Poor Soul is now tired of mumbai

Hi ..

After seems like centuries i'm writing , with mission of nothing but to show my friends how hard i'm trying to survive in mumbai (and again without any mission). Although we have our beloved Baba who evertimes says that another 5 yrs in mumbai and he will retired (saying this for almost decade now). I'm trying hard to survive here. God bless Niks who joined me some months ago, or else i wud have definately left mumbai for sure. After baroda, in mumbai my soul has gone more lazy. I wud like to mention one recent incident. On Diwali, i prompted Niks to clean up the house. The deal was the will broom up the home and i will mop it up. However after niks had brommed up, i said Today is Diwali and nobody is going to come to our home. Tommorow is New Year and it will be wise to clean up tommorow only. And as ususal tommorow never comes.

Well guys laziness now is now so enrooted in my lazy bones that, even when i have my 4 days off; I didn't even move from my home. Even now we guys have started ordering food at home. Who wants to take pain to walk some 500 meters for food, when "Home Delievery" facility is provided by almost everyone. Going to office is like max 10 mins walking distance, but again then what will happen to Rickshawalas. Its we who have to run there economy and hence i promptly take Autorickshah to office. Now but working for my office has took ever bit of enthusiam out of me and now i think i have to awake my previous incarnation. So that i can finally get some way out of here.

PS: Guys i'm writing this post not of frustration, but beacuae nobody have posted since March. So i thught let it be me . keep posting. Esp. Baba and Sabu ur writing rocks.

MUMBAI

It is 5:30 in the morning and still very hot inside my room. Walls are radiating heat which was accumulated by them all the day. I am in Ahmedabad and now free for sometime to read as much as I want. May be I am going back to phursatgunj tomorrow as today I received a call from Kharchu. Finally he got the job and now he has to join from 8th of next month so he wanted to come back here and also wanted to go home once before he starts working as a network troubleshooter.

Mumbai is a cruel place. I don’t know and can not even make a blind guess now. Shall I ever be able to work there in Mumbai? A city of dreams or a dream city? It is okay to go there as a tourist but to work there is altogether a different thing.

My friends who worked there before and who are working there right now showed me such a wild picture of lifestyle there, especially traveling on Mumbai locals and through heavy traffic on roads and environment at workplace, that I think I am a total misfit for this kind of life.

Those who live there may be never think about this. And it is very easy if they don’t think about it consciously. They don’t meditate over there own condition and start enjoying misery. Even 50 paisa of consciousness can not tolerate such a mad race for doing foolish things at frightening pace.

This is misfortunate. But it is so. Those who live there can live because they never think about this.

And I have total faith in my friends when they say life is not easy in Mumbai. I even can feel it from the outside, far away here. I certainly can not feel the physical pain they bear when they have to fight their guts out to get on board of Mumbai locals, but I still can feel the constant mental agony they go through everyday.

Once I was there in Mumbai with Kharchu and Binny the fool. That was way back in 2002 I think. I don’t remember dates exactly but may be after the riots in Gujarat. And that was one very funny and mind blowing experience as a tourist there. I enjoyed every bit of that journey but my friends were tired of me as I was so slow.

May be I was the slowest guy at that time in Mumbai. Once I missed 4 trains in row from Mumbai central station towards Andheri. My Mumbai Yatra was very funny and was full of comic incidents from the very beginning and I shall write about that some other time.

After reading Shantaram one thing become clear in my mind that Mumbai is for people who are rich and for them who are poor. Mumbai is very cruel to those who dwell somewhere in between. I knew this fact from day one but Shantaram made it more clear and transparent.

Any way best of luck to all my old age friends, who works there and face all this problems. Kharchu is going to join the working middle class of Mumbai very soon and I pray to god that he give kharchu all the supernatural powers so he can get on board of Mumbai locals more easily. May god bless him and give him super-hero like powers so that his old and thin bones can fight and survive the Mumbai Madness.

No kidding, but this hocus pocus was not intended when I started writing about Kharchu, Mumbai and my ancient friends living there. But this is what ground reality is and this is very ugly.

May be Mumbai has everything she wants, a big body and even bigger a heart, and very bright and active mind. She has no soul. It is like America, so many cultures interwoven that they have lost their very identity. They have lost their soul.

They have no roots. Not standing or not going anywhere. They can not enjoy the music and can not enjoy the silence. From the outer it is almost same even in the small towns of India and even in remote villages. But only difference is that they have a little bit of soul left in them.

They are rooted, earthy and life is much more natural and even easy for both body and mind. When our body and mind is in perfect harmony then only we can feel and sense our soul. Then only we can be more natural and can feel ourselves. At least that is like that for me.

When we were in Mumbai I was the only one who was walking, everybody including my friends were running. Mumbai sucked and over ruled Kharchu’s and Binny’s mind. They were brainwashed. Aroma and air of Mumbai intoxicated both of them. I was spared because I was slow and not the one she liked very much.

Mumbai sucks and than throws you in to the dark corners of the city where no one can claim you back. One feels as if he is manufactured by some moving assembly line in a mammoth human mass production factory. One feels that everybody around him is same as he is. Doing and repeating same things again and again senselessly.

She has a heart but she has no soul.

A very warm welcome to you my friend, she is Mumbai.

Different Shades of Mirza Ghalib.

There is no doubt why so many admire him and look at him as the most wonderful poet both Urdu and India has ever produced. He indeed was the most famous among them all, not only during his own time but even 150 years after his death. I myself don’t understand Urdu a lot but as an UnLearner I am very much interested in his works. My intention is purely academic and that of UnLearning. Pundits of Urdu poetry say that the best way to feel and understand Urdu is to understand Ghalib. A man of great stature he stands out among great Urdu poets like Mir, Rumi and Hafiz. He was even better an expressionist than all of them. Not so elegant or graceful in expression I am unable to express what I feel about his greatness.

Ghalib was his pen name which literally means conqueror in Urdu and without any doubt he conquered uncountable hearts. What Shakespeare is to English literature is Ghalib to Urdu. His contribution not only to Urdu literature but to the world of literature in general is immense.

I am unable to decide what is better in Agra, Taj Mahal or the feeling that Ghalib roamed around those lanes of the city. Faint feeling of his presence must be there in the air of Agra and Delhi. Though his theme style and way of expression was different from Kabir, he was true descendent of him in many senses. Unlike Kabir his path was of love and devotion rather than Bhakti or worship, but the essence or meaning was and is one and the same. Today we can regret that we neither have poets like Ghalib nor Delhi-Darbar Mushairs but ruins of his words with us. Posterity of Urdu literature can never forget these lines from the maestro.

Piyoon sharaab agar khum bhee dekh loon do chaar
yeh sheesha-o-qadah-o-kooza-o-suboo kya hai?

[Khum = wine barrel; qadah = goblet, wine glass; kooza/suboo = wine pitcher]

When you drink look at the empty bottles around you. What is this wine barrel and wine glass?

No translation can express what can be expressed so well in Urdu.


Wine was the other great love of this great poet, besides the beloved. For him beloved were his lover and God alike. God was feminine for him. Urdu language has this beauty of describing things beautifully and more poetically than any other language. For Ghalib, wine was more important than anything else in the real world around him. For him it was an art as important as poetry itself, or may be more than that.

I can see few striking similarities between him and few of the literary giants of his time. He also was an aristocrat like Leo and Oscar. May be there is this strange relation between aristocracy and good writing and poetry. Genuinely I confess that most of the writers or poets I love are either from aristocratic backgrounds or they are very rich. May be only rich can have all the time and patience in the world to write about such things at length and they get admirers too. In last few days I have experienced this personally. They were rich not only in monetary terms but also in their ability of expression of feelings and understanding of human nature. They all were rebels. They never made noise about the social reforms because they knew that nothing much could have been done with the society. Their work just reflects how well they understand life.

Famous American journalist and literary critic Burton Rascoe rightly said, “What no wife of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working when he's staring out of the window.” Leo experienced this during earlier part of his married life. Just in the beginning of War and Peace he put these words in Prince Andrew’s mouth, "Never, never marry, my dear fellow! That's my advice: never marry till you can say to yourself that you have done all you are capable of, and until you have ceased to love the woman of your choice and have seen her plainly as she is, or else you will make a cruel and irrevocable mistake. Marry when you are old and good for nothing or all that is good and noble in you will be lost. It will all be wasted on trifles. Yes! Yes! Yes! Don't look at me with such surprise. If you marry expecting anything from yourself in the future, you will feel at every step that for you all is ended, all is closed except the drawing room, where you will be ranged side by side with a court lackey and an idiot!... But what's the good..."

Ghalib’s relationship with his wife was even worse than this. Married at the age of 14 he was a true rebel while his wife a god fearing woman in worldly sense. Some of the most popular and the best work he gave the world were created between the age of 13 and 17. By the time he was 17 he said that he was ’through’ the poetry. He was born a wise and old man I imagine. Just like Leo and Oscar he also passed through mental agony during later part of his life. May be, knowing too many things too early in life was a cruse he suffered from throughout his life. Ignorance is really bliss. More and more you know more and more you suffer until you attain the fountainhead of ultimate truth. But that is a process, you have to know more and more in order to UnLearn things you have learned all your life. I think Ghalib failed here. It seems from the incidents in later part of his life as if all his efforts went south and he was unable to hold his frustration. This gaazal by him describes that better.

Those faces of death I see sometimes
in the rose and tulip but only a few

Daughters of the sun behind that sweeping dress
what were you thinking coming naked to the night

He is the one for whom sleep has widened
on whose arm your hair is lying

We made breaking the pattern a pattern of living
when friends kept dying faith overtook us

I have wept for all I have seen I am young
these cities should sleep in the dust of desires

Few of his letters have been translated in to English by Ralph Russel. Ghalib also contributed in the development of Urdu prose writing and gave it new directions. Few of his letters translated are also available for online reading.

This Shar best describes his rebellious nature as a lover.

Ragon mein daudte firne ke ham naheen qaayal
jab aankh hee se na tapka to fir lahoo kya hai?

You can listen to all beautiful songs and Gaazals by Ghabil sung by various famous artists here, including famous songs from movie mirza ghalib:





This is one very long Soundtrack, around about 10 hours of Gaazals. Drag-Drop progress bar on player to listen to different songs.

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P.S.Urdu and Hindi or Hindustani are very similar to each other and evolved side by side for almost 500 years.They are sister languages. They developed from the same indo-european branch of languages and have similar words and grammar. Both of this languages borrowed words from Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian and Prakrut.

Poet's full name: Mirza Assad Ullah Khan Ghalib written in urdu as:


Glossary for non urdu-hindustani speakers.
Sharaab-Wine, Sheesha-Glass, Qaayal-Bound, Ragon-veins, Aankh-eyes, Lahoo-Blood.


© 2007 20Box

Hahahahe This is real time pass at Capital Market

Man i am bored at CM and do not know what to do when i am bored so i am gonna write some stuff and post that stuff down ur throats. so here we go ....................................................


Listen, all yea enlightened souls
Listen to this one song
The song of my soul

Laugh, as much as u care
Tout as much as u want
For neither do I care
Nor do I worry

All I want
Is but to say a few words
Which I did
And
All yea fools listened
Hahahahahhahhahahha
Hehehehehehehhehehe
Hohohohohohohohohos

Episode one

two lazy fellows started their journey for a special cause ... that will be revealed later on.The episode started on 2nd jan 2006 ya it was a new year eve.After celebrating new year ...that was also a fuss, I don't want to disclose may be I will blog it later, but the events which i am going to describe are very interesting(for the readers) and hilarious, but for us these events were torturous as well as enjoyable mixed with compulsion and confusion. On the 2nd of jan 2006 at 10 pm we two lazybones nearly missed the train. When we arrived at the railway station the train was about to leave, but we two courageous fellows like army commandos without any difficulty and hesitation boarded on the train."Thank god" was our voice inside. We were very relaxed and happy to be in the train on time. But this happy moment did not last long, soon we discovered that we had boarded on a wrong train. The train had started rolling and was gaining momentum ,we were aghast...what to do ? No ...we are brave souls, "we will have to jump", we decided ...."but this could be risky " We thought.... no we have to do it after all we are brave souls" finally we decided . "you jump first and catch the luggage"( it was a bag nothing more) said one brave soul and the other followed the instruction .....one ,two, three,.....jump yapeee ,take this and here i junp...the other also plunged(not exaggerating) from the door of the coach. Only the good thing was we were on our legs and senses. But tried to find out what went wrong. Actually, it was not a major mistake, the train which we had to catch was Pune-Indore shanti exp , but the train on which we had mistakenly climbed-up was Indore-Pune shanti express, but was it not our fault ,it was the fault of railway department which has scheduled both the trains Up and Down to arrive at the station , same time; our train was standing on the other platform. we then boarded on right train we made it sure by asking several fellow passengers and TC of that train. We had waiting ticket, in India we have right to board on reserved compartment, even if we don't have confirmed reservation. So we randomly climbed up in a compartment which we thought was less crowded, but soon we found that we were the only ones who did not have seat to sit or lie down. But who cares, we after talking with TC who expressed his helplessness in providing us a seat,we took out our tools from the bag, (bed sheet and blanket) we spread the bed sheet on the floor near by the toilet room and covered ourself with the blanket. The train called shanti express as my friend rightly points out, how shanti and express can exist together, started off its endeavour. Just after leaving the station she started showing her real character, it stopped after running for 10 minutes and haulted for half an hour.This trend continued through out the journey. She haulted more, rolled less. Her old, weary disel engine, was screaming and crying ; the scream was horrifying. Any way she took 12 hours instead of usual 8 hours to complete the journey....never mind ,for indian railways it is not a big thing. Now, we were standing at a place where we had never visited before.But it looked familier to us , as all big or small indian cities are more or less are similar. We arrieved there at 10 am immediately we thought we should move towards our final destination that was DHARNAGRI, in short DHAR, the land where once legendary king Raja BHOJ ruled. we were exited to see the city ,which has a beautiful and glorious history. We decided to catch a bus to Dhar as no railway station exist there. We hired a autorickshaw, reached bus stand, on the way we bought a quarter gin to refresh ourself. At bus stand we mixed it with mineral water, drank it slowly on our way to Dhar. Few of our foreign friends, probably from japan, riding with us, got frighten when they discovered that we were drinking liquor, but my friend by staring at them made them more frightened.
next arrival at Dhar..................