Sab kuch chalta udhar!

Some time back we had a visitor from Hyderabad who regaled us all with rib-tickling examples of Hyderabadi Hindi:
Tailor: Side-aa maara na madam (I have stitched from the side)
Wife to husband: Baatan karo ji. Kaiko silent hain?
Husband to wife: Late-aa hora ji jaldi karo.
Shopkeeper to customer: Kaiko kirikiri kartey (Why are you arguing?)
Friend to friend: Utna scene nako karo (Don’t act big)
Autorickshaw driver: Ammaji kitna dete bolo
Couple out shopping: Yahan rate-aa phat-taa hain (Rates are very high here)
Guest at lunch: Aaahhhhhh… Bas hain jada nako (Enough!)
Driver to tourist: Brake-aa maartein. Horn-aa maartein. Sub kuch chalta idhar
Street Romeo: Mast-e-re ekdum!

The young show the way

This Diwali, the young show the way.
In Vasant Vihar, a 9th standard student and his bunch of friends have decided to observe Green Diwali this year… no crackers for them.
Similarly, in a building near my residence, a group of high school and college girls have decided to enjoy only the Festival of Lights and shun the Festival of Noise.

Scene in a marriage: Sharing responsibilities

Hubby: While you had gone out, it took me only two minutes to tidy up the living room. Why can’t you also keep the house spick and span?
Wifey: Oh that… I had deliberately left things a little messed up. If I clean up everything, what will you do?

Thanekar captures Tamhini

Thane resident and photographer Bhagyesh Penkar was in Tamhini near Pune before the end of monsoons and he came back with some stunning visuals. TPO presents two of them.

Senior photojournalist’s slide show at Thane Kala Bhavan

I have known Mukesh Parpiani since the last 31 years, from the time he freelanced at my first place of work, SOL Features, the Mumbai-based collective of freelance journalists. Later, he went on to become the Photo Editor of Indian Express, The Daily and Mid-Day. These days, he is the Head, Piramal Gallery at the NCPA, Nariman Point.
Parpiani is the last of a dying breed – the gritty, diehard professional photojournalist. In fact, his interesting slide show this evening at Thane’s Kala Bhavan, ended with the message “Let us revive photojournalism.” He ran an appreciative audience through 250 of his photos. Each of them reflected Parpiani at his best – alert, artistic and knowledgeable about current events.
I remember one incident which clearly showed that Parpiani has that one other quality that separates the also-rans from great photojournalists: perseverance.
Indira Gandhi was visiting the BNHS (Bombay Natural History Society) head office in south Mumbai for a function, a little before her death. For some strange reason known only to bureaucracy, photographers were not being allowed to shoot. As her entourage entered the BNHS main door, Parpiani suddenly shouted, “Indira Gandhi, yeh log photo leney nanin de rahe hain!”
The prime minister turned to the event’s organiser and in her calm voice, told him, “Let them take any photo they want.”
Thanks to Parpiani, the pack of press photographers got to shoot the prime minister outside as well as inside the BNHS.
Here, downloaded from the Internet, are some memorable shots by Parpiani.

 

 

How aspiration works

Our house help Sarala was telling us the other day: “Look at our country – dirty surroundings, garbage everywhere, people spitting and urinating on the pot-holed roads…
“And yesterday I was watching a foreign country on TV. Such clean and wide roads, people walking around in perfect order, not a speck of dust anywhere, everything in its proper place… oh… wouldn’t it be wonderful to live in such a country?”

Hoshwalan ko kya khabar bekhudi kya hoti hain

This is one of the best tributes written for Jagjit Singh by a fan. And she’s not a professional writer…
Hoshwalan ko kya khabar bekhudi kya hoti hain
by Kavita Keswani
One of the first messages I got on my Blackberry this morning is that Jagjit Singh is no more, and then I opened twitter and Facebook, many people had put it up on their status messages. Shabana Azmi had tweeted up lines of some of her favourite ghazals. So had some other directors who had him sing for their movies.
I have to confess I haven’t listened to Jagjit Singh since years ( since Sarfarosh), and yet now that he has gone was creating a curious bunch of feelings in my biochemistry, especially when I was reading the outpouring of such feeling for him everywhere…so I began to give my ‘curiousmixoffaintlymushyemotions’ a ear, and went on a hunt to excavate to my personal journey with Jagjit Singh, with a piece of my favourite dessert, cause what is Jagjits music if not sweetness itself…
The credit of this introduction would and should really go to my younger sister, who I think was getting over a crush, or was heartbroken, and had started listening to ghazals as a result, or her crush maybe loved ghazals and had introduced her to them.
It was difficult to escape them as she would play them day in and out, and we shared a room, and a small house, , and soon I was developing a ‘ear’ for the fineness of ghazal poesy, the mood for the emotions (mainly painful, sad and inebriated) of a depressed ‘ghazal poet’, whose song revolved mainly around ‘Wine and Woman’, and of course occasionally God. The poet invariably and alternatively thanked or cursed him for creating both, thus causing him enough pain, enough strife, so that he may produce verse of some value…;).
So when I think of Jagjit Singh, and wonder what for me encompasses his genius, I always go back to the album he, Chitra Singh, and Javed Akhtar created for Saath Saath. When I listen to the music I am at once refreshed, touched, stung, goosebumpy, and if in a particularly romantic mood, there are more than a few rushes of blood to the head….The movie was extremely charming and did not get its due, and I think the music though much appreciated wasn’t recognized enough. It’s beauty is timeless, eternal, and a legacy for future lovers.
Today with this note I pay tribute to the haunting innocence of its music, from my favourite Tumko dekha to ek khayal aaya, zindagi dhoop aur tum ghana chaaya, to Ye tera ghar, ye mera ghar, ye ghar bahut haseen hain to Kyun zindagi ke raha mein majboor ho gaye reflect an entire journey into love and life and beautifully support and enhance the protagonists progress in the movie.
There are other favourites especially Hoton se choolon tum, mera geet amar kar do and Tum itna jo muskara rahe ho, which never fail to cause a deluge of tears, but today I am going to stay with Saath Saath.

 

Sagely advice

How smart – or oversmart – kids are these days!
Two little boys, both in pre-primary, were playing cricket with a plastic ball in my building’s compound.
As I waited for the lift, I overheard one of them telling the other, “Arey overarm bowling kar. Teri izzat badh jayegi!”