The new verb

Just when you think, Oxford Dictionary has officially finished publishing it's new version to add "Google" as a new verb to mean search, a new website has emerged to give us more choice in our searches. Maybe the next word in dictionary will be GahooYoogle

How I met the maestro…. Ustad Bismillah Khan

I was at a wedding ceremony in Vizag, a daughter of my dad’s friend was takingthe vows and we were all there. We were almost ready to wrap up to go, and I overheard few of my dad’s friends say, "oh! The father of the bride is playing all these filmi music." Thankfully, it was sparingly not too loud, but with the backdrop of lush gardens, with lotus flowers in the nearby pond and the splashes of water fountains, beautifully laid shamiana’s, fragnance of basmati whiffing in the air…somehow the music wasn’t justifying the esteemed presence of all highly acknowleged poets and artists. Then I heard my dad say, only the shehnai of ustad bismillah khan would be the cream of this décor.  In a hurried state as if it was forgotten, the father of the bride, somehow managed to get the tape. Within minutes, the tunes and melody of the great maestro Ustad Bismillah Khan’s shehnai started to waft in that balmy air. While I was sitting there as a child no older than 9 or 10, I was converged with the rhythmic notes he was creating with his shehnai. Subconsiously, i hung on to this memory, and thought maybe i should do this for my wedding too...

Few days ago, this memory dashed to my mind, while reading some article somewhere. There was also a picture of the young maestro in his humble abode, cross legged on the floor, in his white kurta and pyjama -- you could see that with his eyes closed his heart was pouring out of the shehnai.

But today, as I opened deccan.com, one of the headlines said “Shehnai’s purest note dies”… at 90 with cardiac arrest, he bid goodbye, he rested doing what he believied in … I continued to read that he didn’t celebrate his 90th b’day (quote DC) “as a mark of protest against the Varanasi bomb blasts.” My eyes swelled at it. Here there are people with such hatred for other communities, and here's a man trying to bridge his love for his land in his own way. Unfortunately, we lost this great mind on 21st of August, 2006.
 
I’ll always remember him as a simple person who created grand music that’ll always linger in the air.

Pictures courtesy of www.rajatgoyal.com

Refuge me!

After an exhaustive day at school (St. Francis) deciding if I should take French or German for my second language, and practicing school dance at Shivani’s home and with an almost empty wallet, I was waiting for my bus ‘1A’ to get home from Secundrabad. This was pre-kinetic days.

The bus stop was full of college crowd, since all my friends left already, I was looking at the bustling street ahead of me, longing for the bus to come. Then in the scorching heat I felt a chill, an icy slice of something clutching my feet slowly….

I let out a small cry and pounced in fear and looked down to see what could it possibly be. What I saw is a little girl, in grime, scruffy hair and torn clothes, must be 10 or 12 years old. She just looked at me with her palms wide open, I have never felt a persons hunger in such an up-close manner. Her icy hands were passing the tide of her state to me and I couldn’t understand the drain of energy. I gave her whatever I had in my wallet and hailed for an auto in a rush and started home. All through the ride, the thought of the chill fingers were giving me the frights.

I’ve heard people talk about poverty and I’ve seen poverty very close too. But feeling it on my skin was just very threatening to all that we build around in our safety net.

As I was splashing water on my face at home, the mirror looked back at me with a superficial emptiness of our lives and the powerlessness of the poor soul in me. A small part of me died in those little girl’s cold hands.