Yours truly anonymously

Blogging for many people has for long been a release from their routine life. A space where they hang loose venting out their creative energies or as an overflowing pot for their emotions. For a lot of people it has been the diary they have never kept or have been too conscious to keep one. For many others it has been a shout out to life in general, from a budding storyteller, a wannabe poet, a seeker of truth, or even from a frustrated individual trying to give meaning to these series of unfortunate co incidences in his/her life. Many people have raised their voices anonymously while many others have chosen a more open route attaching faces to their voices. Personally for me it was never a big deal, it was as simple as filling out my name on any for I would fill out. I have a picture up on my blog simply because there was a tab on the blogger form that asked for it, nothing more nothing less to it. A lot of people have asked me whether my family knows about this blog of mine and the answer to that is not really because I don't go hoarse advertising my blog from the rooftops. Its one of those things that they would so easily find out about if they googled my name but till the time they don't I guess I do enjoy a certain degree of freedom about my blogging subjects. Somewhere down the line this made me appreciate to a small degree, the overenthusiastic zeal with which some bloggers protect their identities. Whether they do it to add enigma and mystery to their real life persona's ........ not really, but whether it helps them stay in their comfort zone as they blog about a variety of subjects ....... quite possibly and understandably yes.

Alvida

Main hun woh musafir
Rehguzar kinara hai jiska humraahi
Bas ek hai duvidha
Kya kah paaunga main
Is humrahi ko alvida
Kyunki meri manzil hai us paar

Where were you when ..........?

Lakdi ki kaathi, Kaathi pe ghoda (Masoom): Trying to sing along as a toddler only getting the 'takbak takbak' part right and trying to get a free horse ride from almost anyone to everyone.

Aaja shaam hone aayi (Maine Pyar Kiya): Trying hard to convince my mom to buy me a 'Friend' cap, cmon cut me some slack I was 7 or 8 years old and thank you Mom for not submitting to all my silly demands

Ek do teen (Tezaab): Hoping and praying my neighbors across the road would play the song on their cool new stereo system so that the kids could groove to the song again

Oye Oye, Tirchi Topiwaale (Tridev): Just trying to find places all over my street which were playing the song so that I could just go and dance over there

Jumma Chumma De De (Hum): Humming that song very very consciously under my breath all day for the fear of my Mom catching me singing it (damn that song was catchy)

Choli ke peeche (Khalnayak) / Tu cheez badi hai mast mast (Mohra) : Trying to find safe corners to sing the songs before a tap on the shoulder and a pair reproaching eyes told me it wasn't such a good idea

Chaiyya Chaiyya (Dil Se): Discovering cargo pants were indeed cool and Arbaaz Khan's only redeemable quality (for the uninitiated he married the angel grooving in the video of the song)

Aashiq Banaya Aapne (Aashiq Banaya Aapne): Blasting the number all over the streets of New Jersey on my IPod

Kajra Re (Bunty aur Bubli): Doing the Kajra re step and falling in love with Aishwarya Rai all over again :)

They say songs define a generation but for me songs can easily define my life till now, each of these numbers clearly demarcating the point of time I have stood at, with them in my life, acting as one of the most sweet sounding and very cherished time scale. So where were you when these numbers were burning up the charts?

To the one

To the one who knew so much about nothing
To the one who knew so much about the one who knew so much about nothing
To the one who knew so much about the female mind
To the one who thought he knew so much about the female mind
To the one who wrote a nothing about nothing

Remakes .......... Naaaaaaaaah

As media persons and dailies waited with their bated breath for Ram Gopal Verma to reveal Gabbar's new look for his version of Sholay, or for the 20th Oct release to see what Farhan Akhtar's done with Don or what J.P.Dutta ha s done with Umrao Jaan, I was once again left exasperated at the futility of the whole situation. Ever since Devdas was redone and redux'ed by Sanjay Leela Bansali to rake in the big bucks lot of the filmmakers have been looking at remakes as an easier option to rake in the big bucks. Film making has for long been an art form meant to be an extension of your creative juices flowing on a 70mm screen. And that is exactly why remakes don't exactly do the trick for me. Remakes are almost like music remixes, in which a certain nobody piggybacks on a geniuses' back onto the road to fame and glory even though they don't or might not have a single creative bone in their body. I mean sure enough you will get people curious and talking when you announce a remake of a past flick but that is not curiosity being generated because of your talent. The real reason is because people identify and connect with the past flick and you shouldn't be getting any free buzz just because of that or any credit for that. And sure enough people will watch your movie because they know your story, scenes, dialogues and scenes from your movie making it a big success, but is that why you picked up a camera in the first place? Whatever happened to that little voice in you which asked you to make movies just because you loved to make em so that you could translate your little ideas and make them unfold of the big screen to make people root for your characters, laugh and cry with them, and take back with them a little piece of movie magic firmly stamped across their minds with them?

Although

Elation is elation, painted
Sarcasm is sarcasm, serrated
Reputations are reputations, tainted
Co-incidences are co-incidences, slated
Strangers are strangers, aquainted
Chances are chances, fated
Passion is passion, jaded
Goodwill is goodwill, belated
Memories are memories, dated