If there is one thing that I can relate with Americans, it is their infinite capacity to talk. What amazes me is that most of them are capable of creating an entire conversation out of a question as simple as "Watsup?". Sometimes I feel that they teach this art in the primary schools, so that when the children grow up they can talk to their heart's content. Take for example this conversation I had with this hair-stylist/barber lady. Note that I never meant this to go beyond a one line answer to my simple question.
BL=Barber Lady
Me: So till what time are you guys open?
BL: Well we open at 10 in the morning and close at 7 in the evening, because the owner of the shop wants both me and Kim (her co-worker) to leave together. And although Kim can go on till 8pm or maybe even later than that , I need to leave exactly at 7 as I have to pick up my baby at 7:30. So you see I have a nine month old baby and a friend of mine looks after him. Now this friend of mine has two babies of her own, and she can't afford a baby-sitter which makes her stay at home. This works out very well for me as I trust her completely with my baby.
Do you have a baby?
Me (startled) : What baby, no.no.no.no!! no baby..
BL: When you have one you will understand. Even on weekends I do not go out with my girlfriends when they ask me to join them for a beer. You see I get so little time together with my husband. Its his job and my job and then the baby on the weekdays, so we try and be together on the weekends..........blah, blah, blah, blah...you get the drift!
And so it went on for another 20 minutes leaving me intellectually exhausted and emotionally drained :-).
PS: I read this amusing post on one of the Gulzar communities, which said that even if Gulzar wrote something that was utter crap, people would still derive some meaning out of it. For example, if he wrote something like:
"Baar baar bujh jaati hai meri cigarette,
Kya chaand ne bhi kabhi scooter dekha hoga !"
Some people would assign a deep deep meaning to it :). If a common man writes something vague its supposed to be meaningless, but if Gulzar writes some such stuff, its assumed to have some hidden crux.
Not that I don't like Gulzar. I am a big fan, just that I liked the humor in this little post.
About Me
- jj
- Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States
6 comments:
Is that really Gulzar? Do you have the full piece? I know I am reinforcing what you wrote about!
Of course its not Gulzar. Note that I began with: "for example if he wrote" :)
well, Gulzar never writes anything which doesn't mean anything [-(
Notice the big "if" :-)!
I think Gulzar did misuse poetic licence to squeeze in stuff that is not up to snuff to say the least.
Some things are straight crap. Maybe the producers or the powers that be were standing over this head to get him to churn out something. Could the line "Chaddi pahan ke phool khila hai" not have been better conceived, worded ? There are others that are downright crap.
It pains me because he has come up with stuff that was really good. Then why dish out things like these even if it be one line ? It feels like those poems were suffering from tics or a kick from some weed he had taken earlier kicked in.
My $.02.
But we do need to consider the other side as well. you did touch upon it by mentioning the producers, and there is something I would like to add to that. The director for example has a certain vision of how the song should be, what if the director likes a certain form. I mean to say that the end product might not reflect exactly what the writer/lyricist had in mind.
I would much rather evaluate a person's work by reading his independent works (trivenis, personal albums, self directed movies, etc. in Gulzar's case), and they have been up to the mark almost every single time.
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