I read a novel "Shala" by Milind Bokil. Its one amazing book. Its a book about the school going kids.. 9th standard class. It happanes in a semi-urban kind of area.. some 25 years back. The author has captured that time very well.. and what I liked the most was the typical marathi medium school. Some things about the school are so universal that it was history coming back for me, and for so many times.. I kept thinking that thats my school. and there are my friends.. calling people even the closest of your friends by last names.. and then those crushes.. and making pairs of teachers.. making fun of the teachers.. getting hit by teachers.. teasing the classmates by the names of the girls.. man.. thats so much common. I could identify the characters in the book to real life people as such. Thats what my friend told me when he recommended me that book.. that you will like it.. those were the days..

These days I am reading a novel on Mirza Ghalib "Katha eka shayarachi" (story of a shayar) by Indumati Shewade. This is written on life of the arguably greatest urdu (and persian) poet. The author did five years of research and created this piece of work, filling in the gaps in his story but keeping the history unchanged.

Ghalib's life was marked by misery and incompleteness. He never got the monetary wealth. He never bought his own house. None of his seven children survived. His parents left him at early age. He got married at an early age in a noble family, but his wife was not very fond of his poetry. She loved him, but he never got the appreciation from her for his work, which a poet would always search for. He then fell into love with a dancer who would sing his gazals, but their story remained incomplete, because of her death.. may be it was meant to be so.

Regardless of how much or how less wealthy he was, he had extravagent habits, suited to only nawabs. He was blessed with the poetic acumen, but also was very sarcastic and arrogant; that kind of arrogance suits to only a genius. He ran into debts, and probably never got out of it.
God gave him myriad of problems, and a heart of a poet. And every time he went into trouble, he came up with a master piece in the poetry.

I have not read much of his poerty, as Urdu is not very known to me. But his work, whatever small I have read is strikingly romantic, rueful at times, arrogant and beautiful. He never let the romanticism of his character go, no matter what he faced in his life. Its just impossible for me to believe that such person actually existed.
The book does not have much of his poetry.. here is one I liked..

Meherbaan hoke bulalo, muze chahe jis waqt
Mai gaya waqt nahi, jo wapas na aa saku.

Saturday 5th March, 2005. I went to see one of my idols.. Mark Knopfler. It was a lifetime experience.. I was just lucky to be there. He is so cool.. This 56 year old guy, who talks the language of music.. and man.. he talks it so well. No gimmicks.. just plain and mesmerising music. "Sultans of Swing" was the highlight of the evening.. actually the entire show was too good.