Archive for October, 2009

Aba

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

My maternal Grandfather – whom I call Aba – expired on Friday, 23rd. October,2009. He was 88. I was informed by my father in the morning. I was just into office and was settling at my seat, when Father’s call came. I was suspicious. Aba was unwell for last couple of weeks. Especially his last week was very bad. Doctor had already told us that it was just a matter of time. Two days before this, mother had told me how he was becoming weaker by the day. I was in hope that I would be able to see him, when I go to India next month. But, it wasn’t to be. I felt heavy when I heard the news. I didn’t feel like bursting into a cry, but yeah, my eyes became moist. I remembered every moment I had spent with him. I was just lost in thoughts for some time. I didn’t cry because, I knew the news would come some day sooner or later. Actually, he was relieved of all his pains, that he suffered in some of his last days. And sometimes, biggest of sorrows generate least of tears. Moreover, as they poetically say, he was now devoid of all the sorrows of material world.

My paternal grandparents expired when I was about 12-13 years old and so did my maternal grandmother. I had seen only the loving and caring grandparents in them as that was the only facet that I could experience till that age. But Aba’s was a different case. As I was growing up and understanding more, I could understand him more as a human being. He was a very loving grandfather indeed. I still remember I must’ve been about 8-9 years old, when I was walking with him on road of Pune. My mother and father were ahead and I was with Aba, when suddenly I saw a green plastic toy guitar in one of the toy shops by the road and I felt like I wanted it. I usually wasn’t that of a demanding boy (since mother would simply beat me up if I would be that), but that moment I don’t know, maybe because I trusted my loving grandfather- I wasn’t ready to give up. He tried to dissuade me at first, but I was stubborn, I refused to move from my position. I just stayed there, right in front of the toy shop. All that he had to do was call my mother, it would’ve taken only one glare to get me out of there, but instead he gave up and walked me inside. I don’t remember the price, since I wasn’t interested, but I know it must’ve been expensive. When we reached home, mother was very annoyed at me, but Aba was so satisfied with my glowing face. I never felt anything about that incident, but when I grew up I understood the deep love of my grandfather in it. I strangely remember this incident very vividly, not many of that age though.

Further to being this loving grandfather, I knew him as a strong-willed and hard-working person. He started his own business after the age of 50. That fact is enough to know about the man’s will power and readiness to work hard. He worked till almost age of 82-83. He was visiting his workshop till almost two years back. He wasn’t engineer by education, but by experience. He had seen days of poverty. My mother still tells me stories of their meagre expenditures. Today, my Maternal uncle is retired from a big MNC on big post. My mother is a professor in a reputed college and my maternal aunt is well settled in her own. And Aba, who worked as a meagre technician for different companies, owns a big property in Pune, all on his own. He aptly named his residence in Pune as “Jidda” (Determination). He was indeed a very determined man. He never wanted to be dependent. Not even on his own children. After my grandmother’s death, he chose to live alone with a housekeeper. He lived in his own house till death. Never depended on anyone. When during his last few days, he started needing help to get up from bed, I guess he himself must’ve decided to stop. I heard his stories from my mother a lot of times, but I saw him do the work and deal with people also. He wasn’t a particularly sweet talking person, instead he was anything but that. But still, he made that up with his sincerity and hard work. My mother always says, if I take even 5% of his good virtues, I would go long way ahead in life. And I know how true it is for not only me, but for everyone.

I am not saying all this because he was my grandfather, but because, I knew him well. He used to play chess with me when I was in junior college. But, as I grew up, I had other important things to do. He understood it. He never tried to teach me anything, but instead I learnt from his actions. His cleanliness, his tidiness. The way he always dressed well and kept himself neat and tidy. The way he kept his things organized. I am so different than him in these things (mom says I took my habits from father). Anyone who knew him personally would tell you this. 

He wasn’t perfect. He was human. He had his share of enemies. He was a very straightforward person. If you are in his good books, he would do anything for you. But, you do something that he disapproves, you are his enemy forever. He was very eccentric in this respect. But, he wasn’t a person who would go to any level in enmity. He did everything royally. 

I am writing this after 5 days after he left. But, I just couldn’t gather words before. He deserved a lot than this meagre blogpost of mine. He was an institution. I didn’t call him for last month or so, the only solace for me is just about a month and half ago, he was at my Mumbai home for few days and I had seen and chatted with him on Video Chat. That was my last conversation with him. Everytime when I flew to India for vacations, I would visit him at least once. I would touch his feet on reaching there and leaving from there and everytime when I left he would hug me with moist eyes. Everytime, I felt he did that as if it would be last time. I can still remember his weak but firm embrace. Moist and proud eyes. I still feel if I could just touch his feet again, one last time.

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Diving down the depths of human mind!

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

The vastly mysterious thing – the human mind. Thousands and thousands or should I say billions of people from the start of human race have tried to explore the length, width and depth of the human mind. The human mind is a something like an elephant in the story of “the elephant and five blind men”. Everyone who tries discovers a new dimensions of it. One of the most interesting and historically most influential part of human mind and its working is the human relationships. This single element has caused the rise of entire civilizations and destruction of those same civilizations. It was ought to be explored by artists from all ages of time. Everybody tried to explore different threads of it and whenever someone thought he had found something, an entirely new thing would crop up. Everyone is right and yet ironically, everyone is wrong. Cinema is one of the mediums of art of the modern world for expressions. It is used as a tool of entertainment as well as education, but base of Cinema lies in characters and their interrelations. Basically, cinema is a medium that is most dependent on human relationships. Historically, it is being used to explore the vast variety of human relationships, from Akira Kurosawa, Kryzstof Kieslowski/Piesciwicz, Alfred Hitchcock to Satyajit Ray and from Woody Allen to Sumitra Bhave / Anurag Kashyap; every director had his own story to tell. Everyone of these had a different thread to show. Not only these, there are several masters whom I am not quite remembering on the tip of my tongue.

The reason why I am talking all this is my sudden realization of how difficult it is to understand life and human relationships. How narrowly we think while labeling human relationships. After watching a few good films over the last two weekends, my already stirred up psyche reached new levels of oscillations. I have been heavily influenced my many films before as I try to delve deep into everyone of them. If I do not understand the movie, I read about it from famous critics and Cine-Experts and try to get it into perspective. I actually like almost every film (unless it is made purely for showing the loss to evade tax) for something in it. I try to gather something from each film. That’s why I can never write a review for any film. I tried in vain some time back, but its just not my field. Thus I have decided that I would only write in brief about films that I like and that will be it.

The movies that I saw last week were Anuranan (A Bengali film) and Christmas in August (A Korean Film). They both explore the tenderest of human relationships.

Anuranan meaning resonance in Bengali, is a well executed film set in Urban area. Due to this its appeal may reach a shorter audience, but the way it depicts the understanding of human relationships by its protagonist (Played by Rahul Bose) is out of this world. Especially the monologue recorded by his character in the penultimate scene is well written. Actually, I saw the movie dubbed in Hindi, I guess the original Bengali dialogues must be really superb and a treat for those who understand Bengali. The film shows us the futility of labelling relationships and the horrific effects it may have on other important parts of life.

Christmas in August is a wonderfully simple film set in some small town in South Korea. It is a story of a man in his mid thirties, who knows he has a terminal illness and he will die anytime soon. Its the story of how he deals with the illness and his relationships (family, friends, ex-crush and love). The tender story can make any tough person shed some tears in the end, in the process teaching an important lesson. Relationships are the real treasure that we can have in our life as a human.

There are lot many films that have influenced me as much or more than these two films (like Devrai [Marathi film by Sumitra Bhave/Sunil Sukathankar] ), but since these two I saw in a short span of time, one after the other; the impact was deeper and I had to write the experience down. I have tried to avoid the details of the plot in both the films. I strongly recommend them both.

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Some Random Thoughts!

Monday, October 12th, 2009

The week was kind of uneventful (for me) and I could not think linearly. Some news left me numb and some were better to forget. M.K. Gandhi’s Jayanti (birthday) passed in last week. I am not a great fan of the man, but I do admire some of his qualities. But, I sometimes seriously wonder what kind of remembrance should we do of people whom we revere so much?

What can be the most fitting way? Observing a nationwide dry day on paper and organizing noise polluting programs in his remembrance? Or National telecasts of corrupt and inefficient politicians paying visits to great people’s Samadhis? We actually do not understand the real thing.

We are becoming like that. We believe in show and we simply ignore the actual thing. We like to do rituals publicly and put up a public show of it, but hardly anyone cares for the human beings. Amitabh Bachchan and some others like him visit different famous temples day in and day out (sometimes I feel like asking-how come he gets easy access to these hugely crowded temples, where common man has to stand for hours in line), these bigwigs, marry their to be daughter-in-law to a banana tree, before marrying her to their son; just to remove Mangal from her Patrika, but the same family wouldn’t pay much heed to paying taxes, or environmental issues. We all do that, why blame them, they just set an example, and since we have evolved from monkeys, we copy. We love to keep it simple; we always want to avoid complications. We would simply walk barefooted to the temple to show our dignity and devotion, but we won’t help an old woman to cross the road. Why bother? We won’t throw the garbage in dustbin, but instead on footpath but we will even go to courts to seek rights for Namaz on same streets. We all will complain for noise pollution when it comes to our doorstep, but we will devotedly listen to the prayers played out on loud speakers at odd hours.

I don’t know where I am coming from nor where I am headed to it’s just what came to my mind. It’s a flow and I am unable to put it in organized way.

Then there is one more thing that comes to my mind. People say we must respect the person who is on his/her own principles. The one who holds on to his own principles in whatever adversity. I agree. But at this point I find a conflict. Imagine this person being the leader of a huge community of people. The decisions he/she takes are the ones that can shape the future of entire community. This person has his set of principles and he adheres to them in all situations. Now, imagine his/her principles are actually at conflict with the apparent well-being of the community. That is, if he goes against his principles for this one time, he/she can actually save many lives and probably he/she may himself/herself feel defeated. But, what shall he/she do? What shall he/she choose? The lives of thousands of people that depend on him or his principles? His internal peace?

I am a man of very small stature probably I won’t ever be in these shoes, but still I feel if I were, I would go against my principles for this one time. I may break in the process, but my principles or my inner self aren’t important than thousands of lives. And I do not have a right to play with them for my whims.

I know everyone is entitled to their opinion. Many of you may have different opinions. I would love to know. But for the above reference, many of you must have made out, about whom I was talking. M.K.Gandhi. Yes, “Mahatma” M.K.Gandhi. You are free to draw conclusions. For me, he is not a Mahatma, he is a great human being. The stress is on human being. The problem with us is that we get emotional and start hero worship. We simply deny to understand that all these great people were indeed human beings. They did great things and mistakes as well. We must accept them as they were and not hide anything. They would actually be proud of us if we do that.

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Marathi at WAR!

Sunday, October 4th, 2009

Note : The post is very long. The post is about the Local Politics in the State of Maharashtra and would require many references for persons unknown to it. Thus I give a short list of some of entities I would mention.

MNS – Maharashtra Navanirmaan Sena – A local Political Party

Raj Thackerey – MNS chief.

ShivSena – A local political party.

BJP – Bharatiya Janata Party – A National Political Party.

Balasaheb Thackerey – ShivSena Chief.

Uddhav Thackerey – Balasaheb’s son and now working president of ShivSena.

Congress – A National Political Party.

Rashtrawadi – Nationalist Congress – A Local Political Party.

Vidarbha – Part of Maharashtra which is famished for long and is infamous for Farmer’s large number of suicides reeling under debts.

Elections in Maharashtra State are beckoning and the war of words between rival leaders and parties is heating up. But, sad part is the great language -Marathi- which is used as an instrument for hauling people, is suffering at the hands of politics. Emotions overpower my thought process when anything regarding my mothertongue Marathi crops up. I love and respect India’s national language Hindi and respect all the other languages spoken in India, but I love, love and only love Marathi. Perhaps, this becomes a barrier for me to impartially analyze any situation regarding Marathi language or Marathi people. Still, because this issue is rapidly turning into a farce and People of Maharashtra will decide their own fate in Assembly Elections in coming weeks, I want to put forward my observations and PoV (Pont of View). I will try to be as objective as possible, but please bear with me if I derail a bit.

From last year, Raj Thackerey’s emergence in the Maharashtra state politics has been the hottest topic of debate. Let it be his demeanour or suaveness or maybe his immaculate public speaking abilities or simply his management skills, he has just been the centre of attraction. You can love him or hate him, you certainly can’t ignore him. Some say, he is Congress’ instrument to break up the support base of rival ShivSena-BJP alliance, some say he is a victim of monarchist policies of ShivSena, some say he just wants to prove his own worth and some take him as the only saviour who can get back the old Maratha Empire glory to Marathi people. While most of the points seem to lose their grounds in different cases, the important point remains that he is certainly proving to be pain in the neck for ShivSena-BJP alliance and also causing a lot of disrespect for Marathis across the nation due to improper ways of handling the situations.

When he started off, I being a staunch Marathi, like any other youth got attracted towards his thoughts. Some of his thoughts are completely true, such as partiality by the Bihari Rail Ministers in Railway Recruitment and these are proven facts that, the advertisements for national recruitments for a certain state are printed widely in Bihar and in mere one or two papers in the concerned states. The entire system of recruitment has come under scrutiny many a times but has been set aside in some way or the other. Sometimes the leader who takes up the issue is silenced or bought and sometimes some different disasters divert the attentions. The issue remains the same and stands at the same place. From the very start of my understanding for politics, I always thought that Raj was the rightful successor for the ShivSena throne, because he has been on the field and worked with grassroots of the organisation, but unfortunately Balasaheb preferred his own son before nephew and the fight of the egos which in turn made the Common Marathi person feel ashamed started.  The media was extremely irresponsible in covering the events and it only sensationalised the entire issue which resulted in an overreaction from across the country. When Rajs Anti North Indian call came, as I said earlier I agreed and still agree on certain points that he raised, only the thing was I always thought his method of solving it was wrong. The violence was not needed, there was a constitutional way to work with things. But considering he had no members of his party in neither State Assembly nor Parliament, he needed to something dramatic to hog attention and thus he followed that way. Here I and many like me parted ways with his philosophy, and turned back to ShivSena just because BJP(whose supporter I have been on majority of the issues) still partnered it and the alliance could have given a stable and sensible option.

At this point of time, Raj was on a rampage. He was fast becoming a legend killer, with his take on Amitabh Bachchan and his frequent show of affection for his home state and the showman Amar Singh. Jaya Bachchan(Amitabh’s wife) proved Raj right by this unnecessary provocation and insult to Marathis with whom she has shared home for last so many years. Consequently Raj was given an opportunity to show some muscle by demanding an apology and consequent apology by Amitabh Bachchan himself. Bachchan and Junior Bachchan’s films were on the verge of release (The Last Lear and Drona respectively, which both successively bombed at Box Office nationwide) and there could have been no better time to make Bachchans kneel.

Raj was gathering bigger support base and Loksabha (Parliament) elections showed it as majority of women and youth(the most easily influenced group and substantial in number) voted for Maharashtra Navanirman Sena (MNS – Raj’s Party) in turn splitting ShivSena-BJP’s traditional votes resulting in limping victory for Congress in all Six Parliamentary constituencies in Mumbai. Raj was now a force to reckon with, though he did not win a single seat. His points and issues still remained same, his language never changed. Even though, his party was elevated from a newbie to potential kingmakers in Vidhansabha (Assembly) elections, he seldom mentioned any robust plan for economic and educational reforms or any solid understanding of Vidarbha’s Farmers’ worsening situation. This is worth noticing. He has gained his ground, he should have started to be more assertive on major issues, instead he and his cousin are still fighting a war of words over Marathi concerns. “Marathi Concerns” I mean who is really concerned about what? Marathi people? Are they some cattle who you guys are trying to win over? Congress-Rasthrawadi is the worst government and the most spineless government of the History of Maharashtra, but you two by putting up this show of Marathi concerns, in turn are humiliating us Marathi people and pushing us further into distress by in turn helping Congress and Rashtrawadi. Those Congress and Rashtrawadi, who kept mum even when an unintellectual leader like Sanjay Nirupam (Writer of “Return of Jewel Theif” and inmate in Big Boss 2 and previously in ShivSena and now a Congress Leader) publicly demanded reserving 10% of seats for North Indians in Maharashtra. I mean how dare he?

I can see a pattern in Raj Thackerey’s recent achievements. When Jaya Bachchan had made that outrageous remark on Marathi’s She was promoting her son’s To-be-Flop Film Drona. She was accompanied by the directors wife Sonali Bendre, who shamefully(because she denied the comments with bizarre explanations) originally hails from a Marathi family. And interestingly, She is known to be very close to Raj Thackerey himself. Can you see a pattern. Two films on the verge of release, Jaya makes a notorious remark in one of the film’s promotional events, Wife of the Director of one of the films is close to Raj Thackerey who picks up the point and declares a self proclaimed ban on both films, quickly Amitabh apologizes the next day on behalf of his wives and consequently Raj clears way for films. Did you notice, how many times the names of Drona and The Last Lear flashed in so many newspapers, on the front page. Without any special effort films gained widespread publicity. Unfortunately for them, films still didn’t work. You don’t believe me, here is the latest one. Allegedly (So I say because, I haven’t seen the film) Wake up Sid, the latest offering from the den of India’s biggest overhyped director’s production house contains a conversation between two of its protagonists, which uses the word “Bombay” instead of changed “Mumbai”. Raj picks up the point. Demands for an apology and threatens yet another of those self proclaimed ban on film. The very next day, the overhyped director (This time a producer) runs to him and quickly apologizes, with a promise to re-dub the dialogue. The ban is lifted. Film is publicized outrageously as I have already said, you can love or hate Raj but can’t ignore him, his mere name has lifted the publicity of the film. So they say in the industry – “If you can’t be famous, be infamous.”

I am with Raj’s basic argument that, it is Maharashtra Government’s law that in every language, the word “Bombay” or any other name should be replaced as Mumbai with immediate effect and the law has been in effect from last 10-odd years. So, basically everyone should avoid the old colonial usage or any other name.  Noteworthy, is all the international and national maps are updated accordingly and also, the global News network categorically menion the city by the name of “Mumbai”. Still, people knowingly or unknowingly make the mistake. OK, they have made the mistake, ask the court to decide, make them pay. Get it clear for the people. But, disgusting was the episode that followed, ShivSena jumped into the picture with saying that, it was them who put up the Marathi issue first (which is indeed true) and thus do not heed to anyone else and the apology should be directed to People of Maharashtra and not to some Tom, Dick and Harry (which is also true), but why jump into it just for the sake of Raj-bashing. Going further the Chief Minister of the State of Maharashtra goes on to say that, if the filmmaker was having any problem with security he should have come to police to ask for it, there was no need to create a scene. Wonderful! I mean the Chief Minister is offering protection to someone who is in trouble for breaking(knowingly or unknowingly) the law of the state.

In this sense for me the film Kaminey was most subtly offensive of the lot to Marathi people. There are lot of subtle snubs to Raj Thackerey, but some go haywire and snub Marathis as a whole (I may be a little extra sensitive saying this). But some like a dialogue involving the words, “Mumbai” and “Bambai”-North Indian version of “Bombay”-between protagonist(North Indian – born in Mumbai but not knowing Marathi and antagonist (Marathi), which is very insensitive on Marathi people’s belief in Mumbadevi as the Parent Goddess of Mumbai(the word is derived from Goddess’ name). Still, there was not a word of opposition from Raj. Why these double standards? Remember some time back Aamir Khan also used this trick of publicity, when before release of Fanaa he suddenly felt like criticizing some Chief Ministers of state on behalf of Narmada Bachao Andolan, which landed him in a controversy with self-administered ban from majority of People in Gujarat gave his film the perfect boost.

My point is in every situation I have mentioned above, the ultimate humiliation is to the Great Language Marathi and Marathi people only. Raj gained his popularity, Uddhav his cousin gained his self satisfaction of humiliating Raj in public, the films got their share of publicity and incumbent government got what they wanted, the split in opposition’s support base, but the farmers in Vidarbha are still reeling under debts from Savkars (Money Lenders), the security situation is still vulnerable, the Congress regime is still living in its Nehru-Gandhi Family grandeur and completely ignoring the local problems. The loss is only to Marathis, Mumbai and ultimately Maharashtra. Everybody should understand this. Vote for stability and not in emotion.

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