LOVE?

Ever wondered what Love actually is, I don’t mean love that a parent has for their child because that is the only true unrequited love. I don’t even consider love the other way around, no child can ever love their parents as much as they love them. I am talking about love that we see in the movies, love that is projected on television and love that is between a man and a woman, That Love.

Oxford dictionary defines it as ‘A strong feeling of affection’, Affection as ‘A gentle feeling of fondness’ and Fondness as ‘Affection or liking someone or something’, this convoluted way of explaining a human emotion tells me that even these linguist haven’t been able to define it clearly.  

We all know that these definitions seem incomplete. Every one of us has had many crushes and loves. Most of us have felt the agony and the pain of losing it and those who haven’t, are blessed. 

I was confronted with this question sitting on LIRR going towards Manhattan. There was a couple, mid 20s, economically challenged if not poor but madly in love. They were standing just outside the carriage door and hugging, kissing and not letting each other go.  As and when people passed by them to come into the coach they just smiled and gave them a little space. They never came inside. But a lady who was sitting next to me on the first seat was staring at them with a look of amusement. She must be in her mid 40s, a big diamond was telling me that not only she was married but she looked a part of the Long Island community. Well dressed with a designer bag in her hand she was quite a sight. Here, I am thinking that the Gatsby era might have long gone but Long Island still hosts people who are financially secure. Though, the egalitarianism of New York public transport puts a variety of individuals in close proximity like this person next to me and the folks she was staring so intently. The staring was very unlike New York, I thought.

Suddenly she turns to me even when I am faking my deep engrossment in the book that I am carrying, says, “They look happy.”   

I felt relieved; I can now have a conversation instead of staring at her from the corner of my eye. I raised my head to look at them and nodded in affirmation. 

Her next question was baffling in a way but explained me a lot more than those words, “Do you think it will last?” I was puzzled. 

This time I looked at the couple with more intensity as if to see if I can find clues to answer that question. I honestly couldn’t, I wanted to believe that it would last but I knew that the world is a much harsher place than we tend to accept. 

I still didn’t speak, just shrugged my shoulder as if to say, ‘Sorry, tough question, do not know the answer.’ She smiled with an air of uncertainty, as if she was about to say something, then she paused for a few seconds and spoke again, “We were like this, me and my husband, just out of college, madly in love and got married right out of the university, moved to New York. Now I have a family, my daughter will be college in a few years and everything I imagined my life would be when I was young. But no love left.”

Now I felt sad for her, had more insight into that staring, that desire to talk to someone, that pang of jealousy that she might have felt towards that girl and above all that feeling of life passing without much ado. The rest of the journey was a blur, we didn’t even realise when our couple had gotten off as I was busy exchanging trivial pleasantries of my life with my sad but charming fellow passenger. Getting off at the Penn station we merged into Manhattan.   

But the story didn’t die there, it was at the back of my mind and when I asked myself, ‘What is love?’, the first thing that came to my mind wasn’t someone that I love or I had loved and neither a story from my own life but something that I had observed a long time ago. Why, did that incident, an incident which I had forgotten percolated through the maze of my memory and popped up is a question, whose answer,  no one would ever know. But my guess is that I associate Love with this episode.          

It was late 1980’s, for some reason that world seems far removed when I look back, almost like a dream and as if it really didn’t happen. The air in India was of restlessness. I really can’t place a date so I am not sure if Rajiv Gandhi was still the prime minister or V.P. Singh had already ascended on an anti corruption movement. However, the ground reality was, economy was as stifled as its people, I am not even sure that which was lower the growth rate of the country or the expectation of the public.

You were feeling, ‘Something’s Gotta Give’.

I was in my early teens, Steffi Graf and Gabriela Sabatini posters were already up on my walls. I had my crushes and had started to understand that most pleasurable of sins. Though we lived in MHOW but on that day I was with my father at the Bhopal railway station.

The railways are a lifeline of India, they still are. Its stations were a microcosm of India and the face of that city. From language to cuisine to magazine shops gave us the picture of where in the country we were and yet it bounded us together. They also brought in a lot of poverty; most shanty towns were built around them. As you travel across India you realise that poor people tend to live close to these railway tracks. The Bhopal station also had its share of homeless and beggars.

Like everything else poverty in India is also Grand. I am not talking about the western view of our slums but the hard fact of coping up with the humongous population which tries to survive on one meal a day. Poverty in India also has many layers, a poor is not just a poor. He or she is poor with many shades of grey. One of the great quotes that I had read somewhere came from Premchand, the great Urdu/Hindi writer. He had written, ‘That year they became so poor that even beggars started to go empty handed from their door.’ That’s India for you, where sometimes it is more humiliating not to be able to give alms to a beggar than begging itself.

The Bhopal Junction station is situated in a poor neighbourhood of Old Bhopal, it seemed quite far when I was young.  Though like most stations there are two sides for you to enter but we always used the old Bhopal area through the Hamidia Road. The entrance to the station is actually very narrow and though Bhopal had autos since the time I can remember but mostly this alley was used by ‘Tongawallas’, a tonga is single horse driven carriage, which has become a rarity now. There were lots of small shops on one side and the 10 ft. high iron fence on the other. This was to bifurcate the road to the station. This is the kind of iron fence that symbolizes railway stations across India. In those days the road wasn’t wide, must be around 20 ft at the mouth. As you came in it turned narrower and then  turned into a paved platform before you could enter the main gate of the station. The shops on the other side sold all kinds of trinkets, from lock & chains to samosas, from soap strips to paan.

It was dusk, how do I know? It’s because in those days I suffered from a weird melancholy at this hour. It was much much later when I was in the US I realised that it was because of lack of brightness in our evening lights. Our electrical lights barely used to glow, they brightened enough for us to see, but actually never enough for us to be happy, we had to wait for the Sun to rise the next day for that. As each of these shops started to turn on their lights with old style incandescent bulbs, instead of things becoming brighter they became sadder.   

On this platform I was standing leaning against the same iron fence, with the train platform right behind me, I could peek inside and see that there was no train on the platform. Daddy had gone inside for some work, I can’t recollect what was it, did we go to buy some tickets or to pick someone up but I was left outside just to hang around. Everything around me seemed dull the platform was empty, there was no train at the platform and the way things looked there was none that was scheduled to come. Most stations become quiet and dull and then crescendo of people and noise picks up to a very high crest from this low trough when a train arrives. It's a sight to behold, you can't imagine from where have these people suddenly turned up.

I was standing amongst a few homeless people. Most of them sitting with their back to the station and carrying all their stuff. You can clearly identify them as compared to the passengers who were temporarily using this platform as their refuge. I hadn’t seen her yet or even if I did I was paying no attention to her.

He was the one I observed first, coming across from the other side he walked with caution. It seemed he was coming right at me but his eyes were somewhere else. Though he didn’t give any negative vibe I didn’t like him. He looked poor but not as poor. He was clean and but not clean enough. Wearing a shirt and trouser, they were clean too but not as if they had been washed and ironed the same day. However, I knew he was underprivileged, but surely better off than all the homeless around me. I thought, he looked in his mid 20s, not young but not old either. He wasn’t wearing any kind of porter's uniform so I assumed that he didn’t work in the station, though it was clear that his livelihood was dependent on the Station.

He came right at me and even before I could get alarmed he sat down right next to me, almost squatting. This is when I observed her for the first time. She was sitting right next to where I was standing. She must have been around 18 to 20 years old. She was surely poorest of the poor, really at the bottom of that grey scale. She was haggard and unclean, her clothes were dirty and her hair matted and tangled. Her face was dirty and dry. Yet, she was charming. You could make out she was good looking and had a twinkle in her eye as if to say ‘I still have not been beaten by this life’. She sat there with all her belongings, but I could make out that she had family around.

As soon as this guy sat in front of her I was alarmed, I wanted to save her, somehow I felt he didn’t mean right or was it because I had found her attractive enough. Don’t know but I felt uncomfortable.

He spoke to her, “Tu mujhe bahut achchi lagti hai.” (“I like you a lot”)

She looked at him and smiled.

I became more comfortable now. Maybe it was the tone of his voice or maybe what he said, I felt like he really liked her.          

He looked at her again, looked intently and said, “Mujhe se shadi kar le” (“Marry me”)

She still didn’t say anything, she just lowered her eyes, I could tell there was a feeling of admiration in what he had said.

He repeated it again, “Mujhe se shadi kar le” (“Marry me”)

He waited for a few seconds for her to respond, and when she didn’t he spoke again, “Dekh, tu mujhe sach mein bahut achchi lagti hai, mujhe se shadi kar le to main yahan basti mein qamra le loonga, mere ghar bana de” (“See, I really like you, marry me, if you will marry me, I will take a room in this area, make me a home”). 

He was pointing towards the slum at the back of the railway station. She looked up as if she likes what she is hearing but she still didn’t say anything. However, her smile was a little wider with appreciation.

He felt a bit better I guess and then he said which has made this narration possible, it has stuck with me for all these years. He looked at her again and said, “Hum qamra le lenge to tujhe yahan nahin rahna padega, mujhe bilkul achcha nahin lagta ki tujhe yahan rahna padta hai, yahan sona padta hai.”  (“If we take a room you don’t have to live here, I don’t like it that you have to live here and sleep here.”)

That made sad and happy at the same time. There was a pang in my heart then and there is a twinge in my heart now. That was it, I actually do not remember what happened after that, I don’t know if I walked away or Daddy came by, I don’t know if she ever said ‘Yes’ to the guy. I don’t even know if religion came between them because it was obvious to me that she wasn’t of the majority religion as he was, but my guess is that is not why she would have refused. It didn’t matter to her when she looked at him.

Though I want to believe that she agreed, he found a room and a job, they had children which grew up in a better environment than their parents. They would be around 20 years old, and they would grow up in a different India. They would live where days are bright and evenings brighter, where the hope for a successful future is still alive, and the young India which could be brash but has the confidence to take on the world.   

But above all I want to hope that they would inherit the guy’s charm & empathy and the girl’s grit & perkiness.  

Education 1

These will be series of snippets of my thoughts on Education system. Some thoughts will be mine but most of it will be borrowed from people who have better understanding of the subject.

This is excerpt from the essay ‘Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here?’ Written by Mark Edmundson, Professor @ University of Virginia

I really liked this piece and thought of sharing it everyone. I wish most parents have this courage with their children. I hope I am not violating any publication copyright, if so I would remove it from my blog.
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‘Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here?’

I came to college with few resources, but one of them was an understanding, however crude, of how I might use my opportunities there. This I began to develop because of my father, who had never been to college—in fact, he’d barely gotten out of high school. One night after dinner, he and I were sitting in our kitchen at 58 Clewley Road in Medford, Massachusetts, hatching plans about the rest of my life. I was about to go off to college, a feat no one in my family had accomplished in living memory. “I think I might want to be pre-law,” I told my father. I had no idea what being pre-law was. My father compressed his brow and blew twin streams of smoke, dragon-like, from his magnificent nose. “Do you want to be a lawyer?” he asked. My father had some experience with lawyers, and with policemen, too; he was not well-disposed toward either. “I’m not really sure,” I told him, “but lawyers make pretty good money, right?”
My father detonated. (That was not uncommon. My father detonated a lot.) He told me that I was going to go to college only once, and that while I was there I had better study what I wanted. He said that when rich kids went to school, they majored in the subjects that interested them, and that my younger brother Philip and I were as good as any rich kids. (We were rich kids minus the money.) Wasn’t I interested in literature? I confessed that I was. Then I had better study literature, unless I had inside information to the effect that reincarnation wasn’t just hype, and I’d be able to attend college thirty or forty times. If I had such info, pre-law would be fine, and maybe even a tour through invertebrate biology could also be tossed in. But until I had the reincarnation stuff from a solid source, I better get to work and pick out some English classes from the course catalog.
“How about the science requirements?”
“Take ’em later,” he said, “you never know.”
My father, Wright Aukenhead Edmundson, Malden High School Class of 1948 (by a hair), knew the score. What he told me that evening at the Clewley Road kitchen table was true in itself, and it also contains the germ of an idea about what a university education should be. But apparently almost everyone else—students, teachers, and trustees and parents—sees the matter much differently. They have it wrong.
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For the power that is in you, as Emerson suggested, may be new in nature. You may not be the person that your parents take you to be. And—this thought is both more exciting and more dangerous—you may not be the person that you take yourself to be, either. You may not have read yourself aright, you can find out whether you have or not. The reason to read Blake and Dickinson and Freud and Dickens is not to become more cultivated, or more articulate, or to be someone who, at a cocktail party, is never embarrassed (or who can embarrass others). The best reason to read them is to see if they may know you better than you know yourself. You may find your own suppressed and rejected thoughts flowing back to you with an “alienated majesty.” Reading the great writers, you may have the experience that Longinus associated with the sublime: You feel that you have actually created the text yourself. For somehow your predecessors are more yourself than you are.
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What if you arrive at college devoted to pre-med, sure that nothing will make you and your family happier than a life as a physician, only to discover that elementary-school teaching is where your heart is?
You might learn that you’re not meant to be a doctor at all. Of course, given your intellect and discipline, you can still probably be one. You can pound your round peg through the very square hole of medical school, then go off into the profession. And society will help you. Society has a cornucopia of resources to encourage you in doing what society needs done but that you don’t much like doing and are not cut out to do. To ease your grief, society offers alcohol, television, drugs, divorce, and buying, buying, buying what you don’t need. But all those too have their costs.
Education is about finding out what form of work for you is close to being play—work you do so easily that it restores you as you go. Randall Jarrell once said that if he were a rich man, he would pay money to teach poetry to students. (I would, too, for what it’s worth.) In saying that, he (like my father) hinted in the direction of a profound and true theory of learning.
Having found what’s best for you to do, you may be surprised how far you rise, how prosperous, even against your own projections, you become.

The Year End

2012 comes to an end. Though like every other year it has its good and bad phases but however it is ending on a solemn note. Living in Delhi makes you feel even closer to what has been happening here in the last couple of weeks.

On 16th of December, six men running an illegal bus gang raped a 23 year old student. She and her male friend were first beaten, she was raped and when she tried to resist, she was brutally assaulted. She was in intensive care since then and passed away last night in Singapore.

Most of us across the country are horrified and angered by what happened. Many women have been raped in the past and even after this incident there have been a few rapes across the country. But for some reason or because of the brutality of this incident, she has galvanised a mass movement. A lot of people are on the streets across the country remembering her, mourning for her and trying that the government listens to them.

The government of India was found fumbling. They had never thought a rape & murder could evoke such a nationwide response. Why did they think that they could get away with this? The answer lies in the basic tenant of governance. Till now throughout the history, the governance and the decision making has been top down.  Suddenly they felt that something has shifted from under their feet. The comfort that they are in power and hence they can dictate what they want to react to and ignore others will not work anymore.

But here is my problem, the demand that our leaders haven’t done their job or the system has failed us is OK, but the expectation that in the present system these could be solved immediately is farfetched. Everyone has their own opinion and similarly I have my own. However, I do not want into the reasons why this happened but on an important point of Governance.

There is a fabulous quote which most Indians do not understand for sure. 'Government is at its core, what we do together that we cannot do alone.'  This basically means that we need to look at the Government as something that is derived from us and not as a separate entity which functions outside us.

We need to learn to distinguish between Politics and Government. Politicians do things to remain in power, they philander, the lie, they are corrupt and sometimes they are good too. However, they are not the Government; they are at best executors of the functioning Government.

So discounting politicians, what can we do and how do we do to make the Government better and in turn the city and the country better. The important point to realize is to make the Government function well, we need to make ourselves more responsible and take the citizenship more seriously. I do not mean citizenship only in parochial country sense; I mean we all are citizens of a city and neighbourhood on one end and the world at the other.

Governments inherently have not been open and they are not attuned to collaborative processes. But we need that change of process to deal with what the technology has unleashed on us. Policies need to be created in advance of the needs. I know that laws sometimes move ahead of the society and sometime behind, but wouldn't it be a good thing if somehow we can measure the changing perception and make these changes before time. This requires values and expertise of the citizens have to be gauged and then turn them into decision.

I am not advocating that we should remove our democratic setup not even that our representative system of democracy be taken over but  there has to be a kind of 'pulse monitor' this pulse monitor measures the values and aspirations of society not on a 5 yearly basis but in short pulses, days, weeks, months. This would give us enormous edge in forming policies far quicker and get citizens involved on a regular basis. Now if there is a bill or a policy which affects farming sector, urban population might not take part in the debate or if there is a city issue, folks in the country side might not, that’s OK as far as they opportunity is provided to all. In an era of Facebook and multimedia we have the tools to get it there and make it available to people. This in no way this will replace Government and in no way I am suggesting that. But this will enable people see social trends better.

20 years ago when I was growing up, we used to get a couple of newspapers at our place, if something had happened a 1000 miles away, we could read about it the next day, feel sad or elated but there was no way for us to put our voices out to be heard. We no longer live in those times. As internet is penetrating deep inside this world and is becoming more accessible we all can voice our thoughts. So no longer we are a consumer of the information, we are creators and participators in that event.

Another important point to keep in mind is that getting information and dissipating that information is not cooperation towards governance. Today in India we have ‘Right to Information’ act, we can access  every public record if needed, but that is not enough, we need ability to do something with it, exposing it if it is wrong is not good enough anymore, we as a society need the ability to make an effective change in it or using it.

Facebook, Twitter and other social media have given us a great platform where we can interact with people across the globe. We find people with similar thoughts across the geographical boundaries and created communities where more important is to have similar taste rather than where you come from, what your social or economic status is. For example, how much ever it makes my stomach churn, Justin Bieber has 50 million fans on Facebook from all across the world. I am not saying that we should use Facebook as a tool but it gives us a great snapshot of what people are actually thinking without geographic boundaries. We can no longer be concerned about only our needs, we need to think global, as the world around us closes on us, the impact of good and bad in any part of the world would be felt right across. Today, vegetable prices change worldwide, the impact of it could be relative but still the trends move similarly.

There are many many things that we can do, I am trying to list down a couple of my ideas, let us make this forum open and let us collect ideas that could evolve into something that we can create, share and make it better.

The first thing is that we need to take onus of our surroundings. We need to build a mechanism where we all contribute to solve day to day problems. Problem could be in our neighbourhood or even our neighbour's. If I know how to fix a tap why wait for the plumber to come and help the neighbour. If there is a garbage dump near my area, why not few people combine and clean it to an extent rather than waiting for city it do it for you.

Another addition that would immensely help make our surroundings better is if we all could own a particular piece of equipment or a park bench or even a street. If we own it, we keep it in good shape, if I own a park bench; I keep it and the area around it clean so people can use it better. If I own a street, I can help install a CC TV camera, or extend the duties of guards in our restricted colonies to monitor roads around the colonies too. If an organization owns a road, they can provide better security by employing a couple of more people to make the roads safer. This way we would not only extend our cooperation to the city but make its inhabitants feel safer.

Another simple way is to make a panic application or a phone number which informs the closest police person instead of routing it to the central location.

Such ideas are a plenty, we need to contribute them, create them and use them to make our lives better. This is the new and really democratic way of governing.  Governments are needed to keep the systems in place, check and balances between different strata and the overall law and order system in place. But we can contribute and we should contribute.

So please share one idea, it could be something that if all follow we could make this better, one idea for an application, one idea that we all can pitch to the authorities. It could be anything. Let us share so that collaborate on it and actually deliver it to people across the world.

Because until we change our mindset of citizenship we won't be able to change the government. We need to be better citizens first than we can hope for a better government.

Hoping that the new year will bring happiness, prosperity and peace in everyone’s life.

The year that killed a dream

2011 is about to go by and looking back this has been a pretty slow year on a personal front. A lot happened in the country and countries across the world. Arab world seems to have taken to streets to remove despots and autocratic regimes. Though it is a very good thing that people can still, I can’t help but wonder do they have grass root democracy to fill the void or they again will be replaced by bigots and crackpots. North Korea lost a dictator but all practical reasons was replaced by another, Cuba came very close to losing its, however, Fidel Castro is hanging on to life if not to the power itself. Imran Khan has taken a stance in Pakistan and is rallying for the next election even at the cost of being on the side of right wing politicians.

India could have a landmark year if Lokpal bill is passed, at the time of writing the lower house has passed it but the tougher battle is in the upper house. Anna Hazare started a movement on streets with the civil society and then the government was forced into taking some actions. Though we know that there are so many points of views that we would never have a unanimous decision on it but even if it comes close we should be happy. It has been hanging around for 42 years and it was high time we do something about it. In the last few years we have two legislatures which in a decade or so could become the foundation of Indian democracy in RTI and Lokpal. Like everything these would also take its own time to settle down however a redressing mechanism would be set forth.

Every time I see a mass turnout in streets in favour of any kind of revolution, I am reminded of Faiz’s classic, ‘aaj bazaar main pa bajolan chalo’

चश्मेनम जानेशोरिदां काफी नहीं
तोह्मतेइश्क़ पोशीदा काफी नहीं
आज बाज़ार में पबजोलां चलो
दस्त अफशां चलो, मस्त रुख्सां चलो
खाख बरसर चलो, खूं बदमान चलो
राह ताकता है शहरेजना चलो

Chashm-e-nam, jaan-e-shoreeda kafi nahin
Tohmat-e-ishq-posheeda kafi nahin
aaj bazaar main pa-bajolan chalo
Dast afshan chalo, mast-o-raqsan chalo
Khak bar sar chalo, khoon badaman chalo
Rah takta hai sub shehr-e-janaan chalo

Watery eyes and restless soul is not enough,
being charged for nurturing concealed love is not enough,
let us walk in the streets in shackles,
go empty handed, dancing you go,
let the dust get in your head and blood on your clothes,
the whole city is watching, now lets go


However, all was not well this year, India lost stalwarts and somehow most of them in the field of Art and Literature. In one year a generation who had inspired us were gone, Shammi Kapoor, MF Husain, Gautam Rajadhyaksha, Subhod Sarkar, Satyendra Dubey, Bhimsen Joshi, Sri Lal Shukla, Bhupen Hazarika, Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi and Jagjit Singh. Though death is a very weird feeling for me, I am not at all afraid of dying however the death of others always affects me in a profound way.

One of favourite quotes which Sartre had put it so eloquently says,

“One always dies too soon - or too late. And yet one's whole life is complete at that moment, with a line drawn neatly under it, ready for the summing up. You are - your life, and nothing else.”

Hence now we can only measure their lives with their contribution to the society and more to ourselves as individuals.

Two people who made an enormous contribution to my memories are also the ones we lost in this year. The first one was Anant Pai, or fondly Uncle Anant Pai, who had passed away in February. Anant Pai was the creator and till 1999 the Managing director of ‘Amar Chitra Katha’. In the 70s and 80s when India wasn’t liberalised and either we were bombarded with Russian books from the erstwhile USSR or hoped to get our hands on the Marvel and DC comics there was our saviour ‘Amar Chitra Katha’. The magical telling, retelling, reading and re-reading of the Indian mythology, folk tales, and biographic accounts of historical & mythical characters built my childhood memories. Like everyone of my generation we cannot take away those memories. I know most of the Indian mythology through these books can’t imagine what my life would have been without them. I think it was ‘Surya’ or Dashavatar’ which was my first ACK, today I have around 200 of them and each time I walk into a book store I keep hoping to buy the full 440+ of them. He also started ‘Tinkle’ which also became famous in the 1980s. So for all those great memories, moments and till a large extent the person I am, I owe it to Uncle Anant Pai.

This article is named ‘The year which killed a dream’. I always wanted to meet Devanand. He was my hero initially because he was cool but later because he was super-cool the way he led his life, I have always admired men, like Devanand or Khushwant Singh, who have lived there lives with honesty and dealt with their relationships with maturity. With his death that dream of meeting him has died forever, when we lose someone in a relationship we feel bad but somehow we have a feeling that we would meet them somewhere or sometime. But when someone dies that strand of hope is broken and his death at least killed that dream of mine.

Though it was quite strange that he was my hero. In early 80s when he was really past his prime people looked for Amitabh Bachchan or were hopeful of Sanjay Dutt, Anil Kapoor or Jackie Shroff. His movies were introduced to me by mother and aunts who were really fond of him. Actually everyone in my family was fond of Dev Saheb, including my father and uncles. I remember a long time ago one of my uncles came back after watching Swami Dada and was telling me its story. Though, I think my first Devanand movie was ‘Jewel Thief’ on a Sunday evening on Doordarshan and instantaneously I was hooked to the plot. Especially, during summer vacations when we all cousins got together we watched a lot of his movies on those old video cassettes. We became big fans of him. He was the coolest hero in the industry; he was that urban hero, that eternal romantic and the optimist amongst the gloom, naive or a hillbilly which Dilip Kumar or Raj Kapoor represented. But as I grew up I realised that he represented more than just that, he was a workaholic, he kept making movies even when they failed, he never looked back, never cared about failures and above all he led his life with utter honesty. Honesty doesn’t always mean that you do the right thing; it actually means that you are honest about your flaws too and that was Devanand.

A person is not only judged by himself but also by the company he keeps. He was friends with everyone including Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar with whom he formed the trinity of Indian Cinema. Supposedly when Dilip Kumar heard of his demise he refused to come out of his bedroom for hours. But his real close friends were, father and son duo of S.D. and R.D., Sahir Ludhianvi whom most would regard as the best poet and lyricist of the movie industry, Md. Rafi and Kishore Kumar, they all combined give some of the greatest songs in the cinema.

They gave us unmatched philosophy, heart aching sadness, the cool romance, fun & frolic, the devotion towards the almighty, the freedom of a liberated woman to the agonizing wait for death.

Of course, the list won’t be complete without mentioning the incomparable Gurudutt. The story of their friendship is very interesting, they both used to share the same laundry and one day Devanand found his shirt missing, he reached with his only other shirt, which wasn’t clean, to the studio to shoot for his first movie where he saw the choreographer wearing his shirt. When confronted the choreographer acknowledged that it wasn’t his shirt and the laundry had given him the wrong one, but he had to wear it because he had none other. They became friends and promised that Gurudutt would be his director if he made his movie and Dev would be the hero in his Gurudutt's production. Devanand gave Indians the gift of Gurudutt’s genius through Baazi and Gurudutt gave Devanand one of his biggest hits in CID.

One of the best eulogy to him was done by ‘Sontosh Desai’, in his ToI blog, called, ‘The death of time’, which ends with a line which epitomises the essence of being Devanand and the reality of Death, ‘When Dev Anand dies, you know that death is no longer playing games, it means business.’

Indian movie industry is built on songs, music and dances and that hasn’t changed over time, we romance using songs, we sing when we are sad, we tease, laugh and gloom using songs. We sing in the praise of our nation and we sing in the times of revolution. There is a song when someone gets married and there is one when someone passes away. Our movies are entrenched with them. As, Feroz Khan used to say, “The art of rendering a song on screen started with Devanand and would end with him”. Hence, here are some of my favourites which are a slice of what Devanand could do while rendering a song, this includes some of the songs from his movies which might not feature him but show the brilliance of his philosophical leanings. This is as much a tribute to Devanand as to Gurudutt, Chetan Anand, Vijay Anand, S.D. Burman, R.D. Burman, Sahir Ludhianvi, Shailendra, Md. Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Mukesh, Talat Mahmood and Hemant Kumar. None of them are with us any more.

The start of his movie carrier was dominated by his love affair with Suraiya and they sing from movie ‘Jeet’




As he lost his love, he became his own man and did movies which were way ahead of their times, here is a classic from ‘Patita’, his movies were always ahead of times.




He made a comedy thriller under his own banner Navketan called ‘Afsar’ based on Nikloi Gogol’s novel which spawned a series of crime thrillers out of Bombay. Baazi and Jaal directed by Gurudutt were big hits, Jaal showed him as an anti-hero which is as close to villain as Hindi movies could get till today.




CID, produced by Gurudutt was the biggest hit of both their carrier., but here is a song which doesn’t feature Devanand but another of their lifelong friend in Johnny Walker.





Munimji wasn’t a very big commercial hit but this song is still one the great songs sung by Kishore Kumar.



This was the start of phenomenal decade for him, which saw him reach the peak of his stardom:
1956, Paying Guest




1957, Nau Do Gyarah



1958, Kala Pani, the quintessential Devanand which paired him opposite utterly beautiful Madhubala,



or Solvan Saal opposite gorgeous Waheeda Rehman, Waheeda Rehman became his favorite actress and they worked in many more movies to come






1959, Kala Bazaar




1960, Bambai ka Babu



1961, Hum Dono, where due to S. D. Burman’s illness, his then assistant Jaidev gave immortal music to this movie, though I really like 'Allah tero naam' but here are two of my favourites







1962, Baat ek raat ki




1963 , Tere Ghar ke Samne




1964, Teen Devian




1965, Guide, Outlook magazine had carried a poll of experts in 2006 to select 20 best songs of 20th century and 2 songs from Guide were in the top 5 and 3 in top 10 and though it is very tough to choose from probably the greatest album of Indian cinema, here are 2 of them








Then later came Jewel Thief



Prem Pujari



Johnny Mera Naam



Tere Mere Sapne




And an iconic movie which gave Indians a new kind of woman, Hare Rama Hare Krishna, a movie which was a decade before its time



After this he made a lot of movies, some worked, most didn't however, my pick of the song amongst them is from Joshila,



Devanand’s life reminds me of a Harivansh Rai Bachchan’s poem and specially the final verse,

काली काले केशों में कमल सजाये
चुपके चुपके आई
मैं उजले मुंह, उजले वस्त्रों में बैठा था
पथ पर थी उजयाली छाई
तुम कौन
मौत
मैं जीने की ही जोत जुगत में लगा रहा
बोली मत घबरा स्वागत का मेरे तुने सबसे अछ्छा सामान किया
मैंने जीवन देखा
जीवन का गान किया

Kaali kaale keshon me kala kamal sajaye
chupke chupke aayee
main ujle munh, ujle vastron me baitha tha
path par thi ujyali chaayi
tum kaun
maut
main jeene ki hi jog jugat me laga raha
boli, mat ghabra, swagat ka mere tune sab se achha saaman kiya
maine jeevan dekha
jeevan ka gaan kiya


Adorning black hair with black lotus in her hair,
She came silently,
I was sitting there bright faced, wearing white clothes,
Even the way was illuminating,
Who are you?
Death, she said,
But I was so engrossed in living,
She said, Don’t worry, You have accumulated the best possessions to welcome me,
I saw life,
I lived it to the fullest

Seven: Blade Runner

Director: Ridley Scott
Year: 1982
Cast: Harrison Ford, Sean Young, Rutger Hauer, Daryll Hannah


Blade Runner came after Alien by the same director and with this he created a master piece. The movie itself has a philosophical base based on Phillip K Dick’s novel, ‘Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep?’


The movie is set in the future, 2020, where a retired law enforcement officer is brought back to eliminate ‘replicants’. The first scene itself tells you about the dystopian world you are about to enter, its dark, gloomy and filled with all kinds of filth around you. You know that already people who could afford to leave have left for the other planets, what is left is the scum and those who are here to suck the last resource of this earth. Perpetual rain makes it gloomy and depressing.

Replicants are humanoid creatures which are used in dangerous places on other planets where humans can’t work. After a bloody rebellion at one of these colonies they are prohibited to come back to earth. However, some of the replicants have sneaked back and now it’s up to Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) to hunt them down or ‘retire them’. Replicants are manufactured and are so human like that they are given memories and feelings of being a human and hence they forget about their identity too. Replicants have a problem that they would automatically retire after four years, so basically their life span is only four years and here the renegade replicants are seeking to meet their creator to increase their lifespan. The creator is Tyrell Corporation and its eccentric scientist Tyrell.

Deckard, Gaff and their boss Bryant, realise that these replicant are on loose when Holden is killed while he is administrating a Voight-Kamff test which enables human to distinguish Replicants. While visiting Tyrell corporation Deckard finds that Rachael (Sean Young) new model of replicants are far more adaptable. While going through the evidence Deckard finds a picture of Zhora in his works and tracks her down at a strip club. After retiring he is confronted with Leon but he is saved by Rachael. Leon is retired too. In the meantime Roy, the leader of the replicants is trying to get into Tyrell Corporation to meet Tyrell. Here is uses Sebastian a young scientist suffering from aging gene to get inside the Tyrell. Roy and Pris are the only ones left.

When Roy meets his maker he tries to reason with Tyrell for extending his life and when he fails he kills him too. Deckard reaches Sebastian’s apartment and is ambushed by Pris. He is no match to Pris but he is able to fight off and retire her too. Roy comes back and finds Pris lifeless and gets annoyed. He chases Deckard to the roof of the building where Deckard tries to leap of to the other building but falls short and is hanging at the edge. Roy follows him, holds his hands and pulls him up before he delivers his last sentence. “I've seen things you people wouldn't believe: Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion; I've watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die." He retires due to aging in just four years.

Deckard goes back home to get Rachael and as they are leaving for their uncertain and short future, he finds an origami unicorn, a sign of Gaff. The ending is open to interpretation on whether Deckard was a replicant too.



Philosophy:
I have always believed that like great literature, great movies also become far more interesting to watch when you start asking the higher questions through them. This movie is full of them. Of course these are my thoughts and things that I have understood and read around it, they are not a philosopher’s interpretation of this movie or these questions.

I saw Blade Runner much after I had seen Matrix. Now I know that when I had seen Matrix-I I wanted it to be Blade Runner and ask all those questions. Let me start by putting some of the questions that this movie puts out, where Matrix was a disspointment.

1. How do you distinguish between a humanoid and a human?

Supposedly a humanoid passes all tests (like Voight-Kamff) then would it be considered a human. It is a very important question in our genetic manipulated world. We all have some fallacies which wouldn’t be part of a perfect human and yet with all our imperfections we are still human, but what makes us human? Or what are the defining traits of being a human.

Let us try to define a person, many greats have tried their hand at it, some even came close to it and they are our only guide, Boethius defines it as an individual with rationality (naturae rationalis individua substantia) with an emphasis on individual. (But that raises an important question would a collective rational organism won’t be a person or persons?), Locke feels that any rational individual should also be able feel happiness and misery with capability of law and then Kant wants the this individual to impose laws to itself.

Now throughout history we have encountered this question in practical circumstances, even as recently as 50 years ago we thought of certain races to be superior and some inferior. Hence this definition is not only a scientific or a philosophical value but has a real meaning on our lives. We still have a debate on abortion and the rights of foetus. We will keep encountering new problems and we would be stretching this envelope to accommodate or reject these new issues.

Two other aspects which make us human are, power to think and learn. But Darwin was able to prove that both thinking, problem solving ability and dreaming is also a part of animals.

Another major issue is what the degree of empathy or emotions will make us human? Is cold blooded murderer considered to be human? Can a person’s level of humanization or dehumanization change over time? So if we consider a person who has committed heinous crime and convict him of capital punishment are we being equally inhuman.

2. What rights do humanoid (or even humans have) have? Or in larger sense what rights would cloned humans or aliens or any kind of intelligent species have in a human dominated environment.

Rights are an issue which society determines on its own and they come from local customs, culture, ability to accept new laws and their impacts. Hence, I think we will move towards a global human value system but it is a slow process.

3. What are real memories? Can they be planted and if you believe in them do they become your version of truth?

One of the very interesting facts is that we have our memories which tells us about our past and makes us a part of the collective history. This in turn enables us to feel alive and connected to the larger humanity. Blade runner raises an important question which asks us to question our memories themselves, can memories be planted and what effect does it have. In the movie Rachael believes that she is a human and not a replicant because she has childhood memories, however what she realises later is that those memories were planted in her to make her more human. Memories are very fickle, they change, even in the court of law the eye witness testimony is not considered always reliable. We are still learning about our memories. There is this very interesting episode from a movie called ‘The man from Earth’, where during a debate the protagonist asks someone to recall their childhood home and then asks her if she went to the same place years later would she recognise it with all the changes. Hence, we build memories in present tense but when encountered the same place again we do not know what will be left the next time around, the old scenes or the new ones will transpose a bit on the new ones damaging the memory.

4. If Deckard thinks he is human and then falls in love with Rachael whom he knows is a Replicant, is it perverse in a sense or morally tolerable.

I have not been able to form an opinion on it, maybe, someone else can throw a light on this issue and make me sway one way or another.

5. What is life?

If we have a machine or a creature which has imagination, problem solving skills, can dream and can learn from its own mistakes then would we consider it to be human. If they have all those abilities then are metaphysically very close to humans. Today we have computers which can do all that but would we call them humans. But normally we consider something with emotions as humans.

Phillip K Dick the author of the novel came upon this idea of humanization while researching an article where is stumbled upon something which SS officers said during the WWII, to quote them,” We are kept awake at night by cries of starving children.” Now we know how inhuman these Nazi officers were, that applying word human would be an insult to humanity. They had no empathy which makes them totally inhuman.

Empathy is a virtue of humans, when we can see someone else’s suffering and feel the same pain we are alive. Empathy is a word which always reminds me of an Urdu writer’s (Saadat Ali Manto) comment on his own work, he said, “If you feel like crying after reading my work then don’t worry, that is because you are alive.” In this movie we are told that empathy is not a virtue that replicants have but right at the end Ray’s saves Deckard and realises the shortness of life for both him and any human. Suddenly just before ‘retiring’, he is more human than human.


My Favourite Quotes:

1. Deckard: Fish? (Showing her a scale that he finds in the toilet)
Lady: (Examining it) I think it was manufactured locally... finest quality... superior workmanship. There is a maker's serial number... 9-9-0-6-9-4-7-X-B-7-1. Interesting, not fish. Snake scale!

2. Tyrell: We began to recognize in them a strange obsession. After all, they are emotionally inexperienced, with only a few years in which to store up the experiences which you and I take for granted. If we gift them with a past, we create a cushion or a pillow for their emotions, and consequently, we can control them better.

3. Deckard: You're reading a magazine. You come across a full-page nude photo of a girl.
Rachael: Is this testing whether I'm a replicant or a lesbian, Mr. Deckard?

4. When Roy meets Tyrell

Tyrell: I'm surprised you didn't come here sooner.
Batty: It's not an easy thing to meet your maker.
Tyrell: What could he do for you?
Batty: Can the maker repair what he makes?
Tyrell: [Tyrell explains to Roy why he can't extend his lifespan] The facts of life... to make an alteration in the evolvement of an organic life system is fatal. A coding sequence cannot be revised once it's been established.
Batty: Why not?
Tyrell: Because by the second day of incubation, any cells that have undergone reversion mutation give rise to revertant colonies, like rats leaving a sinking ship; then the ship... sinks.
Batty: What about EMS-3 recombination?
Tyrell: We've already tried it - ethyl, methane, sulfinate as an alkylating agent and potent mutagen; it created a virus so lethal the subject was dead before it even left the table.
Batty: Then a repressor protein,that would block the operating cells.
Tyrell: Wouldn't obstruct replication; but it does give rise to an error in replication, so that the newly formed DNA strand carries with it a mutation - and you've got a virus again... but this, all of this is academic. You were made as well as we could make you.
Batty: But not to last.
Tyrell: The light that burns twice as bright burns for half as long - and you have burned so very, very brightly, Roy. Look at you: you're the Prodigal Son; you're quite a prize!
Batty: I've done... questionable things.
Tyrell: Also extraordinary things; revel in your time.
Batty: Nothing the God of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.

5. Deckard: Sushi. That's what my ex-wife called me - cold fish.

6. Roy: Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.


My Favourite Scenes:

1. When Deckard tells Racheal that she is a replicant.
2. The scene when Deckard goes into Sebastian’s apartment and Pris is sitting like a statue.
3. When Roy meets Tyrell and realises he is meeting his creator who can extend his life.
4. Last scene when Roy saves Tyrell.

Disappointments:

1. I don’t like gloomy and settings but that is my personal issue.
2. Sometimes the movie seems slow and you don’t understand where it is headed.
3. There are two versions, with narrative and without it.