CHERISH with HARISH

A friend of mine wanted me to write a couplet for an illustration of hers on the 'Sunday market' of Ahmedabad, selling artifacts and vintage stuff... था जो शाहों-नवाबों की शान को क़ुबूल, आज बिक रहा है चौक पर वो हुक्का फ़िज़ूल।

Whenever I jumped to CATCH the stars, I didn't realise that I have LEFT the ground!

Coming back to my blog after a huge gap. I have been busy shooting my documentary ('Budhan Diaries') , have been working on a play for sometime ('Naam-enclature'), and then did some travelling too. Feels nice to be back on this space. Over the last few months, the computer has taken another meaning, or should I say, the internet has acquired another meaning. Every evening, I go back to my hostel room. After freshening up, I sit down on my PC. I switch it on, connect the internet, and the first address which I type is 'facebook.com'! This happens everyday like a default setting. Seriously it does! After logging on to my account, i check the number of notifications I have. More the number, happier I am. It can be as random as your friend's friend liking your 100 year old picture, or some-sort of a stranger tagging you in a picture in which you are not even properly visible, but ya, it works! And I am sure this is just not my story. Many people of...

9th December. Badamma's place, Hyderabad. I am at badamma's place (badamma is mom's elder sister) for two days. Badamma has no kids at her home (as both my cousins stay in other cities- Chennai and Brisbane). She was really happy to see me. Have been talking and more than talking, I have been listening to badamma. I see this joy in her eyes when she talks about Yaseen (her grandson). Today, in the morning we got this cute piece of news that Yaseen has got into class 1. So, she's damn happy. Yaseen lives at a place, which is miles away from here; he is just 5. I am sure hedoesn't even know that someone in India loves him so much. As he would grow up, may be then he would get to know. Badamma is making kheer for celebrating Yaseen's 'success'. Love is an amazing thing. the one who gives it is happier than the one who gets it. I think it is one of those very few things in which the one who gives ends up happier. This is what is God, or the POWER, or whatev...

The coach is pretty cold, comfortably cold, lying down on my berth I think The windows of the train are being closed, I can't see where I am, I am not in the city from where I started, I am not in the city where I have to reach, I am somewhere in between, I am NO WHERE. With some music in my earphones, and a pen and my diary in my hand, this NO WHERE becomes an experience. It's the journey which has to be fun, the people you talk to, the places you see from the window, the food you buy from the pantry car, the rhythmic sounds of the train, the loud sounds of 'chai', the slight dance-like movement, which the train gives you, the metallic smell of the train, The rectangular berth which becomes your identity for the rest of the journey, the sounds of other trains pasing by, the stupid conversations with fellow passengers, which teach you more things than any of 'those' intellectual conversations, the journey has to be fun, NO WHERE has to be fun. Yes, it has to be...

Chapter-2 The space 4 th May 2010, Kharaghoda After a long walk, we reached our location. It was blank. Absoutely bank! The only thing which I could see cleary was the horizon An infinite, wide horizon which had stories to tell, stories which it had seen. The strong sound of the breeze constantly made me realise that there’s no one here- no people, no vehicles, no city, no village… just the salty sand, the wide horizon and the strong breeze. We stood there watching it for sometime. Achint and me looked so small in front of the huge Rann. Or may be, the whole humanity looked so small in front of it. It was powerful. I could sense why people in the older days were scared of travelling too far. They thought that the earth is not round but flat. May be sights like these scared them to travel beyond a certain point. Like them, I could feel that fear again. I asked myself, “Is the earth actually round?” We started looking for space for our sets. Achint was guiding...

A nice semester this was. Too much of thinking...too much of work... and lots of fun. I directed two plays...directed a film to which I gave everything (almost), a bit of random travelling (love it!) and some plans for the near future. One thing which this sem taught me was to be 'random'...to live in the present, and live to the fullest. The future would follow in the same colour scheme. 'Kuch toh dekho' ( VC street play), 'Dustbin' (khel), 'Kuch toh dekho' (for MBICEM) , 'Growth' (a short film) and 'Shwet-shyam' (fiction film @ NID) ... Sometimes we think too much about the future, and spoil the present. I think it's good to be random. You see the unseen, you hear the unheard. So when you work hard then, you are honest to yourself, as you chose to get into the situation! 'Good things happen to good people.'  Plans for 'Jantar'  and 'Gum-Naam' (plays)...a short film ('Asleep') and the documentary proje...