Dialoguebaazi...Drama & Bollywood...!!

Another year end is nearing & my blog seems to be all deserted of words. These days either words elude me or I elude them to make perfect sense, you know we complement each other perfectly! :P

True love! We love each other equally without any biases. So this time around I don’t intend to use my gray matter to create something (let it rest, for half of it gets unwillingly wasted on nincompoops). Anyway before I get killed for this digression, let me get back to the topic.  Since I love words (Kya kare, likhne wale ko alfaaz hi samjhte hai aur alfazo ke jazbaat, sounds cliché, maybe), I want to share few good dialogues from the movie ‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’ (Half of you are already irked with its name by now) especially coming from the character of Saba, the Urdu Shayara. The élan with which Aishwarya has portrayed the role of Saba is just gorgeous! I loved all her Urdu dialogues in the movie. The confidence & maturity she exudes is amazing in the movie including the ease with which she has mouthed the Urdu couplets. 

Enough of the description till now...Basss! But there’s a caution, only people who like Mirza Ghalib and the likes can bear with this post, rest can rest in peace: P I mean should not bother themselves or curse me after reading this post.  

So here’s presenting you with the walking talking amazing Ghalib like urdu couplets (some include Shahrukh’s dialogues in the movie as well, mix & match)

Guftagu bezaar logon ki aadat hain, jo aankhein keh deti hain, unke aage lafzon ka darja kya?

Arre wah! Bade Wafadar hain aapke aansu…aapki izazat ke bagair, bahar bhi nahi nikalte. Behne dijiye inhe, inka wahan kya kaam.

The main title poem in the movie (The book called Shab-e-Firaaq)

Jab pyaar mein pyaar na ho,

Jab dard mein yaar na ho,

Jab aansun mein muskaan na ho,

Jab lafzon mein zubaan na ho,

Jab saansein bas yuhi chalein,

Jab har din mein raat dhalen,

Jab intezaar sirf waqt ka ho,

Jab yaad uss kambakht ki ho,

Kyun hu main raahi,

Jab who hain kisi aur ki manzil?

Dhadkano ne saath chod diya,

Ae Dil hain Mushkil…

Ae Dil Hain Mushkil...

Dard, dard ko dhoondh hi leta hain. (Back to the dialogues)

Main kisi ki zarurat nahi, khwaaish banna chahti hoon.

 Har Shayara ko shaadi kar leni chahiye, Shauhar accha mile toh zindagi acchi kat jaati hai,

 Na mile toh, shayari acchi ho hi jaati hain.

 Darre hue log aksar alfazon ke peeche chupte hain.

 Hamari kahani badal gayi, par khauf nahi badla.

 Rishton ki geeli zameen par log aksar fisal jaate hain.

 Aasan hai kya, aisi mohabbat karna, jiske badle mohabbat na mile…it’s the most beautiful 

 feeling in the world. Ek tarfa pyaar ki taakat hi kuch aur hoti hain, aur rishton ki tarah, do logon mein nahi bantati, sirf mera haq hain ispe, sirf mera.

Mujhe Saba se beintehan mohabbat karne ke liye, Saba ki hi zarurat nahi…ho sakta hain, isse koi behtar ishq?

Agar baazi ishq ki baazi hai, toh fir jo chahe laga lo, darr kaisa? Agar jeet gaye toh kya kehna…agar hare bhi, toh baazi maat nahi. (I love Shahrukh when he so beautifully renders this dialogue)

 Khoobsurti toh dhal jaati hain Alizeh, Personality toh marne ke baad bhi zinda reh jaati hain.

 Kambakht! Khayalon ne hi toh zinda rakha hain, varna sawalon ne kabka maar diya hota.

 Mujhse pehli si mohabbat, mere mehboob naa maang.

 Mohabbat karna hamare bas mein nahi, par uss mohabbat se door chalein jaana, woh hamare  bas mein hain.

Sacchi mohabbat shayad wahi hain, jisme junoon hain,

Par do dilon ki yaari mein bhi toh kitna sukoon hain,

Deke mujhe teri judaai, mana rab ne mujhe paigam diya…Channa Mereya…!

Pyaar cancer ki tarah hota hain, bin bulaaye aa jaata hain aur maar ke chala jaata hain.

If you’re already in the mood to kill someone by reading this, I suggest better go to sleep or listen to some peppy number to control your anger. This might give mental strain to already irked people in comprehending or it may scare you out of your wits, so spare me!

P.S – Read at your own risk. Any derogatory remark against the author will anyway not help you improve your mental state…!

                                                                                    

Random Quotes...!

Two damn years almost & the blog not being updated, quite a big deal..! Well I’ve so many reasons for not writing but I think the important one is not being able to tickle my grey cells :P   I’ve been writing in bits & pieces & have been saving all the crap in my drafts of Gmail (a good friend since ages!) Not at all meant to be taken seriously, I mean that was just in jest! Whenever I feel like scribbling I just write it down & save it in my drafts & then read again, trying to check if at all that makes sense (don’t laugh, it does make sense!) So here I choose not to write on any particular topic of interest, rather I’ve written some small quotes (some are too big to be called quotes, please put up with it!). I’ve been doing it since years & today I just feel like giving them all a single space out here on my blog. Maybe someday they will be called quotes by Monika ;-) Sharing a small list of quotes today!

I would love it, if you go through all of them & let me know your opinion through your comments. Here it goes!

Time never freezes, hearts do. Warriors survive the rut & get through...they cut through the depth of their soul & become numb to the bleeding pool...!

It’s okay to lose sometimes for a change, the fire cannot be doused & the passion is invincible. Lions make a fierce comeback. They do.!!!

Cowardice can never be justified. If you can't stand for something you believe in today, you will be killed by your conscience everyday till you die. Be true to yourself, just one life...yeah, you gotta live it right...!

Life isn’t always perfect like a fairy tale, yet your efforts & perseverance can change & determine a lot of things in life…so adorn yourself with a jewel called ‘Optimism’ & keep fighting the odds with an unmatched valour to steer through the battlefield of life….!!! 

If only 'Ceteris Paribus' could apply to human life, life would be so accurate like the theories & laws...and the conclusion would always be written as 'Hakuna Matata'...!!!

You ain't living; if you don't have a goal in life...aspire, achieve & chase your dreams...hit the nail hard...!

Ruin is d road to transformation. Take a leap of faith...even your odds. Fight off the pessimism...breathe & explore...add beauty to life...live, don't just exist...!

And my soul is where you'll find yourself in...clasped together like one life...it will neither change with the changing seasons nor will it ever wither like the flowers...it will stay the same till eternity...!

Nothing captivates me more than your eyes. Your existence adds colour to my emotions, beauty to my soul, meaning to my life & my heart beats only for you…!

When a cold breath of autumn strikes off all the leaves from the trees leaving behind skeleton branches, almost bare....few leaves still cling strong to the branches with a hope to survive...to fight off the torment & to wait for the dawn of eternal bliss...!!!

People you love unconditionally, always remain in your prayers, in your heart...they live in your soul & never part!

Time passes by, at a lightning speed, leaving behind memories, rather piling it up & life moves on at a pace, you just can’t keep up with, doesn't time fly? It does, leaving behind beautiful memories to recollect. Memories don't fade, they always stay...!

The key to your providence is only ‘You’. Walk your path alone & embrace the time to journey on your own….breathe…live…explore…!

We live such a superficial life, by putting on a great act everyday to please the society, while we fall apart inside, what an irony! Break free of this clutter & clamour. Make peace with your soul & for once, live for yourself…make yourself happy, go mad & relish the craziness…just be you!

That’s it! I mean before you go mad & it becomes difficult for you to regain your senses, I’m just ending the list of quotes here. My list is too big to scare you guys (not intentional though! :P) I’ll put up with a new post for rest of the quotes. Till then please bear with all this crap & try to make sense of what I’ve written, I hope it is not suicidal….! :P

Once upon a time…then people change?

In the journey of life, you meet so many people, you can’t really reckon. Some become a part of your life and some rather part ways. Out of the multitude, some secure a special place in your heart and some just mind bogglingly irritate you and leave no stone unturned in becoming an addition to your hit list. However my only concern about people is, do they really change? They say time changes people, really....? We need to give time sometime for changes to occur, for wounds to heal, for hearts to mend, but time changes people? - is something I really doubt!

Some people, who you really adore, might just carry a facade, making you trust them. And later on when you see their true colours, you feel they have changed, but the reality is they might have been the same throughout, you just drew a better picture outta them. And the perception is time changes people! You fool yourself with things and draw your own conclusions blaming time & situation. Worst is, it breaks your heart. Someone you once loved and trusted leaves you with a sour taste, it hurts for sure, but moving away from them is the only good you can do to yourself. It becomes difficult sometimes and leaves you a little shaken, but leaving them alone in their world of haughtiness will make you feel better. No point giving a person so much love, affection & respect when he/she’s not worth it. Swagger is the only jewel they carry & adorn themselves with, leave them with it! Look around for new people and start a new lease of life. That's how it should be!

People change with different experiences they encounter their life’s way; I don’t think it has anything to do with time, blame yourself, not time! Time never tells you to be good or bad with someone; you change and evolve gradually into something depending on your own mantras or idiosyncrasies of life. Some change for good and some bad, time didn't tell you to be good or bad ever; you chose to be either of them!

Anyway such people shake you, tear you apart & in turn, you become desperate to transform your own life, revealing another layer of you that survives against all odds (suddenly you discover you are a superman or superwoman :P). Give yourself another chance to live and let go of people who love their haughtiness – because they only value themselves and use others as a commodity. And yeah, you can't forget change is the only thing constant. Let bygones be bygones! Start afresh because a kickass comeback is awaiting you!

Lawyer or a Male Chauvinist Pig?

Following the Delhi gang-rape case, I was glued to the television to catch up on the updates of the verdict given to the convicts. After the convicts were given death sentence considering it was rarest of the rare case in terms of brutality involved, it brought relief to millions of people reinstating their faith in courts & judiciary.

However, there was one man who had lost it, Mr. AP Singh, lawyer of two of the convicts in the case, who in all frustration didn’t leave any stone unturned in maligning the victim’s image. After all the pain the girl went through, this was the last blow to tarnish her image, a blot on humanity at large, especially when you are referring to a departed soul, who has been through hell. Addressing the media after Friday’s death sentence, Singh had allegedly said, “If my daughter was having premarital sex & moving around at night with her boyfriend, I would have burnt her alive. I wouldn't have let this situation happen.” Isn’t it a professional misconduct on a lawyer’s part? Is this the kind of language you speak for a girl or even a human being for that matter, who was tortured & brutally assaulted to death? Is this what we have learnt in our culture or is this what our education system really fosters (legal education, esp..sigh…!)? 

All I would say is Mr. Singh please watch your words before you speak, you are no moral police to give a moral charter to all the women’s across the country or even men for that matter. Don’t be a male chauvinist pig. We don’t need a character certificate from you to live our life nor do we owe you a shit! And for heaven’s sake, don’t you use your venom spewing tongue for character assassination of a victim who fought courageously for her life against the odds, but eventually succumbed to the severe trauma & injuries given to her body.

Mr. Singh, “You want these hoodlums to be freed? These beasts who showed the young woman no mercy, raping her repeatedly & pulling her intestines out with an iron rod? (I would refrain a little to call them even beasts, as that would denigrate animals…!) Only noose can be demanded for such a “grotesque & diabolic” crime and this “comeuppance” is justified! ‘Damini’ became the voice of the multitude. This incident had sparked violent street protests in Delhi & prompted a sharpening of the country’s rape laws. It is only for the courts to change the perception of the society that thinks people can get away with such crimes, by handing down harsh punishments. 

As for her having premarital sex with someone, I don’t think, you were assisting her, to know all these details, isn't it? And Mr. Singh please grow up (not by age but by your thinking!) We live in 21st century, every person, be it a man or a woman, has a right to have sex with a person of his/her choice with their consent, it isn't a crime! (Please read Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory!). If a woman is having pre marital sex with her boyfriend or any damn person with her own consent, it really doesn't gives a license to some other men, to molest or outrage her modesty without her will (it’s called rape & not sex). And please, if you call 9.00 p.m, night, let me enlighten you with the fact, that working women’s like us travel till 11.00 p.m or even 12.00 a.m sometimes in the night. Even professional courses like MBA need people to travel in the night, given the hectic study schedule. Having said that, I think you need to correct your definition of being late, especially when you said, she was moving around late in the night! Again roaming around with a male friend doesn’t necessarily make them our boyfriends or husbands (sick mentality!) 

Mr. Singh, having no shame to apologize for your comments, you should introspect a little, your own conscience and see the amount of filth you are carrying deep inside your soul! Or probably this may be a publicity stunt for you, to gain visibility in the eyes of people and create a bad reputation for yourself; at least people will talk about you! But again, to what extent can you sell your conscience or values to garner cheap publicity? It is as if, you are getting seduced by our own mantras & becoming monuments to them. Stop talking for a while & liberate yourself from your suffocating mantras. Be a human being. Change! Grow! Evolve!

Who rides you – Destiny or Will Power?

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.

These powerful lines by the great poet William Ernest Henley always motivate me to steer through the battlefield of life. The ups and downs, come whatever may be, the undying spirit of my soul always helps me in tiding over the waves of difficulty leading to a new transformation. Life is more like a crossword puzzle where you activate the grey cells of your mind, to fit in the best alternative to complete it. Your life is a testimony to so many life changing events that you hardly recognize how many of it were initiated by you and how many of them just occurred to you. Things change sometimes without you having any inkling of it, going through a lot of mess, leaving you numbed, dumbed & stumped. There are certain things in life over which we have no control, they just happen and this is where I feel what really rides us – destiny or will power?

A fair & common example is love, isn’t it? You fall in for someone, who is just another person you know on this earth or a stranger may be, but eventually becomes an important part of your life (barring few exceptions). You don’t realize when and why you start developing feelings for a person. With time things change and you miss the person in your life (happy realization!) eventually falling in love. Don’t you think it’s destiny? Isn’t it destined for two hearts to meet, a divine grace? You can control your mind for will power but heart I’ve always felt, you don’t have much control over. I mean c’mon you just can’t tell your heart to stop beating for someone. Anyway before I digress from the topic (spare me that love snooze) we were talking about destiny & will power. Life is actually a beautiful play between destiny and will power and this connection is divine!

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love stated in her book that “Destiny is a relationship - a play between divine grace & willful self-effort”. I agree to it. Life is a strange game, half of it you have no control over, half of it is absolutely in your hands, & your actions will show measurable consequence. How many times we keep cribbing on something that didn’t work out? And then we come up with our own excuses like “I think it’s not in my destiny…sigh...!”. “I know it’s not gonna work out, why should I waste my time?” Ain’t we familiar with these sentences? We love blame game (passing the buck!). Destiny no doubt can bring you close to your goal, but it’s always will power that helps you to accomplish things in life.

We are neither entirely a puppet in the hands of the god, nor do we entirely own our destiny, we are a little of both. We run through the madness of life where things keep on changing every minute, all we need to do is keep weighing and balancing the act like performers because life is a play. We can’t worry all the time about things we don’t have control over but we can drive our steely will power to steer through the difficulties. There is so much about our fate that we cannot control, but other things do fall under our jurisdiction. Like we can decide on, how to spend our time, who can we talk & share our thoughts with, who we can share our life with (destiny can only make you meet & fall in love with someone, will power helps in keeping him/her despite difficulties), how to regard unfortunate situations in life (how do you view it - either get through or keep sulking). We can choose our words to speak, our emotions to vent, our thoughts to express, isn’t it?  Ain’t all these things very much in our control?

Yes it is, and it’s great, you do own your life to an extent. What you can’t control just leave it to the “Destiny”. I believe there’s always a reason behind things you experience, you either start trusting someone or something (if it’s a good one) or you get mad at someone or something (if it’s a bad one), but either way you learn and it kinda shakes you, tears you apart, shows you your obstacles and makes you so desperate that you transform your life revealing another layer of yourself to you (self discovery). To sum it up all – Have a determined life with the ever changing destiny!

RIP ! Humanity…!

While we all have ushered in the New Year with new hopes, aspirations and promises, I still can’t stop thinking about the rape victim who died 3 days back. My heart nearly sinks to even imagine the forty minutes of horror and 13 days of desperate battle for life thereafter, that ended in the early hours of Saturday when the woman breathed her last in the Singapore hospital. I just shudder to think of what atrocities the woman must have gone through in the ghastly incident that eventually ended her life. She fought courageously in fighting for her life, for so long against the odds, but the trauma to her body was too severe to keep her alive. She succumbed to serious injuries to her body & brain leading to multi-organ failure. Her death has awakened entire nation on the increasing number of crimes against women’s and their safety. Ever since protests are held in every state to show solidarity to this movement, demanding justice. Even NRI’s abroad are protesting, showing concern & solidarity with this ongoing movement.

This ghastly incident has made us find our voice and we won’t clam up! Damini is dead! Long live she! Like any other girl, she too had so many dreams twinkling in her eyes. She wanted to live her dreams and aspirations. She didn't want to be a martyr, but she lost the battle! Yet in her fight for life, and in her surrender to death, she has become the voice of the multitude. The incident has awakened and called upon the collective conscience of people who have made a faithful engagement with a cause: making India safe for womens. We can’t allow her death to go in vain. After years of being treated like a herd, we have finally found our voice. Those in power are bound to listen, and listen they should! This is the power of democracy. What we are experiencing now is no less than a revolution. People on the street irrespective of their age have become part of a larger cause. The nationwide outpourings of grief and anger are not merely bubbles of discontent that can be picked; it proves the ground reality that is bleak and scary. If women continue to be stalked, groped and raped, we have no right to call ourselves human beings. We have lost humanity and have turned beasts, but again to call rapists and molesters beasts, we should refrain a little, ‘coz that would denigrate animals, who too follow some code of ethics.

The government is scared of the rage on the streets. It’s time for it to act, and act it will, we will ensure that. Without resorting to violence and without spilling blood on the streets, we will have to stand guard to this cause and movement. However deep down in my heart I feel, only exercising stringent measures, and increasing the number of policemen will not help in curtailing the crime against women’s, the issue is much deeper than that. However much we say we are a society of equals, it is a farce. As a culture, Indian women are viewed as inferior. Things have to change at the basic level, which involves education and gender sensitization. Mentality needs to be changed, in order to bring in equality in the real sense. Merely blaming a woman for wearing provocative clothes or blaming her to be out on the street at the wrong time will not serve the purpose. Every person has the right to live and breathe, and we as humans should not infringe on this basic right of anyone, be it men or women.

This incident has angered, appalled and ashamed me and at the same time has made me conscious of where are we heading? Do we really behave as humans? And if so why have we turned demons for our own friends, siblings and relations? What values did our parents instill in us and what are we doing with it? So many questions and the answer lie all within us. Let us hope and pray such things never ever happen and our humanity never ever be questioned again, ‘coz death of humanity is death of our conscience! Live and Let Live!

The Last Meeting…..!

Amidst all the chaos & laughter, people were enjoying the occasion of my birthday and yet there was someone who seemed aloof from all this and it was no one else but me. I was happy! Happy, but not ecstatic. I was missing the presence of someone. Someone far away yet close to my heart, perhaps whose absence was tearing me apart. Flood of memories crept in like a longing which I’d been denying myself to feel. The feeling of pain I was going through was unbearable. It felt like somebody inside my heart was trying to sever it into pieces, quickly filling it with a sense of emptiness, an aching.  Before my emotions could take an inevitable detour, keeping a smile on my face, I sneaked back to my room. I realized I wanted some solitude away from the pandemonium.

The silence of my bedroom soothed my heart. I switched off the lights and lay down on the bed, closing my eyes. My eyelashes touched each other with such an ease as if they were waiting eagerly to take me back to the trance, the flashback where I met him last…..

Jostled by the crowd at the peak time in the evening, in a Churchgate bound train; I alighted at Bandra station with a sigh of relief! Yet with an excited feeling of seeing him after a long time. Trotting ahead & rushing through the station, I finally reached the spot where we always used to meet near the Axis Bank ATM, with my eyes continuously searching for him in the darkness of the winter evening. My heart was throbbing at triple its normal pace. The moment ‘Vipul’ came, my eyes were delighted to see him and I just couldn’t stop myself from asking him the same cliché question "Ain’t you getting enough food, why have you become so thin?” To which his reply was as usual “I’m still the same, feeling heavy, need to shed some extra kilos, momma.” We both started laughing at our cliché statements, followed with my advice, “don’t you dare lose weight, you look good like this!” We decided to go to bandstand as we both loved that place, especially the evening serenity near the sea with breeze adding to the calm ambience. We sat on one of the rocks in between the sea. And then we picked up from where we left things close to a year back.

Vipul started off with a slow voice, as if I was meeting a dejected soul than an effervescent man I knew before. He had a lot of problems because things were not really working well for him. He was waiting for results that would change his fortune after putting in a lot of hard work, he was indeed a fighter! The struggle had probably taken a toll on him shaking his confidence a bit. But I always knew he was capable of reaching the stars one day. Planting a peck on his cheek, I tenderly stroked his hair and instantly joked about his strands of grey hair to cheer him up! That was always one of my verbal weapons I used against him to annoy him & make him remember he’s turning old day by day. Talking to him I realized he had moved on in his life, prioritizing things, whereas I was still somewhere engrossed in the past. He was confident about his future, his life, about things he wanted, his ambitions, there was only one thing that was not included & it was me. I realized things have changed over a period of time; however I felt something shake loose inside, like the first pebbles skittering downhill before an avalanche.

The steady movement of the waves stretching out before me to the horizon seemed to cease for a moment. I looked at the sky even when there was nothing visible in the dark hiding my emotions and wondering where my thoughts actually lay. Vipul tugged gently on my arm and I came back to reality. We discussed things we left a year back. Somehow things had changed and reality had sucked the life force out of me, tossing me away as an empty shell, staring me in my eyes. I was a vortex of emotions that very moment. It took me a little time to regain normalcy. We ordered cappuccino for ourselves in the nearby CCD. And I poured some extra sugar in Vipul’s coffee to annoy him again. He glared at me & I immediately replaced his coffee with mine and he instantly smiled with a frown. After we were done, we decided to have a stroll down the seaside. The breeze was blowing with a mesmerizing touch. Talking about our earlier days, we had a hearty laugh & mischievous streak in our eyes. I embraced him, holding him tight as if, I never wanted him to depart. But I knew that moment of bliss would last only for few seconds and I will never see him again. We left the place in sometime. I pulled his cheeks, kissing them and strictly warned him not to lose weight.

We reached station. Incidentally our respective trains were about to come at adjacent platforms, although in opposite directions. We still kept on talking & smiling, my train was about to come, when Vipul finally hugged me again. His train too had almost arrived. He took my hand in his hand and my hand slipped. I realized it & kept my hand on his for a second without looking at him and immediately rushed for the train. That day I didn’t turn back to see him leave, because I knew this time it was forever. I had told him probably I’ll never see him again and I didn’t want to comfort my mind with any hope of things changing, though my heart wished, it was all a lie. But dreams seldom turn into reality. I wanted to cry my heart out & shed all my despair in the darkness of the night but I just couldn't bring myself to feel anything. For that moment I had turned stoic, completely numb to everything around……!

Somebody knocked the door and I was back from the trance. I didn’t answer & the person left, thinking I was asleep. But I was wide awake. The light of the table lamp made my silhouette in the background which looked lifeless and nondescript. I looked at his photo I had in my mobile phone and smiled cherishing the beautiful moments of annoying & loving him in our last meeting….!