Main Aur Meri Tanhaai....

Main Aur Meri Tanhaai....
Yash Chopra was literally in love with love, and taught the world how to love love in its various colours, shades and interpretations. The suddenness of his passing away suggests nature had not planted Yashji amidst mere mortals like us to go into a reverie – Jab Tak Hai Jaan, he had to create romance out of romance.

Wonder what Yash Chopra's soul will be doing right now up in the heavens, watching his just-left-behind human folks go about their business of life, with many of them carrying the idea of romance as one reserved for the illusory world of films, not applicable in the real world! Maybe, he is just plotting another script for his re-entry into Earth, grander and more extravagant.

For Yash Chopra, the illusory world was the real world, where he projected his romantic interpretations with such finesse and subtle depth that you found each one of his love triangles, though based on the two-plus-one formula, DIFFERENT. Over so many years, one man, obsessed with romance as an idea, came up with so many colours that it was astonishing that the concept of love could have so many shades. Whether it was Kabhi Kabhie, or Lamhe, or Silsila, or Chandni, or Darr, or Dil Tho Pagal Hai, the audience found a fresh context and a new dimension. He was literally in love with love, and taught the world how to love love in its various colours, shades and interpretations. His love triangles seemed same from the outside, but there was no sameness in the inside.

Even through films like Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, which catapulted Shah Rukh Khan to superstardom, and Veer Zaara, the depths of love as an emotion were explored with great passion and predilection. No doubt, Yash Chopra was a very passionate human being, reflected even in his non-romantic films like Deewar, Trishul, and Kaala Patthar, where he got his characters to exude their roles with tremendous focus and intensity.

In many ways, Yashji's life was a focused one. He focused on romance, and always ensured that in the end, it was love that won, and not merely the film's characters. While Hindi films have always revolved around love as a predominant theme, cutting across generations of filmmakers, Yash Chopra was an absolute original. He brought alive the romantic feeling in dimensions as only he could.

It seems he was born to paint the emotion of love on the grand and illusory landscape of life, providing people with many moments of escape from their stale and humdrum existence. It is intriguing that the script of life snatched him away from us just after he said he wanted to retire from direction, perhaps also to reflect on his work and his interpretations, just as an artist would after having finished a project. The suddenness of his passing away suggests nature had not planted Yashji amidst mere mortals like us to go into a reverie – Jab Tak Hai Jaan, he had to create romance out of romance.

Yash Chopra's legacy lies not just in creating films of a genre of which he was the master architect, it also lies in bringing alive some extraordinary talents like Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan. Amongst the pantheon of Bollywood legends who have departed from this world, the vacuum left by Yashji can be filled only by Yashji, as God does not make such romantics with any imaginable frequency.

The heart says that Yashji has just taken a break. He did not exit this world because he was tired of love, he has simply gone on a cosmic holiday, perhaps to take fresh lessons on the idea of romance from the creator. The world awaits his return on another day, in another form, with a fresh wave of romantic interpretations. Till then, his films will provide us with succour, relief and entertainment.

Yash Chopra – born on September 27, 1932 – went on a cosmic holiday on October 21, 2012.

Amitabh's Birthday Today – Why Not Declare It As National Excellence Day?

Amitabh's Birthday Today – Why Not Declare It As National Excellence Day?
Take out the social relevance attached to his success, and just study Amitabh the person, and what we will get is a picture of excellence which cannot be learnt through books, but only through observing a true icon in action.

One man, one industry, one nation, one obsession – Amitabh Bachchan. As somebody who has grown up watching Bachchan perform some incredible roles with passion and panache, he continues to be a role model for the crafty exhibition of his excellence as well as for the excellence of his craft. It is incredible that the nation never tires of knowing the same things about him over and over again, be it through television, radio, newspapers, magazines, or the Internet.

There was a time in his career when many people wondered whether he would ever get himself out of the stereotype of the angry young man and perform more meaningful roles. Despite his iconic superstar status, his admirers too felt that the actor in him was yet to flower. Then came a downslide in his career before KBC resurrected him, and lo! the dawn of a new millennium also brought along with it an Amitabh who had resurrected his life and reinvented himself professionally, rising like a phoenix.

Ageing acted as a positive boost to the acting talent that lay hidden within him for so long, caught up in preserving the star, who fought illusory battles on reel for common people's real life problems. Amitabh was not just a star, he was the mechanism of relief for the Indian masses, who for long had to go through hard life battles, finding an irrational sense of succour in the lanky and unconventional looking `system fighter on screen` from Allahabad taking on the bad guys of the world, almost single handedly. On screen, when Amitabh punched the villain in his trademark style, the masses packed a punch emotionally as they let out another element of their stored-up frustration.

It almost seemed like God had planted Amitabh in a particular space as part of a larger cosmic role to execute the task of helping people cope with their struggles in a manner which was at once creative as well as bizarre. So, it is perhaps incorrect to say that Amitabh did not want to break away from the mould, maybe, the masses themselves could not release their star from the image they had constructed about him. Seen this way, it is clear why the entire nation prayed hard to recall Amitabh from the jaws of death after the Coolie accident, for his death might have not only meant the loss of a loved one, but also of hope.

Ageing allowed Amitabh to experiment and further evolve as an actor, but it was not before a long personal-professional struggle that he could resurrect himself and endear himself all over again to the nation, obsessed with his voice, personality, dialogue delivery, and depth of conviction while portraying various characters on celluloid.

But while there is a strong social context to Bachchan's success, what is fundamentally true about his mega status is his mega professionalism. He has always been considered to be a director's actor, who would do his part without interfering with the script. Not just that, his discipline, quality consciousness and single minded devotion to his profession are areas of learning critical for a nation, where excellence is compromised regularly and in absurd ways. Take out the social relevance attached to his success, and just study Amitabh the person, and what we will get is a picture of excellence which cannot be learnt through books, but only through observing a true icon in action.

So, as the nation once again obsesses about its Shahenshah as he turns 70, is it time to ponder whether we should declare October 11^th as National Excellence Day?

Happy Birthday Mr Amitabh Bachchan – bas naam hi kaafi hai!

Gandhi – Why India's Youth Should Know Him Better

Gandhi – Why India's Youth Should Know Him BetterGandhiji too would have been proud of the four qualities in our youth

Today is one more October 2^nd – the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi – and one more time politicians will offer their respects at Rajghat, and channels are likely to air the film `Gandhi` and other movies on the Mahatma through the day. For a vast majority, today is not about remembering Gandhi or what he stood for, but simply enjoying a break from work and relaxing on a national holiday. Being a long weekend, many of them may have even planned an extended holiday outside their respective cities starting last Friday or Saturday, ending today.

No grudges about all this of course, but there is no doubt that with every passing year, Gandhi and his methods are getting more and more relevant. As the world finds itself engulfed by Earth threatening problems like global warming, leadership concerns, terrorism, economic divide, etc, Gandhi the thinker raises his head from time to time in various ways, if only to remind people that his physical body died decades ago, but he lives on, causing enormous `chemical locha` (made famous by Rajkumar Hirani's film `Lage Raho Munnabhai, released in 2006) in the minds of people even today.

Gandhi is not just an institution, he is India's consciousness and somewhere a conscience keeper of our culture and moral/ethical values. The youth of our country, typically the post economic liberalisation generation, must study Gandhi beyond their academic text books, simply because that will help them establish a sounder intellectual/spiritual basis for existence than merely money. It will also make them realise just how much Gandhi contributed for India's sake at huge personal cost so that his countrymen could lead a life of dignity and freedom.

India and its people may not have panned out as per Gandhiji's vision, but I feel in some ways he would have been proud of today's generation for their following qualities:
-- A go getter attitude: Gandhiji was a go getter. He withstood enormous suffering to achieve independence for India.
-- A vibrancy unseen in any other generation collectively before: Gandhiji never grew old. He was the very epitome of energy.
-- A sharing attitude: To my mind, this is India's best post-independence generation when it comes to sharing. Be it through thoughts on facebook or through daily communication, they are quite forthcoming in their attitude of sharing, and Gandhiji would have been proud of this.

-- An aversion to corruption: The youth came out in large numbers to support Anna Hazare in his fight against corruption, and Gandhiji would have been proud of this too. The youth also perhaps have a decent ability to imbibe Gandhigiri (again, thank you Lage Raho Munnabhai).

But if Gandhiji were alive today, he would have given the youth a huge thumbs down for their attitude towards money and sex. Gandhiji was the very symbol of discipline and self control. He would probably have done his bit to educate the youth on this.

The youth of our country should know Gandhi better, for there is so much to derive from what he stood for. Post liberalisation India, dominated by money-oriented discussions, presents a very simplistic view of life, whereas seen from Gandhiji's perspective, they will find many answers to the various complications a money-driven society throws up, and thereby discover a far higher level of intellectual/spiritual enrichment.