PTTC Diary: 10 February

Dateline 10 February 2015
Tell me, what color is dawn? A color you can touch? Something gentle? Perhaps it is! That 'something' takes various forms. Standing on the balcony looking out at the garden, the color seems like flower petals. Look toward the street, and you'll find that color in the tinkle-jangle of rickshaws. Searching for dawn's color in the green of trees is deeply peaceful too. Do try looking! Standing by the seashore watching a dawn break, it feels as though the whiteness of morning has merged and mingled with the color of those waves. Standing at the bamboo door of a cottage nestled against hills, you can reach out and gently touch that dawn with all the feelings of body and soul. That color—you'll never forget it until the very moment before death; not even if you try, I can swear to it. The color of dawn at PATC changes every moment. Walking along the boundary wall, dawn reveals itself in the color of dust clouds broken by the terrible roar of monster truck wheels. In the gray courtyard before the tall buildings, some white-brown sparrows peck and eat grain. The sparrows' fluttering ways have a color all their own. Mixed skillfully with the vast concrete yard, dawn takes on quite a different hue. You'll find dawn too in the gentle light wet with dew on every leaf. Walking past the swan farm, you can hear their calls. That color of dawn is the color of pristine white clamor.
A mound beside the jogging track hides the field shrouded in mist. On top of it, medium-sized rustling trees with strange narrow leaves trap dewdrops in their gaps—touch them and you can feel another color of dawn. This color wasn't born here, but somewhere else. On the earthen-colored trees, dawn's color is deeply peaceful. Together they all invite us to a picnic. Dry leaves, twigs, bricks scattered here and there, dead branches, cut tree stumps—what isn't here for the taking? The dawn here is picnic-colored. This color belongs to unexpected joy. Dawn that's like a bird's intimate gaze has no color. Its color's great artist is—whoever sees it. At PATC, dawn appears this way, changing colors. We move forward. We must go, will stop after 3 kilometers. The gentle morning breeze sings: You, make pure, bring good fortune, wiping away the sullied heart...with your sacred rays, let my delusion's darkness fade...
The blanket given to us in our room has a huge, awkward, oversized white cover. Such covers aren't usually on blankets, they're on quilts. The moment you put the blanket on, it swims around inside that cover and settles in a corner, falling face-down. That soft cotton cover remains on your body. Even grabbing the blanket's corner and pulling it doesn't keep it properly inside. It finds its way right back to that same corner. At night there's no blanket on the body. What to do! Reluctantly, I had to throw off the cover and leave the blanket naked. I thought this problem was mine alone. Later I saw, no, everyone had this problem. Good then! If all foxes have their tails cut, no fox has anything to grieve about.
Some people have asked me to describe our room a bit. Actually, I haven't found much worth describing yet. Still, here's something. One room. Two beds. My roommate and I are both harmless, decent-type people. Back in the room I write, listen to some music, watch half a movie. Music listening and Facebooking have both decreased. These days I write more, read less, so my writing quality has dropped considerably. In the whole day I mostly talk on the phone to home, sometimes to some others. I keep nuts, chanachur, jhal muri, cake...in the room and chew them for no reason. When mosquitoes start biting, I first see if I can bear the bites. Only when completely helpless do I lazily light a coil. I write 'PATC Diary.' The pile of books on my table in front of me keeps saying, "Don't write anymore, read a little now." I deliberately keep my mobile phone off. I use it only as much as absolutely necessary—learning to become accustomed to such limited use of technology. Staying away from tech-torture feels quite good. The bed's mosquito net is always down. I'm too lazy to pull it up. Quilts, blankets, bedsheets, room clothes—I don't organize anything. Whatever I find in front of me, I wear to class. Every day I do two kinds of work: what must be done, and what I enjoy doing. Whatever's scattered in the room, I never organize it. If I organize things, I can't find them when I need them for work. The funny thing is, if someone moves something from my scattered belongings, I notice immediately that it's not in that place.
When coming from home, Mother gave me body lotion, cold cream and such, none of which I lazily apply. My only logic—skin and face aren't cracking to bleed. I don't shave daily because there's no shame in not shaving at PATC. Books-notebooks, mobile charger, watch, comb, cap, laptop and the kingdom's belongings lie scattered on the table. I don't feel like organizing them...I don't know what else to write. I'll write again when I remember later. Oh yes, good point. Our room has one toilet, and only one person can go at a time, because there's also only one commode.
Today while walking down the corridor to class, Lata's song 'Tujhse naraj nahin zindagi, hairan hun main...' entered my head for no reason. Once in, it stayed! Once these songs somehow get into your head, they won't come out. It kept playing throughout the class. Sir came in front of me making big eyes saying something or other, and I saw Shabana Azmi. Most distressing! Though sometimes laughing softly to a favorite song's tune is better than attending certain classes. I'm laughing and thinking about the song. The song is written by Gulzar. I was also remembering Salim Khan. Why? He's Gulzar's friend and companion in thought. Many songs and story plots emerged from their conversations. Let me help a little. See if you remember these dialogues:
: Mard hone pe dard nahin hota.
: Don ko pakarna mushkil bhi nahin hai, namumkin hai!
: Tumhara naam kya hai, Basanti? (What a sense of humor!)
He enriched Bollywood with countless such creations. 'Sholay' was his writing. There are more. Awara, Deewar, Zanjeer, Don, Mr. India. Simon Beaufoy talked with him for three days to gather material for writing 'Slumdog Millionaire.' Javed Akhtar is his discovery. Earlier, posters didn't print who wrote the film. Now they do. This contribution belongs to Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar. Together they spent the whole night writing on all the city's posters: Scriptwriter: Salim Khan.
Knowing about his personal life's sorrows, you understand that only he could have written that song Lata sang. No, he didn't write it. The day Gulzar wrote it, a day or two earlier he'd had a conversation with Salim Khan about their life philosophies. Thinking of the song's words, you realize it was written with the heart, not the head.
Let me give another small introduction. His son receives invitations to many programs because of being his son. That is, his son has also become famous making some films.
Just as Kaifi Azmi needn't be introduced as 'Shabana Azmi's father,' Salim Khan can be introduced as 'Salman Khan's father' if you want, but it's not necessary! If it must be done, then not knowing this is truly uncomfortable.
Talking randomly, I've gone far afield. Let me return to class. The Indian movie line most popular in the outside world is very likely: Koi baat nahin, senorita, koi baat nahin. Bade bade deshon mein aisi choti choti batein hoti rehti hain...(Meaning, no matter, senorita, no matter! In big big countries such small small things keep happening...) The unique style with which Shah Rukh delivered this dialogue removing his black sunglasses in DDLJ isn't easy to copy—even Obama couldn't the other day. Good thing I'm not expecting any argument about this. I know he couldn't be expected to copy it. Don't think that saying "Namaste"...and addressing thousands of audience members at Delhi's Siri Fort Auditorium, I've written this without understanding why Mr. President went there in SRK style. I wrote this because after finishing today's first 2-hour session, I consoled myself saying: No matter, Sushanta, no matter! In big big classes such small small lectures keep happening...Today's class gave me another realization: Sometimes you need better referee more than you need a good player. Those who do, don't speak; those who don't do, speak. Let's learn where to start. If we fail at the start, let's learn where to stop, before someone else stops us!
Let me tell the next class's story.
In class, Sir put his hand on his chest and asked, "What's in this place?" Before I could say "heart," several voices answered, "Name badge, Sir!" (And they really meant it!) Nothing to be done! PATC's side effect! OMG (Oh my God!)
"All right, let's do a survey. Suppose I want to know, who thinks the chairs in your class are comfortable?" The moment he said this, many people touched their chairs to check. (Until then it had never occurred to anyone that this could be something to consider! We're sitting in chairs, it's fine, that's all! When shoes were invented, people started thinking they couldn't get dust on their feet! Tell me, what bothered them before?)
"I'll do another survey. Sleeping tendency of the students in the classroom—on this." Many immediately widened their eyes and looked around to see who was sleeping. As if they'd been awake all this time. Strange human psychology! Isn't it funny?
"Don't think that because I'm not 30 now, I was never 30. I'm 57 now. I too once sat in that chair of yours and got sleepy in class just like you. Do you know what I used to do when I got sleepy in class?" (Sir's stern voice had a serious tone. We thought Sir would scold us with something harsh! Those of us who were sleeping rubbed our eyes and perked up our ears like rabbits to hear what Sir would say.) After a long pause, Sir began again, "When I got sleepy in class, I...fell asleep." Aha!
I began to feel that sometimes teaching everything is simply teaching nothing! By then, echoing in my head... some call him an old fool, some call him a rascal, some say now we'll be saved only when this bastard dies!
I was thinking all this when I heard Sir shouting, it seemed, "535! 535!! What's the matter! Whose roll number is this?" I started looking around. "Whose roll number is this? Why isn't the fool coming forward? Sir is getting exhausted calling!" I was thinking all this when the person beside me said, "Sushantda, Sir is calling you! Go stand in line with them." I scrambled up, literally along with the table in front of me! My leg hurt too. What else can you call mental absence! I heard my own roll number and was looking for someone else!
Today's last class was on tourism. The entire class ended with two tourism promotion video clips. An audio-visual session. What we understood and learned through this arrangement of images and sounds (without falling asleep) wouldn't have been possible to learn even in a three-hour lecture. I'm thinking, if in this six-month training program, on roughly 130 days excluding Friday-Saturday, we were shown two carefully selected movies each day—260 in total—two things would have happened. One: none of us would have slept in class. Two: we really could have learned much more. This isn't a joke; I felt this after today's class. And I really meant it!
In the evening, when I went to the playing field, I saw that today's sky was somewhat different. If I think of the sky as a canvas, just looking at it made me want to think that some amateur artist had playfully splashed colors wherever and however they pleased with a paintbrush across the canvas. Today's sky is not a sky for sports. This is a sky for walking hand in hand with a sulking beloved. Not exactly stepping, but rather letting your feet fly a little as two people walk side by side, looking in different directions, at that distance where you can touch just by extending your hand, walking along the same line. A sky for stealing glances and then looking away, dissolving into mischievous laughter. A sky for sitting right in the middle of the field holding her hand, dancing your eyes while bathing in sweet sunlight, singing 'Let the last light of evening stay a while...' This is a sky for sitting on the grass in Curzon Hall garden or by the pond at Shahidullah Hall, peeling peanuts and placing them in her hand, then playfully snatching them back and popping them into your own mouth. A sky for walking aimlessly along the riverbank in the falling evening, away from all noise. Today's sky is simply a sky that makes you want to love.
The sky never grows old—where had I read this? In Sunil? Shirshendu? Or Samaresh? I've forgotten. Or am I enjoying forgetting? Or did I never read it anywhere at all? What's happening right now is just a montage-play of thoughts!