SOMETIMES WE GET BIG THINGS IN SMALL PACKETS...CHECK IT OUT...

It was yesterday when I was all set to write my new post and I received a call from my friend to book a table for four as they were all set to come to the nearest hotel from my hostel. And I gave up writing the post at that time. Truly speaking I did not like at that particular point of time when I had to give up my writing not for my friend but for a person whom I had never met. Anyways, I came to my hostel and booked a table. I waited for fifteen to twenty minutes and before I develop a feeling that it would have been better if I had stayed for a bit longer, a bike arrived followed by Scorpio. One by one they came towards me and they get settled. A person approached me and said, “Hi, I am Atul.” To which I politely replied, “Yes, I heard about you a lot from my friends. Hello, I am Dipan.” (Note: I am deliberately not mentioning the names of my friends. Sorry for that.)
I said those things just to be humble and to show that my friends keep talking about him. Truly speaking I heard his name just two days before. But one thing is sure that when I heard his name I thought that I had heard or read his name somewhere. But there are lots of people having the same name. I gave the very thought at that time. From yesterday’s talk I recollected that he the same Atul whose exhibition of paintings is here in Vallabh Vidyanagar, Gujarat, India. And a usual image of a painter immediately approached my mind, which was broken when he said about his paintings on Shabari. Yes sir and madam, the same Shabari we have seen in our all time great epic Ramayana. He said that he got inspiration of painting Shabari after watching three paintings of her at Delhi in 1988. (Let me tell you that in 1988, I was just four years old.) He said that we have seen Shabari in her old age only, when Rama meets her but no one knows about her youth and her life there as a tribal woman. (When he was describing the youth of Shabari, I was having the picture of the heroin of Avataar – Tribal woman at Pendora. I thought the she must be looking like her.) To the surprise of everyone he also said that there isn’t any character of Shabari in Valmiki’s Ramayana. And in his paintings of Shabari, he has depicted her life in tribe before leaving that world. As he said, Shabari left her home because she saw a lot of flesh and blood of animals and birds at the time of her marriage, she left her home denying to leave in that cruel world. I am excited to see all those paintings which describe the Shabari, we have never met or even imagined. Shabari to us was always a very old lady having cough and walking with the help of a wooden stick. Yes, it is true. You even will see the same doing by a ten years old girl playing Shabari in competition.
The thing is, we can never believe what we have not seen. That is the human mindset. My Papa always tell us if a person of present era have capacity to do some unbelievable things like banding down iron by just looking at it, then a person in ancient can easily do so many miracles which we cannot even think. The same thing is applicable here. We, the society, have accepted Shabari as an old lady waiting for Rama, but what about the Shabari’s own life. I meet you today, but it doesn’t mean that you were not having your life before meeting me. Or I was not having life before meeting you. You will tell me in pure Hindi, “ARE YAAR AAM KHAO NA, GUTALI O SE KYA LENA HAI?” Am I right? But my answer is – I am not interested in as the above saying suggests, but I wanna say that every individual has his/her/its own value and stand. There is always a lot more than we can perceive as it happened with me yesterday only. I thought Atul might one of the very good friends of my friend and a painter. But Atul is not simply Atul. He is Atul Dodiya, one of the finest painters of India, whose name can easily be spoken with legendary M. F. Hussain. He is one of those few well acclaimed painters outside the country. And I was really obliged when I came to know that I had a cup of tea when he was having his dinner at my hostel. Thank you friends for forcing me to come over there to meet him. Thanx Atul.

LOVE IS IN THE AIR...OR IN MOVIES???

Not much to say about valentine's day...but i am going to just share my 10 favourite love/romantic songs of hindi cinema...
01 - Ye kahaan a Gaye hum...yuhi sath sath chalte... - from "Silsila"
02 - Tumne Mujhe Dekah, Hokar Maherbaan... - from "Tisri Manzil"
03 - Pyar Hua, Ikaraar Hua Hai, Pyar se Fir Kyu Darta Hai Dil??? - from "Shree 420"
04 - Ramaiya Vasta Vaiya, Ramaiya Vasta Vaiya... - from "Shree 420"
05 - Roop Tera Mastana, Pyar Mera Diwana... - from "Aradhna"
06 - Pehla Nasha... - from "Jo Jita Wahi Sikandar"
07 - Isharo Isharo Main Dil Lene Vale, Bata Ye Hunar Tne Sikha Kaha Se??? -from "Kashmir Ki Kali"
08 - Bekhudi Main Sanam, Uth Gaye Jo Kadam... - from "Hasina Maan Jayegi"
09 - Tera Mujhase Hai Pehle Ka Naata Koi... - from "Aa Gale Lag Jaa"
10 - Pyar Kia to Darna Kya... - "Mughal - e - Aazam"
No, these are no the ranks of all these great songs i like or more precisely i love. i've written these songs just to say that i love these songs... the reason behind loving these songs is, i can listen to them and fall in love with them without any bondage of time. if in the middle of the night you hear a voice saying, "Tanhai ki ek raat idhar bhi hai, Udhar bhi..." and you wake up from your sleep just to listen the complet song...you are travelling in train and from a far seat you hear a sound and you start murmuring, "Rook gai...ye Zamin, Tham gaya Aasamaan, Janeman, JaneJaan..Tumne Mujhe..." without bothering who are sitting beside you.
years have passed to some of these songs but still they are the landmarks of great love... one doesnt have any option then to love them...look at the philosophy used in the songs..."Pyar Hua,Ikaraar Hua Hai, Pyar se fir kyu darta hai dil?" then the answer comes, "Kehta dil,Rasta Mushkil, Maalum Nahi Hai Kahan Manzil..." The second from the same film, "Rasta wahi or musafir wahi, ek tara najane kaha chhip gaya, ek tara najane kaha chhip gaya, duniya wahi duniya wale wahi, koi kya jane kiska jahaan lut gaya, koi kya jane kiska jahan lut gaya, mejo dukh pau to kya aaj pachatau to kya, mene dil tujhko diya...meri aankho me rahe kon jo mujh se kahe, mene dil tujh ko diya." and the milestone of all love songs and lovers, this song is dedicated to all of them years before, "Pyar kia to Darna Kya....Parda Nahi Jab Koi Khuda Se, Bando Se Parda Karna Kya...Jab..."
all the songs have their peculiarity... they all are great in their way.. Shammi Kapoor and Sharmila Tagore..."Maana Ke Jaane Jahan, Lakho me tum ek ho, Hamari nigaho ki bhi Kuch to magar Daad Do, Ye Ranjha ki Baatein Ye Majnu Ke Kisse Alag To Nahi Hai Meri Daastan Se...Isharo..." Shashi Kapoor in 'Bekhudi Me Sanam..." and "Tera Mujh se Hai Pehle Ka naata Koi..." beautiful or more precisely lovable songs of all time... these are my favpourite 10 love/romantic songs with wich i can fall in love any time... what are yours???
P.S. : HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY...

I LOVE YOU MY LITTLE PLANT

Valentine’s Day is coming nearer and I thought lets write something on it. 14th of February is broadly famous for the day of lovers. And there is a misconception in teenagers that no one can deny on 14th of February when a person proposes someone. I would like to ask those who claim that they are true lovers. There is no doubt that the love is the most beautiful thing in the world. But there is one more thing, how we perceive the word. What do we mean by love?
Love… What is the definition of love? In a Hindi movie, the hero, when he was asked, replied that love is friendship. But is it true that love is friendship? There are different opinions about it. Different people have different opinion on that. Whenever the very word is spoken a common human mind would definitely jump upon the relationship he/she shared with another sex or others’ the same kind of relationship. Why do we think about it only? It is a beautiful word but our poor mind is not sufficient enough to perceive the real beauty of the word.
Just a week before, I started a new story in my class. Sorry, but as I am a teacher I relate everything with my profession. And even I take inspiration to write on from my lectures. It’s a different thing that many people hate this thing or more precisely, they laugh on it, but I do it and reflect on my lectures as I like to do it. Okay, coming to the point, I was talking about love and the story I began last week in the class room. It’s a secret that it is one of my favourite stories. It is a love story. No, it’s not between a boy and a girl. But surprisingly, it is a love story of a living thing and ‘non-living thing’. I’ve put inverted coma because we do not know whether it is living or non-living. It talks about the love between a bird and a statue. Both of them are deeply in love with each other. The story is The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde. I am not going to tell you the story as I want you to read the story. And find out how both of them fall in love with each other and what happens at the end. My Papa told me this story when I was in fourth standard and I was, after hearing the story, crying in the lap of my Mummy. And since then, I’ve always find my eyes wet at the end of the story. And I fall in love with the story again and again.
Here is a love story between a bird and a statue. Keep the story apart. In the society, many people are there who represents statue as statues cannot move or they do not have any emotions. And there are many people who are like birds having many dreams, many ideas, many wishes and move here and there very fast with their delicacy. Wilde is not sarcastically talking about these people but I thought so when the story was being discussed in the class. In Raj Kapoor’s Mera Naam Joker, there is a dialogue in which he claims that he loves flowers, stones, nature, rivers, mountains, etc… Primarily, it seems a bit awkward, but I think that can’t we people really think like that? Why is it difficult to love your friends? And if we love them, why is it difficult to claim so. Because, the mindset is such it does not allow us to think beyond one thing. The present concept of love is like a Great Wall of China or Mount Everest just before our nose. They seem so big from the position we are standing. They are there. We need to change our positions. And try to perceive other things of the world. Evaluating love merely with the shallow word sex is insulting it.
Why a person cannot see love when a father is playing cricket with his children though he does not know how to play. What about the love between grand-parents and grand-children when they are sharing beautiful stories of their experiences. Love is everywhere. A boy of 8years old is crying a lot because his toy is broken or lost for some reason. It is because of his love for his toys. Parents deny to sweets just because their eight years old son is prohibited to have sweets because of the problem of teeth. Colleagues hug each other and cry a lot when one of them has got retirement after spending years together. A student sits at the threshold to cry before he is leaving his room of hostel forever, where he stayed for 3, 5, 8 or 10 years. All these things describe nothing but love. Otherwise, a boy won’t cry on losing his toy with reason that it was worth 300 rupees. He just cries and goes on crying. And the same boy after growing up will understand the so called meaning of love.
At this point, I remember a person whom I’ve never met but heard a lot about him. You thought me to love the nature Dinumama. I am thankful to you for that. I know him from his name only but I am inspired by him. Papa used to tell us about him. There are lots of anecdotes of his life but the one I’m going to say is much inspiring. In his home, when he was alive, there was a little nursery, where different plants were planted. After everyone sleeps at night, he would go to the plants and just move his hands on their leaves and kiss them like they are his children. He loved his plants. And he neither claimed that nor did he celebrate Valentine’s Day.

VAAGH AVYO RE VAAGH...

few days back, discussing about the project of aircel, 'save tigers', he said and written the same thing in his blog that, tigers are at a far away place, but what about the sparrow? we cannot even see the sparrow now-a-days.and it is not the matter of shame for humankind that we have to start a project like, save tigers, save sparrows, save chittah, save whale, save jungle...because as he said,'man is worst than animals when he becomes animal.' he said that, shame is this that we have to start projects called, 'save the girlchild.' it is only on that day that i asked him to give me some topics to write and he said to write on the topic,'save tigers' as aircel has requested to write blogs on that. i thought what would be the world without tigers? probably ur grandson would wake up one day and ask u, that 'what was tiger? i have a lesson on it. and it is said that tiger was india's national animal. it is the nature that the things we use less, get disappear slowly... as mentioned in one of my elder brother's play, today's children has lost their childhood. they are treatd as matures from the beginning. years have passed and i've not seen a child playing marbles, that we used to play for the whole day. and many such games. parks are empty as children are busy with either their homework or their computer games. they do not know how to hold a cricket bat in real life, but they make hundreds of runs in computer games. the trdition of storytelling by grandmother is also now eloped from the world. i was worrying what would happen of the stories related to tigers for children in future. (like the one i've titled) in which a shepherd makes fool everyone that the tiger has come and hunting my goats, villagers come to help him and he then reveals that he was making fool out of them. and one day in real tiger comes and noone believes him. the story would in future,'he would try to make them fool saying,"tiger has come and he is hunting my goats." the question would be on that, "what is tiger?"' and he would give the discription of tiger. but the question is are children of future generation going to listen the story?

JUST FLOAT WITH YOUR FLOW

Today’s lecture was a bit different from other lectures. It happens sometimes with everyone that they just go with the flow. Flow – what the heart suggests – and they just follow the heart, always. And when you are in your flow, you do your best as it comes from within. Today was the same case with me. I don’t know I did my best or not but I know that I was in my flow. The strange case is – I had two lectures on a same topic in different classes and yet too it happens that I got into the flow in the second lecture, which normally does not happen when you do the same thing for the second time.
As usual, I went to my class with arms and ammunition ready with the stock of two hours. On every Tuesday, I have two lectures of two hours, as it is lab sessions. Yes, for a change, we have practical in English language. And in that, we have to teach four skills LSRW, i.e.: Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing. If you are planning to go US, Australia or UK, you can join our college to do the practice of IELTS. That was bit out of topic - Sorry for that. Now get into the topic. As we have to deal with the LSRW, many a time students have to do exercises, regarding their topic and tasks. Today I gave my students the task, where their writing ability as well as speaking ability was used, as they were asked to write on any of the given topics and then speak, in front of the class, whatever they had written. I did it in the first class. It went rightly in the class, as well as students also enjoyed the activity. First lecture was over after two hours.
An hour rest. I had my regular tea and some snacks with my fellow lecturers. Staffroom is the most interesting place on the earth, where you can find different kind of creatures. If you want to pass your time, do not go to any comedy film, but go to a staffroom of any college, you will be able to pass your time by just observing them. In staffroom, almost everything is discussed. They talk about the things, which are not even related with them. You can find the anxiety of a lecturer over Narendra Modi’s swine flu and distributing chocolate on Shilpa Shetty’s engagement, solving the quarrel of their school going children. You may find a person preparing food for the lunch time. A person might be advertising about his/her side business/ family business. Can you imagine a lecturer of biology discussing all the time about importance of yoga and planning to do seminars on that? A newly engaged lecturer would be busy with talking with his/her fiancé. Others would be busy in laughing at him/her and teasing and he would also enjoy this teasing. And a person like me would be constantly busy in observing others. It is not at all exaggerated. Once you visit it, you’ll definitely agree on this. I had my hour rest and got ready again with the same arms and ammunition for the second two-hour lecture. Let’s go to the class.
“A very good morning.” – It is my usual greeting to class whenever I enter the class. As it was our ‘practical’ session, I had to give them a task, which would enhance their skills of English language. As not expected I gave them a task – the same which I gave in the morning, as it was a different batch – to write their views on any of the given topics. And provided five different topics with the instruction of changing their perspective, as the topics, on the surface level, may seem primary level topics but they definitely had some depth. The topics were like this – 1) My country, 2) My city, 3) My mother, 4) My favourite film and 5) “I want to see the world.” Out of these five topics, my favourite one is…….. Okay, forget it. I’ll come to it at the end. Of course my purpose of giving this task was to enhance their skills but apart from it, I had a different intention. And I suppose I was right in my thoughts, as everyone had written about one or the other topics. The speeches were nice. Their involvement was also nice. My first purpose was almost fulfilled. But the second and the main purpose….. it was still there in my heart at its place because only two out twenty-five had written on my favourite topic, which has my intention of giving the task.
When I was giving them topics, I closed my eyes before giving the last topic and immediately it struck to my mind and it spoke, “I want to see the world.” They had written what they perceive from the topic. One wanted to visit different places on the earth and the other wanted to gain knowledge from the world. When this sentence came to my mind, I imagined a blind person speaking this line. A person, who has never seen the colours, never seen the beauty of God, the God who has created him/her, never felt the world with eyes, only with the touch. I thought it might be a dream of a blind person to see the world once before he/she leave the world. And we dream about roaming in the world, forgetting the truth that the person next to us is not able to see even his face. Eyes, one of the wonders gifted us by God, which identify ‘man’ as ‘man’ and ‘animal’ as ‘animal’. Sometimes we become so selfish that we just think about ourselves. What would be the condition of a little child, who has lost his sight just because of one mistake? A request to all of you – donate eyes. Your eyes can help someone to see the world. What a beauty! Just think someone is watching the world through your eyes.
The second thought was of a child who is very safe and warm inside the womb of her mother. It can be the sentence spoken by that child who is not even born and just observing the world from inside. It can be her dream to see the world where her mother is living, her father is living and all her relatives are living and probably they, who are going to kill her just because the child is a girl. We are talking about going on the moon. But what is the meaning of going to moon if we cannot even save a single girl child. I even cannot even imagine the mindset of those people, who kill girl child. And a mother!? How can a mother agree on this? No one can listen to their voice. They are requesting us. And yet we go on killing them. We allow some people to be blind forever. We just know how to talk about these people, how to curse them. Donating eyes comes later. But how many of us donate blood regularly? No answer…. It’s good to speak about one thing but hard to do practically. If you cannot be Gandhi, stop mocking at him. All these things are like this only.
See…… the flow!!! It happens when you just follow your flow. I felt good when I observed my eyes wet after the class. I pray to God if my students follow even one percent of these, I’ll feel my contribution in India’s progress. And I think I was a bit right as I saw some wet eyes at the end of the class. Dear God, I’m happy that I’ve provided something more than their syllabus. I don’t know they have liked it or not but let me confess, I felt good on that day. Give my students strength to follow their flow always.

CONTINUING THE PREVIOUS ONE....

Sorry that u again had to wait.but now i'm again here. "The Namesake". really it moved my heart. hats off to the director, who has simply show the story some ordinary people like us. but the way she has managed to put them into merely 2 and half hours and that too very convincingly. the mind set of the people of middle class is presented here in a very nice way. and we don even come to know that when we become the part of the story. it happens many a time with us that we have to control our tears. but sometimes, u just have to allow them to choose their own way. and they select. and sometimes it happens that we wanna cry, but we cannot. when Tabu suddenly comes to know that her husband is died, she switches on the lights of the house. it looks a bit odd if u tell someone. but remember your childhood, when we were afraid of something we used to switch on the lights of the room and then sleep. (at least i was doing so.) when light is on, we feel that there is someone with us and that gives the sense of protection. she gets the news, and at that time the reaction of Tabu and the audience is same. both do not handle the situation. we always believe that, all's well that ends well (of course it is said by Shakespeare). and that's y we also feel, as a part of true audience, that there must be some mistake. and we pray that there should be. but it was essential for the change in the character of Gogol. "We all have come out of Gogol's Overcoat." beautiful. beautifully acted, directed, managed. at the end, u feel happy that all are settled and happy at their places, but still we feel that something is missing. it is the same thing that we remember our ancestors at the time of some good moments of our life and you feel that something sour has touched your lips in the middle of the night and u can also sense that on your cheeks, which i felt after watching the movie. the next morning, my lips and cheeks were tested salty.i don know y. but it's true that i've still not come out of Gogol' Overcoat.