As soulful Malayalam songs play on in the background, I’m inspired to write this piece. As a matter of fact, I’ve always been intrigued by the power of music to transform people, however transiently, to calm, soothe and uplift them; whenever, wherever. Great music can transport people into imaginary lands, evoke nostalgia, throw open floodgates of memory, and as the great musician Tansen would have done, lighted fires, brought the rain and cured diseases…

So, what makes the sound of music so magical? Why is great music inspiring every time you listen to them, no matter how often you do? Why does great music always grow on you, rather than you growing tired of it? Well, as I still am clueless about the answers, I thank the Almighty for the great gift of music and His blessed musicians. (Wish writings too had the instant connect and mass reach that music enjoys!).

Speaking of musicians, my long-time favorites are maestros A.R. Rahman, Illayaraja (of “Pa” fame) and the late Malayalam composer Ravindran. For me, their soul’s divinity is reflected in their music, which is an unmistakable connection with God. So, if someone were to ask me what divinity and complete bliss are, I’d, without a grain of doubt, answer: it is in the music that moves, in their golden renderings, in soulful poetry, in nature’s magnanimity and, eventually, in mothers’ care. So, as a parting note and a tribute, I pray to the Almighty to endow His gifted children with more talent, passion, love and humility, which fuel their sublime creativity and enable them to touch lives for ages to come.

I received a rosary from a priest last Sunday. Touching a few beads ,I gave them each a name.  I called the first bead, ‘Love’. The bead whispered, ‘Converge Love and Diverge Love’. There is a story of a seeker who wept openly at the mere sight of a hill,a mountain a flower or a river. One day someone asked him  “Why do you cry?”

He replied:” Looking at these icons of nature I hear a voice which says, ‘Do not be thankless! ‘ You have forgotten the creator of the universe. This rattles my soul and so I weep”. That call for the universe is beautiful and we are lucky to be part of it.

Love binds us with silken threads. We get bonded; we get linked with people whom we love. Love unites us. By loving the supreme, you are united with Him, for you will feel God’s presence within you and around you. When you love God, you will learn to love others and your life will be built on the foundation of love.

I called the second bead ‘Humility’. It says: “Give up Pride.” Just as eating food and drinking water are necessary for living, it is necessary to practice humility. One has to pay a price for being egoistic.

How foolish is to say, “I did this, I did that! “This  ‘ego-intoxication’ must -go! For what am ‘I’ but a flickering candle that at the dawn will die!

The third bead is ‘Peace’. It says: “Don’t be angry. Keep you cool.” Anger  is harmful. One mother got angry because her child was troubling her while she was working. She admonished the child, but the child continued to play mischief. The enraged mother  picked up the child and threw him down. Every headless act is sinful but there is much more irrationality in anger.

With love, humility and peaceful disposition, your path can only become more pleasant and less difficult.

We have been noticing a rapid rise in the graph of literacy rate, but it is a fact that corruption, terrorism and crimes have also increased with the same rate or probably higher. It is generally believed that an educated man has more intellectual power and he is ethically better than a layman. But then isn’t it strange that a place having a large number of literate people has equal number of evils too. Yes this is where our modern education fails. Our modern education system has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.

If we don’t know the value and ethics of life then what’s the use of collecting degrees. You will be surprised to know that most of the criminals, chain-snatchers etc. are highly educated. Another example which i would like to tell you is an incident where four B.tech graduates took away the life of that woman who gave them life and the reason was a mere superstition. They believed that some wicked power was inside their mother’s body. How deplorable it is! Despite having good qualification, they were not literate enough to distinguish between right and wrong. It is definitely the fault of our modern education system that we only get bookish knowledge. As a formality, value education, environmental studies etc. are being included in our syllabus but we all know neither the teachers nor the students take interest in these subjects.

All these statements are sufficient enough to put a big question mark on our modern education and by the way, we are debating this topic itself shows that education is lacking its value in some or the other way. In the end, I just want to repeat the words of Adam Cooper, “You don’t need any highbrows traditions or money to really learn, you just need people with the desire to better themselves.“

Once an auto-rickshaw driver told me the mother of all ‘quotes.’

He said, stay away from four kinds of quotes in life. These were khaki quotes (meaning policemen), white quotes (doctors), black quotes (lawyers obviously) and the penultimate, petti-quotes!!!!

Arunesh Dogra: polly is asking for ‘quotes’ again, we should give him some
Ankit Chadha: ya
Ankit Chadha: lets do that
Arunesh Dogra: yes, quote-le aam!
Arunesh Dogra: saala quote-a sikka!
Ankit Chadha: this ones for the IPL season: feroz shah quote-la
Ankit Chadha: wat else?
Ankit Chadha: rain-quote
Arunesh Dogra: bichare me koi quote nahin
Ankit Chadha: quote and bowled
Arunesh Dogra: where is ‘hardquote butler’
Arunesh Dogra: what bites palash at night?
Ankit Chadha: no idea
Arunesh Dogra: Mausi-quote-toe
Ankit Chadha: which kind of shirts does palash prefer?
Arunesh Dogra: dunno
Ankit Chadha: 100% quote-ton
Arunesh Dogra: once palash was travelling…where was he going?
Ankit Chadha: pathan-quote?
Arunesh Dogra: to Faridquote
Arunesh Dogra: where does he go gambling?
Arunesh Dogra: Quote-man-do
Arunesh Dogra: bachpan mein (this is a bad one) aunty ne baby palash to kya bola
Arunesh Dogra: chooo quooooote
Arunesh Dogra: bas

My friend baba says they go wherever there is public interest. They did it with WW-1, WW-2, Nam 1962/68, 9/11, now Iraq, Afpak is left. Anyways, I wanted to share final results about the Oscars, 2010. There were many first’s this time. War movie “The Hurt Locker” stole the thunder on Sunday by winning six of the film honours which includes the best movie and director. Kathryn Bigelow the director of “The Hurt” happens to be the first woman to win. Icing on the cake? The film also took credits for the best original screenplay, film editing, sound editing and mixing. It was all in the family, ex-family whatever you mean it. Ms Bigelow was at logger head with her ex-husband, James Cameron, whose Avatar was a hot favourite, before the final announcements at the Kodak theatre, LA.

Sandra Bullock gets an Oscar in the best actress category in a lead role for The Blind Side, she plays a motivational lady.

Jeff Bridges is the Best Actor of the world, he wins the Oscar in a leading role for “Crazy Heart”, Jeff plays a laidback country singer, whose life changes somehow after meeting someone.

Actor Christoph Waltz who plays a Nazi officer in Quentin Tarantino film Inglourious Basterds took home the best supporting actor.

African American actress Mo’Nique bagged the best supporting actress for role as an abusive mother for “Precious” based on novel Push, at the 82nd annual Academy Awards, Los Angeles.

Geoffrey Fletcher wins the Best Screenwriter award for film “Precious”

Balloon adventure “Up” of Disney Pixar won the best animated feature.

The Best Original Song for ‘Crazy Heart’ went to Ryan Birgham and T Bone Burnett

Logorama won the Best Short film.

Director Gregg Helvey’s short film “Kavi” lost to the New Tenant in the category of live action short.

Prudence music won the documentary short subject award.

The best make up Oscar award went to Star Trek.

The best costume award was bagged by Sandy Powell for “The Young Victoria”

Avatar finally for its due for outstanding art direction and Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg won the award for Outstanding Art Direction for “Avatar” and  Mauro Fiore won Best Cinematography Award. The sci-fi alien masala also won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects, very true. I always felt Avatar was one of the 1980’s Dharmendra pot boiler, it had everything action, romance, comedy, drama.  Anyways, let us proceed. Micheal Giacchino won the Best Original Score Award for balloon adventure “Up” and the “Cove” won the Oscars in the Best Documentary Feature section.  The best foreign film went to Argentinean film “The Secret in their eyes” The movie is on a retired prosecutor.

” I dont know why I love her like I do
All the changes you put me through
Take my money, my cigarettes
I havent seen the worst of it yet
I wanna know that youll tell me
I love to stay” *

Kickstart lungs is the name of the condition you develop when a single hunk of two stroke machinery wont start. Life comes telescoping down the funnel spigot of fate’s drain and you are more than overwhelmed by the end. Buried, snowed under the absence of further possibilities. If it happens to you in a delhi summer, you get wet with sweat and your breath imitates a pair of leaky cloth bellows. Malviya nagar girls, mostly fair - the ones with heels on their chappals are distinctly uncool while the ones in flat chappals are mod. Things you can’t notice then but remember later.

Beer cans in my bag, the girl at the end of the road waiting. Market boys offer to push while making suggestions that i slug a beer there itself to replenish loss of body fluids - dosent get too far. Call the Coyote who tells me to tilt and kick. This after an hours attempts have run me argound like a beached whale. Thinking things like, ‘ah, milady will take care of the shambles the bike has made me, I get on and ride the thing (Stranger, they call it!)finally; hoping the breeze will dry my shirt out.

“I dont know why you treat me so bad
Think of all the things we could have had
Love is an ocean that I cant forget
My sweet sixteen I would never regret” *

Get from station to station like, to find milady engrossed in a movie. For some (obvious to yez-riders!!!) reason i don’t bother to ask which one it was. Hang around and face the cold wave moving from her face glued to the monitor towards me. I take it into the kitchen and get the beers and act like the leftover vegetables from yesterday’s weekly market.

“I dont know why I love you like I do
All the troubles you put me through
Sixteen candles there on my wall
And here am I the biggest fool of them all” *

After setting the poor girl up, can any man affect a cool and suave attitude when on the way the yezdi took an hour to start? I give up and offer this lil bit of advise:

Avoid dates when yr bike wouldn’t start along the way.
Maybe it’s the hand of fate, maybe it’s your clutch plates, in any case its a loosing fight that all of us who know what it feels like smile at the memories of the pain and understand that to own a y-bike is to take on a personal cross that you bear much to the cynosure of all around but the vital connection with the bike. I swear, its a rare yezdi owner who will leave the bike behind and continue.

“I wanna know that youll tell me
I love to stay
Take me to the river and drop me in the water
Dip me in the river, drop me in the water
Washing me down, washing me down.” *

After the long fight trying to start the bike, you get like Hemmingway’s Old Man and the Sea and you no longer want to leave behind what nearly killed you because even this has become part of you and your lifestory and regardless of the ugly bits of the experience, what ever it is- it is yours. It’s like a connection or a bond with something - anything, which takes you to the limits of yourself or depths and stays with you through it all. Can’t explain it too much, it all sounds ‘fishy.’ In case of Yezdis, I just call it the Union Mechanica. A mystical union between man and machine.

Peace and twin-pipe rule,
- arunesh
* Take me to the River (song lyrics) - Talking Heads (which i am fixiated by because adrian bellew plays this excrutiating solo in the studio version which reminds me of the sound made by a running seizure the yezdi happens)

This article first printed at http://yezdidiaries.blogspot.com/2008/06/kickstart-lungs-is-name-of-condition.html