It is terribly terribly hot. The heat is all set to take away your life force. Already I have become lazy since I came back, I prefer spending my evenings doing nothing substantial, just whiling away time with my family. And over that the summer is so overbearing that I seldom enter my room in the 1st floor before 12 am (by which time it cools down a bit from the direct sunlight it keeps receiving all day), and then in the cool breeze of the AC I promptly fall asleep. As a result I have lost touch with almost everything, my story books, my other hobbies like painting or playing the keyboard, the little bit of J2EE I had started to learn...of course two other major culprits are my slow internet connection (the terrible tata photon connection which I am going to get rid of in another 3-4 days) and then there is my addiction to the mobile - it presents my gmail, my TOI...and the games keep me glued. Altogether I am doing nothing worthwhile except my working hours. During the working hours however I thoroughly enjoy what I do, but then way I'd meet up with my bro and go and have a nice dinner at Forum and probably check out a movie or two in the evening show, is gone. South City mall is pretty near the university, but in the opposite direction to my home. And even if it were on the way (Metropolis mall is a stone's throw away from my home), I'd not have ventured out alone. I miss my bro all the time. My grumpy plump bro who'd be a great companion anyways - would follow me like a pet. What fun is there in watching a movie alone, or eating a dinner alone - I don't even like to go to the bookshop alone, I'd remember way we'd part ways and go about checking our own favorites as soon as we'd reach Crossword, but at length we'd exchange notes and decide upon which all to buy after consulting each other. I tell myself, that was another kind of life, this is something else, still...
Fact is, I am unhappy. I had planned to see Highway, then Two States and also অপুর পাঁচালি। This six days a week work schedule coupled with the heat is taking a toll on all my plans. And Highway is long gone from the theater.
You know what, a curious thing is happening from quite some time now. Almost everyday, as I'd wake up, there'd be only one tune that'd be going on in my mind. The same tune would come back time and again, and haunt me. It is the song "Chhor aaye hum" from the film "Maachis". I'd remember every single word of the song though I haven't probably heard the song for ages. In fact I don't remember liking the song particularly when the movie had come, I liked "Pani pani re" much better. Only, at that time I was a music maniac, and I'd tune in to almost every music program on the radio and the TV. So perhaps overexposure to the song made me learn by heart its lyrics. But way it reverberates in my mind as I am waking up, I feel as if every word is vibrating with life, as if I have lived with the song all my life. I can actually feel the pain the song tried to portray in the film. I live the good times in the past and the current torturous time described in the song. I am one with the urge to give up, with which the song ends, and the desperation when even that urge is unsuccessful...
Ek chhota sa lamha hai jo khatm nahi hota...
Main lakh jalatahun...yeh bhasm nahi hota...
Though I am a nobody to translate Gulzar's work, I can just try to explain what that means -
A small moment that doesn't end...
I try to burn it a million times - it just won't get destroyed...
I laugh and cry with every emotion of the song. I can go on to translate the entire song for those who doesn't understand Hindi, it is poetry at its pinnacle. But not today. Today I will tell you how I wake up with the song, and then realize, God, I am late again, and get on with my regular routine...but somewhere the song keeps coming with me everywhere...
I become the footsteps which spark off sunshine on the courtyard, I become the chirpy laughter than ripens the crop, and then as the song progresses, I become the frozen stone that one's heart turns into due to circumstances, I become the life that is an endless pit, a closed road. I don't know the old life that I miss - why, the truth remains that I was never happy in the past, I am supposed to be happier than ever right now, in my self imposed solitude, the way I am. My so called well thought out decision - which was supposed to salvage me from the gradual decadence I was facing. Then what is it that I miss, that I long for? I don't know...I just thought of writing about this strange feeling. The song feels like an arrow that goes straight through my heart as it awakens me every morning...
I can only leave you with the song...thank you Gulzar-ji, for putting into words this inexplicable pain which I can't do away with despite all prudent reasonings...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7JRWs9dvVo
Fact is, I am unhappy. I had planned to see Highway, then Two States and also অপুর পাঁচালি। This six days a week work schedule coupled with the heat is taking a toll on all my plans. And Highway is long gone from the theater.
You know what, a curious thing is happening from quite some time now. Almost everyday, as I'd wake up, there'd be only one tune that'd be going on in my mind. The same tune would come back time and again, and haunt me. It is the song "Chhor aaye hum" from the film "Maachis". I'd remember every single word of the song though I haven't probably heard the song for ages. In fact I don't remember liking the song particularly when the movie had come, I liked "Pani pani re" much better. Only, at that time I was a music maniac, and I'd tune in to almost every music program on the radio and the TV. So perhaps overexposure to the song made me learn by heart its lyrics. But way it reverberates in my mind as I am waking up, I feel as if every word is vibrating with life, as if I have lived with the song all my life. I can actually feel the pain the song tried to portray in the film. I live the good times in the past and the current torturous time described in the song. I am one with the urge to give up, with which the song ends, and the desperation when even that urge is unsuccessful...
Ek chhota sa lamha hai jo khatm nahi hota...
Main lakh jalatahun...yeh bhasm nahi hota...
Though I am a nobody to translate Gulzar's work, I can just try to explain what that means -
A small moment that doesn't end...
I try to burn it a million times - it just won't get destroyed...
I laugh and cry with every emotion of the song. I can go on to translate the entire song for those who doesn't understand Hindi, it is poetry at its pinnacle. But not today. Today I will tell you how I wake up with the song, and then realize, God, I am late again, and get on with my regular routine...but somewhere the song keeps coming with me everywhere...
I become the footsteps which spark off sunshine on the courtyard, I become the chirpy laughter than ripens the crop, and then as the song progresses, I become the frozen stone that one's heart turns into due to circumstances, I become the life that is an endless pit, a closed road. I don't know the old life that I miss - why, the truth remains that I was never happy in the past, I am supposed to be happier than ever right now, in my self imposed solitude, the way I am. My so called well thought out decision - which was supposed to salvage me from the gradual decadence I was facing. Then what is it that I miss, that I long for? I don't know...I just thought of writing about this strange feeling. The song feels like an arrow that goes straight through my heart as it awakens me every morning...
I can only leave you with the song...thank you Gulzar-ji, for putting into words this inexplicable pain which I can't do away with despite all prudent reasonings...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7JRWs9dvVo
No comments:
Post a Comment