The Form

The colour photographs should have a light background (preferably white) and should show the full face of the applicant frontally (size 3.5 cm * 3.5 cm)…

Apara read these lines for the third time. Without asking anyone ...from the first to the last…Apara hasn’t filled up a form. Is she incapable or has it become a habit…even at the bank, she would confirm …the blue one is for draft, the green one is for depositing money..though in these thirty nine years , she had done it at least more than fifty times…but, till the last column of the form, she makes it a point.. to ask or rather..confirm. Maybe this has become a habit, she surmised.

Block letters. Name in full…as she filled up, she thought…Aparajita Sharma…its been eighteen or is it nineteen years…she has not heard the name Aparajita Trivedi. That was the year she graduated, she was planning of applying for her masters…but Nirbhai’s proposal was too tempting for her Parents too resist…good family, good job…what more can her parents expect. she, by nature, was never a rebel. Thus, she closed all the possibilities of becoming Aparajita Shrivastav…Bimaan…ya Bimaan Shrivastav was after all her classmate…they studied together for seven years…same school, same college…but they hardly ever spoke for more than five minutes. She remembers…his deep, lost eyes which she felt were trying to say something…later on, after marriage, Apara tried finding those unsaid things of Bimaan’s eyes in her husband Nirbhai’s eyes…unfortunately, in all these years, she never found those unsaid things in Nirbhai’s wandering eyes. Apara moved her eyes towards the roadside window…its 10 in the morning…people are busy rushing to their respective offices. Usually, Apara cannot afford time to stand near the window at this hour…she has to prepare Nirbhai’s breakfast, after Naman moved to the other city for his engineering course, its been less hectic. As she was devouring the sight at the road with her hungry eyes…Apara had a feeling that maybe Bimaan would be one among those people…little bald…one-two grey hair…enquiring Aparajita Trivedi’s address at the Mother Dairy…oh! How foolish of him, she chuckled in mild amusement…people know her as Mrs. Sharma or Mrs. Aparajita Nirbhai Sharma. Apara thought …maybe he has cross the road, taken the turn, now some twenty steps, and there he opens the gate…and… the bell rang. Apara stood still for a moment….she needed some fresh air…she thought... and went towards the door to open it…. ‘madam, meter check karna hain…’. Apara silently opened the meter box for them.

Coming back to her incomplete form…Apara realised…she made a mistake…its…Name in full. (Block letters). Surname first….Apara took out another Photostat copy of the form, she has three in her hand bag, she needs this job, and filled— Sharma Aparajita…

Tring-Tring...

Video 1:




Video 2:

Video 1: Samshad Begum sang this song …mere piya gaye Rangoon..for the movie Patanga(1949).

Video 2: Sonu Nigam sang this song…mujhe raat din ..for the movie Sangharsh(1999).

These two videos had a gap of almost fifty years…video 1 is black and white, minimum technology, singer had a nasal twang…video 2 is coloured, good technology, no nasal twang…pakka chiseled voice…but one thing was common between the two videos…ya u people are guessing right…its of course the phone..

No..no…am not using my blog to endorse a product called telephone or for that matter any kind of communication gadgets (this blog is still not my source of bread n butter).

Mapping out every aspect of your future life ‘Together’…have you spent countless hours whispering sweet nothings on the phone…if yes, then u r the right person to read this post.. :-) ..n give me the opportunity to thank u Dr. Bell (wherever u r) on behalf of the people… especially those in long distance relationships.

Slowly… u notice fluctuations in your communication patterns…scary isn’t it… ;-( (there would be a detailed post on the stages where one witness fluctuations…).

Now, the million dollar question…what should a couple do to preserve their love (oops! Relationship) over the miles…

What else…remember… the airtel ad with music by Rahman…There is no war or barrier that can keep us apart, if only we talk to each other…

(I hope someone’s getting the hint…;-))

Unsafe Abode..

‘She had a history of congenital heart disease. She had an opening in the heart. She could have suffered a stroke and died of suffocation…' all ‘could haves’…

Seven-year-old girl, (don’t want to take the victim’s name), was found dead in a politician's car in Nagpur. The post mortem report says that the cause of death was ‘smothering.’ There was blood stains found on the girl’s underwear.

Now, all the above mentioned ‘could haves’ (which the top cop uttered) can be anything…

Apparently, a seven-year-old, whose mother works as a domestic help in the area, went inside the car to rest. (Any sane person would tell you Mr. Police Officer that in our country, fortunately or unfortunately, maids’ children do not possess the guts to get inside the master’s car without “their” permission…and it seems big people don’t lock their car). And what about the blood..the cop has a reason for that too..she was in pain after the stroke...body liquids(or even stool)tend to come out during a struggle for oxygen..so that explains all..

Time and again, I fail to understand, how can a top cop give such dumb reasons(todays newspaper would tell u more) to save a politician.(Its not that I totally believe these newspapers, but false attribution is a serious crime..I don't think national dailies would dare that).

Abuse is a startling everyday reality for as many as half of country’s children…(I guess the ratio is more than that coz more often cases go unregistered and unnoticed).

…1 child dies each week from child abuse…even with all the child protection laws we have.

‘Nobody knows what she’s holdin’ back…
……………………………………..
A statue stands in a shaded – in place
An angel girl with an upturned face
A name is written on a polished rock
A broken heart that the world forgot……..’

Lora Merriman, no matter how many ‘concrete angels’ you dedicate for this cause…people are yet not ready to fight for it…

Mirror mirror..am I the most beautiful of all..

Oatmeal and a fruit for breakfast, salad at lunch, yoghurt for dessert and an ultra lean cuisine for dinner (its ultra lean coz the ‘phoreners’:-) say dinner after 7 p.m is poison for those who want to acquire a slim body)..if people are thinking what is this for, then give me the honour to enlighten you (even if you don’t, I would take the privilege :-))—This is the ‘perfect’ menu for looking good..want a trimmer waist and that ‘extra’ glow to complement your face, then u all will have to follow it diligently (now don’t frown, am not telling u guys to starve). After all we have to give competition to the mannequins. Remember..the Bennet daughters..ya am talking of Austen’s pride and prejudice-no beauty, no groom-again Grim’s fairy tales..not even a single story was dedicated to a princess who was not beautiful..it seems children only liked a beautiful princess :-).

Irrespective of our gender, class, caste, community, we all want to look beautiful. Ask the self-conscious teenagers, they say..they want to look ‘beautiful’ to receive recognition and acknowledgement. Similarly, they also want to hang out with ‘beautiful’ people for the same.

Thanks to the ‘touch-ups’ of digital images, this has further encouraged people’s love for beauty/perfection. Eliminating the red-eye effect is history..no more blemishes, freckles, undereye bags and yah! The damn thing pores..u don’t see those anymore in the images. Great! Like words we can edit our looks too.

Now an age old question..do we judge people by their looks/beauty?(the love at first sight people are disqualified from answering this question). So to this an age old answer- a book should not be judged by its cover..did I hear that..did I..someone’s whispering—real beauty is found in the person as a whole..the character, beliefs, behaviour (oh! The clichéd dialogue…). No matter how careful one is…until and unless one has some prior knowledge about the story or the stuff of the book, it’s the outside of the book that decides its fate.


(with malice to one and all… ‘me’ included :-))

Thoughts..incomplete..

Kadambari's slim fingers stroked the aching back, it's been aching since Tuesday..and its getting worse.. her fingers..slowly measured the vast expanse of the empty bed...how many years or is it just the other day..Kadambari thought..she was loved, desired..


'mamma mamma...' little Kabhi came running..and hugged her tight..it was hard for her to breathe..


and there we witness..the birth of another incomplete thought..


(a thought..which Kadambari might never get a chance to complete..and I guess we all know 'why'?)

a non-achiever..

I think maybe I am a non-achiever whose biggest achievement in life is..err..nothing (maybe when I procreate, that would be one).
Of late, this feeling of being a non-achiever is haunting me. Why would it not haunt me as in this last 50-60 days, am forced to consider by my circumstances..that am a total non-achiever.
First, I was bed-riddened for a month(getting sick is not a crime, but when its said that its due to your carelessness then....)
Second, I left my job (not a lucrative one..but still it gave me some satisfaction)
Third, My dissertation (I have to submit it in two months)..and this would be the longest one..my present plight..the other day, my guide told me "..your data analysis chapter is very uninteresting..no one would read that.." I stood puzzled for a while..never in my wildest dream have I thought that something as dry as data, and further, analysis of that data had any chance of being interesting--after all facts are to be presented as facts. Morever, I never thought am writing a novel, which would be written by keeping in mind the intellectual demands of the readers. Anyway, its been a year now-and in this phase all I was doin was thinking about the aspects of crafting, implementing and defending my dissertation..and the further thinking included..field work, sample size, informants, cloze tests...After many sleepless nights, I Prepared a tabulated form of my data. Now, my guide says I don't need to make it a part of my my dissertation(its not needed even in the appendix)..ok..now I was not at all prepared for this..I looked at him with my pleading eyes..but he was too lost in my literature review chapter to notice me..and lo! there goes my twenty pages of data tabulation in the dustbin.
I guess this isn't enough to make me a non-achiever..so here's some more..why I think am a non-achiever..
I never laughed at Tom & Jerry, never cried for anything substantial (other than those routine fights with N), never completed a cricket match, never read Pride and Prejudice (have of course seen the poor adaptation by Gurinder Chadda), never had gin, vodka or whatever (don't even remember the names)and whenever had few sips of coca-cola, pepsi..ended up with non-stop burps (don't hate it..its human), never tried a cigarette, never praised anything for its 'energy'(energy to live..recently I found another moron..she too never did this), never enjoyed a train journey...ok..ok..I should better stop it here..otherwise I would go into depression..:-)

Mindless banter..

…you like my mind..that is not my best feature, you can’t love me for that…

Well..well..well..what comes to your mind when you listen to these lines..that ‘the her’(lets guess she is a lady) is not convinced by the words of ‘the he’ (lets guess that this ‘the he’ is ‘the her’s’ lover…no..no..a person who wants to be her lover…silly me..where have I ever heard or seen a person in a relationship saying..he loves her for her mind..I bet..it has to be the courtship period).

Anyway, A beautiful mind (ya..exactly..the movie n the book with the same name where the wife loved her husband irrespective of his paranoid schizophrenia), an invincible mind (came across it only in literature…if people have used it in their day to day life, pardon my ignorance)…have not heard of a pretty mind or for that matter, a sexy mind yet…mind is not supposed to be attached to such adjectives..especially..the latter two..


Ok! The question is still hanging..like a pendulum (awful comparison, could have thought of something better)..

Can ‘the he’ love (scary word..right..n especially when it connotes responsibilities, commitment and last but not the least..marriage, by now “the hes’” must have drank some pink syrup from the witch with the broomstick’s cupboard n gone invisible) ‘the her’ just because ‘the he’ likes ‘the her’s’ mind…(and mind it..unlike what is said above, this is the only best feature possessed by ‘the her’s’)…

Doubtful..Isn’t it…

silence plz....

Silence soothes. I guess we all believe in this..and especially when we are bed-riddened.

I remember, someone once said...a pressure cooker hissing is less cacophonous than knots of colleagues talking and laughing aloud. ok..am loosing the track..It happened like this that..some weeks back, I was bed-riddened for almost a month..and at that point in time, I became the most frustrated, irritated person on earth..and with that I became a blind lover of silence. Every moment I felt..people around me were conspiring against me by using their vocal cords just to generate noise..noise to hit my eardrums. Today as I was flipping through the pages of my diary, I found this lost love of mine for silence..which I had happily forgotten once I was ok. (silly me..)
I guess we all go through these silly phases some time or other...(excuses..:-))

...story..love..etc.

...what can you say about a twenty five year old girl who died
....that she was brilliant and beautiful, that she loved Mozart, Bach, the Beatles and me...

Oh! minor mistake in the quote...its 'she was beautiful and brilliant'(how can I imagine that brilliance would come before beauty).....Some nine years back, I wrote these very lines...well, I was in grads first year then, and in our alternative English paper, we were asked to write an essay on our favourite book. And lo! I started with these very lines..probably scored some average marks. And day before yesterday, as I was watching this movie, ya.. Love Story 1970, based on Eric Segal's 'Love Story...' I couldn't stop my tears..(oh! I never thought am such a closet romantic)..Anyway, the thing which is bothering me is what was lacking at that point in time..that though I loved the book..I was not that sentimental about it (..its not that am very senti about it now)...I tried finding an answer..but nothing concrete came to my mind...maybe..as adults we often tend to lock our emotions in a closet..so somehow if something ..some words.. accidently meet each other as strangers..we get a tug-at-the-hearstring..

But ya..I know..these lines about Jenny..has something..which would always make it much more than a mere love story for me....

Whats goin on??

Pakistan is the only country of the world which the American CIA has made target of its devastating covert and brutal overt activities. All the activities of the CIA are based on flawed intelligence. Keeping this in view, a national strategic plan has been prepared in the US and given the name of AFPAK strategy. The US security reservations have exposed Pakistan's stability to threats. One point five billion dollar annual aid is one of the apparent facets of this strategy. Besides, the powerful US officials like Richard Holbrooke and Admiral Mike Mullen will continue to pay visits to Pakistan to reassure about the US aid. There is another aspect that is under the administration of the intelligence chief. In this regard, we, as a nation, are paying heavy price for it by putting our sovereignty at stake.

It makes no difference what is the mandate of the people or what grand democratic institutions we want to establish. No one can put the country on the path of progress, be it Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz [PML-N] or Pakistan Peoples Party [PPP], until the CIA continues to fly its drones into our airspace, until the US troops continue to be increased in Afghanistan, and until its secret activities continue. The Indian intelligence agency, RAW is fully supporting the CIA in Balochistan while Britain's MI-6 and Israel's Mossad are also fully supporting the secret activities. KGB also has to settle scores with the Inter Services Intelligence [ISI] and CIA and it wants the US and Pakistan to continue to squander their man power and material resources so that the shameful defeat suffered by the Soviet Union in Afghanistan could be avenged. KGB, and the Indian RAW had been close associates during the cold war. They still enjoy close relationship and are eyeing on the downfall of Pakistan.

The region is full of different types of Taliban. For instance, "CIA Taliban", "Mullah Omar's Taliban", "KGB's Taliban", "Punjabi Taliban", and the "ISI's Taliban". Besides, militant chieftains of mujahidin, drug barons, terrorist groups of Al-Qa'ida, religious extremists, mercenaries, and foreign troops are also present in the region. All of them are indulging in killing and plundering the people under the guise of Islam and dreaming gain of power. With the full backing of the US and NATO forces, CIA is making the ruling classes of Pakistan implement its demands at every level. The CIA accuses that the ISI is in contact with Taliban and this is the reason that there is deficit of trust between the two agencies. The CIA wants the ISI to become weak and helpless enough so that it [CIA] may find no hurdle in the way of its access to our nuclear assets. There is complex situation in intelligence affairs and no one appears to be succeeding or failing in it.

The track record of CIA's acts and activities has been very poor. Inefficient administration and manpower, wrong propaganda, and misuse of facilities are clearly visible in the graph of its performance. The death and devastation caused by it and killing of thousands of innocent people has led to creation of hatred amongst the people, particularly among the Muslim countries, against the US. The unrest and turmoil we are facing today was caused by the withdrawal of the US [as published] forces from Afghanistan in 1990, at a time when their presence was direly needed there.

The creation of Taliban militants and getting of influence by Al-Qa'ida is part of the US strategy that was prepared months before 9/11. The region went out of control on the day when CIA provided wrong and exaggerated information to the US President regarding the 9/11 incident and held both Taliban and Al-Qa'ida responsible. As a result of this CIA step, both the groups united and Al-Qa'ida took overall leadership. By unleashing excessive propaganda against this terror group, the US gave this the importance that was much more than its capabilities. Usama Bin Laden became a hero of the Islamic world. Its organization [leadership] is still in hiding with billions of dollars while thousands of people have been killed in hunt for Bin Laden.

Though it is too late, we still have time to control the situation. The present political leadership should realize that there is need to take the nation into confidence by putting an end to in-camera session because it represents them as well. I believe that Pakistan Army is the best combat force and if political stability is achieved in the country, the morale of our army will further be boosted. We'll have to sink political difference, and have to unite to foil the enemies and to win the overt and covert intelligence war. If Asif Ali Zardari, Yousuf Raza Gilani, Nawaz Sharif, and other leaders stand shoulder to shoulder, no CIA, RAW, Mossad, and KGB can harm us. There is need for the political parties, government, and media to make the ISI active with full support. End

(Pakistani Article Says CIA, RAW, Mossad, KGB Cannot Harm us If we Forge Unity)

-a local newspaper in pakistan 'khabrein' on 30th April,09 published this article. Found it interesting.

(we judge everythin from our n our country's point of view, it's interestin to listen to "their" point of view for a change...as Voltaire once said-'I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it.')