I : Imagination #AtoZChallenge2020

Imagination is everything. 

It is the preview of life’s coming attractions

~ Albert Einstein

I was wondering, how do inmates in jails keep themselves sane and positive in those harsh conditions. They must be having something optimistic to look forward to. They must be imagining a happier, crime free future. Just being productive and engaged is not enough to survive any form of incarceration. 

The power of imagination can't be undermined even under normal circumstances. But when conditions are tough, and when you are physically constrained, it is one's imagination that can run free and let one fly high. A prisoner who looks back, will get consumed by regret or guilt. But a prisoner, who uses the power of his imagination, to look forward, is going to relish the unseen and most probably realize it too. 

We have been the prisoners of this lockdown for 17 days now. But most of us have been prisoners of our minds, conditioned by our society, for long. So borrowing from Einstein quote, I want to imagine the attractions post lockdown, which I look forward to. So here is the stuff, I imagine myself doing post lockdown - 

1. Watching a movie in an IMAX theater. And nothing less than Christopher Nolan's Tenet would do.

2. Sitting in a nice bar, along with my friends, drinking a really really chilled beer. Along with peri peri french fries.

3. Going for a long ride in our car on the scenic ECR route. Halt at a good resort for lunch, that includes butter fried prawns.

4.  Having paani puri at a nice place. And any street food that catches my fancy.

5. Going to office and coming back home on time. Working for fixed hours in office is a thing I look forward to. Work from Home is not for me.

6. Going to a holiday to Europe - Italy, Spain. Have never been there.

7. Making choices about my career and in my work based on parameters that matter to me most.

8. Going outside the home without a mask, without a sanitizer and without fear of Coronavirus. Go Corona Go!

What are the attractions you are looking forward to post this lockdown?

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My theme for this year's #AtoZchallenge is Lock-down Blues. I intend to write and talk about how I deal with it, what it inspires me to read or watch or any aspect of it which fascinates me. You can read the theme reveal post here. 

Previous Challenges : Letter I

2017: Instant

2018: Illness - Life - Death (When Breath Becomes Air - Book Review)

2019: Item Songs in Hindi Films / Bollywood

I : Item Songs in Hindi Films / Bollywood #AtoZChallenge 2019

I can safely conclude that millions of people would have heard the song 'Baby Doll'  but not many would recall that it was from the film Ragini MMS 2. In fact not many will remember even the plot of this film. This song was such a huge hit. It was beautifully choreographed. The music video was of high standards. The lyrics and music were excellent, given it was an item song. Sunny Leone was the lead performer in the song, adding to its oomph quotient. The song was so popular but almost irrelevant to the plot of the film. But it helped attract audiences to the cinema halls. The movie was a hit because of this song. That is the definition of an item song for those unfamiliar with Hindi Films. It is a song added to a film to enhance its attractiveness, and to help in film promotions. Mostly this song has nothing to do with the plot of the film. Sometimes it does. 

There is so much written about these item songs! So many news articles and blog posts have been dedicated to the relevance of  these item songs or the lack of it. They have been criticized as well for their blatant objectification of women. Though there have been few items songs with male leads too.  Like Dard-e-Disco from the film Om Shanti Om had Shahrukh Khan gyrating. So to write about the most well entrenched cliche of Bollywood - item songs - is itself a cliche. Therefore I have decided to only talk about the journey of item songs over the years. There are three well defined phases according to me. These phases may not necessarily always hold, but they largely define the three distinct transformations. 

Helen / Vamp Era

Period : 1950's to 1980's 

Dancers: Helen was one of the most popular dancers for item songs in this era. Mostly performed by the vamp or gangster's moll in the film

Dance Forms: Cabaret, Mujra, Tribal / Banjara numbers

Performance Areas: They were usually performed in a bar or in a villain's den

These dances were mostly set to the upbeat tunes of R D Burman songs. This was an era when it was made very clear to the audiences, that item songs are performed by bad girls and heroines only dance on classical and semi-classical songs. This was an era when clearly there was no Grey. Only Black and White.

Watch this one from the movie Teesri Manzil, a great item song from that era. 

Madhuri Dixit / Heroine Era

Period : 1980's to 2000's 

Dancers: Madhuri Dixit was one of the most popular dancers for item songs in this era. Now mainstream heroines used to perform in these songs. There was no taboo associated any more with the item numbers. 

Dance Forms: Well the dance forms took a beating in this era and let us safely call this an era, where mish-mash of various dance forms - both Indian (folk and classical) and Western -  led to the rise of a form what is now popularly known as Bollywood dance.

Performance Areas: They were usually performed on a stage or in a villain's den. Yes! villain's den is like a cockroach in Hindi Films. It never dies. 

These songs were mostly composed by the likes of composer duo Laxmikant - Pyarelal, who relied on heavy orchestration for such numbers. This was an era, when the heroine took things in her own control and didn't share the limelight with any vamp. 

Watch this one from the movie Tezaab, a song that made Madhuri Dixit a superstar. 

Random Foreign Girls / Unknowns Era

Period : 2000's till now

Dancers: A Hindi film started having multiple item numbers. There is a title song and then there is an end credits song. But the quintessential item number featuring unknown foreign girls started a new trend. Heroines have their own item songs. And these unknown white girls have their own. 

Dance Forms: Your guess!

Performance Areas: They are usually performed in discos or sets that only Bollywood guys can imagine. Villain's dens still exist. 

These songs are mostly remixes of erstwhile hit songs, done by Tanishk Bagchi, who has made a career out of remixing old songs. This is an era where item songs don't have a sole proprietorship of either a heroine or a vamp. 

Watch this remix of a song titled Dilbar, used as an item number in the movie Satyameva Jayate. By the way just to inform you, the original Dilbar, was an item number in the movie Sirf Tum. It seems like item songs have a life of their own.

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My theme for this year's #AtoZchallenge is Hindi Film Industry / Bollywood cliches. You can read the theme reveal post here.

2017 Challenge Post from Letter I: Instant - A post about the moments that get frozen in your mind forever. Click here to read.

2018 Challenge Post from Letter I: Illness - Life - Death - The book review of "When Breath Becomes Air". Click here to read.

I : Illness - Life - Death (When Breath Becomes Air - Book Review) #AtoZchallenge

Illness & Death are morbid topics and they generally make tragic subjects for books, films and theater. 

So when I picked up this book titled "When Breath Becomes Air" by Paul Kalanithi, I was apprehensive and I was sure I won't like it. But it came highly recommended. As I turned the pages of the book, I realized that it is not about Illness and Death, but about Life that punctuates them. And that makes this book - despite its medical jargon and references to literary masterpieces which I don't have a capacity to appreciate truly - a beautiful and heartfelt piece of art. 

Before I move on to my views on the book, here are  few things you must know about the book and the author: 

1. The book is a true story -Paul's autobiographical account of key aspects of his life.

2. Paul wrote it when he was detected with stage IV lung cancer. He knew he will die sooner than he expected to but didn't know when. That is when he wrote this book.

3. The book remained incomplete in a form of an open manuscript when he died and his wife ensured it gets published.

4. Ironically, Paul himself was a neurosurgeon, who had a great life and career in front of him. He had never imagined a life of a patient.

5. Paul had a BA and MA in English Literature, and a BA in human biology. He was an MPhil in history and philosophy of science and medicine. He completed his residency training in neurological surgery and post doctoral fellowship in neuroscience, partially when we has fighting with his cancer.

6. His education and pursuit of excellence in what he was doing and his quest to find meaning of life, makes this book highly Indian, despite its American milieu.

My views on the book: 

• Imagine a life of glory, which is meant to serve a larger purpose cut short by a tragedy. This book is an inspiring tale of finding purpose first in your life and then even in your death. Paul delves deep into these subjects, and despite facing adverse circumstances and facing a certain death, he comes across as a brave man. You will feel a tinge of sadness throughout your reading, but it is a happy book after all.
• The book gives us life goals that are difficult to achieve, but the author achieves them at 36 years of age. It is a must read if you are looking for inspiration in your life.
• Paul details some of the medical procedures during his residency. While technically I didn't understand them completely, but one of his earlier experiences of delivering two premature twins who die is gut wrenching. It is amazing what doctors have to go through. But are all doctors that sensitive?
• Though briefly, Paul also talks about the profession of medicine itself. Why medicine can't be just a job? Why most doctors choose easy and commercial fields of medicine? How doctors get so immune to emotions that they start treating patients as statistics? He raises interesting questions here, but we never get fully formed answers. May be before he had cogent answers, he became a patient himself. 

This is an extract from the book, with which I would like to close the post. This for me describes the spirit of the book aptly:

Years ago, it had occurred to me that Darwin and Nietzsche agreed on one thing : the defining characteristic of the organism is striving. Describing life otherwise was like painting a tiger without stripes. After so many years of living with death, I'd come to understand that easiest death wasn't necessarily the best. We talked it over. Our family gave their blessing. We decided to have a child. We would carry on living, instead of dying.

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My last year's challenge post from letter I was about that instant that get frozen in your memories. Read it here.

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My theme for this year's #AtoZchallenge is all about writing stories, anecdotes and observations from my life in form of easy to read listicles. You can read the theme reveal post here.

I : Instant

Prologue

Life is all about memories. At the end, that bank of memories is the most prized thing you truly own. Some memories you want to hide in the deepest recesses of your brain, so that you don't have to face them ever again. And then there are happy memories, which bring a smile to your face even in the toughest times. Those memories give you strength.

And then there are memories of the third kind, that instant, that precise moment of time, when you know, something changed for ever. You can be with a person for a lifetime and build several memories with him or her, but when you close your eyes and think deep about that person, it is always that one instant that flashes before your eyes. That instant is the strongest memory, you have about that person. The reasons could be many. That instant may have strengthened or weakened your relationship. That instant may define the nature of your relationship the best. Or may be that instant defines the way you have perceived that person for ever.Whatever is the reason, there is always that one instant.

Shoes

AM has been my friend for more than 18 years now. We have had several moments where we laughed together, played pranks, drank together, partied together, went on holidays and so on. All my engineering friends, including him, used to call me CD.

One day after a party, almost 14 years ago, few friends of mine decided to drop me home. We all were drunk. AM was part of that group. My parents, shockingly, discovered that day, about my experiments with alcohol. This was not supposed to happen. But my response time was obviously slow. I got frightened seeing my father, and headed straight to my bedroom and plonked myself on the bed. All other friends also got scared and didn't enter the house. AM, drunk himself, entered my room and started straightening me up and was about to remove my shoes, when my mother realized that he is drunk too. She ordered him to leave immediately and told him that she will remove my shoes. She also threatened him that she will call his father the next day. AM said, "CD is my friend. Shoes toh main hi utaarunga" (CD is my friend. I will only remove his shoes)

This instant, defines him and strength of our friendship. 

White Face

We were on this infamous Goa trip. One night SS passed out after drinking a lot. We friends were sharing the room. One guy, took out talcum powder and smeared his face white. In the middle of night around 3 am, SS wakes up and goes to the washroom. He comes out after sometime, kind of disappointed, his face still white with that talcum powder. He chooses to wake me up at that ungodly hour to make a confession. "CD I think I have puked on my own face."

This instant, he trusted me, when he felt most sad. And more importantly, he emerged as the proverbial joker in our pack.

Bus Rides

Delhi to Ludhiana (The Long Night) - Two beautiful girls entered our bus in Delhi. One of them looked familiar. I was with one of my university mates. We were coming back from Gwalior, after some college competition. After the dinner halt at Panipat, the familiar looking girl, comes up to me and calls me by my name. I didn't recognize her at first. Then, as we get talking, R turned out to be my schoolmate. We had never talked much before. She was a medical student, coming back from Manipal for her vacation. For rest of the ride, we both kept talking and shared notes about the years gone by. Those days there were no mobile phones. So no numbers were exchanged. As we reached Ludhiana, due to some communication gap, her father waited outside the bus stop, while we disembarked outside railway station. Then started the struggle to locate him and unite them. Mind it, no mobile phones. Few policemen found our movement suspect and they didn't believe our story and thought we were doing something shady. Then they helped us locate her father. I never met R again in person. After many years, we found each other on internet. We talk / chat on phone often. And I believe are good friends, despite the tyranny of distance between us. But that bus ride defines the contours of our friendship. 

Chandigarh to Ludhiana (The Last Date) - V was my girlfriend for the longest time. We had been seeing each other for years. We didn't know at the start of that date, that it would be the last one. We spent our day in Chandigarh watching a film and eating out. We did some shopping too. As we took the bus back to Ludhiana, we made out in the bus. It was an exciting thing for young, reckless people like us to do. Love was in the air. As we bid goodbye to each other that day, we never knew we will not meet each other in person ever again. Love is unpredictable and one shouldn't take anything for granted were the lessons that instant taught me years after that moment had passed.

Epilogue

When I look back at all my relationships, I can think of that specific instant for each of them, which defines them. For the other person, I may not be that important. Or the other one, may define the same relationship or me by something else, some other instant, some other moment in time. It all sounds surreal. But if you think of some one in your life, but can't recall that one instant or strong memory that defines your relation, chances are that it is not yet an important relationship. Think about it.