Questions

Shabbir Bhatia sold Hotmail to Bill Gates and became rich and famous. He was at a loss of words when his mother asked him what should she tell his Web-challenged old aunts at Gurudwara that how he became rich overnight.What exactly did he sell? Tussi ki Vicheya?

Like those aunts I too was intrigued by different questions at the different phases of my life.
During my kindergarden days, I heard elders at home talking something like,"Everything depends on the government  (sarkar) I asked my father, "who is  she (sarkar) ? I don't know what he answered but sarkar remained a huge sphinx like structure in my little world of imagination for quite sometime. 'Stock Market' and 'sensex' was fine but a few questions   remained unanswered.

* Why, in my city the roads are digged for sewer maintenence  just after many years of waiting they are repaired and well tarmacked? There must be some communication between two departments.

 * Why was Syyad Modi killed brutally?  His wife,a smart modern gal, could have simply divorced him.
 
* Is the founder of IPL,one of the huge Sports events in the world,
who enthralled  cricket lovers and managed everything related to the tournament well eg bringing the new talent, advertisers (remember Jetking Coaching), gave social messages, did charity  etc really guilty of the allegations he is charged with?

*Dev Anand, the evergreen hero with innumerable fans.What was going on in his mind when he was making a film called 'Censor'.and 17 other movies which were laughable and had no sense at all..Ditto for Manoj Kumar who directed and produced the movie 'Clerk'. I know someone who couldn't sit through the film and left the hall even when it was raining cats and dogs outside.

*Why Tumbler is fulll of the sobbing though lovely quotes from girls only

*Why dumped word is used in the context that the girl is being dumped.Advance Learner's Dictionary gives this example, "Did you hear? He's dumped his GF". why not other way round?

Mumbai terror attack 2008. I watched  the dramatisation of the unfortunate event on TV. The terrorists were firing at ppl who were attending a wedding at The Taj . At one point there were few ppl who were told to turn around and face the wall.Then he shot them all.Why some of them did not attack them back They could have thrown a chair, vase, show piece, a piece of crockery at them. All of them could have pounced on one of those terrorist.
The case of the girl attacked by the mob in Guwhati is different.The poor girl was helpless.

And the list goes on...

Of Rajesh Khanna

A-B-C-D-E-F-G

Usme se nikle pandit ji.

Panditji ne khaya ganna.

Usme se nikla Rajesh Khanna.

Rajesh khanna ne khai supari.

Usme se nikli Meena.......etc etc

....

This is the hindi equivalent of 

"In-Pin-Safety-Pin-In-Pin-OUT. And 'Inky pinky ponky, Father had a donkey.

Rajesh Khanna is an idiom in India which means charisma.

 I switched on the TV after ages when I heard about  the sad news of RK's demise.

  As it was expected that all the  News Channels were flooded with the songs of his films.And the first sentence I could hear about him was that he as so popular that during 70's it was said that

 "Upar aaka, Neeche Kaka" ( God up there and RK down here) I didn't know I should laugh or cry.

I came back to Net to read something genuine about him on Twitter or FB. I was curious how some of the columnists I read would react to the great loss.

Next day while browsing the newspapers I was wondering if I could read something by  Deviyani Chaubal who wrote during his heydays and I got it in Jayanti Ranganathan's column where she quoted Ms chaubal :

" Rajesh khanna was no less than a star even before he started his acting career"and "  Kaka only knew how to be loved he could never give love.He is not as romantic as he looks on screen.He expected his girlfriend to treat him as a star only".  "He often used to repeat the dialogues from his films in dramatic manner."

Shobha De' also quoted one of  RK's ex flames, "She smiled and shook her head, “Kaka was incapable of loving anyone. He was only ever in love with himself!”

 Hema Malini's tribute was also interesting. She wrote, "He didn't like retakes. He could remember long dialogues in hindi easily and could deliver them with perfection.For a south Indian actress it was awesome." She also mentioned how he started using the same gestures and style of speaking  in real life also the way he did in his films.

 Sharmila Tagore hated the way, such a poignant dialogue, "Pushpa, I hate tears." has become a joke.

I always knew him as a male chauvinist  and literally prayed for Dimple's success when she made a comeback, thinking God please help her and let her have the last laugh.

RK belonged to my mom's generation.I got acquainted to his talent only when I watched his lovely movies on Youtube.Somehow I don't remember his movies on Doordarshan.

Coming back to columnists, let's see what  Khushwant Singh writes in his column on RK.That I would know tomorrow only.

Under the Writer's Spell

My Dehra visits are incomplete without a trip to Mussoorie. Not that I like going there but it just happens. A friend or relative persuades me and I usually comply. While I drive up the steep road to Mussoorie, I hope to have a glimpse of Ruskin Bond, one of my favourite writers.
 He wrote 'The room on The Roof" when he was eighteen, I read it when I was the same age. And  the bond never withered. I read most of his non fiction , where I knew about his life as a  bachelor, his foster family, the way he writes, his likes and dislikes, Dehra of his childhood and mine too. I see Mussoorie from his eyes. I look for the Tehri Road where he could see an ocean in a small stream.

Do I want to meet him personally? Do I want to hug the child in him who had lost his father at the age of 10 and who chose India,the land of his and his father's birth and not England? No, not because I know that he doesn't like to meet the curious visitors who knock at his door now and then, but because what would I talk to him about? That I know someone exactly like uncle Ken. I'm his fan? Would I share with him the moments when while reading his books I'd smiled or was moved and had blurted 'Good", "Ha ha"."Great", "exactly","right" "sahi","he writes so well! "

A writer pours his innermost feelings and sometimes his secrets in his writings. Most of the times we relate to what we read. Then does physical presence matter at all ?

Back from Mussoorie, I woke up early  at a guest house in Delhi and stood at the terrace and could see the lovely view of  tree tops. Later I visited the hundred year old building of IP College and saw lots of hornbills and scampering squirrels there. I could almost hear Khushwant Singh whispering to me, 'Do you know Delhi is one of the most green captital cities in the world.? Khushwant Singh's coulmns and books I find interesting, informative and full of humour.
I thought of Gulzar also who directed a wonderful TV sereal on Mirza Ghalib, the great urdu poet who lived and died in Delhi.

Last month I was in Uttarkashi. I was sitting on the steps, by the Ganges. Ganga aarti was being sung.Ganga was flowing like a good piece of writing. I thought of a blog I follow.

Then there is the great Tulsidas who wrote Ramcharit Manas. He is always with me since my childhood.Thanks to my father who always preached and sometimes consoled me by quoting some couplet or other from this great epic. Some day, lazy me would finish reading it, though I started it many a times.