Sunday 8 September 2019

To begin with...

Unconsciously ,this writer seems to have collected ,seen and read works and conversations of people she connects  to... on some level... can’t really describe what or why..

These are Pankaj Tripathi , Ravish Kumar, Saurabh Dwivedi, Neelesh Misra. All small town Bihar and UP folks. The region is finally getting its due .

The below has been written out of yours truly's sheer incapacity to control the overflowing admiration for these talented folks...

Reasons for the connection: their roots ... the humility....their language and its nuances. This writer thinks of herself as having Bihari roots.... and identifies as such......as traitor like as it may seem to the Palakkadan roots. All of them work in the hindi media/ arts.... ,mind you ,not the mish mash ugly language which passes for hindi, widely spoken in the country ( even by native hindi speakers), but pure literary hindi and urdu .The choice of words and the intonation is music to the ears, this writer’s ears that is.


Another thing is that all of them are intellectuals in a certain way in their own field not the garden variety either. Their background , views resonate with this writer and she finds herself smiling and nodding in agreement very often. Few, by their own admission, are on the uncomfortable side, when it comes to the queen’s language and are acutely aware of and unapologetic about it.
Helps that all are good looking in this writer’s eyes. 


All of them have one foot in Mumbai or Delhi and another in the place of their origin... something like an NRI but on the national level. This writer similarly feels that she has one foot in the english language another in the hindi of the  north north east and a ghost third foot in a jumble of other indian languages and one foreign language.


Add Manoj Bajpai to the lot, but he seems to have become a bit bombayized..and that seems to have taken the rawness out of the man,  though he still has the ability to slip into bhojpuri effortlessly every now and then. Ashutosh Rana qualifies though, in the crystal clear hindi part, but is not as earthy, in the writer’s humblest opinion.


Pankaj Tripathi’s choice of words is so magical and the glitter in his eyes when describing something .... and the added philosophy...( for ex. Jab naav na ho na ho pul, nadi main tairna khud ba khud aa jaata hai ie when one doesn't have a boat or a bridge, one automatically learns to swim ).


Ravish Kumar , well, is so full of satire that half the time one wonders if he is saying things in all seriousness or indulging in poker faced humour.


These are the people who use words like 'kapaar' for the head and 'dibri' for a lantern like thing . Been so long that the writer has heard these kind of words. Along the same lines, wonder if a cockroach is still called a 'telchatta' , poor soul ( the cockroach that is) . The writer could never discover why it was so called . But I digress...


Saurabh Dwivedi is so crisp, clear and sharp in his news delivery , in lovely clean hindi . That is complimented by his sharper dress sense .


Was listening to the storytelling of Neelesh Misra, pure gold. With his narration in the background , the scene of the story unfolds in one’s head.


Sigh! Fancy rediscovering a language and a narrative about 20 years after having moved away from it and ironically writing about all of that in english.
All the above are what makes this writer want to formally write, but then , the question is ... what to write about...



To add on the side....good looks , small town roots , humility , living in two parallel worlds etc brings to mind another celebrity. Diljit Dosanjh, punjabi middle class roots, loads of talent , feet on the ground kind of person inspite of the global fame and the bling..
That smile, that soft spoken demeanour , that voice and that nose.... are something to kill for...


That is a story for another day... 😊

No comments:

Post a Comment