This is a little note I'm actually writing to my friends in Facebook, but wanted you to know about this, so all of you read together.
Yesterday, during a casual online hit chat, me and my recently introduced lady friend came to the extremely relevant to our contemporary times, now oft-trodden pasture of Patriotism. I am an Indian and live in Mumbai,(my dear friend resides in a foreign land) and so it wasn't long before Bollywood movies were invited into the virtual dialogue.
I'm still feeling bad because I guess I startled her big time by replying, "Pyaasa", when she asked what were my favourite movies on Patriotism.
During any interaction of mine about country, pride, patriotism, idealism. ( :-) etc..you know the drill) elements of loud (& empty) rhetoric and jingoism frequently rush in fast which soon make it center-stage, pushing the actual topic off it. I'm trying hard and am hopeful that soon I'll fully realize the futility, the futility of playing host to vices like these,) and grandstanding should follow Content, and not precede it.
I'm disappointed that I couldn't succeed at least yesterday as the nonsuspectingly poor lady showed strong expressions, of shock and disbelief.
I am trying hard and since morning I've been doing that only. It's a tedious job making a refreshed list which should contain national flags, wars and sacrifices and soldiers and firepower and bazookas and car pert-bombings..
Certainly not "Pyaasa'.
Old habits die hard. I am a bit disconcerted, so here I am once again having a problem in problematic times, searching an answer. Pleading for Help as always.
This problem compels me to go back in time so that I remember a few things.
I was 10 years old.
Our recently purchased television was in a wooden cabinet, which had a wooden double-door entry.
Movies shown on Door Darshan on Saturday afternoon, had a crowd of curious audience, overawed and revelling in magical monochrome melody.
One Saturday afternoon, it was 'Pyaasa'. Ma was visibly excited and happy, ready to watch an old favourite,
and songs that perhaps used to make her reminisce of her emotions during her teen years...(she was frank about that trait with me in privacy). I didn't feel very deep though. But yes, what classics used to be composed in Hindi movies! The gems were immortalized - as we see around us today.
Sometime during the movie, I went out to answer nature's loud call. On my way back, nature silenced for now, I was still outside the room when
I heard a song coming out of the TV.
It was Mohammed Raft's voice, lipped by Guru Dutt,
I don't know what it was. I still don't kno. At that age I could understand Hindi to an extent that could cover day to day demands of survival. I hadn't understood many sequences in the movie, particularly why sad expressions persisted even after the saddening causes were taken care of (I was completely ignorant about complexities of the human mind, of things fine and nuance, if unchecked would result in complications.)
I don't know what was it. I still don't.
It was Mohammed Raft's voice, slipped by Guru Dutt, his soulful eyes and his thin yet prominent and deep furrows that looked over frowned brows, eyes that were fatigued and sad, trying to hide an intense fire that raged on till his death.
" KAHA HAIN,
JISSE NAAZ HAIN HIND PAR,
WOH KAHA HAIN,
KAHA HAIN
KAHA HAIN.......?....."
I still have goosebumps. It was an overwhelming wave of previously unthinkable courage, of Hope that told me that there are many things of interest outside the world of books, paint brushes, cricket and school. It told me that one day I have to think deeply which shall direct the script of every day of the life I'll live.
Dearest Khuku, I have come here to ask your loving aunts & uncles this question because I don't know. Before that I'll tell you what I know at the moment - patriotism is not meant to be instilled in times of war and bloodshed. It is already there during Creation, it is there when a child is born, so that it can identify it as an intended suggestion already put so that no war & bloodshed take place.
Let both of us chase them now.
Sent from my BlackBerry --------------------------------------------- Dr.Anirban Chaudhuri, Physician, Mumbai, India. http://jogyou963.blogspot.com Live Life on your own terms
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