Toh zaraa guzaarish ki hai..

Ek dost ke liye--
mohabbat kilkariya le raha hai
pyaar ko pukaar raha hai
dil ki haalat naa poochhiye
ye to ab mujhme bhi shayarana andaaz jaga raha hai

Dusre dost ke liye--
is andaz ko bachay rakhne ay dost
kyun ki dosti mein bhai pyar ki parchai hoti hai

....

Chahe koi tumhare satth ho na ho

Yadd mein hi sahi par saath to hoti hai

Vodka Drama

Finally the feeling of getting “high” was imminent…

Vikingfjord vodka in tea cups! Slight dash of salt resting daintily on the upper side of the palm.. and king lemon waiting to touch up the shot at the end..

Six pals waiting in a red light lit room…

Then the toast is raised to the good long life for all..

Neat alcohol rushed sneeringly down the throats.. then an impelled lick of the lemon drenched salt… and finally a little quarry at the demon itself!

And wooooooooooooooh!!!!!!!!!!!

Kuchhh toh definitely hua ;)

I feel happy today!!

Aaj pehli taarik hai..... kya khush hai zamanaa ?!

Cadbury, the country's top confectioner, has launched another campaign for its flagship chocolate brand, Cadbury Dairy Milk. This campaign's punch line is "meetha hai khana, aaj pehli taarik hai!" ... What a way of celebrating the payday!! The positioning is clear. Cadbury wants its brand Dairy Milk to become an inalienable part of all celebrations. And going by the TVCs being made to hammer this thought to the viewers, it is clear that Cadbury wants to see to it that even adults do not shy away from it..

Now that the stage for discussion is set.. the need is to do a bit of revisiting and rethinking.. When a leading confectionary brand targets and builds a positioning and brand building campaign on a mass thinking that "we are all happy and we eagerly await the pay day", it reinstates the importance of this day... this day, whose importance had been lost - a little - in these days of "recession"... The ambience of the day had changed from complete rejuvenation to increasing extent of self pity and company loathing!! The feeling of expecting refilled bank accounts had been reduced to half filled ATMs! All of this leading to an open secret of fearing to see the salary slip on the pehli taarik... (and not to forget, some organizations, which chose to forego the concept of giving tankha on the pehli taarik.... pity pity and more pity!! )

Anyways coming back to the point, should we also appreciate the timing of this campaign.. Now that everybody seems to be suddenly over-optimistic over the "markets" and saying that good times are reviving, it seems that the pehli taarik would again become a happy day... And to encash this, Cadbury wants you to have some meetha - Dairy Milk chocolate... Well with the kind of frequency built up by the TVCs (esp the continuous ones bring aired today on MTV - thats the only channel I watch in the mornings! kickass mornings!) & print ads, it seems that if not for anything else, at least to try it out, we all definitely try out a Dairy Milk Chocolate today!!!!

So....
at the end...
Aaj pehli taarik hai..... and.... khush hai zamanaa.... and meetha toh definitely hai khana!!!!!!

Post Delhi's pre monsoon rains!!

Aren't we better off?

Sometimes it seems that life is engulfed with confusion and unsatisfaction.. Sometimes we get so engrossed in our own self inflicted sufferings that we fail to notice and appreciate the pain on the multitude of anonymous faces in the crowd around us..
The other day it was in the newspapers that in Ajmer, begging is a Rs. 10 cr industry.. People are inducted, trained and then "paid" to beg on the hot, sweaty, reeling roads of this pilgrimage.. This does not mean that this is only limited to Ajmer.. For that matter, look at any pilgrimage centre or closer still any red light in Delhi - there are mutilated bodies, monkey faced children, girls in ragged clothes, small kids in older women's arms who are begging in front of you.. Sometimes I wonder how should I feel when I see them, should I take pity and give them something or should I just help my society get rid of another increasingly apathetical situation like poverty and its side effect - begging... My friends advice me to choose the second option, but... a lot of times this thought lingers on...
Why should I not give them something.. my friends say that whatever I give, it will never be with them at the end of the day... This is their revenue for the day, in place of which they get their daily "wages"...

A little farther away...
Have we ever reasoned, why are we following this religion.. or why is our name this and not that... Have we ever come across a situation when we grope for a safer place fearing that someone would see us, or hear our names , or come to know that we offer namaaz or do puja or make a cross to pray... No.. it has not happened with me till now.. But this has bothered people.. Post 9/11 thousands and thousands of Muslims have been illegally detained and tortured on the charges of "suspected terrorists" ... Soldiers have peed on them, subjected them to terrible music, beaten them nude, left them hanging upside down in sub freeing temperatures... And then at the end of all this, when they could not gather enough evidence to prosecute them as terrorists, allowed them to go free ..
After all this, did anyone ever go and ask these detainees, that whether they have managed to regain their respect... get jobs, get families... or most easily said - get a life.... the answer in most cases is a big "NO"..

Therefore, sometimes I also feel that when we look around and see the atrocities inflicted on people worldwide it becomes easier to live easily.. God has not given us that a bad life....

We are better off!
Thank you!

Sail away

Slumdog Millionaire - 8 Oscars - A Western view Slumdog Millionaire - Unbelievable, Impossible - An Indian view ....

Best Motion Picture - Slumdog Millionaire.. The world is kissing Mr Boyle's feet for making a brilliant movie.. The debutants Dev Patel and Freida Pinto have become overnight red carpet stars.. The slum "movie" stars have finally seen a different world..

However, the movie is still so unbelieavable.. Reasons? There are so many..
Ask any Indian and they would know how poverty is seen in this country.. how distant is this reality from actual reality.. how the poor is not treated as human being at all..
And on these pictures of stark reality and pyramid of dying, stinking poverty Mr Boyle has cellotaped his fairy tale characters.
A young slum boy in India whose childhood runs through his mother's murder, his girlfriend's rape, his friend's slaughter, thefts cannot grow to become a man who wants and strives to live for a higher purpose in life. How can this young boy not think about immediate reaction but live through all obscenities to choose dignity and knowledge and become an english speaking millionaire.
This can only be a portrait painted by a western painter.
Honour and dignity can only be acquired and not be borne with.