Sunday 5 February 2012

From the Editorial Team- Happy Valentine's Day


Stop squirming!:)

We did say Happy Valentine's Day! After all we all believe in love. Fine, love is a 365 day thingy and you don't need to dedicate a special day to its cause and blah blah. But then what the heck! why not celebrate this one day too?

We at SDA QUOTIENT will infact celebrate the entire month with lots of love. So kisses kisses kisses!:) and a big Saint Valentine Hug! the biggest  Jadu ki Jhappi too!!

To each one of you we say- You don't have to change a thing. I love you just the way you are:):)

Few things you can do this Valentine's day-

- Spend a  chunk of your money on the poor street children. Share this moment with your most loved ones. Rest assured  you'll feel its a day well spent.
- If you are a man and you don't cook (are there such men even now??) please lay the table well. Light a few candles. Gift your partner a handmade card. Write your feelings. Write about your life together. Be sweet and be nice.
- If  you are a lady do something adventurous...go for scuba diving. Costs Rs 3,000 a person in Goa. Write that letter. Everybody loves being valued.
- If you are alone enjoy being single. Go out with friends. Gift yourself a trip to bangkok. Get yourself a good bicycle.
- Whether you are single, a couple, in a family,with friends or in an open relationship just remember one thing you have just ONE YOU. Be safe. Have fun.

This is the life when you are supposed to feel loved and make people feel loved. Don't settle for anything lesser than love. Believe in LOVE. Give yourself to LOVE. And Trring Trring...someone will call just say s/he loves you!! Or may be you can call and sing along...

As for us- WE JUST CALLED TO SAY WE LOVE YOU! Muaah!:)

Saturday 4 February 2012

Dance it away:):)



My niece Titli posted Cyd Charisse in "Party Girl" on FB the other day. Titli and I have bonded over dance since she was a kid. She has shown me many graceful dancers on youtube. Everytime I have seen her dance or seen others dance elegantly or powerfully or both my heart has skipped a beat.

When I was a little girl things were not always easy. But I had the priviledge and oppurtunity to shake it.

I was severely ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyper active Disorder.) It wasn't diagnosed then. I remember random remarks that I was a restless kid. I often skipped the siesta while my brother could be put to sleep easily.  I was endlessly and ceaselessly on my feet. Would run around the colony. I knew almost every nook and cranny. Would play with friends. Would  bump into strangers. Most were nice. Many were strange strangers. I would be scared to find them. I would be ashamed to know them. There would also be a sense of excitement in meeting the gollum. But I just couldn't sleep like most of my friends and family members in the afternoon. I would constantly move from one place to another. I couldn't sit in one place for too long.

I could sense  being mildly lost when I was in high school.  However, I was also a very happy child. I was kind of  a popular student in Seventh Day Adventist. It was in SDA that I realised that I love writing. My teachers encouraged me. It is in SDA that I gathered I have the gift of the gab. My friends pampered me. They praised me for silly things. The likes of Anwar, Swati, Arunima, Rahul Seth and Priyank made me feel like I was cat's whiskers. Don't remember a single soul in school who was mean to me. They all unknowingly carried my soul to a delightfully secure space. I was safe and extremely loved.

My family, SDA, my cycle and my dance held me tight. Trust me when I say I could have slipped into the dark side of the moon any day:).

It was in class 4th. My friend and fellow rickshaw traveller Bipasha Paul was dropped at her Kathak class one day. I stepped down and peeped into her class. Bipasha was tying her ghungroo. Other girls were dancing away. Guru Kumkum  Adarsh called me in. Bips also smiled and waved at me to come in. I was allowed to watch. Those girls and boys, they jumped and swirled like a dervish. Bipasha moved with abandonment once on the floor. Next day I asked my mother if I could dance too. Was my mother happy? She got me admitted to the Kathak classes the very next day. Here I must thank my parents and Bips! and may be Bips' mother as well:)

Thus began my rigorous training in Kathak. I learnt Kathak for eight years. First from Guru Kumkum Adarsh, disciple of  Lachchu Maharaj and then Guru Sanjeev Roy. Life changed its mood and its pace many a times. I danced it on a beat I understood.  I danced wherever I could. I travelled far and wide to watch people dance. On the verge of getting my divorce when I visited my ex hubby in Bangalore I requested him to show me Nrityagram. He casully mentioned it to his friends over a dinner. One of them was a Bharatnatyam dancer. We travelled to Nrityagram...and my heart refused to mourn. Have you been to Nrityagram? Protima Bedi's dream school? Its magic. Nrityagram tells you the story of  Protima Bedi's grit and guts. How successful can a mad heart be! Where all can a whacky dream take you! But you must dream. And you must dance!




One of my greatest experiences was to meet Sitara Devi in 2004. I cooked for her. Drank wine with her. She fed me well. In those days I had left my fat salary to understand life:). Happens after your first divorce. We spent months chatting about K Asif, love and life in general. She was married to K. Asif of Mughal- E-Azam fame for the longest time.

Life of a dancer in 40s  and 50s wasn't easy. You needed to be a Sitara Devi to pursue your heart. Guess its not easy even now if you don't belong to a priviledged class.  Sitara Devi's trials and tribulations are deeply inspiring. Her struggles can't be imagined by women who haven't stepped out of their home alone. She asserts woman power and autonomy over one's body and how.







Life is not easy. However, we  have seen people dance in the wildest and remotest of places. When I  had travelled to Abuj Madh, in the Maoist heart land I had seen the tibals dance and sing. Thats a conflict zone. I hope none of us have to go there and live there. Its hard to imagine the level of impoverishment and deprivation there. But some people dance there too. How long will the dance continue? Are they dancing in merriment? and joy? or are they dancing to keep them going!!
'
Sitara had once said "Dance ek phalsafa hai".

Voltaire said -Let us read and let us dance - two amusements that will never do any harm to the world.
When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It's to enjoy each step along the way.

Thats my small learning from all dancers. Thats what we learnt from the innocent movie Billy Elliot -didn't we? In the end I just hope all our children have friends they can dance with. I pray they hold the hands of their lesser priviledged friends. Here's wishing dance, play and more dance to every child. Dance it away children!:)

February MUST WATCH - Five Directors and their films!

1) Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu- Mexican Film maker. Catch his Amores Perros, 21 grams and babel.

Amores perros- This highly acclaimed film is set in Mexico City. Three individuals are connected by the event of a violent car crash. 

21 grams-  Quite like Alejandro's previous film, Amores perros (2000), 21 Gram  interweaves many plots. Interestingly lines overlap around a tragic automobile accident.

 Babel- This is a truly international movie. The film portrays multiple stories taking place in Morocco, Japan, Mexico and the United States.






2) Satyajit Ray- Indian Bengali Film maker. A genius and a realist Ray gave some mind blowing films to the world of Cinema.Pather Panchali, Apur Sansar and Aparajito .


Pather Panchali or story of the road by Satyajit Ray is funny, real and poignant. A trend setter of its time its a must watch for all film buffs. If you were close brothers and sisters. If you played pranks on each other but covered each other's back all the time. This is a must see. The other two movies are part of a great trilogy. What happens when the little Apu grows up and enters the real world? A story of childhood, adolscence and adulthood. A story of love, loss and hope. A must see.



3) Wong Kar Wai is a Hong Kong wave filmmaker. He is renowned as an esthete for his visually unique, suberbly stylised, emotionally resonant work. 

'Happy Together' and 'In the mood for Love' are our special recommendations. Same Sex Romance at its best. Wong Kar Wai is a social communicator with remarkable cinematic prowess.

4) Michael Hanecke- Catch his psychological thrillers which are killers!!:)Funny Games and White Ribbon. See these if you admire choreography of violence.



5) Gus Green Van Sant- Good Will Hunting is a personal favourite of some of us here. Story of a genius mathematician who picks up small life skills on the way. We have all heard of Milk!! but have we watched it?? Catch it! Learn from it! And grow to be more sensitive!:)





Friday 3 February 2012

My Biggest Investment


Mili my daughter had  hurt herself  yesterday. This happened while she was playing with a pin. All hell broke loose for my wife  and me. We ran helter skelter to  get her some antiseptic ointment. Her grandparents got busy issuing instructions.  We were told how to stop those few drops of blood and how we need to be more attentive.  ‘These kids are really  so soft, so loveable and they need to be really cared for’.
Today a kid came knocking at my car window. I had just passed a crossroad.  She begged me to buy a bunch of roses. She  was ready to sell to me those beautiful, fresh and red  roses for 50 bucks. I was not interested.She kept pleading. I rolled up my window and drove away at the first sight of the green signal. ‘These kids are really so annoying and irritating at times’.
Just 12 hours. Within just 12 hours  two different kids. Two different reactions. Pampering one kid with whatever she needs and ignoring the basic needs of the other. Am I growing insensitive? May be I am already. What will it take to make me think - ‘Rather than spending 500 bucks on a bottle of whiskey should I not get a poor child two set of warm clothes?’. When will it be a day when I will ask my daughter to share her glass of milk with another child on the street?

I think it has to be today. It has to be now. Children are children; they are the future of my country. But does it make monetary sense? It does. Think ROI, when I am old one of these will be deciding where my pension fund goes. One of these will find a way to keep me safe from my enemies. If I give them a skewed world today they are going to return the same to me tomorrow. If I remove the differences now  then I can dream of an equal opportunity world tomorrow.
Enough of giving the gyan, with a few warm clothes, I am off to make my first investment for a real return of tomorrow.



Manish Pandey works as a Business Manager in RBS.  Lives in Gurgao, Haryana with his wife and daughter Mili. Manish was every teacher's pet in SDA. He was witty, smart and sharp. Real Sharp!!!!


Music Beckons Nostalgia

I grew up on a staple dose of Indian film music of the 1950s and '60s
era. Since my father was an avid fan of old Hindi songs, his cassette
rack was a mini repertoire of music from masters like K L Saigal,
Naushad, Shankar Jaikishan, Hemant Kumar, Salil Chowdhury et al.
Some of his favourites were gems from classics like Awaara, Shree 420,
Deedar, Baiju Bawra, Anmol Ghadi and Yahudi. I can still recall the
mellifluous tunes of Ye mera diwanapan hai (Mukesh) and Tu Ganga ki
mauj mein (Mohd Rafi) playing in our home. Frankly, I never quite
liked the music of that era and was more into contemporary Hindi film
music.


When I was in school in the mid '80s, Suresh Wadkar, Mohd Aziz,
Anuradha Paudwal, Shabbir Kumar and Manhar Udhas were the popular
mainstream playback singers, apart from evergreen idols, Kishore Kumar
and Lata Mangeshkar.



I found the old songs boring, unappealing and simply tasteless. I
reasoned with my father that he should instead develop ears for new
songs than the boring stuff he liked. He told me that I would like his
kind of music when I grew mature enough to appreciate the  lyrics and
the lilting melodies. I never bought his argument.


During that time, the only English songs I could possibly listen to
were the ad jingles on the idiot box – Doordarshan, to be precise.
After my matriculation in 1991, I developed fondness for English songs
and became a fan of Michael Jackson. I also liked Madonna, Cliff
Richard, Wham and the man behind it, George Michael.


In 1992, my father died. Later, during college years, my circle of
friends grew and I was introduced to new tastes in western music —
rock, metal and rap. My new idols were Bryan Adams, Bruce Springsteen,
Michael Bolton, Bon Jovi and Shaggy.



Sometimes to break the monotony of western tunes and to indulge my
occasional mood swings, I used to play the cassettes of my late father
in solitude. My adolescent years were over and I was more mature. The
old melodies grew on me and I started to relish them. I found solace
in the soft music and rich poetry.

All these years, these classics never fail to take me down memory lane
where I relive the moments spent with my father. When nostalgia
overwhelms me, I feel his blessings come wrapped in the golden voices

Virendra Singh Rawat works wih Business Standard in Lucknow. He amalgamates two of his passions for his fellow SDA friends- that of Music and Writing.