Gulzar..

Aao fir koi nazm kahein,
fir kisi dard ko sahla ke suja lein ankhen,
fir kisi dukhti rag se chhua de nashtar,
ya kisi bhooli huee raah pe mudkar,
ek baar naam lekar kisi humnaam ko aawaaz hi dein lein,
aao fir koi nazm kahein...

Loved this poem..

I loved this poem..can anyone help me with locating the poet?

sedin ami rod e snan kore elum...
ek jhank sheeter thanda hayoa podmobil er jol chuye
pheesh phees kore gelo amar kane...
"onek din por dekha...khobor sob bhalo to?"
Ek jora raj hansh ghar bekiye aar chokhey dekhe gelo...
"chena chena thekche jeno!!!"
"A molo ja!!!
ei to sedin ghure gelum...
kada r opor hete hete,
kopai paarey ese chilum.
er modhyei bhule gele!!!"

ashomoy er brishti bheja ekta dupur mone elo...
rosh er khoje beriye chilum...
adibashi gramer pothey...
ek fali kopai niye khela korlum...
6 ta manush...

Kopai ekhon ghumer ghorey...
jol beshi nei...
kuyasha-r lep muri diye ghum ghum chokhey
takiye olpo ektu hashlo...
oi ek phali hashi te onek kotha bola chilo...
amio ek phali mridu heshey,
alto kore oke chuye, firey elum
lal mati r poth ta dhore...

roddur e snan kore
poushali akash tate mele dilum
ichche dana...
podmo bil er dharey rekhe elum
ek mutho shukno pata.

La Vita Nuova

La Vita Nuova

In that book which is
My memory . . .
On the first page
That is the chapter when
I first met you
Appear the words . . .
Here begins a new life

~ Dante Alighieri

Would you date a guy like this?

Would you like to date a guy who says that Akbar was the last Mughal king? And that the Brahmaputra is a river in Punjab? And that Lal Bahadur Shashtri was the first president of independent India? Would you find it ridiculous that a guy could get to be 23, know all the dating tricks and still take about 5 minutes to figure out how many hours are there in 300 minutes? I do. I find this absolutely ridiculous and incredible.
But am I getting old, and therefore setting my standards too high? Otherwise how could someone else find him date-worthy, so much so that he is the winner of a dating reality show? Guess it's just me growing old and getting nostalgic for the kind of guys I grew up with!!

The Big Fight

Yesterday I watched The Big Fight on NDTV (on decriminalising Article 377), and I was absolutely amazed at the level of homophobia which was being showcased on prime-time television by some of the participants. In addition to the usual bluster about gays needing to be redeemed through religious compassion, and about Bharatiya Sanskriti, what caught my attention was some of the other points being bandied about..like scrapping 377 would lead to pedophilia, spread of venereal diseases, brothels in every corner and what not. They all made it seem like a disease or at best a habit that one can kick off with enough counseling. OH and I made another discovery yesterday, that lesbianism isn't a crime in India, in the sense 'unnatural offences' were in 377, simply because the British in the 19th century couldn't imagine that such acts could take place between two women as well..
But anyways, I think we Indians are intolerant in nature, intolerant of anyone who doesn't live his/her life in the prescribed format of the society

Peanuts

Why do I love reading 'Peanuts' so much? Probably because it goes so well with the morbid part of my character. I have been doing some research on Wikipedia on this, and one critic puts it that through his characters, "[Schulz] brought... humor to taboo themes such as faith, intolerance, depression, loneliness, cruelty and despair."
Charlie Brown's main characteristic is either self-defeating stubbornness or admirable determined persistence to try his best against all odds: he can never win a ballgame but continues playing baseball; he can never fly a kite successfully but continues trying to do so. One recurring theme in the strip is Charlie Brown's Little League baseball team, the Saint Paul Saints. Charlie Brown is the manager of the team and, usually, its pitcher, with the other characters of the strip comprising the rest of the team. Charlie Brown is a terrible pitcher, often giving up tremendous hits which either knock him off the mound or leave him with only his shorts on. The team itself is also poor, with only Charlie Brown's dog Snoopy being particularly competent. Because of this, the team consistently loses. However, while the team is often referred to as "win-less", it does win at least 10 games over the course of the strip's run, most of these when Charlie Brown is not playing.
Does it seem familiar?

I was channel surfing on a clear Saturday morning out of sheer desperation when a serial on this new channel 'COLORS' caught my attention, and I sat through it absolutely fascinated. I am not much of a television person, but the bouts of human cruelty unfolding on the screen in front of me kept me hooked. It was one of those zillion soaps doing the rounds aajkal, and the story starts with a bahu's first day at her sasural. One whole episode was spent on depicting how her saas and sasur, and the elder bahu plotted on making her life miserable in such a clever manner so that the poor girl had no idea what was happening with her.
The entire episode was so brutal in its execution of harassment towards the girl that I was shocked and hooked. Do misery, exploitation and meaningless vengefulness on screen have their own share of worshipers so that even when you know what's happening on screen is absolutely immoral and unethical you still can't bring yourself to pull the plug? As a nation, are we in love with the idea of torturing and humiliating unsuspecting souls? Otherwise what can explain the popularity of such shows whose only reason for existence seem to be deriving sadistic pleasures?

My first blog

Yesssss.....I have finally done it..created a blog for myself..after endless months of hemming, and hawing and dragging my feet over it, suddenly here I am, on a slow Saturday morning, finally managing to catch that elusive bit of free time. I hope I continue to keep updating..it's difficult to find things that hold my interest for a time longer than a month..