ABHI NA JAO CHHODKAR...

Recently this song Abhi Na Jao Chhodkar Ke Dil Abhi Bhara Nahin has been spoken of by Shankar Mahadevan and even by Farhan Akhtar as their 'all time favorite'. In the build up to their new film Rock On.

Undoubtedly, Hum Dono had some of the most amazing songs of all time.
I can listen to them again and again for hours.
A tribute to Sahir Ludhianvi as to Jaidev.
Kabhi Khud Pe, Kabhi Haalat Pe Rona Aaya...
Allah Tero Naam, Ishwar Tero Naam... each a jewel.
And especially the song Abhi Na Jao in Hum Dono could be part of the story of so many young couples falling in love - it is that toe-curlingly wonderful in its everyday point of view.

The only thing is this.
There was another HUGELY talented music director and Thumri singer. By the name of Balakrishna Das. A student of Bade Ghulam Ali Khan saheb. Who had also assisted the legendary composer R.C. Boral for a while in the '40s/ '50s.
... and there is this absolutely adorable Oriya song Nayana Sunayana Re that is his composition. His HMV record of this song, sung in his own voice was out in the late 50s. Long, really long before Abhi Na Jao happened in 1961, this love song was on many Oriya lips. And the tune?
You guessed it....

Does that reduce Jaidev's talent? I don't think so. His national awards - luckily received for other movies, not Hum Dono are (hopefully ! :-) ) well-deserved.

Perhaps all it does is this : it enhances the stature of Balakrishna Das... Here was a music director who had been approached by Bimal Roy to compose for his movies, but this non-materialistic gentleman did not find Bombay his 'cup of tea'.
Even when Abhi Na Jao reached stratospheric heights, and he was asked to take Jaidev to task, Balakrishna Das shrugged it off. 'It's OK. Let him be' he said. (Btw, two of Balakrishna Das's other tunes would be familiar to Bollywood aficionados ... am waiting to get the irrevocable details from Orissa - shall upload as soon as I get it)

These then, are the people who make India what it is.
Tolerant, all-encompassing, loving.
Sometimes walked and trampled over.

Abhi na jao chhod kar ke dil abhi bhara nahin
Abhi abhi to ai ho abhi abhi to
Abhi abhi to ai ho bahar banke chhai ho
Hawa zara mahak to le nazar zara bahak to le
Ye sham dhal to le zara
Ye sham dhal to le zara ye dil sambhal to le zara
Main thodi der jee to lun nashe ke ghunt pee to lun
nashe ke ghunt pee to lun
Abhi to kuchh kaha nahin abhi to kuchh suna nahin
Abhi na jao chhod kar ke dil abhi bhara nahin

Sitare jhilmila uthe
sitare jhilmila uthe charag jagamaga uthe
Bas ab na mujhko tokana
Bas ab na mujhko tokana na badhake rah rokana
Agar main ruk gayi abhi to ja na paungi kabhi
Yahi kahoge tum sada ke dil abhi nahin bhara
Jo khatm ho kisi jagah ye aisa silasila nahin
Abhi nahin abhi nahin nahin nahin nahin nahin
Abhi na jao chhod kar ke dil abhi bhara nahin

Adhuri aas
Adhuri aas chhodke adhuri pyaas chhodake
Jo roz yunhi jaogi to kis tarah nibhaogi
Ke zindagi ki raah men jawaan dilon ki chah men
Kayii muqam aenge jo ham ko azamaenge
Bura na mano baat ka ye pyaar hai gila nahin
Haan yahi kahoge tum sada ke dil abhi bhara nahin
Haan dil bhara nahin nahin nahin nahin nahin

So We Understand Each Other...

Just completed The Motorcycle Diaries. First the book and then, the DVD movie.

Although I had purchased my copy of this all-students-must-own book two years ago, got around to reading it now. Post vipassana. Post - well, so many other things as well...

Am awed anew. At Che Guevara the iconoclast.

This twentieth century icon begins his memoirs on his youth thus :

This is not a story of incredible heroism, or merely the narrative of a cynic. It is the glimpse of two lives that ran parallel for a time, with similar hopes and convergent dreams.

And with these words on the first page of your diary, Che, I have felt a deep bond of kinship, that has strengthened as I have gone through all the pages. The quiet strength, the underlying sense of humour, the eye-opening moments, the loneliness of adventure even when shared with marvellous friend Alberto.

And I have felt so proud of you!

... to know that I share my date of birth with you.

... To recognize how the trials & tribulations of human lives always touched you in life, especially on this most seminal of trips when you were 23-24 , a very 'Coming of Age' age.

... To be totally moved at your vision of a single race not divided into unstable and illusory nations and narrow-minded provincialism. You mention America and mean 'Mexico to the Magellan Straits.'
I think of the entire planet. And when you describe certain lives, it is like seeing my fieldwork in Solapur come alive... Some give the impression they go on living only because it is a habit they cannot shake. I am reminded of the beedi workers met in my fieldwork again, when you say: On top of the very low wages paid in the south, unemployment is high and the authorities afford workers very little protection.
How things have stayed unchanged, Che, 40 years since you were murdered, even as the world has moved on, in man's indefatigable thirst to take control and exercise total authority.

In my need to establish more spiritual and emotional points of contact, I find I can link a few more. Some might say tenuous, but in this journal of your self-discovery, mere mortals like me shall seek other parallels with legendary souls who went on to find themselves :

... To find out you were born in Rosario, a town that I have visited up the Mar del Plata on a most incredibly memorable ship voyage (the only time I have been on a ship that actually went up a river - she traveled across the Atlantic from Antwerp, and then slowly and majestically moved up this river with breathtaking banks visible both port and starboard, all the way to Rosario) , a city I recall in vivid detail. Both its comic aspects ( my first evening ever at a sailor's 'pub' and all because I, an officer's wife, had asked good friend Piggy, the Captain of the M. V. Mannan (Piyush Srivastava actually) about where all the sailors disappeared to as soon as we berthed at any port - and he insisted I go along to 'see' for myself, much to the shock and horror of the officers but more so, those 'girls' in the pub :-)) .
Also the underbelly of the city, with the sight of its middle class begging and selling off everything owned - Argentina those days of the mid '90s was in severe recession.

To know you visited Necochea for a day on your motorcycle - a town I visited for exactly a day too, and one I recall as fascinating - pride of place in the town square held by the statue of - a dog. And where in its port, I had my first close and hilarious 'brush' with a moustached walrus. To know you played soccer and went to medical school in Buenos Aires, that city where time stands still. Where I felt I was transported into another era and catapulted as if into the insides of a beautiful movie.

You write : 'The person who wrote these notes passed away the moment his feet touched (back in Argentinian soil). The person who reorganizes and polishes them, me, is no longer, at least I'm not the person I once was. All this wandering around - has changed me more than I thought.'

The movie rephrases these original words and ends thus:

I am not me anymore. At least I'm not the same me I was.
Was our view too narrow, too biased, too hasty?
Were our conclusions too rigid?
Maybe.

Change and Che.
Isn't that true - even if not in a world-changing way - of all our diaries and journals? Of all of us? The global and universal theme of a search for one's identity.

And Che leaves us at the end of his introduction chapter 'So We Understand Each Other' thus :

It will be hard for you to find an alternative to the truth I am about to tell. But I will leave you now, with myself, the person I used to be.

Che, salut !! To the young you and to the you you became. A legend and inspiration to all those who denounce suffering. Hatred. Inequality.

From both me that was.
And the me I have become.

NO RESIDUES

Swami Chidananda says:

For most people, activities of life not only cause physical tiredness but also mental exhaustion. When we are wise, the latter reduces if not disappear.

A hundred people pass in front of a mirror and images of all of them are formed on its surface. However, they go their way and the mirror remains unaffected. Even the heaviest of those visitors does not leave behind a ‘residue’ through his or her image that was formed upon the mirror.

Can our mind also likewise be totally silent after a hectic day filled with interactions? Can it be silent in the sense of absence of regret, guilt, pride or other residues? Can it be quiet but vibrant, cheerful and available?

Shri Krishna calls this akarma in karma (Geeta 4.18). Non-action in action is when the action does not leave behind any noise in our mind. Ordinarily we go on remembering especially the moments of friction, compromise or contradiction. I should not have said that, or I should not have done that, etc keep coming up in our thoughts. Upon a close examination of the matter, we realize that all this is the result of self-importance. The ego in us is much upset if something goes wrong at our hands. I should be perfect and all should admire me, etc are the underlying assertions.

We cannot be quiet by deciding to be so. At the most it will amount to suppression, and the emotions suppressed will explode at a later time. Many people in the world take shelter under some ideal and, in its inspiration, are successful in making the selfish worries and agitations subside. Religious or secular models give us often a lift and we are able to put aside our sorrows of loss or defeat. The limitation here is that the ideals also tend to change and, as we evolve, we cannot receive the same inspiration from them as we did before. Further, many realities of life collide with the ideals we adore and we are torn between the ideal and the actual. Some of us even meet with a total disillusionment with regard to what we held before as the supreme truth or the most right way of living.

The healthiest way to arrive at inner peace is by giving up egoistic ways right away. We need not cling to some conceptual support (like an ideal) to do this. We need to directly see how our thoughts have given undue importance to I, me and my. What I said, how somebody ignored me and how my position was undermined – these are the crux of the matter. Let us not justify it all saying it is most natural. If we do so, then endless suffering also would be natural. Egoistic ways are not so much natural as they are wide-spread and common.

Our mind is in a true learning mode when we keep the ego under control. The ego is itself a bundle of residues and it further causes residues to be formed. Right in the present moment, we must perceive situations with full attention. As we do so, we gain understanding and move on. There is no burden of hurt or pride. Then, as Shri Krishna put it, though there was action (which normally strains us), it is as though there was no action (for the mind is free of all strain).

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

www.fowai.org

As I go for Vipassana at Igatpuri, these are the vibrant thoughts, that steer me! Really looking forward to the next 10 days...