The Google doodle on Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan compelled me to write after this long hiatus. I have been living quite a mechanical life all these days, you see, life in Calcutta is not life in Bangalore, I have things to do here, too many things. Grocery shopping for example. Getting biscuits for my puppies. One day, if the stock is low, and because I live in a God-forsaken land where there is no next door shop to rescue - I can't stop blaming myself when I see their sad faces. Then there's banking, there's pension - there's simple ATM withdrawal - no...my parents can't do these things on their own, and despite all my attempts I haven't been able to digitize everything. Oh and by the way, there's a God-forsaken job too - where the researcher won't care to do the research, and the assistant won't assist. I end up doing everything - from clerical work to conceptualizing papers - where is the time in life to write? I barely get an hour to read...at the end of the day...
Today I was forced to boot up the Mac as there was important pre-puja accounting stuff to do - although the regular details are jotted down in my tab - so, what else do I find except a zero charge and the date being reset to 01-01-2013 00:00 - just imagine :(
I open a Firefox window - Google is always my home page. On comes the image of one of my most favorite music person. And then, having finished the major chunk of work, when I finally open my blog, on comes my image - though it shows just the nose-pin, it is so typical me - it almost makes me shout - that's me, that's me...
After work is over, I feel like listening to some Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan song...any one...but I feel I must indulge myself this bit...from my usual consideration (it is well past 1) - I put on the headphone. Which one then? I give a search in you tube - tere bin nahin jeena mar jaana dholna...
And as I watch the song...the beautiful Manisha in glowing yellow, in the backdrop of rugged snow clad peaks of the Himalayas (have I ever written here how I used to be her fan in those days?) - as I watch the song, myriads of thoughts come to my mind...such a different world it was then...for some reason, without doing wiki I fix up the movie to be in or around 1997 - and I keep listing in my mind - in 1997 - Manisha was this gorgeous heroine - not knowing how she would fail in her career going ahead, how she would survive cancer, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was still composing, unaware of imminent death, Lata Mangeshkar was at the helm of her career still, not the recluse she has become nowadays, Ajay Devgan acted with a lot of EQ (there was this article in ABP about it - which I read up and still remember), in fact if I remember correctly, Kajol and Ajay were not yet married, and he had something of an affair with Manisha too, there was smart photography even in those days, Saif, in those days, did he have any idea who Kareena was or that he'd end up marrying her? In fact he was busy doing those stupid movies with Akshay Kumar (in many of which Kajol used to be his heroine)...
I? I was still this South Pointer with no idea about life, my friends probably planned their future lives and studies, and my dad was a strong and dependable man, though equally biased then as he is now, about what's correct and what's not...my brother looked like the cricketer he was at that time, not the overweight bread earner of the family, and home sweet home was at SaltLake...with a Mother Dairy stall nearby, from where I'd fetch milk in a can and at times dad would buy me mishti doi...milk used to cost some 3 Rs 25 p then...if I remember correctly...
The very premise might be wrong, Kachhe Dhaage might not be a 1997 movie after all (I have never watched the movie, it was not my type of movie) - but life bygone...the song and the Sufi singer - brought back a glimpse of it for me...
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