Tuesday, January 10, 2006

A Piece Of The Moon

New look, first post. And it would be wise to begin with a resolution: no more cribbing. I have cribbed in the recent past -- about the rains, about loneliness, about mysterious seductresses tickling your mind but refusing to lift their veil.
The rains are gone in any case, and as for loneliness, it is just the way one chooses to think: one can be terribly lonely even in a crowd of hundred, and be joyous in the emptiness of a home. As for the veiled seductresses, well, they can keep the veil on. True, the veil adds to their seduction quotient, but they can't play the voyeur all the time, standing behind a tinted glass from where they can see what is going on inside the room, but the man inside cannot see who is on the other side.
So I removed the tinted glass from the window to let sunshine in. And since then, my online home looks like Sunil Dutt's dwelling in Padosan (the female neighbour). For the benefit of those who haven't seen the movie, Sunil Dutt and his buddies (who include Kishore Kumar, Mukri and Keshto Mukherjee) live on the first floor of a house which directly faces the balcony of the first floor across the street, occupied by Saira Bano. Their eyes meet across the street and they fall in love. Their love deepens when she hears Sunil Dutt sing, little realising that he was only doing the lip-sync whereas the songs were actually sung by buddy Kishore Kumar.
But in Hindi movies, once you fall in love with the hero, it is politically correct for that love to fructify. And it always takes a little while for that love to fructify, hence the three-hour long film. A depressing thought just occurred to me: apart from Saira Bano, all others you saw in Padosan are dead. Kishore Kumar was the first to go, then Keshto, then Mukri, then Mehmood, and finally, Sunil Dutt. R.D. Burman, who made the movie immortal with his music, is gone too. All so soon.
Anyway, the idea is not to be depressed. That's my resolution. On to sunshine seductresses. So there I am, shaving in the morning when the seductress yells out from the balcony across: "Hi there!" I peep out. She waves animatedly and shouts: "What you doing?" I point to the lather on my face. "Oh, shaving, carry on. Buzz me when you are done." Then, later in the morning, when I am adding songs to my playlist, another shout: "Hey, you there?! I thought I will say Hi before I go to work." I go to the window. She is standing in the balcony in her bathrobe, towelling her hair dry. Fullscale conversation begins.
"What khudoos? Don't want to pay me any attention, eh?" she asks, working the towel. Khudoos, in Bombay Hindi, means an irritable old man.
"I don't pay attention to ghaatis," I reply with a wink. A ghaati, in Marathi, means a woman who is not sophisticated. In other words, a bumpkin. In Delhi societies, such women are called behenjis.
"Aaila! You called me a ghaati?!" She throws the towel at me. The wet towel succumbs to gravity midway and falls on a passerby who growls, "What are you two upto?!" We run indoors and open our doors again in the evening.
We sit at the edge of our respective balconies and chat for hours, often till the sun rays actually begin to stream in through my window. Kishore Kumar is always there to playback for me, if the situation ever calls for a song, including the one which made Padosan famous, Mere saamne waali khidki mein ek chaand ka tukda rehta hai (There is a piece of moon living in the opposite window).
Chaand ka tukda. A piece of moon. Suddenly the song makes so much sense. It is so refreshing to see a glowing face after months of struggling to figure out mysterious faces behind a veil.

7 comments:

Arundhati said...

That's such a sweet story... So, do you plan to bring her home?

Maya said...

So the moon has a face, eh? Wonderful!

What would happen to people in cities if there were no balconies or rooftops? Bless those ppl who put those in so a moon can have many faces ;->

Lovely as always BG. I remember that song...you really love oldies, eh? An old soul coming to terms in a modern world? Good luck my dear :)

Usha said...

Bravo, on the resolution not to get depressed. Actually it doesnt' suit you at all to be brooding you know!
Padosan - who doesn't know the film, Mahmood's Hindi with Tamil accent has been done to death in every comedy show ever since that it borders more on tragedy now!
Mere samnewali khidki - great song that...
Otherwise I do not understand the dynamics of online chatting - so the nuances are lost on me.
But I loved reading the post as always.
(All I say is straight from the heart..Any kindness is totally unintended. :) )
To a smiling and cheerful Bish!!!

Anonymous said...

hi bish u write very well n sometimes i do feel this is my thot process. There r many things in ur post which i had shared with my online friend so thats why i do feel like this. Thats the beauty of this online chatting when in reality things r differnt to the things that r in virtual reality n in a way u r right that on that chatting window there is tintend or infact rose coloured glass thru which everything look so rosy n fragmented that one simply nt get the bad smell of rotten filth that passes frm behind those windows in the morning kachra trucks. Yes u r rt to mention here the theme of padosan but what u forgot to mention here the complete essence of a human being the mind body n the soul i mean the mind of kishore kumar who sung for sunil dutt n pure innocence of sunil dutt that is his soul n the kasrati body of sunil dutt that he made thru restraint n excercise n only had let it go for her dream girl saira bano who he thot was her dream girl but again he did nt have that mind which she used to like that is gaana so he took the help of kishore kumar but all these things happened in that rose coloured window coz when they met in real i mean with the qualities he possesed she fell for all these the beauty of the soul n the pure innocence of his charm. So in a way some chatters do look for these kinds of dreams girls or mens but the identity is a factor that goes with ones soul. Coz the innocence tends to believe in what was said but nevertheless there r instances of being fooled n beauty of the soul is to admit it n as u r avid cine follower then u must recall chupke chupke in which om prakash had got fooled by his family but in the end he admitted it all with these lines VAISE TOH MEIN ADMI KOO SOONG KE PEHCHAN LETA HOON LEKIN IS BAR JUKAM KUCTH JYADA HEE LAMBA HOO GAYA THA.....so naturally this can happen to anybody but at the end of the day like that of mtv bakra concept party n thanks must be given to that bakra for others did laugh at the helpless of that bakra. So looking forward to his posts. God bless.

Deepa Bhasthi said...

ah Padosan and that amazing song tat made me want a hunk of a neighbour too to fall in love with!sadly I live in an independent compound and in hostel my padosan is a girl (obviously!) and i am not into That!!

good luck with yours, btw!

great new look

Medical Blog said...

Anyway, the idea is not to be depressed.

Anubhuti said...

So much to say on this one. Better not to.