THE PITTER PATTER OF RAIN!!!

Its a lazy Sunday afternoon of a summer vacation that just doesn't seem to end. It's been almost a month now and as it happens with all vacations, I am once again terribly bored. The house is in chaos today as everyone is at home and everyone is looking for time to kill. I have found refuge in a balcony, sitting by the window, watching the droplets of rain fall onto the ground and bring calmness to my mind despite the chaos around me. Rain does that. On a lazy afternoon with absolutely nothing to do, rain brings a sense of peace. The dark clouds, the gloomy atmosphere, the cold waves blowing across the sea, the light drizzle-they all add up to the somberness of the moment.

I don't know why but somehow I am not able to share the enthusiasm that my relatives are showing today afternoon. Everyone seems to be busy doing one thing or the other, yet me, I am just sitting here by the balcony on the 4th of the building, abosrbed in my own thoughts. A man runs across the road and into the opposite buliding, covering his head with his leather bag, to take shelter from the rain. A few children are playing football on the road behind our building, without a care in the world and enjoying themselves in the rain. A car comes honking and the kids step aside to let the car pass. As soon as the car passes, the children resume their game of football, rain being more of an inspiration than a detterrent in their ambition to kick the ball. The ball seems to get lost in the water collected on the ground now and then but the children don't seem to mind. The wetter they get, the happier they are.

Inside the house, some of the ladies are busy in the kitchen discussing the latest fall and rise in the prices of vegetables, saris and jewellery. I can hear their conversation from here. The men are busy in their own discussion. It's regarding whether Congress should continue in power in the next general elections or is it time for a change? The kids-my sisters and cousins, they
seem to be busy in their own world regarding what to do with the afternoon. Playing outside is considered as one of the options but my 10 years old cousin Noora reminds everyone that their parents wouldn't let them out in the rain so they start their brainstorming again. My eldest sister, Rubina, 18 and just out of school, is watching the latest promos on B4U music. The TV is in the hall, where all the men are sitting, so before long she's asked to turn down the volume by my Nana. She is not happy about it but she won't dare and try getting into an argument with Nana. As sweet as he was, once he said something, it was often the end of discussion. Unless you wanted to know what's hell wrath was like.

"Farid beta," I hear my mom's voice from the hall. "Farrrrrooooooo," she calls out again. I don't know why but I love it when my mother calls me farrrooo. Love seems to echo in every syllable of that. So much so that I never let anyone call me farrroo. That right is reserved just for mom. "Jee mummy," I reply back. "The pakodas are ready beta, come and eat."

Ahh-pakodas. Kachori. Sambosas. And a cup of tea. Perfect for a rainy day afternoon. But somehow I didn't feel like leaving the balcony side. So I asked mom to bring it here. "Mummy, can you bring it here please? I want to sit here and eat."

Five minutes and a few rain drops later, one of my younger cousin sisters, Farheen, brought me a plate full of kachoris and pakodas and a cup of tea. Thanking her, I took the plate and cup from her and rested it by the side of the balcony in front of me. She didn't say anything and went back on her duty. She was 20, a year younger than me but had been married for 3 years now and with a 2 year old son, my nephew Bilaal. Looking at her I wondered about life's predicament. I would be 21 in less than a month and when someone asked me who I was, all I could reply was that I was a 3rd year engineering student. She on the other hand, a newly turned 20 year old girl, was mrs Farheen Kausar and a mother. Life's not fair, I thought to myself. Why do some of us get the oppurtunities we seek in life while others are not even given a chance? Just because she was a girl, did that justify her getting married at the tender age of 17? My sister was 18 and if all of a sudden my dad were to talk about marrying her off, I would have just walked out of the house without a second thought. Luckily, my dad's thinking matched mine in that regard. My sister would be pursuing a course in architecture soon.

But did that in any way compensate for the injustice done to Farheen? I am not sure if you can call it injustice. But was she even ready for marriage? Leave alone to be a mother. I am about to turn 21 and I still consider myself to be too young to handly any sort of big responsibilties. And she was all of 17 when she was thrust upon the responsibilty of being a wife and a home maker. I wondered if I could even consider her to be younger than me. Sure, she may have been born after me, but the life that she was leading now, the resposibilities she was carrying out, I doubt she is any longer my younger sister. It almost feels awkward when she calls me 'bhaijaan.' Sometimes I feel I should call her 'aapa.'

I took a bite out of a kachori and sipped my tea, still watching the rain drops. Life is stranger than you think, I thought to myself. The youngest of my cousins, the 10 year old Noora comes running to me shouting 'Farid Bhaijaan, Farid Bhaijaan.' I take her up in my arms and make her on my lap. 'Kya hua?' I asked her in hindi. My youngest sibling, my 14 year old sister Nayab comes running after her. 'Nayab aapa is asking for the mp3 player. But I want to listen to songs," she says showing Nayab's blue colored Sony Mp3 player. "It's mine," Nayab says defensively.
I smile at the innocence of this fight. I slowly take away the mp3 player and hand it back to Nayab. Noora looks hurt. I tell her to go pick my iPod from my table and listen to songs from there. She gives me a big smile and leaves my lap to pick up my iPod. Nayab leaves happily too, now that her mp3 player has been returned.

The rain drops continue. The children continue playing football but are looking a bit tired now. Cars come and go by the street, their vipers turning every few seconds, to wipe away the water from the winshields, disturbing the game of football.My thoughts continue to consume me. Where has the innocence of youth gone? Where are the dreams that we held so close to our hearts when we were children? Where is the conviction we had in ourselves when we believed that the most difficult task in life was to score a 100 in an exam? My newphew Bilaal comes rolling on his tri cycle, zooming throug the room as if he were driving a ferrari. "Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm," he imitates the sound of a running car as he drives the tri cycle. I look at that child and wonder if he would ever realizethat his tri cycle wasn't a car-it was just that a, tri cycle. Somewhere in my heart I wish he wouldn't.

The conversation in the hall had turned from politics to why engineering was the most viable career option today. My uncle, Intesaar maamu, recounts his experiences and explains why he regrets not taking engineering when he had the chance to. My dad, elder cousin brother and nana listen vividly. I just smile at the irony of it all. My uncle regretted not taking engineering and I regretted just the opposite. I regretted sacrificng my dreamsf or a supposed safe career option. 'But my dreams aren't over yet,' I told myself. I don't have anything to regret in my life yet. I still have my whole life in front of me and hopefully by the time I am my Uncle's age, I won't be sitting with a bunch of old men and discussing the mistakes of my life.

The females of the house-my mom, my 2 aunts, naani and eldest cousin sister are having a discussion on some old relative from the village. I feel detached from it all. Like theywere talking about a place I didn't know of. I had been to my village only once and that too 14 years ago. I had never called it my home, whenever someone asked me where I was from, myreply had always been Mumbai. How could I call a place I had only seen once my entire life my home? Even if I was born there. I was a product of my surroundings, I had been shaped into what I am by the streets of Mumbai and the runes of Bahrain. Bihar and the village of Garri was just my birth place and nothing more. It didn't hold any other significance in mylife.

One of the kids scored a goal. He was celebrating wildly, splashing in the water, his joy knowing no bounds. My mom joined me in the balcony. "Aur kya kar hai mera beta?" she asked fondly, looking on at the game of football. "Nothing," I replied. "Just watching a game offootball and wondering when the rain would stop." "Ahaaa," she said. I looked at my mom, that face of ethereal beauty having the heart which had so much love stored in it and wondered how any one could love so much. Why was it that one person could love more than others? Why was it that one person cared so much more than any other? Why did we love someone more than some one else. Why does our heart seem to be more fond of one person than the other. We had a favourtie aunt, favourtite sibling, favourite cousin, even maybe a favorite parent. But why? Because they loved us more than others? And if all of them were to love us equally, would we love them equally too? No-even then, somehow we would still pick our favourites. Why does our heart do that? Why can't it love everyone equally?

"Mom," I said after a while, "Yes beta?" she asked me. "Do you ever wonder while you watch us grow up about how you were as kids and think that maybe it would have best if you had remained a child forever? Far away from the problems of the worldly life."
She smiled at me before replying. "Some times," she answered. "But then I remember that if I hadn't grown up, then I would have never known what it meant to be a wife. I would have never experienced the joy of being a mother. And," she continued after a pause, "I would have never known what it felt like to have a wonderful son like you."

I laid my head back on the railing of the balcony and smiled at her. She kissed me on the forehead and left, leaving my alone to my thoughts. So maybe it wasn't that bad to live inthis world after all. Maybe there was something to look forward to in life after all.The responsibility of being a husband, the joy of being a father still awaited me. My dreams and my life still awaited me.

The rain had stopped. And with it, the game of football had ended as well. The children, trying to catch their breath, scattered to ther homes with a promise to meet tomorrow again.The match over, I got up from the balcony as well. "Farrrriiiidddd," my dad called out."Coming dad," I answered back. I left the balcony to join everyone else in the hall. As Iwas making my way to the hall, I found Bilaal still on his tricycle riding away to glory.I picked him up from the tri cycle and placed him on his shoulders. "Ready to fly Bilaal?"I asked. Bilaal giggled and said, "Yes maamu." I flapped my hands out like they were wings zoomd across the corridoor and into the hall way with Bilaal laughing and cheering on.Hearing his laughter, I somehow felt a sense of peace, of happiness. Like this child'slaughter was the only thing that mattered. And really, it was all that really did matter.For if we could all put a smile on every child's face, this world would be a much better place.

I joined everyone else in the hall to catch a retelecast of my nani's favourite movie,Dilip Kumar's Ram Aur Shyam. As I looked around the hall at everyone sitting there, from my 2 year old nephew Bilaal to my 14 year old sister Nayab, to my 26 year old cousin brother Nehal to my 43 year old dad to my 65 year old Nana, I somehow couldn't help recounting Robert Frost's famous line:

AND MILES TO GO BEFORE I SLEEP

AND MILES TO GO BEFORE I SLEEP!!

WHAT WE HAVE DONE!!!

A soldier dies in a battle unaware that his wife is about to give birth to his son. A man thirsts for water in the desert while we sip a cold chocolate latte at the nearest CCD outlet with our friends. A Government official signs a bill that passes a hike in petrol rates sitting in an AC room while a poor man waits for a bus that would take him home unaware that he might not have enough money to pay the price of the ticket anymore. A wife is burnt to death at the house of her in-laws because her father was unable to pay the dowry that was asked. A father rapes his own daughter and then slits her neck and leaves her for dead on a railway track.

No-this isn't a worst case scenario of what happens in our society. In fact-this is what happens in our society. For those of you who want to know from where did I get the above paragraph-well, they were all headlines in the last weeks Times of India. I know-sounds like end of the world is around the corner. But even if it isn't, I secretly hope it is.

I have tried to find meaning in all this. Where all this will make sense. Where this savagery of man will be justified. But then the deeper I think, the longer I let my heart try to understand this destruction of mankind by man himself-the more sure I become that perhaps we are better dead than alive. For where will all this stop? Or will this even stop? I try to be hopeful, to be cheerful that one day man will realise that he gains nothing by destroying his own self but then it hits me that man is too selfish, too foolish to understand this.

For he doesn't understand that hate is the one thing that is sure to destroy him. It's stunning to see how low we have stooped. This Thursday I opened the newspaper to read about how a father raped his daughter and then to save himself, slit her neck and left her for dead on a railway track. The girl though managed to move away from the track in the nick of time. Yet, she was unable to call for help and lied in the nearby bushes till the next morning when she was found by some passers by and taken to a hospital. Luckily she survived to live the tale.

Unfortunately she will have to live through the pain that her very own father caused her.

The story brought a lump to my throat and for a few minutes I imagined that girl, that 14 year old girl, being sexually abused by the very man responsible for her birth and I tried to understand why any father would do such a thing to his own daughter, to his own blood. Has man really stooped so low?? Have we really become this pathetic??

For why would we do this to our own selves? Why are we all hell bent upon destroying each other? Give me one reason that justifies war. Give me one reason that justifies the existence of nuclear weapons today. Give me one reason that justifies a crime as heinous as rape. Give me one reason that justifies dowry. Give me a reason~I plead you, I beg you, to give me a reason that justifies the injustice that is being done in the world today.

I have dreamt of a world where children can play without the fear of a bully taking their toys away from them. I have dreamt of a world where women can roam the city streets without the fear of being mugged or raped. I have dreamt of a world where a father takes as much pride in his daughter as he does in his son. I have dreamt of a world where there's a smile on every man's face, where there are no beggars and where every man has a roof to cover himself and enough money to feed himself and his family. And believe me it's not an impossible dream. For nothing and no one can convince me that there can't be a world where peace reigns supreme and where life really is beautiful. That world is possible but not plausible.

For the world that we see now is the payment of our very own sins. We have become so embroiled with our own selves, with our own success that we have stopped caring about anyone and anything that doesn't directly affect us. If there's an earthquake in China why should we care unless one of our relatives was living there. If a girl is raped in Delhi, why should we care as long as she doesn't belong to our family? If a man guns down a bunch of school boys in US why should we care as long one of those boys is not our son. It's our selfishness, our innate desire to care only about ourselves which has got us here. Man was always a selfish being. And today we are paying the price for being selfish.

Yet somehow we still haven't realised this. We still refuse to accept that the blame lies with us for what our society has turned into. We refuse to believe that the society we are living in is one that we have ourselves created. Our selfishness, our ignorance has given birth to this society of crime, evil and inhumanity. For we don't care if there are riots in Rajasthan as long as those riots don't start in our state and our city. And even if they do~all we do is lock our doors and don't venture out for our safety comes first. Survival is the only thing that matters.

I want to say that there's still hope left for humanity yet my heart doesn't believe it anymore. For every time I want to restore my faith in humanity, somehow another story pops to my mind revealing that man indeed has reduced to nothing a but a savage animal fighting for his own survival. Where the fittest survive and those who are weak are left for dead~cared for by none and have to fend on their own. I don't know for how long humanity is going to survive but the way we are going I hope it doesn't for long. For really~humanity already seems to be extinct and life seems to be already on the wane.

Somewhere out there I hope there's some one who can restore my faith in humanity and my pride in being a human. For they say that there's light at the end of every tunnel. I hope there's one in the tunnel that we seem to be moving. But much more importantly~I hope that if there's a light then it isn't of an on coming train. We really are on the path of collision. Question is :

WILL WE SURVIVE THIS COLLISION OR ARE WE ALL GOING TO DESTROY OURSELVES IN THE HOPE TO SURVIVE?

Yet-there remains a hope. An event that I witnessed two years ago makes me believe that even though the candle of humanity maybe flickering dimly but it hasn't been extinguished yet. Two years ago while I was in Mumbai and a month away from entering Manipal~around 5 blasts were caused by terrorists in the local trains killing thousands and wreaking havoc in the city. As Mumbai went berserk in the madness of this mindless crime, it's citizens rose and became the beacon of hope in all this confusion. Several roads were closed as a result of the blasts and thus there was a huge traffic jam on every street. I was in Dadar that day and in the evening when I left for home, I saw several citizens including students standing at the roadside carrying glasses of water and packets of biscuits offering it to the hapless passengers travelling in buses and taxis or even walking as they all tried to make their way home. Even today that scene brings a lump to my throat. I and my friends joined them in our bit to do something, however significantly small,to help ease the pain of a city still reeling from the effects of that blast. As we distributed water and biscuits to the travellers, I felt a small sense of pride. I noticed those around me~all standing side by side-housewives, students, working men, young children~all strangers, unaware of each other's identities yet joined by a common cause to help those in need and to unite against those who wanted to destroy our city~OUR MUMBAI. That day I realized that the human spirit, however bleak, still flutters. The irony was that it took an act of destruction to bring about an act of construction.

LOVE STILL FLUTTERS IN THE HUMAN HEART AND AS LONG AS IT DOES THE HOPE FOR HUMANITY WILL EXIST!!

WHAT HURTS THE MOST!!

PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW WHERE TO DRAW THE LINE!!
PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW WHERE THE JOKE ENDS!!

Two lines that I have used quite often in the past few hours. For there are things you just donot joke with. Every person has a sensitive side to him, every person regards something as above everything else in this world and so I have mine too. And when people cross that line, when people start joking about things which I regard personal, then they are playing with a side of me that is better off not coming out. And so it happened a few hours ago.

I take writing very seriously. Yes~it's a hobby but one that I am really passionate about. Because at times my mind gets over flooded with so many thoughts, that writing is the only means to vent out those thoughts. It gives me peace of mind and sometimes it gives me perspective. But then some people just don't realize that not everything is a joke. And that I don't take everything sportingly. As I have said~some people should know where the joke ends.

A few months ago I started writing a story. But somehow after 35 pages of writing, I somehow couldn't continue. I seemed to have lost the zest for that story and didn't know how to progress the plot further. So for nearly 4 months or so~that story remained on my computer, unfinished and untouched. In fact, I had even given up on the story and thought that it's best if it remains unfinished. Then all of a sudden, 4 months later, I got a plot device which I thought could be used in the story. But just to see how people would react to the story~I started posting it on an orkut community. And I must say I loved the reaction. People loved it and the writer in me was happy, the writer in me was alive again and I felt now there was a reason for me to continue the story.

I would write the story with absolute zest for I knew people were waiting for it and the one thing more than anything else in this world that an artists wants is people's admiration. I had that and that gave me an insurmountable amount of happiness. Until ofcourse the alleged incident happened. I was going to hang out with my friends one day so I wasn't able to continue the story for that day. I told so hoping that others would understand. Well-some one didn't.

A person I had begun to regard as a friend deemed fit that she should continue the story from where I had left off. Now if she had actually continued the story maybe I wouldn't have minded her interruption as much as I did. But no-she ridiculed my story. She reduced to my characters to caricatures, mocked the hell out of them and thought she was being very funny. And no-it wasn't funny. She had insulted me. She had insulted my writing. She had insulted one of the few things I hold close to my heart. And she had crossed that line.

WHAT IS DONE IS DONE.

WHAT ARE LEFT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES!!

I didn't find her little prank funny. I didn't find it funny at all. And the fact that someone whom I had regarded as a friend had dared to insult and mock my writing, the hurt was that much more deeper. So I did what I felt was right. I decided not to post the story on the orkut community any further. I know it sounds harsh-for there were other readers who wanted to read the story but after what she did, there wass absolutely no way I could continue the story any further on that community. One thing is clear-I am done with her and her jokes now. And this is the way it is going to be from now on. Call me stubborn, call me selfish, call me rude but thats's how life is. I am really sorry for all those others who used to read my story. I can't help it anymore than they can. Hopefully I'll find a way for all of them to read that story. For letting them down is not what I intend. But I have been let down so badly, I can't even think of continuing that story anymore.
I really am sorry. But the truth is:

PEOPLE ARE MEAN

LIFE'S A BITCH.

IN SEARCH OF HEAVEN!!

Just seen Jannat. Hence the title. And must say I enjoyed the movie. It was good cinema ableit flawed. The film could have been directed better. I felt the script was tailor made for some one like Anurag Basu(Director of Gangster and Life in a Metro) to give it the execution it deserved. And the film definitely needed a much better actress than Sonal Chauhan. Don't get me wrong, she isn't all that bad and she's very pretty. It's just that her emotional range doesn't seem to vary a lot and for a script like this you needed an actress who could actually pull off those powerful emotional scenes with panache. In that regard Sonal Chauhan's inexperience shows. The first half doesn't really pack a punch but the second half more than makes up for it as the film goes on an emotional roller coaster ride. And there are some wonderfully executed scenes there, starting with the intermission scene when Emraan Hashmi gets arrested. Wonderfully enacted by Emraan Hashmi and the scene reminded me a lot of the scene from Ganster where Shiney Ahuja gets betrayed by his lady love. That's why I thought the script was tailor made for Anurag Basu. For according to me, that scene in Ganster is one of the most stunning scenes in history of cinema. It was just brilliant to watch and though the scene from Jannat was pretty good too, it wasn't as brilliantly executed as it was in Ganster. Emraan Hashmi does a wonderful job and he almost seems tailor made to play roles of the loveable rogue. And ofcorse, Pritam's music is plain outstanding. The sad version of Zara si dil mein de jagah tu still gives me goosebumps.

Well, that was the review of Jannat. What really got to me in Jannat was its concept. HOW FAR CAN YOU GO TO CLAIM YOUR LOVE? Emraan Hashmi loves this girl and he does everything for her. Even though greed has always been in his nature, it doesn't really come out until he meets this girl, falls hopelessly in love with her and wants to give her all the happiness in the world. And though she helps him redeem in the end albeit tragically, the truth is she never really showed that she loved him more than the materialistic happiness he was giving her until half way through the movie. The reason why she fell in love with him was because he was ready to do anything for her happiness. So is emraan hashmi's character really to be blamed here for crossing the limits that he does?

We all want happiness. Much more importantly, we want happiness for the people we love more than anything else. We want to make our parents happy, we want to see a smile on our girlfriends and wives faces and we want to give our children everything that they want. So does it justify crossing a few limits just for their happiness? For betting maybe seen as wrong by our society but who actually is getting harmed by it? There's no killing, no mass murders, no terrorism involved here. You bet, you win or lose. It doesn't really affect anyone but yourself. And like Emraan Hashmi's character, if you have a talent at guessing which way the matches are going to go, is it really wrong to take advantage of them? I am not promoting match-fixing here for I'll always consider that wrong but I am talking simply of betting. If you know the outcome of the match before hand without the match actually being fixed, there really isn't anything wrong there, is it? Especially as he does all this for the girl he loves.

So how far is too far in love? Every relationship goes through its ups and downs. Especially in our country, a relationship faces numerous obstructions before the couple can actually be tied in matrony. Cast, religion-they all come in between one way or another. So if you are a Muslim boy in love with Hindu girl, would you be ready to walk the distance and go against the powers of our society to be with her? Or will you succumb to the pressure and having dated her since the 1st year of college, since you were 18, when you finally turn 26 and are ready for marriage, you would give in to the pressure from your parents and tell the supposed love of your life that our paths end here?

Religon has always been a tricky issue when it comes to love. I am a Muslim and I completely and absolutely believe in Allah. I also happen to believe in true love. And unfortunately the paths of true love and religion often intertwine. True love says that in love nothing matters- age, caste, religion, all of it fades into the background-nothing but love matters. And if you are with the person you love then that should be more than enough. Yet religion stops you from loving anyone but people of your religion. A Muslim girl can never marry a non-muslim boy unless he converts. A Hindu boy is also strictly barred from not just inter religion marriage but also inter caste marriage. So who is right? God or Love? Will you be willing to cross the boundaries of your religion for love? How far can you go to claim your love?

I believe that you fall in love with the person and not his or her religion. I believe that if you love someone and she loves you back, then love should suffice. Which God you worship to is your personal choice. Just because I believe in Allah doesn't mean she can't worship Ram or Jesus. It's her faith and I have nothing to do with it. I fell in love with her and not her faith. So to ask the girl you love to convert to your religion just for your God's convenience is asking her to change herself forever. It's asking her to change her beliefs and then she's no longer the person you fell in love with anymore. And if she doesn't agree, are you willing to let the matter of religion go? How far can you go to claim your love?

We are all looking for our own little heaven here somewhere. Where everything is perfect, where you are with the person you love and you are leading the life that you could only dream of. But that heaven always comes at a price. Happiness doesn't come cheap in this world. If it did, we would all be smiling. The question is are you willing to pay that price? How much are you willing to sacrifice to reach that heaven? How strong is your love? Are you ready to cross all thresholds and break all barriers to be with the one you love? Are you willing to go the distance to claim heaven?

It's the last scene of Jannat which broke my heart. I never predicted this movie would have a tragic ending until it reached its last few reels. Arjun(Emraan Hashmi), now accused of murder charges, asks Zoya (Sonal Chauhan) to leave the country with him. Zoya says that if he didn't commit the murder, then he should surrender and she'll help him fight the charges. She'll stand by him throught all the trials and tribulations but asks him to stop running away from the law if he really loves her. Arjun, madly in love with her, raises his hand, a smile on his lips for all he has ever wanted is to be with her and if this is what it takes, then he'll surrender. The police arrive and ask him to drop his gun. Arjun, still smiling, takes the gun from his pocket and drops it on the ground. As he does so, the ring that he's been carrying with him for years, hoping to give it to Zoya on the day he proposes marriage to her, drops down as well. As Zoya shouts at the surrounding policemen not to shoot as Arjun has surrendered, Arjun notices the ring on the ground. He bends to pick it up for he cannot bear to see that ring, the symbol of his love, to be lying on the groudn like that. As soon as he picks the ring up from the ground, the policemen fire. Zoya screams and runs to Arjun. Needless to say, Arjun breathes his last in Zoya's arms and as he's about draw his last gasp of air, he gives the ring to Zoya.

It was a heart breaking moment, one which made a fairly decent movie climb a few notches higher in my list and become a good movie. More than all the betting and the match fixing, it was this little step that resulted in his death, that shows how far Arjun was willing to go to claim his love...his heaven. Even though he knew death was facing him, he still couldn't bear to see the symbol of his love lying on the ground covered with dust. Zoya's love meant that much to him. And that really is what we are all looking for. For a love that is that strong. For a love that can travel the distance and actually reach heaven.

I am not sure how many of us have the strength to do what Arjun did. And I am not talking about the illegal means he uses to get his love. I meant that last scene where he picks the ring from the ground. For that really was love. He didn't care about the fact that there were a hundred policemen with their guns pointed in his direction. Once he saw that ring, all he saw was his love lying on the ground, covered with dust. But maybe that's why it's a movie. For most of us wouldn't even look at the ground in such a situation. We would be too shit scared to look anywhere but at the hundreds of guns facing us. But then, you can never stop hoping that one day you too will find your heaven.

AND MAY WE ALL DO!!!