starry starry night

Don't get me wrong. I love the new world, the new life. I love how easy technology has made lives, i love the life of the new empowered young Indian in the big city, i love the malls, the coffee shops, the halter tops, slinky dresses, Sex and the city, mp3 music... everything.

But life has changed from when I was a kid. And how ! I miss the simplicity, I miss living life and not race as today. I miss writing on a paper, playing in the garden, sitting on the terrace.

So many times I feel that we were the last generation who enjoyed life. Maybe it is because i miss my childhood... maybe its the fact that I am back home after two years and most of my day is spent thinking about the past and the future.

Look at simple things around us. How many of you, living in the big towns have seen a crow in the last few years. Seriously, just a crow...or even a sparrow. I don't remember seeing one in the nine years in Noida. Don't think Ive seen a crow even on the 200 acres of IIM Lucknow campus. Strange? I seem to think so. Think of it...the simple story of the thirsty crow might just be lost on the next generation...no crows to show em.

I miss the lazy life of a small town. The winter sunday morning ritual of tel-maalish, boot polish and the sitting with whole stalk of sugarcane..with a tub in front of everyone. Mom in the background mumbling that my dad and I are the dirtiest people, not bathing till late morning. :)

The amount of enthusiasm generated with Chitrahaar becoming biweekly can never be compared with channel surfing through 200 channels, not watching even one.

Right now, I am sitting in my balcony, writing this during a long power cut. My phone is playing the radio - classical music @ 102.6 FM. Quite nice, i must add. Yes, i quite know that this is possible only through the technology which exists today. But its also true, that sometimes [just sometimes] I miss the long 20 hour power cuts of the old days. With no inverters and generator populating every home, dinner and walks used to become communal. Entire colonies out to talk and sing songs or play till the power was restored. So many nights were spent sleeping under the stars or playing antakshri with didi or talking life et al with dad or mom telling me stories. Ah, the awesome excuse not to do my homework, sometimes, even the teachers bought it :D

I miss waiting for the monthly Nandan [A HT Hindi magazine for kids] and Nanhe Samrat, finishing em the day the newspaper boy delivered them..and the rereading everything till the month got over.

Life has become easier, what with everything packed and ready to eat.What to say of the next generation, when I know of so many peers who have never known what fun it is watch your mom slice potatoes and help her spread them over a thin muslin cloth on the terrace to make those brilliant homemade chips. Or the many winter nights spent huddled close to the angithi where mom would be make ketchup. Oh what wouldn't I give up to taste those mathris and gujias and namkeens and kanji and panna made at home, before the readymade revolution hit.

With our own generation lost touch with so much good of our childhood, it pains me sometime to think that the next generation would never know of all this fun. Chacha Chawdhary will get lost in the midst of Power Rangers and Pokemon, Makke ki roti with shakkar replaced by a McChicken [sorry for the cliche]. It is quite easy to believe that we can never be as good homemakers as our moms. Sleeping on the terrace under the soft breeze of the pipal tree, just a memory now.

Its not like I am someone old fashioned and does not feel comfortable with the fast life of today. I am very much at ease eating at the latest mexican joint in the city or recounting the flavour of Oreos. Count me in everytime you throw a i-got-my-new-tech-toy-come-see-it party. But what saddens me is that how easily we just discard what was precious about our lives for the new. I find it unpalatable that we cannot enjoy the new with the old. Noone stops you from spending a Sunday afternoon with a few papers and crayons and drawing a crooked mango[was it just me, or did everyone have problems getting the damn thing just perfect?]

Sometimes, just sometimes, maybe it will be wise to revisit the Good Old Life.

It would be official also very soon. The Baiji Dolphin of the Yangtze River in China are extinct..or almost extinct...no one has seen one for years. And a two month long search for them recently resulted in nothing.

Known as the Goddess of Yangtze, this nearly blind dolphin was unique in so many ways - lived in fresh water, had heightened sonar capabilities to navigate the murky water (much like bats) and a long pointy nose.Alas, we may never see one again :(

Its sad to see how much the measly humans have destroyed over the years. The newspaper report said that they realised way back in 2004 that the dolphins are gone, and yet... a search was launched only in 2007. None of the scientists who were a part of the team were hopeful that they would see one. They are most probably right. Even as more and more countries would reach the one trillion dollar mark (for the uninitiated,India just reached it) ; I think we should take the time to just reflect that maybe the only thing we created and worry about on earth now is money...the life as the planet had or deserved, is lost.

".....various species that have gone extinct at the hands of humans: the dodo bird, Steller's sea cow, the passenger pigeon, and scores of others, many of which were never known to science at all. Even stuffed organisms, some representing the only specimen of an extinct species, have been known to disappear at the hands of humans. The last Carolina parakeet, stuffed after its death in 1918 at the Cincinnati Zoo, was lost some years later; the last surviving thylacine, the only large carnivorous marsupial to live into modern times, was thrown out with the weekly trash.

... humans are not necessarily the best choice for guardians and record-keepers of the planet. "But here's an extremely salient point: we have been chosen, by fate or Providence or whatever you wish to call it. As far as we can tell, we are the best there is. We may be all there is. It's an unnerving thought that we may be the living universe's supreme achievement and its worst nightmare simultaneously."

And no amount of trillion dollars can ever bring back the Goddess of the Yangtze.

Now this is smart ! Someone actually sat down a created one minute versions of a whole lot of movies claiming " With our ultra-condensed versions of your favorite films, you can experience whole movies in just one minute! "

Oh my god ! Who has so much free time to do that ! Useful or Useless? You judge...

Here is ultra condensed Armageddon :

NASA

An asteroid is coming. We are in trouble.

Nerd

You must blow it up from the inside. Probably.

NASA

Let's teach drillers to be astronauts, on account of drilling is too hard for astronauts to learn.

Bruce Willis

Instead for a ninjillion dollars, we will only do it if we don't have to pay taxes anymore, because audiences can relate to that.

Audience

I can relate to that. Therefore, I love it.

Hmm... So it seems almost cosmic... Any artistic adventure I wanna embark on... some twist leads me away from my pursuit, and lands me somewhere I least expect to be.

A coupla years ago, one sultry August afternoon tryst to the National Art Gallery in Delhi, resulted in me standing in front of a locked gate saying 'monday closed' and subsequently watching the colorized version of "Mughal e Azam" a piece of art in itself.

I was so exited to be visiting an art gallery for the first time, it was literally jumping with anticipation (come to think of it, anything which catches my fancy causes me to react in the same fashion, quite unladylike... tch tch). But then, I got over it quickly and thoroughly enjoyed watching the spectacular movie on the big screen.

Then, last week, the art bug bit again, when I decided to cruise the play scene in Delhi with a friend. We decided to go to NSD (National School of Drama, for the unitiated) and watch the students showcase 'Taj Mahal'. All excited (no thanks to disgusting cold coffee served by CP Barista once again - why dont I learn !!) we reached the hall, only to be turned away as the screening got postponed to the next week. Not to give up, MS and I, walked up and down the tree-lined spacious Delhi roads to look for other plays/recitels to watch, but at 7:30 in the evening, we were more than fashionably late for all of them.

Finally we ventured into Lalit Kala Academy, to visit the art gallery featuring quite a few artists - almost all of em Bengali, not one whose name i remember :D. We roamed around in the five galleries, loving some paintings( oooh ! Preettyy ... I cooed quite often) while not quite understanding what's so special about the others...

Though, i dont think we emerged any wiser on the art of Art Appreciation (is that what its called) it was overall still quite an interesting experience. The best of which was actually, roaming around the streets of Lutyen's Delhi in the lovely March evening breeze, with a friend - talking about some stuff which matter, some which doesnt.

Hello all couch potatoes... The biggest event in the history ( of well... umm... the Universe, non- technically speaking ), is coming live to your TV... at no extra cost !

No seriously, The Big Bang is a direct feed to your TV... (NOT THAT you pervert !!) The birth of our universe, according to the Big Bang Theory, was from a infintely small space (though, space doesnt mean anything before the Big Bang) containing infinite amount of everything ( though, even mass is meaningless at that time). This singularity, due to some unknown trigger, decided to expand all of a sudden and most of the mass currently in the universe was creating in the first 3 minutes of this event, known as the Big Bang.

And, ofcourse, because the event happened so so long ago, that our Aaj Tak reporters couldnt get there on time. But fear not, the radiation/waves from The Big Bang, reach the earth.. even though they are very weak. Most of the crackle which we see on our televisions is the last remnants of that same event which started it all.

How's that for a dinner time family watch?

Read this, bear with me, its worth it...

Santa Singh gets onto a train in Delhi and calls the TT. "Sir, i am a very sound sleeper and my station comes at 4am. I would request you to ensure that i get down there. Throw me out if you have to, but just do it !". The TT agrees and Santa Singh goes to sleep. He wakes up in Chandigarh at 10am, furious. Immediately he starts shouting at the TT, who very strangely laughs at every choice word our furious surd throws at him. Perplexed onlookers ask the TT "Why are you so amused?". "I cant help it," says the TT, "I just cant stop laughing thinking about the guy who was protesting when i was throwing him out of the train at 4am !"

Now this is such a old joke (a very sad version by me, but whatever) im sure youre wondering why is it here. The reason is (or shall i say, reason are) the two conversations i heard within the last fifteen days, which made me think how much jokes rise from the local culture, or conversely, is it that all jokes become "arre sacchi baat bataon..." among society eventually.

Last month, traveling from Lucknow to Delhi, we didnt get a seat to sleep so I spent the night. Walking around in the train, i overheard two helpers talking about a incident. One guy claimed to have witness his friend getting beaten up by a passenger who needed to get off at a station in the middle of the night, but was not woken up. His friend had managed to ensure some other guy was unwillingly thrown outta the train at the other station. I just assumed this person had my dad's habit of telling every joke as if it occured to him.( I personally fail to see the charm ;) )

I never thought of this before yesterday evening, when travelling from a bus to home, i was standing near a conducter who was telling the driver this. " Yaar, sacchi baat bataon, woh jo 392 ka kalu hai na...." and proceeded to tell the exact same story of a hapless passenger, greeting the entire family of kalu with choice words, when he was not informed of his stop... and ofcourse, kalu had thrown the luggage of another gentleman off the bus. As the conducter swore that he witnessed this with his own eyes, I got thinking... was there actually a certain Santa Singh who found himself in Chandigarh, giving rise to this urban legend or was this just one of those UFO's.... everyone in Arizona knows a guy who was abducted by one.