Asterisk

I die a thousand deaths, with every "but" I hear
And with the advent of storms people just disappear.
Nothing is forever, as promises are smeared,
With many "buts" to follow and terms to clear.
In the mist of ecstasy, I was promised the sun,
And then was left in the scorching heat, alone to burn.
I don't regret the pain, as it makes one but stronger
I do regret the laughs though...
As they make one stay longer!
The illusion was blinding, and I trusted my inner eye,
It led me on a path, that may end  with a goodbye.
I may pick up the pieces, and go my own way,
With a part of me left behind and my belief gone astray.
It may take me ages to turn whole again,
To find my right balance, to overcome the pain.
Lost in the desert, staring a strange mirage.
The "buts" are holding and promises are at large.
Nothing is forever, as promises are smeared,
With many "buts" to follow and terms to clear.
                                    --------------(c) Dixy Gandhi

The purple Rabbit

The Story of the Purple Rabbit

Background: Last year around the same time, my niece "Miss. Gabbu Gulhaane" was staying with us and that brat never slept before 12. So here's the story I told her to make her sleep. Her bedroom has that "Glow in Dark" stars on the ceiling, so the story follows the stars..Y the purple rabbit? coz purple is her fav color!

(Image taken from :http://www.sculpturesworld.com/Helmut-KOLLER-1954-Purple-Rabbit-Orange-DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=6&tabindex=5&objectid=422285)

The story:

Me: Ek baar ek purple rabbit hota hai, woh moon pe rehta hai, so woh ek din sochta hai..chalo kahin ghum aaye... isiliye woh pilot ko bulaata hai..aur plane mein baith ke "Saturn" Ghumne jaata hai... 

So, Gabbu batao..Plane kaun chalaata hai?

Gabbu: Pilot.

Me: Rgt, so woh saturn jaata hai, ab batao in sab mein se saturn kaunsa waala hai?

Gabbu: Jisko rings hein.

Me: Rgt, so purple rabbit Saturn pe pahunchta hai and then usko wahaan ek lake dikhaayi deti hain..toh woh sochta hai, ab mein lake ke us side kaise jaun!!! Fir use ek boat dikhti hai aur woh us boat me baith ke lake mein se us side jaane lagta  hai... Toh woh boat mein baith ke ek rhyme gaata hai... Kaunsi Rhyme gaata hai?

Me & Gabbu together: "Row Row Row your boat, gently down the stream, merrily merrily merrily life is but a dream"

Me: Fir, Purple rabbit hop hop karke ek hill ke paas pahunchta hai, wahaan woh dekhta hai ki Jack and Jill Paani bhar rahe hein...achanak Jack ka balance bighadta hai aur woh gir jaata hai..yeh dekh ke Purple rabbit kaunsi rhyme gaata hai?

Gabbu: "Jack and Jill went up the hill, to fetch a pail of water, Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after"

Me: Rgt! Fir Purple rabbit thoda aur aage jaata hai..toh usko ek wall pe ek egg dikhta hai... toh rabbit sochta hai, usse baat kar lun... Toh woh Rabbit us egg ko bolta hai.."Egg, Egg Tumhaara naam kya hai?" Lekin Rabbit jor se bolta hai na, toh woh egg darr jaata hai and uska balance bighadta hai and woh gir jaata hai... Toh fir Purple rabbit kaunsi Rhyme gaata hai?

Gabbu: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall

             Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

             All the kings men and all the kings horses

            Could not put humpty dumpty together again.

Me: Snoring....

Gabbu: Maimmen (her style of maasi), aage sunao...(Shaking me vigourously)

Me: fir kuch nahi, raat ho jaati hai, aur purple rabbit waapas moon pe chala jaata hai... aur so jaata hai..ab aap bhi so jao...

5 mins of silence... during which I sleep.

Gabbu: Maimmen.... Yeh sabka balance kyun Bigad jaata hai?

Turning 27

Turning 30….

Nathan Bradford taught me to never start a Query letter with a rhetoric question and now I am implementing his suggestion nearly everywhere, so even when I wanted to start this post with a question…I ended up writing three lines of nonsense… So what the heck… here it goes…

·         At what age, do we start drawing parallels in our lives, while watching cinema?

I mean seriously, it started with “Aisha” continued to “Break ke Baad” and now “Turning 30”.  Another Question:

·         Is Indian Cinema finally catching up with the pulse of modern, urban India or am I searching for an escape?

So why the parallels? Aisha is a story of 2 close gfs and one thinks she can rule over the life of other, as if she is the know-all, until Banker Richie Rich Abhay Deol puts sense into her! (Ahem… Ahem!! ) Anyway, finally she apologises to her friend and alls well. (I am still waiting for my apology BTW).

“Break ke Baad” had an unconventional Deepika seeing a conventional Imraan. I identify with Deepika, minus the Imraan.

And Turning 30, well in d first plc it has a single Indian woman on the wrong side of 25. And she has 2 close gfs again, and then she gets published ;-)! That’s about it. When I caught the promos on TV, I was only impressed by Gul Panag, I really like that girl, apart from her, nothing caught my attention, not the trying-to-be-hip-but-totally-not dialogues, not the music, not the pink. But still like a true movie buff I went and I enjoyed.

So what exactly was the plot:

In one line : Indian SATC, somehow Bollywood lacks creativity when it comes to chicklit.

Aisha was a chick flick copied from Jane Austen, and 30, in an effort to modernise, targets SATC, so you’ve a lead character turning 30, who openly smokes and drinks (when did addiction started being a sign of urbanisation?), her 2 frds, out of which one is a lesbian (what creativity!) and a married lady who gets pregnant because her husband is cheating on her (Some logic!). Coming back to the lead character, she gets dumped by her spineless bf in the first half, as he decides to go for an arranged marriage to settle the troubles of his parents! And then its Panag’s lone journey “in discovering herself” which she does, by getting published!

Simple Plot with everything thrown in the right amount and a final “Will you marry me” scene for the tadka of old fashioned.

Before I lose the plot, everyone has to find oneself, and everyone does sooner or later, U meet some, u lose some, U get hurt and U move on. Everyone thinks my life is unique, but everyone discovers, it’s the same old story sooner or later. As I discovered, during the bonding sessions I had with an old (I mean not old in age, but old in the sense, my old job) colleague, during Lunch. It’s the same old story. Period.

What matters at the end of the day, is the thoughts one gets between the time u hit the sack and the time sleep engulfs u. If the thoughts are happy, it’s a happy life. If not, find the reason and act! (ok I need to stop sounding Chopraish!)  But seriously, the saddest existence is when U cry yourself to sleep and then there are different gradients to that lowest point and the moment  that starts to happen, its time to change your life for better..as SRK said.. “Hum ek hi baar jeete hein…” So point is, U cannot fool yourself, so start living life where u turn back at each passing day feeling happy! So yeah, the parallels stop after the 3 hrs in theatre after that it’s a big U turn and a straight road, turning many times to reach home where reality is waiting (hehe.. I just described the route from Esquare to my home ;-))

And that reality you gotta face with a smile :-)

Winter Solistice

A brand new way, for the first post of the year.

Winter Solistice

I took a few strides anchored,
On the heels of my seude boots,
The winter chill turning me inward,
Down to the chill of my roots.
The cold, contracted corners,
Of my callous, craving heart
Still searching for mourners
For its being slowly ripped apart.
No one in sight, as I walk alone,
A loner, caught in my karma
With a thousand of my sins to atone.
The warmth eludes me,
As I swing to the extreme,
Longing to be pulled back
To fulfill a loner's dream.
Waiting for my sun, to embrace me again,
To make me feel wanted, to keep me sane.
Its always the coldest
At a Winter solistice,
When the sun is the farthest,
And I fail to realise,
I need to be the strongest
And fight all the lies.
The sun is my anchor,am tethered to its end.
Its gonna accept me as I am 'unbend'.

------------(c) Dixy Gandhi

Indian Fiction:

So here’s the deal, ever since my first book has released online and is expected in stores soon, many fellow authors have popped up from my friend circle/extended friend circle/ social network. This is a good thing, indeed. For ages we had a limited stock of Indian authors we can call our own apart from the breed that bred outside India. And the ones that flourished here have a different genre. Here’s my personal, really democratically personal list of authors that caught my eye:

Khushwant Singh: He has crudeness about him that I immensely enjoy though I disagree with his comment, where he said that Indian writers in Hindi are not good enough. I wish I could gift him a “Dharamveer Bharti” someday and make him take back his words.

Shobhaa De: She is the diva, more of a jack of all trades and not actively present in fiction.

Sagarika Ghose: I won’t put her into the regular author category, though I loved her “Blind Faith” and hated her “Gin Drinkers”. She would always be the journalist.

Sudha Murthy: I must confess the only writing I have read by her is the Tata story from her and that was really inspiring, being a Mechanical Engineer I identify with her struggle. Her books somehow have an Enid Blyton feel about them (guessed from covers, of course!) I seriously need to buy one someday.

Arundati Roy: Someone please explain God of Small things to me!! I won’t comment on her latest comment. She somehow seems to be trying desperately to model herself to the lines of a distorted version of Suu Kyi. Anyway, no comments.

That covers my list of the older generation.

Next come the new-breed writers and of course it starts as below:

Chetan Bhagat: I give him the credit of revolutionising the young readers. But that’s about it. I enjoyed 3-idiots, liked the latest book too. But somehow something is amiss, still trying to figure out what!

The chick-lit : I don’t remember the names, but there are quite  a few and I do enjoy reading them.

Tuhin Sinha: Never read, but he has a prescence, coz I have heard the name! Some egoistic I am !!

Thats about it.

So I am really excited about the new bred Indians, who have a story to tell. I am one of them, so sure its a welcome change. But I am just worried about what happens next. Here’s what my observation says, either you hit the jack pot or you don’t. (Should I draw a flow chart?) Sounds fun!! So here it goes:

My point is I somehow still today admire the decency and privateness of JD Salinger, Emily Bronte etc. I accept that they lived in a different era and we are more of a open, media intruded society where what catches the eye, sells! But even after going through all the routes I prefer the last little red box of the chart above!
-(c) Dixy Gandhi.

I have a Dream...

I have a dream… What followed was the famous speech made by Martin Luther King Jr.

His Dream?

A society devoid of racial discrimination.

My dream?

Well… Let’s see what my dream is. While growing up, it kept changing a lot.  When I was 4, I wanted to be my mom, reason: Everyone listened to her! That was pretty impressive and I wanted that authority where people would take me seriously. She still has a knack of getting things done, be it from the maid, the plumber, my dad (does dad after plumber sound bad?), my sisters, me, almost everyone. I wanted that.

When I was in fifth grade, I wanted to be a poet, and I was pretty good, I wrote a poem titled “Pickle with Food” and it was a huge hit, at least in my school. The poem was an account of how food is tasteless unless it’s accompanied by the sweet-sour pickle. Basically what I wanted to convey was the analogy between food and life, how life would be boring without the little adventures and events that give life meaning. The weekend trip, driving on the highway, bungee-jumping, the first rush of your first crush, the first car you buy with your money, the first break-up. Life would surely be dull without these sweet-sour moments! (Okay, I’m kidding, as a fifth-grader the poem was about “pickle with food”, nothing else. But it was good, I had sincerely rhymed all the pickles-tickles, food-good, that was poetry then!)

Then I saw “Meri Jung” and I wanted to be a lawyer, what added fuel to this dream was a mini-series on ZEE, (the new adventure then, satellite television) titled “Vakalat’ which had the adorable Rahul Bose and Mohan Kapoor  (where is he now?) Donning black classic robes, the arguments, the background score, I was impressed. So that continued till 10^th grade. Then I sadly realized that life doesn’t have a background score, so my cases won’t be that exciting.

Then comes the 3-Idiots part, I finished 10^th and it was time to take the career decision. By that time I had finalized on: I want to be a writer, Moved on from good-food poetry to prose. Had written and directed a play in school and the accolades convinced me that I can be.  But 3-idiots style, I took up Mechanical Engineering and that I completed and rest they say is history… could’ve been the ending if I was someone like Mr. Murthy. But I’m not.

I continued writing in my diaries hid them from my prying sister under bed mattresses (She still managed to read though) and then with the advent of internet it was the password protected Private Blog. I love itJ what does writing do? It’s an escape from reality, when it gets too much to handle. I have a safe place, where I feel me again, a place alien to everyone where I go to find solace. Then the words flow like Ganges, The tak-tak of keyboard is Beethoven, Beatles, Linkin Park, AR Rahman (not CWG, Jhoota Hi Sahi Rahman, but the Rahman I grew up with, the Dil se waala Rahman) all at once. What I’m saying is that writing soothes me, the way maybe arguing a case and winning it for a client does it for a lawyer, managing home does it for Mom, Music does it for Rahman (again earlier one, seriously what’s happened to him?) So is it my dream?

Maybe yes, I have had no revelation where I woke up and realized that I wanted to a writer, I have had no childhood wishes where I strived hard to be one. I lived my life the way I faced each day as it came, all through I had a companion that made things easier when things got tough, so was that a dream?

If yes, I should be celebrating the fulfillment of my dream: My First Book, the one that had the courage to come out of the mattresses and password protection. The one that I believed in enough for the world to see. The one that’s a collection of my observations as an urban woman, the one that carries all my experiences and thoughts, the fictional account of my being a woman and enjoying every bit of it. An account of the others I observed, the questions I strived to find answers for.

That’s SHE:

My DREAM. And I owe this to everyone who made this possible. Names?

My mom- For letting me be awake far past bedtime, and letting me enter my fantasy world peacefully.

Nancy Gandhi- For prying, for reading every single line I wrote, for bugging me to finish the hundreds of unfinished stories, so she could read!

Kimsy Gandhi- the Aurangzeb, who believes writing is time waste, she has never read anything beyond her syllabus books, but it’s because of her that I have the luxury to write. Thanks to her for being supportive without understanding J

Dad: For being supportive, for being the first person who finished reading my book after release and provided constructive feedback. I’m blessed by a supportive Dad and I thank god for it.

Sonali Patil: For refusing to read a single line of my story, but waiting patiently to hear my latest flight of the imagination, and the oh-so-encouraging “Bhariii…. Awadlay mala”

Ragini Chowbe: She needs  a special mention here as she read each and every rough draft and provided honest feedback, she is a binary girl! So Either its Sexy!! Or “accha tha”- Translation: Good or bad.

Ankita Agarwal: My colleague, who read my first story and my unfinished novel and compared me to hosenni! (well she was reading him then, or else she would have said Chetan BhagatJ)

Vandana: She just plainly made my life easier, because of her I can communicate my inner most feeling without regret or worry.

Vivek Kabra: For circulating my first unfinished novel to every person known to him and then forwarding the feedback obtained. Seriously, he is a true entrepreneur. If my novel gets finished and published, he gets special mention.

Namdev: For being totally absent while I was writing, as he himself agrees! After release, I have no words for the support, as he has left no leaf unturned in his efforts.

Simon: For being an absolute treasure of information, he made me realize the importance of humility.

Prashanta: The publisher who agreed to publish  :-) Well on a serious note, he has been totally supportive and been like a mentor who made my transition from a shy specs-clad s/w professional to the born and growing up confident writer. (My confidence is in early teens now J thanks to him!)

And then there are many others who knowingly unknowingly contributed, But a sincere thanks to the person who said, “Piccasso won’t be Piccasso if he stopped painting just like that, you’ve to find yourself”

Sometimes, you need a little nudge and the above words did it for me. Thanks!

Bottomline: I have a dream, of being able to write a thousand billion words which everyone will read and appreciate, I took my first step towards it and it feels awesome.

Homework: Complete the sentence: I have a dream… and live it :-)

Responsible Media?

So there was a lot of misappropriation of money for CWG, the facilities are not world class, nothing is ready when the games are a fortnight away. Need to be thankful to the media for making me aware of these facts. But really can we move on? Every time I switch the TV on, all the major channels are highlighting the sorry conditions of the CWG venue, with the images of everything that went wrong. My point is, things went wrong, it’s totally unacceptable but why do we need to replay the facts over and over again?  One of the leading news channels had a very eye-catching one-liner “India shamed again”, shown on an Indian network as if it’s a matter to be proud of. Then there was this list of western nations that pulled out for various reasons, somehow I feel the media wants the CWG to be a huge failure.

What amazes me is the callous attitude of the media; they have done their job of highlighting our unpreparedness, but now what’s the benefit of replaying it?  I don’t say that let the culprits free, anyway considering the Indian law situation, the culprits behind this are going to go scot-free by playing the right cards or maybe the case would run till next time CWG comes to India and then the media will remember that there was a certain Mr. K who had wronged the nation and then they’ll replay the same images we see every day now.  Then the time would be right, not now!

Just few days back, Mr.Subrato Roy of Sahara made an emotional appeal in all newspapers, asking public to support the sponsors and asking the media to stop. But who listens? The point he raised is totally logical, why are we concentrating on things that went wrong, instead of rectifying the situation? From when did “India shamed yet again” become a thing to be advertised? In the battle of the TRPs why is national image taking a back seat? The media would I guess gain more respect if it now started concentrating on the steps being taken to salvage the situation without being sarcastic, instead of showing worthless interviews of useless Gora’s who have boycotted the games  citing hygiene, safety concerns. Frankly, we don’t need terrorists to come and harm us, the media is enough.   

I very much want an answer from everyone who has wasted my Taxpayers money, but that can wait, right now I want the CWG to be a success as much as the FIFA world cup was in another not-so-developed-country-by-western-standards.

---------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another story that caught my eye was on another leading news channel, Mind you, when I say leading news channel, I mean the so-called leading English news channels. I had already given up on the Hindi news after the “Big B ne haath hilaaya” news when Mr. Bacchan was operated upon. So this leading news channel was going to show an exclusive movie on the Ayodhya issue, the real-story of Ayodhya, specially made for the 24^th decision on the issue. My question is, why now? On one hand, the police are all geared up for maintaining communal harmony, the PM issues an appeal to be unbiased, and the media fuels it by pulling out the old videos. I would like to know the real story behind it, but is it necessary to time it now when it can fuel up the minds of some un-employed youths?

It’s not the first time that the media is acting irresponsibly; we have had recent experiences of Mumbai Taj attacks and the coverage of Kargil war, when they in their efforts to lead the TRPs played with the safety of innocents. It’s high time; they woke up and realize that News channels are meant to give an unbiased coverage of happenings around the world. Their purpose is not to shock the world but give a decent account of things worth talking about.  Like Spiderman is taught the valuable lesson, “With great power, comes great responsibility”. It’s time the media woke up to theirs, they cannot bask in their power. Freedom of press, freedom to talk is all great but it comes with a responsibility of being responsible, which sadly the media isn’t.

I have heard from my parents and read the accounts of the media persons working for the National Network, about how they covered the riots connected to the 1984 assassination of Indira Gandhi. They said that they felt responsible for the manner in which they conveyed the news; the idea was to make the nation aware of the loss and not provoke the public. Somehow, that sentiment is absent in the new breed private channels.

The question that remains is, do we as Indians have lost the ‘love for nation’ when we blindly let the media infuriate us with their tone and post comments like “Boycott the games” on social networking sites? I agree that the feeling of betrayal is strong, but why can’t we maturely handle the situation at hand instead of crying over spilt milk? Why let the nation’s image suffer for the mistake of one set of politicians? If we are that hurt by the way it was handled, let’s be a bit undemocratic and sentence all those who were at fault under the strictest laws for tarnishing the image of India, do we have the courage for that?  It’s easy to keep blaming, what’s difficult is setting things right.

Tip for the media: North India and Delhi is flooded, many people (read BPL Indians) are subjected to inhuman living conditions and exposed to water-borne diseases, and I feel coverage of that is much more important than water-logging at CWG village. But guess that doesn’t make for a high TRP.