Love, Life & Happiness

Let me put it on record- Writing is not fun. There is no happiness in writing. There is immense satisfaction in having written. When one is too overwhelmed by the world around, and one cannot quite fathom how one should react to it, One writes. Writing is the outcome of inadequacy of action.  No, this does not mean that writers are not men of action. Writers, more often than not, want so much action that their physical world fails to sustain. Thus, the imagination, the fiction, the fantasy and the words. Words- that exquisite conjoining of alphabets obtained in the excavation of the soul.  The written word nourishes, the unwritten is a constant turmoil. What does the writer do when he is not writing? He is either cursing, belittling, downgrading himself in his own mind. His pen gets heavier with every wordless day. There is a reason that writers and poets are mostly sympathetic and friendly to one another. They know and can identify with one another's pain. They are a

Movie: Jagga Jasoos Actors: Ranbir Kapoor, Katrina Kaif, Saswata Chatterjee Rating: 4.5/5 Graham Greene in his essay- ' Is It Criticism' writes- " Film criticism, more than any other form of criticism, except perhaps that of the novel, is a compromise." His point being that if one understands and writes about the craft, readers do not find such reviews readable. The reviewer at the same time is at pains to ensure that his review remains as enjoyable as the movie itself. I totally agree. What makes my job easier is that I am not a movie expert, at best, I am an avid movie-watcher and movie-lover.  Be that as it may, the film, Jagga Jasoos, wins my affection on form and fun. The film, purely in terms of form, a spy-story-musical must be watched for the audacity of making such an extraordinarily structured movie, so far from the usual. The movie is cute, exquisitely beautiful riot of colors. Without a doubt, one would think this movie must have live

नितांत अन्धकारमय रात्री भी समाप्त होती है, सो यह रात भी हुई। नेताजी प्रसन्न हुए। कल की रात ज़रा मुश्किल से गई। कश्मीर में गोली चली थी। कुछ हिन्दू जो अमरनाथ दर्शन के लिए निकले थे, शहीद हुए। बड़के नेताजी सुबह सुबह आने की निर्देश दिए थे। तीर्थयात्रा एंगल हिंदू हृदय सम्राट (प्यार से हम उन्हें हिहस पुकारते हैं) को अत्यधिक कठिनाई देता था। मीटिंग समय पर आरंभ हुई। हिहस शाँत थे, विचारमग्न थे। 'हम्मम..' - हिहस बोले मंत्रीगण उत्साहित हुए, प्रफुल्लित हुए, मानो चकोर को चाँद के दर्शन हुए। "गृहमंत्री जी, इस देश में तो रहना ही कठिन हो गया है" - हिहुस बोले गृहमंत्री राजा महाराज जिन्हें सब प्यार से 'राजमा'कहते थे,की नज़रें कलाई से उठकर हिहस की ओर बढ़ी, मानों उलाहने से कह रही हों-  'हमें का पता, काहे सबके सामने बेइज़्ज़ती कर रहे हो।' राजमा बोले- 'हिहस, बाक़ी जगह ठीक है, कश्मीर की ही समस्या है, देश में रहने में कोई समस्या नहीं है।' ' अरे हम हमारे रहने की बात कर रहे हैं।' हिहुस झुँझलाए। 'रात भर हमारे ही समर्थक गरिया रहे हैं। आप को देखना था अन्य दे

"The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.- George Orwell" There are some words which come to you in a way that they keep coming back to haunt you at the most uncertain hour. As these words revisit you time and again, they look newer and fresher than before as if they have come having bathed in a some pond of eternal truth which has cleansed them off any rare blemish of untruth that might have been left in their being when they were written. These words of Orwell stand like a far away lighthouse in the in the middle of the darkest of the night, standing forlorn, yet silently serving the purpose of showing the path.  Recently there was a debate on the Television, with Pakistani guests, on the subject of terrorism (what else?). An interesting thing happened. When an Indian debater tried referring to shared history of thousands of years, so as to make Pakistani guest contemplate how Pakistan has turned in