Sunday, February 14, 2010

Shalini…


Is wondering what is she doing with her life?
Is she living it, loving it or kicking it while she’s still alive?

She is experiencing something different, something new.. as ever! She’s understanding pain. She’s understanding people. She’s listening to a certain voice inside herself! The kind she heard in the past, from some people, many people, and had wondered why – just why? What’s the point in living like that?

Maybe this is what had alluded her all this while, all these years actually. Growing up! Maybe it is about learning to live with confusions. Maybe it is about believing that life is (pardon my language) screwed and the only adjective for the way it is going to be lived is ‘ironically’. An inner thought process that consists of hate, love and associated complexities.. and in giving up on it.. comes the release.. the acceptance.. and the living! Sounds complicated? To put it simply, going with the flow!

Maybe the only knowledge that one gains is that there’s always more to be gained. You can never by the Atlas, forget shrugging it! Ynever know really yourself, forget others!
The only observation, is that you forever wait for the death or many deaths, always wanting to skip the living part of it. Living it .. but wishing you could die. Wishing madly, as if its an elixir that you are asking for. Strange! Very strange!

Maybe that’s growing up!



Shalini wonders again – just what is the point in living like that?

Voices echo in her mind! Life isn’t a dream baby! Life isn’t what you imagine it to be! Fate! Destiny! A distant echo .. Shalini is hearing!

And there is anguish! The experience is such! The ‘living like that’! There’s an old Guru Dutt song that’s humming in her head! She feels for that film maker – a simple man – made very simple by the extreme number of complexities he portrayed – singing his songs in all honesty – why? He like her, she felt, was awestruck by life! And the humming in her head continued!

Shalini is wondering what is making her think all this. She’s now desperate to catch hold of that feeling and anguish -- that made her start typing these very lines! What was it again?

Something to do with an experience which also reminded her of faces from the life that’s past… some understanding et al… some .. oh god what was that! Whatever it was!

Shalini is still reeling! Her eyelids refuse to activate! She knows the pain isn’t yet enough to kill her. But she’s slipping into a deep slumber! Only her fingers are working. Why? Whom does she want to share all this with? And why?

Maybe .. she smiles now..

She’s also wanting to skip it .. skip the living part of it! She is hoping that once the secret is out in the open…she’ll be just fine! She will not be playing the character anymore that she is! Maybe when its common knowledge.. she’ll cease ..

And that Shalini will get some sleep!
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Friday, February 5, 2010

To Sir...With Love!

He talks about knotted shoulders now!

Boy! I thought – when I read his blogs! Hez kinda a cool guy! Somewhat silently cool. The kinds you can never make out whether hez speaking to you or past you. And what adds to the deceit is … well… when he smiles through it.

Have you ever met a chap like that? I have. He’s a must meet! You can find him at times @ a café in GK – I think it’s a CCD which he likes to frequent. I, on my part, have imagined many times that I am gonna take my chances bumping into him there – like I want to find out if I’d really find him there. But I have been lazy – and now something inside me tells me am never really going to adventure. Others might try.

But I used to see him smile walking in the corridors, hands deep into his pockets… where some souls like him tried to educate me into a somewhat sensible graduate. I’d most often find myself smiling back at him. Subconsciously – thinking those thoughts that never made themselves into words or even seep through the layers of understanding – feeling .. this is the smile you can’t trust!

A phone call which lasted some 120 seconds ..jerking me out of the sepia frame of mind .. revealed that he’s learnt to converse well like any other guy who jabs when he’s hitting 30. He corrects my thought process though – at 34 promising a chocolate cake for the 24yr old amongst us…and repeating that .. well.. blowing candles is not his type. I smiled. He tries hard to sound normal.

Subtly he reminds me of another soul I met sometime, somewhere at some other point in my life. Their voices almost had the same anguish. I smile again while straining to listen to his somewhat urgent voice today. I was almost irritated by it. But with this man.. its very difficult to even get to that point.

He was my teacher after all!

I wonder why I write for him today- I care a * for what’s the date – but the calendar month tells me he's an Aquarian. That explains the ‘almost madness’ state, I thought. What about me? I was his student after all - a perfectly mad Piscean!

In those 120 secs he also acknowledges that he checked me out on fb – making small talk. Huh! My neurons reverted– I check you out too Mister - in your blogs!

Promising and contemplating what a great plan it would be to catch up the next to next weekend – for the 5th or the 6th or the nth time.. while none of us ever so sure if we’d be even around on the next to next weekend – we hung up.

It is some fun to talk to people like Mr.R. The sudden spurts of memories! In those curious college years, I used to almost sense an enigma within him, wonder at times at the spark in his eyes…understanding nothing at all… just observing.. but never confirming that my fears were right.

His sweet smile held back a lot. Years later – I was to rediscover him – @ some random address @blogspot.com. Like many of us – lost souls – resilient voices – poets – writers like him and – dreamers like me.

I met his mind there. My fears were true after all!

It was like reading a part of my life all over again. Imagine watching a movie of your own life –adding another angle to the black and white memory, slowly being painted into sepia and then to real time RGB. Shots unrevealed in the first edit, meanings unattached.. now a new angle – a new perspective. The teacher I met for the first time (black n white) – my first thoughts (still black n white) – when he walked into the suffocated classroom where I too sat (sepia now) – his plain white shirt (a lil’ less sepia – also my brain notes: so it was definitely summertime) – he specs that clearly looked past us (transparent in quality) – and he wrote in hindi (in color but I cant see the board – his frame hides it from my view - I was sitting on the left side of the room – I think the second row of the five – front seat!) – a few verses on the white board. White and blue – in colour and clear! I notice the ambiance had faded – one by one… each one us had fallen silent.

He was the only one – I clearly remember – who taught us in so many words – in an unspoken language – his beliefs loud n clear – that there is a spirit to journalism! And our task – was to discover it!

I never remembered just what he scribbled on the board! Could never recall the author that he quoted that day. But something of it seeped inside me. Over the years I have tried hard to remember those lines, some part of the verse, at least the meaning. But it was too late even then. Even today I am only left making guesses. It has just become one of those things in life – subconscious but living – no thought, just feeling. That was my first lesson in journalism!

That’s when I recognized a teacher standing in front of me. He had a name. Mr. RP.

I read many years later that our time together in some far flung location @delhi border inside a red brick building that promised to rise higher with time, was a result of a condition called the ‘knotted shoulders’. What a thing to say! However, when I read the phrase.. I daresay, it had tugged at some part of me, very well, acknowledging its existence.Life was coming a full circle and Mr. RP wasn't over with his lessons yet!
...

Of course, he’s a teacher to flaunt! Mr. RP was cute – all the college girls claimed so – (honestly, I rated him as funny at first – something was wrong with the haircut) – was fit as a fiddle, walked like he was strolling over clouds, used his voice well, was and is an authority over wars and just about all the things that plagued our country, full of experiences he’d share with us AND never really judging us much for our ignorance. I am sure he must have sighed in private many a times, but spared us the acknowledgement!

But the best thing about him – he never gave up trying - I mean on us. Years later, reading his memory logs, I peeked into that scene again. This time, it was the POV of Mr. Rahul P’s specs – revealed in my imagination. Was he trying to recognize and pluck out the Sheilas or wonder if any of us would be future Vivek Singhs? Or will anyone of us even make it there? Only time will tell maybe. Yet, all this while, his hands never trembled, his voice never quivered, acknowledged nothing, betrayed not even the slightest hint to so many pairs of eyes.. (not in my observation at least) Not in the movie of my life.
...

The only connection we were left with really after so many years is the industry both of us are working in till date. He taught many of us and many of us made it there. Reporting for Television. I have never reported on wars, not those serious issues standing on the Wagha border, except sometimes when Pakistani doctors travel to India. I haven’t gained a huge importance like my teacher .. talking to terrorists, trekking with naxals, drinking ale with army commandos, and well… oodles of sarcasm for the bureaucrats. The many bureaucrats. Other than that, in all honesty.. I had forgotten him! He must have forgotten me too!

But for some exceptions!

Every single time (not many times, but the times that it did happen) a story went on air, on another channel before the one that I work for...I knew what he meant! I felt it with full force .. the rush of blood! What was it? In his words: 'jis din tumse pehle koi aur story air kar dega na, khoon ke aansu ro oge tum.. khoon ke aansu..'

Boy! All through these years, his words rang in my ears – loud and clear! Only his voice, there was no face to it! He wasn't important! His lessons were!
...
Every single time I’d be really interested in telling a story, apart from just churning some out, I’d work and rework my scripts, late into night! Why? I’d later blame Mr. RP!

San XXX mein ek din jab kashmeer ke YYY gali mein army ke jawaano ko khabar mili ke shaatir aatankwaad AABBCC chhupa hua hai .. to unhone usi vaqt chaapaa maara – par jab army vahan pohanchi to dekha ke – ek paagal aadmi apni chappal ki rabad ko cheer kar kha raha tha.. unhone vahan use chod diya .. aur vaapis chale gaye us shaatir aatankwaad ki khoj mein…That was the escape route.. aatankwaadi vakai mein shaatir tha – the army lost him with his rubber slippers!
...
Every single time .. the rarity I’d find.. when someone politely informed me about changes in my script.. I’d hear him .. in colours .. telling is about a certain producer who was too polite for journalism! His expressions would be very real-like then.. conviction coupled with slight surprise! I’d find myself.. being equally polite to the rarity in front of me! But of course sir! I’d say! Just why did I sound like Mr. RP then?
...
Every single time .. I would be deciding whether to grace the camera with my screen presence.. I’d remember what a certain teacher once said – it’d be foolish if you don’t mark your presence in such an important story! And I’d stop being lazy!
...
Every single time .. I’d be with myself .. learning how to write better stories..  hating myself for not being better at it.. and then... in a bid to prove to the world that I exist and that am going to make it worth it .. and move on again – I’d even resemble him (or so i think) .. closed eyes, one more breath, composure, keeping calm in the midst of chaos..

The teaching had been qualitative. So much so .. without a single ounce of realization.
...

Why do I write today? Why.. I'm just rewriting a script! That’s my job .. my vocation. The script for the movie of my own life. A clarity .. another perspective.

Even then.. when I read my teacher’s notes today .. I feel I suck at the art. For his scripts amaze me! He is quite an experience as an author. A very silent one - as ever. But tremendously knowledgeable. Over the years…he has grown not better .. but if I may say, beautiful at it! Chronicling life. As I read every single one of his blog (ok I confess I read more of the fiction part)…as the meaning seeps in.. the clarity with which it is written.. the preciseness .. the calmness in the style.. the kind that sometimes almost creates a violence in your mind.. the thought-out versions of the story.. the screenplay.. the well studied effects.. the composure, the surety, the stand he takes and makes clear as a person.. his own copyright. And the clear cut admiration that he sprinkles on the paper when he describes the struggles of many naxals and terrorists.. silently as ever – asking his readers a question – Are they really terrorists? Are you sure they are?

I must say .. the question never escapes us!
...

Umm.. so what about me...? Well, I am still a kid really! Wish I could go back to his classes at times. Walk down those corridors sometimes. I do so in thought. And I'm happy admiring my teacher from the far recesses of my mind. Yes, like him, I am happy just planning a cup of coffee...

I’d like to thank him though – for teaching me that its worth thinking in life. And years later, to define it again with an example - keeping that faith alive! To go through what he does .. at his own cost.. to write what he just writes.

Well...its your birthday .. and here I am thinking .. worthy thoughts!

Happy Birthday, Sir :)

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