat stake in the J an K assembly, but the better side of my brain knows better. It was a show of helplessness at the loss in the assembly elections, and the knowledge that the recent spate of events that had hit the state weren't all a matter of state disfunctionalism. Hence, the need to seek attention in a manner that is averse to anything democratic.


We have witnessed such scenes in other state assemblies earlier too and those scenes had been 'hard hitting' in all aspects of the term. The Uttar Pradesh assembly had seen chairs and mics being used as weapons of 'class destruction'. Class here is my way of addressing the symbols of democracy, who have been chosen by the people. Just last year, the Andhra Pradesh asembly witnessed a similar crisis and before that we also had the Orissa asembly frantically in search of weapons to attack the enemy within the house.



We are not alone in the world to have our leaders at each others throats. Some days back, we had scenes from the South Korean Parliament, where Parliamentarians struggled to strangle every other opponent. Women Parliamentarians ensured that they fought against their women counterparts only!! It was a sight straight out of a comic flick from Cartoon network. Needless to say, it was sheer entertainment. The feeling of sharing the same kind of hysteria can bring countries closer, after all.



As for me, I prefer to chill out with the song 'Mehbooba, mehbooba.. gulshan mein gul khilte hain.....' Mufti is set aside to rest because I know she will rise again tomorrow morning, and this time she'll be in black and white, all over the pages of newspapers across the country..

An eclipsed eclipse

"Dis is da problem ven u overwork!!! Poor Sun takes just a 6 minute break an da whole world is talking abt it!!!" - This was a tag line written by one of my friends on facebook. Isn't it right that the Sun is overworked! It's only when it's not there that we realise it's importance. On a sunny day, when the heat is unbearable, we curse the sun, on a cloudy day we curse it again! Come winters and we curse it for not shining brightly. But, one moment of rest for it, and the world stands still.


All the ga ga over the solar eclipse seems to be dying down today. It was after all supposed to be the longest eclipse of the 21st century. All the attention was expected. Did I say suppose!! The eclipse watchers will chase me till I accept the theory that it was indeed 'the longest' eclipse of the century. After all, it did last for appx 5 mins. But, I missed it. I simply overslept. The clouds had anyway taken over the skies and I was faraway from any place where the eclipse was fully visible. Above all, nature was plotting against me and ensured that i do not watch the spectacle unfold itself.


The world watched the dazzling sun being devoured by the moon and in a moment darkness had enveloped the morning, and converted it into five minutes of miraculous night. There was pitch darkness and then emerged the ring - the diamond ring, one that nature had gifted to humanity. Space tourists had created means of watching the eclipse, some travelled by planes, so as to capture the sun through their lenses. They did not want the clouds to play spoilsport and went beyond the clouds to catch the ring closely.


Clouds did cover the skies and barred millions of people from watching the eclipse at Taregna, near Patna. Varanasi, however, was the place that was blessed and the people who witnessed the eclipse will remember it forever. Fortune tellers had the time of their lives predicting future while scientists analyzed the eclipse. The astronomers sat glued to their telescopes to capture each move of the moon and the Sun. The eclipse has passed me by, and all I can do now is wait for the next eclipse. I am sure I will catch it next time. The sun is shining brightly and there's not a trace of darkness left behind. The moon is moving on it's usual route. All is as it was. There is hope..

Truth and dare

When a person is hell bent on taking revenge, all he/she has to do is speak the truth. That might sound ridiculous, but that's exactly what is happening. The new show on TV, that has people glued to it, isn't the usual 'saas bahu' rona dhona. On the contrary, it is real life unfolding itself. People agree to bare facts about their lives and if all their answers are right, they carry home a goody bag full of money. One yes or no is the answer that decides what their sub conscious mind thinks. That sub conscious mind is the part that is always awake. It's our conscience. The mind when awake, tunes itself to what is politically correct. The lie becomes the truth for the outer world. The person himself/herself starts believing it to be reality.


Truth isn't always pleasant especially the ones that have been hidden away in the deepest crevices of the mind. "Did you have sex with a prostitute"? a not so young man was asked, on TV. His life was being read out in public and he was ready to take on the challenge of truth. The camera moved towards the family members, so that it could absorb each expression they were going through. An ex wife of the participant cringed in her seat, while the daughter just covered her face. It wasn't the viciousnes of the question, but the anxiety over the answer, that was writ all over her face. "Yes", came the answer. That must have stabbed her that very moment, because her face had turned pale. The other questions were equally personal and I did not know whether to appreciate the man for his boldness or to admonish him for putting his family through an embarassing situation. I also saw a woman partcipant, who after a few simple questions, was put through the ultimate test. The answer was 'no' from her side, but the polygraphy test differed. Her husband was choked for words.


We like to sneak into others lives and see what is happening beyond our boundary wall. When we see people revealing the truths of their lives, we are hooked to it. It could be a neighbour, or relative, or a friend or a stranger on a TV channel. All this gets more chatpata if someone's personal life is being disussed. Gossip gets a boost by some people who cannot sustain their excitement and the truth of the victim becomes his/her nightmare.

Truth has the power to ruin lives, not make them. This may seem hypocritical but its a fact. The real self, real ambitions, dreams are stashed away behind the mask of the roles we don. A man may want to be a singer but he dresses up in formals and attends board meetings, till he drops dead. Another might live an unhappy life, but would never admit that he wants to spend his whole life with another woman. The truth would make too many people unhappy, so, he stops living his own life.


Women are experts at denying themselves even a moment of happiness, until it involves their families, husbands or children. They like to carry the baggage of guilt about all the things that have not been taken care of. Not once do women sit back and realise that their families exist because they do. She knows that truth would make her happy and then happiness demands more. So, before the 'dil asks for more', she shrugs off the truth and wears her baggage once again. It's heavy but lighter than truth. That's how heavy truth is.



One man's truth may be the other mans lie. That is only when you are in the company of people. When one sits all alone, in introspection, he/she knows the truth. No polygraphy test is needed. The mind gives us our answers, and we, the civilized inhabitants of a lonely planet, just have to look within us. Some people have the guts to accept truth and live life as they want to, others wane away into anonymity and are forgotten.