“I who am blind can give one hint to those who see – one admonition to those who would make full use of the gift of sight: Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind. And the same method can be applied to other senses. Hear the music of voices, the song of a bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra, as if you would be stricken deaf to-morrow. Touch each object you want to touch as if tomorrow your tactile sense would fail. Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish each morsel, as if tomorrow you could never smell and taste again. Make the most of every sense; glory in all the facets of pleasure and beauty which the world reveals to you through the several means of contact which Nature provides. But of all the senses, I am sure that sight must be the most delightful.”

This is an excerpt from Helen Keller’s essay, “Three Days to See”.

I have never been involved in social work in school, nor did I enrol for the Social Service League in college. Actually, I wasn’t even sure if I believed in social service for that matter. (I’m still not sure if I do!)

I visited Nirmal Hriday, Home for Dying Destitutes for the first time in November, 2009. It wasn’t an official visit. I know someone who has been a very regular visitor for a very long time, and when he asked if I’d be interested in tagging along; it seemed like a pretty interesting way to be spending the afternoon.

I am not the first person to be writing about Om Prakashji and Yadu, far from that actually. I don’t even have anything new to say about my acquaintance with them. But being the human that I am, I like to give myself and my intelligence a great deal of importance and so to me, my story is very special.

When you are a person who tends to avoid visits to the hospital for vaccine shots or even visiting friends and relatives because the very thought of wards full of sick, terminally ill, or ICU’d patients makes you squeamish, a Home for Dying Destitutes does not seem ideal.

Nirmal Hriday these days is being renovated and major portions of the building have been scaled down, including the women’s section. What remains now, is the main convent building, and a dilapidated section, housing not even one-fifth of its original strength. When you have finally convinced the street kids outside not to demolish your car windows with their heroic bowling stunts, not to mention a few of whom would promise to guard your car with their life, you enter the main gate.

It is a small building on the left, like a dormitory, full of empty bunk beds, and we reach somewhere in the middle. I remember meeting Om Prakashji first. Let me tell you at the very outset that he is one of the biggest John Grisham fans. He has read every John Grisham novel and is these days on the look-out for one of his non-fiction works. Om Prakashji is from Kolhapur. He used to work in Jhandewaalan before he fell ill and had to be hospitalised. According the account he gave us, it was from there that he was transferred and brought to Nirmal Hriday, to be looked after, as he had nobody else to take care of him. That was 1969. Forty one years ago.

Sitting on the bed right opposite his, is Yadu. Yadu is a cartoonist; he was an assistant to Mark Tully, the BBC journalist. What were the circumstances that brought him here is a difficult question to answer. Now he spends his days drawing cartoons, at least one every-day and scouring the newspapers for any such comments that could give him new ideas for his work. It is a brilliant experience reading the hundreds of cartoons that he has drawn over years, and stacked beautifully on his bed. My friend got Yadu the sheets and pens which he prizes with his life. You can strike a conversation with him on any and every topic that comes to mind, although he is slightly partial towards politics.

I tend to become an introvert with people I am meeting for the first time, especially in situations that I am not sure how to handle. In my visits to Nirmal Hriday, I have assumed the role of the silent observer, replying to questions, smiling at others’ conversations, but unable to hold my own.

Om Prakash ji maintains a small pocket diary in which he asks all his visitors to document their names, mobile phone numbers, and any other details that they would like to share with him. His diaries are filled with names of students from across campus, as well as a score of others, from around Delhi, India, and abroad. His love for reading escapes nobody’s attention, and I feel my heart melting as he shows us books that have been sent to him by people who had come to meet him some time ago, who have now gone back to their respective countries, but remember him through this gesture.

There is an open enclosure towards the back of the building where many of the people sit to enjoy sunshine in the afternoons. My friend introduces me to Hiralalji. “She’s from your state, Uttarakhand ki hai Poorva.” Hiralalji comes from Almora, the beautiful Kumaon hills. Hiralal ji does not keep very well these days. Even as he sits outside he has to be placed on a higher chair, because it gets very uncomfortable for him otherwise.

There are a number of other people out here in the veranda, some old, some unwell, some on wheelchairs. Many of them recognise my friend, greet him. Even those who don’t know any of us are delighted to see us. Why does it have to be so difficult for some of us, I wonder? Why is just the fact that an unknown but helpful face visits them enough to light up their faces with a shine so powerful, a hope so tangible, and a love so palpable that you feel guilty when you remember that for the next few weeks you may get so caught up in your so called busy life that this visit would not even be important enough to cross out from your things to do list?

Two things that have always trivialized life for me have been the universe and disability. Why the universe? Well, because it is big. The vastness of the cosmos has always given me a sense of inconsequence. The idea that I’m but a tiny speck on this universe with its zillions of stars and their corresponding worlds, many of them possibly even brimming with intelligent life, black holes, worm holes, meteors, pulsars, quasars, asteroids and galaxies, an infinite number of light years in expanse, is enough to give me goose-bumps. What is the significance then, of a single human being, when there are so many baffling mysteries to be unearthed, or unstellarized for that matter. This makes me wonder if relationships, failure or success even matters when the world and its dimensions are unfathomable to us menial beings. The expanse of the universe and its gigantic proportions seem impregnable. Our galaxy stretches over an expanse of 60 million light years. The life span of the sun is considered to be 10 billion years. It is believed that the sun is 5 billion years old, with an equal amount of life left. We have an average human life expectancy of sixty six and a half years. As pointless as these figures might seem in context of my paper, they are true. We, as human beings do pay a little more attention to ourselves than we deserve.

Helen Keller, at another instance in her essay writes, “I do not know what it is to see into the heart of a friend through that ‘window of the soul,’ the eye. I can only ‘see’ through my finger tips the outline of a face. I can detect laughter, sorrow, and many other obvious emotions. I know my friends from the feel of their faces. But I cannot really picture their personalities, of course, through the thoughts they express to me, through whatever of their actions are revealed to me. But I am denied that deeper understanding of them which I am sure would come through sight of them, through watching their reactions to various expressed and circumstances, through noting the immediate and fleeting reactions of their eyes and countenance.”

This makes me dwell on another significant experience of my life. One of my best friends suffers from brachial palsy, it is basically a congenital condition in which due to complications during birth, certain nerves connecting her left arm to the brain were crushed, which since then has hampered its growth. There is a difference of a few inches in the lengths of her two arms. She cannot use it for much more than providing support. But you tend not to notice that the first time you meet her, no, she does not come across as any other normal person, she is one of the most strikingly beautiful persons I’ve ever met and she can carry herself with the dignity and grace that I have rarely seen anybody possess. From the years of her treatment, months of bed rest post operations, false hopes, loose promises, and her parents fussing over medicines, physiotherapy and what not, she has managed to develop the kind of self confidence that I have seen in no other friend of mine. There is nothing she cannot do, as she so fondly tells me, except of course tying her own hair, and for that, she has a simple solution-why tie it, leave it open! She teaches me independence every single day. From whatever life has taught her, the most important lesson is happiness. For her, whatever makes you happy is the right thing to do. The fact that people stare at her hand in public, or sympathize with her has done nothing to change the person that she was born as. It has only strengthened her belief in herself.  She has taught me to believe in myself, to believe in what I feel is right, and to reject notions that I believe do not hold any good. She made me realise that neither is there a shortage of reasons in life to be sad, nor do we ever find enough reasons to be happy. It is up to us to decide whether life is worth living or not.

I come back now to where I started this experiment. During one of my visits to Nirmal Hriday, Omprakash ji mentioned the circumstances that brought him here. His was a simple story. The fact that there was nobody to look after him, caused the hospital staff to transfer him to Nirmal Hriday, in 1969. “For somebody like me, who never had a home, this place has been the perfect home. What more could I have asked for?”, he says. When I see him on his narrow bed, with a few dog eared books for company, in that dark room, with its damp walls and peeling paint, I find no words to respond. If this for him, is the best he has ever received in life, how bad was his condition before he was taken into Nirmal Hriday? How worse off was he, why was there nobody to look after him when he needed to be nursed back to health? Why has he spent the last four decades of his life in a home for dying destitutes? I can’t answer these questions. Nor can I ask him to provide me with answers. He is happy. A friend of mine asks him whether he thinks he should get his long hair shortened like everybody else has been coaxing him to, pat comes the reply-“You should do whatever you like best in life, if you think you look better with longer hair, keep it, like for me, I prefer baldness!”

I feel like cursing God at these times. Why these differences? But then, maybe if everything and every circumstance in life were the same we would never value one from the other. Neither would anything be good, nor would anything be bad. The fact that I have everything that one wants from life should make me feel fortunate, grateful to God. I should be happy that there is nothing that I lack, nothing that I should be resentful to God about. But much more than that feeling of gratitude for my good fortune I feel sad.

I was told that the situation is much better now, at least for somebody visiting Nirmal Hriday for the first time. Not only is the number of destitutes much less because of the building being renovated, but some of the sections have been shifted to the Seemapuri. From what my friend told me, the situation of the women, many of whom were rape victims, was so repugnant that at times making these visits would leave you so unsure and repulsed that coming back a second time would be a much tougher decision to make than the first.

Visiting these people, only with the intention of spending some time with them, maybe to bring a few smiles on their otherwise dejected faces leaves me with a sense satisfaction. There is almost no other way that I can contribute to their happiness, maybe lend Om Prakash ji one of my books, appreciate Yadu’s amazing talent, express my concern over their health, or maybe persuade some other of my friends to do the same. But these tiny gestures on my part which make little or no difference to me are tiny rays of life for them, their means for survival in an otherwise bleak existence.

Yes, I come out of Nirmal Hriday unable to smile at the boys playing cricket, traumatized as I look at the mangled beggar sitting right outside its gates, wishing I could give up my studies, stop bothering about why my friend said that to me, and why my mother can’t agree to let me to do that particular thing, because life suddenly seems to be made up of a much more important fabric than what I have so far been used to. But I realise yet again, as I write this paper, that it is not the bigger things in life that make it.  It’s the smaller issues, the day to day experiences, the micro occurrences, that give you the inspiration to move on. If I decide that nothing in life is important enough to pay attention to, I will lose the will and the motivation to work, to learn, to enjoy, to live. Life would become a mere existence, and would I in any way be able to make a difference to the lives of any of these people who have touched me so deeply?

So, I continue to love, I continue to enjoy, I learn, and I work. I thank my friend for taking me to Nirmal Hriday with him. It gave me a new perspective on life and what I feel about it.

I’ve had many friends asking me why I love pasting lyrics, when they are available on the net for easy access…My answer is simple, when I first start enjoying the tune of a song, I listen to it repeatedly, and unless the music is compelling enough to make me keep coming back, I delve into the words. I enjoy listening carefully, penning down the lyrics on my own…and finally sharing them on my blog…I’m not making the words available for others…I’m simply making them available to me…

So, here goes, I hope I got them right, most of it is Rajasthani folk, and so the lyrics are rather dodgy…The video also marks the comeback of Vikas Manaktala, the highly popular Huda, from the popular sitcom Left Right Left, and he looks fresh, and absolutely perfect for the role.

 Just imagine the dusty colours of  a Rajasthani village, long lost childhood love, and an estranged man coming back for his love…his baby…pure heaven…

Song: Chaandan Mein

Album: Chaandam MEin

Singer: Kailash Kher

Khaab haarun, pag pakhaarun, samay nihaarun ji

Taand vaarun, baiyyan dhaarun, naina haarun ji,

ooooh

Aeji mhaare chatar sujaan,

Li jo pehchaan, kaahe bhar maao ji

Aawooji, aawooji, aaooji…

Aawooji, aawooji, aaooji…

Aeji mhaare chatar sujaan,

Li jo pehchaan, kaahe bhar maao ji

Aawooji, aawooji, aaooji…

Aawooji, aawooji, aaooji…

Chaandan mein, main ta koori,

Tera sona mukhda, pyaara pyaara mukhda,

Aanchal mein, main rakhoonri,

Chandaa ka tukda, aeji pyaara mukhda

Tu dhare jahaan paun toh,

Muskaaye yeh dharti

Saiyaan, saiyaan

Ohji mhaare binti sunlo aan,

Mhaare bhagwaan, humein na sataao ji,

 Aawooji, aawooji, aaooji…

Aawooji, aawooji, aaooji… 

Sarpat se, soona soona,

Kaisa meetha sa zeher,

Aeji meetha sa zeher,

Darad badhe, doona doona,

Uthe hiyaa mein lehar,

Uthe hir-daya mein lehar,

Main karun shingaar toh,

Sharmaye yeh darpan,

 Saiyaan, saiyaan

Oji uunche chadhke deun azaan,

Banun anjaan, parda hataaoji,

Aawooji, aawooji, aaooji…

Aawooji, aawooji, aaooji…

Aawooji, aawooji, aaooji…

Aawooji, aawooji, aaooji…

Khaab haarun, pag pakhaarun, samay nihaarun ji

Taand vaarun, baiyyan dhaarun, naina haarun ji…

I generally have very specific reasons for visiting my favourite balcony-to dry my hair, to escape the chill in our rooms during the months of December and January, and more often, in a pretext to study in “solace”. I have learnt a number of lessons, rambling in “the balcony near the kitchen”, mind you, but I’ve always been fascinated much much more by the sights and sounds around the place, than the laws and molecules governing my textbooks…

It’s bizarre how inside our house we find it really straining to catch what my mother shouts at me from her room to mine, but standing in that balcony, I can actually find myself tuned into the sounds(i don’t call them noises) of utensils being scraped across the floor, bangles jingling, cricket balls being caught, and children laughing, least aware of anything around them, five floors below..!

Families of the lower class workers live in these flats just outside the boundaries of our complex. Some houses are well structured, but those I can see only from a distance. The ones nearest to my balcony have a thatched asbestos roof, they share walls with a ground which we use for dumping garbage, and are adorned with a drain running across all four sides. Although I can see only two doors, i’m sure the families are huge, because there is always a surprisingly large number of kids running around, and more than often, climbing the roof.

Just the other day I was standing there, a towel in my hand, a frown against the blazing sun, and my eyes narrowed to get a better view of the construction in progress beyond one of the buildings. Rather out of the blue, and with a spring in their step, three little boys climbed up onto the roof of the house directly facing the balcony. Technically speaking, it would be the third floor, two floors below my level. Well, they sauntered up, and- I wish I didn’t have such a horrible vision-looked around to check if the coast was clear(this is basically my lucid imagination, it may have well been nothing of the sort!) and the eldest(or maybe the tallest) of the three took something out of his pocket, and the three began to shift around a bit looking for a nice spot to do whatever they had to(I couldn’t see!)

Anyway, I had gotten a bit too cosy i guess, and was quite properly leaning against the balcony railing, and as bound as it was to happen, the smallest kid spotted me. I looked away with as much dignity as I could muster, standing with my hands folded, and… so did he! That was sort of the end of my afternoon outing in the balcony, and I glided back inside the kitchen. It may well have been my entangled mane that struck the kid as something worthwhile to look at, but nevertheless, my guilt at eavesdropping(sort of anyway..) drove me to come up with this entry…

The first author I truly ever enjoyed and who in a way compelled me to bask in the glory of the written word was Ruskin Bond. Even today(six years since I first read a Ruskin Bond story), every time I read a short story, or a novella of his I let myself believe he is actually telling a tale of something that happened to him. His protagonists are always strugglers, either unsuccessful professionally, or with love. They are always close to nature, and to the streets of India. They always deal with some of the most hopeless, yet the most profound day to day issues faced by about ninety per cent of our countrymen. But in all the melancholy and sombreness, there’s the zeal to live, the enthusiasm to make the most of the smallest things in life, love, flowers, trees, hills, rivers…

My balcony, is my window to that world. I look at those kids, playing cricket in their lanes, flying kites on their roofs, shabbily clad, with an unmistakable air of malnourishment, and I smile. A part of me even longs to be in their place. I told my father once, he smiled and said, “It’s okay if you feel that way, but the thing to think about, is why?” I really don’t know why, maybe I look at them playing, running around, and feel they don’t have the responsibility, to study, to work, to do many things that I have to. But in a way I also feel I am foolish to think of it that way, they obviously have responsibility, when they grow up, they will have to make ends meet, something I may not find as tough in my life. They are free as children, but will I be freer as an adult? I really can’t answer this, can you?

For now, I enjoy my window, I enjoy watching the ladies put up their clothes for drying, I enjoy them chatting up on their verandahs, I love the sound of bat hitting ball, I love to see the little girls in the school uniforms, bouncy red ribbons, slates and tuition bags. Maybe my balcony to the “other world” will someday help me to fulfill my dream of writing about people, writing about life, writing like Ruskin Bond. Till then, it’s my novel, and I read it…

Yeah, I don’t deny the same about myself, it took me something like this to happen to Shah Rukh Khan’s Billu Barber to actually write about it, hypocritical enough, if you ask me…

Distinctly etched out in my mind, are three major controversial films over the last two years, and needless to say there were a countless other issues apart from these, which aren’t as vivid in my mind anymore, but were debatable,  nevertheless…I

I remember the first happened last year, when Madhuri Dixit’s comeback film, Aaja Nachle’s, title song had to be edited because a certain strain of lyric in the song was  disparaging to the sentiments and cultural integrity of a certain section of our society, who by the way, I want to make no mention of, but I do remember downloading the song specifically after I heard of it, and having quite a nonplussing fifteen minutes trying to figure out which line was so offensive that they had to actually snip it off…

More recently, this year, we had a debate over whether or not the title of the film “Slumdog Millionaire”, was offensive to the slum dwelling community of our nation. Might I ask, if this film hadn’t won international acclaim, not to mention the Golden Globes, Producers’ & Actors’ Guilds, and now even the Bafta Awards(fingers crossed for the Academy!), who would have even had the time to sneak a peek of its rushes? The word “Slumdog” as perceptible as it is, has been coined from two independent words, namely “Underdog” and “Slum”. The protagonist having lived his life in a slum, and ultimately becoming an unlikely winner of a quiz show, has been referred to as a  Slumdog. Quite simply, “the underdog of the slums”.  We know this is true, why then do we have to take it to imply a defamation? Shouldn’t all this hype, just be called a ploy by those associations to gain attention, then?

For the third dispute, refer straight to the title of my post…

Barber is an English word, explicitly referring to a person whose vocation is to cut people’s hair. It has no altercation whatsoever to do with a caste, sect, or community of India. Yet I found it rather honourable of Shah Rukh Khan to chop off the word from the title of his latest production, just to ensure that no more controversies prevented a smooth and profitable release.

This isn’t the end of the story actually, people object to almost every single issue a movie is made on, a book is written on or any other such content that draws popularity. What I fail to gather from all this, is that the people in whose name these protests are actually made are as oblivious to these goings-on as most students are to their school-work(:P). They on the other hand, have a survival to eke out, meals to lay out on chipped plates. They have jobs to find, employments to sustain, roofs to mend, and an incessant struggle for mere existence, for one day more, one rupee more, one moment of happiness and peace, more…

Then why do these people, who have almost as much to do with being minorities as I do with being a parakeet ignite these fires, whose embers hardly ever die out, and instead pave way for much darker times, in this already tormented existence. When things get worse, it’s not these people, the so-called spokespersons for the rights of the underpriviledged who have to face the wrath of society, of violence, of hunger, and of homelessness, but it’s actually those not so few unfortunate human beings, who probably never even find out in the first place that they were being fought for, that a voice was being provided to them and to the injustice being done to them.

As diverse and multi-ethnic as my country is, if even a few per cent of our population used their right of freedom of speech and expression for the benefit of its fellow countrymen, contrary to futile, baseless, and inconsequential squabbles, I think we’d be sharing this land with much more fortunate men and women…

Song: Tu Muskura

Film: Yuvvraaj

Music: A.R. Rahman

Lyrics: Gulzar

Starring: Salman Khan, Anil Kapoor, Zayed Khan, Katrina Kaif

Produced and Directed by: Subhash Ghai

Tu muskura jahaan bhi hai tu muskura
Tu dhoop ki tarah badan ko choo zara
Shareer se yeh muskurahatein teri
Badan mein sunti hun main aahatein teri

Labon se aake choo de apni lab zara
Tu muskura jahaan bhi hai tu muskura
Shareer se yeh muskurahatein teri
Badan mein sunti hun main aahatein teri

Aisa hota hai khayalon mein aksar
Tujhko sochun toh mehak jati hun
Meri rooh mein basi hai teri khushboo
Tujhko choo lun toh behek jaati hun

Teri aankhon mein,
teri aankhon mein koi toh jaadoo hai
Tu muskura jahaan bhi hai tu muskura

Tu muskura jahaan bhi hai tu muskura
Tu dhoop ki tarah badan ko choo zara
Shareer se yeh muskurahatein teri
Badan mein sunti hun main aahatein teri

Tez chalti hain hawaaon ki sansein
Mujhko baahon mein lapetke chupale
Teri aankhon ki haseen loriyon mein
Main badan ko bichaun tu sulale

Teri aankhon mein,
teri aankhon mein koi toh nasha hai
Tu muskura jahaan bhi hai tu muskura

*sargam*

Tu muskura jahaan bhi hai tu muskura
Tu dhoop ki tarah badan ko choo zara
Shareer se yeh muskurahatein teri
Badan mein sunti hun main aahatein teri…

Faintly reminding me of Jaage Hain Der Tak from Guru, this track is keeping me on my toes for the release of Yuvvraaj. These lyrics hint separation, and a longing to make sure that the one you love is happy… Gulzar Saahab creates magic with his pen like no one else, and this time again, the lyrics are simple, you don’t need to be a literary genius to understand them, and yet, the feelings that come across are unparalled…

Song: Tu Meri Dost Hai

Film: Yuvvraaj

Music: A.R. Rahman

Lyrics: Gulzar

Starring: Salman Khan, Anil Kapoor, Zayed Khan, Katrina Kaif

Produced and Directed by: Subhash Ghai

Aaja main hawaon pe bithake le chalun, tu hi toh, tu hi toh meri dost hai
aaja main halaaon mein uthake le chalun, tu hictoh meri dost hai
aawaaz ka dariya hun, behta hu main neeli raaton mein
main jaagta rehta hun, neend bhari jheel si aankhon mein
aawaaz hun main!

Aaja main hawaon pe bithake le chalun, tu hi toh, tu hi toh meri dost hai
aaja main halaaon mein uthake le chalun, tu hitoh meri dost hai

Raat mein chaandni kabhie aise gungunaati hai
sun zara lagta hai tumse aawaaz milaati hai
main khayaalon ki mehak hun gungunati saaz par
ho sake toh mila le aawaaz ko yeh saaz par

Aaja main hawaon pe bithake le chalun, tu hi toh, tu hi toh meri dost hai
aaja main halaaon mein uthake le chalun, tu hitoh meri dost hai
aawaaz ka dariya hun, behta hu main neeli raaton mein
main jaagta rehta hun, neend bhari jheel si aankhon mein
aawaaz hun main!

oooh,kabhie dekha aisa hai
jahaan shaam karti hai
kehte hain samandar se ek pari guzarti hai
woh raat ki raani hai
sargam par chalti hai
re sa re sa resa sa re sa re sa re

Aaja main hawaon pe bithake le chalun, tu hi toh, tu hi toh meri dost hai
aaja main halaaon mein uthake le chalun, tu hitoh meri dost hai
aawaaz ka dariya hun, behta hu main neeli raaton mein
main jaagta rehta hun, neend bhari jheel si aankhon mein
aawaaz hun main!

Haan desi girl haan desi girl, girl, girl, girl, girl, girl girl girl, girl……..(2)

Jhumka gira de, jo mila le agar woh nazar se nazar mitade…

Nachke dikhade, sabki dhadkan kadam se kadam milale,

Lehron si chaal ke jaal bichake,

Dil ko yun behaal banade,

Saare deewane maane,

Na dekhi koi aisi girl,

Na dekhi koi aisi girl…

Dekhi lakh lakh pardesi girl,

Ain’t nobody like my desi girl!

Dekhi lakh lakh pardesi girl,

Sab to soni saaddi desi girl,

Who’s the hottest girl in the world,

Haan desi girl, haan desi girl..

Thumka lagaike she’l rock your world,

Haan desi girl,

Haan desi girl…

haan desi girl, haan desi girl, girl girl girl…

Pade kamar pe jo nazar, saare sapnon mein rang bhar jaaye,

Jo thaam le, woh haath toh,

Hanske hi aashiq mar jaayein,

Dhundho jahaan mein chaahe kahin,

Na tumko milegi koi aisi girl…

Dekhi lakh lakh pardesi girl,

Ain’t nobody like my desi girl!

Dekhi lakh lakh pardesi girl,

Sab to soni saaddi desi girl,

Who’s the hottest girl in the world,

Haan desi girl, haan desi girl..

Thumka lagaike she’l rock your world,

Haan desi girl,

Haan desi girl….

Haan desi girl haan desi girl girl girl girl girl….

Jahaan jahaan bhi jaaun main,

Saari nazrein toh peeche peeche aayein..

Rukun zara main jo yahaan,

Thandi thandi saari saansein tham jaayein…

Sabki nigaahon ne hai kaha,

Ki khwaabon mein hai dekhi meri jaisi girl,

Meri jaisi girl….

Dekhi lakh lakh pardesi girl,

Ain’t nobody like a desi girl!

Dekhi lakh lakh pardesi girl,

Sab ko soni lagdi desi girl,

Who’s the hottest girl in the world,

Haan desi girl, haan desi girl..

Thumka lagaike we rock your world,

Haan desi girl,

Haan desi girl….

Jhumka gira de, jo mila le agar woh nazar se nazar mitade…

Nachke dikhade, sabki dhadkan ke kadam se kadam milale,

Lehron si chaal ke jaal bichake,

Dil ko yun behaal banade,

Saare deewane maane,

Na dekhi koi aisi girl,

Na dekhi koi aisi girl…

Dekhi lakh lakh pardesi girl,

Ain’t nobody like my desi girl!

Dekhi lakh lakh pardesi girl,

Sab to soni saaddi desi girl,

Who’s the hottest girl in the world,

Haan desi girl, haan desi girl..

Thumka lagaike she’l rock your world,

Haan desi girl,

Haan desi girl….

Haan desi girl haan desi girl girl girl girl girl….

Now, after some of the euphoria of the 25 year old’s brilliant victory has died off, and the curfew has been lifted in Kashmir, one thing comes to mind-how many of those, stuck in the curfew, ailing in the hospitals, or mourning their loved ones would have even once considered Abhinav’s win of any importance to their lives?

Normal Indians, in their homes, in front of their TV sets, in parties, dinners and gatherings, are discussing how big an achievement it is for Indian Sport. I found it extremely ironical, how this discussion was going on, parallel with that of the riots in Kashmir, Lucknow, Patna, the confusion regarding the Amarnath Yatra, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, and all those who have a part to play in the Kashmiri Politics…

TV News channels these days cash in on whatever is the latest fad, not much of relevant news is on air, but sometimes they do stumble upon things that touch your heart. Why do two people die due to grievous injuries and medical conditions because the government has decided they are not going to allow people of their country to move around on a particular day? It makes quite a lot of sense that people should die, just because they happened to fall sick, or got injured on a day our leaders found most opportune to impose their wanton ideals on their nation and its people.

In such a time, when the people of Kashmir, and other places, are either being ransacked by riots, or bombarded by the blasts, how much importance does Bindra’s Olympic Gold Medal hold, for the average Indian? Have we gotten so used to these scandals, killings, terrorism and politics, that curfews in a couple of cities, a dozen odd dying here and there, a few hundred injuries, and a tad bit of bloodshed has no effect on us anymore? Have we gotten so morally immune, and mentally so callous, that it would take much more than a couple of people dying at the hands of a group of masked rebels, who call themselves religious warriors, to look away from the protective bubble of our existences which take into full view only what Bindra wins, or Rathore loses, what Shah Rukh Khan wears, or Rakhi Sawant doesn’t wear?

It was an unprecedented height of Indian History, an Olympic gold in a singular event. But had I been a victim in Srinagar, who had just lost her mother and was praying for the life of a critically wounded brother, would I have lent any thought to patriotism?

Circumstances make us what we are, and they alone drive us to do what we do in life. When life treats you well and you have nothing to shed a tear over, you can enjoy and bask in the glory and joy of all the positive things happening in life. But one who goes through the
most traumatic time of his life would see nothing but the negative around him and in the world.

Call me sardonic, but it makes me shudder to feel that soon a time will come, when we will become used to violence and deaths, it would have to take a lot more than a few hundred casualties for an event to be recognized as a tragedy. Terrorist attacks would mean no more to us, than an average act of crime, in an average Indian city, affecting an average crowd of average Indians. In fact, we are almost already there.

Omar Abdullah’s poignant speech in the Parliament was heart-wrenching. It made you want to feel the pain of being an Indian minority, the subjugation faced inspite of no fault of your own, he promised that Hindus would carry out their Amarnath Yatra, and every Kashmiri Muslim would respect their pilgrimage. He spoke from his heart, but at the end of the day, the promises remain unfulfilled, and the Indian still suffers.

For the leaders it’s a question of being in or out of power, but for Him, it’s a question of being in or out of breath, life, and the chance for survival.

These questions will never warrant a clear answer, this topic will remain as diffuse as ever, life will go on, or in many cases, come to a rude and abrupt end. Is this the question we come in search for from wherever it is before this world?

You cannot be born unless you die, and you cannot die unless you be born.

I love the concept of the phoenix. It always gives me immense strength to think of ‘life from the ashes’. You reach the all-time low, the ultimate dump, and when you think life couldnt get any worse, it takes a u-turn and things start getting better. That’s the only way you can reach the pinnacle, not just of success, but of life as a whole.

I hope this Paradise, though endrenched with the blood and bullets of religious violence
revives its identity, and the long lost beauty resurfaces, better than ever before, a vision to behold.

After all, in the words of Abul Fazal, “agar firdaus bar rooe zaminast, haminasto haminasto, haminast“…(“If there is paradise on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here“)…

The FINAL INSTALLMENT

• We all know the Ramayana was based in Ayodhya
• We all know that Sita was kidnapped and had to live in Ravana’s Lanka

But, what happened after Rama and Sita’s estrangement? Where did she go to live after that, and where were Luv and Kush, their sons born?

We visited the Ram Tirath Ashram, a few kilometers outside of the main city of Amritsar, and were surprised to know how little was known to the world, about this place, despite of it’s huge mythological connection.

The Ram Tirath Ashram is basically the name given to Rishi Valmiki’s Ashram, the place where Sitaji spent her life after separation from Shree Rama. The Ashrama has now been converted into a Valmiki Temple, while there is a tiny hut which is believed to be Sitaji’s Kutiya, and the place where her son Luv was born. There is a “Snaan Kund” a little distance along which is supposedly the pond where she bathed, and also a Pracheen Mandir believed to be of those times in the same location.

Many temples belonging to different cults are located around the area, and a partially dried lake runs across the length of the place. It is said, that when Sitaji reached the place, in order to fulfill her requirements for water, Hanumanji dug that lake with 2 and a half swipes of his mighty hand, it was then that Sitaji prevented him from going any further as he would have eventually dug up the whole city of Amritsar. The lake incidently is across two lengths and a half of a width.

Whether to believe if this is true, is upto every individual, after all it’s mythology, you can just never know.

Finally, it was time for my most awaited experience of the trip.

The WAGAH BORDER! It’s something else you know, finding yourself in a place full of Indians, cheering your country on, at the top of their voice, singing, dancing, waving, and just breathing in, the electric atmosphere.

Amritsari Guideline #4: All cellular phone networks get disabled within a radius of about one kilometer of the Border Gate. So, if you cannot live without texting or missed-calling even for a minute, you’ll have to brace yourself to endure a mobile-less existence for over half an hour, throughout the ceremony and the time it takes you to get outside the grid of the jammed mobile networks.

There is a long, long walk to the border after you have parked your vehicles. As you go further, the Gate of India, built on the pattern of the India Gate at Delhi starts coming into view. There are two huge stands jampacked with seats where people sit, stand, crouch, bend, and do whatever is possible to get a clear view and a minimal amount of breathing space. There is a side gate for V.I.P entrance and we were lucky to get in through that gate (thanks to my father’s I.D. Card) and although we were still cramped, and I was sitting in the space between two stairs, we got a very good view.

Crowds start filling in as early as 3 or 4 o’ clock, we went at about 5:45, and the ceremony started sometime around 6:30.

I messaged a friend (afterwards) gushing about how “electric” the atmosphere was, and got a perturbed reply saying, “Were you at the Indo-Pak Border, or at a Football match?”

Believe me, you have got to be there to know how it feels. Even those of you who claim not to have a single patriotic bone in your body will not be able to help the inevitable euphoria that bowls you over.

You sit in the stands on one side of the Border Gate, to the left of the Indian Gate, and to the right of the Indian Tricolour. To your left is the Pakistani National Flag, and their dome-shaped Gate. Their stands have been built much in the same fashion as ours, on either side of the road.

Now, the sounds of Chak De India! and Rangeela Punjab(I think that was it :/) can be heard from quite a far, but it isn’t until you reach the stands that you realize what is actually taking place. Jarring music expressing the patriotism of both the nations respectively, on both sides of the Border welcome you. Border Security Forces of both countries are lined up next to the gates, and people occupy every single space available to them, on the Indian side, thanks to our overflowing population, people line up even on the pavements!

I felt I noticed two major differences in the crowds on either side.

Indian men and women sat together, mixed, and there wasn’t any gender based segregation on their seating. Across the border, the women occupied one side of the road, and the men were seated on the other.

I think us Indians are such a filmy lot, we can’t bear to miss a single chance to let our hair down, even at the Wagah Border! And yes, there were women, and young girls, and tiny kids, all joining up at the center of the road, forming huge groups, and dancing in full swing to the remixed tones of Yeh Desh Hai Veer Jawaanon Ka. Not on the Pakistani side though.

This is what I meant basically, when I said that the atmosphere was euphoric. You may not be sitting on the road, or dancing in the middle, or even shouting slogans till you’ve lost your voice, but you will still love it!

It’s difficult explaining what the BSF Jawans actually do out there in the middle. Drills, I guess. They march up, down, right and left. I thought they were identical, the Indians and Pakistanis, you would want to believe your’s were better, more athletic and more zealous, but I don’t think that distinction can be made. What’s spectacular is that they give it their all, their efforts to make sure that their respective National Flags stay up the longest, not even a split-second’s delay, fascinating. As immensely enjoyable as the whole ceremony is you can’t help wondering what it must take from those soldiers, to do it over and over, day after day, with the same zeal, same fervour, and equal amounts of patriotism… You sit there, and as you do, however cramped the stairs might be, however hot the weather, you feel like an Indian.

Thanks Abhinav Bindra!

This Rakhi, I felt like doing something different. And so, I’ve come up with some new Rakhi Gift ideas(not my own of course!).

Traditional Rakhis have their own pristine charm. But now that almost everything’s getting customised, why not Rakhis?

So, here’s the catch: What would it be like, if you get to design your very own Rakhi, in the comfort of your very own room, using your very own computer?

Really, cool, I know. And what’s more, not simple dorees and cliche designs, you have the choice of making a rakhi that could take you back memory lanes, something so reminiscent of the time spent with your brother that I’m sure he wouldn’t be able refuse to give you a really great gift in return!

So, cut to the chase, I’m talking about Personalised Photo Rakhis. I saw the concept for the first time ever this year on www.itasveer.com, which is basically a photo-printing website, that dabbles in all sorts of photo-related goodies. Apparently, they have something really cool stuff for every occasion, and their concept of Photo Rakhis really had me floored!

So the thing basically consists of a round badge, on which you get your photos, messages, graphics, -whatever and however you design it on the Itasveer Doodlepad- printed, and it is surrounded by the traditional golden gota and dori.

I love personalising gifts, and this was simply fantastic, you can merge many photographs, or use just a single one, they offer various, borders, frames, clip-arts, and even text baubles, to send across your heartfelt messages to your dearest brothers.

You can actually design complete gift hampers, with their other products. Photo Collages, Smugs(Great looking custom mugs), personalised calendars, greeting cards, and chocolates.

It was also fun surfing through their tshirt store. You can design all of these products yourself, adding cool captions, and surprisingly,there’s no end to what can be done just with a wee bit of imagination, some time, and an online gift delivery service. Plus, there’s free shipping for the rakhis in the festival season, in any part of the country, valid till 20th August and a 15% discount on all other items.

If you think you’re not that creative or just don’t have enough time to design a gift for your brother/sister you could simply order prints of your most favourite childhood pics, or those which you cherish dearly, and ship them over, as a sweet and simple Rakhi Gift.

For sisters who have kid brothers, there are also the most adorable Animal mugs, with the funkiest animal shaped handles, which could make awesome Rakhi gifts along with a simple card or a rakhi.

The ideas are unlimited. So depending on what you need your Rakhi gift to be like, surf the site, design the Rakhi, check out the other stuff, combine it with traditional gifts and make the most memorable Rakhi Gift for your brother. Something both of you can cherish for all times to come.

So now I’m off to do the same! Happy Raksha Bandhan Everybody!!!