Does he know a mother's heart?

I am your mother,

Oh! I love you so...

I can see you so clearly

Oh! I know you so..

The dreams in your eyes,

Ah, the glint and the glow..

The passing anger on your face,

Oh, the crank in your brow

The upturn of your lips as you smile,

The sweet love that you show

The surge of excitement even when 

You see the same trick thrice in a row

I'm always nagging, always scolding, always shouting.

I know it doesn't really show

I guess I try too hard to protect you

From the harshness of the winds or the snow

I love you so much

But how will you ever know

I am a parent,

I can't even describe the pleasure I feel as I see you grow 

I m a parent, I shall forever say 'I told you so'..

I want to be around 

All through your highs and lows

I know your battles are yours to fight

Your pace is only yours, fast or slow..

It's your life, your goals, your aspirations,

My prayer simply is, become the person I know... 

I am your mother

I love you so..

Murder she wrote!

Death of a Tree

Its been too long that I ve put my pen to paper or my fingers to my keypad. So well, here goes... why today? I muse... and i realise that everyday as i drive to work, i witness murder... i still don’t know why i reacted today.... i have been seeing it everyday... in different forms though.

Incident 1

Every summer, i see branches of huge trees being chopped off. It is the routine I think. The tree is being readied for the monsoons. It will flower better, it will bear more fruit, it will broaden its canopy, it will rise higher. I look at the person wielding the axe. He looks like a surgeon who will prune and enhance the bounties of the tree. I look closer and to my horror realise that the surgeon is in fact a butcher. He doesn’t prune, he hacks and hews. He doesn’t nip, he lops it off. The mighty tree is now dwarfed, and so it will stay. Every summer, we will appoint a butcher, not a gardener. Every monsoon, the indomitable spirit of the tree will try to flower and bear fruit and rise. But every summer, we will hack it back. At the end of ten odd years, we will finally decide that since the once magnificent mango tree is now an ugly stump, it encumbers my driveway, obstructs my wires and cables and blocks my view.

Let it Go!

Incident 2

The swarthy Neem is a brawny 50 year old, nearly 30 feet high with a lush canopy. The wizened old geezer with his strong, black trunk, delicate, luminous, green leaves, emanates the rare splendour of age and grace. He stands with nonchalant pride, right outside Mr. D’s main gate. Mr. D is a diminutive professor of zoology in the most prestigious girls college in the city. Everyday, the studious professor wakes up to the chirping of the birds housed in the swarthy Neem, plucks a twig of the most tender of leaves to chew on for ancient wisdom deems it healthy.

Professor D’s house is a simple two storied affair that he has lived in since birth. His father had built it nearly 60 yrs ago, when the city was still a town. The studious Mr. D reminisces with tenderness at how he added the first floor with the permission of his late father, how he and the Mrs. started their marital journey in the then modern precincts of their middle class haven.

Thirty five years of their life together, the swarthy Neem was always a part of it. The plastic buntings used as decorations for Junior D’s birthdays, the star shaped lantern for each diwali, the shamiana for Junior D’s wedding celebrations, the rope for the moneyplant creeper, the modern string lights for the naming ceremony of Junior’s daughter, the swarthy Neem has held it all together with his strong black branches. He has experienced each joy, witnessed all sorrow, shielded the house from the harsh, dry summer, the heavy rains, always been there for Mr. D and his family.

The family and the tree thrived in each other’s company. Always hand in glove, the house and the tree were known because of each other. The white house with the neem outside its gate, the tall neem tree in fornt of Mr. D’s house, was how each was known in that part of town.

It rained last night, first of the pre monsoons. The sheen on the tar road, ahh...the petrichor, the incandescent new green foliage, the entire city has been washed clean.

On my way to work, i am asked to take a detour, i wonder why? I crane my neck to see busy men and their busier lackeys, each carrying an axe or a rope. I stop a few meters ahead. To my horror, I realise, the swarthy Neem has been brought down. The wood cutters and their men are hacking the dark, proud bark into small pieces, easier to carry maybe. The eyes wandered to where he stood till last night.

Nothing, just a stump, and staring vacuously at the stump, from behind his gate, is Mr. D.

The house is suddenly bare and lies exposed, as if someone has cruelly snatched away its comforter.

Mr. D looks helpless; his vacant eyes cannot understand the sudden emptiness thrust upon him and his house. His friend is no more.

They took him away! The swarthy Neem is gone!

Woman!!!

Have you ever loved a woman?

Like every other year, 8^th of March will be celebrated by ‘Archie’s, Hallmark, et al as Women’s Day again this year. Right through the week all of us will be reminded to honour, respect, remember and appreciate the women in our lives. The men will get a dressing down and the women will be hailed. Arch feminists will hum the “who needs men?” tune… and we women will start believing that we can rule the world. This euphoria will last only for a week. Come the 9^th of March and we will go back to our old selves. And the question now arises, who are these old selves? We are all mothers, wives, lovers, sisters, daughters, friends, teachers, mentors (we like to believe that we are all that and more rolled into one.) But are we “WOMEN” in the true sense of the word? Do we really see ourselves as individuals who are in fact the embodiment of Nature, earth and love?

Some of the films released hitherto, have tried to illustrate the same theme albeit with the usual Hindi movie mish mash. But a few do stand out because of the strength of their central characters, theme and narration. One of such recent ones is Matrubhoomi (2005) by Prakash Jha. The title which means Motherland is the biggest paradox that the movie could have. The tagline, ‘A nation without women’ explains the hard hitting theme. The movie explores the ugly impact of female foeticide. Matrubhoomi’s main protagonist, Kalki (Tulip Joshi) is the heroine in every sense of the word. The movie starts with scenes which have dreadful sexual implications. The storyline is clearly set in a village where the gender ratio has been thrown totally off balance by many ‘male heir’ hungry families, where girls are hard to find, where lust has reached desperation and so has replaced respect, honour or love.

Kalki is is wedded to five brothers in an upper caste household because they cannot find one bride each, in exchange for money. (A high handed take on the Pandavas- Draupadi tale). She is just an object of desire for each of the brothers who take turns to abuse her each night. The youngest brother, seems different, he teaches her to read, be herself and most importantly to love. It is this love which brings hope and laughter in her life. Kalki’s fate is jinxed when she is caught in a caste war and then subjected to further rape and abuse by the villagers in the barn where she is tied like an animal. Towards the end, she becomes pregnant and during the same time, her entire family and village are destroyed because of the caste wars.

All through her trauma, she seems in abject subjugation of her fate. Her attempts to flee are all in vain. But what moves you are the circumstances that she is subjected to. She seems to accept the atrocities like a fatalist. The strength and resolve of the character hits you only in the last scene. Amidst all the strife, Kalki gives birth to a girl child. The movie ends with the sound of the small child crying and Kalki smiling. That smile is the most poignant of all. It personifies, freedom, love and above all, triumph. Kalki who till now was mute when it came to expression of her feelings, speaks through that tender smile. She teaches us what Janis Joplin told us, "Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got."

Matrubhoomi told a tale which could easily be a real one in some of the rural interiors of the country. But there are quite a few examples where filmmakers have tried to explore the woman’s psyche and delicately weave a tale about her needs and wants. If Deepa Mehta’s ‘Fire’ spoke about intimacy between two women arising out of dissatisfaction or neglect by their respective partners, her “Water” made forays of a different kind. It is a movie by a woman about some women who reconcile, question and rebel for their identities. It is about an ashram for widows. Set in an era when superstition,  religious fallacies and ritualistic behavior was rife, the movie captures the sisterhood of the three main protagonists. It is a riveting story told expressively through the angry embers in Shakuntala’s (Seema Biswas) eyes and the innocent mischief of Chuiya (Sarala- A Sri Lankan child actor). But “Water” can be easily dismissed as a story that does n’t happen any more, although if we look carefully, we’ll easily find parallels all around us.

Portrayal of women and their needs seems to be changing in mainstream cinema too. “Dor” by Nagesh Kukunoor is one of the recent flicks, which tells the sensitive tale of two women from diverse backgrounds thrown together by circumstances. It talks about the tenacity of Zeenat (Gul Panaag) and the acceptance of suffering of Meera (Ayesha Takia). Each in her own way fighting and pining for lost love.

Sometimes, relatively average movies have some really memorable lines, characters or scenes. We have Sushmita Sen in Samay as the single mother, policewoman holding her head high in the all male bastion or Kareena Kapoor as the fighter princess who leads an army against the mighty king in Asoka. Bipasha Basu played the slick executive in Corporate, but the movie maker played on her feminity to give the movie a twist in the tale. Her emotions overtake ambition to bring about her downfall. Refreshing though was Shilpa Shetty’s fight for her rights as the HIV patient in Phir Milenge. Shobhana in Mitr, as the woman seeking herself or Konkona Sen in Page 3 as the reporter trying to rise above the filth in society were impressive. Madhuri Dixit in Pratibandh, Raveena in Satta have thankfully come out of the mould to play real characters rather than mere cardboard cutouts. Cinema surely seems to be coming of age, as more women filmmakers are entering the arena and bringing along their sensitivity to the stories.

If the movies have initiated this trend of mirroring our real strength, love, beauty and power on us, can’t we unite in the cause to admire and love ourselves more? Lets then make this 8^th of March a special one by vowing to transform our “old selves” into the lovely women that we truly are.

Have a great year ahead!!!

P.S: For all the men in our lives, we love to reciprocate your love and support that you’ve given us till now…. Thanks for realizing that we should be loved not understood.

Without you, what would we do? …………. How would we pass our time?

Wanted: Developed Economy Housemates to live with

Developed Economy Housemates.... if there is a term like that, can one of the quintessential answer to the question that plagues many wannabe professionals - stuck-in-a- developing -economy like ours....

Working women, (may your tribe increase) in our country, wherever they maybe... Mumbai,Madurai, Mangalore, Murtizapur, Nagpur...Dispur..or even the entire Indian Diaspora, are more often than not are haunted by too many societal and familial role expectations... Gone are the days where they needed to take permission from their better halves to work or not... they are getting a mind of their own, deciding their own course of life and at the same time, sticking to their decisions.

But..what is probably missing is the support that they need and deserve in their endeavour to not only safeguard but also maintain their individuality. I totally feel we shall forever remain wannabe professionals stuck in a rut.

To explain the opening phrase, its just a matter of living in a developed economy, where each person can afford a decent standard of living and so it is probably a land of no maids, more so a land of professional, expensive maids. .. which amounts to most people doing their own set of chores, picking up after themselves and sharing simple household burdens... can that ever happen to us ... here in India??? i truly feel its a distant dream..

Why can't housemates (read husbands, family members, in laws, outlaws, children) train themselves to share.... not just emotions and thoughts but also simple thumbtack chores???

Why should the so called," mother figure" bear the brunt of the child's tantrums, wash, clean, mend, ensure school, hobby class timings are met, in short be RESPONSIBLE for everything, meaning if anything goes wrong, she is responsible...

And, as if this is not enough also perform at work... wow!!! Will we ever start thinking on a more adult level in this lifetime???

I need answers... and i need them quick....

am sulking and clearing cobwebs in my brain at the same time...

Am sure going to spew some more sputter shortly....

this is just an unanswered prayer....

life

We can lead a perfect life .... only if it is lived "in retrospect".

Kids et al

We just bring up children, but actually they make us grow.....

I firmly believe that we should not hit children, however naughty they may be. I also truly think that no child in the entire universe deserves to be spanked or whacked.... its just that they need it sometimes..

Copycats

Copycat copycat… kill a rat, tell your mother I am fat…..
So went the childish chant at school when lesser mortals (read: so called morally weaker individuals ) succumbed to the ignominious sin of cheating or copying. Today if anti plagiarism activists were to take up a similar chant when it came to Bollywood, they would be thirsting for breath. Infact blind copies from Hollywood, vernacular movies, have become so mundane that no one even lifts so much as the proverbial eyebrow when another such crime is unearthed.

It was one of the highly underrated comedians of our times, Sajid Khan who actually brought such peccadilloes to the audience with his distinctive comic style in a lesser known series, “Kehne mein kya harj hai”. Like each individual goes through the adolescent thrill of discovery of sex, each movie buff goes through this phase of finding similarities in scripts, music or scenes. What used to be funny for sometime now has lost lustre and this loss has resulted in us, the audience, becoming a tad bored and tolerant of such transgressions. During research for this article, I found one of the best sites on plagiarism in Bollywood called www.bollycat.com, aptly subtitled, “Bollycats, the chronicles of plagiarism in India’s bollywood movies.”

Plagiarism as defined in the dictionary means, is the practice of claiming, or implying, original authorship or incorporating material from someone else's written or creative work, in whole or in part, into ones own without adequate acknowledgment. Our film industry is rife with such examples of blatant stealing. Akele Hum Akele Tum was Kramer Vs Kramer, with a little twist and the usual happy, hindi movie ending. In the original, the hero wins the court battle and custody of the child, our desi version had the heroine winning the court case and then coming back to her real love and uniting the family. One of the recent hits, Hum Tum could be termed a rip off of when “Harry met Sally” albeit with a few Indianised differences.

Some of our film makers incidentally specialise in copying, be it scenes, entire storylines or special effects. Zinda was a bootlegged Oldboy, Reservoir Dogs could be morphed into Kaante. Sanjay Gupta, the man behind the scenes in both these movies has although been polite enough to mention that Zinda was a tribute to all the Korean movies that he had seen (he actually meant only one movie, Oldboy). Another big name in film making that comes to mind when we broach this topic is Vikram Bhatt. Ghulam – On the waterfront (Aamir Khan = Marlon Brando); Kasoor – Jagged Edge; Jurm – Fatal Attraction; Raaz – What Lies Beneath; the list can go on…. Unfortunately all his movies are called ‘inspirations’ instead of ‘translations’.

When Mario Puzo wrote the Godfather, he probably didn’t envisage the following that he would spawn, more so when Francis Ford Coppola made it into a movie, he paved the way for hundreds of adaptations, pathetic or otherwise. Aamir Khan one of the finest actors of our times can be condoned for acting in one of the worst ones which was Aatank hi Aatank. Dharmatma starring Feroz Khan was another. (Both competed with Al Pacino as Michael Corleone)

Sholay the best movie of our times, one in which the actors, plot and script have wonderfully dovetailed into each other is a loose lift of The Magnificient Seven which in turn was a lift of the Seven Samurai, which was also copied as China Gate and Khotey Sikkey. But copied or otherwise, we do agree that Sholay was the best Indianisation of a western / foreign / international theme.

Main Aisa hi hoon is I am Sam, Ab Bas is Enough, Hawas is Unfaithful, Judwaa is Twin Dragons, similarly, Khel was Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Ek Ruka hua Faisla was 12 Angry Men, Khwaish was Love Story (E) which was also Akhion ke Jharokhe Se.

The accolades and award winning Black is The Miracle Worker with a difference, the main protagonist is of a different gender. Dhoom was a loose The Fast and the Furious and Lagaan was a rehashed and rural Escape to Victory.( Aamir Khan also admitted to being extremely influenced by Asterix comics).Baazigar can be a rehashed Kiss before Dying.

Omigod…. The list is endless…. Can we please start a competition where readers contribute to this list and also start a new list for scenes, themes, music etc…

Where is the Creative police when we need them..?