Aparajito-the unvanquished

A real movie (hence Bollywood is excluded) speaks of life.
While reading rays memoir Childhood last week I remembered a scene from Pather Panchali. Fascinated by the mithaiwala Apu and Durga were and run after him. They couldn’t afford those sweets, but there is something about running after the things you want. The vendor entered their rich uncle’s house. Their family brought various kind of sweets .
Forbidden –Poor Apu and Durga took the pleasure of sweets by seeing them only.
Suddenly their cousins noticed them and called them in
Durga, full of self respect refused to enter
Here comes the confusion of Apu –
Sweets vs. self respect?
Apu decided to enter the forbidden house of rich and cunning uncle.
As the story progressed we see Durga couldn’t survive the fate and died of hunger and fever.
Apu conquered all in the next part of the great trilogy as Aparajito( The Unvanquished).
Its not that Apu survived his fate, death, misery, poverty hunted him all throughout his life. Still he gave a strong fight to the circumstances.
That made me believe again in destiny but not like that people see in movie , but I believe you will be guided by destiny but the path you have to choose and then destiny will guide you. If you are worthy luck will favor you ,but destiny is never a full stop …
And we continue the search with minor adjustments in order to survive.

Dare delived eggs

If you take jokes very seriously, few can have such a big impact that extend that it can become life’s philosophy.

Like I want to become the egg that jumped from the middle floor.

Don’t you remember?

Three eggs jumped from a building, from 1^st, 2nd and 3^rd floor respectively.

Nothing happened to the first one –As – Jisko rakhe sai mar sake na koi.

Nothing happened to the 2 one also .Why?

As –practice makes an egg perfect.

But the 3^rd one jumped and crumbled.

Why –overconfidence is leads to your downfall.

Well in one of the blog. I discussed about the confidence (or arrogance) of Salvador Dali. In previous blog I discussed about the middle path of Buddha.

But the same thing can be explained by mere example of this egg joke also.

Boy Boy, that’s why people say I don’t know how to KISS. (Keep it simple and straight, yarr !

U dirty minds! :-)

Searching the middle path

Living means fighting within you the Ghost of dark power.

A famous malicious quote or the hard fact?

Where is the light? Or is there any light at all?

I don’t have any answer

I don’t know,

I am looking into the labyrinth within,

One voice whispered into my ear ‘The light within will show the way – hey Tathagata,’(আত্মদ্বীপে দেখুৱাব বাট-হে তথাগত/নবকান্ত বৰুৱা)

Who was it? I thought.

Remembered it’s a poetry by Ekhud kaiti* I read long ago.

Helping to select right path of the light through darkness

Between cruelties Or being a looser of life.

*Nabakanta Baruah

Photograph source :unknown ,downloaded long back as I liked it

surreal

কিবা মণ গলেই মই গথছি যাব পাৰো
যেনি মণ যায়
হিৰুদা

If I feel like something
I can go away
Wherever I want ……
Hiruda

May be, this feeling like flying away from what is expected is surrealism.
Imagine thousands of fan waiting for a folk artist, about to sing about the oppressed one ,only with a guitar and a harmonica. He was supposed to sing those songs whose lyrics are poetry and he was GOD of those protest songs. He was suppose to protest on that day.
And he did just that-
But what he did –he came with all the electronic equipment, in leather cloths, sunglasses and stated trying some –Rock & Roll.
He protested against his own brand.
Surreal very eccentrically surreal ….
Remember reading one interview of Bob Dylan where he was asked by a reporter 'Heard you are acting in a movie what role are you playing?'
Without any expression he replied ‘I am playing my mother’
You can call it arrogance, or mysticism but the aura of these person are source of creative expression for many .
Few days ago I was watching the movie –‘I am not there’ based on multifaceted life of BOB. The musician, the preacher, the folk singer , Poet etc etc… The six phages of this person is played by six different person, Black, white, young ,old….,well I didn’t liked the character who played of icon Bob ,he was too feminine, looking weak, emaciated ,I was about to say what the ..**.. ,then suddenly I went through the casting –Cate Blanchett? Where is she? Wait this iconic Bob is none but Cate Blanchett.
Well he may not have played his mother but Cate Blanchett played the BOB we know,
Surreal very surreal.

The smell of a place

Hydari House,kolkata

'At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India l awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history : JN Neheru @ the stroke of mid night in Red ford. New Delhi August 15, 1947

At that time all noted figure were celebrating the new found freedom the mastermind of our freedom struggle was in a faraway house away from the lime light grieving for the division of the vast land named India.

But soon terrible riot started that shocked the new born nation then all attention and the process of ending the civil war initiated from this very building situated in Balighata Road Calcutta.

I had an immense curiosity for this piece of history ever since read about it long back In various history books (especially India wins freedom) that I arranged a calcuuta flight only to have a glance of the place which has the capacity to change the heart of mob ,rioters thirsty for revenge.

Strangely enough not many people,( even in Calcutta) do not know about this place till now .

The house above is Hydari House which has been converted into a small museum, preservibg the Mahatma’s room and material with few photographs and paper cutting.

It’s a small house, unknown to many, or meaningless to many but just to see the place where it all started and to breathe and smell the air of that house I specially arranged a tour, to one of my friend its madness as you get everything in net, audio visuals and books. But how can you have the smell and breathe of the place you want to feel on internet ,books or videos?

And we open the gate

   “There is a painting on my table
Nicholas Roerich –by name
Its name -and we open the gate
Which gate? Eastern or western?
Or the southern gate to Hell?”
Debakanta Baruah

The great disadvantage of so called addabaz witty image is that it is hard to maintain. And gradually you begin to transform in to a great pseudo while maintaining it.
If you are not a celebrity and tend to bring art or poetry as adda topic –most of your friend will start booing, yawning, and yelling at you. Anyway there are hundreds of other of topics for the gossip (scandals, mms, Bollywood, Hollywood cricket or may be political sicussion as an serious alternative),There is no dearth of topic for our addas day in or out.

But our existence is dichotomous ….thats why word and philosophy of ‘paradox’ , ‘bigotry’, ‘conflicts’ keeps recurring in my thoughts ,hence many time in my blog also. May be that is the reason why poetry above (originally in Assamese) has kept ringing in my ear over the years. But in my mask I hate people who coats sugar coated poetry line in day to day affair.I have read the poem long long back ,and at that time I was of the believe that Nicholas Roerich is name of a painting ,when internet spread I got to know that it’s a painting but the painter of ‘And we open the Gate’ which was the title of famous poetry written in Assamese about five decade back by Debakanta Baruah, and the word hunted me for nearly two decade .Thanks to Google I kept searching for Mr. Nicholas and got fascinated by his work and life.
Nicholas Roerich -Born in Russia died in India, a great visionary painter and a true citizen of world.Call it destiny or other last Sunday I was in Delhi for a scientific conference –and early morning Times of India carried a big advertisement - Nicholas Roerich : An Eternal Quest" photography exhibition at National Gallery of Modern Art ( NGMA ). As usual dullness of my scientific conference increased as it proceeded, I sneaked out –and loitered in the gullies of national gallery of Modern art, Delhi. There were series of painting on Himalayas, on mythology, Russia and of eastern Horizon.
I went through the leaflets –at one corner I saw the lines –and we open the gate through its proximal bluish hue and distal bright light- the painting itself. The painting I was looking for so long.
And we open the gate
Which one?
To Nicholas Roerich the painter, To Debakanta Baruah the poet, to the art critique, to art and poetry lover?
To me it was all about breaking the shackles of routine called life and confessing to friends that I have this habbit of sneaking out of my regular life and open the gate to take solace in art and poetry.
That’s escapism they started yelling.
‘Yes no it’s all about opening the door ’I replied back.

N.b: The paradox : One person approached me last night and started giving lecture on importance of spirituality in life felt like puking . I asked myself –Is it easy to open the door against people whom you don’t approve of.

believe

One of my greatest regret of my life is not to be present on Woodstock festival-1969 .The 3 days of ecstasy filled peace love and music. May be the festival didn’t proved any point .It doesn’t matter- But it was a congregation of thousands of people –who believed we can change the world through music. Those believe are very important, which we seem to be lacking in modern lifestyle infested world.

I believe I cant change anything-not to speak of society or any big stuff ,I can not even extract a smile in return many time.

Last Sunday I had to come-back from Delhi to Dehradun, My workplace. It is only 240 km .To my surprise there was no train reservation, no bus, No shared taxi and there were hundreds of people waiting en route to Haridwar.For the Shahi Snan of MAHA KUMBH on Monday.

Boy boy!

From Delhi ISBT ,I took, Auto, rikswa ,indica, Santro to reach my place at a 100 time cost and in triple amount of time after midnight. I felt like I am en route to Woodstock -1969. Business was at its peak. All I had to do was reach for the Shahi snan and have a dubki to wash off all my sins.(there may be too many to my credit).I didn't do that May be I don't believe in all those.And in all these these three month of Maha Kimbh HAR Ki PAURI is only 50 KM from my place ,but I was not there .

But there were people who still have the believe.

These believe -I think may be important to live.