Celebrity Column: CLOUD NINE, writes Ayushmann Khurrana

“Clue number one was when you knocked on my door,
Clue number two was the look that you wore,
And that’s when I knew, it was a pretty good sign,
That something was wrong up on cloud number nine.”

Goes the famous Bryan Adams song. It reminds me of the summer of 2000, when I kissed for the first time. I was on cloud nine. I’m on cloud nine again with passing the litmus test of two back-to-back releases with flying colours. How did this phrase came into being? Cloud nine? Why not seven? You’ll be surprised. In earlier days, the happiest state was called as cloud seven, as it was derived from ‘seventh heaven.’ Later, cloud nine became a part of the pop culture. Whenever a phrase includes a number, like the whole nine yards, at sixes and sevens, etc., then attempts to find its derivation usually focus on the number. ‘On cloud nine’ is no exception. A commonly heard explanation is that the expression originated as one of the classifications of clouds, which were defined by the US Weather Bureau in the 1950s, in which ‘Cloud Nine’ denotes the fluffy cumulonimbus type that is considered very attractive.

Another explanation is that, the phrase derives from Buddhism and that Cloud Nine is one of the stages of the progress to enlightenment of a Bodhisattva (one destined to become a Buddha).

I’ve always been fascinated by clouds. In 1992, I went to a hill station for the first time — it was Kasauli in Himachal Pradesh, in late June. That was the congruent zone of summer and monsoon. I noticed the clouds miraculously entering our hotel room. My dad was playing a Salil Chowdhury melody on his flute, mom was having her evening tea, my younger brother was busy running around and I was discovering nirvana in this pitch perfect hullabaloo of our nuclear family. As a child, I have spotted shooting stars and discovered constellations during the night and have caught clouds doodling during the daytime. I was always meant to go skywards with my imaginations. I’ve also downloaded this app called SkyView, which I’d used extensively while shooting in Rishikesh for Shubh Mangal Saavdhan. Next to the Ganges. One day, the shoot was cancelled because of the overcast sky. The dark clouds engulfed my heart as they hugged each other to form a dark canopy over the holy city.

“I’m a dreamer. I have to dream and reach for the stars, and if I miss a star then I grab a handful of clouds.” — Mike Tyson

I recently saw a cloud, which resembled a bear. A huge one. It looked like a bigger cousin of the one in my latest film, except it didn’t grab my right foot. But these moisture carrying clouds that look like huge cotton balls have grabbed the fascination of all the kids since time immemorial. There is no rule to the architecture of the castles of the clouds. As a kid, you just lay on the grass and watched the clouds without any passing thought. It’s the purest form of meditation. At times, the mystic clouds of nostalgia and imagination are better than reality. The reality is that there’s no real world beyond the clouds, there’s nothing next to the topmost part of the rainbow. Before we had airplanes and astronauts, we all believed that world existed. Sigh. Science ruined everything. We live in that age where artificial clouds can be created, but I believe artificial clouds are also less artificial than humans.

“Baadal, bijli, chandan, paani jaisa apna pyaar. Lena hoga janam humein kayi kayi baar.” — Neeraj