enroute

Tipu Sultan had sent 3 warrior ships to General Washington to fight against the British. (reference: Bharat Ek Khoj - Episode 40)

Paranormal - Toastmasters Project 5 speech

(Goals for P 5 speech were to make appropriate and sufficient gestures to convey the right meaning and emotions - I included a bit of drama)

Did you just see that? There was a lady that came straight out of that wall and went straight through the window. She was dressed in a white bridal dress. She was very beautiful but looked very sad. You did not see her? You are not telling me that I was just hallucinating, are you? Was that a ghost or a spirit or a full bodied apparition? Did someone die here who was beautiful and lonely? Did I just have a paranormal experience? Questions and more troubling questions. Brain refuses to accept what senses have grasped. But I stand by what I believe I saw.

            Toastmaster of the day, fellow toastmasters and guests – welcome to the world of paranormal. What is paranormal? The word paranormal is derived from 2 root words – para – meaning above or against and normal. Hence paranormal – that which is above or against normal. Paranormal, the term, is used to describe experiences that lie outside the range of normal experience or scientific explanation. For example, you are haggling with your boss to get a 5% raise in salary and the boss insists that you must get a 7% raise. That is paranormal – beyond scientific explanation. Now true paranormal believers definitely would raise some interesting questions – was your boss possessed? Did his eyes turn red or black or purple when he agreed? Did you smell any sulphur? My grandmother would have asked you to check his feet – were they pointing straight?

            Paranormal world has a variety of characters, activities, events – a wide gamut of human behavior and experiences. To the uninitiated, paranormal world starts with ghosts. You all know what are ghosts? Have you seen one? You have heard of ghost stories right from your childhood, haven’t you? Any given bunch of kids definitely has that one single person who is the know-all of this amazing world. “There is a ghost on the top floor of our building.” He would say so and swear by its truth. “Have you seen it?” you ask him. 9 out of 10 times the answer is no. The actual seeing part is done by the elders. The most plausible reason behind this rumor is that the elders did not want him to go to the top floor for some other reason. But what are these ghosts? In traditional belief ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person. It is also called as phantom or apparition. In most ghost stories a person dies, most often unhappily, and comes back to haunt the people who wronged him during his life. This is revenge in after-life. And then not all ghosts are bad – there are some like in Bollywood movie Bhootnath or Hollywood movie Ghost who help the protagonists. Most of these movies also tell you that once you become a ghost you still have to learn things, for example, its not as easy to just start throwing things, there is a technique. (Gesture with arms to lift something from a distance and throw it).  Sometimes these ghosts might just show up and scare you. However, there are advanced levels here. There are also other special entities (higher qualified designations) of demons, vampires, were-wolves and what not. There is poltergeist – where a ghost doesn’t show up at all, however, it manifests itself through violent actions. Imagine you are sitting in your kitchen and suddenly all your cabinets just spring wide open.

            Paranormal world’s next favorite phenomenon is the Extra-terrestrial life and UFOs. “It’s a bird, It’s a plane….Its Superman”… Or is it? Could that be an intelligent form of life from outer space doing a reconnaissance of our amazing planet? Unlike ghosts UFO’s and ET’s are a newer phenomenon from the 1950’s when, around the world people started seeing things flying through the sky and did not know what they were. Interestingly this was also the time of the advent of airplanes and spaceships. There were sightings of objects flying so fast and which were so technologically superior that people said that they could just not be human made. Then there were incidents where such UFOs crashed and witnesses saw alien bodies which within hours vanished – hidden away by the governments, they said. Aliens are believed to make elaborate plans to come to earth to take away our natural resources, while at other times they are just interested in drawing crop circles. Not to be taken lightly though. Paranormal enthusiasts believe that many an enigmatic structures like Stonehenge, ancient cave paintings, Egyptian carvings, the pyramids and much more are alien creations.

            Paranormal believers would think that I was possessed by a highly devious demon, if I were to not mention the cryptids. A cryptid is an animal whose existence is not confirmed by science. There are so many of them and each has its own glorious story and has enthralled many a believer. There is big-foot – a giant ape like creature which inhibits some forests here in North America. There is yeti – which is similar to big foot and is found in the Himalayan regions. There is Loch-ness monster – which is so cryptic – that no one knows yet what it is – a giant snake, a fish, an anaconda or something else.

India is no stranger to paranormal phenomenon. One excellent morning, people went running to temples because idols started drinking milk. We had a three-headed villain terrifying the sleep out of our young ones. And then there are paranormal beliefs of our politicians that they will convert Mumbai into Shanghai – no scientific explanation. But all said and done the world stands divided into two factions of believers and non-believers. And again the question arises– to believe or not to believe?

Scientifically ghosts are optical illusions. Some theories also point towards heavy magnetic fields stimulating a person’s brain to make him see things. There can be other environmental factors – which may be as trivial as a mirror far away casting crazy reflections elsewhere. Extra terrestrial life has scientifically not beenproved to exist – but scientists have enough proof to believe that life in some form may exist outside of our planet. The first aliens to contact us may turn out to be smarter than us but it may also be true that we might have just forgotten how we erected the Stonehenge. Bigfoot, Yeti and Loch-ness monster may exist – but how can we discredit the notion that it was just a tall man wearing a weird suite scaring kids away from his farm. UFOs are unidentified flying objects because we have not understood them yet. May be they are just advanced devices created by our own scientists.

Technology and knowledge seem to be the main pranksters dividing the world here. In a remote village in India, using my phone to unlock my car will be considered perfectly super-natural. However, I still think there is someone standing in that corner. He is looking straight into my eyes. His finger nails are growing bigger as I speak, so I would request the TMOD to come and take over the podium.

You will come, right?

ती चांदणी
येता नभी
त्या भव्य कमानी खाली
भेटेन मी

येशील ना
तू साजणी 
त्या भव्य कमानी खाली
भेटेन मी

लाटांवरती
घेऊन होडी
जाऊ सखये
त्या दूर किनार्यावरती
सायंकाळी
वाळूत रुपेरी
शपथ घेऊ ग
कधी कधी ना अंतर्ण्याची

सुरुबनात अलगद लपुनी
पांघरू धुक्याच्या शाली

ती चांदणी
येता नभी
त्या भव्य कमानी खाली
भेटेन मी

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxL1OqfMaSE



As that star
comes in the sky
I will meet
under that huge arch

You will come,
truly, Oh dear?
I will meet
under that huge arch

Upon the waves
taking the boat
We will go dear
On that far bank.
In the evening
In the silver sands
We will vow dear
Never ever to part.

In the oak forest
Quietly we will hide
covered in
blankets of dew


 

ToastMaster P2 - Thou Shall not be angry!!

(I have recently joined ToastMasters. The basic aim here is public speaking. There are different speech projects which one has to deliver, with each project focusing on certain public speaking fundamentals. This is my Project Speech 2 - the emphasis was on organizing the speech into different sections, transitioning smoothly across sections and to capture attention through proper introduction and conclusion. This is what I wrote, I may have skipped a few points during the actual delivery .... all the nervousness)

"Mr. Dawar, even today I do not accept money thrown at me". This is Amitabh Bachchan's famous dialogue from the 1975 movie 'Deewar'. It is one of many such dialogues which ushered in his image of the 'Angry young man'. His fans have worshipped that image and it has silently made its way into their hearts and brains not escaping immitations. While we understand that the dialogue itself depicts a lot of anger of a suppressed, wronged young man, there is neither much in his facial expressions nor is his voice loud. He seems rather calm. Mr. Bachchan's dear friend, Mr. Dharmendra though, does not hold back in that area. In the movie 'Sholay' of the same year, he yells out "Dog, I will drink your blood". Anger in his voice, his expressions and his whole body frame. The words he used, amuse me. "Why blood?, why dog's blood?". With his hands tied up and his dreamgirl being harrassed, isn't he better off wishing to drink some milk or eat some spinach like Popeye and break open his chains? The words he used, illogical that they may seem, do a lot to communicate his feelings to the audience and I am sure to his nemesis. Angry people, today, are an essential part of a Bollywood movie, but its not uncalled for as you look around and you see people angry everywhere, everytime and angry with everyone. People are angry with the politicians, the bureaucrats, the police, the bus conductor, the rickshawallahs, their neighbours, their parents, their spouses, their bosses, their colleagues and more. People are angry at home, at their workplace, during their travels and people are angry 24 by 7. India is angry with Pakistan, Apple is angry with Samsung, Anna is angry with the government and people are angry with Anna.

Toastmaster of the day, fellow toastmasters and guests 'anger' is a human emotion much like 'happiness', 'sadness' or 'love'. It is an emotion that one reflects due to a feeling of being overpowered, offended, wronged or denied. In some cases, however, it is just a tendency to react through retaliation. Psychologists recognize three types of anger and these help us understand anger. The first form is 'hasty and sudden anger' which is connected to the impulse for self preservation,  something which we share with non-human animals. The second form is 'settled and deliberate' . It is a reaction to preceived deliberate harm or unfair treatment by others. These first 2 forms are cognitive and include some level of thought processing by the person and then the anger follows. The distinction between the 2 is the reaction time. The third form called 'dispositional' is, however, related to character traits. 

Irrespective of the form of anger, it is an emotion that evokes response. Sometimes when a person gets angry others may try to irritate him further. Sometimes a loved one would reciprocate that anger with empathy. An angry person often, however, is feared by others. This fear is due to the potential that the anger carries. Anger can mobilize psychological resources and boost determination towards figthing injustice, correcting the wrongs. History shows us that our national heroes channeled their anger to do brave, daring acts. The enlightened souls were able to spread the message of love and peace because of their anger and because they knew how to use its potential. On the other hand, anger tends to be destructive. The Hindu scripture Bhagvad Gita rightly captures this destructive nature of anger. It says "Anger leads to delusion which leads to bewilderment of memory which leads to loss of intelligence which would lead  to fall". The occurences of shooting sprees across the world are on a increase today. These are instances of uncontrolled anger. Angry person, often loses his empathy, prudence and thoughtfulness and causes harm to others. I would like to believe that Hitler did what he did, because he was angry about something. What he did may never be justified, but to imagine that his acts were not out of any anger would leave this world without reason and logic. I similalrly like to believe that the perpetrators of 09/11 and 26/11 were angry about something. 

Last year a simplistic song, with not much to show in terms of lyrics and not much in terms of music barring the 'hummability', took the nation by a storm. The words were as simple as they could be 'Why this anger?' Whereas anger being an emotion may not be easy to avoid, I think its essential that one learns and strives to control and channelise it. Today, if Moses, who gave his people the ten commandments from his Lord, were to revisit Mount Sinai, he would have asked his Lord for a eleventh commandment and that could only be "Thou shall not be angry". Which tablet the God would then prefer to write his commandment on is a different thing altogether.

My infinite playlist

The new ones
Youtube playlist:

1. Kehne ko jashne bahaara hai
• Jodha Akbar - Hritik Roshan(a), Javed Akhtar(l), A. R. Rehman(m), Javed Ali (s)
2. Nahi Saamne
• Taal - Akshay Khanna(a), A. R. Rehman(m), Hariharan (s), Anand Bakshi(l)
3. Maula mere Maula
• Anwar - Nauheed (a), Roop Kumar Rathod (s), Mithoon(m)
4. Tere bina
• Guru - Abhi-Ahs(a), A. R. Rehman(m,s), Gulzar(l)
5. Bol na halke
• Jhoom Barabar Jhoom - Abhishek, Preity (a), Mahalakshmi, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan (s), Gulzar(l), Shankar Ehsaan Loy (m)
6. Aaj din chadhiya
• Love Aaj Kal - Saif, Deepika (a), Rahat Fateh Ali Khan(s), Irshad Kamil(l), Pritam(m)
7. Kabhi Kabhi Aditi
• Jaane tu ya Jaane na - Imran, Genelia (a), Abbas Tyrewal(l), A. R. Rehman(m), Rashid Ali(s)
8. Salaam e Ishq
• Salaam e ishq - Salman (a),  Shankar Ehsaan Loy (m), Sonu, Shreya, Shankar, Kunal, Sadhana, Jasbinder N(s), Sameer (l)
9. Tere Mast Mast Do nain
• Dabang - Salman(a), Rahat Fateh Ali Khan (s), Sajid Wajid(m), Faiz Anwar(l)

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA77B131C90507E97

सौमित्र - बघ माझी आठवण येते का

**********************************************
मुसळधार  पाउस  खिडकीत  उभी  राहून  पहा
बघ  माझी आठवण  येते का


हात  लांबव,  तळ हातावर  झेल  पावसाचं पाणी
इवलसं तळ पिऊन  टाक  बघ...  बघ  माझी आठवण  येते का


वाऱ्यानं  उडणारे  पावसाचे  थेंब चेहऱ्यावर  घे
डोळे  मिटून  घे,  तल्लीन  हो 

नाहीच  जाणवलं  काही,  तर  बाहेर  पड
समुद्रावर  ये
तो  उधाणलेला  असेलच
पाण्यात  पाय  बुडवून  उभी  राहा
वाळू  सरकेल  पाया  खालून
बघ  माझी आठवण  येते का


मग  चालू  लाग
पावसाच्या  अगणित  सुया  टोचून  घे

चालत  रहा  पाउस  थांबे  पर्यंत

तो  थांबणार  नाहीच
शेवटी  घरी  ये
साडी  बदलू  नकोस
केस  पुसू  नकोस
पुन्हा  त्याच  खिडकीत  ये
आता  नवऱ्याची  वाट  बघ
बघ  माझी आठवण  येते का

दारावर  बेल  वाजेल
दार  उघड
नवरा  असेल

त्याच्या  हातातील  बाग घे

तो  रेन कोट   स्वत:च   काढेल
तो  तुला विचारील तुझ्या  भिजण्याच   कारण
तू  म्हण  " घर  गळतय"
मग  चहा  कर
तुही  घे
तो  उठून  पंकज  उदास लावील
तू  तो  बंद  कर
किशोरीचा  " सहेलारे " लाव
बघ  माझी आठवण  येते का


मग  रात्र  होईल
तो  तुला  कुशीत  घेईल
तो  म्हणेल  " तू  मला  आवडतेस "
पण  तू  हि  तसच  म्हण
विजांचा  कडकडाट  होईल
ढगांचा  गडगडाट  होईल
तो  त्या  कुशीवर  वळेल
त्याच्या  पाठमोऱ्या  शरीरा  कडे  बघ
बघ  माझी आठवण  येते का


त्या  नंतर  सताड  डोळ्यांनी  छप्पर  बघायला  विसरू  नकोस
या  नंतर  बाहेरचा  पाउस  नुसता  ऐकण्याचा  प्रयत्न  कर
या  नंतर  उशी  खाली  सुरी  घे,  झोपी  जाण्याचा  प्रयत्न  कर

येत्या  पावसाळ्यात  एक  दिवस  तरी  बघ.. बघ  माझी  आठवण  येते  का .
**********************************************

खड्डे मार्ग

खड्ड्यात पाय पडतो
तेव्हा तोल ज़रा ढलतो
ह्रदय थोड़े खचते
आणि डोक ज़रा चढत

खड्ड्यानचिये वाटे
भानगदिचे साथे
वाकडा होउनिया कितीदा
पाय मोड़े

पुन्हा पुन्हा निराशा
ही खाद्द्यान्चिये भाषा
खड्डे म्हणजे वाक्यात्ल्या
रिक्त जागा

खड्डे ओलाखावे
जागा भराव्या