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Ali's Notes

THIS IS A WARNING
Awake, arise and listen to me all my friends who are busy making films with all those crores, films which you believe will change the face of film entertainment, films which you feel will bring in the audience right into the theatres in all their excitement, in all their enthusiasm to fulfill their one great urge for entertainment!

It is high time you realise that you are living under an illusion. The people have realised that they are being taken for a ride by all your antics, tricks worked in co-operation with your stars, your styles and your technicians. Haven’t you seen them rejecting what you are giving them as entertainment? Haven’t you seen them walking out of theatres after watching three reels of what you have offered them? Haven’t you seen them cursing you during the interval and staying back only because they have paid high prices for their tickets? Haven’t you seen the anger on their faces after your films end?

I have seen these dangerous signs in theatre after theatre in Mumbai. I have seen the people rejecting some very big films. I have seen people calling some of your very big stars, stars whom they had worshiped just yesterday, nasty, vulgar and filthy names. I have seen angry groups of people walking out during all those songs picturised in all those places which you at your creative best thought would charm them to cling to their chairs. I have seen theatres with just 20 or 30 Hindi-film lovers sitting and suffering through what your films are coming to. They are calling all those stars whom you adore and fall at their feet to make all your classics "frauds" who have made film entertainment one big fraudulent game played by fakes. They are damning all your directors and technicians who seem to have forgotten their jobs, their responsibility or both.

That’s not all. They (the audience) are finding other ways of entertainment. They are depending on the TV for all kinds of entertainment from all over the world. They sometimes try to see your films on TV and the pathetic sight is to see them switch it off before they can even proceed for a few minutes.

Now, the stars themselves are ruining you by doing all those entertainment shows in every corner of the world. Their shows have given rise to companies which are especially created to give shape to these shows to bring in more and more of the people to get more and more of their share of entertainment for the money they pay. You seem to be in a state of imaginary bliss, unfortunately. You are not aware of the nightmare that is surrounding you on all sides. You are not alert. If you were, you would wake up, arise, listen to me (for whatever my voice is worth) and save yourselves.

THE TWO MAJROOHS
And I knew before I knew many other things in life that the late Majrooh Sultanpuri was one of the great poets of my country, I also knew that he was a poet whose poetry sold. And a subject that sells is certainly more precious than gold for a starving journalist. So I knew that I could make some money writing about this great man and I was lucky enough to have a letter of introduction from one of the greatest human beings I have known, the writer and filmmaker Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, who was a contemporary of Majrooh. Abbas wrote what he felt he knew about me and my writing ability. I was delighted. I always love writing about poets, "kings and queens" of the streets and slums and railway stations. I felt meeting Majrooh who was considered a messiah of the downtrodden would enlighten me, help me become a better human being.

Abbas then asked me to ask another friend of his, the late Mr SS Pillai, one of the founding fathers of SCREEN, if I could write about Majrooh in SCREEN. Mr Pillai immediately agreed. That same evening I gladly rang up Majrooh and some gruff voice said if I had a letter from "Abbas Sahab" I could come at around 8 in the evening. I prepared myself all evening mentally, then borrowed some money from a waiter-friend and a shirt from another friend who worked in a mill. And went looking for Majrooh’s bungalow.

It was a great feeling to know that a poet lived in a bungalow. I always had this idea that poets lived live in poverty, hunger and strife till the last days of their lives and were recognised only after they were dead. I sent him my note with the "precious" letter from "Abbas Sahab". The gruff voice asked me to wait outside the gate. I waited and kept waiting. It was getting very late. I didn’t even know my way back home (I lived in a village far away from what people called civilisation and culture). I then went closer to the bungalow and I heard an old man screaming bola na, Sahab khana kha rahe hai, khane bhi nahi dete yeh... Khade rehne ku bolo. That, my friends was the famous voice of the legendary Majrooh Sultanpuri, the voice I had heard at several mushairas, seminars and symposiums. I kept waiting hungry, thirsty, waiting to be relieved but I heard that voice again. It was the voice of the legend. It clearly said, "Yeh Abbas Sahab bhi ajeeb aadmi hai. Inko kya ho jaata hai. Kisi ko bhi bhej dete hain. Jab kuch likhne ke liye nahin hota to yeh bekaar ki chitthiya likhte hain. Us ladke se kaho mere paas phursat nahin hain interview-vinterview dene ke like aur aise bhi interview-vinterview se kya hota hain?"

To say that I was shocked was saying nothing. This man was the same man who wrote soft, delicate, romantic and heavenly poetry which took people to gardens in paradise. I was puzzled. How could this Majrooh be that Majrooh? How could one Majrooh be so good and one Majrooh be so rude? I knew I would be paid about 200 rupees for that interview. No, I told my hungry self, I would starve rather than interview this man who was two men in one man. I left the place, walked in the darkness, knowing not where I was going. I reached home in my slum at two in the morning, a totally shattered young man. My hunger took a vow that I would never depend on such men again. It was not a decision coming out of anger. Who was I, a small struggling writer living in a slum, to get angry with a legend who had the privilege of living two lives in one? I don’t know why I came across him several times during the last 25 years. I saw him in his good times and his bad times but not once did I feel, like talking to this man who was two men in one man. May God give him peace in jannat (heaven). That’s my only prayer for him because he didn’t give me a chance on earth to thank him for anything.

NO, I’M NOT A POET
No, no, Kulkarni Saheb

I am very sorry to have hurt your delicate heart which breaks when you read the poetry I write

No, no, Kulkarni Saheb, I am not a poet, no poet at all

I have never claimed to be a poet, I can never be a poet like the kind of poets you would admire. So what’s all this noise about?

Believe me, Kulkarni Saheb, I never believed what I wrote was poetry till you rudely woke me up and stabbed me, hurt me till I bled and was almost dead when you called me a poet.

What you call my poetry is not poetry, Kulkarni Saheb. It is just a flow of thoughts, of feelings about people, about things, about happenings.

Words which flow just the way they flow and are printed by learned men and women who know that I am mad more than a poet. And that I write the way my feelings flow

No, no, Kulkarni Saheb, you are too cruel, too crude, my "poetry" screams

It cares two hoots for what you and all those who don’t care for feelings

Just because they don’t fall within the rules or whatever you call it of poetry, because it knows that it is just a humble flow of thoughts, of feelings about men, money and matters, about life.

No, no, Kulkarni Saheb, you have sinned by trampling over some of my humble, gentle thoughts and feelings, by trampling over them, just because you think they are pathetic as poetry, just because you think they are shoddy as poetry

I would have understood those who understand. But what can I do when people like you don’t care to understand?

I may be wrong, you may be right, I hope you are right

I hope you only are right, Kulkarni Saheb

No, no, Kulkarni Saheb, don’t curse a poet who is no poet, a poet who is no more because a poet like me is best no more according to learned men like you, Kulkarni Saheb.

No, no, Kulkarni Saheb, you don’t deserve the recognition even a poet who is no poet has showered on you. But when it hurts when there is no reason then the thoughts wage war and I can’t stop that war.

No, no, Kulkarni Saheb, next time think poetry is not something that can be fought about. Poetry is far above a small man like me and a great lover of poetry like you. Let’s leave it at that and let the world which is already in so much trouble go on... Maaf kara, Kulkarni Saheb.
To Kavi mee nahin. Maajhi himmat nahi Kavi banoon tumhala trupti dhyayla.

AB AND AB
I’ve tried and given up. I just can’t imagine how Amitabh Bachchan must be feeling these days. The man who has specialised in facing the kind of problems no ordinary human beings have ever faced, continues facing all kinds of strange problems. But the problem he is about to face is a problem every loving and caring father has to face. Amitabh’s only son, Abhishek, is all set to take off, as an actor. His first film, Refugee is about to be released and Amitabh, the father, naturally, is the most worried man today. All kinds of plans which can be planned by man are being made but Amitabh, the favourite of the Gods (I can give you a thousand reasons why I call him God’s favourite, but why should I when the whole world knows?) has now turned to the power that has chosen him as his favourite. He has turned to God and all he is asking, even pleading before Gods in Badrinath, Kedarnath and other holy places in the country to shower their blessings on his only son, Abhishek. He wants Abhishek to succeed in Refugee. Which father would not like his only son to succeed? Abhishek has to succeed more because he is the son of Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan. If he was any other son it would not have been such a crisis which demands divine intervention.
Abhishek is the son of Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan and that’s why the expectations have reached sky high. I and many others like me have faced similar problems in recent times when our children were just expecting their 12th standard results. I can well imagine how much more Amitabh and Jaya for Abhishek must be expecting, anxious. Amitabh has always proved that he is God’s man. If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be here today to see Abhishek taking his first step skywards. Amitabh is a very devout man. He has a temple in his house. He doesn’t leave home before he prays at the temple - a tradition imbibed in the family by his Maa (Mrs Teji Bachchan). Amitabh knows what God can do. Who can if he doesn’t? Who saved him from the certain jaws of death? Who saved him from the various embarrassments in his life and career? God, only God. Amitabh has left everything to God and God has never turned a deaf ear to him. I have greater faith than some of the most devoted children of God. I know God can never let down the Bachchans and Abhishek is the most loved one of the Bachchans. God knows it and He also knows what to do about him. Then, why should the great Amitabh worry?

There is a small hitch in the story. Hrithik Roshan came first with Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai and people from all over are willing to do anything to have just a glimpse of him. Some days ago a woman from Bhavnagar walked upto me with a letter of introduction from a friend who is a lawyer and placed an envelope in my hand. I opened it. There was a note introducing the woman to me inside and inside the note were ten crisp 100 rupee notes. I asked why all this was. She said in Gujarati which I could follow with a great deal of difficulty. All that she wanted was a glimpse, just a glimpse of Hrithik Roshan. She said she would not even touch him, she would not even ask him for an autograph. She just wanted to have a glimpse of him. I didn’t know what to do with the situation. I sent her with the note with a note from me to Hrithik’s father, Rakesh Roshan. I don’t know what Rakesh, who had already gone mad with the double success of both his son and his film has done with it.

SAMPADAK MITHUNDA
Mithun Chakraborty, who can stop Mithun Chakraborty now. The man who is busy with so many activities in and around Ooty, his home now, has now taken over a new role. He is now the editor of a Bengali Weekly, Khabarer Kegal, a tabloid with the motto: "Nobody is enemy and nobody is friend either". Mithun says, "I have been looking forward to this experience. It is a good challenge I have accepted. I will see to it that all my many activities don’t come in the way of making this tabloid one of the most talked about ones in the country. I am not going to be a naam ke vaaste editor. I am going to work as a genuine editor and I am going to see that good work is done to make a good society which has always been the goal of my life." I hope Mithun, the editor, succeeds because his success is not going to be the success of a man or a woman celebrity lending his/her name to a magazine to gain name or fame but to really use the power of the press to help man, to help society, to help the country, he loves and cares for.