From Bah to Wah!

Just yesterday during one of our music sessions, I attempted to translate a beautiful Hindi verse into crude English which resulted in pure disaster. As expected, it won some insightful comments from my partners like "eeww" and other unprintable pronunciations. Surprisingly enough, one comment did suggest a poetry award at a local kavi-sammelan, if not at the National Awards, which brings me to my point: I'm NOT a poet! The best I've done so far is a Quartet on Roger Federer before his US Open 2009 final a couple of months back. It went like this:

Early to bed,
Very early to rise.
To watch Fed,
2 AM to be precise.

It's axiomatic that poets have great imagination (whether they only imagine that people will actually read their poems, is another issue). Honestly, I suck at poetry whenever I have a shot at it. To put it in a better way, I'd never been too fond of poetry. In fact I'd be one of the types who unknowingly landed up at a poetry recital (at the Poona Music Society) and wondered why each poem didn't rhyme.
Throughout school, poetry was my biggest villain - simply because I hated the idea of mugging it up and puking it out either on paper or sometimes in front of a class full of uninterested peers. The hatred continued so much that I'd switch the TV channel every time I heard a deep voice narrating "Main, aur meri tanhayee…" or politicians praising a former PM's latest book 'Meri Bayaalis Kavitayen'.

* P.T.O.*

Then I saw Gunda...

... which transformed my entire approach towards poetry and reintroduced me to the world of 2 or 4-line rhymes (A-B-A-B, A-A-B-B etc.). Now I could go on and on about this entertaining 1998 Mithunda blockbuster, but then after having received plenty of blows on the skull with blunt objects after having done the same, I'll restrict myself here. Gunda (directed by Kanti Shah, dialogues by Bashirbhai Babar) has a gigantic collection of rhymes and verses that could convert any poetry-hater into a Wordsworth!

Sample:
"Mera naam Ibu Hatela.
Maa meri chudail ki beti,
aur baap shaitaan ka chela.
Khaegaa kela?"

For reasons unknown, it unfortunately couldn't reach the box office critics, but has won enough fans and worshippers to achieve its cult status comparable to Sholay or Pulp Fiction. I know I should stop raving more about this film, but then at the end, the fact remains that I've finally started appreciating poetry (what if it's after watching Gunda)!
Soon you could catch me at the next kavi-sammelan or a poetry recital in rapt attention; but whether any poems will actually appear on my blog, only time will tell... :-D

Note: Check out Gunda's community on orkut for the details, more rhymes and verses.