Gaurav Dubey

They say " why you shout so much"; i say "to make them register the wrong" so that someday they could accumulate the strength burried deep within them. As a Human or as an individual my life had been restricted so much with me that i neglected the world around me. There are too many complaints i have in the short span i lived so far, that unfortunately i couldn't see the worst of all that existed. There were times when i would question the things that didn't go my way, people who couldn't understand what i want, how i feel but swiftly when i entered their world it changed my perspective, i asked myself that why did i craved for all that i couldn't get when they did not even have the 1/3rd of all that i am living with.

My eyes have so far opened and closed on the cushions i lay my head but seeing homes upon drains, the same drains where they divide their day into four quarters. First where they excrete, second where they bath & cook food, third where mothers' exchange the sweet bitter trivias of their in laws and men play cards and fourth where children play, husband and wife fight and then at last they all sleep.

It's too easy to say that i have a mountain on head i cannot do anything about, it's too easy to shead the tears and immerse yourself into a thought of something which could be as small as a moul but there are lives who cry, who also think that this a problem i would not be able to solve out, who would crave out of hunger cramps and what not but still moves on becuase they know they have nothing to lose except the day they have woke up into so they try to bring as much joy as they could.

All this would have not been possible if you Shilpi Marwaha mam wouldn't have listened us, listened me despite of childish anger sometimes i show and you brush it aside without letting me know. Had i not been an actor especially in theatre and under you i might have retaliated in all the circumstances i have been through in the last two years in the manner i would regret later for. The quality to understand people in all their worst of emotions is amongst the best thing i have ingrained in me. Your talks has helped me to look beyond one's ownself because might be that one could be in the worst situation according to one but their'll be a person somewhere who would be in the worst of all; smiling.

Experiencing lives for the last two years, my decision to choose acting & primarily through theatre is one such decision i would not regret and stand alone with it till my judgement day.

Walking on a street with thousands of people crossing at the sametime, created a vaccum that feared him. He was constantly in search of someone who can assure him his emotions of survival, such was MR. X. A scar of a turbulent childhood gets deeper and deeper with the time. He yearned to fill the 17 years off seperation that disturbed him. Moreover his heart knew the chaos he was going through, yet he continued smiling & cheering. He 'adjusted' with people, according to people & never complained.... 'A Solitary Lover'. So what if his mother and father chose their respective ways, they still loved him - 'individually' and moreover thousands of children live such lives. He adjusted.

He didn't stopped in believing people. Then his paternal aunt (bua) became the nucleus of his happiness. He relied more on her than his mother and father. Dressing up occassionally from her to the scoldings everything revolved around her. He often reminds an incidence from his life where he was beaten up by his tution teacher. A 12 year old boy sitting on her lap and screaming mercilesly, weeping unclear words in retaliation.

From a usual summer vacations few months later, when he returned from his nani's house he was told about her aunt getting married. His world collapsed - collapsed because the tender heart got bruised again and nobody realised as they saw a face smiling. He adjusted.

He nurtured his belief. Although his innocence towards life and people is as same as of 8 years old boy. He went to boarding school. A new place & amongst so many they grew an unseperable bond. He could now believe and be happy. School got over & he was abandoned. He got crushed still moved on.

He then met her. He developed his faith in her. They spent hours talking. More than their notebooks, smiles exchanged. Their contradictions bothered them & presence sink them down. His affection grew. He didn't knew that this would be the last spring of him talking to her. Mie scattered in the sky & air was blowing, they cleared there exams and she left but he continued, continued dribbling basketball all alone, abandoned & crushed.

He rose, to believe in people he knew he can trust. It took its own time but they bonded well and the squad never fall out but misconception, betryal, experiments, complexities, insecurites left him all alone yet again. 'He adjusted.'

But what was it that mr x pursued all his life ? Why he had to look for completeness and happiness into someone else? What was it that has stopped him from facing the fact? What was that fact? Who has made him scared so much? What was that vaccum which never got filled?

Few years later he met them. He thought, his search for his quest might get complete. She was child like, free spirited with long curled hair & exuberant eyes. He liked her but was scared of losing her, so he relied on him, who was caring but moody. He was scared because he was broken. For him love was dead which was on pyre but still burning. He realised he is too weak to believe his belief.

Through all this there was not a single day he would not think of losing them and then......

His friend found someone and he lost his space in his life and even he couldn't grow his spine to tell her the truth. He backfoot, so that it doesn't break him. He left them so that it doesn't hurt him.

To care for someone is a beauty. It invests our energy, emotions into a human & that human could be anyone. Our lives start revolving around them. Initially, it's a sweet hallucination we want to 'believe' but when that blurs with fear, it turns out to be jealousy & insecurity which is inevitable. It is because of some traumatic flashes of the past, or a mere fear to loose out the person or thing whose presence matters. But where does all this take us? To 'ESCAPE' from the reality? Though it helps us to avoid the situation for some time but it would definately not solve it out.

We have to face it. We have to tell our minds that, whom we have loved the most, tried hard enough to save them, to guard them, to just see them happy all the time, to make them aware that whenever they are in a fix their is someone to pull them out; actually it has caged them, unknowingly under our debts of reciprocation. Reciprocation to the mutual admiration, help, care, love, respect we gave.

Nothing is absolute! Days, months, years everything changes and so humans. We might be submitted in ones friendship (or any other relation), that does not mean it would never get over. Any road block can hit it at any point in life. If dependency of our lives is so much on that person then it is our mistake. And if that person chose to move on without you or it could not value the amount of respect you gave, then just let them go. Because as hard we would try to save it, as elastic it would get & elasicity gives force which creates pressure and that subsequently explode. An explosion which shut all the doors.

10 RUPPAYE

In our blatant language they are 'there' to just cuddle our hearts. But has anyone ever thought that, what has brought them to the work they are doing? Who or what circumstances has compelled them? Do they also have a heart - a heart that wants to breathe, to talk random things, to make friends, to devlope faith in people, to skip a beat for someone who they love, to be independent? Are they allowed?

#Manto had never sugar coated his women in his stories with the so called idealism of the society. Be it #Sugandhi in #Hatak or #Sakeena in #Khol_do these women were the reflection of their own kind from the society and unfortunately continues to be.

#10_Ruppaye a story written by #Saadat_Hasan_Manto and directed by Shilpi Marwaha revolves around #Prostitution. #Sarita who has started this work in her teens, still lingers with the innocence which she should forget.

#Kifaayat a playful happy go lucky man and one of the customer amongst other who went to #Sarita that night, must have never thought that he would encounter such innocence. Through out his journey he noticed #Sarita who despite knowing as to what she has been actually called for, keeps her heart infront of him.

Later when he drop her off, she thanked kifaayat and others, to be herself and offered him #10rs for a joyful ride. Sarita later asked him to come everyday and take her along with him so that she can breathe, she can live a life of her wants, so that she doesn't have to get back to those rooms for certain hours, to men who would without her consent force themselves upon her.

But will kifaayat ever return, to make her live or feel life again? May be yes or no!

We dream million of things out of which hardly one or two shapes out the way we want. A room with a window which opens to a vast piece of land having trees all around, made my sketches, dreams come true.

In the chilly winter night I swiflty crawled into the blanket besides a window frame with the musical of dogs barking, trains whistling, vehicles running and prawns buzzing all around. Beneath the blanket of stars in a new city of a new state, my heart 'actually smiled' after days, laying its eyes upon the frozen trees in this night.