Brotherhood

Showing posts with label Brotherhood. Show all posts

They told us: this is yours, that is theirs,

you are this name, he is that prayer,

you face east, he west,

you say Ram, he says Rahim—

as though the heart beats in syllables.

As though blood cares for scripture.

But we remember the days

when we broke bread under the same roof,

laughed at the same bloody films,

cried the same tears when mothers fell ill.

And that—that—is brotherhood.

Not this parchment hatred

scribbled by cowards behind microphones,

safe from the smoke and shrapnel.

Let us not forget:

the insurgence burns the shop of both the butcher and the priest.

The bullet does not ask your God

before it tears through your spine.

It does not pause to check

your passport, your politics, your prayer.

We are not enemies.

We are echoes of the same ancient soil.

We have danced at each other’s weddings,

borrowed salt, stories, shirts.

We’ve shouted over the same cricket match,

shared mangoes in the same sticky summers.

Your grief is not foreign to me.

Your child’s laughter sounds like mine.

And those who dare divide us—

the suit-clad serpents, the snarling anchors,

the men who dine in comfort

while they teach us to hate over scraps—

we will look them in the eye

and say:

Bugger off.

We see through your theatre.

We are not pawns in your grim little game.

We will not bleed for your borders,

nor bury our love beneath your slogans.

Let them draw their lines in sand—

we will wash them clean with kindness.

Let them write their laws of separation—

we will scribble over them with our shared laughter.

Let them speak of ‘us’ and ‘them’—

we will answer: Brother.

Because now, the guns speak again.

Shells whistle over sleeping homes,

and the earth—a poor, tired thing—

swallows more sons she never birthed.

Nobody wins. Not really.

Not when a boy is zipped into plastic

before he ever kisses a girl,

before he learns how to drive,

before he makes his mother proud.

Not when a mother wails like an animal

outside a crumbling hospital,

screaming the name of a child

whose hand is no longer warm.

What good is your cause

if it feeds only the fire

and not the child?

They’ll say defence. They’ll say retaliation.

Words polished like boots,

marching over corpses in clean shirts.

But none of it can resurrect a father

with half a face,

or calm a widow clutching

the sweater that still smells like him.

None of it rewinds the seconds

before a boy stepped on a mine

he didn’t plant.

And who are the heroes here?

The young man conscripted

because a job was a job?

The lad with no rifle

but a brick in his hand

because it felt like something

in a world gone mad?

Meanwhile—

those who lit the fuse

sip their Scotch and tweet platitudes.

They’ll send flowers to a funeral

they funded.

They’ll say peace talks,

but only once the dust has choked enough lungs.

Only when the cameras have left.

Here’s the imbrued truth:

It doesn’t matter who fired first

when a six-year-old dies in her sleep.

No shibboleth can console

a brother washing blood from the porch.

No anthem can explain

why his sister won’t come home.

Call it border tension.

Call it politics.

Call it anything you like.

But to the dead,

it’s just silence.

So let them draw their damned lines—

we will not walk them.

We will grieve together,

stand in the rubble

with empty hands and open hearts,

remembering that before they taught us

how to hate,

we simply knew how to live.

Because in the end,

there is no flag on a coffin

that can bring back the soul inside it.

And that—

that is the greater act of defiance.

It was a dusky sort of afternoon, the kind that dangles between tea and twilight, with the sun loafing about like a lazy aristocrat—too proud to set, too idle to shine. The drawing room, with its high-backed chairs and bookshelves bowing under the weight of Tolstoy and gin bottles, basked in the quietude of a house that had, mercifully, survived our adolescence.

There we were—two brothers, born of the same mother and yet wildly divergent creatures—he, the sensible sort with a mind like a filing cabinet; I, a chaotic poet at war with socks and sobriety.

I swirled a glass of something I pretended to remember pouring, the amber liquid catching the light like mischief caught mid-prank. Leaning back with a dramatic sigh, I asked, “What do you get when you meld whiskey, wine and vodka, my kiddo?”

He looked up from his infernal Sudoku, eyebrows raised like an Oxford don presented with a haiku. “You get drunk. That’s what you get.”

“Naah!” I waved a dismissive hand, nearly decapitating a houseplant. “What you get when you meld whiskey, wine and vodka is a heroically outstanding spot of kindred spirits in a single, walking and talking embodiment, and that embodiment is you, my kiddo!”

He blinked once. Then, with the exasperated patience of a man forced to share a flat with a Shakespearean parrot, he replied, “Headache.”

“Huh?”

“That concoction will result in a headache,” he said, dragging out each syllable as though translating for the emotionally impaired, “if you happen to remember what happened to begin with… just like you,” he paused, eyes twinkling with impish delight, “are my biggest headache!”

A silence fell. Not the funereal kind, but the combustible kind—the sort that precedes either a duel or a bellyache of laughter.

And then we detonated. Boisterous laughter ricocheted off the walls, toppling decorum like dominoes. He lunged forward, gave me one of those rare, brisk, manly hugs—just long enough to convey brotherhood, but short enough to maintain dignity—and dashed off like some Victorian street urchin with an overdue library book.

I remained there, marinating in mirth, staring after him as though he were both ghost and gift.

You may have your scholars, your sages, your philosophers. But I, dear reader, possess a younger brother—a paradox wrapped in sarcasm, dipped in reason, and lightly toasted in charm. He is a walking contradiction, an accidental cocktail of virtue and vice, with just a splash of ridiculousness.

And let me tell you something most true.

My little brother is the coolest spirit in the room.

I sometimes feel that language is miserably insufficient when it comes to having to express what one wants truly to express, except of course, when you are talking about someone who surpasses the worldly metaphors and clichés, someone who has such a marvellous sense of humour that even the toughest moments would be made light when around him . . . someone who fills the insufficiencies of language as I aforementioned with such grace and acuity that you have nothing but great admiration for such an individual’s refinement and stability. And so, before I tire you with any more of my rather (inefficient) words, I would like to acquaint you, in complete humbleness and pleasure with Doctor Muhammad Asif Nawaz, whom I admire from every cell in me.

To say the least, Asif is a doctor registered in the UK, he is in the PAS, the 46th Common. He is a freelance writer, or so he claims, and I would leave you to decide whether he is ‘freelance’ or a ‘master’ once you have read his words below and looked him up online to understand his full genius. He is also an amateur filmmaker, a marvellous photographer, a hopeless wanderer, a third degree procrastinator, and for better, or for worse, for me, well, he is he – a brother in a buddy who is assuredly and distinctively treasured, someone immensely rare, and without whom my life would be most meaningless and bare.

Excerpt on Asif from the Humans of CSA that was published on Tuesday, the 9th of April, 2019.

If I had a dollar for every time people warned me against being a passenger of two boats, I would have totally done away with the idea of boats and would charter a plane to go around the world. But this life, it’s peculiar. It’s beautiful. And demanding. You always have to take your leaps of faith. And no one ever gives you enough dollars to charter a plane. My story is not about perseverance or rising against the odds - there are far too many people in CSA who I look up to in that regard. It’s about taking risks, exploring unchartered territory, and gratitude. So much gratitude! Belonging to the city of Abbottabad, I studied to be a doctor. It was in the three months after the completion of my house job that I decided to prepare for CSS - undergoing a surgical procedure while at it. After taking the exam, I geared up for the post of a Medical Officer in Khyber Pakhtunkwa’s Public Service Commission, and ended up being second in my district. Afterwards, I eyed the FCPS Part 1 exams; cleared them; and started my training in medicine as I took IELTS with watery eyes - a remnant of the recent LASIK I had had. After the written result came out, I booked my PLAB 1 exam, which, as the invisible hand of nature would have it, fell one day prior to my CSS psychological exam. (In hindsight, I made through both). I prepared for the interview while attending to the incessant line of patients in my ward. After being granted a leave from my ward, I left for the UK to prepare for and take the next step of the licensing exam, which I passed. And as the final result of CSS came out, I had topped in my province. But it’s not just this, grappling with the various opportunities that life throws at you while not losing sight of things that make it worth-while, like traveling, learning, socialising and experiencing, was the real task. Never forgetting your laughable insignificance, nor your towering significance. And as the invisible hand of nature would have it again, I received my arrival letter to Civil Services Academy and final registration to work as doctor in the UK almost on the same day. But this life, it’s peculiar. There’s so much to do. And you always have to make defining, hard choices. You can only hope, and take a leap of faith. With a silent prayer, with a handful of passion. Oh, and no one ever gives you enough dollars to charter a plane.

Asif Nawaz

PAS – 6th position overall

1st from KPK

*Admin 46th*

KPK is Khyber Pakhtunkwa. It was called North West Frontier Province (NWFP) before 2010.

All right, some of you say, I have read the above and I think I get a fair idea about Asif. I smile and bob my head knowing that there is a ‘but’ to follow, and before I say more, you ask: but what is the intent of this? I purse my lips and take a deep breath. You wonder whether I am about to say something of great significance judging from my demeanour, but instead I utter, no actual intent, really. You narrow your eyes and look at me like I am barmy. I laugh and tell you that you aren’t wrong in your assessment because I am indeed as barmy as they can get, and that I only wished to share with the world what some people mean to me, people who make me, me. I can see that you are flummoxed. To soften the point, I pat you quickly on both your shoulders and elucidate that you should celebrate life and acknowledge every single soul who makes a difference to you because not until most recently, when I had lost a very dear friend in Sushant Singh Rajput, who, like Asif, was also a brother to me, did I understand the tangible eminence of time and of the prominence of people and how we take them so for granted. I tell you that that was my intent – a reason enough to tell the world that I am grateful for each of them who make my world as glorious and wonderful as it can be, and that without them I am nothing. You remain in a state of sheer bewilderment when I articulate further that Sushant and I used to have these impassioned arguments about my intellectual property wherein I would apprise him that a portion of it I am setting aside in my will for him, and as if to enrage me he would chuckle and mouth in his landmark intonation that there was no guarantee that he would outlive me. You pretend to be interested and I can see right through you, but I am rather absorbed in my memories, and that I have started, I do not intend to break my flow and go on that on one of those days when I had broached the same subject he had said, Agar main rahoon ya na rahoon. And before he had completed whatever that he had intended to convey, I had blurted an expletive, and Sushant being Sushant had comfortably disregarded my extreme reaction and concluded, Ho tere naal rahu meri parchhayi ve. I had remembered slaying the call and not speaking with him for a week after. However, in hindsight, I had cared less for what he had meant by that then, or perhaps I hadn’t even understood it, and when I remembered it today, I messaged Asif asking him what it meant.

My spirit/shadow remains with you.

Came the prompt reply.

And that is the essence of life is it not: the spirit and shadow of those you love remains with you whether or not they are around you physically.

You shake your head and walk away thinking what an arse I am for having wasted your time, and I feel a sense of relief that I did not have to rid the unwanted from my life, that they rid themselves by themselves, and then I remember the words of Asif – But this life, it’s peculiar. It’s beautiful. And demanding. You always have to take your leaps of faith. And no one ever gives you enough dollars to charter a plane. My story is not about perseverance or rising against the odds - there are far too many people who I look up to in that regard. It’s about taking risks, exploring unchartered territory, and gratitude. So much gratitude!

And so I take a bow of gratitude for the one gone and the ones here. Thank you both and thank you everyone else who make me, me!

TERE BINA

Woh jo guzre the tere saath kabhi,

Wohi lamhen meri hayaat bane.

Saat din ke aise hi guzar gaye!

Lekin

Kaise, jiunga kaise

Bataa de mujhko

Mere bhai

Tere bina.…

PART 1

The author Richard Sennett said that sometimes it helps to see ourselves by stepping into another person’s shoes, that looking at how cultures quite foreign to our own assess social capital and cooperation we can learn far more than what we have been taught. He explained that modern China offers one way to do so; that is have a strong ‘code’ for social cohesion, despite the fact that the country is aggressively capitalist lately, and that this ‘code’ is what the Chinese call guanxi. The systems analyst Yuan Luo describes guanxi as ‘an intricate and pervasive relational network which the Chinese cultivate energetically, subtly, and imaginatively’. The network means a Chinese immigrant feels free to call on a third cousin in a foreign city for a loan, while at home, it is the shared experiences and memories among friends, rather than written contracts or laws, that lay the foundations for trust in business dealings. In families, guanxi has a further reach in the practice common to many non-Western societies of young people sending home whatever they can spare of their usually meagre wages, rather than spending all that they earn on themselves. ‘Duty’ better names these social relations than ‘social capital’.

So is honour a better name some ask? Well, in a way, yes, Guanxi invokes honour as a key ingredient of social relations. Douglas Guthrie, an American student of Chinese guanxi, explains that it is akin to the old Western business code, ‘My word is my bond.’ You can count on other people in the network, especially when the going gets tough; they are honour-bound to support you rather than take advantage of your weakness. Also, one must keep in mind that Guanxi entails something other than sympathy; people in the network criticise one another, and they nag each other; they may not be nice to one another, but they feel obliged to prove helpful when the occasion arises. And in many ways than one, this code of guanxi is an example of how a social bond can shape economic life and bail one out of the doldrums. To throw some more light on it, guanxi, in essence, as a bond, is informal in character, establishing a network of support outside a rigid circle of established rules and regulations. The bond is a necessity in the fast-changing, often chaotic conditions of China especially today, since many of its official rules are dysfunctional; the informal, personal network helps people go around these, in order, to survive and prosper.

The value of informal cohesion is not new, it has already appeared to us, in say dialogic exchanges, whether in a conversation or in the community organisation. The West, however, wants to establish the scope of these exchanges in its society, but, the bigger question is: do they have an equal practical value as they do for the Chinese? And the answer lies in two reasons why the West might want to think like the Chinese about cooperation.

First, if informal, the guanxi network is also meant to be sustainable. Sometime in the future, the one who gets help will give it back in a form neither party may now foresee, but knows will occur. Guanxi is a relationship meant to endure from generation to generation. By the standards of a Western contract, there’s no reality in such an ill-defined expectation; for the Chinese student, government worker or businessman, the expectation itself is solid, because people in the network punish, or shun those, who later prove unresponsive. It is a question for us of holding people accountable in the future for their actions in the present.

Secondly, people in a guanxi network are not ashamed of dependency. You can establish guanxi with someone who needs you, or whom you need, beneath or above you in the pecking order. The Chinese family, as traditionally in other societies, has been a site of dependency without shame, and shame has become deeply associated in Western culture with self-control; losing control over your body, or your words, has become a source of shame. Modern family life, and, even more, modern business practice, has extended the idea of self-containment: dependency on others is taken to be a sign of weakness, a failure to promote autonomy and self-sufficiency; the autonomous individual appears free. But looked at from the perspective of a different culture, the Chinese or the Asian culture, a person who prides him-or-herself on not asking for help appears a deeply damaged human being; fear of social embeddedness dominates his or her life.

As you can see, guanxi in itself is congenial in spirit; so too, I suspect, would settlement-house workers and community activists a century ago, who were congenial, and sharing, and giving despite of having to be a part of the Western world. The common thread is an emphasis on the qualities of a social relationship, on the power of duty and honour. A culture can be ferocious. It can be capitalist like it is in China at the moment. By our standards, that fact seems difficult to reconcile with culture practises, still, some Chinese believe that guanxi is beginning to break down as the country more and more comes to resemble the West in its ways of parenting, working and consuming. While all cultures have their pros and cons, it would be nice to know why certain aspects of the Western culture has this corrosive effect on people and thinking.

PART 2

The recent epidemic of unprecedented proportions; the Covid-19, or Corona as it is commonly known, has caught us off-guard, and though one is led to feel regret, more so for the ones hit by the economic uncertainty the world over, one wishes, however, that we human beings realise from this strain that the first thing we need to do is to slow down, and maybe attempt to plant a seed and watch it until the flower grows. That the instant gratification culture of ours has nearly ruined all that we hold dear, and until we find meaning in what we say and do, our world will be as chaotic as it was when we were accelerating at the speed of light without the light in sight.

PARENTING

Trying times nearly always reveal the true faces: there is no time to put on masks, and likewise, history has taught us, especially from the stories that have emerged from war, that you see a pristine, almost primeval side of compassion when faced with life-threatening situations. These times are no less than war, and it is at this stage that we need to erase the prejudices we may hold towards attitudes and people so that we can collectively work towards the betterment of the community. Let us take hugging for example. It is an intrinsic part of our culture in Asia, and furthermore, as Muslim, we have no qualms in holding hands of our male friends, coiling our arm round our best friend’s neck, wrestling with each other so as to laugh our lungs (and in some cases our guts out), kiss on the cheeks when we greet, and touch our noses like the Arabs do in order to feel a closeness, a connection, togetherness, and it is here that I would like to extend the concept of guanxi to matters of personal dealings rather than keeping it limited merely to business traditions as I explained above.

None of us, from this side of the world, look at any of the aforementioned human contact with anything else than the feeling of intimacy, whereas, some of them, the newer generation, think that such a behaviour between people of the same gender is unhealthy. When questioned about why they think such behaviour is unhealthy, one hears: I have seen it on the telly, or read an article that any form of touch is not a good touch. We can talk from a distance, civilly, as human beings do, right. Why touch each other? This is where I suspect that parenting is failing us miserably, especially the parenting that has grown on Western principles and does not quite discern the difference between what is acceptable and what is off-limits. Let me throw further light on this with regard to some of the detrimental ways of the West: while in the process of writing this piece, I happened to watch a Spanish television series, where a young man’s grandmother walks into the room when her grandson and his best friend are exchanging a hug before the friend is leaving his friend’s home. The old lady rolls her eyes and states, ‘When two men hug each other, they have to be gay, or actors.’ It was as if this scenario was tailored to help me write on it in this piece; for starters, being a heterosexual male, I was, at once, put off by that very manner of looking at something as beautiful as a hug being coated with something as preposterous as a sexual connotation, and so my next question is:

CONSUMPTION

Why are we letting this unhealthy Western philosophy make room in our hearts? Why are we letting the West inject their unhealthy mind sciences into our healthy minds? When we Asian, Arab, men meet, we do all that I said we did in the preceding paragraphs, and know that what such an act of camaraderie did was make us feel wanted, and loved, and that simple lack of feeling love and the feeling of being wanted was turning the Western populace into touch starved monsters, and such people ended up being depressed, violent or even suicidal. Don’t you think it is time that the West learnt from us Asians, Arabs how to greet and meet and live with each other? And get rid of the ‘I, Me, Myself’ doctrine of behaviour that is killing them? Could they not loosen up so that they would indeed not feel deprived of touch, of love, an essential component of keeping a human being in behaving like a human being - something that is more depressing and lonely than a strain of virus that has left us arrested, and at home, in a state of uncertain lockdown?

WORKING

An additional, injurious Western concept that we are implementing in our cohesive society is that of nuclear families. The West thinks that to stay with family after a certain age is being less an individual, and they would go any lengths to fight for preserving their individuality. They have failed to understand, most simply, that there is immense power in unity, and that we need the support of our loved ones, just as much as they need us, at any given time of our lives. And the Covid-19 has brought to light examples of this decay that we have willingly subjected ourselves into: nearly everything, in nearly every part of the world, is in a state of suspension, and the jarring psychological, as well as physical impact such an isolation has had on people has devastated them, while the families that lived together have managed to combat loneliness, the management of children, and whatever the rest of the demons were, with much ease. Also, what something like this does, at its basest, is that it teaches us humility, tolerance, and compromise, and it renews in us the fact that the only bond that keeps us together is love, and in extreme circumstances, where it is inevitable to live under one roof, one must try and live close to each other so that you can be separate, and yet together, just so that the fine fibre of love remains intact.

It is not merely about geographical zones, creeds, cultures, or communities. It is not about who is good and who is bad, what is good and what is bad, it is only about the mindset, and adopting the positively best from the various zones, creeds, cultures and communities. Let me put it this way: we love our bodies. We workout and we keep a tab on our diet by treating our bodies like we would do a shrine in order to keep it running efficiently. However, when we are struck with an ailment, we visit the specialist without delay, and get rid of what was limiting us, and this is where I ask, when we do that to our body, couldn’t we apply that mindset to our minds too?

I would like to end this with something I was reading by Josh Radnor. It said, but it’s the arc of every great fairy tale, right? We leave home (the comfortable, the familiar) to journey into the dark wood. Only there – in the terrifying shadow – are we able to confront our fears and push past our limitations. In that battle we are transformed so that when we return home, we return home changed, upgraded, and bearing gifts for those we love (In a neat twist, our actual homes are the current dark wood.)

The only way I can get through something like this is to view it in these mythic dimensions, to understand that this supremely odd world-wide moment we are all sharing provides us with a divine opportunity to see what we are really made of. To transform our lives and our world for the better. Or as Francis Weller recently put it, “This is a season of remembering the ancient rhythms of soul. It is a time to become immense.”

True siblings are bound together by far more essential things than blood.

Happy birthday mere true sibling!

My younger brother Imran conveyed something utterly vital today for world peace, and I am sharing it with you verbatim.

“May Allah bless every human being and protect both countries against the horrifying state of war and nuclear/mass destruction.

Unfortunately, both countries are effected by terrorism, and both are struggling for the same basic goals – but sometimes – in the heat of the moment, we all forget that if we join hands we will be stronger. It is no use fighting with each other. This is, sadly, more political. We all are friends and respect each other, but politics and media does not help.

We both are peace loving nations, but we have been used and exploited by super powers for their personal gains. War is never the answer, no matter what the question is.

I condemn all the hate speech and war mongering through social media and other channels. War-related jokes, meme’s and any other means of mudslinging are NOT FUNNY.

We will not get sucked with this.

#StandUpForPeace #SayNoToWar”

Don’t my younger brother’s words sum it all up most pristinely? Can we please keep our heads on our shoulders and be champions of peace and love. Bloodshed, hate, it takes us nowhere. Fire destroys everything in its wake, it does not stop to see caste or creed, it turns everything to ashes.

Let us, collectively, fight hate, and not each other. And as my brother fittingly says, let us stand up for peace and say no to war.

Rumi, centuries ago professed that words are merely a pretext; it is the inner bond that draws one person to another, not words, and that is precisely the basis of Karthik’s film.

What delighted me was how the millennial generation has taken like water to sponge to the concept of friendship and family and how in order to protect your family all is fair in love and war. And the proof of that is in the box office collections. The film started to packed houses and has been the third most popular currency-spinner after Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Padmaavat and Akshay Kumar’s Pad Man.

However, we live in times where nothing is free of debates, and the babble doing media rounds that only the opposite sexes can feel irreplaceable bonds betwixt each other like how Sonu and Titu feel for each other is nothing but a heap of garbage. As Luv Ranjan, the writer and director, thinks, methinks too that love is beyond gender. That love for your friend is as pure as love for your family, and in this film Luv has drawn a perfect parallel to what Sonu feels for Titu – he holds Titu as central as his mother, and that is a sentiment so marvellously explored throughout the whole film. I also think that when these bonds are formed between any two human beings it is not necessary that someone else other than those involved in such deeper bonds need to understand them as they sink deeper than the deepest layer of deep.

In Book My Show, the critic has taken objection to, and I quote – “In one scene four men are sitting together, dipping their feet into the pool and knocking back the whiskey. They are chatting about marriage, women, and relationships. One of them exclaims: uparwale ne acchi ladki banana hi band kar diya.

I have no idea what director, writer and co-producer Luv Ranjan’s definition of acchi ladki is. But none of the women in this film – at least the younger ones – are deemed worthy of the descriptor. Instead they are positioned as manipulative shrews or hard-drinking airheads willing to do anything to snag a man. Their desperate desire to marry breaks the bro-code between besties Sonu and Titu. The two chaddi buddies aren’t lovers – this film isn’t brave enough to consider that – but they are emotional soul mates.”

Two things here, first, ‘uparwale ne acchi ladki banana hi band kar diya.’ (The creator has stopped making good girls.) What’s wrong with that? To find a woman in the 21st Century whom one would like to live one’s life with has become increasingly difficult simply because to discern the wheat from the chaff these days is nearly impossible, even chaff has begun to look like wheat. Now is that an optical illusion? Or only a manner of fooling the mind, one cannot say, but women are not what they once were. Some might reproach me here of being sexist, and I am fine with that because if expressing myself as blatantly as I can is misread as sexist then be it. Also, men have been habituated to satisfying their needs in finding an outlet with a woman who is agreeable to be part of such a ‘no strings attached’ liaison, and women have taken to it like tracks are to a train, thus when the physical needs of women are met at their convenience, they then begin to pursue men who have the money and the worldly wants they can obtain from such a relationship. There is nothing wrong with that too, selfishness and sex has been used as a tool of achievement and assimilation since its birth, but if wealth is to be attained via means of sexual manipulation as claims Sweety, then the women are getting their intentions dreadfully wrong. It is respect and balance that keeps a family united, and if there are hidden agendas it helps nobody, and in time, the truth does triumph.

Vaginas may lead men to lose their minds, but men aren’t as timid as they are being made out to be by women in general. Entitle it an instinct or an intuition; unless a man is a monkey, he will not come under the sinister spell of a scheming woman. So in that context uparwale ne achi ladki banana hi band kar diya is most suited to the script. There is such a paucity of women of this noble temperament.

Second, “The two chaddi buddies aren’t lovers – this film isn’t brave enough to consider that – but they are emotional soul mates.”

The premise of this film was not sexual love between two men; it was primarily about the power of near familial-like attachments even though Sonu and Titu do not share the same DNA, hence I do not understand what element of bravery she speaks of here. Even to imply something like this is rather rash, leave alone ridiculous.

The Hindustan Times reviewer has said, “Have you met or heard of similar characters in real life? At least I haven’t.”

Columnists ought to get it that criticism is limited to their own limitations. Simply because you are inexperienced does not mean that wicked individuals like Sweety do not exist, and says who that you have to meet similar characters in life in order to identify with them too? Obviously, Shakespeare didn’t kill to write Hamlet now, did he? I wish newspapers employ people who have some knowledge and not those who string words for the sake of filling up columns.

The Indian Express says, “Can Ranjan grow up his callow characters? Of course he can, because he has the smarts (remember Pyar Ka Punchnama?). Does he really want to? I’m not sure. Sharp comedy of the sexes is the hard stuff. Cheap laughs are easy.”

Do I even need to attempt to offer an explanation to someone who is, once again, a sister from another mother to the lady at The Hindustan Times?

The Hindu is a well-regarded paper when the remaining have been peddled to ruffians, but the woman at The Hindu went way beyond every other publication when she stated, “FOSLA is a term I got to discover through social media. The Frustrated One Sided Lovers Association seems to be peopled largely by jilted men, at least in my limited experience. I’m told that there’s also a dedicated Facebook page for the community. Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety (SKTKS) seems tailormade for the young male members of this club, in fact all of Luv Ranjan’s films are. The way he has steadily stood by angst-ridden young men, who have been disillusioned by women and failed relationships, FOSLA could well be called Ranjan’s oeuvre.”

If FOSLA is Ranjan’s oeuvre, then I don’t know what words I have to use in order to describe those who make films that sport item numbers. Aren’t the men who take pleasure in such atrocious depictions of women on the screen equally guilty, and candidates who would most aptly fall under the FOSLA club?

One more critic has alleged that the two friends in this film could as well have come out of the closet. As you would have distinguished from the gist until now the problem with the critics is that they are a poorly informed set of idiots who do their job robotically rather than delving profounder into their hearts and minds, and they do so because they lack the capacity to grasp that love is not about sex, and certainly all men who love each other aren’t closeted homosexuals. In a way I am glad these knuckleheads opened their mouths so that the public understood the meaning of real relationships and the box office numbers are the testimony of their support to such philosophies.

TO THE CRITICS OUT THERE

1/ Denounce films that have no rhyme or reason to be made. Don’t condemn work that works. Also, stop kissing the arses of foolish filmmakers just because they are famous.

2/ Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety is unadulterated entertainment and not a story to be analysed or dissected for political correctness. Like literature is a mirror of the era, Luv is someone who presents us a mirror of what is happening around us. His characters aren’t in the least shallow or his work sexist. Look around you and you will see that the balance in humanity is a bit wonky, and it is this wonkiness that he portrays on the screen in form of light-hearted entertainment. Despite this summation if you still desire to luxuriate in roles that are etched with accurate equations then biographies should be on your watch-list.

3/ What I find incredibly surprising is that the media honours films that objectify women as nothing but primped up for sex with five stars, while they reproach Luv of being chauvinist. Don’t you think that in doing so you are revealing your innermost thoughts for as we think we are, and as we are, we speak? Wouldn’t it be a window to the world about how sound your standards are? On what sort of ideologies you uphold? Why is it that the critics do not study a film for its worth? Why is it that their reviews are inversely proportional to how much of an arse they want to kiss of the filmmaker who has bestowed them with goodies?

TO THE MEN OUT THERE

I would like to tell the men out there that no matter how much you love your women, do not be blinded by them – there is a huge difference between being manipulated, and loving someone for who they are.

I would also like to tell the men out there that do not ruin your relations with those who matter to you no matter how important the new person in your life. There certainly is room for everyone if you set your priorities right, so do not delay establishing the rules of the game right from the start.

A woman can give a man only that which a heterosexual man cannot give a heterosexual man, genital bliss, yet it does not take a squarehead to distinguish that genitals do not manage our lives. Our lives are made up of emotions and of love, and both love and emotions are not built in a day just as Rome was not too. These things take time, and a lot of burnishing in order to reach that level of an innate, intimate comfort. Be patient and be wary and guard your old relationships with an iron fist while you nurture newer ones until they have proven their mettle.

ON THE FILM

The music by Hitesh Sonik is fabulous. The supporting cast do their work most efficiently. The cinematography by Sudhir K Chaudhary is exemplary. The costume design by Niharika Jolly fit perfectly with the flow of the film. Rahul Mody and Luv Ranjan have done an impressive job with their words.

Kartik Aaryan (Sonu) is proving time and time again that multi-starrers and fancy scripts are not the chef’s special these days. That content is the sole ingredient that keeps the food well cooked and nearly everyone who eats it enjoys it with the same love with which it was prepared. Kartik is clearly one of the trendiest talents we have in our film industry. Nushrat Barucha (Sweety) is smooth as a crook. She has grown leaps and bounds from her first character in Luv’s film as a screechy lover to an evilly intelligent one in this one. Sunny Singh (Titu) is the hippest. He enacts this astutely daft role with much coolness. While he is shown as a goofball, when it comes to his priorities, he knows where is heart is, and what is best for everyone who matter to him. The only reason he is carefree is because he knows that he has people looking out for him.

The nicest, par excellence, scene in the film was between Pihu (Ishita Raj) and Alok Nath in Amsterdam. I rather you watch it for yourself than me wrecking the sparkle.

Babu, the cook’s role, was a waste of time. It did nothing for the build up of the story really.

FINALLY

1/ The writer is not generalising his stance and plastering it as a draft on womankind, he is presenting his point of view, and it is left entirely to you to absorb it in the manner you deem it fit.

2/ I concur that not all women are cunning, but many are. Nowadays, they care less for traditions and more for the financial aspects of a relationship, and when the very foundation is built on shaky grounds, how can one expect the structure to survive the tremors.

3/ The last scene is testament to the fact that in life we have to go to great lengths to save the one’s we love from the jaws of sharks. That family stands supreme o’er disagreements and ego.

Some women have been holding up their hands in rage, they are lambasting that the female protagonist here claims she is not the heroine but a villain, and if that is not enough she declares most unashamedly that she is ‘chalu’ (a player) as well. Much as women want to create a furore about it, it is best that women accept that women have become chalu these days, and men have to protect themselves as well as their ilk from such tormenters.

4/ When good films show up on the screen people want to find a million flaws and complain that no good cinema is around, and when nonsense is shown with craters of flaws, they accept the same with open arms. I am thoroughly appalled at the double standards of society.

5/ As far as the bond between Sonu and Titu, I would say that there are indeed people like Titu, and they need a Sonu to keep them from harms way irrespective of the world’s estimation of it. And that we have to love the people we love regardless of how beaten we are by the world for it. Even in instances where the very people we love are under the influence of those who are taking them for a jolly good ride, we must keep our eyes open and our mind vigilant because love is something that is beyond interpretation, and it is certainly not equated with sexual intimacy, only the intimacy of the heart and mind. Love just is and we must let it be the way it is.

PS: A NOTE TO KARTIK

“He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much;

Who has enjoyed the trust of pure women, the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children;

Who has filled his niche and accomplished his task;

Who has never lacked appreciation of earth’s beauty or failed to express it;

Who has left the world better than he found it,

Whether an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul;

Who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had;

Whose life was an inspiration;

Whose memory a benediction.”

PROUD OF YOU MERE BACHCHE

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