Break Down The Wall

I kept looking at the screen,
reel after reel.
Turning my inner voice
into a distant, numbing buzz.

And then—
from nowhere—
a tear rolled down.

There was a crack in the wall.
The wall meant to protect me.

It broke.

I cried like a baby.
I cried like a baby.

 

Givers

 So you consider yourself a giver, that's a hard place to be in... What do you give? Is it yours to give..the world you carry is yours to carry... I promise you this even if you carry a grain of sand for 'someone else' it will weigh on you so much that it will break your back.

Love.. and love encompasses everything.. but not the other... where this 'other exist love can't exist...

Prayers

Your prayers were answered long before you prayed. Now that you sat down to pray. It is time that you are ready to receive them.   

MAN

 Me: Then I guess I am no less than a woman

She: What are you saying.... You are much more than any woman I know.

 

Warm hearts of the wettest place

 Christophe, contacted me in the beginning of 2019 for a documentary film on the wettest place on earth, Mawsynram. I said, I lived in Charrapunji as I child when I was eight year old. And if you asked me that was one of the best places I have ever lived… Sometimes there was no electricity for days and nights, and it rained all the time, fog so dense that if you spread your arms the chances are you won’t be able to see the end of your fingers. There were leaches outside and inside there were mouse which made holes across the wooden walls…  Still grass was softest I ever walked on… there were innumerable narrow water streams with colorful flowers blooming both sides of streams. That place was magic. And still is.

Little more than 30 years since I got an opportunity to revisit the place for recce… 

The house I lived is now converted into a primary school… the streams are still there and so are the flowers… Who would I know there now? Who would know me here now? 

Shining star worked with my father.. He used to take me fishing in the weekends. He was 26 then he was married, had three daughters and he wanted a son like me or so he said to my parents. I asked around for him  and found him sitting on the balcony of his new house. With gray hair and long retired…  and I have grown and I have changed too… I said, I am Samrat and he knew who I was… We met after so many years but we spoke and laughed as time does not exist. He introduced me to his 19 years old son Pynhun… lovely Kid.. 

The shoot did not happen in 2019 and then the next two we were paralyzed by the pandemic. Christophe and I were in touch, I used to occasionally send him photos of Mumbai rains.

We had three years to prepare for the shoot… we thought we were prepared… we were not… 

We had an amazing team… Alan is a musician, an artist whom I knew for last fifteen years was kind enough to drive us around and to translate for us. We had Pramod who was nothing less than a wizard when it came to assist Christophe, Pramod also flew the drone for us.  Alexandra the anchor of the show… She embodied the show… The show is call ‘ droles de ville pour une rencontre’ which loosely translate to “meetings in interesting places”… In the show she spends 15 days with a family living in a interesting place. For this show she travelled all around the world, from coldest city to highest city and for this episode she came to Mawsyram the wettest place on earth. She never compromises with the story or with the family. She actually stays with a family in their village/ town for 15 days doing whatever they do to survive the place. She cleans with them, she cooks with them she does all the daily chores with or without the camera on her. It is lovely to know her and each and every time the family falls in love with her…

Deiphi and Jessie hosted Alexandra but in reality the entire village came forward to host the team. Words here won’t justify the warmth and the support we received from the people of Mawsynram. Sando, trueman, Last Born(the village headman) are just few of the names I cannot but mention here… if I wouldn’t have spent time there I would not know that the wettest place on earth has some of the most warmest people living there. 

The Team was headed by Christophe, he was directing, doing the camera and the sound, basically doing the work of atleast three people if not more. That itself is a very difficult job but shooting in continuous heavy rain with humidity always at 100 percent is a different game altogether. Still we were managing well and within 10 days of the shoot we shot almost eighty percent of the documentary and then the eleventh day we went to Cherrapunji to shoot the living root bridges… and that day we experienced rains like never before. Cherrapunji broke the record of last 27 years. In one single day it rained more than that of rains France receive in an entire year…

We had camera covers, umbrella, rain covers…. We were drenched to our bones all our equipment including our cameras were dripping water…  Christophe could hardly see anything trough view finder or through the camera monitor… all got moisture in it and because of condensation shooting was almost next to impossible.  Christophe continued to shoot and we made the impossible happen. The root bridge sequence came out to be one of the most dramatic sequences of the film.   

Christophe fell sick after that day but he continued to shoot. The rains almost broke our bodies and equipments but not our spirits… 

What a beautiful show it turned out to be… 

PS. Special thanks Laurent from TSVP for making things smooth for us…

Test of character

Once we were young and resilient.

Now we are old and brittle.

Not molten tan of Cigarettes

Nor crazy amount of porn.

What gets you the most is

The trying to be good.

  

Fear

I see a crowd in front of my house. They are angry, they are protesting. And it is matter of time before they realise I am their target. It is my family they are after. I am the murderer, the rapist; I am the one who shamed them. The crowd don’t know this for now. They looking for answers, blaming the person they elected, he was once among them and he is bit quiet now.
They want more police in the city, stricter punishment for me just like they would do to me in Saudi Arabia. I don’t know much about these things but I heard not many women are very happy in Saudi, I wonder why?
It was my mother who changed her last name and joined her inlaws. It was my father who secretly wished for a boy and I fulfilled his wish. It was my brother who whispered in my ears to be careful when a car with a woman driver is in front of me. It is my family the crowd is after. It was I with my friends glued to the TV watching Item numbers with half naked item girls hoping to see more. Yes ‘Item’ not humans with flesh and blood but Items.... articles... things...yes things...
I should get ready for the judgement day is coming. I will have to surrender. I will beg and apologise on behalf of my mom, my dad and my brother hopefully the crowd will show mercy.
And for me I need to bleed..... I need to be stoned I need to be publicly shamed.....
The crowd will soon realise this......

The Undead

Every time I grow a bit, I die a bit.... These deaths does not kill me completely and these growing does not sustain me enough. I hang in the middle somewhere like the undead... 

Soldier

Artists generally do not  die on their line of duties but for sure some of them give their lives to Art.

My Understanding Of Hinduism in One Line

One day I realised I am more than one and since that day I am trying to understand we are the same....

Blame

We get paid for being mechanical. When someone tells you to polish your skills; what does he actually mean? Precision, mechanical precision, that’s what he is asking.  I do not have anything against him or the system. I seriously do not mind if it takes all the digits of the key pad to reach the person in the call centre, neither do I mind the call centre person telling me exactly what the pre-recorded voices were telling me to do for last half an hour. It’s just ok, I am alright with all this. If this is what you want, if this is what the world is aspiring to be, I am fine with it. But what about those people who can’t be mechanical, no seriously it is not a joke. I know many who struggle so hard to fit in. So hard ....just be normal, you know.  Far from being mechanical, I can hardly even match my own signature to save my life. I know so many of them and so many of them are good friends of mine. I just want to reach out to them and tell them its okie. You are needed in this world, probably as much as those mechanically precise people if not more. I want to tell them your involuntary originality is lacking in this world. I want to tell them you are wonderful   But I cant...Because I know nobody cares...         

  

The war or the inevitability of the war?

The line it is been drawn, the curse it is been cast. No, there is no denying. We are divided and I wonder who is smiling now. For both sides have heroes, both sides think they are right and other is wrong. Passion is overriding empathy. I wonder what is worse, the war or inevitability of the war. I say they divided us but then it’s I who asks you to choose. Staying away seems wrong participating is gruesome ho, Krishna, you have seen it all. So tell me which is worse the war or the inevitability of the war?

The man who fed the Ants

I saw this man today, throwing flour to the ground. Curious, I went and asked him what exactly is he doing? He said “feeding ants can’t you see? Now move away before you step on few of them. I was about to say, “The ants will survive without your help. They will manage quite well”. Then thought ants will survive without him but would he after knowing that the Ants actually don’t need him?

Conversation with a knife

The kitchen knife begged me “please do not use me as a butter knife”. I replied “fuck you” and used it any ways....
Moral of the story.... There are no morals.... If anyone thinks he/she owns you... He/she will use you any ways he/ she want.

Apart from the fact that I am talking to knives these days it is a pitty boring story...

Friends

sacchai hum aur kabhi
jee lenge kabhi aur sahi
pahar ke ganje shikhron pe
anjaan ladkiyon ke siskiyon se
dhoop se tapte pattaron pe
hum ishque ki chadar...., khair
phir aur kabhi, phir aur sahi.

Jante toh hai hum sab magar,
Chahata hai yeh dil kuch aur dagar
Alas (अलस) bhari angraiyon mein
Dard ki aah pahechanti hai nazar
Karna toh hai bohut kuch..... , kahir
Phir aur kabhi, phir aur sahi.

Charas ke kale dhuyen mei,
Ya need se bhaari palkon ne
Dard se bhara lota daba diya
Abb titliyon ka peecha kare kyon?
Jab kal aur kal ka wasta tut gaya
Par hum sapna dekhna...... khair
Phir aur kabhi, phir aur sahi

Wo dekh kabutar chup gaya
Table ke neeche dubpak gaya
Hum karke bhird (भीड़) chale usko bachane
Jo khud se hi woh dar gaya
sacchai hum aur kabhi
jee lenge kabhi aur sahi

Music

It was not any of these days. Or was it yesterday or is it just a memory of a neverday. I opened my eyes, it was dark inside and outside didn’t exist. The neatly rolled joints were placed on the window. The window led to another dark room where slept a guy whose name I still do not know or rather I should say I know him by many names. It was winters but all I remember now is the warmth. We were atleast five sleeping on the bed with one quilt to share. I didn’t belong there but I guess they knew I do not belong anywhere. Each one of them made sure I was always covered; had my share of the quilt, the share which was not mine.

Then the guy with the car came. He brought bright day light from the open door. We let love birds fly in the room. We left the cage door open. They thought they were free as we think we are free. We drove through the green fields. More smoke came out the windows than the car’s back side. It wasn’t strange because strange was nothing and everything at the same time. We saw black buck, peacocks, a hermit who knew the present he took us to this guy whose car was struck in the field. The poet got mud on his face trying to help. I think people who are good with words and have equally good heart should not get into the ring. Damn we all will be shot indiscriminately.... Now fuck that.

There is music everywhere but only he who is an artist recognises that. We made noise and to some not even in a funny way but then they let us any ways.

Wisdom 2

You hear the sound of an ant’s heart beat. I do not understand our need of loud speakers to call your name...

Wisdom

Inaction sometimes disguises itself as wisdom.... learn to distinguish....

My Religion

Kaisa pagal man hai mera, Gurudwara jake sikh banne ka man karta hai, Majido aur dargaoh mein islam apnane ka zid karta hai, Church mein Jisu ki gun gata hai aur mandiro mein nirgun-sahgun mere mehi leen ho jata hai...

Me and the world

In the process of forgiving myself I forgave the world....

In the process of justifying myself I held the world as criminal...