http://pixandthoughts.blogspot.com
Dear Friends,
I want to share something that I have taken on.
About 7 years back there was a sudden pack up declared at the location of the first Tamil film I had signed,Pugall(The film never got completed) ...We were shooting in the Wayanad hills.. Though my village Dharmadam, was a good 5 hours away,I for some reason,chose to drive down to spend the night there before catching the Flight next morning from Calicut..
As I took the right turn from the Highway entering the vaguely familiar street lined with a few shops with tarpaulin awnings...
Dusk had already fallen,very few people were to be seen and still fewer pale yellow street bulbs lit them,as they walked back to their homes..
I was going home,to "Chaillaiyil house" on the Andalur temple road. The house where my Father Govind Vidyarthi was born in 1912.
As my red Qualis stopped by our boundary,(no gates in that part of the world) Mukund da,Ranji chi,Viji chi,Balan Aitan... and many more smiling faces enveloped me...The tiredness of the drive and the disappointment of an aborted debut project disappeared in the sea of love they showered on me,Govind Aita's son.
As Jethima,(I call her so,thanks to my bengali mother) clad in white hugged me,held my hands,and kept looking at me,her eyes watery ...There was Malayalam in the air...Every one was speaking to me in a language that I didn't know,but that evening,as every time there...I UNDERSTOOD EVERY WORD.
As we sat in the balcony,and occasionally spilled onto the courtyard,which was next to the well, where I had bathed many a times with bucket fulls of water drawn by Baba,when I visited during summer vacations as a child...
We sat amidst the mango and tamarind trees and the swishing of the coconut palms...
It was a dark night with no moon, lit only with love.
And it was then that a thought struck me.
I WAS A VERY LUCKY BEING...
Even in the environs of the city...I had experienced this love, affection and warmth every day of my life from my Father...
There was something about him that endeared him to all he came in touch with.
His smile,his calm,his purpose in life and his commitment to service...
He could have remained here in Dharmadam all his life like all his brothers, sisters and relatives...Yet by a strange quirk of fate and initiative,he stepped out,spent years travelling...living many lives...and in one of them he married Reba.A Kathak teacher who had been a student of greats like Achhan Maharaj and Shambhu Maharaj...
And to Ma,Baba I was born.
And today at I had returned to the village .
(I would be in the village again on another momentous occasion,on the night when Baba was being cremated in Mumbai on 29th Aug 2006. The last rites being done by Ma,his life's partner,while his only son was away...but that will be the subject of another sharing.)
My father had stepped out of this village in District Cannanore ,Kerala in the 1930s and did what he did with his life....
Academics,theology,politics and finally arts...Including accomplished sojourns into allied fields.
He impacted many lives,was loved by many more and yet he remained by far the epitome of the "unknown Indian".
Many well known experts would visit us in our house in Laxmi Nagar in East Delhi. They would spend days and hours recording what he spoke in answer to their queries...He would readily share his notes his research papers, anecdotes from over years of working on the field ...be it during the Freedom struggle or in the years he spent documenting the various performing arts in the remotest regions of India while working in the SANGEET NATAK AKADEMY,Delhi..
Then the books would be published by these authors,with Baba's name mentioned in the acknowledgements...in alphabetical order...
I never ever saw Baba ruing this,but It would really hurt me,to see him go unrecognized...
As I was growing up,I did fantasize,that I will become famous one day and know enough important people who would be on some committees and then will 'manage' my father to be given an award for his contributions...
And then, few years back I realized,that this is not something that would reflect choices Baba made in his life.
For someone who never applied for Freedom Fighters pension or for land from the govt from the freedom fighters quota,this would be the ultimate humiliation.
I also realized,that millions before Baba have gone unrecognized,and millions more will be treated in much the same way.
That's when I thought of creating something that would really befit his memory...
Of celebrating the common person,whose extra ordinariness is never feted...
I thought of a yearly felicitation,for the unknown,unsung and the unrecognized.
And that was the seed for VIDYARTHI SAMMAN...
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5 comments:
Marvelous!!! अद्भुत। गोविंद जी को याद रखने की इससे बेहतर और कोई कोशिश नहीं हो सकती।
जिन्होंने अपनी जिंदगी विचार और उसूलों को सर्फ कर दी, जिन्होंने काफी तकलीफ और जद्दोजहद में जिंदगी गुज़ारी होगी (बावजूद इसके कि वे एक आरामदायक जीवन बिता सकते थे), उनके बच्चे अपने मां-बाप की जिंदगी को कोसे नहीं, ऐसा कम होता है। आप आज सफल हैं पर इस सफलता ने उन उसूलों की लौ बचा कर रखी है, जिस पर गोविंद जी चलते रहें- यही सबसे अहम है। गोविंद जी के मूल्यों में यकीन बनाये रखना ही आज के दौर में एक बड़ी ख़बर है।
आप सफल हैं,सिने अभिनेता हैं, इसलिए मैं जो भी लिखूंगा, उसे आपकी तारीफ़ में अतिश्योक्ति से भरी टिप्पणी मानी जा सकती है। इसलिए फिलहाल इतना ही।
आशीष बाबू... क्या कहे आप अभी भी वैसे ही हैं लेकिन जिस सरोकार से आप ये सब बातें सोच पा रहे हैं.. साथी आज की भागती दौड़ती जिन्दगी में ये सब सोचना ही बड़ी बात है.. मुझे ये सब पढ़ कर थोड़ा आश्चर्य भी हुआ मुझे तो लगा था कि आप साउथ की फ़िल्मों इतना धंस गये है कि उससे निकल पाना शायद मुश्किल हो .. पर आपने कम से कम हमें गलत साबित कर दिया, साथी आप जो भी बीड़ा उठाएं तो ये ज़रूर समझ लीजियेगा हम तो हमेशा आपके साथ हैं
Ashishji, Pranaam!!
The meek shall inherit the earth, trinkets and deos be damned! The journey of thousand miles starts with a single step. It might be high treason if I didn’t float out the jolts of my unbridled emotions after I read about the 'Vidyarthi Samman', surely there is no better way to pay tribute to a beloved father. I must admit, umpteen times our chronic incapacity to appreciate the deserving has made us judge and treat people unfairly. So, stop marveling about the gullibility of our authorities to expand their tickers to acknowledge the eligible, we get short end of the stick in flavour country. Now, you are setting the mantle of an artist towards a disrespectful society, like the bad cop who gave 100% justice to his role in CID moosa, where other performers were lampooning themselves. The most prized thing in your father's life is having a gifted son like you, which is the best award of a pristine value, no need to tout his credos. I wish rest of our celebrities could do something like this for the society rather than doing craps and end up in jail.
Thank goes to my nephew who forwarded this link to have a peek of your blog and trust me, contrary to my expectation, that isn’t the normal one just hob-nobbing with the kaar-bhaaris of the world. I can vouch, straight from heart that this is only possible for men who dig deep, think outside of the box and do things differently from others. Cool and versatile. Let me add one more thing, the pics I saw in your blog were all small pieces of real India.
Thank you for coming down to Tellicherry to brush the dust and cobwebs off an ancient family heirloom, experiencing a raw village life, socializing with them reverentially, and for sharing the priceless memoirs of a home coming to rest of the world. Next time, please take a longer break from the heaving rhythm of life, head to the calm and beautiful Dharmadam seaside, spend a night watching the wheeling of stars, perceive the lullaby of waves, and float in the hauling and veering of wind. Trust me on this; it will be a feast for your passion and there is lot of promising things in store for your alacrity and aesthetic dexterity.
I WISH ALL THE BEST IN YOUR FUTURE PROJECT AND ENDEAVORS and waiting to see those outstanding unknown Vidyarthi Sammaan Winners.
Ashish,
No words can explain how happy i am to see what you have done for your "baba" i know wherever he is he is proud of you. I know that "Ma" is happy too. As you said this is the better way to remember your Baba. Excellent idea "Vidyarthi Samman". My blessings are always with you in your work to recognize those who went unrecognized. You are going to recieve lots of love and blessings of people arround you.
Thank you for sharing how the idea of VIDYARTHI SAMMAN, the idea Of celebrating the common person was conceived.
Congrats on taking a unique step to address the unaddressed extra ordinariness of common man!
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