The Flag and the clouds

Disclaimer: Original photograph, original post. Do not copy either. Read the Creative Commons license conditions on the right.

The small row of grey clouds closer to the flag attacked it one by one...

They thought they would bring it down...

But the flag of my land continues to stay higher than the trees and the buildings..

While the grey clouds continue to hover around the flag with the intention of harming it...

..they are completely oblivious to the fact that an enormous white-grey cloud rests much higher than them all... and this cloud protects my flag from the nasty grey ones...

***

Be a flag that flutters in the wind with all its might and rest assured that no grey clouds will be able to affect you. The large white-grey cloud that you may choose to call God or something else is high above them all... and that cloud will protect the flag.. that Cloud will protect you..

A love poem

Note: An original imaginary free-style poem. The Hindi-English alternation is quite interesting in my opinion.

(Untitled.)

बारिश की इन बूँदो ने जैसे ही मेरे होठों को छुआ
ऐसे लगा के आप छू रहे हो..
आख़िर आप भी बरस पड़े हो मेरी ज़िंदगी में
इसी बारिश की तरह...

And as I see the rains
flowing down the earth in streams
I see how you leave me drenched
Wet yet wanting for more...

इन्ही में बहा जा रहा हूँ मैं भी..
एक दीवानी सी आशा में..
की इंतज़ार कर रही है मेरा..
एक नदी कहीं दूर...

Sway or stay

Sway or stay... two words which differ in only one letter. This letter makes a lot of difference...

When you stay, you are calm and composed. You are in an equilibrium like a pendulum that is still under its own weight.

When you sway, you move under a force. A force that is beyond your control (Newton calls it external.).

The goal of 'sway' is to 'stay'. (A pendulum that 'sway's to and fro finally comes to a 'stay'.)

'Sway' and 'stay' define many things in the world.

'Sway' and 'stay' are two states of mind... The force that makes your mind 'sway' are the temptations, frustrations and the pressures....

'Sway' and 'stay' are two states of any decision or activity... It is only after the initial changes that the decision converges to a 'stay'.

'Sway' and 'stay' are also two phases of a relationship which one hopes moves from 'sway' to 'stay'.

'Sway' and 'stay' also define the cycles of life and death... The cycles in which the soul 'sways' towards the eternal solitude - the 'stay'.

Sway and stay have no identity without each other. They collectively define the universal process of stabilization...

You know you're watching a SanjayBhansali movie when...

After RGV, the next target is the master of opulent cinema, Sanjay Leela Bhansali...

( To people who told me the RGV post was harsh: It wasn't meant to be harsh but only humorous.)

SLB has an eye for detail. You know you're watching a Sanjay Leela Bhansali movie when.....

1) There is a general sad undertone to every happy scene. And you keep wondering why... At times till the end of the movie you don't understand why the movie was so sad throughout.

2) Nobody in the movie lives in a house that is small. SLB sketches India where the accommodation problem is a remote reality and everyone lives in 'huge' houses. The only reason behind it is the fact that in different scenes, they like to run around the corridors of the house. To add to the drama, these corridors MUST be long enough for the audience to wonder if the house has any rooms and if the house is also one big corridor.

3) SLB has a contract with the 'Akhil Bharatiya musicians sanghatna' (All India musicians Organization). Whenever SLB is recording a song of his movie, there is no other Bollywood song being recorded. Because all the musicians of 'Akhil Bharatiya musicians Sanghatna' are playing in the orchestra. Or so I think with the loud pandemonium that SLB calls the music of his film.

4) All actors never have a 'teardrop' running down their cheek. It's always 'tears' in full force.

5) 'Hum dil de chuke sanam', 'Devdas' and 'Black' did not have a single comedy scene in them. To prove his prowess in the comedy genre, SLB made a full-fledged comedy film - 'Saawariya'.

6) The heroine/hero, atleast ONCE in the film, has to call out to some other character - and that too stretch out the name as if he is in outer space.... 'Devaaaaaa' from Devdas, 'Sameeeeeeeeeer' from 'HDDCS', 'Mrs. McNeilly' from Black are a testimony to that. (For some reason, I thought that Amitabh's character in Black had an affair with Michelle's mother considering the number of times he calls out to her in his scary hoarse voice.)

Girija - the daughter

Note: Original. Completely imaginary. SADISTIC but I think a social reality to a great extent.

The year was 1981.

She stood at the window. She was looking outside to an evening looking over a crowded town - buildings so close that one could hardly see through them and a street so full that one could hardly separate the vehicles from the pedestrians.

She silently saw this celebration of life before her eyes. She imagined her mother inside a maternity clinic like this one several decades ago. A thought struck her like lightening and she went numb. She blanked out.

"Mrs. Girija Prasad!", the nurse at the reception desk called out.

She was brought back from her trance.

Girija picked up a file and walked into the doctor's cabin.

**

"Are you sure you want to do this?", the doctor asked.

Girija nodded. She remembered Ajit, her husband fighting with her and abusing her. He had hit her last night when she tried to argue that she wanted to keep the baby.

Ajit had only one explanation - it was a baby girl and his mother did not want them to have a third daughter.

**

Girija came back home.

Ajit's face was frozen.

She looked at the floor and muttered, "I've done it."

Ajit hugged her.

Girija had forgotten that there was a mother some years ago who had chosen to have a daughter who was hugging her husband right now.

You know you're watching a RGV movie when..

A couple of months ago, I had written a blogpost called 'You know you're watching a KJo movie when...'. Then I thought, why not the others. So here they are...

You know you're watching a Ram Gopal Varma movie when....:

1) The film moves slower than the traffic outside IIT main gate in Powai. Even if you catch a nap for two minutes through the movie, you would wake up to see the two characters still staring at each other, saying nothing. Arty indeed.

2) Close-ups like never before. You will see a strand of hair and wonder if it is Mohanlal's moustache or Ajay Devgan's chest hair.

3) The characters will remain still - moving their eyelids with shoggy closeups of the nostrils showing. And as you see the chin of the actor on the screen, the background score will be so loud and melodramatic that you might feel you are watching Rakhi Sawant sharing her life-experiences.

4) The anti-heroes are more in number than the heroes. The camera is kept on the floor ( :-p ) for the anti-heroes to make them look larger-than-life. The heroes don't deserve that attention.

5) You know you're watching a RGV movie when you see Nisha Kothari on screen. Who casts her otherwise anyways?!

6) The songs in the film are not there. Or when they are there, you hear the male singer clearing his throat rhythmically. (I so fear one day we'll have the sound of the singer spitting out of the cleared throat too. Yikes!)

7) Last but not the least, you know you're watching a RGV movie when.... you are alone in the theatre.

Price for wisdom

Nothing, absolutely nothing comes in the world for free. Just that the mode in which you pay the price may differ. You pay by cheque, by card or by cash - but no shopping mall or telephone company will you give you an exemption from paying up for what you want to buy for yourself.

As an individual, more than anything else, we are working our way towards wisdom - which I believe is in fact the common cause of birth for all of us. This 'wisdom' is not really in the 'academic' sense but it is the wisdom in ways of life, in our behaviour, in our reactions and in the form of experiences.

The trials and tribulations one goes through is the price one has to pay for wisdom. There is no way you skip this payment. You may take a short cut now (cramming up an important definition when you are supposed to understand it instead. Or bribing your way out of a crisis.) God's recovery agents will recover this price somehow...  The price for wisdom will have to be paid.

The Little Runner

Disclaimer : Not imaginary. Only the mode of description is.

It was a bright sunny morning and Nishikant was riding his bicycle. It was a rare occasion today that he was up so early and so, he was feeling rather lousy and dull.

His bicycle moved at a speed as fast as a man walking briskly but with his eyes half closed, Nishikant did not even realize that.

He became alert as he heard foot steps. He looked sideways and saw a boy nearly six years old in his shorts and a white t-shirt running.

The boy looked at Nishikant and pushed himself to run faster. When the boy saw that he was actually running as fast as Nishikant's cycle, he smiled to himself.

Nishikant noticed this... but somehow, he did not want to move faster. He moved at his own convenient slow pace and saw the boy running as fast as him.

The little runner was feeling jubilant and proud that he was keeping up with a bicycle. When the little runner moved faster than the bicycle at one point of time, he actually stretched his arms like a marathon winner.

Nishikant admired the little runner's little joy in defeating him. He continued to cycle as slow as he already was... 

Reservation in history

From government offices to schools to private sectors, reservation is present everywhere and I wouldn't be surprised if a new proverb comes into use 'Reservation is everywhere' on the lines of 'God is everywhere'.

In fact, a friend of mine is very scared of reservation especially after he was denied admission in an engineering college and a person half his percentage got in easily. He is so scared that he gets wet palms when he has to ask for train reservation too. He has become a 'reserved' fellow you see.

Now, the reservation has entered a new realm - the realm of history. There are people who want reservation in history too. There are people who say that all the history attributable to a historical figure (who is held dearly by people of Maharashtra, India.) is the property of their community and hence, the entire credit of the historical figure's achievements should come to them.

They have gone to the extent of pressurizing the authorities to delete this historical Chhatrapati's guru's name from the school history textbooks - the only fault of the poor guru is that he did not belong to their community.


With reservation all over present India, now it's all set to capture India's past too...

The First Plunge

Disclaimer: Not completely fictitious. Nevertheless, an original expression like all other blogposts.


"No papa, I won't be able to do it!", Mini stood still in shoulder-deep water and her father waist-deep.

"You have to try beta!! I am sure you will do it! Just try doing this..." Mini's father stretched his hands out, crouched and let himself go in the water.

"I'll drown Papa!"

"How can you drown in a pool which is only this deep...", Mini's father thrust his beefy arm inside the water and touched the floor of the swimming pool.

"All I want you to do, Mini", he continued," is to float.. let your body loose..."

"Ok, let me hold your hand and help you do that", Mini's father said as held her hands joined together.

Mini slowly leaned forward and taking a deep breath, let herself go in the water.

She flapped her hands vigorously...

"Float... don't move your arms Mini... float", but Mini could hardly hear him under water.

She kept flapping her hands, got tired and stopped. She realized that she was floating.

She now knew what was required to float over water and she floated amazingly well.

She now did the floating act several times over today...

It's the first plunge that requires courage... The capability to float is intrinsic to all of us.

It's this first plunge that makes all the difference...