A song to myself...

kahin dayra bana hai,  kahin aakhri sira hai
mahi bol bol haari, koi hai jo sun raha hai
ye koi jaane na,  ke dil maane na
bikhar jaaye na

 kaisa hai junoon ,kahin mile na sukoon
dekho kahin bhi qaraar aaye na
deewana hai kaun,  yahaan begaana hai kaun
dekho zindagi bekaar jaye na

koi bheed main khada hai, koi khud main chal raha hai
mahi bol bol haari,  yahaan jo hai besila hai
yeh saaton aasman, hum inke darmiyaan
bichad jaaye na

kaisa hai junoon ,kahin mile na sukoon
dekho kahin bhi qaraar aaye na
deewana hai kaun,  yahaan begaana hai kaun
dekho zindagi bekaar jaye na

chalti chalti jaaye ik aandhi, jo aandhi bhi nahin
manzil se kalai kuch baandhi,aur baandhi bhi nahin
jahaan raaste ne joda , wahin faasley ne toda
mahi bol bol haari yahaan sab ne haath choda
yeh koi jaane na ke dil maane na
bikhar jaaye na

kaisa hai junoon ,kahin mile na sukoon
dekho kahin bhi qaraar aaye na
deewana hai kaun,  yahaan begaana hai kaun
dekho zindagi bekaar jaye na

31

If i had to find a theme for my year gone by, i'd call it the "year of trials and tribulations" .

I can't say it was good or bad, but one thing that stands out is the fights i have had.The fights with the world, with the family, with friends and with myself.

The fights of ideology, of long drawn debates, of the rights and wrongs.

The turbulence of shifting my home ground and creating a new home and hearth. The year of living away from my parents and developing small fears that haven't let me sleep nights. Of waking up thinking about my parents , my brothers and my beautiful small sister and not knowing what to do. Of staring at blank walls and seeing my life on it running on flashback.

The checks and balances of building a new relationship. The grinding of two opposites, the friction and attraction.

The cutting of my umbilical chord with my first place of work, my people , my karmbhoomi. And the wild fern trying to find a base in the manicured lawns of mumbai. Of breaking loose from a short stint at an NGO that was exactly opposite of what i knew and believed and then trying to fit in in another place. With unlearning my lessons and relearning. With changing my perspectives and getting a new perspective. Of trying to throw it all away and finding something even in throwing away.Of finding another karmbhoomi that i feel i can make a difference in and finding people who fight with me, argue with me, and still hold me when i falter taking my baby steps.

Of losing those friends and promising never to make friends again but falling into the trap of open smiles, dimples and soul-warming hugs..Of realising, it's never too sure with people and yet never too late to start trusting.

Of  losing a first life we created, even without realising we had created. Of not knowing how to react. Of hoping and losing hope.

The year of lonely nights, of tears shed. The year of confusion. The year of love. The year laughter of a new kind. The year of realising that you can win fights and arguments but still end up losing something much more important. The year of realising that it's sometimes better to be silent. The year of understanding that you are precious but not more than a lot more things. A year of realising that my life is based on little things, the small dreams. Of realising i do not want to win arguments anymore.

The year of realising that i've lived a life of the old woman long enough. It's probably time to live again.

i am

i am vini. and i too have a story. and how i wish i could do it as beautifully as the movie "i am".

It's one of those movies that come and go at the box office but that stay with you for a lifetime because of the way the tell the stories you already knew.

A beautiful movie by onir, suri and humsafar trust talking very simply about issues within issues in four separate stories woven into the movie.

It's also a movie where the story is told not so much with dialogues but in pictures, expressions and amazing background score. The music haunts you and you are forced to pay attention to the lyrics which now a days is a feat in itself. The song "issi baat pe" by KK is a beautiful rendition and i love the sitar strings in the song..Bangur jaisi duniya (amazingly haunting music, texture of voice and lyrics), bojhal se, saaye aankhein, the other songs in the movie also stand on their own and are worth listening on those solitary walks or the long drives.

I was amazed by the number of co-producers. I realised a lot of people have believed in the story and the people who have made it and so have made sure that this movie got made. 

It now has made it to my favourite movie list for the amazing sensitivity with which the film has been made. Without being loud and crass it deals with very contemporary and real problems. A marriage where infidelity of a partner changes the life of the other person. Where the woman is stigmatised and still has the needs of her soul and body and has to deal alone with her dreams, her pain of her trust being broken and her belief in herself.A kashmiri pandit who has so much of repressed anger. What rankles you in that story are the sounds, the pictures and the beautiful dal lake. You could actually hear the collective disbelief  when dal lake floated by in the background like a swamp, no songs of happiness, no colours of flower laden shikaras, no apple coloued cheeks and no kashmiri beauties. Just dull plain "dal". It also shook me on how we have become blind to the issues that our beautiful kashmir still faces, the lives of the people who live and who lived there, of constant pain and retribution not complete.The story of an abused child where anuraag relives his own demons and you want to reach out to the child-man suri, who is struggling with the pain of his childhood, his love for his mother and his sexuality. And the story of the homosexuals, how they were and still are seen as persons to be ridiculed and taken advantage of.

And in these are interwoven the diversity of our country with at least 6 languages spoken, not counting the language of silence: Kashmiri, Bengali, Hindi, English, Marathi and Kannadda.Interwoven is the normalcy within chaos, the emotions that are never put into words and some funny lines.

Thank you all of you who have made this movie. I wish more such films are made.