It's said that when you laugh, you are praying to God
But when you make others laugh, God himself prays for you
So stay happy and be the reason for others' happiness

(Forwarded)

Have you listened to the song 'तेरे वास्ते मेरा इश्क सुफियाना'? I did yesterday and just loved the lines:

साथ चलते चलते हाथ छूट जाये ऐसी राहोंमे ना मिला करो
बात करते करते रात बीत जाये ऐसी रातोमे मिला करो

A friend forwarded following SMS:

A mom asked 'Whom do you love more....me or your wife?'

Son's cute reply 'I don't know....but your love makes me forget my wife and her love and care reminds me of you'.

I think that the reply is diplomatic rather than a cute one. Wonder what the son would have said if his wife had asked the same question :-)

सुवासिनी - सीमा देव ह्यांची आत्मकथा

खरं सांगायचं तर मी हे पुस्तक स्वत:हून लायब्ररीत शोधून वाचलं नसतं. पण आईने कुठल्याश्या कार्यक्रमात कोणा आरजेने सांगितलेली सीमा देवची एक आठवण ऐकली - एका सीनमध्ये त्यांनी नेसलेल्या कानन कौशलच्या continuity च्या साडीवर रमेश देवचा पाय पडून ती साडी फाटली आणि त्याची किंमत एकट्या सीमा देवच्या पगारातून कापून घेतली गेली. ही आठवण सीमा देवच्या पुस्तकात आहे का बघ म्हणून आई म्हणाली म्हणून मी ते पुस्तक आणलं.

खरं तर पुस्तकाचा आकार पाहून हे कोणा नटीचं आत्मचरित्र असेल असं वाटतच नव्हतं एव्हढं ते चिमुकलं. मी ह्यापूर्वी जयश्री गडकरांचं आत्मचरित्र वाचलं होतं ते बर्यापैकी मोठं होतं. बरं, ह्या पुस्तकात नेहमी असतात तसे भाग नाहीत. सगळं सलग एकच पुस्तक. हे काहीतरी नवीन होतं. प्रस्तावनेत सीमा ह्यांनी म्हटलं होतं की हे पुस्तक त्यांच्या स्वत:च्या शब्दात आहे. कोणीही शब्दांकन केलेलं नाहीये. अरे बाप रे!

पण पुस्तक् वाचायला घेतलं आणि आवडायला लागलं. लेखिकेने आपलं जीवन स्वत:च उलगडून सांगितलं आहे त्यामुळे त्या लेखनाला एक प्रकारचा गोडवा आहे, साधेपणा आहे, प्रामाणीकपणा आहे. हेच बघा ना. एके ठिकाणी त्या म्हणतात की त्या इतक्या शांत स्वभावाच्या होत्या की भालजी पेंढारकरांनी त्यांना 'थोडी आग पी' असा सल्ला दिला तर पुढल्या एका पानावर स्वत:च स्वत:ला 'मी तशी थोडी तापटच' असंही म्हणतात. आपल्या सगळ्यांच्याच स्वभावात असा विरोधाभास थोड्याफार फरकाने असतो तो त्यांनी हे पुस्तक स्वत:च लिहिल्यामुळे अचूक पकडला गेलाय. नाहीतर शब्दांकन झालं असतं तर हे विरोधाभासी उल्लेख गाळले गेले असते.

तरीही बऱ्याच ठिकाणी हातचं राखून लिहिलं असल्याचं जाणवतं उदा. त्यांच्या वडिलांचा आधार नव्हता असं त्या म्हणतात पण पुढे एके ठिकाणी आईसाठी मंगळसूत्र आणल्याचा उल्लेख आहे. तसंच रमेश देवना Heart Attack आला तेव्हा 'किती जणींच्या तावडीतून त्यांना कसंकसं सोडवलं' असं त्या लिहून जातात पण त्यासंबधीचा मजकूर आधी पुस्तकात फारसा येत नाही. अर्थात ह्या गोष्टी नसल्यामुळे तसा फारसा फरक पडत नाही. आणि पुस्तकात ते न लिहिण्याचा अधिकार त्यांना निश्चित आहे.

पण एका बाबतीत त्यांनी माझ्यासारख्या वाचकांची थोडी निराशा केली आहे - त्यांनी आपल्या चित्रपटांबाबत लिहिलं आहे पण त्यांच्या निर्मिती प्रक्रियेबद्दल, त्या काळच्या अभिनेते, संगीतकार, दिग्दर्शक ह्यांच्याबद्दल, तसंच एकंदरीत तेव्हाच्या मराठी चित्रपटसृष्टीबद्दल अधिक विस्ताराने लिहायला हवं होतं. ह्यावर कदाचित आणखी पुस्तकं असतीलही पण त्यांचे अनुभव वाचायला निश्चित आवडलं असतं हे मात्र नक्की.

Hang Baby Falak's and Afreen's murderers!

Baby Afreen No More - read the headlines. And I thought to myself 'But I remember reading this news a couple of months back'. The possibility that this could be another girl child that has succumbed to injuries inflicted by her "parent" was too cruel to contemplate. Yet, that was true. Turns out that the news that I had read earlier was about baby Falak's death. What is our country coming to these days? Is this becoming a new social norm? How can the newspapers even refer to the murderers who did this as the baby's 'father'? They are murderers - plain and simple. We should make an exception in this case to the abolition of capital punishment. Hang them and hang them soon.

I couldn't make myself read the news in detail. I just hope that these poor girls' souls rests in peace and they are in a better place than this cold cruel country where men think that they are the superior gender. Shame on us!

Food for thought.....

अपनी तनहाईका औरोसे ना शिकवा करना
तुम अकेलेही नही हो सभी अकेले है

Talking of Fever 104.0, yesterday RJ Sidhu was trying to recruit 11 ladies to be present in the stadium for today's IPL match of Mumbai Indians. He asked a question - who is Mumbai Indians' fielding coach. He also gave a hint that the coach was a well-known player from South Africa. The answer, of course, is Jonty Rhodes. One lady called and gave the right answer. I think the RJ should have congratulated her for being selected and left it at that. Instead, he asked her who told her the answer. She replied that no one did. Sidhu could have moved on at this point as well but he wouldn't have any of it. He kept on repeating the question. And in the end also remarked that the lady's husband must be smiling somewhere in the background. This remark was certainly in a very bad taste and smacked strongly of gender-bias. I agree that not all Indian women are crazy or well-informed about sports. But that is no reason to generalize.

I hope you are listening RJ Sidhu - for once.

Gandhi - FM Channel Fever 104.0

I chanced upon it by sheer luck. I hardly get a chance to listen to FM in the mornings but I was traveling that day and was sick of listening to Chikani Chameli and Pyar ki Pungi punctuated by mind-numbing RJ gibberish on almost all channels. I kept flipping through them in the dip hope of finding something good to listen to before I switched to my cache of stored songs. Suddenly, I heard Karan Singh on Fever. It's been days since I have heard any of his program because he mostly airs them in the mornings. I stayed put on the channel and that's how I heard that day's episode of Gandhi.

This is a program similar to the one done on Ramayana last year by the channel. Here independent India is the compere who is telling us all how Gandhiji led the country in its fight against the British empire. Presently Gandhiji is on an all-India tour on advice of Gopal Krishna Gokhale so he can understand his country and people better.

I am not sure what time the program airs in the morning but you can listen to it at 8:45pm every evening.

Romancing With Life - by Dev Anand

It's funny how any actor's screen persona creates his/her image in our mind. And we almost never realize that the real person could be way different than our image. I wouldn't go so far as to say that Dev Anand has been my favorite actor from the Golden Era movies because I haven't seen any of his movies from start to finish. But I have always loved to watch his songs - be it a happy one like 'Jiya o jiya o jiya kuchh bol do', a naughty melody like 'Uparwala jaan kar anjaan hai' or a sad take on life like 'Kisaka rastaa dekhe ae dil ae saudaai'. So for me, Dev was always a shy, straight-forward, guy-next-door, with an enchanting smile, wooing his lady love with his sincerity and devotion and remaining loyal to her thereafter. His autobiography shattered that image.

Now, I must confess that I had no illusions about his directorial ventures. Also in the foreword, Dev himself says that people accuse him of being a narcissist but also maintains that it was necessary for his image. So, in a way, I knew that I had to read this book keeping these two things at the back of my mind. What I was not prepared for, however, was the extent of his narcissism. He discusses each of his movies in detail but the details are pretty much limited to his own role and contribution to it. There is very little that he says about his leading ladies, directors or other people associated with these movies. Yes, I understand that it is his autobiography and so it must talk about him. But after a movie or two, these details start sounding boring and many a times, downright jar on to your nerves.

Then he starts discussing the films that he directed on his own. We all know that a film can be considered successful even if it doesn't set the cash registers ringing - if the critics find something worthwhile in it. Dev's films had failed both the tests. But he doesn't seem ready to acknowledge what went wrong so any analysis of the same is totally out of the question. Probably that is the reason why he continued making films the same way though the subjects that they dealt with were different than the usual potboilers. After a while, the excuse that the film made him happy even if people didn't appreciate it starts ringing hollow. He wasn't making home videos, was he? The whole point of releasing the film in the theaters is that you want others to watch it. So shouldn't it bother you if one film after another keeps getting rejected? It doesn't seem to have occurred to him at all. Or if it did, he hasn't been candid about it in this book. For some inexplicable reason, I felt sad for him for this. Was he always living under some illusion or did he want to convince us that he really was successful as far as making a movie goes? We will never know.

Another thing that struck a discordant note was his frequent references to encounters with ladies. Before you say it, I admit that this could be because of my conservative upbringing and outlook towards life. But somehow I felt that he put it in the book to live up to his romantic image on screen. I wondered how things would have turned out if he had married his first love Suraiyya instead.

All in all, I am glad that I read the book - no doubt about it. But one thing is certain - something has changed in the way I will watch any Dev Anand song in the future. The image of the guy-next-door has been shattered in a thousand pieces - the same way Rozie's earthen pot shatters in that famous song from the movie Guide.