आनेवाला पल, जानेवाला है
हो सके तो इस में जिन्दगी बिता दो
पल जो ये जानेवाला है
एक बार यूँ मिली, मासूम सी कली
खिलते हुए कहाँ, खुशबाश मैं चली
देखा तो यही है, ढूंढा तो नहीं है
पल जो ये जानेवाला है
एक बार वक्त से, लम्हा गिरा कही
वहा दास्ताँ मिली, लम्हा कही नहीं
थोडासा हँसा के, थोडासा रुला के
पल ये भी जानेवाला है
Tag: song
Smorgasbord:Weekend Read, Orange Afternoons, Jethro Tull
My reading life covers a broad spectrum of fiction and negligible non-fiction that includes only biographies. I read purely for the joy of discovering new stories and newer insights, and the continual amazement of how words can be stringed together to evoke varied emotions. But i want to do a little more than flip pages to find the next twist in the tale; and want my reading to enhance and diversify my perspective of the world around me. I want to develop critical thinking and form sound opinions of my own rather than inanely agree to those of others. Not long ago it was a painful realization that i had only inserted ‘packaged opinions’ in my mind. Writing (or blogging) had changed that as I can gather and give some shape to my thoughts when I write them down. Despite the participation in numerous debates in school, I am unable to formulate convincing arguments and raise essential questions about the things I read and hear. So this weekend, two decades late into my reading life, I have picked up ‘How To Read A Book‘ by Mortimer J.Adler in the hope of getting more out of the books I read and increase my curiosity and understanding of a variety of topics.
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Nowadays, between four and six pm, the day takes on a warm orange hue. Outside my window, the leaves are yellowish-green and the warmth encompasses the red-brick houses too, converting their shabbiness into a rustic charm. The faces in the crowd has taken on the warm sheen of freshly baked biscuits. The sun lingers in the sky suffusing it with orange arteries and the impatient sliver of a pale moon is already visible over the distant grove of trees. A pair of crows fly soundlessly, spiralling around the coconut tree adjacent to the window. Somewhere just beyond my field of vision the cuckoo melodiously leads a noisy lot of birds. I take in the unassuming and quiet beauty of this orange day; and you come in and reverberate in the sudden tranquillity of my thoughts.
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A friend, who knew my penchant for soulful and understated lyrics, had gifted me Jethro Tull CDs a few years ago, citing that they are lyrical gods whom I must hear. I wasn’t an immediate convert. But lying awake in the dark and still hours, the words and the flute grew on me. Here is one of my favorites:
‘Fire At Midnight’ by Jethro Tull
I believe in fires at midnight
When the dogs have all been fed.
A golden toddy on the mantle
A broken gun beneath the bed.
Silken mist outside the window.
Frogs and newts slip in the dark
Too much hurry ruins the body.
I’ll sit easy, fan the spark
Kindled by the dying embers
Of another working day.
Go upstairs, take off your makeup
Fold your clothes neatly away.
Me, I’ll sit and write this love song
As I all too seldom do
Build a little fire this midnight.
It’s good to be back home with you.
When the dogs have all been fed.
A golden toddy on the mantle
A broken gun beneath the bed.
Silken mist outside the window.
Frogs and newts slip in the dark
Too much hurry ruins the body.
I’ll sit easy, fan the spark
Kindled by the dying embers
Of another working day.
Go upstairs, take off your makeup
Fold your clothes neatly away.
Me, I’ll sit and write this love song
As I all too seldom do
Build a little fire this midnight.
It’s good to be back home with you.
Two Sleepy People
Here we are
Out of cigarettes
Holding hands and yawning
Look how late it gets
Out of cigarettes
Holding hands and yawning
Look how late it gets
Two sleepy people by dawn’s early light
And too much in love to say goodnight
Here we are
In the cosy chair
Picking on a wishbone
From the frigid air
Two sleepy people with nothing to say
And too much in love to break away
Do you remember
The nights we used to linger in the hall?
Your father didn’t like me at all
Do you remember
The reason why we married in the fall?
To rent this little nest and get a bit of rest
Well, here we are
Just about the same
Foggy little fella
Drowsy little dame
Two sleepy people by dawn’s early light
And too much in love to say goodnight
By Hoagy Carmichael
Wonderfully Weird
Nothing perks up a drowsy Sunday afternoon more than watching a buxom beauty belt out a song while suspended a thousand feet above the ground, holding onto a bunch of multi-coloured helium balloons, and simultaneously gyrating her waist. What adds to the pleasure is seeing her lover, dressed in a glaring white polka-dotted suit, shoot the balloons one by one, causing her to sway back to terra firma.
This is preceded by him driving through the countryside in a vintage car with beer bottle and Dennis the Menace stickers, while she runs (mind it) alongside and does all sorts of acrobatics without the slightest quiver of her lips at the threat of a potential RTA (road traffic accident). The song starts with him noisily whispering “I love you”, and before she could recover from her nervous giggles, he follows it up with a query, “ewwh love me?” Such feats can’t occur on open roads without an audience, and sure enough a few bell-bottomed youths run after them to witness the awesome spectacle that unravelled before them. A caravan of bullock-carts feature too.
She laments how tough it is to make him understand the matters of the heart, while he throws modesty out of the window, and announces how he, and no one but he, is her true love. It was an era before the advent of the internet and speed-dating, and the best chance at finding their perfect match was at college or through the neighbourhood pandit and his horoscope collection. The song ends happily and they ride into the distant and expectantly happy horizon in the charming little car.
I had always loved the song, catching it on the radio or one of the old cassettes from my father’s music collection; but it was only today that I had stumbled upon the video accompanying the lovely Asha Bhosle song “Yeh Ladka Hai Allah Kaisa Hai Deewana”.
The best humour is always unintentional, and this endearing video is definitely a prime example of that maxim. And now I can’t stop humming the catchy tune ever since.
For the uninitiated, here is the link to this quirky video. Enjoy.
Smorgasbord: Books, Badminton in Winter, Sketchbook Snippets, Chaudhury!
My trapped soul celebrated its freedom today by splurging on books. There’s a hole-in-the-wall bookstore in Panbazaar where the books are stocked from floor to ceiling, obscuring the walls from view. Orgasmic! The tottering piles overwhelm me, but I linger for hours as I leaf through one book after another. I had missed them so dearly during the self-imposed three month hiatus, I actually sniffed a new book! I am sure there is a name for this book fetish in a therapist’s heavy tome somewhere. I bought six books today; my December is made. I will be in Delhi and Noida for a fortnight, starting this weekend, and I plan to visit Daryaganj’s Sunday Book Bazaar again for some cheap bargains. Can you hear my squeal of pure delight?
I bought the following books:
1. Nabokov’s Laughter in the Dark
2. Atul Gawande’s Better
3. Upamanyu Chatterjee’s English, August
4. Henry Miller’s Quiet days in Clichy
5. M.J.Akbar’s Blood Brothers
6. Tishani Doshi’s The Pleasure Seekers.
I start with August this December.
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This cold is a poor fragment of the winters of my childhood; it’s almost reluctant. But December is here and I shake out naphthalene balls from the folds of the woollens. Often I wake up as a Jedi warrior with my ears warmed underneath a hooded sweater. My mind rushes back a dozen winters when the winter sun held so many opportunities for happiness. There were the oranges, peeled and succulent, that I ate with sticky hands; and the naps I took, curled up on an old mattress on the terrace, and a book would slip off my hand as the sun got mellower.
We used to set up a badminton court every winter, and I had a hard time controlling my enthusiasm as I watched the coral coloured net stringed between two bamboo poles, the boundaries marked with chalk powder and even outdoor lights being put up, so that we played badminton late into the night, often after dinner. I was competitive and wanted to keep score, but my sister threw a tantrum every time I insisted on it. She found it an insult to our blood ties, but she was just scared of losing! My youngest uncle was my main competitor and we were ruthless on the court.
My grandmother had a grimy coal stove over which we toasted our feet every night. And as I got into bed, Ma would cover me with a quilt still warm from being sunned on the terrace. Then there were the picnics, but that’s another story.
I have a writer in the family. How thrilling is that! My jethai (mother’s elder sister) is a powerhouse of talent. She paints, writes, cooks and excels in all three. She was Assam’s first female jailor, then she quit it all to set up her home. She held a paintbrush for the first time after the birth of her son, and then went on to set up her own art school! After her sons left home, she filled up the empty nest with her words. She is a prolific writer and has penned several novels apart from being a regular contributor to newspaper columns. Her book “Karagar’or Diary” (Prison Diary) has been serialized and adapted on screen. I wish that even a fragment of her genius rubs off on me. She taught me it’s never too late to follow your dreams. When I visited her today, she showed me a folder that held few of her paintings and sketches. For her these sketches are just spur-of-the-moment ideas captured on scraps of paper. But I feel they deserve more light than the dark recesses of the old Godrej almirah where they had been tucked in for years. I will put a series of her paintings on my photo blog soon, but here I leave you with a few of them.
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Snippets from the sketchbook of my jethai, Elu Devi Baruah
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Meanwhile I can’t stop listening to this song in a loop, despite having a very vague idea about its meaning. The song grows on you after each hearing. Here’s “Chaudhury” feat Amit Trivedi and Mame Khan.
Dialect of Heart 