DAY 1
It all just happened. Don’t know how it started and where it was heading to, but all I knew was, “it was gonna be one hell of a time there”. Reaching Rishi’s place that afternoon and taking that radio cab was still not enough to make me believe that I was actually on my way to world’s biggest circus of the intellectuals. Reached somewhere around midnight and the pink city looked to be quite warm n welcoming. It all felt wonderful. Auto drivers either have a NOS installed in their automobiles or they have been trained at Monza with some Ferraris. Ass was splitting in two when he dropped us to 13 Gaurav Nagar. Don’t know what Shreya’s dad does, but he got this amazing guest house, so close to Diggi Palace, it’s no joke and I even somehow got a single bed. WHOA. Great success!
Morning was quite refreshing, or maybe it was the entire feeling of attending something I wanted to since last 2 years, that was still struggling to sink in. I again told myself once I opened my eyes, “it’s happening for real. You are actually here”. Got a bit late for the opening thing of the very first day, that was supposed to be addressed by Sir Girish Karnad. Came to know, it never happened and felt blessed. It all seemed so pretty and professional at same time. Strolling around like a lost kid in Berlin Love Parade, I saw this old man in white clothes that looked familiar. May be I am not used to of seeing celebrities so close or maybe I was plain mad, that I couldn’t recognize Gulzar sahib sitting there sipping his coffee and talking to someone, took out the book and this pen and with legs trembling, went to him and just passed them to him without uttering a single word, he smiled and signed and all I could say was, “shukriya”.
Amit Chaudhury, Amitava Kumar and Nilanjana Roy were talking in baithak, bout criticism, which I didn’t understand much, but what I understood was that, Amitava Kumar is a snob. Coming out of it and roaming around, I again kept asking myself if the sitting in front of me was Rahul Bose only or some lookalike or is it some kind of mirage? Thought of letting him be alone as I was getting late for this talk by Gulzar sahib, K Satchidanandan and Arvind Mehrotra, which was worth every second. “Stutter”, the poem by Satchidanandan and “Julahe” by Gulzar Sahib were enough to forget about everything.
“Visible Cities” by Geoff Dyer and Max Rodenbeck was a lovely talk to witness, describing how its possible to find Venice in Benaras and how things work when one city overlaps other one. Loved it. As the crowd started piling up as it reached an end, I realized something good was coming up next. Rahul Bose was soon on stage and so were Esther Freud and Michael Frayn and “Adaptations” came out to be one surprise for all of us. How books are made into films or plays or films from plays and so on and so forth. Managed to use this height and got this book signed by him once it got over. It felt overwhelming as the entire cult seemed to be following my footsteps.
5 o’clock on my watch asked me to move my ass as quickly as possible to Durbar Hall where Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar sahib were reading some parts of, “Kaifi and I”, which Shabana Azmi’s mother has written. As they took us along the clean roads of Allahabad in chilly winter mornings of February, 1947 where her mother Shaukat met her father Kaifi for the first time and told us how the romance developed between the two which aspired him to provide a large chunk of the finest poetry this sub continent had ever seen. Shaukat Azmi had this amazing way of going into the depth of a character she had to play in movies that time, by dressing up and behaving like that at home, Shabana ji did her best to portray that and all I remember now is that I was simply awestruck with everything she said. How her mother in that time refused to wear burkha and wanted to marry a man who could respect a woman’s self belief to do something with her life.
Om Puri sahib and Sir Girish Karnad, were in front lawns by 6, where they had to read something about Tughlaq. I stood there and tried to get mesmerized by their sheer voices and tried to remember the days when I used to get thrilled by the sheer sound of one of these men decades back in, “Turning Point” that used to come in late afternoon on DD Metro. Om Puri sahib had always been this man, I loved to see on 70 mm version of media. Ardh Satya and Droh Kaal still seem to be haunting me till date years after I first saw them. “Ek palde main napunsakta, doosre main paurush aur taraju ke theek beech main ardh satya”. Took an auto and headed back home. These lines were still echoing in my head by the time I reached home. Took out a cigarette and settled in bed still trying these lines to sink in more deeply then ever.
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