"The Moving Finger Writes..."

Old photograph of a film shooting

2011-10-08T08:50:00.000+05:30

I found this photograph on the internet - in the Odyssey: The Art of Photography at National Geographic (part 1) of all places. I wonder if anyone can identify any of the persons seen here - the (presumably) director, the actress(es), etc. I'm baffled.

"Kaun kehta hai tujhe main ne bhoola rakha hai?"

2011-08-15T09:03:00.003+05:30

Translated from the original Marathi article by the late Shri Madhav Moholkar in his book 'Geet-yatree' .
The responsibility for any mistakes in translation is entirely mine.

Kaun kehta hai tujhe main ne bhoola rakha hai?

An inkling of approaching youth…, nameless, tremulous anxiety…a mind longing for and habituated to music. Talat entered my life one rainy evening like a prince from a fairy-tale, singing in his high, sweet voice a love song of rosy cheeks and heady eyes:

“chaudvin manzil pe zaalim aa gaya, aa gaya

chand mere chand se sharma gaya…sharma gaya…”

Evening had faded and the restaurant lights were aglow. Outside, the rain was pattering down. Inside, the hubbub of the customers and the clinking of crockery. Intermittently, a raucous cry of “Two people, four annas”. Yet everything was submerged in Talat’s voice. He was singing in rapt absorption:

”zulf mein rangat hai kaali raat ki

raat bhi hai kaisi barsaat ki

zulf lehrayee to badal chha gaya ,chha gaya, chha gaya

chand mere chand se sharma gaya…sharma gaya…”

My mind was dancing like strands of hair, swaying with the tune. Once, twice, thrice…I kept signaling to the young Muslim man at the counter – play it again…again…Finally, without looking in my direction, he signaled ‘Enough’ and busied himself in giving and taking money. Upset, I got up and went to the counter. Without taking my money he said, “Leaving already, my friend? You’ve yet to hear the other song, the one which must be heard. Sit down, sit down…”Then he flipped the record over. I’d been so engrossed in listening to the first song of that new singer that I’d forgotten that there could be a second one as well. And then Talat sang of a lover whose thirst would not be quenched by a mere portrait of his lady love:

“tasveer teri dil mera behla na sakegi

ye tei tarah mujhse to sharma na sakegi”

‘Her portrait does not speak to me, remains silent even when I clasp it to my breast. If she does not make me pine, how can she give me happiness?’

“main baat karoonga to ye khamosh rahegi

seene se laga loonga to ye kuch na kahegi

aaram who kya degi jo tadpa na sakegi

tasveer teri dil mera behla na sakegi…”

That night, Talat sang ‘Tasveer teri dil mera behla na sakegi’ till the hotel downed its shutters. From that day Talat so possessed me that morning, afternoon, evening; classroom, home, road; in my ears, my mind, and on my lips was:

“parchhai to insaan ke kaam aa na sakegi…

tasveer teri dil mera behla na sakegi…”

A Marwari boy from our class, with a romantic bent of mind, used to hold Wren and Martin’s English grammar book before his eyes and hum – “tasveer teri dil mera behla na sakegi…” One day he suddenly kissed the book. Our English teacher rushed to him and pulled the book from his grasp. As he started rifling through the pages, a photograph fell out. When he picked it up from the ground and held it up all of us shouted ecstatically, “Rehana!”

Talat’s moon, having reached ‘chaudvin manzil’, has now faded from the musical firmament. Kamal Dasgupta, who set ‘Chand mere chand se sharma gaya’ and ‘Tasveer teri dil mera mera behla na sakegi’ to music, is no more. In truth, hardly anyone even knows that there was a music director named Kamal Dasgupta. The name of lyricist Faiyyaz Hashmi, who used to weave his name in the lines of his songs and ghazals, e.g. ‘In hothon ko Faiyyaz mein kuch keh na sakunga’ and ‘Dekh ke Faiyyaz main sharma gaya’ is now only heard on Pakistan Radio. The hotels of Sholapur, where our evenings would pass unnoticed in the company of Talat’s sweet voice, no longer exist. ‘Usmania’ was pulled down long ago. Recently, someone told me, ‘Jikriya’, too, has been flattened…

We would come together in those hotels to hear Talat. Boys from school and college, and many other unknown Hindu-Muslim young men. Some loved Saigal and some, Pankaj Mullick. Some were mad about Rafi and some about Mukesh.G.M.Durrani, Khan Mastana, K.C.Dey, S.D.Batish, Shankar Dasgupta – all had their fans. In fact, everyone loved all the singers. They loved the world of music. In Saigal’s words, “ Awaaz ki duniya ke dost”. When Talat entered our gathering with his romantic ‘Chaudvin manzil pe zaalim aa gaya’ our hearts overflew with joy. We just couldn’t have our fill of listening to him. In those days Hindi film songs used to be played the most in those hotels. But some restaurateurs used to have popular, private records of singers like Saigal, Jagmohan, Hemant Kumar, Talat, Mukesh, Juthika Roy, etc. in their collections. We used to wander from one coffee-house to another to listen to those. It was at places like those that I had first heard Hemant Kumar’s ‘Tum kab tak pyar chupaogi’ and ‘Bhala tha kitna apna bachpan’, and Jagmohan’s ‘Dil dekar dard liya maine’ and ‘Mujhe na sapnon se behlao’.

Mukesh and Rafi had just commenced singing in films but had rapidly developed a large fan following. Talat’s voice, though, was yet to be heard on screen. His non-film, private songs had entranced the mind. ‘Panchhi’, Talat would call, and the feet would automatically turn back. Then he would gently console us:

“Panchhi, preet ki reet nibha, preet ki reet nibha

dheere dheere ghaav bharenge, dard chhipaye ja…

panchhi…”

The sweetness in ‘Nigahon ko churakar reh gaye hain’ was agonizing. Lines like ‘jawab-e-khat pe haye re saraasar lakeerein si banaakar reh gaye hain’, ‘Tere lab pe tabassum to nahi hai, sitare jhilmilakar reh gaye hain’ were unforgettable. Though I heard it later, Talat had sung ‘Sab din ek saman nahi tha’ five or six years earlier. The song which he should have sung in the evening of his career he sang at the outset:

“ban jaaonga kya se kya main iska kuch dhyaan nahi tha

sab din ek saman nahi tha…”

Talat’s days were not always as they are now. There was a time when he was the king of the land of happiness:

“main tha swami sukhnagari ka

dukh ka to mehmaan nahi tha…

sab din ek saman nahi tha…”

Those were the days of Saigal. Ever since he’d sung ‘Dukh kea b din beetat naahi’ as Devdas, the days of melancholy seemed to be endless. The atmosphere was laden with his sorrowful notes. Listeners and singers alike were overwhelmed. Knowingly or unknowingly, singers would imitate him, whether it was Surendra asking Noorjehan, ‘Barbad main yahaan hoon, aabaad tu kahaan hai?’, or Mukesh dejectedly telling himself, ‘Aansoo na bahaa, fariyaad na kar, dil jalta hai to jalne de’. Saigal influenced not just Jagmohan, Rafi and other singers of that era but many who came later as well, e.g. a despondent Kishore Kumar singing ‘Jagmag jagmag karta nikla chand poonam ka pyara’ or an unhappy C.H.Atma singing ‘Preetam aan milo’. Atma, who failed to understand himself, was carried away with the flow of time; Mukesh, Rafi, Kishore and Talat, who developed their distinctive singing styles, remained.

Talat, born in Lucknow on 24^th February 1924, was about ten years old when the Saigal era began. Fair, handsome and blessed with a sweet voice, obsessed with Saigal’s songs, this son of a Lucknow merchant dreamt of becoming a singing star. Talat’s father could sing Iqbal’s ‘Saare jahaan se acchha Hindustan hamara’ to a congregation of thousands without needing a microphone. But the thought of his son, who’d inherited his voice, becoming a professional singer, was anathema to Talat’s conservative father. Talat, a Saigal fan born in the city of ‘sher-o-shayari’ and’tawaifs’, loved ghazals. All his free time was spent by the gramophone and the radio, listening to Saigal. He would never miss a film of Saigal’s. He’d see those films repeatedly, memorise the songs, and sing them in his sweet, trembling voice. He’d sing Saigal’s ghazals exactly like Saigal himself.

Having become popular in his neighbourhood, school and college, Talat started singing on Lucknow Radio. Earlier, ignoring his father’s opposition, he had taken training in music at the Morris Music College. But in college he was a science student. After his Inter-Science examination he went to Calcutta where Pramathesh Barua selected him as an actor. But they couldn’t find a heroine who would suit his age. It wasn’t the age of teenagers then, unlike now. On his return from Calcutta Talat didn’t go back to college. He devoted himself to music, going about giving private performances. Sometimes to Delhi, sometimes to Lahore. HMV’s talent scouts had come from Calcutta to Lucknow looking for fresh talent. Someone told them, “There’s a boy here called Talat who sings very well. A second Saigal!” They auditioned Talat and took him to Calcutta. Young music director Subal Dasgupta – brother of senior music director Kamal Dagupta – set a song to music for this new singer: “sab din ek saman nahi tha…” Kamalda fell in love with Talat’s voice and gave him many beautiful songs. Singing those songs, he gradually freed himself from Saigal’s influence. Once the barriers of imitation come down, new horizons come into view. The voice blossoms, becomes free. Saigal himself never felt that others should imitate him. He’d told Jagmohan, “You sing very well. Sing like yourself, not like me.” Then Jagmohan discovered himself. As Talat found himself while singing Kamalda’s tunes. One day young Talat sang with rapt attention : ‘Tasveer teri dil mera behala na sakegi…’For some reason Kamalda was not satisfied, neither was the lyricist Faiyyaz. But the recording was over. The record came into the market and, surprisingly, broke all records. Almost one lakh records were sold and Talat’s voice started echoing all over Hindustan. Thenceforward the equation was established: Talat means ‘Tasveer teri dil mera behla na sakegi…’

Talat’s image was first imprinted on my mind as a singer; not as a playback singer. I first heard Mukesh singing for Motilal in ‘Pehli Nazar’: ‘Dil jalta hai to jalne de…’ I first heard Kishore in the Bombay Talkies film ‘Ziddi’ singing for Dev Anand: ‘Ye kaun aaya re, ye kaun aaya…’ I don’t remember the song but I think I heard Rafi for the first time in Shyamsundar’s ‘Gaon Ki Gori’ singing for Nazir. Or perhaps in ‘Jugnu’ singing ‘Yahaan badla wafa ka bewafai ke siwa kya hai’ for Dilip Kumar, along with Noorjehan. It was not so for Talat. Talat came into our lives himself, sang and won our hearts with his very first song. A playback singer has many other factors, apart from his singing, which help him to become quickly popular. The scene in the film during the song, attractive picturisation, a popular actor lip-synching the song on screen, etc. In addition he gets famous music directors and lyricists and a large orchestra. A singer singing a non-film, private song has no such advantages. To his lot fall a much more literary song of far higher standard than an average film song, a slow tune, limited accompaniments, and relatively unknown or out of work music directors and lyricists. Despite all this, Talat, in those days, achieved fame to rival any playback singer. He was so beloved of some that a Muslim friend, speaking about him, would call him ‘hamara Talat’ while Mukesh and Rafi were ‘tumhara Mukesh, tumhara Rafi’. For example,”Talat bahut accha gaata hai. Tumhare Raafi aur Mukesh bhi bure nahin hai.” Once, to tease him, we sent him a note in class: “Talat hamara hai. Mukesh aur Rafi tumhare hain.” He laughed and sent the note back. He’d just erased our signatures and signed his name to it.

One evening we were sitting in a hotel, listening to songs, as usual. A young man, a stranger, would often sit at a corner table, listening to Talat with his eyes shut. That evening, he was sitting at his usual place, smoking. A group of four or five boys, fans of film music, had come in to have tea when Talat’s voice rang out, full of pathos. He was singing a ghazal of Faiyyaz’s: Flowers fall from her lips and tears from my eyes…she is unaware of the showers of the monsoon and I am a stranger to spring…

“hothon se gulfishaan hai woh, aankhon se ashqbaar hum

sawan se woh hai bekhabar, begana-e-bahar hum…”

Before the first couplet could end one of the boys shouted, “What useless song is this? Play some film song!” Immediately the young man in the corner got up, enraged. He threw away his cigarette, went to their table, grabbed the boy’s collar and pulled him to his feet. Before anyone could realize what was happening, he slapped him hard. Everyone fell silent. He drove that youth out of the hotel and, coming back, grandiloquently said, “Talat is not for those whom God did not give a heart…” Turning to the counter he commanded, “Now start – hothon se gulfishaan hai woh, aankhon se ashqbaar hum…”

Talat means a singer who sings sentimental songs in a sentiment-filled voice, whether ghazals or geets. Both, in truth, songs of emotions. When Talat sang them the sentiments would become more vivid, would make one restless… He was a singer of young lovers, singing songs of their separation or union, lending his voice to the feelings in their hearts. He was never for those whom God had not given a heart. Urdu poets have expressed intense sentiments in their ghazals; Talat breathed heart-breaking vitality into them. He would sing a ghazal as a song. There was no mauling, no breakage of words as in classical music, no long ‘taans’, no wandering away even fractionally from the main theme. Begum Akhtar, Saigal and Talat held exposition of emotions to be of utmost importance in the rendition of a ghazal. Begum Akhtar would sing a ghazal like a thumri, Saigal and Talat like a song.

Newer ghazal singers here like Jagjeet Singh, Rajendra Mehta, etc. have adopted Mehdi Hasan’s style. In his early days Mehdi Hasan was known in Pakistan as ‘Pakistan’s Talat Mahmood’. Later he started singing ghazals like thumris, with a classical touch. Talat, when singing ghazals, never lost sight of the poet’s words. Therefore his ghazals came to be remembered as songs are remembered. He sang ghazals written by well-known as well as by relatively obscure poets – Ghalib, Jigar, Shakeel, Faiyyaz, Shamim Jaipuri, Ibrahim Faiz, Tishna, Ishratjehan Begum ,Noorjehan Begum, etc. ‘Kho ke mehfil mein teri sabr-o-karaar aaya hoon’, ‘Gham-e-zindagi ka ya rab na mila koi kinara’, ‘Gham-e-aashiqui se keh do rahe aam tak na pahunchhe’, ‘Raatein guzaar di hai taaron ki roshni mein’, ‘Aankhon se door subah ke tare chale gaye’, ‘Meri zindagi hai zaalim tere gham se aashqara’, ‘Nazar bulbul ki kehti hai’, ‘Baharein jism-o-jaan hai, aur kya hai’, ‘Unse ummeed-e-runumai hai’, ‘Aankhon aankhon mein har raat guzar jaati hai’, ‘Bekaif dil hai aur piye ja raha hoon main’, ‘Chhupai lakh mohabbat magar chhupa na sake’, ‘Tumne ye kya sitam kiya’, ‘Dil pe jab teri inayat ki kami rehti hai’ – they are too many to recall. Some I recall in their entirety and some only partially.

Talat’s Urdu ghazals of love (ishq) and his sweet, tender, gentle Hindi songs - manifestations of romance and sentiments - had fascinated me. Even today I forget myself and my surroundings when humming Kamalda’s tunes for Talat. That’s why, when I first met Talat, the first question I asked him was about Kamalda. He gave a start as he was lighting his cigarette, looked up, and asked me, “Do you remember Kamalda?” I said to myself: How could I forget him? My boyhood passed singing the songs he had set to music in ‘Jawab’, and my youth, his songs for Talat, Jagmohan, and Hemant Kumar. As a boy I would, in seclusion, sing to myself Kanan’s songs from ‘Jawab’ – ‘Door des ka rehnewala aaya des paraye’, ‘Ae chand chhup na jaana’, ‘Duniya, ye duniya, Toofan Mail, Toofan Mail’ – with such absorption that I started labouring under the misapprehension that I could sing! But the magic was in Kamalda’s straightforward, simple and sweet tunes. Even today, when Kanan’s ‘Ae chand chhup na jana’ and ‘Door des ka rehnewala aaya des paraye’ play in my mind, I feel disturbed, restless. How can I forget Kamalda? I answered him, “It’s said that there’s no Talat without Anilda. As for me, I cannot imagine Talat without Kamalda…” Talat became emotional and said, “The truth is that I, Jagmohan, Hemant and Juthika Roy first managed to stand up in life only because of Kamalda!”

He told me about Kamalda’s marriage to singer Firoza Begum and about how, in his final days, he’d lost his mental balance when a bank in Calcutta had gone bust and he’d lost everything. “All of us did what we could. He had settled down in Bangladesh. But now he is no more” said Talat. My beloved Kamalda who had expanded and enriched my world at an impressionable age was no more! All my dreams of meeting him, talking to him, had come to naught. That evening I lay in a darkened room near Shivaji Park with my eyes shut listening again and again to Talat:

“soye hue chand aur tare, aaj ki raat andhiyaari

tum baithi ho pas hamare, soyeee hai phulwari

jin aankhon mein laaj bhari thi who bhi hai matwari

ab to itna keh do pyari, main hoon tumhari, main hoon tumhari…”

Faiyyaz’s love song, Kamalda’s music and the voice of Talat in his twenties. Perhaps even before ‘Tasveer teri dil mera behla na sakegi’. The tender importunity, propitiation in the honeyed tones of a bashful lover:

“ek duje ko paake hum-tum, bahut mile sharmake hum-tum

yun hi rahe to reh jaayengee man ki baatein man mein saari

yeh chhup tumko tadpaegee, phir yeh raat nahi aayegi

ab to itna keh do pyari, main hoon tumhari, main hoon tumhari…”

Kamalda had poured all the sweetness in the world into his tune, and Talat into his voice. Once upon a time this song had driven me mad. That madness still remains. In the intervening period, for ten or fifteen years I did not meet anyone in this alien city (Translator’s note: Mumbai) who even knew this song. It was difficult to get to hear it. When, at a picnic, Talat-mad Rajeshwari suddenly started singing ‘Soye hue hai chand aur taare’ I was overcome with emotion. And when I found Talat himself singing it on a tape recorder in Mukund Acharya’s music cave, my happiness knew no bounds! When I spoke to Talat himself about this song he started humming something in Bengali and, for a moment, I had the impression that I was sitting in a garden full of scented flowers on a dark night. The mystery of the romantic, soft, subtle sentiments in Kamalda’s songs for Talat, Jagmohan and Hemant Kumar was revealed.Kamalda had manifested Bengali feelings through his Hindi songs. He’d got Faiyyaz to translate Bengali songs and elevated the standards of Hindi film songs. To get the exact Bengali shade of meaning in Hindi in one of Talat’s songs, Kamalda, instead of using ‘tasveer’ or ‘chitra’, had retained the original ‘chhabi’:

“main teri chhabi banaoonga

tere ang ka rang milane ko chand se loonga chandni

hothon ki hansi banane ko phoolon se hansi churaoonga

main teri chhabi banaoonga…”

Talat, singing such songs of love and its fruition, created in my mind a yearning for a world as yet unknown but longed for, dear to the heart. ‘Do kafir aankhon ne maara, masti ki kasam, sahba ki kasam’, ‘Ek naya anmol jeevan mil gaya…kya gaya agar dil ke badle dil gaya’, ‘Dil ki duniya basa gaya kaun, ranj-o-gam sab mita gaya kaun’ and the one Talat had sung in dulcet tones : ‘Sapna ban aa jaata koi, mujhe roj roj satata hai koi…’ I remember another song of Talat’s about love and desire: ‘Tum lok laaj se darti thi, main apna hi deewana tha…’ Little by little she changes, becomes bolder and the moment of fulfillment of his desires comes closer: ‘Tum dheere dheere nidar bani, main jaan ke bhi anjaan bana…’ And finally:

“bas ek baar choom lene ko jhuka, magar phir palat gaya

tum bani thi pooja ki khatir, man mein tumko bithalana tha…”

Talat’s voice was basically the voice of pure love without even a trace of the carnal. When the uncouth storm of vulgarity roared into Hindi films, that sensitive voice of true love was lost. When Kishore Kumar sang ‘Roop tera mastana, pyar mera diwana’ in his intoxicating voice, even Rafi, the king of sensual tones, had to run for cover. How could sentimental Talat last? Talat’s was the trembling voice of a sensitive lover, tender in love, and distressed by separation. There was no limit to the pathos it could convey. A shadow of sadness floated over the heart while listening to Talat’s songs. His sorrow filled the skies, it could not be contained within the heart, it came out of every pore:

“mera dukh ambar mein chhaya

rom rom se phoota dukhda

jo dil mein na samaya…”

Sometimes he’d tell us the sad story of his life: ‘Ro ro beeta jeevan sara…’ and sometimes he’d despair: ‘Main dukh ki raat hoon aisi savera door hai jiska…main panchhi pankh bin aisa basera door hai jiska…main gam ka samandar hoon kinara door hai jiska…’ He’d sing love songs telling of separation-frustration so well: ‘Main ne tumse pyar kiya, tumne kyon inkaar kiya’, ‘Kaisa pyar kiya hai tha tumne, chala gaya sukh mere ghar se, aaj chale tum jag ke dar se’, ‘In bheegi bheegi raaton mein yaad koi jab aata hai, ghayal dil bhar aata hai’, ‘Mera pyar mujhe lauta do…’

I’d been pleasantly surprised to learn that ‘Mera pyar mujhe lauta do’ was written by Sajjan!I’d never dreamt that Sajjan wrote such lovely songs. Nalini Jaywant’s leading man in ‘Muqaddar’, Nutan’s in ‘Hum Log’, Nargis’ in ‘Sheesha’, Kamini Kaushal’s in ‘Poonam’, Madhubala’s in ‘Saiyan’.He still does small roles as a character actor. I heard his songs at a get-together of some poets. He reads poetry very well. Though his songs which Talat had sung are now rarely heard, they still play in my mind: ‘Chupchap akele chup chupke main geet kisike gaata hoon’, ‘Main dukh ki raat hoon aisi’ and ‘Phir pyar kiya, phir roya…’ Once, while traveling together, Sajjan recited a song of his to music director Anil Biswas. Anilda liked it so much that he set it to music there and then, and was himself deeply moved while doing so. He got his favourite Talat to sing it:

“phir pyar kiya, phir roya…

kya tadbeerein kaam karein jab apna naseeba soya…

phir pyar kiya, phir roya…”

One day, the same Anilda had given Talat, who had come to Mumbai, his first film song:

“Ai dil mujhe aisi jagah le chal jahaan koi na ho…”

Seeing Dilip Kumar sing this song in ‘Arzoo’ in Talat’s voice had been a cause for celebration. Talat entered the film world at just the time when we keenly felt that he should sing in films. It was the beginning of the golden age of film music. Naushad had started the tradition of making a film a hit purely on the basis of its music with ‘Ratan’ and he continued to give wonderful musicals like ‘Anmol Ghadi’, ‘Dard’, ‘Anokhi Ada’. C.Ramchandra’s ‘Safar’, ‘Khidki’, ‘Shehnai’ etc. were great fun. In fact a huge music caravan had set out in those days – Anil Biswas, Shyamsundar, Husnlal-Bhagatram, Sajjad, Khemchand Prakash, S.D.Burman, Hnsraj Behl, Gyandutt, Vinod, Govindram…and many more. After Saigal’s death, Rafi and Mukesh could be heard everywhere. We loved them too, but it’s hard to describe what we felt on seeing a somber Dilip Kumar standing beside a withered tree singing in our beloved Talat’s sorrowful voice:

“mera jeevan sathi bichad gaya…

lo khatm kahani ho gayee…”

Apart from this sad song Talat had sung a light ghazal in ‘Babul’ in his typical style:

“husnwalon ko na dil do yeh mita dete hain “

Dilip Kumar’s acting had done full justice to the ghazal. I can still a sherwani-clad Dilip Kumar looking mischievously at Munawar Sultana while playing a harmonium in the style of a ghazal singer, and singing ‘husnwalon ko na dil do yeh mita dete hain’. I’d felt then that Talat’s efforts had finally come to fruition. His lovelorn, sweet voice and forlorn, heart-broken voice had taken shape and become visible to the eyes. On the one hand he was lost in describing the madness of love in ‘Milte hi aankhen dil hua deewana kisika’, and, on the other, disappointed in love and disheartened, he was singing ‘Aisi chali hawa ki khushi dukh mein dhal gayee…duniya badal gayee…’

There had been heated disputes between us about these two duets Talat had sung with Shamshad in ‘Babul’. Some were of the opinion that it shouldn’t have been Shamshad singing with Talat; others felt that Shamshad was needed. Many felt that the charm of Talat’s sweet ‘Milte hi aankhen dil hua deewana kisika’ was lost when Shamshad sang the same line in her sharp, keen voice. They felt that she did not suit Talat. Others felt that she was the right choice for the dour-faced Munawar Sultana’s somewhat masculine voice. After a while everyone came to like those songs so much through hearing them repeatedly, that the arguments ceased. But there was unanimity on one point – that the female singer best suited to sing with duets with Talat was Lata.Geeta, Asha, Shamshad Begum and others could sing with Mohammad rafi; only Lata should sing with Talat. Both of them had soft and sweeet voices well suited to each other. I liked many of talat’s duets with other singers, they were really nice. I could never forget the reassuring Talat singing ‘Yeh phool, yeh khushboo, yeh chaman tere liye hai’ with Geeta in’Jaanpehchaan’. Talat-Suraiya’s duets ‘Man dheere dheere gaye re’ and ‘Rahi matwale, tu chhed ek baar man ka sitar’ from ‘Waris’ would play upon the heart-strings and the mind would start singing.

Memories of Hansraj Behl’s ‘Dil mera tera deewana’ which talat sang with Madhubala Jhaveri in ‘Apni Izzat’, Nashad’s ‘Ek dil do hai talabgaar, badi mushkil hai’ which he’d sung with Suman Hemmady, and Shivram’s ‘Tum jo aaye zindagi mein, zindagi se pyar hua’ from ‘Rangeela raja’ which he’d sung with Sudha Malhotra, may have faded with time but the duet he’d sung with Asha for Khayyam in ‘Lala Rukh’ is still on my lips: ‘Pyaas kuch aur bhi bhadka di jhalak dikhalake, tujhko parda rukh-e-roshan se hatana hoga…’ Many of Talat’s duets with Asha still linger in memory. ‘Teri nigahonmein, teri hi baahon mein rehne ko jee chahta hai’ from ‘Bahana’, ‘Dekh li ai ishq teri meherbani dekh li’ from ‘Laila Majnu’, and the touching answer Talatgave in ‘Armaan’ to Asha’s ‘Chahe kitna mujhe tum bulaoge, nahi bolungi…nahi bolungi…’: ‘Bol, na bol ai jaanewale…’ Then there was hafiz Khan’s ‘Haseen chand sitaron ka wasta aa ja’ from ‘Mera Salaam’ and Chitragupt’s ‘Do dil dhadak rahein hai aur awaaz ek hai’ from ‘Insaaf’. But it was in Talat-Lata’s case that two voices really seemed to express the same feelings.Their soft, sweet voices were extra-ordinarily complementary to each other.Not just when they voiced the same feelings but even while giving utterance to opposing sentiments. In ‘Parchhai’, Lata, singing ‘Apni kaho, kuch meri suno’, is trying to arouse Talat: ‘Nazdeek badho, nazdeekh badho, yeh mausam nahi phir aane ka…’ Talat, remaining level-headed, holds off this loving assault: ‘Nazdeek shama ke jaane se kya haal hua parwane ka…kya haal hua parwane ka…’

Sometimes I remember Lata persuading a miffed talat who finally gives in, in Ghulam Mohammad’s ‘Ajeeb Ladki’: ‘Chhodo chhodo ji piya, mera todo na jiya, tumhe hamse garaz, humein tumse, o, humein tumse’. All the sweetness in the world was concentrated in Lata’s pirouetting voice. My eyes can still see Rehman-Naseem skating in a rink, singing in Talat-Lata’s voices. The other song which both of them sing, in the belief that they have been deceived in love, was unforgettable as well: ‘Ek bewafa ko dil ka sahara samajh liya…’ Talat-Lata’s pensive songs constantly rise from the depths of my mind – sometimes ‘Seene mein sulagte hain armaan, aankhon mein udaasi chaayee hai’ from ‘Tarana’, and sometimes ‘Aasmanwale teri duniya se jee ghabra gaya…’ from ‘Laila Majnu’.

Sometimes Talat’s grief-stricken ‘Bhool ja, sapne suhane bhool ja’ from Hansraj Behl’s ‘Rajdhani echoes inside my head and a pained lata asks him ‘Kaise tujhko bhulaoon sajana…sajana…’ Sometimes Vinod’s song from ‘Anmol Ratan’ comes to mind: ‘Shikwa tera main gaaoon dil mein samanewal, bhoole se yaad kar le o door jaanewale…’, and sometimes Roshan’s ‘Dil-e-bekaraar so jaI’ from ‘Raagrang’. Lata-Talat had also showered us with many delightful, laughter-filled loive songs – ‘Aha rimjhim key eh pyare pyare geet liye’ from ‘Usne Kaha Tha’, ‘Nain mile, nain hue baawrein’ from ‘Tarana’, ‘Dil mein sama gaye sajan, phool khile chaman chaman’ from ‘Sangdil’, ‘Mere dil ki dhadkan kya bole’ from ‘Anhonee’, ‘Teri chamakti aankhon ke aage yeh sitare kuch bhi nahin’ from ‘Chhote Babu’, ‘Dar laage balma ho, ulfat na bane afsana’ from ‘Buzdil’, ‘Tere raaste pe hum ne ek ghar bana liya hai’ from ‘Kavi’, ‘Chahe naina churao, chahe daman bachao, pyar hoke rahega’ from ‘Aas’, ‘Yeh nayee nayee preet hai’ from ‘Pocketmaar’, and ‘Jab jab phool khile tujhe yaad kiya hai humne…’ from ‘Shikast’. Shailendra had a notebook of his film songs which he had christened: ‘Jab jab phool khile…’

Once, I’d said to Shailendra, “Your ‘Hain sabse madhur who geet jinhe hum dard ke sur mein gaate hain’ is clearly influenced by Shelley’s ‘Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought’ “. He’d answered, “The influence may be there but there’s a difference between the two lines. Shelley says that the songs which express sad thoughts are sweet. My line says that songs sung in melancholy tones are sweet. Isn’t the voice of Talat, who sang that song, a living example of that?” In his view ‘dard ke sur’ singing sweet songs were Talat and Mukesh! Their voices not only had a natural sweetness, but also a subtle edge of tragedy.

A friend from ‘Usmania’ used to say that God created Talat’s voice from an amalgam of the sweetness of honey and heartache… While Saigal and Mukesh both sang in the lower octaves, Mukesh’s singing was straightforward, flat, while Saigal’s voice had a kind of tremor. A similar tremor was far more noticeable in Talat who used to sing at a higher pitch. Later, this tremor was taken to be the defining characteristic of his voice and a subject for criticism. In college, a boy used to mimic Mukesh, Rafi, and Talat singing the same song. For Mukesh he would adopt a nasal tone, for Rafi he’d sob dramatically and when mimicking Talat his voice would start quivering and trembling. Mukesh and Talat didn’t have Rafi’s range. At higher notes Talat’s voice didn’t seem free. Something seemed to be pulling it down as a kite is pulled down by it’s string. Besides, his voice appeared to roam a limited perimeter, to lack boldness. Nevertheless, it always came forth as the voice of a sensitive, dreamy and poetic man. It had flexibility, quaver, softness and grace. Talat’s voice was as the note of a violin trembling in the surrounding atmosphere, with an enchanting melancholy beauty.

During discussions in the college canteen about Talat’s voice, adjectives such as golden, silken, velvety would be bandied about. Once, when our group entered the canteen, a student of Sanskrit was sitting with a cup of tea before him, lost in thought. When asked the reason for his pensive mood, he replied hesitantly, “That Talat of yours…I heard him sing last night. How well he sang: ‘Meri yaad mein tum na aansoo bahana…, na jee ko jalana,mujhe bhool jana…’Since then I can’t make up my mind whether to call his voice heart-rendingly beautiful or heart-wrenchingly sweet…” Letting him go no further, one of us embraced him and kissed him on the cheek, while another, saying, “We yield to you, O student of Bhavbhooti”, prostrated himself at his feet right there in the canteen!

“juda meri manzil, juda teri raahein

milengi na ab teri meri nigahein

mujhe teri duniya se hai door jaana

na jee ko jalana, mujhe bhool jaana

meri yaad mein tum na aansoo bahana…”

In a world where the paths of lives diverge before our very eyes, all that’s left to us is to say ‘Forget me’, and hum this song of Raja Mehdi Ali Khan’s. Who had played the sitar in this song? When I asked Talat, he’d said Imrat, but I still feel that it was Vilayat Khan who’d played the sitar throughout Madan Mohan’s ‘Madhosh’. “Madhosh’ had Meena Kumari, yet few had liked the film, and to see a moving song like ‘Meri yaad mein tum na aansoo bahana’ picturised on an unremarkable actor like Manhar Desai was disappointing. Consequently the song lost its reference to the film and stayed in memory purely as a song of life. Seeing Sajjad’s beauteous ‘Ye hawa ye raat ye chandni teri ek ada pe nisar hai’ from ‘Sangdil’ on screen had been a shock. We’d imagined that Dilip Kumar would be singing it to the resplendent Madhubala. In the film Shammi sat opposite him as he sang!

But Dilip Kumar singing ‘Kahaan ho, kahaan ho mere jeevan sahare, tumhe dil pukare’in Talat’s voice appeared exactly as imagined. Mukesh had sung very well for Dilip Kumar in ‘Mela’ and ‘Andaaz’. But as his voice came to be associated more and more with Raj Kapoor, Talat, increasingly, became Dilip Kumar’s singing voice. The tragic voice of tragedian Dilip Kumar. Tragedy which deepened day by day from ‘Arzoo’ to ‘Devdas’. Dilip Kumar’s sorrow-filled evenings would make us restless. In Anilda’s ‘Tarana’ he’d sung ‘Ek main hoon, ek meri bekasi ki shaam hai’ and in Khayyam’s ‘Footpath’, ‘Sham-e-gam ki kasam, aaj gamgeen hai hum…’ When Dilip Kumar sang ‘Sapnon ki suhani duniya ko aankhon mein basana mushkil hai’ and ‘Toofan mein ghiri hai meri taqdeer ki raahein’ in Talat’s voice in ‘Shikast’ he seemed to be another manifestation of Devdas. When he sang ‘Kisko khabar thi, kisko yakeen tha, aise bhi din aayenge’ in ‘Devdas’, memories of ‘Dukh ke ab din beetat naahin’ and ‘Mitwa nahi aaye’ would render the mind all aquiver. In Shankar-Jaikishan’s ‘Daag’ Dilip Kumar would relate the story of his sorrow in ‘Koi nahin mera is duniya mein’ and ‘Hum dard ke maaron ka itna hi fasana hai, peene ko sharab-e-gam, dil gam ka nishana hai’ and then prepare to go far, far away – ‘Ai mere dil kahin aur chal, gam ki duniya se dil bhar gaya, dhoondh le ab koi ghar naya…’ Many saw their own sorrow in this song of Shailendra’s; Talat’s voice reached the ordinary people, and everywhere was heard: ‘Ai mere dil kahin aur chal…’

Anilda, whose ‘Ai dil mujhe aisi jagah lechal jahaan koi na ho’ had been Talat’s first step into the film world, had once remarked, “I’ve given my best to Talat”. He’d understood the essence of Talat’s voice and, therefore, all the songs he composed for Talat became classics.E.g. ‘Kabhi hai gam, kabhi khushiyan’ from ‘Waris’, ‘Jeevan hai madhuban’ from ‘Jasoos’, ‘Shukriya, ai pyar tera shukriya’ from ‘Aaram’… A clever student from my college, who’d failed in his examination after falling in love, had received this ‘fish’: ‘Dekh li ai ishq teri meherbani dekh li’. Another, who’d tried to impress an intelligent girl by studying hard and scoring high marks, received ‘Shukriya, ai pyar tera shukriya’. Anilda really gave his best to Talat in ‘Do Raha’. Sahir’s unsuccessful love was melded by Anilda’s nameless agony to Talat’s forlorn voice. He’d stretched the delicate strings of Talat’s voice to the utmost to bring forth the saddest of songs. Talat’s heart seemed to be breaking while singing ‘behosh hoke jald tujhe hosh aa gaya, main badnaseeb hosh mein aaya nahin abhi…bedard maine tujhko bhulaya nahin abhi’ from the song ‘Tera khayal dil se mitaya nahin abhi’. He sounded extremely depressed while singing ‘Dil mein basake, meet banake bhool na jaana preet purani’. And what price the Talat who asks the world ‘I’ve forsaken love.Are you satisfied now?...’

‘Mohabbat turk ki maine, girehbaan see liya maine

zamane ab to khush ho, zeher ye bhi pee liya maine…’

This ghazal drove me to see ‘Do Raha’ again and again. I’d felt then - and still do - that if Anilda hadn’t quit films all of a sudden, no one could have matched him in setting ghazals to music-not even Madan Mohan. He’d have scaled great heights in the field of ghazals. That it was not to be distresses me to this day.

Apart from Anilda, other music directors who used Talat’s voice freely were Madan Mohan, C.Ramchandra, Ghulam Mohammad, Salil Chowdhury and Shankar-Jaikishan. Talat was born with a ghazal singer’s voice and Madan Mohan loved ghazals. After Madan Mohan’s death Lata wrote, “Talat sang his best songs for Madanbhaiyaa”.

When I was a student, apart from ‘Meri yaad mein tum na aansoo bahana’, Talat’s ‘Main paagal, mera manwa paagal, paagal meri preet re’ and ‘Mera qarar le jaa, mujhe beqarar kar ja, dum bhar to pyar kar jaa’ from Madan Mohan’s ‘Aashiana’ were the rage. By that time Talat had come to be established as Dilip Kumar’s voice. It somehow seemed odd to hear him sing for Raj Kapoor in ‘Aashiana’. Another song of Talat’s which I loved was ‘Jise dil mein basana chaha tha usey dil mein apne basa na sake’ written by Behzad Lucknavi for the film ‘Ada’. I can only faintly remember ‘Meri raaton ke andherein mein’ and ‘Mohabbat mein kashish hogi’ from ‘Khoobsoorat’ for they were rarely heard. After I finished college, I heard many songs of Madan Mohan-Talat. When we friends would meet in the holidays moving songs such as ‘Humse aaya na gaya, tumse bulaya na gaya’ from ‘Dekh Kabira Roya’, ‘Do din ki mohabbat mein humne kuch khoya hai kuch paya hai’ from ‘Chhoti Bahu’, ‘Yaad jab aaye teri, apni guzari zindagi yaad kar leta hoon main’ from ‘Mohar’, ‘Bereham aasman, meri manzil bata hai kahaan’ from ‘Bahana’ would be on our lips. I can’t remember if Madan Mohan’s ‘Ghazal’ was released earlier or ‘Jahanara’.Perhaps both came in the same year. Every one of us had roundly cursed Madan Mohan after seeing ‘Ghazal’. A film on ghazals and Talat nowhere to be heard! ‘Jahanara’ had wonderful ghazals-songs by Talat – ‘Main teri nazar ka suroor hoon’, ‘Teri aankh ke aansoo pee jaaon aisi meri taqdeer kahaan’ and ‘Phir wahi sham, wahi gam, wahi tanhai hai’. But, by then, Talat’s star had faded from the film firmament. In ‘Jahanara’ the flame had gathered all its strength to brighten and blaze one last time before being extinguished…

Talat’s voice had two facets – one of sweetness and the other of pathos. C.Ramchandra’s songs brought the sweetness to the fore. For some reason it always seemed that he’d composed for Talat with great love. ‘Mohabbat hi na jo samjhe wo zaalim pyar kya jaane’ from ‘Parchhai’, ‘Kabhi tanhaiyon mein bhi aisi ghadi aayee’ from ‘Minar’, ‘Apni naakaami se mujhko kaam hai’ from ‘Subah Ka Tara’, ‘Bechain nazar, betaab jigar, yeh dil hai kisika deewana’ from ‘Yasmin’, ‘Main peeke nahin aaya’ from ‘Kavi’ – all these songs had an extraordinary sweetness which seemed to stem from the composer’s love for his singer. Though Ramchandra himself sang ‘Kitna haseen hai mausam, kitna haseen safar hai’ and ‘Dheere se aaja ri ankhiyan mein’ it is obvious that these tunes were created for Talat. A balance between the sweetness and the sadness in Talat’s voice was struck by Ghulam Mohammad. His ‘Chandni raaton mein jis dum yaad aa jaate ho tum’ from ‘Nazneen’ was a song I loved to hear again and again, as was ‘Zindagi ki kasam ho chuke hai unke hum’ from ‘Maalik’. Talat had even acted in ‘Maalik’ but his acting was nothing to write home about.In our view Ghulam Mohammad’s best film with Talat was ‘Dil-e-Nadan’. Talat acted in that one as well. The music of ‘Mirza Ghalib’ was a hit but, apart from the sorrowful ghazal ‘Phir mujhe deeda-e-tar yaad aaya’, Talat’s songs in ‘Mirza Ghalib’ weren’t a patch on those in ‘Dil-e-Nadan’. ‘Dil-e-Nadan’ was for Ghulam Mohammad what ‘Do Raha’ was for Anilda and ‘Jahanara’ was for Madan Mohan. ‘Zindagi denewale sun’, ‘Yeh raat suhani raat nahin, ai chand-sitaron so jaao’, and ‘Jo khushi se chot khaye wo jigar kahaan se laaoon’ filled one’s heart with enough sweet sorrow to last for a lifetime. In Ghulam Mohammad-Sardar Malik’s ‘Laila Majnu’, a grieving Majnu, watching Laila’s caravan wend its way far into the desert, had sung in Talat’s voice ‘Chal diya caravan, lut gaye hum yahaan, tum wahaan…gir padi bijliyan, jal gaya aashiyan, uth raha hai dhuan…’Talat’s ‘Tere dar pe aaya hoon fariyaad lekar’ is played on Ceylon Radio as a song from ‘Laila Majnu’.This song was not in that film when I saw it long ago nor when I saw it after many years.It was from ‘Chor Bazar’. Perhaps Sardar Malik removed it from ‘Laila Majnu’ and used it later in ‘Chor Bazar’. Talat’s ‘Ai gam-e-dil kya karoon’ from ‘Thokar’ permeated our very existence.The moving, doomed helplessness of the poet Majaz found expression through Talat.

Another music director who’d understood Talat’s voice was Salil Chowdhury. Talat’s ‘Raat ne kya kya khwab dikhaye, rang bhare sau jaal bichaye…aankhen khuli to sapnein toote, reh gaye gam ke kale saaye’ from Salilda’s ‘Ek Gaon Ki Kahani’, and ‘Aansoo samajh ke kyon humein aankh se tumne gira diya’ from his ‘Chhaya’ are melancholy songs which linger long in memory. ‘Aankhon mein masti sharaab ki’ and ‘Itna na mujhse tu pyar badha ke main ek badal awara’ from ‘Chaya’, and ‘Jhoome re, neela ambar jhoome, dharti ko choome’ from ‘Ek Gaon Ki Kahani’ were light songs sung by Talat with great feeling. Roshan was another music director who had given Talat soft, slow, sweet songs – ‘Main dil hoon ek armaan bhara’ from ‘Anhonee’, ‘Mohabbat ke jhoote saharon ne loota’ from ‘Sanskar’, ‘Kisi soorat dil ki lagi behel jaaye to achha ho’ from ‘Naubahar’, and ‘Aur hai dil ki lagi, aansoo bahana aur hai’ from ‘Raagrang’ are unforgettable.Yet the feeling persisted that Roshan was more Mukesh’s music director than Talat’s.

The credit for getting the common man to hum Talat’s songs and for taking him to the peak of popularity goes to Shankar-Jaikishan and Sachinda. Simple tunes well suited to Talat’s voice, and excellent orchestration ensured that ‘Ai mere dil kahin aur chal’ from ‘Shankar-Jaikishan’s ‘Daag’ and ‘Andhe jahaan ke andhe raastein, jaaye to jaaye kahaan’ and ‘Tujhe apne paas bulati hai teri duniya’ from their ‘Patita’ were always on people’s lips.Though not so popular, we used to hum Talat’s ‘Hum unke paas aate hain, who humse door jaate hain’ and ‘Unhe bhool ja ae dil, tadapne si bhi kya haasil’ from Shankar-Jaikishan’s ‘Naya Ghar’. ‘Jaaye to jaaye kahaan, samajhega kaun yahaan dard bhare dil ki zubaan’ written by Sahir for Sachinda’s ‘Taxi Driver’, and ‘Jalte hain jiske liye teri aankhon ke diye’, written by Majrooh for his ‘Sujata’ achieved such phenomenal popularity that even today Talat’s audiences do not feel that they have really heard him sing till they hear these two songs. However my desire to hear ‘Jo kisi ki khatir behta hai who aansoo moti hota hai’ from ‘Ek Nazar’, ‘Doob gaye aakash ke tare, jaake tum na aaye’ from ‘Angarein’, ‘Naazon ke pale himmat na haar jana’ from ‘Bahar’, all Sachinda’s compositions, remained unfulfilled…

As compared to his contemporaries, Talat sang far fewer songs.Others sang thousands of songs, Talat must have sung barely six to seven hundred. 100-125 of those entered the hearts of ordinary listeners, and the rest have been lovingly cherished by many, many fans in their hearts and minds.Others sang thousands of trashy songs.It is doubtful if Talat’s trashy songs number even 20-25.Even those he’d sung at the fag end of his career as a compromise.Talat had come to playback singing via ghazals and so was well aware of the weightage of words and the importance of poetry. Unless a song had a minimum poetic standard Talat would not consent to sing it.

In order to convince him to sing a song, music directors would tell him, “It’s a very good song.I’ve reserved it especially for you.” As a consequence many wonderful songs by Shakeel, Shailendra, Majrooh, jan Nisar Akhta, Sahir came to him. Talat poured his heart into Sahir’s ghazals like ‘Pyar par bas to nahin hai’ from ‘Sone Ki Chidiya’ set to music by O.P.Nayyar, and ‘Ashqon mein jo paayaa hai wo geeton mein diya hai’ from ‘Chandi Ki Deewar’ composed by N.Dutta. While in college it used to give me great joy to hum Sahir’s ‘Mere nagmon mein un mastana aankhon ki kahani hai’ and ‘Khada hoon der se ummeedvar dekh to le’, both songs written in ghazal style, sung by Talat for Shyamsundar’s ‘Alif Laila’. Talat’s ‘Subah ka intezar kaun kare’ from Jaidev’s ‘Joru Ka Bhai’ was also penned by Sahir. Talat’s touching ‘Dekh li teri khudai, bas mera jee bhar gaya’ from Jaidev’s ‘Kinare Kinare’ was written by Nyay Sharma. And his heart-rending song from Roshan’s ‘Gunaah’ written by Kidar Sharma:

‘Mere khayalon mein aake gale laga jaa mujhe

Ki aaj phir mera jee chahta hai rone ko…’

I was extremely disturbed the day Mukesh suddenly passed away.Seeing Raj Kapoor pay homage to him on Doordarshan brought a;lump to my throat. In a fit of emotion Raj remembered this song of Talat’’s and exclaimed:

‘Thaka hua hai musafir, sawaal hai daata

Kafan dila de mujhe mooh dhapne ko, sone ko…’

He’d cried when Shailendra had died, he’d been unable to hold back his tears when Jaikishen had passed beyond the veil.Now he felt like crying for Mukesh.Was it Talat singing in his mind? ‘Ki aaj phir mera jee chahta hair one ko…’

Talat sang many soulful songs of lesser-known lyricists for lesser known music directors. When I’d first heard Vinod’s ‘Jab kisi ke rukh pe zulfein aake lehraney lagi, hasratein uth-uthke armaanon se takraane lagi’ from ‘Anmol Ratan’ in Talat’s fresh, youthful voice, I was bowled over.Similarly with ‘Ho gaye barbad hum, unki khushi to ho gayee…’ – Talat’s song of unrequited love from ‘Kamini’.It is said that the luckless Vinod, despite recording Talat’s song for ‘Anmol Ratan’ earlier, was denied the credit for giving Talat his first film song as Anilda’s ‘Arzoo’ was released first.

I still remember the songs Talat sang for Khayyam like ‘Gar teri nawazish ho jaye’ from ‘Gulbahar’ and ‘Aana hi padega, sar ishq ke kadmon pe zukaana hi padega’ from ‘Lala Rukh’.The ears still resonate with his ‘Aaye bhi akela, jaaye bhi akela, do din ki zindagi hai, do din ka mela…’ from Hansraj Behl’s ‘Dost’.Sometimes I’m suddenly reminded of ‘Tera khayal dil ko staye to kya karein..’from Pt.Govindram’s ‘Naqab’. Husnlal-Bhagatram, who had got Rafi to sing songs like ‘Ek dil ke tukde hazaar hue, koi yahan gira, koi wahan gira…’, and ‘Mohabbat ke dhoke mein koi na aaye, yeh ek din hasaye to sau din rulaye’, also gotTalat to sing tragic songs. But Talat, while singing ‘ Ae meri zindagi tujhe dhoondoo kahan, na to milke gaye, nahi chhoda nishan…’ in Adl-e-Jahangir’, and ‘Mohabbat ki hum chot khaaye hue hain, kisi bewafa ke sataye hue hain…’ in ‘Farmaish’, did not sob like Rafi.He simply sang in his melancholy tone. I could never forget even while watching Allah Rakha’s fingers dance on the tabla as Ravi Shankar played the sitar, that this was my beloved music director A.R.Qureshi who’d got Durrani to sing ‘Ni sag a ma pa haye Ramji, pa ma ga re sa’ in Sabak.Then how could I forget Talat’s ‘Tumko fursat ho meri jaan to idhar dekh to lo’, ‘Dil matwala, lakh sambhala, phir bhi kisi pea a hi gaya’ and ‘Tu aaye na aaye teri khushi, hum aas lagaye baithe hain’, each better than the last, from ‘Bewafa’?

Ram Ganguly, who’d scored the music for Raj Kapoor’s ‘Aag’, could not resist using Talat’s voice for ‘Gavaiya’. All the songs from that film had cast a spell – ‘Aaj mera amn been bajaye’, ‘Teri yaad ka Deepak jalta hai din-raat mere veeraane mein’, and that anguished cry of a broken heart – ‘Aise toote taar ki mere geet adhoore reh gaye…aisa toota dil ke tukde aansoo banker reh gaye…’. ‘Teri yaad ka deepak jalta hai’ had been sung by Surendra as well. I’d imagined that Talat’s ‘Sundarta ke sabhi shikari, koi nahin hai poojari’ from Bulo C.Rani’s ‘Jogan’ would be picturised on Dilip Kumar.It wasn’t but as it was used at the right spot in the film, it was still appreciated.Was talat’s ‘Ae jazb-e-ishq tera kab aitbaar aaye’ from Bulo C.Rani’s ‘Haseena’ ? K.Dutta’s ‘Khata kyat hi hamari’ and ‘Wohi chandni hai’ from ‘Rishta’, and Robin Chatterjee’s ‘Agar dil ke taaron pe chhed sakta from ‘Ratnadeep’ are now but vague memories.Despite wanting to hear them again and again I’ve never been able to do so. The same is the case with Jamal Sen’s songs from ‘Daayra’. I can faintly remember Talat’s ‘Aansoo to nahin hain ankhon mein’. Hafiz Khan’s songs from ‘Mera Salaam’, sung by Talat, had mesmerised me – ‘Salaam tujhko ai duniya, ab aakhri hai salaam’, and ‘Har sham sham-e-gham hai, har raat hai andheri…’. I still feel like humming his song from ‘Meherbaan’ – ‘Mitne de meri zindagi, apna jahaan banaye ja…’

Though Lata had also sung ‘Sab kuch lutake hosh mein aaye to kya kiya’ in Ravi’s ‘Ek Saal’, that song has become synonymous with Talat. Though Talat was not really a singer of light songs, one’s mind does start to dance while listening to him sing ‘Ek do teen char paanch, naach mere man naach, khushi se naach’ from Shivram’s ‘Teen Batti Char Rasta’; sways to lines like ‘Mere ghar mein aaogi tum ek din banke pyari dulhaniya, tumhare charanon mein rakh doonga hanske apni saari duniya’. Many a Talat song has left its indelible impress on my mind. ‘Jab chhaye kabhi sawan ki ghata, ro-ro ke na karna yaad mujhe’, ‘Chand mera badalon mein kho gaya, meri duniya mein andhera ho gaya’ from Fakir Mohammad-Asar’s ‘Pathan’, ‘Jeeunga jab talak tere fasane yaad aayenge’ from ‘Manhar’s ‘Chingari’, ‘Aa teri tasveer bana loon main, apni taqdeer bana loon…’ from ChicChocolate’s ‘Naadan’. Naashad later went to Pakistan, but before going gave Talat the lustrous ‘Tasveer banata hoon, tasveer nahi banti…’ in ‘Baradari’. Nakshab, the lyricist who’d written Lata’s ‘Aayega aanewala’, had produced a film named ‘Nagma’.In that film Nashaad made Talat sing in his ghazal voice: ‘O teer chalanewale, zara aa samne aakar teer chala…’Nakshab,too, went to Pakistan, and later passed away.I can’t remember if Nashaad’s film ‘ Char Chand’ was released or not, but Talat’s ‘ Hai ye wohi aasman, aur hai wohi zameen, par meri taqdeer ka ab who zamana nahin…’ from that film was to resonate for many years in India.

I’d never dreamt that a time would come when Talat would have to sing ‘‘ Hai ye wohi aasman, aur hai wohi zameen, par meri taqdeer ka ab who zamana nahin…’ for the rest of his life. What happened was like a nightmare. Those were the final days of our college life. It was reported that Talat would henceforth not do playback; he’d decided to act in films and sing only for himself. It was an inauspicious evening when we heard the news; everyone was distraught. Each person’s annoyance and displeasure at Talat was in direct proportion to the love he bore him. It did not need a soothsayer to predict that Talat would not last long as an actor, for we’d seen his films. God had gifted him a sweet voice and good looks but not histrionic skills.Once upon a time anyone with reasonable looks and a pleasant voice would do as an actor. Once the age of playback singing dawned, acting and singing separated. A good actor no longer needed to sing, and a good singer did not need to act. From then on, actors rarely insisted on singing their own songs.

Playback singers, though, could not bring themselves to give up the desire to become actors. Saigal was their ideal. In their hearts they wished to be actor-singers like him. Talat was no exception. He’d had a hearty laugh at himself once, while describing to me his travails when he’d acted for the first time in 1945 in the film “Rajlakshmi’ in Calcutta. He’d played the role of a sadhu, false beard and all, and sung ‘ Jaago musafir jaago, kholo man ka dwaar’. At around the same time, in Calcutta, he’d played the role of the hero in the film ‘ Samapti’ opposite Bharati Devi and had sung duets like ‘Mujhko apna banaya kisne’ with Suprabha Sarkar; but that film flopped. The failure of ‘Samapti’ did not dampen his enthusiasm to become a singing star.After gaining popularity in Mumbai as a playback singer he started appearing on screen again. We first saw him on screen in ‘Dil-e-Nadan’. To see him on screen was a novelty, an attraction in itself, and besides, the songs in that film so entranced us that no one paid any real attention to his acting. Later, I saw Talat in ‘Dak Babu’, ‘Waris’, etc. Suraiya was the heroine of Waris’ and Anilda’s songs were very nice. So long as Talat was singing plentifully for himself and others and satisfying, soothing our ears and minds, we did not bother overmuch about his acting. However, on reading that he would now only sing for himself, we were saddened. All of us felt that he was wilfully destroying himself.

C.H.Atma, who’d become famous after singing ‘Preetam aan milo’ and ‘Roun main sagar ke kinare’, tried to become a singer-actor like Saigal, and, to that end, acted in films like ‘Bhaisahab’, ‘Bilwamangal’, etc. The outcome was that he fell behind in the race as a playback singer and was finished.We hadn’t forgotten Mukesh’s condition as a playback singer at the time of ‘Mashooqua’ when he, like Talat, had tried to become an actor. If Raj Kapoor hadn’t saved him with ‘Mera joota hai japani’ he too would have been flung into the darkness. Not everyone has such good fortune.Talat certainly didn’t.

On the one hand the rumour that Talat wouldn’t sing for other actors spread like wildfire, on the other, he kept failing as an actor in ‘Diwali Ki Raat’, ‘Raftaar’, ‘Ek Gaon Ki Kahani’, ‘Maalik’, ‘Sone Ki Chidiya’, etc. People stopped approaching him for playback singing. He kept saying that he was prepared to sing for all actors, but no one was prepared to listen. He was as good as out of the film world – as an actor as well as a playback singer. He was lost, rudderless, he couldn’t understand what to do, where to go.’Andhe jahaan ke andhe raaste, jaaye to jaaye kahaan…’! As Talat’s new songs became rarer, we became more and more upset.We kept saying that Dilip Kumar should save Talat as Raj Kapoor had saved Mukesh, and started blaming Dilip Kumar for Talat’s travails.

But the times were changing, the world was changing.The music directors of Talat’s era were falling behind. Healthy competition had given way to dirty politics. Groupism was rampant. The golden age of Indian music in Hindi films had drawn to a close and its place had been taken by Western music. Soft, sweet notes had faded into oblivion, only to be replaced by fast-paced rhythms. Saxophones, banjos, accordions and guitars were the sounds of the moment. As basris and sitars fell by the wayside, so did Talat’s sweet voice. What was left for him was melancholy evensong…the despondency of ‘Phir wohi sham, wohi gham, wohi tanhai hai…’ from Madan Mohan’s ‘Jahanara’…After that, for a long time, Talat and Rafi were to sing Jan Nisar Akhtar’s duet from ‘Susheela’:

“Gam ki andheri raat mein dil ko na beqaraar kar

subah zaroor aayegi, subah ka intezaar kar…”

For Talat that longed-for morn never dawned, and soon Rafi, too, was lost in darkness…

10.

When Talat had started singing we’d gathered from far and wide to hear him. As his singing drew to a close, we started to disperse. By the time Talat left us for good, all of us had dispersed in all directions. We were of different faiths, different castes. Yet our religion, our caste was Talat. I can still remember Pandit Pawar singing Talat’s ‘Ae chand sitaron so jao, so jao, so jao…’ late one night as clearly as if it happened yesterday. Mehboob who used to sing ‘Gam-e-zindagi ka ya rab, na mila koi sahara’ – where is he today? One evening when Vijay Singh suddenly turned up on my doorstep, I could hardly recognise him. He had aged a lot, was white-haired. He was the Talat Mahmood of our school. To keep his Muslim friends company, this Rajput boy had given up Sanskrit and taken Persian instead. He brought up memories of ‘Usmania’, ‘Jikriya’ and of Talat-loving friends. “Do you remember Badshah? He’s an engine driver now. Uddhav used to drive a truck for a while. He used to sing ‘Tasveer teri dil mera behla na sakegi’ exactly like Talat, didn’t he?And Bakshu?”

…Memories made my mind emotional. A friend had written in a letter once: “ Have you forgotten Talat?Do you remember ‘Tera khayal dil se mitaya nahi abhi’? “ “Sing ‘Tera khayal dil se mitaya nahi abhi’”, I said to Vijay Singh. He laughed and said, “My voice is no longer what it used to be.Still, if you insist I’ll sing.” He shut his eyes and started singing. Twenty-four years ago his face had the same expression while singing Talat’s song, the same notes emanated from his throat:

“Gardan ko aaj bhi teri baahon ki yaad hai

chaukhat se teri sar ko uthaya nahi abhi…”

His throat still remembered Talat’s voice, Talat’s notes. ‘Badal jaaye duniya, na badlenge hum, tumhari kasam’ – Talat was not the only one to have sworn that. Who says we’ve forgotten Talat? How could we forget him? So much of life, said and unsaid, written and unwritten is bound up with Talat. Jan Nisar Akhtar may have left us but we haven’t forgotten his song which Talat sang :

“Kaun kehta hai tujhe maine bhula rakha hai

Teri yaadon ko kaleje se laga rakha hai…”

Our yesterdays

2011-06-22T23:43:00.001+05:30

"Our yesterdays
Are like a lonely and a ruined land
Wherein a breeze of recollection sighs--
A fading land to which is no return."

HENRY ABBEY, "Invocation to the Sun"

Ganesh Immersion

2009-08-25T17:28:00.000+05:30

Au revoir, Lord, till we meet again next year.

Immersion of Ganesh idols, Mumbai 2009

Another day, another bomb

2007-11-25T11:25:00.000+05:30

Yesterday another half a dozen bombs went off across the city.
We're still counting the dead
Fitting together the jigsaw pieces of flesh,
Hosing down the red streets
Helped by the heavens which opened up
To add to the usual official chaos.

The news-hyenas arrived in packs
Drawn by the stench of blood and meat
To a feast of breaking news.

Nothing was new.
Nameless, faceless men giving succour
Without fanfare
To others equally anonymous.
A picture a bomb-weary city has grown used to.

For countless households
The long night has just begun.

The Nests of Nandigram

2007-11-22T16:35:00.000+05:30

Is it my imagination
Or are there far fewer birds singing ?
What dawn do they mutely await
Through the long night of terror ?
Silence speaks of pervasive fear
And of the loss of ancestral nests.

The protector has taken an axe to the trees.
Trees fall; the earth shakes.
Raucous cries of dispossession supplant birdsong
As the khaki-clad hunters pot sitting ducks
While Zeus' swans feast on Leda's flesh.

Rejoice, my countrymen, for the prophecy has come true
-The state has indeed withered away.

Autumn Harvest

2007-09-06T22:02:00.000+05:30

Words, once obedient servants
Now claim suzerainty over ideas
The age of meaningful verse has yielded
To gobbledygook.

Poetry, a grey mist half-understood
Through which I stumble blindly
A mirage I chase through the sands...

The wells of creativity run dry
Neither outpourings of emotion nor tender murmurs
Mere craftsmanship remains
Lines dolled up in tawdry baubles
Literary whores, soliciting passing readers
Fireflies, impotent
In the face of the darkness within.

The autumn harvest of verbosity is ripe
For the scythe of the Grim Reaper

LIAR, LIAR

2007-08-19T12:48:00.000+05:30

Manmohan Singh said in his statement in the Indian Parliament:

"the agreement does not in any way affect India's right to undertake future nuclear tests, if it is necessary."

U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said :

"The proposed 123 agreement has provisions in it that in an event of a nuclear test by India, then all nuclear cooperation is terminated, as well as there is provision for return of all materials, including reprocessed material covered by the agreement,"

Both of them can't be right. Ergo, one of them is lying. Take your pick.

Song of a Tuneless Nightingale

2007-08-19T12:27:00.000+05:30

In the Garden of Verse trills many a nightingale
Of the advent of spring
Fertile, bountiful, pregnant.
Of clouds turgid with the fluid of life,
Of rain, and of lush green meadows,
Of starlit, silvery nights

Silenced are the mutterings
Of those in whose veins courses
The brutal, parched thirst
And ravenous hunger
Of searing summer unquenched.
Their deep, frightening voices
Out of place in Eden.

Autumn permitted to weep
Only in the silent shedding of leaves
And winter mute, frozen
By the chilling demise of the senses.

Here may be sung
Only chaste, bejewelled verse
Set to uplifting metre.
Shut are the doors
To tuneless wolf whistles
Prurient, irreverent, defiant
Yet far more spontaneous and heartfelt...

Sunjay Dutt and John Donne

2007-08-04T06:32:00.000+05:30

Sunjay Dutt committed a crime, was caught, tried, and after fourteen long years, was finally found guilty and sent to jail. But this piece is not about him, not about whether he was guilty or innocent, nor about the quantum of his sentence. It's about the high decibel clamour from Bollywood protesting against his sentence. It's about everyone from Dilip Kumar to the newest wannabe shouting from the rooftops about what a saint Sunjay is, about how he was just a victim of the circumstances, about how he has reformed. To a man (and woman) they declaim before the cameras that "poor Sunjay" must be set free. The touching camaraderie almost brought a lump to my throat. The man must be a really lovable type, I thought, for all his colleagues to jump to his defence like this. Dale Carnegie's "How To Win Friends And Influence People" come to life.

Just then, my brain's resident cynical imp woke up, took one look at my train of thought and hooted with derision. "You poor mug, do you really believe that they are all so deeply concerned about Sunjay Dutt? Most of them couldn't care less about what happens to him! My poor innocent, this outrage isn't about Sunjay Dutt at all. What has got them deeply worried is that the invisible wall of immunity they have always taken for granted has been breached."

As usual, the imp was right. These people have played fast and loose with the laws of the land, firm in their conviction that the laws did not apply to them. Up to now they've got away with murder. Money, and the aura of stardom ensured that they were never called to account for their crimes - ranging from drugs to bigamy to tax evasion to posing as farmers to grab agricultural land to mowing down innocent men, women and children while drunk. To be above the law was the birthright of the stars. Sunjay Dutt's case has violated this very birthright. That is what the shrill hysteria is all about. Dutt is simply a cloak for the fear that has taken root in their hearts - the fear that tomorrow the law may call them to account for their crimes. The fear that finally the law may actually implement what was till now a pleasant fiction - that all are equal before the law.

Unbidden, John Donne's lines sprang to mind :

Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

The Bollywood bigwigs have heard the bell tolling - and they don't like the sound one bit!

Yahoo Mail Cleaner

2007-07-28T16:00:00.000+05:30

Yahoo e-mail account-holders are familiar with the irritation of losing nearly one-fourth of the width of the browser workspace to advertisements. Grit your teeth and bear with it if you want a free web-mail service was the unspoken message. Now, for Firefox users, there's a way around this. First you need to install the Greasemonkey extension. Greasemonkey is one of the best extensions available for Firefox. It enables the user to customise the way web pages display by installing scripts. Once you've installed Greasemonkey and re-started Firefox, install the Yahoo Mail Cleaner script available here. Re-start Firefox and go to your Yahoo Mail. Abracadabra, hey presto, no ads and a full width message reading experience. Firefox's customisability wins hands down again. If you're still using Internet Explorer, do yourself a favour - get Firefox.

A patch of Paradise

2007-07-14T06:41:00.000+05:30

Alone on a far shore
Savouring the limpid turquoise blue of the ocean
The soft, clean golden sand
The solitude, and the heaven-sent silence
Punctuated only by the lullaby of the waves
My own small patch of Paradise
Without the strings attached
An isle of repose, of calm
All the more beautiful for its impermanence
My personal Eden
Sans apple, sans Eve, sans Lucifer...sans God himself
For even He would be a distraction
Let me cherish it while I may
For the world will intrude all too soon...

Window

2007-06-26T15:17:00.000+05:30

I sit by the window looking out
And see myself reflected
Outside the glass looking in
Reality and illusion facing off
Or is the window the only reality
Separating two ghosts
Or perhaps imprisoning just the schizoid singularity
Of a self-absorbed existence?
A Rowlingesque Hogwartian mirror showing
My heart's deepest desire - myself -
A true inheritor
To the mantle of Narcissus

"No, thank you" says Ford

2007-06-12T12:18:00.000+05:30

Each time I think the BCCI can't do any worse, they prove me wrong by creating an even bigger cock-up. Graham Ford was well within his rights to turn down the job if he felt that the compensation or the tenure was inadequate. If the dumb clucks in the BCCI chose to go ahead and announce his appointment as the coach of the Indian cricket team without waiting for his official acceptance of their offer, he can hardly be blamed. The BCCI babus suffer from incurable foot-in-the-mouth disease and seem to count each day that they do not appear on the idiot box as wasted. I never thought I'd say this but these buffoons have succeeded in making Dalmia's reign look like a golden era. When he was in power at the BCCI I had no love lost for him and celebrated his exit as a new dawn for Indian cricket. But Dalmia was a hard-core Marwari businessman who at least got things done. Sharad Pawar has made the organisation a standing joke, albeit a very bad one. The BCCI now resembles nothing so much as a Tower of Babel, where each of his lackeys tries to outdo the others in shooting his mouth off without verifying anything. This latest fiasco only reinforces the popular perception of the BCCI as a bunch of arrogant,power-drunk incompetents answerable to no one. Someone got it spot-on a long time ago when he said that the only thing worse than a public sector monopoly is a private sector monopoly.Let's pray for the early birth of Zee's ICL (Indian Cricket League). Surely they can't do any worse than this lot!

Why did the chicken cross the road ?

2007-06-11T22:59:00.000+05:30

Children, not to mention many of us adults have been asking one another this question for ages. If you feel "To get to the other side" is too simplistic or too childish an answer, see here for some profoundly philosophical answers.

The Yanks are worried

2007-06-02T07:59:00.000+05:30

The Yankees are worried - and it's showing in their cartoons. Have a look at these two from the International Herald Tribune.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1126/525746127_dd25b86969_o.png

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1188/525746131_859b8720d5_o.png

When issues move from ivory tower editorials to newspaper cartoons one can safely say that they've become topics the man in the street talks about. Score one point for us, chaps. They've lectured the world on the virtues of a free market for decades. The shoe's on the other foot now.To use their idiom, they've talked the talk. Now it's time to walk the walk. Without whining that the shoe pinches. (Pardon the mixed, even mangled, metaphors but the temptation to crow a little bit was irresistible))

26 Golden Rules for Writing Well

2007-04-25T15:28:00.000+05:30

I found these rules on the internet. They were attributed to Anon. If the copyright belongs to anyone , please let me know and I'll remove them.
Read them and smile. Then go back to what you were writing when you took a break and see how many of these 'rules' you've inadvertently violated. Don't ask me how many I'd broken. I refuse to answer on the grounds that the answer may incriminate me. (See, I read Erle Stanley Gardner too!)

26 Golden Rules for Writing Well

1. Don't abbrev.

2. Check to see if you any words out.

3. Be carefully to use adjectives and adverbs correct.

4. About sentence fragments.

5. When dangling, don't use participles.

6. Don't use no double negatives.

7. Each pronoun agrees with their antecedent.

8. Just between you and I, case is important.

9. Join clauses good, like a conjunction should.

10. Don't use commas, that aren't necessary.

11. Its important to use apostrophe's right.

12. It's better not to unnecessarily split an infinitive.

13. Never leave a transitive verb just lay there without an object.

14. Only Proper Nouns should be capitalized. also a sentence should begin with a capital letter and end with a full stop

15. Use hyphens in compound-words, not just in any two-word phrase.

16. In letters compositions reports and things like that we use commas to keep a string of items apart.

17. Watch out for irregular verbs that have creeped into our language.

18. Verbs has to agree with their subjects.

19. Avoid unnecessary redundancy.

20. A writer mustn't shift your point of view.

21. Don't write a run-on sentence you've got to punctuate it.

22. A preposition isn't a good thing to end a sentence with.

23. Avoid cliches like the plague.

24. 1 final thing is to never start a sentence with a number.

25. Always check your work for accuracy and completeness.

[ANON.]

BBC, the Queen's English & I

2007-04-07T15:09:00.000+05:30

About an hour ago I was watching the news on BBC World. Their reporter was talking about the organ transplant trade in China and about how, in response to international pressure the Chinese government was trying to set up a regulatory framework for organ transplants.

The caption on the lower part of the screen read :

"VOLUNTARY ORGAN TRANSPLANT TO BE MANDATORY"

No, I'm not making this up, you read that right. After listening intently to the report I finally managed to work out what they meant - that consent from the deceased's family would henceforth be an essential prerequisite to the harvesting of human organs. Ah well, the pressures of 24*7 reporting! It's nice to know that the Beeb can goof up like all the rest of us. The next time I make a dog's dinner of the Queen's English I can at least be assured of being in elite company.

"Overselling capitalism"

2007-04-04T12:45:00.000+05:30

Browsing the web today, I came across a very insightful and thought-provoking editorial in the 'Los Angeles Times' - "Overselling capitalism" - by Benjamin R. Barber. Capitalists of all hues (And I'm one of the unreconstructed hard-core ones) should read it and introspect. It may explain why the Left is making a return of sorts in some parts of the world. Right v/s Left, capitalism v/s communism/socialism - these are arguments which lend themselves far too easily to pulpit-thumping, chest-beating and hyperbole. Quiet reflection may not be fashionable or easy in this era of 24/7 media cacophony and "always-on" internet but it's necessary. Otherwise by the time we find out how far we have drifted from the goals we had set ourselves it may be too late for a course correction. And the "bad guys" will be back with a vengeance !

The World According To America

2007-02-27T16:20:00.000+05:30

I nearly fell out of my chair laughing when I saw this.

And the Yanks wonder why they're so unpopular round the globe!

A long way to twilight

2007-02-23T15:13:00.000+05:30

It's a long way to twilight
With the day refusing to die
The fiercely beating sun digging his heels in,
Dogged in retreat
The stars and the moon bashfully hidden
Behind the veil of his blazing glare

The sky cloudless, no impediment
To the spears of his incandescent beams
The road, barren, tree-less
Only the shrubbery of razor-sharp pebbles underfoot
Kin to the cacti
Without even the saving grace
Of their greenness

It's a long way to twilight
And the day refuses to die...

What to blog about today?

2007-01-28T17:58:00.000+05:30

Somebody once said ( and the rest of the world's been quoting it ad nauseam ever since!) that one picture's worth a thousand words. Here's one I came across on the BLaugh site that takes loquacity to an altogether new level. It certainly made me cringe a bit and I don't even blog every day.

Art Buchwald - R.I.P.

2007-01-19T09:19:00.000+05:30

Art Buchwald, arguably America's greatest humorist since Mark Twain, passed away on Wednesday, the 17th of January 2007, aged 81. I've never been very good at writing obituaries. All I can say is 'Thanks, Mr.Buchwald, for many decades of laughter. Your writings enlivened our lives. Your political satires showed up many a windbag for for being exactly that - a bagful of hot air. To a non-American like me, you were my first introduction to Watergate, before I'd ever heard of Woodward and Bernstein.

Rest in peace.

A short on-line biography of Art Buchwald can be read here on Wikipedia.

Tum hi kaho karenge kya yaad jo humko aaoge - 3

2007-01-16T12:56:00.000+05:30

Translated from ‘Geet-Yatree’ by the late Shri Madhav Moholkar. The responsibility for any errors in translation is entirely mine.

‘Tadbeer se bigdi hui taqdeer bana le’ brings back memories of the ‘Baazi’ days.Geeta’s and mine.Even at that time people would confuse tadbeer and taqdeer. ‘Tadbeer se bigdi hui taqdeer bana le’ or ‘Taqdeer se bigdi hui tadbeer bana le’? When Geeta passed away, all the papers mentioned this song but the confusion remained. One even printed it as ‘Taqdeer se bigdi hui tasveeer bana le’! Poor Sahir.Club dancer Geeta Bali sings this song to encourage Dev Anand who has lost his all while gambling:
‘Darta hai zamane ki nigahon se bhala kyon
Insaaf tere saath hai, ilzaam utha le
Apne pe bharosa hai to ye daav laga le’

‘Baazi’ marked Sahir’s re-entry into films.He’d written this song in the form of a ghazal but Burman’s tune was western.This song of Geta’s became so popular that a wave of similar songs followed. Baazi created a new trend in film music.The credit for that goes, along with S.D.Burman, to Geeta’s multi-faceted voice.’Suno gajar kya gaaye’ from Baazi would create such tension –
‘Bichada zamana kabhi haath na aayega
Dosh na dena mujhe, phir pachtayega’
Geeta would lengthen the last syllable and give a slight jhatka on it. Geeta Bali’s dance on ‘Tip tip tip tip’ was attractive:
‘Dekh ke akeli mohe barkha sataye re
Gaalon ko chumey, kabhi cheetein udaaye re
Tip tip tip tip tip tip…’
Geeta’s naughty tone and Geeta Bali’s acting gelled wonderfully.
Baazi’s heroine Kalpana Kartik was neither beautiful nor an accomplished actress. Later, when we heard that Dev Anand had married her, we unanimously held Geeta responsible.In fact, at that time rumours were rife about Dev Anand and Suraiya’s romance.
In Baazi, Dev Anand came into Kalpana Kartik’s life and her heart started pounding.She expressed her happiness in Geeta’s voice:
‘Ye kaun aaya ki mere dil ki duniya mein bahar aayeeee’
Geeta’s voice, overflowing with joy, climbed higher and higher at‘eeee’.
‘Dulhan banke jawani ki umangein gungunati hai
Basa hai kaun aankhon mein ki aankhen muskurati hai
Bikharke kis ki baahon pe ye meri zulf lehrayee
Ye kaun aaya…’
The loving entreaty Geeta conveyed in her pronunciation of ‘baalam’ in the line ‘Tum bhi na bhoolo baalam, hum bhi na bhoolein’from ‘Lakh zamanewale dale dilon pe taalein’ touched the heart.With dreams in her eyes Kalpana poured her heart out to Dev in Geeta’s voice:
‘Dil ki kahani apni zubani, tumko sunane aayee hoon
Aankhon mein leke sapne suhane apna banane aayee hoon
Aaj ki raat piya dil na todo, man ki baat piya man lo
Aj ki raat piyaaaa…’
Geeta’s pleas were so sincere, so heartfelt that Dev was unable to break Kalpana’s heart.We used to laugh that Dev wouldn’t have married Kalpana had it not been for Geeta’s singing.
Baazi’s director was Guru Dutt.Was it because he stepped into Geeta’s life that she sang ‘Ye kaun aaya ki mere dil ki duniya mein bahar aayee’? Was it love which caused her to sing
‘Achanak ye mere haathon mein kis ka haath aaya hai
Na main janoon, na dil jaane, wo apna hai ya paraya hai…’?
And was she serenading him with ‘Man ki baat piya maan lo’? Only Geeta knows!
Then came Guru Dutt’s ‘Jaal’.Though it was Dev Anand, Geeta Bali and S.D.Burman’s film, it wasn’t fully Geeta’s. Lata sang ‘Ye raat ye chandni phir kahaan’ with Hemant Kumar but Geeta sang the light duet with Kishore Kumar.When Kishore sang ‘De bhi chuke hum dil nazrana’ Geeta would brush him off with ‘Chhodo ji ye raag purrana dil ka…’Geeta sang ‘purrana’ ( for purana ), ‘acchha’, ja ja’ with all the teasing allure that suited Geeta Bali right down to the ground.She also sang in a chorus song in Jaal:’Jor lagake haiya, pair jamake haiya…’
Geeta’s voice rarely conjures up images of Meena Kumari or Waheeda Rehman.The mind sees Kamini Kaushal or Geeta Bali.Geeta was heard in Guru Dutt-Geeta Bali’s ‘Baaz’ too, in her challenging
‘Zara saamne aa, zara aankh mila
Tera shukriya kar doon ada…’
Kishore Kumar would often repeat a line of a song at a higher pitch, e.g. in ‘Are bhai nikal ke aa gharse’ and ‘Apne labon pe dekho aaj bhi tarane hai-dan dar dan dar dan dar da’. In the song ‘Maajhi albele’ from Baaz, Geeta, too, has similarly sung the line ‘Man ki naiya dagmag dole’ at a higher pitch. In Guru Dutt-Geeta Bali’s ‘Sailaab’ there’s a Geeta song which transports one to a different plane:
‘Hai ye duniya kaunsi, ai dil mujhe kya ho gaya…’
When Shami Kapoor entered Geeta Bali’s life in ‘Coffee House’ she warned him in Geeta’s voice:
‘Is mehfil mein aana bachke…’
And in Geeta Bali-Raj Kapoor’s ‘Bawre nain’ is the evergreen ‘Khayalon mein kisike is tarah aaya nahin karte’ which Geeta has sung (with Mukesh) for Vijayalakshmi.
Kamini Kaushal starred in ‘Do Bhai’, as she did in ‘Shagun’ in which she was paired with Dilip Kumar.Apprehensive that he might run away at night, unknown to him, she ties a rope to him and keeps the other end in her hand. As soon as he tries to tiptoe away at night, she pulls the rope, he stumbles, and she asks him in Geeta’s voice:
‘Mera dil tadpake kahaan chala
Itna to batake ja…’
Shabnam also had a Geeta-Mukesh duet that spoke of the pain of separation:
‘Kismat mein bichadna tha, hui kyon unse mulaqat re…’
Na roothke humse ja, ki mera dil nahi mere pas re…’
Then swims before my eyes Kamini Kaushal’s innocent face singing ‘Tu kaun hai ye maaloom nahi, phir dil kyon tujhe bulata hai…’, and sometimes Bina Rai in Anarkali – ‘Aa jaane-e-wafa’, ‘Duniya ki nazar ishq ke kadamon pe jhuka de’.Geeta singing for Nirupa Roy in ‘Har har Mahadev’ – ‘Kankar kankar se main poochoon Shankar mera kahaan hai’, or asking with pleasurable anticipation ‘Gungun gungun karta bhanwara, tum kaun sandesa laaye’.
When Waheeda Rehman and Meena Kumari sang Geeta’s songs, she was no longer at the summit.Lata-Asha had overtaken her and Geeta was on the downslide. When Waheeda became ‘Chaudveen Ka Chand’, Geeta had been eclipsed to the point where she was not heard in Guru Dutt’s own film.
S.D.Burman was the music directorfor Guru Dutt’s ‘Baazi’ and ‘Jaal’; but for ‘Aarpaar’ came O.P.Nayyar. Nayyar made Geeta sing in her intoxicating tone for ‘Aarpaar’:
‘Haan bade dhoke hain is raah mein
Babuji dheere chalna, pyar mein jara sambhalna’
Asha Bhosle’s ‘Man more gaa jhoomke’ from Nayyar’s ‘Mangu’ which came later, reminded me of ‘Babuji dheere chalna’.Geeta’s ‘haaan’ and Asha’s ‘gaaa’ had the same zing.But Asha sometimes allowed her voice to sound a little cheap, or vulgar.This was never the case with Geeta.She was seductive, sensual ,yes, but never cheap. Her surrender in ‘Ye lo main hari piya, hui teri jeet re…’ when newly in love sounded very sweet. Nayyar’s ‘Aasman’ did not have the style of ‘Aarpaar’ but Geeta’s ‘Dekho jaadubhare more nain’ and ‘Dil hai diwana’ were lovely.The music of Geeta’s ‘Pom pom baaja bole’ from the same film used to be played in Binaca Geet Mala.
Till Asha arrived on the scene, Nayyar’s songs were heard in Geeta’s voice. Sometimes she’d ask ‘Jaata kahaan hai deewane’ and sometimes relate her love story in ‘Aankhon hi aankhon mein ishaara ho gaya’. Sometimes she’d plead ‘Acchha ji maaf kar do’ or ‘Tumhi ne dard diya hai tumhi dawa dena’.’Thandi hawa kali ghata’ from Mr. & Mrs. 55 was popular but my favourite was ‘Preetam aan milo’.
In fact C.H.Atma’s Saigal-style rendition of ‘Preetam aan milo’was justly famous; but Geeta did not suffer in comparison. No one could forget the longing, the anguish in her ‘Preetam aan milo’. Lata-Asha lost to male singers, not Geeta.When the same song was sung by Lata/Asha and a male singer, their songs faded from memory while the male singer’s version became famous. Kishore’s ‘Jeevan ke safar mein rahi milte hai bichad jaane ko’ is far better known than Lata’s. Talat’s ‘Jaaye to jaaye kahaan’ eclipsed Lata’s version.His ‘Ae gham-e-dil kya karoon’ from Thokar is far better known than Asha’s. More such examples can be given. This never happened to Geeta. Her despairing ‘Kaise koi jiye, zeher hai zindagi’from ‘Badbaan’, set to music by Timir Baran and S.K.Pal, is remembered more than Hemant Kumar’s. Her ‘Hai ye duniya kaunsi ai dil mujhe kya ho gaya’ from ‘Sailab’ comes to mind far more than Hemant Kumar’s. Though Hemant Kumar has sung ‘Na ye chand hoga na taare rahenge’ as well as Geeta, it is Geeta’s that haunts us:
‘Nazar dhoondhati thi jise pa liya hai
Ummeedon ke phoolon se daman bhara hai
Ye din humko sab din se pyaare rahenge…’
This Geeta-Hemant Kumar duet from ‘Shart’ had entranced me at that time. It’s hard to believe that this soft, sentimental song was written by the same lyricist who wrote songs like ‘Kajra mohabbatwala, ankhiyon mein aisa dala, kajre ne le li meri jaan’ for O.P.Nayyar – S.H.Bihari. Even today, when I hear ‘Na ye chand hoga’ my mind is troubled by the memory of an unknown lover.A piece of news I’d read long ago buried in the inner pages of a newspaper. A broken-hearted young man, unsuccessful in love, committed suicide by throwing himself in front of a train. In his pocket was found a piece of paper addressed to the girl he’d loved. It bore only the following lines:
‘Zamana agar kuch kahe bhi to kya
Magar tum na kehna humein bewafa
Tumhare liye hai, tumhare rahenge
Na ye chand hoga, na taare rahenge
Magar hum hamesha tumhare rahenge…’

Then there was Geeta’s sweet love song with Hemant Kumar from ‘Shrimatiji’ – ‘Do naina tumhare pyare pyare, gagan ke tare karein ye ishaarein, dil dil se milayenge’. And the duet in ‘Hum Bhi Insaan Hai’ which she’d sung with Subir Sen, whose voice resembled Hemant Kumar’s, - ‘Gori tore natkhat naina, vaar karein, chhup jaayein...’
In Hemant Kumar’s ‘Sahib, Bibi Aur Ghulam’ ‘chhoti bahu’ Meena Kumari’s mute suffering found an outlet in Geeta’s voice – the poignant voice of a lonely woman who has waited long…far too long:
‘Jiya bujha bujha, naina thake thake…
Piya dheere dheere chale aao…
Koi door se awaaz de, chale aao…chale aao…chale aao…chale aao…’
Meena, adorning, anointing herself to win the love of her fickle, adulterous husband:
‘Piya aiso jiya mein samay gayo re
Ki main tan-man ki sudhbudh ganwaay baithee…
Har aahat pe samjhi wo aaye gayo re
Jhat ghunghat mein mukhda chhupa baithee…’
Meena realizing that even drinking alcohol at his behest has failed to stop him:
‘Na jao saiyan chhudake baiyan
Kasam tumhari main ro padoongi…’
In both the early and the latter parts of Geeta’s career the songs she recorded for S.D.Burman became popular.Her songs from ‘Pyaasa’ and ‘Kagaz Ke Phool’, both Guru Dutt films with music by S.D.Burman, could be heard everywhere.After all these years I still feel like humming Geeta’s song from Burman’s ‘Pyaar’ starring Raj Kapoor and Nargis. Nargis sings this song on her way to an assignation with raj:
‘Aa gayee re aa gayee
Banke ki ranee aa gayee’
Geeta’s voice brims with enthusiasm and ecstasy. Her dreamy tone said it all – ‘Wo sapnewali raat, milan ki raat kabhi to aayegi…’. As an aside, in ‘Pyaar’ Kishore gave playback for Raj Kapoor. He’d sung a sad song:’Mohabbat ka chhotasa aashiana, kisine banaya, kisine mitaya…’. In Burman’s ‘Sujata’ Geeta had sung ‘Bachpan ke din bhi kya din the’ (with Asha) and ‘Nanhi pari sone chali’. Her ‘Aan milo, aan milo’ from ‘Devdas’ was unforgettable. And Asha-Geeta’s conversational duet of two friends who’ve divined each other’s secret, written by Shailendra for ’Insaan Jaag Utha’:
‘Jaanu jaanu re kahe khanke hai tora kangana
Main bhi jaanu re chupke kaun aaya tore angana’
In ‘Pyaasa’ Waheeda sings as if to mesmerise Guru Dutt:
‘Jaane kya tune kahi, jaane kya maine suni
Baat kuch ban hi gayee…’
The allure, the solicitation in Geeta’s voice and Burman’s creativity in using Chinese blocks made this song distinctive.And Geeta’s mischievousness in her duet with Rafi – Rafi would ask ‘Hum aapki aankhon mein is dil ko basa de to’? To which Geeta would reply ‘Hum moond ke palkon ko is dil ko saja de to’? And the same Geeta entreating her beloved to shower her with love to soothe the ache in her heart, to quench the fire in her body:
‘Aaj sajan mohe ang laga lo…’
After ‘Pyaasa’ came ‘Kagaz Ke Phool’ – another lyrical film. Like ‘Pyaasa’, ‘Kagaz Ke Phool’ too was unforgettable.And even if one somehow managed, with great effort, to forget everything else about it, how could one forget Geeta’s
‘Waqt ne kiya kya haseen sitam
Tum rahe na tum, hum rahe na hum’
Two minds passionately drawn towards each other, yet unaware of what they seek, of their destination, knitting dreams with each breath…
‘Jaayenge kahaan soojhta nahin, chal pade magar rasta nahin
Kya talash hai kuch pata nahin
Bun rahein hai dil khwab dum-ba-dum
Waqt ne kiya kya haseen sitam…’

To be continued.

The pen goes dry

2007-01-16T12:30:00.000+05:30

I long for your cooling embrace
After the relentless flames of the world
Give me repose, Mother Ganga, for I come to your arms as ashes
Increasingly irksome was the mortal garb
And the silken ties too tight

The skein has unravelled
And I am one with the sky and the stars
Those symbols of eternity;
Have left behind mortal playmates, fickle emotions...

My pen sobs
And I lack the courage to speak the truth
To let it know
That it has finally run dry, and I, empty
Words fail me, like the 'Brahmastra', at vital moments
Perhaps I, too, carry the curse
Of some Bhargava ?

A free verse translation of my Marathi ghazal.

Manhood

2007-01-15T23:39:00.000+05:30

Every morning the headlines flaunt
The rising graph of our hallowed, ancient culture
And provide statistical confirmation
Of the collective manhood
Of a bogey full of passengers;
Of the protectors' unshakeable indolence
Of unabashed justifications, of corrupted lives

Soon, far too soon
The dust settles
The reporters move on
Then is declared the official price
Of outraged modesty
Then stands tall and proud the maze
Of hospitals, police stations,
Blind, deaf, impotent courts
In which are condemned wounds
Never to heal
And the wounded
To endure the curse of life

I click my tongue in empathy
Sipping my steaming cup of tea
Then, turning the page, focus on
The alluring barely-clads of Page Three...

A free translation of my Marathi poem 'Purushaarth'.

Tum hi kaho karenge kya yaad jo humko aaoge - 2

2006-12-24T10:25:00.000+05:30

Translated from ‘Geet-Yatree’ by the late Shri Madhav Moholkar. The responsibility for any errors in translation is entirely mine.

Hazy memories of many songs play around in my mind. I feel they’re related to Geeta…but it’s difficult to be certain. ‘Door se ek pardesi aaya, poochho kya kya laya’ was one of Geeta’s songs from that era which I used to like a lot. I can still remember the tune. But which film was it from? Was it Geeta who sang with Rafi the duet ‘Kyon karta maan jawani ka, tu ek bulbula paani ka’ in Husnlal-Bhagatram’s ‘Naach’? Sometimes I remember ‘Tera kaaton se hai pyar, tera kaaton se…’- was it a Rafi-Geeta duet from Anil Biswas-C.Ramchandra’s ‘Girls’ School’? Was one stanza in ‘Kya bataoon mohabbat hai kya’ from Shankar-Jaikishan’s ‘Parbat’ sung by Geeta? My old like-minded friends are no longer around to answer these questions.

I would grieve over meaningless things which seemed, then, to matter far more than the everyday troubles of real life. Why doesn’t Naushad give Geeta Roy 12-14 songs in a music-oriented film? He’d done it time and again for many singers keeping in mind the characteristics and limitations of their voices.Those songs, those singers never faded from people’s memories. Saigal, Surendra, Umadevi, Talat, Mukesh, Rafi, Lata…Geeta should have figured on that list.If only Geeta had sung in at least one of Naushad’s films…A doubt rears its head sometimes: One stanza of Suraiya-Shyamkumar’s ‘Tu mera chand main teri chandni’ from “Dillagi” is picturised on a little girl on a swing.Her voice resembled Geeta’s.Was it Geeta’s?
Basically Geeta had a typical Bengali voice, born to sing soulful songs in Bengali tunes. Monochromatic.Playback singing converted it into a multi-coloured rainbow.Once, when I was newly acquainted with Geeta’s voice, I was fooled.I heard Madan Mohan’s ‘Mori atariya pe kagaa bole’ from ‘Aankhen’ and was convinced that it was sung by Geeta.But when, immediately afterwards I heard “Humein chhod piya kis des gaye’ which was on the other side of the record, I realized my mistake.’Mori atariya pe’ was definitely not Geeta’s voice though there was some resemblance.The singer was Meena Kapoor.She had a decent voice but blunt as compared to Geeta’s.The same was the case with Sandhya Mukherjee.Geeta Roy’s voice was sharp and ‘shiny’. In the words of the poet Grace ‘…the silken, gleaming knife blade of Geeta Roy’s voice…’so sharp and fine that it could effortlessly pierce one’s heart. I can’t say why but the stanza ‘har raat meri Diwali thi, main piya ki honewali thi’ from ‘Mera sundar sapna beet gaya’ creates the illusion of Ameerbai Karnataki.
In the early stages of her career, only Geeta’s sad songs used to be heard everywhere.A voice that spoke of the pain and hopelessness of life.It seemed to be a limitation of that voice. It seemed that she would keep singing the same sort of songs. Of course, every singer has limitations. I still remember that when I was young I used to feel that Talat was singing the same song again and again.Would the same happen with Geeta? ‘Mera sundar sapna beet gaya’, ‘Ek din humko yaad karoge’, and ‘Piya lautke aana bhool gaye’ from ‘Do Bhai’ were essentially of the same type.It seemed that Geeta would keep singing within this limited perimeter.But Geeta was to prove everybody wrong!

There was a Muslim boy in my school who used to wear a bright red shirt, white trousers, and a green handkerchief around his neck.When he spoke of someone with affection he’d call him ‘salaa’. About Geeta he’d complain,”Saali gaati acchha hai par roti bahut hai”(She sings well but cries a lot). He was a great fan of Shamshad Begum and Zohra and was very fond of Zohra’s songs like ‘Saamnewali gali mein mera ghar hai, pataa mera bhool na jaana’, ‘Mere jobana ka dekho ubhaar’, ‘Mera husn lootne aaya albela’. When Shamshad gave jhatkas on words like ‘wui ma’, ‘hai daiyya’, ‘hai ram’, he’d put his hands on his heart and exclaim “hai, hai”! On hearing Chitalkar’s ‘Jawani ki rail chali jaaye re’ he’d lose all self-control and emit ear-splitting whistles. Once he came running to my class during recess, grabed my wrist and said “Chal(come)”. Without bothering to answer my “Where?” he dragged me to Jikriya restaurant and told the man at the counter, “Woh naya record lagao!(Play that new record)” Well pleased with confused expression on my face as I Listened to the song, he said,”Abe saaley, ye wohi hai teri ronewaali!”(She's the same one, your crying singer.)
Geeta was singing in a seductive voice – Time is rapidly passing, love and beauty are transient.Youth is short, laugh and enjoy it.

“Husn bhi faani aur ishq bhi faani hai
hanske bitaale, do ghadi ki jawani hai
o re jeenewaale, o re bholebhaale, sona na, khona na
suno gajar kya gaaye, samay gujarta jaaye…”

It was hard to believe that this was the same Geeta who’d sung ‘Ek din humko yaad karoge’ and ‘Mera sundar sapna beet gaya’. This was the start of a new era in Geeta’s career.Her voice acquired a heady, intoxicating quality. It became increasingly apparent that Geeta’s voice was alluring, provocative, sensual.The same S.D.Burman who had recognized the pain in Geeta’s voice and given her sad songs in ‘Do Bhai’ recognized her sensuality and gave her the club dancer’s songs in ‘Baazi’. But the one who later made full use of the sex-appeal in her voice was O.P.Nayyar. Geeta’s voice – a heady brew of teasing flightiness, youth and intoxication - often reminds me of Neeraj’s lines: ‘Shokhiyon mein ghola jaaye phoolon ka shabab, usmein phir milayee jaaye thodisi sharab…’
She was a little younger than Lata.Both arrived on the scene at about the same time. Yet, unlike Lata, right from the start Geeta seemed to be in full bloom. The voices of Zohra, Shamshad, Rajkumari, Ameerbai, Noorjehan, Suraiya, and Surinder Kaur were the mature voices of women.Geeta’s voice, too, was that of a young woman.In Lata, for the first time, was heard the sweet, coaxing, tender voice of a girl.That voice so bewitched everyone that the few new female voices that entered films thereafter were of the same type – Suman Hemmady, Asha Bhosle, Sudha Malhotra, Madhubala Jhaveri, Hemlata, Sulakshana Pandit…Asha’s voice had Shamshad’s sharpness and Geeta’s allure but the type was that of Lata.After all these years Lata’s voice still sounds like a girl’s: smoother and more polished now, with the passage of time, but having lost its earlier softness and vulnerability.
Lata ruled our hearts for years but our love for Geeta never lessened, such was the enchantment of her eternally youthful voice. Lata was sugar, Geeta, sometimes sweet and sometimes spicy. Her voice wasn’t flat; it had depth. Compared to Lata’s it was multi-dimensional. It was changeable, flexible; with the ability to assume any form.Geeta sang ‘Baat chalat nayee chunari rang dali…’ so well that if she hadn’t entered films she could have become a singer to rival Lakshmi Shankar. Was classical music the true form of her voice? But then she’d suddenly become a ‘Jogan’ and sing ‘Main to Giridhar ke ghar jaaon…’
Who wrote that sublime story of a Yogini and the discontented, atheistic young man who created ripples in her quiet life? As I recollect, the film’s credits had a question mark after ‘Story’. Many say that the story of ‘Jogan’ was written by Sardar Chandulal Shah. Dilip Kumar and Nargis’ scenes are still imprinted on my mind. Bulo C.Rani’s music served to enhance the intensity of the film.I liked Talat’s ‘Sundarta ke sabhi shikari, koi nahin hai pujari…’ but the atmosphere of the entire film was permeated with Geeta’s voice.Eyes filled with the kohl of dark clouds and the heart with their thunder…
‘Zara tham ja tu ai sawan…
Mere sajan ko aane de...aane de…aane de…’
I used to like Juthika Roy as a bhajan singer.But her voice tended to sound monotonous. The first time in my life that I was overcome with emotion was when I heard Kabir and Meera in Geeta’s voice.In ‘Jogan’ Geeta’s voice was ethereal, glowing with the touch of the divine, with a mystical spiritual force.
‘Main to Giridhar ke ghar jaaoon
Giridhar mharo sacho preetam
Dekhat roop lubhaooon…’
Her singing was a revelation of the sweetness of love and worship.The eternal love of Meera and Krishna…without him there was not a moment of peace for her:
‘Meri unki preet purani
Un bin kal na paoon…
Main to Giridhar ke ghar jaaoon…’
Geeta had submerged herself in Meera’s ‘sagun’ worship.With equal ease and devotion she sang Kabir’s mystical ‘nirgun’ song:
‘Suney mandir, suney mandir diya jalake
Asan se mat dol re, tohe piya milenge…’
Singing these lines, she created an illusion of the forlorn emptiness of an ancient, vast, cavernous, deserted temple.Bulo C.Rani’s mastery of his craft is shown in his use of not just the sitar but the veena too, as accompaniment.The strings of the sitar dance softly in ‘Main to giridhar ke ghar jaaoon’; in ‘Mat ja, mat ja…’ their solemn resonance creates an atmosphere of frightening silence, of a great tragedy which has just happened before our very eyes. The heart-rending echoes of Geeta’s ‘Jogi’ would pierce the soul, bring tears to the eye.
‘Prem-bhakti ko panth hi nyaaro, humko gail bata ja
Jogi, humko gail bata ja
Chandan ki main chita rachaoon, apne haath jala ja
Mat ja, mat ja, jogi, paon padoon main tore’
This was the destiny of ‘prem-bhakti’! ‘I’ve burnt to ashes. At least anoint yourself with my ash before leaving.’ Those pleas were to fall on deaf ears.He would not remain.Neither did Geeta.
Nargis starred in ‘Jogan’ and Madhubala in ‘Sangdil’.She was a ‘Devdasi’ forbidden to marry.But the suffering, besotted youth in both films was the same – Dilip Kumar. He ‘lived’ both the roles. In ‘Sangdil’ as in ‘Jogan’, the Devdasi sang in Geeta’s voice:
‘Darshan pyaasi aai dasi, jagmag deep jalaye…’
‘Darshan pyasi’ Geeta, in ‘Pyaasa’ thirsts, at a spiritual level, for the embrace of her beloved:
‘Aaj sajan mohe ang lagalo, janam safal ho jaaye
Hriday ki peeda, deh ki agni, sab sheetal ho jaaye…’
Again and again I wonder: Which was the real Geeta? The yogini in white, ektaari(a single-stringed instrument) in hand, completely immersed in devotion, or, the half-naked seductive, intoxicating vamp? The Geeta who introduces herself as ‘Mera naam Chin Chin Chu’ or the one singing ‘Jai Jagdish Hare’? The one who sings ‘Tora manwa kyon ghabraye re, lakh deen dukhiyaare praani jag mein mukti paaye Ramji ke dwar se’ to reassure the frightened, disturbed mortal standing at the temple door, or the Geeta encouraging him to write his destiny with his own hands: ‘Tadbeer se bigdi hui taqdeer bana le, apne pe bharosa hai to ye daav laga le’?

To be continued.

"Can I help you, Sir?" or How I purchased a DVD player and lived to tell the tale.

2006-12-22T12:37:00.000+05:30

It had been over a year since my DVD player went on strike. It was an old model, a Pioneer DV626 I'd purchased around 1998. How ancient, even antiquated, it was can be gauged from the fact that it couldn't play mp3s! No DVD player could, in those Dark Ages.But it was absolutely wonderful at its job, with top-notch audio and video reproduction. But in early 2005 it started acting up and by mid-2005, whatever disc I inserted into it, DVD, VCD,audio CD, scratched, in good condition or virginal, fresh from the box,it would, with total disinterest, display "NO DISC".Extending Adam Smith's "laissez faire" philosophy to consumer electronics, I ignored both it and the family's howls of protest, in the belief that it would heal itself.

A full year of electronic (and fiscal) conservatism down the line, the sleeping dog (in this case, DVD player) continued its impersonation of Rip van Winkle.My better half, and our teen-aged collaboration no longer howled but subsided into regular nagging. It was when the wife threatened to supplement the nagging with denial of privileges ( Stop snigerring, it was food I meant.) that I decided to take a more activist approach. Picking up the old, unco-operative box ( Cool down,ladies. I said box, not hag.) I took it to a Sales & Service Centre. "Can I help you, Sir?", a young shop assistant said in a tone of voice which clearly belied the words. Having been forced to suspend his tête-a-tête with sweet young co-worker to attend to me hadn't done his mood much good. "Could you repair this DVD player, please?", I asked. Learning that I only needed my player repaired and wasn't interested in purchasing anything did nothing to cheer him up. I left my player with him and he promised to ring me up in a couple of days. To his credit he kept his word. Two days later he called me up to inform me that the estimate for repairs was Rs.3500/-. Considering that new players were available on the market from Rs.1800/- onwards, this seemed to me to be a bit steep and I told him so. Not surprisingly, he agreed with me and promptly started his sales pitch. I went back to the shop, took my player back to my bosom, looked at the few models they had for sale, and left. The family lost no time in moving in for the kill. "Enough is enough" was the refrain. I was given a deadline by which a replacement had to be purchased. Or else!
The next day I set out on my quest. I walked into a nearby consumer electronics store. "Can I help you, Sir?" a PYT asked in dulcet tones. Inwardly cursing myself for having worn my holiday worst, I put on my best smile and said that I was interested in purchasing a DVD player. She beckoned to an underling and said, "Show Uncle the DVD section." I came down to earth with a thud. "These are the DVD players, Sir", the assistant said, gesturing vaguely towards the rear of the store. "Could you show me,please? And I'd like some details, some specifications." "The prices are mentioned on each player", he replied. I gestured towards the nearest one."Tell me something about this one." Pat came the reply,"It plays DVDs, Sir." "Wow, and I thought it makes coffee and vacuums the room!" I nearly said but restrained myself. "Does it play anything else?" "DVDs, VCDs, MP3, everything.", he recited like a waiter in an Udipi restaurant. "Which DVD formats does it support?", I asked. A simple enough question to someone trying to sell DVD players, you'd think. It turned out not to be so.The bored and supercilious expression on his face faded, to be replaced by a puzzled look that clearly spelled "Duh". "Formats", I repeated, continuing my attack. "It plays MP3s, Sir", he finally replied with a determined, "Put that in your pipe and smoke it!" look on his face. It was a challenge I was unequal to and, thanking him with as much politeness as I could muster, I left. The story repeated itself with minor variations at the second, third and fourth shops I visited.At the fifth a tie-bedecked pip-squeak condescendingly informed me that they only sold Home Theatre systems and not stand-alone DVD players. He then proceeded to look at me from head to toe with undisguised contempt and his face said clearly what he didn't put into words - that his shop was not for cheapskates like me. At that stage I was on the point of throwing in the towel. Only the thought of the fate which awaited me at home if I returned empty-handed kept me going. The next shop proved itself a shade better. "Formats"? was confidently met with Dolby Digital, DTS, MP3,WMA,Divx, DVD, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW. He'd mixed up hardware, software and encoding but I'd at least got the information I was looking for. Heaving a sigh of relief I brought out my next question - "Does it have optical output or co-axial or both?" Pat came the answer,"You've to connect it to your amplifier, Sir." I clenched my teeth, slowly counted to ten and asked,"Yes, but with what?". "With a wire, Sir", he said with the air of a long-suffering teacher trying to drill something into the head of a particularly obtuse student. Chastened,I moved on to shop number seven with somewhat better results.The salesman there seemed to understand. "Just a minute, Sir, I'll check." He then proceeded to turn the display piece around and peered at the connections at the rear. Co-axial was the answer. Final question ( As a matter of fact,I'd listed many more but decided not to press my luck too far.): Is it region-free? A correct answer here and my travails were over. 'Twas not to be. "Compatible with HDTV? Region-free? Er..What's that?" Evidently I hadn't quite finished paying for my past sins.The fates weren't done with me yet. It was at shop number thirteen that I finally attained moksha (salvation). All the earlier questions were answered. Some confidently, some after consultations, hesitantly, but they were answered. "HDMI?" "Of course." Region-free?" "It's region-coded, Sir, but we'll unlock it for you before delivery.In fact we can do it for you right away. Would you like to buy it, Sir?" Sir would. He brought up a boxed piece for me, opened and connected it, and used the remote control to make it region-free. I asked for the code in case it got region locked again by accident, a very real possibility in a household with a remote-happy teenager. "Sorry, Sir, we can't tell you that. It's confidential." I got the impression that I was asking for the keys to the Treasury! "But what if it locks up again?", I pleaded with him. To no avail. He was unmoved, unbending only enough to say,"Call us if that ever happens.We'll unlock it for you again." Weary in spirit and body, I bought it, came home, Googled for the hack and found it in three minutes. I've now connected the player, slipped in one of my favourite movies, fixed myself a long, strong drink, kicked off my slippers, and put my sore, aching feet up. Please do not disturb!

Manmohan Singh throws off his mask

2006-12-10T16:14:00.000+05:30

The mask is off.Officially. Manmohan Singh has now gone public with what had so far only been suspected by many of us Indians. I quote,

"They (Muslims) must have the first claim on resources."

We Hindus are back to being second-class citizens in our own country, The minorities (read Muslims) have priority in everything - the country's resources, education, wealth, opportunities - everything. If any of us had dared to say this aloud before yesterday, the pseudo-secularists would have shouted him down. There would have been howls of protests from the Left and the Congress and the person who said it would have been labelled immediately as a "rabid Hindu, fascist, fanatic, communalist, obscurantist, etc. etc." And these are only the printable names he would have been called. But the cat is now out of the bag. The Prime Minister of India, no less, the Honourable Manmohan Singh,has declared in a public speech that the minorities take priority. Period.At one stroke fifty-nine years of independence have come to nought and we Hindus are back to being what we were for a thousand years before 1947 - inconsequential slaves about whom the rulers do not care two hoots. We are back to the days of Aurangzeb and the hated 'jizia' tax. Once again, to be born a Hindu in India is a crime.

Yet again, it is our own fault. We elected a government where the power behind the throne is a Catholic foreigner, the figurehead Prime Minister is a Sikh and the President, a Muslim. We were gullible enough to believe that this was a symbol of our 'tolerance', our 'secularism', our 'assimilative culture'. We proved that we have learnt nothing from the multiple Muslim invasions of our land, from centuries of Muslim and British rule, from Mir Jaffar and Plassey. We continued to bury our heads in the sand. Like the Bourbons, we have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing.We continued to be our own worst enemies, to fiddle while our hard-won independence was undermined. It is our somnolence, our refusal to stand up for our rights, our pusillanimity that has emboldened Mr.Manmohan Singh to go public with his government's so far hidden anti-majority agenda.
The response to this most outrageous of statements by the Prime Minister has been even more shocking. The television news channels, otherwise always on the hunt for 'Breaking news', have barely mentioned it in passing, devoting far more time to the latest film gossip. The newspaper I read,DNA, had a front page headline and article about how the corporate world is unable to find good CEOs. Manmohan's missile was hidden away on page 7. Blink and you'll miss it.The channels have no time for serious issues and are slaves to TRPs.The print media is in the hands of Leftists and government toadies.The internet and the blogosphere is probably our last chance. Let us at least raise our voices of protest here. Before they are silenced forever.

Tum hi kaho karenge kya yaad jo humko aaoge - 1

2006-12-07T16:23:00.000+05:30

Translated from ‘Geet-Yatree’ by the late Shri Madhav Moholkar. The responsibility for any errors in translation is entirely mine.

I saw and heard Geeta for the last time on the night of ‘Yaad-e-Shakeel’.I little imagined then that it was to be her final concert in my life. I’d previously heard her sing in 4-5 programmes. She always sang with great feeling, whether it was a heart-rending song or a flighty, light-hearted one. At Yaad-e-Shakeel, apart from Geeta many others sang - Rafi, Mukesh, Mahendra Kapoor, Ravi, Chandru... But the queen of the night was, undoubtedly, Lata.Everyone’s attention was centred on her. Most of the audience was eager to hear her sing. On the stage, everyone danced attendance on her. When she was to sing the musicians would be alert, the music director would stand and conduct the orchestra. She’d come and sing like an empress. For Geeta there was no orchestra, no one on stage bustling about, no thunderous welcoming applause. She slowly walked onto the stage, pulled up a harmonium and started to sing. Slightly disarranged hair, sad face, eyes filled with pathos - she’d intermittently shut them while singing - and that huge Shanmukhanand Hall filled with her extra-ordinary, sad voice:

'Aankhon mein noor, dil mein ujale nahin rahein
jalwe wohi hain, dekhnewale nahin rahein '

Geeta poured her soul into the song but I wonder how many hearts that non-film ghazal of Shakeel’s touched that night. For there were no cries of ‘Once more’ as there had been for Lata and Rafi.Looking at her, she didn’t seem to be singing for anyone but herself. In the same pathos-laden voice and with eyes shut, she started singing another one of Shakeel’s songs:
'Koi door se awaaz de, chale aao..., chale aao...’

For a second, it didn’t seem to be a human voice at all. It was the cry of a tormented soul roaming the skies. Geeta never could sing with her throat. It was her soul that sang. Those words coming from the depths of the unknown: ‘Chale aao...chale aao...’
Who was calling her from afar?
After that I never saw her again. But one night, having dozed off while lying in the dark listening to the radio, I woke up with a start. The radio was still playing and in the dark I could hear Geeta sing:

'Koi chupke se aake, sapne sulake, mujhko jagake bole
ke main aa raha hoon...’

It’d been ages since I’d heard a new song of Geeta’s.It felt as if my past had returned. Perhaps the hope that Geeta was living on would be fulfilled after all. Who could say? Hadn’t a miracle happened in Kishore Kumar’s case.Geeta had said: Everyone ran after Kishore Kumar once two of his songs from Aradhana became hits, otherwise it was only Burmandada (S.D.) who had any time for him? If two of my songs become hits, it might be the same with me.
It was not to be. Miracles don’t happen in everyone’s life. One day, with great determination, she broke all the bonds, not just to the film world but to the real one as well. Leaving behind for us:
'Ek din hamko yaad karoge...’
The same emotive voice...I was running to school one hot and sunny morning. I’d barely reached McConkey Chowk when, from behind, came the words:
'Tadpoge, fariyaad karoge,
ek din hamko yaad karoge...’
I quietly turned back and went and stood outside Usmania restaurant. The first time I received a caning from the Headmaster for being late to school was for Geeta Roy. Before classes commenced, we’d shut the classroom doors and sing in chorus the songs of those days...'Ek din hamko yaad karoge’.No one who sang in that chorus will have forgotten Geeta in the hurly-burly of dreary, routine existence. To forget her is to forget one’s own past, to forget oneself. Had I known she would depart so suddenly, I’d have reminded her of her song from Savera:

'Aankhon se door jaake bhi dil se na jaane paoge
tum hi kaho karenge kya yaad jo hamko aaoge’

Geeta didn’t have to plead with anyone to get a chance to sing in films. Her magical voice brought the film world to her doorstep. One day as she was singing in her house, a noted music director of that time, Shri Hanuman Prasad was walking down that street. Hearing her voice, he could go no further. He turned back and found the house the song was emanating from. A slim, dark girl was sitting with her back to the door, singing, lost to the world. Impressed, Hanuman Prasad took her father’s permission to use Geeta as a playback singer - and Geeta sang her first song in ‘Bhakt Prahlad’ under his baton.
The (then) young music director S.D.Burman, saw indications of his future success in that voice. His film ‘Shikari’ had had good songs but they hadn’t become as popular as Naushad’s songs from ‘Ratan’.He was convinced that if this 15-16 year old girl was to sing for him, his songs would be hits. So, brushing aside the established singers of the era like Shamshad, Zohra, Rajkumari, & Ameerbai, he insisted on using Geeta’s voice for ‘Do Bhai’, going to the extent of fighting with Filmistan’s Rai Bahadur Chunilal, to do so. His confidence turned out to be fully justified. Geeta brought him unprecedented success. Her songs were on everyone’s lips through the length and breadth of Hindustan:

'Mera sundar sapna beet gaya...
main prem mein sab kuch haar gayee, bedard zamana jeet gaya...
Mera sundar sapna beet gaya...’

A friend who was studying in a college in Lucknow at that time said that in those days even the ‘kothas’ of the ‘tawaifs’ would resonate with ‘Mera sundar sapna beet gaya...’ rather than the usual thumris and ghazals.
I liked a song of Rafi’s from ‘Do Bhai’: ‘Duniya mein meri aaj andhera hi andhera...Bhagwan kahaan hai meri kismatka sitara...’ But Geeta’s were the songs to achieve great popularity - ‘Ek din hamko yaad karoge’, ‘Hamein chhod piya kis des gaye, piya lautke aana bhool gaye’, and ‘Mera sundar sapna beet gya’.Her incorrect short enunciation of the long ‘bhoo’ in ‘piya laut ke aana bhool gaye’ jarred, but, the prolonged ‘bee’ in ‘Mera sundar sapna beet gaya’ conveyed effectively and with great feeling the sadness, the distress at the fact that everything was ended,finished, , that it would never return.”Sapna toot gaya’ was common in film songs, but ‘sapna beet gaya’ had never been heard before or since. I was used to reading ‘din beet gaya’ but, even at that young age, I could appreciate the poetry in ‘sapna beet gaya’.The lyricist was Raja Mehdi Ali Khan, who’d come to Mumbai to become an actor, had even essayed a role in ‘Aath Din’. But from ‘Do Bhai’ onwards he came to the fore as a lyricist. His touching verse must be given its due share of credit for the success of the music of ‘Do Bhai’ along with S.D.Burman’s music and Geeta’s singing.
Ghulam Haider was the music director of the Dilip Kumar-Kamini Kaushal film ‘Shaheed’ in which Lalita Deolkar had sung ‘Bachpan ki yaad dheere dheere pyar ban gayee’, and Surinder Kaur had sung ‘Badnaam na ho jaye mohabbat ka fasana’, Hum tumko na payenge, tum humko na paoge’, and ‘Taqdeer ki aandhi aisi chali, kashti se kinara chhoot gaya’. But it was in Geeta’s voice that Raja Mehdi Ali Khan’s words found true expression:

‘Main do din ki mehmaan piya
mohe chhod chale hain pran piya, pranpiya
aaya gham ka ek toofan piya, pranpiya
hai deepak banker kaanp rahe hain pran hamare
main to bisaroon balma, mera dil na bisare…’

To watch a dying Kamini Kaushal sing ‘hai deepak banker kaanp rahe hain pran hamare…’ in Geeta’s helpless tone was an agonising experience. She looks down from the balcony (or window?) at the funeral procession of her lover, a freedom-fighter who has given his life for the country, and collapses. Chandramohan was last seen in this film. If memory serves me right, Geeta also sang in Ghulam Haider’s ‘Majboor’. That film had one of Lata’s earliest songs ‘Ab darneki koi baat nahin, angrezi chhora chala gaya…’. I vaguely remember some discrete lines of Geeta’s songs – ‘meri bagiya mein phool khile’, ‘jab nain se nain mile’, ‘main to rah gayee aaj akeli re…’
Apart from Ghulam Haider, among the earlier generation of music directors, Geeta also sang in Shyamsundar’s ‘Actress’, which starred Rehana and Shyam.Rehana later went to Pakistan and the handsome Shyam fell from a horse while shooting for ‘Shabistan’ and died. I remember three songs from ‘Actress’ – First Rafi’s ‘Ai dil meri aahon mein itna to asar aaye, jab aankh khule unki tasveer nazar aaye’, second, the Rafi-Shamshad duet ‘Dheere dheere bol, bol mohabbatwale bol’, and third, the Shamshad –Geeta duet

‘Aankhon aankhon mein dil se dil ki baatein keh gaye…’
Hum tadapte hain ke armaan dil ke dil mein rah gaye…’

Shamshad’s, the joyful voice of a woman whose eyes have conveyed her love, while Geeta’s had all the pathos of one whose feelings remained unsaid.
Khemchand Prakash’s ‘Jaanpehchaan’ had songs by Geeta, Talat and Shankar Dasgupta. I saw that film many times.Not just the songs, even the background music of ‘Jaanpehchaan’ was wonderful.The film itself, however, was over-romantic, unrealistic, and filled with inconsistencies.But I was at an age when any reason would suffice to see a film over and over again – a song, a particular scene, dialogues, background music, dances…Talat-Geeta’s sweet duet was on my lips for a long time:

'Armaanbhare dil ki lagan tere liye hain
Nagari mere jeevan ki sajan tere liye hai…
Loota hai mere dil ne mohabbat ka khazana
Jo teri kahani hai wohi mera fasana
Ye phool, ye khushboo, ye chaman tere liye hai…
Ye chand, ye dharti, ye gagan tere liye hai…'

To be continued...

"Alone"

2006-11-15T12:55:00.000+05:30

Edgar Allan Poe has always been one of my favourite author-poets. He appeals to me even more when I'm in a blue or sombre mood. Not being a Literature student I'm not sure if the adjective Gothic could be applied to his oeuvre but it's certainly dark and, often, macabre. He may not be everyone's cup of tea, especially in this 'fast-food' era where reflection and contemplation are often sneered at as outdated and a waste of time. Yet I, perhaps out of step with the modern world, remain defiantly attached to such writing. I reproduce below a poem of his which is one of my personal favourites : Alone.

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then—in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

As an aside, the last line was used by Ruth Rendell as the title of one of her best known murder mysteries, 'A Demon In My View'for which she won the Crime Writer's Association Gold Dagger award in 1976.

'Hu's ' Arunachal is it anyway?

2006-11-15T12:09:00.000+05:30

Just a few days before the Chinese President is due to arrive in India, the Chinese ambassador declares to a news channel that Arunachal Pradesh is a part of China. Typical of the Indian government, there is no strong condemnation of the statement, just a milksop statement that this is just a re-iteration of the known Chinese position. True, but the Chinese never shoot from the hip in diplomacy.This statement to the press at this juncture is a part of carefully thought-out strategy to raise the ante ahead of any negotiations that Hu Jintao may have with Manmohan Singh.We, on the other hand continue to stick to our time-honoured tradition of ad hocism and of dealing with issues only when they explode in our faces.

Pranab Mukherjee, the new Foreign Minister tried to put on a brave face in front of the cameras and said that the whole of Arunachal is a part of India and that there could be no exchange of populated areas. But the damage has already been done. The Chinese have succeeded in setting a cat among the pigeons. There has been no response from Manmohan or from the super-PM, Madame Italiano. The Indian Commies are scrambling for cover & wondering how they are going to justify this Chinese salvo. Till their Chinese masters dropped this bomb, these self-same Commies were pressurising the Indian government to allow Hu to address a joint session of the Indian Parliament, a privilege we hadn't extended even to George Bush! Karat, Yechury & company were also raising Cain because Chinese companies were not allowed to bid for projects in Indian ports or to invest in sectors like telecommunications, etc. for security reasons. Next, they'll want us to allow the Chinese and Pakistanis to design software for our armed forces and our intelligence agencies. After all, fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

Blog hacking - my new toy

2006-11-04T21:04:00.000+05:30

I've spent the last few days tinkering with my blog templates leaving me with no time to actually write anything. I've found the whole process absolutely fascinating and my better half assures me that I now resemble nothing so much as a child with a new toy.

I know nothing of HTML, CSS, style sheets and all the rest of the nuts and bolts of blog hacking. Fortunately there are some kind and talented people on the web who've created web-sites and blogs to help the rest of us tech-challenged bloggers. For fellow-ignorant but interested bloggers who wish to set their blogs firmly apart from the ho-hum standard Blogger templates , let me give a few links. Visit them and start beautifying your blogs. And ,hey, you can have fun doing it. Put those toy trains away for a while and start playing in your very own e-sand pit. Now where did I put that dratted trowel?

BlogU
Hackosphere
Beautiful Beta
Hoctro's Place
Mandarin Design

Heartbreaking but hardly surprising

2006-10-31T00:40:00.000+05:30

The result of the India-Australia match on 29th October could hardly be said to be unexpected. The Aussies, though an increasingly ageing side and no longer invincible, are still the strongest team in world cricket. The Indians, on current form, probably rank just above Zimbabwe, Bangladesh and England.
To any objective observer of the game (unfortunately that seems to rule out a huge percentage of Indian fans) the Indian team's decline in the last 8-10 months has been obvious. Yet, ostrich-like, the great Indian cricket-loving public continued, till yesterday, to bury their collective heads in the sand. After every defeat the captain would claim that 'the boys' had done their best, winning isn't everything, etc. etc. Before the start of each match he'd claim that they'd put the past behind them. Regrettably the past seems to have other ideas and is currently clinging to Dravid & co. like a limpet or a long-lost brother.
Since every cricket-loving Indian has either seen the game on the idiot-box or has read all about it in today's newspaper, I'll skip the match details. (Nobody's paying me to do a report on the match!) Rather, I'd like to put to the blogosphere at large a few questions which have been nagging me since the game ended.

1)How many members of the Indian team were actually playing for India as opposed to playing to secure a spot on the South African tour? Kaif's stubborn refusal to play shots almost certainly forced Dravid to play the horrible stroke which cost him his wicket. Dinesh Mongia's prime concern seemed to be to get to 30-40 odd at any cost, no matter how long it took him. The less said about Raina the better. And while Dhoni managed a run a ball, he seems to forgotten how to hit boundaries. This is no longer the free-spirited Dhoni who used to wield his bat like a mace.

2)Can anyone remember when was the last time Sachin Tendulkar came good when the chips were down ?

3)Why was Kaif sent in to bat ahead of Dhoni when acceleration was the need of the hour?

4)Why does the Indian team always slow down to a near crawl between the twentieth and the fortieth overs thereby frittering away any advantage a good start may have given them? A propos the same point, why does every Greg, Dick and Harry in the support staff have a laptop if they can't do simple multiplication tables to work out when the batsmen should start putting their feet on the accelerator? Rocket science it isn't.

5)Why did the Indian team walk out to field believing it had already lost? Their body language made it obvious that they were simply going through the motions.

There are many more such questions but answers, frank answers, do not seem to be forthcoming. Meanwhile Indian cricket goes round in circles losing on the swings what we'd gained on the round-abouts. "Plus ça change, plus c'est la meme chose " which translates as "The more things change, the more things stay the same"

The Loneliness of the Long-Ignored Blogger

2006-10-23T02:02:00.000+05:30

I found this cartoon at the Geek and Poke blog. It expresses perfectly the feelings of millions of bloggers like me who spend their days waiting for and praying for visitors to their blog.

Friend, bloggers, and fellow manic-depressives - I come not to bury my blog but to praise it...though the stat-counter remains immobile; and the stat-counter is an honourable *#$@&^% little so-and-so. Unread bloggers of the blogosphere, unite. You have nothing to lose except your marbles. Sooner or later(usually later rather than sooner) you'll find your virgin blog gently deflowered by a stray comment. Hey, the guy got lucky. Till that ecstatic moment of fulfilment, carry on writing. And if doesn't happen, console yourself. It's not you. The world is full of barbarians and Philistines.

Champions' Trophy

2006-10-20T12:39:00.000+05:30

The Champions' Trophy is gathering steam now. Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, who owe their status as full members of the ICC purely to the value of their votes, having been bid a polite adieu, the real fights have begun.

Most of the matches so far have been keenly fought and not without their share of surprises. Pakistan, after all their recent travails, bested Sri Lanka. The New Zealanders beat the South Africans in a tense, low-scoring match. They deserved to win because they held their nerve better than the Proteas. The Australian juggernaut was halted in its tracks by a doughty West Indian performance. Despite losing four early wickets, Lara and Morton took them to a reasonable total. Their bowlers continued where these two had left off. Though the Windies do not have any bowlers who've been hyped up the media, unlike the Aussies ( if I hear any more about McGrath's 'nagging line and length' I'm going to scream!), they believed that they could win this one. Even when Gilchrist and Clarke were looking ominous, they stuck to their task manfully. And when they broke through that partnership, they broke through the Aussies' arrogant over-confidence. Taylor's hat-trick was the silver bullet that slew the werewolf.
To my mind the best feature of the matches so far has been that cricket has, once more, become an equal contest between the bat and the ball. Far, far too often these days the pitches are doctored to be dead as the dodos. The batsmen make merry and the bowlers resemble, more and more, helpless lambs who're led onto the field only to be slaughtered. It may make for a good carnival. Cricket, it isn't. Yet so used have the players got to these one-sided pitches, that as soon as they have to play on one where the bowlers have a fair chance, they start whingeing and whining, as Graeme Smith did after losing. Get real, Mr.Smith. Even in the gladiatorial arenas of ancient Rome, those thrown to the lions were given a few token weapons to defend themselves. In the ODIs the bowlers have none.

Bleak picture

2006-10-19T07:11:00.000+05:30

Now why does this picture give me an overpowering sensation of deja-vu ?

The Human Race - or Ostriches ?

2006-10-19T07:04:00.000+05:30

I'd rather not know, thank you very much! Now, where's my little patch of sand?

Pop goes the NPT

2006-10-10T16:14:00.000+05:30

So Kim Jong Il yesterday proved to the world what everyone knew anyway. The North Koreans have had the atomic bomb for some time now.

9th October 2006 was just the day they made it official. Yet all the big guns have suddenly started running around like headless chickens. The U.S., Japan, China, Russia, the E.U. all making the usual threatening but essentially meaningless noises. The funniest sight was John Howard, the Australian Prime Minister making bellicose statements in the Australian Parliament. Good show, John.I'll bet Kim and his friends were quaking in their boots. Psst, John, it isn't as easy as decimating the poor Aboriginals. Even the Americans couldn't win the Korean war, remember ?
The frustrated Americans can sabre-rattle all they want but the reality is that they can't do much.The military option was ruled out (unless the North Koreans themselves start a war) some years ago when it became evident that the Koreans had developed the bomb. Otherwise George W. would have invaded North Korea instead of Iraq.After all, it was numero uno in his 'Axis of Evil' comprising N.Korea, Iran and Iraq. Since the South Koreans and the Japanese would rather not have nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles raining down on them, Iraq seemed the easier option at the time. As for sanctions, there are already quite a few sanctions in place. N.Korea is economically in such bad shape that things can hardly get any worse for them. Not being burdened with the necessity of having to face elections as the free world knows them, the regime does not have to bother about public opinion. Media pressure pre-supposes the existence of independent media - again, something Kim doesn't have to lose any sleep over. Therefore, unless the U.S.A. can get China to turn off food and oil supplies to its recalcitrant ally there isn't much George and Condi can do but gnash their teeth. Perhaps John Howard got it right after all. Since there is nothing else to be done, chest-thumping at least gets a decent press !

ICC's 'Hair'oics - Between a rock and a hard place

2006-09-30T13:17:00.000+05:30

With Inboxes full of 'Hair'y puns (and SMSes galore) this is Hairdly the best time to be punny In zy humble opinion of this blogger. ( Yeah, that was a really pathetic one, wasn't it ? But, as Oscar Wilde famously said, "I can resist everything except temptation.") All right, nauseating jokes and puns aside, where do we go from here? If the ball wasn't tampered with, Hair and Doctrove made a gigantic blunder. It makes Hair's position on the Elite panel of umpires untenable. Other umpires before him have been booted off the panel for far lesser booboos. How long can the ICC continue to shield him? On the other hand, there are bound to be mutterings, especially from the Australian media and establishment, that the adjudicator and the ICC bowed to Asian money power and made Hair the scapegoat. The ICC's strange behaviour certainly lends credence to that view. It seems to want to run with the Hairs( sorry, hares) and hunt with the hounds. It wants to keep everybody happy - the Pakis and the rest of the Asians by proclaiming that there was no ball-tampering, and the white bloc by continuing to have Hair on the Elite panel. I wonder if they've heard of the phrase 'falling between two stools' ?

Cricket, Commentary, and Cliches

2006-09-26T16:31:00.000+05:30

Perhaps, with advancing age, I'm becoming less and less tolerant. These days, everytime I watch a cricket match on the idiot box, I find myself gnashing my teeth at the 'commentary'. Commentary, my eye. It's an unending stream of cliches, delivered with monotonous, clockwork regularity by the so-called experts. A few, one can put up with. They can even serve to spice the discussion. It's when they replace the discussion that the whole mish-mash becomes intolerable. Barring a few honourable exceptions, most of these 'commentators' could be replaced with a tape-recorder.Who would know the difference ? 'The pitch looks like it may do something early on', 'Concentrate on line and length', 'He needs to play himself in for a few overs', 'Running between the wickets is the key', 'Catches win matches'...I could go on and on but I need to go and puke.
These statements may all be true but every toddler in the country knows them by heart by now.That's not what you are being paid a packet for, guys. Could we have some insight, some analysis of the state of the game, the play, the players, please ? Yes, as I mentioned earlier, there are a few exceptions, a few who stand out in this morass of mediocrity. First, Richie Benaud - he defines, for me, what television cricket commentary is, or should be, all about. Sharp, witty, analytical and to the point. Geoffrey Boycott (barring his soft corner for Saurav Ganguly) - unafraid to call a spade a spade. A typical Yorkshireman with no patience for niceties and diplomatese. Michael Holding - once one get's used to his West Indian accent, his grasp of the finer points of the game, his strength-weakness analysis of the players and his in-depth knowledge of the art and science of fast bowling is impressive. Ian Chappel - a no-holds-barred Aussie who tells it the way he sees it. A shrewd cricketing brain combined with a very Australian in-your-face attitude, no respecter of reputations. Sunil Gavaskar makes it to this list - just ! He has everything going for him - knowledge, vast experience, clarity of thought & the ability to express himself well. He suffers from two major handicaps, however. One, he never forgets that he is Sunil Gavaskar and, consciously or unconsciously, this egotism seems to permeate and colour his obiter dicta. Secondly, he has a huge blind spot where Sachin Tendulkar is concerned, a fault he shares with over 90 % of Indian cricket-lovers . While this may be acceptable in an ordinary spectator, a commentator must be able to put his personal prejudices aside. Barry Richards - I've only heard him a few times but, on those occasions, his commentary seemed as classy as his batting used to be.
Those were the Oscars. Now for the rozzies. And the winner is ( no prizes for guessing correctly, I'm afraid.) - Ravi Shastri. The unquestioned, unchallenged king of cliches. What ails the man ? He was a fairly good player ( despite the golden Audi, I refuse to rate him any higher), he understands the game well, a fact which manages to sneak through his volley of cliches sometimes, he's good-looking with a personality to match, and fluent in English with the sort of rapid-fire, error-a-minute convent-educated fluency that passes for good English in India. Yet all he can produce is cliche-laden verbal garbage masquerading as expert analysis. Could someone take him aside and tell him that verbosity is no substitute for intellectual rigour? While you're at it, please, please tell him that the correct phrase is 'Rest assured' and not 'Be rest assured' ? In fact, ask him to give that phrase a rest altogether. In each fifteen minute stint of commentary he must be using it at least ten times, if not more. Skip it, Ravi, please. Now for a few others. Arun Lal - a more colourless commentator I've yet to see. A man who has nothing new to say and says it ad nauseum.
An unctuous, oily man who has no business being where he is, who spends his time with the microphone toadying up to Pawar ("Yes Sir, Yes Sir, You're absolutely right, Sir ", So nice of you to be here, Sir",We're deeply grateful to you, Sir"...) and to his white fellow comentators. L.Sivaramakrishnan - listen to him and you get the impression that's he's speaking in BLOCK CAPITALS all the time. Lighten up ,Siva. The Lankans - to a man the Sri Lankan commentators are biased, apart from being cliched, of course. The same can be said of the Pakistanis, barring Imran Khan. Rameez Raja has his moments. The others can be safely ignored.
Finally, I would like to clarify that all the above applies and refers only to ex-cricketers who have now turned to commentating and not to professional commentators (e.g. Harsh Bhogle) who are a breed on the road to extinction anyway.

Autumn lurks

2006-09-23T19:37:00.000+05:30

For some reason I've been depressed today. Outwardly normal yet not at peace with myself. I doubt if anyone noticed anything amiss in my behaviour for I've gone about the business of daily life much as usual. Yet I continuously felt as if I were a ghost, outside my body, standing beside it and watching, bemused, as it went through the rigmarole of existence - a surreal, out-of-body experience. I'd mentioned Landor in my last post.Today, another of his poems kept coming to mind again and again. Was it a reminder of mortality - if any was needed ?

The leaves are falling; so am I;
The few late flowers have moisture in the eye;
So have I too.
Scarcely on any bough is heard
Joyous, or even unjoyous, bird
The whole wood through.

Winter may come : he brings but nigher
His circle ( yearly narrowing ) to the fire
Where old friends meet.
Let him; now Heaven is overcast
And spring and summer both are past,
And all things sweet.

-Walter Savage Landor

It stinks !

2006-09-21T22:55:00.000+05:30

I watched the India-West Indies ODI yesterday and I'm still rubbing my eyes in disbelief. An incredible performance - by the West Indians! Normally I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories but this result was too much to swallow even for a die-hard India supporter. That the 'famed' Indian batting folded for 162 wasn't a surprise. Take away the media hype and there's nothing unusual about the Indian batsmen taking the day off every other match. But the West Indian capitulation stretches credibility beyond breaking point. Not to put too fine a point on it, a highly suspicious result. Two distinct possibilities spring to mind - one, that the match was fixed to ensure that India still has a chance to reach the finals ( I don't think anyone in his right mind expects them to beat Australia with a bonus point. It's going to be hard enough to defeat them anyway.) Two, that the West Indians deliberately tanked the match because they would rather face India in the finals than the Aussies. Brian Lara coming in at number nine, for God's sake! That puts even Wavell Hinds' tortoise act to shame. Sorry, Rahul and co., but this 'victory' sticks in my craw! Walter Savage Landor had said,

" I warmed both hands before the fire of life
It sinks and I am ready to depart"

My reaction to this match is to change one word from the second line :

'It stinks and I am ready to depart'

Hauled over the coals

2006-09-19T22:25:00.000+05:30

Having been hauled over the coals by R in my last post, I've now approached my blog with more than a little trepidation. It has been driven home to me that I've become mentally lazy as far as writing is concerned. In a sense that's understandable because prior to this blog there has been no critical scrutiny of my barbaric assaults on the Queen's language since I was in twelfth grade - which was so long ago that it's lost in the mists of time. But now, through those mists I can faintly discern my teachers reading my essays with furrowed brows and hear them clicking their collective tongues in disapproval. I must thank R for bringing back these long-forgotten memories. I must also make a mental note to be more rigorous in checking whatever I've written and not slothfully submit the first draft. Laugh, and the world laughs with you ( Did someone else really say that first? Great minds think alike.) Cock up and it kicks you on the a*** with malignant glee, and then proceeds to rub your face in mud.

My 'Form'al illiteracy

2006-09-16T12:43:00.000+05:30

At all other times I've absolutely no doubts about my literacy. A person who can speak, read and write ( all within reasonable limits, let me hasten to add) three languages can, I hope, lay claim to being literate, at the very least. In fact, at times, I can detect within myself a certain element of pride - you know, that thing which reputedly goes before a fall - in my 'proficiency' . This delusion lasts right upto the time I have to fill a form for anything - an account-opening form, a government form, a form to reserve tickets, online form, paper form, you name it. I just have to come face to face with a form to be reduced to a trembling, nervous wreckage of a human being. All these forms make me wonder if there exist two versions of each language - one meant for people to communicate with each other, to understand each other, and the other specifically designed to confuse them, to obfuscate issues , and to cloak facts under the garbage of legalese, bureaucratese and/or officialese - all 'languages' created by the Devil himself!

What is the matter with these people? Is it so difficult to prepare forms which ordinary people can understand without needing the services of a lawyer? Why do I have to struggle through a maze of verbiage to understand that all they are asking for is my name, age and address? I would like to be a fly on the wall when these organisations recruit the people who create these forms. It would be an educative experience. I'm sure that the men who design these forms are blood- brothers to those who devise those hellishly cryptic crosswords and spiritual descendants of Torquemada and Marquis de Sade. There must be a very strong streak of sadism and cruelty in their make-up.

You must be wondering why I've launched this diatribe today. Well, today morning an 'Office Assistant' ( we're not supposed to call them peons any longer, I'm told. Just as there are no salesmen in this world anymore, they've all been transmogrified into 'Sales Executives'. ) from a bank brought me an Account Opening form. Before I could say a word, he took out his ball-point pen, marked out the places where my signature was needed, and said simply, "Sign". Insulted, I said I would have to read it first. He permitted himself a ghost of a smile and said , " Sir, You won't understand it. " I leafed frostily through the form. He was right. But I had my amour propre to think of. ( "How many times do I have to tell you never to end a sentence with a preposition, Milind?", my venerable English teacher used to say.) To accept my 'form'al illiteracy in front of a peon would be a matter of shame. With what little dignity I had left, I told him to leave the form with me, saying that I would go through it in detail later, and that he could return in the evening to pick it up. Somehow, I don't think he was taken in by my bravado.

Thirteen long years

2006-09-13T00:50:00.000+05:30

Finally, after thirteen long years, a verdict. But let's not start celebrating just yet. At his present rate of eight a day, it'll take the judge a few weeks just to deliver his verdicts. That's the easy part. Then comes the sentencing. The lawyers of those convicted will speak at great length (yawn) extolling their clients' many virtues, portraying them as being more sinned against than sinners. In turn, the prosecutors will demand the maximum penalty leviable. Finally the judge will decide and hand down the sentences. The bad guys will be hauled off to jail to pay for their crimes. End of ( a rather long-winded ) story.

Wrong!! Only a foreigner or a retard would believe in that rather naive ending. Haven't you heard of the 'Great Indian Appeal Circus'? All those convicted will appeal to the higher courts protesting their innocence, and the prosecution will appeal against all acquitals. That process should, at a conservative estimate, take the best part of five years. All through this enthralling spectacle there will be entertaining side -shows about bail, permission to leave the country for work, etc. [After all, poor Sanju baba has all those films to shoot! Did I hear mutterings about thousands of undertrials rotting in jail waiting for their day in court, even their appeals for bail awaiting a first hearing? Hey, this is India. We don't believe in all that Western tommy-rot about the law being the same for all. A film star with a film star-politician father and a politician sister and with connections to the Dynasty! How can you equate him with those people? ]

"Satyamev jayate" - Truth alone triumphs - is the motto of the Indian judicial system. Like most mottos these days, it sounds more like a forlorn expression of hope than anything else.Two famous quotations spring to mind

"Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small.'
" Justice delayed is justice denied."

It doesn't need an Einstein to figure out which is applicable, does it? So, don't open that champagne just yet.

P.S.
For those of you who can read Marathi, here's my Marathi take on the issue : अधीर

A conversation between me and my inner self

2006-09-09T15:25:00.000+05:30

A conversation between me ( the party of the first part hereinafter to be referred to as 'I') and my inner self (the party of the second part hereinafter to be referred to as 'Smartypants') :

I: Nine days, seven posts and only one response.
Smartypants : I'm surprised too.
I : That's the first time in years you've agreed with me. Thanks.
Smartypants : I'm surprised you managed even one, nutcase!
I : (sotto voce) Should have known better than to ask you.
Smartypants : What's the good of whispering, fool? I'm your inner self, remember? I can read your mind.
I : Go, take a running jump at yourself.
I : People just don't appreciate good writing these days.
Smartypants : Sure they do. That's exactly why they avoid your blog like the plague. Just who do you think you are - Hemingway? Shakespeare?
I : What about the good lady who has posted an appreciative comment?Tell me that.
Smartypants : You've answered your own question, dunderhead. She's a good, kind lady who happened to stumble upon your blog by sheer accident. She just took pity on you. Don't let it go to your head.
I : And what about R's mail saying she liked my blogs?
Smartypants : She's your sis-in-law. Hardly qualifies as an unbiased opinion. Besides, what option did she have after you e-mailed her asking her to read it? She had to at least pretend ( all right, all right, I know I've split an infinitive here. Stop nit-picking, will you.) that she'd read your nonsense. Take my advice - stop this blogging. You aren't cut out for it. Better yet, delete this blog.
I : (sullenly) I won't.
Smartypants : Why not? No one reads it anyway. As Vijay Merchant had said, "It's better to go when people ask why rather than when they ask why not."
I : I'm not a cricketer.
Smartypants : No, and you're not a writer either.( snigger, snigger)
I : You're just jealous.
Smartypants : Ha ha ha. Very funny. I haven't had a good laugh like that since the 'India Shining' campaign. Now, if only you could distill some of that humour into your 'literary' efforts, you might yet have a future.

Vande mataram

2006-09-08T15:41:00.000+05:30

In the end the Vande mataram centenary turned out to be like the Y2K issue - much ado about nothing. Our politicians behaved in their usual divisive, fractious manner, turning every question into a Hindu-Muslim issue, spouting asinine garbage and playing to their respective galleries as the ordinary Bharatiya on the street watched helplessly! Last week a news channel had waylaid many of our 'rulers' - MPs and ministers outside Parliament and had asked them simple questions like who wrote 'Jana gana mana', what was Gandhi's full name, etc. Over 90% of them hadn't a clue! Yet these self-same ignoramuses waxed eloquent on both sides of the Vande mataram controversy. Hardly any of them can even quote two lines of either 'Jana gana mana' or 'Vande mataram'. As to understanding what the poems mean, perish the thought.

When will public debate in Bharat ever rise above gutter level? When will informed and reasoned arguments take the place of illogical insults, name-calling, distortion of historical facts? Watch the so-called debates on television - they are nothing but slanging matches with each political lout trying to outshout the others. Parrot the party line and impress the 'High Command', do not preserve even the basic decencies of debate, do not allow anyone else to have his say, and duck all uncomfortable questions by burying them under a barrelful of verbal diarrhoea! Is anyone really interested in finding solutions, in reaching the truth? You must be joking, mate!

And what about the media? Is it any better? That rant can wait for another post.

Life, what is it but a dream?

2006-09-06T17:54:00.000+05:30

I would like to share with you one of my favourite poems by a poet who, I've always felt, did not get the accolades he deserved simply because of his phenomenal success as a writer of children's books - Lewis Carroll. The success of Alice in Wonderland overshadowed his poetry - despite the fact that many of his poems actually feature in his prose writings as an integral part of the story. As a writer of humorous verse and nonsense verse he has few peers. Unfortunately, as in prose so in poetry, humorous writers tend not to be taken seriously when the talk veers round to literary greatness.This is a poem in a different, dreamier, mood. Whenever I find myself exasperated by people talking about the feverish pace of modern life this poem springs to mind , especially the last five lines.

A Boat, beneath a sunny sky
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July -

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear-

Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autmun frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise.
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream -
Lingering in a golden gleam -
Life, what is it but a dream?

[The initial letters of this poem when read downward give the full name of the original Alice (in Wonderland) - Alice
Pleasance Liddell]

Apropos of what I've written above , I remain deeply sceptical about whether life has really become fast-paced. I'm often tempted to tell these 'fast-paced' people the story of the donkey chasing a carrot dangling in front of him, tantalisingly out of reach, unable to understand that it's dangling from a stick tied to his own body and that he's never going to be able reach it. The Promised Land is always going to be 'just around the next corner'. No, we've simply lost the ability to slow down, relax, introspect, to think of something other than the 'rat race'. Are we increasinly losing touch with our inner selves, with nature, with the finer things in life, things which cannot be measured in money? W.H.Davies had it right :

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

I've often been accused of being impractical and out of touch with the times. There was a time when I would be ready to argue the point spiritedly but these days, I just smile and let it go. Why give myself hypertension and ulcers? As for me, I'd rather be

Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream -
Lingering in a golden gleam

After all

Life, what is it but a dream?

Good-bye, friend.

2006-09-06T08:04:00.000+05:30

His annual holiday having drawn to a close, my friend returns to his parents' abode today. His father and mother are quite strict in this respect. Not a day's extension is permitted, no excuses acceptable. Much as we would like him to stay longer, we know in our hearts that he cannot. His father, though kind and generous to a fault, has a well-deserved reputation for being hot-tempered .His mother - well, like most mothers she probably can't bear to be separated from her 'baby' for long, and often comes here to fetch him herself. A wonderful,beauteous lady, devoted mother and loving wife. My friend, her younger son, is the apple of her eye (his elder brother is often subject to pangs of jealousy and sibling rivalry on that account!).

Though the weather here is not what he is accustomed to, I've never heard him complain about the heat,humidity or rains. (That's more than you can say of most local residents!). Considering the fact that he is a (grand)child of the mountains he must find our climate unsalubrious, to say the least. Yet he unfailingly visits us year after year.

Good-bye - no, never!! Au revoir, Ganapati. We shall meet again next year.

Waking up to the rain

2006-09-05T07:27:00.000+05:30

It's a wonderful morning here today - a true rainy day. The monsoon, having paused for a breather for the past few days, is back with a vengeance! It's raining cats and dogs, pelting down in torrents to the accompaniment of thunderous rumblings and flashing lightning. I'm sitting at my window typing this as I savour a spectacle I've loved as long as I can remember. Grey skies have always fascinated me, rather than the so-called 'sunny days' which are all very well for temperate or Arctic climes but not so clement in the swathe which stretches from the Tropic of Cancer to the Tropic of Capricorn. In this debate I've often found myself in a hopeless minority but personal likes and dislikes are not decided by a show of hands, are they? One man's meat....So, let the moaners whine and crib. Let me enjoy every magical moment while I can. For, soon the monsoon will take its leave. Can I be sure that I'll be here next year to welcome it back? Can anyone?

Good-night, Blog!

2006-09-04T00:55:00.000+05:30

I fully intended to write a meaningful, insightful, contemplative post here today choc-a-bloc with self-analysis and navel-gazing; one which would have provided many profound, philosophical answers. Unfortunately, by the time I got around to it, I'd forgotten all the questions. Sorry, World, you'll have to get along without my solutions for the foreseeable future. (Anyone found sighing with relief will be beheaded! 'Off with his head' as the Queen of Hearts said in Alice In Wonderland. As for the rest of you snickering into your handkerchiefs, may your noses be eternally filled with snot like Salim Sinai.)
With these benedictions I wish all of you a very good night. Do not despair. I shall return afore long. "Farewell, farewell, parting is such sweet sorrow..."

"Saurav breaks his silence"

2006-09-02T15:51:00.000+05:30

How the mighty have fallen. The latest in a series of efforts to regain what he feels is his rightful place in the sun. The spat with Chappell, the seemingly unending run of failures with the bat, the leaked e-mail, Dalmiya at that time to busy fighting for his own survival to stick his neck out for his blue-eyed boy, the loss of captaincy and of his place in the side, ...most of us watched drama degenerate into farce. Most also felt the selectors had done the right thing, though perhaps a tad later than they should have. I guess they were probably waiting for the protective shield to go down before pouncing for the kill. Most shocking of all was Ganguly's switching of loyalty from Dalmiya to his opponents in an obvious attempt to weasel his way into the good books of the new 'Pawar'ful bosses of Indian cricket, and stabbing his long-time guardian in the back. Saurav lost then what little respect the cricketing public had left for him.
Then followed his disastrous stint in county cricket. Before leaving for England he'd declared that he wanted his bat to do the talking. Unfortunately his bat turned out to be singularly tongue-tied.This when Zaheer and Dinesh Mongia were producing creditable performances over there. The English weather proving inclement, the 'Bengal tiger' mewed disconsolately and returned to his watering-hole in Calcutta.
Unfortunately Team India had moved on and the great Indian paying public have a notoriously short memory. So, now the interview route to get back into reckoning, to remind everyone of his existence and his availability! Dylan Thomas,watching his father die of cancer, had written:
" Do not go gentle into that good night
Rage, rage against the dying of the light"
I've no idea if Saurav has read Thomas' poems but he certainly seems to show a marked disinclination to go gently into the night!

This blog is under construction

2006-09-01T01:04:00.000+05:30

Translated, that means

I haven't thought of anything worthwhile to write about.
I've been snowed under with work. Yeah, right!
Is anyone going to read my 'literary output' anyway? Can't say I've noticed anyone waiting with bated breath for this future Nobel laureate's pearls of wisdom. Everyone's too busy writing his ( N.B. This blogger is not exactly known far and wide for his political correctness. So there will be no his/her business here, no atrocities like hu'person', etc. You can howl all you like but, at the end of the day it's my blog!) own blog to bother to read someone else's - unless that someone else puts a link to his blog in his own blog, thus generating some traffic! Rather a convoluted sentence, that last one with perhaps one 'his' too many. Oh well, so long as you understand what I mean, it doesn't matter. Or does it? Sinking further into this dialectical quagmire, does anyone really understand what someone else means? Or do we stumble through life from one misunderstanding to another? Or have I just had one over the eight?
I'm too damned lazy to get off my butt and start writing this stupid blog. Though how I'm going to write it if I get off my butt is awfully hard to fathom. I'm not much of a whiz at writing standing up. Too much like work for my taste.