Rendezvous with DIL HAI CHHOTA SA

I was two months old when my parents took me to a saint we have tremendous faith in. “Teach her music, she has good voice...” she had said then….!
I was in class 2nd in my school, when a musical movie, ‘roja’, was released. A song from the movie, ‘dil hai chhota sa’, was my favourite and I used to sing it. My dad was impressed with my singing and remembered the saint’s words and so he got a music system for me. “Beta, sing that song. She sings really well…..”, my dad used to say it in front of almost all the guests we used to have and I as an obedient daughter used to sing it. I started singing because of the joy I used to get with the music. But little did I know what there was to be followed, in the future……………………………

I was about to enter class 3rd in my school that a tutor was appointed to teach me classical music. I despised him. I hated learning the music. They were like extra lessons to be learnt. At the end of the year, I was required to give an on-stage performance of classical singing in co-ordination with two musical instruments, in front of around a thousand people. I was the youngest amongst all the performers. The crowd applauded. My parents were happy. It didn’t matter to me at all then. But then for few days I was blissful as my tutor defected me while he was appointed by another family who apparently paid him a hefty amount of tuition fee after seeing my performance. Though my mother kept making me do 'riyaaz' for hours and I had then despised her too. And soon my dad appointed another teacher and then I detested him too. My new teacher didn’t look scary unlike the earlier one. Infact, he was young and I liked his looks then. He taught me to play harmonium. Initially I loathed him for putting that extra burden on poor little me and I thought that he was just trying to get away from his work of playing the harmonium (playing it was too hard for my then little hands) . So I hated everyone then. I was made to sing ‘ragas’, in front of my cousins who now make fun of me regarding that, while muttering few lines from those ‘ragas’, which even I don’t remember now. The new teacher was young, single, independent and was in need of money and so once, he took the fee in advance.
He fled.
I was happy….once again…!!!

My parents were tired of hiring new teachers and so they gave up. My mom, though, made me do ‘the riyaaz’ for a while, but then eventually, even she gave up!!
I was happier. And that was the end of the era of the teachings of the classical music while I was in 5th standard, in my school.

Year:2007 time: 13:00 hrs on some insignificant day
It was second semester in college and I was still suffering from the trauma of my seniors which was incurred upon me by their consistent ragging. Yes I never took ragging in a sporty way as it always used to put me in an awkward position when asked to sing in front of groups of some guys whom I could never categorise in a definite way…I was once made to stand up amongst the same uncharacterised groups of guys and asked to sing in OAT(open air theatre)…I sang then ‘dil hai chhota sa’, as this was the only song I could remember which was no where close to usual, kind of raunchy numbers (jaban pe laaga re, namak ishq ka was a song on everyones’ lips then). Well in response I got, “ dil hai chhota sa, achcha gaati hai, per ab badi ho ja..!!”….

So Yesterday, after a long time, I listened to the song from ‘roja’. And all those buried feelings of innocent odium came to the surface of the present. The sound of slow drums along with each sound of fresh water drop falling back onto a water pool made me smile and resuscitated those childhood moments. One by one, little incidents following the trail of others that had taken place in that innocent era, tickled me like a little child inside me.

I was reminded of an incident that took place when I was in second standard. It were winters and I was wearing a maroon scarf that my mom used to make me wear against my will to protect me from the cold. A boy in my class was teasing me regarding the scarf. So I ran after him with the scarf in my hand calling it, “kutte ki poonch, kutte ki poonch” and I don’t know what fun I was getting then by doing it and why that boy got teased with such idiotic thing and what exactly made him push me.
I hit my face onto an iron pillar and broke half of my front tooth. Though some of my seniors thought that I looked cuter than before with that broken tooth which had made me feel exulted for fugitive hours; the next day my mom came to punish both the boy and me and so I got slapped on my face by my mom in front of the whole class. I cried and cried and again I don’t know what exactly occurred in my mom’s mind that she made me sing dil hai chhota sa, my favorite song, at that ghastly moment. So I sang it while crying and yes I sounded real funny; I know that.

My friends from that class used to recall that incident and have a good laugh in front of me. The good part is that I no more feel ashamed of that incident, instead it is my mom who feels chagrined while recalling the incident just makes me laugh..!!
And I know, that even you guys definitely have childhood stances to be recalled and relished..!!

Also you can enjoy the song "dil hai chhota sa.."

Us and The Seven Dwarfs

Selected as Blogadda's "Spicy Saturday Pick" on May 21, 2011

In the woods under the white grey sky, I found a lane with the twist of trees it aligned

As the light followed the curve and got lost, to see the sinuous way that light had crossed

as if pulled by the paunch of the trees, I stepped onto the path

on which barefooted I walked

I still remember what my eyes then saw…….

In the hoods under the black grey tin

Stood the uncanny seven miniatures of men

I stood gasped by the baffled expressions they held

On their faces that stood three feet from the ground

After an hour of unconsciousness I saw dizzily a brown belt

It took me few moments to realize that there were 14 long feet around

I then recollected the story of 'Snow-white and the seven dwarfs'

I still remember what my eyes then saw………

I pinched myself hard as I suffered influx of mysticism

But then the dwarfs spoke and I was clawed by the prowess of reality

Soon I heard the sound of another pair of footsteps from a distance

The dwarfs then uttered in chorus, “wait…you have to sign a treaty..

because you followed the light unaware of the fact that it was following you,

As you’re the chosen one by us to make your wish come true

You carry the heart with the ability to contain pure love

You wish to be with your loved one till your last breath

But before that you need to kill now with this arrow and bow, one of us

Or get lost again till you find your loved one”

I still remember what my eyes then saw………

I sat there sweltering swallowed in my thoughts

The dwarfs were gone and I was lost

Now I had to either find my love or find one of them and plan an assassination

But first I had to resolve the ethical issue drowning me into perdition

I wasn’t able to understand the purpose of their condition

Was I cursed or blessed, I doubted their veiled benediction

My memory then placed the picture of the long trail of brown feet

I then rushed scrambling through the forest searching for their foot impressions

On the third dawn after my search had began

I realized that there were other footsteps that ran

Behind me and I still remember what my eyes then saw……

The seven dwarfs reappeared and I felt relieved for some reason

The leader looked at me and asked if I had found my loved one

I said gallantly, “I love him with the purest emotions my heart dwells,

And I would not despoil them by killing one of your dwarf men,

So I would keep searching him in these magical woods of yours

because in the real world, I know, I’ll live with him till I’m here..”

They then smiled at me and vanished in the thin air

For years I kept looking for him striving against starvation

And fighting for defending myself from myriad little creatures

Intermittently I would hear the footsteps running behind me

Hearing which I ran for my life and my love and the deal

One day in the old woods under the white grey sky

I again heard the footsteps and an anguished cry

For the first time in all those tormented years behind

I perceived those footsteps on a different line

I was always running away from that sound

that had crossed my way so many times

not once had I ever cared to turn around

my feet soon halted, for the first time I was not bound

I felt free and a sense of sweet contentment encircled me

I turned to see what my fearful misty eyes had always missed to see

And I truly remember what I then saw………..

I saw him, my love, in front of me standing straight but in a weary state

There were tears in my eyes that my aching heart had sent onto my face

As I felt his pain and understood that he too was followed and had followed the magical path

And was confronted with the same condition kept by the dwarfs

Like me he had chosen to find me

He too had endured the pain in his journey

He then walked to me and held me into his arms

And swore to never ever leave me whatever may come

Then swiftly the wind around us took the shape of the seven dwarf men

They colored the woods green and sky blue as they sang

Their hymns echoed the surroundings that whirled back

carrying us To the lane that we had followed few years back

We stood there for sometime facing the woods holding hands

We then turned and I remember what we saw…………

I truly remember, together we saw a light following the straight path

The unsullied path was softly lit and was carpeted with fresh green grass

We then walked onto it knowing this time towards what we were heading

We saw a life to be lived together in the world that was eagerly awaiting….Us..!!

THE LITTLE SOLDIERS

It was 6:30 am..the 'auto-wala'(a driver), who was hired by my parents among many other helpless parents, had parked the auto-rickshaw nearby a paan–wala (tobacco shopkeeper) and my sister and I sat in the auto, relaxed for a while, in our warm sweaters and scarves, which otherwise flew whenever the engine boiled to run that sleepy auto towards our school.

“Chapter one, chapter two, yes I guess I remember all of them…oh god what was the name of the niece of Aunt Polly in chapter ten??...will I remember everything during the exam??...”

I could feel the weight of the stuffed mind I was carrying and felt a desperate need of unloading that weight from little me. I entered the classroom, but instead of shedding the weight, I added a few pounds more of my classmates’ and my teachers’ unnerving expectations to the stack of the expectations of my parents , embodied with fear, as, those were the days when I always used to come first in my class.. “what if I come second in these exams…!!”..

Some song from one of those old idiotic movies of Govinda( an Indian comedy actor) in 1990s was being played from one of the houses behind the walls of my exam-room and it seemed as if the fresh new stream of erotic words from the song flew in, forcibly displacing the data(syllabus) captured in the tank of my mind. It seemed there was a fight going on between the two data in my mind for the shelter in my big head. I wondered how hard I had tried to imprint those slippy chapters on my butter paper like mind and still those invaders had managed to find place in my mind when I had never bothered to listen to those songs. I was in class 5 then.

The question papers and the answer sheets were distributed among tiny fifty soldiers of my class. Our fight began. We were being invigilated by ‘Tara’- a monster like teacher and I again remembered an innovative song sung that morning itself, “TARA ra ra ra, TARA ra in the morning…”, by a funny boy in my class. And I felt like banging my head against the bench in hope to rearrange my head components in case something had gone wrong!! 

Ten minutes were left…and the monster started collecting the sheets. I still had to attempt a two mark question and revision was to be done. My roll number was 33 and I thought of resuming my fight till the monster could reach my desk to snatch my answer sheets...and all of a sudden, the shortest girl in my class, but the bravest of all young soldiers I had known till then, begged in front of the monster to let her complete the paper. But the monster didn’t move. 

She again begged but went in vain..the monster roared, tried to snatch the paper from her but the soldier resisted and folded her hand away and got slapped on her face by the monster. 

The soldier didn’t move and got slapped again. A stream of tears emanated from her anguish and made itself visible to the whole world (at that time my world limited its boundaries within that classroom)..another slap came striking her face and I spoke……….

I feared another slap, but on my cheek this time, and soon the funny friend of my mine spoke in our favor and following him the whole army stood up. Finally, the hearts of the little soldiers boiled and together they spoke as if attacking the monster with the only shells they had,  “ma’am the time is not over yet, we should be given ten minutes more to complete our paper, you may ask the invigilators in other rooms."...

We were asked to show up in front of the vice-principal and explain. I was the monitor of my class then and held a good reputation and with the first rank which somehow I had always managed to get then, bailed us out of that attack.

We never got those ten minutes. I scored 97 marks out of 100 in that paper and the brave soldier who had stood for her right, got 95 marks in that paper…We must have been nerds then!!

But we did get the ten minutes of the inglorious war we had fought bravely against the monster…the monster had not moved in the war, but afterwards , I am sure something inside her had moved.

The little soldiers had permanently printed the war and the fear in the monster’s head…

I’m sure all of us, at some stage of our lives, must have been some kind of soldiers in our ways and still feel our chests exalted with those memories!!

MISS ME COZ I MISS YOU...MY HEART BECOMES SOLID, IN THERE WHEN I PLACE YOU...

I chose to read this post after a long time and became mushy as I went through it. It feels weird reading again one of your own posts written long time back. I suggest, you too give it a try. I've edited this post on 15-03-13. 

The original post starts now (with some changes due to some sentences' restructuring to eliminate grammatical errors that I had made then which I couldn't stand now). Here it goes..

Have you ever experienced hollowness??

Have you ever felt as if you need to cry but you can’t?

Did you ever feel the need of crying with no substantial reason in front of you??

I'm guessing that everyone must have felt so at some point of time in their lives (to avoid being a different kettle of fish) )!!

A few years back , when I had to bid final goodbye to my college, on the lanes of which, years had walked on different roads. And my hostel stood there silently as if with a solemn message "Believe it or not, but I was your home". To bring it though under a lighter note, I saw it mocking me with a sarcasm saying, "Enough of lollygagging. Now get lost!"

So I had to vacate my hostel room and say good bye to some of my friends and to my surprise I had real tears in my eyes which I could not conceal behind my otherwise deep dry eyes and soon I was reminded of the time four years back when I was asked by my parents to shift to the hostel room. I remembered how bad I had felt then, as if leaving those only individuals with whom I felt the most protected and then it seemed I was about embark a journey, once again after 4 years, into a world full of individuals who would think me to be nothing more than a mere living entity. What I could not understand then was that why such thoughts were pouring in my mind and what exactly did I feel bad about!

All I knew was that I remembered that I had felt bad leaving home when I had to leave for college and that my mom whose tenderness is unique and incomparable, a fact had generated tears to shamelessly roll down my cheeks.
So as all these memories were flooding my head preparing me to become part of a bigger emotional set up, one of my friends came running to me and hugged me, sobbing and asking for forgiveness as she knew that I was upset. She was not supposed to be there as she had some plans and I knew that and so I had anticipated that she wouldn't be there to see me off. But she was there. And so my eyes became watery again while another friend of mine seemed to maintain composed disposition until her father made her realise by stating the fact, the truth that from now on the college life we had lived for four years was to be lived only in our memories for the rest of our lives. And it was enough to ignite our swollen hearts we were bearing then to avoid spilling floods of sentimental stuff that we were trying hard to control…
I had never cried in those four years in front of my friends and on the last day too, I tried to do so, but this time the efforts went in vain or may be for the first time I didn’t really want to veil my feelings in from them.

I had to leave for my hometown, Pune where I had to stay for four days before joining my first company and this time I didn’t’ feel like leaving for the city. The sense of hollowness deepened and I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t I happy with the idea of being at home for even four days.
After coming back from home, the same feeling clouded me. With the care that my mother was able to shower in that little time she had reminded me of the fact that no one else in this world had the ability to love me in such self-less manner and that how she went through all the odds only to support me, and how even with the distance between the cities in which we resided was not able to bring even a fraction amount of difference in the love and care that she had for me four years back.
Can anybody think of any mother to even come across an idea of trying to replace her child with other interesting things that otherwise some silly minds think of in case of long distance relationships..?? At least I haven’t come across one.

Well for now, my belief in loving and caring for your parents always throughout your life (specially my mom in my case) has strengthened manifold.
Take out few minutes in your apparent busy lives  and give it a thought!