of growing roots and being an outsider...

As a kid I was often given this very wise piece of advice…”never ever forget ur roots beta…” and believe me I have no intentions of doing so… but juss lemme figure out where exactly should my roots be… should it be the place where my great grandparents lived (Dhaka Bangladesh), or where my grandparents lived (Mumbai, Chennai, Madras as it was called then, and for a considerably long time Banaras or Varanasi, courtesy grandpa’s railways’ job), in case you are wondering, my maternal side of the family is equally colourful in terms of putting down their roots as we often keep hearing. Funny thing this concept of putting down roots gives me a visual image of my toes growing long slowly and digging deep into the earth beneath me and slowly immobilizing me. Moving on to the advice of not forgetting my roots, well this piece of advice got more and more redundant as the third question everyone in this country asks you is where are you from…and frankly I am at a loss whenever confronted on this front…with tym I have managed to give a well rehearsed answer though…I am a Bengali, born and brought up in Rohtak, Haryana, higher education in Chennai and Delhi, worked in Tamil Nadu, Faridabad, Mumbai and New Delhi…phew!




There is one thing though that I fail to understand…why am I ever asked that question… what does it tell? One thing that I have seen is that it snatches away whatever little sense of belonging I ever develop with any place. I visited Kolkata a lot as a child and a lil less frequently as I grew up… I was always an outsider there, a visitor…looked at as a foreign object...interesting but unimportant and temporary… back in Rohtak, my so called home town, the oft repeated comment is…”achha ji aap bangaali ho?” followed by a whole questionnaire of how come I landed here, no no no you can’t really call it home… you are after all an outsider… Delhi, Chennai, Ranipet, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Jaipur, Udaipur, Lucknow, Kanpur, Agra, Bangalore, Smaller towns of Haryana, Villages or towns of West Bengal…metropolitans and so called cosmopolitan cities... no matter what place what demographics…I have always been an outsider…why cant people from my own country with the most in common wid me accept me for being the person that I am and not ask me my full name for once in my life!!! And you know what is ironic?? We blame the Westerners for discriminating against us… they are doing to us what we do to each other…

a girl i knew

When she was born…she was loved and pampered and given all that she deserved and then some more and some more. Growing up, she was made to believe the world was hers to love, cherish, possess and own. “My li’l princess, O ma darling, you can do whatever you want!”, and she believed it. Mama told her, she is the brightest and the loveliest of all, Papa said you are the best. And she believed it.




Growing up was fun. She always seemed to get what she wanted, and so she believed. Anything can happen if u wanna make it happen and so life moved on smooth and nice. Studies, music, food and frenz… all of that and some more…so she had it all and so she believed.



But we know its not all rosy all the tym…it so happened that she started dreaming… dreaming of a knight…a knight in shining armour…an armour forbidden. Forbidden to touch and unthinkable to own. Lost in the dazed dreams and seeing the rosy picture she so thought her own….she glided by and dreamt and dreamt of stories woven with fur and silk of her and the forbidden knight. She turned to her own for love and trust…it was different this time. The faces that adoringly had looked at her and in whose glory she had basked were glowering this time not glowing. Somehow they had hardened the loving smoothness had given way to hard formidable lines of worry and disapproval… But I believed in you all…t’was you all who said I could do anything at all…



They remained unmoved…they could understand her no more. The light that she emitted grew weaker each day as her belief shook coz of this dream…



But slowly she moved on and then on….distracting herself with things that made her happy she looked ahead to travel to worlds other than her own…the new and yet again the forbidden, beckoned her… it called out to her and she glowed again with hopes of going and discovering a new world and then perhaps to make it her own…



Bubbling with excitement and her dreams of this adventure that beckoned her...she went back to look at her own and it broke her heart yet again as she faced yet another stony glowering all over again….but…but t’was you all who said I could do anything at all and I then believed you…met by a silence as disapproving as a groan and a growl…she pulled back to her own…slashing yet again her dreams and her vision was strangled and shattered…



The sound of a heartbreak is not loud or dramatic or visible…it simply crushes you slowly as a millstone grinds a seed…the glow around her further weakened….and so every time she found a new dream to get over the first…she would just lose some more until one day the light within her extinguished… and all that surrounded her were clouds of darkness, ignorance and disappointment…



She had heard of guardian angels and fairy godmothers, but had stopped believing in them long, long ago. But today, as she lay smothered and suffocated by these clouds she hoped against hopes to see someone … anyone to hold on to and to ask why? Why me?



And then out of nowhere came a stranger…but was it a stranger? No it was her knight, and then an oracle, then a spirit and then her dreams one morphing into the other….to remind her of what was all that she had wanted… she looked around desperately to find that one hidden angel who was putting her through all this pain of looking at things she had desired through her life and never got them….but realized there was none…these visions were all she could see and but had to endure…



Slowly a voice in her head spoke to her in a voice so familiar that it soothed the blinding pain of the past… she asked the voice why is it that she could not do what ever she wanted…everyone told her she could do whatever she wanted…the voice said my dear angel…you did not believe….to this the li’l girl replied promptly…but I did.. I did believe them all….the voice said to her…yes angel that is what went wrong…you believed them all…but in yourself you had no belief, none at all…



And then the girl realized…the guiding voice she heard is her own…she was her own guardian angel or the fairy godmother or the guiding light as she was seeking one for long…the belief she lost was not in her own, it was in others…she never believed in herself…all she did was believe in others while putting no trust in her own…and slowly so, the clouds that smothered her lifted and slowly she saw her light return and slowly she lifted her feet to bring back what she had lost and what lay before her… slowly and yet so slowly but she set out anyway…

एक ऐसी शाम हो, जो कभी ख़त्म न हो
सूरज जब ग़र्म लावे की तरह पिघलकर
ज़मीन की गर्त में समा रहा हो
आसमान का रंग न लाल न नीला
गहरा रही हो रात पर शाम ख़त्म न हो
तन्हाई तो नहीं पर अकेलापन भाता है अब
समय की रफ़्तार इतनी धीमी हो
की फुर्सत से साँस तो ले सकें
एक ऐसी शाम हो जो सबसे अलग हो... सबसे शांत... सबसे दूर...
बस मैं... मेरी कल्पनाएँ... और मेरे ख़यालात साथ साथ हों
ख़ुद को जानने की एक कोशिश यूँ ही सही
ज़िन्दगी के इस शोर, इस भीड़ भाड़ से दूर... अलग
सबसे अलग... सबसे जुदा... सबसे भली...
जहाँ बस मैं हूँ और मेरे ख़यालात हों
कल्पना है एक ऐसी शाम की.....

बारिश में क्या है ऐसा जो आज भी वो मुझे उतना ही खींचती है अपनी ओर जितना की उस भूले हुए बचपन में रिझाती बुलाती थी.... आज भी गिरती बूंदों को देख ऐसा लगता है की बस दौड़ कर जाऊं और उन बूंदों को भर लूँ अपनी मुट्ठियों में, आग़ोश में और महसूस कर पाऊं अपने को भीगते हुए सिर्फ हाथ पैर ही नहीं, मेरा मन भी इस बारिश में सराबोर हो जाए.... एक बादामी ठंडक को महसूस करना चाहती हू... आज दोपहर की बारिश कुछ ऐसी ही थी मेरे लिए जिसने मुझे तोहफे में एक मखमली सी याद दी है.... संजो के रखने के लिए...

"sakubai"

उठ मेरी जान मेरे साथ ही चलना है तुझे

ज़िन्दगी जेहाद में है सब्र के काबू में नहीं
नब्ज़ - ए - हस्ती का लहू कांपते आंसू में नहीं
उड़ने खुलने में है नखत ख़म - ए - गेसू में नहीं
जन्नत एक और है जो मर्द के पहलू में नहीं
उसकी आज़ाद रविश पर भी मचलना है तुझे

उठ मेरी जान मेरे साथ ही चलना है तुझे

this excerpt of a poem "औरत" by Kaifi Azmi connected yesterday and tomorrow...as Shabana Azmi recited this yesterday to point out the fact that the girls of the audience were made to sit at the top probably the worst place to watch a play from.... well to save face or coz of a "genuine reform" the girls were seated in the front rows. The play was "Sakubai" written and directed by Nadira Zaheer Babbar and brought to lyf by the sensitive and very expressive Sarita Joshi....what an act...what portrayal of feelings and emotions... and above all she held the whole monologue and the stage and the audience for well over 90 minutes I guess, who the hell was looking at the tym....and there was not one moment i felt disconnected...though the concept of the play was a very ghisa pita one....but Sarita Joshi was awesome....its the story of a woman from the lower rung of the society, a maid who is indispensible and an important part of our daily lives...not by choice though....she is a gossip all right but does have a strong bond with the family that she serves....she has affection and admiration for the three members of the family, she criticizes them, but at the same time is highly possessive about them....it was these nuances that would make me remember this great actor always....

just watching Shabana Azmi walk on the stage is an intellectually stimulating experience...it gives the brain an experience as indescribable as an erotic frenzy....broken images a play beautifully written by Girish Karnad. A post modernist play. Definitely a first on the Indian Theatre scene. Had seen this play, actually hindi version of it, last year at India Habitat Centre. Sushma Seth played Manjula and another actor played Malini though the meaning was lost because of the use of an actor in place of the virtual screen image (which kind of was the whole point of charm in the play). the actors were not well rehearsed, Sushma Seth was fumbling with her lines, she forgot her spot at least twice. On the whole it was a disaster if you ask me, but still I loved the script and the concept.

Today as I saw the play in its glory, with someone as great as Shabana Azmi enacting the whole thing, well it was an experience of its own kind.

Yesterday while talking about some Haryanavi Cultural Evening I saw an invite to a play Broken Images enacted by Shabana Azmi, lying on the table and I decided I have to see this play even if I have to go alone. I knew it being Rohtak the audience would be bad and unruly, politicians would be treated like gods and their feet licked by everyone from the anchors to journalists to almost everyone in sight.

But I was pleasantly surprised to see a crowd so mature and so interested in something that was not loud beats or filmi aur haryanavi. There was a pindrop silence and the crowd appreciated the concept, though I must say it was quite considerate of Ms. Azmi to translate her dialogues to hindi that too impromptu....and well she connected with the audience as bizarre as this... I guess that makes her what she is....

I just wanna say...I had a lovely evening and my admiration for Shabana Azmi was reinforced today after seeing her in flesh.

dreamt a lil dream...saw the four of us carefree as ever lying under a mango tree legs up on the tree...and talking about dreams....not the fabrication of the sub-conscious....but dreams woven by the very tangible ambitions of a heart of a strong will....

each had her own dream...to someone else manifestation of a childish fantasy...but to each of us a matter of utter seriousness...for as much as we believed in ourselves we believed more in each other....

hardly in touch now but its juss a random dream that reminded me of the happier tyms when it was so easy to believe....

to believe in oneself and more importantly in others...when we knew what we wanted to have....i wonder y is it that as i grew up things became more and more unclear and life became more and more complicated and slowly i lost vision of what i really want.....

hum paanch

sitting in the car always encourages random thoughts....I speak only for myself though...today on the way back from delhi, I was thinking about the kind of weird career graph I have had....its strange, one thing had little to do with other...and i go to my oft referred metaphor of cooking where some strange flavours combine to give a pleasantly strange concoction not unlike the bengali paanch phoron, where the five spices each with their own identities and individualities come together and amalgamate to form a new and interesting combo....

what i like, though is that they come together as paanch phoron but have the trait still, to stand out as "paanch" and not melt into one another to form "ek".....

shower of respite

today I go to delhi....thats a relief...life at home has become a little monotonous...I of all the people cannot take a routine life and at home thats what it has come to....yesterday while talking to a guest at home i realised it has been quite a few days that I havent even stepped out of my house....it was unnerving and thinking about that I kind of panicked....this certainly isn't normal...

anyway i look forward to a weekend of fun ahead...

green chillies in the chicken curry

while adding chillies to the chicken curry i realised one thing....chillies make my eyes water and tongue burn and nose flow relentlessly, then why do i add it still....granted i like the aroma and flavour that they add to the food....but still there is a great amount of discomfort adding the burning sensation that lingers in my fingers when i chop them....
thoughts wandered and I started comparing this to the way we all live our lives...there are certain risks and decisions we take...we all know are gonna create a turmoil but there are certain things attached to these decisions that we look forward to inspite of the discomfort the turmoil causes...

the green chillies to the bland chicken curry......

the fear of loss is the worst fear of them all...i guess you wouldnt know till you face it... i faced it recently... and I would like to say it made me see things in an entirely new perspective and a new light...but that would be a lie...what happened was that i started appreciating things...things like a sure shot hug frm certain ppl in my life.. i know i will get it when i want it and sometimes even though i dont ask for it...

these are the tyms when you thank God for what you hav...a tym , when you realise that you should cherish whatever you have because its precious...

As I see with open eyes, I see the blinding light, closing my eyes I see a pleasant darkness, a darkness welcoming me, soothing me, enveloping me and bringing to me the sweet memoirs of past not so long gone. Days that were carefree as the butterflies in a garden of big, fat flowers. The days that once were the epitome of happiness. I welcome all that and more in this warm darkness. This darkness is my hope. This darkness is my will, to live, to go on a bit more, just a bit more. It gives me the power to stand up, it gives me the power to fight back. I t gives me the wish to live.

And they say darkness depresses.

Darkness is what you want it to be. It is clay in your hand waiting to mould into a shape that you need it to be. It is at your mercy not you at hers. Grab it, Play with it, Own it. It will be yours.

the Woman Her self

when a Girl is born...
She becomes a Daughter.....
people know Her for Her father....
Her name is less known as ever...
She grows up to be a young Lady...
a Woman of willowy beauty...
goes ahead, and gets married....
to be known as just Her husband's Wife...
time goes by..
She bears a child...
She creates life from Her womb
bearing pain unknown to man..
now, now she is known as Her son's Mother...
they say a Woman has three big stages in Her life....
but is it Her life at all...
She is a Daughter, a Wife and then a Mother....
but Her own self is lost in these relations....
but can we call it Her self...