a tribute to Mohammad Rafi

tomorrow is Rafi Saab's death anniversary. here is a compilation of 60 of his most well known songs. i'm sure there are many favorites that have been left out and no single compilation can do justice to the versatility and talent of this amazing playback singer and a truly human, human being.

 

 

you can watch all the songs here in the post itself. though they will look much better on the big black screen here: http://goo.gl/SHvMf

अपने घर का

न रहा नामो-निशाँ अब अपने घर का
अजनबियों से पूछता हूँ, पता अपने घर का

इश्क ने मुझे दो जहाँ की दौलत वारी
आफ़ताब* अपने घर का, महताब** अपने घर का

अजब लोग इस शहर के, अजब आशनाई^
वक़्त पर न खोला किसी ने, दर अपने घर का

हर एक शख्स की चाहत अपनी, इबादत अपनी
शेख^^ अपने घर का, रिंद*^ अपने घर का

ज़मीन पैरों तले और आसमाँ ऊपर
बस यही है रक्ब^* अब अपने घर का

ये न समझे खुदा, के भूला हुआ हूँ मैं
मुझे पता है असली, पता अपने घर का

तुझसे मिला जब, महसूस हुआ मुझे
पूरा हुआ है ख्वाब, अब अपने घर का

*आफताब- सूरज, sun ; **महताब- चाँद, moon ; ^आशनाई- मेल-मिलाप, cordiality ; ^^शेख- धार्मिक व्यक्ति, religious individual ; *^रिंद- शराबी, drunkard; ^*रक्ब- क्षेत्रफल, area

Mukesh lives for ever in our hearts

very early in life, Pa instilled in me a love for good words and quality writing. more often than not, it came by in the form of lyrics written by Shailendra for mostly Raj Kapoor movies, composed by Shankar Jaikishan. and Mukesh was the voice of many characters played by Raj sa'b.

in an age glittering with gems like Md. Rafi, Kishore, Talat, Hemant Kumar and Manna Dey, Mukesh holds his own for the sheer simplicity and sonorous quality of his voice.

on his birthday today, here is a compilation of some of my favorite songs sung by him. hope you'll enjoy this ride back in time :)

 

sometimes you are not supposed to do the things you were supposed to do!

this weekend was like that. had made a lot of plans, will do this, will do that, but nothing turned out the way it was supposed to be. and i'm surprised i'm not sulking about it! :)

hadn't planned on coming to office, but was in the office for a few hours before heading out home. there is lot of work going on at home, and had planned revamping my room and all, but it didn't happen. had planned on calling my dear friends home and having a good time fooling around. instead, went out and met them in the Kamla Nagar market and roamed around there. had planned about spending some quite time at home with my love but instead the evening found us debating and discussing a book (that apparently we both are scared of) over cups of delicious cardamom tea, at the stairs of Vishwa Vidyalya metro station.

sometimes you are not supposed to go as per the plans, sometimes you are supposed to go with the flow, sometimes, and the ever cautious me says 'only sometimes' :) you are not supposed to do the things you were supposed to do in the first place.


 

 

electrified!

last week an electric pole in front of my house caught fire. while people were busy removing their cars from beneath the flaming wires and melted plastic falling down, i thought it'll be a good opportunity to capture my first YouTube upload ;)



strangely, nobody thought of calling the NDPL (electricity) guys! somebody did call the police and fire service though and i'd a memorable video :D

weekend, health and good wishes

it is a sad commentary on my health status that i missed just one day of office and everyone around assumed that i must have been ill! morning onwards, have been warding off questions regarding my health and illness. sudden sniffles after last night's weather turnaround in Delhi also helped create an additional effect! people worried so much about my health through the day that i actually am not feeling well now :(

had an amazing three day weekend! though Monday was spent majorly in renovation work going on at home. lots of roaming around, shopping, meeting a dear friend, eating out, and most importantly- spending quality time with her and making plans about our future. there was also a fabulous electric pole fire right in front of my house that i've recorded and will share with you soon.

till the next update, wish me good health ;)

of mental notes

the office is calm today. a whole department that sits across the aisle has left for a hilly retreat. my team, is silently slogging under the weight of unrealistic client expectations. we are seeing another weekend going up in smoke. if this happens, it'll be my third working weekend in a row. haven't met her for around a month now.

just two cubicles ahead of me, two of my senior teammates are busy discussing a work, that i hope doesn't involve me. apart from them, there is just two much calm. like thoughts and ideas in my head, things are strewn across my desk. an almost empty water bottle (which reminds me that i still don't drink as much water as i should); a single chapati neatly squared and folded in the foil it came in from home; a silent pair of desktop speakers, mobile, pen, two empty glasses of chai on a piece of paper that has a client's de-brief note printed on it; a pencil lying on top of it with which a friend was writing a poem on a loosely bound notebook of one side printed A4 sheets given to me by our photocopy machine operator.

the friend wrote my name, department and subject of the 'roughbook' on the top right hand corner, just like we used to do in our school days. beneath it, on the left hand side he wrote the names of people who went with me to Khajuraho this March. (seems like a long time ago, and i make one more mental note to finish my Khajuraho blog!) he has also written a poem beneath all of this and has asked me to complete it. to which i'd replied, please do finish it yourself as i'm not in the mental state to do it.

and now that somebody is playing a song from 'Jab we met' i'm out of this sweet reverie of sorts i was having. its time to go back to slogging once again. and making more of mental notes of and about life yet to live...

new blog!

it is almost 11 in the night, while m still in the office, waiting for an extremely frustrating day to get over. the only bright point in my day was this: http://theillusionalreality.blogspot.com/ a new blog that i've started and will dedicate to photography.

i love photography and had been neglecting my passion for it for a long time now. but last week, i saw a program on NGC, about their top ten photos of the year and it gave me a big jolt. here were people who would go to any length to get that perfect photograph and here was i, not clicking anything for months on end!

at the end of the program, while different photographers were talking about things that move them, shoot after shoot, year after year, i realized that i too wanted to be a photographer some day (well, amongst many many things), that i too wanted to capture moments (whether by being a photo artist or a poet or a painter) and store them for eternity.

this blog is a result of that epiphany.i hope i'm able to rekindle and continue with my love of photography. of course, your support is more than required.

wish me luck and perseverance :)

How do you exorcise your grief?

my dear friend n erudite blogger, Mo wrote a delightful verse 'How do you exorcise your grief' here: new poem by Mo!

after i wrote this in the comments section i felt that it is good as a stand alone poem too! please read the original one at the link above and then only read this. ur comments, at both the blogs will be eagerly awaited :) thanks!


How do you exorcise your grief?

i welcome my grief
to sit beside
and (we) share our joys
lest foes we become
.
.
.
because i found out
very early in life
grief when made a friend
is grief exorcised

a note on yesterday's Bharat Bandh

for the first time since late 80s, the Opposition Left and Right in India united against Congress I party's misrule and gave a call for complete 'bandh' (total shutdown) of the country. a lot has been and is being said in favor or against this. while the opposition parties say it was a resounding success, the ruling Congress I says it was anti-people. and this cockiness of the riling party is what i didn't like.

whether a success or not, it was important for the Opposition to get united and forcefully tell the Government, that price rise is an issue that gravely affects the people and cannot be brushed under the carpet anymore. yes, any kind of bandh affects the day to day life of people involved, yes, it extracts a cost, but sometimes, disruption becomes important to draw the attention of the ruling Government towards the plight of common people.

if a peaceful, democratic, bandh is so anti-people, as the Congress I today claims, then the Satyagraha and the Civil Disobedience movements of Gandhi ji and the original Congress party against the British raj were equally anti-people, 'cos they also disrupted so-called normal life, financial transactions and functions of the Government of the day.

the fact is, whether a bandh or no bandh, everything, including the most essential commodities have seen run-away inflation in the present misrule of UPA-II (of which Congress I is the head). and the most affected by this are the very segments of society whose beneficiary Congress promises to be. it is very easy for some media houses, commenting from their air-conditioned spaces, to write this bandh off only as a disruptive attempt by the opposition parties, to write that this bandh was anti-people, to say that India 'lost' 13 thousand crores in a single day... it'll be very difficult for them to highlight the agony of the same 'common-man' on rest of the non-bandh 364 days of the year!

India's voting public possesses a notoriously short-term memory, and Congress I has highly skilled media managers, and that is why i hope that the Opposition keeps this issue on the 'front page' for as long as possible. we need not go back much to understand this, look where the Bhopal tragedy is in the news these days! Bharat Bandh's and Opposition's next trial will be in the monsoon session of the parliament, let's hope it doesn't become another Bhopal story by then!

i'll close with Bhagat Singh's words, "If the deaf are to hear, the sound has to be very loud." and this present Government has not only been deaf, but dumb and blind too. lets hope for salvation.

बेगानी शादी में अब्दुल्लाह दीवाना

हमारे कहावतें लिखने वाले पूर्वज बेहद गुणवान, प्रतिभासंपन्न लेखक रहे होंगे. आज कल के लेखक कहाँ ठहरते हैं उनके सामने. अब ऊपर लिखी कहावत को ही लीजिये, भारतीय क्रिकेट टीम के कप्तान ने शादी करने की क्या सोची, पूरा मीडिया 'बिन बुलाये मेहमान' की तरह उनके यहाँ पहुँच गया. ये हुई एक और कहावत :)

खैर, दुनिया भर की जरूरी खबरें छोड़ के हमारा मीडिया पूरे दिन धोनी की शादी कवर करने में लगा रहा. और  किसी के पास कुछ नहीं होता कहने के लिए, बस एक भेड़चाल है जिस पर हर चैनल, हर अख़बार चलता रहता है.

सच में, जब सिर्फ दूरदर्शन होता था तभी खबरें देखना अच्छा लगता था. अब तो टीवी पर खबरें देखने का मन ही नहीं करता.

on a completely different note, a use of the same idiom in this hit song from the movie, Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behati Hai

मुश्किल तो नहीं, आसाँ भी नहीं

आँखों में नमी, होठों पर हंसी, मुश्किल तो नहीं, आसाँ भी नहीं
यूं घुट-घुट कर जीते जाना, मुश्किल तो नहीं, आसाँ भी नहीं

है वक़्त एक साया क़ातिल का, साथ मेरे जो चलता है
क़ातिल से करूँ मैं याराना, मुश्किल तो नहीं, आसाँ भी नहीं

वो शोख हसीं जब नज़रें उठा, यूँ तीर निशाने पर छोड़े
दिल मेरे तेरा अब बच पाना, मुश्किल तो नहीं, आसाँ भी नहीं

ये रंग बदलती दुनिया है, यहाँ रोज ही यार bichadte हैं
ऐसे में तेरा मुझे मिल जाना, मुश्किल तो नहीं, आसाँ भी नहीं

कुछ अंजाना सा रिश्ता है, मेरे खुदा, तुझ में, मुझ में
इस रिश्ते को झुठला पाना, मुश्किल तो नहीं, आसाँ भी नहीं

हम इश्क-तबीयत वाले लोग, कलम कहाँ साथ में रखते हैं
आहों से ग़ज़ल बुनते जाना, मुश्किल तो नहीं, आसाँ भी नहीं

 

यहाँ मीठी सलाखें सपनों की, और दाना-पानी रिश्तों का
इस क़फ़स* से यूँ उड़ कर जाना, मुश्किल तो नहीं, आसाँ भी नहीं

*पिंजरा