Living Diagonally In My Parallel World!

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I heard this ghazal some years ago in the movie Maati Maange Khoon. Those were the times when I was introduced to Ghulam Ali’s singing. Then followed “Chupke chupke raat din”, Chamkte chaad ko” and the all time hit “Hungama kyo hai barpa”.   Here I am trying to interpret, “YeH Dil Ye Paagal Dil Mera”. This beautiful ghazal is written by Mohsin Naqvi. For the meaning of some typical Urdu words I referred to the Urdu to Marathi dictionary and the Rekhta website. Like Marathi, in Urdu the same word has many meanings. The meaning changes with the context. I have given meanings of some typical words towards the end of this blog.    This ghazal uses "Awargi" as an epiphora (Urdu - Radif) to express the tiredness of his loneliness and sorrow. (Epiphora is a figure of speech where a word is used at the end of every clause). Infact this ghazal is full of various figures of speech and therein lies its beauty. Here is the song   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BitMSJTZ...

I had been thinking about this for a very long time. Things have changed so rapidly and my generation has been most fortunate (or tired) being a part of it. Changes are good only if you are under twenty five. After that the ability to accept as well as understand changes takes lot of effort …. And I have begun to notice it becomes an irritation later on! As a kid we were exposed to the first telephones in India. The boring black colored heavy piece of plastic with the rotary dial was at that time the most sought after thing. It was manufactured by ITI (government owned company) and we had a waiting list for it. One could register a phone number in few months but getting the instrument would take even longer. We also had the unforgettable experience of being able to speak to a person in another city using a Trunk call. Kids today would find it amusing that we actually had to dial the operator and put in a request to her for a trunk call. Incase of emergencies it used to be a lightni...

Some observations while driving in Pune Pune has grown a lot in the past five years. The increase in population as well as disposable income of the populace, the profile of its citizens and the average age of drivers has changed. The boom in IT followed by manufacturing has put a lot of money in peoples pockets. This also added to the floating population. These are people who enter the city because they get a job here. They leave the city when they change jobs and move on to another city. With so many colleges and It companies the average age of the Puneite would be around 25. After driving for so many years in Pune I have made some amusing observations: Be wary of special number plates - Vehicles having registration numbers like 555, 777, 999, 1234 or those with single digits are often driven by people who are of a different psychology. The ones that have a Marathi meaning such as 7171 (calligraphed to resemble Nana नाना ) or 5151 (written to resemble Dada दादा ) or 9113 ( भाऊ ), 4912...