Saaransh

A movie made in 1984 under the banner of Rajshri Productions, Story and Direction..Mahesh Bhatt, Editor..David Dhawan!! A must watch, a classic made when the big names today were trying for mere establishment.

It was the movie introducing THE actor Anupam Kher (Mr. Pradhan in the movie)…ironically playing the old man in the movie. And the role played by Rohini Hattgandi of a wife, a mother, and that of a hopeful mother…Believing that her son will come back.

The once suicidal husband says to his wife when she wants to end it all..

“It takes guts to Live, not to die….”
“Parvati, the lines on your face symbolize the gist of my life!”

The last scene ends with the couple sitting in the park where Mr. Pradhan had dropped the ashes of their son Ajay and the small stretch of land has plants growing on it or lets say Life…

“You and me die but Life never ends..”

THE END

Memory Lane: Part I

I give this title because I think I will have such experiences of my past revisited many times in my life and I look forward to putting them down here…

I had a jam-packed movie schedule this weekend…old, new, everything! I watched the two new releases…directorial debut for two directors and I fear going inside a theatre to see if a movie is up-to-the-mark. First I don’t know much about direction and acting or so I like to believe, hence being a critique makes no sense and therefore second, I feel there are better things to do…So doing that was in fact kind of my first!

With the mutiplexes coming up every now and then,,here there are everywhere..I have been watching all the “good” movies inside big “Screen” with flexible chairs, expensive snacks in between and sometimes Air conditioning very chilly! I watched “U,Me aur Hum” (the movie so to say was a torture! ) in such a multiplex with the lowest priced tkt@160 and called special…It was third row from bottom!!

And just the very next day I saw ‘Krazzy4’ in a Theatre which has one screen to itself…has no Brand name like adlabs/cinemax/PVR attached but instead has a name “Chandan”….and the maximum Ticket priced@100 Rs. After a long time was I seeing a Hall with my family where there were lots of families coming to sit in the balcony and then college students and others coming to sit in dress circle. Yes, it did have a dress circle, a balcony..not a Box though. (I had started with my movie watching spree in such halls and I had visited lots of them and also there were 5 of them in Ajmer…and I remember being excited to go the ones I had never been to before..It wud be a new place for me.) Few kids were blocking us from either side and they actually did stand up when Shahrukh Khan appeared on the screen singing and dancing at “crazy with a K..K R A Zee Zee Y”. They were twisting, jumping, singing the lines they could actually speak!! And ya do you remember people from dress circle whistling at item numbers...Rakhi Sawant’s item number did get quite a lot them.

The movie was a nice experience because of good actors, the two sectors in the hall where I was part of the higher one (balcony :P) and the unfortunate experience that I had a day before at a multiplex with the Devgans!!

So as for me it used to be a “to-do” or that “it’s a first”…but I have one more thing added to these…. “It was after a lonnggg time!”

Mood: Good :)

Music: Chalte Chalte...yun hi koi mil gaya.. :)

Estd. 2008

In the late 1980s’, during one of my several talks about my native place Ajmer surrounded by the now Aravali hill range; I was told that they used to be huge mountains, huger than the now existing Himalayas. And over billions of years they are what they are now. My immediate and hence not so well turned-out thoughts had me surprised because I believed people live, they die and there is this still picture of natural surroundings that was meant for them all. But thanks to geography!! :)

Over a period of few years, it occurred to me when I was overlooking that same hill range from my terrace the fact that there was a time in past when all someone would have seen from my present location would be just these “huge” hills and would have imagined them to have a striking beyond. And here I am looking at the beyond. My these thoughts were given another steer when I watched “The Man from earth”. A man living for 14000 years with as many names of his own as I might not even have on my list till date, must have met people probably more than the hours I have lived, made families and had to leave them and am so possessive of the one I have, had happy moments which made him sad because he might have to let go the reasons for them. May be he was Jesus himself…A question that arises is will you like yourself to meet Jesus and then look at people praying to Jesus for generations. Will you consider yourself to be blesses or cursed? And since mountains erode, water paves new ways, land depressed itself or rose high in pride…you cannot tell the place of your birth because it might be a nothing then and a hill range today or it may be huge mountains depressing by any passing minute and you have lived millions of them.

It had come to my realization quite early that the nature has seen many faces, relationships, smiles, laugh, tears, civilizations, development, urbanization and been a good listener to all that lived through them…but the unforeseen idea of a human being existing there through a substantial part of these is now a mystery.

And of course nature happened, then man happened and then happened man-made monuments. Amongst these few survived and many dint. Historic buildings I have never been able to associate with well enough. When I go to a palace or fort I feel a completely different air to them saying old. But with restaurants, universities and brands I have known off having a “Estd. xxxx” or “Since xxxx” attached to them, I have always wondered about their long existence. Best examples to them would be the café’s around in Europe and few in Mumbai: Even better of course is sited by one of my friends..
‘Since 1871, Leopold Café’

There is zeal in me to visit those places and leave my mark there, “I was here!!” I somehow figure that these places are going to exist when I am not going to. Generations will still wonder like me in few of silent moments at that place…hear the laughs still echoing, talks will exist between those walls. A friend of mine made me realize that such a thing gets more prominent in an old book store. Imagine you are in a place where again generations have come and read about all the above mentioned. The place still has the books with the stories about certain old restaurants, people graduated from the universities that have been there since…. And established themselves ever since!

In true senses, I can see time flying away there and that my present is going to be past for me soon enough but history somewhere down the way soon…

Long Live the world…

Just one last thought…Photography has really seen a revolution. Best was when cameras got the option of dates getting printed on the photo... “Taken…20/05/2006” And I cant help but wonder…! :)

Thoughtful…
Since 1986

Music: Tujhse Naaraz nahin Zindagi...

Fist-full of happiness

Last few days @ IIT-B campus! I always thought that with this place I had a relationship that is so private for me even though all others here are happy faces because of their romance here too…I believed I had a relationship and with others, it’s just an affair. Leaving IIT should feel like the end of an era..but all it feels like is a Long distance relationship I will maintain for as long as I can, for as long as I can remember..THIS has been my Life!!

I have lived back in IIT with no people around..no friends..no known faces..no events…no competitions…no mess…only my room and some work. And all those times I always figured out that this place is what I know it to be because of all that. Surprisingly enough today they seem like the add-ons to the dish I have relished for Five complete years and never got bored off.

All the friends and family I made in here are of course..Thanks to IIT. But it took me something: an event, a night, course, class, lab, treat or may be PAF to know them…and may be sometimes know them again. I might have had fights with them many a times and in those sad times I used to walk up and down the main lane. When I had some issues to be talked about, it gave me a pathway going right from my hostel down to the IDC and back again from numerous pathways. When I had to think aloud, there was a lakeside for that too…if I dint go there, my eyes could always…my room gives me a view to it…but for me it was always a still picture ‘cause from here nothing changed…all is green, just the seasons change…It’s a perfect flora to sustain this fauna, US.

With my friends and family…I went out of this place to see ‘other’ places..and many-a-times I could not wait to get back! Once the rickshaw pulled itself in the main gate and wow…I was at home..and then getting down in front of H-10 made me feel relaxed. The campus is huge..well that’s one way but its flanked by two lakes on either side and so wherever I stand, it stands all around me!! It gave me a surround-hug whenerver I needed one and it felt great…

I have a Life to live ahead but it feels like I have lived a lifetime here, and a good one. Though IIT will never be complete without the add-ons…but this will always be the place I want to come again to, the place I cherished..relished…smiled…and ya, Loved!

Lets sing, sing for these years
sing for the laughter, sing for the tear
It may be just for today
Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take it away

Music: Dream on
Mood: nostalgic