Indian Writing

“No matter how you sugar coat it, the reality for many women is that despite the experience and skill they have, it can be difficult to pick up the threads of their career when they return.” - Peter Costello, Treasurer, Australia. How… true.

But then society should do something about that, shouldn’t it?

Bidding farewell to…those garish sets, that cloying voiceover, that indefatigably Mexican-waving audience.

Annu Kapoor with his various women co-hosts: Pallavi Joshi, Durga Jasraj, Rajeshwari Sachdev, Shefali Chaya, Renuka Shahane, Richa Sharma… Sponsors, Close Up and Sansui. Zee and Subhash Chandra and of course Gajendra Singhji, heh.

Yes, this is also part of that same television-watching evening. I have to watch less tv, you know?

The thing opens with some zombie-like figures dancing in slow motion behind Annuji. Circling lights. Many colours.

Aaaa gale lag jaa
Mere sapne, mere apne
Mere paas aa

Nostalgia montage. Annu in a suit. Annu with purple tinsel on his suit. Annu with participants on many-themed shows: father-daughter, mother-son, brother-sister, more-cloying-relationships. International episodes. All sorts of backdrops, including the Taj Mahal.

Suresh Iyer with guitar. Shantanu Banerjee with sideburns. "Dadalog, ready?" Annu’s question at the start of each round. I’m really choking up now. Drop the irony. What will we do without Antakshari…

Annu and Durga Jasraj: 1993. The show is so many years old?

Those plain-vanilla, pre-Indian Idol years. Now we only sometimes catch Shaan’s Saregama; else it’s CD or radio, or blessed silence.

Antakshari has also been a more or less wholesome show over the years. Gooey, but otherwise ok. None of those silly innuendos that you see in other shows. No rudeness. Feet-touching respect for senior artistes.

And the nastiest thing they do on this show is to cut points when one of the teams gets a buzzer question wrong.:)

(Irritating logo on the top left corner of the screen: Time Bomb 9/11, Mon-Fri 10 pm.)

Shaan is the first guest on the show. His delicious smile. I need to see Saregama again soon.

Vasundhara Das. Sunita Rao. Baba Sehgal.

Deewane, Mastane, Parwane.

"Antakshari will come back with a greater finale," says Subhash Chandra when he’s called up to the stage.

Soumya Raoh sings the musical start to the round: Lailalailalailaaa…Mast mast toofanon mein

Shaan: Lakdi ki kaathi, Kaathi pe ghoda…

More songs.

I’m just thinking Kabhi Kabhi (I know very few songs, can never remember lyrics - very few words of each song. In fact I hope I’ve got the words right for whatever I’ve quoted here…:)) when Shaan starts singing exactly that. I feel vindicated. Vasundhara Das joins in. Evidently her knowledge of Hindi film songs is only marginally better than mine. But what a voice she has.

More songs, more voices.

Eh meri zohra-jabeen, tujhe maalum nahi
Tu abhi tak hai haseen aur main jawaan
Tujhpe qurbaan meri jaan meri jaan
Eh meri zohra-jabeen…

Samandar mein nahake

Hum tum ek kamre mein bandh ho..

Those peculiarly shaped tables. Huge flashing scores. Pink lines like sine waves floating across the screen every time a new question begins.

It’s all so very…Antakshari.

Everyone gets 500 points in the first round. Again, that’s Antakshari. Everyone wins. Really.

Mannu tera hua ab mera kya hoga..

So Pallavi to Annu (but of course): Annu tera hua ab mera kya hoga…

Shaan and Vasundhara filtered out in the second round.

Annu and Richa: Woh hai zara khafa khafa… That Richa is amazing.

Clues: Kishore Kumar, solo, Amol Palekar: Aane wala pal…

Manhar Udhas and Jaspinder Narula enter as a team. Now it gets interesting: these are older singers, much more knowledgeable.

Zindagi kaisi hai paheli haaye..

Simti huyi yeh ghadiyaan.. Jaspinder begins, Annu joins. Old pals.

Together, Annu and Jaspinder sing Mushkil hai is shehar se jaana
Yaad na aana, bhool na jaana..

Milna bichadna reet yahi hai…

The final round: Annu emotional, Pallavi Joshi in tears. Hugs all round. Annu K surrounded by four of the several woman who have co-hosted with him.

"We have lived this programme," says Annu.

"Hamare liye…Raksha Bandhan important hai. Desh important hai. Madan Mohan important hain. Majrooh Sultanpuri. Naushad. Laxmikant Pyarelal…"

Hema Sardesai: Lag ja gale…

And the last tune:

Tum mujhe yun bhula na paoge
haan tum mujhe yun bhula na paoge
Jab kabhi bhi sunoge geet mere
Sanng sanng tum bhi gungunaoge…

And with that, Deewane, Mastane, Parwane are…all gone. Over. Finish, as they say.

****

(this was written posted a year ago, in July 2005, when Antakshari came to an end)

…in Lunawada, Gujarat, where a schoolteacher beat an eighth-standard boy so hard, for not being able to answer some questions, that the boy died of his injuries.

And this 16-year old in Punjab was beaten for not wearing his turban.

Please do not throw any more stones,
You are moving the land,
The holy, whole, open land,
You are moving it to the sea
And the sea doesn’t want it
The sea says, not in me.

Please throw little stones,
Throw snail fossils, throw gravel,
Justice or injustice from the quarries of Migdal Tsedek,
Throw soft stones, throw sweet clods,
Throw limestone, throw clay,
Throw sand of the seashore,
Throw dust of the desert, throw rust,
Throw soil, throw wind,
Throw air, throw nothing
Until your hands are weary
And the war is weary
And even peace will be weary and will be.

From "Temporary Poem of My Time", Yehuda Amichai.

Some 80,000 Sri Lankan women who worked as maids and cleaners in Beirut are stranded in Lebanon.

They were the largest Asian community in Lebanon, so much so that a new slang word has appeared in Arabic. A “sirlanka” means a maid.

Some were summarily sacked when their employers locked up their homes in panic and fled the country last week. Abandoned and penniless, they wander the streets in anxious little groups wondering what to do. Others queue at the embassy for papers to get out.

And Rami Khouri is one of the few people trying to get into Beirut rather than flee the city.