R I P Manna Dey - My favorites of the great artist!

RIP Manna Dey...

Tera ishq main kaise chhod doon, mere umra bhar ki talash hai (How can I stop admiring you? It's the find of my lifetime.)

My favorite songs of the singing great, along with the respective movies, music directors, lyricists and Youtube links...

1. Yeh dosti hum nahi todenge - Sholay - R D Burman - Anand Bakshi - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4NOdJdoDzI

2. Yaari hai imaan mera yaar meri zindagi - Zanjeer - Kalyanji Anandji - Gulshan Bawra - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KIcWTV3MME

3. Chalat musafir moh liya re pinjre waali muniya - Teesri Kasam - Shankar Jaikishan - Shailendra - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7m8hDAYFkE

4. Zindagi kaisi hai paheli haye - Anand - Salil Chowdhury - Yogesh - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QIYskaGezU

5. Na chahun sona chandi na mangu heera moti - Bobby - Laxmikant Pyarelal - Vitthalbhai Patel - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbkpVInN3z8

6. Ae Meri Zohra Zabeen - Waqt - Ravi - Sahir - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfNjDPsX1VQ

7. Na toh karvan ki talash hai - Barsaat Ki Raat - Roshan - Sahir - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3O0cRwkans

8. Tu pyar ka sagar hai - Seema - Shankar Jaikishen - Shailendra - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2D-kjOMNF0

9. Pyar hua ikraar hua hai - Shree 420 - Shankar Jaikishen - Shailendra - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXLzfldeDcM

10. Ek chatur naar badi hoshiyar - Padosan - R D Burman - Rajinder Krishnan - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LF7ndD8Oj0

11. Laga chunari mein daag chupaun kaise - Dil Hi To Hai - Roshan - Sahir - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLYT8s4D2ek

12. Yeh raat bheegi bheegi yeh mast fizayen - Chori Chori - Shankar Jaikishen - Shailendra - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1DZxkiMjRo

13. Hoke majboor mujhe usne bulaya hoga - Haqeeqat - Madan Mohan - Kaifi Azmi - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dttfQiOoTkU

14. Mud mud ke na dekh mud mud ke - Shree 420 - Shankar Jaikishen - Shailendra - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3D3YNmg-Ak

15. Aayo kahan se ghanshyam - Buddha Mil Gaya - R D Burman - Majrooh Sultanpuri - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc4omjTgolE

16. Babu samjho ishaare horn pukare pom pom pom - S D Burman - Majrooh Sultanpuri - Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e47BnRL1H74

17. Chunari sambhal gori udi chali jaaye re - Baharon Ke Sapne - R D Burman - Majrooh Sultanpuri - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zur6JskNiRU

18. Dil ka haal sune dilwala - Shree 420 - Shankar Jaikishen - Shailendra - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_fLwXEu388

19. Aaja sanam madhur chandni mein hum - Chori Chori - Shankar Jaikishen - Shailendra/Hasrat Jaipuri - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTfQeV80haE

20. Chham chham baaje re payalia - Jaane Anjaane - Shankar Jaikishen - S H Bihari - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkqCfLo54t8

I am sure you will be remembered forever Manna Da...

10 Reasons NOT To Date An Entrepreneur

A Tongue-In-Cheek response to the article "Ten Reasons To Date An Entrepreneur" doing the rounds of FB. See the original article here: http://love-not-fear.org/2011/12/02/ten-reasons-to-date-an-entrepreneur/

Guidelines: 1) This article is not to be taken seriously by either entrepreneurs or sane people 2) Entrepreneurs shall take a pledge of not murdering me before reading this.

Full Disclosure: I am an entrepreneur for the last 4 years; about the dates, I don't remember :)

1.      Their sense of possibility… To date someone who accepts no limitations means:  “Yeah… I can hit on THAT one also… nice eyes… and THAT one… what an ass… and THAT one… ravishing lip… Yes baby, you were saying … No, I AM listening!”

2.      They see things in a way that others don’t: “No, that’s NOT coffee I spilled over my shirt coz I was trying to keep myself awake for 36 continuous hours with caffeine… I am just experimenting with a new fabric color! How’s it?... What? When did I shift into clothing? Since my investors told me unless I found a viable business model…”

3.      They know the true meaning of commitment and persistence to an idea: “I told you we ARE going to see ‘The Ugly Truth’ for the 4^th time even if you think its mindless coz I just can’t get over Katherine Heigel’s boobs! Man! They are so… Ok, I will talk about something different… Jeez! Umm… can I at least talk about her ass?”

4.      They attract and draw into their world new people, experiences and opportunities: I am not explaining that one :D Please let your imagination flow ;)

5.      Their vision for the world extends to a vision of long-term relationships: “Ok baby… Muaah… will see you after 2 months so you can be sure our relationship is going to last at least THAT long. Meanwhile I will keep sending you BBMs on how I am contributing to the betterment of humanity… Oh! You don’t have a Blackberry? How do you live?”

6.      They have seen failure and know that it is never what defines a man or a woman: “Thanks babe for helping me out with the dough. It’s so great you work for a company whose customers are still buying during recession. Why don’t mine? I don’t know… They are crazy I guess… Anyway… I respect you deeply for still not ditching me.”

7.      They are passionate souls with tonnes of energy and a great love and lust for life: “I am NOT going to make something THAT ugly just coz the market wants it. Who the hell the market thinks it is? God? It’s MY life and I am only going to make stuff that I like, not some shitty stuff market wants. What! You like it too? How COULD you? Steve Jobs will never forgive you!”

8.      They know the value of partnership in getting things done: “Baby… I know you have been paying the rent of my office for the past 18 months and I owe you a huge debt. I am so sorry… but I CAN make it up to you. Let’s do one thing… let’s become partners. I will offer you a debt-equity swap and you can become part owner of my company. What? You don’t want equity in my company? How CAN you say that? We are growing BIG… I mean we WILL grow big… soon… I promise. Ok, I will make you a deal. I will offer you the equity at 25% discount of the valuation I asked from the VCs in my last failed B-presentation. I even have the entire excel sheet to show you. Now are you happy? Partner…”

9.      They know how sometimes you just have to hang in there, work really hard and keep trusting: ”Baby I know I have been promising to marry you for the last 5 years while you’ve been working your ass off to pay the bills… but trust me, I WILL this time as soon as the next round of funding comes… Just hang in there a bit more… We are almost there… Trust is the key… you know right?”

10.  They are visionaries who understand the power of love over fear: “Baby you know I will not end this relationship or walk away if you keep telling me to drop this crazy idea of mine and take up a sensible job… but I know you really love me, so you will not walk away either when I don’t listen to you the least… right? I love you but we entrepreneurs need to keep chipping at the stone while the rest of the world doesn’t believe in us. I am sorry. But I know I can depend on you coz we love each other. Right?

     The ONLY reason to date an entrepreneur: Coz you feel like it baby :)

Bestselling author looks for a co-author

Abhimanyu Jha, author of the bestseller romance A Dilli Mumbai Love Story (http://www.facebook.com/adillimumbailovestory) is looking for a partner in crime, in other words a co-author.

It will be a simpler way to see your name in print!

The novel, tentatively titled 'The Surgeon of Hearts', is a modern twist on a Sharatchandra Chatterjee work and has a young woman narrating the story in 1st person.

To apply, you need not have written anything big; you just need to have an interest in reading, a flair for writing, hard working nature, and a total willingness to learn. In addition, you need to be a young woman, either in college or not long out of college, to help me make the 1st person voice authentic. Also, Bangaloreans will be preferred, but it's not mandatory

To apply, write to 4abhimanyu@gmail.com with a 1500 word writing sample attached (simple and romantic prose preferred). And tell all your friends about this, especially if you are not applying!

Last date to apply: Dec 31st

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Love & The Art of Bicycle Riding

Did you ever ride a bicycle on a lonely stretch of road - at midnight in the shadow of trees, when the moon is softly bathing the world in its light like a hallowed sage smiling kindly upon a confused disciple?

Well, at first you go leisurely, for you can’t see much further. The breeze softly caresses your cheeks, while the rustling of the leaves jostles with thoughts for space in your consciousness. Sometimes winning, sometimes biting dust when the matter of reflection is very engaging - too beautiful for the fear of an unexpected happening to overcome it.

But mostly you are cautious even as your feet pedal constantly and the mind imagines the end slowly coming nearer. And though the act has enjoyment in itself, it’s little compared with the pleasure one imagines will be felt when the destination has been reached.

But then bit-by-bit, the intoxication of speed sucks you in its whirl. The feet begin to move faster and faster, and the shoulders stoop as the body bends forward and the muscles tauten. Gradually every fiber in the body begins to quiver at the thrill of the pace with which you tear ahead in the stillness of the night, while the sweat comes pouring down your face as you breathe heavily. Like raindrops sliding off a windowpane, the wind beating a rhythm on it.

And your perception keeps narrowing, till it can hold in its confines only the awareness of hurtling down the road. Like falling in an endless abyss, while things around you are reduced to abstract entities.

Instead of the fear of death, what you feel is a visceral feeling of joy. And what you hear is a single hum - a ceaseless noise in which the rustling of the leaves, the sound of the wind blowing past your face, the calling of the crickets, the creaking of the machine, all mesh together in a seamlessly interwoven tapestry.

The end is of little consequence now. The joy of the experience is what matters most.

Love is a lot like this. It pulls you in slowly in the beginning - you are a bit guarded in your feelings, sparing in your emotions. But you know it not and it has begun to open your heart valves gently. To completeness. You withhold nothing, as the walls you had subconsciously erected get swept away in that torrent of ambrosial passion that has no origin save in itself. The other thoughts quietly go down before this deluge. Love has now enveloped you fully, making the rest of the world disappear in the background.

Before long, life seems to rush past you as if you were in a dream! And you stop caring where you are headed. That’s what happened to me.

Oscar/Booker Winning Story 'The English Patient' - A Book Review

If ever a book was written to stir your senses to dizzying heights, it’s ‘The English Patient’. Sometimes like the lilting touch of a kiss, sometimes the prancing pace of a musical verse, sometimes the piercing stab of a needle, sometimes the burning pain of a hot iron… the book affects you in every imaginable way. The third novel of the Sri Lankan born Canadian novelist Michael Ondaatje, it follows the same sensual and lyrical but spare style of his earlier novels, and build upon them this time with a passionately pictorial prose and an intricate but tantalizing story.

The second world war is coming to an end in Italy, and a Canadian nurse Hanna, emotionally jaded by the death and destruction of the war, seeks refuge in the abandoned villa of San Girolamo. She chooses to make the care of an unrecognizably burnt patient her mission - a patient called ‘The English Patient’ because that’s the only language he seems to know.

Shortly afterwards, the villa sees the arrival of two more key characters – the thief Caravaggio, an acquaintance of Hanna from her childhood days in Toronto, and Kip (Kirpal Singh), a Sikh soldier who is part of the bomb disposal squad of the British Army. The interplay between these characters and an occasional solitary dip into the memories of the burnt man lead us to the slow unraveling of the man's past.

And what a past it is! A middle-aged explorer deeply in love with the desert, falling for the beautiful, young wife of a friend, leading to a wildly passionate and achingly beautiful romance. From this point in life, we will either find or lose our souls. The woman developing a burning sense of guilt at having betrayed her simple husband. And then withdrawing. We will never love each other again. Followed by anger from his side. Madness. I just want you to know. I don’t miss you yet. His face awful to her, trying to smile.

The lovers separate. But the husband comes to know about the affair somehow and tries to kill them all in a plane crash. Almasy the explorer survives, George Clifton, the husband doesn’t. And the centre of it all, the willowy woman, the one with the classical blood in her face, the one whose voice the weary, hardened explorer had first fallen in love with, Katharine Clifton - she is injured, almost fatally. What happens after that, I will leave you to find out by reading ‘The English Patient’.

In between, we are also treated to another delicious fare – the childlike, vervy romance that develops between Hanna and the soldier Kirpal and occasional flashbacks into how Kirpal has become the smart and courageous, but carefree bomb disposal soldier that he is. And parallel to that, the shenanigans of the thief Caravaggio, who for his own personal reasons, is bent upon discovering the true identity of the English Patient.

Going back and forth between Almasy’s past and this present, the book at times almost drives you to tears with its haunting description of the love between Almasy and Katherine, Hanna and Kirpal. And at other times, leaves you marveling at the lyricism and strength of the prose (and the research behind it) that turns even as dry a subject as bomb disposal into a riveting thriller.

Definitely a book to buy and cherish. No wonder it won the Booker!

After The First Kiss

A bit of self promotion - My book, a romantic thriller called 'A Dilli-Mumbai ♥ Story', is coming on bookshelves this May.

Celebrations followed the first kiss.

Not the kind where you eat nice things, burst crackers, and catching hold of your love by her waist, swing her around and say, ‘hey! Let’s mambo’; but where it takes place inside the heart, hidden, the joy unnoticed by any except for a pair of swallows about who you could wonder, what the hell were they were doing at this time of the evening out on the trees when it was so damn cold, and you sat down at a quiet place in the garden close to each other and yet shivering, tried to get closer, and then face to face, so close, you suddenly found your lips almost touching, and then imitating a nearby dream, reciting the beginnings of its rarefied verses, you let them tantalizingly brush against each other’s, and then again, and again, cupping the verses, drinking, more of them, then missing something deeply, savagely, trying to tear out that which continuously slipped from your hold, the verses now gone and in their place an anger, an intense pain, the strings of a violin tweaked till they were almost torn, and still the scorching want, to pull her inside you, to decimate, you wanted in your arms... nothing.

And then defeated, you parted, and yet it was a sweet defeat, because all that was inside you had gushed out, almost bringing out tears, the biting cold clawing out the slabs in the mountain that had blocked a spring, the unbearable pain replaced by a calm emptiness. And the world looked beautiful, the moon whiter, the snow clad treetops like monks clad in white fur gazing down at you with a beautiful smile and you laughing at what you had just imagined, the night cozy because day was much harsher, you wanted more swallows, and there was suddenly so much of happiness when you remembered the future will bring more kisses.