Bitter medicine

Reunions are such great occasions Remember the movie Pyaasa? Guru Dutt sees Mala Sinha entering the class  और एक शेर कह देते हैं "जब हम चलें तो साया भी अपना ना साथ दे जब तुम चलो तो ज़मीन चले आसमान चले जब हम रुकें तो साथ रुके शामें  बेकसि जब तुम रुको तो बहार रुके चाँद रुके" Years later, it is the college reunion वही शायर है अन्दाज़ बदल गया "तंग आ चुके हैं कश्मकशे ज़िंदगी से हम ठुकरा ना दे जहाँ को कहीं बेदिली से हम उभरेंगे एक बार अभी दिल के वलवले माना कि दब गए हैं गमे ज़िंदगी से हम" कोई नहि पूछता तुम कहाँ थे कहाँ रहे साहिब एक दूसरी फ़िल्म पर चलते हैं Dharmendra की सबसे बहतरीं film Satyakaam क्लास बस में पिकनिक पर जा रही है "आदमी है क्या, आदमी है बंदर रोटी उठा के भागे कपड़े चुरा के भागें कहलाय वो Sikander! बन्दर नहीं है ,आदमी का क्या कहना प्यार मोहब्बत फ़ितरत उसकी दोस्ती मझहब उसका"  सालों बाद  यार से reunion वही अन्दाज़. कुछ नहीं बदला, यार बदल गया "समझ नहीं आता की मैं बदल गया या यह दुनिया बदल गयी आज कल ऐसा लगता है जैसे बुरा...

What are the basic or essential things for one’s comfortable living? Let’s start with climate control, cooling in summer and heating in winter Air-conditioning, the refrigerator and the heater, all consume electricity What if the State electricity board suddenly hikes the electricity rates by about two times What do you do Well you TOLERATE, atleast I do. What else The Electricity bill is weirdly high, even as compared  to  your previous bills. What do you do You complain, and what does the Electricity Board do? It asks you to pay the bill first then talk, so they shoot first and then ask questions Then what do you do? You TOLERATE. What else! The water supply comes for fixed hours each day. Suddenly the Water supply department changes the hours, and reduces the supply pressure. Now your overhead tanks are empty. What do you do? You Tolerate Your telephone goes dead. The cable layers of some other communication company is digging for their cables, and sever...

            Reunions are such great occasions Remember the movie Pyaasa? Guru Dutt sees Mala Sinha entering the class and renders  एक शेर जब हम चलें तो साया भी अपना ना साथ दे जब तुम चलो तो ज़मीन चले आसमान चले जब हम रुकें तो साथ रुके शामें  बे कसि जब तुम रुको तो बहार रुके चाँद रुके Years later, it is the college reunion वही शायर है अन्दाज़ बदल गया तंग आ चुके हैं कश्मकशे ज़िंदगी से हम ठुकरा ना दे जहाँ को कहीं बेदिली से हम उभरेंगे एक बार अभी दिल के वलवले माना कि दब गए हैं गमे ज़िंदगी से हम कोई नहि पूछता तुम कहाँ थे कहाँ रहे साहिब एक दूसरी फ़िल्म पर चलते हैं Dharmendra की सबसे बहतरीं film Satyakaam क्लास बस में पिकनिक पर जा रही है आदमी है क्या आदमी है बंदर रोटी उठा के भागे कपड़े चुरा के भागें कहलाय वो Sikander आदमी का क्या कहना प्यार मोहब्बत फ़ितरत उसकी दोस्ती मझहब उसका सालों बाद  यार से reunion वही अन्दाज़. कुछ नहीं बदला, यार बदल गया समझ नहीं आता की मैं बदल गया या यह दुनिया बदल गयी आज कल ऐसा लगता है जैसे बुरायी मैं ...

                                                       It all started in 1957 when I joined St Mary’s Convent, Allahabad in my kindergartens. Back then, the school was co-educational in the nursery classes. There was this girl in my class, Kusum Bhatnagar, whom I had the uncanny knack of calling Kusum Bhattacharya, I do not know for what reason. The relevant fact is that I was then infinitely fond of that girl, and she probably likewise, for we always sat next to each other in class. We always had our tiffin together in the lunch break, and loved to share the food. We always helped each other with the classwork. That time it was customary for the class teacher to reward good work with scrap pictures often with glazes, and we always compared and admired our ‘scraps’. We always chose to partner each other when we we...

            It is not news that a movie has been well made or scripted. News these days is whether it makes it to the 100 crores club or breaks box office records. Politicians are less concerned by the ‘state of welfare’, or any change thereof, of its ‘proletariat’, but more concerned with their religious commitments or any changes thereof. This is not unexpected in a nation obsessed with religion, and caste. Ever since I can remember, every blessed form that I filled in, even prescription I wrote, carried the blanks for religion and caste. This caste based distinction and segregation has pushed the nation into an abyss, from which it is difficult to conceive how we will extricate ourselves, if and when we are able to. Leaving the caste factor aside before a thousand daggers are drawn against me, the boohoo about religion is difficult to fathom.             To many like me, religion is a very ...

My first memories of my father extend to the time when I was three years old. My father was the Superintendant of the Mental Hospital (now Psychiatric centre) at Jaipur. He had just been diagnosed with hypertension. There were very few medicines like Rauwolfia and Adelphane for hypertension at that time, and the prognosis was considered rather bleak with a great risk of coronary artery disease. My father went into a depression, and once I saw him in tears. I used to love to sing and my father had bought me a HMV gramophone so that I could sing along. One such song was form the film Nastik. I began singing that song Himmat na haar, Prabhu ko pukar, Who hi teri naaya lagayega paar Tanik bhi tilmilana na, zara bhi dil hilana na Hazaar haathwala hai Bhagwan Ho naiya wale ho, savdhan He stopped crying and hugged me At the age of six, I left him to stay with my maternal uncle to take care of my education. Thereafter, I used to see him only when I came home during the ...