जिन्दगी कैसी है पहेली..

आज कई दिनों बाद फिर से ऋषिकेश मुख़र्जी की फ़िल्म आनंद देखी. शायद पांचवी बार देख रहा था. पिछली चार बार तो ख़ूब रोया था देखकर. इस बार सोचा की ऐसा नहीं होगा. आखिरी पाँच मिनट में एहसास भी नहीं हुआ की कब आंसू निकल पड़े. कई रिश्ते खून के रिश्ते ना होकर भी हमें जान से प्यारे होते हैं. अपनी जिन्दगी में भी कुछ ऐसे लोगों को यादकर आंसूओं का सिलसिला बस चलता रहा. ऐसे लोग जिन्होंने बिना किसी वजह बिना किसी स्वार्थ के मुझे सब कुछ दिया. भले ही मैंने उनके लिए कभी ख़ास वक़्त भी न निकाला हो. आंसू ही प्यार की सबसे बड़ी निशानी होती है शायद. जब भी मैं अपने आपको अकेला पता हूँ तो इनके स्मरण मात्र से शक्ति का आभास होता है.

Mere Yaar ki Shaadi

We used to call him Loki. The 100 meters unrivaled champion of the school, an exceptional sportsman, a favorite among girls, and above all a very close friend of mine. He got married on 10^th of December. He called me on 9^th to remind me that my presence at the ceremony is a must. Loki, I know you are very angry with me. But the circumstances were such that I just could not make it. Even I am angry with myself – but sometimes we just have to abide by our obligations. This was perhaps the most important day of your life. But you know Loki, I was just physically absent – my mind and my heart were with you – I know even this assertion won’t calm you. Bhabhiji is very beautiful and you two make an excellent pair. I wish you a very happy married life. I hope to visit Varanasi soon and meet you and others.

The third picture is of my gang at school, who attended the ceremony. Description from left to right:
Arvind – That killing smile killed many girls. A very kind hearted person. The great bowler of our cricket team. Abe arvind, tujhse bhi aakar milta hoon.
Anand – William Wordsworth in the making. A great friend.
Dr. Neeraj – I don’t have to worry about my teeth when I am at my hometown. After all, the best dentist is my dear friend.
Anupam – The bindaas boy of our class. Anupam I don’t want to catch you red-handed with your nth girl-friend ;)
Abhishek – The soon to become an MLA. A very smart young leader of the BJP.
Harsh – Sat beside him in the class for 3 successive years and made fun of everybody around. I wish he succeeds in his business initiatives.

Do I need to see a psychiatrist?

Past few days, my mind has been yearning for something that others find very weird, which I personally find not even remotely weird, at least till I get out of this phase. It was all getting built up bit by bit for quite sometime now, and reached a crescendo after watching Nagesh Kukunoor’s Iqbal. Not that I am a masochist, not that I have never dreamt of driving a Ferrari out of my bungalow in Zurich, not that I abhor capitalism (though I don’t admire it either), but it’s just that I am getting this feeling for the first time and believe me, I am finding it all very romantic. That scene in Iqbal, where the mother is cooking some rukha sukha in some dilapidated earthen pots in the kitchen, or to say a thatched confinement separated from the rest of the house by a boundary of mud-stuck bricks, has become my dream. I find my well furnished flat, with marble floorings in the kitchen so very trite or if not an exaggeration, egregious. I have this itching desire to have sukhi roti in that confinement with the mud-plastered floor, wearing very ordinary clothes, if not tattered ones. I find all these so exciting that I have made it a point in my mind to experience all these some day. People might just say - had I actually been born in such a surrounding, I would have realized the difficulty of such a life. But apart from this fantasy of mine, I have begun to detest my fortunes of having all the luxuries at my side. It suffocates me at times. I don’t remember taking a plunge into the pond of the countryside for a bath. God, am I so unfortunate to spend all my life taking bath with that stupid hand shower in my bathroom? Will I continue to drive on the sick roads, or will I get the opportunity to run bare foot on the dew soaked grass of the field. Will I continue to punish myself with the useless burgers, or will I be fortunate enough to sip some freshly milked milk. Am I destined to meet only professional people or is someone as pure as Khadija (played by Shweta Prasad in Iqbal) going to intercept me. The list is endless. Am I being whacky? I guess I am not.

Tidbits

Scene 1: I was coolly having lunch with the office colleagues while watching the television. They were showing this something adaalat program in which Rajat Sharma was interviewing, rather screwing, Shotgun (aka apne Shatrughan Sinha). If you have watched other interviews of Shatruji, you would have noticed that he makes sure he mentions that the role of Vijay in Deewar played by Mr Bachchan was actually offered to him first by Manmohan Desai, but he could not accept it for want of dates. He states this fact very assumingly. So far so fine – I was hearing something that I had heard many times ago. But suddenly from nowhere Rajat Sharma gave the mike to one young guy in the audience to ask a question to apne Shatruji. This is what he asked – so Shatruji don’t you think that your paucity of dates that time was the best thing that could happen to Manmohan Desai!!! I was taken aback, and so was Shatruji. But our actor turned politician has learnt to handle such pressure cooker situations (remember the allegations made against him in the parliament that he is a lazy person, wakes up at 12 noon and often misses the Lok Sabha sessions :) He quickly regained his humor – and replied – Aapne bilkul theek bola. Ab mujhe lag raha hai ki audience mein kuchh kaafi samajhdaar log bhi hain. Shatruji, you said that in front of the camera – but dil mein ye baat chubh si gai hogi :)

Scene 2: The Red shift: Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharya (Jyoti Basu’s successor) was being grilled by the media for his audacious statement (by leftists’ standard) made regarding his welcoming of FDI into West Bengal. Now even a class 2 student knows, that being a Leftist means – to shout against World Bank, WTO, IMF, G8, FDI, even though that’s beneficial for the nation. But Mr Bhattacharya had given the green signals to many MNCs to invest in West Bengal. To add to the severity of the situation Mr Basu was also beside him (since his illness, it is not very often that we get to see/hear him). This was another pressure cooker situation. Basu had gone almost dumb. I was itching my kidney to hear the reply. It was such a tense moment for those two, and it was such an enjoyable one for me. Finally Mr Buddhadeb had this to say – We are changing, Left ideology has to change to the modern trends. If what he said was true, then that’s a very welcome step for India – Gurcharan Das would have loved this moment as did I.

Scene 3: Personal front: I was amidst a technical presentation in office. About half the presentation was over. Then a lady in the audience raised her hands. I thought she had a question to ask me, so I paused. To my bewilderment, she said that she had a comment to make. I said go on. She told that she liked the matching of the background of my slides (I had chosen a gray color) and my mildly faded black jeans. Now God, what was that. I felt like pulling my hair. Actually she had hindered my continuity. My manager controlled the situation, but not before everyone burst into laughter. Actually that was annoying for me but I didn’t exactly dislike that comment from the lady ;)

Mangal Mangal Mangal Mangal...

Okay, okay hold on… ya its not a classic, its not a Lagaan, the film-makers did not do their homework properly, Ketan Mehta is a different ship captain than Ashutosh Gowariker, A.R Rahman is a shade of himself – all these apart, it is still a must watch film especially for the younger generation. Watch it for the perfectionist – isn’t the presence of Amir Khan, a big enough reason for not to miss it. Here we have an actor who gets into the blood of the character he portrays. He is no stammering shahrukh, shaky salman, chocolaty shahid, or meaningless others. With his rustic long hairs and bushy moustache, he is Mangal Pandey, a foot soldier working under the East India Company for a meager salary of Rs84 a year. The movie starts with the clarion of an elephant which seemed like the bugle of the first war of independence. The cinematography is flawless. The fighting scenes between the company and the Afghans are shot beautifully. The narrative voice of Om Puri is very appealing. I liked the way Amir bows to a cow after bathing in the river, the way he reprimands a sweeper (an untouchable) every time he bumps into him, the way he wrestles with his firangi friend Captain Gordon in the akhada. Toby stephens (remember the villain in the bond movie Die Another Day), has done full justice to the role of Gordon – though I guess Ketan Mehta stretched a bit too far in depicting their friendship. Yes before I forget let me tell you that this film is not devoid of heroines – and in fact we have two. Rani Mukherjee as the prostitute heera is ok. An actress as fine as Kiron Kher has been wasted in the role of a brothel-keeper. I almost jumped out of my seat looking at her cleavage in the first scene – that was totally uncalled for. In fact the low-cut blouse that every female character wore is not characteristic of that era and that is something that pinched me – and probably you won’t feel very comfortable watching those scenes with your family. Mr Mehta forgets that the salivating voyeurs would never opt for Mangal Pandey – they have myriad other options. But if you remember his last film Aar ya paar (the scenes between Jackie Shroff and Kamal Siddhu), you will understand that Mehta can’t help being cheap. And yes, there is Amisha Patel too. Looking at her I was reminiscent of her expressions in Gadar ek prem katha. The relationship between her and Gordon has been portrayed passionately. Seems like Amisha is finding a hard time getting leading roles these days. Some of the newspapers have questioned whether Mangal Pandey was an accidental hero. I felt bad to read it about a martyr whom many historians credit to be the forerunner in the war against the company. The scene in which Amir was mericilessly being beaten by the goras, and forced to speak tu kutta hai, and he retorts by saying tu kutta hai to the gora, is passionate. Nikhat Kazmi (reviewer in times of India) may find this formula old and trite, but I liked when some unassuming young people clapped and whistled in the theatre. Now, don’t say that it’s cheap and apposite only for Mithun Da movies. Sometimes that’s a real fun ;)

Anyway

People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centred.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

The biggest people with biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest people with smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs, but follow only topdogs.
Fight for some underdogs anyway.

What you spent years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you will get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have got anyway.

unwarranted

It is because I keep coming across stories like this, that I don’t think I will ever be able to embrace Apple. I just don’t understand – here you have a nice email app (or so I’ve heard) and email is one of the few things that has been standardized to death on the Internet due to the simple fact that people like to read their email anywhere, everywhere, all the time.
So why, oh why does Apple have to go around inventing proprietary formats for storing local mail? Why can’t they use the excellent Maildir format, when almost every other email client in the world does it? The excuse that this format is optimised for Spotlight is bullshit. They brag so much about their API for enabling Spotlight support in applications, then why couldn’t they just write a backend for Maildir files (the way Beagle does!)
Also, apparently this change is new to Tiger, and so old Mac OSX users are affected too. Even if they decided to change the format, is it too much to ask that the software confirms with the user before doing the upgrade, or atleast informs the user that something drastic is happening to his/her files? So much for desiging good user interfaces. chhahh! Why don’t these people ever learn?