Fatalism or pure co-incidence

Fatalism - A belief that means men are as powerless as we can be when it comes to shaping ones life. Having a strong platform in the belief that all events are pre-planned and are executed on us, fatalism is strong contender of the following: Nothing is in our hands, there is no free will, events are affected by a a plethora of external stakeholders that we dint even know existed.

Well, I am not sure if I believe in this philosophy. Nevertheless, I take the liberty to narrate a particular incident that occured 15 years ago.

My mother has a cousin. Well, it does not really matter whether first or second, lets just assume that she is her cousin. As a part of a the marriage package, an eligible bachelor and his family had come to see her. This was roughly 15 years back, as I earlier stated. Anyway he refused to marry her, so did his family. They went ahead, saw a few more girls, and got him married to the one they thought was the most desirable. The man and wife began their life, as any couple would, with the wife bearing him 3 children.

Good, And life would have gone on for all of them, if not for a tragedy that struck him. His wife died, leaving behind her 3 children and a distraught husband who was little at ease to take care of his children. As all men are socially entitled to take a second wife, as against a woman taking a second husband, his family decided to get him a new wife. And he agreed. They found a gal who was never married and tied them together for the rest of their lives. The tragedy has been forgotten now, the new wife has all replaced the old one and life has moved on...

Wait, I did not tell you a twist here. The second wife that he took was the lady he had refused to take to be his wife, 15 years ago!! She was still unmarried for the want of a suitable groom for her and was nearly 45 years old when she was married to the widower. Phew, strange, if he was destined to marry her only... then why had fate to get him married to someone else before killing her!!

Like a flowing river... serene and placcid

Like a flowing river the words flowed flawlessly into my soul. I am not the only one who will be feeling this at the end of a journey called, "Like a flowing river". But still, I may a few among those to write about it.

Because it has lived its life intensely
the parched grass still attracts the gaze of passers-by
The flowers merely flower,
and they do this as well as they can
The white lily, blooming unseen in the valley
Does not need to explain itself to anyone;
It lives merely for beauty
Men, however, cannot accept that 'merely'

If tomatoes wanted to be melons,
they would look completely ridiculous
i am always amazed
that so many people concerned
with wanting to be what they are not;
what's the point of making yourself look ridiculous?

You don't always have to pretend to be strong
there's no need to prove all the time that everything is going well,
you shouldn't be concerned about what other people are thinking
cry if you need to.
its good to cry out all your tears
(because only then will you be able to smile again)

Mitsuo Aida (1924 - 1991)

This is the 25th year of my life. Not a very good one if you look at it from the view of pragmatists. No work, no work and no work. Waiting to let my parents to let me start studying. I have been reading a lot, writing a lot and of course sleeping a lot.

Malashri, shreedevi, Kajol, Madhuri?

On a lazy monday afternoon I was watching the movie Stranger starring Jimmy Sergill KK and the female support system. I was competely engrossed in the movie, when I faintly heard the the tinkling sound of ringing bells. Hearing this sound, I had to to veer myself away from the movie. And just as I was concentrating towards identifying this sound, It struck me like a bolt of lightening. I realised that they were the bells tied round the neck of cows.


Such bells had the characteristic sound as against the bells tied elsewhere. The ding dong of the bells were a result of the rhythmic walking of the cows, left foot forward; ding dong, right foot forward; ding dong, though neither of the sounds were cleary distinguishable. The cows did not wait until the first pair of sounds completed their journey to the listeners ear drums.


The moment I identified the owners of this sound,I jumped off the couch and ran to the main entrance, to save our newly planted saplings.


I do not have any reason to like the cows grazing at the green grass in the playground in front of my house. Dad has reccently planted some saplings that are destined to become flowering trees in near future. And these cows love to eat away the tender leaves of the stil-infant saplings. And I detested this audacity.

"Nod pa, iva yen anara illi gida tindra, na sumna iranglilla noda!" (To the cowherd, "Listen, if these eat away the leaves of the saplings I wont stay quiet", Well, I really could not do much. All I could think of was to shout at the cowherd, as the cows could not understand anything any expletives I hurled at them.

"Illari akkara, hanga yenu madangilla iva. Gidakka yenu agangilla bidri" (Dont worry, They wont do anything like it)

"Yaaka, yenu madangilla?? Manne ee gidadda tinda hogyavu noda" (Why do u think they wotn do it? Look at this sapling. All its leaves are gone!!) I was angry now!

As I was turning towards the door, I heard him shout... "Le Malashri, Shreedevi, Kajal... barri.. Le..." And the cows came running towards him, away from my saplings..

The last sunset of my summer holidays

I have had many worse days in my life. But the worst days of all hase invaribly been the last day of all the summer holidays. The day when all happiness ended. The day when waking up late ended. The last day when I had no homework to do.

I usually played very hard on the last day of May. I played till the sun set and long after it, until my the last of my friends were yanked towards their homes. Not that I was not dragged home, its just that I do not remember it. Maybe I am disinclined to remember memories that do not add any bliss.

The new academic year began on June 1st. The last day of may was the one I prayed to be the longest. I prayed hard, like a fervent devotee... Let the day not die, let the sun not go, let the light be there :) I would avoid looking at the sun after 5 in in the evening. I did not like the failing rays, the glare turning from a bright, golden yellow to a ruddy crimson. I only concentrated hard on the game I was at.

But the sun always set. All my friends were pulled home. I screamed to myself loud an clear, "Come on guys, lets stick together. If we all are at the playground, kicking the ball around, the sun won't set. Trust me, it will be day and there wont be a night!" :) Maybe, I thought that the sun set because we all went home, and not that we went home because the sun set. :)

ROCKed on

Some stories are meant to be recited. And some, are meant to be brought up on celluloid. Man needs his dosage of visual tonic, periodically. Be it, in the form of words or a theater... After a long spell of gaudy cinema, a movie comes along, which erases the I-have-lost-hope-in-hindi-movies feeling.... An elixir to bad cinema. Yes, ROCK ON could be one such. It is a good movie, but it left me waiting for something...

I wonder, how the story could have been told if it was written as a novel. Undoubtedly, it would be more intense.

Every story whether on screen or in words, every performance, be it any form, will be characterised by that one high point; the zenith of intensity and passion, the climax that encompasses in itself the kernel of the entire story, the apogee which carries the weight of the enactment... ROCK ON lacked only that. The entire movie was on a high... From the start till the end, it was driven by adrenalin, pumping into the veins of the movie and setting its tempo on a high.

ROCK ON was on a perpetual high, never letting its audience soak in the characters. They came (with a bang), they sang (on a high) and they left (just like that). The characters of the movie were not projected enough to immortalise them. I can barely remember their names now. I do remember the names of Siddharth, Akash and Sameer. Maybe the intention of Farhan Akhtar was to only tell a story of MAGIK and not to eternalize himself as Aditya. Maybe he did not want to do to ROCK ON what he did to Dil chahata hain.

ROCK ON lacked the camaraderie that was the selling point of Dil Chahata hain. All love was lost between the protagonists. I wanted Aditya to break down when his wife berates him for living his life grudgingly. I wanted him to seek solace in his friends and use music as a nostrum. But, I was left waiting. However, I still remember the scene when Akash leaving the garb of his ego goes back to Siddharth and Shalini... Aditya never did that. ROCK ON only lacked this.

PHOONK was PHOONKed away

Why did RGV name it as PHOONK, is it because we could PHOONK it away? We actually did... It could have been aptly named, let me say

1) Naasthik bana aasthik -- you know Rajeev turned over a new leaf
2) Baccha khatiya se chalang mara -- oh, remember the crassiest scene of the movie. Did RGV think we would be scared?
3) Budiya ka sar vibration mode par -- Watch out for Rajeev's mother.Her head is always in tremors, like a 1100 in vibration mode
4) Bhagwan ya Doctor -- Poor Lillete Dubey took away the achievement of the almighty
5) Ped pe Kavva -- That ubiquituous crow.
6) Ram Gopal Verma ka PHOONK -- just like Ram gopal verma ki AAG

Ram Gopal Verma, the man who immortalised Urmila as Mili in Rangeela, who did to GOD FATHER, what A R Rehaman did to 'Vande Mataram'... this was the most weakened form of cinema that RGV can dish from his kitchen. Has he become mentally decrepit to spend on such a gross movie and to believe that the audience will lap it up?

Match fixing at my place...

Matches are fixed at my house. I has never realised the intensity of the activities that are carried out, but when I sat through one such session, it was rather unsettling. The key person was my Tayaaji, a very senior personality and a luminary in my family circle. As you must have guessed, I am not talking about cricket, there are many other not so important people doing this job. Here I a very respectfully referring to the gal-guy match, yea, marriages.

My Pa is known across the length and breadth of the rectangle comprising all near and very far relatives. Let me take a very typical situation here. Tring, tring.. tring tring... I answer the telephone, My voice trails across the house, "Paaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, your phone" Pa walks down the stairs of his room towards the hall. "Hello, araam ri, Neevu? Henga call madidri? Haudenri? Henta hudaki beeka? hmmmmmm, hmmmmm, aayita bidri. Nale phone madtini"... To summarise, some called up asking for a bride for his son. Pa gets into a very contemplative mood. The decision has to be made. A select request runs down his database, query returns a number of gals. Phew... memory overload. Too many gals. He redefines the query adding a (where) clause. Bingo, A few very good hits. Then the dialogue begins in our house. Pa tells mom the entire scenario. Mom may or may not add more where clauses. Again the query runs. You see, my mom's suggestions can never be overlooked. You will definitely repent if you do not heed to them. Ask my dad! He has paid a huge price for not listening to her. My mom advised him against marrying her. He did not heed to her. He is still repenting.. :) JOKES APART... Let me continue.

Its day 2: Pa calls back to the bride hunter. All details conveyed. Rest is HIStory. I have been a very amused witness to such plotting scenes. The only feeling that passes me at the times when such events are occuring is, what are the gal and boy doing at their respective residences or offices at that moment of time. Their fate is being sealed at the living room of my house...

A poignant scene on a monday morning!

There are a few people who keep me busy in the morning. 1) A lady who sweeps the entire stretch of road in front of my house. 2) An hoary, wrinkled old man who begs for alms. He calls out, "Baba, rote de baba!!!"

The rough sound of the lady's broom grating the ground and the hoarse voice of the old man are a definite accompaniment to the rest of the sounds that make up my morning. Both these people do not come everyday, but alternately. The old woman cleans up all the roads in our area for a pittance and all that the man manages to take home is maybe a few rupees and food for the day.

As usual, the old man cried for alms and food. After having picked up food from my neighbor and my house, he walked towards the next residence. After handing him the food, I stood by at the door, watching him.

The sweeper was resting her back on a bench that was placed at the intersection of the four roads. She was chewing betel nut and spitting over her shoulder. We never minded this act of hers, as she would eventually clean it up. She said something to the old man. I thought she wanted him to avoid walking over the heap of leaves that she had swept together. Instead, the old man walked over to her, limping, with his slightly bent back. The woman was fumbling with her small bag in which she carried betel nut leaves and chuna. Finally, after having found what she wanted, she lifted her head and gazed at the old man, stretching out her palm towards him. She gave him something. I was swelling with curiosity. After all, what could an old woman, not much different in social and financial position compared could give to anyone? Before he could drop it into his food bag, I caught a glimpse ot it. It was a 2 rupee coin.

At that moment, a few sentences reverberated, very close to me...

"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty. Where there is love there is life."

Mahatma Gandhi

No matter what happens, we humans will bail out each other!

I say...

I drove to my village

First I smile, :) and now I begin. This day began just like any other. Didn't have anything to do. Yes, its been some time now. I am this state of not doing anything. This serious condition that I have afflicted myself with, will continues till the next week. All of a sudden, my mom wanted to accompany my dad and mama to console a disconsolate relative whose old man will be bidding adieu to everyone in a few days. And this is how I came into the picture. Mama had a stiff neck after he drove to Belgaum a day before. So, all fingers pointed at Preeti. I am still a learner's license driver. Ever since I completed my driving lessons, Mama has been pestering me to take up a family driver's job. Well, I didn't really mind, since my day was filled with VOID. As I took the wheel I did not know how satisfying the journey it would turn to be. The reasons are: 1) This was the first time I was driving the car to my village which is situated at a distance of 30 km 2) I was driving with my parents comfortable at the rear. :) I had complete control of the engine. Till my last drive to Dharwad, my dad was always looking over my shoulder for an oncoming gaadi, speed breakers, pedestrians, etc etc. Today was different. He let me take the wheel for myself. More than my mom who was tensed. She had a completely different disposition today. She, dad and mama were engrossed with picking up news about in the family. The drive till my village was uneventful until I entered the main road of my village. It had predominantly ages old mud houses lining the thoroughfares.

My village is just like any other that spot India. Not very developed, not very backward either. But it is rare to see a gal driving. And this is the reason which I had missed when I witnessed strange stares from one and all. The stares bore the bonnet of the car and pricked me. My dad was all smiles. So was my mama. Being blissfully aware of all this, I was trying to veer the car between the sauntering folks, bored cattle and chatty women. My dad had strictly warned not to horn. Why? Its his village. He was brought up here. He considered it a blasphemy to be honking. Instead, I was asked to wait and let people take their time to move across. As I pulled over at the entrance of our house, the house that has seen at least 5 generations, my dad's brother was maha happy. He said, 'finally women in my family are driving'.

After a hiatus.

Yes, Its been long that I have put my words on paper. I typed tens of them. Only to send them to an incinerator. My last blog was ages ago. Life has seen many vicissitudes vacillating between intelligent decisions and utterly foolish ones. No regrets for anything. That was someone Else's line. Not mine. I do regret. But shut up at the futility of it. Its just not fructuous.

I quit my job and shed the garb of it all. How did it feel? Enervating. How does it feel now? Monotonous. Not that the goal post has changed its position. It is only looking for a different me to enter it. A changed me. Difficult for the one who loathes change. The goal post is taking on a new color each time I look at it. A chameleon act. And me? I am the same. Adjusting to the ever changing goals.

Well, I hope u find this reading very obscure. Because, this exactly is my intention. I do not have intention of getting my soul naked to the world. The 4th window of the Johari does have many entries in it. I am hitting the keyboard to avoid my mind getting rusted. I do not want to lose my minor belletristic skill, or whatever I possess of it.

A couple of my friends have been compelling me to write a novel. Well, I loved the compliment. What will the name of my novel be? I have thought of it already, "Confessions to my daughter". Did you say why this name? All the mistakes that I have committed in my life Will be thrown open to comment first to my daughter. Maybe this is the reason that I have chosen this title. And I have started it. Only time will end it. The main protagonists in it have no names. Then how Will I address them? Time will tell.

Most of the people I meet on orkut as me the same question over and over again. 'I heard you quit TCS?, why? What you doing not?'. Nothing at all. Am only licking my wounds. :) No, a doing nothing at all. For now. For some more time, I'll do nothing at all. And then? I havent arrived at a decision on this. Some unseen faces are at work here. It is very unsettling to find that some futures are decided by people you've have not yet met. Well, I don't want to fight against the tide here. Let me play along.

Nothing else to pen for now. I only wanted to check if my verve for writing hasn't been buried with my past and if words come as easily to me as they did earlier. They do.

Preeti on Arindam Chaudry supporting the case of Taslima Nasreen

I heard you well Mr. Chaudhry. You are here supporting Miss T’s case. She has no country and is under house arrest. I really feel sorry for her. I could never stay like that irrespective of the magnitude of the sin I committed. I feel sorry for the Muslim fundamentalists who wanted her to be deported to Mars. I even understood by your directed speech that it could be a knee jerk or a mediated measure to salvage the Muslim votebank after the Nandigram issue. Well, I don’t blame the politicians here. It’s their job to bank on any uneasy situation that an individual creates for herself. They are only doing their job. Forget about them. What is your definition of creative freedom? Is it some arth derived from a Yankee institution or a home-brewed phrase of your IIPM? Well, what ever it is… Let me get across my point of view.

I am not a Muslim. I have not read her book. I was not even in India when this entire drama unfolded on the newspapers and my 21-inch Thomson color television. I did not even have the urge to get up and type “Taslima and West Bengal” in Google, to educate myself on the issue. You can call me a political-illiterate, by all means. You may call me heartless not to feel of Miss T. Yes, my heart works on a pacemaker. Even now, when the TV shows any news on her, I change the channel, consciously. I do the same for Mr. Raj and Mr. Laloo. Of course you know whom I am referring to. These are famous personalities of this year. Mr. Raj stirred up violence in Maharasthra and Mr. Laloo in Karnataka?

India being a secular country does not have any state religion. But a state derives its power from the people. Without it, a state is nothing. Hope you agree to this. Nevertheless, I continue.

People worship a particular deity. Each God belongs to only one religion. We don’t have a multi-religious almighty as yet! Politicians do a balancing act by tying a rope to the emotions of the hoi polloi and themselves. Well, you know how effervescent emotions are. Now these emotions are tied to God and His respective religion. So, when an intelligent writer exercises his creative freedom by writing something like Miss T or Mr. Rushdie, he pulls the fine strings between a persons emotions and the part of the brain that controls violent activities. Our politicians sight this slight movement and all hell breaks loose. Which eventually leads to the loss of public property. Whose money is this? My money. Your money.

Let me dwell a paragraph or 2 on Mr. Raj and Mr. Laloo. Mr Raj must compensate all the monetary loss from to the destruction to public property. Why?? He pulled the string. Which string? Remember the one connecting a persons emotions and the part of the brain that unleashes the monster within! And Mr. Laloo, who, I heard made Indian railways a success story, said ‘dirty people’. Did you ask, “To whom?” Well, I don’t know. It was said in Karnataka. He couldn’t be referring to the Maharastrians or the North Indians or the Bengalis. This also led to Kannadigas vandalizing the railway offices and the like. Again, paisa gaya.

So, what is the moral of the story? Liberty be it, speech (Laloo or Raj, oops I missed the Mr. for both) or literary (Miss T) or cinema (Mr. Shahrukh and smoking) is not absolute. There are millions of topics to chose from, when you write a novel. There are tens of ways to phrase a particular question in (I am referring to the question which was deleted from the Miss T’s book). If Mr. Railway minister said, “dirty people”, he should have atleast mentioned the object. Jesus! People must have even fought debating about the object here. If Mr. Raj, thinks that North Indians are creating a job scarcity or violent atmosphere, there are a many ways to stabilize the violent volatility.

Just like movies instigate violence by their content, books do too. On screen, Mr. Shahrukh looks good smoking, then it is my duty to tell my son that my son needs to have a look at Shahrukh’s liver too. I am conscious enough to segregate right from wrong, frills from value. Not everyone is. When I read the “deleted and controversial line” from Miss T’s book, I may not buy the line. I know what to absorb from the book. Not many know it. When Mr. Raj said what he did, I wont ask my Maharashtrian son to beat up my newspaperwalla. I am aware of the constitutional rights in Part III of our constitution. Well, I love my Punjabi neighbor. So, people are not receptive enough to appreciate any kind of creative freedom that takes a tangential route.

So for heaven’s sake I beseech you, the league of “creative” actors, politicians and writers, to hold on to your creativity and out of the box ideas. I do not want such nondescript controversies to plague this country. Let us talk about growth and betterment and the contructive masala alike. No not Jodha Akbar! I am not sure if Jodha is indeed Akbar’s wife. I should make my son repeat the disclaimer of this movie a million times.

I was never a kid!

When I look at my nephews and nieces, who are younger to me by a range of ages, I stare at them agog. I fail to comprehend where the gene of ‘being young’ was hidden in me. Or was it completely non-existent.

I see their unreasonable acts of today that they can boast off in future, "You know, I almost dropped my grandpa's TV set because mom refused to buy me a jelly belly candy.", "When I was a kid, I had made me teacher trip over, by extending my feet in her direction, when she was walking past me, during a maths test." "I had dropped a parachute, made by tying the ends of a polythene bag, from the first floor balcony and I wanted to catch it before it touched the ground. As I ran out to run down the stairs, I was making a sharp at the landing, I lost my balance and hit my forehead against a window sill, ripping it open. My mom slapped me. More than the tear which needed 4 stitches, it was mom's slap and look that had stung me critically." And I have no such stories to recite. Zilch.

I don’t know if I have the liberty of blaming it on heredity. I do not know how my mother was, or my dad’s childhood was spent. If there was a common statement that their respective childhoods can be described by, then it would unpredictably be, “They had a difficult childhood”. Whatever innocence and kid-behavior they could modestly boast of was a victim of circumstances, of economic insufficiency, their eyes mirroring a strong yearning of a better life. They were never kids, like the kids of today. I am not referring to the material facilities that are a gift of our disposable incomes, but am looking at the mental make-up, maturity level, the empathetic understanding that they shared with their parents, in times of family travails. No wonder they are still bound to them by the same umbilical cord of affection and a now unfound love of understandingness.

But, I did not have a difficult childhood. I was given all that I asked for. Not that, I demanded execessively. I was frugal in my wants and they were always met. All my desires were satieted. Despite of this, I don't have stories to of my naughty and boisterous childhood. When I asked my mom, "How I was when I was a kid?" She smiled and answered, "Just like the way you are now, all grown up, prim and proper. You hardly slept at night. Not that you were bawling, but cooing playfully and smiling when we looked into your eyes." I posed the same question to my dad, and he said very gravely, "You always pretended to read, though you held the book upside down." When kids are noisy and clamorous, their chilhood is well remembered. Is it because humans have a tendency not to forget bad times.... :)

My boss, once said, "Preeti was never a kid. She just transformed from an infant to an adult."