Life is (indeed) beautiful..!

Warning : Plz read further only if there's LOVE in your heart.

My 3.5 yr son was in Hospital and I could draw a lot of similarities with the Movie "Life is Beautiful" by Roberto Benigni. Insights from the movie could help me keep him occupied for 4 days . Kudos to Roberto for making such a wonderful film!!

The above lines are from a concerned father written on Roberto Benigni's wall on Facebook. Who is Roberto? He is the script-writer, actor and director of this one-hell-of-a-beautiful film (sorry, I had no other apt adjectives) called "Life is Beautiful". Unless you see this film, you wont understand the significance of the lines said above.

I wasn't just moved after watching this classic, I was just crying like a small child with tears rolling down my cheeks and my nostrils blocked. It's very hard to make a stubborn like me cry. But really, I was a child right through the movie's length. I was so moved that I couldn't control the urge to write this down right now. Means, how can one make such a beautiful movie with so much emotion filled-in with so ease? Only few persons like Roberto Benigni are capable of doing that.

First half is as romantic as it can get. You are so engrossed in the love story that you feel that this chapter should never end. So much so that you are disappointed once the love-story climaxes. But then there's something so beautiful (sorry again, I cannot think of a better adjective ) that follows....

Beautiful in it's depiction,

Beautiful in it's pacing,

Beautiful in it's simplicity,

Beautiful in it's childishness,

Beautiful in it's brutality,

Beautiful in it's emotions,

Beautiful in it's feel,

Beautiful in it's innocence,

Beautiful in it's ENTIRETY.

Here only, beautiful is the keyword, others are just add-ons. If I had to say what's so beautiful about it in one line, I would say- "How a father SHIELDS his son from the brutality of the world around using simple imaginary situations and how metaphorically and even literally the imaginary situations come to life but at a very heavy cost....."

There's only one thing though which I felt was wrong in the movie i.e In the end, there's a word used by the narrator who is the son in the film. That word is SACRIFICE. I feel there was never a sacrifice made. There's only pure unadulterated LOVE.

I wont say this is the best movie I have ever seen, but definitely, it belongs right up there- in one of my ALL-TIME-BESTs.

Please as i said earlier, get enthralled in this emotional ride of your life only if there's LOVE in your heart in abundance....

WORDS & everlasting WORDS to wish SACH today..!

What is common between a rickshaw-puller watching SACHIN TENDULKAR bat live on a 14-inch television on some unknown street in Delhi in a roadside Chai ki dukaan with 50 others AND Mukesh Ambani sitting on an Italian sofa sipping some branded whiskey or wine and watching the same SACHIN TENDULKAR live on his maybe 55-inch LED television in his plush 500 sq-ft bedroom? It's the Joy, the satisfaction or the goose-bumps both get at the same time when Sachin drives some excellent cover-drive or raises HIS hands with HIS bat to acknowledge HIS father and God after completing yet-another-century! Even if Ambani may understand the intricacies and the beauty of a particular cover drive like a connoisseur and the rickshaw-puller cant, still both can go to sleep that night thinking about that very moment and smiling in their hearts..! This is what a Sachin Tendulkar can do- UNITE people even if they r miles apart literally, economically, religiously or otherwise!

Reams and reams have been written about this human. How HE emerged in the backdrop of India getting liberalised! How HIS rise has been coincidental to the rise of Globalisation in Indian economy! How India's GDP grew above the Hindu-rate-of-growth as HIS number of centuries grew! How those centuries on the bouncy tracks of Sydney and Perth way back in 1991 changed the cricket world's attitude of looking at Indian batsmen! How for 20 years in the Goddamn world have we seen an INDIAN being at the pinnacle of something! Means years and years after reading those Human Development reports or Population-poverty explosion graphs and seeing India languishing at the bottom of all those indices or even bottom of every freaking ranking published in any sport, we get to see one name occupying a position tailor-made for HIM at the top. Isn't it something giving us schizophrenic happiness?

The other day a friend asked me what's the craziest or should i say hair-raising experience i ever had relating to Sachin? It's in relation to none of his hundreds or even his special moments. It may seem ordinary for some of u but for me sitting there and experiencing the following moment is something which will remain stamped forever in my memory. It's about that day when i went first time to see a test match live at the Ferozshah Kotla in Delhi on 29th Sept, 2008. It was against Australia in which Gambhir made a beautiful 206 in d 1st innings. On the 1st day in the 3rd session, Gambhir stepped out and hit a six over long-on to complete his century. And still from two stands what i was hearing was SAACHIN SAACHINN.. Means come on, the audience out there wasn't blind. It was Gambhir who was completing his century and what i heard was what i never thought of for that moment. I just felt sorry for Gambhir that he was batting with you-know-who. Fan worship knows no bounds..!

My favourite moment of SACH- For many of us, it maybe HIS recent 200 moment or 175 or 163 or 186 moment, but as for yours truly, it's definitely in that 1st March, 2003 World cup league match v/s Pak when HE played that back-foot punch in the cover region and on air, Robin Jackman went on like this-"OH, OH, OH, OHA..!" and even that asshole(excuse me for the language, but when passions run high, expletives run higher,) Sanjay JEALOUS Manjrekar, when SACH hold onto his stance after the drive, said-"it's one for the photographers!". Need i say more?

I have one thing to say to SACHIN Diehards..- i know World cup is a dream for SACH as for us, but please when SACH won't be there on the cricket field after 5 years or so (see, i m very greedy, i want HIM to play more 5 yrs), don't judge HIM by one parameter of a small World cup. I m not being a pessimist here, but still even if we don't get that world cup, WE HAVE ENOUGH MOMENTS TO TELL OUR GRAND-CHILDREN ABOUT HOW WE LIVED IN THE TIMES OF SACHIN TENDULKAR..!

Finally, a mere mortal like me doesn't have anything to gift to u SACHIN on ur birthday. But let me tell u this, tweaking the verses of a famous song-
"THE WORLD HAD LOST IT'S GLORY,
U STARTED A BRAND NEW STORY TWENTY YEARS BEFORE, OUR IDOL...
DON'T EVER LET ME FIND U GONE,
COZ THAT WILL BRING A TEAR TO ME...
U THINK I DON'T EVEN MEAN A SINGLE WORD I SAY,
IT'S ONLY words AND words ARE ALL I HAVE TO GIFT U TODAY..!"

The Not-so-exciting classification of LOVE..!

Dear Somebody,
Finally, maybe u were right. U were right in the sense that u made me think like u rather than the other way round. U were right that, sometimes, the stubbornness of thoughts is as brittle as a piece of glass. U were right that LOVE IS FICTION..! Ok.. I said it. Happy?
Love is fiction........Never in my wildest dreams had i thought that i would say this! One of my friends just asked me this question- What is Love? And instead of my standard reply of Love is DIVINE or Love is GOD, i replied the way u wanted me to reply after being the target of ur indifference for a long long time.
Actually, i had also never thought that i would classify LOVE this way. U know, u classify many things in life...right from toothpastes to hair oils to food to clothes to places to even Emotions. But never Love. Yes, love was classified in terms of Parents' love, Friends' love, sibling love, girlfriend or wife's love........BUT LOVE WAS NEVER CLASSIFIED IN TERMS OF FICTION or REAL..! U made me to do just that- classify love! U know, it's the hardest thing to accept anything which u have been denying for eternity. I just did that and i m proud of myself.
Also needed to clarify on one important thing. The CONDITIONAL love and the UNCONDITIONAL love. Erich Segal, the author of the book LOVE STORY, had written in his book- LOVE MEANS NEVER HAVING TO SAY YOU'RE SORRY..!
Wow, mind-blowing, eternal, out-of-the-world statement! But there's a glitch in that buddy! He forgot to mention to which TYPE of love did this statement of his apply? He certainly meant it for the Unconditional Real Love, which i feel only exists only in books, movies and in between a mother-son relationship. Every other kind of love is either Conditional or Fiction or both....... Isn't it?
.......Yours forever. ( P.S: I m NOT heart-broken as this blog may suggest. But it's just one of those things which i felt to write about. Do correct me if i m getting too pessimistic about love. Wil appreciate ur comments.)

SACH is LIFE..!

This is my 1st ever BLOG! Ohh.... This Word BLOG isn't there in my dictionary. I m surprised. I needed to spell it. How this concept emerged God knows! But it's exciting nonetheless. Thanks to Imran, i welcome myself to this blog-world. Where to start?
Sachin Tendulkar! Even the first name is enough to describe this man. The surname just becomes irrelevant when the name "Sachin" is taken. HE just played a T20 innings sans a single six! Just meticulously driven sweet timed boundaries! What an extravagance(pun intended) without an inch of spending energy whatsoever! A classic case of showing the world what timing and precision can do.. Jiyo Sachin jiyo..!
Since i m eager to post this, i cant wait to see how it looks for d first time.. So enough for now! Keep visiting again and do leave some nasty comments....