Euphony

Music is in footsteps eager to reach you, the bell ring, the sound of whispers in ear, of knuckles unknuckling lazily, the swish of clothes, of laughter, and the name being called out. Again and again.

Music is windows rattling, wind knocking, thunder, rain, the splashing in pools of muddy water, the gurgle of drains, of gumboots plodding, the towel drying wet hair.

Music is opera, the gut-wrenching cry of unspeakable sadness, of stories that never die about people who always do.

Music is the church choir, stiff collars scraping necks, throats belting out hymns in sync, the uniformity of consent, of community, of togetherness.

Music is the huge temple bell rung just once to announce arrival and once more to depart, an offering to an idol created by the cadence of hands.

Music is the azaan, the call of the muezzin, especially at dusk, intoned like the sun cooling off, like air trapped in the hollow of cheeks that breaks free and escapes into the sky.

Music is the symphony of an orchestra where hands seem to quiver. Of the soloist at a pop concert who has to match voice with attitude, timbre.

Music is the turning of the pages of a book, of scratching out words with a pen, of sketching on rice paper, of the fan blowing into face, of lips puckering to blow away the strands of hair.

Music is distant traffic at night, of the phone on silent and a call with a name so familiar you divert it to voice mail so that you can listen to the sigh.

--

© Farzana Versey

Sunday ka Funda

Gulzar to receive the Dadasaheb Phalke award seems like a redundancy. The accolade will not change a thing, but it does draw attention to the fact that this poet-lyricist-scriptwriter-director is one of the more subtle minds to embellish the Indian film industry.

I have often uploaded his songs, and gone into sometimes long explanations. Of Tere bina zindagi se shikwa tau nahin.... Of Mera kuchch samaan padaa hai aapke paas

This time, let us just listen. This is not one of my favourite ones, but it captures a certain mood. A tribute to tears?

Fill the eyes
Empty sleep...

Pani pani re khaare paani re
Pani pani re khaare paani re
Nainon mein bhar jaaye
Neendein khaali kar jaaye

How independent is independence?

Emotions can be infectious. When one listens to the sound of music, however loud, however remixed, from street corners and shanties, it is difficult not to at least hum along and somehow join in.

Today, it was relatively quiet. There is one 'celebration' spot across the end of the lane, which would be a few meters from my gate. That is where almost every occasion calls for songs. I waited to be awoken. It was only after breakfast that I heard the first strains:

"Ae mere watan ke logoun
Zaraa aankh mein bhar lo paani
Jo shaheed hue hai unki
Zaraa yaad karo qurbani

What do we remember most about this song? Ask around. They will tell you that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had tears in his eyes when he heard Lata Mangeshkar singing Pradeep's lyrics.

India got independence from British rule; this song was penned after the war with China. The China that ambles across our borders.

This song is a paean to the sacrifices of soldiers. In the past few years soldiers have been killed along the LoC, even when there is no war; they have also been killed by their colleagues or by a gunshot aimed by themselves.

"Jab ghayal hua Himalaya..."? The mountains are not wounded. The wars are between pundits in studios, politicians hawking their wares.

I am dry-eyed.

---

I don't watch the speeches from the Red Fort on August 15th. However, it is interesting to see the reactions. The prime minister is not going there to clear the air or solve the country's problems. There are 364 days in the year. He is, or ought to be, speaking on behalf of the country, not the political party he represents. Unfortunately, that does not happen.

It is no surprise, then, that the wannabe candidate of la-la-land, Narendra Modi, chose to hit out at the Red Fort speech even before it was delivered. He said that at the Red Fort there would be only promises whereas here — in Bhuj where he was addressing the youth of his state — there would be talk about the work that has been done.

We have seen how his devotees (and he is a god whose clay feet they refuse to notice) have the gumption of passing off sleek buses in China as a model of ones in Ahmedabad to show 'development'. So blinded are they that they forget that India does not have left-hand drive vehicles and it is easy to catch the lie. Or perhaps it is audacity. They do not care.

Just as Modi himself does not. Minutes after the PM address, he sniggered, "Media channels said this is PM Manmohan Singh's last speech from Red Fort but he said he has miles to go, which rocket will he take?"

It is not important whether this man understands Robert Frost's poetry. It is a sophomoric dig, and that should tell us a lot more about him than industry-sponsored speeches.

I have just read the transcript of the PM's speech. It is mostly homilies. In a country where people are now battling with disease, illiteracy, and the rupee being worth one-sixtieth of a dollar and onions at Rs. 60 a kilo — we are even gearing to import it from Pakistan (tears without any skirmish!) — Dr. Singh offered chicken soup, not medicine. What we need is not just medicine, but inoculation. If we don't, anyone with ambitions will pose as a healer. We don't recognise quacks easily.

---

Yesterday afternoon, there were cops near a shopping mall. Lounging on uncomfortable chairs, looking tiredly as cars broke signals and pedestrians skirted cars.

I read in the papers there were 721 sensitive spots. 721 spots in Mumbai alone. 721 spots where terrorists could strike, whereas right under the nose of the cops anyone could have been killed by a passing vehicle with a cocky driver behind the wheel.

---

So many free things available — electronics, clothes, cosmetics, edibles, travel, even ads for losing kilos "free".

How many people earning an honest living would be beguiled by all this and bought things they might not need. Did they think about the freedom struggle? Did those corporates and retailers?

---

What we get free makes us indebted and enslaved. We are all still colonised in some way or the other by commercialism, bigotry, prejudice, casteism, communalism, elitism. So how independent are we really?

© Farzana Versey

Many-layered women and memories: Yash Chopra's lamhe

How often have some of us quoted the lines, “Main aur meri tanhai aksar baatein kiya karte hai” (my loneliness and I often talk to each other) and “Kabhi-kabhi mere dil mein khayal aata hai” (sometimes, my heart thinks these thoughts)…they encapsulated the cinema of Yash Chopra and of many of our own lost and found memories.

He has been called the King of Romance, and perhaps rightly so, but I’d not limit him to that. There are two ways of seeing a movie – the way in which it is projected and the emotional chord that touches us. I do like the sight of large expanses of tulips and love expressed in song right in the middle of these flowers, but it is in the tight close-ups, the speaking eyes, the quivering lips, the short lines and longer monologues that we may find something more to relate to.

Yash Chopra was most certainly not making candyfloss, and I am not saying so because he is no more. I cannot think of a single weak woman in any of his directorial ventures. Even in Deewaar, made famous also by that one line “Mere paas ma hai” in the conflict between the two brothers, between good and evil, it is so obvious that the mother figure had nurtured the good. The son was not making the choice; she had made him capable enough to have her close to him. And in the death scene, when the bad son lies in her lap, he does not need any god. His retribution is complete.

It also quite blatantly showed a non-traditional woman, despite smoking and living with the man, as someone in control of her life. There did not appear to be any judgement passed on her, nor did it look like the guy was doing her a favour and making a good woman of her.

In Kabhi Kabhi too there was the ‘other’ man/woman. Imagine a situation where a woman on her wedding night sings a song based on the poetry of the man she was in love with. Here was readymade material for a tear-jerker. Instead, she chooses to move on and build a beautiful and happy life. The man, now the other, also happens to be the other to his own wife, who when taunted with her past (and a daughter from that relationship), chooses to confront him about his double standards and makes ready to leave rather than live with the hypocrisy.

In Trishool, the ‘encounter’ scene between father and abandoned son relied on just one truly cutting sentence, when the younger man tells the older one, “Aap mere najaaiz baap ho" (You are my illegitimate father).

Yash Chopra did deal with 'irregular' relationships within the ambit of mainstream cinema. That is why it was difficult to hail him for these qualities and instead many chose to stick to the romantic genre, which can actually mean so many things.

Take Daag. Much of the film was relegated to the indoors, in the dark. A man with two wives, reuniting with his old love and having to stealthily convey it, “Mere dil mein aaj kya hai, tu kahe tau main bataa doon, teri zulf phir sawaroon, teri maang phir sajaa doon…mujhe devta banaakar teri chaahaton ne pooja, mera pyaar keh raha hai main tujhe khuda bana doon”. Trapped in circumstances, all he can do is ask her if she will permit him to express his feelings. The stream of worship-godliness is woven into this narrative.

With Lamhe, he broke so many shackles. A girl falls in love with the man who was in love with her mother. Of course, she does not know it, and her mother did not know about his feelings either, since she was in love with someone else who she married.  Here too, the young woman is strong-willed, expressive and even when she discovers the truth, she makes him realise that he loved an idea, a thought. Those moments – lamhe – were lost.

I find it strange that this is seen as the Elektra Complex (in fact, it is mistakenly referred to as the Oedipal Complex). Freud is a good way to study anything, but the girl grows up without even seeing the man, who is her guardian. She is also in love with an idea, expressed with birthday gifts that she leaves unopened. It is that heartbeat of meeting him when she is old enough and sees a man, a male, who she first had a vague idea about and who became real enough to fantasise about.

Yash Chopra’s last film as director was Veer Zaara. It is perhaps one of the finest ‘messages’ in terms of communalism, Indo-Pak relationship, prisoners (real and caged by love), and nostalgia. However, he did not stop at the pining. He gave it a fitting ending. Yes, I did wonder why the Pakistani woman came to India and lived her life as she would if she had married him. The answer lies in every moment he spends in chains behind the prison walls, incarcerated without trial, aware that he was protecting her honour. This sounded old world, to an extent even regressive. How important is such honour? But this was early years after Partition; it had to do with families, reputations. It had to do with love that had to be silenced.

Greying, but still running about and active, she does not regret the life she chose. She built a new life, without any monument, without fanfare. We know of it only towards the end when he is free, aided by a strong and empathetic woman lawyer. We know if it when he holds up one of her anklets from those many years ago, not as shiny anymore, that he had kept as remembrance.

 “Main pal do pal ka shaayar hoon

Pal do pal meri kahaani hai

Pal do pal meri hasti hai

Pal do pal meri jawaani hai.”

Sahir Ludhianvi conveyed this best in the Kabhi Kabhi song - My poetry, my life, my identity, my youth are but for a moment or two…only those who create lasting impressions understand the value of such evanescence. 

PS: I have not named the characters deliberately, for as I implied in the beginning it could be you, it could be me.  

Sunday ka Funda

There is no 'funda' here. I love this song and have been humming it, so...

And, yes, only in Bollywood can people continue to sing while making love and even reaching an orgasm! Oh, well, people do laugh and scream, so may as well sing...

Movie: Refugee
Singers: Alka Yagnik, Sonu Nigam
Music Director: Anu Malik
Lyricist: Javed Akhtar
Actors: Abhishek Bachchan, Kareena Kapoor
Year: 2000

Sunday ka Funda

There are teems of people in the roads everyday, uprooted from homes. For them survival is a dream. A little money to be earned, wrenched from their families and often themselves. They don’t have to be naked fakirs and the only voices that speak for them are what they have left behind and which they connect to with that old red postbox.

Gaman remains one of those rare gems that silently revealed such displacement – crowded streets and vacant eyes. Two ghazals from the film...

tanhai ki ye kaun si manzil hai rafiqon

taa-hadd-e-nazar ek bayaabaan sa kyon hai

seene mein jalan aankhon mein toofan sa kyon hai

is shahar mein har shaks pareshan sa kyon hai

(Where is the loneliness headed to

as far as one can see there is nothing beyond

the heart burns as storms fill eyes

in the city everyone seems to be a tortured soul)

Back in the village, the woman waits. The torture is no less as memories tug…

koi deewana galiyon mein phirta raha

koi awaaz aati rahi raat bhar

Aapki yaad aati rahi

(Some madman roams the streets

Some sounds I hear at least

As all night your thoughts don’t leave)

Movie: Gaman
Singers:
1. Suresh Wadkar
2. Chhaya Ganguly
Music Director: Jaidev
Lyricists:
1. Shahryar
2. Maqdoom Mohiuddin
Actors: Farooq Sheikh, Smita Patil
Year: 1978

Sunday ka Funda

“Isn't it the moment of most profound doubt that gives birth to new certainties? Perhaps hopelessness is the very soil that nourishes human hope; perhaps one could never find sense in life without first experiencing its absurdity...”

- Vaclav Havel

We are living in hopeless times and times of hopelessness. The two can be mutually-exclusive. What happens when a person thinks too much, feels too much and realises that at the end of the tunnel it is night?

Some of us have stood at the edge and heard the echoes of the winds and we have returned to the plains. Hoping. Hoping. Sometimes moping. The human dilemma is about a lot of that.

In this song the protagonist is going through just such thoughts and at a low ebb asks god to take him back because life holds no interest. I find it interesting that he does not go and finish himself – he asks the creator to ‘uncreate’ him, so to speak. I don’t know what the lyricist must have meant, but that is how I read it.

The last verse is so full of powerful angush:

bhanwar ka sar na chakaraye, na dil lehron ka doobein

yeh kashtee aap kar dee maine toofaan ke hawaale

Rough translation:

There is no whirlpool, nor have the waves drowned my heart

I have myself handed my boat to the storms

Film: Baawre Nain (1950)

Music: Roshan
Singer: Mukesh

Lyrics: Kedar Sharma

Actor: Raj Kapoor

Sunday ka Funda

Understanding silence...

Kabhi tanhayion mein yun

Film: Hamari yaad aayegi
Singer: Mubarak Begum
Lyrics: Kedar Sharma
Music: Snehal Bhatkar

Patriotic songs for Sushma Swaraj's naach

I liked the sight of Sushma Swaraj dancing at Rajghat. The Congress did not. The AICC General Secretary said:

“By dancing at the Samadhi of Mahatma Gandhi, Sushma Swaraj has not only insulted Gandhiji but all the freedom fighters and the entire countrymen. She should resign from the post of the Leader of the Opposition and apologise to the people.”

Oh, come on. Giving incendiary speeches, getting leaders of dubious habits carrying wreaths are equally insulting. If we don’t want any public gathering at Rajghat, then just keep the place closed and visit it twice a year.

We all know the whole thing is political from every angle, but this is plain juvenile opposition. The people would be happier if politicians danced to their tune, but that won’t happen. Incidentally, our freedom fighters used song and dance often to motivate people. Ms. Swaraj says she was doing it to boost the morale of the cadres. Of course, there was no “Munni badnaam hui”, but one can say she was acting like “zandu balm” to soothe frayed nerves.

Sushmaji has clarified the songs were patriotic.

Let me twist a few well-known ones that she might have danced to if only they were written:

Mere desh ki dharti bhaqwaa ugley
Ugley Ramdev-Modi
Mere desh ki dharti

---

Kar chale hum fidayeen ke naak mein dum saathiyon
Ab hamare hawaale watan kar do saathiyon

---

Jahaan daal-daal par Sonia karti hai basera
Woh kaisa Bharat desh hai mera

---

Ae mere watan ke logoun
Zara jaldi haath ko kar lo khaali
Jo ‘shaheed’ bhare hai jail mein
Bhool jaao agar hui unke saath diwali

---

Baar-baar haan, bolo yaar haan
Apne geet ho, unki naach haan

- - -



The original songs:

Mere desh ki dharti sona ugley
Ugley heere-moti
--
Kar chaley hum fidaa jaan-o-tan saathiyon
Ab tumhare hawaale watan saathiyon
--
Jahaan daal-daal par sone ki chidiya karti hai basera
Woh Bharat desh hai mera
--
Ae mere watan ke logoun
Zara aankh mein bhar lo paani
Jo shaheed hue hai unki
Zara yaad karo qurbani
--
Baar-baar haan, bolo yaar haan
Apni jeet ho, unki haar haan

----
(c) Farzana Versey

Sunday ka Funda

When you are at home and miss it...when you raise your eyebrows and yet hope...

Sunday ka Funda

I was sitting before a TV screen and suddenly this hip number was kind of in my face, quite literally. I had heard about the smoky new version of Dum Maro Dum and its sex quotient. Deepika Padukone has what it takes, but anyone could have done this – any item girl, any other actress. There are precisely two real moves in the whole song and it looks like an assembly-line product. There has been a build-up and people will lap it up. Will it stay in the mind for long? Nope. These belly-ass contortions need to be choreographed, and after a while the studied pout begins to look like a goldfish gasping inside an aquarium. It does not even have the cold-blooded streak of contained anger.

The new yawn

I don’t believe that anything old is necessarily sacrosanct. But if you meddle with something iconic then at least try and live up to it. Zeenat Aman was no great actress – Deepika is far better – but the original song stayed in character and does not look like the tens that came out even if we recollect the music of that particular era.

It remained in memory for years and continues to do so. It appealed to a new urban audience and created a different sound. It also created a different bad girl. The fact that it is so contemporary will be borne out by such scenes even today in many happening discotheques and lounge bars.

For some of us in our later growing up years, there just wasn't anything expressive enough for adolescent angst and we had to rewind to the 'dum'; just swaying sybaritically and pretending to be ‘ecstatic’ was such delicious rebellion.

The old dawn

PS: I think Zeenat was among the first mainstream dusky actresses and there was no special mention about her colour. It is, therefore, disappointing that Deepika who should be happy with her complexion is endorsing a fairness cream. She is pushing a stereotype and also assuming that people are fools. The advertising agency seriously needs to do a reality check. For a lot of bucks she is willing to be insulted, for insult it is to the way she is, and to cheat people into believing in the possibility of such change, which is not likely and should not be encouraged.

Filling Empty

There are times when you wonder whether you are right or someone is wrong. These are not the same. Your rightness does not denote another's wrongness.

Anyway, I recall a qawwali we heard often when we were young, "Bhar do jholi meri Ya Mohamed, laut kar main na jaaonga khali..." There was challenge in that 'prayer'. I liked that aspect. When I came across this other version, an almost complete departure, I did not know how to react. It was like the child in me was left to roam, lost in the woods even while sitting under the shade of a tree.

I am growing to like it, forming my own visuals. Filling the emptiness..."Khat'm kar de khaalipan"

Bhar de jholi - Rahat Fateh Ali Khan

Empty-handed evening

What is dusk? The end of the day returning without nothing.

When I wrote Break Lighting, I had a feeble idea. My mailbox brought me up-to-date with emptiness. Thank you for sharing this gem...

Aaj bhi na aaye aansoon
Aaj bhi na bheege naina
Aaj bhi kori raena
Kori laut jaayegi

(Today too there were no tears
The eyes remained dry
The blank night
Returned blank)

Khaali haath shaam aayi hai



Movie: Ijaazat
Lyrics: Gulzar
Music: R.D.Burman
Singer: Asha Bhosale
Actors: Naseeruddin Shah, Rekha, Anuradha Patel
Year: 1987

Memory

I remember best when I am in a state of turmoil. Then why are scientists saying that stronger and more lasting memories are likely to be formed when a person is in repose and the memory-related neurons in the brain do a little tango with certain brain waves?

I differ here, even if it goes against all scientific logic. Synchronisation requires harmony and often the management of material. Now suppose you recall every little detail of a turbulent experience, how do you sort it out? If it is sorted out, then it ceases to be a memory. Or turbulent. It loses its character and transforms into a linear ‘wave’ in the mind.

What perhaps a relaxed mind can do is memorise. Memorisation is not about memories. Memories are intangible and nostalgia makes you ache for the jerky ride.

Memories are apples bitten into that have left teeth marks; they are ripped open gift packages where the satin is frayed; they are stains that won’t go away and scars that don't fade; they are losses that you don’t count because you could not count on them when they were gains; they are moments that left with the wind and dust that settled in its trail.

Scientists may optimise the state of the brain and believe that relaxation brings about new information and improves memory. But all new information will be memory.

Will they be able to ask us to relax and remember the times we wish to forget?

- - -

Memory – Barbra Streisand

Francesca and Farida

Paulo and she read through Lancelot, and a page was enough for them to know how they felt. It often is instant. Like dust in eyes, though, it can hurt. It did. But, it did not stop them.

Dante further immortalised them in his Divine Comedy:

One day we reading were for our delight
Of Launcelot, how Love did him enthral.
Alone we were and without any fear.

Full many a time our eyes together drew
That reading, and drove the colour from our faces;
But one point only was it that o'ercame us.

When as we read of the much-longed-for smile
Being by such a noble lover kissed,
This one, who ne'er from me shall be divided,

Kissed me upon the mouth all palpitating.
Galeotto was the book and he who wrote it.
That day no farther did we read therein."

And all the while one spirit uttered this,
The other one did weep so, that, for pity,
I swooned away as if I had been dying,

And fell, even as a dead body falls.

(Translated by H.W.Longfellow)

As for Farida, she just sang a song like many others have done. I don’t know what she felt, but despite others having sung it, her version remains with me.

Sajan Laagi Tori Lagan – Farida Khanum

My name is Schezuan Khan!

Now when you see a Chinese face, think of your great-great-great-ad nauseum grandparents. The hakka noodles could well be Indian.

This is revealed by a study ‘Mapping Human Genetic History in Asia’ which concurs that the human population originally came from Africa. It disproves something based on fossil data. It seems like a nice thing to do given that we have people willing to play fossils.

A hundred thousand years ago the humans in Africa figured out they had to look around a bit. They were focussed on this country, like the world’s eyes are on India stuff going on now. I can imagine them saying that they were moving because of the fertile soil, the amazing culture, the opportunities, and the natural beauty. The canny ones might have even thought this was reincarnation the moment they spotted some thick foliage just like back home.

Then, due to some genetic jugglery they began to show differences. Probably the umbilical cord was being cut off by twisting and turning. They started pronouncing R as L and used sticks to eat. In one of the first uprisings that possibly took place in unrecorded history, they decided to leave. They had to walk for days in the sun, which perhaps lends them the marked features of rather small eyes slanted to avoid the glare. All races have some distinguishing physical aspects. Such as Indians nodding their heads by tilting them towards left shoulder and then the right one at a 30 degree angle to convey yes, no, whatever.

To return to the early departing population, they settled in what came to be East Asian countries. What I cannot figure out from this study is how these nations were already there as prêt-a-porter countries. Were they called China, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines? Why did the first group go to Thailand? Was the place tough on them and is that why they mastered the art of massage? Does the thriving business in Bangkok having anything to do with the lessons from the Kama Sutra they imbibed? And why did the second lot move to Malaysia? Are today’s Pakistanis following Malaysian Islam rather than the Saudi one they are accused of?

Why do Singaporeans have strict penal charges against spitting on the roads? Are they trying to get rid of their Indian roots of spitting any and everywhere? Is the Japanese penchant for making small things and being minimalist a dissenting response to the ostentation of Indian ethos?

These are not questions that engage the 90 scientists who took a sample of 1,928 unrelated individuals from 73 populations in 10 countries. They are more concerned about how this research “is also significant for understanding migratory pattern of human history and furthering the research in medicine. It has great potential for collaboration with these countries in finding treatment to many diseases like flu, AIDS and other pandemics”.

So, if you have a bit of fever and are coughing madly, don’t just gulp down that sweet syrup and suck on lozenges. Think of how the Japs would do it. I assume the fact that they bow on any given occasion is a halfway touching of the feet gesture by the majority population of India; it also probably derives from how they coped with clearing their lungs. You know, bend a little and the kho-kho-kho subsides.

All your ailments will now be seen in the light of how they are faring. If you are about to faint, then make sure to ask them to pass some smelling ajinomoto, please.

- - -

An Indian has been chosen as one of the top ten foreign heroes in the past 100 years for contribution to China. This report came in before the research was made public.

Dr Dwarkanath Kotnis treated Chinese soldiers during the Sino-Japanese war of 1938. Mao Zedong was mighty impressed and when the doctor died, he said, “The army has lost a helping hand, the nation a friend. Let’s always bear in mind his internationalist spirit.”

How internationalist China is we all know, especially during those days, but he probably felt some tug of a common heritage. I think these researchers must be right.


Incidentally, Dr Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani was a film based on the life story of the doc. I am not sure how much of it was true, but in the celluloid version he cured the plague, was captured by the Japanese, fell in love with a Chinese girl and died, because of the plague not the girl. V Shantaram enacted the title role and Jayshree played the Chinese girl. All same-same, no?

Chith Dole - Dr Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani

That little sigh

That intangible something. Kaheen yeh woh tau nahin…I must admit it is not great lyrics; quite pedestrian, in fact. No passion, no sublimity. Yet…I think I like the thought of the thought springing from a mere sigh.

Zara Si Aahat Hoti Hai To Dil Sochta Hai



* Movie: Haqeeqat
* Singer: Lata Mangeshkar
* Music Director: Madan Mohan
* Lyricist: Kaifi Azmi
* Actors/Actresses: Dharmendra, Priya Rajvansh
* Year: 1964