Kaun Umraoo....kaisi adaa aur kiski jaan....

Smthg I had written long back, but forgot to publish


I recently went to see this latest much-overhyped flick with a friend. I am not exceptionally fond of movies or movie stars, I'd rather be in the comforts of my couch, empowered with a huge pack of potato chips in one hand and the remote in another surfing my day away. Moreover, spending money to sit idle in one chair for three hours is too much of a temptation for me to rather nuzzle up in my bed and get a good sleep. But well, the hype over the movie, the praise of the original version by family veterans and, most of all, sheer boredom, made us go.

We reached, as always, 10 minutes after the movie was supposed to begin. We got the topmost row, and a "Enjoy-the-movie" accompanied with a sly smile. We had known the movie was not a big hit, and I guess that's what made the ticket-guy give us a sly smile ....ah!! how difficult to live in a world of prejudices and presumptions! what would people not think of a guy and a girl going for a not-so-hit movie ... or rather what is all that they would think But well, more on the rhetoric later, we entered the hall and realised the extent of slyness of the smile and its full implications sank in. There were, in all, including the two of us, 11 people in the entire theater!! I've seen, having been a regular Delhi collegiate, and keeping up with the rep , practically every movie that released while I was in college, and yet a theater THIS empty, was a new experience for me.

Realising what probably a bore of a time we were in for, we mutually decided we will refuse to get bored, come what may, and would crack a joke at every line. and learn some urdu, if possible :)

So there we were, two great pals, sitting in a nearly empty theater ,, watching a period movie, with a much overhyped actress and bad reviews, prepared for the worst,and yet determined to have the time of our lives...

For the less enlightened and more fortunate, allow me to say a few words, in english for now (urdu can wait till i learn it), about the movie. Its about a girl, who gets abducted, while a still a child, from her financially constrained but loving and wholesome family staying in a forlorn village of the then Awadh, and sold off to a prostitute in Lucknow. The girl gets a luxurious upbringing and more than a decent education in subjects beyond music and dance as well. But as luck (read story writer) would have it, she falls in love with her very first professional encounter. And then comes the usual obstacles put in the way of two lovers by the inevitable family cries of honor by brothers & fathers, even the prostitute-clientele, and societal differences , the synchronized glycerine overflows by women of all color , caste , and ahem, well, character , and the easy-to-miss occasional villain and ofcourse the hard-to-dismiss misunderstandings thrown in to complete the drama.

All this drama, leaves the lovers separated, the families lost and divided, the ekta-kapoor fan following in the audience beating the women on screen with genuine tears, and you wondering why would , a prostitute who doesnt mind screaming her love in front of the world would not utter the truth in front of her lover to clear out the misunderstanding ?? and then why would she actually use her profession to find out about her family, and then shy away from the world finding out lest it brings bad name to the family, and then go and meet her family in broad daylight?? i mean could she not have faked her identity ?? what was she thinking, or was she (or the story writer) thinking at all?? and then, that perfectly "perfect" woman, with her fame and clientele still intact give everything up and go into a permanent reclusion? if that's what she had to do, why she didnt she give up when her lover left her or before she went looking for her family, i mean,.... then she wud've gained smthg out of leavng her profession and after she'd lost all stakes and had nothing else to lose, she could've atleast continued being rich amd famous,. or even if she had to give evthg up, did she necesarrily have to go back to the same city and live a life of desolation? why didnt she just go to some other far-off place and started afresh,. as smrich fat lady's maid maybe. i mean if it was too difficult for people to travel to far off places, it must've been easier for people to lose their identities rt?

it left me thinking if logic did not exist in the days this story was originally written? or come to think of it, does it exist now , with people still making such movies and serials where 1 character gets married atleast 5 times in less than 5 years to perhaps all members of the clan and outside, smtimes, multiple times to the same person!! and weirdly, no matter how many times a woman has been married/divorced/jailed/even "murdered and re-incarnated", she does not a SINGLE fine line!!! she looks EXACTLY as a grandmother, as she did the day of her marriage.!!

oh-well-whatever!!! the movie made for a great time for the two of us atleast, as while struggling with noting down hard urdu words we cud use later to show-off in our vocab ;) had all the attention of the rest of the 9 audience, not-to-mention the wrath of the ekta-kapoor audience in those 9 people, and back cramps from laughing too much .... that does explain one thing though, we are better and definitely more of crowd-pullers than abhishek and aishwarya, its just that we choose not-to-be, ;)

sar se utar kar kaandhey pe bikhar jaati hain,
kambakht zulfon ko bahut sar pe chadhaa rakha hai


.....i heard these smwhere

yunhi

aaj jab hum yunhi ghar ki
chaukhat par baithe so rahe thhey
daftar najaakar dhoop mein sustane
ke sapno mein kho rahe thhey

achanak dimmag par chhaya
waqt ka kaala saaya,
ehsaas hua ki adhaa ghanta
ho gaya intezaar karte
ab tak hamari
gaadi waala kyun nahi aaya

hadbada kar apne sehkarmi
ko hamne kiya phone
toh pata chala ki
hum toh sapne hi dekhte reh gaye,
aur hamara wahan-chalak
kal hi gaya tha chhutti ka bol

khayal aaya ki hum bhi
mauke ka fayda uttha lein
sahab ko phone kar
bimari ka bahan bana dein

par yeh kambakht tankhwa
jo ab tak nahi aayi
loan ki kisht ke haathon mazboor,
rickshey ko awaaz lagayi,
"10 rupaiye mein chalte ho kya bhai"!

ab dafter mein baithe
kismat ko rote hain
humse bhale toh kam
padhe likhe driver babu
kam-s-kam ghar pe araam se chadar
taan ke sote hain

life

life is weird. We keep living it with certain beliefs , notions and ideas about ourselves, our society , and the people in it. Whether its are our friends, family or the rest of the world ranging from the US president to our local fruit vendor, we have atleast a basic understanding of each. And hence of their actions.Atleast that's what we think.

What we dont know baffles us and with certain exceptions (such as maths in my case), we keep trying to figure it out. If we know atleast the people around us and understand their thoughts and actions, it gives us a sense of deep rooted security. It is this which makes moving to a new home or a job so difficult. You dont know anyone or anything there. You feel unrooted, insecured and alone. But what do you do when without as much as throwing a pebble in the calm waters of a peaceful and harmonious life, things suddenly turn upside down, well metaphorically. I am not talking about sudden deaths or natural calamities that do indeed turn your life upside down, I am talking of things that are more intangible and though I could not possibly undermine the impact of the tangible disastors, these are intangible only by nature, for their impact can be as devastating, or atleast confusing.

As children, our parents are our first ideals, we want to be just like them when we grow up. I remember, well actually my mother does not let me forget, though she remembers it fondly and embarrassingly in front of all our relatives, how I used to put on her makeup and take her bag and pretend that I was going to office , when I was 5, just like her.

And as we grow, we idealize more and more elders around us, our teachers, elder siblings, some relatives. And but for the exception of the teens, when movie, rock, and sports stars dont really leave space for anyone else to be idealized, there are always people around us we admire for some reason or the other. And it is this knowledge which makes us feel that we know the people around us.

But what do you do when you realise the one quality you admired somebody for, was just a facade put up for a great show. What do you do when you realise a person you admired for his unaffectedness, dropped it like a hot brick at the first instant of possible benefit to be attained from shrewdness. Or someone you thought believed in honesty was lying all along. Or someone who loathed quite unequivocally, crafty maneuvers, turn out to be quite adept at using them for short term benefits?

What do you do, when right after you think you have got somebody all figured out, you realise things were wrong from day one? What do you do when life spins completely out of control at the very moment when you thought the sailing was smooth?

You feel lost. and doubtful. of yourself. your judgement. and your own ideas and beliefs. Everything is shaken. But most of all, you doubt if the principles you have set for your own self are correct or not. Perhaps what somebody has done is not wrong, and you are being too impractical and unrealistic.Perhaps what somebody is the right way to do things and it should be, for they are happy aren't they??

You ponder over it for days , weeks, at times even months at end, till it slowly recedes into the background of your mind. Sometimes it changes the way you think, and you adapt in order to survive more successfully, but mostly it vanishes as yet another rock that slowly sank in and the surface became calm again. And though it does at times cause permanent damage to your opinion and perhaps relationship with that person, and make the water bed rockier, you just learn to recuperate from the storm and keep sailing forth. Trying to figure life out, you start all over again. And though you cant predict nor avoid the next storm , whether it should leave you wiser or embittered, is entirely up to you and that is what makes that elusive thing, called happiness , attainable. So happy journey!

zindagi hai ke jiye jaatey hain
gum ke ghoont piye jaatey hain
zakhm hi miley is dil ko
ishq ka karam
maut ka intezaar kiya jaatey hain
zindagi hai ke jiye jaatey hain....


I, hereby, take this oppurtunity to thank my friend who introduced me to the original piece and take full and sole responsibility for this mortifying, ruined version, of a great piece I can
neither remember nor find. My sincerest apologies to the creator(may he continue to sleep in his grave/bed peacefully)...and I promise to be more regular in continuing the tradition of this blog till date of trying my hands at different writing styles, languages and subjects and producing similar blasphemies and idiosyncracies ... each aiming at a higher impact .... ;)