From Silsila

In the movie Silsila, right after the Holi song 'Rang barase...', Amitabh is washing off the 'rang' in the bathtub when Jaya chides him for his mindless behaviour during the song etc. That is when Amitabh recites this wonderful sher about 'aql' and 'dil':

Acha hai dil ke saath rahe paasbaan-e-aql
Lekin kabhi kabhi ise tanha bhi chod de

paasbaan = guard, sentinel

I have been trying to recall this sher for quite some time now. Infinite Google searches went in vain, till a sudden memory reminded me that the sher ended with 'tanha bhi chod de' and not with 'akela bhi chod de'. I had been searching with the wrong key words.

Perhaps akela (alone) in the sher would have done too. But tanha (lonely) is better. It adds another dimension to the sher, mocking the presumptuousness of aql in assuming that dil, in its loneliness, would want aql's company.

Om Namah Shivaya

A couple of posts ago, I had talked about a scanned image of a photograph of a batik painting of Lord Shiva. Here it is.
It is a from a picture postcard purchased at the Aurobindo ashram in Pondichery. At the back it says, "'A Timeless Light is in his hidden eyes' - Sri Aurobindo, Savitri " . You might have to maximize your browser window so that the image does'nt overlap with the list of archives on the right.

Saw an excellent play yesterday: 'Seema Paar' by National School of Drama performed at Ranga Shankara, Bangalore. It had all the ingredients that, I feel, are necessary to make a good play: drama, humour, wit, aesthetics (especially literary) and music. The play was centered around Bharatendu Harishchandra, who, I learnt, was a great 19th century Hindi playright and poet. Snatches of Bharatendu's work were used in the play and to great effect. If a play about Bharatendu can be so good, how good his own plays be?

There were innummerable references to Shiva throughout the play (hence the scanned image with this post). The fact that the play was set in Kasi itself implied that every other sentence involved Bholenath, Vishwanath, Nataraj etc...And then there was a drama troupe (within the play) which, under Bharatendu's supervision was staging a festival of his (Bharatendu's) plays. During their practice and preparations there were atleast two invocations to Lord Shiva. It reminded me of the invocations to Shiva in Kalidasa's plays (see Jan 19th,2005 post below). Plus the fact that the play was being staged at Ranga 'Shankara'. Shiva and drama do go well with each other. After all, he is Nataraja, the king of the performing arts.