Movie Poems -1

Because movies is where i learn everything from....

Twilight saga:

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

Fire and Ice, By Robert Frost

 

Udaan:

 

Jo Lehre se aage nazar dekh paati
to tum jaan lete,
main kya sochta hoon.

Vo avaaj tumko jo bhed jaati
to tum sochte, main kya sochta hoon.

Zid ka tumhara jo parda sarakta
To khidkiyon se aage bhi tum dekh paate.

Aankhon se aadato ki palke hatate
to tum jaan lete, main kya sochta hoon.

Meri tarah khud par hota thoda bharosa
to kuchh tum bhi saath saath aate.

Rang meri aankhon ka baatte zara sa
to kuch door tum bhi aate saath saath.

Nasha aasma ka jo choomta tumhe bhi,
hasrate tumhari naya janm paati;
khud doosre janm me meri udaan
chhoone kuchh door tum bhi saath saath aate.

 

 Satyanshu and Devanshu Singh

Lament of a relationship

//Wrote for Hub Pages on October 1, 2011//

 

Image caption: conspicuous by absence

My dreams like my feelings for you change colour,
In the morning, I coordinate to catch your glimpse
But by the evening, these feelings for you I wish I could rinse
In the afternoons comes the bliss,
for in between boring lectures I dream of the times I miss
Such a waste
To have to let go of a beautiful young relationship in haste
A relation that couldn’t reach its full potential
Leaving me with thoughts that are both irrational and carnal
It is a sad thing--
a relationship that hasn’t been given the time to blossom
but sadder still, to know that it’s you who mucked up the whole thing,
I feel sad to know that I shouldn’t ever forgive you
but sadder still is to feel that I have never been truly angry with you
And now, to know what we were and what we could become
pales in comparison with what I was and what I have become...

Walk the Green Mile

//Wrote for hubpages on on November 24, 2011//

The thought behind this was a photo competition with "Green" theme...i didn't win:

Coming from a “concrete jungle”, the college's green campus is a welcome respite. Especially this green path next to our hostel, where I have all my phone conversations with friends and family. Why?: well initially because there was no network coverage in my room :), but then later the shrubs and flowers and the vines grew and it became so Picturesque... that i had to take a picture and write about it...

While talking on the phone, I take a leisurely walk
Every day, on this gorgeous, beautiful, green path
Whether dark or light, I feel it’s mine,
This place with dark trees wrapped with vines,
And even when I will leave my current adobe, I shall always remember the lovely green road 

A Day in Life: Divine Intervention

//Written for hub pages on November 18, 2011...//

It was going to be a long day. I knew it the moment my mother woke me up at 9:00 AM. On any other day waking up at 9 would mean that I have missed my office cab and now would have to beg my father to drop me off. But today was a holiday and my mom never woke me up early on a holiday. The fact that she did led to my prognosis.
I tried to shake the ominous feeling and concentrated on what she was saying. “….have tried everything but now I just have to sleep for some time. Can you take care of the maids while I try to sleep my headache off?”
Oh. So that was it. My mom is 52 years old and her headaches are only getting worse. During such days there is nothing to be done but just to endure it. I nodded my head and tried to get up. As I rolled to the other side of the bed to get up I felt the Maggie I ate last night roll too. I wondered where it could find any space. My craving for food at night is a lot like Edward Cullen’s craving for Bella’s blood. Why am I making a reference to a vampire movie? Maybe it was because I read the whole e-book last night. That’s another thing I always wondered at: how come these books have so much power over me? They influence my moods, my responses, even towards normal things. A happy book makes me happy, a sad book spoils my day, makes me fight with friends and family and a rebellious movie just ruins my already-volatile relationship with my parents. I am a born-and-brought-up-in-India person; vampires, werewolves are not a part of my 5000 year old culture. How can I now feel sympathy for a vampire? Or feel sorry for a werewolf whose love is not reciprocated? Or jealous of a fictional character who has found the love of her life? Twice? That Bitch.
Just then I hear a scream like someone had actually seen a vampire. But I can’t see anything. Wait. My eyes are closed. Why am I still lying down? Didn’t I just wake up?
“….26 years old and cant even provide her mother comfort for even two hours?...what can be done with her? She is hopeless….i specifically told her how bad am feeling today but NO…it is too much to hope!”
I open my eyes and there she is. Yelling. I shake all my dreams off of me and this time manage to get up in the real world. Real world? What would Neo say to that?
Its already 9:30, my maids have come and begun their morning madness. All the sheets are being tossed, the floor is being swept, the utensils are getting washed mom is muttering to herself and the others while they work noisily. I brush my teeth quickly and leisurely eat the food that has been prepared for me. Here’s another thing about my mom. She could be dying and she would still cook food for me. For as long as I can remember, and that is before Tupperware, my mom would pack in my lunch everyday with great care.
By the time I finish eating the house is spick and span. The maids are finally leaving.
Its 11:00 am. I am in the guest room and working on my laptop. Mom comes in and asks me ”Where do you plan to study? I want to sleep”. Since I was already in the guest room, I knew she was really asking me to vacate the room. Still, I told her that I would be studying in the same room. She leaves and comes back in some time like a petulant child. “I can’t sleep in that room…there is too much light….” and switches off the tube light in the guest room. I don’t leave the room. I know she would like me to stay. A few minutes later she asks me to open the windows as there isn’t enough air in the room. A few minutes after that she wants me to switch on the AC as it’s too hot. So I close the windows, switch the AC on. After a few minutes she asks me to shut off the AC as well as the Fan, next she asks me to switch on the fan.
After a few minutes she gives up and takes her pain medicine. Maybe the day won’t be so bad now.
Its 12:00 PM. Mom is yet to sleep and I am yet to start studying. The doorbell rings. I open the door and see the washer-lady (called dhobin) standing with a baby girl. She asks for my mom. I instantly know she wants to ask for money. That’s another thing about my mom. She gives. I remember one time when my sister who had graduated college came back home and saw that her desk was gone. She has given away sofa, scooty, chargers, money, clothing and food. I tell my dhobin that mom’s not feeling well and is sleeping. She walks away giving me the look that says “the apple has fallen far from the tree”. I go back into the room and mom’s there asking me the question with her eyes. I tell her and she immediately hops off the bed and yells “Stop her….why didn’t you ask me??” Forgetting all the pain in her head and joints and everything mom immediately puts some milk in the pan, takes bread and fruits out and tells me to give some money. I make a face and she explains “Today is mata’s* day!...and a young girl has come to our doorsteps for food and you turned her away! Silly girl!” She is so happy, it’s almost comic. She goes out, mollycoddles the little baby girl and then touches her feet and says” Jai Mata Di”. “Oh Gaawd” I say. “Yes..God Exactly!” She says back.
Finally, she goes to sleep. This time for real. I know I can hear the snores. Maybe it was divine intervention. Or maybe it was the medicines, but she is finally sleeping. With a smile on her face.

*--> Mata in Hindi means mother, also used to refer to goddess Durga. Young girls in India are treated as “girl-goddesses” on some special festival days.

Lost youth: What we are and what we have been

// Following from a post i wrote for hub pages in Sep 2011..//

The end of an Era

“In a few decades, everyone you know would have died…”
- Edward Cullen.
My mom is sitting with me, almost crying. My mamaji (maternal uncle) is not well and will be going to Mumbai tomorrow to see a cancer doctor. “It’s all going away,” she says. “Soon there will be no one who remembers me from before”. I tell her that it’s illogical to think so. She will definitely die before me and due to the torture that I faced in my teen ages I would surely remember her; if not love at least.
She doesn’t smile at this. This makes me a little worried. She starts talking again. “When I was young, we used to make Jhaaki (floats) of ganpatij (Lord Ganesha) at our house. Everyone would chip in and ours used to be the best jhaaki in the gully. There used to be so many people who came to see that police was required. I was class valedictorian. I used to wear bell-bottoms ….”
I didn’t know any of this. That last piece of information does shock me. I never knew mom could to wear anything so…for the lack of a better word…modern? I couldn’t imagine mom in bell-bottoms…She doesn’t even wear chudidaars now, how could this be? But I think for some time and know that this has happened to me too, this is how it’s always been.
I am plump but nobody in my office knows that I was underweight till class 12^th or that I took medicines so that I would put on some weight, forget about knowing they wouldn't believe it unless they see some photographs as proof. I can't believe that my bosses were once freshers and enjoyed office as much as I did when I had newly joined my office.
That’s the same with mom. That part of her life where she was so young and carefree is now gone, but it did happen. Sure, mom can remember all she wants to. But what happens when there is no one to validate these memories? How lonely is that? I think about all my exploits
in school and colleges... I don't want them to fade away... but how can one stop memories from growing old?
I am already feeling depressed. Mom realizes how I am feeling or senses it…so she gets up to cook something nice for me. God bless her.
It’s time for me to read. Like a drug for a painful headache. I read.

All time Music-3: St's never ending playlist

The best songs are the ones that you come across completely by chance,  and then at some point later on they will haunt you...not the whole song but maybe a part of the tune, a phrase of the lyrics, and drive you mad!
Not the propaganda songs:I read somewhere that big labels push songs into people's minds. They keep on playing it in repeat mode and finally even a song that you hated once will stick with you eventually... but i am not talking about them ...am referring to songs which you may hear just once:in a wedding somewhere or in someone's car when they drop you off, on a random listening to FM or while you are having a coffee in an obscure shop...

and then when nothing is going on in your mind you will hum that tune and try to work backwards as to where you have heard it before.

So for me, I heard this song in all those places but just fleetingly....in a coffee shop the first time. I asked them about it but they said they didn't know Sh*t. (rather they didn't give a Sh*t)... next I was randomly listening to "The Wicked Hour" on FM at night and this came up...i remember i wanted so badly to memorize the lyrics so that i could ask my friends or Google but couldn't ...and before i could even enjoy the song it was gone. I think i tried mailing the RJ as well...
In another act of randomness I heard this song in the background of a commercial for Incredible India. And so i downloaded the YouTube video, converted into audio and played it repeat mode over and over and over... hoping that some day i will find where this came from... I asked on the YouTube link what the song was...someone gave me a hint that its a Buddha bar song...but cruelly didn't tell me which one...I explored/searched on Wikipedia on YouTube on every f*^king website the list of Buddha bar albums and songs... phew...
I took a chance then and asked another crazy music listener friend of mine about it ...she did give me a link which was quite close to the song but was not exactly what i had heard...it was then that i lost hope and deleted the song in an attempt to forget it....

Life is what happens when you least expect it...

Year 2015 and Trip to Malaysia...after a day on the beach there we were relaxing on a restaurant called Champor Champor and eating over priced food and was about to check in when...I heard this woman's strong rough voice, the obscure lyrics and the fusion music...Gaaaawwwd! It really is a finite world!

Finally! ....My longest blog so far is dedicated to the lengthiest search for a song "Bombay Pure"by Buddha Bar... Here is the song and the actual Incredible India video which i had put on repeat mode....Hope it haunts you the way it haunted me:

Bombay Pure Karunesh YouTube

Incredible India Advertisement 

Not for the faint hearted!

Once when I was in B-school and had left my shoes to dry outside my room, an ugly-gooey-sticky growth had been formed on one of my shoe laces...I was so grossed out I was ready to throw them and my friend Ritu commented "arre pagal hai kya... ghar kaise chalayegi"... and it hit me.. surely running a house is a grizzly business and it requires more determination and courage than cleaning a shoelace! Some incidents that show case that running a house is not for the fain hearted:

Proof 1: We had a huge ceiling fan in our balcony, one afternoon a pigeon flew into it and there was blood feathers and bones everywhere. BTW my mother is a strict vegetarian and almost a Jain when it comes to harming animals, she was terrified, she called someone to collect the carcass, swept the whole balcony with phenol so that there is no smell, put clothes in washing machine and all this before we reached home from school as she didn't want any of us to see the sight or any evidence of what had happened.

Proof 2:
Our Nayi Naveli Washing  Machine... stopped working barely 2 months after we bought it. The LG mechanic took 3 seconds to diagnose that the problem is that a RAT entered the machine and is eating way the wires!... I yelled and screeched a like a girl while he shook the machine... and then he told me the Rat is still on my balcony railing... I couldn't chase it away...he clapped loudly and the mouse fell off the balcony railing.

Proof 3: Now come on you may say.... rat lizrard cockroaches are a way of life and nothing out of ordinary....BUT BUT BUT Of all the animals one may expect to enter in a flat, am sure BAT is absolutely the last on anyone's mind. Yet it happened. Thank fully on a day when i was not in the house; Preshit gets up and goes to our second bedroom and sees a strange BLACK MASS, HE IS JUST ABOUT TO SWITCH ON THE LIGHT WHEN HE REALIZES THAT HE HAS SEEN a BAT!...He does what anyone else can do... call the "guard bhaiya".

Proof 5: In 1.5 years of married life Preshit and i have changed our house 3 times. IN all times both of us have different idea of what cleanliness means and therefore we have each struggled with establishing "clean" house every time we move. Moving into a house is a big strain and again every time I am tempted to throw out stuff rather than clean it.

Probably this is why we feel that even though Men are stronger than women, women are tougher than men... because they were the ones who handled these everyday incidents of eww and eeks and toughened it out!

Mother The Great

Now, I know many may have said this before me...but my mom truly is great; her anecdotes:

"Shrutiiiii..... woh capsule mat laana...papa keh rahe hai ki mujhe isme hi sikha denge...kya hai... apple jaane kya hai"- My mother, asking me not to get a tablet for her.

"Betaa...humein update kar do.... message save karna sikha do...(belches)..."

"Ab theek hai Shweta, acche se reh lo ye bachhe ke chkkar mein mat pado"- advising my sister on not having a child till they were settled.


"Shrutiiiii, tujhe agar success chahiye to tu apni saas ko phone kar!... main keh rahi hun bas namaste kar!" -- Astha channel mode.


Whatever said and done: My mom is like Winston Churchill, the war prime minister. She is sent everywhere where there is warlike-critical situation. We all feel that she is finicky and not very comfortable and easy going but in past 5 years she has stayed in Vindhyachal, Bangladesh, Vidisha, Khandwa, Bhopal, Noida and Hyderabad and in all for the comfort of others. This when she has reached the golden age of sixty. And every time she goes back to "Home" in Noida, she has to start from point A: look for a maid, buy groceries, dust sofas and beds, get the phone running, get the cable running...and i wonder...why doesn't she just run away!

Parameters of measuring success

Hyderabad, Kondapur, Golden Tulip estate, Ground Floor.

Scene: I am taking my 3 year old niece up to my house. A pre-teen girl and her brother come down the stairs.

[The Girl]: Hi... Do you work in Deloitte?

[Me] Err...  No... I work in TechM.

[The Girl]: Who is she..? Has she come to play? Will she spend the night?

[Me] Yea...she is my niece... she was getting bored so she came with me...i will drop her back at night..

[Sai/My Niece] Smiles shyly... knows we are talking about her...

[The Girl] ohh... in car??
[Me] What a thing to ask... Yes or maybe my husband will drop her off on bike.

[The Girl]: Does she understand English?
[Me] What is this woman's problem! haha... yea she kind of does... sai...what is your name?

[Sai/My Niece] under pressure...looking away from all of us....Shambabi Jori

[The Girl]: Where was she born?
[Me] Dude!!! really... DELHI, but she understands Telugu also.
[The Girl]: Her turn to give me a weird look...Which class is she in?

[Me]: Well... i dont know...
[The Girl]: Shocked... Doesnt she go to school??!!!

[Me]: NO ...she goes to this pre-school thing... she is 3 yaar...


[The Girl]: ohhhhh hehehehe... ok... i thought she is big... hehehehe...

[Me]: Ok bbye...sai bye bolo didi ko...
[Sai/My Niece] baaaiii

[The Girl]:Actually i thought she is born in US...she is so fair na...thats why...

All time Music-2: St's never ending playlist

This next song...i don't like this guy's voice...in fact he is so nasal and all his songs are really soppy lovey dovey types which i just cant like.
I don't know who exactly told me about this song first. Ritu (one of my darlings) says she played this song in her room and i didn't respond to it(that sounds like me)... but then it was suggested by sandy and when i finally listened to the coke studio version i fell in love with this...

khoooo jaane de ruk jaane de lehero mein kahin ...doob jaane de...

Nothing unique abt the lyrics...but the combination...music, words and yes! his voice make this one of my all time favorites... maybe it has a hint of sufism? qawaalis are another of my weakness and like ads have hidden graphics to make you want to buy stuff maybe the song has a hidden meaning for me... :)
Thing is...to get over a song from infinite list you need another infinite-loop song and so finally I was able to remove aa mujhe choo le from repeat mode.

Of course Ritu would say "dost ne bola to nahi maani, bande ne bola to maan gayi!" but my heart goes out for this song and for Atif Alam for making me take my words back!
Here is the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf6MsltI7lQ

Too little too late...the story of carrot and stick

So recently I saw many people in my team get awards... Now, awards have been my Achilles heel since ages. My sister ..always an achiever had an entire file which was full of certificates and her study table was decorated with medals she had won in sports, in dance, in music, in academics in debates and declamations... My parents being all queen of awesome never made me feel jealous or motivated and therefore i never did anything great but believed that i am great. Then during one annual day function i was included in a group dance (thanks to my sister's reputation) and shockingly for me everyone in that group had to run back on stage once the dance was finished as they were all getting some or the other award. That day I felt so bad that i made a resolve to win one myself. I worked really hard and I remember before I left Apeejay Saket, I received a tiny piece of paper which said... "certificate of appreciation" in a beautiful cursive hand writing. I remember just looking at it, seeing the color of the blue ink and admiring the penmanship ... and even though i was happy i couldn't help but compare it the certificate of merits just lying on my sisters desk.

And so ended my inglorious primary years of education, with absolutely no achievement to boast of. I moved out of my sister's shadow and into another school which gave me many more opportunities to grow. I boy did i use them to the fullest... i tried my hand at karate(pun intended!), at dancing, at public speaking ...all in a span of 6 years that were by far my favorite. Still..when it came to awards my jholi was always khaali :( . And i saw how easily some other people would get rewards. I tried hard to get a rank, but it was always difficult with such boring subjects such as biology and civics... then i did dancing and became quite well known for it. I hated the teacher but listened to her and attended all classes and everything. Still the award went to a girl who was her neighbor. Amicable personality, most potential, standing out personality... nthn..though if you were to ask me i thought i was all those things.

It was the age of internet, and new websites were popping up like flowers in spring time...and along came this new one with quizzes on all topics called "MindZones.com". A family friend's son competed and won a certificate and a gift, and my Mom implied that i should do sth similar. My friend who had exhausted her number of tries gave my email id and finally cracked one quiz but since  website ran out of medals, gave a certificate. My school though had a policy of writing citations for every child and then I thought maybe now the teachers would see what an amazing person I am. And again i was disappointed... everyone else' citations were so personal.. like so and so can be found helping out students in a corner...so and so always brings smile to everyone's face... mine were so formal...it looked as if teachers didn't know me at all. This however was a big blow to my confidence.

College, well ...no chance...i only wasted my 4 years here.

Office life started with a small company...with less than 100 people. Here at least i thought i would shine. But here i saw people getting awards for a change who deserved them. anyhow, 5 years passed without any appreciation of certificate or gift vouchers... my colleagues went on from one success to another and i was stuck. not even a team award! i thought my luck must be really bad....

B-School was a repeat of A school...
and so... when everyone in my current team started getting awards...the familiar dreaded sense of shame mixed with frustration started to creep up on me.
I got a Bravo award. That i believe is the least level of award that can be given by the supervisor. It has hurt me so much. I at least expected a POB. And then i heard about who else got one, one of my friends was laughing how he got Associate of month; he said that he didn't even do anything and was chilling from home!, from my team a guy who hasn't solved an issue on his own is getting a technical excellence award!...the unfairness of this whole situation is just so...heart-breakingly familiar to me...

To get the least level award is insulting..but more so as it is the only award that i have gotten in 8 odd years of my life....The misery of getting lowest award getting compounded by the fact that i only have such a tiny thing to show. and once again i find myself reading it again and again... This time however i am not even able to admire any penmanship any ink...and the certificate of merit seem more distant than ever ...