Hazaar Khwahishain Aisi

There are hazaar small things that we want to accomplish in life - each one so precious!

If I think about it -

- I want to buy a car,

- I want to see the Pyramids,

- I want to start my own business and then get it listed on BSE (at least),

- I want to be a national leader - a politician (a good one),

- I want to have a stint in the Army

- I want to.......

And then sometimes, we get obsessed with one such khwahish and relentlessly follow it - desperately trying to realise our dream. Sometimes, so passionately that we forget about everything else - the hundreds of small desires that we used to have. That khwahish becomes the reason for our existence! Unless this happens the khwahish cannot become reality. And whats the joy!!... the joy when the khwahish materializes after all the honest work we had put in, the conviction we showed.

But sometimes, despite our honest efforts, we cannot get that one thing we aspire for. Not because, we didn't make the effort or we didn't have the conviction..... but probably because we were chasing something that didn't exist - wasn't real! Probably because we were shooting at the wrong goal-post all the time. And when the realization dawns that we were chasing a mirage, it occurs to us that in that time, we had forgotten the so many simple pleasures of life - the hazaron khwahishein, simple, yet precious!

What happens after that? The optimist makes an effort to forget and move on! - we begin to appreciate things which we took for granted. We create new dreams and chase them, one-by-one, and achieve and then forget and start again.... and life moves on!

"Hazaaron Khwahishain aisi ke har khwahish pe dam nikle

bohut nikle mere arma' lekin fir bhi kam nikle"

-- Mirza Ghalib

Indian Cinema - The coming of age!

Since a long time I hadn't been able to catch up with the latest movies in Bollywood And when I did, I could not help but take note of the growth in the quality! The number of 'period' movies are increasing and the performances in them have been simply outstanding.

Only last week, I watched:

1. Hazaar Khwahishen Aisi

2. Page 3

3. Khamosh Pani

All of them were great performances - the acting outstanding and the direction superb. The music score of Khamosh Pani (with the Sufi/Persian/Punjabi influence) was a treat. Finally, it felt that in the highly commercialized Bollywood, Indian cinema as an art form is coming along! Actually, there have been many others in the last 5 years which I'd like to mention - 1947 Earth, Monsoon Wedding, Chandni Bar, Shwaas.. although some are not purely period-like in character but the maturity is noteworthy. There is space for genuine artists to perform and inspire even in ordinary themes.

Around the regular love triangles, sex scandals, and dancing-around-trees-sequences there have been movies which have raised the bar despite losing the common touch. Mai Meri Biwi aur Wo, Parineeta, Hyderabad Blues, Mitr - My Friend, Black are some examples that I can think off-hand.

I do not want to question the appropriateness of the commercial bent of Indian movie industry - afterall, its the biggest, producing 800 movies a year and generates wealth for people across income lines - from the rich distributors, to the poorer snacks wala at the theatre and later on for the peddler who sells pirated CDs! Infact, the industry does the most basic thing in business - produce to delight the majority consumer by giving what (s)he wants.

What has changed is that the industry is developing a new segment - that amongst educated people, who appreciate art-cinema. And with increasing number of creative directors, recent successes of their endeavors, and a slow but steady increase in appreciation - Indian cinema is looking beyond existing horizons.

Its a long way to go to take the average quality up - but we can see it coming, can't we?

Chhilka daal

Don't know why, but was reminded yesterday of how tasty the chhilka daal that Mummyji cooked back home used to be! And so, I decided that I'm gonna make some chhilka daal for me. Well to be honest, taste was not the only inspiration - I had read that chhilka daal has infi proteins and supplements the carbs that we get from rice. Besides, cooking relaxes the mind. So with so many things going for chhilka daal, I thought of giving it a try.

So as soon as I returned from office and had got comfortable, I decided to cook some of chhilka daal. (For novices, the recipe is easy - take a cup of chhilka daal and add water upto 1.5 cm above the daal surface... ). I did what it took... added the namak, haldi, mirch... set the cooker on the gas-stove and waited patiently for the cooker to blow the whistle. It all looked fine and I was already feeling hungry. (t = 0 )

(t=10 min)
Eons had passed and I could feel that my beard had grown by over an inch in that time - but there was no whistle! The cooker was just making a zzzz...zzzz..zzzz sound.. seemed that the whistle would be coming anytime now.. but it didn't. I stood in front of the cooker waiting patiently.. heeding to the advice of Mummyji: 'cooking requires patience'. I solemnly repeated these words to myself.

(t=15 min)
All of a sudden, there was a whistle... albiet a softer one.. and puzzled the physicist in me. I saw that the cooker had turned a bit black and that all activity had suddenly subsided. Lemme admit that I was scared of it blowing on my face :D so very cautiouslly (like a seasoned accident site insurance surveyer) I switched off the stove and put it under cold running water. Then, followed the algorithm that Mummyji had tought me to open the lid. And lo, the daal was ready! But had turned a tad black in color - now is chhilka daal same as kaali daal?? I stood wondering.

Suddenly, I noticed that the innocent looking lid had a hole in it! The safety-valve had given way to the steam, I concluded. Mummyji never mentioned that chhilka daal cooking involved blowing of the valve...nor did she mention that there was no whistle in the process. I felt dumb and untrained.

But not be let down by this slight hiccup in the overall scheme of things, I took out the portion from the top (essentially, the topmost later), and fried it utilizing the experience I had in this business. In the meantime rice was already ready (I have already mastered this art).

That rice, chhilka daal (or kali daal or whatever it was!) together with aam ka achaar was probably the tastiest food I have had - sounds almost blasphemous but it tasted better than the one cooked by Mummyji :D

After the deal was done... and as I lay stretched in front of the TV in contentment, still relishing the taste, and switching the channels mindlessly, my curiosity went back to the safety-valve. So, I fished out the pressure cooker manual and read out the relevant to myself (aloud):
'The saftey valve blows up when either the water is in-sufficient or the whistle is clogged. Kindly replace the damaged valve with a new valve.'

I picked up the lid and turned it around and found the culprit red-handed - the 'chhilka' from the chhilka daal had clogged the whistle. Suddenly, it all made sense to me!

And that my dear friends, was the learning for the day: Whenever you cook chhilka daal wash it suffcient enough to remove all the losely held chhilka from the daal. This will avoid the whsitle from getting clogged and eventually, the valve from blowing.

Lies, Damned Lies and Truth

It is easy to lie. Probably the easiest thing to do. Sometimes I wonder, why is all the 'bad' stuff so easy to pick up? Smoke n' drugs n' drinking, bluffing, cheating, pretension... and most of all - to speak out a lie! It just flows out and saves the day! Fear - happens to be the driver. Fear of losing face, fear of being ashamed, fear of pulic apathy - there can be any number of fears influencing us to take the easy path - that of lying.

And its difficult to speak out the truth. Often-times, its so difficult to speak the truth rather than lie, that we lie 'n' times to cover-up.

The difference is in what follows. With a lie, guilt follows... which leads to remorse because of the realisation that we did not do a good thing; realisation that we were dishonest and betrayed trust. - and sometimes, this guilt stays for a long long time!

With truth - happiness invariably follows, irrespective of what happens in the short-term. What follows is courage with which you can face anyone and look him/her in the eye, despite being the one to pick up the blame. Have you ever experienced that strength? Its so empowering that we can go and achieve seemingly impossible things on the rebound! Truth also empowers relationships... each and everytime we speak the truth the strength of a relation moves a notch up.

I really love the poem: "Where the mind is without fear" by Tagore - so simple, yet most profound!

"
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high

Where knowledge is free

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments

By narrow domestic walls

Where words come out from the depth of truth

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way

Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit

Where the mind is led forward by thee

Into ever-widening thought and action

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake"

Love... or something like it?

"It lies not in our power to love or hate,
For will in us is overruled by fate.
When two are stripped, long ere the course begin,
We wish that one should love, the other win"
--- Christopher Marlowe

Not sure whether the above is the flair of a poet or reality! Recently, I have personally known people who love the idea of falling in 'love'. Let me admit that I have been there once - and I am sure I have company. After all, Maslov's hierarchy of needs puts the need for "love and association" just above the basic human needs.

I guess, when people are stressed - mentally or physically... or when are away from family and close friends due to whatever reason - there exists an emotional void in their lives. In such situations it might be easy to imagine that we are falling in love with the only person who is there (who in normal circumstances, would be just another person). Small gestures magnify and start to mean a lot - they provide emotional comfort when no one is close by. However, the need for this otherwise not-so-special person is gone when we move into the better days of our lives. The same person becomes redundant and suddenly the love is lost! What happens on the other end however, is huge! Unfortunately, I have been there as well!

The true love that I have expereinced (from the people who are close to me) makes me realise that love is invariant... its not dependant on good times or bad. Nor is it conditional. It transcends our entire lives - rejoicing with us when the times are good and comforting when the going gets tough.

As an afterthought - why am I so emotional? It makes me so very vulnerable! I wish I improve on this aspect in the future!