Kash Laga...

This relates to my experience with a certain cinematic work by the name of "No Smoking", directed by a bloke named Anurag Kashyap (Yes, the bloke who gave us DevD.)

The moment I completed said movie, I knew only one thing: that my mind had gone blank, completely.
I did not know whether I had liked the movie or despised it;
whether I wanted to cry or laught out loud;
what I was doing calling up people frenetically, standing on the roof top;
what I wanted to tell my friend I called up in the US;
what I wanted from life (ok, that I never really know I guess!).

Thus, I was left in a daze, a long, extended phase of unknowing-ness and unthinking-ness.

And then.
One remembers a particular track in a particular sequence of the movie.
One procures it soon enough.
Gives it one listening.
And then lives in that comfortable little universe, for the next 27 hours. And counting.

"Yeh jahaan phaani hai, bulbula hai paani hai...
Bulbolon pe rukna kya, paaniyon pe behta ja behta ja...
Kash laga, kash laga..."

One learns two new words in the process of starting to decipher the magic encompassed in the above, and what precedes and follows it.
"Phaani" - Mortal.
"Kash laga" - Take a drag.

And with that, one sees a muse revealing herself from behind the mists, with a seductive, inviting gesture.
One finds the path through the haze that fills the air.
And the path leads here:

The world is a maze of many things.
Among them, prominent ones include several forms of perfunctoriness, unintended and/or unneeded obligations, and many of their uncles and aunties. Also resident in that consciousness, is a whole joint family rooted in one word, "expectation".

Just when you are staring at the night sky, gaping at the void that fills the air and your most internal recesses, comes along the muse of the night.
And whispers to you gently:

"The world is but a dream. It is a beautiful, and compelling kaleidoscope of many different colours, none of which is real. You are your own servant and master.
You owe it to yourself, and to Him for all that He has endowed you with, to make the most of all that is there in and around you.
Thus, dear little boy, do your thing, make love to all that touches your divinity, for that is all that matters. Live. Do not let this moment pass."

"Yeh jahaan phaani hai, bulbula hai paani hai...
Bulbolon pe rukna kya, paaniyon pe behta ja behta ja...
Kash laga, kash laga..."

Edit-1:
In reply to a friend who felt that the post somehow encouraged smoking et al...:

"Encouraging" smoking is perhaps the last thing that one intended to do with that piece...
The girl, the muse, the haze, is all in the imagination that all of us are blessed with...

The following forms the core of the entire post.

"The world is but a dream. It is a beautiful, and compelling kaleidoscope of many different colours, none of which is real. You are your own servant and master.
You owe it to yourself, and to Him for all that He has endowed you with, to make the most of all that is there in and around you.
Thus, dear little boy, do your thing, make love to all that touches your divinity, for that is all that matters. Live. Do not let this moment pass."

All it says is, one needs to find one thing that defines one's existence, and adds a sense of purpose to what would otherwise be just a wait till the clock strikes 'the end'.
And the world, with all its bondages and chains, need never stand in the way of you and that one thing, for in the end, you are answerable only to the voice within. In the context of you and the salvation you seek, the world has to be irrelevant.
We are all here for a limited time, and so is the world. Why must one limit one's dreams, one's ambitions, one's aspirations and efforts, by something as fleeting and transient as the world?
Thus, go ahead, and indulge in that one thing which completes your being; which is in effect the path you have chosen to your immortality.

"Yeh jahaan phaani hai, bulbula hai paani hai...
Bulbolon pe rukna kya, paaniyon pe behta ja behta ja...
Kash laga, kash laga..."

I hope you now see in the lines above, the para that preceded it.
In the lens that 'figurative'-ity gives me, 'kash laga' is anything but smoking...

PS: One finds an uncanny resemblance to this concept in Bachchan sahab's Madhushala, when he says,

"Madiralaya jaane ko ghar se chalta hai peene wala,
Kis path se jaoon asamanjas, yeh hai woh bhola bhala,
Alag, alag path batalate sab, par main ye batalata hoon,
Raah pakad tu ek chala chal, pa jaiyege madhushala..."

Once again... the quest is not to find a pub to get wasted... but to find the one thing that shall lend an existence growing increasingly meaningless and numb, some semblance of meaning and purpose.

Cheers duniya! :)

Twinkling stars from the sky

Started at 35,098 feet in the sky, approximately.
---

What I see right now is hard to document or capture, but what can be, to the best of one's highly influenced senses, is that which has just opened to one, all of n thousand feet up in the sky.

As the sun shines down on the awakening earth, it elevates every instance of that which may be called the root of all life, to what we look for in night skies, albeit in a diametrically opposite configuration. As one passes one air furlong after another, the little smiling twinklets come, pause and leave in a moment of unassuming, unheralded silence. In fact it is more to the effect of disparate, disjoint entities, minding their own business, attending to the million things that engage each one of them. And then, during the normal execution of an average day in their life, we, the protagonists step in, and look around.

And there, in the midst of the quiet brown-ness that defines the locales otherwise, we observe the first signs of a brilliance so immaculate, it could brighten up a cloudy day, breathe life into a waning soul, and add a million colours to a mind desperately seeking some thing.


Little golden stars twinkle at us from all those miles away, shining with the grace and might of the sun. As they float by (or we do, as one may choose to look at things), the following hit one's senses, one after the other, in a surprisingly rhythmic manner:

1. The 'stars' shine on as long as we stay in their zones of influence. After which they cease to shine for us, but may continue to be their effervescent selves for other fortunate passers-by separated from ourselves on the time scale. Perhaps most importantly, the fact to be noted is that they come, they shine, and they continue with their lives, as they had previous to our introduction; and so do we.

In our lives and in our times, we are endowed with several blessings along the way. And I strongly believe that the greatest, most valuable of these treasures lie in the people we are privileged enough to be with. Owing to the very nature of our existences and the significance of one entity exchanging subliminals with others, inter-personal experiences top my list of His benevolence on us unknowing, unthinking mortals.

2. Soon after, a parallel storyline emerges, centred around the literal aptness of the term 'Taare Zameen Par' for these little instances of unspoken mirth.
When one looks back at the years that have been one's days; all that has been till now, and promises to be on the paths that lie ahead; one cannot help but marvel at the roles different people have played at different points in time. Wherever one has gone, whatever one has done, one has been under some immaculate light, which ensured the presence of a motley bunch one could treat as one's own.

So be it the playgrounds of the yonderyears, or the portals of school; the welcoming arms of college (made more so by the stars aforementioned), or the annals of Jokaland, and finally, even those dreamy, picturesque pathways of a certain car plant, working on, among other things, the single most awe-some project in my eyes; everywhere one's steps have taken one, one has been gifted with a sense of warmth and love, flowing through the people one has been close to. You are the stars; all of you!

3. The final phase of this sequence of revelations was one that would bring me to tears; tears that had waiting in the wings for a while now.

"All the world's a stage..." a wise sage must have spoken many thousand years back.

All those stars; all those people, were of course actors, as one has said previously.
However, the thread that connects them all together; the script that binds them all in a cosmic plot; the light that shines through all of them; the love that one absorbs from all that they symbolize and represent; that, is the same that built the stage; fuels the sun; paints the sky and all that lies above and below it; that, is Him.
And He loves you.
And he loves you enough to have his actors around you, to pick you up when you fall; to lend a shoulder in times of need; to deliver a kick on the backside on occasions of over-excess-itude.

We are all actors that play his hand, in different ways, at different times.
And for that, we are all blessed.

God bless!
Be happy!

Sigh... so much love...

PS: A sample of what led to this post.

Forward Descent - 1

02/06/2009 - 17:55:55
I look at the my brothers flying around on all sides.
As we were released into this world from those hallowed portals of yonderland, I could sense that building sense of transient equality that any athlete experiences when on the start line. The transience in itself was the potential that fuelled us to strive for ever rising heights. It was as if all the brotherhood that had bound us together all our lives, was about to be squeezed out of our cores, as we sought to grow, aspire and achieve.

It wasn't all blue though, or even green or yellow for that matter. What made that phase so fascinating was the multi-hued-ness that it brought with it. While there was the obvious sense of separation that loomed large, there was also that pleasant tingling sensation one gets in one's stomach, when approaching a momentous shift in one's existence. I think at some level, we all knew where we were going to land up eventually, it was just the trajectory that differed. For even the heights and distances covered mattered little when one merged with the earth, carrying little more than one's fast disappearing self, and leaving behind a spot on the motherland, and the faint scent of another gentle passing over. The role one played in the afterlife had been speculated and fantasized about in great detail, and with infectious fervour among our intellectuals. That of course didn't deter us from continuing to float on in our continuous phase of trans-meditative oneness. That was a time when nothing really mattered; when we didn't need John Lennon to tell us this, for we lived it without knowing any of it.

Anyhow, that day was then, and this is now.
And in between of course, was that day.
When the floodgates were opened finally; after all the suspense and drama, of which only a modest glimpse was provided above. I'll never forget that date, what a glorious figure that had been: 02/06/2009 - 17:55:54. The gardener had come for his daily duties, and we could sense that the day we had awaited for years, was to finally arrive.

Fast track to this moment of free flight.
And yet, there is something which pulls me inside. The people around me, behind me, ahead of me, are all running. And I run with them. I lead some, I trail some, and somehow the latter always seems the larger group. With every one I pass, I see 10 others ahead.
This seemingly endless stream of wants takes some of the sheen off the highly romanticized 'final flight' that poets spoke of in the tank.
One hopes to find more meaning, more light, and a more complete sense of happiness as one blends with the other elements, and stares into whatever awaits in the afterlife. Somewhere, I think there are many more levels that await me, and that one day I shall complete a circle, upon which I shall have, hopefully, learnt a little more about my self.
I have no reasons to believe I understand any of what I've just jotted down.
Maybe there will be.

Nice thought that was, as I approach the end of the road. I've lived longer than I'd ever dreamed!
What awaits awaits.
Que sera sera.
Drop no. 746383949, signing off from
Flat - B12, Sector - 34, Kurlapur, Navi Mumbai.

02/06/2009 - 17:55:56.

"An eternity passes by in the blink of an eye" - indeed...