Falak baby, R.I.P :)

Dear Falak, I know I am prophesying the event of your death but this is what I want for you. That may you die soon. ASAP. That may your soul get to rest-in-peace soon; there isn’t any body left anyway which is now resting-in-pieces.

I know you would be wondering at my state of mind which is in total contrast to the nation’s mood. India is praying to see you fight out and live; I am wishing death for you.

You are too small a baby to fully understand the imminent harsh realities that you are sure to face once you are out of that cold and lonely hospital room in the AIIMS. You have already experienced the ghastly and brutal ways of humanity. Just imagine what will happen to you, a little kid, a girl child, who has already been extensively abused and battered and abandoned – when you step out in this big bad world. All alone, an orphan, and nowhere to go.

There would be a few claimants to your saved body in case you are lucky to experience a miracle and survive – which I will call an absolute misfortune. None of those would-be custodians would be there with any love for you. They all would be there like vultures circling over to stake a claim to your leftover body, and soul. Whosoever be that person to get your custody rights, be sure to get further abused – sexually too – and battered beyond repair. Because the chances of you getting back to a normal existence is remote as your brain had been battered to pulp. You will never regain your usual brain functions – even if you come out of the current coma. You will always be like a vegetable – may be only partially – but not at all in a position to defend yourself even after growing up. Your custodial guardians will treat you like a slave and make you do unimaginable things; a servant’s job would seem quite dignified by any standards. Those greedy people would usurp all the government and private grants – I am sure there would be enough - given in your name for your upkeep and upbringing and will leave you without any facilities and benefits. They will continue to live a better life with the money meant for you instead. And no body, absolutely no body, will ever care to ensure if you have a normal life or not. That if you are being provided the basic amenities or not. That if your fundamental rights to education and a dignified life is being respected or not. All sorts of horrible things will be perpetrated upon you in spite of the fact that enough money would have been arranged and put in the hands of those greedy guardians by a few sympathetic souls. Your existence would be hellish by all accounts. While you would be struggling to just be alive, forget about living your life, the world would have progressed to the state of collective and absolute amnesia.

Well, the situation could be absolutely opposite also. But I am sure that even you too, in your state of being a cute little angel, have come to realize now that you turning out to be extremely fortunate in life is highly unlikely. Your life experiences so far substantiate my pessimistic beliefs. And thus, I wish death for you as soon as possible.

Falak, let me describe the situation to you in a bit more detail. You are citizen of a country which is hugely hypocritical in attitude. Here people proclaim to be proponents of family and family life and claim to respect relationships and emotions but in practice they are diagonally opposite. Otherwise why would we be witnessing ghastly abuse of children in hands of adults. We do not feel guilt employing toddlers as servants and making them toil the entire day in service of grown ups. We do not wince seeing small children working as waiters in hotels and restaurants and getting abused both physically and psychologically by all. There are numerous horror tales of small kids being harassed and made to work under inhuman conditions in factories all across the country. We are comfortable reading about sexual torture of innocents. We just don’t bother if scores of our nation’s future are begging and sleeping on streets. That they are living in absolutely hell-like conditions growing up as stunted and stunned souls, with very little left inside to reciprocate – as hollow humans. As humans, citizens of a country called India which prides itself on its family oriented society, we are too busy concentrating on our own lives and shutting out all unpleasant scenes of real life through closed eyes – of other people’s life. As individuals, our love for children is grossly limited to ‘our own’. Rest all are “aliens” – unreachable and untouchable in terms of emotional connect.

I your case too, Falak, we will close our eyes the moment television cameras close their caps.

And, for God’s sake, please do not expect the government of India to do any thing for you beyond a certain point at best. They have already exhibited their limitations – as always – in taking care of you. If it had noble intentions, the GOI would have already succeeded in punishing your butchers (arresting them by now at least) and would have announced definitive plans for your rehabilitation. It would be completely foolish to trust the government in India. It just has too many children roaming around to be bothered about any. For India, its people are just statistics, nothing more. And your absence will certainly not leave any void.

Therefore, I wish death for you – ASAP. May you R.I.P J … Just ask the God why did It close Its eyes upon you? …

…………….

You know Falak, your name means “sky”; I wish your soul an abode in sky – Falak in Falak J

Fan-tastic!

Below illustrated is the ‘anatomy of an admirer’.

Sounds like a biology class! At least it is not a lesson in “postmortem” as the admirer is still alive! …

Before you start wondering, I would like to narrate a recent incident. I was in Bhopal having dinner at the Jehan Numa Palace’s famed restaurant “Under The Mango Tree” when I saw Jaya Bachchan walk in with a few friends & relatives. Obviously all heads turned in her direction including mine but there was no pandemonium. She sat at the next table, ordered food & drinks and they started having peaceful conversations. Once the dinner was over I decided to go and talk to her which I did. I congratulated Jaya aunty for becoming a grand mother and reminded her of my previous meeting with her at the Delhi airport when she was with Amitabh uncle, Abhishek and Anil Ambani – all returning to Bombay in Anil’s private jet post her (and Anil’s) oath in the Rajya Sabha – which she, of course, did not remember but seemed to be happy talking about – and I genuinely complimented on her still maintained elegance and charm! She thanked me profusely and then I requested for a photograph with her. Jaya aunty very sweetly declined saying “it is an extremely private dinner; there are so many people around who too would like to do the same; hope you will understand and not mind … God bless you.” I understood of course and did not mind also! Three days later when I was returning to Delhi, I again saw her walk inside the airport wearing a beautiful dress looking every inch a “Guddi”! She had a bit of harried expression around her. Had she spent a few minutes around, I would have gone to her again, requesting her to pose for a picture with me – this time at a public place, giving her no opportunity to refuse! … Her departure started a discussion about this entire phenomenon called “celebrity-admirer” relationship. And I decided to pen down my thoughts. So, here I am …

Watching Jaya aunty board the aircraft to Bombay I got reminded of an article by a celebrated journalist more than half a decade back in one of the national dailies in which he (a hint!) lamented the species called “admirers” – a “fan” in popular parlance – and labeling them to be “Goodwill Hunters”! Well, he must have had his own reasons (very flimsy from his account in the piece though) but it hurt me immensely. Because I am also a fan of a very few but have never indulged into “goodwill hunting” – so far!

The “Goodwill Hunting” term hurt me because as an active person with interest in various fields I have met many a celebrities, have interacted with them, taken snaps with a few but I do not think that being a non-celebrity, I have ever tried to “hunt them down for any goodwill”! No way.

Of course, there many people who are real fanatics (fan comes from fanatics!) in their hero-worship but this kind of frenzied behavior is reserved for a select few and that too at select places – few film stars and few cricketers being amongst this coveted club! General public otherwise is so ignorant about most of the things that people – celebrities – in most of the fields other than film and cricket are not even known, forget about being recognized! Thus, the bizarre attitude of a few little known names/faces is so offending that you actually wonder at their fantasy about their own self!

Here is the disclaimer: I admire/respect many celebrities/achievers but am a “fan” of very few; they being authors (Orhan Pamuk, Shashi Tharoor), anchor (Arnab Goswami), industrialist (Ratan Tata), social leader (Anna Hazare), film star (Amitabh Bachchan), journalists (Karan Thapar, Vir Sanghvi), politicians (Rajiv Gandhi, Barack Obama), cricketers (MS Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar), sports (Michael Schumacher, Boris Becker) and my ultimate favorite Mahatma Gandhi! And I have never ever tried “goodwill hunting” with any of them! …

Only a couple of months back I was watching Ranbir Kapoor talk about ‘fans’ on “Frankly Speaking” on Times Now and I found his thoughts to be refreshing! He mentioned about his father’s haughty behavior towards the “approaching fans” and thus his determination as a young kid that if ever he became a celebrity he would always respect his fans because it is because of the fans that a film star is born and sustained! He sounded noble and “hat-ke” though in reality if he really practices it is yet to be confirmed…

I also find one more aspect very odd about many of the celebrities. That if you correspond with famous people (not because you want to trespass/harass but only to share your opinion on certain issues and the celebrity in question need not be from ‘your set of favorites’), they will not respond; or if they do ‘oblige’, most of the time they will not address the person with his/her name. And if they do, they will not use the expression “dear” before the name. Now, prefixing “dear” is just a civilized way of writing/replying; no fool (recipient/fan) will ever believe that he/she has become a “dear” of the personality!

Not that I blame them entirely for their strange attitude. Sometimes admirers can be really rude and unforgiving and crazy but generally they are supportive and understanding. I also realize that they are so hard pressed for time that taking time out for responding to each and every email/letter could become hugely challenging (by the way, how many such personalities would be there in this world?!). I also buy the argument that they are humans too and thus need personal space in their ever-crowded environment in which every person is out there hungry for a piece of him/her! In many instances, their own insecurities and personal troubles could be so overwhelming that they live cocooned and seldom bother to look around and savor the privileges bestowed upon them by virtue of being successful/known in their chosen field! Nevertheless, what I also understand from all this is that they clearly fail to understand the favorite-fan relationship.

This celebrity-fan relationship is very interesting. And divine. Though friends of a celebrity are often because of his/her fame, but fans are like stars in the universe: shining for him/her with ‘moral support & well-wishes’ from afar but never crossing their paths to cause eclipses like ‘planets and satellites’! This relationship is absolutely one-sided, without any kind of expectation from the more blessed one, though the latter get taken-for-granted often in this divinely unbalanced equation. And there is no “goodwill hunting”, for God’s sake!

Nevertheless, I remain a fan, forever … J

I, Alien

As the aircraft approaches its landing, and if I happen to be seated at the window, I start getting strange sensations. I feel like an alien. And I am sure that if ever an alien comes visiting the planet earth, she would feel the same. Various divergent thoughts start appearing in my mind. The Life per se seems to be getting cloudier in my thoughts, denser than the clouds surrounding the descending machine.

At that height I don’t only get a 360 degrees view of the earth but also seem to get a new perspective on life. I see the earth below and the sky around, space actually - if I speak in a non-technical term. If the time is before sunset, the ground shows numerous activities, all suggesting a vibrant habitation below. Post sunset the scene is much more beautiful with lights shining all around, concealing the ugliness of humanity superbly. If Capt. Satish Sharma said “saare jahan se achchha” about India from the Space, which we so naively believe to be true, the same is equally applicable to every part of the world. There is hardly any distinction till the earth comes closer. And I could be landing on any planet in the Universe!

At that distance away from the earth and up in the sky, with the space pervading all around, I marvel at the God for having these marvelous ideas about life! I wonder at Its’ creations which are so consistent in every sense of the term. Simultaneously looking at the fast approaching earth below, I wonder at the significance of our earth in Its’ vast scheme of things! With billions of stars and billions of planets and moons strewn all across the Universe, I wonder about this tiny little speck of mass called earth. The earth, a revolving landmass around the Sun, over which we have been fighting ever since having straightened up! Yes, from a bent cave man to a walking being supposedly with a straight spine!

It doesn’t take an eternity for the aircraft to descend but the time seems to be sufficient enough to let my mind race faster than any conceivable time machine. Amazingly my thoughts remain consistent in all voyages. Once having marveled at the God for creating this beautiful Universe, I also wonder at the loss of control It suffered thereafter, especially in case of humans. The biological Evolution, the pre-historic times, the medieval period and the modern and contemporary history flash in my mind as if I were watching a classic movie in fast-forward! From complicated human behaviors to predictable yet weird human traits cross my thoughts. (Looking at a kid I always wonder what kind of a person she/he would finally be.) The man-made geographical divisions, the numerous nations built within boundaries, the thoughts and traditions and cultures and civilizations and philosophies and ideologies and wars and death & destruction and jihad and terrorism and poverty and pollution and politicians and pollution and police and army and brutality and torture and broken hearts and senseless minds and troubles and tribulations and oil and nuclear weapons and religions and regions and skin colors and castes and creeds and genders and intellect and talent and ambitions and dreams and awards and arrogance and emotions and relationships and fights and arguments and daily living and life … everything, absolutely every aspect of life seems so insignificant …

We never seem to realize that we are not even a full dot in the grand scheme of things in the unending and ever-expanding Universe! And we never ever seem to be ready to believe that like us – the so-called intelligent and the evolved creation! – there would be millions of creations much more evolved and intelligent, and humane than us. It is only a matter of time that they would traverse the space and discover us. So far we have not displayed those capabilities to reach out to them – the Aliens! … The co-existing irony, nevertheless, is that we as humans are yet to discover – understand – ourselves and our fellow humans cohabiting on our earth!

If I look at the Life from up in the sky, and think about the Life in general, I fail to understand the purpose of Creation per se. Why did the God make all what he made? Why did he lose all control over Its own creations thereafter? Does It regret having created human beings? From astronomy to astrology, did Its plans go all awry? I think about all the living beings including the ocean dwellers which include the microscopic beings to the visible souls in the animal and the plant kingdom. I think about the food chain and the social pyramid. And the entire thing looks like a grand “time-pass”! Yes, every body aimlessly busy in doing nothing except for doing the basic things in order to sustain its life within the assigned and designed body so as to be able to pass into the next stage of being in form of soul at a designated time. The life which was created to be simple in existence but it becoming hugely complex in practice. Every thing so consistent and predictable and so routine and repetitive that, from a distance, as an alien, I feel disillusioned!

I know that if the Buddha were alive today, and he would have travelled with me in an aircraft seated in a window seat, post the touchdown he would have embarked on a journey yet again in search of enlightenment – renouncing his theory of nirvana. The Buddha too would have felt like an alien …