I was there. In Delhi, not far from the blasts. I too was shopping with my family, but fortunately for us, not in the immediate vicinity. But near enough..
Did I hear the blasts ? Perhaps, but during Diwali the sound of firecrackers dominates even the blaring horns of the traffic. And that, in Delhi, is something.
My daughter was obsessing about Pizza so I took her to a restaurant in the vicinity. And there on CNN I saw and heard about the bombs. Strange world we live in. Not more than a Kilometer or so from a Bomb and you only know about it on CNN.
And yet, I drove around Delhi that night, and you could not believe this is city was just hit by a major and deadly terrorist attack. What was this, Indian Fatalism ? Courage ? Or plain simple “oh well, as long as it did not affect me”.
That night there was a major ‘Chanel’ fashion show in town. Everyone was going to it. It was THE ‘happening’ event in town. I thought they would have cancelled it. But no, it just went on.
On the way back to Mumbai the next day, the plane was full of the organizers of the show. And participants. One of them came to me and said ” Shekhar, missed you there last night” And I said “Well, did not think you would have gone ahead after the bombs”. He looked puzzled and went away.
Maybe he was right to be puzzeld. The shops are open almost the next day. Even those that were in line of the bombs. The people are thronging back to the markets. The festive season is back in full swings. A twinge of regret. And life goes on.
Except for those that lost loved ones. Except for the arguments. Except for the politics. Except for the blame.
And except for an extra “be careful’ when your kids go the market. Knowing that the killing is so random that the ‘be careful’ means absoluty nothing.
Shekhar
precious
i see blood
and chaos.
i feel deeply sick.
the smell is sharp
like the cutting edge
of a razor,
i want to breathe,
but feel suffocated
by the stench
of destruction.
i hold onto the ones
i love.
By the Grace of God,
we are still here.
Should I feel guilty for that
act of mercy?
Life is very raw these days
and very – old news, very quickly.
How to hold on to..?
What to hold on to..?
I suppose we’ll just have to
carry on.
No.
I don’t want to just carry on,
I want to make love with the passion
of a mystic who has crossed
the desert of his own introspection.
I want to kiss the cool
monsoon rains.
I want…I want…
But I’m just 1 in 3 billion
I’m not immortal
I’m just me
and even that’s a fiction.
Like the icicle or the rainbow,
beautiful and unique
fragrant and transient
real and unreal,
but very very
precious
Dear Shekar,
I’m glad you are fine. I had visited your office in Mumbai last week to offer you a directing job on a movie I’m putting together in England but found nobody was there. The guard downstairs told me he heard you were in either Delhi or London so I naturally crossed my fingers and hoped that if you were in Delhi you were fine.
I’m now in back in London. Things haven’t been the same here since July. The atmosphere on the underground used to be very social. That’s been replaced with a silent dread now. India handles terrorism better because of their neverending work ethic.
If you could please Email me I would be very grateful. Was trying to call for a month!
Thank you and best wishes.
Compassion is something which has been completely wiped out from the entire human race…its cent percent true we dont care about others suffering as long as our own house is secured ( that includes me too ), as long as it doesnt happen to one of our own…delhi is one of the most hypocrite society i have ever seen in my life (after having been lived in delhi all my life)…people here can go to any lenghts to show-off …no matter wether anyone lives or dies their enjoyment should continue…they only know to eat,shop and have merry,let the world outside go to hell.
They will fight with poor rickshawallahs for one rupee and will spend thousand of bucks on their kids and themselves.I have myself seen these things.Everyone is out there to outdo each other and will do whatever it takes to reach a resonable position.
neil, wats ur e-mail id
u are really impressive
Echoes
Laughter..
Where is it?
All I can see are the tears
All I can hear are the cries
of many children.
Gone are the echoes of playground games,
all we have are the ruins
of our bombed-out homes.
But then, that’s only the surface –
Beneath,
Life flows as a current
of enduring love.
Don’t you remember our physics lessons?
Energy in neither created nor destroyed,
She sweeps through the universe
across time and all thought.
Emerging into a dancing sea of patterns,
ever at the mercy
of the winds of fate,
but whose beauty lights up
the smiling silence of Infinity.
Cry – Grieve – Weep,
for those patterns are no more,
only echoes of events before.
But life is unstoppable
unbombable
unfathomable
– like a fragrant rose –
She is unforgettable.
Love is all there is
is all I want.
Remove the want
and there it is,
Now and for evermore.
Your website is wonderfull. I’ll come visit again. black girls on their mission: http://www.adobe.com , my parents didnt told me about it , think that will make relief
Hi Shekhar
I have seen you in few films and suiting adds, you have a great personality. I am glad that you survived the blast that happened in Delhi.
Sir, can you give my son a chance in any of your forthcoming movie he have a great personality he is just 6, infact i my self can do some roles we both are attractive and good looking at our age.
We are living in SF bay area. At your response i can send you our profile and pictures
by mail / email or in person
Thanks for your precious time
hi piyali
thank you for the compliment. sorry for the delayed reply! the mind often gets in the way of the poetry, but sometimes the heart gets inspired and it flows. do you have an email id that i can post mine to?
love, neil
hi neil
yeah u posted ur reply after a real long time. I had even stopped expecting any. It was a pleasant surprise neway. why r so secretive abt ur id? If u wish u can post it on myth00@rediffmail.com
STRANGE BUT TRUE : Anywhere in the world, where there is unrest, pain, terrorism, suffering, agony or anything bad, Muslims/Mohammedans are always involved. Now, I start to believe, what the once famous Nostradamus said in his prophecies “People (males) who have a tradition of cutting off a vital piece of their private part, will always be the root cause of chaos in this world. It will be them, who will ultimately cause the final destruction of planet earth, before they realise that a vital part of their brain also goes in the process of cutting of this piece of their private part” Nostradamus :786ppXXIVI
Pl. do write on such incidents. It gives a different insight to the readers. There is a journalist hidden under you.
strange memories …
after attracting this site …
of someone who for some mysterious reason I feel deeply drawn towards …
allowing the memorioes to shoot …
like an old ancient movie …
I am unable to forget …
beingg away from one of the bombs 10 minutes before explosion…
as if I just knew it …
how else could I have found it a day after arrival in my first time in India?
carefully selecting a room with a window …
to have it shatereed the next day …
mesmerised by teh syncronicity …
except by the flight of the eagles …
when puja took place …
as if telling me …
“Make prayer your home…”
oh the indian spirit …
wanting to take me into their homes …
while my spirit travelled in places high above …
memerised by the impact of the bombing …
on the innocent paasing by …
wondering …
was this written in their destiny ???
Wonder if the synopsis below can be transfered to the CinemaScope/TV screen?
http://www.movietalkies.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=185&PN=1&get=last#381
http://kamlabhatt.wordpress.com/2007/03/21/redirected-to-my-new-blog-site/
Over the past decades all the official criminal wrongs done to my young family in U.K I have made public from the start, in COPS Gazette, as a parliamentary candidate and on the Internet, as in the above and below URLs, so it is ok to repeat publicly what I write.
Synopsis of a father’s 40-year campaign
Fit for a film, TV serial
The piece below says it all, the chaff therein is inadvertent, the chafing bits are deliberate, they are meant to force the issue. The powers that be are empire-hardened, they use the police as their private militia. To their joint dismay miracles have saved me so far from their judicial and police traps of the criminal type.
As am in the last lap of my life a much stronger language than that which took London’s Mayor Ken to courts will be used. (My classified ads in Private Eye quite some years ago began with the words, “Nazi-like Jewish/Christian MPs, …” and ended with my name and address. The new regime at the Eye snubs my ads; yea, juden regime.)
Millions of my Indian kith and kin in both world wars put their lives on the line for this country and sent it victorious, self ditto for Israel, was it for this:
British courts suffused with slave-master itch
40 years of taking-on judges, lawyers, police, MPs
Conspiracy theory proved among ‘Free’ Media, Judeo-Christians
All but forty years ago the British officialdom decided I was an awkward immigrant, a nobody and an Indian pagan to boot. Three if not four pillars of the establishment armed with all the expertise gleaned in the erstwhile empire of how to be shot of uppity natives then set about putting me in my place, days of guns is thankfully passe, mostly.
As past masters of the divide and rule dictum they had a perfect foil in me even though I had a thing in common with their leader of the pack, Nathan Miller: we were both immigrants albeit he was from South Africa, begotten of the master race and trained as a lawyer under the apartheid regime. There was one more thing we had in common but it snapped with a bang and I became Ex-zionist when I found out he was Jewish, such was his nazi bent.
I will try to write as I usually speak, in courtly language and dulcet of tone. My native instinct tells me it is safer to be shouting from the roof-tops. That is why I keep contesting parliamentary elections when money permits and write pamphlets that name names.
Some letters of mine couched in semi-humorous vein have appeared in the Times (London) and other national papers but they refuse to publish how my young family was torn apart on spurious grounds.
Then there is the small matter of my being hounded about by the servants of the state till I became a pensioner recently. Now I get court summons only: at present a case against me is being repeatedly adjourned as the police fail to turn up at the Stevenage Magistrates court.
We will mention miracles below but lets make a detour to India and highlight some of our gifts to the human family: Yoga and meditation will set us free from our own yoke; Indian veggie cuisine that pleases and nourishes; ditto KamaSutra; the decimal system and the power of zero; fast forward to Vedic Maths which adds lustre to the digits. I share my knowledge of the first and the last named in this list gratis with all who are interested.
One would think that along with the sacrifices of my kith and kin with valour second to none in world war after world war (both my elder brothers served in the last war), not to mention the resources from the colonies worth billions off-loaded around the white cliffs of UK, one would think official Britain would have zero racism but no, racism rules ok. Lets put some nuance to my nuisance.
I was married to an Englishwoman* (see next para), the mother of our baby daughter. According to Nathan Miller’s Torah I had thereby sinned, nay, committed a crime. It was after about two years of Millers’ affidavits, injunctions, threats of more legal actions that I got to know of his antecedents.
[*My wife, a graduate and a school teacher, was terrified of authorities, she had seen her mother taken away by the British police never to see her again, was put in a children’s home and then adopted. When the police started coming to take me she used to be petrified. Eventually she fell in with the lies of Millers & Co and I was denied access to our daughter.]
My ‘real crime’ was that I had stood for election to parliament to proclaim that I had been convicted on trumped-up charges at Bow Street court of assaulting police Sgt Hole outside the House of Commons. MPs like Ivor Clemitson, Jack Straw, Marion Roe, Michael Howard QC, Martin Bell, Peter Lilley, police chiefs of Beds, Herts, Hants et al merrily go on aiding & abetting crime and cover-up.
If we cannot use the parliamentary method, sired by Due Process out of Proper Channels, to highlight a gross miscarriage of justice then where and what do the Bigishwigs suggest we do? Join one of the terrorist outfits? Even the great warrior Blair is ever ready to open the No. 10 door to welcome bombers and gunmen provided they are ‘one of us’ in skin colour and / or of Abrahamic lineage. Sorry a bit, Tony Blair, I no can do gunning or bombing, no know Abraham from Adam.
After a total of nearly six years of shenanigans in the courts by Miller & Co, F Phillimore and later by Wms & Co and Ms C Miskin the imperial dictum had borne fruit: I was sans wife and daughter, our house usurped, my money and liberty regularly looted and trampled on by the powers-that-are the courts, the police and the bailiffs. What a dish of western ghoulash to set before the Afghani, Iraqi & Co.
Yes, I have contested a few more parliamentary elections and never been had up for anything but more trumped-up charges and being officially hand-cuffed, beaten-up. The authorities are right to be aggrieved at my going-on after nearly forty years of persecution. More than once I stopped my campaign but the system is not for the non-one-of-us.
To survive I needed some miracles to escape the traps the judicial system springs on me. Thanks to the cosmos coming to my aid in the shape of a god in human form or by some other means, so with one leap I would go free.
There is a limit to what the best judicial system in the world can do to pervert the course of justice, no? Yea, there was another putrid miscarriage of justice against me yesteryear in high court, in Jan 2006.
Judge John Privet QC, barrister Jane Phillips, solicitors Thakrar & Co, all representing ISKCON, perverted the course of justice just like the U.S did against Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight world champion.
Correct, I do not spare Indian rabid bullies either, ISKCONers did Herr Goebbels deceased proud. ‘Krishnapriya Das’, the principal defence witness took oath on the Bhagwad Gita and committed perjury. He gave false name and address in his sworn Witness Statement and in the court and when challenged by me refused to reveal his Id.
The judge was thrown off his orbit but after whirring around in his chair he upheld the liar. So much for the Court Rule 32.14.
The other ISKCON perjurer who gave evidence under oath was Vipin Aery aka Bimal Krishna Das. I told him he committed perjury repeatedly while under oath to the Gita. M/s Sriman Pandit aka Sandeep Kumar Shah and Pradyumma Dasa (who he?) failed to turn-up although they too had submitted Goebbelsque Witness Statements.
Contrast all this with the very recent case of the head of the oily giant BP: in his statement he had given the wrong location where he first met his boyfriend. He was pulled up by the court, dusted down and the poor fellow was obliged to vacate his power-seat.
In the next piece I will again work-in the bit on how I won the Six-day war for Israel when almost all the Jewish and other visitors had fled back to the safety of Europe, U.S, Canada, Argentine etc and I paid, oh dear, dearly for it a few years later in the U.K.
I hold the world record for most appearances in courts, some 200 give or take a baker’s dozen, almost all on trumped-up charges and losing every one of them, even the few times when I instigated the proceedings. This breaks all the laws of averages, chance, Sod’s and Murphy’s, toss of the coin, probability, game theory, relativity, (relativity?), all combined.
So with all the ups and downs we the elders have brought you, the next-Gen, to the new century, it is in your hands to keep the wonder and ecstasy of love and shining humanity alive and robust till, till the last bugle call after which the cosmic dance-drama will start again.
Please note: All these years I have been seeking redress of horrid official wrongs in the U.K. At first it was to have father’s access to my child and now that the child is a young lady living somewhere in the U.K, to assuage her wounded heart by somehow letting her know that I did not abandon her, the officialdom named above had decreed so.
Any help in forcing the official child-snatchers either to clear their name in court or redress the gross miscarriage of justice would be welcome with thanks, is my cri de coeur.
http://tinyurl.com/2rth2f
http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.indian/browse_thread/thread/1b0d4b1b6f9afeba?hl=en
Jiten Bardwaj, Yoga & Meditation prospective parliamentary candidate; editor COPS Gazette – just an arresting name. December 2007.
I do not believe this
hi, sir my name is Majid Khan realy sir im working with u. i have knowledge writer, director,my nois .09212729996. delhi-92