PIKA MIKA

[Ram Ram]

SHE: Surba! Woh kausna gaana aata tha 'pardesi pardesi saath chhod jaoge'?

ME: Dadu kaunsa?

SHE: Woh jo Urmil sunke roti thi?

ME: Hmmmm...tum toh thehere pardesi, saath kya nibhaoge?

CUT TO

ME sings:  'tum toh thehere pardesi, saath kya nibhaoge!
subah peheli gaadi se, ghar ko laut jaoge'

SHE sings: tum toh thehere pardesi...ghar chale jaoge!

ME: Jaoge nahi dadu, ghar laut jaoge!

SHE: Haan haan. Kiska gaana hai? PIKA PIKA?

ME: PIKA kaun hai?

SHE: Arre woh jo jisne gaana gaya hai. pardesi chale jaoge!

ME: PIKA? hahahahahahaha. Dadu PIKA nahi MIKA. Mika toh acha singer hai

SHE: MIKA? Nahi. PIKA!

ME: Nahi dadi MIKA. Chalo kuch nahi hota. PIKA MIKA same hai

SHE: Acha! MIKA hoga

CUT TO

15 minutes later. ME siting in the room looking at the computer screen

SHE enters

SHE: Surba. uska naam MIKA nahi hai.

ME: PIKA toh bilkul nahi hai dadu!

SHE: Uska naam. Altaf Raja hai!

And then suddenly Altaf Raja's face appeared before ME's face.
And she immediately youtubed the song.

ME: Hey Dadu! Thanks for bringing the legend back into my life!

This one's for you dadu!

SHE: Shakal toh dikha uski!

Magnet

The lower side of the small wooden cupboard, kept next to my bed, has been home to a circular box with buttons, needles and threads of this house. The box and its place have not changed over the last 26 years. Although, during the early days of my childhood it had a companion  - an elegant perfume bottle which belonged to my Bade Papa. I remember Magnet for the shape of its head and the logo which emulated the bottle design. I remember Bade Papa, dressed in his off white shirt and dark trousers, wearing this perfume before leaving the house every morning. It was such a part of his routine! And a such a dot tiny part of my memory of him.

I was looking for a courier shop at a random market this morning. While talking on the phone, I walked into a small lane where I spotted Magnet sitting in a dilapidated window of a tiny shop. I knew I had to buy it at once. The shopkeeper said it was handkerchief perfume! I laughed! Bade papa used to wear handkerchief perfume! I bought it never the less, thankful for having found it after all these years!

On my way back, I realized it has been exactly one year since Bade Papa died. I don't know if this was his way of couriering Magnet to me but I am happy; it has found its way back to the wooden cupboard, next to the needle box after so any years. I am even happier that I will smell like Bade Papa now. And together we will smell like handkerchieves! ;p

The Last Song

I remember the first time I saw raw footage of Bade Papa's interview. It was the first time I saw him after his death. His dead face which I never saw, had come alive, in full flesh and blood, within the two dimensions of that video. I dreaded that editing process. Not even a month of not seeing him dead, I had to see him alive, over and over again, for a month. The first day of editing, I felt nothing. Then I felt the need to cry. Then I told myself that I should just cry as much as I want to and get over it. I told myself to get over Bade Papa's death and get over the need to cry every time I saw his living face.

I would go to the edit room, start the machine and open his sequence and watch his whole interview. Everyday. I remembered how he laughed, how he looked up like a lost child when he forgot, I remembered the bulging veins of his hands, his hearing aid, white hair and off white shirt. Always that off white shirt. With time, I stopped crying and started laughing at him and his toothless smile. How cutely he sang the song and got all the lyrics wrong. How adorably he laughed while singing to me, how unaware he was of the camera and crew that surrounded him. How deep in this thoughts, he made all of us wait and still didn't remember that song!

That was the beginning of the period, by the end of which, he had completely forgotten me.

That day he lay on that bed and stared blank at me. His body had given up. I had picked up his pained legs, shivered at his excruciating screams and sat next to him rubbing his hand. He looked at me blank like he didn't know me. I screamed in his ears that it was me 'shippa', that I had come from 'bambai'. He just played with his hearing aid which buzzed from time to time. Maybe he never heard me, else he would have remembered me. I even sang our song 'chan kittha guzari ai'. His lips had parted to smile. Maybe he did hear me after all. Then why didn't he give me our last moment together?

Sometimes I revisit my film only for him. Perhaps it has that moment.

Winter Sun

Borrowed Camera Photography

Everyday we spend two hours in the sun. This is perhaps the most pleasant time of my wintered days. She wears her name on her fingers and laughs that everyone in her family has the same name. I had cracked this joke a few days back. Now its Ours.

The Rockstar of my film!

Suddenly remembered how I bullied him into singing a song for me on camera. 

I think it happened a year ago 

Do Plateon Wala Baaja

Today I spent time in the sun with Ram. She offered to oil my hair and I jumped at the opportunity. I sat on a low mudda in front of her and held the oil bottle. He poured a little on her palm and softly caressed my hair. I never realized her touch was so soft. She told me to cut my hair. I reminded her she wanted me to grow it. She got confused. Less than a minute and we were done. I protested. She protested. Her hands start hurting after a while, she said. I took her hands in mine and started to press them. She wanted a massage instead. I laughed. I ran inside enthusiastically and reappeared with a moisturizer. This time I massaged her. Her feet, her arms, her legs. All dry. Her parched skin soaked the cream rapidly. We talked about a vegetable. She explained a recipe. By now her skin was beaming in the sun. I proceeded with removing her rings to reach between her fingers. Smaller parts of her I had not touched. As she spoke about the first time she used a two piece telephone, my fingers ran over the bulging veins. Beautiful green veins protruding from her paper skin. I decided to go a little strong. It hurt her. She abused me in Derawali. I laughed and told her she needed to be stronger.

We sat quietly before she remembered something that she had left behind in Pakistan. Lost in the kaleidoscope of her million gleaming wrinkles I looked up at her. She said she had left behind 'do plateon wala baaja.' If we still had it, she calculated, we could have earned a lakh from it.

She is the one

Name: Ram Pyari
Father's name: Ram Chander
Mother's name: Ram Bai
Favorite activity: This

Dadi

Every morning my grand ma breaks one tablet of Digene into nine pieces and eats them through the day.

My 90 years old friend

Name: Colonel Puran Chand Sethi
Born: 1922
Place: Dera Ismail Khan, North West Frontier Province, Pakistan
Trivia: I just attended his 90th birthday party!