charkha

ve maahiyaa tere vekhan nu....
chuk charkha gali de wich daawaan...
we lokaan bhavein main katdi... tand teriaan yaadaan de paawaan....

oh its a good song... i was listening to it today and reminded me of the time when my mom asked her mom for her charkha.. grand mom was more than happy to give it to her... Mom wanted it for the drawing room... grand mom, from the expression on her face, looked at it in a very different way... when we took it out and were cleaning it... we stopped at cleaning it... she went a step ahead and checked all the parts were in order... put the ones that weren't in order in order... then all of us tried our hand at it... trying to get a thread from cotton... despite her fraility she was still better at it than any of us... she started talking about the time she used to use it on a regular basis.... u could see it in her face... may be a time she missed... i guess a happier time... i am not sure... when she was young... she said we would all sit together and the "kookar" from the charkha was LOUD... and we would talk louder to be heard...
she was happy just talking about those days... her face had lighted up... like i have seldom seen in the near past... its a pity... the charkha... i think it took her to her days...

if she had heard this song in her youth i am sure it would have meant much more to her than it does to me... its a beautiful song... i understand it... but i cant feel it... when i tried my hand at the charkha all i could get was a 4 inch uneven thread after some 20 tries... when she told me how to do it... she got a 15inch thread in less than a minute... and she is frail! i can never feel the song... i wouldn't never know what it is to hear someone's voice in the "charkhe ki kookar".. in the tap of the keys yes may be... ( definitely ;-) ) but lets just face it... it doesnt even sound half as romantic... we maahiyaa tere vekhan nu.. chuk laptop gali de vich daah liya!!! ouch... its so bad it hurts... and i dont even know how to spin the charkha!!

the charkha a happy reality for my grand ma... a way to liberate people for Gandhi.... something that looks good in the drawing room for my mom... and to me it's just something that makes for good songs....

I wonder what will get that shine on my face and that look in my eyes when/if i am as old as my grand mom is today... will it be tapping on the key board... may be a key board that i dont throw away and keeps lying in the attic for the next 50 years when no one uses real key boards... only virtual ones... and my daughter asks for one to keep in her drawing room..... thats not a good scene... naa... i need a new fantasy.... may be i shall learn how to work on the charkha just to have this memory 50 years later..... she was happy talking about it... i thought it is only in songs where they talked about singing while working on the charkha and having fun... come on its work after all... but when my naani talked about it, it sounded like it was fun... she said we would say... "chal kudiya susta lae... chakla chhad charkha daah lae"... she talked about her friends (that i dont know of... i mean she has relatives and grand kids and kids and everything... but friends!! come on!!!) and may be she was thinking of her crushes.... her youth... a time when she was young and the world had all possibilities...... she knows what the charkhe ki kookar really sounds like... she says in summers it would be quiet in the afternoon... everyone would be asleep... even the birds... all you could hear was the charkhe di kookar and the girls talking sometimes singin... and may be some respected "buzurg" saying kudiyo chup karjo... and they just giggled... its a happy picture... even though i havent been a part it i know it is one... an innocent picture... a happy picture....
all those memories... all these pictures... just something to put in the drawing room... just something to make a song sound nicer.....

ve Charkhe di kookar de ohle...
Charkhe di kookar de ohle... yaad teri daa toomba bole...
yaad teri daa toomba bole...
ve nimma nimma geet chhed ke tand katdi hulaare khaawaan....

ve maahiyaa tere vekhan nu.....

darr lagta hai khud se kehne mein jee!!

Every now and then I hear my colleagues/their wives talk about buying a car... we are all expats in this country and till now none of us has one... its getting too cold here... having a car would be just convenient.... someone always mentions buying a car when we are staanding at the bus stop in bone chilling weather... somehow i never felt the need of a car... naa... the public transport is good convenient... never felt the need... dont even miss driving that much, which i used to love back home...
vishal Bhardwaj is producing Ishqiya, and as is always true with his movies the songs are amazing... i heard dil to bacha hai the other day and fell in love with it... when i fall in love with a song i usually buy the cd as soon as it is released... then on my way to/from office i play it full blast in my car and sing along in a loop... i fell in love with a song again today... dil to bacha hai jee... its hindi so cant buy the cd here... i was hearing it on youtube in a loop... on my way to office.... i couldnt sing along... i just "mummed" along... and that is when i wanted a car... my capsule in this haphazard world... i gave buying a car a thought... so that i can sing... along to a song i dont really know the lyrics of....