Undress Your Heart

Undress your heart. Bare your soul. Strip your feelings.

Live freely. Love truly.

Forgive them those who have hurt you.


And move on, to never return again.

Farewell, Sher Khan

"होगा मसीहा सामने तेरे फिर भी न तू बच पायेगा,
तेर अपना खून ही आखिर तुझको आग लगायेगा,
आसमान में...
आसमान मे उड़ने वाले मिट्टी में मिल जायेगा,
कसमे वादे प्यार वफ़ा सब, बातें हैं बातों का क्या..."

For once, I will leave out the AB factor. The very fact that you acted in DON and ZANJEER was reason enough to not allow them to be remade, especially if that apology for an actor, Arjun Rampal—that I should mention you and him in the same sentence is itself a travesty—was going to play JJ.

RIP, Pran Sahab. To me, you represent not only the best era of Hindi Cinema, the 1970s, but also that rare breed of actors who were as valuable, if not more, to films as the lead actors. Hats off for all the entertainment and a 100-gun salute.

The Truth About Death

"People do not die from suicides. They die from sadness."
— Anonymous

Friendships Are All About Requirements

One dark night this cruel winter,
You asked me to come under the dazzling stars.
When I came and looked at your face,
It was radiant with happiness.
You gazed in my eyes so affectionately,
And acted that you cared for me a lot.
I was overwhelmed to reveal all my feelings,
But abruptly you changed your expressions.
You suddenly started to babble irrelevant things so mechanically,
That it was seeming all was planned earlier inside your grey cells.
Yes, I understood.
You won the argument and deliberately I remained silent…
I was taken aback!
You told me, “Friendship is not for eternity and it dies one day…”
Then tell me why it burns within my spirit,
When I knew it’s already over?
You again said, “Friendships are all about requirements.”
I asked you, "Then what about soul; what about love; what about emotions?"
You said, “Everybody is self-seeking here and keen to find their own interest even in sacrifice.”
I asked myself, then why do I still want your happiness
When we are not together anymore,
And I am also not eager for reconciliation?
“Money is the prime parameter which can judge one’s taste and standard.”
But it still cannot create another Shakespeare.
I would like to mention, personality is neither to deceive others;
Nor creating a wall around just to conceal one’s own truth.
Million thoughts were running inside my head,
All my feelings were choking my voice gradually,
And within a couple of seconds I was emotionally bankrupt.
Was feeling humiliated for a minute which I never felt before,
You made the sacred word “Friendship” so contemptible within a moment,
That there was nothing left to articulate…
But you couldn't understand.
Before we ended this absurd discussion I already realized,
We were not meant to be.
I thought a lot; thought the whole night just to reach a verdict.
I took a deep breath before I walked away from your life forever.
Feelings whispered silently, “You must move on,
Live your beautiful life in your own terms,
And save your emotions for someone truly deserving.”

Some Random Thoughts On Ray, Ghatak, and Ghosh

But for Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak could well have been India's finest cinema director. Ray, at heart, was an optimist [hence the changes to the novels 'Apur Sansar' and 'Mahanagar' while scripting/filming them] and was extremely depressed with the way 'Debi' had turned out, despite being impressed enough by the story to not change it while scripting/filming it, and this led to the birth of Ray-the-writer-of-his-own-films with 'Kanchanjungha'.

Was it Ghatak's profound sense of, and belief in, his own political ideals, that has kept him from being as well-accepted as Ray to people from all the layers and strata of the society? His vision of 'act of class warfare' was quite a bleak one [he may or may not have been aware of this, but even if he did, to his credit, he refused to compromise, unlike Mrinal Sen]. Despite his brilliance, he was unable to be objective about it and keep it separate from the language of Cinema, hence an all-pervading sense of bleak gloominess and apparent lack of humour.

Contrast this with the subtle vein of humour that runs through even the weakest of Rituparno Ghosh's films. Like Ray, he too did not allow his political beliefs to influence his understanding of the language of Cinema.