Where have all the flowers gone?

Some days before on my way back to home from office I experienced something that shattered me… It was almost dark, nobody around that place… A saraswati idol without dress and the head upon it standing in the roadside bushes in bare negligence. The sculpture of the nude goddess, the lights and shadows, the junglee shrubbery around it.. It was simply breathtaking. A surrealistic visual grasped me. Thousands of words can be written, plenty of snaps can be taken.. but I did nothing… I just wanted to feel that moment itself.

People may raise their eyebrows… fundamentalists can start debating on the issue (like another MF Hussein story) but I am not going into that rather not even bother what they will think.

What amazed me that I used to travel office through this road only but I never noticed it and local people reported that it was lying there since saraswati puja. That day I realized we have lost something...our vision.. We used to be more driven by the brain than heart. We are so much busy in managing professional and personal life, scheming our EMIs, engaging mind in material output that we don’t get time to look at the world around us.
We prefer to cherish natural beauties in the idiot box rather experience it live. And for this we don’t have to go to Kashmir or Digha. We can feel the life right here. Remember Tagore’s immortal lines?
"Dekhite giyachi parbatmala, dekhite giyachi sindhu
Dekha hoy nai chakhkhu melia, duar hoite dui paa felia
Ekti dhaner shisher upar ekti shishir bindu"

Just think of these questions... When was the last time you have seen the green paddy field from the local train window? Have you visited the regional fair last year? Have you noticed the drenched crow on the fallow antenna? Have you ever heard the rhythm of the rain?

Try to get as much as possible from the world around us, explore the artist within you or else flowers will disappear in the concrete jungle one day.

Be a rebel !!!

One of my friend Somen wrote a blog titled “Where is your Basanti”…. It was on a recent Amir Khan starter movie “Rang de Basanti”… I could not be able to post the whole reply because it's crossed the word limit.... so I decided to start a blog to share my views.

After having several discussions with my friends and colleagues I found it all bogus to spend times in debating and lecturing about our deshbhakti. You need to be in the battlefield to experience the truth… you need to know the harsh reality…. on the roads, in our remote villages and in every walks of life. Suddenly a movie hits the theater and youth start burning with revolutionary thoughts… where are they when graham stains was burning, when Mahesh-sarita was brutally murdered, when Gujrat incident happened. I myself saw two young guys were charged by the movie and next day they were going to have fun and dance in vineet-debojit show in a city mall…. It proves we all are nothing but hypocrites.

Although I think cultural revolution can only change the mind of people, aware them and educate them to differentiate what is good and evil… and what I also started 3 yrs back by starting a theater group in my small village town… I don’t know if I am able to change the viewers perspective but surely I can attract some youth and their views as they are regularly spending time in good cause rather than just hanging around.

And last of all about the film… I do not agree with the director’s point of view to sacrifice life in a sudden emotion… exactly what bhagat and other did long time back… when the nation need his leadership badly. DJ,Suki, Aslam, pandey can think some methodical and organized action to change the society (…ofcourse not by killing people).
But I must appreciate rakyesh mehra for what he had showed in the middle of romantic bollywood saga… a subject with a bit uncommon opinion.

Last but not the least ……to answer your question Somen… basanti is everywhere…. You just need a eye to sense that, a heart to feel that… in your desired way.

When I know the time is right for me
I'll cross the stream
I have a dream