Money Matters!!!

No matter how deep I dig my hands into my pocket, they come out empty handed!
When I open my wallet, it smiles back - rather laughs - at me like an old man without any teeth!

I find a piece of plastic! With renewed zest, I go to the ATM (most Indians call it Any Time Machine not Automated Teller whatever!), enter the amount that has to come out, and all that I hear is a long beep!

I feel pitiful, like a teenager deprived of some A-Grade stuff by the over-smart and over-intelligent Indian Censor Board!

I come out, look up at the Yellow Street Light that barely overcomes the darkness of the night. I feel sorry for it; so does it, I guess, on me! And I wait for the morning sun to rise! But its cloudy out here! The Met Department confirms the same!!!

I go back to bed, pretend to be asleep, hoping I will sleep soon! And that my dreams will surround me soon!

And then...
I dont want to wake up again...


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Questions?

WHEN I LAY MY HEAD DOWN AT NIGHT THE QUESTIONS OF LIFE, LOVE, WORK, FRIENDS, THE WORLD IN GENERAL SEEM TO OVERWHELM ME. Ramblings are getting louder and more cluttered in my head. The thoughts, the emotions are flooding my soul and I can't control them anymore. How to contain the raging waters?


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“We never know when we would start drawing blood if unable to draw water...”

It did rain those days.
There was some heaviness in the air.
The wind was loaded with overflowing moistness.
As far as the eyes could travel, they could see the impact of rains.
The rain-water tumbled through the slopes and the streams gushed through the foot-hills with a delicate and eloquent elegance.
Wherever we stepped, the soggy soil bled some more water – literally!
The only thing that was not soaked was the sweltering sun.
As skin dissolved with a sticky and a juicy perspiration, our thirsty mouths went dry.
It was nearly the day end and our water resources had betrayed us.
But the one thing that did give us some company was our empty bottles.
So we had some hope.
There was so much of water around us but nothing was drinkable.
Our expectations now rested on the shanties that we could see from a distance.
Rushing through we knew that the village will have something to cheer us up.
And then we came across this.

Water did not come out of this tap.
And then something trickled!
A Drop!
Just a Drop...


We looked at each other and our speechless expressions said it all.

I was looking for a apt title to describe it and came up with the one at the top.
Guess it sums up what I think & fear.

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You & Me!

Should I feel fortunate enough or should I regret,
As we would now separate no sooner than we met.

You came in my life; everything seemed so nice.
& You now suddenly leave... when the stage is all set.


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A Surge of Hormones.

Two kids – from slums again! One boy, one girl. Both smiling. Both willing to carry a wooden frame and dump it somewhere else.

The wooden frame - its cubical. A frame of a ‘once-upon-a-time’ and ‘now-no-more’ table. It’s reduced to a skeleton. It’s heavy and too thick to grip and lift for these nine year olds.

Both try to lift it, at opposite corners. Success! Now they need to walk past the road carrying it.
They start. Nearly five steps on and I see a sense of discomfort. Discomfort or is it desire to break the monotony? It’s the guy. He keeps walking, bends his back and tweaks himself. Still holding the load his narrow hands, he is at the centre of the cubical frame.

The girl leaves the boy at the mercy of the weight and does that readily. After all she is a girl, she isn’t supposed to do this work, is she?

Spreading his hands, he lifts it up. Head held high, he shouts like a he man. The girl jumps a couple of times and claps thrice!

Now following the girl, the boy crosses the street and drops it at the other side.
Smiles soon turn into jubilant laughter and claps into pats on the back. The guy broadens his shoulder, lifts his head, clenches his fists, pulls his biceps.

“I have done it!” is what he implies.
Good work indeed!

I start wondering how old is the guy? Is he even in double digits? Yet he is driven by a culprit called “Androgen”.
And the girl, who readily left all the hard work for the man, seems to be driven by her own set of hormones! Actually she only knows!

But that’s how things have changed – very fast in short.
Everything happens so early these days!


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A St*R in the Making!

Many Months Ago there was a buzz in media that film reviewers might have to do away with the '*' rating system. A film's review cannot be summed up with simply some stars. Its not very clear what happened to the story after that - it possibly lost its ‘star’dom!

One fine morning, when I was surfing the net, I stumbled upon the review of the film Slumdog Millionaire. The film had ‘scored’ just ** in the review for all the efforts put in by its crew, it would later get a change to score possibly a million bucks.

I had already watched the film twice by then and in as many days. It was a decent film to say the least by any standards and will always be. 

Even as most of the criticism the review had meted out was partly true, the two stars still seemed like a blot on the face of the Millionaire!

If one applies the same logic, then even the most famous and path-breaking Indian films including Sholay and the very recent million grosser Ghajini would struggle to reach even 2 stars. 

The plot of this film is similar to that of Naya Daur and the recent Lagaan. If film ‘critcis’ can give them easy 4 stars, then this film deserves it. If a Lagaan can make its presence felt at the Oscars, Slumdog Millionaire will surely do so.

Till then let’s hope that with Slumdog Millionaire we will see more stars in the making!

- thoughts by Gaurav Satle

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gauravsatle

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