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barsaat ki bheegi raaton main,
phir teri kahani yaad aayee,
kuch apna zamana yaad aaya,
kuch unki jawani yaad aayee*

I am in Mysore. I have just finished transcribing an interview running into four and a half thousand words and my head is spinning. I go out for a walk and in the dazed state that I am I do not realise that it is drizzling. Five minutes and wet clothes later, reality strikes. And then I realise the beauty of the moment. Wet roads. Smell of wet earth. The shining leaves of gulmohar trees all around me with water on them. Little puddles of water on the road.
This sends me back in time to the city I was born and brought up in - Ranchi. Ranchi as the social studies textbooks of yore would have told you, was a hill station. And what is a hill station, even if its only one in the text books, without rains...and power cuts and dark clouds. Black thunder with a flash of lightening. Drops of rain. The smell of wet earth. The red gulmohar in all its glory. Ek cup garam chai. Kishore Kumar singing "rim jhim girre sawan."
Every year after two months of scorching summer when temperature would touch the early forties and stay there, it would rain. And rains would bring life back into the city. The dull and dreary faces would all be smiling. Playgrounds, which wore a deserted look during summer, would be full of children playing football in rains (And believe me, no sport can match the exhilaration of playing football in rains). The complexion of the entire city would suddenly change from rust to green.
There would be cyclists trying to avoid the pools of water that rains had managed to create and there would be children jumping in the same pools, splashing water on the passersby (cyclists included), who did not seem to mind. Hot tea and 'garam samosas' with chutney would be the flavor of the season. All the talk about the receding water level in the lake supplying water to the entire city would be replaced with how many millimeters it rained that day. Buffaloes could be seen enjoying a swim in ponds, which were dry till sometime back and were now overflowing with water.
From our eighth floor flat with farms all around, one could see grease lightening kissing the ground. And the first burst of lightening was enough to ensure a power cut. And in the evenings this would send one searching for a matchbox and a candle or a lantern. Many evenings have been spent studying in dim candle or lantern light (or improving concentration should I say). And when the rains stopped, the smell of the wet earth would come through, something that doesn't happen anymore in the midst of all the concrete I have chosen to live in (I hope RT doesn't throw me out of Mumbai for this) .
The rains in Ranchi were rejuvenating, yet there was certain anger about them. They hit the ground with a thud...a knockout punch. The romance was clearly missing.
The city I moved to for my post graudate studies, Pune, lies on the leeward side of the Western Ghats. The clouds empty themselves over Mumbai and by the time they reach Pune, the heavy rains of Mumbai have converted into a drizzle. In Pune, in the truest sense of the word, it rains, it hardly ever pours. The romance that is missing in the rains of Ranchi can be found here. And it literally sucks you in. It's the kind of rain you would want to go out in and get wet. Or go out for a walk arm in arm with your loved one under the same umbrella. And given that Pune is a city of students, it is a fairly common sight.
The rains in Hyderabad, the city I moved to make a living, like the city itself, promise to deceive, looking fairly good when they start off, but fizzle out very fast. It doesn't really rain much in Hyderabad. In fact it rains more in Telugu movies, with the heroines from Sridevi to Shreya getting wet to the welcome relief of the front benchers, than it does in Hyderabad And when it does rain, the place to go to is the Hussain sagar lake. When the first drops of rain hit the water in the lake it's a sight not to be missed out on.
My nostalgia trip ends when the mobile buzzes. "Ho gaya?" the boss asks. "Bus bhej raha hoon," I reply and hurry back to work.

*opening lines of the movie Phir Teri Kahani Yaad Aayee ( a movie losely based on the relationship Mahesh Bhatt shared with Parveen Babi. He of course rewrote this script again for the Kangana Ranawat starrer Wo Lamhe)

Not everybody who creates history becomes famous.
Like, do you know Zaheer Aalam? Or do you know Mohammed Shafi Niyazi? Of course, you don't.
Over the weekend I rediscovered one of the biggest superhit songs of all time, that Aalam wrote and Niazi composed: “तुम तो ठहरे परदेसी साथ क्या निभाओगे”
Nobody knew Aalam even after the song became the biggest superhit of the mid nineties, though its singer Altaf Raja, whose guru Niazi was, became a household name. Life, as they say, is like that only.
Browsing through the compact disc (CDs) at Rhythm House (Mumbai's most famous music shop. Oh Yes, I still buy CDs) late on Saturday evening I suddenly came across this familiar looking cover in blue and yellow with pictures of Aamir Khan and Karishma Kapoor on it.
It took me no time to realise that I had rediscovered “तुम तो ठहरे परदेसी”the album, after all these years.
My mind went back to a day in 1996, when standing outside G.E.L Church Shopping Complex( the closest Ranchi had to a shopping complex) I first heard a paanwaala play the song full blast.
“एकदम superhit गाना है सर. पच्चीसरुपैये का cassette तीस रुपैये मैं black कर रहे हैं” he told me.
On that day, I was lucky to have some money in my wallet and I convinced the guy to part with the last piece that he had for twenty five rupees only.
Over the next two days I played the song full blast at home on the National Tape Recorder that I had, much to the irritation of my mother and sister. Like most females, they were firmly of the opinion that the song was clearly meant for autowallahs and rickshawallas, not for gentry like us.
The superhit song ensured that the album went onto become the biggest selling non film album of all time in India. It sold around 1 crore copies back then. A huge number. And clearly, everybody who bought the album couldn't have been an auto or a rickshawalla.
What is amazing is that the album when it was originally released had been named “पंगा ले लिया" based on another song in the album and possibly the worst song in the album.
The producers of the album Venus Records and Tapes quickly realised after the release of the album that another song in the album had become a big hit. And that song of course was “तुम तो ठहरे परदेसी साथ क्या निभाओगे”
It took them no time to repackage and relaunch the album with the name “तुम तो ठहरे परदेसी” And the rest as we all know is history.
Altaf Raja over the next few years released more albums, and even starred as himself, in a whole lot of Mithun Chakraborty movies, including one called “चंडाल,” in which he sang the superhit qawali “इश्क और प्यार का मज्जा लीजिये थोड़े इंतज़ार का मज्जा लीजिये”
Even with all the success he saw, “तुम तो ठहरे परदेसी साथ क्या निभाओगे,” remained his biggest hit. And as normally happens with such huge successes, once the impact of his original hit died down, he also disappeared from the scene.
Aalam and Niyazi of course must have continued with their lives, I assume. The Wikipedia entry on Raja tells me that Niyazi is now dead. Aalam, if he is still around, must be continuing with his nondescript, unassuming life, I guess. Given that India has very weak royalty norms, I have my doubts on how much these guys would have really gained out of the song becoming a huge superhit.
But what I will always remember Aalam for is one of the many couplets that keep popping up in the “तुम तो ठहरे परदेसी साथ क्या निभाओगे”

इस शहरे नामुराद की इज्ज़त करेगा कौन
हम भी चले गए तो मोहब्बत करेंगा कौन?

If you are the kind who has regularly watched Hindi movies over the years, you can summarise the storyline of most movies into one line: boy meets girl, boy loses girl and boy wins girl again. Most Hindi films are essentially versions of this story line (or what the director of the movie may tell you treatment bilkul alag hai.)

Now what would you say about a movie which twists this entire logic on its head. Boy loses girl in the beginning, boy loses girl at the interval, boy loses girl again after interval and boy wins girl, finally, in the end, after the girl has gone ahead and married the second hero.

This interview with Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, appeared intoday's edition of DNA. Loved interviewing him, so posting it here.

What would you sayof a person who is an economist and a hypnotist by training and a cartoonist by choice? Well, that he is different. Meet Scott Adams, the creator of the comicstrip Dilbert. "You can't understand human beings withoutknowing something about hypnosis and economics." Hypnosis explains theirrational part. Economics explains the rest," says Adams. In this interview to Vivek Kaul, Adamstalks on how Dilbert is coping up with the recession and how he (Adams) manageshis creative mind.

You spent a fairamount of time working at Crocker Bank and Pacific Bell, the phone company,where I am sure you must have developed most of your workplace cynicism. Buthave you ever thought about getting back to working for someone, to regenerateyour box of ideas or for that matter develop a new way of looking at theworkplace?(How about starting out working again in a recession ☺)

Ihave considered some sort of work just to gather material but my informalnetwork of spies do a good job of sending me fodder.
Earlier this week I was wondering whatsort of work I could get if all newspapers disappeared over night. I've got anunusual resume.

Dark clouds. Black thunder with a flash of lightening. Drops of rain. The smell of wet earth. The red gulmohar in all its glory. Ek cup garam chai. Kishore Kumar singing "rim jhim girre sawan."

I wake up to a rainy Mumbai morning, frantically searching for CDs and cassettes (yeah I still listen to them) which have my favourite rain songs. An hour and a half later, I have come up with a list of what would be my top 10 rain songs of all time: songs about the rain, songs picturised in the rain and both.
So here we go (The songs are in no particular order.)

1) Saawan ke mahine main: This is an old Dev Anand - Mohammed Rafi number, written by Rajinder Krishen and set to tune by ghazal samrath Madan Mohan. "Sawan ke mahine main, ek aag thee seene main, thodi si jo pee leta hoon, do chaar ghadi ji leta hoon," go the lyrics of this very soulful number. A very good song to wake up to, on a rainy morning, which makes you feel melancholic, and reminds you of those days, you wouldn't want to remember about. It prolongs the pain and if you are the kind who seeks pleasure even in pain, nothing to beat this number.