Life Lessons With Deepali
Taking a seat, we recollected how we had first spoken to each other on the way to the very same Cafe almost five years ago. “We had come here on your birthday too,” I said and she nodded saying, “Yes, I remember.”
Deepali and I were meeting after 4 years and the time spent together, four years ago, looked distant and close at the same time. Memories smell fresh when you archive them in your heart with love. They appear so close that the distance traveled in time from those moments surprise you when highlighted.
We had decided the previous night that the following morning we would go to Good Luck Cafe for breakfast, and we did. Taking bites of bun-maska we continued to discuss our common love for old Hindustani film songs and arrived at the song Khaamosh Sa Afsaana from the unreleased film Libaas. I expressed how much I loved the line, “dil ki baat na poocho dil toh aata rahega,” for its simplicity of expression and complexity of experience and also the beautiful way in which that line has been composed and sung. That line took us back to our conversation around how emotions, often opposing, are interwoven and such interweaving holds the truth about us and about the complex nature of life; a conversation which had stemmed out of our session on updating each other about our respective lives in the last four years.
The whole of that day we kept singing that one particular line and kept wondering whether the line expressed fear, relief, hope, or disgust. We were also struck by how the line begins with a denial to engage with the question (na poocho) and ends with a kind of understanding/ surety (aata rahega) of things unfolding/ happening the way they ought to happen. That “aata rahega” also voices, we recognized, is a kind of giving in to life and a willingness to go with the flow. This denial to engage and the willingness to go with the flow with the understanding/ surety that things will happen the way it has to, we came to believe, is beautiful not because the truth lies between them but because the truth lies in their coexistence.
The previous evening, when Deepali and I sat at a restaurant with our friend Dharma, she had explained the tattoo on her hand, something which wasn’t written on her skin when we were studying together at FTII. This new tattoo which looks like her obsession with music, she explained to us, is actually more than just a reference to the icons on the music player. She said, “the rewind button stands for a past that exists, the forward button reminds of the future that is to come. The pause icon is a reminder of life/ relationships/ associations not stopping ever but only pausing temporarily. In my life there is no Stop button. There is also an icon of mix which indicates that life doesnt flow in chronological order. all these icons are there in black, which means they are not in motion though they all exist. The only icon in motion, hence in red, is the play button icon. life is moving on and I am moving on with life.”
While returning to the campus from Good Luck, Deepali said she would like to record the song and it was decided that at night we would record the song in her voice. Making this decision Deepali started rehearsing the song in a very non-rehearsal kind of way, while we continued with our conversations, cooking, eating, and walking. As she kept rehearsing, I kept wondering at the similar undercurrent between what we conversed the previous evening and our conversation on the following day- about life, about humans, about relationships.
Life unfolds in its own way and probably the only way to be in tune with life is to go with the flow, dance to its rhythm, and breathe its air.
Every time she rehearsed, the line sounded different and I remembered what Sheila Dhar in an essay had mentioned about recording music/ singing. Sheila Dhar, I recollect from my memory of reading the essay, says that recording is only a reference to the raga and not the raaga itself. She says every raaga is like an incense stick and every rendition like the smoke that the incense stick exhales. The pattern, the formation, the movement differ every time though it is the same raaga. Similarly, though the same song it was different each time Deepali rehearsed it and sung it.
No amount of preparation can guarantee you that a song will be sung the same way as imagined in the mind. Probably it is the song which guides us each time and each time, we follow it differently. Maybe that is true of life too.
Gulzar 85
Yesterday, the 18th of August 2019, Gulzar sahab turned 85.
In the year 2012, Nasreen Munni Kabir came up with her book of conversation with Gulzar titled ‘In the Company of A Poet’. Eagerly waiting for the book I had pre-ordered a copy for myself. When my copy of the book arrived, I was on my way out of the hostel for late breakfast at a nearby shack. Excitedly I collected the book from the courier boy at the gate of the hostel, tore open the cover hurriedly and began reading the book as I marched towards the shack. As I kept reading and walking on the footpath, I rammed against the electric pole. My leg got injured. It wasn’t a major wound but still a wound. I limped to the shack continuing to read as I limped.
I might sound silly or even stupid, but I wanted to preserve that wound. I dint want it to heal because to me it was a sign of the maddening love I feel for Gulzar sahab. I wanted that wound to be over my body, like a badge of love. I was sad as the wound healed and it was the only time I mourned the healing of a wound.
There are plenty of other invisible wounds deep within me, that refuse to heal. Those wounds are occasionally consoled and comforted by the poems and songs penned by Gulzar sahab.
Thanks Gulzar sahab.
Songs For Dark Times
Bertolt Brecht, the German dramatist and poet, in a poem asks if there will be songs in the dark times, and answers the question as, “Yes there will be songs about the dark times.” Nada Maninalkur who now is on an all-Karnataka journey asks and also answers the possibility of turning songs into light, not just to walk cutting through the dark times but also to fight the darkness.
***
As Nada Maninalkur sings the song by Janardhan Kesaratti which asks the listener to cleanse the dirt accumulated in the mind (manssiganTida koLeya tikki toLeduko) he pauses to ask, “How many of you feel healthy?” and the high-school students raise their hands. “Do you notice that all of you have raised your right hand?” asks Nada and the students wonder what is so unusual about it. When Nada follows it with, “Why do you raise your right hand always when you have to ask a question in the class or know the answer to a question asked by the teacher?” the students are pushed to think why for the first time. Nada helps them to find the answer when he says, “We have all been schooled to think that right hand is superior to the left, like white is superior to black. This hierarchy and discrimination is taught in the form of culture.” The students are visibly unsettled by the new thoughts but also have started finding such hierarchy wrong.
Nada Maninalkur has been travelling across all the districts of Karnataka since August, 2018 with around 50 songs which speak of various issues like gender, caste, superstition, social inclusion, pluralism etc. When Nada announced his ‘Karnataka Yatra’ on social media, individuals, organizations, educational institutions from all districts invited him to come perform for them and promised audience too.
In a B.Ed college, a set of students who earlier walked out of the concert by Nada come sit by him while having lunch post-concert. They say, “We disagree,” in a self-guarding tone. Nada smiles and continues to eat. Later when he is about to leave the campus the same students come to him again and say, “We have been thinking about it. But still we disagree.” Nada says, “I am glad you are thinking,” and continues to say, “My job is done.”
The back story of this story goes like this:
At this particular B.Ed. College, Nada decided to begin the concert by singing kalisu guruve kalisu, a song which originally is a letter that Abraham Lincoln wrote to his son’s teacher. Like the method he employed for this journey, this song rendition too was paused for conversations after every stanza. At one point the conversation moved to the popular Kannada folk song govina haaDu (song of the cow) which tells the tale of a tiger killing itself after witnessing the truthfulness of a cow named Punyakoti who it wanted to eat earlier. Nada Maninalkur, referring to this song, spoke about poetic imagination and its politics which made some among the audience uneasy and restless. Next when Nada sang the song, namma elubina handaradallondu, (There are places of worship- temple masjid church- and Gods in our skeleton) a bunch of students got up to say, “This song is unscientific. How can there be a temple or a masjid inside us?” Not satisfied by the question they raised, the statement they made the students also walked out of the concert. Later at the mess he met the same set of students who came to him to register their disagreement yet again.
Recollecting these episodes Nada Maninalkur says, “Change is a process. When the first stone is thrown it stirs the water and muddies the water. But slowly it also creates ripples.” He continues the conversation to say, “Songs by themselves are inadequate. But they can initiate a dialogue in a much effective manner than a lecture or a sermon. Hence I use songs while the most important thing for me is to have a dialogue with people.”
Nada Maninalkur who started Arivu, an NGO, in 2012 arrived at this understanding slowly through personal experiences. The one major incident that made this realization dawn on Nada was a series of programmes they held after an infamous rape incident of a young girl in the Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka. The Arivu team visited college after college and discussed body politics using theatre, songs and literature. That made students open up, though it made the lecturers uncomfortable. “Education is left with no space to think alternatively and think rightly. This space needs to be filled and songs can become an effective and immediate way to build bonds and initiate a dialogue,” says Nada and recollects another story from the same time period.
A lady teacher who came from a conservative family came in contact with Nada and team while they were working with some of her students. Over a period of two years the teacher who earlier would insist on purity of food, water and not share her food or water with anyone, eventually cast off her casteist worldview and now holds a liberal outlook. This was possible, according to Nada, only because of a continuous interaction with humanistic ideas and continuous dialogues with fellow humans, outside the boundary of caste class and gender. Now the same teacher helps over 200 students a year to shed off their biases and reinvent their ‘self’, says Nada.
In Nada’s opinion, “In our growing up years we spend most of our time in educational spaces and hence it is important to speak in educational spaces.”
“Working with ‘Self’ is important,” opines Nada and elaborates on it. During this ‘Karnataka Yatra’ at a school in the district of Shimogga when Nada sang a song on menstruation, the dialogue with students arrived at the issue of Shabarimala. During this discussion a student said, “Respecting belief and practice is a part of our democratic values.” Nada spoke the importance of respecting people’s faith and practice and went to speak about the beliefs and practices which harms human, like caste etc and also narrated the story of Nangeli. The student then agreed with Nada when he said, “We need to get rid of beliefs and practices when they do not respect human dignity and doesn’t believe in equality.”
In other schools, Nada remembers, whenever he sang the song on menstruation, the students would either giggle or put their heads down in embarrassment. In a school, he recollects, a girl who spoke about menstruation covered her face with a scarf while speaking. The girl said that this issue is not discussed in a normal way even among girls. “We are made to believe that it is a shameful thing,” Nada says and adds in a firm voice, “We haven’t worked on ‘self’ and hence we fail to build on the idea of rights and justice. First we need to realize and make people realize that the dignity of ‘self’ is of utmost importance.”
Though most of the concerts of Karnataka Yatra have been in schools and colleges, Nada as a part of this Yatra has also performed in Temples, Masjids, Central Jail. He has also accepted invitations of activists, youth groups, journalist circles etc. In all these places, he says, he would first asses the audience and on the spot makes a choice of the songs to be sung for them. He has been singing 4-5 songs in each concert from his archive of around 50. Most of these songs are from contemporary Kannada poets. But his archive also includes verses by the 12th century Vachana movement and of saints like Shishunala Shareef, Kabeer etc.
Even when Nada is in the last leg of his Yatra, to his credit, not even once he has been stopped from singing or discussing in any of the districts of Karnataka. But yes there have been discussions of high voltage, which is okay according to him since there is still dialogue happening there. This, he says, is the power of songs. It makes you introspect, he opines, and it doesn’t have the aggression which one way communications such as lectures and seminars carry. Songs make space for a dialogue, for conversations to take place, opines Nada. The proof, he says, is seen in the invitations he got from teachers in several schools to teach the same songs to the students and also the invitation he received from some teachers to come stay with them for that day. The students, he says, either openly come and talk to him or write letters to him or tag him on social media and thus express their acceptance of and appreciation for the pedagogy he employed.
Nada also has some funny anecdotes to share like instances where people considered him to be a religious saint and would come and offer dakshinNe (money offered in kindness) and a particular instance where someone equated him with an extreme right wing speaker saying, “You too travel to inspire the youth, like him.” Nada’s reply to this person was simply, “I am not here to inspire youth but to sensitize the youth. That is the difference. Also, he speaks politics and I speak about humans and human self.”
A friend of Nada suggested him to bring out a CD of these 50 songs with which he travelled across Karnataka and Nada politely rejected the idea. His reason for it is spelled out like this: “If brought out as a CD, these songs will turn into a commodity of entertainment and it will just become one with the innumerable songs of this world which some sing and some remember. To me the dialogue that these songs initiate is important.” That is precisely why Nada says that when he was asked to teach these songs, he suggested a one month residential workshop, “because it is not just about learning the lyrics of the song in a particular tune and singing it in a melodious manner. It is not about songs but responding to the times and holding a dialogue. For that one needs to be trained in things other than music.” Nada himself isn’t a trained singer nor is he trained to play the two stringed instrument he plays.
“When I started this journey, I started with great despair. But this travel has made me hopeful. I have learnt during this journey that there are innumerable human beings out there in the world who are doing several work in small scale which is making a positive impact on some life. There are unimaginable number of people who in their daily lives are keeping the spirit of humanity alive. This they are doing not because they think it is their duty but because it is their default nature,” says Nada before he continues with his journey with songs in his pocket.
Bhakti
A splendid moment occurred on 17 Feb 2018 at the Dhwanyaloka, in the campus of MGM College, Udupi.
Occasion: Book launch of Lakshmeedha Tolpady’s ‘bhaktiya nepadalli’ and ‘bhakti kampita’, a collection of essays by AK Ramanujan on Bhakti, translated by Dr. Mahabaleshwar Rao, to be followed by lectures and discussions.
The event was inaugurated by Yakshagana artist Bannanje Sanjeeva Suvarna through a short performance of Yakshagana, along with a student of his. For the inaugural performance Suvarna Sir had selected the episode of Krishna visiting Vidhura, to be in tune with the theme of Bhakti, which was flowing across both the books to be released.
Krishna has arrived at Vidhura’s place and the latter is overwhelmed with joy, to the point of tears and silence! Struggling to express his affection for the Lord in words, Vidhura starts to sing and dance. At this point of the performance Suvarna Sir went on his knees to perform ‘manDi’, a popular step in Yakshagana where the artist goes on his knees and swirls as he goes around the stage/ performing space, forming circles. Dhwanyaloka is designed to be a lecture hall not performance hall. So, the Krishna performer standing erect in the center of the performance space, in a typical Krishna pose, became an obstacle in the orbit of Suvarna Sir, while performing ‘manDi’. Vidhura/ Suvarna Sir at this point, very casually and unhesitatingly gave a gentle push to Krishna, brushing him aside! Krishna softly moved to the side and made way for the swirling performance by Vidhura.
It was an electrifying moment for me!
Lakshmeesha Tolpady during his speech later remembered the moment and said, “The devotee asks for space and the Lord makes space for him. Else there will be no space for the Lord.” It was a thrilling way of looking at it. But that moment appeared a bit different to me, or rather I saw it a bit differently.
It is the God himself/herself who, in his/ her stagnancy, becomes an obstacle to Bhakti. And when Bhakti is in full force it gives movement to the static God and brings him/ her to life and brings him/ her alive. Also, Bhakti doesn’t tolerate the God himself/ herself, if s/he becomes an obstacle in the path of Bhakti. In the end the one who occupies the center stage is not the Lord but Bhakti and through Bhakti, the devotee.
The event was presided over by K.P. Rao, who in his presidential address remembered the short invocation performance by Suvarana Sir before the Vidhura-Krishna performance. In the invocation performance Suvarna Sir invoked Lord Ganesha, where he was describing Lord Ganesha through gestures and also performing the worshiping of Lord Ganesha. Remembering this KP Rao said, “Did you see how Suvarna was becoming the worshiper and also the worshiped, the devotee and also the Lord himself?” He was pointing not at the one man performance where the same performer plays different roles. It was a comment on Bhakti!
Raag and the Rain
One afternoon, in the third week of this April, I was with my friend Randheer in Jammu University. I had gone back to that campus after two years. In a while, our other friends- Sonia, Nisha and Shaabaaz joined. As we sat under a tree with chai in our hands, we requested Nisha to sing and Shaabaaz to recite his poems. Understanding the mood of the situation, Shaabaaz called his friend Aakash, a trained and passionate singer, to join us. Akash was with us in two minutes.
Nisha began the mehfil by singing a gazal by Begum Akthar. After Nisha sang and Shaabaaz recited his poems, now it was Akash’s turn. Akash sang quite a few songs and ghazals for us, pausing his singing to explain which raag it is, other musical details and some related anecdotes. Once while he was explaining a raag to us, the impulsive and innocent Sonia asked Akash if its true that some raag bring rains and some light the lamps. My immediate reaction was, “What a juvenile question,” which of course I did not say loud. I do not know what others thought but Akash clearly did not think so. Very spontaneously he said, “I am not sure if it happens in the outside world. But it has happened within me. I have witnessed rain within me, while listening to some raag and have witnessed lamps being lit within me, while listening to some other raag. That is all I can say.”
I was glad Sonia asked that question. When Akash’s singing continued, I could feel a new vibration within me.
A Tour in Nostalgia: Begamon Ka Bhopal
Begamon Ka Bhopal an experimental and experiential documentary directed by Rachita Gorowala was premiered on 09 Dec 2017 in the city of Bhopal, inside the structure of Taj Mahal.
I was fortunate to be a part of this memorable event and experience. That evening the beautiful Taj became a tour in nostalgia. This was designed by turning the structure of Taj into a canvas for light and shadow and through the several installations curated by Rachita Gorowala, Puloma and Farzeen Khan. All of these created an atmosphere for the film and also enhanced the experience of the film.
To be in tune with the experiential nature of the film, instead of writing a review I would like to reproduce a letter/ mail (with minor editing) I wrote to Rachita, trying to join the dots of my first impressions, soon after I watched the film Begamon Ka Bhopal in the month of September.
***
Hi Rachita
First of all accept my congratulations. Now accept my apologies for being late in viewing the film. After a month of you sending me the link, finally I watched the film today. But I am not delaying in writing to you my impressions about the film.
In the context of Begums and Bhopal this film is predominantly about Huzun, it appeared to me. This is made quite clear at the very beginning of the film and the interiority of the the feeling of nostalgia is felt throughout the film.
Nostalgia is not just remembrance but also longing with the knowledge that the longing for the remembered will be un-achieved which gives the happy recollection of past a shade of melancholy. When the word nostalgia first made an entry into human language it was considered a disease and it is said that during the civil war in America few soldiers actually died because of nostalgia. But eventually the world of psychology stopped viewing nostalgia as a disease and also started viewing it as a factor which can generate some kind of ease to fight the decay of life in the present. Like the meaning of nostalgia has conflicting and complementing meanings the history of how nostalgia was viewed by medical science is also conflicting and complementing.
Nostalgia in some sense is a rebel against death, it is a fight for life, even if in the form of a memory, and in a subliminal way a reminder of continuity of life, the presence of absence and the shadow of past on present.
Like a river time flows. Its the same river but not the same water. And as the famous Buddhist saying goes one cannot take dip in the same river twice because the river is ever flowing. But there is something interesting about the rivers especially in India, the physical river and mythical rivers are not the same. While the mythical river is the same forever the physical river is ever changing. But in the mindscape of this civilization the mythical and physical merge and become inseparable, like the past is ever present in the present in nostalgia.
Nostalgia is also a way of keeping the past alive. It is, in a strange way a non-tangible form of architecture, graves, writing, film, ornaments which freeze time in themselves and then slowly melt into meanings and stories when time slowly passes and sun shines on them.
In nostalgia the past shows the design to beautify and the present gives the threads and colors to beautify. Nostalgia is an effort towards beautifying life.
While nostalgia is a way of coping with the present for some, like those who lived the past, for some others, like the writer and you the filmmaker, it is a way of coping with the past.
The past gains significance in the present not because of nostalgia but the nostalgia exists because the past is of significance even in the present. Hence someone finds it important to write about it and someone finds it necessary to film it.
At a closer look there is no clear cut between past and present. The past flows seamlessly into the present, like the azaan echoing in the distance, grass growing on a tomb.
A collection of 8mm films shot in and around Bhopal during the years 1929-75 by Salahuddin Ahmed’s father and grandfather
When memory/ past is being turned into a memorial through institutes or by the state the memory is turned into a ritual without meaning like a hymn learnt through rote. Memories or past can be kept alive only through living, through body, through touch, through stories, through songs and not by making museum. But that doesnt deny the significance of institutions making memorials of memories. They are necessary and it requires great labor too but still is inadequate.
Because the longing for the past remains unfulfilled, nostalgia has a Sufiyana touch to it for the available but inaccessible quality of the subject/ object of longing/ desire/ love.
These are some of the quick thoughts that pass trough my mind. I am sorry for I have written this in a general way but all these general words are pointed to specific things in the film, which I am sure you are able to see.
Through this journey what we learn of the Begums of Bhopal is not much. But telling the story of Begums, I guess, is not the purpose or the intent of the film. The Begums like history live not through their details and documents but through the impact/ impression they leave on the times to come and generations to come and when the future lives them not by celebrating anniversaries but through living in daily lives.
You have captured the junction where past meets present, the youthful beauty of the wrinkles on the skin, the shine in the rings that are fading away.
A warm hug to you, Rachita.
Creative Coincidental Kinship~ 5
“When you come here you should meet this new friend I have made,” said my friend Diti when I called her to ask how the film appreciation course was going in Pune. Later once while talking to Sakshi, with whom Diti was staying, I was told by Sakshi that I would enjoy the company of her friend who is also on campus for FA with Diti. So I was quite intrigued by this person who I knew only by name- Jasdeep.
“He has great taste for poetry and is also a translator,” Diti had told me and Sakshi had told me that he was the language consultant for Gurvinder’s films. Both had certified him as an intelligent nice human being and me as someone having full faith in both believed their words and was looking forward to meet Jasdeep during my visit to Pune.
When I finally landed in Pune I dint get to meet Jasdeep immediately though Diti, Sakshi and I met in no time. Finally when that evening when I met this man who I was looking forward to meet, there was silence between the two of us. We both had heard about each other through Diti and Sakshi and kind of knew what the other person is like yet there was not much conversation between us other than the casual hi hello and some basics.
Few days passed without much conversation though we had breakfast, lunch, tea, drinks, and dinner together. One night while heading back to our respective rooms Jasdeep said, “We should have a proper conversation,” I agreed but dint know why there was such a silence between us even when we felt so comfortable in each other’s presence.
One afternoon it was decided that we would go to Asha Dining Hall for lunch and there while waiting for our plates to arrive Diti made a mention of my book and that got Jasdeep interested. He asked me what book it is and I told him it is a book of translated poems. “Which poet have you translated?” he asked curiously and I told him that it is a collection of 74 poems and the connection between them is the translator alone. The 74 poems, I told him, are by various poets writing in different languages. Since Jasdeep is also a translator, writer and a sensitive reader I mentioned to him that the collection includes some Punjabi poets too. “Who Pash?” asked Jasdeep. “Pash also. And Lal Singh Dil…” I said and struggled to remember a name who I absolutely loved reading and translating. I held my forehead, banged the table once lightly in order to remember the name but couldn’t.
When even a few seconds of silent thinking dint help me remember the name, which I knew was inside me but was refusing to surface on my lips; I decided to tell Jasdeep the lines of the poem. “To go back home is now difficult…” I recollected the opening line of the poem and Jasdeep immediately took the baton from me and in the same pace and same rhythm that I recited the line went on to recite the poem, even though not completely, in its original Punjabi form. I was thrilled to listen to the poem in original after having read it in English, translated it into Kannada and having lived with it for over 6 years. I was hearing something I am familiar with in a language that I am not familiar with and the unknown was becoming known and the known was becoming unknown at the same time.
That weekend when we were cooking Jasdeep made me listen to an audio recording of the poem, “To go back home is now difficult…” in Punjabi. This time it was the entire poem. As he explained few lines in English I recollected from my memory my Kannada translation and recited them to Jasdeep. Punjabi, again, though unknown became known to me and Kannada though unknown to him became known to him.
That day Jasdeep was playing Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan songs for us while we all joined hands to cook. At some point he played the song, “maaye ni maaye,” penned by Shiv Kumar Batalvi and I said, “Forgot to tell you, I translated this gazal of Batalvi too.”
Next day or the day after Jasdeep sent me the link to his blog and when I clicked on it I found the photo of Rohit Vemula. I scrolled down and realized Jasdeep had translated the poem originally written in English by Rohit to Punjabi. Incidentally I am the one who translated it to Kannada.
I scrolled down further and saw that Jasdeep also is an admirer of Eduardo Galeano who I adore immensely. Also saw our shared love for Meena Kandasamy, MF Hussain which made me realize beyond literature, cinema we also are comrades of concern.
Seeing these few posts I realized that Jasdeep and I have been connected to each other from a long time, through our engagements with literature, world and negotiating with both through language through translation, though we met only recently. That in a way also explained why we felt quite comfortable with each other though we hardly spoke to each other. We somehow knew each other beyond language.
Even after that day our conversations did not increase much.
In some days Jasdeep left for Chanddigarh and I stayed back in Pune for some weeks. When I got back home after a month’s stay in Pune I finally got copies of my book of translated poems. I messaged about the arrival of the book, with a photo of it, to some friends and Jasdeep was one of them. I received a congratulatory message from Jasdeep with a request. He wanted a copy of my book. I replied saying it is in Kannada. I had a smile on my face when Jasdeep responded saying, “Still. I will keep it. I have got Urdu books since long. I can manage to read them now,” which showed not just his affection for a comrade of concern in me but also his absolute love for poetry beyond language and also language itself beyond meaning, purpose, comprehension.
I took Jasdeep’s address and sent him a copy of my book with a small note where I recollected the meeting of Pablo Neruda and Faiz Ahmed Faiz where they spoke and shared their poems in their language even when they did not know the language of the other. I was very thrilled when I had first read about that magical moment and have always wondered how hearts met, lives intersected beyond time, space and language. I was happy and secretly proud that I somehow lived a moment which remotely rhymed the incident of Neruda and Faiz exchanging pages of their life and poetry and thus form yet another creative coincidental kinship.
Dil Sau-Sau Ka Chutta Hai…
After watching Jagga Jasoos I kept humming the song Dil Ullu Ka Patta Hai, probably the only thing I carried back from the hall. I couldnt help but keep admiring the brilliance of Amitabh Bhatttacharya. I was particularly stuck with the line, “dil sau-sau ka chuTTa hai.” I messaged some friends about this line in particular and also how much I admire Amitabh Bhattacharya for his lines like this and how I feel deeply that he understands the characters and their emotions better than the director themselves.
Later when I fell asleep I had a special guest in my dream. No it wasnt Amitabh Bhattacharya. It was Gulzar.
I woke up wondering how Gulzar had come into my dream when I had gone to sleep thinking about and admiring Amitabh Bhattacharya!
Probably my love for Gulzar started feeling insecure after witnessing my high appreciation and admiration for Amitabh Bhattacharya, especially because this time the heart was declaring that it comes and goes like a change of hundred rupees!
Love is independent with its own desires and insecurities, beyond us, though a part of us. Isnt it?
Does she still listen to Begum Akhtar?
“You take her name like you own it,” said my friend when I took a particular name while recollecting an episode from my life, because the on going conversation reminded me of the same.
I laughed in response because that is all I could do.
I don’t know if I own the name, but I know that the name, as it means to me, and the person, as I know her, belong to me alone. I say this at the risk of sounding possessive and claiming ownership. But when you know that you have lived through a stage of life with someone in a very subliminal way, in words, beyond words, distant from the five sense which made you realize that there are dimensions to life beyond them, you realize that the person who you met in this parallel universe of emotion is someone to whom you and only you had access to.
That person in the parallel universe of interwoven feelings, is not the same person the world knows. Nor are you the same person the world knows in that parallel universe of interwoven feelings and that ‘you’ were accessible only to that one person and that ‘you’ belongs to that person alone.
Some stages of life are so beautiful that neither life nor history can bear their beauty…
On evenings like this when it is raining both outside and inside, I wrap myself in memories and wonder if she still listens to Begum Akhtar.
woh jo hum mein tum mein karaar tha tumhein yaad ho ke na yaad ho…
Rainbow, Music and Tears
Sir and me after the talk.
“Once as a small boy,” started recollecting K.P. Rao, “I saw a rainbow on the hill near our village and walked towards it. As I went closer and then under it, all the seven colors vanished and turned into mere droplets. I could only feel the moist, nothing else. It got me wet and I could hear a strange sound in my ears.” Remembering this childhood incident he asked, “How can I speak of this experience of mine?” Pausing for a brief moment he continued. “It is the same with music. It is colorful from distance but when you go under/ within it the colors vanish and it absorbs you and you get drenched in that state of being possessed by the rainbow.”
K.P. Rao, my mentor, was speaking at SaRiGaMa Bharathi, Parkala last evening (13 Dec 2016) on music and musicians in his life.
Taking us through his journey of life, closely associated with, violinist Sridhar Parsekar who taught him that music means to see through ears, Salil Chaudhary who composed music in ‘vaadi-samvaadi’ manner, Vilayat Khan, Amir Hussain Khan, narrating stories of his initial refusal to meet or listen to Ravishankar and he becoming the disciple of Annapurna Devi, Sir not just made us listen to some music clips saying, “See this music,” but also provided us with insights on their music and their personalities.
“Nikhil Banerjee was once critiqued heavily by Annapuruna Devi for one of his performance. When we stepped out of her house Nikhil was heartbroken and was almost in tears. He was considering quitting music. We drove sense into him saying Annapurna Devi had only asked him to do more rehearsals to better himself and had not suggested him to stop.” That night, recollected Sir, Nikhil Banerjee sang, in pain and out of will to better himself, from around 10:00 pm till 4:00 in the morning next day.
“I have never heard him perform so well,” said Sir. As Sir said that his lump in this throat and and his eyes became misty, becoming one with the tears of Nikhil Banerjee, of decades ago.
“How do I speak of all these experiences? How can I share what I felt and have carried within me always?” asked Sir.
Hearing of Nikhil Banerjee’s tears for failing in music and pushing him to music, seeing tears in the eyes of my mentor recollecting music and the tapasya for music, my eyes became wet. In that moment I felt/ realized that the language of tears is the closest to the language of music.
You get drenched by both, in an explicable manner, like by the rainbow, when absorbed by it, possessed by it.
Crazy Mind's Eye 