Rooth Kar Humse Kabhi Jab Chale Jaoge Tum ...

a face that cease to exist
a depression that refuse to cease

leaches creeping all over
there is no blood left any more

thoughts clogged by impervious wax
communication so inert and lax

helplessness making us dwarf
sensitivity suppressed by the morf

it really cuts like a knife
a thing called life

The Divine Bond (To Deepali and Kishmish)

I feel privileged that I'm witnessing one of the most exceptional form of human love - the divine bond between a mother and her infant. After seeing so many other forms of relationships I can say beyond any doubts that the chemistry between a mother and her child is made and blessed entirely by divinity. Much so because human psychology, emotional, physical and social needs or personal interests don't play any role in shaping up this bond as they very much do for other types of relationships.

- Like the die for feelings for friends in high school/college - when friends become cult and family members look like people sharing the same house. Name decided by parents get altered into something awful yet sounds very cool and is preferable over the original. Songs like "purani jeans" and "summer of 69" become anthem. Choices and priorities are driven by so called "my group". I also feel "those were the best days of my life" but now I realise the underlying phenomenon was the fulfillment of the craving to exercise the right to choose which didn't happen at the time of birth and upbringing. Central to this relationship is also the need of self discovery and identification through recognition and appreciation from the outside world. On an apparent side people see this hobnobbing as a result of sharing similar thoughts, hobbies and of course having fun and masti.

Then suddenly the heart starts beating, pituitary gland starts over working and rest of the actions and thoughts are controlled by Mr. Cupid. Friends don't excite any more, you start forgetting the past, stop thinking about the future, rationality, sanity, reasoning become words unheard of! Mankind hasn't been more enthralled by anything else than this form of acquaintance. In fact if Genesis is to be believed, attraction of the opposite sex is the first feeling that humans felt. If Darwin is to be followed then also sex is the sole reason behind partnership between any two adults of opposite sex. In todays social settings many other reasons also prevail behind this relationship strangest among them being peer pressure - someone who has crossed 18 and not seeing or dating anybody is considered to be a loner, retard, psycho and uncool.

Marriage is highly a philosophical subject and best be left for the experts to comment over it.

After having observed all above I strive hard to find out what dedicates a mother towards her baby, more than that what makes this union so pristine, free from desires, un-manipulative, so genuine, so complete. Neither the mother nor her baby understands each others' language but still they talk to each other endlessly. No other force on this planet is as powerful as this bond between a mother and her baby. It's primal and instinctive - none of them uses their brains or show special skills to entice or impress each other. Its purely out of instincts. Moreover it's only the mother who is always caring, nurturing, pain taking. The baby is not even aware of the effect it is imparting on it's mother and yet the mother goes all the way to keep the baby smiling and healthy. No other relationship could sustain on such grounds.

I don't mean to say it's a one sided relationship rather its more than a perfect symbiosis. Both mother and the baby have evolved together. It started with the conception and over the gestation both of them synchronized with each other completely. Now, after the birth they breathe, eat and sleep as a single functional unit. They are just structurally separate but physically and emotionally they are inseparable. It's hard to show who is dependent upon whom. No other love is so awe-inspiring.

I have seen the transformation, conscious and unconscious both, a woman goes through in the process of becoming a mother - physical, emotional, behavioral - the stakes, the compromises, the costs and the rewards! there are things she would never have attempted before but now she loves doing them. So the question that boggles my mind is what is that prepares her to go through and makes her enjoy this process. What is that keeps her awake all the night to pacify her baby and be fresh again the next morning to delightfully appreciate her baby's antics. From where does all this energy and motivation come?? another thing that mystifies my mind is that why can't the same relationship be realized between the baby and it's father?? no matter how much involved he is into this process he cannot be a part of this unspoken bond. He cannot make the baby react to him the way it reacts to it's mother irrespective of the amount of caring he feels for the baby.

Is it because the mother had a lead of nine months in knowing the baby as compared to the father and she and the infant were connected for a long time through placenta. Or is it because God chose to enable the mother to feed the baby. Neurobiology says it is the secretion of oxytocin and prolactin in the female body that governs the relationship between her and the baby. Anthropologists try to answer this through mammalian evolution. What ever the reasons might be I feel its an unjust that fathers are kept deprived of this spiritual feeling. Somehow if I could experience how does it feel to feed your own hungry baby and see it smile with milk smeared lips.

Karz Reincarnated????

except the title, the opening song sequence and a story line far buried beneath ludicrous acts of SK, the movie Om Shanti Om doesn't even come close to any other marks of the 70's blockbuster.

a run of the mill kind of movie perfect for SK obsessed fans. its a contest of who better over acts and SK Wins hands down.

Farah Khan feels she is a big fat grandma (no issues with that) and that audience is a dumb toddler and she can push anything down their throat while creating stupid fantasies on the fly. man, such unconvincing screenplay! while entering into the fire to save the heroine SK takes a long jump but while coming back, the flames provide him a clean way out (may be coz he is carrying the heroine) and he walks coolly. in another similar shot SK again finds the girl trapped inside a burning studio but cannot enter as the door is padlocked from outside. so he breaks the see through glass of the door which is just large enough to let a pigeon pass through it but voila in the next scene our super hero is inside!

first half is a stupid spoof of the 70's indian cinema culture and the viewer has to contemplate hard whether to laugh or not, i guess Sunil Pal and Ahsaan Qureshi show better creativity on the same subject. in second half audience gets to see SK in his fav role - self-conceited, larger than life, holier than thou image of super star. music is totally banal. god knows what Shreyas Talpade is doing in the movie. Kiron Kher makes the movie more irritating. Arjun Rampal is there only to put some story in the movie.

things to look for if you are badly trapped and left with no other option but to watch the movie
- curves of Deepika Padukone.
- curves of SK in Darde Disco song.
- designer denims in post half, specially in Om Shanti Om song.
- cameos of Abhishek, Saif and Kajol.

if Farah Khan and Karan Johar are so much obsessed by SK why don't they just lock themselves up inside a room with him and do what ever they want and be satisfied. why do they have to pour their diarrhea over the audience again and again.

Sleeping Angel

Phones and bells have been put on mute,
we talk in whispers.. while sleeping she looks so cute.
Body is made of fur, her name is Pearl,
tiniest lill thing I would put put my whole life into,
it's her, she is my baby girl.

Another Day In MISEM

The purpose was to attend two days training on code optimisation and tuning and the venue was the Noida office of the same company I started my career with 7 years back.

As soon as I entered the office I could smell the same fragrance in the air, exactly the same steel mirrored wall behind the reception, almost similar grandiose interiors, jubilant freshers chuckling, giggling and pairing in every corner, office boys trying to shine up every inch of anything that was glossy. It was hard to belive that once again I was not in Sharda Center or for that matter in it's sister building.

Part of the visit that made me most nostalgic was the training itself and the hall in which the classes were held. Boy! it was unbelievably the same room although smaller in size. same classy furniture, cozy environment, life size screens, machines in latest configurations, yes, in place of bulky CRTs there were LCDs but the point is it was a perfect place to feel being pampered as was once MISEM. Best part is yet to come.

Despite of the place being similar, the objective of being at that place being similar, the feeling being similar, I was thinking at least I would observe a training event different than that experienced in yesteryears since the times have changed. But How wrong was I. First half of the first day saw every one putting their best foot forward in order to justify their presence. By second half 3 from class of 25 disappeared, rest still trying hard to not to get distracted by SMSs and mails. The real fun began on the second day as by then every one had realised that the instructor cares a damn what each one is upto (sounds familiar?). One could see the class unfolding into a perfect class of 2000, MISEM by each passing hour. Few in the front rows still trying to get the hang of what was being thrown to them, Most of the fairer sex deep buried in their cells or outlook inbox, rest digging the hard disk for some goddies as access to internet was blocked (missed Ashwini over there). To prove that randomness is the natures' law - also there were few who were sincerely doing assignments and interacting with the instructor.

I also thought of taking a peek into the folders and voila! a folder full of those blessed tiny Dos games - Prince, Dave, Xonix, Hangman, Tetris, Road Rash et al. In an instant a whole year filled with merriment and awe came alive in my mind and it became hard to resist few rounds of my all time favorite Dave although I still could not get pass the 7th level!

No comments on the purposeful of the training but these two days took me back to a world foregone and i was pressed hard to think that how few things don't ever change. One thing i missed most I guess was the age! (Patil Arcade, AOE haan?)

तुम्हारे साथ पूरा एक दिन

I was googling for this lovely piece from Gulzar since long but the internet doesn't seem to have it. I knew since begining that I have it with me somewhere in written form but was afraid to open the Pandora's box. But I had to have this here so uncovered the dreadful chest. With that came back the beautiful memories of the era when mails, chats, cellphones did not exist and expression of love, if you were situated 1500 KMs apart, took place through hand written long letters, greeting cards (self crafted), costly long distance calls and sending cassettes through courier.

Nostalgia apart I hope this poem is worth posting it here (may be some one else is also looking for it meaningfully).

मुझे खर्ची मॆं पूरा एक दिन मिलता है
मगर हर रोज कोई छीन लेता है, झपट लेता है अंटी से!
कभी खीसे से गिर पड़ता है तो कभी गिरने की आहत भी नही होती,
खरे दिन को भी मैं खोटा समझ के भूल जाता हूँ।
गिरेबान से पकड़ कर मांगने वाले भी मिलते हैं!
"तेरी गुजरी हुई पुश्तोँ का कर्जा है,
तुझे किस्तें चुकानी हैं ..."
जबरजस्ती भी कोई गिरवी रख लेता, ये कह कर
"अभी दो चार लम्हे खर्च करने के लिए रख ले,
बकाया उम्र के खाते मॆं लिख देते हैं, जब होगा तब हिसाब होगा"
बड़ी हसरत है - पूरा एक दिन एक बार अपने लिए रख लूं !
सिर्फ तुम्हारे साथ पूरा एक दिन खर्च करने की तमन्ना है!

Thriller in a new avatar

Johnny Gaddar ...

Wow! thats what comes to mind after watching Johnny Gaddar - even Bollywood can produce such noirs!

Indian cinema for sure is coming of age, genre based experimentation is in full swing. "it's different" now is no more a meaningless phrase dropped by everyone. After Ek Chalis Ki Last Local, Metro, Manorama, Chak De and Dil Dosti Etc Johnny Daddar is another flick saying it loud with lots of meaning. They clearly demonstrate that heavy duty cast, melodramatic stories, romantic sequences, chart topping songs, underworld realities or 4 friends slapstick comedies are not required to make a movie that gives worth of your money.

Kudos to Sriram Raghavan for creating such an uptight thriller that gives butterflies in your stomach - a feeling straight out of James Headley Chase or Surendra Mohan Pathak novels. No mysteries, no suspense just a pure pulse racing, intelligently crafted thriller.

Those who could never bear Dharmendra other than in Sholey should see a very genuine and pleasant performance by him. Vinay Pathak doesn't need any comments, he is simply too perfect for them. Zakir Hussain also lives upto being discovered by RGV. Debutant Neil Nitin Mukesh is a dark horse and has fairly handled his character.

A very gripping storyline with a coherent script keeps the audience glued. Soundtracks don't pop up as out of place irritating songs but have been blended as very short pieces of background music. Smart thing to do. Nevertheless one should listen to Move Your Body separately to appreciate S.E.L. score.

Another interesting thing to note is the symbols used in movie as a tribute to Vijay Anand. In intro shot Rimi is shown reading the Narayan's novel The Guide, Neil chooses his fake name in Pune hotel from Johny Mera Naam running on the reception TV et all.

Best movie of this year and best hindi thriller seen so far.