Zendagi Migzara

It's a Sunday evening and invariably all Sunday evenings leave me a little sad. They don;t have the promise of a Friday evening, when you are looking forward to two days of uninterrupted laziness and bliss. Or the relief of a Saturday evening, where even though you've spent half of your weekend, you still have the other half to look forward to. Sunday evenings, unless they are showing a Shah movie, are just plain boring. I got a lot done this Sunday though. Slept, cooked, read (a lot), and now with this post, would have written as well. Thanks to no eggs in the fridge, I haven't been able to bake. And maybe that's why there is this incomplete feeling to this Sunday. Or maybe because life took me back a few months for a few hours yesterday,  I feel like I am living this dream, or nightmare, that might get over anytime soon, propelling me without prior warning to the predictable routine that life has now become. Yesterday I went out with a friend for Christmas shoppi...

This is a post about my mother, a continuation of the 'people I love, and people who love me' series. As a child, I always thought I would be very different from my mother. She always seemed too strict, too particular about cleanliness, too bothered about the way things were kept or done. I always used to think "What's the big deal if the bed sheet hangs a little lower to the left". Haha. But I have grown up to be the woman who is an exact replica of hers. Not as amazing of course, but very close to being a clone when it comes to habits and peculiarity. I am extremely extremely sensitive to the angle in which the cushion is propped on my bed and the very very finicky about how well the curtains are closed. So much so, that I wake up in the middle of night, because I know I haven't closed the curtains properly, and it bugs me to the point where I can't sleep. Yes, I'm kind of mad like that. My mother, is the rock in my life. She drives me mad somet...

अभी मुझ मैं कहीं बाकी थोड़ी सी हैं ज़िन्दगी जगी, धड़कन नयी जाना ज़िंदा हूँ मैं तोह अभी कुछ ऐसी लगन इस लम्हे में हैं यह लम्हा कहाँ था मेरा अब हैं सामने इससे छू लू ज़रा मर जाऊं या जी लूं ज़रा खुशियां चूम लूं या रो लू ज़रा मर जाऊं या जी लू ज़रा ~~ Amitabh bhattacharya ~ Agneepath There is something about certain words. Either they sound beautiful or they mean things that one has to feel and can not be explained in words. Darmiyaan is one such word for me, it has to be my favorite Urdu word, there are loads that sound even more beautiful, but darmiyaan is my word. Literally it just means "in between", but if you feel the word, it means so much more. Fitoor, is another such word. Literally it means disorder. But actually the word means, a madness, a craziness, someone's crazy stubborn desire. Not just in love, it can be anything, anything you're passionate about. A goal you are steadfastly working towards in life, can be your fitoor. It was a Friday night, S...

"When I first met you, I felt a kind of contradiction in you. You're seeking something, but at the same time, you are running away for all you're worth. - Haruki Murakami. I was talking to a friend of mine last night and we spoke about how we leave a part of us in the people we love. And how a part of them embeds itself deep inside us as well. And even when we part, we still retain in ourselves parts of those who we loved. Love after all is such a thing. You never stop loving. Ever. The story I'm about to tell is of two people who loved each other like this. They were mad, in love. They were mad, when they fought. They were just mad. He loved her like he'd never loved anyone before. He loved her with everything he had. She was strange, terrifying and beautiful, all at the same time. She loved him too. He bought with himself stability, peace, calm and more importantly love, in her life. Things she needed badly at that time in her life. He was the anchor, that...

I think the line that I've repeated the most in this blog is : I love Bollywood . Period. I mean, it is just such an integral part of my life, that I cannot imagine life without it. In fact some of the craziest moments I've had, with some of my closest friends, has something or the other to do with Bollywood. They are all hindi-film related moments. Usually something that would make us laugh till our stomachs hurt. Old dialogues that we could repeat with the exact feeling and emotion and tone. Songs that we would sing loudly, drunk or not drunk, just generally happy with life. I remember, some mental nights, we would sing horrendous songs from the 90s, songs you'd be ashamed were ever made. But it was weird how we all remembered the pathetic lyrics like "jab tak rahega samose mein aalo, tera rahunga o meri Shalu " like seriously! I can not imagine having as much fun with someone who doesn't get hindi or hindi movie songs or hindi movie dialogues. Even today...

कहते हैं खुदा  ने इस जहां में सभी के लिए किसी ना  किसी को हैं बनाया हर किसी के लिए तेरा मिलना हैं उस  रब का इशारा मानो मुझको बनाया तेरे जैसे ही किसी के लिए कुछ तोह  हैं तुझसे राब्ता कुछ तोह  हैं तुझसे राब्ता कैसे हम जाने हमे  क्या पता कैसे हम जाने हमे  क्या पता कुछ तोह हैं तुझसे राब्ता तू हमसफ़र  हैं फिर क्या फ़िक्र हैं जीने कि वजह येही हैं मरना इसी के लिए ~~ Amitabh Bhattacharya ~Agent Vinod Navin and Jannat weren't anything like each other. She was shy, coy and took her time to make friends. Staying at home with a cup of coffee and a good book to read or a good movie to watch was her idea of having a good time on the weekend. Her friends, were few but those 3 people knew everything about her life. She could call them at 4 am in the morning and not say anything and they would know that she just needed them to be on the other side. She was most comfortable in Indian clothes and that was what ...

मेरे मन यह बतादे तू किस और चला हैं तू क्या पाया नहीं तूने क्या ढून्ढ रहा हैं तू जो हैं अनकही  जो हैं अनसुनी वोह बात क्या हैं बता मितवा , कहे धड़कने तुझसे क्या मितवा , यह खुद से तो ना  तू छुपा जीवन डगर में ,प्रेम नगर में आया नज़र में , जबसे कोई हैं तू सोचता हैं , तू पूछता हैं जिसकी कमी थी , क्या यह वोही हैं हाँ यह वोही हैं , हाँ यह वोही हैं तू एक पप्यासा  , और यह नदी हैं काहे  नहीं , इसको तू खुलके  बताये ..... ~~ Javed Akhtar ~  Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna Not all of us have the courage to risk the security and comfort of our everyday lives to go after what we truly want. Very rarely do we chase our deepest desires. Caught in this swamp of bills, that arrive promptly on your doorstep every month and never cease to do so for the rest for our lives, of expectations, that we need to fulfill, norms of the society, that we need to adhere to, and of promises, we need to keep. We all grow up with the idea of wanting to live a life d...