CHERISH with HARISH

As I kept speaking of democracy, corruption and freedom, the CROWS kept ignoring me. I shouted, "You are irresponsible citizens!". One of them replied, "You talk of freedom? We are already FLYING..." They disappeared into the skies.

It has been a long time since I visited this space, or in many ways, since I visited 'my' space. I had been busy shooting my diploma film , 'The Uljhu Journal'. hat was one journey which taught me a lot. Those 10 days we worked really hard, with good results. But on the last day of shoot, we got to know that we have lost a day's footage. This was too big a shock to get on the last day of the shoot, when the actors would be leaving soon. For the next 2 days I took a break fro the film to figure out what to do next. What was really painful was that even after planning so well for months, I lost the footage because of someone's carelessness. Over the next 2 days, I realised that it was no use wasting time thinking about it, so I started editing the film. Over this period I came up with the alternative of the lost footage. So, as I was editin, I would reshoot with my cinematographer and the available actors. This taught me a new thing. Before this, whenev...

"Ek gum-sum dhalta din, woh bheeni si shaam ki khusboo, labon par chai ka woh meetha zayka, na ho isse behtar andher raat ka intezaar."

"Dar toh hamesha andhere se hi lagta tha...Par jiss din aankhen kholi, toh UJALA khud khaufnauk sa ho gaya..."

I said,"We live on lots of money,very expensive medicines, very high GDP's and other high stats! Do you have any of these? We're rich..." The crows replied," We live on the never-ending skies, we breathe the unlimited supply of breezes, and we drink the never-ending water bodies. None of this can be counted. Now who's richer?!" The crows flew away and I kept thinking...

Some told me to fight for the poor man, be a communist, some told me to fight for more money, be a capitalist, some told me to fight for allah-ram, be a fanatic, some told me to fight for lost village lands, be a naxalite, some told me to fight for the country, be a soldier, but I just wanted to fight for what I liked, I just wanted to be a human-being... I wrote this and then my friend Sambit Kumar Pradhan came up with this brilliant Hindi/Urdu translation of the same piece... वो कहते हैं ग़रीब के लिए लड़ो- साम्यवादी बनो. वो कहते हैं धन के लिए लड़ो- पूंजीपति बनो. वो कहते हैं अल्लाह-राम के लिए लड़ो- कट्टरपंथी बनो. वो कहते हैं छिनी ज़मीन के लिए लड़ो- नक्सली बनो. वो कहते हैं देश के लिए लड़ो- सिपाही बनो. मैं तो मगर अपनी चाह के लिए लड़ना चाहता हूँ, मैं सिर्फ इंसान बनना चाहता हूँ :)

Years ago, the world saw the GODLY mountain, the peak covered with heavenly clouds, the slopes holding the purest of breezes. Men and women worshiped the freshness of the mountain, the beauty of the flowers, they worshiped the honest heights, so, they built a TEMPLE at the peak. Seasons passed, men and women came from miles away, to see the mountain temple. There were innumerable people, the breeze was pure no more, the heights were honest no more, there were just people and their greedy faith. Today, centuries later, there's a HUGE temple, there are a million shops on the mountain, there are guest houses and business plans, but unfortunately, there's NO GOD! (Images: Tirupati Tirumala Devasthanam, Andra Pradesh and Vaishno devi mata, Jammu and Kashmir)