Javed Akhtar: Words Without Meaning
Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Kaisa Laga?
Shabana Azmi, Javed AkhtarThe kids, Farhan and Zoya, had been pestering their father Javed Akhtar, to take them to the Sanjay Gandhi National Park as some of the kids at school had been bragging about their visit and the magical sights they had seen.
Akhtar was having trouble writing a song he had a deadline on. The scratch of the tune had been submitted, and he was to meet the music composer and producer soon enough for a music sitting.
One Saturday afternoon, without giving his estranged wife Honey Irani any notice, he arrived at the school where his kids were and packed them in his jeep and drove off.
When Honey went to collect her kids, she was informed that her husband had taken them for an ice-cream ride.
The kids bellowed at each red light for heart shaped balloons, diced sugar cane in pouches, and roasted peanuts. They sucked on the sugar cubes and spat without a care in the world.
They yelped and badgered Akhtar with ‘Kahan jaa rahe hain papa?’ intermittently, chewing like cattle in transit. They took turns to annoy him, one would yap incessantly when the other was bored talking on the long ride to nowhere.
Once in the park, they ran around without any sense of direction. Akhtar had to shout aloud for the kids to stay close or else they would be ‘mauled by a giant, furry khargosh,’ they were told. Farhan was not to be fooled, Zoya ran back and held on to Akhtar’s pinky, obedient as Alice in wonder park.
To reward her good manners, Akhtar plucked a rose from a bush and gifted it to her. ‘Jaise khilta gulab your smile is Zo,’ he said, to make her blush. She did, obediently, and suddenly shy of her papa’s charm offensive.
He took a deep breath, lost in his thoughts, looked up at the winter sun light heating his heart with inspiring emotions and mumbled a line, ‘Jaise shayar ka khwab.’
‘Papa, dekho hiran,’ Zoya screamed excitedly when she spotted a chital in a bush overlooking Farhan, who unmindful of the rustle, was taking a leak. He jumped, fell back, and tripped on a rock. He got up slowly, a hand on his temple to block the bright noon light as Akhtar rushed to aid, ‘Ujli kiran hai beta, I know,’ he helped Farhan into the shade of a tree and dusted his clothes.
The AkhtarsFarhan requested they move in the direction of the caves, which his friends had told him was a great spot to look for screeching fruit bats. As they stood at the entrance to the largest Kanheri Cave, where the imposing basalt statue of Buddha loomed, slightly fey in mudra, Farhan asked if it was a man or a woman.
Akhtar shushed him and led the kids into the dark. He drew out a cigarette lighter from the breast pocket of his bush shirt and held up to get a good view of the Vihara prayer hall, its many columns and dome in the centre gave them a feeling that they were now in a sacrosanct area.
Akhtar felt like he was holding a ‘jalta diya’ in a temple room, emotions surging, inspiration rising in his breast, a consummate rush of words were reaching his lips to sing, a hymn in praise of the incandescent beauty that seemed to surround him at this hour.
But he still didn’t know where to start — beauty has a habit of arresting speech, it is an impediment to clarity.
Immediately after, Akhtar fell into a trance and every sight his kids shouted out was music.
Zoya chased butterflies, Farhan pelted stones at singing mynahs, the lush green carpet they traipsed on produced silken sounds to Akhtar’s ears. There was a fog of heady sandalwood scent in the thicker groves. The dancing peacocks, the gushing streams where the children gaggled, the brilliant petals of the flame of the forest — everything pulsed forward like a returning dream.
Akhtar noted, ‘Jaise khushboo liye aaye thandi hawa,’ on his way back to Honey’s house to drop the kids off. The day had breathed fresh feelings in him; it had been a rewarding break away from his writing desk. He was still in a reverie when he rang her doorbell. Honey cussed him, said not to take the kids anywhere without her permission.
‘Par mummy,’Farhan tried to interrupt. ‘Tum chup raho,’ Honey, indignant of their fun day, patted the kids into the hallway and slammed the door at a stunned Akhtar. Akhtar, who till now was entangled in a poetic metre, forgot his lines.
He walked into a bar and ordered a few rounds of whiskey at the counter. Inebriated, he kept murmuring to himself, ‘Woh kya tha…ahista ahista badhta nashaaaa.’ The stretchy last syllable tickled his feeble senses and kept him awake. Half mocking, he hummed his way home in a stupor.
He could barely stand upright and press the doorbell, but before he could do so, the door opened by itself. ‘Arre wah, he quipped, ‘Jadoo’, ahista ahista khulta gayaaaa.’ He faltered, almost tripping, when a woman held him for support.
He stood up and paused to look at the serene, smiling face of Shabana Azmi, and cleared his throat, ‘Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga.’
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