true love?

This incident happened on the Berg Lake trail last week. On our way down to Whitehorn campground from Emperor Falls, I was a few steps ahead of Q and Idris. I see this woman climbing up the trail, with a backpack, nice looking, in a black t-shirt. I thought I could strike up a conversation with a pretty woman and make the Canadian Rockies backpacking experience even more charming. So I asked her where she was headed to. Her response was a deadpan "I don't know", and her look essentially telling me to MYOB. Not one to waste my own breath on a lost cause, I continued walking and in a few minutes Q caught up with me. Apparently, he too had taken an interest in starting up a conversation with the same woman, and he chose the path of sympathy by remarking that her pack looked really heavy and asking her how much it weighed. He got the exact same response from her "I don't know", and he too had to move on with no gain. We both compared notes and shook our heads on failing to make any headway with a single woman on such a beautiful trail.

We took a little break at the Falls of the Pool, and then this guy comes huffing and puffing up the trail. He is almost bent over with his pack, and looks completely exhausted. He asks me the usual question - how far to Emperor Falls, and then he asks me if I had seen this woman in a black t-shirt on my way down. I told him yes. He took a little stop there and then confided that she was with him, and couldn't carry her pack. So, he had left his pack behind on the trail, carried her pack up for some distance, and then went down again to fetch his pack, and essentially doing the steepest part of the 12-mile trail, twice. I was highly impressed..this is true love, I declared. Q's theory was different. They were certainly not married and the guy was counting on being rewarded at the campground later. Maybe Confucius was right when he say: Man who goes camping with woman has one intent.

Sticking our necks out

Its been a while, and now I'm back after some recent prodding from Changu. At the outset, let me say that I was never a huge fan of Feroz Khan, who passed away into the ages, couple of weeks ago. Nor did I have the opportunity to meet him in my Bollywood past. But when I read the news of his death, it got me reminiscing of my growing-up years, and left me a bit saddened. He did make some iconic movies of the time, and nothing stands out more in my mind than Qurbani.

Qurbani was THE movie of the summer in 1980. And its song, Aap jaisa koi, is the defining song of that era for me...Hindi song with a Western influence, disco, Zeenat Aman...epitome of cool. I remember the first time I heard this song. We used to live on the 6th floor of an apt building in Bandra and there was this Sardar family on the 2nd floor, the gentleman used to work in the Gulf, he was a shaukeen guy, with an imported car (Peugeot if I recall), vcr, and a nice music system in his apt. He had got the music of Qurbani from the Gulf and was playing it on his system, loudly of course. I remember so clearly my sister calling me excitedly one evening and telling me "come here, can you hear that song", and both of us sticking our necks out of the window, trying to catch the sound waves from the 2nd floor. It was Aap jaisa koi, and we loved it. Of course, the songs became popular later, and prior to the release of the movie, my Dad bought the EP vinyl record for us when we were in Delhi for a family wedding. And we no longer had to stick our necks out.

Fast forward 6-7 years, and his next movie comes out, Jaanbaaz. Style movie as usual, but not the same class as Q. But that certainly didn't stop me and my friend, Prasana, to skip class, go over to Satyam in pouring rain, buy a ticket in black, and watch it...first-day-first-show. Jaanbaaz had pretty good music too. His next was Dayavaan, and by then, I was old and jaded, and watched it at home.

Here's another FK song thats part of my growing-up years. Prior to Bombay, we used to live in Jodhpur Park, Calcutta. There was this slum-area behind our home, it was called basti, and some shop in the basti would play this song, very frequently on the loudspeaker. Until Sholay came along.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ38VCtPc-0

A tip of the hat to Feroz Khan, thanks for the memories.