Dream Catcher

One of the most intriguing lines I ever heard in my life was from gurudev, the great Raivindra Nath Tagore. Its a simple line, "Ekala Chalo Re". Why of all people, RNT choose to utter this line. The man who is a philosopher, thinker way ahead of his time, poet par excellence, what was the compulsion he had to utter this line could be line for dejected as well courageous, extrovert as well as introvert. Whats magical about that line is that you can apply this philosophy in any walk of your life and it would fit in any situation. You can go alone, march ahead, go with the righteous even if entire world is against you, stand as part of crowd if crowd is right, but have the courage to standalone if crowd is wrong. The history if full of people who showed amazing defiance in face of adversity, they refused to be cowed and bent in front of authority. My all time favourite is the "gadfly" from Greece, the father of modern philosophy as we know, one and only Socrates. He li...

Wake up Sid. Sid needs to wake up for sure, but apart from him, there are many others as well who needs to have a good look at themselves and try to wake up from their slumber before its too late. So, wake up Mr. Johar, its good to be humble, but to bow down and creep at the very first opportunity is something which I am very sure even you would not be proud of. Mumbai is mumbai, and nor bombay, so Wake Up from colonial hangover for once and start calling city what it really is. Playing in hands of people who make their careers by inciting people's emotions is a dangerous game to play. So, better Wake up and all the best for you next work "My Name is Khan". I hope after the release you don't have to go to more doorsteps with your sorry, to make sure your movie runs in movie halls. Wake up Mumbai. City of dreams, fast turning into City of goons. D company is still there, but nowits time for R company I believe. Lathi/swords welding people on prowl to defend the integri...

Gandhi jayanti it is, birthday of a leader of men. One leader whose names evokes discussion as heated and reactions so extreme, that intensity of those could not be matched, remain unparalled, even after more than 61 years of his death. Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, was probably one of the greatest leader and human being who walked in blood and mass on this earth, but then why there is a list of people hating him, deriding him at every possible opportunity, to the extent that word Gandhi becomes a synonym for being weak. Gandhi to me, for larger part of life remains a figure, who is enigmatic to say the least. Now this is a strange statement to say about a person, whose entire life was almost spent in public eye, with crores of people following him in India and across the globe, with countless collection of books, biographies, articles devoted to him. But this is a fact, my truth, that Gandhi to me was, and still remains an enigma. Who was real Gandhi, what was he thinking when h...

Its 26th of November. Its Deja-vu all over again. Quite a familiar sight for us Indians. We, the Indians, compassionate,forgiving people, we from the land of sages and karma. We are at it again, time and again, a handful of people, from outside, from within our borders, keep reminding us again and again of our debility, of our spineliness, of our cowardice but above all, most worrying of them, our lack of compassion, empathy and sympathy towards the victims, our lack of respect towards the life of our fellow Indians. The question which we need to ask ourselves is simple, is Indian blood so cheap that it is meant to wash railway platform, taxi seats, hotel corridors and rooms. Again a handful of ruffians came to our land, attacked us, held a nation for ransom at will and what is the response from our leaders. Deputy CM went on record saying that "small things like that happens in big cities. they came here to kill 5000 and we let them kill only 200". Well done sir, you as o...

Writing is something i feel like doing, rest are mere details. Here i am, writing again, celebrating the human spirit,breaking myths, creating a new legend, as legend are nothing but men who have the courage to defy the odds.Its unfathomable, unthinkable, unreasonable as why we deify the men who defy the odds. What is there in human nature, human mind , which gives different reactions to different emotions as biologically all emotions are same play of nerves. Then why is so that we deify the people like Howard Roark, the legendary hero of fountainhead, hate people like Toohey and pity people like Gail Wyand. There has to be some logic in that, because all the three mentioned men are fundamentally the same , conqueror of their miseries, masters of their souls,genius in their fields and giants among men. Then what is that difference between Roark and Toohey? Practically speaking, we all like men like Toohey around us who has all the connections, who is powerful yet humble, someone w...

India...A country of many religions, numerous beliefs and such a diversity that many a people outside this land tried hard and in vain to understand, to know , what lies beneath this apparent paradox, how it is possible for all of us to stay there, as a single nation, and in such a harmony which is beyond comprehension for most of the neutral observers. The answer lies in the land, in our land. You have to be there , you have to live there, celebrate the festivals, mourn the tragidies , in collectively to start understanding how do we managed to live together for centuries, when culturally every state, parts within every state are as different as chalk and cheese. I used to wonder, at a very early stage of my life, about those things. As a kid i was, well, a bit different. I used to wonder about lots of things, about religion and why there are so so many of them here, about GOD and life after death. I lived in delhi university for most part of my life and i think in retrospect that it ...