..."Do you have a choco-bar?", The vendor religiously pulled out one and I started enjoying the same looking in the craziness of Janpath at Connaught Place (New Delhi). This area is so much full of activity, there is so much hustle-bustle going on that sometimes you really wonder "what are they upto? why is everybody going crazy?" and my mind instantly started to roam around twenty years back in time to the rustic life of Indian villages.
Being born in a village from western UP, always reminds me of those open green fields, chirping of birds, the scare crow and the gofan (a sling used to throw stones to scare away birds eating crops). It was in 1986 when parents moved from the village (due to dad’s new job). Life became pretty mechanistic with customary schools nearly 10 months a year and then 2 months summer holidays. But it was these 2 months which were the best part. I vividly remember the scenes when my grand-father used to greet us with sparkling-eyes on our visits. Next one and half months were just fun especially with some of my cousins also around. There was nearly NO routine, just eating-playing-sleeping, more-eating more-playing more-sleeping and the cycle went on unobstructed for full period :) Most special were visits to mela and almost weekly to the local market with my grandmother. Have you ever sat on a tonga where buffalo-carts would desperately try to outrun horse-carts? Time travels you see!
My grandmother used to love me too much (m being the eldest kid in family), the customary pennies everyday and a gullakk is actually a true story :) I would be the chosen one among all kids in the house whenever it was some special occasion like visiting families for daawats (kind of festive community feasts on marriages etc) or visits to markets, or even visits to relatives in nearby villages. The daawats always had kheer, puri, aloo-ki-subji with jal-jeera. The hosts would invariably put a lot of boora (powdered sugar) in kheer which I used to hate always. Nevertheless, the taste buds always liked the delicacies.
In daytime, mostly we were accompanied by grand-father to the fields where he would show us different types of watermelons, muskmelons, sunmelons which he specially used to crop in summers. Mostly we would run all by ourselves deep into the fields and try to get some fruits & berries. His eyes constantly followed us and as soon as we returned, used to peel off the melons and distribute to all. Some days we would leave early mornings and come back by evening. It was always an amazing experience taking a bath in cold tube-well water, the breakfast and lunch was mostly delivered in fields where we would feast upon in shades and seated on rope-knitted charpoys. Sometimes, we would chase away stray animals with ropes and sticks in hand. The chase would invariably always leave a trail of dust which used to take time to settle and the scene was panoramic specially with the sun-setting down in the horizons. On returning back, the food was traditionally served to senior male members and rest would have it later. Many a times, we sat next just watching him. He always wore a “gandhi-topi” and “dhoti-kurta” and was a man of few words. Infact I don’t remember him speaking much. Heavy voice, few small sentences! The days will pass so fast that the departing day will come and there will be lot of customary-crying (somehow I never thought it was real) by relatives! What I recall, are only the teary-eyes of my grandfather.
Years came and years passed by, I graduated from one class to another. It was in 1995, it all came to a standstill when my grand-father passed away. I never went again to our ancestral home. It wasn’t a conscious choice but when I grew older, I myself had no inclination to visit again. And I knew for obvious, there would be nobody waiting for us. No sparkling eyes in anticipation!
“Hey Bachchan…….Bachchan…”, It was somebody patting on my shoulder which brought me back to reality. Standing behind me was my class-mate for whom I was waiting at CP. By this time, the choco-bar had mostly melted and some of it was on my shoes, we started strolling towards Café Coffee Day with me still engrossed in wilderness of the past. Somebody has aptly said, "What we remember from childhood we remember forever - permanent, stamped, inked, imprinted, eternally seen."
-Bachchan
…Even though it was around 00:05 am, wasn’t able to sleep thanks to my nocturnal tendencies developed over a period of time (compulsory night shifts at SAIL & forced night shifts at IIMB being the equal culprits! ). So, just went around the window in the room and stood nearby gazing at the stars. The soothing instrumental songs and the cool breeze were making the atmosphere serene and gave me a good opportunity to mull over. Being a lazy ass, I pulled across a cane chair, 2 pillows and one cane stool just to rest my legs. For some weird reason, today my mind was wandering across TV channels and its programs and there is one new program which has been subject of constant chatter even before it was aired. Yes, m talking of Bigg Boss! (Imported version of Big Brother). Interestingly, only God knows what an extra “g” in big means…greatness, genuineness or just Gas ;)
Being a die-hard sceptic myself, I had never been a big fan of reality shows specially the ones involving small time actors. I had vague memories of 2-3 episodes of BB season-2 which just had lots of vulgar love & hate drama and fist-fights with choicest of abuses being used at the rate of 72 per minute. Anyways, the pre-aired drama about the “Pop Philosopher”, Mr Big B was enough for a mortal me to watch the opening episode at least. The show started, 13 participants announced and sent to a cosy-beautiful designer built place (Can’t refer this as “Home” as there is no-family living there, all are just workers) to spend their next three months.
Let me put some simple thoughts (questions). Is anybody of 13 participants a real celebrity! Most of them are un-successful bunch and using it as a platform to enhance their careers in bollywood (Claudia Ciesla already being an international name courtesy her Playboy fame can look towards Hollywood too). Last 3-4 episodes have just shown some petty ego-clashes, ugly advances of some “Desh-drohi” famed KRK and real nautanki of Rakhi’s mom. Don’t want to bore you with any further details of “cartoon-characters”. Fact is money is the only driver here, producer has invested crores with BigB getting a cool-126 crore for the deal as per reports, and the concerned channel “Colors” has to gain TRPs as there can’t be a bigger bet than BigB. The returns already been quantified, now there has to be a process to have high TRPs for 3 months and churn money for the channel. Hence, the crowd of un-successful jokers has been put in place with “ready scripts” being given to each one with “desired roles” clearly defined and supposedly the outcome too! But the curry can be made more tasty as the show progresses which depends on junta’s voting pattern which being a decisive factor in maintaining TRPs. Every participant being paid money to win as well as loose at the most opportune moment. One of them even categorically maintained that he was brought into the show just to spice up. Similarly, who knows Sherlyn and Claudia before? India is well-known for exporting spices for centuries, aren’t we ;)
Sparing you the horror of BB and not harping on the foreign origins of almost all the shows (Interestingly, the biggest reality show of the country is being managed by foreign hands only, Madam SG, pun totally intended ;) Lets focus on similar stuff fooling around on different channels. Two shows worth mentioning:
Sach Ka Saamna (Moment of Truth) – Attempts of moral policing by parliamentarians and orthodox fundamentalists helped the show un-necessarily, Ok concept but more swamis (Ramdev and AshaRam bapu) and politicians should be casted too! 1000% , all the polygraphs will fail, might break also actually :P Factually the participant go through the question set already in a closed room already once, and only some of those questions are repeated on being aired which isn’t the case with original version.
Kya Aap Paanchvi Paas Se Tez Hain? (Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?) - Can’t have expected a better host than SRK (but I always hate him for his over-confidence and show-offs….Why should he not be frisked ? Might blog later on about VVIP culture, sticking to reality as of now). Indian kids are undoubtedly smarter and the American version have dumbest of answers specially from blondes (atleast those on youtube. Read this – A contestant when being told that Hungary is a country, replies…”OMG, Hungary is a country!! I thought that its just the word hungry in english dictionary!! )
Fundamentally, entertainment is an industry and there are companies which have shareholders and investors who want returns and profit is the ultimate motive obviously trying to keep the creative aspect of the industry intact. There are many such shows today and there will be hundreds in future which will try to fake reality. Since, sometimes our personal lives are touched and impacted by such shows too. So, as viewers, we should not be fooled by absurd realities and just see as them as games BUT keeping the notion of reality away from our credulous minds, better to think them as “nautankis” ;)
The breeze going stronger by then, even my lappie had gone into sleep and I was actually half sleep thanks to the weather. But I can’t stop without thanking Mr. Robert Adler who invented TV remote. We still hold the veto power and its this power which governs the not-so-real television. Long Live The Remote :D
… Sound asleep was I, when the phone started ringing and I just opened one eye to see the number. Identifying it as a regular airtel customer care number, I just turned sideways and continued sleeping till my mom came and tells me “Bachchan,.. its 10:30” …. And I was like…”hmmmm....Ok”. Well reluctantly, I wakes up and grabs the newspaper immediately turning to the sports page to see the aussie-brits match fate. Not feeling very ecstatic about aussie win, I strolled towards the balcony and sat on the couch. It was a slow drizzle, with cool air making the ambiance even more lovely. I casually started turning the pages of newspaper once again when I ran into the latest case of “honor killings” where a girl killed nine members of her family fearing unacceptance & backlash for an affair with a guy from the same village. I must say every line was like shock to me with stories like families killing their own blood in name of honor and its all being done in broad daylights across all north india. Being from western UP region myself, I was not totally unaware of such killings but the rampantness in some of north indian states was a revelation to me! I put my coffee cup side and keep glued to the clipping. And by the end I was done, my eyes were wet to say the least.
Not anymore in a mood to read the paper further, I just closed my eyes and and the first question which occurred to me was “whose honor can be saved by killing some one?” Digging deeper, came the realization that India has thousands of castes, clans and communities whose complex relationship, ethos and cultures haven’t been truly understood even by the most prominent social experts. Really tried hard to see any rational-logic in such killings but finally the question remained un-answered !
In the quest to unravel the psychology behind such absurd cruelty, I started browsing with the search item “honor killings” and got a mind boggling 77 million hits on Google. And somehow my mind said “we are not the only un-civilized society, there are more sinister parties across the globe”. Moslems specially in middle-east are known to act more cruelly in the name of sharia-laws. Naked parades, consensual rapes, contract killings, public lynchings and what not ! Almost all the instances were from middle and south east asian nations. Whenever I closed my eyes, the gruesome pictures of those murdered made me mind-sick. And the fanatics all over the world do all this in the name of religion and culture. Did Mohammad, Jesus or Lord Krishna preach honor killings?
What kind of justice is this ? And whose honor is restored ? Will a family really live in peace by killing their own 20+ something sons/daughters ? My mind can’t answer these questions, but my heart can ! Only truth is that we have a history of 4500 years and we have come a long way from nomads to a more civilized version today. But we still have lot more to learn and evolove. A society where religion is the path to God rather than being used as a disguise to bring honor and where everybody has the right to live the way s/he wants irrespective of any societal boundaries. Hopefully, in my lifetime :)
- Bachchan
This goes some 10-12 days back while I came for holidays at home. Post lunch hours provide right kind of environment to sleep. So, I thought of just casually browsing through channels before taking a nap. While most of the channels had cricket, latest movie arrivals and cookery classes going on, It was NGC (or Discovery) which was showing an interesting piece. I somehow, had an inclination towards space, stars, universe and related stuff. It reminds me of my science teacher who gifted me a book named "Taare and Sansaar" way back in 5-6th standard. Anyways, program was THE JOURNEY TO THE START OF UNIVERSE (this wasn't the title of program, this is what I renamed it), the graphics themselves were so tantalizing that I took few pillows and eased myself on the couch. Now fully off the bed, the anchor started by asking some intriguing questions.
- what is the origin of universe ?
- when and how did it actually happen ?
- why humans only on earth, do we have siblings somewhere else also?
- future of universe ?
and most sensational ...
- who created universe...God or Else ?
This is such a mind-boggling question that even noble laureates haven't come to any definite conclusions ! The program went on with me glued to TV, in between the anchor made several references to great works on such matters. One being by Stephen Hawking "Origin of the Universe". The program ended and just out of curiosity, I started googling about the book and found several pdf files, downloaded some of them and read about 10-15 pages and then somehow I was not able to control my sleep. The scenes of wandering in between the vast inter-galactic spaces passing asteriods, escaping quasars and black holes were just passing through my eyes all the time. And before I could know, was fast asleep on the couch till my mom came and asked me to shift to bed.
I must say, that these questions need to be answered for the good of man-kind and to really know about our creator and more importantly our future. Just don't know, when will a real TIME Machine (or any other technological marvel) be built to carry us to the moment of reckoning. Hopefully, in my lifetime :)
- Bachchan
