Salaam Bombay

Salaam Bombay

I try so much to think of loving you,

And I fail miserably –

Like the lone child on the street side.

For I cannot see through

Descending acrid smoke of burning flesh

I can’t turn my eyes away from the child –

Its flesh ripped and shred of impact

As he sits there, over the charred remains

Of its inconsequential social connect.

I cannot see how we all are not thus orphaned,

For where I stand – what I see

Everybody has been stripped bare –

Down to the inherited, bestial flesh and blood

I try hard to look through the chaos

Of uncertain lives fleeing in anticipation

I try hard to recollect our dreams, in my mind.

But the smoke stings, it pains so bad – so deep.

This earth, a sky seems unimaginably shattered

And through all this – my dear

I silently cry out loud to you

I kneel before you my beloved.

I pray to you – pull back the reins of time

And put me two moments before

The unforgiven, unwilling child of human wrath burst.

For a moment I will see the child lisp in its mother’s lap.

For a moment I will look up and bid goodbye to you.

Come to me now – my beloved,

For I try so hard to think of loving you.

________________________________

Under the Shadow of Terror

Noise Unlimited

Whatever now remains is like Noise - in its true definition. There are two sides to it.

1. People responsible for their carelessness and unprepared ness - they are generating the noise while curbing the real 'voice' viz. the dictate from the Govt. that media should no more broadcast videos of the attack - is that to keep people from disturbing images or do they know it too well that Indian mind is like black board - a stroke of duster and the chalk of calamity wiped off? Are the resignations, comments, opinions, vague statements sounding like boardroom 'global gyan' ('We will not tolerate terrorist tactics...' and like) worth the hoopla surrounding them? Really, have there been any actionable reactions? Something like, 'we have appointed XYZ to set up a committee which will plan and blue-print for a Federal Intelligence Agency of India', would have meant at least something. I fail to understand how feminine FMCGs could become talk of the hour - lord save the sanctity and sanity of our Media houses. Did they really find, even the person who indulged in such pithy remarks, worthy enough to be splashed over prime time news?

2. People who are subject to these propagandas - they end up taking sides. What have they got anyway? They only have choices and nothing like the best candidate or the rightful leader. They just choose the next best thing and end up where they were by the end of another 5 years. Just like stray dogs - they stray, they are shown the biscuit, they go to the vote machine wagging their tails, they sit waiting like a loyal dog, no matter they get kicked all along, then the 'eater' finishes off and the dog begins to look for another 'eater'. At times they will be stupid enough to follow that same 'eater' around.

The first kind confuses and the latter one is politically, socially and emotionally illiterate enough to be easily confused. In the end we have exactly what my title states and reflect the present state of affairs - Noise Unlimited...

Leopold Back-calculation

Nothing has changed much. People just want to get high before they are on a higher plane. They fail to flatter themselves. It is not that easy. The terror is unimaginable.

I look at these people congregated or rather accumulated at Leopold tonight, and I am unexcited. It is only natural to be egoistic. It is only natural to be nationalistic. But what really matters is – what do you really believe in.

I did my inquisition. The inherent fear of life sustenance is unquestionable (I just hate that I cannot write this in layman’s terms; I wish somebody did). Everybody hid in fear when the firecrackers became gun-shots in reality. I doubt if anyone else would have done otherwise – even with a bullet-proof armor on them.

I wonder what might have happened that day. I can but only wonder. But still, if I have that, I’ll stay with it because that is the only thing I have got to justify myself – about the way I feel. And that is just the way everybody of you reading this feels. So, stop lying to yourself!

Mumbai Burns

I am not Marathi, I am not Mumbaiyya. I am a simple citizen, another unknown Indian, who just happens to be professionally based out of Mumbai. And I feel violated.

I feel I have got everything to do with this calculated inhumanity on display for the last 60+ hours. I have never faced this upfront but now I do and I am going to do something about it. I have to speak out. I am not of that mettle to keep myself closed in the boundaries of a job, a family, few friends and four walls which keep changing.

There a few things that I hate but I hate them unfailingly and it seems it is not going to change for quite sometime now.

I do not accept to live under the shadow of the gun.

I do not want those people walking on this earth who have murder on their minds.

I do not want my near and dear ones to be terrorized.

I do not accept that a country like ours do not have an intelligence net.

But most of all – I hate the lousiness of some people who say, ‘What can I do?’

Money, stature, family commitments, professional pressure, relationships they don’t matter. In fact, when these very things are under fire – I do not believe we have got any justification of sitting back, thanking fate for saving us and waiting for the carnage to get over so that we can get back to work next morning like worms crawling across the dingiest filth on the face of this earth.

I defy those who call this ‘the undying Mumbai spirit’. I call this apathy, indifference and overall irresponsibility as an Indian and as a human being.

More than 190 people dead – that too only officially, three times that injured and an overall atmosphere of unwelcome fear looming ominously over Mumbai. We cannot keep saying that ‘Mumbai has won’; because it hasn’t. The terrorists have won – not once but again and again, and it is about time we put an end to our little day-night therapy sessions over the idiot-box with some politicians and diplomats who have been as irresponsible as us. It is about time we vent our retribution on these maggots.

Terrorists are not cowards. Cowards are only human. Terrorists, however, are inhuman to say the least. They are agents of the virus called terror. Love just won't do.

This is the time when we think, talk and act vitriolic. This is when our attitude should ooze acid against those buggers. I cannot imagine that I have to share the same air with these proponents of the unjust death.

We pride ourselves in unity. I disagree vehemently. We just fake ‘unity in diversity’. There is no such thing, unless we acknowledge ourselves as common human beings, each one of whom has got right to live. And those who don’t have no right to live!

I want to live without oppression – be it terror or in any other form.

I want to live without fear – be it the bullet or the ballot.

I want to live without bias – be it religious or socio-economic.

I want to live free – and my head held high because I know I have done something.

Before The Other Side

On a higher plane,

I’ll like to be here.

With a pang of guilt,

With a hint of hurt,

With a spring of feet,

Even in a brief spurt –

I will still like to be here.

In the first crush,

In the gardens lush,

In a glimmer of hope,

Believing neither Devil nor Pope –

I will like to be here.

Even in Satan’s lap,

Even at Heaven’s gate –

I’ll still like to be here.

*****

Pink Rubber Shoes

Pink Rubber Shoes

Ah, Yes! Squeaky clean rubber shoes,

Wonder what mischief they've been up to?

Squeaky clean rubber soles in puddles,

Wonder what the besotted devil might do!

*****

Hell Risen

Hell Risen

Once there was a wish
Of many lives torn apart –
Let them heal now.

Here trod the fire feet
Blazed earth stood bye –
Make way for them now.

Things fell together
Like a dramatic illusion –
They make sense now.

Heat and dust flew
In the maddening wind –
All seems clear now.

Whatever seems like a dream
Will fireball into reality –
Do not wake me up now.

*****

Why will Man dream
Where hope is but blind –
To the unbound Phoenix.

*****

It Rained That Day

It rained that day

It rained that day – incessant, unyielding,
Overcome with such grief, that it rained –
And it kept raining that day.
That stranger came looking, he looked for you.
He looked outside, he looked inside –
He looked me inside out.
In my eyes, under my skin – across my mind,
And yet you were not there.

Let him rest in peace.
For he could not see – You,
Coming again and again,
Splashing on the window pane.
Pacifying his soul with a whiff of life.

Life rained that day
You touched and I lived –
A hundred lifetimes and beyond.
Such, that it rained inside –
And it kept raining that day.

*****

The Man Who Became God

The Man Who Became God

Sky full of suns and stars,
World full of life –
Amidst all of these,
I have found,
I – have found my space.
In wonderment –
Thus doth arise,
Arises, my song

On the unbound rhythm,
On destiny’s cradle,
On the ebb & flow of tides,
The Universe swings.
In my veins,
The flow of blood –
Hath flooded in outburst
In wonderment –
Thus doth arise,
Arises, my song

On grasses I have trod
On way to the forest
On fragrance of flowers
Struck with joy –
My heart has rejoiced.
Here lies scattered
Happiness’ gifts
In wonderment –
Thus doth arise,
Arises, my song
I have lent my ears,
I have opened my eyes,
On Earth’s breast
I have offered my soul.
Amidst the known,
I have sought the unknown.
In wonderment –
Thus doth arise,
Arises, my song
Sky full of suns and stars

– Rabindranath Tagore.

______________________________

It is a day of solitary reclusion. Self imposed state of assertion and collapsing inside oneself to have a clearer view of the outside.

Extreme Ways - Moby

Extreme Ways - Moby

Extreme ways are back again
Extreme places I didn't know
I broke everything new again
Everything that I'd owned
I threw it out the windows, came along
Extreme ways I know, will part
The colors of my sea
It's a perfect color me

Extreme ways that help me
They help me out late at night
Extreme places I had gone
But never seen any light
Dirty basements, dirty noise
Dirty places coming through
Extreme worlds alone
Did you ever like it then?

I would stand in line for this
There's always room in life for this

Oh baby, oh baby
Then it fell apart, it fell apart
Oh baby, oh baby
Then it fell apart, it fell apart
Oh baby, oh baby
Then it fell apart, it fell apart
Oh baby, oh baby
Like it always does, always does

Extreme sounds have told me
They held me down every night
I didn't have much to say
I didn't give up the light
I closed my eyes and closed myself
And closed my world and never opened
Up to anything
That could get me at all

I had to close down everything
I had to close down my mind
Too many things could cut me
Too much can make me blind
I've seen so much in so many places
So many heartaches, so many faces
So many dirty things
You couldn't even believe

I would stand in line for this
It's always good in life for this

Oh baby, oh baby
Then it fell apart, it fell apart
Oh baby, oh baby
Then it fell apart, it fell apart
Oh baby, (oh baby), Oh baby (oh baby)
Then it fell apart, (fell apart) it fell apart (fell apart)
Oh baby, (oh baby,) oh baby, (oh baby)
Then it fell apart, (fell apart), it fell apart, (fell apart)
Oh baby, (oh baby), Oh baby (oh baby)
Like it always does, (always does), always does (always does)

******
- Moby.

Music

Music

Here's a thought.

Music ain't supposed to mean a thing. Infact it isn't supposed to mean at all.

Imagine.

An early morning breeze over Juhu beach; grains of sands sprinkling – following your steps and the breeze does hum…

Even the thought of sweltering Mumbai summer fails, emerging din and bustles of the 'maximum' city fades, eyes dilate onto an invisible speck on the southern horizon of the extended bay - where the palm trees arise like brushes kissing across the sky lilting from darkness of night to twilight of dawn and all possible words fail to explain. What?

That. A catchy little humming on your lips… ho, hum, hmm…

Music is nothing, dear. Maybe it's more the moment - maybe it's not.

It's good that I never got to know the technicalities.

*****

(Dedicated to the 'one who sits aglow, amidst yellow' ... for music's sake.)

O Bulla! I know not who I am...

O Bulla! I know not who I am

Bulla, I know not who I am
Bulla, I know not who I am
Neither am I believer in mosque
Nor am I in idol worship.
Neither in the pure or the impure
Nor am I in the Vedas.
Neither am I into intoxicants,
Nor am I the carefree deviant.
Neither am I union nor grief.
Neither am I the pure nor impure.
Neither am I of the water nor of the land.
Neither am I fire nor air.
Bulla, I know not who I am.
Neither am I Arabic nor from Lahore.
Neither am I from the Indian city of Nagaur.
Neither am I Hindu nor a Peshawari Turk.
Neither did I create the difference of faith,
Nor did I create Adam and Eve.
Neither did I name myself,
Beginning or end –
I know just the self.
I do not recognize ‘the other one’.
There’s none wiser than ‘me’.
Who is this Bulla Shah?
O Bulla! I know not who I am.
*****
Bulleh Shah

Journey Begins

I have waited long. It can wait no longer. The journey begins - a journey called 'on my own'.

Final Stand

Final Stand

Gospels of disbelief tend fear in a bountiful alcove,
Gathering mercy to bestow faith –
How cowardly and dastardly acts the self –
On an uneventful platter of life
On easier days when the moons shall burn bright red
And all suns and stars will be set alight to cinder and ash
In the disturbed horizons of a long billowing hurricane
I shall find my place under a warm blanket.

___________

A Breeze

A Breeze

See this shore on the island of my heart,
Come break on its parched sands.
And you will know how long monsoon
Has turned away and left me dry.
Can’t even find tears now – this moment,
And the dream of your dreams rises
Falls like an unsure yearning of ages gone.

Give me sight now, one miracle touch –
Balm my tired eyelids softly,
Hold my hands and let me walk beside.
The sun never craved for more.
Never the earth craved less for your feet.
I am hardly breathing now –
For one last time I breathe so easy.

You can save me now or let me die –
Here, where flowers bloom.
And I forget once again that I ever existed,
For it has never been quenched.
But please, my lady, when we stand –
Say not what you can say best.
For all these I shall feel no more, then –
The universe might crash inside.

The winds remain to speak unspoken.

*****

Candyman Dreams

Candyman Dreams

It is a straight stretch of glazed, ivory black granite brick road. Tram tracks have sank deep into it over the years of intense pressure. Millions of wheels roll bumping on the cracks across the graveled stretch. This is not a story of the street. Yet, streets have stories to tell.
Streets are brilliant storytellers. They never tire of telling them. More often than not they live up to their reputation. Streets have so many stories to tell. Some are hazardous and a rollercoaster ride with the shocked riders clenching their teeth under a deepening comic grimace – destinations are always far away. Some are murderous in the darkest hour where only few scurrying footsteps can be heard under the shady lampposts gleaming drearily in the creepy drizzle drenched city – a moment of silence, a muffled groan and silence reigns again. Some are deceptively fast paced and bouncy for the sentry religiously defending his castle from the onslaught of cannon balls, hurdled across with more aggression than conviction or accuracy – expectedly on a day when a strike or boycott, of any nature, has been declared. Some are monotonous like the everyday traffic snarls extending all along its stretch. Yet, it makes up for all that when the story is interspersed in between by the chapter where an unintentional blink made two pairs of eyes meet for the first time in their life and become unforgettable to each other. Such are the, occasional but obviously the brilliant sparks of a genius.
Some stories are mishaps. Precisely, an unpredictable outcome that is unfortunate. Yet, it must be a decisive outcome with no choices to the end. Why? I mean we all got choices for a solution to the situation but only decisive ends to them, which is in fact the most important time to make a choice. Well, but stories are just that – stories, and this story is just such a story.
The street was swarming with mid-day traffic. The pressure was far less compared to the morning office hours. Yet, dust, burnt petrol fumes, charred rubber on hot asphalt and bare, glazed granite bricks were aplenty to make it feel alive. For the street, however, it was getting a wee monotonous. All of these it beheld, day in and day out. Maybe, the street brooded under its skin; it was loosing its human touch.
They say thought is the fastest thing known. They even say there is something called telepathy. Then the plastic pack full of green, yellow and orange candies should have known the street well enough. For the response was just that – a mishap.

If you go up to him any day you will find two deep set blazing eyeballs peering out at your approach. The square lower jaw seems to hang down in most disagreeable fashion under the lax muscles and wrinkled skin over his cheeks. The nose sticks out like a wasted chewing gum stuck up and left in a thin stretch, poking at everything that beheld it. The lines on the forehead were deep enough to be portrayed in black, four of them uniformly spread across the ample width of the forehead. The hairline was a premature disaster, of black and white, cumulatively gray.
He was not the funny man. He was the candyman. Looks are deceptive and even more in black and white, on paper. One look at his face could tell the everyday story of a wife selling vegetables, two children well malnourished who helped their mother beg when times were worse and a life torn apart in pride and disability. Some are born free, some are born cursed.

Now let The Street tell its story...

He ran across the dangerously busy crossing. The only thing in his eyes was the bus on the other side of the road. The bus had stopped at the signal...

...Bus of route number 215A...bus full of passengers...passengers packed inside the bus, sweating...children nagging on mother’s lap...people bored of the wait...
...Green, yellow and orange candies...mango, pineapple and orange...quenches thirst...time pass...50 paisa apiece, two for a rupee...profit of 10 paisa on a candy...10 sold; a rupee rich...run, run, run...

Meanwhile, the plastic pack of candies was concentrating on the street’s thoughts.
The stopped traffic was let off. Like a simultaneous reaction to the revving up of the first gears of the waiting vehicles, candies, like marbles, rent through the bag and sprinkled all over the street crossing like colored, shimmering pearls of many little, precious dreams. They fell out off his arms like a brook of jewels, a brook of shiny little dreams.
But he was still running. He was thinking. He was not ‘thinking’...

...Many passengers...good omen for the day...a day of good income...will save five rupees for the children...Durga Puja is also round the corner...maybe fish curry tomorrow...

Somebody shouted out at the falling candies. He slowed, turned and looked down towards the near empty plastic bag on his relieved left arm, even as the bus of route number 215A ceremoniously picked up speed and roared past. His jaws hung low. The right arm, he had had raised to stop the bus, slowly crept down and fell limp by the other side. His eyes were slowly opening, dilated –

That was the very last picture of the candyman seen by the person, sitting in an auto-rickshaw, which the street beheld. But the street is not telling their story today.
It is a very happy day for the street. The street had so many colored marbles all for itself. It has got marbles to play with, today...

________________

To Take Daffodils away

To take Daffodils away

Literally speaking...
An exciting and mysterious quality is
What I want, will come...
Just like that.

Daffodils whisper...
Lies are never more beautiful
Never ever anything else...
Hop along Sunshine.

Blade’s caress...
Mornings strew and I picked hurried
Stringing a new world...
Last in procession.

Suddenly snow...
Recollect bouts of cold, always hides
Licking icicles to water...
Daffodils shall prance.

Practically simple...
As irrationality of the transparent globe’s
Irresistible belief to shed...
Crafty – unknowingly brook.

-----

Soul Pot

Soul Pot

The silent drop of mellow orange
Slides down the sides of my soul pot.
Slowly seeps into the darkening, –
Molten measure of my sensibilities.
I get as close as I can get to me,
Without fear, neither relief nor angst.

I can’t see myself on that bank –
Not as clearly as I want to. And yet,
I seem to know the figure out there
As if it was nothing – other than me.
I see stretched across about to tear
Apart, from my being and all of me.

A thin green line marks boundary
And I ignore rule to be on other side,
Midget scratches on the drop’s face
Acrylic peace dissolves in the flight –
Of tethered wings and et al...

Eyes transfixed and clouding –
A restless search in the lees of soul pot.

*******

Good Morning Sunshine

Good morning Sunshine

Hovering over a silvery platter,
Watching elements pass by –
Wishing hellos and greetings,
Or just a passing glance enough.
Good morning Sunshine.

Gulps of life and dollops of soul
Drained of laze a hapless bird
Far – far away from its nest,
Shrugs its wings off all purpose.
Happy biddings Sunshine.

Happy now or ethereal solitude.
Dust of last night’s storm –
Subsides under its dry skin,
In peace of atoned dissatisfaction.
A very good day, Sunshine.

Still not overcome by the snow
That fell so incessantly last night.
Never thought of a day with you,
Night was cold and blew me away.
Welcome back Sunshine.

A cup of coffee?
... With me, Sunshine?

_____________

Dark Horse

Dark Horse

Cooper
Super
Bowl.

Flower
Bower
Stole.

Cracker
Tracker
Goal.

Finish
Famish
Roll.

Lamer
Tamer
Hole.

Withered
Tethered
Soul.

*****

Shores of Paradise

Shores of Paradise

As I think, you hold my hands,
You look up to me
A smile dawns on your rose petal lips.
I look down on the golden sands
As they stretch far –
Ambling across, the Shores of Paradise.

You unfurl your radiant frock –
Over the dry waves
And settle on single petal of first daffodil,
In my precious private garden.
And then you speak
Pearls grace words as they tumble inside.

Your hair floats with the breeze
In your carelessness
A caress it deserved, only from your palms.
My last few wish tries to touch
And I hold back –
And let you stay, on my Shores of Paradise.

My eyes dilates for a split second
On a singular thought
For the Darkness approaches soon and I pray.
For a Moon for my starry eyed sky
I open my dry eyes –
I find you still there, staring at me quizzically.

I am left sorry again and grounded
For you are still there,
Basking in golden sunset as you kissed the air.
You prance away for a moment,
And turn and kneel –
Sprinkling waves of sand in unusual trajectories.

(Snap)

...The Moon shines,
Full Moon on my night sky
As I amble along my silver Shores of Paradise.

Tides ebb at a distance
The lost sea-gull takes a dip,
In the frozen confines of my fathomless, dark, blue sea.
It is painful...
It is close enough.
____________
*******

Tiring Eyes

Tiring Eyes

Then the sky falls asleep.
In the heart of darkness
Timid, glow bug’s fire –
Glow on dinghy’s sides.
Distant strains or a hoot!
Some engine huffs home.
Flowers of roadside bush
Gather, with stories new.
Dusty, virgin flowers –
What stories do they say?

Then the Atlantis sinks
In space of apocalypse
And the empire melts –
On a generous dream,
Of a sparkling goblet,
Brimming pearl red –
Life or honey? Beheld
To my lips, my breath,
In hands of moonlight.
If need be, let it flow –
Along with my religion.
And I shall lay in peace,
And sink into the breast
Where river of blue wine flow.

And like these dreams,
The nights have gone by.

Now all those flowers
Swing silent – lifeless,
Their tired, withered bows
Reach to snatch the moon.

*****

Guilty of an Embrace

Guilty of an Embrace

And then I lost it once again.
Loss never came so precious.
Feelings haven’t touched yet.
Lips they speak heart’s words
And so it doesn’t matter why.

Love came in silence of dewdrops
Never knew when it left weeping.
It came again – it never knocked,
And again it left blind, unknown.

Many years have past since then,
Many days have melted in spring.
What difference does it make now
Now, that I can feel all over again.

Thirst to feel is satiated now.
Deserts turn back from oasis.
Heart of sand breathes again.
The lonely door stands – still.

All around, walls that stood,
Came crashing down in dust.
Anguish lay in a ruined heap.
A single streak of brightness,
Tore apart – descending mist.

*******

Once in a Lifetime

Once in a Lifetime
(English translation of lyrics of a Bengali Folk song by Bhaba Pagla)
You’ll not be back here again.
You’ll not live a human all over again.
You’ll not be back here again.

Be so very careful my dear mind – keep your guard.
Your time ticks further away and beckons the dark.
Across your heart stretches the endless sky.
Bhaba says, “Open your eyes to look onwards.”

You’ll not be back here again.
You’ll not live a human all over again.
You’ll not be back here again.

Having been here, whatever you might have done,
Chitragupt – the accountant has put on record.
Equations will be drawn by the Great One.
Before Him, to whom, none can fake.

You’ll not be back here again.
You’ll not live a human all over again.
You’ll not be back here again...
*****

And...

...no matter what, whatever repetation - it never really stops.

It Will Rain

But in the end
It all adds up to nothing.
Take time to explain
I can't take it rushing.
Look into my eyes
You don't have to go hiding.
Down in the shadows
Where my heart's been grieving.

And it will rain, when you come back again.
And it will pain, when you suffer the same.
And the sky will cry, when you walk pass by.
And you know it before I die.
It's all the same.
It's raining again.
Into the sun – inside my brain.
And it will rain... it will rain.

There was no time
To know how we're changing.
And to bear the cost
Is way more than avenging.
See through me now
And you can't see the promise.
Try a little hard
You'll see me no more grieving.

And it will rain, when I'll walk away.
And it will pain, on your shiny day.
And will take a while, to find my way.
And I know I will make it someday.
It's all the same.
It'll rain again.
Deep inside your pain – it will rain again.
And it will rain... it will rain.

*****

Catapulted

Catapulted into an Unending Storm
Mirages are deceptive. So are distant blur of late night smog on the neon lit streets of Mumbai. Mirages are dreams. Dreams swim on the waves of constant undulating plains – of emotions, of sensibilities. Down into the dark blue depths one moment and cresting through the glistening froth afloat on the moonlit ocean in the next.

I let go of my heavy, laden body. I let go of my burdened shoulders. I let go of my loneliness, my fears, my pleasures, my symphonies, noises crowding around in mind. I see myself over and above, floating – a charmed existence amidst such plentiful, unbound world full of life.

My picture becomes clearer; the edges grow sharper as it dissolves in the dream. The dream of a dark blue ocean that envelops, embalms me under the shroud of a full moon night. I feel warm in the cold confines of the unfathomable ocean. I feel cared for, I feel safe.

Taare Zameen Par

Starry Eyes & Boundless Spirit

Congratulations! What a work of love - you left me spellbound. It felt like being inside a time machine - back into the first 10 years of my life that I spent in my native village before I joined school in the bustling city of Calcutta. And I felt having lost and left yearning.

Open fields, boundless marshlands by the rail tracks far ahead, etched in between by cool shades of lone standing trees, my kite and my unending run, Color pencils and my scrap book. And I felt privileged, I felt lucky.

I have doubts if my next generation would have such a childhood that they would like to carry inside them for their lifetime. Will I ever advise such? I doubt myself - myself in this big, bustling city of business - Mumbai. For I have learnt - just like when I learnt what fire is, that the 'city' can take away as much as you can take from it.

Sorry, but this as much about the movie as about myself for, still, I have qualms about believing that any business is devoid of emotions.

Semiotics - I have known the term and tried understanding it but then I quit. I remember it was the 4th session during my post-grad. We were discussing 'signs and symbols of Hunger'. There were many skulls, bones, etc. My turn came and I could only come up with the fields, the ponds, marshlands and trees - the sight I thirst for. I found I could not singularly symbolize it, like being bound within the limitations of a language - just like any other education - mathematics, physics, geography, etc.

I retreated into my hostel room and sat down - quite. I liked looking at the flowers outside my window every morning. I found no reason in trying to put it apart into parts of petals, sepals, node, etc. I found no reason in Semiotics anymore. I stopped in analyzing parts and pieces. I grew to admire the whole, big picture.

I cannot analyze your movie Mr. Aamir Khan - apologies. The only thing I can say is that every time I will think about it, I am sure it will bring a faint curve of contentment and recollection on my lips. Beautiful! Beautiful! Above all - Inspiring!

Congratulations and thanks all over again.