Naam Bade Aur Darshan Chote...

Yes.. the world around me does remind me constantly of this song that I used to often hear on my Dad's Old Hindi Songs collection... "Bholi surat dil ke khote, Naam bade aur Darshan chote" a cry of frustration when one is duped by the dangerous hype that completely evades the actual truth.. this is prevalent in every walk of life.. there is famous saying that goes "Empty vessels make more noise" no one seems to be realising that these days... It might have started years/eons ago.. but has taken a different and for-the-worse twist now.. and as someone great I know said.."We are living in perilous times darling.. The World belongs to Bullshitters". Oh God .. what wouldn't I do to keep things straight forward.. instead of playing with words so much that they eventually mean nothing..all though this has been existing from long long time.. the frustration with such people came back with vengeance not too long back... and with a movie called "Saawariya" ... in two words.. terrible disappointment.. I have read white nights.. and expected the director to do some justice.. as the story itself has not much in it.. its all the characters... and the melancholic wait of the lady and then the man..its not about innocent love.. its about the passion in their wait... he has all his priorities wrong in the movie.. took some really straight forward people and complicated them to hell.. played with hysteria and voila... saawariya.. oh and by the way the 40 crores that were wasted on this movie.. and Sanjayji asks "I have visuals.. and I have good songs .. what else does the audience want" .. How unassuming!! Hah! Does he think his audience is as dumb as him.. Good Lord made a soft romantic short story into a nightmare.. this could have as well been done on a pretty bridge by the dal lake even.. and would have been a hit had he stuck to the book... but alas.. had to waste crores... can never get over that fact.. I am not against using opulent sets.. no way.. I am probably the most ardent fan or art directors.. people who are constantly ignored.. and the art is good.. only when substantiated by equivalent goodness and soundness in story, direction, action... Alas.. we don't live in that world anymore.. and what hurts me even more.. is that people actually think its a master piece.. It took me a galore of Hrishikesh Mukherji's movies to get me back to normalcy..

And just when I was recovering.. bullshitters strike back with a vengeance... and I realized that they do this more often than any supervillian in a comic book does..In a certain class I take I came across this one person who speaks.. and oh my does he speak.. anyone with even an ounce of knowledge of the subject will know that its bull shit! but he chooses his victims carefully.. and talks about the subject as though he's known it all of his life.. the truth is nada...nothing at all.. nor knowledge, nor facts.. but yet people listen to him with rapt attention as though he is some Guru... I did feel like walking up and yelling and saying.. wait.. this is not real stuff.. he's just speaking for the sake of it... not real matter.. And I would have if sense had not prevailed over me.. but that was not the end.. a certain professor I spoke to replies to a query when asked what is the value of this constant? It could be N .. it could be N+1.. it could be anything.. its more important that you understand that it could be anything than thinking perse what it could be actually...." Grrr.. the truth there was that the constant could and should take one and only one values else the whole theory is annulled! I did not know whether to break into tears or laughter... and the philosopher who created the "may be" theory... that proposes that man should never be certain about anything.. even the plain visible facts.. no the grass may be green, pink or blue.. you never know... yes but what is visible to you, there should be some absolutes somewhere.. axioms of which you derive and propose theories.. they may be disproved.. but then there is another axiom that has come into picture that has disproved it.. there has to be a fixed point somewhere..

But what happens to all these people in real life? The student gets a job offer in a reknown company even before he can complete his first year .. the professor has got an opportunity in a another univ and left ours (thank God for that ).. and millions of copies of the book by that the "may be" philosopher are sold... why?? covering things in ambiguity has become a fad these days .. a person in a job is not told his exact responsibilities.. why because they don't simply know.. throwing terms around and shrouding them in ambiguity.. and laugh around at people who stand up against it and demand clarity "Hah.. you don't understand us??" Why can't people be simple and straight forward.. everything would be so clear if one just said straight forwardly.. this is what it is.. this is what you should do.. else a simple I don't know... lets find out... Its as simple as that.. if its not.. we'll tackle layer by layer.. but if the issues, facts, nothing is straight what can one do? except.. sing the way I did "Bhole surat dil ke khote, naam bade aur darshan chote"... and thus the world disappoints me...as I await the day when questions like "are you living? do you exist" come up with the answer "may be... who knows.. nothing is certain.."