Saturday 22 February 2014

Out of all the things romantic

So all of a sudden in all this nonsense, I'm reminded of some visuals from a movie i loved watching as a kid. I just could not remember the name. I remember there was a boy who sketched really well. He sketched some fishes in his small sketchbook. There was an old man who dies in the end. And a beautiful mansion where i always dreamed of living in. Thats all i could recall from the film. And the fact that the boy and the girl kissed while drinking water from the same fountain tap. Every time. While i was going through a facebook page about movie quotes and all, i came across this image with Bob DeNiro and Ethan Hawke in it. A movie named GREAT EXPECTATIONS.

























Now this my friends happened after ages. This is the film/movie we are talking about here. Ethan
Hawke, DeNiro, Gwyneth Paltrow and Anne Bancroft as the lady who messes things up but who happened to be my favorite character in the movie at the time i watched it on Star Movies with my family when i was 6 or 7 years old. I read the reviews on imdb recently and turned out that the movie dint do really well. But who cares. My mystery got solved. I found my film. A dreamfilm rather. Something which defined the features of romance and fantasy for me when i was a young kid. And something i forgot the essence of over the period of these few years spent in character building and education.

Well, another movie which played all the romantic chords in my heart this year was Dedh Ishquia. Whether it was the old school romance factor in it, the light each time Madhuri Dixit entered the frame or the urdu shayari which was spoiled by the english subtitles in the theater or simply the fact that it had the typical adaa and style straight from the states of northern provinces or Uttar Pradesh, more specifically the Lucknow and its nearby areas made the movie hopelessly and helplessly romantic for me. Yes the story was quite loose. And an unsatisfactory ending. Something which can be said for romance as well. It has no ending. It has it's own chapters and phases and stages. Like the seven ones they mentioned in the movie. In all, it reminded me of the times when i used to take a bus to travel in old Pune city area while listening to Ghulam Ali Saahab on my phone or the times when i traveled on a cycle rickshaw in chandni chowk New Delhi every time i had to go to Khalsa Brothers to buy my half yearly supplies of Art material and all that back in school days. Yes this is exactly how the whole movie looked like to me. This warm yellow light is always flattering. Isn't it?
























All this leads me to the point. The time i visited Lucknow last December and fell in love with the city all over again. Had the best Litti-Chokhha and the best chaat. Something which is so rare to find where i currently live. Of course where i live has some other amazing things to offer, but roots are roots. And love makes you splurge and indulge in all the things u can. So December winters, christmas time, great food and amazing people, i made a trip to Bada Imambara and then the BHOOL BHULAIYA inside. Pictures, well beautiful.






Yes! and it's amazing!

Our Guide

The persian hall, the largest hall to constructed without pillars in Asia



Hazrat Ganj Market. Best Chikan fabric and Chaat. 




 outside BNA, Lucknow, U get the best Litti chokhaa, a typical bihari/UP dish which is crucial to our culture for 15 bucks a plate. Well. You don't get it anywhere else specially down south. And even if you do the taste isn't as authentic as it should be. 

So. Just go to Lucknow and live the romance in whatever you do. Shop, eat or just take a walk along the old Awadhi architecture. 

Saturday 8 February 2014

The sky over 412201

 I met my friend Nikki today after a month. After Mapusa happened to me, a few more failures in terms of academics and life and relationships, i finally and peacefully met her over a cup of nescafe. Which i never like to drink. But somehow it just tastes beautiful with her. Yes i am indeed starting this post on a very flattering note.

So i shared one of my Goa experiences which had nothing got to do with Goa or anything Goan with her. It concerned me and only myself as an individual. So she asked me to write about it today. But no, it is not going to happen today either. i will it save it for some other day. It is time to jott down some recent revelations in life which i experienced last week while talking to this another friend of mine named Swaroopa. ( Yes Nikki, you actually gave me courage to use the real names. And thanks, You do make  me feel right about my decisions at times.)

I see friends and random people clicking the ever so glorious Loni-sky. Loni, the place where i have been forced to live in by the choices i made in my life and life itself. There are insta and fb pics saying #LONI SKY or #BEAUTIFULLONISKY or #LOVELYLONI and so on.

The pictures are beautiful no doubt. Crazy lensing, fancy filters and what not. Or just a simple click.
It looks so beautiful. But it pisses the shit out of me. Exactly. So i hide those posts. But today i choose to write about them. Because, I had a spiritual revelation of some sorts. Allowed.

When i used to sleep on my terrace back in Delhi as a kid when power used to go off, i loved looking at the sky. No not for the stars. They all looked the same to me. Just the distance varied. Not even the moon. It used to hurt my eyes when i looked at it. Instead, I looked out for the airplanes. Up above the world so high. Like a true Multi-diamond and multi-colored star moving in the deep dark sky. I could just feel alright by staring at it and moving my head in the same direction, following it to be vanished.

I remember my father telling me how the plane must be right now over Agra, but folks in Delhi could see it because it is so high. That logic made perfect sense to me. Maybe i was a bright kid in those days. And i saw nothing wrong with that fact. It was right indeed. Time space and distance difference all made sense to me. I just can't seem to understand the same in the current stage of life i am. Anyway.

So how can you assign the sky a name? a place name that too! It is untouched! and infinite! How we, humans, can just pretend to own it? Im not angry. Im just surprised. It is allowed right? Right. The sky above my head is the same above yours. You can't map the sky. You can spot the constellations off course. Or maybe there are ways to do that as well, but as i said, im not as bright as i used to be, so i may not be aware of it.

You can't draw a line over it, measure it, break it, exploit it, bury a body into it or can even reach it for that matter. Although it is a known fact that you can't do all that. But then how can u just name it? hashtag or tag it. There is nothing wrong in that too. But as i said questioning it is just a revelation for me.

Because the sky above this place is the only beautiful thing which exists here. It doesn't smell. It rains. It holds gigantic multi-hued clouds in the shades of blue-grey-green to it. It makes birthdays special. It does not mixes with the food you eat and the water you drink and gives you a disease. It just makes you look at it. And you get to see it being in this very same LonelyLoni. But the best and the worst part is, and it is a truth, that this sky has nothing got to do with loni. So while we upload pictures of this beautiful lonisky, Im sure the sky mocks at the people and laughs, and then obligingly glows in all it's glory.

I am not a pessimist or a sadist. Again. I am just happy. One thing as humans we have still not been able to rape is this sky. So now I am done with this tale, maybe hurting many sentiments, or maybe who cares, at least i don't. I am uploading a picture of the same sky i saw in loni. Not with my eyes. But with someone else's. Someone very beautiful. Just like the omnipresent sky. Temperature change is a nice feature in Canon 60D.